A few factoids that didn’t get to me in time for Monday’s Whatcom Transit piece, courtesy of WTA spokesperson Maureen McCarthy:
50% of WTA’s overall ridership is on these GO Lines.
“The cost for banners, shelters, shelter graphics and stop signs was approximately $250,000. There was also a budget for advertising and promotion, but the major costs of implementation were increased service hours and the $250K above.”
A survey shows that 37% of riders on GO lines are choice riders, who say they would otherwise drive alone.
For those of you who will be available this evening, this is a friendly reminder that Sound Transit is having their second Downtown Bellevue open housetonight from 4pm to 7pm (the presentation will begin at 5pm). The open house is expected to be considerably similar to the one held last November, when the original DEIS alternatives were being discussed. Today’s meeting will take public input on the four newer alternatives recently studied in a joint analysis (PDF) by ST and Bellevue, two of which look hot, the other two not so much. It will be held on the first-floor concourse of the Bellevue City Hall on the corner of NE 4th St and 112th Ave NE.
Expect the main battlefront to be situated around those for Wallace’s C14E alignment, and those against. There will also likely still be straggling B7 supporters, who are now finally facing mounting opposition from neighborhood residents in Mercer Slough and Enatai. We’ve editorialized multiple times against numerous disadvantages that the freeway alternative has across a number of levels. Below are links to our “recent” East Link coverage:
Last year’s recap of the South Bellevue open house, and the downtown recap.
Kevin Wallace introduces his ‘Vision Line’ proposal and his response to your initial concerns.
Previously, I wrote about how the quality of a transfer is affected by headways of the two transit lines, usually rail and bus. While this certainly is the most important determinant, the physical design of transfer stations is also important in creating higher quality transfer experiences. Walking time is important, and correspondingly factored into travel demand models.
Factors harder to quantify are also important. How visible is the connection? Do you have to cross a street? Is there weather protection? Are there seats? Transfer stations should communicate a unified and easy to use system which is approachable by those that don’t usually take transit or buses. Essentially, quality transfer stations are necessary to effectively motivate users to transfer, but insufficient on their own.
To illustrate this point I took two videos of transfers between Stockholm’s Metro (Tunnelbana Red Line T13), and two different bus terminals. The video above is exactly what you want to do. The video below is exactly what you don’t want to do. To simply say a transfer is “only 900 ft” or “only takes 3 minutes”, is missing the point. There is a good way to do it and a bad way to do it. Of course the transfer quality shouldn’t be the only factors looked at, but it certainly shouldn’t be overlooked.
In a few days I’ll be interviewing Darlene Pahlman, senior engineer on SDOT’s MLK Signaling project. I’ll be talking through how signal priority is working for Link. If you have anything you’d like me to ask her, please offer it in the comments.
USDOT announced their TIGER (Transporation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grants today (PDF), which go to a variety of transportation projects nationwide. There were hopes that extending Link to S. 200th St could be accelerated 8 years to 2012, but those hopes died today.
UPDATE from Sherwin 6:54pm: To settle the confusion on exactly when the S. 200th extension will open, I emailed Geoff Patrick, ST spokesperson, about the matter. Here’s what he had to say:
The ST2 Plan has this project at 2020. There has been general discussion about the possibility of moving up the project since we have already finished the preliminary design and environmental work to South 200th. However, that is a significant policy decision that has not yet been taken up by the Sound Transit Board.
KUOW* recently played one of Alex Steffen’s Town Hall talks from a few months ago, and I highly recommend listening to them. He claims that Seattle has a world reputation as a green city, which is based purely on our clean hydroelectric energy source, not the way we run our city or region. But we could use this free marketing with our geographic luck and some hard work to convert our city to the world’s first that is carbon neutral – setting an example for other cities to follow.
Our luck extends beyond geography. It turns out that our own Bill Gates has announced that he will use his foundation to try to get the entire world on track to be carbon neutral. Perhaps we can convince our politicians, businesses, and citizens to get on board as well.
* if you listen to podcasts I highly recommend adding Speakers’ Forum to your list. It’s a weekly broadcast of speakers from a wide range of subjects at local venues.
Andrew Austin, Policy Associate for Transportation Choices Coalition, is in Olympia today and reports that HB 2855, which would have provided new taxing authority to maintain transit service in King and Snohomish Counties, was not put to a vote by the House leadership. (Seattle representative Frank Chopp is the Speaker of the House.)
Bills had to pass out of their originating house by 5 pm today, so the bill’s failure to advance means means there will be no relief this session. We’ll have more in the coming days.
As reported in the Beacon Hill Blog and later in Publicola, three groups of SE Seattle residents have appealed the City’s attempt to fast-track finally proceed with upzones of the neighborhoods surrounding the Beacon Hill, Mt. Baker, and Othello stations.
There were also dueling columns in BHB: one by appeal signatory Frederica Miller Merrell, and an opposing one by BHB columnist Melissa Jonas. The prehearing for the Beacon Hill and Mt. Baker appeals have already occurred; Othello’s is at the Seattle Municipal Tower today at 10am. The hearing will be March 15th. If I read the DPD website correctly, there are hearings about Beacon Hill on March 9 and April 7.
If my neighborhood (Columbia City) comes up, I’ll be sure to attend; density is what creates truly walkable neighborhoods, by providing the economic intensity to support lots of businesses close together. The least that cities can do is remove regulatory obstacles to free-market attempts to provide that density.
Proposed Upzone - 25 ft on about 4 square blocks
[UPDATE: For those looking for the plan in dispute go here]
[UPDATE 2/16 7:30 am: Publicola says the bill is in trouble in the House.
UPDATE 2/16 12:00 pm: To lookup your legislator go here.]
HB 2855 is the bill that would allow a temporary $20 increase in automobile license fees and therefore avoid budget cuts in many of Washington’s transit agencies. This $20 increase can be enabled by a simple vote of each agency’s governing board (in King County’s case, the County Council). A further $30 is available to certain counties (basically, Puget Sound*) with a public vote. Bertolet says the $20 fee would provide Metro $28m/year, or about 224,000 service hours. We have 50,000 hours in service cuts planned through 2011, and about 385,000 in the two years after that. Arithmetic tells us a $40 fee should put Metro right on track for its pre-recession plans.
I don’t have the revenue figures for the CT district on hand, but a tax rise should enable the agency to buy back at least the elimination of Sunday Service, which would take about 48,000 service hours to restore completely. Most, but I don’t believe all, other transit agencies in the State actually have some sales tax authority remaining, although sales tax increases require a public vote.
Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day for it to get it out of the House. Transportation Choices has an action page allowing you to email your legislators. If it passes the House there are still obstacles in the Senate and the Governor’s office. Senate Transporation Chair Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island) is reportedly opposed, and Governor Gregoire chose to veto a $20 measure last year.
* Population > 1m; population > 500,000, adjacent to > 1m; population 200,000, adjacent to > 500,000. The Venn diagram suggests the second category is entirely enclosed by the third, but whatever…
