Midweek Roundup: Retro Metro

Looking south on Railroad Avenue with Seattle Municipal Railway streetcar turning east on Washington Street ramp, July 20, 1929 (Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive). This ramp was removed in the 1930s prior to the end of municipal streetcar service in 1941. A similar view in September 2025 (Google Street View).Local News:

• A new greenway along the Seattle waterfront will open in two phases on Friday (SDOT Blog).
• Mayor Wilson announced an expansion of the popular Bicycle Weekends on Lake Washington Boulevard, which will now be every non-Seafair weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day (Seattle Bike Blog). Also on The Urbanist and The Stranger.
• Amtrak's expanded trainyard in SODO is halfway done and on track to open next year (The Urbanist). New Airo trains are coming to Amtrak Cascades later this year (KUOW).
• Diesel prices hit a record $7.10 in Seattle (The Seattle Times, $).
• The draft EIS for the Everett Link Extension is expected to be released this fall (Sound Transit).
• Send light rail's 1 Line to Tacoma and unify the region" is certainly one opinion (The Seattle Times, $).
• The FYI Guy found the Seattle census tracts with the highest percentage of residents in each age decade (The Seattle Times, $). Unsurprising: the U-District and UW Dorms are mostly college-age (18-20s); nearly half of residents in tracts of LQA/Westlake and Capitol Hill are in their 30s.
• Seattle CM Alexis Mercedes Rinck promotes recent bus improvements with Sal, SDOT's SpokeSalmon" (SDOT Blog). When did Sal become so car-brained?
• Retro Metro: The U-Pass was born 35 years ago, offering unlimited transit rides to students at low cost (Metro Matters).

More headlines below.

Further afield:

• Even if every car were perfectly safe, electric, and free, a car-dependent society does more harm than good (Streetsblog USA)
• NJ Transit's plan to get 40,000+ soccer fans from Manhattan to MetLife Stadium for FIFA World Cup matches will include barring NJT commuters from Penn Station for 4 hours before each game (The New York Times, gift link).

This is an Open Thread.