For those of us who live or work on the Eastside, it can be hard to get to after work events in Seattle. Luckily, Fuse Washington will be hosting two Move King County Now fundraiser in Bellevue and Redmond on March 24th and April 7th. The April 22nd special election is fast approaching and your financial contribution and/or boots on the ground are key to passing Proposition 1. Maintaining existing bus service is critical and if Proposition 1 fails the Eastside will see significant and painful cuts in transit service. I encourage STB readers to go and bring a friend or coworker along. On a personal note, I’d like to add that the Bellevue Brewing Company’s beer and food makes up for its harder to reach location. Cheers!
Beers for buses – Bellevue (226 and 249)
Monday, March 24, from 5pm–7pm
Bellevue Brewing Company
1820 130th Ave. NE, Bellevue, WA 98005
Beers for buses – Redmond (B-Line, 545, and all other Redmond TC routes)
Monday, April 7th, from 5pm-7pm
Redmond’s Bar & Grill.
7979 Leary Way NE, Redmond WA, 98052
It’s a 15 minute walk from the B Line stop at 132nd & Bellevue Way to Bellevue Brewing. It’s not a particularly pleasant stroll, given Bellevue’s terrible pedestrian facilities in the area, but it’s doable.
I assume you mean 132nd and 8th, since Bellevue Way is Far A-Way ;) from there?
249 stops at 130th and NE 20th (aka Northup). That’s my stop and I didn’t even know Bellevue Brewing existed. I wonder if they are going to be the brew pub slated to take over space in the currently being constructed Spring District project. Anyway, 249 goes to S. Kirkland P&R and then via a painfully long route to Bellevue TC. From Bellevue TC you’re probably better off catching the 226 (I think that’s the right number) and hiking up from Bel-Red. It’s a pretty long hike from any of the B Line stops; like 3/4 of a mile.
Thanks so much for providing the links to the sites where we can sign up to help or donate.
It’s pretty fitting to hold a transit meetup around NE 20th/130th because it’s a great example of a place that has pretty crummy transit service but could have great transit service if we bothered to think ahead while building infrastructure. A freeway bus stop along 520 in the Bel-Red area could allow significant transit improvements (speed, frequency, span, and fewer transfers) for people that need to travel between there and huge portions of King County (in particular, parts with relatively high transit usage), all for very little extra operational cost. And it would get at least a few more people on the ground there, on foot, caring about the pedestrian environment, well in advance of the big development projects.
Right now we need to protect Metro’s operations. Going forward we need to build smarter infrastructure — if we must have freeways they’d better be built for efficient transit service patterns.
Speaking of move king county now: what are its odds of passing looking like?
I hope some of the comments in this Seattle Times ($) article about the measure aren’t indicative of how most voters feel.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/reader_feedback/public/display.php?source_name=mbase&source_id=2023173643
Really disturbing, especially the one who is worried about their taxes going up again because they recently became single and risk losing their home. How do you argue against something like that? I really believe we need bus service, but would not know how to answer someone like that.
And what do you tell people who feel that Metro isn’t being run efficiently, and there are a lot of cuts they can make before making service cuts?
I signed up to make calls, but I’m wondering what to say to people who bring up these kinds of things. I think the best thing is just to encourage people who don’t want the cuts and who aren’t opposed to the taxes to be sure to vote, because I don’t think some people’s minds can be changed no matter what people tell them.
Norah, Seattle Times comments aren’t representative of anything but their angry, overwhelmingly suburban commenter base.
You can always remind people that Metro has already cut out a whole lot of fat (and some muscle) as a result of the 2009 performance audit.
Thanks David. I’ll do that.
The reason I brought up the 2005 C-TRAN ballot measure is for essentially what you’ve described. Fortunately, most of the comments on the newspaper website are gone after their site upgrades over the years, that’s all I’ll say about that, as they were truly forgettable. (BTW, FTR I usually don’t read comments on newspaper sites, general interest sites, or video sites, they’re not worth it.)
No matter what, remember that this is doable and you can do this. It does take some work, yes, but it’ll be worth it.
There are some who will vote to reject it, no matter what. Instead, focus on those who don’t know there is an election, don’t know they need to update their voter info if they have moved, or aren’t sure whether or not they should support it.
Conversely, there are some who will vote yes, no matter what. That’s great; get them on board! Imagine if everyone who supports it answers their personal phone(s) “Vote yes on Prop 1” instead of hello, says “Thanks, vote yes on Prop 1” to the grocery store clerk, at the coffee shop, etc.
And if someone from Portland can take a moment while “on vacation” to stop at Westlake to take a photo stating they feel King County voters should support it, imagine what passionate individuals in the local area can do.