A Map of Transit Across Washington State

A few years ago, I was planning a trip to visit my hometown of Whitehorse, Yukon. In an effort to see how frugal I could be, I started exploring any and every option I could find to get me from the Tri-Cities to Vancouver BC. Along the way, I learned about the Airporter Shuttle and how [...]

What Might Have Been…

Back in 1999, the voters of Washington State approved the passage of Initiative 695. By passing the initiative, the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) on car registrations was repealed, as well as a stipulation that voters had to approve all future tax increases was made law. Though the initiative was later declared unconstitutional (largely because it [...]

A Bus Route to Connell?

Back when BFT was first established in 1981, it was the first Public Transportation Benefit Area (PBTA) in Washington State to stretch across two different counties, Benton and Franklin (which led to the name of “Ben Franklin Transit” for the agency). In Benton County, the PBTA covers the majority of the county’s population centers, with [...]

North Richland Revamp

Perhaps one of the weaker links of the BFT system is the service that is provided to the North Richland area. Currently, Route 23 and Route 26 serve the edge of the area with all day service, only going as far north as Stevens Center and the WSU Tri-Cities campus. During peak hours, Route 26 [...]

February 2012 Board Meeting

(I stopped doing these specific posts on the monthly BFT board meetings a while back. However, I think last night’s meeting warrants a post about it. In the future, I’ll only do these board meeting specific posts when I feel the need to.) If I had to summarize this month’s board meeting, I would simply say this: [...]

Yakima Greyhound Stop Being Moved

Much like yesterday’s post on questions of the Yakima-Ellensburg Commuter’s legality arising, this post originates from a simple tweet. One of the reporters for local TV station KAPP (Yakima) and KVEW (Tri-Cities), David Mance, posted a tweet about how the Greyhound station in Yakima would be moving from its current downtown location to the AM/PM [...]

Is the Yakima-Ellensburg Commuter Illegal?

Early this morning, I saw a tweet on my feed which caught my eye. @Yakima_Herald: State rules Yakima-Ellensburg bus service is legal http://bit.ly/A9uS6z Suffice to say, I had questions. So, I read on…