Metro’s dilemma: high demand, thin wallet

May 13th, 2009
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 ...

Don't keep government lobbying under wraps - Seattle Post Intelligencer

March 16th, 2008
Don't keep government lobbying under wraps Seattle Post Intelligencer - Mar 16, 2008 The ordinance studiously ignores paid lobbying by employees and consultants of the city and of state and local entities such as Metro, Sound Transit, ...

Ron Sims: AWOL on the issue that matters most

March 7th, 2008
Lots of people, myself included, thought that Gov. Gregoire would oppose Sound Transit going back to voters in ‘08 if the Roads and Transit measure failed. We didn’t think Democrats would want to share the ballot with a big transportation measure. Turns out I was wrong. Gregoire has signaled that a ballot measure this fall has her OK, even if she has reservations about the area interest groups’ willingness to “saddle-up” for another campaign. Sound Transit chair Greg Nickels isn’t standing in the way, either. He’s cajoling his fellow board member to vote for a revised ST2 package, one ...

Would you use a Metro or Sound Transit Credit Card?

February 4th, 2008
BART has one in the Bay Area. You earn points toward bart passes with each dollar you spend. Here's the press release. Would you use a King County Metro or Sound Transit Credit Card?

Metro bus ridership makes biggest gain in 10 years

January 23rd, 2008
Metro Transit saw its biggest ridership gain in 10 years in 2007. Ridership increased 7 percent last year, with an estimated 110 million...

Bike racks being removed from many Metro buses

January 6th, 2008
Workers have been scrambling over the weekend to remove three-bike racks from some Metro transit buses because of concerns that the racks aren't tight enough to securely hold bikes.

Should King County be in the ferry business again?

December 21st, 2007
The county once before ran ferries, only to be rescued by the state. Now the state is too broke to keep the passenger boats running, and the county has got the bug again. It's expensive, there are other solutions, and Vashon Islanders were once dead set against passenger-only ferries. But hey, nostalgia springs eternal.

Updates: Snoqualmie Pass and the downtown Seattle tunnel - Seattle Post Intelligencer

December 19th, 2007
Updates: Snoqualmie Pass and the downtown Seattle tunnel Seattle Post Intelligencer - 17 hours ago
 Sound transit has not set a reopening time and buses will be rerouted. There are currently no comments for this blog entry. Violating our Terms of Service ...

The Mother of All Agencies

December 18th, 2007
Ostensibly, the PSRTC is being created for regional priority road projects like the ones specified in the RTID: I-405 widening, the "Mercer mess," the 520 bridge, and others. But design and maintenance for those already rests with ...

Does Industrial Zoning Undermine "Surface-Transit" Viaduct Removal?

December 18th, 2007
I've never been too hot on the dreamy "surface-transit" option promoted by people like Peter Steinbrueck, Cary Moon, and other pundits, mostly because it is an ideological solution that doesn't take into account the hand that this generation in Seattle has been dealt; as least the people who depend on that short stretch of road in order to not sit in traffic on downtown surface streets, or slog along East Marginal and 1st Ave South to get to downtown or past downtown. I only mention it to clarify that even though I think the idea ...
Next Page »