Guest Contributor, Transit

Will Rainier Valley Transit Riders Actually  Benefit from the Proposed Rapid Ride R?
Riders on the 7

By Anna Zivarts

Back in 2021, I went to visit one of the young people I was organizing alongside. Abby Griffith lived in an affordable housing complex in Vancouver, Washington, and she kept on telling me how difficult it was for her to access transit because of how far the bus stop was from the complex. 

I remember looking it up on a map, and thinking, pfft, that’s not really that bad—what is she complaining about? But then when I met Abby at her apartment and we walked the distance together, I realized how long it took her, as a blind person who uses a white cane to navigate, to cover the distance to the stop. What had seemed like no big deal to me added enough extra time to every trip that it created a significant travel barrier for her every time she wanted to leave her apartment. 

I keep coming back to this walk with Abby when I think about the proposed Rapid Ride R. What would it mean for Rainier Valley residents who rely on transit to lose access to their local bus stop as stops are consolidated and cut in order to reduce travel times along the route? Will the Rapid Ride R be a positive change for the many seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income families who rely on the bus for our travel needs?

The Rapid Ride R is proposed as a replacement to the 7, which is Metro’s second busiest route, moving 11,000 transit riders daily through some of the most transit-dependent neighborhoods in the region. I’ve never ridden another bus where there’s more competition for the flexible space in the front. Between walkers, wheelchairs, strollers and grocery carts, space is a premium. And for many of these users, longer trips along Rainier Valley’s cracked and crumbling sidewalks to get to more-distant bus stops would make travel significantly more difficult. 

It’s not just people with disabilities and seniors that will experience these proposed changes as a new barrier. Parents with young children will understand this, as will anyone who has tried to carry something heavy or unwieldy (a melting paper bag of groceries, for example) home from the bus stop. 

In 2020, Metro estimated the Rapid Ride R could save 7-12 minutes of travel time compared to the 7. But since then, the Seattle Department of Transportation has installed most of the planned bus-only lanes, meaning that much of the anticipated time savings have already been realized. Frustratingly, because of a rushed timeline (Metro wants the King County Council to approve the alignment by the end of this year) the agency hadn’t had time to do any new analysis, so it’s hard to know if, eliminating stops as proposed will meaningfully improve travel times compared to the 7 bus today. Even a 10-minute faster trip isn’t faster for you if you have to walk an extra 10 minutes to get to a further bus stop.

There’s also the bigger question: Is a slightly faster route from Rainier Valley to downtown Seattle the best investment, compared to other potential transit priorities for Southeast Seattle? The downtown-centric alignment of the Rapid Ride R was based on pre-pandemic destination data. Despite profound changes in commute patterns since then, there hasn’t been time or resources to examine whether Rainier Valley’s transit needs have evolved.

When I talk to other transit riders, I’ve heard people say they have plenty of transit options to get downtown—light rail provides a direct and express route already. What we’re missing are direct routes to Tukwila, Renton and First Hill, as well as east-west connections to places like Georgetown and South Park. Perhaps Metro thinks there is an untapped market of currently-driving downtown office workers who could be enticed to start riding the Rapid Ride. But for the rest of us already using transit in Rainier Valley, I doubt many of us would pick the Rapid Ride R alignment as our top priority.

There’s also the issue of what happens to transit riders who rely on the 7 in the area south of Henderson Street, since the proposed R would head towards the Rainier Beach light rail station instead of heading further south. This area has seen a lot of recent apartment construction and is also home to the Rainier Beach Safeway and the older Lake Washington Apartments complex. Metro seems to be suggesting that transit demand in this area can be met by Metro Flex, an on-demand transit service, but my own and other users’ experiences, trying to use Flex in this area is frustrating, impractical and not at all comparable to a regularly scheduled, fixed-route bus.

There are parts of the Rapid Ride investment proposal that make a lot of sense. Bus priority signals would allow buses to queue jump at intersections (let’s hope this can fix the delays at the Jackson/Rainier interchange). There are still places where the bus gets caught in traffic and bus-only lanes should be extended. 

Most critically, if you’ve ever walked along or waited at a bus stop along Rainier on a rainy day, you’ve probably been soaked as passing cars splash you with gutter puddle juice. Rainier needs drainage upgrades and there are a lot of places that desperately need new sidewalks. Level boarding platforms at bus stops could potentially ease the boarding process for the many Rainier Valley transit riders traveling with wheelchairs, walkers, strollers and grocery carts. 

But right now, it’s unclear whether the funding for this full suite of improvements exists and where it would come from. The 2024 Seattle Transportation Levy contains funding for repaving on the northern section of Rainier from Walker Street to Jackson, which will include sidewalk improvements. But who and what funding source would pay for other pedestrian infrastructure upgrades remains unclear. 

Metro’s timeline for community engagement ends August 31. So far, the proposal has received very little media coverage, aside from this detailed Seattle Transit Blog piece, and I worry that many transit riders in the Rainier Valley haven’t had a chance to learn what’s being proposed. I called into an online open house on Saturday where I was one of three community members in attendance.

I want to see transit and infrastructure dollars go to Rainier Valley. I’m thrilled that there’s political momentum behind doing so. But I want to make sure we’re taking this opportunity to make the investments that community members need today. 

Anna Zivarts is the founder and executive director of the Nondrivers Alliance, which has launched a petition to question the elimination of local transit stops on Rainier. 

 

homelessness

KCRHA Layoffs Begin, With Executive Positions, Financial Staff Untouched
KCRHA Chief Operating Officer William Towey speaks to a King County Council committee while CEO Kelly Kinnison looks on.

By Erica C. Barnett

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority made its first round of layoffs on Tuesday, six days after CEO Kelly Kinnison sent an email to staff letting them know they might receive layoff notices this week. After waiting in limbo for five days, not knowing if they’d have a job when they returned to work, staffers got another notice on Monday to let them know that the people who would be laid off would receive an invitation to an HR meeting the following day.

When the layoffs finally came, Kinnison and her right-hand man, William Towey, were nowhere to be found. Instead, the agency’s top two executives were at a meeting of the King County Council’s Committee of the Whole, providing a rare two-person update on the work an outside consultant, Turning Point Strategic Advisors, is doing to reconcile the agency’s books and figure out the source of $8 million in “unreconciled funds” the agency failed to account for.

For some current and former staff, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that the executives had decided to attend the meeting together to avoid being at the office while people learned they were losing their jobs.

The missing $8 million—which, Towey revealed Tuesday, could actually be more than that amount—was identified in a damning forensic audit earlier this year; that audit led the county and city to begin clawing back homelessness contracts the KCRHA took over in 2022.

A spokesperson for KCRHA confirmed that 10 people have been laid off, one resigned voluntarily before the layoffs took place, and six vacant positions will remain vacant. (The KCRHA’s governing board approved Kinnison’s request for seven new staffers in June).  In an email to staff this week, Kinnison also noted that two employees, the chief people officer and the chief communications officer, are getting title demotions “from ‘Chief’ to ‘Senior Director’ to reflect reduced team sizes and/or responsibilities.”

In contrast, Towey, who Kinnison hired into a newly created “associate director” job shortly after an earlier round of layoffs last October, got a promotion to Chief Operating Officer. Towey’s elevated title, Kinnison wrote, will “better reflect his ongoing responsibilities for the Finance Department, Research and Data Department, outside legal counsel, and more.”

Staff who were in the office this week said they knew layoffs were coming, but were perplexed by the decision to drag the process out so long, with repeat advance warnings, instead of just making the cuts.

The staff who lost their jobs on Tuesday received no severance and just one month of paid administrative leave. That’s a fraction of the severance 11 staffers received when they were laid off last October: Two months’ pay, plus one month for every year they were at KCRHA, in addition to two months’ paid administrative leave.

Those layoffs included the agency’s chief financial officer, general counsel, chief of research and data, and deputy CEO—along with several people who had complained about Kinnison and successfully accused her of retaliation.

PubliCola has reviewed a list of all 11 staffers who lost their jobs this week. They include data analysts who were working to complete the analysis of this year’s homeless Point In Time Count, a staffer responsible for putting out information about emergency shelters in severe weather, and staff who work on the region’s Homeless Management Information Information System and Continuum of Care, two functions that will remain at KCRHA.

Although current and former staffers said some of the layoffs (which included an ombudsperson, a procurement staffer, and a trainer) made sense, they also found the decision to preserve the agency’s finance staff (and keep the program staff mostly intact) hard to understand, since the KCRHA is no longer developing programs and no longer needs a large finance staff to manage its much smaller budget.

It wasn’t lost on anyone that the people who lost their jobs this week include many long-time staff who have kept the agency going since the beginning.

“These aren’t directors or deputy directors—these are the folks  at the bottom of the food chain,” one recently departed staffer said. Some of the laid-off staffers had been at KCRHA since it first started in 2021; had they received the same level of severance as the executive and director-level staff laid off in October, they would be walking out with seven months’ pay while they search for other jobs. When one staffer who was laid off said, “‘Hey, this severance package doesn’t sound like the one folks got during the last round,’ she was told, ‘This is a different situation,” the former staffer said.

Last week, unionized staff represented by PROTEC17 sent a letter to the KCRHA’s governing board urging them to cut top staff, including Kinnison and Towey, rather than eliminating low-level positions that will continue to be needed as the agency ramps down. During the King County Council meeting, the staffer who signed that letter, data analyst Ben Mathewson, urged the council to demand “accountability from leadership” who got the KCRHA into the current financial mess

“Reform is never about blindly trimming from the bottom up; it is about having the courage and the discipline to occasionally trim from the top down,” Mathewson told the council. “Accountability from leadership is essential in order to protect our experienced, data-driven workforce, and demonstrate to the public that King County values operational competence and fiscal efficiency over executive overhead.”

The same day, Mathewson learned that he was among the 10 staffers whose jobs were cut.

In an email, Kinnison told staff she’ll have more to tell them about “adjustments to our interim organizational structure and workflow” at a meeting on September 1. In a separate note, Kinnison told staff they not expect additional layoffs until after October 5.

Police

SPD Officer Alleges Retaliation by Lieutenant at Center of Discrimination Lawsuit

SPD West Precinct

By Erica C. Barnett

Valerie Carson, one of four female police officers who split a $2.6 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and discrimination by former SPD chief Adrian Diaz, former assistant chief Dan Nelson, and current Lieutenant John O’Neil, has filed a new complaint against O’Neil with the city’s Office of Police Accountability.

PubliCola covered a previous retaliation complaint Carson filed against O’Neil, who accused her of refusing to follow orders after she declined to do a TV interview and went on mental-health leave. In an interview for his complaint, O’Neil said Carson was “combative,” “angry,” and “hostile,” and claimed that her only “mental health condition” was being too emotional about a recent breakup.

Carson’s new complaint accuses O’Neil of making unprofessional, dishonest, and retaliatory comments about Carson and her co-litigants, Lauren Truscott, Kame Spencer, and Jean Gulpan during a recent staff meet-and-greet event.

Carson worked for O’Neil when he was a sergeant heading up SPD’s communications office. He has since moved on and up, and is now a lieutenant overseeing SPD’s traffic investigation unit, crime scene investigations, and SPD’s evidence unit—high-profile positions that coincided with a pay increase of nearly $50,000 between 2025 and 2026.

O’Neil filed a counter-claim against the four female officers, who included two women of color, accusing them of being racist and retaliating against him; he ended up with a settlement of $200,000.

In her complaint, Carson says that during a getting-to-know-you meeting with his new staff in June, O’Neil badmouthed all four of his accusers—Carson, Lauren Truscott, Kame Spencer, and Jean Gulpan—and told his staff that “he is the most innocent man that has ever been investigated and that his accusers … are liars.” Carson’s allegations were based on accounts from two officers who were at the event.

By making derogatory statements about the four women, Carson wrote,  O’Neil was “telling our peers we can’t be trusted”—and that as a high-ranking official at SPD, he was doing so on SPD’s behalf. Spencer, Carson, and Gulpan remain at SPD, while Truscott left.

“This was not a situation in which he was free to express his own personal opinions —he was speaking as a representative of the department and as a supervisor and manager of our peers,” Carson wrote. “These are people we work with at events and crime scenes, people we coordinate with for casework, and in my case, people I see in my building. His words foment a hostile work environment.”

“Plus, in slandering us and delegitimizing the accountability and legal processes we went through, O’Neil’s actions would dissuade a reasonable employee from raising their own concerns about possible violations,” Carson wrote.

A spokesperson for SPD declined to respond to our questions, saying they were a matter for OPA to address. O’Neil did not respond to a request for comment, and Carson declined to speak to PubliCola on the record.

housing, Opinion, Transit, Urbanism

Greater Seattle: Bikes, Cars, and Housing

By Josh Feit

First, a quick follow-up to last week’s item about former state house candidate Ron Davis. ICYMI: Despite the fact that the Stranger endorsed a long list of progressives, Davis contended—in a 3,000-word email to his supporters—that because the paper didn’t endorse him, there’s reason to believe a cabal of centrist oligarchs have taken over the paper and are calling the shots on endorsements.

Surprise: It turns out Davis isn’t actually Neo in the Matrix. According to members of the Stranger’s endorsement board, there’s a banal reason he didn’t get the nod from them. I’ll put this as gently as I can: Davis is not a great listener. The SECB wasn’t thrilled with the mansplaining.

Okay. On to this week in X>Y.

No Cars in Pike Place Market > Cars in Pike Place Market

Despite increased business at Pike Place Market and broad public support for the no-cars pilot project that coincides with the bullish numbers, SDOT is looking at opening the Market back up to cars starting this October. Ryan Packer at the Urbanist has been all over the story.

The naive thing about undoing the new pedestrian-only version of  Pike Place Market, which went into effect in April 2025 and tracks to a notable 8.8 percent increase in local visitors who live between 3 and 5 miles away, is that it’s not the only pro-pedestrian upgrade in the area. Have you noticed the new multi-billion-dollar Waterfront Park, including the $70 million Overlook Walk that melds directly into the Market? It’s a whole feng shui down there now. And it started, emphatically enough, when we tore down the car-choked Viaduct.

Pike Place Market is now just one element in a comprehensive waterfront makeover that has embraced pedestrians and de-emphasized cars. It’s one thing Seattle has gotten right.

7 > 69

The Seattle Metro Chamber is trolling me.

Their most recent polling had a stat that made my heart leap: 69 percent of people agreed with the concept that “Building more housing will help slow down Seattle’s increasing housing costs.” This might seem like easy-peasy Econ 101 to you, but as someone who’s been pushing this once-radical urbanist idea since 2004, I was pleasantly surprised to see it’s now conventional wisdom; 58 percent even agreed with the once-anathema notion that “All things considered, growth and development has been a positive for my area.”

Ah, but then, in the same poll, this: Only 7 percent of people think “more density” is among the top one or two things the city should be doing to improve quality of life.

So, nearly everyone supports the idea of growth and building more, but only a smidgen actually think it’s something we should prioritize? Isn’t there a term for that dysfunctional way of thinking. Oh, right. NIMBY.

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2026 > 2019

According to SDOT’s Fremont Bridge tracker, Seattle bike and scooter commuting hit its highest count in Seattle history last month. The previous high was set pre-pandemic in August 2019.

Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog, who reported on the data last week with a headline that used the word “obliterated,” writes: “The 153,238 trips was near 11,000 trips more than the previous high-water mark set in August 2019, and total counts for 2026 through July are up more than 18% year-over-year.”

This is excellent news for anyone who supports investing more in multimodal transportation.

And I’ll add another stat: As of July, combined bike and scooter trips are nearly two million higher than last year at this time: 7.2 million versus 5.4 million.

I’m comparing 2026 to 2025 rather than the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline that city planners seem obsessed with these days because all these record-setting bike and scooter numbers exist in a post-pandemic reality that looks nothing like the pre-pandemic world. Fucoloro hints at this in his own analysis by pointing out that return-to-office requirements have generally only gotten downtown office workers back three days a week.

I’d contend the reason we’re lapping pre-pandemic ridership, and doing so when just three days a week is the new RTO norm, has to do with a disproportionate increase in commuting in the so-called off-hours.

For example, another telling 2025 to 2026 comparison: Off-traditional-peak bike and scooter ridership is growing at a faster rate than traditional peak-hour bike and scooter commuting. Ridership at 9 am has grown 21.4 percent while 11 am ridership has grown 23.3 percent. And after work? Ridership at 5 pm has grown 23.7 percent while ridership at 7 pm has grown 27.8 percent. At 8 pm it’s even more pronounced. Ridership has grown 29.8 percent..

There’s a new shape to city life that’s not only about punching the clock. Our infrastructure and planning should adjust to this 21st-century lifestyle rather than looking backward to the old one.

Josh@PubliCola.com

City Council, Transportation

Wilson Proposes Substantive Vision Zero Improvements—One Day After Councilmember’s Hasty Attempt to Upstage Her

By Erica C. Barnett

Mayor Katie Wilson signed an expansive, substantive executive order last week directing the Seattle Department of Transportation to implement and expedite a list of, Vision Zero projects designed to improve public safety by building new protected bike lanes, improving pedestrian visibility at intersections, prioritizing projects on “high-injury” streets like Aurora Ave. N and Rainier Ave. S., and installing more automated speed enforcement cameras, along with at least a dozen other executive actions.

The legislation also directs the city’s lobbyists to support a grab bag of potential state legislation that includes granting legal immunity to cities that make street improvements after a fatal crash (as Seattle Bike Blog noted in their coverage, the potential for liability can prevent cities from making safety improvements, which could be seen as an admission of guilt) as well as lower drunk-driving limits and local authority to prohibit right turns on red.

Speaking on Friday outside Cleveland High School, not far from a recently “daylighted”  intersection where SDOT removed parking to make crosswalks more visible, Wilson called it “especially meaningful to be here near Cleveland High School, where the safety of young people traveling to and from school is top of mind.” 

One question Wilson politely deflected—although it appeared to be top of mind for many of the reporters at the press conference—was why city council transportation committee chair Rob Saka wasn’t at the event. (“I look forward to working with the transportation committee chair,” Wilson said.) Committee vice-chair Alexis Mercedes Rinck, along with District 2 Councilmember Eddie Lin, was there, but the putative transportation leader for the executive department was nowhere to be found.

 

In fact, Saka declined to participate in the press conference. He even rolled out his own traffic safety legislation, in the form of two draft proposals introduced as informational items because they were still unfinished, one day before Wilson’s announcement. It sure looked like an attempt to upstage the mayor’s executive orders, and Saka’s pointed absence from Wilson’s event only highlighted his rushed attempt to shine the spotlight on himself.

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Saka said the draft bills will look different when he actually introduces the bills in September, and a commitment to introduce a third bill mandating safety guards on city contractors’ trucks to protect pedestrians and cyclists from potentially deadly side-impact crashes.

Saka’s legislation, which got coverage on KOMO, Seattle Bike Blog, and KIRO’s John Curley Show, among others, is mostly nonsubstantive. It “authorizes” the SDOT director to do things like “incorporate, as appropriate, traffic safety best practices consistent with Vision Zero and the Safe System Approach” and gives SDOT’s chief engineer the “authority” to make various safety improvements to city infrastructure.

It also codifies a change Bruce Harrell’s transportation director, Greg Spotts, made in 2023, designating SDOT’s chief engineer as the person in charge of traffic safety, and would put 19 statements about transportation in the Seattle Municipal Code, including a statement about the value of human life and one affirming that the city values partnerships with other transportation agencies.

During a meeting about Saka’s proposals last week, Rinck and Councilmember Dionne Foster both questioned Saka about what his legislation would actually do, and why he proposed adding what amount to statements of principles, like a commitment to Vision Zero and the Safe Systems approach, to the municipal code. (Ordinarily, these kinds of statements are included in recitals—”whereas” clauses—or nonbinding resolutions.) Saka responded that “the intent here is to codify the current existing policy as the new baseline, as the new baseline that SDOT is fully free to… iterate, improve, make better.”

Asked if she considered her proposal more substantive than Saka’s, Wilson smiled and said she thought the two were compatible. “I look forward to working the transportation committee chair, looked forward to working with him to improve road safety.

homelessness, King County, LGBTQ+, Mayor Wilson, Police, Privacy

This Week on PubliCola: August 23, 2026
King County’s uncanny AI “trainer”

KCRHA Layoffs Begin, SPD Chief Files Unfounded Complaint Against Detective, Privacy Advocates vs. Surveillance Cameras and More

By Erica C. Barnett

Monday, August 17

Greater Seattle: Junk Fees, Recalling Wilson, and Ron Davis’ Post-Election Fixation

In his latest column, Josh says Katie Wilson is doing what she said she would do—working to make housing more affordable—even though it pisses off people who supported Bruce Harrell, like the North Seattle couple seeking to recall her. And in what turned out to be a very controversial hot take (at least among Ron Davis supporters), Josh calls the former legislative candidate’s 3,000-word newsletter—which spun a conspiracy theory about why the Stranger didn’t endorse him that the Stranger’s union took the trouble to correct—unhinged.

Tuesday, August 18

As KCRHA Begins Layoffs, Union Suggests Cutting Top Executives First

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority is beginning to scale back, as the city and county take over contracts after a damning forensic audit revealed serious financial issues. The initial layoffs reportedly hit some divisions the agency will still need going forward, while protecting top executives. In a blistering letter, the union representing many KCRHA staff said the agency could save more than half a million dollars by eliminating the jobs of CEO Kelly Kinnison and her deputy William Towey.

As Business-Backed Poll Says Most Support Police Surveillance Cameras, Privacy Advocates Raise Security Concerns

A new business-backed poll showed a huge spike in support for police camera surveillance across Seattle—but the questions are worded in such a pro-surveillance way, it’s hard to know how much organic support the poll represents. Meanwhile, privacy advocates who toured SPD’s surveillance HQ said what they learned made them even more concerned that surveillance footage could escape containment and get into the hands of ICE or hackers.

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Thursday, August 20

King County Enlists Uncanny AI Videos for Ethics Training

King County is using what it calls an “innovative tool” to train 4,000 executive branch employees on how to prevent waste, fraud, and misuse of public dollars: A series of short videos in which an uncanny AI avatar recites scripts about various training topics. The county’s IT department produced the videos using a company called Synthesia, which aims its product at small businesses.

Drop in Mayor’s Approval Rating Follows Anti-Wilson Media Frenzy

The Chamber released another poll result this week: Mayor Wilson’s approval rating has dropped to 37 percent. That’s hardly surprising, given that public opinion doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and the media (particularly TV and radio) have spent weeks calling Wilson incompetent, blaming her (and not SPD) for a delay in information after the Bite of Seattle shooting, and relentlessly covering a doomed recall effort against her.

Report: Police Contract Severely Limits CARE Team’s Ability to Do Their Jobs

A report from the city’s Office of Inspector General concluded that the new contract between the city and the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) drastically limits the ability of the CARE team of civilian first responders to respond to crisis calls. But CARE Chief Amy Barden sees some reason for optimism in the most recent numbers, which show that the team is now responding to more calls than in previous years.

Friday, August 21

Interim Police Chief Sayles Filed Complaint Against Hate Crimes Detective for Speaking At Pro-LGBTQ Rally

Interim police chief Andre Sayles filed a complaint against a longtime SPD detective who spoke out against two right-wing initiatives aimed at LGBTQ kids. The detective had permission to speak at the rally, but after hearing complaints from, among others, right-wing podcaster Brandi Kruse, Sayles claimed she refused to follow his orders and lied about what the initiatives would do—either of which would be a fireable offense. Sayles’ complaint was quickly dismissed (an investigator called it an infringement on the detective’s free speech rights), but the incident led the detective to retire rather than return to work after a sabbatical.