Month: September 2012

With the Ride Free Area’s (RFA) demise in a matter of days, those in need of a free ride in the downtown area are not entirely out of luck.  Solid Ground, a local social service agency, will be operating a free circulator which will run a fixed-route one-way loop within downtown, Belltown, and First Hill.  The circulator will use two shuttles, a 19-seater and 23-seater, to run 30-minute headways from 7AM to 4PM.

The shuttle is a pilot project funded by the City of Seattle for $400,000 a year, which was previously used to help Metro allay the costs of the RFA.  While it will be operated at no cost to riders, its limited operation and coverage in no way replaces the breadth and expanse of the RFA.  According to Solid Ground, the circulator primarily caters to low-income folks and those needing access to social services:

“Solid Ground’s focus is creating a response that meets the needs of this underserved population,” said Gordon McHenry, Jr., President and CEO of the nonprofit agency that operates housing, homeless preventions and other programs aimed at helping people move from poverty to thriving.

“Given fiscal constraints, a downtown circulator is a practical response to the needs of people who are the least advantaged in our community. Solid Ground’s drivers understand the population being served and have experience providing transit services in the downtown core,” McHenry said.

Unfortunately for those dependent on the circulator, there will be no set schedule for the shuttles to adhere to; a Solid Ground flyer (PDF) even warns that “hours of service and location of stops are subject to change.”

While the circulator is devised to best meet the needs of the impoverished, homeless, disabled, and other underserved populations, the scantness of its operations represents nothing more than a flimsy band-aid for the problem social service agencies are aiming to combat.  $400,000 a year could go a long way in the form of free-ride tickets, free ORCA cards, or other assistance programs that don’t involve running a shuttle that is a non-option for most intra-downtown travelers.

The circulator starts operation next Monday, October 1st.  For more information about hours, routing, stops, and destinations, check out Solid Ground’s website.

With all this talk about Seattle building out a high-capacity transit network on its own, it’s worth telling new (or forgetful) readers that STB had a six-part series about this over a year ago:

TMP HCT Analysis (I) (Introduction)

TMP HCT Analysis (II): The Efficiency Winner (4th/5th connector)

TMP HCT Analysis (III): Maximum Ridership (Ballard/Fremont)

TMP HCT Analysis (IV): Lowest Operating Cost (Eastlake)

TMP HCT Analysis (V): Madison

TMP HCT Analysis (VI): First Avenue (includes a summary of the numbers for all five lines)

This weekend, I read an interesting guest post at Human Transit, discussing a project to reform the pricing and regulation of street parking in Auckland’s city center, and as articles about what’s going on in the rest of the world often do, it gave me a familiar feeling: that of watching other cities do smarter things than Seattle. Briefly, the outcome of Auckland’s reform is as follows: all street parking time limits are abolished; all parking is charged in one of three simple (color coded) price brackets, based on demand; all parking is free for the first 15 minutes.

Contrast this with Seattle’s city center (say from Denny to Jackson, waterfront to Boren), where in addition to five different meter rates, there are time limits from two to ten hours, and differing policies on evening parking; but, most of this doesn’t apply on Sunday, when parking is free everywhere and has no time limits (except on the waterfront). This is before we get into the different types of loading zone (30 minute commercial/non-commercial, 15 minute charter/shuttle bus, three minute passenger load, one minute (!) passenger load to name a few) or any of the myriad other ways the city tries to slice up the curb.

More after the jump. Continue reading “Street Parking as a Study in Complexity”

I wasn’t actually at this stop, and can’t confirm whether this was the actual situation on the ground or OneBusAway weirdness. But for a 15-minute headway bus on a Saturday afternoon, yikes. [Update: Numerous commenters say they witnessed this.]

I’m gonna take a moment to make a pitch for Transportation Choices Coalition’s annual event, which is set to play host to a very special guest, Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff.  Because Rogoff is such an important power player for transit in Washington DC, the opportunity to hear him speak will be considerably valuable.  While he’ll be speaking largely to the state of transit on a national scale, his opinions undoubtedly influence local matters, particularly when it comes to talking points like espousing RapidRide as “rail on wheels.”

All snarkiness aside, this is an also an important fundraising event for TCC, which has made a fairly huge impact on bettering local transit in recent times, most recently helping save Metro from draconian service cuts.  Two fights on the horizon are imminent– ballot measures in Pierce County, with lots of service at stake, and Clark County, which would give local support to help usher in MAX expansion to Vancouver.  Money raised going to further these causes would be well spent.

The event will take place the evening of October 2nd, from 5:00-7:30PM at 1927 Events.

[Update 1:20] Aaron Pickus from the mayors office sent some additional details. “A few folks in the comments thread are asking about the cycletrack. I thought you may also be interested to know that the mayor’s proposed budget will include funding to create a Center City Mobility Plan. The Center City Mobility Plan will review how all modes of transportation interconnect downtown. As part of this work, we will begin planning a downtown bicycle network, using best practices, to build on the Denny Triangle cycle track. This study will help lead us to a safer and easier biking experience for residents and visitors alike in Downtown and beyond.”

Today the Mayor’s office sent out a press release with exciting information related to Amazon’s expansions plans with relation to public compensation for an alley vacation necessary for the development to occur. From the press release.

The overall proposal includes $5.5 million of support for the Seattle Streetcar. This funding will allow the City to purchase an additional streetcar vehicle and increase operational support for 10 years as a part of the Planned Community Development benefit package.  In total, these benefits will increase street car service to every ten minutes during the workday.  Alley vacation public benefits proposed by Amazon include:

• Supporting a higher level of service for the Seattle Streetcar, including the purchase of a fourth vehicle;
• Designing a new cycle track on 7^th Avenue;
• Enhancing pedestrian crossings at 8^th and Lenora and 7^th and Virginia intersections, consistent with the Westlake Avenue Concept Design;
• Creating a shared use street along Lenora to enhance the pedestrian experience and calm traffic;
• Providing green street enhancements, wider-than-required building setbacks, and enhanced landscaping and sidewalk improvements around all properties;
• Providing additional overhead canopy between buildings;
• Integrating art throughout the development;
• Contributing to the future park at 8^th Avenue, Westlake and Lenora. The Department of Parks and Recreation recently purchased property at this location.

Metro is moving ahead with a WSDOT-funded set of minor capital improvements on the Ambaum/Delridge corridor served primarily by Route 120:

A new bus lane will soon be under construction on Delridge Way Southwest to improve bus speed and reliability for Route 120 – one of Metro Transit’s Top 10 busiest routes. […]

[T]he half-mile-long northbound bus lane along a key stretch of Delridge Way Southwest will improve travel times approaching the West Seattle Bridge during the morning commute. The bus lane will operate 6-9 a.m. weekdays from Southwest Oregon Street to Southwest Andover Street and help reduce signal and queuing delays for Metro bus routes 120 and 125, benefitting more than 900 riders during the morning commute.

The roughly $170,000 bus lane improvements – striping, signs and pavement repair – are part of a larger $2.8 million Route 120 Transit Improvement Project funded by a State Regional Mobility Grant and King County matching funds. It is led by King County Metro Transit and coordinated with the City of Seattle.

More after the jump. Continue reading “Metro Moving Ahead with Delridge Improvements”

Bellevue is in the midst of updating its Transit Master Plan (TMP), which will serve as a much-needed update to the 2003 plan, adopted once upon a time when transit took a backseat to other transportation priorities.  Since then, ridership in Bellevue has increased nearly twofold from 22,000 daily boardings in 2003 to over 40,000 last year.  The new and improved plan is much more comprehensive than its predecessor and is constructed on nine project principles (PDF), which range from considerations of future growth and development, to accommodations of light rail expansion and companion projects.

While the Bellevue TMP won’t mirror its counterpart in Seattle in terms of identifying high-capacity/rapid streetcar/rail corridors, it does largely hinge on accommodating Metro’s new service guidelines, which emphasize things like productivity, frequency, and geographic value, rather than the one-seat-ride-oriented approach that the agency has taken in years past.  For a brief primer on the TMP, you can watch a video short about the project.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “Initiating Bellevue’s Transit Master Plan”

• A comprehensive road pricing scheme for British Columbia?
• ST releases Capitol Hill station plans. Martin is starting to break out in hives when people say “plaza” and “light rail station” in the same sentence, so no further comment.
• Fare hikes for Intercity Transit?
• U-Link supply tracks’ usefulness coming to an end.
• Finally, something may be built on Beacon Hill Station’s block.
• Bellevue makes some land use code changes to enable Link construction.
• Free Metro tickets allocated. More here.
• Tacoma Link expansion now on to Phase 2.
• TransLink feeling the lagging effects of the recession.
• Los Angeles should be a role model for us all.
• C-Tran’s November ballot measure a mandate on rail?
• Streetcar dos and don’ts.
• Cops cracking down on box-blocking at Dexter & Mercer, as Bruce wanted.
• Shoreline getting details about light rail.
• Plans for Downtown Redmond.
• Deep Bore Tunnel tolling plans getting less and less ambitious. A shame, because tolling is good.

This is an open thread.