News and commentary from the past week.
Transit & streets:
- New Airo Trains Start Rolling on Amtrak Cascades September 30 (The Urbanist).
- Executive Zahilay joins South King County leaders to celebrate new Metro Flex service in Auburn and Federal Way (Metro Matters).
- Faulty Pantograph Blamed for Sound Transit’s Apple Cup Train Stall (The Urbanist).
- RapidRide J Line upgrades take shape in Eastlake, U District, South Lake Union (SDOT Blog).
- Vehicle resident legislation heads toward City Council vote (MyBallard).
- Bellevue Council Faces Decision Point on Parking Reform (The Urbanist).
- Person driving at freeway speeds on I-90 Trail raises serious trail security concerns (Seattle Bike Blog).
Housing:
- Environmental Complaints Against Seattle Growth Plan Thrown Out in State Ruling (The Urbanist).
- Seattle Creates ‘Do Not Solicit’ List to Curb Predatory Real Estate Outreach (South Seattle Emerald).
- Wilson slows homelessness plan including shelter goals in roll-out of 2027 budget proposal (Capitol Hill Seattle Blog).
Miscellaneous:
- In 2025, there were many fewer reported crimes in Seattle’s central business district, but increases in surrounding neighborhoods (The Seattle Times, $). Note: Seattle Times’ analysis does not consider per-capita rates.
- Seattle Youth Mentorship Program brings young people’s voices to the forefront on transportation equity issues (SDOT Blog).
- Op-Ed: Building Toward a Greener, Housing-Abundant Seattle (The Urbanist).
- Greater Seattle: Third Places (PubliCola)
This is an Open Thread.
I attended the “Urbanist x CityNerd: Building a Transit-Oriented Puget Sound” event at Town Hall Seattle last night. The event featured Ryan Packer, Ray Delahanty, Claudia Balducci, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things was Claudia Balducci saying quite definitely that with the way the last realignment went, any idea of an ST-wide ST4 ballot measure is basically dead, or “on ice” as she put it. Perhaps not a surprise, but the message was pretty clear that if Seattle wants WSLE or BLE built faster (or any other Link expansions), the city would have to go alone.
There wasn’t much discussion of RapidRide. I was hoping there’d be a Q&A but there wasn’t one, and Balducci didn’t stick around for questions afterward.
What would Seattle going it alone look like? Would it start with a citizen-led initiative? What would be the best funding mechanism? And could Seattle be reimbursed by Sound Transit? “Hey, Sound Transit, we spent $20B for an automated light rail line from downtown to Ballard, so now you don’t have to build it, so we’d like to be reimbursed the amount you were going to spend on it.”
Where do you think the votes would come from to support such a reimbursement scheme? Seems pretty unlikely as a political matter.
I wonder if the reason the mayor didn’t opt for car tabs for the seattle transit measure is actually because she plans to put forward a ‘Seattle rail’ measure in a year or two that is funded with car tabs.
Just think how many inches of DSTT2 we could build with $60 tabs!
AMR also expressed interest in being on the ST board in the future
It seemed like most of the event was dedicated to previewing an upcoming video by Mr. Delahanty and reviewing East Link station areas. I appreciated his observation that the region is spending billions to build rail connections to places like a self-pick blueberry farm while failing to connect denser neighborhoods to each other. Even if there were an ST4 funding package, having these people in charge of it may not be the best idea.
So how do you know which runs will be using the new Airo trainsets? I’d like to take a scenic trip to Eugene but have no desire to ever again be on one of the school bus like Amfleet cars.
I don’t think it’s been explicitly released yet, but I believe it is 503/508. I was on a 508 back from Eugene that was cancelled by Amtrak and automatically rebooked for sometime next month (I had to cancel the trip anyways). I think it will be 516/519 for trips out of Seattle heading north as well based on the Urbanist reporting too (since it says Seattle to Vancouver and the other Vancouver trains start in Portland). My assumption is that they have to be Seattle-based trainsets as well.