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Just Like at Gawker, Commenter Rewrites Seattle Times Headline on Crime

Michael van Baker — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 16:07:36 +0000

Overnight, a commenter on a story about the violent crime rate in downtown Seattle changed the headline for everyone. In a follow-on story to the shooting of a Metro bus driver, the Times supported the Downtown Seattle Association's contention that crime is getting worse, before noting that the data say no, same old, same old.

Why Your King County Metro Bus Route’s Future is Up to the State

Michael van Baker — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:20:31 +0000

Surprisingly, the audience for this particular piece of political theatre is the state legislature in Olympia, as they control King County's ability to create more stable funding mechanisms for Metro, but have been reluctant to cede that authority, despite King County's evident willingness to pay.

Seattle Takes Light Rail Train to Job Growth

Michael van Baker — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:30:34 +0000

In a related Reuters story, APTA spotlights Seattle, "where transit rides rose 11.8 percent over the year as the metropolitan area added more than 30,000 jobs." From January 2012 to January 2013, the state of Washington added some 65,800 jobs (98 percent of which were in the private sector), with the unemployment rate now holding steady at around 7.5 percent statewide, 6.3 percent in Seattle.

New Trip-Planning App WhichBus Reaches Private Beta

Michael van Baker — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 17:19:16 +0000

WhichBus approaches the Seattle bus dilemma from a different direction than OBA, which assumes that you know where you are and where you're going. (You can search out these particulars using OBA, but it's not as easy as it could be.) WhichBus uses King County Metro's real-time data to help you solve how to get from A to B.

Would You Pay to Park & Ride? Should You?

Michael van Baker — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 18:49:45 +0000

The idea puts some Seattle Times commenters ranters in a tight spot, where they have to portray this eminently capitalist solution to a supply-and-demand problem as "socialist" because it is being thought of by a transit agency. (The reverse is clearly true: Free parking is socialism.) But at first glance, it seems like this might hurt transit ridership, and wouldn't that be a problem?

Alaskan Way Reroute Begins 2nd Week of May

Michael van Baker — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:15:47 +0000

Moving ahead with the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement project, Washington Department of Transportation crews will reroute Alaskan Way traffic south of Spring Street to a newly improved road below the viaduct. That in turn will change the way you get to the ferry toll plaza at Colman Dock.