September 25, 2008 at 11:43 am
by Martin H. Duke
The New York Times wonders: if Google Transit makes the subway system decipherable,
what is left for New Yorkers to lord over people who live someplace else?
I never really found it all that hard to figure out. It’s a pretty feeble article, but there’s an interesting comparison of the various trip planners available there.
Locally, I find trip planner’s assumptions to be pretty simplistic, and their alternative routes generally entirely useless (why yes! I could get off two stops earlier and walk the rest of the way!). The Google Transit interface is neater. Nothing, though, really compares with just figuring it out yourself with a good system map and buses running frequently enough that the schedule doesn’t matter.
September 25, 2008 at 8:00 am
by John Jensen
In light of today’s P-I article, I want to talk about the total cost of Proposition 1 and how the “No” campaign is being misleading on this subject. I agree with an earlier blog entry in that this total cost figure isn’t completely meaningful to voters, while the $69 cost per year figure is. I also agree that this is not the most important fact to voters, and the more time we spend arguing about the cost is less we spend boosting the plan.
However, most of us are pretty wonky – so let’s destroy this $107b number that the “No” campaign parades about with the help of the P-I.
Background: YOE vs. Constant Dollars
Last year, the Seattle P-I published an article discussing the “real” cost of Roads & Transit, the failed 2007′s measure to expand light rail and build new roads. It cost $18 billion in 2006 dollars and $47 billion when you factor in inflation and interest on loans. The $18b number would be “constant” dollars and the $47b would be “year-of-expenditure” (YOE) dollars. $18b in 2006 dollars is the effectively the same as $47b in YOE dollars (note: I am glossing over debt servicing and loan interest, both of which can be thought of conceptually as inflation).
YOE dollars have a lot of problems. For us in the here and now, it is simply not possible for us to comprehend the meaning of $10 in 2057 dollars. Whereas we all know that $10 today is a few boxes of cereal, or three gallons of milks/gas, or an entire day of parking at a downtown mall, or one hour of work at McDonald’s. Using some online calculators, we can see that $10 today will probably be somewhere around $39.50 in 2057 — nearly quadruple the number, but the same purchasing power.
So, the fault with YOE dollars is that at the starting point, they give the public a false conception of the price. They give managers at your company a false sense of the actual value of something. Most engineering projects do not use YOE dollars internally, because it is meaningless.
“Constant” dollars have their own problems, however. After a project is completed, “constant” dollars nearly always give the sense to the public that a project was over-budget. This is, in fact, why mass transit projects are — across the country — considered to be risky investments that always go over-budget. (Locally, Sound Transit and the monorail solidified this idea on their own — don’t get me wrong.)
(Read on to see how the media and Proposition 1 change things…)
(more…)
September 25, 2008 at 7:23 am
by Martin H. Duke
I understand John is putting together a mega-post on this subject, but Larry Lange in the P-I has really written a tour de force here, that carefully explains all the assumptions that go into the conflicting cost numbers for Prop 1. Every citizen in the district would be smarter for having read it. In particular, I applaud his emphasis on per-adult and per-household numbers rather than raw totals, as that’s a number that means something to real people in the real world.
I would have liked to see a remark that some of the program costs are covered not by local taxes but federal dollars, but that’s a minor quibble.
While the Mass Transit Now campaign is holding its own on this argument, this is not favorable terrain for them. The campaign really has to grab the narrative and focus more on benefits, rather than costs. No one votes for a program because it costs less than other people say it does; they vote for it because they like the benefits it’s going to bring to them and people they know.
September 24, 2008 at 9:00 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
I want to absolutely dispel the misconceptions some seem to have about Link’s capacity. In fact, I want to challenge the assumptions that go along with it being labeled “light rail” at all. While there are no hard and fast distinctions between light rail, heavy rail, and other terms such as “metro”, they each carry with them our personal experience and prejudices.
When I think of light rail, I tend to think of two car trains, often in street right of way. There are a lot of examples of this. Portland is limited to two car trains, and runs in the street in downtown. Salt Lake City is similar, I believe, and Phoenix looks like it has only one car platforms! Denver has been two car for a long time, and is now changing that. These systems carry a lot of people – but nowhere near as many as, say, a Paris metro line.
Different parts of Link will have different needs, but all parts of Link will be able to accomodate four car trains. Each car has 74 seats, with a comfortable capacity of double that, and a maximum capacity of 200. When we start running, we won’t be filling that up – we’ll start with two car trains, and add more as they get full.
At first, Central Link will run as often as every six minutes during peak times – so with two car trains, that’s 400 per train times ten trains an hour, or 4000 people per hour per direction (pphpd). That’s more than most bus lines do in a day – in an hour. That’s the maximum capacity of many light rail systems, in total.
This is where Link is just a little different.
When University Link opens, we’ll already need three car trains during some times of day – and we’ll likely run them more often between downtown and the UW, maybe four minutes instead of six. Three car trains every four minutes takes that 4,000 pphpd and kicks it up to 600 per train, 15 trains per hour – or 9,000 pphpd. There are very few light rail systems that can do that – but quite a few metros start there in capacity.
So how about ST2? Initially, Link will run in a few overlapping segments, for service as often as every three minutes downtown. By then we’ll be at four car trains quite a bit of the day – so 800, 20 times an hour, 16,000 pphpd. That’s not light rail territory.
In ST3, with extensions to Everett, Tacoma, and Redmond, the main line will cap out at service every two minutes – but there are other changes that can be made to increase capacity even a little farther. With just the trains we have, that’s 800 people on 30 trains an hour, or 24,000 pphpd. We can also later use cars with cabs at one end instead of both*, so we don’t have a bunch of cabs in the middle of the train taking up space. That could get that 800 up to 850 or 900, and if we went a bit further and used a single vehicle the full 120m length of the platforms, it could look more like 1000 or even 1200. You can do other things, too, like taking out some seats for more standing room as they do in Japan, although I can’t imagine we ever will on this line.
These are not light rail numbers. They’re not full metro numbers – our platforms are only half as long as many New York City subway platforms – but we’re also not going to be the Big Apple anytime soon. 24,000pphpd could serve this city for a hundred years – and it’s well over light rail volumes – so I like to call Link a light metro.
By the way, just to compare – a lane of highway typically carries about 2000-2200 vehicles per hour, each with some average a bit over 1 person. 1.2 is a typical estimate during commute times. Building this system is the equivalent of getting a long term benefit of twenty more lanes of highway from Northgate to downtown (ten each way), and a bit less than that in the outskirts (just because we won’t run trains at these frequencies all the way to Redmond and Lynnwood – there isn’t demand).
The next time I hear “we should have built a subway”, I am going to link that person to this post. We’re pretty much getting one – it’s more than enough to meet our needs for a century in the corridors where we’re building it.
*These are little ASCII trains to show what I mentioned above. The dashes each represent roughly 50 people, and the angled brackets are cabs. The square brackets are cabless ends. The first one is what we can do with the trains we have. The second is how Portland is getting a bit more space, third is what we could do with trains like Dallas (DART), and fourth is what’s possible with the line we’re building, if we need more capacity in 70 or 80 years.
September 24, 2008 at 8:47 pm
by Andrew Smith
Microsoft is adding new routes throughout the Eastside and other suburbs, and cutting service a bit for the Ballard Route. I’ve only taken the Connector a few times, and I have mixed feelings about it. The buses are nice and comfortable, not very crowded and have wi-fi. But the reservation system is cumbersome, the buses are rarely on time, and I always seem to fall asleep on them.
Have any of you taken the Connector? What are your feelings about it, whether you’ve taken it or not?
September 24, 2008 at 8:38 pm
by Andrew Smith
The first Prop. 1 debate was Tuesday in Bellevue. Both the P-I and the Times wrote about the debate. I don’t really have much to add, just that it’s interesting to contrast the coverage from the P-I with that from the Times.
Did anyone go?
The P-I notes when the next two debates are:
At least two more debates between the two sides are scheduled: Oct. 9 before the Seattle P-I’s editorial board and Oct. 16 at CityClub in Seattle.
September 24, 2008 at 1:01 pm
by Brian Bundridge
Washington State DOT Ferries Division has came to a decision regarding replacing the aging ferries and solve the Port Townsend – Keystone issue. DOT has also added 3 new 144-car ferries to the plan as well.
The plan and time-line as it stands now will be 2 Island Home type ferries . These ferries will have the capacity to hold 64 vehicles and a capacity of 600-700 passengers. The time-line is the first vessel will be ready in April 2010 and Fall 2010. The 2008 Transportation Budget (ESHB 2878) provides $84.5 million to construct new vessels for the Port Townsend/Keystone route.
Meanwhile the 144-car ferry will be based off the popular Issaquah class boats. These 3 new vessel will mean the retirement of the 1947 60-car Rhododendron and the 1954 87-car Evergreen State. These boats will be in service Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Spring 2012 respectively.
Funding for the 144-car ferries was originally approved by the Legislature in 2003, and $30.2 million has already been spent on design, engineering and procurement.
The currently projected design-build contract price is between $60 and $80 million for each ferry. The actual total contract price will depend on the contractor’s price proposal and the results of the price negotiations required by SHB 2378.
The 2008 supplemental budget provides funding for the purchase of up to three 144-car vessels. The total project cost is $283.2 million and the 2007-09 planned expenditure is $49.7 million.
And finally, Pierce County is allowing WSDOT the continued use of the Steilacoom II on the Port Townsend – Keystone route with a lease extension until August 2009.
September 24, 2008 at 9:51 am
by Brian Bundridge
It appears per the WSDOT website that the M Street to D Street connector also known as the Point Defiance Bypass for Sounder and Amtrak trains is currently under funded by as much as $14.9 million dollars. It is currently unknown what may be cut in the project itself or if the City of Tacoma or Lakewood would fork over the extra money to supplement the lack of funding.
This project delays multiple projects such as;
Extending Sounder to South Tacoma and Lakewood stations which just opened this past weekend.
Adding an additional 2 Amtrak Cascades trains between Seattle and Portland (after 3 other projects are installed as well, not just the sole reasoning for delay)
A trip reduction for the Amtrak Cascades service between Seattle and Portland that could save almost 6 minutes.
For more information, check out the WSDOT Folio of the project or the main project page.
September 24, 2008 at 8:19 am
by Brian Bundridge
Renovation of the historic King Street Station began this week with work beginning immediately on the roof to stop the leaks which have pledged the ailing station for years. The $26.2 million dollar project is scheduled to be completed in 2011 with a bigger waiting room, improved heater and air conditioning, new ticket counter, new baggage claim area, flooring, and much much more. Already the Compass room at the main entrance has been renovated but that work stopped earlier last year while the City of Seattle and BNSF Railway worked on a deal regarding the station.
For more information on the project, check out the City of Seattle’s King Street Station page. While the last update was July 15th, 2008, I’m sure they’ll start working on the page as work ramps up further.
September 24, 2008 at 8:01 am
by Brian Bundridge
I stopped by King Street Station last night to see how full the new trains were and I’m happy to report that a huge chunk of the new trains were full with the first 4 trains being standing room only. The new 6:30pm train was about 40% full.
The reverse commute trains maybe had 20-30 passengers at best – Some work needs to be done to get the word out about the reverse trains to pick the ridership up.
Everett trains were running at 3 cars except for one which had 2 engines and 2 cars and for the most part full.
The Seahawks train last weekend which had 6 cars did not go as smoothly as Sound Transit had hoped – the platforms for Everett – Seattle are only good for 5 cars except for Edmonds and Seattle which both can fit a 8 or 9 car train.
September 24, 2008 at 7:52 am
by Ben Schiendelman
For a group that comes out against any transit measure, anytime, anywhere – the ETA sure gets a pass from the P-I. In yesterday’s debate, Dick Paylor of the ETA was on the ‘stop anything’ side, and apparently the P-I has taken at face value the group’s claim that they’re in support of buses!
So, exactly which buses? They sure weren’t in support of Transit Now – even though RapidRide is exactly the kind of service they claim to want. They still claim that Proposition 1 is some absurdly high percentage light rail – I keep hearing 99%, or 95%, depending on which opponent is talking. So where does this come from?
Opponents, however, said the system would make little difference despite its large capacity. Dick Paylor of the pro-bus Eastside Transportation Association said more people could be carried at less cost on an expanded bus system than on light rail. (emphasis mine)
I suspect, in fact, that the ETA has never been in favor of any transit service, except strictly in theory. Once there’s a cost, that’s another story.
I think what’s interesting here is that they talk about the free market – that people should ‘be able to choose’ their mode of transportation. That’s fine – before the federal government started contributing to highways, we were traveling on rail. If they still want that now, maybe they should come out against projects like the 405 expansion – as it’s not paid for by toll revenue, it’s paid for by everyone in the state. Not just those who ‘choose’ to drive on it.
September 23, 2008 at 3:04 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
Several bus routes in Seattle are seeing more service, funded by the city! I had no idea this was coming, except that Eric seems to have his finger on the pulse of city projects, and sent an email about it. I have no idea where he found it.
The Bridging the Gap measure passed in 2006 funds projects all over town – and apparently, adds 20,000 hours of bus service this year, starting last weekend, improving the 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 14, 26, 28 and 44. This will increase next year, with 25,000 more service hours. It sounds like that would be a continuation of the 20,000 with an additional 25,000 on top of that, but I’m not entirely sure. All this service will continue until the end of 2015 – and as we get University Link shortly thereafter, Metro will have more Seattle funding to dole out by then.
Just more kudos for Greg Nickels, paying attention to transportation on all fronts. You can read the press release here.
September 23, 2008 at 1:00 am
by Andrew Smith
The News Tribune is calling out the City of Lakewood for renegging on a deal the city had with Sound Transit whereby the Lakewood would patrol and maintain the new train and bus station in Lakewood. The station opened last week but the Sounder service won’t reach Lakewood for at least another two years and – according to the News Tribune – Lakewood has decided they won’t pay for the patrols after all. The News Tribune’s editors put it better than I ever could:
Sound Transit has lived up to its end of the bargain … The agency also agreed to add millions of dollars to the project’s cost by agreeing to build a multi-story parking garage instead of a much cheaper surface lot.
That garage won’t be sitting empty until Sounder arrives in 2011 or 2012. Sound Transit is adding express bus service to the Tacoma Dome Station where passengers can catch Sounder trains, as well as 20 trips to an existing route between Lakewood and Seattle. Those services begin Sunday.
Lakewood is gaining a transportation hub at a critical time when commuters hit by high gas prices are taking a new look at mass transit. The key to getting people on buses – and eventually trains – is providing easy connections. Lakewood Station fits that bill.
September 22, 2008 at 9:35 pm
by Andrew Smith
The Daily Journal of Commerce is reporting that an issue with the elevators in the Beacon Hill station could delay the opening of Central Link next year. As you may know, the Beacon Hill station is located 160 below ground -about 16 stories - and high-speed elevators are supposed to move riders between the surface and the platform. The Beacon Hill tunnel has been the cause numerous schedule problems and delays and the elevators are just the lastest. According to the DJC:
The four high-speed elevators that will take passengers from the surface down to the station platform in 20 seconds are still being built in other parts of the country. They may not be installed until next March, even in the best-case scenario.
Sound Transit says the trains can still begin running on time.
…
Sound Transit has been pressuring its Beacon Hill contractor, Obayashi, to get Kone to move faster. But over the summer, Obayashi told Sound Transit that the elevators wouldn’t be done until July 29, 2009, according to a letter from Richard Capka, the Beacon Hill project’s resident engineer for Sound Transit.
The trains are supposed to begin rolling between Seattle and Tukwila in July of 2009.
“This schedule is totally unacceptable to Sound Transit,” Capka wrote in the letter to Obayashi project manager Masaki Omote.
Kone will have to bring in extra crews working overtime to get the elevators installed on time, Link director Ahmad Fazel said yesterday
I’ve got my fingers crossed this will not be a huge problem.
September 22, 2008 at 3:20 pm
by Andrew Smith
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Bellevue Mayor Grant Degginger will debate No on Prop 1′s Michael Ennis and Dick Paylor at the Bellevue Hilton Tomorrow at 7:30. This should be so much fun. I don’t know Ennis or Paylor, but Nickels and Degginger are both awesome, and if Ennis and Paylor are up to the task it will be a great show. If not, it’ll likely end up a bunch of bad numbers, misinformation and circular logic from the No camp.
Time: September 23rd, 7:30 am
Place: Bellevue Hilton, Salon C, 300 112th Avenue NE Bellevue
September 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm
by Martin H. Duke
I saw this on the Slog, and thought it important enough to forward:
Since 2006, Washington’s Republican Secretary of State has canceled more than 450,000 voter registrations in an effort to “clean up” the voter rolls. Sure, many are duplicate registrations or persons who moved out of state. But many are persons who think they’re properly registered and intend to vote in November. I personally know people this has happened to!
It doesn’t take much to get removed from the voter rolls. You may have been removed if, for example:
(1) you haven’t voted in a long time,
(2) your signature on your absentee ballot envelope wasn’t deemed a match with the signature on your registration card, or
(3) your absentee ballot was returned by the post office (the post office doesn’t forward ballots to your new address).
Everyone should check to make sure you are currently registered at your current address. You can do this online, and in most cases you can update your registration online. But you must make any changes by October 4!
Please take a minute to check your registration by clicking here.
Please forward this message to your friends and family! Everyone should check their registration before October 4!
Thanks!
This is one of several reasons I’m a big fan of voting in person whenever possible, but that’s a subject for another day. Anyway, check it out, because I think Prop. 1 is going to be a close contest.
September 22, 2008 at 7:54 am
by Martin H. Duke
The Times has a big piece this morning on the Mass Transit Now’s campaign’s efforts to mobilize Obama voters. As a partisan of one side, I obviously wish they had printed more rebuttals to the statements of the other side. At the same time, I think it’s better for the transparency of the issues to express the cost of the measure it terms of the average person or household, so I applaud them for that. And I’m glad to see them linking.
However, there are two factual errors, one trivial, and one fairly important.
The trivial one is that Ben is not the founder of this blog, Andrew is. Perhaps Ben is hogging the glory, but I suspect Mike Lindblom didn’t bother to ask the question. [UPDATE: This has been fixed online.]
More importantly, the plan summary says that Prop. 1 will add 100,000 hours of bus service, starting next year. That’s unclearly stated, since there will be 100,000 hours added immediately, and even more added later. This isn’t the Transit Now service drip-feed we’re used to, and it’s an important point given the criticism that this package doesn’t do enough right away.
I’ve been told that the service expansion plan will be out before the election, and we’ll let you know as soon as it’s released. But for reference, assuming each round trip takes two bus operating hours, 100,000 bus hours gets you almost 6 additional round trips for every ST Express route in the system, 365 days a year, and 8 round trips if you add it on weekdays only. That’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it means a lot more to most people than 100,000 hours.
[If you're coming here for the first time via the Seattle Times, welcome! To find out a bit more about who we are and what we do here, this post is both short and very useful.]
September 21, 2008 at 11:55 am
by Ben Schiendelman
When I talk about transportation, I keep coming back to one overarching theme. People will ask me what I think of biofuels, or a new bus route, or I’ll end up talking to someone about density or the design of a building, and they all fit together. What will keep working – what will still be here – in fifty years? In two hundred? In a thousand? Where can we make decisions now that will save the next generations from some of the disasters we’ve wrought? How can we build cities that will be adaptable – but not too adaptable, as we don’t want them reconfigured on a whim?
Sure, oil is a little cheaper this month. There’s still a finite amount of it, and it’s still more trouble than it’s worth in the long run. We need a future in which the vast majority of our trips by number are on foot, and by mile are on transit. That means a very dense core – not necessarily 40 stories, maybe just 6 or 8, but completely full of storefronts, restaurants, bars, clubs, kiosks, schools, everything that people do. I’m here on this blog because cars simply aren’t a part of that core equation, and transit is. Density caps out way too low with cars – wide streets and parking garages dampen livability dramatically, the more dense you get the more car infrastructure you need, pushing density down again. The train just needs a tube through the middle, even your platforms can be filled with people doing more than just going from A to B.
Regardless of what seems most cost effective this year or next, or what people seem to ‘want’ or what kind of houses people are buying right now – what matters is not now. Sure, more buses are great. Spending a lot on a short term fix when you don’t have a long term plan isn’t. What matters is what our infrastructure and urban layout looks like in twenty or fifty years when fuel simply isn’t available for working class Americans. You can’t build those solutions in a single regional transit package – but you can take a step, and you can start calling in the state government and federal government to help once you have something they can help fund.
I guess I’m just trying to remind you that this isn’t all we get. Proposition 1 is fantastic – it’s a good blend of today and tomorrow – but there will be more, and soon. The city wants more streetcar lines soon. The state wants to improve Cascades service between a lot of our major cities and towns – they want to buy trains and keep upgrading the track. The FTA and Amtrak stand to benefit greatly from Obama and Biden. We can work to strengthen our urban growth boundary. There are all these things that are worth fighting for, and I see a lot of fighting about piddly little things that work themselves out or are an annoyance at worst.
Want to solve something? Get newsstands and food vendors in the transit tunnel after Link opens. Build mixed use next to a train station. Help convince the city to refuse permits for concrete walls abutting sidewalks. Those things will matter in fifty years.
September 19, 2008 at 1:03 am
by Andrew Smith
- The new $31.2 million center-freeway station in South Everett looks amazing (see photo above). Sound Transit built it. The new station will save buses from having to merge from the left lane to the exit, and then from the right lane into the carpool-lane, and also has 400 parking spots. Nice, though of course 400 spots seems to low, we should be building 1000-spot park-and-rides.
- Thanks to a $2.2 million FTA grant, Metro and Sound Transit are adding 12 more hybrid buses to the fleet. The difference in fuel use between hybrids and normal diesel buses isn’t huge, but the operation costs are in total much less.
- The P-I editorial board is praising metro for honoring its promise to more service from Transit Now. I second that, it’s great to see KC Metro find creative ways to fund its operations. Hopefully if we get a more more transit-friendly administration, we can see the agencies get some help.
- Metrolink in the LA area is putting in safety controls in wake of last weeks horrific train crash. According to the News Tribune article, Sound Transit and BNSF have no plans to put in so-called “positive train controls” on the Sounder lines.
- Lakewood Sounder stations opens Saturday. The opening ceremony is Saturday, Sept. 20, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at 11424 Pacific Highway SW Lakewood, WA.
September 18, 2008 at 12:12 pm
by Andrew Smith
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