Midweek Roundup: from farms to ferries

Road work and utility upgrades on Yesler Way at the end of the Roaring Twenties. Photograph looking east from First Avenue on April 10, 1929 (#3365, Seattle Municipal Archives Series2613-07). Google Street View shows a similar view as of August 2025.

Reminder: late-night Link service reductions in North Seattle are ongoing for construction of Pinehurst Station and Sound Transit's Monthly Maintenance program.

Transportation:

• The eastside stretch of the 2 Line continues to struggle with power issues (The Seattle Times, $). Some agencies are asking the state legislature to solve it, but no dice this year (The Seattle Times, $)
• Last week, Sound Transit officially broke ground on the Stride S3 Line, a BRT route connecting Bothell to Shoreline via SR-522 (The Urbanist). Sound Transit summarized the history of transportation on the north end of Lake Washington (The Platform)
• Meanwhile, WA state legislators are planning to issue $2B in bonds to spend tomorrow's gas taxes on the backlog of highway maintenance today (The Urbanist).
• A beer celebrating 75 years of the Washington State Ferry system is now for sale exclusively in WSF galleys (The Seattle Times, $). Advertisements say the limited brew is from farms to ferries".
• King County Metro is seeking a contactor for two bundles of major facility and infrastructure maintenance contracts, including upgrades and maintenance of trolley infrastructure (Metro Matters)
• On March 15, Kitsap Transit's spring service change will bring updates to many routes and convert all routes on Bainbridge Island to three digit route numbers (KT Headways)
• A new peanut-style roundabout under I-405 on NE 85th Street will open this spring, built as part of a major interchange rework for the Stride S2 Line (WSDOT Blog).
• Community Transit shared some project updates with Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) during a roundtable meeting in February (Everett Herald)

Land Use & Other Commentary:

• Josh Feit thinks focusing on construction code reforms like elevators instead of land use limits is the better way to achieve urbanist goals from the inside-out (PubliCola)
• Urban freeways consume land representing an untapped development potential of over $500 billion nationwide, and about $5.2 billion in lost property tax revenue annually (Bloomberg CityLab).
• In 2000, Dallas and Seattle had similar population density distributions. In the following decades, Seattle led the nation in urban population growth, while Dallas sprawled. Seattle's infill growth prevented over 1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions (Sightline Institute). Key takeaways summarized in an Op-Ed in The Urbanist.
• Seattle land use planning Director Rico Quirondongo says upzones further than 0.5 block away from transit corridors are coming... eventually (The Urbanist).
• Seattle City Light's new policy requiring underground connections to new developments with four or more units per lot is bottlenecking new construction (The Seattle Times, $).
• Cities experiencing overtourism" are just cities lacking general economy (Pedestrian Observations).
• The new Seattle Convention Center's is busy but the old Arch" convention center is less popular, prompting some to consider modernization (The Seattle Times, $).

This is an Open Thread.