The City Has a New Plan to End Traffic Deaths: The city says it will reduce speed limits, increase education and enforcement, and add new bike and pedestrian infrastructure. Josh Cohen reports for Crosscut that the technique—called “Vision Zero”—”is an internationally recognized concept used in Europe, the UK, and the US. The program originated in 1997 in Sweden, which has since seen a 30 percent reduction in traffic fatalities. Seattle is the fourth US city to adopt a program. San Francisco and New York City launched Vision Zero programs in January 2014 and Portland launched theirs earlier this week.”
Another Reason to Hate Anti-Vaxxers: They Could Be Hurting the Local Economy: “If schools close to protect children from getting sick and parents then have to stay home, that could rack up a lot of missed days at work,” reports the Puget Sound Business Journal, citing a study showing that eradicating measles could save the country more than $500 million.
Four Workers Injured in Accident Near the North End of the Bertha Tunnel: None of their injuries were life-threatening.
The Supreme Court of Israel Won’t Hear Rachel Corrie’s Family’s Appeal: “Our family is disappointed but not surprised,” reads a press release the family sent out yesterday afternoon. They had appealed a lower court’s ruling in 2012 that Corrie’s death while she was protesting home demolitions in the Gaza Strip in 2003 was an accident. “We had hoped for a different outcome, though we have come to see through this experience how deeply all of Israel’s institutions are implicated in the impunity enjoyed by the Israeli military.” Here is the story Eli wrote when he went to the Gaza Strip shortly after Corrie’s death to look into what happened and talk to other activists in the movement she’d been involved with.
Vigil for Victims of Chapel Hill Shooting Is Scheduled for Saturday: The event, honoring three Muslim students killed Tuesday, will be held at Westlake Center starting at 5 p.m.
New Records Show SPD Officer Whitlatch Has Been a Problem Since Her First Year on the Job: Cynthia Whitlatch is the officer who arrested an elderly black man for no apparent reason last summer and has since been put on paid leave while she’s being investigated. Ansel reports on new documents showing that, among other things, she “was disciplined during her first year on the force after the department concluded she’d caused a disturbance at a Petco store after getting angry about the amount of change handed over in a run-of-the-mill transaction.”
The State Senate Has a Transportation Package: The bipartisan plan includes an 11.7 cent gas tax increase over three years, some taxing authority for Sound Transit 3 to expand light rail in Seattle, and funding for the Seattle side of State Route 520, but also includes a “poison pill” to kill all transit funding if the governor pursues a low-carbon fuel standard to require cleaner fuels. Still to be haggled over, according to the Seattle Times: “An additional $4 billion Sound Transit boosters are seeking in the coming ‘ST3’ measure; GOP proposals to slash the sales taxes paid by road projects into the state general fund; and labor-cost reductions, such as exempting certain workers from prevailing-wage laws.”
Dentist Suspended After Allegedly Drilling into Patient’s Gums: No, no, no, no, no. KIRO reports that the state has suspended the license of a dentist who drilled into a patient’s gums while she “talked to the patient about suicide – adding she had been raped and ‘murdered’ twice.”
Embattled Oregon Governor’s Office Wanted to Destroy Thousands of His E-mails: Oregon governor John Kitzhaber continues his spiral into oblivion. Amid investigations into the role the governor’s fiancée plays in his office, the Willamette Week reports that his office asked state officials to destroy thousands of his e-mails.
Legendary New York Times Reporter and Columnist David Carr Is Dead at 58: He collapsed in the newsroom last night. Here’s the Times‘ obituary.
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