1. Yesterday afternoon (Thursday), WSDOT's Alaskan Way Viaduct Media Relations Manager Laura Newborn sent me an updated map showing how much the ground has sunk around the tunnel boring repair project; in that morning's Fizz, I had posted an earlier WSDOT map the department had been circulating. 

I asked Newborn to highlight the differences between WSDOT's updated map and the earlier map (she hasn't gotten back to me), but the updated map does show a couple of new spots—one adjacent to the repair access shaft and one directly south of it—that represent the most dramatic settlement at 1.4 inches. Otherwise, the maps look similar, with the deepest settlement occurring to the south of the repairs around King St. at Cowgirls Inc. 

WSDOT's website provides an explanation of the map: 

UPDATED MAP: 

EARLIER MAP:

2. The Puget Sound Regional Council's transportation policy board met yesterday to discuss, among other  things, its legislative agenda for the upcoming session in Olympia; the PSRC is the regional planning body governed by a board of Puget Sound area mayors, council members, and other local leaders who make and fund (with federal and state dollars) long range transportation and land use planning policy.

A  handful of PSRC's suburban leaders staged a mini-uprising at the meeting yesterday when they tried to remove language from the group's position on a statewide transportation package that said: "A statewide package should ... meet state and regional growth, transportation, economic and environmental objectives, including addressing climate change."

Four members of the committee—Snohomish County Council member Terry Ryan; Steilacoom Mayor Ron Lucas; Algona Mayor Dave Hill; and state Rep. Linda Kochmar (R-30, Federal Way)—tried to remove the part about climate change, a longstanding PSRC goal.

The board overwhelmingly shot down the effort with the chair of PSRC's transportation policy board, Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci (along with Everett City Council member Paul Roberts) leading the way.

3.  In an interview on the conservative think tank Freedom Foundation's radio show this week, state Sen. Michael Baumgartner (R-6, Spokane), the new chair of the state senate commerce and labor committee, explained his majority caucus' strategy with some noteworthy observations about his older colleagues.

"When you're in the majority, you have to keep at least one more [Republican] member on every committee ... When you only have a 26-23 split and ... and you have some of our older members only want to serve on two committees—because they I guess frankly just don't want do as much work—you get spread pretty thin sometimes.  Some  of the newer members, the more active members end up taking more positions."