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BNSF and UP have been working with WSDOT and ODOT to develop plans for the future of Amtrak Cascades service, the bad guys here are actually CN who flatly refused

My understanding is BNSF is perfectly happy with it as long as ODOT and WSDOT pay for the upgrades. WSDOT also wants to buy its part of the Cascades corridor if it gets the money

But yes, Cascadia HSR (which would be true HSR) is slowly moving forward through planning. It makes sense because right now the stretch from Eugene to Vancouver BC has over 11 million people and growing fast with closer to 14m expected at the earliest possible time this would open

Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Nobody is under the delusion that 250mph trains can use the existing ROW, everything Ive seen is just the conflation of trains going 125mph with HSR

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Putting my bets in for sales tax levied on store-brand food and a $1 increase of transit fares

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And this is in spite of the fact that MUNI's locals stop every 500' as if it is 1920

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Rapids in San Francisco like the 38R are not much faster than their local variant

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It harms the elderly, people with disabilities, kids, etc but the harm is not just limited to these people. The only people it helps live by one of the stations and commute downtown and that help is marginal at best (Look at how the 9X is not that much faster than the 7, look at how the...

actively bad for corridors with dense housing and businesses all along them

the .5 mi stop spacing on a BRT with no local+express setup (and that is a setup which would NOT work on a corridor as short as Rainier, especially since you sacrifice frequency) is something Minneapolis does and it works,,, kinda meh for routes for people going between major destination and it is..

Removing stops to the extent they are planning is unlikely to save an appreciable amount of time. We know that in urban environments stops every 1-1.3k ft works best. .5 mi stop spacing just treats the R as a way to quickly carry people downtown, not a way to move within the corridor

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The Rapids in SF flatly suck because they dont save much time even though the locals have absurdly short stop spacing and this sacrifices frequency and capacity

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the express in center lanes. Ideally in a local+express setup you would only have the express stop every 15-20 blocks (this is why this would work for the E and I). the R is not long enough to do this so youre better served by running a single route more frequently with slightly tighter stop spacing

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Actually no, I just remembered why I changed my mind and no longer think that, just have the .25 mile stop spacing on the R with no local. SFBA demonstrates why local+express doesnt work for most circumstances, especially when the corrdior is not very long and doesnt have the ROW width to run...

SFBA is not a great example because the rapids have the stop spacing a local should and VTA doesnt have the service hours but I definitely agree that the R should be the more frequent express with a half hourly 7 under it that serves prentence st

Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Stop pitting Seattle projects against Seattle projects, the real problem is the ST Board's refusal to delay EVLE because in America cities are forced to bend over backwards for the convenience of the suburbs

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Also people gotta stop treating WSLE like a useless project and stop pretending the last three stations of the BLE will net 170k daily riders. The WSLE will allow the truncation of the C, H, 21, 125 and the deletion of 56/57 allowing a massive expansion of local service in west seattle

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

The gondola is so laughably unserious, building nothing would be better

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Also, can we stop holding up progressive candidates saying "I didnt want to run but I had to" as a virtue? Its okay for a progressive to want to have power and hold political office

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Being nice doesnt mean being spineless. Mamdani ran a nice campaign and called cuomo a pedo. Your opponent being recommended by the king county republicans is an important thing for voters to know.

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Im so INCREDIBLY done with progressive campaigns being like "we are going to have a nice campaign" and by "nice" they mean never criticizing the opponent for things like BEING RECOMMEND BY THE KING COUNTY REPUBLICANS and DELETING A BUS LANE BECAUSE A BUISNESS WANTS IT GONE

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Blastin dracula flow in my ears on this bus Swimmin in those bars like its friday night Gonna turn my ears to hellen keller I dont give a shit If I had a dollar for every shit I gave Id be broke cos I dont give a shit This shit aint nothin to me man To anyone above the age of 30 welcome to culture

Reposted by Harper

Michael Smith @mesmith35673.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I’m working with every transit agency in the region to put together a total ridership count for Monday and the 4th of July weekend. I don’t have the data from every agency yet, but it looks like Monday’s total will be between 800k-1M boardings.

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

My estimate would be (barring other similar events) 300k will be somewhat common single day ridership for large events around 2035-2040. By that time crosslake and the 2 line will have had about 10 years to mature, WSLE & TDLE should be open, and general seattle pop will have grown

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

By my estimate the day of match 6 saw north of 800k transit boardings in the four county metro area

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Reposted by Harper

Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Having parades on 4th Ave is genuinely unacceptable, especially now that we have a nice open waterfront

6 buses, 5 of which are delayed between 7 and 22 minutes

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

We cannot be telling people to take the bus to the parade while destroying our bus service

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Harper @harlander.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

Having parades on 4th Ave is genuinely unacceptable, especially now that we have a nice open waterfront

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AvgZing @avgzing.com · 24/06/2026

We are literally giving ourselves free land and going "meh, sell to private developers and have them build nothing"

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Reposted by Harper

Only 400 units estimated current zoning vs ~2,500 under midrise zoning shows: 1. NR zone updates won't solve our housing crisis 2. We underbuild in sensitive areas, resulting in *increased* gentrification rather than offsetting w/ supply 3. People don't see a problem with #1 or #2 even in our dreams

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"yeah, lets put a few 3 and 4 story apartment buildings, maybe a couple small towers, and a bunch of townhomes. That's really the vibe of the neighborhood we want in the middle of a MASSIVE HOUSING CRISIS"

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This gets at my biggest frustration with American reclamation projects. Every single time we are given what is essentially free land, we try to create a diversity of housing at the expense of capacity or simply underzone the entire thing. What are we doing looking at free land and going...

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It also says this would allow for the creation of only 400 new homes. This is NOTHING and demonstrates a deep lack of ambition and the weakness of NR zoning. If this area were zoned to MR it could house thousands

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Look, in reality, no hate to whomever made this, I agree with many of the decisions here and I would genuinely like to talk.

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Look, I know east-west service in south seattle is hard but please give this like, 5 more minutes, I promise you'll find a better way

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We REALLY need to have a conversation about yalls upgrading full routes to RapidRide instead of restructuring. Instead of doing this, RapidRide the north-south part of the 62 and splitting the east west-part into a new route that runs along 65th from Ballard to Sand Point????

Idk what to even do with this God forbid you ever want to go northwest of Lake City Why are you wasting service hours on a frequent 73 that goes all the way down to UWS When it duplicates... whatever you have going on with the 348 AND the 45 AND the 48 (ik why, ur just wrong) Imagine the reliability

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I understand what you were trying to do here but you HAVE to realize there is a less dumb way (the dumb part isnt it getting lost in Magnolia, that I'm broadly fine with)

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It's so bad, why is it so bad, who got paid to make this Why,,, what is happening here??? Btw, Blue and orange are RAPIDRIDES

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