Editor's note: This speech was given last week at the 35th anniversary celebration and awards banquet of Historic Seattle. It's great to be here with you this evening under the stained glass of the Arctic Club Hotel. This historic building looms large in my mind because of its walrus "gargoyles," the faces that line the outside of the building and look like Mike Holmgren. These made a great impression on me as a child, and I think they made an impression on my father. He was born and raised in Seattle too, the second ...

Start with the transportation facts of life. Population in the four counties of Central Puget Sound will have grown from the 2008 total of 3.6 million by another 1.4 million in 2040. Jobs will increase by 1.1 million, and — based on the region's collective proclivities to date — total vehicle miles travelled (VMT) by more than 40 percent. Barring some big paradigm shift, the percentage of daily "passenger" work trips which occur on transit will grow from 8 percent of the current (2006) total to only 9 percent in 2040. For far more numerous non-work passenger ...

Light-rail testing resumes in downtown tunnel Seattle Times, United States Sound Transit has resumed light-rail testing inside the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel this morning after a software problem delayed testing most of the morning. By Mike Lindblom Sound Transit resumed light-rail testing inside the Downtown Seattle ...

Riders of Washington, DC’s Metrobus system are much more likely to be low-income minorities than users of the Metrorail system, according to a 2007 survey. The median income for Metrorail riders is $102,100, while the median income for bus riders is only two-thirds as much at $69,600; more than half of bus riders are minorities [...]

The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation has announced that the Seattle P-I Globe tops their 2009 list of endangered historic properties. The familiar, neon-lit globe was constructed by PACCAR and is a true landmark, currently sited above the waterfront offices of Seattlepi.com, the online daily that has replaced the newspaper which ceased its print edition earlier this year. There has been much discussion about the Globe's future, ranging from putting it in a museum (like the new Museum of History and Industry planned for South Lake Union) to returning it to its original site at the old P-I ...

Sound Transit light rail Seattle Times, United States A worker walks amongst link line rail trains in the Sound Transit Sodo Maintenance Base in Seattle after placing a cone at the front and rear of the train he is working on. The headline "Who will ride this train?" [page one, May 17] virtually stopped ...

During the Sound Transit DEIS process for East Link light rail, Sound Transit turned over comments from City of Bellevue residents to a consultant, regarding the Surrey Downs Mithun & Neslund Mid-Century Modern homes that the City of Bellevue previously identified as “historically and architecturally significant” properties.

This triggered  the Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation (DAHP) to conduct a study to determine whether the Surrey Downs homes would be “eligible” to be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).

DAHP determined that indeed, the Surrey Downs Mid-Century Modern homes are “eligible” to be nominated to the NRHP as a “historic neighborhood“.

That designation of eligibility puts 2 federal laws into play- 106 and 4(f), which essentially guide projects that utilize federal funds to “avoid” or heavily mitigate negative impacts on historic resources.

According to Joni Earl (at last week’s ST Board meeting), Sound Transit will be using $985 Million  in federal funds for ST2.

What this means with regard to the potential alignments being considered for the “B” and “C” sections of East Link has yet to be determined, but Sound Transit will have to comply with the federal laws to avoid negative impacts to both the Frederick Winter’s House on Bellevue Way, and now the Surrey Downs Mithun & Neslund homes, which according to federal policy, will be treated as if they are already on the NRHP list.

The laws specify that all possible alternatives must be studied to “avoid” historic resources when using federal funds.

Does this mean that the B7 alignment will have to be studied to the same percent of engineering that B3-Hybrid will be?  How would they know exactly what the cost, riderhsip, transit time, envitonmental considerations, etc, of  B7 would be if they don’t continue to study the B7 alignment to the same degree of engineering that they will be studying B3 Hybrid? How will they know which is better?

Otherwise, if they do not study B7 sufficiently, the ST Board will not be able to compare apples to apples…

Add Austin’s Capital Metro to the list of transit agencies that have gotten themselves into serious financial trouble because they insisted on building an expensive rail transit line. After blowing $300 million on a commuter-rail line and other questionable improvements, Capital Metro is heavily in debt and lacks the resources to fund bus and other [...]

In the world of transportation policy analysis, there is a lot of anticipation for the first quarter ridership reports on public transit.

Most agencies ended 2008 with large increases in transit use. The larger demand placed pressure on budgets and had policymakers calling for higher taxes to expand service. The larger demand also had some suggesting that society had fundamentally shifted behavior away from the personal automobile, which has federal officials calling for massive spending increases in traditional transit and high speed rail with the next reauthorization bill.

In her weekly email update, Joni Earl gave us a preview of ...

State Auditor Sonntag plays hardball over "dumb" cut to ... Sound Politics, WA CROSSCUT -- Gregoire on the spot over performance audits -- The Legislature's proposed gutting of the performance-audit program is inexcusable ... they have uncovered practices by WSDOT, the Port of Seattle, Sound Transit, and other agencies which ...