Posted Mon, Apr 23, 8:31 a.m.

Nice job, Eric. This is the article that had to be written and the debate that now is thrown sharply into focus as Metro struggles to keep transit service afloat while huge sums of taxpayers’ money that ought to be supporting transit service are squandered for ancillary purposes and visions. ...

Posted Wed, Feb 1, 7:36 a.m.

“At issue,” McClure writes, “is the toxic mix that washes off roads, parking lots, and other hard surfaces in the rain, carrying with it the detritus of modern life: oil, grease, pet waste, and metals such as copper, which can kill salmon, along with myriad other pollutants.” Another approach to ...

Posted Thu, Oct 27, 11:20 p.m.

It's at Peter Miller Books that I invariably buy a book I didn't know I wanted to buy and shouldn't buy because I've already got too many books I haven't read. Yet it speaks to me irresistably from the counter or the table and says it has to be bought. ...

Posted Wed, Oct 12, 7:44 p.m.

"The sewer is the conscience of the city." Victor Hugo. He meant it in the sense that in the sewers collect all the evidences of lives above. In today's context, it's equally apt to suggest that maintenance, repair and good order of sewers is the basic measure of a city's ...

Posted Mon, Sep 26, 8:23 a.m.

You ain't heard nothing yet! Check this out (far out!): http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/video/?bctid=1071434878001&pconnect;_name=319352 For art, there's really nothing quite like a WWTP (that's "Wastewater Treatment Plant").

Posted Tue, Jun 21, 7:43 a.m.

Can someone answer this question: If the proposal is enacted, does it eventually and inexorably affect either rules or practices regarding employers' ability to ask questions about prospective employees' health status and health conditions as part of the hiring process? Doers it tend to push in the direction of more ...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 10 a.m.

Croosrip. I find your oft-repeated position very interesting and always forcefully expressed. With some of it I agree and with some of it I don't. But a small point of personal privilege, since you never seem to miss the opportunity to work my personal culpability into the argument. As state ...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 8:55 a.m.

Among many Seattle area transportation advocates, it has been a tenet of faith that the light rail program will lead to the urbanist benefits tagged as transit oriented development or TOD. Indeed, it often seems that hoped for TOD benefits have weighed more heavily in the advocacy for some elements ...

Posted Mon, Jun 6, 10:47 a.m.

Developing better data is a big step in the right direction. And the direction it heads is to concentrate greater attention on the ecological relationships between water and life in the Sound and the conditions of hydrology and contamination in the upland watershed areas. But lest we immediately and over-simplistically ...

Posted Mon, Apr 25, 9:05 a.m.

Green infrastructure is no different from any other infrastructure in two respects. To work, it has to be designed and installed properly, and to provide its promised benefit over time, it has to be properly maintained. These are not, generally speaking, “passive” systems. The Ballard exercise discussed in this article ...

Posted Fri, Apr 1, 10 a.m.

And then there’s the shimmering beauty of the Sounder numbers. Lots of unfilled seats. Ridership only 86% of Sound Transit’s announced 2010 target. Lots of public support. Subsidy from everyone’s sales taxes in 2010 kicked in $12.74 per person per trip just to cover operating costs. (Don’t even ask what ...

Posted Fri, Feb 4, 1:59 p.m.

In 2010 the ridership on the Amtrak Cascades corridor on the trains sponsored by (subsidized by) Washington State was 580,380, according to WSDOT. Other trains, like the Amtrak Coast Starlight in the corridor add to the ridership tally for the grand total in the corridor of 838,251. Hope that clears ...

Posted Thu, Feb 3, 7:43 p.m.

The pleasure of blogging is watching the conversation unfold. Fred Nussbaum's piece is particularly interesting. The subsidy number in my post is what WSDOT published on November 16, 2010 for 2009 and it's on the operating side only. No capital funds in the equation. A good question to look at ...

Posted Thu, Feb 3, 8:06 a.m.

Actually, no. The state funds that subsidize Amtrak cascades are not covered by the 18th Amendment, although the legislature has directed that the funds in question be dedicated to "multi-modal" transportation purposes (as distinct from highways, to which 18th Amendment-restricted funds are dedicated). So, is Amtrak Cascades the right designation ...

Posted Wed, Feb 2, 8:20 p.m.

Dear Crossrip. Of the many things of which I might be fairly criticized for a quick check of the Crosscut archive in 2008 will show that supporting ST2 certainly is not one of them! We'll save for another day a rejoinder to your frequent cut-and-paste comments on how transit is ...

Posted Wed, Feb 2, 11:10 a.m.

Amtrak Cascades needs a lot more skeptical scrutiny than it gets, especially in this era of an overwhelming state fiscal crisis, a national concern over deficit spending, and a virtual consensus that it’s finally time to look seriously at the relation between price and value in choosing transportation investments. The ...