My hometown system…

Community Transit is auctioning off some old DART and paratransit vans on March 20th:

The auction will include 13 El Dorado 14-passenger mini-buses, as well as three 15-passenger vans and one eight-passenger van. The El Dorados are equipped with wheelchair lifts. Two of the El Dorados are not in running condition. All the vehicles are retired from Community Transit’s DART paratransit and vanpool fleet.

With Sen. Haugen apparently hellbent on granting private operators full access to public transit facilities, you could set up a service!

In a coincidence, longtime readers may recognize this as the same place I sold my car, and where (full disclosure) my mother-in-law works part-time and I know the owner a bit.

*No, not really.

Sound Transit Fare Zones

The last fare thread had a lot of complaining about differential fares between agencies.  And although ORCA is intended to smooth over that complexity, in ideal world similar service would cost the same on each agency.

Judging from the comments, people seem to think this is really important.  An interesting way to judge the actual priority people are willing to give an issue is to trade it off against other priorities.  As it so happens, people hate fare increases, and given widespread budget crises there’s no way agencies are cutting fares.  So here’s a thought experiment that gives everyone the fare parity they value so highly, while also raising some cash for transit:

1. Everyone adopts the Sound Transit fare zone map, with a new fare zone created for Snohomish County outside the ST district.  Other outlying areas can be absorbed into the adjacent fare zones.
2. The unified fare system adopts the highest fares at each level.  For adults at peak times, that’s $2.25 1-zone, $3.50 2-zone, and $4.50 3-zone.  Off-peak, it’s $2.00/$2.50/$3.00.
3. If you like, raise Link fares 80 cents and .5 cents a mile to match Sounder.  Use the same structure for the SLUT and Tacoma Link.
4. Form a regional fare board to approve all future fare changes.

Longtime readers know that I don’t wring my hands much over fare increases to plug the budget gap, because a large part of the burden is actually borne by employers and the federal government.  What reservations I do have would be swept away by a more systematic way to get reduced fare passes in the hands of people who need them.  On the other hand, I’m not convinced the reduced complexity would really be worth the ridership declines you’d create.

Train and car after the collision, photo courtesy of KOMO News

[UPDATE 4:36pm According to Metro the accident is cleared, meaning Route 8 is back to normal.  One can only assume the same is true for Link.  Good job, emergency services, and good job, Metro alerts.]

There was a car-link collision just South of Othello at 3:30pm today.   Fortunately, no fatalities, though it’s not clear from the P-I report if the car passengers were injured or not.

Link is likely be single-track for a while, but there are no other details on the service disruption at this time.  Enough of the street is blocked that Route 8 is being rerouted on Renton Ave. between Kenyon and Henderson St.

Photo by Oran

• Some laws may have been broken in crafting Bellevue’s letter endorsing option B7.
• Legislature passes a bill limiting contributions in local races, which would have come in handy during last year’s Bellevue City Council race.
• Sound Transit tax shortfall now $3.1 billion through 2023; thanks to conservative planning, still no cuts imminent.
• Should I walk or take the bus?  Now on the iPhone; Google Maps to add cycling directions today.
• County will not reopen discussion on the routing of RapidRide C; major reroutes for West Seattle buses when the 1st Ave S onramp closes.
• Project management on the U-Link tunnels.
• Seattle’s traffic ninth worst in US.  The methodology for these studies is always shaky, and of course the solution can always be spun as more roads, more transit, or better land use.  Or, we could just destroy local jobs and raise gas prices.
• Teen in White Center unconscious after an altercation on the bus.
• Julie Muhlstein of the Herald laments the loss of Sunday service and throws up her hands, rather than pointing the finger where it belongs.
• Tacoma Streetcar initiative may be dead due to legal technicalities, but a streetcar movement is born in Lake City.
• WSDOT to install earthquake warning systems on the viaduct; just tear the thing down already.
• More ads on light rail please!
• Intercity Transit turning a landfill into a park-and-ride.
• Closed bus stops on Capitol Hill.
• The health benefits of moving away from car dependence aren’t emphasized enough.
• New Sound Transit Board committees.
• During the Olympics, Vancouver’s transit moves 1.6m per day.  Photos here.

This is an open thread.

"Waiting to cross", by Oran

Here are some miscellaneous questions and answers from my interview with SDOT Senior Engineer Darlene Pahlman.  For the most part, these words are paraphrases.  See also Part I of this report.

What can operators do to improve their practices? SDOT has transmitted to Metro’s training staff the accumulated best practices.   If operators would like SDOT to come provide another training seminar they’d be happy to do so; please coordinate this through your training focal.

Is manual control of the signals possible? “We can remotely access the controller and can issue manual commands.”

What is the minimum achievable headway is on MLK? “We think we can successfully operate a system at 5 minute headways.”

What is the signal cycle length on MLK? 2 minutes, although there’s no firm bound on how long a car might wait.

Is there a special operating mode at late night or on Sundays? At these times we “run free”, meaning we try to grant demands to cross the tracks as they arise.

Are there any plans to expand the “running free” period? Not unless the data shows us a problem.

Is there any threshold of poor traffic flow where trains lose signal priority? That is no city policy at this time.

Would SDOT consider opening their controller configuration? No, for security reasons.

How are the pedestrian crossings working? At first, we had a lot of complaints about inability to cross MLK on a single signal.  We installed the “countdown” signals and those complaints dropped precipitously.

As this posts, the Bellevue City Council is in the midst of another “extended study session,” including another council/staff discussion on East Link.  You can stream it here.

If you attended you can share your report and impressions in the comments.

[Update from Sherwin: 9:07pm] You can also follow along on the Government Access Channel, which is Channel 21 for Comcast subscribers.  The council is currently deliberating the contents of the letter they wish to draft to Sound Transit.  We don’t expect any major decisions tonight, but if anything happens, we’ll provide an update.

[Update from Sherwin: 9:42pm] The council has just voted 4-3 in favor of a motion that says B7 is preferred in the letter.  This is the wording as it is: “The majority of the council now favors B7 as the locally preliminary preferred alternative.”  From what I understand, Balducci asserted that it must say “preliminary” as the Final EIS has not been issued by ST yet.  More to come.

[UPDATE 8:45pm: The legislation page says the Senate has officially "refused to concur" with the House amendments, which moves the bill to a conference committee back to the House, where it can "insist" or not.]

If you’re interested in why the Pierce and Community Transit relief passed, Metro relief didn’t, and the license fee’s overall prospects in the Senate, please read Erica Barnett and Larry Lange.

Briefly, Metro didn’t have enough votes.  Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen is likely to kill what did pass, allegedly to enlarge the coalition for a broader transportation measure next year.  Pierce Transit’s reserves don’t run out until 2012, but a measure signed into law tomorrow is unlikely to spare Community Transit residents at least a few months of drastically reduced service.  Whatever agenda Ms. Haugen has, she’s clearly willing to sacrifice the mobility of Snohomish County residents to achieve it.

Photo by Mike Bjork

The two main takeaways from my interview with SDOT Senior Engineer Darlene Pahlman:

1. The City of Seattle’s policy is that Link trains always receive signal priority, regardless of time of day, location, or direction of travel.  The objective is that trains never stop between stations, aside from stops caused by unavoidable human factors.
2. The signal settings and algorithm is very complicated, and due to fine-tuning has many exceptions. It’s therefore very difficult to generalize into general principles. There are dozens of variables and thousands of permutations and it’s impossible to definitively state how the system will react without precisely defining the scenario and checking the code.

Reasons your train might stop

(more…)

There’s some weirdness in the timestamp of this update, but Oran reports that he overheard on Metro’s radio that WSDOT is done and trains are running to Westlake again. Train headways are still at 15 minutes, reasonable given the original decision but highly questionable in the first place.

Sportswriter Joe Posnanski, a national treasure, does some deep thinking:

How long do you think the Yellow Brick Road was on the ballot before the people Of Oz and Munchkin Land actually voted for it? And, even more to the point, WHY did they vote for it? How in the world did THAT bond get passed? One, that road had to be ridiculously expensive to build. Yellow brick all the way from Oz to Munchkin Land? That’s really wasteful.

Second, was there even a need for this road? I would have to assume to that the Oz Anti-Tax groups opposed it. And those groups were right. Think about it: does Dorothy pass a single person the entire way to Oz? Even one? No. Not one person on a bicycle. From what I can tell, not one person commutes from Munchkin Land to Oz. Dorothy is passing scarecrows and rusted tin men and talking lions. But not another soul. There is absolutely no need for that road. And it certainly did not have to be made of yellow brick.

Third, what about loss of life in the road’s construction? The human cost. The feeling seems to be that about that about 20,000 people died building the Transcontinental Railroad. And that wasn’t opposed by two fairly violent witches, crazed monkeys and guards under a wicked spell. Plus the railroad had to wind through woods with lions, tigers, bears (oh my) and very angry trees who throw apples about as hard as Brian Bannister.

All in all, I think the Yellow Brick Road is the most wasteful and pointless public works projects ever.

If you’re interested in the Mercer Island Link station layout, be sure to attend Sound Transit’s community workshop on the subject this Tuesday, March 9th, from 5-7:30pm with the presentation starting at 6.  It’ll be at the Mercer View Community Center (8236 SE 24th St.)

• Learn about the East Link light rail system and view in-progress preliminary engineering drawings
• Share your thoughts about the Mercer Island station layout
• Tell us more about your community and how East Link can best serve you and Mercer Island.

To beat a dead horse for a moment, Mercer Island residents might let ST know whether or not they want direct Link service to the Downtown Bellevue core, as well as a line that serves the South Bellevue P&R, thus preventing I-90 commuters from having to use the Mercer Island Park & Ride to access Link by car.

The effort to attach amendments to the Transportation Benefit District bill to allow additional license fees for transit has met with partial success.  Andrew Austin at the TCC’s blog reports the amendment for Pierce and Snohomish Counties was successfully added and passed the full House.  The King County equivalent did not come to a vote.   The amendment passed 54-44 on a straight party-line vote, except for 7 dissenting Democrats: Finn, Green, Hudgins, Hurst, Kelley, Morrell, and Probst.   The vote was the same for the whole bill, except Hudgins flipped to vote Yes. Now it’s on to the conference committee, and the amendment’s survival is questionable.

If I’m not mistaken this closes the door on explicit relief for Metro this session, although they may gain from reduced sales tax exemptions.  In any case, Metro doesn’t really hit the wall until 2012, so there’s one more session in which to do something.

Photo by Oran

The Community Transit Board yesterday voted unanimously to give final approval to a previously discussed 25 cent local fare increase, effective June 1st, and sweeping 15% service cuts effective June 13th.  There are some details of these cuts yet to be determined, but the Community Transit Blog gives a pretty good summary.

Although we talk about many good things that transit ridership can accomplish, the first duty of these agencies is to provide at least some mobility to those who have no alternative, especially if they make an effort to live somewhere with decent service.  Although Community Transit is not alone in failing to provide basic service on Sunday, it’s a sad day for the region when a large county like Snohomish (aside from Everett) has to take this kind of step.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope for those most impacted by this decision:

The board did approve a $50,000 fund that could be used by community organizations to fill the gaps of missing Sunday service for those with the greatest need. Details of how that plan will work are being developed.

WSDOT workers are removing the scaffolding from their giant project over Stadium station this weekend, so they have to shut off the wires.  As a result, from 10pm Friday till closing time Sunday, Link trains will turn around at Sodo Station and a free bus will serve Stadium and the tunnel stops every 15 minutes.

If somehow you haven’t heard enough about the Bellevue Link alignment, Transportation Choices is hosting a forum Friday in Bellevue with some knowledgeable and/or influential figures:

Panelists:
Don Billen, East Link Project Manager, Sound Transit
Trinity Parker, Government and Community Relations,  Sound Transit
Bernard Van de Kamp, City of Bellevue
Patrick Bannon, Downtown Bellevue Association
WHEN: Friday, March 5, 12 – 1:30 pm
WHERE: Bradford Center, 752 108th Avenue NE, Bellevue

"Snowy Brickyard P&R", by Oran

The Brickyard P&R, which in 2008 was at 105% capacity and in the top 10 in utilization, is opening 200 more spaces this week, nearly doubling its capacity to 442 vehicles.  This will be a relief to the residents of this area, filled with low-density, unwalkable, cul-de-sac oriented development, as it gives them good access to 10 Metro and Sound Transit routes, including expresses to Seattle and Bellevue.  The $2.1m cost was covered by WSDOT’s Regional Mobility Grant program.

Although the standalone bill that would add authority for a $20 license fee in King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties died in the House last month, Publicola reports that the same provision has been proposed as an amendment to SB 6774, an otherwise boring bill about Transportation Benefit District governance:

The amendments—sponsored by Reps. Scott White (D-46) and Sharon Nelson (D-34) for King County and Rep. Marko Liias (D-21) for Pierce and Snohomish—would grant the three county councils the authority to either pass a $20 vehicle-license fee to pay for transit, or to put a license fee of up to $100 before voters for the same purpose. (They could also impose a $20 license fee and put a measure on the ballot, but the ballot proposal would be limited to $80).

My math says a $40 fee alone would solve Metro’s funding problems, or a $30 fee plus a removal of sales tax exemptions similar to the House plan.  However, if I read it correctly this authority would expire in 2015.

Erica says Republicans are hoping for a floor vote to identify who supports the amendments, which have not yet passed.  Someone should tell them that avoiding drastic transit cuts beats doing nothing 3-to-1, even in off-year special elections in relatively conservative districts.

UPDATE: TCC has an email your legislator page for this amendment.

wikimedia

Both the House and Senate in Olympia have released details of their revenue plans.  As we’ve noted before, to the extent that these eliminate sales tax exemptions, they will also slightly increase revenue at local transit agencies, all of which rely on sales tax for a large chunk of their revenue.

The House proposal (thanks Publicola) contains, by my count, $458m in new sales tax revenue from repealed exemptions in the 2011-2013 biennium.  Our Metro revenue predict-o-tron tells us that that amounts to about $12.5m a year for King County Metro, or about 100,000 service hours.   That’s about a quarter of the budget hole Metro faces in that period.  For Community Transit, it’s about $2m, not enough to restart Sunday service, but enough to buy back about a third of the weekday cuts.

The Senate budget is presented in a way that makes it much harder to figure out what’s sales tax, but my count (see this) says that there’s about $180m for the state over two years, or $5m a year for Metro.  An email to Sen. Murray to clarify the numbers did not generate a response in time for this post.  Anyone who knows more about the taxes mentioned here is welcome to correct the record on this.