Last week, the King County Council approved legislation I sponsored to report on “ghost buses". What are ghost buses? They’re unplanned trip cancellations that make life difficult for transit riders. As a regular transit rider myself, nothing is more frustrating than standing at a bus stop, waiting for a bus that is never going to come — maybe in the rain, in the dark, maybe now you’re late to work, missed a doctor’s appointment, or lost time with your family.
Unplanned trip cancellations happen when a bus never leaves the base for its route, which can happen for a variety of reasons. This legislation asks Metro to do a better job of reporting these cancellations to the public through updates to the Council on how they are or could provide real-time information to riders and use data about trip cancellations to inform updates to transit service.
Source: HistoryLink
Did you know that the first woman elected to a city council in Washington State was a Kirkland woman? Carrie Shumway was elected to the Kirkland City Council in 1911, only a year after Washington women were permanently given the right to vote (find more information about the rocky road to women’s voting rights in Washington here).
Councilmember Shumway was born in Massachusetts, earned her degree from Mount Holyoke College, and moved to Washington state in 1883 when she was 25. An educator, she taught in Seattle, Tacoma, and Tokyo. Her dedication to civic engagement extended to helping to found the Seattle Bicycle Club and the Seattle Camera Club, as well as being a charter member of the Kirkland Woman’s Club and an active member of local churches. She is one example of the many Eastside women who were and are trailblazers for women and their communities.
Last week, I visited the Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station, which reduces water pollution and improves aquatic habitat and overall water quality in the Duwamish River. As Chair of the Regional Water Quality Committee, it’s my job to help lead our county’s work to protect our water, for the health of our people, wildlife, and environment.
The Georgetown Wet Weather Treatment Station can clean up to 70 million gallons of polluted stormwater runoff per day that would otherwise get into the Duwamish River and Puget Sound. This state-of-the-art facility received a Platinum rating from the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, the first project in Washington to earn this rating.
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