Looking to connect people? Mark Twain: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Rail travel benefits the economy, environment, & equity, & is supported by liberals and conservatives. Donate to @aawa.us at www.aawa.us/support/ & @allaboardnw.org at allaboardnw.org/support/

You can still connect between Amtrak and transit in western Washington during the #WeekWithoutDriving. See the All Aboard Washington website at aawa.us/week-without... for details for 20 cities.

A rail advocate is anyone who wants to improve passenger rail and is willing to talk to other people including elected officials about jmproving passenger trains. Attend the Pacific Northwest Rail Summit, and learn how you can be a more effective passenger rail advocate. aawa.us/news/posts/r...

Imagine your life without driving. We are joining organizations across Washington State to celebrate the #WeekWithoutDriving! Will you be participating by #AmtrakCascades or #SounderRail ? Check out our guide to rail and transit connections at www.aawa.us/week-without... Post your stories!

First day of #WeekWithoutDriving 2025, are you ready? disabilityrightswa.org/how-would-yo...

I'm happy to know some intersting people! www.westsiderag.com/2025/09/19/u...

Finally wrapped up my recap of the 2025 YIMBYtown conference, an event that really seemed to mark a new era for the national pro-housing movement. Plenty of tensions were put on the table for advocates to grapple with. www.theurbanist.org/2025/09/27/y...

@aawa.us is encouraging individuals and elected officials to spend the week from Sep 29 – Oct 5 without using cars. To help plan car-free trips, AAWA has created a website at aawa.us/week-without... detailing how to connect between local transit and 20 Amtrak and commuter rail stations.

Join us in Portland October 15-17 for the Pacific Northwest Rail Summit, where passenger and freight rail leaders and elected officials will discuss opportunities to improve the shared rail system that spans the Greater Northwest. Details at nwsummit.org. Register now to attend in person or online.

@aawa.us is pleased to participate in the #WeekWithoutDriving this year. We'll shortly be posting some suggestions about how you can make connections between 21 Washington state passenger rail stations and local transit. Stay tuned!

This song cherylwheeler.com/songs/song/i... was written in 1997, and we're still reposting it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op7a...

"I don't think the public's semantic reactions to the terminology of imperialism is as bad as you imagine. They seem quite satisfied, now, with the change in the title of your department, from Defense to Aggression." --H. Beam Piper, Lone Star Planet, 1958 Catching up with dystopian science fiction.

"Beavers are just incredible little engines of climate resilience." southseattleemerald.org/community/20... @ponderbeaver.bsky.social

Congratulations to Anna Zivarts as being named a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards! www.thestranger.com/books/2025/0... If you haven't read Anna's book When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency yet, hop on a bus or a bike and grab it!

Congratulations to @nondriver.bsky.social as being named a finalist for the Washington State Book Awards! www.thestranger.com/books/2025/0... If you haven't read Anna's book When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency by Anna Zivarts yet, hop on a bus or a bike and grab it!

The UN postal agency said Tuesday that 25 countries had decided to suspend package deliveries to the United States, as concern grows over the impact of President Donald Trump's looming tariffs. u.afp.com/SAxm

You have a choice of social media platforms. I manage a Mastodon instance (hosted outside the US) called rail.chat and there are many others. Please join us.

@trolleybusenjoyer.bsky.social will enjoy this!

"For four decades, an English professor at San Jose State University has run a fiction contest for a single opening sentence to "the worst of all possible novels." He has decided to retire the contest." chas.us/blog/still-d...

"The Earth is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space. We do not realize what we have on Earth until we leave it. Earth is a spaceship. We must learn to manage the resources of this world with new imagination." Jim Lovell, 1929-2025 We've lost another of the few people with that perspective.

Join us next Saturday, August 9, at noon! All Aboard Washington will be having our annual picnic in Lacey! We need to get an accurate count, so please register online for the event at www.aawa.us/events/aawa-... no later than Monday, August 4, at 9 pm PT.

Trump Policies Will Cost The U.S. Up To $29 Billion In Tourism ht: @comstockb.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/suzann...

Despite the news from DC this week, our work in the Greater Northwest continues. We had great crowds at our Train Trek presentations in South Dakota allaboardnw.org/blog/south-d... and good discussions about restoring SEA-CHI service aawa.us/news/posts/b...

Despite the news from DC this week, our work in the Greater Northwest continues. We had great crowds at our Train Trek presentations in South Dakota allaboardnw.org/blog/south-d... and good discussions about restoring SEA-CHI service aawa.us/news/posts/b...

“Fund the 15!” Building Out a True National Network www.railwayage.com/passenger/in...

Prices like this might make a slight dent in car dependence. But manufacture of other modes, from airplanes to trains to bikes to buses, is just as international. Horses, anyone?

"The trains in San Francisco's Muni Metro light railway…won't start up in the morning until someone sticks a floppy disk into the computer that loads DOS software on the railway's Automatic Train Control System." www.bbc.com/future/artic...

"The United States seems to be sleepwalking into a transport dead end, slashing funding for public infrastructure and firing transit workers…. America may be heading inexorably toward a binary choice: fast, exclusive and environmentally ruinous or slow, tortuous and run-down." arr.as/stuck

"Between light rail and the bus, you can pretty much get anywhere in the city and the surrounding suburbs..And yet driving is still so much faster, so much more convenient, that it’s very rare for families with kids who can afford a car not to drive where they need to go for transportation."

@nyc5265.bsky.social Great to see your quote.

So, does the new pope like Chicago pizza or Italian pizza?

Recognize that yellow label? Sometime during the Carter administration, I did the paperwork for creating those when I worked for US DOE. techcrunch.com/2025/05/07/t...

Is U.S. Transportation Policy Ready For The ‘Silver Tsunami’? usa.streetsblog.org/2025/05/07/i...

Whee! Redmond is getting a Barnes dance! www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2025/... A what? ssti.us/2017/06/05/r...

Thank you, cousin Cheryl! www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ICC...

The AAWA board met over the weekend to plan upcoming advocacy and social events. Stay tuned for more! And thanks, Harvey, for hosting us.

"More than 200 local attorneys raised their right hands Thursday at the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle and repeated in unison the oath they took years or decades ago when they first joined the Washington State Bar Association." www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Oregon legislature passes bill seeking to strengthen regional rail planning www.trains.com/trn/news-rev...

No matter what we hear sometimes, this country is still filled with good and caring people. Happy Easter.

"Scientists responsible for monitoring the health of West Coast fisheries are cleaning office bathrooms and reconsidering critical experiments after the Dept of Commerce failed to renew their lab’s contracts for hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT and building maintenance." arr.as/noaa

"Ray Charles’ rendition of the ballad is iconic, and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his recording, a new video was released that truly captures both the grandeur and the humility of America." steady.substack.com/p/america-th...

Am I the only one who finds these images, that seem to be all over LinkedIn, off-putting and downright creepy? I don't know the person pictured, and I'm not even going to try to do an alt text.

I represented AANW with this testimony. They ran out of time, so you won't see me on the recording.

My first tech job was at the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library, building assistive technology even before the web. It completely changed the direction of my career. How do you put a value on that, both for me and for the library clients with disabilities that I served? (arr.as/wtbbl)

"Wealthy business leaders are turning on US President Donald Trump over his plan to impose a colossal set of tariffs on America’s trading partners, as losses mount on stock markets around the world." www.cnn.com/2025/04/07/b...

Bluesky’s Quest to Build Nontoxic Social Media X and Facebook are governed by the policies of mercurial billionaires. Bluesky’s C.E.O., Jay Graber, says that she wants to give power back to the user. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

I've been thinking about which customers will be affected. But I hadn't thought of this one. Trump’s team is attacking [what we do]. To lessen exposure to retribution and harassment or worse, we need our website to go offline. We don’t want it to be permanently deleted.

Amtrak Cascades resumes all trips this weekend aawa.us/news/posts/a...

Thank you so much for being part of rail.chat! We're so successful that we've had to buy more hosting. Please donate to our sponsor, All Aboard Northwest, keep our train moving. www.paypal.com/donate/?host...