January 8, 2009 at 11:37 pm
by Andrew Smith
Overcrowded three-wheeler, Rajasthan, India
January 8, 2009 at 9:30 am
by Martin H. Duke
I don’t want this to become the “Seattle Adverse Weather Transit Blog”, but in addition to the Amtrak service cancellation, the flooding has affected suburban routes for Metro, South Sounder, ST 560, Community Transit, and some Pierce Transit routes.
If you ride North Sounder, please check the ST website frequently, because that train has been frequently subject to mudslides in the past.
January 8, 2009 at 2:40 am
by BEN WOOSLEY
A few months back, Erica C. Barnett of Slog and our own Andrew called for parking maximum mandates for new construction in Seattle. Now, I can understand the appeal of parking maximums. After all, parking-induced sprawl ranks with pollution as one of the worst effects of cars. But I’m more than skeptical of such maximums – not only does the evidence show we’re making good progress without them, I suspect they’re downright counterproductive to the mass transit cause. Surprised? Read on…
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January 8, 2009 at 2:31 am
by Andrew Smith
 Image from swannman on flickr
It’s raining now, and it’ll still be raining tomorrow morning, at least according to the weatherman. Sound Transit, Seattle Police and Fire and Metro are taking the storm as an opportunity to test emergency response on Link. I hope your commute goes well.
January 7, 2009 at 5:42 pm
by Brian Bundridge
Due to the flooding in Western Washington, Amtrak Cascades, Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, and Amtrak’s Empire Builder is suspended due to the severe flooding. This restriction also applies to ALL freight trains. If you have loved ones on the train, they will be returning to their respective stations.
- #11 arrived PDX
- #501 arrived PDX 300p
- #500 arrived SEA 200p
- #506 is coming back to PDX… Stopped around Ostrander.
- #507 is turning at Olympia…. going back to Seattle..
BNSF also has a 200′ washout at Martin on the Stampede Subdivision and reportedly, there is a wash out on the Bellingham Subdivision which would make the North end trains suspended as well.
Update: 6:07pm - BNSF has pulled all the switch machines (which throws the railroad switch automatically) between Centralia and Chehalis. Slide at Solo Point near University Place. BNSF is under water at Mt. Vernon with reported extensive damage to main-line. Sumner and Puyallup has been ordered to evacuate from Brock Hansen of Puyallup.
Update: 6:20pm - WSDOT is closing a 20 mile segment of I-5, between exit 88 near the Lewis/Thurston county border south to exit 68, the US 12 interchange connecting with Morton and White Pass. WSDOT is planning to close I-5 between Fife and Tacoma in the next hour or two. Hwy 410, I-90 between North Bend and Easton, US 2 and Hwy 12 all remain closed.
Update: 7:15pm - The BNSF Railway bridge in Sumner is reportedly buckling from the force of the river.
January 7, 2009 at 3:00 pm
by John Jensen
 Once again, ECB has called for Ride Free Area to be eliminated. As we’ve argued before, the Ride Free Area makes buses flow through the congested downtown area quicker. ECB is a smart and strong supporter of transit and it’s great to see her reference some of the comments made on this blog, but we do disagree when it comes to the Ride Free Area.
Yes, the Ride Free Area can be confusing. Some routes you pay when you enter, others you pay when you leave. Sometimes riders paying with cash have to get a transfer on one side of downtown, and show it to the driver when leaving the bus on the other side of downtown. Seattle transit-types will boast that it’s not hard to figure out — but it certainly isn’t easy for new-comers. When I used to bus around Redmond, the handful of times I encountered a pay-as-you-leave bus I was completely lost.
But, it lets riders board and depart through all sets of doors while in downtown, the most congested part of the bus network. It does not cause revenue to be lost for Metro (the city and downtown business owners pick up the tab). And it makes the entire system operate more efficiently.
Read past the jump to see why we should keep the Ride Free Area around for now, and how we can get rid of it in the future.
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January 7, 2009 at 1:36 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Pepsi adds in University Street station. By Oran, via the STB flickr group
These don’t deserve posts of their own, but I want to keep you informed:
- Obama is now planning to make 40% of the stimulus tax rebates. This means some combination of two things: 1) that there were not enough good “shovel-ready” projects available and 2) that Obama is trying please conservatives.
- Vancouver Washington is thinking about light rail alignments. When a new I-5 bridge across the Columbia is built, Vancouver will likely get connected to Portland’s Max system.
- Phoenix’s Light Rail trains have had four accidentswith cars since opening last month. That system is basically entirely at-grade, so there are more crossings and more spots to have accidents than with Link. Still, we need to be careful when Link opens, the potential for accidents is still there, and while some accidents are certainly inevitable, right sorts of lights and bells can keep the number to a minimum.
- Apparently Seattle is getting WAY better.
- Are we trying to resuscitate a dinosaur by fighting for transit? I don’t think so, in fact, I believe we’ve got a dinosaur on life-support with the way we plan transportation currently.
- Ted Van Dyk, who used to infuriate me, has become hilarious (self-inflicted “atrocity”). Who would have ever thought that? Universe, you have a sense of humor.
- If Sound Transit should be called “Seattle Transit”, East Link should be called “Bellevue Link“.
January 7, 2009 at 5:00 am
by John Jensen
 There’s a lot of talk about ORCA being confusing or not very well defined. Well, of course. The card isn’t available yet. There isn’t much information on Metro’s site about it. Once we get ORCA in our hands and we’re using it on buses, light rail, and Sounder, it’ll make sense.
A new rider to our area won’t realize that there was some other system that we used to use — they’ll just realize that ORCA is the media we use to pay for transit, and get a card in their hands.
Head past the jump for what we know about ORCA, what we don’t, and to see why ORCA is a good thing for our transit network.
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January 6, 2009 at 2:04 pm
by John Jensen
ECB on Slog has a great account of Metro’s General Manager, Kevin Desmond, explaining the bus system’s performance during the recent Snowpocolypse to the Seattle City Council. It is good to see Metro be blunt about its faults, and we’re happy to see that some of the radio technological challenges that contributed to the chaos will be fixed in 2010. ECB’s account is a must read.
We posted a post-mortem of the Snowpocolypse yesterday and along with my post earlier this morning about Metro’s reduced service last week, our bus system is taking a lot of heat recently. Well deserved, perhaps.
But it’s a good time as any to say that a lot of us use Metro every day and — in normal weather — ride a pretty good bus system. With GPS tracking, improved radio tech, and automatic stop announcements coming over the next few years, it’s clear that Metro is invested in improving our transit network over time. I’m a happy #8 commuter myself.
January 6, 2009 at 4:00 am
by John Jensen
You may remember a few posts we had concerning Metro’s unplanned “holiday” schedule that resulted in reduced service last week. With the same thinking as yesterday’s snow postmortem, I’d like to follow-up with a more forceful rebuke of Metro’s decision and how it was carried out. I feel that Metro’s communications were opaque and misleading, their planning was poor, and their web front could have been used better. You can read the full post past the jump.
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January 5, 2009 at 4:47 pm
by Andrew Smith
 Embarcadero, before and after. From flickr user Vision 63 Jim Veseley makes the Alaskan-Way Viaduct-Embarcadero connection. I made the same point in a letter in the P-I a couple of years ago, back when I lived in San Francisco. The Embarcadero Freeway ran on the San Francisco waterfront, carried exactly the same number of cars as the Alaskan Way viaduct and was replaced by a surface-transit option (sound familiar?). Here’s what I wrote then:
In 1989, the Loma Prieta Quake damaged San Francisco’s waterfront Embarcadero Freeway. Most politicians wanted a rebuild of the two-level structure, and the mayor at the time, Art Agnos, proposed a boulevard and a tunnel option. Twenty thousand signatures were collected to stop the demolition and the state refused to finance the tunnel option. Agnos scrapped the tunnel but went forward with the demolition anyway, and the unexpected happened.
San Franciscans found other ways to get to where they needed to go, and everyone now loves their highway-less waterfront. The Embarcadero has become a grand boulevard with beautiful squares and plazas, lined with trees and public art, and has had its historic streetcar brought back. The neighborhood has been massively revitalized.
No one misses the Embarcadero Freeway, even though it was the only freeway between the Golden Gate bridge and the Bay Bridge to the rest of the city. Before it was a concrete eyesore, and now it’s a beautiful grand bouvelvard, with parks and plazas, bike trails, and human activity. Think that won’t work in Seattle? Look at the picture above and tell me that isn’t the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
January 5, 2009 at 4:45 pm
by John Jensen
The New York Times editorial board yesterday called for the incoming Obama administration to deliver when it comes to mass transit. It’s certainly a message we can support. Federal funding of local transit projects — especially fixed-guideway rail that is most effective at moving people and developing neighborhoods — is a necessity.
For years, the division of transportation money in Washington has heavily favored cars and trucks — more than 80 percent of the big transit money from gas taxes goes to highways and bridges, and less than 20 percent to railroads or mass transit. [Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee] Mr. Oberstar is leading the charge to change that formula and divide this money a little more evenly. This will not be easy. Automobiles will be with us a long time, and old spending habits die hard. But as part of the stimulus package now under discussion for transportation, Mr. Oberstar is proposing $30 billion for highways and bridges and $12 billion for public transit. That is certainly a far healthier mix.
The new administration could further help mass transit by shelving the unfair “cost effectiveness index” that President Bush put in place several years ago for new transit programs. The net effect of this index was to make it easier to build highways and almost impossible to use federal money for buses, streetcars, light rail, trolleys — indeed, any commuter-rail projects.
For Mr. Obama’s transit agenda and for [incoming Secretary of Transporation] Mr. LaHood, the next big challenge will be a transit bill that Congress must pass by September.
It’s certainly a message we can support. There’s a lot of work for us in the transit community to advocate for. Certainly Obama’s economic recovery plan — which will include an estimated $350bn in infrastructure spending — offers opportunities for transit, but also challenges since many states will by habit direct spending toward roads. Raising the gas tax may be politically unlikely, but it would allow for more money to be directed to transit while simultaneously maintaining our highway infrastructure from decay (without relying on stimulus programs to do it for us). But perhaps the most important upcoming piece of work is, as the Times says, reauthorizing the transit spending bill. We need more money for projects, a bigger federal share of the funding, and a stronger focus on rail.
January 5, 2009 at 4:38 pm
by Andrew Smith
 One way to carry clothes to work on the bus. Image by Oran from the STB flickr pool
- Erica Barnett shared her thoughts on the Sound Transit fare proposals. She outlined some of the positives of getting rid of the ride-free zone, but doesn’t address the negative: buses would get stuck downtown. That’s the reason the ride-free zone (and later the bus tunnel) was created in the first place.
- If the weather permits, I might try this bus-run commute, too. The tricky bits are planning on where to leave your clothes, and not stinking up the bus when you get on.
- This Oregon writer adds another datapoint to the snow-salt controversy: old cars can be destroyed by salt on the roads.
- Obama keeps saying “stimulus” and “roads“, but not “transit”.
January 5, 2009 at 10:30 am
by Eric Butler
It’s been fashionable recently to call for various snowstorm service improvements that are somewhat expensive. To simply say “there ought to be more service” begs the question of “how?” Should the city or county buy more plows? Use salt? Buy more tow trucks? Would you prefer these kinds of things to, say, a significant number of new bus shelters for use year-round?
Since heavy snow isn’t a common occurrence here in Seattle, we don’t think it’s unreasonable that the city essentially accepts crappy service on the rare occasion when this kind of thing happens. The debate about changes to policy and if we should spend lots of money on plows, etc. will continue, but we’d like to focus now on small improvements that could be made quickly and inexpensively.
Most of these small improvements are, in my opinion, related to operational management and communications. One of the few things worse than your bus being canceled is not knowing about it, and waiting around for hours at the stop in the cold.
After the fold is an initial by-agency brainstorm, including some things that went well.
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January 5, 2009 at 8:40 am
by Brian Bundridge
Here is the latest news for Link Light-Rail and Sounder:
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January 5, 2009 at 5:54 am
by Martin H. Duke
The snow is still on the ground. Selected Metro routes are running the adverse weather routes, with a few on the dreaded “unpublished reroute.”
Community Transit and Pierce Transit also have service changes. Nothing on the Sound Transit website at the moment, but you can check the website of the county where your ST bus originates to see its status. Of these, only the 522 and 582 are affected at the moment.
As ever, give yourself plenty of time to get there, don’t wait for a bus on a hillside, etc, etc.
Judging from a quick check of the 42 and 48, it would appear that onebusaway.org now can handle the printed adverse weather route, but not the unpublished ones. It may be best to just see where your bus actually is, which you can do at busview.org (which will require you to download a Java plug-in). Also make sure to enable pop-ups for that site. [UPDATE: Two commenters have pointed out that busview data is not GPS data and suffers from the same accuracy problems.]
Less than 6 months till light rail. Consider this your snow day open thread.
January 4, 2009 at 8:33 pm
by Martin H. Duke
Some commenters are picking up snow-related bus chaos tonight. It’s supposed to melt overnight, but share your discoveries here.
We have unconfirmed reports of unpublished reroutes, canceled routes, and all the other silliness, but not a peep out of the Metro website as of 8:48 pm. Does no one working on Sunday evening have the password?
UPDATE 8:56pm: According to this link, Metro will make the call for Monday morning service at 10pm tonight.
UPDATE 10:29pm: As of 9:51 tonight, the adverse weather page is being updated and has a prominent link on the front page. Please refresh your browser if you are not seeing it.
If the Monday plan was finalized at 10pm as previously suggested, it hasn’t been posted on the Metro site or RPIN at the moment.
UPDATE 10:37pm: “Seattle911″ blogger Casey McNerthney is all over this developing story. The Monday morning Keystone-Port Townsend ferries are canceled, and salt is being used on selected Seattle streets.
No word from Community Transit or Sound Transit. All Pierce Transit routes are on snow detour at the moment.
UPDATE 10:51pm: I’m turning in, with no word on the plan for Monday. Unless one of the other bloggers keeps it going, check back here a little after 5:30am.
January 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm
by Martin H. Duke
 Image from Flickr contributor Redjar All this talk about fare structures has sparked some yearning for turnstiles. I refer you to my post on the topic last summer.
The only thing I might add is that although it’s true that LINK has surface stations, there are fairly high walls at every point except the on-ramps at the ends and (of course) the tracks themselves. While those obstacles aren’t insurmountable, they aren’t any easier to negotiate than simply jumping the turnstile. In any case, you’d have to have security, so the surface station issue isn’t really relevant.
You couldn’t have turnstiles in the DSTT when shared with buses, of course, but it’d be easy enough to assume anyone exiting without an entry swipe is coming from there and assess the maximum fare.
All that said, despite my East Coast biases I’m not terribly energized on this issue and am happy to see how the honor system works out here.
January 3, 2009 at 10:24 am
by Martin H. Duke
 UNOFFICIAL Link Fare Chart courtesy of Oran in the STB Flickr Pool I’d like to address four issues associated with proposed fare structure: one offers new information, the second discusses drawbacks of different fare approaches, the third addresses the ride-free zone, and the fourth affects South Seattle specifically.
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January 3, 2009 at 8:00 am
by John Jensen
 I was perversely disappointed yesterday when I searched around, and looked at my receipts from the day, and discovered that the Sound Transit 2 sales tax increase of 0.5% had yet to take place (pdf). All the ST2 documents before the election had indicated that we’d see a sales tax increase on January 1 — but not so!
I put in a call to Sound Transit, and the sales tax increase has been delayed until April, after the ST2 implementation plan is approved by the Sound Transit board. Apparently there have also been some technical delays in setting up the mechanism to collect the tax with the Department of Revenue.
Either way, Seattle residents like me get a three month reprieve from a 9.5% sales tax. Even if it is worth it.
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