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 [...]

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 ...

How Much Lying Do You Allow For? Sound Politics, WA Both the Times and PI reporting (before they turned into a website) is/was characterized widely by rail proponents as blatantly against light rail and Sound Transit. 2. Can the mayor legally bind property owners to foot the bill for "cost over runs" ...

Street-level light rail in Bellevue is front-runner in study Seattle Times, United States A street-level light-rail route across downtown Bellevue will be the front-runner in Sound Transit's environmental studies for the $2.7 billion East Link project, the agency's governing board decided today. By Mike Lindblom A street-level light-rail ...

A tunnel for Bellevue? Watch the budget TheNewsTribune.com, WA At the urging of East Side leaders, Sound Transit has been studying the possibility of sending light rail underground through Bellevue's downtown core. The regional transit agency has already bored a hole through Beacon Hill and is about to start doing ...

You're waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle. The street hustler is talking loudly on his cell phone. The bag lady is mumbling to herself. The empty bottle lies on the pavement. The trash blows up against the bus shelter. If you were to lean against the nearby building, you'd have to wash your clothes. If you were to sit in the shelter, you'd have to inhale the cigarette smoke. If it's getting dark, you may remember the homeless guy who got shot at a bus stop by Benaroya Hall in January, or the Tuba Man's fatal beating near ...

An East Link tunnel won't choke off Bellevue downtown Seattle Times, United States Sound Transit should decide to study the feasibility of a tunnel in Bellevue for its East Link line, writes Bellevue Mayor Grant Degginger. A street-level alignment would wreak havoc on the city's business and commuting patterns. ...

The Washington state ferry system raises fares on Friday for the peak summer season.

Danny Westneat Tunnel's cost may fool us all Seattle Times, United States Our own Sound Transit light-rail system was not included in the study, but it fits the profile. Its budget soared by more than 100 percent, forcing planners to halve the length of the rail line. The shortened line opens this summer. ...

On the subject of balancing budgets & what is affordable in this economy, read #4 from Seattle Weekly (click here):

“We’re getting more public transit we don’t use and less of the transit we do“.

“They’re bright orange, they’re empty, and they seem to putter back and forth endlessly without reason: That’s the South Lake Union Streetcar. Then there’s the Metro buses: Yellow and aquamarine, they’re packed to the gills every rush hour with overburdened commuters. Which transit system would you rather see get more money? Sorry. Mayor Greg Nickels’ toy gift to Paul Allen is the one slated for expansion, as the Seattle City Council voted to explore extending the line to Pioneer Square and the U District. An extension to First Hill was slipped into the Sound Transit package approved by voters last November. Meanwhile, King County Executive Ron Sims announced in February that bus service may need to be cut by 20 percent due to a projected $100 million funding shortfall in 2010. Granted, the trolleys and buses are funded from different sources, but come on—$40 million per mile to lay down new putt-putt tracks when we could increase our bus trolleys for a fraction of that?

Sounds like it’s time to seriously rethink our whole scheme for getting from point A to point B.”