Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Seattle Times special feature on Sound Transit/Puget Sound transit tax referendum

One of 2016's major transportation stories is how the short extension of the Link light rail line in Seattle to Capitol Hill and the University of Washington has resulted in a doubling of light rail ridership there, from around 30,000 daily riders, to more than 60,000 daily riders.

It's proof that with the right conditions of density and in-demand destinations, transit service can be very effective.

This fall, Sound Transit has a big tax referendum, called Sound Transit 3 (ST3) on the ballot to continue the expansion of the transit system, primarily beyond Seattle.

The Seattle Times, not known for its support of tax referenda, has a nice graphically-oriented feature on the referendum, with a map of the system and the proposed extensions, information on cost and revenue sources, a listing of pros and cons (not particularly deep) and related articles.

-- ST3: What you'd pay, what you'd get, Seattle Times

The feature is a good model for how government agencies of all types--not just transit agencies--might want to up their game in terms of communicating about tax proposals, benefits, costs, etc.

Although Sound Transit has produced a very good website related to the referendum on their own.

-- Sound Transit 3 referendum webpage

Although were it produced by a government agency, rather than a newspaper, I'd also include live links to more information for each of the sections.  Which is what the ST3 website does do.

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2 Comments:

At 11:45 AM, Anonymous charlie said...

very off topic:

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/10/bill-simmons-chargers-stadium-any-given-wednesday-tony-hawk

Bill Simmons attacking the san diego stadium proposal.

It was on HBO, I think you can find the video segment on the ringer (his new website).

 
At 3:51 PM, Blogger Richard Layman said...

thanks. we get HBO so I should be able to find it.

Plus a lot of interesting stuff out there about stadium for Las Vegas.

2. off topic, what do you think?

http://www.richmond.com/business/local/article_f361b40f-1f21-5292-82b6-85a148d7baa8.html

probably should mention it. They go to Richmond because they can pay avg. $60K salary. It would have to be 25% higher or more here. Plus the running costs for space would be higher too.

 

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