Month: May 2007

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Erica Barnett reports that the RTID will go through without the Cross Base Highway, which environmentalists oppose. It’s a risky move, since Pierce County exec (and current Sound Transit chair) John Ladenburg really wants the highway and has said he’ll fight the ballot measure if the Cross Base is eliminated. It’s hard to see how having the chair of Sound Transit actively working against the organization would be a good thing for anyone. But maybe he’ll realize he’s outgunned and move on.

It would be a huge coup for environmentalists if the highway doesn’t make the final cut.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

KPRC Houston has some footage of light rail trains nearly colliding. Well, not really. One train got switched onto the opposite tracks, meaning that it could have potentially collided with an oncoming train. The operator halted the train in time.

Just FYI, you can expect these sorts of quasi-hysterical reports once Link Light Rail opens in Seattle: “passengers scared,” “investigation ordered,” “transit official to resign,” etc., etc. Of course, tens of thousands of people actually die in car crashes every year, so keep it in perspective.

Train collisions are dramatic, and one can blame them on some mythical, distant bureaucracy, whereas car crashes are just deadly and are usually the fault of regular citizens.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

(with apologies to James Brown)

More TransitNow changes are coming this weekend, including more service in South King County. We’re also getting the Fremont Bridge back: bus service there will also resume on Saturday.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Yes, Virginia, even rail has environmental impacts, especially rail tracks that were built a hundred years ago along pristine Puget Sound shoreline:

Many environmentalists call the BNSF Railway, built on 26 miles of beachfront between Seattle and Everett, one of the worst environmental problems for Snohomish County’s shoreline.

The railroad creates what amounts to a wall between the land and the shore. It hampers beach access, disrupts salmon creeks and prevents sediment from eroding down to the beach, starving beaches of sand and gravel, they say.

Now, efforts are under way to restore pockets of shoreline along the railroad line. Some planners and environmentalists have hailed the restoration projects — including opening up creek mouths, nourishing beaches with sand, and restoring tidal marshes — as pilots for a future approach to a healthier shoreline.

Of course, as the article notes, the tracks aren’t going anywhere. in fact, Sound Transit is widening the right-of-way in some places to allow for more Sounder trains. But they’re also opening up creeks and doing lots of other environmental mitigation to try and revitalize the corridor to the extent that they can.

Having the BNSF line where it is is a net positive. Otherwise you’d have to run it along the I-5 corridor, which would be ridiculously expensive, if it was even possible. BNSF’s presence also takes a lot of trucks off the roads.

Sounder, on the other hand, has its limits. It’s a relatively cheap way to build transit — the tracks are already there, you just have to operate the trains. But it’s limited to a few runs a day since it shares right-of-way with Amtrak and BNSF. Once Light Rail goes all the way from Everett to Tacoma, it will be interesting to see how successful Sounder is. Certainly for folks in Edmonds, Kent, and Auburn, Sounder will continue to be important, but Link Light Rail, running every 10 minutes or so, will be increasingly appealing even for medium distance (i.e. Everett-Seattle) travel.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

KNDO/KNDU, the Tri-Cities NBC affiliate, is running this wonderful bit on their site. As any savvy restaurant-goer knows, more dollar signs means it’s MORE EXPEN$$$IVE!

Seattle-are voters facing $$$38 billion roads-transit decision
Associated Press – May 30, 2007 1:25 PM ET

Corrected Version

SEATTLE (AP) – The Regional Transportation Investment District is expected tomorrow to approve a $$15 billion tax request to voters in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

If approved in November, the regional taxes would help pay for projects like a new four billion dollar Highway 520 floating bridge over Lake Washington. Tolls will be part of the funding package, and planners say the toll could be $$6 round trip by 2018 when the new span could be finished.

The road proposal would be paired with a $$23 billion plan to expand Sound Transit to Tacoma, Bellevue and nearly to Everett.

Both multi-billion dollar proposals must be approved to take effect.

Of course, they don’t even bother to explain that that $$$38B [sic] includes 30 years of finance charges, which, as we’ve noted before, is incredibly misleading.

On the plus side, at least it’s the corrected version. I’d hate to see what the uncorrected version looked like. My guess? It had more dollar signs!

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Reading about the businesses on Capitol Hill that will be displaced by the Sound Transit station made me want to take a look at the designs for the station itself. I guess I didn’t realize that the station is going to take over the lots on both sides of Denny Way.

This cross-section sort of gives you an idea of how expansive the underground station will be.

Of course, that makes perfect sense — it should be about as big as any of the downtown transit tunnel stations, except without the extra space for buses, of course:

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

I just noticed that King County last month created a ferry district, which will allow it to explore more passenger-only ferries. The county’s main passenger ferry, the Elliot Bay water taxi, could be run year-round with the new district. Additionally, other routes connecting, say UW with Kirkland, or West Seattle with Tacoma, are also going to be explored.

All this water makes building roads and trains expensive. Why not turn our transportation liability into an asset? Ferries are easy to set up: you buy a boat, build a dock, and you’re done. The downside is that there’s a lot of time lost in the modal transfer. Unless you live right near the water, you have to first take a bus or drive to the dock, then wait for the ferry, etc. But for some routes — like Kirkland-to-UW, or say Gasworks-Park-to-South-Lake-Union — it could make sense.

Update: The UW Daily has more on the potential UW-Kirkland ferry route.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

The Highline Times channels the ghost of Sprio Agnew to editorialize in favor of november’s RTID. Money quote:

Unfortunately, the uneasy coalition of roads and transit proponents is threatening to come unraveled.

The roads crowd thinks it is weighted too much toward transit while the Greenies think highways get an unfair advantage.

The measure is expensive and does not solve all our long-delayed transportation problems.

But voters should reject the nattering nabobs of negativism, as a disgraced former vice president put it, and consider the measure carefully before November.

(not to be confused with this great Queen Anne bar)

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Erica Barnett reports that the Surface-Transit option has just been “officially endorsed” by the City Council, which just approved spending $8.1M to formally study it:

The council approved the measure unanimously–a seismic shift from the days when only Peter Steinbrueck supported the surface/transit proposal, and a sign that the council is taking seriously last March’s “no/no” vote on two new waterfront freeway options.

“[The plan] focuses our energies on the substance of the solution rather than design of the solution, which is what got us sidetracked” previously, council president Nick Licata said. Licata, once the council’s staunchest supporter of rebuilding the viaduct, cosponsored the resolution.

You can view the surface-transit option in our new “Hot Docs” section.

Update: The P-I provides some more context: the report will be done by July 2008.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Peter Steinbrueck’s $8.1M urban mobility study for replacing the Alaskan Way Viadcut. This is the closest thing to a formal study of the so-called “surface-transit option.”

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

The P-I has a vague and rather uninformative article on a new financing scheme for replacing the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (a.k.a. the 520 bridge). Fortunately, Mike Lindblom at the Times is much more detailed:

The latest strategy improves on earlier versions by slashing a potential $340 million in construction taxes and financing costs for a possible $4.4 billion, six-lane span across Lake Washington.

If the Legislature agrees, the “Regional Transportation Investment District” would fund several highway projects using high-rated, low-interest state bonds, for a potential savings of $200 million. And it might save an additional $140 million in sales taxes — paid on construction materials and other items — if the state funnels that money back into the RTID.

Even after those steps, questions remain about whether the funding plan is solid.

Today’s announcement says that tolling, previously assumed to raise $700 million, might bring in as much as $1.2 billion, without a real plan on the table yet. And, the group assumes Highway 520 can use money from a future cash pool worth $600 million to $1 billion, but that pool must be shared with the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Another $1.1 billion hinges on whether voters pass the regional ballot measure.

So, with some simple changes to the arithmetic, the bridge is suddenly fully funded! Does that seem a bit dodgy to anyone? Sounds like the planners want to kick the can down the road, figuring that if they can paper over the financing for now, it’ll just mean that we have to go with a cheaper option down the road.

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

It’s not just Seattle. Light Rail is having a moment in the sun right now. People like the flexibility if offers. Unlike heavy rail, which requires either a diesel locomotive or a dangerous high-voltage third rail, light rail can wind through neighborhoods relatively easily. Light Rail systems are about to come online in Phoenix and Minneapolis. Dallas and Denver also have relatively new systems on line, as do many other cities around the world.

But all forms of transit seem to be having a renaissance these days:

But during the last 10 years a transit renaissance has blossomed in many parts of the country. According to the American Public Transportation Association, public transit use has risen 30 percent since 1995, more than double the U.S. population’s 12 percent growth and higher than the 24 percent increase in vehicular travel during that period.

In 2006, the association said, 10.1 billion passengers boarded local public transportation, the first time that number topped 10 billion in 49 years.
A significant part of that growth has involved light rail, a transit category covering modern streetcars, trolleys, and ‘heritage’ trolleys.

Last year, light rail had the highest-percentage increase of all transit modes, enjoying a 5.6 percent ridership boost.

And remember — gas prices in 1995 were what, $1/gallon or so? It seems like transit use has nowhere to go but up.