A May Day protest march downtown will likely muck up the Seattle commute

• City of Seattle

Does Seattle work any more?

A former mayor takes a critical look at Seattle's political culture, its past triumphs, and why it's so much harder today to make good decisions. One problem: We chew but do not swallow.

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Here's Dino Rossi's $15 billion transportation plan

• Seattle Times

King County Metro buses are fuller — and tardy more often

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Sound Transit version 2.1

Imagine this scenario. Sound Transit comes back to ballot this fall with a shortened light rail plan and all three county executives within the voting district oppose it. Wouldn't that make for an interesting campaign season?

It might just happen. Right now, Ron Sims (King), John Ladenburg (Pierce), and Aaron Reardon (Snohomish) have grave reservations about Sound Transit's scaled-back proposal, which would extend the line up to Northgate and across the Interstate 90 floating bridge to the Eastside suburbs.

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Is there a problem, officer?

Yeah there's a problem. It seems you were about to drive your shiny, black Volvo wagon into the Seattle bus tunnel under downtown.

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The Sierra Club hasn't endorsed a Sound Transit light rail plan

• Stranger (Seattle)

Citizens from all sides agree a new Highway 520 bridge won't carry light rail

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Traffic's so bad, we might actually be willing to pay a toll

Puget Sound policy-makers have been taking the public pulse. Their surveys reveal that people are generally pessimistic about the future, frustrated with traffic, and willing to pay to cross Lake Washington in a car — as long as it's really cheap.

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Seattle parking's free on Monday; here's what's closed

• Seattle Times

Give foot ferries the boot

First, a compliment to Bruce Agnew of the Cascadia Center for Regional Development. The guy keeps pushing for new ideas in transportation, even when the rest of us are running away from the Heartbreak House of bold new ideas to solve our congestion. Cascadia wants to grab the Eastside rail line that might otherwise be torn up for a walking trail and make it into a Snohomish-to-Renton commuter rail line. (Cheap, but the line does not really go where the cities are.) The institute wants to solve the Alaskan Way Viaduct problem by boring a tunnel under Second Avenue, deflecting the through traffic so the waterfront only needs a modest surface boulevard. (Expensive, and needing a private partner, which alarms public-sector Democrats.) And now, a network of foot ferries on Puget Sound.

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Bus boardings in King County rose 7 percent last year

• Seattle Times

Last year, 863 people got off Seattle buses and forgot to take their bikes

• Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The last train to Hooterville

If you're trying to get from the Cheesecake Factory to South Lake Union, this SLUT's for you.

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The road ahead on federal transportation funding

How is the U.S. going to fund surface transportation improvements in the future? Congress created the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission in 2005 to look at just that question and their report to Congress is due out Tuesday, Jan. 15. But Ken Orski, a Washington, D.C.-based transportation consultant, has a sneak preview. He reports that it includes some fairly controversial recommendations regarding tolling, congestion pricing, public private partnerships, and the future of the gas tax, all front-burner issues here in the Great Nearby. Are you bus and rail commuters ready for a "federal ticket tax?" Or how about a tax on every mile you drive?

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Fare coverage

Let's say you run a business and your front door opens 310,000 times a day to let customers inside. Many are regulars, going in and out a few times daily. They are mostly strangers to each other, and once inside they spend a lot of time crowded together in small spaces. At any given time, some are running late and very cranky; others are lonely or wasted; buried in a tattered copy of The Da Vinci Code; and/or just plain nuts.

If you had just three reports of people being hurt or harassed each day, people would think you were doing a decent job on the safety front, right? Yes, unless you're a public-transit agency.

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Crossed trolley wires: the Seattle Streetcar vs. Metro buses

• KUOW-FM

Beyond Proposition 1: A new consensus is emerging

A group headed by Norm Rice and John Stanton is gathering allies for a more rational and practical approach to the region's transit needs. Both supporters and opponents of the failed Proposition 1 are part of the effort.

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Season's greeting from the — 17th century?

Who would have thought that nearly a decade into the 21st century, downtown streetcars and the mosquito fleet would be making comebacks in Seattle? Instead of super-slick mag-lev mass transit, we'd be juicing up the old bus system, adding bike lanes and considering tearing down an elevated highway to replace it with a boulevard? In the holiday retail core, giant nutcracker soldiers stand guard outside of stores like cigar-store Indians of old. I guess they're cheaper than real cops: no overtime.

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Two foes of Proposition 1 propose a blueprint for the next transportation plan

• Seattle Times