Seattle Times: Intellectually Dishonest Yet Again

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It was predictable that the Seattle Times would oppose the only measure ($) available to Washington voters to address climate change. However, it’s amazing that people that self-identify as journalists could be so intellectually dishonest in their endorsement. Besides simply lying to their readers — which a newspaper really ought not to do — they can’t manage to maintain a consistent argument from beginning to end.

For starters, the Times says we should wait and let someone else take the first steps:

Washington should coordinate its response with other states, to prevent cross-border job losses. It should also seek a national carbon tax.

Others have taken the first steps. 194 countries have signed the 2015 Paris Agreement.  Perhaps there might be national action if Democrats gain firm control of the federal government, but the Times editorial board is working hard to prevent that ($). In any case, Washington is coordinating its response with other states and provinces. But the region’s “newspaper of record” chooses to misinform its readers about the world.

The state should also strengthen regulations directly reducing pollution, and continue making strong investments in alternative energy, conservation and clean technologies.

Yes, the state should be funding those investments. This editorial doesn’t suggest where the money could come from. A carbon fee would work!

Now comes I-1631, repackaged as a carbon fee. In one key respect – accountability – it’s the worst of the bunch. It would collect more than $1 billion yearly. An un-elected board appointed by the governor would propose how to spend it. The initiative requires seats for powerful entities, such as labor and tribes, promising them large cuts.

The Legislature has the final say on appropriations. But the carbon board is structured to be a political juggernaut. Legislators might have difficulty mustering political will to change course.

The logic of this excerpt immediately collapses upon inspection. The measure isn’t “accountable” because it’s an “unelected board” that has to — report to the elected legislature. But the legislature won’t have the “political will” because the resulting legislation will be too popular! The Times is ultimately mad because a panel of experts and stakeholders will be able to propose legislation in Olympia.

Global warming is critical. But I-1631 is not do-or-die. Sponsors opposed the 2016 carbon-tax initiative. It aspired to be revenue neutral, by cutting other taxes, and didn’t fund their wish list.

My, that I-732 seems quite reasonable, with no grubby progressive politics or interest group spending! The Times hates taxes and would surely have supported using carbon proceeds for tax cuts!

Oh, wait.

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Metro and Chariot Partner on Eastgate Microtransit Service

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A map of the area around Eastgate Park and Ride where Ride2 service will work. Eastgate Park and Ride service area

King County news release

King County Metro customers will soon be able to use new mobile apps to hail an on-demand shuttle to and from transit hubs throughout the region, starting at the county’s largest park-and-ride.

Starting on Oct. 23, commuters will be able to use the first app – called Ride2 Park & Ride – to hail a shuttle operated by Chariot and Ford Smart Mobility to and from the Eastgate Park-and-Ride in Bellevue.

Metro will make similar on-demand shuttle service available to other transit hubs throughout King County over the next several months as a part of a yearlong pilot project.

The pilot will be free for a few months, at which point you’ll be able to board using your ORCA card.

Much like the trailhead service, which started in a limited fashion in 2017 and then expanded in 2018, Metro is going to take advantage of the Chariot partnership to try this and see what works.  Metro’s Jeff Switzer told me that Chariot was selected through a competitive bid, and that the two organizations are splitting the costs (though Chariot picked up the tab for the app development).

[Read more…]

Routes 3 and 4 Will Stay on James Street

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Metro route 3. Photo by Tim Bond.

After soliciting feedback last summer about a potential move to Yesler Way, Metro has decided to keep Routes 3 and 4 on James Street between 3rd and 9th Avenues:

We considered this change as a way for the routes to avoid traffic congestion near the James Street I-5 ramps, improving their speed and reliability. About half of those who responded to our survey supported the concept, but many people who work, live, or travel in the immediate area had concerns about how it could affect seniors and people with disabilities and/or low incomes who use stops along this steep section of James Street to reach housing and social and government services.

In addition to receiving public feedback on this concept, we also studied its feasibility and travel-time benefits, as well as the costs of improvements necessary for trolley bus operations along the Yesler Way routing. The study found some potential for travel-time improvement in one direction, but that improvement would not be significant for the routes overall, and would not justify the high cost of new infrastructure to support the change.

Though public feedback was in favor of the change, 53% to 40% (87%-13% from the Yesler Terrace Community Council), several organizations voiced concerns about access to services along James Street including municipal facilities and a food bank, that would be impacted.  We wrote favorably about the proposal, which would have saved riders up to 4 minutes and improved reliability, and suggested some mitigation strategies for impacted riders.

Between the equity and access concerns and the high costs of trolley wire, Metro decided not to pursue it.  Instead, they say they will work with SDOT and work with partners to “explore future large capital improvements to the James Street and I-5 interchange.” What that will look like is anyone’s guess, perhaps some kind of dedicated bus lane on James Street that skirts the I-5 queue.

News Roundup: Addicted to Transit

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King County Metro Gillig Low Floor 40' HEV

This is an open thread.

14th Avenue is the Wrong Spot for a Ballard Station

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RapidRide: Signal Changes at NW Market Street

Where shall we put Ballard’s lone light rail station?

As Peter reported, Sound Transit is now in the process of reviewing the many potential alignments for Ballard/Interbay as we approach “Level 3” analysis. Last week’s Elected Leadership Group meeting (video link) was at times a reminder that needs of the riders who will eventually use this multi-billion-dollar system often play second fiddle to present-day concerns about inconveniencing businesses or car travel.

At the meeting, we heard concerns from the leadership about losing car lanes on 15th Avenue W through Interbay. We also heard about maritime businesses around the Ballard Bridge who might be impacted by a rail bridge. And, of course, we heard concerns that Seattle’s taste for expensive tunnels could impact Snohomish County rail projects.

Ballard Level 2 Feedback

While it’s completely understandable that we would want to build a train without wrecking our maritime economy, might I suggest we consider the needs of the system’s riders first and foremost? King County Exec Constantine and Ballard Councilmember Mike O’Brien hit the right notes in that regard. “For a rider,” Constantine said at the meeting, “it doesn’t matter where the line is, it matters where the stop is.” [Read more…]

Community Transit Adds USB Ports and Chooses Diesel For Its Buses

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A new Swift bus on the Blue Line, seen mid-chase in Lynnwood

Last month, the first pair of 18 new Swift bus rapid transit buses entered service on the Blue Line, as part of the line’s return to 10-minute weekday frequencies. The buses were ordered for the Green Line, which will debut next year, and have a few differences from the decade-old coaches that run on the Blue Line today. This being the transit blog, I naturally stalked these new buses for a quick look inside.

The new buses, based on the New Flyer Xcelsior series, is slightly shorter due to its flat front (shaving 2 ft. from the original’s 62 ft.). The shorter length means that the doors are slightly off from the “welcome mats” painted into the platforms at stations, but it’s within a reasonable margin of error. The Xcelsior buses have the same interior features as the first-generation fleet, including the all-important rear door bicycle racks that speed up dwell times, but its seats are arranged in a slightly different manner, with a mix of aisle-facing and forward-facing seats above the third axle.

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Trailhead Direct Wrapping Up, Has Survey

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This season’s Trailhead Direct service is wrapping up on October 28th, as the weather worsens and parking demand at trailheads drops. This year’s innovation was to directly serve particularly carless neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, rather than forcing a transfer (or drive) to Issaquah.

Feel free to comment on your experiences with Trailhead Direct below, but better yet tell Metro directly by responding to their survey. Metro wants to hear from you, even if you didn’t use the service this year.

Yes on Thurston County Intercity Transit Proposition 1

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Photo by Bruce Englehardt

It shouldn’t come as a shock that STB would endorse a ballot measure that would add more bus service, including longer hours, more frequency, more and faster connections, and more right-of-way priority treatments, in an urban region that makes good use of it. Bruce Englehardt described in full what the measure would likely fund. It is both a response to lower federal funding, and an opportunity to match Olympia’s growth and extend service hours.

Thankfully, an organized campaign is getting the word out on the value that IT provides to its community. Not just a lifeline for the carless, the agency provides long-haul services to Tacoma, and thus to the core Puget Sound network. Today, it is the most fragile link in continuous transit service for the urban agglomeration from Everett to Olympia.

New Thurston County voters may still register to vote in person through Monday, October 29, at the Thurston County Courthouse, Building 1, during regular business hours. The Courthouse campus is a medium hike southwest from the Capitol campus, and served by Intercity Transit bus routes 12 and 42.

You can read the rest of our endorsements here.

Would backyard cottages make parking in Seattle harder?

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Off-street parking. Credit: Atomic Taco

The city’s released its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for accessory dwelling units (ADUs)/backyard cottages last week. Other sites in the urbanist blogosphere analyzed the entire document.

This post focuses on the EIS’s study of parking impacts in particular, since worries about street parking availability are a common anti-density talking point.

So: would the ADU proposal make parking on a side street difficult in Maple Leaf or Magnolia?

No.

In fact, not all that much would change (which is a point worth discussing on its own.) In its analysis of the preferred alternative, the plan that would create the most capacity for ADUs, the City projects that only 300 ADUs would be built. That’s about 10 percent of the 3,007 parcels that would be eligible for ADU construction—which itself is a very small slice of the 138,531 parcels in single family-zoned areas across the city.

Analysis of one of the two proposals that would eliminate the requirement that any ADU have a complementary off-street parking spot says that the City “do[es] not expect increased parking demand resulting from ADU production to exceed existing on-street parking availability under typical conditions.” The preferred alternative would create parking impacts that “would be very similar to, but slightly greater than, those described under Alternative 2 due to slightly higher ADU production.”

The EIS concludes that implementing the ADU plan will make only marginal changes to the single family-zoned parking supply, which is already robust. The EIS’s study of street parking supply, which used data collected from 2016-18, concludes that 56 percent of parking in single family zones is in use on a weekday.

That figure may actually overstate demands on the parking supply. Two of the four study areas are located in areas with high parking demand. The southeast study location is between the northeast edge of Columbia City’s business district and Genesee Park. The southwest study area surrounds the West Seattle Junction.

In short, existing evidence suggests that ADUs will not noticeably change the amount of parking available in Seattle’s single family neighborhoods.

Intercity Transit Pins Its Hopes and Dreams on Prop. 1

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An Intercity Transit bus at Olympia Transit Center

Voters in the Intercity Transit district, which roughly covers the cities of Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, and Yelm, will soon decide on Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would increase sales taxes by 0.4 percent in order to fund transit services. Intercity Transit currently levies a 0.8 percent sales tax, which makes up 79 percent of annual revenue.

The sales tax increase would raise about $16-$20 million annually and would be used to patch operational costs that were originally paid for using ever-shrinking federal grants (which makes up 8 percent of the agency’s annual budget). It would also be used to launch new services, including routes to underserved areas, improved frequencies, expanded evening and weekend service, and perhaps lead to a bus rapid transit system.

[Read more…]

News Roundup: STAB

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lumenade

This is an open thread.

Yes on I-1631

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“Son, we wanted to do something, but the oil companies said gas prices would go up.” (Wikimedia)

If you’re reading STB, you likely need no reminder that climate change is an emergency that requires urgent action. So we’ll dispense with the general case to take on some of the arguments, often in bad faith, deployed against this ballot measure.

First, familiarize yourself with the specifics of the measure. The carbon fee will discourage carbon-intensive habits and directly fund, among other things, transit and transit-oriented development. Purely from that perspective, our endorsement is inevitable.

And yet, we also enthusiastically endorsed I-732, last year’s measure, which used carbon tax revenue to cut regressive taxes instead of funding climate remedies. We find I-1631’s spending priorities to be largely worthy. But even if you don’t, recall that climate change is an emergency. We can’t wait for the ideal policy to come along to start taking action.

“Yes, fire season keeps getting worse, but I didn’t want to give spending power to an unelected board!” (Wikimedia)

Indeed, I-732’s failure suggests there is no political coalition for climate action with tax cuts. Many of the forces now criticizing “spending” and the costs borne by consumers had no interest in a remedy that returned money directly to taxpayers.

There are many attacks that are pure falsehoods, but the other that is superficially true is that the measure will not solve climate change on its own. While technically accurate, it ignores the power of collective action when nations and regions all over the world commit to change their economies to solve a crisis. Moreover, climate change is not a binary outcome: while it is too late to avoid at least some catastrophes, one degree of warming is better than 1.5, which is better than 2, and so on. Every large economy, like Washington State, that makes an effort will help a bit. And finally, a victory for I-1631 would provide a model of how climate policy can work at the state level, raising the possibility of action across the United States.

Vote for I-1631. The costs are modest, the benefits are large, and the fate of humanity may depend on it.

The STB Editorial Board consists of Martin H. Duke and Brent White.

ST Level 3 Recommendations, Criticism of Chinatown Plans

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Union Station from 5th Avenue South. Credit: Bruce Engelhardt.

In a meeting last Friday, Seattle and King County elected officials rejected the most expensive West Seattle Link alignment, endorsed a tunnel under the Lake Washington Ship Canal from Interbay to Ballard, and urged Sound Transit to significantly revamp plans for the Chinatown/International District (CID) station.

The rejection of CID plans, so far the most controversial of the ongoing process, came after pointed criticism from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and members of the Seattle City Council.

The October 5 meeting marked the end of the Level 2 analysis for the new Seattle Link extensions, meaning the advisory group process is two thirds finished. The group of elected officials voted on the recommendations of the stakeholder advisory groups that have met throughout 2018.

The endorsements are strictly advisory, but are intended to guide the planning work of Sound Transit’s project staff. The votes don’t carry the force of law: the Sound Transit board will ultimately decide whether to approve or reject the results of the months long advisory process in 2019. In the meantime, agency staff will study the elected official-endorsed alignments further, and present more developed Level 3 plans to the advisory groups.

Seattle & King County criticize Chinatown plans

In pointed comments, several Seattle officials, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and County Councilmember Joe McDermott reiterated a growing consensus against a 5th Avenue South alignment. CID and Pioneer Square leaders have rallied against a 5th Avenue line. [Read more…]

November 2018 Legislative Endorsements

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Our three endorsements in the primary election remain:

Six Representatives, five Democratic and one Republican, stood up for Sound Transit against the MVET rollback efforts this year:

  • Jacqueline Maycumber (District 7, Position 1)
  • Beth Doglio (District 22, Position 2)
  • Joe Fitzgibbon (District 34, Position 2)
  • Noel Frame (District 36, Position 1)
  • Gael Tarleton (District 36, Position 2)
  • Nicole Macri (District 43, Position1)

All six have our gratitude and endorsement. They are essentially unopposed, so lets move on to some more interesting races.

State Representative, District 5, Pos. 1: Bill Ramos, a member of the Issaquah City Council, worked for the Federal Transit Administration from 2005 to 2013 as a Community Planner with emphasis in developing and managing the Tribal Transit Program and Rural and Small Urban Area Transit Systems. As Federal Tribal Liaison, he worked with 56 Tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska to help start or improve public transit on Tribal Lands. [Read more…]

Register to Vote Today

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Intercity Transit bus (Erubisu/flickr)

Today is the deadline to register online to vote in the November election. If you’ve moved here, changed address, or otherwise haven’t registered to vote, the time is now.

Please go to MyVote.wa.gov, which is a portal for whatever registration transactions you need.

Only Thurston County is offering a strictly transit-related measure on the ballot. However, all Washington voters can vote on the Carbon Fee, I-1631, which will both encourage low-carbon means of housing and transport, and discourage carbon-intensive ones. Congressional races touch a wide range of issues. Furthermore, state legislative elections are probably the most underrated in terms of public attention and the impact they have on everyday life. The party balance in Olympia resolves issues around authorized transit taxes and the primacy of highways.

STB endorsements on transit and land use-related issues will be available soon.

Waterfront Shuttle Restructures, Grows, Lives On

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Two months ago I wrote about the Downtown Seattle Association’s experiment with a free waterfront shuttle. The pilot’s original term ended on October 1st, and the numbers are in.

Source: Commute Seattle

September 14th was the highest ridership day, at 1,674. The average weekday attracted 953 boardings, or 95 per hour. Weekends actually saw more usage, at 1,044 per day or 104 per hour. In absolute terms, this is roughly equivalent to a low-ridership Sound Transit Express route, and over much less distance. This isn’t moving the needle regionally, but isn’t bad for a new route with its share of quirks.

Source: Commute Seattle

But that’s not the really interesting news. After starting as a single loop from Pioneer Square to the Space Needle with unscheduled 25-minute headways, the shuttle is now three separate loops (see right). 3 to 6 buses per hour serve each of these loops, with the congestion issues you would expect. Commute Seattle data suggests all the but the green loop are pretty consistent through the day.

The DSA added the green (east) loop on August 31st “to circulate riders to Pike Place Market and the Retail Core & Convention Center from the waterfront,” according to spokesperson Margaret Steck. Weekly ridership jumped from 3,824 to 6,270 on either side of the change, although some of that may have been Labor Day weekend.

If you’re interested in this service, that’s not the most exciting news. Instead of ending last week, the DSA has the funding to run through at least Sep. 3, 2019, 10am to 8pm, except for Thanksgiving and the week between Christmas and New Year’s. One would expect ridership to dip in the bad weather months, and given the apparent leisure focus of many trips, it’s a bit odd to shut down over major holidays. But it’s always good to have novel funding sources create free transit in some of the region’s most constrained spaces.

Seven Places to Add Bus Lanes Now

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It was disappointing to learn that 3 of the 7 RapidRide corridors planned for the Move Seattle levy have been postponed indefinitely.  Fortunately, the most effective way to improve transit is also the least expensive: red paint.

a bucket of red paintThe Mayor’s budget promised 100,000 new bus service hours.  It’ll be a shame if those hours are spent idling in traffic.  Increasing the city’s stock of red bus lanes will make our transit dollars go even further while reducing the city’s carbon footprint and providing a real alternative to driving.

For the first time in a really long time, we’re primed to take advantage of transit priority. The Metro bus network has never been better: thanks in large part to the city’s funding, buses are coming more frequently and serving more destinations.  Now we just need to get them moving faster.

In that spirit, I went back to the original Transit Master Plan look for improvements to the 40, 44, and 48, the three routes that were cut from Move Seattle’s RapidRide program.  By adding bus lanes in a few key spots, SDOT can get many of the advantages of RapidRide at a far lower cost.

Of course, I couldn’t stop there. I polled the STB staff for suggestions on other places where transit priority would help.  The result is seven places for transit priority, distinguished in that they are short stretches of road approaching a chokepoint.

Ridership numbers are from 2016, the most recent available, and have no doubt increased substantially since then.  For the purposes of this post, I’ve ignored other planned RapidRide lines (Route 7, Route 120, Roosevelt-Eastlake, Madison BRT), assuming that they’re still on track for whatever transit priority they’re going to get. [Read more…]