Tag: Open thread

• More wrangling over who pays for the Aloha streetcar extension.
• SR 520 way short of money, extra lanes could end mid-span. The bridge will be closed all weekend for maintenance.
• The standard hand-wringing over the 125th St. road diet.
• Cascade Bicycle Club ranks bicycling in suburban cities.
• Vancouver vs. Seattle, rail edition. Doesn’t seem fair.
• First Link tracks were laid five years ago yesterday.
• Shooting on or near a Rainier Beach bus.
• U-Link rail car shells start arriving.
• A new twitter hashtag just for the 358.
• Walk score begets transit score.
• Driving, obesity correlated.
• Innovative stanchion design.
• Jarrett Walker’s slides now online.

This is an open thread.

• The King Street Ceiling is back.
• Sounder extension bids come in $26m under budget.
• High Speed Rail ARRA funds will get here… eventually.
• Richard Conlin finally engaging in serious discussion on the tunnel, and makes some good points. But the tunnel may have a 40% chance of blowing its budget. Getting away from the overrun skirmish, Dan Bertolet cogently summarizes the pro-surface/transit argument.  Meanwhile, an anti-overrun referendum may be on the horizon.
• A writeup on the U-Link construction plan (H/T: Bernie).
• Sound Transit wins award for its procurement practices.
• Another week, another road diet. This time, in Maple Leaf. Local leaders trying out Walk/Bike/Ride for a week; a woonerf coming to Seattle University; bike lanes on Jefferson St. complete.
• Seattle Bike Blog launches.
• Dog bites man, and John Fox wrong again.
• ORCA autoload still buggy.
• Trolleybuses older than you might think.
• BRT “advocate” Michael Ennis, of the anti-transit WPC, thinks bus drivers are paid too much; whole story starts with year 2000 to avoid any mention of 1999’s I-695. Nor does KING5 mention WPC’s history as a right-wing, anti-transit thinktank.
• New York City considers tearing down a waterfront freeway, without replacement, not because it’s structurally unsound but because it’s the right thing to do.
• The cellphone-while-driving crackdown begins.
• Perhaps a higher gas tax is not politically doomed after all, as we’re currently experiencing, by some measures, the lowest gas taxes since at least 1929.
• Is this green street green enough?
• DC 19-year-old impersonates bus driver.

This is an open thread.

• Community Transit hopes the Feds will restore their Sunday and Holiday service for 2011 and 2012 for the low low price of $21m.
• A nice rendering of the Bellevue tunnel’s south portal, and more neighbor complaints.
• Oil production is subsidized. Another dollop of cash for the auto-dependent.
• I don’t think the term ‘NIMBY’ is being used correctly but Dan is right that this is a good project to oppose.
• Road diet proposed for Admiral Way.
• Businesses would like to move the 3’s layover spot.
• Burke-Gilman litigation continues.
• Conlin on the tunnel (1, 2). Via.

This is an open thread.