The new roof going in a King Street station. The green tiles are the new ones
- The UW Regents approved construction for the Husky Stadium station. Construction on the U-Link extension to Link will start in January or February.
- Metro isn’t the only transit agency with funding problems. MTA, the agency that runs the NYC subway and commuter rail in the New York area, will get a 50% fare hike on the subway (from $2 to $3) along with hikes elsewhere and some pretty serious service cuts.
- The price of oil is in free fall, with a barrel of crude below $50, a decline of about two-thirds from a peak of $147 in June. The change is showing up a the pump, too; I saw $2.05 a gallon gas in West Seattle.
- People are getting really worked up about the possibility of paying for parking. Come on, people! Ride the bus already.
The low oil prices are only a sign that the next spike will be even higher and more intense than this year’s. Oil production projects are being slated as capital is drying up. When the economy picks up any speed at all, it will be quickly stifled from inadequate oil production capacity.
Great picture of King Street Station – thanks for posting this!
I’ll have to get down there again and take a look around. I hope that repairing the windows will be part of the immediate restoration phase 1 and not have to wait for subsequent funding. I think they are actually.
Have they repaired the clock faces yet? SDOT has a rosier view of accomplishments so far but the last time I checked around KSS, the claim that the clocks were repaired proved erroneous. Well one was ok and another was getting there but neither of them were accurate and the other two I didn’t get to see due to lack of time.
Tim
Tim,
The improvements for King Street will be a complete interior and exterior restoration. There just isn’t any businesses that have expressed interest into the first and second floors of King Street Station (yet)
I do believe next year will begin work on the clocks again which will bring them all into sync. I have a picture I need to find sometime when I was in the tower a few years back. Incredible views from there.
Thanks Brian
I too have some amazing pictures from the climb up there I took on March 5th when the BNSF formally handed over the station to the city of Seattle. Were you there on that day?
Tim
Re: King St.
If nothing else perhaps Sound Transit might be interested in some more office space?
I suspect people are getting worked up about paying for parking because the city is dictating to the neighborhoods how and what is considered a dense area that needs it and what the boundaries of the RPZ zones are. I know in West Seattle, the RPZ zone is huge, extending out well into residential only neighborhoods, block and blocks away from the commercial zone. THAT is the problem. Oh, and the puzzle that is the West Seattle bus system (most, most – not all, buses heading to downtown, not intra-West Seattle which even more me makes it sometimes necessary to drive).