Midweek Roundup: Wig Wag

Metro Route 60 rolls southbound through Capitol Hill in August 1990. Photo by Mitchell Libby. Similar view in September 2024.

45 daysuntil theDowntown Redmond Link Extension opens on May 10.

Spring Service Change: Several transit agencies are updating service patterns this weekend. Metro is also restarting fare enforcement on March 31.

Local Transit & Streets:

• The King County Council is ordering Metro to improve tracking and reporting of ghost buses" (The Urbanist)
• Sound Transit won $25M from the Biden administration to help cover Graham Street Station's estimated $118M cost, but now the Trump administration is revising or cancelling grants awarded for projects which mention environmental justice, DEI, or climate change (The Urbanist)
• $125,000 grant from WA Traffic Safety Commission will fund education and enforcement but not engineering or reconstruction to reduce high-speed crashes on 140th/132nd Avenue SE corridor in Renton, Kent, Auburn (Kent Reporter)
• Sound Transit testing wig wag" headlight pattern to increase train visibility and passenger safety on the 1 Line (Mass Transit Magazine). Also on Sound Transit's Blog, The Platform.
• King County's new Transit Safety and Security Task Force convened for the first time on Thursday, and as always, different people want different things (KUOW)
• Sound Transit staff recommend putting the Boeing Access Road infill station on East Marginal Way instead of near the Boeing Access Road crossing over I-5 and Sounder (The Urbanist)

Other Transportation:

• Link Transit is expanding service with two new East Wenatchee bus routes coming in October (The Wenatchee World)
• User Pays" for roadways is a myth and always has been (Union of Concerned Scientists)
• A new idea for fixing the busiest train station in the USA: Move Madison Square Garden (The New York Times, gift link). Makes building a Link station at 4th Avenue look like child's play.
• In Europe, cities are removing parking spaces and creating dedicated bike lanes to reduce the dominance of the car in urban transportation, but not without opposition (The Seattle Times, $)
• The MetroCard Goes the Way of the Token as M.T.A. Announces End of Sales (The New York Times, gift link)
• Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner steps down to help ensure the current administration maintains its confidence in the rail company (Mass Transit Magazine). The resignation appears to have been forced by USDOT Secretary Duffy (Progressive Railroading).

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

• Op Ed: Make vacant strip malls part of solution to WA's housing crisis (The Seattle Times, $). Also in the Times: We're WA landlords and we agree with rent stabilization.
• Senate Democrats unveil revenue package, propose reducing sales tax to balance Washington State's tax code (The Cascadia Advocate)
• It's time to incentivize EV trucking in Washington (Washington State Standard)
• A brief discussion of Open BRT" and how it's a bad fit for the grid networks of North America (Pedestrian Observations), but Seattle may be one of a few exceptions.

Events:Sound Transit is hosting anotherSouth Downtown HubOpen House next Wednesday, April 2 from 5-7pmatUnion Station.

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