Fall 2026 Update

Bus riders look out windows while crossing the Hood Canal bridge. — *Riders peer out to the Hood Canal on a bright summer afternoon from the window of Clallam Transit Route 123, AKA the Strait Shot, en route to Port Angeles.*

WELCOME —

or Welcome Back

Yes, it has been a long minute. I had some unexpected and significant personal challenges late last year and getting back to work on Transit Trekker has taken some time. I am fortunate to have much support from friends and community and am doing fine.

So, an update! Mostly for Washington state region.

THE BOOK

Last fall I started sending parts of the draft Transit Trekker Manual: Washington State to several folks on this list who volunteered to be beta readers. Currently I’m revising those parts in line with their feedback, so things are moving ever forward!

TRANSIT TREK & ADVOCATE

Week Without Driving 2026: Transit Trekker returns to Vashon Island, with King County Parks

Take Thursday, Oct. 1 off and join me, King County Parks and King County Metro on a favorite outing to Vashon Island. We’ll travel via Water Taxi and Metro bus to enjoy a moderately demanding day hike and talk about what’s great about this trip via transit and what could be better. During or right after the hike, we’ll collect participants opinions on transit access to the area that will be used to produce a trip audit I’ll distribute to all relevant agencies. More details and RSVP links here. This outing is on a weekday because there is no transit service to the parks on weekends — a gap that will definitely be noted in the audit.

Volunteer

Whether you can or can’t attend the Oct. 1 outing, I could use your help producing the audit report. An example of the basic idea behind the audit can be found at this link, although the final product may look different. The final product will be distributed to relevant agencies (transit, parks, etc.), elected officials (county council, etc.), and any jurisdiction (WSDOT, King County Roads, etc.) whose work touches on transit and active transportation access. Link to audit form I’ll ask hikers to complete on Oct. 1.

Types of help I could use completing the audit:

Compiling and organizing audit responses
Drafting audit or portion of audit based on compiled responses
Copyediting or line editing the audit
Formatting the audit
Other (please describe)

Please use the contact form to let me know what you are available to help out with and any particularly free or busy times in October and November.

Invite CM Mosqueda

Maury and Vashon Islands are in King County Council District 8. If you live in the district and will attend the hike, please invite CM Mosqueda to join us.

Maury and Vashon Islands are in King County Council District 8. If you live in the district and will attend the hike, please invite CM Mosqueda to join us.
A map of District 8 is here. District 8 includes most of downtown Seattle, much of First Hill, all of Vashon and Maury Islands, West Seattle, and some of Tukwila, and Burien and a chunk of unincorporated King County surrounded by the above.
You can find a template for suggested invitation language and contact links for the CM here.

Invite Your Elected Reps

Not in District 8? Use the template above to invite your elected leaders. Pramila Jayapal is the U.S. House Representative whose district includes Maury and Vashon Islands and has signed on to the Stronger Communities through Better Transit Act. The legislators in the state’s 34th district are great targets, too.

NATIONAL PARKS

Ross Lake Recreation Area Public Comments are In!

Last year I asked subscribers to submit public comments to North Cascades National Park’s planning process for visitor management strategies. A bunch of you did. THANK YOU. MANY of YOUR comments were quoted in the public comment summary, which you can find as a linked PDF at the bottom of this page. I can’t say what the planning process will bring, but I’ll continue to monitor. If you know of other such processes in the National Park system, please get in touch.

Mt. Rainier?

A few months ago I got connected with a group of folks who want to bring transit to Mt. Rainier National Park. The effort is early stage now, but I’m optimistic that we can create better access to the park.

ECOCITY ACTION

A cool new effort in King County is EcoCity Action. If you can’t get enough transit trekking and nature, good news, you can join their Breeders at the Cedar outing on October 11. Info and details here.

A WORD ABOUT AI AND BLOGGING

*View through trees to the Pacific Ocean and Ozette Island from a trail above the shore on approach to Cape Alava*.

I’d love to blog more — I recently took transit to backpack part of Washington’s coast and have great photos (see above for one) and details to share — but in the current unregulated AI landscape, I’m not willing to have my little blog’s content scraped, uncompensated or otherwise. So other than posting the long form version of my newsletters on here and creating event and RSVP pages, I’m minimizing putting content up. Likewise, I have not and won’t be using AI to produce the book or do any of my related work, because I don’t see any utility in it. Even if I thought AI would be useful or efficient, the swirl of unresolved ethical issues around the technology would prevent me from using it. Once the book is finished I may blog behind password-protection. TBD!