News Roundup: Spite Votes

Photo by Oran

• The Globe and Mail writes a post-mortem of Vancouver's disastrous transit referendum. Meanwhile, Jarrett Walker gives a helpful sermon on the uselessness of spite votes.
• The results of the Madison BRT Public Outreach process are out. In short, citizens prefer Spring to Marion, Center to Side Running, more stations downtown (i.e. 6th instead of 8th), and service at least as far as MLK (but magically with no layover).
• The Point Defiance Bypass bids are in, with Stacy & Witbeck besting the competition by $20M with a $53M bid.
• "I am opposed to any more development, for any reason, in Seattle," says Capitol Hill man in response to an 11-unit housing development at 10th & Aloha.
• Seattle Weekly writes a long-form piece on Licata's hatred of streetcars. While I completely agree about the uselessness of mixed-traffic streetcars, I quibble with his dismissal of short trips: "Mass transit means you're moving a mass of people from a long distance to another place."
• Not only will the new transportation package fund Eastside bikeshare, but it also comes with a lot of other bike project goodies, including the Burke-Gilman, E Lake Sammamish Trail, the Northgate Bike-Ped bridge, and much more.
• Mercer Island continues to play hardball, saying that the bus intercept that we lauded back in December is dead. Mercer Island wants ST "to look at off-Island options to bus intercept, as we will not consider approving what had previously been proposed." Might we see a movement for an objectively inferior and mobility damaging South Bellevue transfer point instead?

This is an open thread.