Comments on: Uh-oh.

By: ericn

ericn — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:31:06 +0000

Some other interesting stuff in there: adding a grade separation at Marginal Way, the Burke Gilman Trail missing link, the Spokane Street viaduct (plus bus lane), BAT lanes on Rainier in Renton, and what appears to be the Point Defiance Bypass (labelled as “D & M Street Railroad Bridge” under Lakewood).

By: Clint

Clint — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:52:45 +0000

http://www.usmayors.org/mainstreeteconomicrecovery/documents/mser-report-200812.pdf

By: Clint

Clint — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:52:11 +0000

oops

By: Clint

Clint — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:51:49 +0000

For those who are interested, here’s the list of “ready to go” projects that the mayors turned over to Obama’s team.

Not much for Seattle transit-wise (King St. station renovation), but fixing the Mercer St./I-5 intersection is on the list…

By: tres_arboles

tres_arboles — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:58:02 +0000

My reaction to hearing the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ policy was that the Governor and Legislature best past some SEPA sufficiency legislation early in the next session or public process will eat Washington State’s shot at infrastructure stimulus. This simply because the talking point about rpojects that will attract stimulus spending are ‘those that are ready to go’ (meaning, to me, that they’ve been through permitting and are in the process of contracting. The enviro’s will hate it, but SEPA is the State-level’s biggest environmental/procedural compliance step between planning and contracting and extremely time intensive for very little actual environmental benefit.

By: Zach

Zach — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:29:02 +0000

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28102241/

Ridership on public transit up 6.5% from July to September, the biggest increase in 25 years.

By: max

max — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:34:08 +0000

Let’s just hope (like what others have said) local government bureaucracy doesn’t get in the way. Whatever happened to simplicity and majority rules? If the majority of people want a simple solution (like with the viaduct and 520), shouldn’t we get what we want, instead of listening to the 1% of people affected by such projects complain and forcing local governments to go back to the drawing board? I mean, just look at the new plans for 520 and the viaduct…YIKES!…..

Just surface the viaduct & build a six-lane 520, all supplemented by TRANSIT. What’s the worse that could happen?

By: Ben Schiendelman

Ben Schiendelman — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:28:53 +0000

That’s because it would be political suicide for him to make a big deal about it.

By: david

david — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:56:39 +0000

I’ve noticed this many times with regards to Obama and Transit. His policies seem to support it, and people on his team will assure us that he supports transit. But he seems to NEVER actually say it out loud himself, at least not since becoming president elect.

By: david

david — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:56:16 +0000

I’ve noticed this many times with regards to Obama and Transit. His policies seem to support it, and people on his team will assure us that he supports transit. But he seems to NEVER actually says it out loud himself, at least not since becoming president elect.

By: MetroMan

MetroMan — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:51:36 +0000

I agree that high speed rail is wonderful, but the operative word here is “PROJECTS READY TO GO”. High speed rail is years off just in the planning stages.
Talgo trainsets and current FRA law allow for 100+ mph sections of track. That’s a huge leap over what it does now. All it takes is time and money to ‘get-er-done’.
Seattle to Portland (city center to city center) in a couple of hours is within our grasp now and one of Alaska Airlines worst nightmares.
Ft. Defiance bypass is nearly ready to go, as well as many other projects that benefit Sound Transit. Let’s go after the money, before we get too far back from the front of the line.

By: NSBill

NSBill — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:00:50 +0000

Making intercity rail would be awesome. But not just intercity rail, high-speed intercity rail. Why are we constraining ourselves to working on BNSF and others railways? Is it “simply” the money involved in obtaining an additional right-of-way?

The fact that Alaska Air flies to Portland once per hour shows there is quite a demand. It’s 175 miles to Portland. Imagine a train traveling at 180mph (which is about what the high-speed Euro trains travel at). Plane travel for that distance is laughable. Plus folks in other towns along the way can use it instead of driving to the airport or driving to Portland. Just hit the major cities, Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia-(Vancouver?)-Portland. OK, I’ll wake up now. That Ambien really gives you crazy dreams. :)

Any sites or information anyone has about this sort of thing would be greatly appreciated.

By: MetroMan

MetroMan — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:59:51 +0000

It seems clear that ‘projects ready to go’ will be the key in getting to the front of the public works project line. With that said, intercity rail has been sitting on the side lines for quite a while now. WSDOT-Rail Office has lots of projects, from rolling stock to grade crossings that both improve travel time to Portland and Blaine, improve safety, and increasing capacity in the process.
Fewer cars and planes making the trip reduce energy consumption, CO2 emissions and increase jobs to make it all happen.
Win, Win, Win. (and all three top priorities of the Obama Administration).
I’m posting comments to the President Elect Obamas transition website. (CHANGE.GOV) They really do read them!
The benefits of just doing Seattle to Portland, and getting the FRA to actually hold the railroads to the law of not curtailing passenger trains in favor of freight, are too numerous to list on this blog, but I’m sure you have your favorites!
Mike

By: Zach

Zach — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:16:26 +0000

Thanks ericn…

By: serial catowner

serial catowner — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:37:29 +0000

Well, it’s also time to be a NIMBY if you don’t want a new freeway on the Seattle waterfront. As long as the state DOT is predicting increases in traffic, they will want to build more freeways.

By: Tony

Tony — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:05:01 +0000

Let’s remember that money is fungible. Right now, this region has several billion dollars worth of projects that are pretty much ready to go. It’s been a long time coming, but the viaduct battle in nearing and end, as is 520. Those two alone come to $7-8 billion. Obviously, ST acceleration could also make the boat, but let’s say 100% of Obama’s new money goes to the Viaduct and 520. Guess what: that’s still great news for transit, because now, the tax payers of this region don’t have to pay for those projects. The money that we would have spend on them is still in our pockets. That means, that the public hear will be more likely to vote to raise taxes for more transit, because we no longer have to use all our tax dollars on roads.

Every dollar the feds spend, on anything, frees up local dollars to spend on something else.

But the overall point of the post is well taken, if we want to see some trains here, we had better start pressuring local officials to get a plan worked out and in the cue so we can capture as much of those federal dollars as we can.

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:54:51 +0000

I think it is good policy. First, it’s incentive to hurry up and will certainly cause projects to go to construction faster (as federal funds will mean the difference between being built and not). Second, there might be incentive at the federal level to have less pedantic EIS requirements which add years to a project’s lifetime. Third, it’s a stimulus plan for the next handful of years — so it’d be questionable to use political capital spent on getting a public works plan passed and then have those projects be delayed a half decade.

By: John Jensen

John Jensen — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 07:48:45 +0000

That’d be awesome, seriously, wouldn’t it? But given that the feds are already ponying up $813m, I can’t see it as a huge reality. I asked around and it didn’t seem very likely.

By: C Burger

C Burger — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:45:14 +0000

Any chance this could be use to speed up University Link?

By: ericn

ericn — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 06:28:45 +0000

The New York Times article on the address specifically mentions mass transit (along with sewers and electrical grids) as things that will be included in the infrastructure plan. Since none of those were actually mentioned by Obama today, I’m assuming the NYT has better details on the plan itself.