After a bus driver was beaten and knocked unconscious while behind the wheel, officials with King County Metro Transit are exploring whether to enclose drivers behind Plexiglas barriers.

As a pilot project, security partitions will be installed in a small number of buses, General Manager Kevin Desmond said. More details, including costs, will be announced in the next few weeks, he said.

I’m not so sure that Metro’s limited dollars should be going to Plexiglas barriers. As the article notes, a barrier could cement a notion that buses are unsafe. And if a passenger’s first source of aid is behind a barrier, wouldn’t that make one feel less protected? While bus drivers can go through dangerous parts of town, it stands to reason that if a bus is an unsafe place to be then passengers and not just drivers should be protected. That means things like security cameras and a random police presence could be more effective for overall safety than Plexiglas barriers for drivers.

The C9T alternative (click to enlarge)

In an interesting twist at last night’s study session, the Bellevue City Council supported sending a letter to Sound Transit that would put the C9T tunnel option as the primary preferred alternative.  According to the Seattle Times, every councilmember in attendance supported the tunnel.  Only Conrad Lee was absent, who, in my last interview with him, said that he backed Wallace’s ‘Vision Line.’  Whether he would have caved with even Wallace giving his support to C9T, it’s unknown.

The bulk of last night’s discussion was mostly about cutting costs and looking for funding sources to pay for the tunnel.  From the Seattle Times:

The cuts — worth $104 million to $150 million — included contributing back to the project additional sales-tax and business-tax revenues the city receives as a result of the light-rail project, helping to make city property along the route more affordable and streamlining permitting, Sarkozy said.

Wallace railed against Sound Transit’s “bloated” budget and brought up the condition that Surrey Downs must be protected at the Main Street portal.  Yet despite all the discussion about “value” budgeting, we’ve already mentioned that a tunnel connection specific to the B segment (via 112th Ave) is vastly less expensive than one from B7, which the council controversially endorsed just last week.  However, if the pro-B7 tunnel support is riding on alternative funding, then there is a rather thin line between support for a cheap tunnel and C14E.

You can re-watch the meeting in its entirety on the BTV website.  The more important vote will come next week, when the council is expected to vote on the letter as drafted by city staff.

Route 28 (click to enlarge)

Route 28 is going through the same stop reduction process the 7, 16, 48, and 120 have over the last few years.  A total of 134 stops between Denny and N 145th St, spaced an average of 760 feet apart, will be pared down to 56 with a 1,300 foot (1/4 mile) interval.  On busy routes, stop reductions save time and therefore money, while improving the experience for most riders.

Comments about the stop closures can be submitted by phone to (206) 296-4511 or by email (with “Route 28″ in the subject line) to community.relations@kingcounty.gov.

The reduction will be implemented on April 4th.  A complete list of stops scheduled for the axe is below the jump.

H/T: Commenter “Guest”

* Dexter Ave N at Republican St
* Dexter Ave N at Highland St
* Dexter Ave N at Hayes St southbound
* Dexter Ave N at Crockett St
* N 36th St at Dayton Ave N eastbound / Greenwood Ave N westbound
* Leary Way NW at N 41st St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 53rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 57th St southbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 58th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 62nd St / NW 63rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 67th St northbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 73rd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 77th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 86th / NW 87th St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 88th St northbound
* 8th Ave NW at NW 92nd St
* 8th Ave NW at NW 97th St / NW 100th Pl
* NW 100th Pl at 7th Ave NW westbound
* NW 103rd St at 3rd Ave NW eastbound
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 107th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 112th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 117th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 122nd St
* NW 125th St at 6th Ave NW
* 8th Ave NW at NW 130th St
* NW 132nd St at 6th Ave NW
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 135th Pl
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 140th St
* 3rd Ave NW at NW 143rd St southbound
* N 145th St at 3rd Ave NW eastbound
* Linden Ave N at N 143rd St northbound
* Linden Ave N at N 145th St northbound
* Route 28 will be no longer serve Greenwood Ave N at N 145th St southbound and N 145th St at Greenwood Ave N westbound

wikimedia

Sound Transit is expanding their special sporting event service on Sounder to cover all weekend day games of both the Mariners and the Sounders this year.

As I’ve observed before, sporting event service is a nice combo for rail transit: expensive parking, high congestion that traps most buses, focused arrival and departure times, and an opportunity to serve a constituency that may not have the occasion to use your service otherwise.

There are 7 locations County-wide at which you can vote on Tuesday, including the Seattle Central Library. In keeping with our tradition here we won’t endorse in non-transit-related races, but take a look at the candidates and let everyone know in the comments who they should support.

• It's interesting to consider that DC decided to move forward on this system at about the same time Seattle rejected starting theirs.  The difference, I think, is an institutional setup where elected leaders make decisions, rather than one where they have to go to the ballot for (super-)majorities for nearly every budgetary decision.
• DC has a similarly balkanized system: spanning two states and one-quasi state, WMATA runs the subway and some regional buses; then you have at least five county agencies running buses, and two different states running their own commuter trains.
• Seattle Times editors: please count the newspapers in the video.]

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.

M/V Chetzemoka by WSDOT

Return of the Port Townsend passenger-only ferry? Not if Commissioner Phil Johnson has his way.

Progress on the M/V Chetzemoka - Placed in water for the first time last week! Wiring work continues.

Keller ferry update – Replacement coming soon?

Progress on the 144-car ferry program

Another name the ferry contest for the second Kwa-di Tabil Class 64-car ferry. Deadline is April 30, 2010

A new version of vessel watch now available.

Kalakala may be moving yet again to become part of a museum (H/T; Jason Hill)

No more free rides for ferry workers.

State is still trying to reduce the costs of WSF.

Ferries still dependant on fuel costs

Wasteful spending on ferry system has outraged leaders and the public. One lucky deckhand made nearly $73,000 in travel reimbursements….

Elevated Alaska St (Columbia City) Station on MLK

I wasn’t around for the public process of Central Link and I was curious to what was being considered before the preferred alignment was selected. I found a book of drawings from the 1999 Central Link Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) at the UW’s Engineering Library. Combing through the pages, I took some photos of a few pages that I was interested in. You can view the entire set on Flickr. Here are some findings that you may find interesting. It would be nice if someone who was involved could share their stories.

Focusing on the south section, there were quite a few alignment options. Getting to Mount Baker, there’s a I-90/Rainier path and the SODO/Beacon Hill path. Between Mount Baker and Othello, Link could’ve gone down the side of Rainier with a station at Columbia City then tunneling to a Graham St Station or elevated down MLK to Graham. There’s even a cross-section of a Graham Station in a cut below grade.

There was consideration of a center platform for Mount Baker Station. The Mount Baker Transit Center was going to be right next to the station instead of across the street. Rainier Beach Station had a full-fledged transit center. Both of them would be served by trolley buses.

You can see what Boeing Access Road Station might’ve looked like, complete with a Sounder platform and bus bays. Then there’s the Tukwila surface alignment on 99 or a Southcenter alignment with a station by the mall and an integrated Tukwila Sounder & Link station. We all know what we got in the end.

What I wasn’t aware of was the multiple options for serving Sea-Tac. Yes, there was an option with a station next to the terminal. There’s also one that expected shuttle buses to get people to the terminal, one integrated with the automated airport shuttle trains, and one that actually veered away from the airport before heading back to a station at International Blvd and S 200th St.

Lt. Gov. Brad Owen

We’ve just learned that the amendment on SB 6774 to save Community Transit and Pierce Transit is dead. For those just tuning in, it would have allowed – not created, just allowed – transportation benefit districts to be created by those agencies. It failed through a scoping process – reportedly a Senator asked the lieutenant governor, Brad Owen, to rule on whether the amendment would be outside the scope of the bill. He ruled that it was outside scope, and the amendment was stripped.

The legislature as a whole, despite a few friends, did almost nothing for transit this session. Perhaps it would be appropriate to strip them of dedicated road funding?

Where we are today.

Every day, when we discuss future transit options, how things are going, what we’re expecting, I see that a lot of us have very different metrics for how we determine success in our transit system. As a result, a lot of our discussions turn into debates about how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ something is today. I don’t want to discourage that – we need to understand what to do next and where the problems are today – but I want to encourage a broader discussion.

Let me start with a little about how I think about transit.

Almost all the time, I try to think on a hundred year horizon. I try to consider what we’re building for the next fifteen years, the PSRC goals for the fifteen years after that, and how other cities have grown in similar situations. I’m also thinking about not just ST3, but ST4 and ST5 – how the city might affect what’s in those packages with their own investments, what our next north-south trunk might look like, and how we can change state priorities to help us and build our intercity rail solutions.

To that end, or rather lack of end, I think we can create a better model for ourselves. More on this after the jump.

There are those who claim technology will suddenly change – and use that as an argument against investing in these systems. They have been claiming that for a century, and it is no more true with today’s self-driving electric cars and jetpacks than it was with the electric cars and personal helicopters of the 1910s. There are others who claim that these mass transit investments are expensive – and they’re right! What they don’t mention is that the path they’d like to lead us down is more expensive – over the next hundred years.

In only fifty years, sprawl in this region has congested our roadways and now wastes our time and money every day. In seventy years, the destruction of the streetcars has left us “more flexible” buses that continue to run in exactly the same places. In a hundred years, the buildings we built around those streetcars are where our favorite cafes, restaurants and shops continue to thrive.

When I think about transit oriented development today, I am not thinking about the Urban Outfitters and Qdoba that will move in tomorrow. I’m thinking about the Elliott Bay Books and the Crumpet Shop that will be there in a century. That is how we get these businesses – the best of what we have today was built by fat cats a century ago, and such is how it will be for the next century, and the one after that, and the one after that, as it has been since we started building for more than one purpose. Then it gets old, it changes, and it becomes our favorite place.

When I think about transportation today, I am not thinking about how many cars use 520. I’m thinking about whether we want to dump cars into the city at all in the next hundred years – or even the next fifty. I’m thinking about a subway from Ballard to Kirkland via Sand Point, streetcars up and down Phinney, Greenwood and Roosevelt, and a bullet train down I-5. When we know what our cars are doing to the atmosphere, our bodies, our social structure, and we know we have alternatives, building a new highway really is simply stupid.

So the next time you’re arguing about how many riders Link has today, or whether anyone has built next to Beacon Hill Station yet, or where a bus stop is, please step back for a moment, and maybe ask yourself the questions I ask myself: How does this fit in? Is this the argument I want to spend my time having? Where can we go from here?

Think long term. Ask for long term things. Do it for long enough, and others follow you – and it becomes what’s been planned all along.

Late last night, the House voted to insist Liias’ amendment to provide Pierce and Snohomish with the tools they need to keep transit from falling off a cliff. This is great news for us, but there is one more step!

Now it’s up to the Senate – we need real pressure on your Senators to make this happen, and we’re very close. The last thing we want is to have this fight again next year when we’re trying to fight for a good state capital budget.

There’s a simple tool to find your legislators here. Please urge your Senator to concur with SB 6774! This is it for the session, and it’s the one fight we can actually win. Please help our friends to the north and south, and please comment once you’ve done so!

Amtrak Cascades by Brian Bundridge

The Oregon Department of Transportation moved forward with purchasing two 8th-generation Talgo trains on  February 26th,  joining Wisconsin’s train order and saving roughly $6m in the deal. The trains are marketed for North American operations and meet FRA requirements. The trains will consist of 13 cars (instead of WSDOT’s planned 14-car trains), seating 285 passengers (instead of 300) and will have free wifi, a bistro/lounge car, coach and business classes, along with baggage and continued bicycle services. These will be built at the new Milwaukee, Wisconsin Talgo assembly plant. These will most likely not use the Talgo-Siemens BT diesel/hydraulic locomotive; however, the Wisconsin trains may use the cab car from the BT locomotive. The stimulus funded rebuilt GE P40 locomotives will be used to power these trains.

The way these trains will be integrated into Cascades is still to be determined.  The WSDOT mid- and long-range plans did not consider that ODOT might purchase their own train-sets, even though the mid-range plan was drawn up during the time Oregon was looking at purchasing bi-level coaches and used locomotives, similar to what is seen on the Amtrak California and Surfliner corridors.

ODOT will continue to run 2 daily trains and is in negotiations with the Union Pacific Railroad to increase service to 4 daily trains; increase speeds to 79mph for the majority of the route (which mostly just involves improving grade crossing circuit timings); improve reliability between Eugene and Portland, including extending sidings and add double track in key bottlenecks; and reduce run times.  Oregon continues to study the Portland and Western Railroad for a 150mph double track electrified corridor.

ODOT staff did not given any clues as to how they will deploy these trainsets when they enter revenue service in 2012, except that they will be used only in the Eugene-to-Portland segment.  Given that constraint, one sensible choice would be to replace the two bus round trips that currently connect with Cascades trains that terminate at Portland.

The press release can be found here.

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.

Sources in Olympia tell us that transit is under attack in the legislature right now on two fronts – as usual. Today, though, there’s at least something we can do!

First, we understand that Mary Margaret Haugen attached a requirement to regional mobility grant funding – transit agencies would only be eligible for these grants if they provide access to their facilities for private transit operators (airport shuttles, limousines, etc.), under a “pilot project”.

Transit champion Rep. Simpson submitted seven different amendments to try to straighten things out – from requiring FTA approval (PDF), all the way to renaming the requirement the “The Legislature Forces Public Transit Providers to Convert Publicly Purchased Infrastructure into Private Property or Risk Losing State Grants and the Gift of Public Funds Pilot Project.” Of his amendments, two passed, but neither removed the teeth of the requirements. The bill’s headed to the Governor.

Given that the federal transit administration has already pointed out significant problems with the state’s plan, it would be a good step for the Governor to veto the private operator provision – and we’re hearing that with enough pressure, that could be a possibility. If you want to help, call her office at 360-902-4111 and urge her to veto the private transit provider provision in the transportation budget!

In addition, Representative Liias’ amendment to provide emergency funding for Community Transit and Pierce Transit is almost dead. Even with TCC, Futurewise, Pierce Transit and the ATU fighting for it, the Senate voted against concurring with the House transportation funding bill it’s attached to, requesting that the House “recede from” (remove) the amendment.

This means the transportation funding bill will go into conference committee, and we’re hearing Liias may be forced to remove the amendment, under pressure from Haugen. Either Chopp or Clibborn (especially Chopp) could step forward to ask House Democrats to defend the funding amendment. It’s frustrating to hear from a representative that they’re supportive of transit, but see no evidence of that in their actions.

So in addition to calling the Governor, your other action item today could be calling or emailing Speaker Chopp’s office to let him know you want Liias’ transit funding amendment on SB 6774 saved! Chopp’s office phone is 360-786-7920, and he’s chopp.frank@leg.wa.gov.

"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.

[BREAKING] The Bellevue City Council just voted to send a letter to Sound Transit stating B7 as the “preliminary preferred alternative.”  From my understanding, a vote of 4-3 was taken in favor of a motion that would have amended the letter to read that “the majority of the council favors B7 as the locally preliminary preferred alternative.”  There was some debate over the wording of that sentence, as Councilmember Balducci wanted to ensure that the preferred alternative was only “preliminary,” due to the fact that the Final EIS has not yet been issued by Sound Transit.  Councilmember Lee wanted the sentence to merely state “locally preferred alternative,” showing a clear split in the council.

A second vote was taken to for a motion to actually send the letter, which I understand was also 4-3.  We’ll have more information as soon as it comes.

[Update 11:47pm] Michael Marchand, who we endorsed for Bellevue City Council last year, contacted me with some more specifics about the meeting.  The three votes against the language for B7 were cast by councilmembers Balducci, Degginger, and Chelminiak, as expected.  However, the three votes against sending the letter happened to be cast by councilmembers Lee, Wallace, and Robertson, all having openly supported B7.

I was also informed that were questionable goings-on earlier:

The fireworks really started when the discussion came about the letter and council learned that there were five letter(s) in play and that the amended Wallace letter that was being circulated among councilmembers may have constituted a Open Meetings Act violation. Based on Robertson’s testimony of how she worked on the letter with Wallace, Lee and Davidson, Chelminiak was quite certain that the OMA was violated in this instance and voiced that in Council.

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.