So say convention visitors.
Boy do we!
Argentina
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
High speed rail is coming to Buenos Aires.
Of Hong Kong and TIF
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Daijimin asks about the Hong Kong method of transportation finance described here.
The big problem that I see, which I alluded to in a comment to David Brewster’s article, is that the financing scheme described — tax increment financing — is illegal in Washington State.
I wrote about this a few months back in the context of I-747. Tax increment financing (TIF) is the idea that you borrow money to finance, say, a transit project, and the resulting increase in property taxes around the project can be used pay back the loan (this is a bit different than LID, which financed the Seattle Streetcar, and which involves assessing an up-front tax on the property owners).
In speaking with folks who know more about this issue than I, I’ve come to thnk that there are too many barriers in the state constitution vis-a-vis property taxes to actually implement TIF in the way Brewster describes. Which is too bad.
Wifi on the bus and Sounder – Not Shabby!
Greetings from Metro Route 212. It’s around 5:16pm and I’m on my way home from work at Eastgate Park and Ride. I must say that besides traffic sucking it’s usual self, this internet is pretty damn fast!
Also, mybus is a godsend. I never used it until now and even though it doesn’t work on my T-Mobile Stripe, the website is good enough considering I’m a 5 minute walk to the campus.
Now if only Metro would install 110volt outlets, I’d be a very happy camper.
Wonder how it is on Sounder…
Guess we’ll find out at 5:55pm =)
Update: 5:22pm Were on I-90 in the HOV lane and traffic is completely stopped on I-90 Westbound. Sucks that this lane doesn’t go into the reversible lanes… I have a feeling I’m going to miss my train now =(
Update: 5:25pm Ok, so we passed the small accident and cruising at 60mph and going through the Mt. Baker Tunnel. Ran a speed test in the tunnel and the connection held! Kick ass!
Last Result:
Download Speed: 391 kbps (48.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 109 kbps (13.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Update 5:31pm I redid the test in the open land. Didn’t really change much at all. Just left I-90 and Rainier Ave Freeway Station. Looks like the interchange for I-5 is jammed in it’s usual affair.
I’ll be back when I walk over to King Street Station.
Update 5:51pm: Onboard Sounder 1511 to Tacoma (Well Kent Station for me) and the wifi is pretty good onboard. Can’t get a speed test though from Speakeasy. Seems about as fast as Metro.
Update: Departed ontime from KSS, this was the only speed test I was able to get.
Last Result:
Download Speed: 43 kbps (5.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 138 kbps (17.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Odd….
Update 6:46pm: I’m now at home… It sucks that the 166 departs 2 minutes before Sounder arrives (Bus leaves at 6:15pm, train arrives at 6:17pm) so I ended up taking the Route 183 home instead of the 166.
Just a comparison to home internet – We use Qwest DSL only cause we got suckered into a 2 year contract…ugh.
Last Result:
Download Speed: 1305 kbps (163.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 617 kbps (77.1 KB/sec transfer rate)
After asking a few friends of mine, it seems that ST and Metro both use the same carrier. I think I am going to try it again in the morning if I get a chance. I found a rather addicting game online and been itching to kill time with it!
Just for those wondering, I cleaned this post up a bit. It was kinda sloppy since I didn’t know if the connection would actually hold as well but yes, it does appear that Sounder is pretty slow for wireless internet while Metro (not sure on ST buses yet) are decent. I had no problems surfing the internet and posting the blogs on Metro but on Sounder it timed out a few times while doing Google searches.
A look at ST for 2007
I would say they did very well in 2007 with a lot completed and accomplished. This is only adding to the State Auditors findings that ST is a well organized and set agency with the goal of bringing gridlock to as minimal as possible.
http://www.soundtransit.org/x7158.xml
2007 Accomplishments
Download the 2007 Milestones Year-end report (PDF, 2 MB) >>>
Sounder Commuter Rail Service
• Started a reverse Sounder commute between Seattle and Tacoma.
• Started a new Tacoma-to-Seattle run.
• Started a third Sounder North line trip.
• Broke ground on the Lakewood Station.
• Broke ground on the Mukilteo Station.
ST Express Regional Bus Service
• Opened the Totem Lake Freeway Station.
• Opened the Canyon Park Freeway Station.
• Broke ground on the I-90 Two Way Transit and HOV lanes Stage 1 project.
• Broke ground on the Redmond Transit Center.
• Broke ground on the Redmond Way transit improvements.
• Broke ground on the Totem Lake Transit Center.
• Broke ground on the North Everett/College Station Transit Center.
• Federal grant awarded for senior housing development at Federal Way Transit Center.
Link Light Rail Service
• Opened the Link light rail Operations & Maintenance Facility.
• Broke through the first Beacon Hill East Portal with the Link tunnel boring machine.
• Completed excavating the Beacon Hill Station.
• Completed Tukwila International Blvd Station.
• Installed Tacoma Link stations closed-circuit television system.
• Completed University Link light rail’s design and cost estimate.
• Finished resurfacing Pine Street in downtown Seattle.
• Reached agreement with University of Washington on University Link.
• Reopened the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel for bus service. (1 Week Late)
• Reached 10 miles of continuous rail laid from Tukwila through the Rainier Valley.
• Began work on the SeaTac/Airport Station.
• Began final assembly of Link light rail trains. (In Everett)
• Began testing light rail trains. (Between DSTT and Operations and Maintenance Facility)
Agency-wide
• Carried about 14 million passengers combined on trains and buses
• Reached 73 million in total lifetime ridership.
• Completed Smart Card beta test. (Orca card)
• Board adopted final Sound Transit 2 package for expansion of the regional transit system.
• Public voted on Sound Transit 2 package. (Failed)
• State Performance Audit released; ninth consecutive clean independent audit released.
Let’s hope for the same performance for 2008!
Could the Vancouver Transit Model Work Here?
Crosscut lead me to this Vancouver Sun article about Public-Private-Partnerships paying for transit.
Here’s the idea from the Sun piece:
It works something like this.
A public-transit rail route, whether SkyTrain or light rail, is put on the drawing board by government and key stations are selected. These areas of the city become designated high-density urban-residential development hubs, with highrise towers.
That rezoning generates a major spike in real-estate profits — through more condos and commercial spaces to sell — that could be retained by local government or TransLink, to pay for the new services. Or, more likely, under this provincial government, that valuable new urban density can be sold off to the private sector. For that, they would absorb some or all of the cost of building and running the new transit lines.
Could that work here? I see a few problems:
- We currently want to run transit through the most-developed areas. Places like downtown Bellevue, Northgate, and the University District are already pretty dense. The lines through the South and the North to a small extent could work this way, but I don’t think that Eastlink could have this effect.
- Our Municipalities have not shown a lot of eagerness to capture the gains from upzoning. I know Seattle has a charge for exceeding zoning limits, but the chrage is fairly small, and is no where near enough to build a light rail line from. Bellevue doesn’t capture the money at all.
- The places it would work best may not want to absorb the density. Places like Federal Way, Kent or Mountlake Terrace may not want high-rises in their cities.
What do you think?
Update
According to Frank at Orphan Road, this scheme is illegal. If it’s illegal, we might as well go ahead with the even shadier plan of buying the land with eminent domain, building light rail then selling it after the prices go up. That way you capture all of the gains.
What is BRT like again?
Joyce Eleanor, who is CEO of Community Transit, had an opinion piece about CT’s Swift bus-rapid-transit (BRT) system in today’s Times. It’s a pretty cool piece in that it talks about how much federal money is being kicked-in, how it looks like it’ll attract about a million riders a year (are those new riders, though?) and the technology to make it actually BRT instead of just BT.
The piece leaves me with a few questions, though I am quibbling. Ms. Eleanor says “Swift is a bus line that mimics a commuter train”. A commuter train? Sounder is our commuter train, and I don’t think that’s what she meant. If it mimicking a commuter train than this can’t be true: “We believe that most people will ride Swift for shorter journeys along Highway 99, possibly creating an incentive for economic development as you might see along a light-rail or streetcar line.” In addition to being bad grammar (who is possibily creating what?) if it’s mimicking commuter rail, it’s not creating a lot of development. I don’t see a ton of new development around Sounder Stations.
I know this is pedantic, but I am annoyed with the “BRT can be anything and everything” crowd.
UW Everett and Everett Station – The Prime Choice
We don’t normally get a chance to have a branch campus be looked at but also a campus that is next to a rail line and in the future, could see Light-Rail on top of expanded bus and commuter rail service.
Before proceeding, please check out The Herald Net – Everett Herald on the University of Washington North Campus. Here is some of the most recent
http://heraldnet.com/article/20080116/NEWS01/939051632&news01ad=1
http://heraldnet.com/article/20080116/NEWS01/445224533&news01ad=1
Everett Station would hold a very unique oppurtunity to the City of Everett and the entire North region. Why is this? The Everett Station is home to Amtrak, Greyhound, Sounder Commuter Rail, ST Express Bus service, Everett Transit, Community Transit, Island Transit… well, you get the point – It’s a main hub for Transit in Snohomish County. There is also a talk of building a Streetcar from the new Waterfront development through Downtown to the new Riverfront Development which would stop at Everett Station. Riverfront could be a place for students to gather and “hang out” with it’s hip shops and movie theater and easily connected by the Streetcar.
Everett has some of the cheapest rent in a “city” while keeping it’s low key stature. This would be excellent for students on a budget but don’t want to live in a 4×8 dorm. Everett could be what Tacoma should be but with the ability of easy expansion and great transit, Everett Station is a no brainer that it can bring people from far apart, without the need to travel heavily to get to a Airport or Train Station.
Some facts:
Everett Station
Amtrak Cascades serves Seattle, Stanwood (In November 2008) Mt. Vernon/Burlington, Bellingham, with a shuttle to the Bellingham International Airport with Delta, Horizon, Allegiant Air, Alaska (Yes, there is a ferry to Alaska from Bellingham), Vancouver, BC..perfect weekend trip “abroad” Cascades also serves Seattle, Tacoma, Vancouver, WA, Portland, Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.
Amtrak’s Empire Builder runs between Seattle and Chicago, ILL with several stops along the way.
I’ll visit this topic more on a later date when more information is readily available….
Sound Transit – The Tunnel Edition – Transit Tunnel – Beacon Hill – University Link
I want to first thank Jennifer on giving me some first hand information to the Tunnel Boring update and Jeff on giving some great information on the University Link project.
Currently, the Emerald Mole is approaching 21st Street South leaving about 7 City blocks or about a month remaining for the bore. Sound Transit is planning on a media day when the Emerald Mole is closer to coming out of the tunnel. The TBM has encountered some rough spots, like water and various maintenance issues. Sound Transit will post the information on the web site when the Emerald Mole is closer to breaking through the West Portal.
University Link will have 3 Tunnel Boring Machines total for the project. Two of the TBM’s will start at the University site and simultaneously bore the two tunnels south to Capitol Hill. A third machine will start at the Capitol Hill station site and bore one tunnel south to the end of the initial segment construction. That machine will then be disassembled, moved to Capitol Hill and reassembled to bore the second tunnel (just as we did with the Beacon Hill TBM)
Now just a guess on my part, the Tunnels them selfs will be completed in 2013/2014 with this arrangement but installing rail, egrees, ventilation and safety systems, Overhead Contact System (OCS), signals, building the Capital Hill Station and University stations will eat up the rest of the 3 years until opening.
In other news – Sound Transit completed the first of many Dead Wire tests in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel on Saturday (January 12th, 2008). These tests are the beginning to live wire tests which will not happen while the tunnel is open unfortunately (How cool would that be to see it roll through the tunnel)
Dead wire testing is to ensure there are no snags in the OCS and that the pantograph moves over joints and connections smoothly.
UPDATE!
To view the progress of the Tunnel Boring Machine, keep this page bookmarked for future reference.
Engaging with Conservatives
Confronted with a choice for governor between an incumbent that wavers between doing nothing for transit and actively working to inhibit it, and a challenger that consistently works to inhibit it, I’m wondering if there’s a better way.
I’ve been doing some thinking about how to build a coalition for transit in this state. Rather than engage 5% of the electorate that is theoretically pro-transit but finds a reason to oppose any actual plan, why not work on capturing some segment of the ~45% of the electorate that is historically opposed to transit?
Transit advocates tend to emphasize two key arguments, neither of which is appealing to conservatives. First, they talk about global warming. A large number of conservatives simply refuse to believe that the Earth is warming at all, that humans are responsible for it, and/or that the costs of doing something about it outweigh the benefits. The arguments are intensely technical, so anyone emotionally invested in debunking global warming is going to be pretty difficult to dissuade. Other environmental arguments, such as encouragement of dense development, are also unpersuasive to people who might idealize living in a place like North Bend.
The other key argument is quality of life for people who use transit. Obviously, riding a train is much better than riding a bus. Rail critics often prefer BRT because of its “cost-effectiveness,” which has its own distortions, but they essentially don’t care about the quality of the ride because they don’t plan to use transit. They’re certainly not particularly energized about BRT proposals like Transit Now, except when attacking light rail. Selfish arguments are common to all parts of the political spectrum on many issues, and are difficult to defuse with persuasion.
I think that transit advocates, in their efforts to dissuade car use, have soft-pedaled a national security argument that naturally appeals to conservatives. Specifically, every gallon of gasoline consumed, on a bus or in a SUV, ultimately puts money in the pockets of people who are either strongly anti-American (Hugo Chavez), or are actually trying to kill us (various Saudis). Of course riding a bus is much less damaging than driving an SUV, but neither compares to riding a hydroelectric-powered train.
The two things preventing recognition of this by right-wingers are (1) a failure of rail advocates to properly exploit this (frequently due to a distaste for raw appeals to patriotism), and (2) economic illiteracy, something that is much easier to counteract than unwillingness to pore through the details of climate simulations.
There’s a general perception that we can avoid dependence on “foreign oil” by reducing our consumption by a bit, or drilling for more oil in Alaska; both Democratic and Republican politicians have pandered to this belief. There’s a related argument that because the gasoline that we buy here in Washington generally comes from Alaska, that we aren’t putting money in the pockets of those that wish to do us harm. Some simple logic, involving basic economics, debunks both of these notions. Stay with me:
Oil in North America is generally expensive to produce. The oil sands of Alberta cost around $9 to $14 dollars per barrel to extract. Offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico is obviously an expensive proposition. In contrast, the Saudis pump oil out of the ground for less than $1 a barrel. So, a little thought experiment: if demand for oil suddenly collapsed, sending the price dramatically downward, who would still be producing profitably? That’s right, the Saudis, while all the other producers went out of business. So we’ll never be “independent” of foreign oil.
Secondly, even if we get all of our oil from domestic sources, that still lines the pockets of oil producers that we don’t purchase directly from. Since oil is a fungible commodity, whatever demand we do generate raises the price of oil, which benefits all the producers. If our consumption were lower than our production, excess American oil would be exported to the world market, lowering the price.
Therefore, anything that reduces American demand for oil, regardless of the origin of that oil, reduces the revenues of oil producers, some of which is diverted to organizations hostile to the United States.
I think Bill Maher coined the slogan “When you ride alone you ride with Bin Laden.” I might also suggest “Support the troops: Take Public Transit.” If I were a better graphic artist I might make the posters myself. At any rate, I think it’s a more productive proposition than quibbling over small differences with the Sierra Club. You’ll never get the dedicated anti-tax zealots, but there are others willing to pay for congestion improvements and enhanced national security.
Has anyone out there tried this line of argument? Any transit skeptics out there moved by it?
Supply vs. Demand
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Normally, I wouldn’t even waste the time responding to this piece from Michael Ennis at the right-wing Washington Policy Center, but he uses a line of spurious reasoning that, like the infamous whack-a-mole, needs to be smacked down everywhere it appears:
In Switzerland, for example, light rail is successful, not because of the amount of service or infrastructure, but because the country has certain demographic and economic characteristics that induce demand.
In other words, there is an existing market with a customer base, and Swiss policy makers responded with proportional infrastructure investments. As a result, mode share, ridership and fare box recovery are high.
Here in Washington, transit resources are distributed in just the opposite way.
Under the “build it, and they will come” theory, many policy makers think that increasing the supply of transit will somehow create more public demand. This approach is failing because Washington cities do not possess the underlying demographic or economic characteristics that create enough voluntary consumers for light rail.
Despite years of spending increases, the share of commuters using public transit in Seattle actually fell to 6.8 percent in 2000 from 7.5 percent in 1980.
Since “If you built it, they will come” is the subject of a whole series of posts here at OR, we should define what “it” really is. “It” doesn’t refer to simply dropping drains into the middle of nowhere and hoping for the best. No, “it” involves a whole ethos of transit-oriented development, from land use planning to economic develoment strategies to zoning to, yes, transit.
Given a lack of transit development between 1980 and today, is it really any surprise that job centers and housing centers have spread further out? Of course not. But now that we’ve got the Growth Management Act in place, and the PSRC doing regional planning, we’re focused on reversing that trend. And despite the protestations of dead-end highway builders like Ennis, this is going to be a good thing for the region and the planet.
PS: We’ve been building roads for the last 100 years, and congestion keeps getting worse. Which leads me to conclude that if we build exclusively roads for 100 more, congestion will get even worse. Why some folks don’t get this baffles me.
Rail can’t work in the Northwest
This morning, the premier of British Columbia announced a C$14 billion transit plan. It makes me want to weep for King County. The link is a pdf of the proposal. More coverage here.
First, as Frank at Orphan Road points out, this is an initiative at the provincial level. Meanwhile, our state not only contributes nothing, but actively works to frustrate local transit agencies by threatening to reorganize them out of existence.
The plan builds or expands four rail lines. To add insult to injury, there are also nineBRT lines, all of which involve dedicated bus lanes, off-board payment, bypasses of key intersections, and so on.
By the way, Premier Campbell is best described as a conservative in BC politics.
Are we that execrably led, or is our electorate simply that clueless?
Tell ‘Em What You Think
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
King County is organizing a series of discussions around Tranportation issues. Seems like a good opportunity for those of us who care about transit to make our voices heard.
Go to the web site to register!
Sounder Park & Rides
komotv.com has an interesting story about commuters in Auburn complaining about the lack of parking at Sounder stations.
Since the story could alternately be titled, “Commuter Rail too popular,” I find it hard to get too worked up about this. Still, it’s nice to capture everyone that wants to be a transit user.
“I appreciate that and my suggestion would be to keep calling and e-mailing and writing to Sound Transit and ask them when will the second parking garage be built,” [Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis] said…
“We would like to build more parking in Auburn. We don’t have the money to do it today and to do that, we need voter approval,” said [Bruce Gray of Sound Transit].
Some thoughts:
- Perhaps disgruntled parkers should direct their anger at their immediate neighbors, who voted more that 60% against Prop 1, and therefore voted down those parking garages. They didn’t vote no because of global warming — it was because they opposed a transit plan that “sent all the money to Seattle.” Well guess what — if you won’t pay for Seattle, Seattle won’t pay for you.
- This is pretty concrete evidence of rail bias, and that transfers kill ridership. What doesn’t get mentioned in the article is the possibility of taking the bus, although there are 10 bus lines serving the station. Why? Because buses stink and people are unwilling to ride them. It’s also evidence that opposing park-and-rides at the outer stations because it encourages local car use is self-defeating.
- When demand exceeds capacity of a free commodity, there’s a simple solution: charge for it. A nominal daily parking fee of a couple of bucks will still allow the lot to fill to capacity, but encourages people to seek alternate methods if they live only a couple of blocks away, live right next to a bus line, have someone that could drop them off at the station, etc. And hey, maybe those few bucks can help build a new garage.
- The fact that people in the Kent valley desire additional Sounder service (and the attached amenities) is useful for building a coalition for more transit. Voters in that area are unlikely to get any direct benefit from any proposed light rail line, except additional mobility from the King Street Sounder station if they work for, say, the University of Washington. It’s good to know that there’s a relatively inexpensive carrot we can give to that region.
Via Orphan Road.
How it’s Done
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
British Columbia knows how to make investments in infrastructure:
[T]he plan will likely see significant investment in rapid transit and dedicated bus lanes, such as the ones proposed for the centre of Douglas Street. On the Lower Mainland, it will likely see funding and a final route plan for the Evergreen SkyTrain Line to the northeast suburbs, rapid transit to the Fraser Valley, and the Millennium Line extension in Vancouver to the University of B.C., according to Global BC. It’s not known if the rapid transit plans will include the Island – transit advocates have long been pulling for light rail to connect downtown Victoria with the rapidly growing West Shore.
In December, Finance Minister Carole Taylor predicted B.C. will have a surplus of $2.1 billion for the 2007-08 fiscal year. She has remained quiet on what will be in her budget due out Feb. 19, though last week spoke about the possibility of a provincial carbon tax or a levy at the gas pumps.
It sure is nice that the province is willing to fund Vancouver’s SkyTrain. Meanwhile, here in Washington, The legislature is convening today to… hide the budget surplus in a sock drawer or something.
Metro Wants Feedback on Eastside BRT
Here’s the article in the Bellevue Reporter. Metro wants to put expanded service between Bellevue and Redmond for commuters with 10 minute headways, three-door buses, and few stops.
Should be cool, there are four dates for the meetings:
Tuesday, Jan. 15, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. N.E., Bellevue;
Thursday, Jan. 17, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Redmond City Hall, 15670 N.E. 85th St., Redmond;
Saturday, Jan. 19, Noon-2 p.m. at Crossroads Bellevue Mall, 15600 N.E. Eighth St., Bellevue; and
Wednesday, Jan. 23, 4-6 p.m. Bellevue Transit Center, 108th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Sixth Street, Bellevue.
Paying for the Tolls on 520
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I posted a comment on this piece over on Crosscut, but it turned into an interesting point so I thought I’d re-post here. In weighing the pros and cons of tolls, Casey Corr writes:
I doubt the public has paid much attention to planners’ talk about “congestion pricing,” which is proposed in the new plan. Environmentalists support the concept as a means of “encouraging” the use of public transit and of reducing auto pollution. But what’s the answer to the construction worker in the pickup truck who starts to believe he’s been priced off a public road?
My answer: That he should pass the increased costs on to the general contractor that’s employing him, no?
I live in Seattle and do consulting on the Eastside. I already charge my clients a travel fee, so I’d just have to add on the toll. If it actually does work to reduce congestion, presumably I’d be spending less time in traffic and my productivity would go up, so it’d be a wash overall.
And if my client decides to go with a consultant on the Eastside? Even better — that’s one less car off the bridge: mine.
If You Build It, They Will Come…
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
…and they’ll be very annoyed that there’s no place to park:
“I appreciate that and my suggestion would be to keep calling and e-mailing and writing to Sound Transit and ask them when will the second parking garage be built,” he said.
“We understand and are sympathetic that parking is a major issue in the south corridor. It’s an extremely popular service,” said Bruce Gray of Sound Transit.
Sound Transit says voters hold the key.
“We would like to build more parking in Auburn. We don’t have the money to do it today and to do that, we need voter approval,” said Gray.
Look to see a transit measure on the ballot, possibly as early is this November.
Auburn’s mayor warns that parking is only going to get more challenging later this year when two more trains are added to southern route.
November, eh? ST2.1? I wonder what the source is on that. The implication is that it’s coming from Bruce Gray himself, but that could just be way it’s written.
Groceries on the Train
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Neat idea from a grocery store in Charlotte, NC.
Retro Style! Willamette Work Party Jan 12th, 2008
I love all things modern, from buses, trains, ferries, cars but I also love old school retro stuff, which is why I have been volunteering my time at the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad for about the past 3 years now. Most don’t know about the little railroad that runs mostly steam engines but it has been a great learning experience.
Today we started the restoration of a 1929 logging locomotive for operation. This project should take between 1 to 2 years since some of the work has already been done.
Pictures of the progress will be located on my Flickr Page and will also be posted eventually at the Mt. Rainier Scenic homepage
For more information on the locomotive, check out this page
http://www.mrsr.com/roster/roster-willamette_2.html