Seattle Transit Blog

Route 421, one of several commuter routes affected by the fare policy change

Community Transit is proposing a small fare policy change for next year, as part of preparation for the next-generation ORCA system planned to launch in 2021. If approved at next month’s board meeting, the fare policy change would eliminate a lower-cost fare used on commuter routes by riders who only ride within one or two zones. The change comes as part of a region-wide push to streamline fares for the next-generation ORCA system, which will already be limited in some ways.

As it currently works, a rider in Lynnwood who is bound for Marysville can take Route 421 (the Seattle-Lynnwood-Marysville Express) and only pay $2.25, the regular local fare, as opposed to the $5.50 fare charged for commuter routes from the North and East ends of the county. Route 421 is also able to carry Seattle-Lynnwood commuters and charge the South County fare ($4.25) through the same arrangement. Riders request the lower fare from the driver, who will either accept the lower cash fare or manually override the ORCA reader with the Local or South County fare option, before switching back for the next person in line.

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Today’s pedestrian view at the Lander crossing. Photo by Peter Lewis.

For many years, SDOT has sought to build an overpass separating cars, trucks, and buses on Lander Street in Sodo from crossing train traffic.  Last time we checked in, the project was included in the Move Seattle project list and had secured a $45 million federal grant, but was still $40 million short of full funding.  On Wednesday, the city announced that it achieved full funding, thanks to a combination of a $17 million lower cost estimate after final design, additional appropriations from the City Council, and an additional $10 million contribution from the Port of Seattle.  Construction is expected to begin next year, for completion in 2019.

The project has been controversial among local urbanists, because it is expensive and intended primarily for vehicular traffic, especially Port of Seattle truck traffic.  I think the concept of the overpass has more merit than is often acknowledged, because it would improve bus reliability and has the potential to make walking to transit safer.

The benefits to bus reliability already look promising.  Lander is the primary transit-accessible route between the West Seattle Bridge and Sodo destinations.  Today, it serves one major frequent bus route (5/21), one infrequent local route (50), and a few commuter routes.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that train crossings at Lander are responsible for a substantial portion of overall delays on routes 5 and 21, especially northbound route 5 service.  In its long-range plan, Metro expects to expand service on Lander further, upgrading the frequent Sodo-West Seattle route to RapidRide (while changing its routing) and adding a pair of routes that would provide frequent service to South Park and Tukwila.  A Lander overpass would improve reliability of all of these services substantially.

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A RapidRide at Bellevue Transit Center Image: Oran Viriyincy

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 587 approved a three-year labor contract which includes a nine percent raise over three years and allows part-time drivers to work weekend shifts, King County Metro Transit announced Tuesday.

The current contract prohibits part-time drivers from working weekends and past 8:30 pm during the week. According to Metro, this change will make weekend service more cost-efficient and prevent the cancellation of bus service when a driver is unavailable. Under the new agreement, part-time workers will also be allowed to work later into the night.

“Greater use of part-time operators is a significant change. This will allow for more service and will help Metro recruit the operators it needs to increase service now and into the future,” wrote Scott Gutierrez, Metro spokesperson in an email.

Sixty-five percent of roughly 4,100 union members approved the deal, according to Gutierrez.

The contract includes an estimated $85 million in wage and benefit increases, with salary increases retroactive to Nov. 1, 2016. A three percent and four percent raise in subsequent years will follow.

The deal further guarantees drivers rest periods by inserting specific language into the contract and moves longer breaks “to more meaningful times in operators’ shifts, such as middle of the day instead of within the first or last hour.”

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• It’s official: Jenny Durkan will face Cary Moon in general election for Mayor. A dive into the precinct maps.
• United will join Alaska Air ($) in flying from Paine Field. Confusion about legally binding limitations ($) on flights, beyond the number of gates present.
• Maybe “congestion free network” is the branding we need.
• Seattle Council to consider a Lower Queen Anne upzone ($). Rob Johnson considering parking maximums and incentives for family-size apartments. Hearing Sep. 11.
• Convention Center expansion keeps slipping, which is great news for the flow of people through downtown.
• If you’re wondering how all those bike share companies are going to be profitable at $1 per ride, data mining might be the answer.
• Privately-run buses are serving the waterfront through Sep. 30.
• WSDOT needs volunteers to count pedestrians and bicyclists on Sep. 26-28.
• Another stationless bike share coming tomorrow.
• A profile of one of Metro’s most thoughtful drivers ($).
• Who cleans bus stops? ($)
• Design review is a malign process that aggravates the housing shortage.

This is an open thread

Flickr/SounderBruce

Early numbers for the two private bikeshare companies in Seattle are promising, or at least better than the numbers that Pronto used to get. The stationless aspect certainly adds a new level of convenience for the travel, and the pricing is attractive.

SDOT’s policy allows each company’s bike fleet to double in size each month, up to 2,000 in September. But by then, summer will be winding down and we won’t see the full potential of these systems until the following year.

Cascade Bicycle Club is encouraging people to take action, and ask SDOT to change the rule to allow faster deployment. Have a look and say your piece!

Lyft Shuttle routes in San Francisco Credit: Lyft

Across the country, as bus routes are increasingly overcrowded and delays have slowed commuters, private transit companies are providing another choice. Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center, sees a market for private transit but says these companies will not replace the need public transit fulfills. Answers edited for length and clarity.

STB: How will private transit, such as Lyft Shuttle and Chariot, impact public transit?

MH: Modestly. Look at Microsoft, they’ve been running one (shuttle service) for years. They carry a lot of people, yet have you seen a reduction in transit to Microsoft? No, the 545 is wall-to-wall people.  

It doesn’t remove all the other transit needs. Chariot is basically a vanpool system. We have the biggest vanpool system in the country here and it’s cheaper to let Metro give you a van than to have Chariot run it for you. Vanpools work when you have enough people going from here to there, and starting at the same time. Maybe Lyft Shuttle and Chariot will hit that margin a little bit; “good for them,” will be my attitude. “Hooray, you can make a market out of it.” Great, is it going to make the E Line empty? No. It’s not even going to come close to replacing the need (for public transportation).

STB: How are they going to get a foothold in the market? Will they take just over the most profitable routes?

MH: They will take some of the people off of the profitable routes, but the profitable routes are still going to be full. Their goal is to make money. So if you’re trying to make money, you don’t really care that there’s a public service. If that public service is low-end, is there a market for people willing to pay for high-end services? That’s the bet that Lyft (and Chariot) are trying to make.

Look at housing costs: there are people who will happily pay money for a better experience. The downside of vanpools is, it’s a mediocre ride; the downside of the E-Line, D-Line or C-Line is, it’s a mediocre ride. Wouldn’t you like to be in a nice bus with good wi-fi and comfy seats? And maybe a reserved seat so you don’t have to stand in line in the rain in January? If you have the money, why not?

If you have the density — and Seattle is becoming more, more dense — these services start to potentially pencil [make economic sense]. But they’re only going to pencil in very specific markets; those markets are massive transit markets, which means 90 percent of you aren’t going to qualify very well for those Lyft (Shuttle) or Chariot trips.

They are only going to come once an hour, once a half-hour. The E-Line is going to come by every 3 minutes once we give them their own lane. So you’re going to decide, do I want to be on the schedule and get a comfy seat? Or do I want to just leave, and I don’t care about standing up, the bus is going to be here in three minutes?

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Sound Transit is using the Sequential Excavation Mining technique instead of a tunnel boring machine for the short underground section of East Link in downtown Bellevue. Here is a timelapse showing how it’s done.

Now that Mercer Island and Sound Transit have reached a settlement, the temperature on this dispute has gone down. Dan reported the key aspects:

• $4.5m-worth of new park-and-ride spaces (up to 200), plus 100 temporary spaces while South Bellevue is closed;
• an essentially status-quo level and pattern of bus traffic, aside from city-only buses;
• About $5m for congestion and safety projects, at the city’s discretion, and a Metro “last-mile” pilot project.

The new spaces will help, a little, but the fundamental issue remains. Even with the coming Link station, many residents rightfully despair of having a decent traffic-free alternative for getting off the island. There are several reasons for this predicament:

1. An undersized park and ride (thanks to actions of previous Mercer Island governments, partially mitigated by the settlement).
2. The appeal of this P&R to eastside commuters.
3. Inadequate bus service from elsewhere on the Eastside, which encourages people to driving to Mercer Island instead. The settlement actually intensifies this problem.
4. A road grid not suited to rapid feeder bus service
5. The expiration of previous special express lane privileges. It would appear the agreement closes this issue, much to the relief of many disgusted outsiders.

Taken together, beyond a select set of early risers, the options to escape gridlock seem to be shrinking, not growing. While Mercer Island’s wealth shouldn’t exclude it from the same dynamics as everyone else, when combining it with the Link station there are opportunities to make the situation a lot better.

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An example bus bulb (Everett Transit)

Everett Transit has been preparing for a major face-lift for one of the city’s main transit corridors, North Broadway, between Downtown Everett and the Everett Community College campus. Originally slated for this year, the project has been pushed back into 2018 while additional design work is completed.

The North Broadway project will add 24 bus bulbs on Broadway between 41st Street and Tower Street, allowing buses to stop in-street, as well as new shelters and garbage cans at the bus stops themselves. Most of the North Broadway corridor is used by Everett Transit route 7, with a handful of stops shared with Community Transit routes 201 and 202 and inter-city express service from Skagit Transit and Island Transit. Two major stops, at 34th Street near Everett Station and at Tower Street near Everett Community College, will be moved to nearby intersections that have signaled crosswalks to reduce potential vehicle-pedestrian collisions (though it is still legal to cross at an unmarked crosswalk).

During construction in the spring and summer of next year, Everett Transit says to expect some delays for buses during daytime hours, as well as marked stop relocations and closures. The project should be completed by late 2018.

Link Light Rail Credit: Lizz Giordano

Link Light Rail operators have been given orders to slow accelerations to reduce stress on the system after an electrical failure at the Tukwila International Boulevard Station substation Tuesday resulted in a power outage to the southern portion of the Link light rail system, according to Sound Transit.

On Tuesday a “major electrical substation failure” at the Tukwila Station suspended service between Othello and Angle Lake stations for approximately six hours. A bus bridge, which had as many as 36 shuttle buses running during its peak, transported riders until service resumed around 4:30 pm.

Earlier on Tuesday, trains were also stopped at the Mount Baker Station “after a unit along the trackway that sprays lubricant caught fire,” according to Kimberly Reason a spokesperson for Sound Transit.  The fire was quickly extinguished.

At this point, Sound Transit hasn’t been able to determine the cause for either service disruption on Tuesday.

While there is no obvious connection between the two events, “given the unusual nature of these events and the proximity of the lubrication unit to elements of the traction power system, we have not ruled it out,” Reason wrote in an email.

Sound Transit is also investigating if the substation failure at Tukwila is related to Sunday’s two-half hour outages at Angle Lake. But damage incurred during the Tukwila substation failure has complicated the investigation.

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• Housing permit held up over unreliable transit, because “environmental” laws are used to ensure there’s lots of parking. There are operational and legislative solutions.
• More questions about whether jaywalking should be a crime.
• Edmonds planning an upzone.
• Both bikeshare companies to quadruple by September.
• A deep dive on how bikeshare has done so far, including heat maps.
• Shifting alliances among single-family homeowners, urbanists, and housing activists. Some other good advice here.
• A fascinating interview with ST marketing director Tim Healy.
• Charging for parking reduces driving ($), especially a daily rate.
• An update on Madison BRT. Federal uncertainty may push everything back by 6 months or so.
• Funding for affordable housing next to Roosevelt Station.
• Link service disrupted ($) by a power outage in Sound Transit’s equipment for most of the day.
• Cars arriving as fast as people ($); we’re not doing a good enough job making carlessness attractive.
• Early data on distracted driving enforcement.
• TriMet reeling from a heat wave plus computer failure.
• It’s always illuminating to see transit maps all drawn at the same scale.

This is an open thread

Link Light Rail Train heading to the SODO Station Credit: Lizz Giordano

Transportation is the second-largest monthly expenditure for many households. And for some, the cost of a bus or train ticket can limit access to parts of the city within walking distance.

A pilot program conducted by Capitol Hill Housing, an affordable housing developer, subsidized fares for a group of residents and showed that a small investment can open up the city to many.

The Affordable Housing Transit Pass Pilot Program had a minimal impact on car trips, which dropped just slightly from 10 to 8 percent. Rather, “the increase in transit commuting was mainly a result of a switch from walking, which fell from 35 percent to 18 percent of participants,” concluded a report evaluating the program.

“It’s easy to predict that giving transit passes will change people’s behavior,” said Alex Brennan, a senior planner with Capitol Hill Housing and one of the authors of the report. “But the report highlights just how many low-income folks don’t take trips they need to take because they don’t have the money.”

One participant told Capitol Hill Housing the program improved their quality of life.

“I’m able to take advantage of specials in grocery stores that are beyond walking distance. I’m able to get extensive reduced-fee dental care at the University of Washington School of Dentistry without worrying about transportation costs. I’ve explored new areas of Seattle that were previously out of reach because of because of transportation costs.”

Many residents living in affordable housing units don’t receive the perk of a subsidized transit pass through their job or school. A survey conducted by Capitol Hill Housing found that 68 percent of residents with transit passes living in market-rate housing received them through an employer or school, which paid part or all the cost of the pass. Meanwhile, only 21 percent of those living in affordable housing benefit from a subsidized transit pass program.

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wikimedia

Last week, there were a couple of actions that added to the number of potential housing units in central Seattle. One was more straightforward than the other.

First, the Council voted 8-0 to upzone large parts of the International District ($) by up to 30 feet. Utilizing these height bonuses will require construction of, or a contribution to, affordable housing.

The upzone that includes parts of Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon will increase maximum heights from 240 to 270 feet on some bocks, 150 to 170 feet on other blocks and 85 to 95 feet on still others.

The historic heart of Chinatown, situated west of Interstate 5 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will be excluded from the changes.

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品川駅(港南口)のなんでもない平日朝の様子を撮ったので、ここに置いておきます pic.twitter.com/pk7AFAzW3J

— ななし (@sigeyosiinoue) July 29, 2017

A time-lapse compressing 30 minutes of people during the morning rush hour in to one minute. Shinagawa, however, is not the busiest station in Tokyo. That distinction goes to Shinjuku Station.

SODO Track Credit: Lizz Giordano

The SODO Track mural nears completions as 26 artists add to the 2-mile art experience this month.

Artist Paola Delfin Credit: Lizz Giordano

Last year eight murals were completed along the light rail track (also known as the SODO busway and trail), between the SODO and Stadium stations. This year the murals have expanded south to Spokane Street.

“We want to enhance the transit experience,” said Tamar Benzikry, art project manager for 4Culture. “Take an ordinary bus experience and make it extraordinary.”

4Culture is producing the project in partnership with the SODO BIA, King County Metro, and Sound Transit and collaborating with curator Gage Hamilton and Urban ArtWorks.

Hamilton said with 50,000 people passing through the corridor each day, the project brings art to the people as they travel one of the busiest transit routes in the city. [Read more…]

This Sounder train will have positive train control operating next year. Photo by Bruce Englehardt.

On Wednesday, Sound Transit quietly released a draft of its Annual Report and 2017-2022 Transit Development Plan.  The TDP, which state law requires ST to complete each year, operates at a higher level than the Service Implementation Plans released in the fall.  While the TDP offers less granular detail about the agency’s plans than the SIP, it gives us a glimpse farther into the future.

This year’s plan doesn’t break any major news, but underscores how much work planners at ST and its partner agencies must do as the system expands.  During 2017 alone, ST is working on four separate planning processes, almost totally centered on bus service:

1. the ongoing SR 520 bus service restructure effort;
2. a plan to keep routes 550 and 554 moving once the dedicated bus roadway parallel to I-90 closes for East Link construction;
3. a plan to help ST Express buses navigate increased surface bus traffic once all buses leave the downtown tunnel in 2019; and
4. the start of the planning effort for the ST Express network that will operate once Lynnwood Link, East Link, and Federal Way Link open.

The last of these is a long-term effort that will continue from now until 2022, and will take place in cooperation with similar planning efforts by Metro and Community Transit.  We likely won’t see too much about it in this year’s SIP, but it will be major news as the early 2020s draw closer.

The TDP delivered a couple of other minor news items.  First, ST and BNSF remain on track to complete Positive Train Control hardware installation on the South Sounder line this year, with the technology becoming fully operational next year. PTC is a safety technology designed to prevent trains from entering already-occupied track segments even if an operator fails to observe a red light, and likely could have prevented several of the USA’s worst train accidents.  Second, ST continues to eschew fleet standardization for ST Express, with double-decker buses, commuter motor coaches, and articulated hybrid buses all slated to come on property within the next few years.  Buses that entered service in 2005 or earlier, including ST’s original order of hybrid buses, should be replaced in 2018-2019.