Midweek Roundup: Reform

Sound Transit:

• Sound Transit Delays 1 Line Repairs, Schedules New Disruptions in Early 2025 (The Urbanist), additional details in Light rail problems compound to delay repair of UW Station power line (The Seattle Times, $)
• West Seattle businesses get sticker shock over Link displacement (The Seattle Times, $)

Local Transit & Streets:

• King County Metro has second-fastest rider increase in U.S. (Metro Matters)
• Amtrak Cascades On Track to Deliver New Airo Trainsets in 2026 (The Urbanist)
• Transit changes are coming to south King County: Metro wants your feedback on proposed route improvements (Metro Matters). An STB article is in the works.
• The Levy to Move Seattle Era Draws to a Close (The Urbanist); The era of transformative mobility investments is over, and the era of spot improvements is here."
• Pioneer Square improvements support a more accessible and vibrant neighborhood (SDOT Blog)

Land Use & Housing:

• Why Turning Churches Into Housing Is So Hard (Bloomberg CityLab) converting [millions of acres of] real estate into affordable homes takes more than just faith."
• Why so many Americans prefer sprawl to walkable neighborhoods (Washington Post, $)

Global Transit:

• Car tyres shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment - urgent action is needed (The Conversation). Rubber tires also shed a chemical (6PPD-quinone) which is acutely toxic to salmon and a serious contaminant here in the PNW.
• Why It's So Frickin' Hard to Stop Driving (Slate); behavioral psychology research shows few people consider changing their daily trip mode until an unusual event forces them to reconsider.
• How Madrid built its metro so cheaply (Works in Progress)
• Thessaloniki (Greece) opened new subway (CNN); fully automated of course, 13 stations for $3 billion euro.

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

• Walkable This Way: How Fashionista Derek Guy Became One of the Nation's Best-Known Urbanists (Streetsblog USA)
• Model train depicting 19th century Seattle at Seattle Center in December (Seattle Times, $)
• Separated at Birth: In this House" Seattle Liberals and Project 2025 (PubliCola); A closer look at Project 2025's reasoning for opposing more flexible housing rules tracks to Seattle homeowners' own familiar arguments against adding density." Meanwhile, in More paving, fewer trees. So much for a green One Seattle' (The Seattle Times, $), the Times' Editorial Board continues to be more concerned about the tree canopy on private lots than deforestation for suburban sprawl.
• Opinion: New Towns" Are the Answer to Affordable Housing Challenges (Planetizen)
• 10 principles for a new democratic urban agenda (The Transit Guy)

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