When Washington state voters passed Initiative 976, which cuts car-tab fees down to a $30 cap, transportation agencies across the state had sharp reactions.

Even as budgets get stretched and slashed for transportation across the Pacific Northwest, the effort to go high-speed when it comes to rail continues in the Cascadia region, largely thanks to Microsoft and governmental agencies.

The Interstate 5 Bridge project between Oregon and Washington is officially back. At least for now, that is.

The 11 years and three construction projects that took place to increase capacity on the Nalley Valley Viaduct -- the interchange connecting Interstate 5 and State Route 16 in Tacoma -- have been 11 long years for travelers in the area.

Two years of work to repair and upgrade Portland's Burnside Bridge has reached the final few weeks of projects, complete with a new traffic layout and construction that included upgrades to the bridge's surface, structure, mechanical and electrical functions.

When a train derailment damaged columns supporting the North Going Street Bridge in Portland on Sept. 7, the uncertainty around the lone public connection to Swan Island, which houses about 200 industrial businesses and more than 12,000 jobs, including the ample freight operations of Daimler, UPS and FedEx, left the future of the fixes in doubt.

Sound Transit is extending its line north, south, east and west with the goal of connecting the entirety of the Puget Sound through light rail track. The Downtown Redmond Link Extension serves as the next step in that expansion.

With multiple mega-projects virtually all wrapped up in Seattle, a $724 million project to rebuild the city's central waterfront starts to take a more prominent role in the future of Seattle construction and transportation.

The constant political back-and-forth in British Columbia, Canada, over how to deal with an aging George Massey Tunnel has ping-ponged from uncertainty to a $3.5 billion, 10-lane bridge, back to uncertainty, to no bridge and now to an eight-lane submerged tunnel.

Amidst the constraints of weight limits, a seawall, a waterfront restaurant and high-voltage power poles, crews from ICI Interwest Construction Inc. and heavy mover Oxbo Mega Transport Solutions positioned a $20 million, 282-ft-long pedestrian and utility bridge in place this fall along the Everett, Washington, waterfront.