News Roundup: The Hype

• Don't believe the hype; Seattle drivers are great.
• Want to serve on a HALA Community Focus Group? Applications are due Friday, February 26.
• Obama's transportation budget is pretty great. Since it doesn't stand a chance, Yonah Freemark gives it a simultaneous introduction and eulogy.
• Check out CityLab on light rail's future in Seattle, featuring Seattle Subway, Sound Transit staff, and good footage of ULink stations.
• Aloha Streetcar Extension still $10m short; city evaluating Local Improvement District to make up the difference.
• Pierce Transit workforce is aging, but then, aren't we all?
• Mercer Island hiring more consultants to negotiate with Sound Transit over "mitigation" for giving them a light rail station that they voted for.
• Apodment restrictions not curtailing apodment construction, but they are raising the price of the lowest-priced units. Nice work Seattle City Council!
• SDOT is extending the Fifth Avenue contraflow bus lane.
• A tour of the First Hill Streetcar stops.
• Anti-tolling study used questionable methods.
• Doug MacDonald argues for tolling ($). My take: it's true that the project introduced new chokepoints, but highway widening always just moves the chokepoint around - it's a not a product of the tolls.
• Portland environmental groups apparently valuing left-wing solidarity over environmental causes, opposing a flat-rate payroll tax for 42% more bus service, which (incidentally) would apply to nonprofit employers as well.
• Governor Inslee proposes changes to I-405.
• State/Contractor relations on the deep bore tunnel project at a new low.
• Roger Millar is the new acting WSDOT secretary ($), and therefore the newest ST Board member.
• Mobile phone tracking may lead to better bus routes.

This is an open thread.