For those of us who don’t drive, riding transit isn’t just about getting from point A to point B, it’s a lifeline to independence. Transit means the freedom to connect with our community, to pursue opportunities, and to live full lives, even without a car. But that freedom comes at a cost. It means sometimes carefully timing a sprint across a busy street to catch a bus that runs only once an hour, bracing against the wind and rain without a bus shelter, or feeling the weight of groceries digging into your hands as you walk a mile home.

Senate Bill 5184 (The Parking Reform and Modernization Act), originally proposed by Jessica Bateman (D-Olympia), is due to be signed into law later tomorrow by Washington’s Governor Bob Ferguson. The bill seeks to reform the practice of requiring excessive vehicle parking at businesses and homes throughout the state, which the Legislature finds “needlessly drive up development costs, especially for housing,” as well as having negative impacts like furthering automobile dependence, harming public health, and contributing to climate change.

Home in Tacoma (HiT) was a landmark achievement, the result of five years of meticulous planning, policy reform, and community engagement. By rezoning two-thirds of the city and overhauling single-family zoning, HiT has cleared the path for much-needed housing development. However, as the Planning Commission warned in their final recommendation, this effort alone cannot guarantee housing affordability across all income levels. While HiT sets the stage for building homes for higher-income households and those at the lower end of the economic spectrum, it leaves one part of our community out in the cold: the working class.

I would like to wish my friends in China on the other side of the world a Happy New Year and happy year of the snake. I hope that this year brings you all good health, prosperity and new possibilities. If you live in the West and haven’t noticed, a quiet revolution has been taking shape on a Chinese social media app called Xiaohongshu or RedNote. In the lead up to this revolution, the US federal government enacted a draconian law meant to coerce, censor and align content filtration on the short-form social media app TikTok with the incoming Administration.