Counterpoint: Seattle pols have been riding the SEA underground since 1973 and still built Link as a partially at-grade LRT system (with no platform edge doors)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEA_Und...

Yes it's possible for a well-informed local to uniquely identify Link stations using their station codes, but then again the various "Downtown" and "City Center" stations aren't any challenge for that crowd either!

Seems odd to post an op-ed criticizing the latter, but then defend the former

Previously, one could say to a non-English speaker or a pre-literate child "if we get separated, meet me at (e.g.) the dragonfly" (Northgate) or "the anvil" (Beacon Hill).

The way to do that with the current station numbering system is far from obvious.

Why not make the "stop numbers" unique though? E.g. why not have the Judkins Park station be, say, #80, Mercer Island be #81, etc.? It's not like riders can expect consecutive stop numbers anyway--e.g. #58 Columbia City precedes #60 Othello (in anticipation of Graham St infill, which may never come)

How does Sound Transit expect confused people (tourists, non-English speakers, etc.) to benefit from using these? It seems almost intentionally engineered for confusion!

Only a pair of line number AND station number uniquely identifies a station. Except that when the lines connect, the stations served by both the 1-line and the 2-line will still be uniquely identified by their station numbers alone.

The station numbering system is also terrible. A station number alone does NOT uniquely identify a station, e.g. station 60 could be EITHER Spring District OR Othello!

I think you mean "Western Xia"

The link doesn't work

I think it's really counterproductive here to refer to battery electric buses just as "electric buses".

Electric trolleybuses (buses with overhead wires) have a century+ track record of reliability and utility from Shanghai to São Paulo (unlike BEBs, a relative newcomer tech)

Apparently this is a fork of OpenRailwayMap; this is the repo of the fork: github.com/hiddewie/Ope...

The old Bill Holm replica totem poles seem more hidden away than ever before. I wonder how many UW students walk by regularly without ever noticing them.

This explains the very arbitrary-sounding qualification that petitions are only restricted for (future) H-1(b) workers "currently outside the United States". The admin probably thinks they can't legally touch CoS, transfer, & renewal for H-1(b) beneficiaries already lawfully admitted to the US.

I suspect this is all framed as an "restriction on entry" because the president does not have the authority to unilaterally raise fees on visas, but INA § 212(f) and INA § 215(a) do allow POTUS to deny admission to certain classes of aliens (in this case, conditional on paying a $100k fee)

Three days later, it's still very unclear how the proclamation will interact with transfers of employer, changes of status, renewals, etc. Technically, all of these things are also "petitions". Would be really great to get some clarity.

A day later, the White House ended up "clarifying" that--contrary to the actual text of the proclamation--this would not be applied to existing H-1(b) holders, only to "the petition".

The Secretary of Commerce (???) is muddying the waters majorly by saying that the fee will be required every year. The executive proclamation does not mention this at all. That said, the order only lasts 12 months, so maybe there'll be a new order demanding $100k for every year from now on.