Service cuts will be prevented thanks to Thurston County voters.
The voters of urban Thurston County rallied last night behind a measure on the ballot to save Intercity Transit’s bus service, according to Thurston County’s early election returns.
Yes – 18,242 – 64%
No – 10,442 – 36%
The measure, which seems likely to easily pass even once all votes are counted, raises Intercity Transit’s sales tax rake from 0.6% to 0.8%. Without this revenue increase, service would have been cut, we wrote last month:
The revenue predicament of Intercity Transit should by now be familiar. Tax revenues are down about 13% from 2007 levels. The agency has already cut some nonessential programs and raised fares, and is now facing a 9% cut in February 2011 and a further 14% in 2012.
The state’s limit on sales tax authority for transit agencies is 0.9%, providing room for an additional increase if even more service is desired by future voters. King County Metro, facing its own shortfall in coming years, is already at that limit.
Council President Richard Conlin. Photo from WSDOT.
The relationship between the Seattle City Council and Mayor McGinn doesn’t seem to be improving, and that could mean bad news for light rail supporters. McGinn promised to put a light rail measure on the ballot within two years of being elected — the most logical choice now being November 2011.
The revenue options available to McGinn have only shrunk in recent months as the SR-99 deep-bore tunnel, the crumbling waterfront seawall, and the SDOT funding shortfall have moved a variety of sources near their limits — or will in the near future. The city council is planning to soon create a Transportation Benefit District, according to PubliCola, to help fill SDOT’s shortfall.
A TBD would allow the council to raise serious revenue, with voter approval, through a high vehicle license fee, a property tax increase, a sales-tax increase, or even (unlikely) tolls on local arterials. But the Times notes that the city council — who would have to move any light rail measure to the ballot — is skeptical:
There doesn’t seem to be much fervor on the City Council to seek a near-term vote on light rail, in a time when basic services are threatened by recession and budget cuts, according to Councilman Nick Licata. “I think it’s been pushed back, and I don’t see the public necessarily supporting it, once they know what the costs are,” he said.
Councilman Tom Rasmussen, chairman of the transportation committee, is equally sour on trying a light rail tax anytime soon, even though he lives in West Seattle.
“We don’t even have light rail to the U District yet, and to Roosevelt,” he said, referring to Sound Transit lines due in the early 2020s. King County Metro’s RapidRide bus service, due in 2012 for Ballard and West Seattle, is more productive for those neighborhoods in the near term, he said. He suspects that a westside rail study would sit on the shelf for years.
Rasmussen and four other councilmembers are up for re-election next year.
In another political setback, the council’s transportation committee voted to approve initial funding for an updated transit master plan only after stipulating that the city must study high-capacity transit corridors in a mode neutral way, not picking light rail from the beginning. Though this decision is prudent, the council also added another delay mechanism: the second phase of funding for the master plan will only come after the council signs off on the first phase in January of next year.
The transit master plan must be delivered within a year, according to SDOT spokesman Richard Sheridan, if the council doesn’t delay it again. By the end of March, 2011, SDOT expects to be “heavily into modal analysis” which would include identified corridors, recommended modes, preliminary cost estimates, and a “menu of revenue options,” according to Tony Mazzella, who is the project lead for the master plan. It’s important to note that the transit master plan will not specifically favor one mode or one corridor, and may recommend bus rapid transit or rapid streetcar, or another mode, instead of light rail. My intuition is that light rail is the only mode with the capacity though the biggest corridors in the city.
For a 2011 measure to get on the ballot, there clearly needs to be more political momentum to get through a skeptical council. But if the council remains disinterested and local revenue sources continue to dry up, a local ballot measure might never come up to vote. Sound Transit doesn’t have revenue authority to build new light rail lines — beyond what was approved in ST2 — until the 2030’s. Even if the state legislature changes that, a local spur would certainly break ground much sooner.
Earlier today, Sherwin pointed out that a noted letter-to-the-editor author who fumes about East Link has blatantly lied in his letters. Among other claims, Mr. Hirt said that the “majority of” Bellevue residents “voted against” funding East Link. Sherwin pointed out that the districts that encompass Bellevue overwhelmingly supported light rail, and showed a graphic depicting the wide majority of precincts in Bellevue supporting Sound Transit 2.
Still, some commenters wanted exact numbers for Bellevue’s support. We’re here to serve: according to the 2008 precinct numbers provided by King County, 56% (28,901) of those who voted on ST2 in Bellevue moved to approve the package that included East Link, while just 44% (22,887) voted to reject it. 5,205 voters in Bellevue were happy with others making the choice for them, and chose not to vote one way or the other on ST2.
And there’s your data-driven fact check that the Seattle Times and the Bellevue Reporter were unwilling to do before publishing Mr. Hirt’s letters.
For those of you who don’t know, TCC is a nonprofit that shares this blog’s values. Unlike STB, they do the things that really require full-time employees: lobbying Olympia and providing a pro-rail, pro-transit, pro-density voice on various government commissions and task forces.
I’ll be there, along with a few other bloggers.
Update: We just got word that Congressman Jay Inslee and King County Executive Dow Constantine will be in attendance. Inslee is rumored to run for governor in 2012, so it’ll be interesting to hear his thoughts on public transit.
Federal Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has hinted the Obama administration may be warming to tolling highways as a way to raise revenue for the federal highway trust fund. That trust fund also pays for transit projects.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said a combination of current-level gas tax receipts, road and bridge tolling and President Obama’s proposed infrastructure fund could offer a way to fund a long-term federal infrastructure program without new taxes.
Appearing before a heavily attended conference in Washington, D.C., of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, LaHood vowed “raising the gas tax is not an option” to increase money available for federal transport spending.
Unfortunately, LaHood still reflects the Obama administration’s view that a gas tax increase is off-the-table. When even the hard-hitting editorialists at USA TODAY, one might wonder how far out-of-touch the administration is on gas taxes.
However, a stronger federal stance on tolling as a source of revenue would be welcome. Tolling represents one of the few ways to actually reduce congestion and ration access to roadways, and would encourage government to invest in transit alternatives.
A few weeks ago, my girlfriend lost my ORCA card that had about $20 in fare on it. No big deal, I thought, and ordered a replacement online. Going to the website and reporting my card as lost was easy. In a few easy steps, I paid a $5 replacement fee, my card was deactivated, and my new card was in the mail.
When my new card arrived, I was reminded of some of ORCA’s successes. The printed materials and the card itself are very well designed. Everything in the envelope is internally consistent and it’s clear there was some work put into the brand of ORCA and ensuring its ease of use. In other words, the physical aspects of ORCA feel thoughtful.
Few would call ORCA website thoughtful, though. On the technical side, the site suffers from rendering problems in modern browsers like Chrome, Safari, and Firefox as well as their mobile cousins that run on many smartphones. On the design side, doing something like setting up the auto-load functionality for your card isn’t accomplished by clicking a button and filling out details, but rather clicking a button and then finding a link in a long-winded paragraph of text.
The expectation that people are unoccupied enough to read paragraphs of dry transit-speak is poor design and is a poor compliment to the good printed materials in the ORCA universe. Good design is knowing that people don’t read anything. This kludge may be an explanation as to why adoption of the useful auto-load technology represents less than 1% of registered cards, according to data from the ORCA Quarterly Program Management Report.
Like any other person, I wasn’t unoccupied enough to read the wall of text when reporting my card lost, so I expected my replacement card to pay for my bus the next morning. Oops: “please allow 8 to 10 days processing time for your funds to be transferred from your lost card to your new card.” I don’t know how it is possible to do something that’s so technically easy so slowly.
While the card is pretty and the system works pretty well, sometimes I can’t help but feel the ORCA project was half-designed and half-engineered.
[Update at 4:55 pm: The Board unanimously approved the motion and picked options 2 and 6 (all options here), west-side running alignments that would either feed into an at-grade downtown segment or a tunnel. Bellevue mayor Don Davidson did not withhold his stiff criticism from ST prior to the decision.]
The Sound Transit Board is expected today to approve new preferred alignments for South Bellevue. The two options would run along the east or the west side of 112th Ave. As of 3:30, readers can stream the board meeting here — the 112th Ave decision is on the agenda (item 8B).
The Bellevue City Council earlier rejected considering any of the six 112th Ave alignments, but Sound Transit will almost certainly approve one of the alignments on that road. More backstory on the six options here.
Seattle Transit Blog signed a letter sent to Seattle leaders yesterday that encouraged the city council to allow city staff move forward on the Transit Master Plan. You can find the letter at Slog, and the back story here.
According to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Seattle gained an estimated 13,707 new residents between 2008 and 2009. The new official population estimate – 617,334 — is a 2.3% gain from last year’s estimate and represents 9.4% growth from the year 2000.
A slightly hysterical article that appeared a 2006 edition of the Seattle PI question former Mayor Nickels’ suggestion that Seattle could grow to 923,000 by 2040, but in the unlikely event that Seattle continues to gain population at 2.3% per year, its population will be much higher by that year: just under 1.3 million.
Bellevue, largest suburban city in King County, had 126,626 residents in 2009, the Bureau says. Bellevue grew slightly faster than Seattle last year — 2.5% — and has seen a 12.6% growth in population since 2000.
Seattle is the 23rd largest city in the county, behind Boston (20th), Baltimore (21st), and El Paso (22nd). Bellevue is much further down the list, at 192. Seattle had muted growth in the early part of the decade, probably related to the dot-com bubble and subsequent recession. Since 2004, though, Seattle has had strong year-over-year growth and has grown faster than the next four largest cities.
Figures for 2010 population estimates will be released next year, when the 2010 census is completed.
The walkshed of a neighborhood in Woodinville, a suburb on the Eastside, is on the left. The Ballard walkshed, on the right, has much more pedestrian connectivity.
Earlier this year, the Harvard Business Review blog briefly featured a study that compared a neighborhood of suburban Woodinville to one in urban Ballard. The blue lines in the graphic above illustrate the 1 kilometer reach of a pedestrian walking from the red dot in the center. This so-called walkshed is an important measure of ability from one to get from point A to B and helps us explain why one who lives in Ballard is more likely to walk to the grocery store or the local park than one in Woodinville.
The graphic also explains to us why transit ridership in Ballard is likely to be much higher than ridership in Woodinville, and why Woodinville has more driving. The study notes that those who live in communities like the Ballard neighborhood above drover 26% fewer miles than those in cul-de-sac-based communities.
Some cul-de-sacs are better than others, of course. Some suburban communities have cut-throughs that allow pedestrians and bicyclists to reach arterial streets and other roads efficiently. Most frequently, however, the paths available to pedestrians in suburban communities are the same twisty, maze-like roads that cars navigate. When developers don’t afford pedestrians an efficient means of getting around, it’s no surprise that many suburbs turn to auto-dependency.
We’ve already mentioned this in an earlier news roundup, but it’s a slow news day:
The city of Seattle has put together a brief online poll to measure the community’s interest in expanding pedestrian, bicycle, and transit access across the city. Some of our readers may want to give their thoughts so the Mayor can argue he has a mandate for his various green transportation initiatives.
King Country Metro has a message to the residents and politicians of Seattle: the bus agency has barely begun to study electric trolley buses, so please… Well, please calm down. ”We’re just at the beginning of this process,” said Linda Thielke, a Metro spokesperson. “No decision has been made. All the options are still on the table.”
At a presentation before the Seattle City Council yesterday, Metro staff outlined some of the parameters of study that will be conducted over the next year and then presented to the King County Council around March, 2011. The County Council will decide by November, 2011 whether to purchase new electric trolley buses or move toward hybrid buses as part of the Metro biennial budget process.
Some blogs have accused Metro of trying to kill of the trolley buses with this study, but Thielke says it is being done “with a blank slate and open mind.” She said that recognizes that some benefits of trolleys — like quiet operation — aren’t strictly monetary savings. The study — called the “Trolley Bus System Evaluation” – is budgeted to cost $850,000.
An earlier audit of Metro estimated the county could save $8.7 million a year by buying hybrid buses instead of new trolleys when the current trolley fleet is retired in 2014. Some — including Metro staff — have accused the auditor of using optimistic numbers for hybrid costs, noting that trolleys were cheaper to operate than hybrids when deisel was expensive in the summer of 2008, according a report in the PI. Theilke says that Metro understands it can’t “go just by the price off the shelf” and must also study “oil prices over time.”
Wondering why the 255 driver awkwardly and anxious stops the bus when he crosses the rail tracks just off SR-520? Well, in order to make sure the state will be eligible for federal funds in some cases, new regulations force buses to stop before crossing train tracks. Drivers are surely instructed to look both ways.
Sounders fans line up to ride Link. Photo by Oran.
Light rail ridership was up 11% in April compared to March. The average April weekday saw 20,129 boardings, according to Sound Transit. April’s numbers are Link’s strongest performance so far.
There were 18,094 boardings on the average weekday in March and 16,741 in February. This month’s raw data is hosted locally (pdf).
Link ridership has had an upward trend is recent months, but as I noted last month even these current numbers are below ST’s earlier projections:
The 2010 Service Implementation Plan (pdf) from Sound Transit predicted that ridership would average 26,600 across the year, a figure that is unlikely to be met. Sources at Sound Transit have told us those estimates do not reflect the lower-than-planned train frequencies and the fact that fares are charged in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, and do not account for the deep recession. It’s unknown if the 2011 Service Implementation Plan will continue to use unreliable estimates.
And though these large percentage jumps are nice to see, we should keep in mind that they may not keep up with seasonal changes in demand over the rest of the year.
Remember when Senator Patty Murray passed an amendment that let King County Metro provide its popular Mariners bus service? Bad news. The Seattle PI reports that her amendment was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in DC yesterday after private charter bus operators sued.
“Right now, we are not sure just how the recent federal judge’s ruling will affect the Metro to the Mariners Special Service,” Rebecca Hale of the Mariners said. ”We hope to know within a few days whether the service will be canceled. When we receive that notification, we will post it on our website and will reach out to our fans with that information.”
The opinion says that Murray’s amendment violated the First and Fifth Amendments. Wait, the First Amendment right to free speech? Says the opinion: Murray’s amendment “prevents the FTA from spending money to review, investigate, or hear complaints against [Metro],” and this “this constitutes a significant burden on [private charter bus operators'] First Amendment right to petition.”
Fifth Amendment rights were violated because Murray’s amendment protected only King County Metro and no other public transit operators in the country, the opinion says. The Fifth Amendment provides due process protections and requires equal protection under the law — equal protection that means “similarly situated” entities should be treated equally under the law. Murray’s amendment gave no remedy for private bus operators who could provide even lower-cost service than Metro, which could undermine the cost claim that she argued with in her press release, says the court:
For instance, it seems plausible that expanding the grounds for exemptions to the Charter Rule where private charter service has been shown to be inadequate or too costly would have an effect similar to, if not greater than the Murray Amendment with respect to the problems identified by defendants, without burdening plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. Moreover, the Amendment itself merely states that the FTA may not use funds to investigate possible Charter Rule violations by one publicly-subsidized entity, not that this entity is required to provide lower prices and more convenient service for the public.
Murray’s amendment curtailed a Bush-era policy that forbade public transit agencies from providing charter service when any private charter operator was willing to take up the task, regardless of the cost difference to sports fans. An improvement to this regulation could be to waive the requirement when a private charter is uncompetitive, and that would take new legislation. In either case, Metro’s service was fully funded by the Mariners and didn’t require taxpayer subsidies, a spokeswoman told the PI.
The suit was launched against the Federal Transit Administration, it’s unknown if the government will appeal the decision.
The Seattle City Council Transportation Committee is considering a bill today from Councilmember Rassmussen that would cut off funding for updating the city’s Transit Master Plan without further council approval.
The bill says that while the Mayor already has the authority to coordinate with the City “Council and Council Central Staff to frame for Council review and approval the vision, goals, schedule, and scope of work to update the,” the bill would disallow the executive from actually working to ”implement the update” to the Master Plan “until authorized by future ordinance.”
Rasmussen has recently come under fire from some greenies for being skeptical of the Nickerson Street “road diet.” He told PubliCola that he didn’t see the Council taking action to stop that project.
Updating the Transit Master Plan is one of the planks of the “Walk. Bike. Ride.” initiative that Seattle Mayor McGinn announced last month, and McGinn has said the update will include a study for light rail expansion to Ballard and West Seattle.
Rasmussen may be trying to separate the Mayor’s light rail election promise from an update of the Transit Master Plan, which would otherwise focus on how to align bus service in the coming years. Another motive could be a turf war: in effect, letting the Mayor know that the council should have a big say in the parameters guiding the Transit Master Plan update. Note the “Council review and approval” in the bill language.
Update:PubliCola has Rasmussen on the record for why he’s proposed the bill. Speaking of the record, the fizz got the story up before us so make sure to give their post a read.
Dino Rossi, a Republican, has entered the federal Senate primary as a challenge to Senator Patty Murray (Democrat). He is the biggest threat to Murray’s re-election.
Sen. Murray has been a long-time champion of transit funding throughout the state, securing federal earmarks for Central Link, University Link, and many other projects. She’s also helped on the margins when important. She is chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, and her ability to direct dollars to good projects in our state has been invaluable. Without her help in the early part of the last decade, Link light rail might have crumbled.
Rossi ran for governor in both 2004 and 2008. During his 2008 campaign he had anti-transit policies such as raiding Sound Transit’s Eastside “surplus” funds to spend on highway expansion — money that was necessary to fund East Link — and to open HOV lanes to all traffic outside of “peak hours.” Of course, “peak” is subjective depending on the roadway, and buses need those HOV lanes clear to operate efficiency.
Readers will not have to wait until October to infer our endorsement.
In more city street news, the city sends word that work on the project to address the so-called “Mercer Mess” has had its first major bid come in under-budget. The project will convert both Mercer and Valley in South Lake Union into a two-way boulevards.
Gary Merlino Construction Company, the apparent low bidder on the east phase of the Mercer Corridor Improvements Project, submitted a proposal that came in at about $47,850,000, well under the engineer’s estimate. Overall, there is a bid savings of approximately 23 percent on demolition and construction from earlier estimates, which the project relied on as part of its funding plan. The city is further reviewing the bids for completeness and responsiveness.
Another illustration that the major project bid environment is very favorable right now, which could affect transit projects such as University Link and the First Hill Streetcar.
