Martin H. Duke
Seattle Transit Blog
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Past articles by Martin:
Youth fares almost gone
myorca.com The youth fare is abolished effective Sept. 1st. This year’s transportation package in Olympia sends transit agencies a bunch of money in return for getting rid of the fare, neatly… → Read More
Seattle’s position on WSBLE
Too little internet content is about unironic appreciation for people doing the right thing. So good for Dan Strauss, trying to put the light rail station where the people are in his district: “Pla… → Read More
Weekend open thread: East Link testing
Visit the post for more. → Read More
Weekend Open Thread: Art at Redmond Station
Visit the post for more. → Read More
Join the Lynnwood Link Mobility Board
Light rail tracks running toward Northgate Transit Center (Lizz Giordano) Metro usually gathers a citizen sounding board when it’s planning a major service change. It’s a way to gather … → Read More
Comment on the WSBLE
Last week Sound Transit released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the West Seattle/Ballard Link Extension (WSBLE), the long-awaited Link line from Alaska Junction to 15th and Mar… → Read More
Big housing bills in the legislature
Seattle’s new Mayor does not seem to be a fertile source of pro-housing legislation, having campaigned on skepticism about changing single family zones. But instead of struggling for dimes, w… → Read More
Link a little slower than expected
Sound Transit recently released a revised Link schedule that will take effect January 8th “to better reflect actual trip times.” The main difference is that a Northgate-Angle Lake trip … → Read More
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan
No one is going to remember the Durkan administration, positively or negatively, based on its transit or land use legacy. The twin crises of the pandemic and a reckoning with racist policing will d… → Read More
Most read posts of 2021
2021 was the slowest year at STB in well over a decade. Nevertheless, both readers and commenters turned out when we did: Most Read → Read More
Snow Open Thread
This snow will stick around a while. In non-pandemic, normal work week times, this might have been a snowpocalypse event. Meanwhile, Metro’s Emergency Snow Network is in effect. ST express has Snow reroutes but Link is basically unaffected. 6 Sounder trips are suspended. → Read More
ST Board makes the obvious decision
OMF at S. 336th St is “preferred” On Thursday, the Sound Transit Board made the responsible decision and designated S. 336th St in Federal Way as the “preferred” site of Sou… → Read More
Stay Healthy Streets aren’t bold, they’re a layup
One of the better local initiatives to come out of the pandemic are Stay Healthy Streets, roads minimally reconfigured (usually by putting a sign in the roadway) to prioritize non-auto uses. Theore… → Read More
For the lack of an announcement
Everyone involved regrets Friday’s rather long Link outage after the Apple Cup. Coming after a major sporting event and shortly after new stations opened, there were probably quite a few new … → Read More
One more week to apply for bus tickets
If you’re an organization that works with populations eligible for free bus tickets, you can apply to distribute them in 2022. Apply here; the deadline is November 30th. There is a pool of $4m in tickets at face value. Of course, to the extent that this doesn’t displace fare-paying ridership, there is no actual budget impact to distributing as many of these as possible. → Read More
Streamlined Bellevue College service may really happen
Over 10 years ago (!) I wrote that rebuilding a short road near Bellevue College to support buses would straighten multiple Bellevue trunk routes and save millions in annual operating expenses. I&#… → Read More
News roundup: October highlights
Maybe we can back to weekly roundups soon… Name the new ferryMetro’s new real-time info signsComment on Kent/Des Moines TOD through Nov. 15Results from giving out ORCA cardsSeattle Coun… → Read More
DSTT escalators still a problem
Out of service escalators at Westlake Station.Credit: Bruce Englehardt Last Thursday’s Rider Experience Committee meeting featured an update on the parlous state of the Downtown Seattle Trans… → Read More
Real-time arrival out for the winter?
Regular Link riders might notice that real-time arrival information did not, in fact, come back with the Northgate stations as promised in September. ST’s John Gallagher says that “Whil… → Read More
Podcast #101: My Betrayal of All That is Good
Bruce Nourish joins me to discuss a bunch of stuff. (0:00) Hot takes on the election; we basically agree on all issues and then vote in opposite ways. Warning: we go way off-topic beyond transit an… → Read More