photo by Surrealize

KUOW, our local NPR radio station, is conducting an informal poll in order to gather information on people’s perception of Sound Transit’s new light rail system.

Light rail has been a reality in Seattle for a half-year now. Does the light-rail line live up to its promise? What effect is it having on the communities it passes through?

Go here and make your voice heard.

(note: KUOW may contact you if they have questions.)

Evan Siroky at Tacoma Tomorrow had a great catch: the new Pierce Transit service reduction plan has 88,000 more service hours than the old one.  Here’s part of what he got from a PT spokesman:

By far, the majority of the increase comes from identifying the impact of SHUTTLE paratransit reductions- in terms of geographic coverage and scheduling. We’re estimating that 15% of current SHUTTLE trips will no longer be in the ADA defined ¾ mile from a local fixed route and some SHUTTLE trips will be lost due to the reduced span of service. As you may be aware, the average one-way cost of a SHUTTLE trip is over $38.00 …

In other words, the ADA requires that you provide ACCESS-type service within 3/4 mile of anywhere you run a regular bus.  When you shrink the system, you reduce the number of disabled people you’re required to serve, which saves a ton of money.

Here in King County, Metro actually goes beyond the strict requirements of the law, a policy identified as a potential source of savings in the audit.  If they were to relax that policy, the system provides perverse incentives by making reducing geographic and temporal spread of service extremely cost-effective.

There’s much more at TT.

Photo by Zargoman

Green timetables are coming!  Starting a week from Saturday, Metro is rerouting the 21, 22, 25, 35, 56, 57, 85, 116, 118, and 119; and renumbering routes 291, 915, 921, 929 and 941.  On June 30th, the South Park bridge closure will force changes to the 60, 131, and 134.

There are many other minor changes to schedules and routes, including addition of the 217′s three afternoon trips to the tunnel.  A lot of them are UW routes cancelled for the summer.

Metro’s full press release after the jump.

(more…)

Photo by Oran

• If you’re looking for a light rail excuse and need something to do in the Rainier Valley, Southend Seattle may be a decent place to start.
• Dow Constantine tries to piece together funding for the South Park Bridge.  In the meantime, activists try to make the crossing palatable for bikes, peds, and transit; there are obstacles.
• Walk-Bike-Ride now has a ballot.  Community meetings began last night.
• A peek at Capitol Hill Station construction.
• More on Greenwood’s historic lack of sidewalks.
• Slip on the bus steps, collect $1.3m. I sure hope this gets reduced on appeal.  Also, six cyclists sue Seattle over “dangerous” SLUT tracks.
• PSRC envisions tolls everywhere in 2030; deep thoughts about tolling on 520.
• Tom Rasmussen opposes the Nickerson road diet. Groups are forming for and against the changes.
• Deep-bore tunnel completion may be delayed a year to 2016.  Design and financing shenanigans will apparently never end.
• Historic home near the path of light rail.
• Getting banks to lend to TOD projects.
• The hierarchy of transit needs.
• Passed Out On Public Transportation.
• New York City tweaks its subway map.

This is an open thread.

RapidRide A (Metro)

RapidRide has of course been in the works for a long time, but the King County Council last week formally approved the October 2nd Metro service change, which eliminates the venerable route 174 and replaces it with RapidRide A from TIB station to the Federal Way Transit Center.

The BRT-lite features of RapidRide are dependent on both the largesse of host cities (for transit lanes) and the availability of funds in Metro’s budget for stuff like ticket vending machines.  What we do know is that the A line will have at least 15 minute headways between 4:15am and 10pm, 7 days a week.  There will be longer headways through 1:30am and a couple of night owls.

Other changes:

• extend all-day service on Route 200 to Issaquah Highlands and the Talus Urban Village.  This Transit Now “urban partnership” leverages funds from the City of Issaquah and various community organizations.  This will begin no earlier than February 2011, pending final agreement.  As recently as December this wasn’t going to happen.
• implement revised routing for Route 903, for which there was a public comment earlier, in October 2010.
• new route 910 and revised route 919, serving the Auburn Sounder station, in October 2010.

historylink.org

From the Central District News:

The LCC meeting on June 2 at CASC (500 30th Ave So) from 7:30-9:00 p.m. will feature presentations on the Seattle streetcar lifestyle, past, present and future.

Presenters include noted Puget Sound historian Junius Rochester and Jim Falconer, a prominent Seattle property owner and developer and an instrumental member of the planning committee for the successful creation of the first line of the new Seattle Streetcar network in South Lake Union (http://www.streetfilms.org/ride-the-seattle-streetcar/).

Learn how the area was built up into a city neighborhood based on three different historical routes and hear about the possibility of future routes in a citywide planning effort underway today.

Photo by Zargoman

Routes 3 and 4 are the latest to get stop consolidation from Metro:

Currently, the corridor has 116 stops north of Denny Way and east of Fifth Avenue, with an average stop spacing of about 700 feet. Metro will be removing 27 of these stops, increasing the average spacing between stops to about 950 feet.

As a result of this change, approximately eight percent of riders will have to catch their bus at a different stop. When the project is completed, all riders should have a faster, more reliable trip.

You can submit a comment online by June 11th.  The change is scheduled for June 26th.  Metro doesn’t waste time executing these.