🚌 What’s in the new transit measure

New Transit Plan Will Fund 100K Bus Trips a Year

Seattle City Council approved a 10-year plan on Tuesday to expand bus service by doubling the amount of sales tax for transit from 0.15% to 0.3%, or about $58 a year for a two-person, median-income household. Seattleites will vote on the measure in November. [KUOW]

• What does the extra .15% get us? Around 100,000 more bus trips a year, which means 10-15 routes will see expanded service on nights and weekends. It will also include 22,000 subsidized ORCA passes for low-income residents. Another $25 million will go to streetcar service and $6 million towards Sound Transit projects. [The Urbanist]
• Affordability is the issue: Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck cited car ownership as the second highest cost to families, and that this measure will help. Maritza Rivera expressed concern about asking residents to tax themselves, but ultimately voted to pass the measure, which went unanimously. [KUOW: The Urbanist]
• The Podcast: Today on the podcast, The Urbanist’s Ryan Packer breaks down what’s in the new transit measure.

🏳️‍🌈 “I moved here to survive”: In an op-ed for The Stranger, Jessa Davis, co-chair of the Seattle LGBTQ commission, explains why her move to Seattle was about survival, not ideology or politics. Davis has previously called for the mayor to declare a ‘civil emergency’ to help organizations that are supporting trans refugees. [The Stranger]

🧊 ICE is discouraging immigrant healthcare: As arrests by ICE reach new heights across the nation, organizations and health care practitioners in South Seattle are saying that immigrants are delaying health care as they hear reports of growing ICE presence at places like St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Tacoma. Even pregnant women with issues related to pre-eclampsia post-birth are refusing to go to the hospital out of fear. [South Seattle Emerald]

👮 Tribal police hire officers fired elsewhere: Washington State’s tribal police are only 2.5% of the state’s law enforcement, but they disproportionately hire “wandering officers”: officers fired by one agency who go on to work for others. These officers are more likely to be accused of misconduct, which exposes tribal agencies and citizens to “outsized risk, particularly in tribal communities that are historically overpoliced by law enforcement,” Investigate West reports. [Investigate West]