May 21, 2008 at 6:11 am
by Andrew Smith
The California High-Speed Rail Blog, a relatively new blog, devoted to the California High Speed Rail project. The site is mostly specific interest, though some of these posts, like the one above are general interest to any transportation discussion.
The post points to this article in the Fresno Bee about the cost of doing nothing. This bit is particularly interesting:
Opponents of the high-speed system often sound as if this is a choice between spending the $40 billion or spending nothing. That notion is just dead wrong.
Take just one instance. Expanding existing highways and airports to meet the transportation needs projected to come with growth in the state’s population would cost two or there times as much — and would make air quality and congestion even worse. In some cases — San Francisco, Los Angeles — existing airports can’t be expanded. Bigger and better freeways? Expanding Highway 99 in the Valley to an eight-lane interstate would cost as much as $25 billion alone — and that’s just to serve the Valley, not the entire state.
We have a similar effect here, replace “high speed rail” with “transit” and “airports and highways” with just plan old “highways”. Adding one lane each direction to I-5 was projected in the late 90s to cost $25 billion, just within the city limits. The I-405 widening is an $11 billion project, and increasing capacity on I-90 would cost more than SR 520, and just that will cost about $4 billion.
We can’t hope to pave our way out of congestion, and if we tried, we might end up worse off, with a sicker economy and a less healthy region. Transit in general, and light rail specifically, is the cheapest way to move people around this region. We can’t afford to do nothing.
May 20, 2008 at 6:50 pm
by Andrew Smith
The Daily Journal of Commerce (subscription required) ran a very positive article on Kent Station (built around the Sounder station) and how it is effecting their downtown.
When Kent Mayor Suzette Cooke talked to city residents in 2005, she was shocked to hear some people say they hadn’t been to downtown Kent in 15 years. Kent Station, the 18-acre mixed-use development that is about to break ground on its fourth phase, has changed that.
“Downtown was sort of becoming forgotten,” Cooke said. “Clearly the reality of Kent Station has helped residents see what’s possible for Kent… It was a wake up call to residents that they actually deserved such services.”
Kent Station, owned by Seattle-based Tarragon, is the public-private centerpiece of Kent’s effort to revitalize downtown. Before it was built, the site was home to a functioning glue factory. Today, it’s a 240,000-square-foot hub of retail, education and entertainment with a Sound Transit commuter rail station nearby. When complete, the project will stretch across 470,000 square feet.
…
Looking back, Kent Station’s success can seem like a well placed bet. “I’d like to say it has been fun,” Hanson said. “All of us were kind of at the edge of our seats thinking when Kent Station was built… where are the people going to come from?”
Wolters said he’s always looking to learn from other cities’ experiences. Overall, he said it is important to attract a variety of uses to create the needed dynamic. He said Kent chose to pursue retail and entertainment, then housing. Other communities, like Burien and Federal Way, are doing both at the same time. Working with Sound Transit to develop a commuter station nearby, was also crucial to the project.
I think losing a glue factory is kind of sad, but it’s cool to see how transit orient development can take root even in low-density suburbs.
May 20, 2008 at 10:15 am
by Andrew Smith
Traffic today was horrible. My 545 bus took 40 minutes, about 15 minutes more than usual starting at 9:30. I got this picture at 10:15 from WSDOT, and you can see traffic still is a disaster. I was listening to Mayor Nickels on the Dave Ross show, and the traffic man said it was 70 minutes from Federal Way to Seattle on I-5, and 50 minutes from Lynnwood to Seattle. 70 minutes at 9:45 am. What was that thing about light rail being too slow?
May 20, 2008 at 9:34 am
by Andrew Smith
Paul Krugman, Economist and New York Times columnist, has been writing a number of blog posts about rising fuel prices and what they mean to the average American. The opinion piece is great, and has nice tidbits like this:
Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this — it will mean changing how and where many of us live.
To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.
It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.
And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.
Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.
Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.
As they say, read the whole thing. This picture is from a post on his blog (via the Sydney Morning Herald).
It’s the percentage of income residents of Sydney spend on gas. As you can tell, those in the city’s center spend far less on gas than those in the city do. In Sydney, the lack of public transport has left families in the Western suburbs struggling to pay for their commutes.
Pretty scary, I imagine a map for our region would look similar, though the numbers would likely be a lot higher (6% is probably pretty typical here). Metro has a calculator that can help show whether you’d save on your commute by taking transit. If you’re not taking transit, at $4 a gallon I bet it’s worth taking a second look.
May 19, 2008 at 3:49 pm
by Brian Bundridge
Got this in a e-mail not that long ago, regarding Portland’s TriMet MAX Light-Rail system:
During a bridge lift on the Steel Bridge this morning, a Union Pacific bridge tender raised the bridge too high, damaging TriMet’s overhead electrical system that powers MAX. Three trains traveled through the span section and were damaged. Repair efforts are ongoing, with TriMet staff and contractors working to expedite the repairs.
There is no MAX service along the Yellow Line or the Blue/Red lines between Rose Quarter Transit Center and PGE Park stations.
Buses are serving riders in these areas and riders should expect minor delays.
The shuttles will continue through rush hour this evening and possibly through the rest of the service today. There is also the potential that Tuesday’s morning rush hour will be affected.
A friend of mine said it was one hell of a light show on the second train that crossed the bridge.
May 19, 2008 at 3:08 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
I think there’s a killer argument here that’s hard to refute, and hasn’t come up yet, and in the interest of continuing this conversation, I’ll just post it!
Our viaduct options are basically a) build something else, and b) tear down the failing structure and leave it torn down. I don’t really consider the retrofit an option – WSDOT will probably shoot it down as unfeasible and unsafe.
So here’s the 2000 pound elephant in the room. For the first several years of implementation, both of these options look exactly the same. The old structure has to be torn down, and even in the best case rebuild scenario, you still have complete closure for years.
Immediately, every viaduct user finds a solution to their commute problem. They get on I-5, or they take a bus, or they plan ahead and change jobs or move before the mess starts – they’ll have plenty of lead time.
Two years later? They’re still doing it. I-5 can only carry so much traffic – it’ll worsen the most at first, but traffic will taper off after this time. Most people will have solved their problems, many more will be interested in transit and trying out the bus service we already have (and maybe ‘Rapid Ride’). I don’t know when this would be – maybe 2012, maybe 2014. Link Light Rail will be rocking our socks off. University Link will be mostly complete – everyone will be holding their breaths for subway stations. Maybe we’ll even have passed Sound Transit 2 by then, and Northgate and Bellevue will be groundbreaking soon.
Another year. Gas will be $8/gallon, or $10/gallon. Maybe speculative bidding on oil futures will have dropped off, and it’ll only be $6/gallon – this scenario doesn’t require $10 gas. A lot more of the urban condo projects will be done. Developers will be continuing to build in the core, and the renewed demand from people previously commuting across downtown Seattle will help bolster that. Again, all this is regardless of what we choose. Few commuters will just grin and bear it.
One more – say 2016. Four years of closure – the minimum on any of the WSDOT construction alternatives I’ve seen. This is where our choice matters. In scenario a), we have a new freeway. U Link opens. Some people return to their cars. The waterfront is dead – construction kills some of the businesses, and with the viaduct another 20 feet closer, it’s no longer pleasant. By this time, fewer are driving, and it looks like 5 won’t be as congested because so many people can’t afford to anymore. But we have a new freeway that we’ve already gotten used to not using.
In scenario b), the waterfront is still dead from construction, but now it has the chance to come back. Seattle has rebuilt the waterfront streetcar line, and four new mixed use buildings are on the way in the old shadow. The same pressures exist to build high capacity transit – the city is ripe for a new western corridor ballot measure. U Link opens, Bellevue is 50% complete, and Northgate is 70% complete. Sound Transit is ready to go to ballot with ST3, where North King money won’t quite cover Ballard-West Seattle, but will cover Ballard-Downtown, including a tunnel under 2nd Avenue. The city puts another measure on the ballot to build the other half. With new city residents clamoring for transit, Sounder ridership at 20,000 a day and climbing, and ST3 Link expansion promising Tacoma, Redmond, and most of the way to Everett, both pass.
May 19, 2008 at 11:27 am
by Andrew Smith
I have a different take on Jim Veseley’s Sunday article than Ben Schiendelman did. In case you didn’t read the article, Mr Veseley’s argument is essentially that Americans have been adjusting their expectations downward on a number of issues, and the viaduct is the one foremost in Mr Veseley’s thoughts. Veseley says he’s “ready for a retrofit” of the viaduct, rather than a tunnel, elevated replacement, or surface option. This “lowered expectations” argument is a perspective I hadn’t thought of or heard, and it certainly is thought provoking. I think Mr Veseley gets bull’s eyes on a few big points, but I think he misses the mark on some of the details.
David M. Lampton, a much-honored China scholar and head of faculty at the vaunted School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, pointed out last week that China now has 68 subway projects under way — and the U.S. has none.
He cited the decaying Interstate Highway System that spans America, but was built in the 1950s and ’60s. A trip on Interstate 5 bears him out. If not for the patches, we’d be looking at rebar.
…
I don’t see a weakening of our hopes and values, but a realization that some of them belong back in the 1990s. One of our most intensely popular television series, “Lost,” comes at a perfect time.
Roads and transit are just two signs of our decaying infrastructure in the United States, airports and seaports also spring to mind. Still, when most of our best new highway and transit systems were built, the US was spending ten percent of its GDP on infrastructure (H/T to Frank for the link), today it’s just one percent. If a show were to come at the perfect time to describe the state of infrastructure in this country, it’d be called “Broke”.
Veseley puts a sly dig in on Sound Transit expansion:
We see that in the calls for a pause in the funding of transportation projects. Megaprojects are on hold everywhere. A Sound Transit vote for the fall has as many supporters as it has people saying give it a rest, come back to us the following year, or maybe later.
That’s not what the polling I’ve seen has shown, support is much higher for an ST2 expansion than against it. The rising gas prices certainly have something to do with that.
As for the viaduct, I certainly don’t want a large one, as a new elevated option would be, or any super-expensive option, such as a tunnel, when in my mind that funding could be better spent on transit expansions. I’ve heard a retrofit would have a shorter life span, and thus might not get much bang-for-the buck, but as long as it’s cheap enough, I won’t get upset. What about you?
May 19, 2008 at 8:59 am
by Brian Bundridge
While not official from SDOT/Metro Transit, the SLU Streetcar ridership has climbed from 960 riders a day to 1325 riders a day. With the start of the Summer tourist season, new buildings in Downtown Seattle opening, and the recently opened Lake Union Park contributing to the increase.
Per the operator of Sunday’s run, weekdays between 6am to 8am and 4:30pm to 6:30pm are the busiest, being near crush load (130-145)
Average ridership appears to be gaining as construction eases however some trips are still only 2-6 passengers.
He did mention that the City is trying to improve the signal timing and add priority queue to the Streetcar, giving the operator the ability to change the light or leave the light green an extra 15-30 seconds. By doing this, would shave the run to dramatically but SDOT is studying if this would benefit the system or not. (duh)
May 19, 2008 at 7:47 am
by Martin H. Duke
A few points that I think were missed in this weekend’s Battle Royale about the Rainier Valley segment:
- Federal funding rules don’t allow transit agencies to take TOD into account when doing ridership projections. So a line through Sodo’s warehouses would have had lousy ridership projections, and probably not have earned any federal dollars. So a Sodo alignment means no alignment at all. People actually live near the Rainier Valley line.
- Seattle’s neighborhoods are famously risk-averse, and likely to fight a rail line that will ultimately benefit them. Poorer neighborhoods are generally less litigious and less politically active, meaning that both political and engineering risk were lower for this segment.
- The Rainier’s valley development pattern was unique. MLK is/was a fairly underdeveloped strip of auto repair shops and small, run-down apartment buildings, but also is two or three blocks from major arterials on either side: Rainier Avenue and Beacon Avenue. This made it uniquely suited to draw ridership from two vibrant and transit-intensive populations while still being capable of inspiring large TOD projects with minimal political opposition.
- I would have liked to have seen our Ballard/West Seattle contingent — leading advocates of in-city before regional rail — come out a little more strongly for the Rainier Valley segment. I think the Seattle-first argument would have substantial merit if transit were being funded by a dictatorship, but fortunately we actually require democratic assent in this country. Unfortunately, the electorate is shackled with extremely narrow parochialism. At any rate, Central Link was an opportunity to provide substantial in-city service while also meeting regional goals: the best of both worlds.
Furthermore, as several commenters pointed out, what’s done is done. If you’re concerned about operating delays incurred by the Rainier Valley segment, the proper response is to pressure the city and Sound Transit for additional safety improvements to improve operating speeds. For instance:
- Pedestrian overpasses, instead of signalized, at-grade crossings.
- Crossing gates at all auto intersections.
- Fencing along the route to discourage pedestrian crossing at unauthorized points. It doesn’t have to be triple-strand concertina wire; even a tasteful, 4 foot black iron fence would be a sufficient deterrent in 90% of cases.
- Construction of underpasses for major arterials.
Most of this stuff is relatively inexpensive, and can be added incrementally as funding and political will allow.
May 19, 2008 at 7:24 am
by Martin H. Duke
Buried deep in the PI business section a few days ago:
The Commerce Department reported Friday that housing construction rose by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.03 million units. While apartment construction rose by 36 percent, building in the much larger single-family sector of the market fell by 1.7 percent, the 12th consecutive monthly decline, pushing single-family activity down to a 16-year low.
This is another data point showing that a home in the “country” and a huge yard aren’t irreducible demands by Americans, but just another taste that is responsive to economic incentives.
Bad economy or no, the population is in a very pro-transit mood right now. 2008 is the year to go to the ballot.
May 19, 2008 at 7:14 am
by Martin H. Duke
 It’s been a couple of months, so I’ll make this request again:
Please select a nickname and type it in under the “nickname” box on our comments page. Going through a comments thread with “Anonymous” is tedious and confusing. I can distinctly recognize at least two regular commenters using the Anonymous tab, and it’s annoying.
It doesn’t require getting an account or anything. Just type in a name, like SLOG.
Example above, with the correct box indicated in red. For whatever reason, Blogger doesn’t allow you to turn off “anonymous” without doing the same for “Nickname”.
Thanks!
May 18, 2008 at 10:09 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
Jim Vesely, one of the editors of the Seattle Times, commutes to work in the I-90 express lanes and on the Viaduct. On the Mercer Island to Seattle stretch, he doesn’t even have to be HOV, because Mercer Island residents are apparently worth two plebians. He has likely never ridden a bus or a train. He is one of the last remnants of a school of thought that can no longer add knowledge to their understanding of traffic – he can’t grasp that adding more lanes causes more congestion than it could ever relieve, or that congestion can never be reduced through promotion of alternatives, but only through a limitation of capacity.
The mayor of Bogota understands these things. The mayor of New York understands these things. The mayor of Seattle understands these things. Urban planners and transportation engineers know that while you can smooth intersections, you cannot reduce congestion by adding capacity, because every minute of congestion you reduce on the highway you expand, you add twice or more to every roadway it connects to – because you create an inbound and an outbound trip elsewhere for every new trip on the highway itself.
This makes sense to everyone, doesn’t it? It’s not rocket science. But Jim Vesely and his ilk just don’t get it. They cling to the ancient idea that if you add a lane to SR-520, you’ll somehow separate people from each other – but you don’t. You just make room for more people.
Now for the contrary – and this is what terrifies people like Mr. Vesely. If you narrow a highway, you will, indeed, reduce congestion. Not on the highway itself – but on all the roads around it. We’ve heard plenty of times that light rail will only carry a small percentage of traffic (a ridiculous argument anyway) – but so do our highways. The streets surrounding them carry far more trips.
So when I hear Mr. Vesely champion retrofitting the Viaduct, I can only regard it as the sad selfishness of someone completely out of touch. We have an opportunity here to change our urban landscape, to erase a horrible mistake made many years ago. Why would we accept as sound advice the opinion of someone who has been so wrong on so many issues – someone who has always come out in favor of things that benefit him personally, and damn the rest of us? It’s obvious that this man supports retrofit because it is the one thing that will delay major closure of the viaduct until after he has retired.
Don’t let those with prehistoric ideas plan our future.
We know better than that.
May 16, 2008 at 10:48 pm
by Andrew Smith
Matt the Engineer questions running light rail through the Rainier Valley because Matt thinks it’s slower to the airport than a bus and the train isn’t building communities by going through existing neighborhoods.
I think Matt is wrong about a couple of things. Sure, the line may be slower to the airport than the 194, but the 194 is much slower to the airport than Link will be from Beacon Hill, the Rainier Valley, and also Capitol Hill and the University District when U-Link gets built. That’s an important thing to think about, Central Link was not built to be the only line, and U-Link construction is ready to start.
I’m sure Martin, who lives in the Rainer Valley, can comment on the level of development taking place on MLK due to link, including bike trails people will actually use, some 1,500 homes by now (the line doesn’t open for a full year) and massive revitalization in general. The line would have gotten a fair ridership without that TOD, but the ridership with it will be massive. As the city shows, car ridership in the Valley is the lowest (pdf link) in the entire city.
I think it’s a great routing. Better than the industrial areas by a fair amount, better than Rainier Ave by a fair amount, and a lot cheaper than West Seattle. We will definitely need a route through West Seattle some day (ST3?!?), but, for now, I think they’ve made a great decision.
May 16, 2008 at 11:41 am
by Andrew Smith
Lance Dickie, who I’m not very familiar with, has written a pretty convincing op-ed piece arguing for Sound Transit to wait until 2010 to go to the ballot. Here’s a choice quote:
Sound Transit first got traction in 1996, another presidential-election year. Turnout matters. After voters slapped down a package of roads and transit this past fall, there is a strong pull to try again, sans roads with a transit-friendly cohort.
The other view — one I tend to share — counsels a pause until 2010. By then, mobs with pitchforks and torches will be demanding more transit. Gas prices will resemble those in Europe, without Europe’s plentiful alternatives to a car. Taking the bus or riding Sounder commuter rail will move from being mocked as a personal virtue to unvarnished economic necessity.
Most important, the 16-mile line from downtown Seattle to Sea-Tac International Airport is scheduled to open in 2009. After years of talking about how great it is going to be, light rail finally will be a visible, tangible and popular reality.
Emphasis added. I agree that by 2010 the desire for transit will be more urgent, but isn’t that almost an argument to start early? We don’t want to fall another two years behind. As gas prices rise, construction prices will as well, so the sooner the better from the cost standpoint. I also think that we’re already seeing the realization from a lot of people that transit really is an alternative.
The next big suburban land rush will be aboard light rail. The cliché about driving till you qualify for a home loan will be updated. Homes in Arlington will sell to young families whose daily car commute is to a park-and-ride lot and transfer to the light-rail station in Everett.
Want a sure bet in public transit? The Seattle streetcar extension from South Lake Union to the University District. An absolute no-brainer. The future is at Westlake Avenue and Denny Way. An urban neighborhood is blossoming. The employment base is already an extension of the University of Washington, so a line north via Eastlake makes perfect sense. As Portland discovered, investment flourishes along streetcar rails planted in the ground.
I have been hearing homes out in the far-off exurbs are those that are falling in prices fastest, while those close to jobs centers are retaining value for the most part. This is, again, an argument in my mind to go forward now. We don’t have a lot of time to spare, and we’ll lose competitiveness as a region if we let transportation costs get out of control before we approve an expansion. Gas prices have risen tremendously in the last few year. Do we really want to wait for $6 a gallon gas to start building a transit expansion?
Really, I was surprised to read such a pro-transit article in the Times, which usually ranges from lukewarm support to outright hostility to transit. I think the argument is pretty well-reasoned that 2010 will be a sure thing, but I think 2008 will be as well, and I don’t see any advantage to waiting if we think it’ll pass this year.
May 16, 2008 at 1:25 am
by Andrew Smith
What to do with all the transit riders?
May 15, 2008 at 12:12 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
For the last few days, we’ve all been reading about the earthquake in China – tens of thousands dead, many more homeless, whole towns destroyed.
There’s speculation that this quake could have been caused by the massive shift in weight caused by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, the addition of millions of tons of water (175 meters, eventually) to an area near the Jiuwanxi and Zigui–Badong fault lines. It is, so far, unclear which fault line caused this quake, and it may not be either of these.
Regardless, though, of what caused the quake, one line about a collapsed school in a horribly depressing (take that as a warning) New York Times article today caught my attention: One man said officials built two additional stories on the Xinjian school even though it had failed a safety inspection two years ago — allegations that could not be verified.
There are two problems here. One is the obvious – two additional stories on a structure that failed a safety inspection? The other problem is far more insidious – you can’t even check. The result? Hundreds of kids crushed to death.
Every time I tell someone that Link Light Rail will get to Husky Stadium around 2016, I know to expect the immediate response – a complaint that it takes too long. I have a new answer:
In eight years, I’ll probably have a child of my own. Some of my good friends here have kids already who could be going to school on Link. And inevitably, we will wake up to an earthquake one morning – maybe a 7, maybe an 8, but it could devastate our city. As emergency crews are cut off by collapsed fifty year old bridges, and I am running down the street to pull people out of a hundred year old apartment building, the one thing I do not want to worry about is kids on their way to Roosevelt or Franklin on our brand new light rail system.
I don’t feel a need to “speed up” the processes through which we build infrastructure. Public meetings, design reviews, these are all time in which people with knowledge can speak up. The real answer is the same answer to a lot of our problems: We must learn to plan ahead.
Update: I want to add something to this. I know that much of the time taken between, say, now and when U Link opens has to do with the way money is collected. I am not writing about that – I’m writing about the public comment periods, the design reviews, everything that makes more people aware of what’s being built and able to say something. Don’t you suppose that if we were building a Three Gorges Dam here, a group of USGS seismologists might have had something to say? I’m saying that while I’d rather not see East Link delayed or cost more because people in Beaux Arts are NIMBYs, I’m happy to let them complain to the Sound Transit board when it means that someone with a real issue can bring that forward as well.
May 15, 2008 at 11:37 am
by Martin H. Duke
Sound Transit is asking your opinion again. 0.4%, 0.5%, 12- and 20-year plans are all on the table. So are both 2008 and 2010 ballot measures.
I’m really skeptical of the actual value of these kinds of self-nominating survey responses, but I figured I’d suggest what I’d heard at the meetup, which is that the 0.4% measure go to the ballot, with an additional 0.1% measure. That maximizes our chance of getting something passed.
Of course, what’d happen is that the 0.4 would fail and the 0.1 pass, leading to more confusion.
More than anything, I just want them to propose whatever their polling tells them has the highest chance of passing. The details aren’t important, because I know that the highest priority segments are the ones that are going to be built, regardless.
May 15, 2008 at 11:13 am
by Martin H. Duke
 UPDATE: Correction Below.
Sound Transit’s Quarterly Ridership Report is up, and it’s good news. It’s brief, so go have a look. Weekday boardings are up 15% from the same time last year, which is pretty impressive given the relatively small amount of service added in that time. Some interesting nuggets:
- South Sounder ridership is up 30%, largely because of added trips. I think this shows that ridership is a little less elastic with respect to parking at the station than some would assume. In other words, creative solutions (like satellite parking) are able to continue building ridership after the nearby lots are saturated. That isn’t to say that parking shortages aren’t a problem.
- Sounder cost-per-boarding is down slightly to $10.79, while the express bus cost is up slightly to $6.73. Without seeing the station breakdown, that puts farebox recovery for Sounder at around 40%, about the same as ST Express and pretty good for a transit system. That includes essentially empty reverse-commute trains. As economies of scale build up on Sounder and gas prices increase, I expect the comparative numbers to improve further.
- Tacoma Link ridership is only up 1%. It may simply not have the scope to serve many people, especially since the 594
most Express buses takes a needless detour into downtown on its way South.
Picture Credit: Seattle Times, August 14, 2007.
May 15, 2008 at 8:43 am
by Martin H. Duke
Second in an occasional series where I wildly generalize about a transit system based on limited experience.
Segments ridden:
Red Line: Shady Grove – Union Station
Blue Line: Springfield – Stadium/Armory
Orange Line: W. Falls Church – Stadium/Armory
Yellow Line: Gallery Place – National Airport
Green Line: Gallery Place – Navy Yard
Time ridden: You name it. I grew up here, so I can’t even begin to recapitulate it.
Scope: A
There aren’t a ton of places to go in D.C. and the surrounding area that you can’t get to via Metro, but it falls a bit short of the blanket coverage you see in New York. The vast majority of the service lies inside the Beltway (analogous to I-405) which has all kinds of benefits for preventing sprawl and allowing a car-free lifestyle.
Service: A
Service is frequent except in the wee hours. Message boards tell you when the next train is coming, in pretty much every station.
Routing: B
The Red Line in Maryland follows some major arterials, rather than the nearby freeway. That isn’t the case along the Orange Line in Virginia, however. Inside the beltway, where most of the system lies, there really aren’t enough freeways to even tempt planners to route along them.
Grade/ROW: A+
As with all third-rail systems, no pedestrian or auto is ever going to get anywhere near the track.
TOD: C
Revisiting this with a newly critical eye, the TOD is kind of disappointing. The city itself is really dense, which was the case before the Metro came. Although many stations are underground and therefore impossible to evaluate without stopping there, my limited experience in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs at the ends of the line is pretty disappointing. My read is that local authorities are really starting to get it, however.
Culture: A
For many suburbanites, driving to work is unthinkable. They’re certainly not deterred by park-and-ride fees approaching $5.00 a day, on top of a fare of as much as $4.50 each way. I don’t personally know any people that work in the city anymore, but what I gather from sources like Matt Yglesias is that in the core a car-free lifestyle is increasingly viable and popular as the city emerges from epic mismanagement a couple of decades ago.
*************
If you are visiting DC for the traditional tourist itinerary, there’s no good reason to rent a car. Driving and parking are difficult in the main tourist areas. The Metro goes right to National Airport, and there is straightforward bus service if you must fly into Dulles or BWI.
I happened to be in town the very day the USDOT reversed itself and gave the go-ahead to Dulles Rail. Having spent most of that trip in the Dulles Corridor, I can say that there’s tons of high-rise office space surrounded by parking. That’s a good sign, as it indicates that there’s tons of available real estate with mild zoning restrictions. Furthermore, it’s certainly interesting to see how the attitude of federal bureaucrats can change when the system is in their direct experience, while it’s “let them take buses” out here in the stix. But let’s give Virginia’s leaders credit for persevering in the face of really negative feedback.
In terms of sheer beauty, little in the transit world really compares to a DC Metro Station. The underground architecture, while composed mainly of concrete, is roomy and appealing. Interestingly, as far as I can tell, exactly 0.0% of the capital expenditure was devoted to public art. If it were up to me, I’d encourage all transit systems to build intrinsic beauty into their architecture, rather than add some art of controversial value to each station.
I’ll finish with a brief anecdote. I attended a game at Nationals Stadium downtown, which was built half a block from the Navy Yard station. I was impressed with WMATA’s event management, with the nearest gate to the stadium being exit-only before the game and entrance-only afterwards. Additionally, there were lots of WMATA personnel around to direct the crowds in the station and make sure that every last car was packed to the gills. It was an extremely well-organized operation, especially considering the stadium had only been open for a month.
At any rate, I soon was waiting for a transfer at L’Enfant Plaza, when I overheard this conversation:
“The next train comes in eight minutes.”
“Eight Minutes?!”
Think of the implications of that conversation:
(1) The agency is able to predict with precision the next arrival.
(2) They inform riders with a simple-to-use message board.
(3) The riders are conditioned to think that 8 minutes is an unreasonable time to wait at 10 pm.
Jealous, aren’t you?
Photo courtesy of washingtontravelcast.com
May 15, 2008 at 6:48 am
by Andrew Smith
That’s the question Sound Transit and Puyallup are asking themselves. The Puyallup station has 680 spots between four lots near there, but the spots are nearly always full. The News Tribune likes the idea of having the drivers park at satellite lots and take buses to the train station.
One remedy would be a healthy-sized parking garage at the station. A garage would have been built had voters approved the Roads and Transit package last November; now the project awaits possible approval of a scaled-down package.
Sound Transit has already been pursuing a more elegant solution: satellite parking, a decentralized form of park-and-ride. The idea is to let workers park their cars outside the core and take a bus to the station. The bus gets the commuters to the train quickly and on time. There’s already a satellite parking center on South Hill and another in Bonney Lake (which takes people to Sumner Station).
Assuming the bus connection is fast and reliable, this works for everyone. Downtowns don’t get buried in parked cars, and commuters can leave their cars closer to home and not panic about finding a spot near the station before the train leaves.
If satellite parking lots are extended to the suburbs, train service will become more accessible and the reach of mass transit will be extended.
As one of the first small cities to get big-time transit service, Puyallup is a laboratory for other Puget Sound communities. Its parking solutions are probably going to be the region’s parking solutions.
The idea is interesting, to put the parking lots closer to peoples homes and run shuttles. However, the transfer might not be appetizing to all riders, and it could turn some riders off of Sounder. The whole problem makes me think about an idea Martin had at our last meet-up: charge a small amount for parking each day at the main lots, and let the people who don’t mind as much park in the shuttles. I imagine you’d see more carpools, more people walking, and more people biking. The parking money could go to possibly getting more parking, installing bike lockers, operating the shuttles, or really anything. The article also mentions people driving from Sumner to park in Puyallup to avoid crowding, these people might decide to stay in Sumner and park there. As long as Puyallup is a laboratory, we should really try something different.
What do you think? Would you pay for a park-and-ride to avoid crowding? Anyone here bike to a park-and-ride?
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