One more voice for Eastside Rail…

Posted on by Andrew Smith


The Everett Herald has a piece about Eastside Rail from the Snohomish perspective. Nothing new for King County Transit heads, but nice quotes like this:

A private company’s bid to run commuter trains from Snohomish County to Bellevue is gaining traction with the Snohomish County Council.

GNP Railway is proposing six commuter trips from Snohomish to Bellevue weekday mornings and six return trips in the afternoon. Supporters say the figure could someday double to 12 each way.

Growing traffic woes and a dearth of cash for road projects makes the idea is so appealing that county attorneys are drafting cooperation and confidentiality agreements between the county and train operator, County Council chairman Dave Somers said.

I don’t know much about GNP (I have sent the mails around), but if they are promising twelve trains a day, I sort of disbelieve them. Sounder costs a lot of money to operate, and they don’t run that many. Though the idea of private transit companies makes me optomistic. If a company can run transit, we should absolutely let them.

Infrastructure

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

To follow up on serial catowner’s post below, one thing I’ve not mentioned enough is the federal Dodd-Hagel bill to create a National Infrastructure Bank.

Obama’s on board, and Hillary Clinton’s a co-sponsor as well. The Campaign for America’s Future has a good overview of the legislation:

Perhaps most importantly, the selection criteria required by the National Infrastructure Bank would encourage the federal government to undertake projects that are significant to the country’s long-term well-being: rather than stop-gap measures to repair existing problems, such projects would take into account new challenges like climate change, the growing importance of urban areas, and the need for more affordable housing, while at the same time confronting the more typical concerns associated with economic growth (increased air, highway, and port traffic). A database with details about each infrastructure project and its funding would provide at least some public oversight.

Metro Buses Falling Late

Posted on by Andrew Smith

The PI has an interesting article about how Metro buses are falling late more than before because of the increased ridership. A bus is considered “not on-time” if it’s more than five minutes late, and the on-time percentage for buses is down to 74%, and overcrowding is to blame:

Two or three more people boarding or leaving a bus at a stop or elbowing past standees might add only seconds to the delay, but over the length of a route, it adds up, Obeso said. If the cumulative effect makes the bus more than five minutes late to a scheduled stop, the bus is categorized as not on time.

…

Bus ridership has gone up significantly over the last few years, driven by growth in population and employment and by increases in the cost of driving a vehicle because of rising gasoline prices. In 2007, Metro recorded 110 million passenger boardings, which was an all-time high and 7 percent more than in 2006.

Meanwhile, on-time performance has declined, dipping to a 12-month average of 74 percent in early 2007, the latest period for which Metro provided information.

It does seem Metro is working on solutions, and one of them strikes me as only too obvious.

Metro also applies other strategies to keep the buses running on time. In arrangements coordinated with city traffic engineers, some buses are equipped with devices that send a signal to traffic-light controls when nearing an intersection so that the light will stay green for a few extra seconds to let the bus through.

Other bus-borne devices can trigger a red light for the curb lane to turn green a few seconds before all lanes get the green light, allowing a bus to pull away from the curb and merge into the travel lanes ahead of the traffic flow.

Metro also expects to take delivery in April of 22 60-foot articulated buses bought with the proceeds of a sales tax voters approved in 2006, allowing for expanded service.

The agency would like more riders to buy prepaid passes — and plans to introduce passes in the form of plastic cards embedded with computer chips detectable by proximity sensors — to “make the transaction quicker at the door,” Obeso said. And it will experiment with systems that let passengers board at any door on the bus.

Want people to buy more bus passes? Install pass vending machines at park-and-rides and in the transit tunnel. It’d be an easy way to ensure people have the proper fare when the bus comes around.

Sierra Club Letter

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

Mike at Carless in Seattle has the text and analysis of a Sierra Club letter to Sound Transit. It would appear that rumors of the Sierra Club coming out against the next package are somewhat exaggerated.

There are some particulars in the letter that this blog has disagreed with in the past, mainly for tactical reasons (congestion pricing, park-and-rides, etc), but it’s good to see the Sierra Club participating constructively in the process. What’s important is that the perfect isn’t the enemy of the good again; when they don’t get everything they want, the reasonable thing is to do is fall into line for the election, rather than ally themselves with Kemper Freeman.

I Promise

Posted on by Andrew Smith

To Mark, Joanne and Alex. I will not cry when I get to step on a moving Link car later this year.

I Promise! (Ben won’t believe me…)

Gregoire Wants Light Rail on the Bridge…

Posted on by Andrew Smith

… Over the Columbia. The new I-5 bridge over the Columbia would allow Tri-Met’s Max rail to cross over into Vancouver Washington. I guess they would have to change their name to Quad-Met?

From the articile:

Making light rail part of a new Columbia River Crossing would serve Clark County residents who want an alternative to commuting by car to Oregon jobs, Gov. Chris Gregoire told a Portland radio interviewer Wednesday.

In an interview with Emily Harris, host of KOPB’s new call-in public affairs program Think Out Loud, the governor stopped short of saying inclusion of light rail will be a condition for state participation in the project. But she made her support for the mass transit option clear.

Light rail would cost more initially than bus rapid transit on a dedicated freeway corridor, but it would save money on maintenance over the long term, Gregoire said. Light rail also would allow Vancouver residents to move around their own city car-free, she said

Interesting. Now about that 520 bridge, Mrs Governor…

Bikes on the Bus

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Aus-Car the Transit Grouch complained the other day about the “wave-off” bicyclists experience when the bike racks are full. I’ve always wondered why they have only put space for two bikes on most buses, with only three on some of the new bike racks. It seems a constant problem even in the winter on the 545, where at least a bus comes every five-ten minutes at peak time. Waiting ten minutes to get on a bus because the rack is full is a problem, especially if your bus comes only every hour or half hour.

Aus-Car is incorrect that each train only holds two bikes. Each car has racks for two bikes, and each train will have two cars at the minimum, and more bikes could theoretically be brought onto the cars and held by their owners. Still, two isn’t a lot, and I feel the bike-computers pain.

Other cities have different policies around bikes. When I took Caltrain between San Francisco and Mountain View (talk about a reverse commute), there were bike cars on each train with space for 40 bikes. And fold-up bikes could be taken on any car. That might be the solution for the bus-bike commuter.

What do you think? What is your experience with bikes on the bus and other forms of public transit? I’m especially interested in hearing about the bike experience on Sounder if anyone knows.

Making the Transition

Posted on by Guest Contributor

by BEN WOOSLEY

Regarding my previous post, nickb asks:

My question is how did the transition happen. Was it more just a matter of you stopped using the car and started using just public transportation?

In a sense, yes, it was as simple as using transit instead of a car. However, it takes some actual effort to discover that it is possible to get where you want without that car you’re used to. For me, it was a process of migration and discovery, each step intentional, encouraged by the reasons I described earlier, but also testing the waters to ensure that I wasn’t choosing the path of martyrs. Happily, I can attest I was not.

The important benchmarks in my transition, which may be helpful in making yours, were:

1) Using Transit as a Commuter
As I wrote, busing it to work was a given, and it served the important role of introducing me to transit here. This was a significant step for someone whose transit use was previously non-existent as a child of the suburbs, and in Austin limited to my weekend use of the E-Bus (aka Drunk Bus) which runs between the University of Texas Campus and 6th Street (infamous for its numerous bars & venues).

But then, if you’re reading this blog, you’re already familiar, so we may as well go on to step two…

2) The arrival of Google Transit
Don’t get me wrong, the King County Trip Planner is pretty good. But Google Transit (previously mentioned) does it much better, because it allows you to interact visually with your options on Google’s draggable, zoomable maps. This is a matter of night and day for anyone as visually-driven or memory-challenged (where was that street again?) as I.

Better still, it recognizes and accepts far more place names and address formats, so you need not hunt around for the address or answer questions about whether you really meant PL instead of Place. It’s free and highly recommended. To use it, you can either use the link above, or from any Google Maps directions page, click the “Take Public Transit” link in the upper left, once you have your destination plotted.

3) Taking the One-Less-Car challenge
The one-less-car challenge (also mentioned previously) offers incentives for those who commit to not using their vehicle for a set amount of time. The program isn’t active yet for 2008 (we’ll update you when it is), but you don’t need the program to get its most powerful benefit, which is the commitment itself.

Like others who have used this program, it was taking this challenge that pushed me to go out and try the other ways of getting around which I wasn’t used to; to rent a Flexcar even though I had my own car out on the street, or to take a bus to a seemingly out-of-the-way place. Only to find that the experiences where painless.

So look for the return of the challenge, or, if you’re able and willing, simply challenge yourself to go without your own car for a while. You may find it easier and more liberating than expected.

4) Renting my first Flexcar (now ZipCar)
For the foreseeable future, there will be parts of Seattle that aren’t well-traveled by transit, where either there is no route when you need it, or there is no direct route. Sometimes, those place happen also to be your destination for the night. My first Flexcar rental was also my first trip out to the (AFAIK) sleepy and suburban Mercer Island.

It was a pleasant trip, and easy to manage, in the time of computers (to find & reserve the car) and cell-phones (to extend the reservation if necessary).

I’ve since taken out a ZipCar, and the experience was the same, but a bit friendlier. For example, I find their web experience more intuitive, and there’s never a need to carry around the car’s key, because your card always does the locking.

5) Taking a bus out into the Unknown
Or in this case, Greenlake. All my time here, I’d traveled to and from my friends’ place in Greenlake via auto. But finally the aforementioned commitment pushed me to check out the other options (found via Google Transit), and I found them quite pleasant. The point being, just because you’ve never taken a bus over that way, doesn’t mean it’s inconvenient to do so. I’ve since traveled as far as Everett without incident.

A Step Not Yet Taken: Put the Internet in my pocket
The next big enabler I see in my future, which I’ll suggest to you all as an option, is the extra ease which will come once I have the internet in my pocket, via a web-enabled phone. Both for transit and ZipCar, a certain small amount of planning is necessary, to minimize waiting time and to know the route, or to find and reserve the car. Having the internet available from the street means that no matter where I am, or what I’ve been doing that day, if it comes up that I need to get somewhere unexpected, I can pull up these sites and find my way. Thus I’m a little more free, which of course is the goal.

Conclusion
So after all of these, I’ve made a successful transition. Everyone’s needs are different of course, or as they say, your mileage may vary, but I’ve found these steps are a sensible way to try things out.

Sound Transit in Pierce County

Posted on by Andrew Smith

The Tacoma New Tribune, usually a Sound Transit supporter, has warned Sound Transit that putting a ballot iniative that doesn’t light rail from Tacoma to Sea-Tac might cost the Tribune’s support. Their reasoning is explained in this blog post from the Tribune’s editorial board. An excerpt:

We are dismayed at the possibility that some on the Sound Transit board seem to be backing away from the agency’s historic commitment to a rail connection between Pierce County and Sea-Tac airport (and points north). When the region approved a mass transit system in 1996, the chief benefit for the South Sound was the prospect of a light rail connection to heart of the Puget Sound economy. The board should know: This editorial page will not support a Sound Transit ballot measure that effectively precludes regional light rail for Pierce and South King Counties. If money is short, what’s available to be used to buy right-of-way for a planned line.

In a later blog post, David Seago brings out the latest governence reform details, which now might appear in the form of ballot initiative.

During an email exchange today with Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg on that matter, he also argued that Sound Transit should hold off until 2009 to go back to voters for Phase II expansion. Ladenburg stepped down as Sound Transit chairman last year but remains on the board for the rest of this year.

All that being said, I’m still not sure this is the right year. I understand the advantage of high voter and young voter turnout, but we are falling into a national recession. Even if the local economy remains good as I think it will, the national economy may well affect the vote.

Also, it appears that John Stanton is prepared to put his “governance change” proposal forward as an initiative and fund signature gathering to get it to the ballot this year. While I think his plan is poorly thought out and dangerous for Pierce County, he has the money to get it on the ballot and distract from any Sound Transit measure.

Plus, once Light Rail opens in 2009 in King County, I think we get a lot more
people as supporters, since this is what has happened around the US in the past.

Stanton confirmed today that supporters of forming a single regional body to govern both mass transit and road construction are exploring an initiative campaign to put it on the November ballot.
…
Like Ladenburg, the TNT ed board and most Pierce County elected officials are wary of regional governance, fearing that the needs of the metro Seattle area will dominate, to the detriment of Pierce County.

I hope that Stanton initiative doesn’t make it to the ballot. And I think Ladenburg and the Tribune are right, that if an elected board came to power, it would benefit Seattle’s immediate suburbs to the detriment of both Seattle itself and Pierce County. It would be a lose-lose to many of the people who want transit the most. Here’s a little more reading about Ladenburg’s feeling on ST2.

The scary thing about a governance reform initiative is that it would be voted on by the whole state, while its effects would only be felt in the Sound Transit district.