Several ST Critics, from Both Parties, Defeated

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Thank you to every last person that played a role in this campaign – big or small. It is a honor and privilege to have the opportunity to serve my community. I am thrilled to be your next State Senator in Washington’s 30th Legislative District. pic.twitter.com/wbZtLFOPff — Claire Wilson (@ElectCWilson) November 8, 2018 Sound Transit […]

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Election Night Results

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Partial statewide vote tallies are now in. The tallies listed below are as of 9:20 pm. All our endorsed positions and candidates are listed on top. For races in which STB endorsed: Initiative 1631 Yes: 849,062 43.7% No: 1,093,897 56.3% Intercity Transit Proposition 1: Approved: 33,109 64.75% Rejected: 18,021 35.25% State Legislature District 5, Position […]

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Draft SIP Offers Vision of Vastly-Different 2025 ST Express Network

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Sound Transit’s recently-released Draft 2019 Service Implementation Plan is a data-dense tome covering the next round of ST Express route restructures, ridership and performance data, Title VI analyses, and more. This year’s edition offers a vision of how ST Express service might look in 2025 (pages 85-110), after five more Link extensions and the opening […]

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2019 ST Draft Service Plan Proposes Significant March ST Express Route Changes

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Sound Transit has released its Draft 2019 Service Implementation Plan, along with a one-page summary that looks a lot more succinct and useful than the traditional executive summaries. The actual proposals for service changes are just for March 2019. Highlights and lowlights include: Route 513 will cease serving Evergreen Way, and instead serve the new […]

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Register to Vote in Person Today, Friday, or Monday

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If you haven’t registered to vote in the State of Washington, you still have time to participate in this state’s November 6 election by registering in person at your county’s election office, by close of business next Monday, October 29. King County has two sites taking in-person registrations during business hours: The Election Annex in […]

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ST Express Cutting Trips on Popular Routes

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Sound Transit’s new schedule books are out. The September 22 service changes include some bad news and little bits of good news. Seven ST Express bus routes, including the two with the highest ridership (routes 550 and 545), are losing trips. Routes 511 and 580 are the only routes gaining trips. Some routes are losing […]

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2018 General Election Call for Endorsements

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In the 2018 primary election, STB endorsed three state senate candidates, including one devoutly-pro-transit incumbent (Sen. Marko Liias), one open-seat candidate (Joe Nguyen), and one challenging an entrenched incumbent (Jesse Salomon, challenging light rail opponent Sen. Maralyn Chase). All three of our endorsees came in first in the primary election. We’re hungry for more. Or […]

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Easy Fixes Not Deployed for 3rd Ave

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The Seattle Department of Transportation and King County Metro recently announced several useful measures they will take to improve bus priority on 3rd Ave. 3rd Ave has the densest collection of bus routes in the state, and is pretty much totally packed with buses maneuvering around each other during peak hours. Every measure taken to […]

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Raise the Showbox Several Floors

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Update: Erica Barnett at The C is for Crank has a rundown of what Councilmember Sawant’s proposed ordinance would do (putting severe restrictions on a lot more property than the Showbox) and rapid timeline for approval. The movement to save the Showbox has grown quickly, and attracted some wanting an opportunity to proverbially punch a […]

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Will ORCA Follow TriMet’s “Virtual Card” Fee?

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Portland TriMet recently rolled out the first-of-its-kind-in-the-US “virtual” smart card. The virtual Hop Fastpass account requires use of GooglePay on an Android smartphone, but doesn’t require getting or using a physical Hop Fastpass. The smartphone accessing the account provides all the functionality of the physical Hop Fastpass, using the same motion of briefly holding the […]

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ORCAized RRFPs Now Free For the First One

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As part of the fare restructure that brought King County Metro’s $2.75 regular flat fare, effective this week, King County Metro has gotten all four counties in the ORCA pod to make the first Regional Reduced Fare Permit free for each recipient, also effective this week. Regional Reduced Fare Permits are for seniors 65 or […]

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Minimizing Downtown Transfer Pain in ST3

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SODO Station and the SODO busway: Future home of West Seattle – southside train transfers Photo by Joe Kunzler / flickr When ST3 is built out, it will have two major downtown transfer hubs, at already-very-busy Westlake Station and International District / Chinatown Station. In all likelihood, transfers at these stations will not be fast, […]

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Pollution Fee and $30 Car Tabs Using Same Signature Gatherers

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Correction: The original post referred to a “carbon tax” in I-1631. The initiative actually refers to a “pollution fee”, a methodology different from the carbon tax in Initiative 732. I recently ran into a couple stack petitioners seeking signatures for four initiative petitions, starting with Tim Eyman’s latest $30 car tab effort, and ending with […]

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Balducci Delays Elimination of Zone Resets

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The Sound Transit Board of Directors took action last Thursday on the staff proposals for fare changes on ST Express, but the outcome wasn’t as planned. Last spring, a Regional Fare Forum called for the end of zone resets, a feature on ORCA readers that allows riders to request a one-zone fare on a route […]

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ST Exploring New Escalator Strategies

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Sound Transit Operations & Administrative Committee meeting April 5, 2018 The escalator presentation runs from 8 minutes into the video until 1:08. Last Thursday, Sound Transit staff gave a presentation to the Board’s Operations & Administration Committee in response to the March 16 breakdown of two down escalators on the same level at UW Station, […]

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