Indexer

It is difficult to imagine an easy path forward for transit as long as the coronavirus is a threat.

Every mayor and community development director in the country is trying to figure out how migration and settlement patterns, both national and local, will shake out in the post pandemic world, and there are few solid hints so far.

Transcontinental railroads arrived in Seattle in 1893, and within 20 years Seattle had become the largest port on the West Coast and the third largest port in the U.S. after New York and Philadelphia. For decades, Puget Sound dominated West Coast shipping and the ports, and the ancillary activities of shipbuilding, dominated Seattle’s economy. But the growing markets of California, and the prospect of shipping directly to millions of customers, began to chip away at the Puget Sound ports’ competitive advantage in shipping time to Asia.

According to Internal Revenue Service data, between 2017 and 2018, 215,000 people moved to Washington State, and 185,000 moved away, for a net gain of 30,000 people.

Given the shutdown of the economy, you might expect that retail sales would be significantly down from the first half of 2020. They're not.

The new state population estimates show Kittitas County growing 3.4 percent last year, and 7.6 percent over the last three years, both figures tops in the state.

We see sharp drops in all activities and a comparatively large drop in employment. Things bottom out late March to mid-April and begin a steady climb back toward their March 1 level.

All kinds of trips have increased since the low points of late March and early April. As people have returned to work, transit use has increased. At the same time, the residential line has fallen by more than half, as people gradually emerge from their self-isolation.

The Seattle-California connection established in 1852 continues as strong as ever. In some ways Seattle is fated to be the eternal little sibling to the Bay Area and the Los Angeles area: smaller, less glamorous, frequently ignored, sometimes disdainful, sometimes envious.

Seattle had the fastest growth for a central city from 2010 to 2020. But at the same time, the balance of the Seattle metro area ranked only ninth for growth.