• Volunteer for ST’s Citizen Oversight Panel
• Sound Transit appealing Mercer Island permitting decision
• Sharrows as a “compromise” between bike lanes and doing nothing
• Kitsap Transit buys a used foot ferry as a Southworth backup
• Here comes the Northgate Pedestrian bridge
• Virtual tours of this year’s new Link stations
• Everett considers an “offensive” to bump itself up in Link priority
• Checking in on C-Tran
• More ST land donated for affordable housing
• SBB reports on the endless quest to fix Mt. Baker
• Lowering highway speed limits
• Land use planning in the area south of Tacoma
• Two-person freight railroad crews ($) still required
• Suburban road grids make buses more expensive
• “Cut-and-Cover is Underrated”
• Study says it’s largely the sacred “public input” that makes infrastructure in the US cost so much

This is an open thread.

Sound Transit has kicked off a new online open house for its future BRT service along SR 522 and NE 145th street, known as the Stride S3 line. The service, which was funded by the 2016 Sound Transit 3 ballot measure, will run from Bothell to the Seattle-Shoreline border along SR 522 and NE 145th street. From here, riders will be able to transfer to Link Light Rail for fast and frequent service to UW and downtown Seattle, and this service will replace Sound Transit Express route 522 when it opens.

• Apply for the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board
• Seattle’s car population plateaued ($) at about 460,000 2017-2019
• Paid parking rates adjust
• Metro hiring a new finance person, no public agency experience required
• More towers coming to the U-District; as always, it’s not nearly enough
• Republican transportation proposal ($) has new taxes on bikes and transit to fund roads, but at least it focuses on maintenance instead of new highways
• Sound Transit asks the legislature to help out
• Metro’s long range vision slips from 2040 to 2050, includes new service guidelines; more on this later
• SDOT considering loosening West Seattle Bridge restrictions
• Everett Herald ($), like the TNT, is more excited for light rail than the Seattle Times.
• Over 5,000 tickets issued there already
• New research on how market rate construction affects rents; here’s the local version
• VMT Tax comes up again; just raise the gas tax!
• Rizal Bridge gets a PBL
• Spokane’s Downtown Master Plan is ambitious
• Conditions for successful rail

This is an open thread.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

[UPDATE: Sources say HB1157 will be ruled “necessary to implement the budget,” which gives it some more time to live. But it still needs your help!]

Two companion bills, HB 1157 and SB 5390, would create incentives for local government to allow more housing, but at least one of them must emerge from its committee Monday (Finance and Ways and Means, respectively) to succeed in this session.

Both versions of the bill have a bipartisan group of sponsors. In the Senate, it’s Liias (D-Edmonds), Gildon (R-Puyallup), Nguyen (D-West Seattle), and Saldana (D-Rainier Valley). In the House, there are 18 sponsors from urban, suburban, and exurban districts, including Fitzgibbon, Harris-Talley, Hackney, Walen, and Ryu from Seattle and its inner suburbs. Thank your district’s delegation for its sponsorship!

The bill would allow cities or counties to create “real estate excise tax density incentive zones” where they get a portion of the REET proceeds. To qualify, the zone must allow “Single-family detached dwellings at a net density of at least six dwelling units per acre [1], duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, accessory dwelling units, and courtyard apartments.” To qualify, cities and counties cannot allow the units to be short-term rentals for more than 30 days per year.

From the SDOT blog:

The 3rd Ave and Denny Way Signal Improvements Project will be modifying signals, updating existing trolley poles, and reconstruct the triangular block of 3rd Ave, Broad St, and Denny Way to improve transit operation and reliability in this part of downtown.

Thus the beginning of the end for one of the longer-running minor subplots here on STB. Thanks to Move Seattle levy funds, Belltown-Queen Anne buses will get their own signal and have a more direct, reliable path across Denny Way.

You can read our exhaustive coverage going back nearly nine years: 2012, 2013, (2013 again), 2014.