Soundside KUOW News and Information

An estimated 45% of riders paid to get on the light rail in Seattle according to Sound Transit estimates from 2023.

When you tap your Orca card at one of those yellow stands, or maybe you don’t, you’re making a difference to Sound Transit’s bottom line because the organization has been hoping to rely on that revenue to make up 40% of light rail’s operating budget. Last year, only 14% of the budget was covered by fares.

It’s an ambitious goal, one that Sound Transit has had since the agency formed in the 90s. Sound Transit’s board says that goal is probably too ambitious. It’s time to revise expectations downwards to reflect the reality of lowered ridership, increasing costs, and rampant fare evasion.

Guest(s):


Ryan Packer, contributing editor at The Urbanist.

Related Links:


The Urbanist: Sound Transit Lowers Farebox Recovery Goals, Opens Door to Fare Capping, Is Sound Transit Closing In on Fare Gates for Link and Sounder?

 
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Western sandpipers migrate thousands of miles each year, from their breeding grounds in the upper reaches of Alaska to the coasts California and South America. One location, in particular, is an irresistible pit stop for sandpipers: a wide mud flat on the Fraser River Delta near the U.S./Canada border.

Not far away from those mud flats is one of British Columbia’s most important shipping terminals, and a new report by Seattle Times reporter Lynda Mapes says an approved expansion of that terminal could threaten the unique organisms sandpipers stop to feast on. 

Guests: 


Seattle Times environment reporter Lynda Mapes. Read Mapes' full reporting on sandpipers, phytoplankton, and British Columbia's push to expand a container port here. 
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Most of us are familiar with how our food grows. Fruit trees, crop plants -- they all put out blossoms. From there, honeybees spread pollen and collect nectar to grow their local hives. That buzzy work is a critical piece of agriculture, because without bees, the food we'd like to grow... won't grow.

But a recent glut of almonds in California is disrupting a bee renting ecosystem -- a "bee-cosystem," if you will -- that Northwest farmers depend on. 

Soundside caught up with Anna King about her recent story on local beekeeping and its relationship with California almonds. King covers Washington and Oregon mainly east of the Cascades for the Northwest News Network. 


Read Anna King's full reporting on the Washington beekeeping industry here.
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Interim Seattle Police Chief Sue Rahr has a big mandate: Hire more officers, and clean up a department culture that has led to half a dozen lawsuits from high ranking SPD officers who say they were the victims of discrimination, harassment or retaliation. 

Many parents and city leaders are also asking what more can be done to protect kids in Seattle schools, following a shooting at Garfield High School on June 6 that left one 17-year-old student dead.

One idea that’s gained some attention – and pushback – is to bring Seattle Police Department community resource officers back to Seattle Public Schools campuses.

Soundside host Libby Denkmann sat down with Chief Rahr to discuss her vision for the Seattle Police Department, and the crisis of school safety. 
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The King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA) has a new leader: the agency’s board announced this week that starting Aug. 1, Kelly Kinnison will head the agency.

Kinnison is a policy director at the US Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. and takes over at an uncertain time for KCRHA.

The agency has been without permanent leadership for more than a year after the agency’s founding CEO, Marc Dones, left in May of 2023. Additionally, the city of Seattle -- one of the KCRHA’s largest funders -- announced in February that it was pulling back financial support from the agency, and there have been calls from local officials to restructure the organization. 

So what kind of agency will Kinnison be taking the helm of? Soundside is joined by Erica Barnett, co-founder and publisher at PubliCola.


Read Erica Barnett's latest reporting on the KCRHA's vote for a new permanent CEO here.
Read PubliCola's broader reporting on the KCRHA here. 
Read the latest reporting from the Seattle Times' Greg Kim on the departure of the agency's interim CEO, Darrell Powell, here. 
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In 2013, Amazon founder and then CEO Jeff Bezos told 60 Minutes that his company would be delivering packages via DRONE within 5 years.

It took a little bit longer… but not much. Since December 2022, customers in College Station, Texas have been able to get small packages delivered by unmanned Amazon aircrafts.

And last week, Amazon announced that the FAA has authorized its drone program, called Prime Air, to fly even farther, beyond the view of human operators. 

Amazon joins Google’s subsidiary Wing, and companies like UPS and Zipline, which have already received similar approval from the FAA.  

Guests:



Matt McCardle, Director of Global Regulatory Affairs and Strategy for Amazon Prime Air


Paresh Dave, Senior Writer for Wired

Related Links:


Amazon Drone Delivery Plans Move a Small Step Forward
Amazon’s Delivery Drones Won’t Fly in Arizona’s Summer Heat
Amazon’s Drone Delivery Dream Is Crashing
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