News Roundup: Incompatible Charging Systems

• Minneapolis gets a $1 low-income fare.
• Helsinki is in the vanguard of the war on cars, and I'm jealous.
• Bremerton fast ferry still struggling with mechanical issues.
• Tacoma planning for growth in the Tacoma Mall area.
• Transit is a key part of not loving city-accessible trailheads to death.
• Tri-Met contemplating a $1.7b property and vehicle tax measure to pay for Southwest Light Rail and other projects.
• The rail that fails.
• Rideshare companies are trying to figure out how to serve elderly people. This turns out to be more challenging than serving the mostly-affluent, younger urbanites who have hitherto comprised their primary clientele.
• Vancouver for a day: Take a crazy, fun round trip from Seattle in 16 hours ($). Not discussed in the story: the writer took BoltBus; a day trip on Cascades would make your time in Vancouver short indeed.
• The Times Traffic lab writes up ($) Tacoma's proposed fast ferry study, surveys the recent history of passenger ferries.
• Local VC group Madrona Ventures, who are fond of releasing speculative reports on regional autonomous vehicle adoption (here's a writeup last year's ($)) have released another ($) (direct PDF link). For no stated reason, and without reference to the fact that I-5's HOV lanes carry up to four GP lanes worth of people at rush hour, they propose that HOV lanes be opened to AVs within the next year.
• Bellevue Reporter blurbs Metro's Eastside RapidRide plans.
• Utah senior citizens find more freedom on public transit ($).
• Curbed Seattle goes deep on how cities and local agencies prioritize surplus land for affordable housing.
• Port of South Whidbey really wants more parking at Mukilteo. Hot quote: "It doesn't make any sense to me that this Washington State Ferries multi-modal facility is being built with no plan for [more] parking." Results from multi-agency parking study due soon.
• West Seattle Transportation Coalition had an SDOT rep over for a monthly meeting.
• DC is the next bikeshare challenges-of-success story.
• Thanks to SEPA, the city will spend more than a year on an EIS to catalog all the possible impacts of liberalizing backyard cottage construction before voting on the idea. The EIS now is in the scoping phase, where you can comment on what should be included in the study. Among the things that won't be studied: the deleterious effects of our NIMBY housing culture and the endless procedural filibustering that perpetuates it.
• On the brighter side, the city has proposed some very, very good parking rule changes.
• Metro GM Rob Gannon touts ($) Metro's laudably aggressive electric bus adoption efforts. The biggest hurdle: incompatible charging systems between manufacturers.
• The Economist discusses dockless bike share.
• The Senate Republicans' ST witch-hunt goes to Everett.
• Small Uptown upzone approved.
• Spokane parklets to be made permanent.
• Amazon finally leases some office space that's truly convenient to Link.
• Someone has finally written a paper showing what people who understand transit have known for ages: most recent streetcar projects, aren't particularly effective transit.

This is an open thread.