Not ideal but if King County Metro was unwilling and/or incapable of doing this competitively, it's probably the best choice. It's increasingly odd as Sound Transit grows for it to have no real in-house operations, would be curious if any other big American transit system is run the same way?

Fun fact: NYC's mayoral race, national news everyday and lauded for its incredible turnout, will end up around at around 40% turnout. Seattle's mayoral race, a race in which the average resident of Bellevue (much less a national reporter!) couldn't tell you who's running, will end above 55%.

FWIW, I do not think this will end up particularly close. Likely ends up with a margin of around 2 points or so for Wilson.

Wilson has well overperformed what she needed tonight. The race is all but over.

One quick caveat to this, actually. Out of curiosity, I changed the aggregate to weight each district's 2023 turnout in the projection (districts with higher turnout influence the aggregate more). Not certain the same districts will be higher turnout this yr, but if so we're looking at a nailbiter!

The core here though is that even if today looks pretty bad for Wilson (expect it to!), that may just be what her path looks like! The big progressive jump we usually see on Friday is likely yet to come. (2/2)

In the aggregate of this projection, this is what we would expect out of today's drop. Despite predicting a Wilson victory in the end, it predicts today to be a pretty bad day for her! Only a marginally better dump than yesterday, needing an even higher % of the remaining votes.

For anyone looking for numbers for the Seattle mayoral discourse, here's a couple excel screenshots to explain what I would expect out of today's drop, and the fate of the race as a whole. First, a day-by-day projection of where I'd expect remaining ballots to end us up. More details below.

Would caution anyone from taking too much information from today's drop then, it seems likely they're still working through what would have been counted yesterday or by election day in past years (i.e. expect it to lean more Harrell than you'd expect from late votes).

Bluesky hiding all "rude" content by default is not a great look considering... well every stereotype about it.

Wilson now needs to win 54.1% of outstanding ballots, well within the range of Morales’ comeback in 2023.

With the new drop Wilson has to win about 55% of the remaining vote to pull ahead. I would expect a ~50k ballot drop tomorrow, she needs to be winning them by a few points at least to be feeling confident moving forward.... I would still give her a slight edge, but I'm guessing a close finish.

This turnout number makes much more sense in logical terms (is actually above 2023 & the 2025 primary as you would expect), but is really odd in data terms. I've never known KC Elections to drop a big number like this, but happy to be corrected by anyone who has seen this before.

Wait what the hell, King County Elections just randomly jumped from 38% to 50%?? This is either a data entry error or they wayyyy undercounted ballots yesterday.

Still kind of blown away how low turnout seems to be ending up in Seattle. A bizarre ending after how the primary went.

If I was considering only the precedent of the primary and the shift in the general of 2021, I'd rather be Wilson. Definitely not a certainty though, these late shifts can always be weird and the murmurs in the days leading up to this were all about low turnout.

This is now the 2nd somewhat recently painted 2-way PBL without dividing lines after 20th St near the FDR. Is there some sort of shortage affecting @nyc-dot.bsky.social? People routinely bike on the wrong side on 20th St thinking it’s one-way, would hate to see that perpetually on Union St too.

I respect @ronpdavis.bsky.social but this is a complete miss. Calling Zahilay's abstention from the Seattle mayoral race (he hasn't endorsed Wilson!!!) "courageous" is a biiiiiiig reach. He didn't endorse simply because he's running this year as well and didn't want to alienate any possible voters.

Proposals #2-4 are pro-affordable housing proposals that have been the subject of more misinformation and intentional smears than any other proposals I've ever seen in NYC history, including an ILLEGAL electioneering campaign by the city council! hellgatenyc.com/nyc-housing-...

I will never vote for any current council member, for any and all future positions, ever again who does not denounce this blatant misuse of millions of taxpayer dollars. This is a tactic straight out of the Trump admin (strikingly resemblance to the Sec Noem TSA video!).

What they tried to do:

I have no clue if I support Ryu in this or not, but this attitude is transparently silly. Senate Dems are not at any risk of losing the majority, they nearly have a supermajority. This is a post-electoral party that should be optimizing for the best governance, not the most battle worthiness.

Was curious about this myself, so just going to leave this here, re: ST3 realignment.

My new take is the airtrain being a rip off is fine BUT: 1. The money should go to the MTA, not the failed institution of the PA. 2. The airtrain should be included in a monthly or annual MTA pass (which should be much more emphasized than fare capping).

I don't think there's extra schedule padding, they've just been replacing Acela runs that were already slower. Schedules are the same today as the same train numbers from Monday pre-launch.

I know a way Clyde Hill can solve their lack of planning for low-income housing and financial problems in one fell swoop. It starts with “annex into” and ends with “Bellevue”.

It’ll get overshadowed by the new Acelas, but Byford has pretty much confirmed the feds are going to go all in on forcing LIRR & NJT to accept thru-running. It’ll be a big win for the region if he succeeds.

1. School districts struggle because a housing crisis cripples their enrollment and state funding lowers because of it. 2. Tax new housing to help fill in the funding gap. 3. Housing crisis worsens, enrollment drops further. Great plan guys!

The answer to this problem is to use the pocket (third) track at Northgate to short turn trains. Whether it’s all 2 Line trains or just select trains at rush hour, this alone would solve basically all the reliability issues at Lynnwood, and helps center frequency on the busiest part of the system.

There realistically will not be enoguh money to build Line 4. I appreciate the instinct to defend transit, but it may already be time to start thinking about pivoting to only finishing the planning/design work for a better alignment (a la Dwtn Redmond & ST2) rather than committing to an awful one.

In retrospect it was really embarrassing that NYC’s sole reconnecting communities grant was for a far outer borough rails-to-trails conversion, rather than anything related to one of the many urban freeways across the city.

Big win for Seattle NIMBYs! Right as the old cities of the East toss aside member deference to address their housing crises, Seattle decides it’s a cool idea that needs trying.

This is the most Seattle-looking non-Seattle logo I’ve ever seen!

Oh and Seattle should cancel the second downtown tunnel given the insanity, and just try to stuff even more trains through the current tunnel.

One person train operation is the standard practice for metro and subway systems all across the world—and many cities already have fully automated lines with no impact on safety. This bill would hurt riders and lock New York's transit system in the past.

Cities have not necessarily planned for high densities near transit. We examined comprehensive plans in cities in the three regions studied, and found that many areas near stations continue to be zoned for low densities. Recent state laws will improve the matter, but perhaps not enough.

Still reading through this fully, but Question 2 seems like it could be a quiet but big win for housing as well! Given a friendly City Planning Commission, it could effectively reverse many of the outer borough Bloomberg downzonings.

Five-story new residential construction two blocks from a brand new subway stop in the densest neighborhood in the world newyorkyimby.com/2025/07/232-...

Very, very, very excited about this. Really hoping they go big with these.

This looks great, except I don’t see why this part is necessary at all: “To qualify [] developers would have to have ties to a non profit organization, a public housing authority, or a public development authority” If the requirement is only 25%, why can’t developers manage this on their own?

If someone acknowledges the policy tradeoffs of pursuing a policy you like that means they are a Bad Person who is on the Other Team.

This mall in a wealthy suburb of Seattle will soon be zoned to allow higher density than the majority of the East Village (including this lot). @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social you can fix this!

newyorkyimby.com/2025/06/rend... I don’t have much hope for change but I will never stop talking about how criminal it is that this is the maximum allowed density for new builds literally steps away from multiple subway stations in the East Village.

Here's my q: What is the problem we're trying to solve?

The MTA could also increase speeds by a comparable amount simply by turning on all the back door fare readers they have on buses (already installed!), and allowing all-door boarding. No hundreds of millions of dollars annually required!

Crazy that such a minor tax code adjustment requires a voter initiative for approval. A system designed to prevent effective governance.

Lots of suspense for ranked choice tabulations in NYC-04! I would probably want to be Aronson or Maloney right now, but one of them could also not even make it to the last round so who knows.

First time since the pandemic I’ve been on a full 7 King County bus in the middle of the day. I want to see the data, but it seems like more people might be riding this route since fares were required and there are more clear expectations being set around what is expected bus etiquette?

Highly encourage anyone who has even a marginal interest in Manhattan to go to manhattanplan.nyc and weigh in! We’re likely in the last few lame duck months of the most pro-housing mayoral admin of the 2020s, so getting this in before the buzzer is vital.

Word’s autocorrect has gotten remarkably stupid, to the point where the majority of suggestions on a page I just reviewed are flat out incomprehensibly stupid or wrong. How does the most valuable company in the world destroy such a simple completely functioning feature so easily?