Midweek Roundup: Streetcar Swap

Reminder: Link service through Downtown will be disrupted a few more times before the end of the year, with extended overnight closures planned for the nights of Dec. 12-13, 20-21, and 27-28.

Local News & Commentary:

• Tips for traveling with King County Metro this winter season (Metro Matters)
• Monorail to Nix Transfer Credits, Raising Costs on Some ORCA Card Users (The Urbanist)
• Sound Transit Brokers Streetcar Swap Between Portland and Tacoma (The Urbanist)
• Precinct-level voting results show Wilson was most popular in dense neighborhoods (The Urbanist)
• Link is slowly becoming more reliable, but still has a lot of room for improvement (The Seattle Times, $)
• A 14-Point Plan for Mayor Wilson, including proposals for reopening the Comp. Plan, something called The Urban Pass", and more transit passes from event centers (PubliCola)
• Op-Ed: Sound Transit's Station Naming Policy Has Run Amok Again (The Urbanist)
• The state legislature legalized pedestrian streets this year, but actually establishing them may require environmental review (The Urbanist)

Other Items:

• Studies of hesitancy to use self-driving cars show people say they like driving, but what they really like is control (Psychology Today). This likely applies to public transit, too.
• American urbanists often butt heads with fire departments over road widths, roundabouts, and housing density, but they could work together to make cities safer (The Discourse Lounge)
• High infrastructure construction costs in the US are not due to high incomes, but poor governance (Pedestrian Observations)
• Transit 101: What is Transit Scheduling? (Thoughts About Cities)

This is an Open Thread.