On Other Blogs Today: Sonics, Sounder, and Subarus
OOBT
1. According to the AP, hopeful Sonics owner Chris Hansen just increased his offer for the Sacramento Kings to $625 million. That's only $100 million more than his original valuation of the team—a rounding error in jillionaire terms, basically.
2. Central Link Light Rail continued to show impressive year-over-year ridership gains in February and March, Seattle Transit Blog reports; ten of the last 12 months (up to March) have shown at least 10 percent growth in ridership compared to the previous year.
Even Sounder commuter rail, which has been plagued by landslides, saw ridership increases—21 percent on the north route connecting Everett to Seattle, and 9 percent on the south route connecting Seattle and Lakewood.
3. Subaru, AKA Seattle's spirit car, has put out a new series of newspaper ads that reinforces offensive stereotypes about transit riders as "uncouth, unwashed bums," Streetsblogreports. The ads, which urge people to buy a Subaru instead of riding the gross, stinky bus, note that driving alone allows you to avoid, among other things, conversations with coworkers, being asked for money by homeless people, inexplicable delays, and bad smells. "75 % LESS CHANCE OF BEING ASKED FOR MONEY!" one ad declares. And 100 percent more chance of being seen as a privileged d-bag.
You'll never have to interact with OR smell another human in one of these babies!
4. The US ranks 26th among the world's 29 wealthiest nations in providing for its children, and the Economic Opportunity Institute's Marilyn Watkins thinks the best possible Mother's Day gift would be policies that give parents more time to spend with their kids, like guaranteed maternity (and paternity) leave and paid sick leave.
"Without legal requirements in place, only 12% of American workers have access to paid family leave and 4 in 10 get no paid sick leave," Watkins writes. (Seattle, as of this year, is an exception; city law requires larger employers to provide paid sick leave). "The lack of paid leave has real consequences when 60% of preschoolers and 70% of school-age children here in Washington have all their parents in the workforce."
