Month: January 2025

Transit & Streets:

• Starting March 31, 2025, Metro’s Fare Resource Advocates will ask riders for proof of fare payment (Metro Matters)
• The supposedly climate-friendly $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act, passed in 2021, mostly funded road expansion (The Urbanist)
• WSDOT’s latest study update of its Intercity Bus Program charts a path to increased service and coverage (The Urbanist)
• A rare win for non-driver street users: strengthened negligent driving law now in effect in Washington State (Seattle Bike Blog). Speaking of negligent driving, it turns out there can be consequences for driving more than twice the speed limit and killing someone (KUOW). Meanwhile, SPD began investigating the first pedestrian death of 2025 on Friday (The Seattle Times, $).
• Katie Wilson asked: “Should We Panic Over the Council “Kneecapping” the Transportation Levy?” (The Stranger)
• A roundup of transit projects in 2024 and what’s ahead for next year (The Transport Politic)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: The Year of the Eastside”

Incremental upgrades to Amtrak Cascades would have a lot of benefits, including for Sounder, the Coast Starlight, and the Empire Builder. It could be done faster and cheaper than ultra high-speed rail, as Reece Martin (RMTransit) argues in a Pacific Northwest video:

Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia have been looking at a new ultra high-speed rail corridor. The Biden administration just provided funding to plan it in more detail as the Urbanist reported. But it will take far more funding and time to build it.

As reported earlier (The Future of Amtrak Cascades), WSDOT published last June the latest version of the Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan (2024) providing a detailed analysis of service options, needed capital improvements, costs, and a phased implementation plan. The possibilities for expanding Amtrak service both in frequency and speed are exciting.

Continue reading “Amtrak Cascades’ Potential”

India’s cities have a few metros, a small and shrinking number of buses — and lots of cars, two-wheelers, and rickshaws. The crisis in India’s transit. (The Quint)

The video uses the Indian number units lakh (=100,000) and crore (=100 lakh or 10 million). These can be rupees, people, or anything. A rupee is worth 1.2 cents. Metro fares for a 5-day work commute are 3,600 rupees/month ($42) based on the report at 12:13, which is out of reach for most residents (more than 10% of income).

This is an open thread.

Link 1 Line winter reductions start today through February 27 for a variety of maintenance tasks, as outlined in the December 5 Passenger Impact report and covered in the Urbanist, and the Seattle Times ($).

Overview

• Reduced 1 Line Evening Service: starting at 5:30 pm trains will run every 12 minutes (instead of 8-10 minutes). Note that this includes part of the PM peak.
• Jan 10 (Fri 10 pm) to Jan 12 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Westlake
• Jan 17 (Fri 10 pm) to Jan 19 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill
• Feb 1 (Sat) and Feb 2 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from Capitol Hill to U-District
• Feb 14 (Fri 10 pm) to Feb 16 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill
• Feb 21 (Fri 10 pm) to Feb 23 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill

Continue reading “January-February Link Reductions”