Neighbors for Responsible Transportation (NRT) has organized our second Transportation Forum, this time on the Sound Transit (2) tax proposal for fall 2008, scheduled for this coming Saturday, October 4th at Bellevue City Hall in Council Chambers from 10:00am-11:30am.
University of Washington approves plan for light-rail link SmartBrief, DC - Nov 26, 2008 The underground station, dubbed University Link, is expected to be completed by 2016 and add more than 70000 riders to Sound Transit's system each day. ... |
The front page in today's Seattle Times has an article on the transportation budget and how lawmakers suggest "the bad economy won't stop" projects. Consider this quote from the article:
Actually, the Office of Financial Management recently released its quarterly revenue forecast for the transportation budget. It shows that over the next 16 year construction horizon, (an important time frame for the Nickel and TPA gas tax projects) transportation revenues ...
Often, spending transportation taxes is tied to agendas that don't have any relationship to specific performance measures, like congestion relief. This concept was highlighted in an audit conducted by the Washington State Auditor's Office.
In a new report published by the Heritage Foundation, “Reforming State Transportation Policy: Washington State’s Efforts to Implement Performance-Based Policies,” I argue the value of using performance measures to understand what is working and what is not when policymakers make decisions on spending transportation taxes.
Across the country, spending is too often tied to political agendas and the wishes of influential ...
Off-peak fares for adults will rise to $1.75 in a couple months, then to $2 in 2010.
Here's the news release from the King County Council
Council finds savings in Metro budget
that enable delay of half of bus fare increase$43.7 million in savings help push back second half of Executive-proposed 50-cent fare increase by one year while maintaining current levels of bus service
With record numbers of new bus riders coinciding with plunging revenues to support public transit, the Metropolitan King County Council today unanimously adopted a two-step fare increase that protects current levels of ...
 | New Vancouver mayor, Eh? Seattle Post Intelligencer - 15 hours ago (A warning to future Sound Transit riders: Impossible-to-understand fare boxes are a feature of rail systems from Denver to San Diego to Vancouver. ... |
Sound Transit sale-leaseback could suffer in credit crunch Bizjournals.com, NC - Nov 14, 2008 Almost half of the vehicles in the Sounder commuter rail fleet of locomotives and rail cars aren’t owned by Sound Transit. And that could end up costing the ... |
The state Department of Transportation is reminding folks who live along state highways that they have until Saturday to remove campaign signs.
"Under the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 468-66, temporary
political signs are allowed on private property; and no fee or permit is required," said the statement from DOT. "The signs must meet the following requirements: Temporary political campaign signs are limited to a maximum size of 32 square feet in area; Temporary political campaign signs must be removed within 10 days following the election."
No signs are allowed on freeway and highway right of way.
Most local ordinances ...
The Office of Financial Management has just posted the 2009-11 Priorities of Government (POG) Report. According to OFM:
The following report compiles individual Priorities of Government (POG) Result Team priorities for state activities. These Result Teams of agency, OFM and other executive staff were charged with making choices based solely the activity performance and alignment with evidenced-based strategies for achieving each of the ten statewide results.
This information is advisory to the Governor as she develops her 2009-11 budget for the state. It does not represent any final budget decisions.
I haven't had a ...
Based on this editorial by Port Commissioner John Creighton and Port CEO Tay Yoshitani, taxpayers in King County might think the Port of Seattle is making the tough and responsible financial decisions required in a tough economic climate. They even say this:
But one of the top PI stories today includes this one: Port votes ...