Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
Crosscut articles of the past 10 days with the most reader comments.
Crosscut blog posts of the past 10 days with the most clicks.
Posted Mon, Nov 2, 6 a.m.
The idea gets lip service each election, but this year could be different, especially for King County. A veteran advocate lays out some guidelines and examples.
READ MORE 4 COMMENTS
Posted Thu, Sep 24, 6 a.m.
Instead of following arbitrary political allocations, let's shift to a philosophy of putting bus service where it's already working and where we want density to go.
READ MORE 11 COMMENTS
Posted Tue, Sep 8, 6 a.m.
The county is in financial crisis, and there's a rare no-incumbent contest for Executive. A candidate who missed the cut lays out the issues for a serious debate about re-engineering county government and Metro.
READ MORE 20 COMMENTS
Posted Thu, Aug 27, 6 a.m.
New figures show that people are not moving to the regional growth centers anywhere near the rate that our 40-year growth plan predicts. It's time to craft some new approaches.
READ MORE 46 COMMENTS
Posted Wed, Jul 22, 6 a.m.
The new light rail line opens up new ways to see the city, and brings visibility to long-neglected and fascinating parts of Seattle.
READ MORE 11 COMMENTS
Posted Fri, Jul 3, 6 a.m.
Even in hard times, there are signs that livable Seattle can still make progress despite, or even because of, the challenges of the economy
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Posted Fri, Jun 26, 6 a.m.
The King County Executive race is highly competitive, but the candidates keep talking about issues where the county has little influence. Here's a plea to address the topics where the county matters, such as law enforcement.
READ MORE 19 COMMENTS
Posted Thu, May 14, 6 a.m.
Something has to be done about financing Metro, says outgoing bus boss Ron Sims. We also need a new way for bus lines to serve an urban region that is no longer hub-and-spoke.
READ MORE 15 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Mar 2, 6 a.m.
We'd save millions over those fancy streetcars the City favors, and get better service with green electric "eTrolleys."
READ MORE 29 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Jan 26, 6 a.m.
Score another point for a la carte planning. But the public is rightly incensed about the absence of a regional plan that meshes all the projects, embraces new technology, and actually has a budget.
READ MORE 30 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 6 a.m.
The ever-courteous and helpful Metro drivers of the recent past need to reclaim their hold on loyal customers.
READ MORE 3 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Dec 29, 6 a.m.
Seattle should heed the message of getting back to the nitty gritty basics
READ MORE 13 COMMENTS
Posted Thu, Sep 25, 1 a.m.
The state House speaker finally goes public with a dramatic idea for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct on Seattle's waterfront. It involves a long, block-wide structure with a highway within, commercial development below, and an intriguing park on top.
READ MORE 33 COMMENTS
Posted Thu, Sep 11, 3 a.m.
Because of fuel prices and out-of-sync regulatory bodies, it's actually cheaper right now to take a taxicab to or from Sea-Tac Airport than a shared van, which until recently was always the cheaper choice. But cab fares, too, will be going up, on Oct. 1. Here's how airport transportation pricing works.
READ MORE 18 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Aug 11, 10 a.m.
Big and corporate didn't do it for last year's roads and transit measure, so the hurry-up, cash-starved campaign for Sound Transit 2 will be Internet-based and volunteer-driven.
READ MORE 16 COMMENTS
Posted Wed, Aug 6, 5 a.m.
King County's Metro Transit service is under pressure from a surge in ridership and higher fuel costs. There are solutions to these problems, but they aren't painless, says this transportation analyst. Among other things, riders should be paying more — a lot more — and Metro should consider privatizing some routes.
READ MORE 11 COMMENTS
Posted Fri, Jul 25, 10 a.m.
The weight of 40 years of paralysis about transit planning played a role in the Sound Transit decision to try one more time to convince the voters of the need for more light rail.
READ MORE 26 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Jul 14, 10 p.m.
The region has tried a largely bus solution for 40 years, and by now the capacity flaws are apparent. If we are really serious about building density, we need to lay more rails.
READ MORE 127 COMMENTS
Posted Wed, Jun 25, midnight
They aren't the only solution, but they are the most flexible and potentially most attractive solution if they are used well. Bus lines are flexible, scalable, and can touch more people than rail, and they don't have to be a pain to use. Part 3 of 3
READ MORE 49 COMMENTS
Posted Mon, Jun 23, 8 p.m.
We've got buses going everywhere, and guess which routes are logging the biggest increases in ridership? Not the route that would become light rail to the Eastside suburbs. Part 2 of 3
READ MORE 27 COMMENTS
Posted Fri, Jan 30, noon
Not only are jobs getting scarcer, but costs are still rising. What is it about recessions that the government doesn't understand?
MOREPosted Thu, Jan 8, 11:07 a.m.
Do we really like this kind of rain better than the white stuff?
MOREPosted Thu, Oct 30, 11:40 a.m. 2008
The editorial board at the P-I has penned eight op-eds on why voters should reject Initiative 985, Tim Eyman's traffic congestion relief measure. Overkill? Apparently not — there's a new op-ed against I-985 on the way.
MOREPosted Wed, Sep 24, 3 a.m. 2008
Now, we all know Microsoft was a big – like $200,000 big – supporter of Sound Transit's 2007 measure to expand light rail around Puget Sound. But as Mike Lindblom at The Seattle Times reported on Monday, the Redmond tech giant only plans to give $10,000 to the supporters of Proposition 1, this year's Sound Transit measure.
Sorry, Sound Transit. You are out of luck.
MOREPosted Mon, Sep 22, 1:38 p.m. 2008
David Goldstein at Horse's Ass wrote over the weekend – post gubernatorial debate – that "there is no state budget deficit," prompting me to wonder what the hell he was talking about. I thought, "Did I miss something?" As Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire said in Saturday's gubernatorial debate, the state is currently generating a surplus. But it has been widely reported – even by Horse's Ass blogger Josh Feit – that the state faces a projected $3.2 billion deficit in the coming years. Gregoire even told The Seattle Times on Friday that she expects a deficit next year. So what gives? The folks at Washington Policy Center Blog put it another way:
MOREPosted Tue, Sep 16, 11:09 p.m. 2008
Efforts to build a large expansion of Seattle's Convention Center are picking up steam, just as the economy loses power. At the coming session of the Legislature, lawmakers will look for projects that have immediate economic benefits. Doubling the state's Convention and Trade Center, as reported here earlier, can provide immediate construction jobs and pretty assured (and unionized) hotel and restaurant business. Moreover, the money to fund an expansion would come from visitor taxes (mostly on hotel rooms) and so wouldn't feel like a hit to taxpayers. What's proposed is a stand-alone meeting palace, about the size of the current Convention Center — thus moving Seattle into the serious mid-sized league for this business. Ah, but where?
MOREPosted Thu, Sep 11, 2:04 p.m. 2008
The past week must have been exciting for local balloteer Tim Eyman. First, the state Supreme Court appeared to side with Eyman when it heard arguments from Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown about the consitutionality of Initiative 960, last year's successful Eyman-sponsored measure requiring a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature to raise taxes. Brown had hoped to get the court to directly address the issue, but observers said the justices weren't receptive to her arguments. Eyman sent out a press release later that day claiming victory. ...
MOREPosted Fri, Sep 5, 4:01 a.m. 2008
Seattle's Convention Center is taking a close look at expanding, perhaps at a different location. It might complicate the coming legislative session if it puts its hand in the state trough of money for tourism-related taxes. Also crowding around the trough are the Huskies, King County arts, Seattle Center, KeyArena, low-income housing, Puget Sound cleanup, and more. And the Convention Center might topple some other interesting transportation dominoes.
MOREPosted Tue, Aug 19, 11 a.m. 2008
Most cures for congestion come in billion-dollar packages, since it's easier for politicians to evade hard choices by instead throwing lots of money at the problem. An example of a simple, cheap (but politically radioactive) cure for congestion is to start replacing curbside parking with lanes for buses, bikes, and pedestrians. A pithy case for doing just that, as New York is trying to do, is "No Parking, Ever'" by Hope Cohen, deputy director of Manahattan Institute's Center for Rethinking Development. It's full of common sense.
MOREPosted Fri, Aug 15, 3 p.m. 2008
Minneapolis is the latest city to develop Portland-envy and, thanks to the Portland-imitating Seattle Streetcar, a little Seattle-envy as well. Minneapolis is now considering a starter-streetcar line, with maybe six more to follow. Minnpost.com writer Steve Berg recently visited the Northwest cities, rode and praised the streetcars, and was "reminded again how far behind downtown Minneapolis has fallen."
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