October 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm
by John Jensen
We’re liveblogging from AIA Seattle’s Designing for Livability: Sustainable Cities conference today. Part 1 and Part 2 were posted earlier today. This is the last post from the event.
The afternoon sessions here were breakout sessions of smaller groups, with each session having a handful of presenters (usually experts in the field or government officials).
The first session I saw was Integrating Bus Rapid Transit in Neighborhoods which actually focused more on defining the type of arterial BRT that both Swift from Community Transit and RapidRide from King Country Metro represent. On the continuum of BRT, this type of BRT lacks its own right-of-way and instead has to use a variety of techniques — jump queues, business access and transit lanes, traffic signal priority — to give buses priority on busy city streets.
More after the jump…
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October 16, 2009 at 1:00 pm
by Brian Bundridge
 Cascades by Stephen De Vight With the launch of the second Vancouver B.C. train, Washington State and British Columbia have came together to bring a great deal on getting to Canada. For a limited time, tickets are 25% off normal prices, making a very attractive deal for those going to Canada. Purchase tickets by December 31, 2009 and travel by January 31, 2010 to take advantage of this deal.
Sample one-way fares to and from Vancouver, BC include:
- Portland, OR: $34.50
- Tacoma, WA: $26.00
- Seattle, WA: $26.00
- Everett, WA: $17.00
- Bellingham, WA: $9.50
This deal was announced on Friday, October 9, 2009 with the Governor Christine Gregoire and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell to promote the new train service at King Street Station. So far, the train is averaging only 60 passengers on weekdays and about 90 on weekends.
For more information, check out the promotion for further details and blackout dates.
This will also be a great time to check out the new Canada Line and some excellent dining options along the line.
Also, don’t forget that this Fall is double Amtrak Guest Rewards points. Great way to earn free travel and other perks for our more frequent rail travelers.
October 16, 2009 at 10:15 am
by Ben Schiendelman
We’re liveblogging from AIA Seattle’s Designing for Livability: Sustainable Cities conference today. Part 1 is here.
The “ecodistricts” presentation is continuing with Johanna Brickman of ZGF Architects, on an ecodistrict plan for the Lloyd District in Portland. Well served by light rail already, situated around the convention center, this is a much more interesting area to work with, because it’s more representative of the infill possibility we have all over Seattle – there’s a lot already built, with surface parking ‘holes’ (and even small buildings) to be filled in with higher density. Current buildings can be upgraded for better performance in several aspects. There a lot of great ideas here for improvements - these ecodistrict plans can help municipalities determine what kind of requirements to put on construction and what infrastructure is necessary to make a district more self-sufficient.
In the last presentation on the Olympic Village project, Jeff Olson of VIA-Architecture pointed out that sewer systems tend to be hot – most wastewater is industrial, shower, laundry, etc. and contains a lot of energy. In that development, heat pumps are being used to recover a lot of that waste heat – this isn’t that new of an idea, but I hadn’t heard of it being used in a new development before. In the Lloyd District, because wastewater is combined with stormwater, regular street runoff neutralizes a lot of that heat, and separating the two systems would be necessary first – the ecodistrict plan outlines what work would need to be done and the potential benefits.
Brickman also brings up that it’s nearly impossible right now to set up public-private partnerships (at least in Portland) to use private infrastructure to help with things like meeting wastewater management goals, or even with using hot wastewater as a heat source. We can use regulation and incentives, (for example, the state of Washington’s Commute Trip Reduction program to require certain plans to reduce driving alone) but it’s apparently not possible for a building to partner with a municipality to, say, filter stormwater or harvest heat from wastewater, outside of the outputs of their own building.
There are a ton of people from various municipalities here – I’ve seen Tacoma, SDOT, Mountlake Terrace, and others. Hopefully they’re soaking up ideas.
There hasn’t been much yet today about transportation, but a breakout session this afternoon will discuss TOD around Swift and RapidRide, with representatives from Metro and Community Transit, so I’ll have more then.
October 16, 2009 at 9:37 am
by Ben Schiendelman
Today, John and I are at AIA Seattle’s conference, “Design for Livability: Sustainable Cities”. They’ve got several speakers this morning, starting with a group of presentations about “ecodistricts” – ecologically-minded plans for building communities. So far, the examples given are whole neighborhoods built, essentially, from scratch.
I want to say, first, that I’m biased against this sort of thing. Not against planning for sustainability in communities, but against doing it all at once. We need old buildings, so that rents become low enough to support nonprofits and startups, new ideas in general that can’t generate new construction rents. We need to accept that a single plan, no matter how inclusive, can’t meet everyone’s needs – as Jane Jacobs said, “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” We need a mixture of architectural styles and building ages so that entire neighborhoods don’t go out of vogue at once, so they have a mix of income levels and a mix of uses.
The two examples being discussed this morning so far are the South Waterfront development in Portland and the Olympic Village development in Vancouver, BC. In both of these examples, building essentially all at once probably couldn’t have been avoided. Olympic Village is being built on an ex-industrial site – it will be used temporarily by the Olympics as a weird, enclosed, secured compound, but afterward will be largely used as market rate, mixed use buildings, with a bit of subsidized housing. South Waterfront is similar – abandoned industrial land being built on all at once, spearheaded by Oregon Health and Science University’s expansion.
Most of the presentation time is being devoted to particular eco-features in each design, how they conserve water and energy, as well as a bit about transportation access. We’ll see if I can get some of the slides to update later.
I believe we’re moving on to a project in an existing urban area, so let’s start here and I’ll update more soon.
October 16, 2009 at 5:22 am
by John Jensen
With ballots being received around the state over the next few days, it’s time to recap our endorsements. Please share this with your friends and family who are concerned about transit and land use.
Initiative 1033: No
King County Executive: Dow Constantine
Seattle City Mayor: Mike McGinn
Seattle City Council Position No. 2: Richard Conlin
Seattle City Council Position No. 4: Sally Bagshaw
Seattle City Council Position No. 6: Jessie Israel
Seattle City Council Position No. 8: Mike O’Brien
Bellevue City Council Position No. 2: Vicki Orrico
Bellevue City Council Position No. 4: Patsy Bonincontri
Bellevue City Council Position No. 6: Michael Marchand
Bellevue City Council Position No. 7: Mike Creighton
City of Burien Proposition 1: Yes
The Seattle Transit Blog editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen.
October 15, 2009 at 3:25 pm
by Martin H. Duke
 Photo by Oran
October 15, 2009 at 11:00 am
by Adam Bejan Parast
 4186 Front view of seats by VeloBusDriver File this under mundane, but nevertheless important. Both Martin and I have an oddly intense passion for how Metro can improve circulation on it’s buses by strategically removing seats, which is why I was floored when I saw this photo by STB Pool contributor VeloBusDriver over the weekend. Click on the photo above to see several more photos.
Everyone has had the annoying experiences of squeezing past other riders, getting hit in the head by backpacks, having butts in your face or even the occasionally funny human tetris game played at every stop. Wider aisles will alleviate these problem by giving standees more space to move.
Metro has retrofitted one of its 40-ft trolley buses with 2+1 seating, after the initial inward-facing 1+1 seating area just behind the driver. This alternative seating arrangement doubles the width of aisles, allowing riders to stand two or possibly even three wide. Additionally, forward facing seats mean that the effective width of the aisle for standees is actually wider than that of the area with 1+1 inward-facing seating, because the legs and bags of seated passengers do not protrude into the aisle. As an added bonus 5 lucky passengers get a private seat by the window. More below the jump. (more…)
October 15, 2009 at 5:58 am
by Martin H. Duke
 The OneBusAway iPhone App Metro’s hosting a forum for developers interested in developing transit-related applications, where they will have an opportunity to demo things they’ve already developed and learn about other opportunities:
Do you develop applications using transit data, or are you interested in doing so? Come to a free workshop hosted by King County Metro Transit and tell us how we can partner with you to make it easier. The event will include a panel discussion, an opportunity for participants to demonstrate their applications, a breakout session for exploring specific topics such as data feeds, real-time information, and upcoming updates in Metro technology. Registration is required.
When: Thursday, Oct. 22, 4-7 p.m.
Where: King Street Center, in downtown Seattle
To learn more or to register, visit www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/MetroTransit/DataWorkshop.aspx or call 206-263-3792.
Other transit agencies aren’t nearly this proactive, so good for Metro to find a way to keep this effort going in the current budget environment.
(H/T: Brian Ferris)
October 14, 2009 at 10:30 am
by Martin H. Duke
 Portland Bike Stencil (wikimedia) [UPDATE 10/15: The Times sent a reporter to the summit.]
[UPDATE 2: See correction to the paragraph below in this post.]
This evening, in the Bertha Knight Landes Room of Seattle’s City Hall, the Cascade Bicycle Club is hosting a Traffic Justice Summit to discuss potential changes to the law that currently states that negligent manslaughter homicide due to negligence is a serious crime — unless you happen to commit it with a motor vehicle.
A traffic ticket is the worst the driver can expect if they run you over. Do you think there’s something wrong with this picture? We do.
If you agree, help us make history by changing the law. The Traffic Justice Summit welcomes Senate Judiciary Chair Adam Kline, Seattle city Attorney Tom Carr, Council Public Safety Chair Tim Burgess along with reserchers, experts, advocates, families, friends and victims to learn the facts and talk about what we can do as a community — and as a state — to protect pedestrians and cyclists.
The event runs from 5:30-7:30pm. Sadly, it appears no one from STB is going to be there.
According to the CBC, almost 500 pedestrians and bicyclists a year are killed or critically injured by automobiles in Washington. Just another part of the carnage that we accept as a car-centered society.
October 14, 2009 at 3:47 am
by Ben Schiendelman
First, I want to say why this race is important: There are two hurdles in building East Link light rail. We’ve written extensively about one of them, the I-90 issue, but the other is just as important in the long run.
The Sound Transit 2 ballot measure only provides enough money to build surface light rail in downtown Bellevue (the “C” portion of the project). The measure does include planning and engineering funding that allows more than one option to be advanced, though, so Sound Transit is also studying two tunnel options. Either of these tunnel options would require funding, from the city of Bellevue, above and beyond what Sound Transit can provide. The original C3T tunnel option could require as much as $500 million, and while the new 110th tunnel option would be cheaper, it’s unlikely to cut that number in half.
Bellevue presented a list of possible funding sources to Sound Transit at last week’s board meeting, but the final funding proposal will have to be made next year – after new Bellevue City Council members are seated.
With Kemper Freeman, Jr. assisting several of the campaigns in an attempt to get a light rail-unfriendly council elected, it’s especially important that we not ignore this race. Fortunately for us, there are several very good candidates!
 Mike Creighton The first good candidate is Mike Creighton. Mike has been involved at the local level in Bellevue for some thirty years, starting as a member of the School Board in 1980. He’s served on the Bellevue City Council before, and even served as Mayor for two years (the Bellevue City Council elects a Mayor from their members). He retired in 2003, but was appointed this year to fill Phil Noble’s seat. He’s served on the PSRC’s transportation policy board, and King County’s growth management planning council. He has a long list of good endorsements, including Mayor Degginger and former mayor Connie Marshall. We’d like to add to that list by endorsing him for Bellevue City Council position 7.
 Vicki Orrico The second is Vicki Orrico. Vicki is extremely involved in light rail planning, and as current chair of the Bellevue Planning Commission worked on the Bel-Red Corridor Plan to build TOD around East Link light rail stations. She’s even been endorsed by the Cascade Bicycle Club! Against her is Conrad Lee, a Kemperite and PRT advocate. Orrico has shown a solid understanding of planning principles and understands how to make sure East Link is effective – she earns our endorsement for position 2.
 Patsy Bonincontri Patsy Bonincontri was appointed to fill Connie Marshall’s seat. She served on the Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel for four years, previously chaired the Bellevue Planning Commision, and holds a degree in architecture. She’s running against developer Kevin Wallace, and her time so far on the Council has shown that she’s not afraid to take a stand to defend a good light rail alignment. Surrey Downs residents started talking about running someone against her right after the February vote. We endorse Bonincontri for position 4.
 Michael Marchand Finally, we have Michael Marchand, running against incumbent (and Kemperite) Don Davidson. Marchand has written about his opposition to the Kemper anti light rail lawsuit on his Bellevue Reporter blog, and I highly recommend the post. His attitude seems to match that of STB (and mine) very closely – he hits the nail on the head with one sentence:
With our region’s population predicted to nearly double by 2040 (for a great PSRC presentation click here), do we really think that all these people will be able to get around Bellevue using only cars and roads?
That’s his PSRC link, not ours (although we fixed it, PSRC seems to have pulled the document). This guy really gets it about what has to happen in the next couple of decades. We happily endorse him for position 6.
Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council and King County Executive endorsements, our endorsement for Seattle Mayor and our endorsement of a ‘no’ vote on I-1033.
October 13, 2009 at 3:14 pm
by Martin H. Duke
About 53 weeks after our 1,000th post, and about 30 months after the first, this is our 2,000th. I appreciate the volunteer effort of our staff that got us to this number.
I take a bit of pride in the overall quality of the content, and how it’s grown from a site of pro-transit rants into one that does some original journalism (rants still included), and a critical read not only for those who agree with us but all who believe that transit is an important issue in the region.
The other critical element here is the commenters. Some are in the transit establishment and some aren’t, but their overall knowledge and intelligence continue to amaze me. The vibrancy and high level of debate here are what separate us from most other blogs — of any stripe — in the area.
Thanks for joining us on this journey to learn more about the transit system. Keep teaching me things in the comment threads.
October 13, 2009 at 11:52 am
by John Jensen
 Think the Sound Transit website could use some improvement? Well, so does the agency. They’ve hired a contractor to pitch a new web strategy and could use our input. Consider this an open thread to suggest any improvements to the ST website — we’ll forward on the best thoughts to the agency.
October 13, 2009 at 5:10 am
by John Jensen
Initiative 1033, offered by Tim Eyman, would lock Washington State, its cities, and its counties into using its most perilous budgets well into the future. The initiative does not take into account that tax revenues were drastically lower this year due to a deep recession. Tax revenues wouldn’t be able to grow faster than inflation and population growth, which means that I-1033 calls for putting government into a permanent deep recession. It’s a wonky topic, and the initiative’s populist appeal could result serious harm to our state. Let your friends and neighbors know about the great harm that I-1033 could have on our community.
Beyond the obvious implications on education, health services, police forces, fire departments, and other vital services of the state, this initiative could create an environment where rational investments in transportation and transit are skipped in favor of covering whatever basics the state could afford. (If any.) And governments starved for revenue are going to be much less likely to create new revenue sources for transit investments — all revenue sources may be needed to fund basic services.
Both candidates for King County Executive — Dow Constantine and Susan Hutchison — have found common ground in rejection I-1033. Both candidates for Seattle mayor are against it. All candidates for Seattle City Council are against I-1033 as well.
A government must be nimble and have its ability to function uninhibited by the short-term politics of resentment. Initiative 1033 should be rejected.
Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council and King County Executive endorsements and our endorsement for Seattle Mayor.
October 12, 2009 at 12:20 pm
by Martin H. Duke
 Susan Hutchison Ah, opposition research. The Constantine campaign is spreading around a 2008 video of County Executive candidate Susan Hutchison effusively praising the Washington Policy Center’s report, the “Policy Guide for Washington State”:
Let me tell you about this book. I have read it cover to cover and it is one of the most extraordinary pieces of work about Washington State and the policies that make our government run. It hits on 10 different subjects from health care, education, transportation, tax policy and others. But let me tell you, folks… if you started this book tomorrow morning and read it through you would be smarter by dinnertime tomorrow night.
The Hutchison campaign’s comment last week on the report as a whole is at Publicola:
Lastly, I have never waivered from my positions that transportation policy should focus on congestion relief, integrating all of our transportation modes.
That’s not really disavowing the transportation recommendations in it. The Hutchison campaign did not take the opportunity to clarify their agreement or disagreement with the transportation components of the report.
The transportation chapter of this report is incredibly retrograde stuff straight out of 1955. It’s so funny/scary it’s probably not worth even bothering to rebut for this crowd. Anyway, the choicest recommendations from the report are excepted for your reading pleasure, below the fold:
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October 12, 2009 at 4:44 am
by Martin H. Duke
 "Guide rail and wheels on the monorail", by Mike Bjork
October 11, 2009 at 9:48 am
by John Jensen
 A Metro bus in teal. Provided by King County Metro. Ever wonder why Metro buses come in differing colors? Well, there’s just three: green, blue, and teal. Those colors always run above a yellow highlights. For more information, check out this old article on the Metro website.
October 10, 2009 at 2:36 pm
by John Jensen
 A good turnout. Seattle Transit Blog teamed up with Northwest Hub last Thursday to host another meet-up. The partnership — as well as the kindness of GGLO in hosting the event in a great space — meant we saw many new faces and had a great time. So fun, in fact, that I even got to eat a whole apple. The turn-out was pretty high and we’ll have to look into using the GGLO space again.
The meet-up was pretty heavy with guests. First up, Andrew Glass Hastings and Rachel Smith — both ran the Mass Transit Now! campaign last year — spoke about the city council race in Bellevue and how we only need to win one of the four races to preserve light rail through downtown. We’ll be covering this more in the future.
Next up were three speakers who were invited by Northwest Hub, and all focused on transit-oriented development. The first speaker spoke about a specific TOD project he was working on in Columbia City, and noted some of the challenges he has with slowness of Seattle’s planning department as well as the economic environment in general. Second, Chuck Wolfe gave a detailed lecture about how to move toward TOD politically. Drawing a lot of lessons from the current political climate, this speaker had the line of the night: “Mallahan is surrounded by great advisers. McGinn knows his stuff.” Finally, Sara Nikolic from Futurewise spoke about their work on the TOD bill during the last legislative session — which failed to pass — and how to get a bill passed this coming legislative session.
 Dow Constantine Our special guest speaker was Dow Constantine, candidate for King County Executive and current Chair of the County Council. Obviously tired from a long day of campaign, Constantine was still excited to talk about “his favorite subject: transit.” He gave a small speech about his differences from his opponent and took questions from the audience. Some key highlights:
- He commented on the absurdity of I-1033, saying if it were to pass it would put the government into a “permanent recession.”
- He showed a nuance position on the tunnel, acknowledging (correctly) that infrastructure creates demand but also not wanting to re-start the Viaduct replacement process since zany, crazy ideas could come back to the forefront and waste all of our time. Still, he knew his audience and did not attack surface/transit.
- He weighed in on the suspensions vs. cuts debate and stated that the suburban advantage on the council may make for an uphill battle. He said it was more important to fundamentally reform service allocation and end the 40/40/20 policy.
- He said that trolley buses last longer and that we shouldn’t replace them with hybrids, but with newer trolleys.
- He said that he doesn’t support a Metro fare increase of 25 cents per year “forever,” poking fun at some Councilmember plans to raise fares a dollar over the next four years. He said that transit has many purposes, one of which is the social goal of providing transportation for those in poverty. He hinted that a low-income fare might be worth considering
- After Constantine was done taking questions, he lounged around with readers for another 45 minutes or so. He’s a pretty wonky, candid guy. I’m happy we’ve endorsed him.
Also making the rounds was city council candidate David Ginsburg, who’s running an up-hill election against incumbent Richard Conlin. Ginsburg had the best glasses of the evening.
Thanks again to Jesse, Emily, and Ashley from Northwest Hub for partnering with us. And thanks to all of the guest speakers and blog readers who showed up.
October 9, 2009 at 6:28 am
by Ben Schiendelman
 Surrey Downs Lady, c/o Sound Transit During the public comments at yesterday’s Sound Transit board meeting, there was one comment from a Surrey Downs resident.
She complained because in the new 110th Street tunnel option for Bellevue, there could be a 45 foot high station as little as two hundred feet from Surrey Downs! Oh woe, she and her neighbors might eventually have the option of walking to a light rail station!
To his credit, Chair Nickels was wonderfully understanding, asking several specific questions to understand exactly what the issue was.
This is an open thread.
October 8, 2009 at 4:37 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
 Pioneer Square Station entrance - thanks to Mike Bjork Like the rest of our transit agencies and government bodies, Sound Transit also faces some 20% shortfall in sales tax revenue (and a hit to their MVET, as well).
Over the next 15 years, that equates to a drop of $3.1 billion in cumulative revenue for the agency. (By that time, revenue will be long stable again, it doesn’t add anything to look farther ahead.)
Today Sound Transit was kind enough to give Mike Lindblom and me a briefing on what this means for Sound Transit 2 projects, and the resulting news is pretty good: the padding Sound Transit had in ST2 is actually about the same as the revenue shortfall.
Sound Transit will be value-engineering everything to create new padding inside their shrunken revenue – they’re trying to ensure they don’t ride the edge of their budget for the next 15 years. Among other plans for cost savings, they also identified several places where expenditures that were planned to be immediate may not happen immediately – like matching funds provided if an operator wants to build something on the BNSF Eastside track. They’ve gotten unexpected grants lately, interest rates have been low, and bids have come under budget.
The big thing to take away is that Sound Transit showed us an aggressive plan that should keep ST2 projects on schedule. Given the last eight years of project delivery, I’m inclined to believe they can do it.
October 8, 2009 at 1:06 pm
by Ben Schiendelman
 Bellevue Transit Center, c/o Oran There’s no question – Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman Jr. is a smart cookie as far as real estate goes. The question for me has always been – why doesn’t he support light rail, when it would do so much for his properties?
For years, he’s fought East Link light rail extension. He fought it in 2007 in Roads and Transit, pushing that only the road projects be funded, even going so far as to run his own “End Gidlock Now” campaign (his spelling). He fought 2008′s Mass Transit Now. Today, he’s funding anti-light rail candidates in Bellevue City Council races, and he’s suing the state to stop light rail to Bellevue, claiming use of the I-90 center lanes is unconstitutional. More after the jump. (more…)
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