• As Seattle struggles with bike lanes, Vancouver has won ($) the battle.
• A streetfight in Ballard for safe routes to school.
• Why Vancouver’s SkyTrain leaves Seattle’s Link Light Rail in the dust.
• Seattle tunnel tolls need to be kept low so drivers don’t avoid using it, officials say.
• Central Park’s scenic drives will soon ($) be car-free
• Opinion: To Change a country, change its trains ($).
• Solving transit troubles key in SF mayor’s race.
• M.T.A. Pins its hopes on unproven technology to fix ($) subway.
• Why does ridership rise or fall? Lessons from Canada.
• Trams are great for city transport — why doesn’t the UK have more?
• Coming soon to Seattle: Pre-tax dollars for transit.
• Metro #MeToo: County calls on riders to report sexual misconduct ($).
• $930 million Move Seattle levy falling behind ($) on project promises, review finds.
• Washington State Ferries looks ahead to 2040. It’s not currently proposed, but Seattle-Port Townsend strikes me as the last untapped market where ferries offer real travel advantage over driving.
• Opinion: Cars are ruining our cities. Calls to mind a local contribution to what’s now a genre.
• SDOT keeps unsafe 24th Ave design despite rampant speeding and collisions.
• Testing a car-free adventure with the Trailhead Direct shuttle.
• New York bus redesign: takes from JW+A’s Yuen, Levy, Kabak.

This is an open thread.

Are you down for urban density? Speak up for abundant and affordable housing at the District 3+7 (Central Seattle, Pioneer Square to Magnolia) MHA public hearing on April 16!https://t.co/rnS6JE3JdU pic.twitter.com/sAJafzbHvz

— SeaTech4Housing (@seatech4housing) April 5, 2018

On Monday, you have a chance to speak to Seattle city council members about one of the greatest challenges facing our society: building more houses for people. In Seattle, our housing shortage does not arise either from a lack of technology nor of capital, but primarily from laws that reserve more than half of the city’s land area for the most spatially-inefficient kind of urban housing ever to achieve mass adoption — the detached single-family house, with mandatory setbacks and car parking — and stringently regulate development on the tiny slice of land where multi-family housing is allowed.

Unlike other challenges we face, many of which require help from reluctant or recalcitrant higher levels of government, we in Seattle control* our own land use laws. We have nobody else to blame for the invisible wall of exclusionary zoning that we allow to stand around our city. The good news is that we have elected City Council members who, mostly, understand our housing problem and care about rectifying it. Last week’s Council vote, to stop forcing many people who live in transit-rich areas to have parking spaces they may not want, suggests our council members are willing to turn concern into legislation, even over the objections of a vocal, litigious, and extraordinarily privileged ($) minority.

The bad news is that privilege dies hard. To listen to much of the testimony at a zoning hearing is to fall into a netherworld where building more homes will not help our housing shortage; where open resentment of immigrants and newcomers is acceptable; where people who live in pre-war bungalows that would never meet today’s codes denounce modern apartments as Dickensian fire traps and health hazards; and imagined slights by the city bureaucracy invalidate years of open public process. To be a person who speaks at these hearings, for the radical proposition that roofs over people’s heads are both a public and private good, is definitely Type II fun.

But speak we must. Housing in the city, both subsidized and market rate, is an ethical and economic imperative, and if we fail to speak for it, we leave our elected leaders out on a limb. On Monday’s agenda is the citywide HALA rezone, a long-discussed, modest rezone of existing urban villages, coupled with a linkage fee. This rezone is worthy in its own right, and you should speak for it, but it must be thought of as a beginning, rather than an end; a down payment on a much more extensive and diverse housing stock that we have yet to legalize. As Minneapolis is considering, we must fundamentally reexamine single-family zoning throughout the whole city.

• What: Public Hearing: Mandatory Housing Affordability in Districts 3 & 7
  
• Where: Seattle Central College, Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway
• When: April 16, 2018 6:00 PM (be early! — speaking is first come, first served)

If you’d like to join up with an awesome, supportive group of people, consider Seattle 4 Everyone or Seattle Tech for Housing.

* Well, mostly. The playing field isn’t really level — upzones go through an exhaustive state environmental process that the status quo mostly never had to.

• What a train trip across the US taught one Australian about Trump’s America. Among other things: Amtrak is slow.
• TNT: Pierce County should borrow trailhead transit idea. I’d argue that having a decent all-day frequent-service network in Tacoma should come first.
• Wave as they pass your car. Fast buses could be coming to a long stretch of Tacoma’s Pacific Avenue.
• First post-rezone U-District highrise proposal gets design review.
• Navigating the strange new world of mobility.
• Morning Crank: A “Reset” for Move Seattle.
• Alon Levy gave a pair of talks in the Bay Area about regional rail.
• With renovation costs up, enhanced station program ends early, amid controversy.
• MTA’s Joe Lhota admits defrauding the public about costs.
• Shoupistas Rejoice: Seattle passes parking reform.
• City Council emails show Rob Johnson’s leadership on safe streets.
• Mayor Durkan: A vision for a more vibrant downtown with fewer cars, more transit, and less pollution.
• Housing cars or housing people? Debate rages ($) as number of cars in Seattle hits new high.
• Hostel takeover: Adjusting to a new Seattle.
• Congestion pricing plan for Manhattan ran Into politics. Politics won ($).
• Is Seattle’s Climate Action plan a plan of inaction?
• You can’t be a “climate mayor” if you’re making more room for cars.
• Century-old hotel in downtown Tacoma could be renovated into micro units for UW students. More like this, please!
• Don’t leave bike shares on ferries. The Coast Guard will think you’ve drowned.
• There are too many cars in Seattle, but there’s no way I’m getting rid of mine.
• Too many cars, too few supermarkets: how Australia’s cities really stack up.
• Montreal métro: Green light for Blue Line extension.
• Under Trump, new transportation grants ditch bikes, walkways ($).
• Developer proposes ($) an 18-story building in Lynnwood. “There’s a lot of land and a lot of parking lots… We’re trying to bring a more urban environment to the area. Everybody has been planning for this for a long time. We’re taking the first step.” Good for them; good for us all.
• All-door boarding is coming for all buses on Third Avenue next year.
• Everett was the first to bury its streetcars.
• Business owners oppose south central light-rail extension; Phoenix moves ahead anyway. “Four lanes or no train” sounds, regrettably, like the Phoenix I remember.
• More poorer residents are driving cars, presenting new issues for transit agencies.
• The Ben & Jerry’s crash course in transportation economics.
• Amsterdam will finally open second Metro Line.
• London’s Congestion Charge needs updating.

This is an open thread.

Nestled by the confluence of Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers, the City of Wenatchee is framed by some of the most dramatic scenery in the state. A small urban core of about fifty thousand people, squeezed into a bench around the confluence, serves as the primary urban center for a huge rural hinterland that extends roughly from Leavenworth at the southwest, Ephrata at the southeast, and 145 miles east of north up US 97 to the Canadian border. I think of Wenatchee as the gateway to Washington’s Big Sky Country, and it seems many other visitors are similarly taken, as the area is struggling with a housing affordability crisis ($).

Wenatchee is a railroad town, and it owes its location primarily to the choices of the Great Northern. Headed west from Saint Paul to Puget Sound, the GN crossed one of its major obstacles, the mighty and wild Columbia, at its narrowest point in Washington, before threading its way up the Cashmere Valley towards Stevens Pass. That westerly alignment, which made Wenatchee well-connected in the era of the railroad, has made the city an island in the age of the macadam road: there are exactly two road bridges carrying one paved road, WA 285, through the urban core, which can suffer startlingly bad car congestion given the small population.

The political and business leaders of Wenatchee have exhibited more progressive thought around transportation policy than one might expect. While the north end of Wenatchee Ave is a hellscape of roaring engines, drive-thrus and giant parking lots, the downtown business association formed a LID in 1989 [PDF page 40] to convert the historic central section into a calm, pedestrian-oriented street. WSDOT-owned land riverfront land on the east bank of the Columbia, once slated for a freeway, has become part of a non-motorized trail system, which notably includes a historic bridge over the Columbia initially designed for wagons and irrigation pipe. The city recently engaged the marginalized South Wenatchee neighborhood in a subarea planning process that yielded safe walking facilities as the top priority.

In a similarly forwarding-thinking vein, Link Transit was founded in 1989 to provide transit service to Chelan and Douglas counties. Today, the agency provides all-day bus and paratransit service throughout the urban core, with a more skeletal service radiating out to smaller towns along the US 2, US 97 and WA 28 corridors. In 2009, Link pioneered battery buses on a set of short, high-frequency urban routes — a bold move for a small agency. This November, car-free mobility in north-central Washington will take another big step forward if voters approve a 0.2% sales tax increase for Link. This ballot measure arises from a planning process which found that residents both wanted more transit options, and were willing to pay for it.

To find out more about Link’s plans, I exchanged emails with planner Lauren Loebsack.  [Read more…]

• Who decides if robots can drive? It shouldn’t be the companies racing to build them.
• The real driver of regional inequality in America.
• Here’s the real nightmare scenario for self-driving cars.
• Not a done deal: Convention center expansion could face fight in city hall.
• Tampa Bay’s new transit goal: Dedicated BRT lanes from St. Pete to USF Tampa.
• Feds to dig in on high costs of NYC transit construction.
• New interview of Jarrett Walker: On transit, home, NIMBYism, pipe cleaners. Everyone should listen to the Overhead Wire, but this episode even more so.
• Only a few American cities are growing transit ridership — here’s what they’re doing right.
• Legislature puts lid on tolls ($) as part of Tacoma Narrows Bridge loan.
• Kitsap Transit executive director talks route changes, fast ferries during community meeting.
• Debate continues in Kent over light rail station details.
• Pierce Transit weighs bus lane options for Pacific Avenue BRT.
• America begins capping the scars of freeways past.
• Albany punts ($) on clearing Manhattan’s clogged streets.
• Downtown Vancouver to Seattle flights imminent.
• Plight of Spring: Insane crowding on the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Washington’s loneliest road — from Dusty to Dodge — was one of the state’s first highways.
• New arboretum trail daylights creek, gives greater access to wetlands. The west side is a great bike thoroughfare, too, although the arboretum folks seem to be at pains not to point that out.
• Rainier Avenue’s second phase of improvements lacks vision.
• De Blasio administration may ditch planned streetcar along Brooklyn-Queens waterfront.
• With L Train shutdown a year off, Lower Manhattan braces for upheaval ($).
• As shared scooters invade, cities must decide whose vehicles belong.
• Don’t just rebuild the collapsed pedestrian bridge in Miami. This proposal doesn’t stand a chance in hell, but the authors are absolutely right: pedestrian bridges are usually a capstone of failed street design.

This is an open thread.

• “Red paint” — SDOT collecting feedback on Broadway transit lane proposal.
• PLUZ committee moves parking reform. Almost all the debilitating Herbold amendments were defeated.
• This small Wallingford apartment building is fine-grained urbanism at its finest.
• Paris to offer subsidies to those who buy bikes, give up cars.
• New federal budget would likely keep money flowing ($) to Lynnwood light rail.
• Seattle’s plan to allow more homes near transit and shops doesn’t go far enough.
• Will Boston turn around its ailing bus system?
• Paris mayor floats free transit for all.
• Twin Transit’s purchase of electric bus stalled by WSDOT testing, “Buy America” Standards.
• SEPTA lost millions of bus trips last year. Proposed solutions are in the works.
• SDOT evaluates options to craft Magnolia Bridge alternative.
• Anti-bike lane group tweets that single moms don’t bike. It backfires spectacularly.
• SDOT collecting more traffic data for Lake Washington Loop Greenway.
• Chicago: Parking lots disappearing in ride-sharing era as downtown construction booms.
• How Boise could keep at least some Downtown housing affordable. Here’s an idea: an attractive, fast, reliable transit system that can extend outside of the downtown.
• Not one, not two, but three ($) takes on the MTA’s off-peak service.
• Portland: Two new plans to watch.
• Google Pay now handles transit tickets.
• Plan to dramatically increase development ($) would transform some L.A. neighborhoods. Where’s Washington’s Scott Weiner?
• Thirteen years after painful cut, First Hill still wants a light rail station.
• Transportation projects in Spokane area poised to benefit from federal spending bill.
• Documenting the dynamic black community ($) of 1940s Seattle.
• Slower speed is a service cut.
• You want congestion pricing? Be specific.
• Transportation projects in Spokane area poised to benefit from federal spending bill.
• Third Ryde Tube: Transfer troublesome.
• Georgia governor throws $100M behind metro Atlanta transit initiatives. “Is this really happening in Georgia?”
• As Puget Sound region grows, (free) park and rides fill up.
• Did Fort Collins grow too big too fast?
• NYC: More on weekend service changes and redundancy.
• Arizona governor and Uber kept self-driving program secret, emails reveal.
• Transit App: Now supporting accessibility information.
• Seattle’s Highway 99 tunnel could open to traffic ($) in October.
• Washington State Ferries to look harder at diesel to electric conversion. The shorter ferry routes (Lummi, Guemes, Cathlamet, Keller, Inchelium) also seem worth examining.
• Sound Transit settlement will subsidize ($) Uber and Lyft rides to Mercer Island transit center.
• Let’s not screw up Northgate, too: The redevelopment of Seattle’s oldest mall us a chance to get things right.
• Traffic, traffic everywhere — including rural Pierce County. Shocker: it turns out those big new houses are cheap for a reason.
• Everything is awesome! Southwest LRT officials make the case that the project isn’t the smoldering tire fire so many assume.

This is an open thread.

• Forget gondolas, turn Silver Line Green.
• ST is hiring a Senior Transportation Planner.
• The mean musical chairs of rising rent and home prices.
• A bold, divisive plan to wean Californians from cars.
• For low-income renters, the affordable housing gap persists.
• Pollution impacts heighten the need for lids or freeway removal.
• Seattle underestimates by millions the cost to run its new streetcar line, Metro says.
• Olympia passes housing bills advancing CLT, homeless funding, and WSCC Lodging Tax.
• Innisfil, Ontario went with Uber instead of public transit‚ and says it saved $8 million per year. Keep in mind that Innisfil is “36,000 people spread over 270 square kilometres,” so this result is what you’d expect.
• Public transit officials are “struggling to understand” Trump’s proposed cuts.
• UW light-rail escalators re-started after 2-hour breakdown ($) Friday.
• Retail turmoil triggers new visions for shopping malls like Northgate ($) in Seattle.
• A closer look at plans to add safety improvements in Green Lake & Wallingford.
• How to survive the Cascadia Earthquake? Tips from seismologist Lucy Jones, “the Beyoncé of earthquakes” ($).
• Can London become a people-centric smart city?
• As city grapples with homelessness, leader tasked with response resigns.
• Here’s how WMATA says it would spend $15.5 billion over a decade.
• Waze launches free carpool app in Washington state matching drivers, riders ($).
• British Columbia goes all in on rapid transit, funds high-speed rail study.
• Modernism in London’s “Metro-Land.”
• Paris rolls out “on demand bus stops” in bid to fight sexual harassment. Note that King County riders already have this.
• Why are the NYC subway’s operating costs so high?
• Light rail frequency: promises and priorities. Another helpful debunking of the the stubborn myth that rails guarantee high-quality service.
• Construction costs and experience.
• How signal timers after a 1995 subway crash led to NYC’s current transit crisis.
• Feds join suit against MTA alleging ADA violations.
• The myth of “forcing people out of their cars.”
• Why outer suburbs in the East and Midwest have stopped booming.
• Portland wants help plotting bus-only lanes, bikeways and safer crossings in central city.
• Falling transit ridership poses an “emergency” for cities, experts fear.
• Don’t delay the downtown bike network.
• City Council briefed on downtown circulator and Seattle streetcar.
• Why Sound Transit doesn’t want you walking down a stalled escalator.

This is an open thread.

• Rainier Valley through the years.
• In Kenmore, urbanism takes root in suburbia.
• Could Pittsburgh public transit handle Amazon HQ2?
• LA taps the brakes on freeway expansion.
• How a new transit system could hobble Montreal.
• Missed connections, a treatise.
• The MTA genius challenge is as bad as expected.
• Excellent principles for shared mobility.
• Dublin, California city council rejects 220-unit TOD project. “Too massive… wrong colors.”
• Portland uses bikes to rethink 70 years of strip malls.
• State legislature passes big supplemental transpo bill.
• In Munich, putting people before cars makes transit work so much better.
• Morning Crank: Adapting parking policies for the next 50 years.
• More housing, less bureaucracy: That’ll solve the housing crisis.
• Asian flavored H Mart in talks to fill key retail space at Capitol Hill Station.
• Northgate Mall plans huge overhaul ($) with housing, offices as North Seattle transforms.
• Former SDOT Director Scott Kubly takes a job ($) with bike-share company LimeBike.
• Steilacoom’s mayor, foe of Sound Transit’s $54B plan, now on agency’s board ($).
• Here’s Sound Transit’s plan to make the display signs at Capitol Hill Station work.
• Minneapolis leaders consider allowing fourplexes citywide to relieve housing shortage. Yes!

This is an open thread.

• Emergency plan spends modestly ($) on signals, Subway’s biggest woe.
• PBOT: Traffic deaths up, despite Vision Zero efforts.
• Minorities are the demographic engine of millennial urban growth.
• Seattle’s voters and leaders know the value in keeping commuters out of cars.
• Beyond the MetroCard: Faster buses, better access to commuter rail, fairer fares.
• What would the ultimate child-friendly city look like?
• Clarified e-assist bicycle rules head to the Governor’s desk.
• As Seattle transit ridership skyrockets, Metro works to keep up with demand.
• Minneapolis: Judge rules in favor of Southwest LRT.
• The movement to destroy Warsaw’s tallest building.
• Urbanism and standards of respectability.
• The Freedom Railway: a 1,860km journey across Africa.
• Frequent transit nodes and what they mean for urban village expansions.
• Affordable housing ($) in Seattle is not the enemy.
• For waterfront revamp, Seattle weighs fees ($) for downtown property owners.
• “We’re listening, Department of Transportation says on the future of driverless cars.
• Digging into the foundation ($) of the housing cost crisis.
• New Hudson tunnels are canceled. Again.
• Metro opened a gift shop. The Internet mocked it. But the true believers came ($).
• Rome’s subway project keeps digging up archaeological marvels ($).
• Montreal’s iconic subway cars becoming creative spaces.
• As subway crisis takes up “so much oxygen,” ($) the buses drag along.
• The ticking time bomb for suburban retail.
• Scientists just showed ($) what building a new suburb does to the atmosphere.
• 35th Ave NE: A project at risk.
• Pierce Transit solicits qualifications for foot-ferry service feasibility study. It boggles my mind that Tacoma and Pierce Transit are considering this when their fixed-route bus service is pathetic and their future connection to the Link spine is threatened by state and federal cuts.
• City council gets first look at draft amendments to parking reform legislation.
• Wenatchee-area buses could start earlier, run later under Link Transit’s route proposals ($).
• Minneapolis leaders consider allowing fourplexes citywide to relieve housing shortage.
• Vancouver, WA parking efficiency study could lead to changes.
• A Japanese photographer traces how cities are built and destroyed.
• FTA finds tracks in “black condition” but WMATA routinely reclassifies them.
• We may look back on today’s traffic as “light and dreamy” if we don’t get “Urbanism Next” right.

This is an open thread.

• Microtransit: What I think we know.
• How I came to Seattle, a trip I’ll never forget ($).
• Boomtown Seattle: Why we move here — and how we’re all in it together ($).  If only Times editorials reflected more of the spirit of their contemporary reporting.
• American cities and the creeping criminalization of walking.
• Pittsburgh vows to complete BRT with or without threatened federal funding program.
• Sound Transit light-rail riders increasing by the millions ($).
• City releases draft design guideline changes for South Lake Union.
• The American household is evolving — and our housing should too.
• Light-rail tunnel talk @ West Seattle Transportation Coalition.
• Reducing failed deliveries, truck parking time could improve downtown Seattle congestion, new report finds.
• BNSF sent crews ($) into a treacherous Stampede Pass blizzard, union tells WA lawmakers.
• Olympia poised to partially fund high-speed rail business case study.
• Plyscraper city: Tokyo to build 350 m tower made of wood.
• Montgomery wants to build a better bus system, but anti-BRT activists oppose plans.
• Light-rail impacts, the morphed Multi-Modal Corridor plan, and more @ Delridge Neighborhoods District Council.
• Rainier Valley residents meet to discuss impacts of future Graham St light rail station.
• When and where are traffic-control officers effective on busy Seattle streets?
• For CTA’s youngest riders, a course on the fourth R — riding the ‘L’ and bus.
• City Council bill: Speed bump for protected bike lanes in Philly?
• Fourth London bus route goes fully electric with zero-emission buses.
• Why Northeast Corridor privatization is doomed to failure.
• L.A. Metro expands all-door boarding for key Metro Rapid lines.
• Spokane: Cuts to federal grant funding could jeopardize future of Central City Line.
• A subway ride to New Jersey ($)? It could happen, officials say.
• DC considers plan to replace streetcar fleet after two (!!!) years of service. Anyone else remember the LaHood-era promises of an American streetcar renaissance? Harmful obsessions with technology over transit fundamentals aren’t limited to the rideshare or self-driving car industries.
• Metro bus reroutes starting soon for Lander Street Bridge project.
• Neighbors collide over Beacon Hill intersection.
• UW master’s student is surveying bike share users.
• A plan for Boston Regional Rail.
• Spokane Cohousing seeks to build a village in the Perry District.
• Report: Dallas public transit not great.
• Remembering Seattle’s anti-freeway crusaders.
• Meeting Demand for 66 Million Passengers: Sea-Tac airport plan Update.
• Studies are increasingly clear: Uber, Lyft congest cities.
• China’s subway boom slows down.
• Spokane’s Monroe road diet to start construction this spring.
• German court rules cities can ban vehicles to tackle air pollution ($).
• Automated vehicles can’t save cities ($).

This is an open thread.

• All of Seattle’s public high school students to get unlimited ORCA passes under new Durkan plan ($).
• Limebike’s electric scooters could eventually come to Seattle, too.
• Northeast Seattle street project stirs cars-vs.-bikes debate ($).
• Thinking of ditching your car? Just do it already.
• Right-sizing parking: City Council weighs reform.
• Reclaiming street space in Capitol Hill.
• America’s stunted national debate about infrastructure.
• New wind and wave criteria changes threshold for potential closures of the westbound I-90 floating bridge.
• Better Metro bus service for Admiral/Alki? To paraphrase a now-retired Metro planner, if everyone in West Seattle complaining about bus cuts actually rode the bus, their buses wouldn’t have been cut.
• “Overcrowding” is not at the root of delays, subway chief says ($).
• Two barriers that keep pop culture from embracing public transportation.
• Treat outreach on transit projects like dating a future spouse.
• Britain’s bus coverage hits 28-year low.
• What the Spinetta Axe reveals about cost control.
• It’s Microtransit Week over on Jarrett’s blog: Is Microtransit an actual idea?; Does it matter if Microtransit is a new idea?; Is Microtransit a Sensible Transit Investment?
• Roads to nowhere: how infrastructure built on American inequality.
• SDOT plans summer “Broadway Corridor Streetcar Improvement Project.” SDOT’s Spot Improvement program now has a page; we wrote up most of this stuff already.
• Junction Neighborhood Organization pitches a part-tunnel plan.
• New renderings revealed for Portland’s 970-foot twin towers.
• Tunnel aerodynamics: how pressure changes can cause significant damage.

This is an open thread. The bridge is this one.

• Sizeism: Why small homes belong in Fremont and Seattle-wide. Doug at the Urbanist pushes back on that awful Times op-ed ($). And here’s Heidi at the Stranger.
• A 14-story hotel at the entrance to Pike Place Market? Not so fast, say opponents ($). As an architecture critic remarks, “The zoning for it has been in place for decades. Sorry, just no substance.”
• Worthy causes pushing to get their solo drivers into carpool lanes.
• The most promising thing about the US 2 Trestle project is that it might be tolled ($).
• Four groups show interest in O’Hare express train project.
• For decades Alabama has not funded public transportation; bill aims to end that.
• A bid to solve California’s housing crisis could redraw how cities grow.
• The case against (actually, for) sidewalks, and how cities can create new avenues for pedestrians.
• Fight over household wells highlights rural growing pains.
• Northgate pedestrian bridge: City bureaucracy run amok ($). This take is a little hot for me, but between the ongoing #fix65th debacle, and this bridge, SDOT hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory of late.
• The case for a Ballard to UW waterfront rapid bus line. Not a bad idea, but Frelard and lower Wallingford would have to get a lot more dense, and the existing routes a lot more frequent, before this cracked my most-wanted list.
• SDOT unveils first five-year pedestrian implementation plan. Sweet, another plan.
• Metrorail is no longer the second-busiest rapid transit system in the country.
• Self-driving cars aren’t good at detecting cyclists. The latest proposed fix is a cop-out.
• The RPA Construction Cost Report: Alon Levy, Ben Kabak.
• With skyrocketing rents, Tacoma Housing Authority is forced to adjust.
• What would a truly disabled-accessible city look like?
• Downtown Seattle poised for even bigger residential and hotel boom.
• Snohomish County Council members air their Sound Transit grievances ($). Mostly they seem to be complaining about the consequences of subarea equity.
• Jarrett at Citylab: the Problem with (algorithmically determined) Transit Gaps.
• Amtrak will suspend some service ($) if safety system not ready this year, CEO says.
• Seattle makes little progress ($) on buildings that can kill in earthquakes.
• 11 ugly urban underpasses now functioning as public parks.
• Spokane hopes tiny homes and cottages will spur infill density.
• Transit ridership continues to grow in central Seattle, while solo car commutes decline ($).
• Kitsap’s fast ferry is headed for drydock. Will there be a replacement?
• To (partially) fix the New York City Subway, fix the schedule.
• Why transit nerds are so jealous of Seattle.
• The Uptown HALA rezone bears its first fruit.
• Empowering the vision impaired with indoor navigation tech.
• Free Atlanta Streetcar rides? MARTA considers changes.
• Biking in Magnolia and Interbay got a lot easier with recent SDOT project. This new bike path is great, but the intersection of Gilman & Emerson now needs a signal more than ever.
• Limebike’s electric-assist bikes are out and rideable right now.
• Trump is a grifter, his infrastructure plan sucks, and his budget threatens Sound Transit.
• Rail car swap eases overcrowding ($) on Sounder train.
• Ursula K. Le Guin: Urbanist.

This is an open thread.

• A walking cure for Sarcellitis: can trails unite Paris’s city and suburbs?
• Utah legislators propose radical changes for transportation, transit — including a tax hike.
• Instead of a wall, why not a binational border bikeshare?
• In Colorado, a glimpse of renewable energy’s insanely cheap future.
• After 5 years, walk-bike bridge design for Northgate light-rail station still unfinished ($).
• Seattle’s former head of transportation says Denver would be lucky to get Amazon.
• New study looks at what transit agencies can learn from TNCs’ late-night popularity.
• Readers tell the Times how they would fix Fauntleroy ferry crunch ($); What does state Ferries think about ideas?
• Downtown Seattle is full of private-public spaces.
• Sierra Club now opposes one of the most important climate bills in California.
• Open gangway cars heading to NYC as MTA approves R211 contract.
• Even the Chamber of Commerce is calling out Democrats for caving on Sound Transit funding cuts.
• Hearing examiner recommends UW Campus Master Plan amid community concerns.
• TriMet’s Division transit project likely delayed due to budget shortfall.
• Get a sneak peek at the Texas Central bullet train’s Dallas Station.
• In a show of support, streetcar advocates dine out on Toronto’s King St.

This is an open thread.

• The Automotive Liberation of Paris. TL;DR: even with the best urban fabric known to the developed world, car traffic will go up until you make a multi-generational effort to reverse it.
• Seoul’s answer to a pollution crisis: Free public transit. The kicker is that it may not be very effective at dissuading people from driving, as drivers tend to be less price-sensitive.
• Every month Portland fails to liberalize its infill rules, more bungalows get replaced by mansions. Meanwhile in Seattle, we have scarcely even attempted to reform this aspect of our zoning.
• Seattle’s largest batch of single-family homes in decades ($) is pitched for ‘oasis’ site. I’m sad this will be just big-lot single family, but it’s probably impossible to get anything else past a loaded and litigious neighborhood association.
• ART is a victim of the “new bus blues.” Lots of finger pointing here, but multiple agencies have now reported cold weather problems with battery buses.
• Half-empty ferries leave Fauntleroy as cars wait in line ($). It does sound like WSF could make some slight improvements, but fundamentally, cars will never be spatially-efficient way to move humans. That idea, of course, does not appear in the discussion.
• I could do an entire roundup just on NYC transpo this week:
  • Driving a car in Manhattan could cost $11.52 ($). Ben Kakak’s take.
  • MTA appears to have massaged reports to blame Con Ed for subway problems ($); Kabak again.
  • How cuts in basic subway upkeep can make your commute miserable ($).
  • In new proposed subway elevators, local NIMBY concern trolls ($) see a terrorism risk.
  • After cyclists died, safer crosstown bike lanes ($) are planned for Midtown Manhattan.
• High speed rail could link Spokane to Cascadia megaregion, but don’t get too excited yet.
• As anyone who’s been on the Metro or ST beat knows, transit authorities sometimes resist change. Try to be understanding when they do.
• Nashville plans for a big boost in local transit, and is hoping its voters will step on board.
• Should transit agencies panic? Jarrett fighting the good fight against deleterious tech hype.
• Base train service is cheap, peak train service is expensive.
• Perry District eyesore to become cafe as Spokane encourages neighborhood development. I wish Seattle had policies to encourage reactivation of old shopfronts in single family neighborhoods.
• The convention center is getting bigger. So is its carbon footprint. Featuring Doug MacDonald: “The whole connection between reducing carbon emissions and transportation has to do with making it easier for people to get places where they don’t have to use their cars.”
• Sea-Tac wants to curb carbon emissions without limiting air travel. That’s a steep climb.
• A Roosevelt junior redesigned the streets around his high school, and his plan is better than SDOT’s. I’m really perplexed by SDOT’s flailing on #fix65th.
• NTSB report: Amtrak engineer missed speed-limit signs before train crashed south of Tacoma ($).
• Young Republicans, reformed lobbyists, and green Tea Partiers: Meet America’s eco-right.
• What do you do when a major polluter is holding Seattle together?
• Sightline: Your car of the future is no car at all. Part 1, Part 2.
• Local architect renders highrise Seattle of the near future.
• Why we need to reduce noise levels in cities.
• At Microsoft, “city” is in — even in the suburbs.
• TTC unveils strategy to grow transit ridership.
• Manchester united by Ordsall Chord.
• Practically redesigned: the British train ticket.
• Block off a street for people — not cars — this summer.
• How to fight climate change (without being insufferable about it).

This is an open thread.

• In response to growth, Chinese cities choose metros.
• Highway 99 tunnel in Seattle will open to traffic this fall ($), the state and contractors say.
• Morning Crank: Resolutely Pro-Housing.
• Here’s a PDF of PSRC’s funded 2017 Transportation Alternatives funding.
• Podcast ($): As Seattle faces an even worse traffic nightmare, do officials have a plan or are they just managing through the mess?
• Amtrak gives Oregon, Washington timetable for activating safety enhancements.
• Seattle-area rents drop significantly ($) for first time this decade as new apartments sit empty. Watch for anti-housing “concerned neighbor” groups to pivot from saying “more housing won’t make rents cheaper” to “these falling rents prove we don’t need more housing.”
• Santa Monica looks to cap Interstate 10 in new downtown plan.
• A farming tale: In Whatcom County, farmers have much to say about the urban-rural divide.
• SEPTA’s billion-dollar plan for new trolleys takes a step forward.
• In Phoenix, a light rail station designed for, and by, people with disabilities.
• Downtown San Jose transit village near planned Google mega-campus steams ahead.
• In Missoula, houses are replacing farmland. Can lessons from Vermont keep local agriculture alive?
• Democrats worry planned cuts to car-tab fees could endanger Tacoma light rail.
• Don’t leave the rear end of your car blocking the sidewalk, people.
• Tampa Bay Transit: How rapid buses left light rail in the dust. A less hyperbolic headline would be “Regional leaders favor rapid buses over light rail for cost reasons.”
• The Urbanist’s 2018: Goals, Obstacles, and Resolutions. I’m a big fan of the first two.
• Drivers should pay more to drive more, report tells TransLink.
• Curbed thinks backyard cottages may be a big answer to the urban housing crisis. My advice is to curb your enthusiasm a bit.
• 80.7% of all humans live within an hour’s travel of a city.
• House bill would require PTC by end of the year, and give the railroad industry a cool $2.6B ($) to achieve that.
• New Adidas trainers double as Berlin transit passes ($).
• Subway problems get headlines, but who’s going to solve NYC’s other transit crisis?
• California bullet train cost surges by $2.8 billion: “Worst-case scenario has happened.”
• Elements of Access: A Friendly Guide to Transport Planning.
• A herculean effort is underway to reconnect wildlife habitat east of Snoqualmie Pass.

This is an open thread.

• 2008-2018: Seattle’s transformative decade ($).
• Radical subway extension and development idea quietly tucked into Cuomo’s State of the State. Of course, the subway system has to actually work before you can sanely consider extending it.
• A closer look at Seattle’s rising transit ridership. SDOT justifiably toots its own horn.
• West Seattle light rail: Why you need to heed 2018 “sense of urgency” for 2030 service.
• Opinion: Surrey’s obsession with light rail is a misguided pursuit of European ideals.
• The Transport Politic breaks down this year’s scheduled major project openings and ongoing work.
• All about bikeshare: Curbed summarized the state of the pilot and talks about Lime-E bikes; the Bike Blog talk about ofo’s plans and challenges. I can’t help feeling that a month of free rides risks a price war followed by a shakeout, but perhaps that will eventually happen no matter what.
• We’re not on track to meet any of the carbon emission promises several Seattle Mayors have made. The biggest culprit: vehicle emissions.
• Overpopulation: Sci-Fi Truths and Anti-Growth Fictions.
• Seattle’s Aurora stretch is frozen in time, but voters are turning up the heat ($) on change. It’s incredibly refreshing to see a Seattle neighborhood actually welcome new people.
• If you think Seattle traffic is bad now, just wait until these projects start ($).
• Suspected Broadway shoplifter chooses wrong getaway vehicle: the First Hill Streetcar. “Police located the tram about a half mile away about 12 minutes later.”
• Updated Madison RapidRide G plans call for 2021 start of service.
• Whiplashed Planners Fear GOP Swerve on Infrastructure.
• ART project “a bit of a lemon,” mayor says as problems mount. This is a real shame: the people building America’s first decent BRT service appear to have cut corners in several crucial respects.
• Americans are making intra-state moves at an all time low rate.
• SR 99 tunnel might open a little early (!), but beware the final ramp connection work.
• A year into the Trump Presidency, federal transit support limps along.

This is an open thread.

• The subway built New York; now it must be repaired at any price ($). Jonathan Mahler’s survey of the history and present of the New York subway is a tour de force. If you read only one thing this week, make it this.
• Transit riders in Wenatchee ($) can now use their smartphone to buy a bus pass.
• Tim Eyman initiative ($) to toss Sound Transit car-tab tax fails to collect enough signatures.
• Philly begins phasing out use of transit system token coins.
• Nearly one-third of Toronto’s older streetcars were unable to leave yard due to frigid weather.
• DC is mulling a Houston-style revamp ($) of their bus system. Having used it as a visitor, I support this idea.
• Did Trump kill the plan for a Hudson rail tunnel? ($) Its backers hope not.
• Stick a fork in it, it’s done: Tim Eyman’s latest initiative to gut Sound Transit fails to qualify. NW Progressive gets their dunk on.
• Straightening of curve at Amtrak derailment site in Dupont ($) had not been state priority.
• Spokane responds to hot real estate market with housing infill. More of this, please.
• Seattle’s Neighborhood Parking Reform — reduced requirements, unbundling of costs, shared parking. More of this, too.
• Another Danny Westneat column spent bellyaching about a transportation problem without offering a serious alternative ($).
• Seattle Bike Blog gives a departed SDOT Director Scott Kubly a glowing send-off.
• Colman Ferry Dock reconstruction underway, ferry schedule changes ahead.
• 28 story residential tower (eventually) coming to 8th & Cherry.
• At last, you can hail a rideshare from Pasco airport.
• Daily Hive Vancouver has a wide-ranging, meaty interview with Translink (and former Metro) CEO Kevin Desmond.

This is an open thread.

• Seattle test will lead to regulations for dockless bike-share.
• What the Washington train derailment means for Cascadia high-speed rail.
• Speed control faces challenges ($), slowly gets rolling on Sounder trains.
• What Vancouver, B.C., can teach us about housing.
• When historic preservation clashes with housing affordability. Sightline’s Dan Bertolet catalogs several recent insane decisions from Seattle’s various landmark and historic district boards. Having read that piece, I’m really to nuke the entire dysfunctional process.
• 120,000 square feet in the heart of Seattle is set to disappear; with the caveats that this square footage (a) is below grade and (b) will require about $100 million to bring up to code.
• Denver vs Seattle: How our Pacific Northwest peer adds people without adding traffic. Streetblog gives a preview of the Moving People Forward conference in February, which looks very interesting.
• Amtrak crews express concerns about training on new route where train derailed ($).
• I-405 express toll lanes between Renton and Bellevue are on their way ($).
• Driving from Everett to Seattle? Plan for a 94-minute commute, new report says ($). Hmmm… if only we had some technology that could provide an efficient alternative to driving for many thousands of people per day.
• Seattle extends its run as the nation’s hottest housing market — but we may be starting to cool ($).
• Margaret Hurley forced state to take alternate route for north Spokane freeway.
• Elon Musk’s ideas about transportation are boring.
• 150 studios with no parking going up in Ballard. Excellent!
• Switzerland’s border-busting streetcar rolls Into France and Germany.
• Boston tests faster bus service simply by laying out orange cones.
• Agency OKs $126M budget for Tacoma Dome Link design ($).

This is an open thread.

Unsurprisingly, regional and national transportation news has been dominated since Monday by the tragic Amtrak 501 derailment. Because many of our readers are following the news of that accident via traditional or social media, and every outlet is working with the same (small) set of facts, I elected not to try and summarize all the 501 coverage, but to focus on other things that happened this week. STB’s reporting and commentary will continue in other posts.

If, nonetheless, you have room in your brain for one more 501 story, make it this KNKX interview with All Aboard Washington’s Lloyd Flem, who knew two of the deceased, Zack Willhoite and Jim Hamre, through their transit advocacy. “I can say with clarity, on behalf of both men […] that we do not believe the future of transportation is an infinite amount of pavement so everybody can drive alone, all the time, everywhere.” Words to live by.

The roundup:

• NE 65th St plans move ahead with reduced sidewalks, lack of crossings.
• Airports are losing money ($) as ride-hailing services grow.
• Support bike lanes along the Roosevelt RapidRide.
• Rep. Macri wants rent control.
• Salt Lake City’s new transit master plan.
• There’s an incipient apartment shortage in Spokane.
• The physical scars of the old Mercer Mess are starting to fade.
• How high should SR 99 tolls ($) go?
• Here’s how Metro Transit decides whether your bus is on time ($). David Gutman’s doing great work on the Metro beat.
• Washington’s I-405 express tolls should rise past $10 ($) to keep traffic moving. Yep.
• Hikers raved about King County’s new trailhead shuttle, but now it needs more users ($).
• Five transit agency execs (including Rogoff) rank funding shortfalls, Positive Train Control challenges among chief concerns.
• Seattle Bike Blog has concerns with the 65th St redesign.
• Erica discusses anecdata in the AirBNB debate.
• Under new leadership, Capitol Hill Community Council aims to build on its unusually progressive legacy.
• Head of Washington State Ferries has plans for hybrid-electric ferries.
• Adding lanes doesn’t reduce congestion. So what is TxDOT doing?
• Ellensburg proves no town is too small for top-notch bikeways.
• A deep dive into a value-added real-estate portfolio.
• World’s steepest funicular rail line to open in Switzerland, I’m jealous.
• Living cheek by gill in modern cities is possible — but it isn’t easy.
• Philly makes moves to reopen Franklin Square ghost station.
• Vera Katz, former Portland mayor, dies at 84, Jarrett has thoughts.
• Elon Musk has feelings on transit.
• Luas Cross City service expects 10m extra passenger trips a year.
• State of U.S. rental market: Rich get more options, poor suffer affordability crisis.
• Could wealthy neighbors kill Seattle’s plan to build affordable housing in Magnolia (again)? The quoted comments of Magnolia residents are disgusting, and the effectiveness of their obstructionism is at the root of our housing crisis, but I would be more enthused for this housing project if it weren’t in one of the hardest places in Seattle to serve effectively with transit.
• Where a “home for everyone” collides with “not in my neighborhood.” Oregonian Editorial Board goes into bat for more housing.
• Decade since recession: Thriving cities leave others behind.
• Sound Transit okays bus-on-shoulder on I-5 in Lynnwood.
• These bikes were made for Seattle, in which Knute Berger — surprising me, at least — comes out as an enthusiastic utility cycling advocate.
• Seattle’s bike-share pilot program ends this month, but the bikes are staying.
• Erica: The real surprise in Durkan’s staffing announcement was who wasn’t mentioned.
• Times Op-Ed for HALA: Neighborhood coalition threatens to make Seattle less affordable ($). A Times reader responds, denouncing Ballard as a “town-house ghetto“.
• Shenzhen goes all in on electric buses.
• Capitol Hill Seattle interviews outgoing Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce leader Sierra Hansen. Notably, she discusses why the North Broadway streetcar extension lost the support of the business community. Alas, it was for a bad reason (loss of parking and loading zones) rather than any good reasons (e.g. the mixed-traffic alignment has unimpressive ridership numbers and suffers most of the same problems as our buses.)

This is an open thread.