What do you think of this?
Apparently these have been airing on cable television in our area. I like it for the most part, but the wave at the end is a little cheesy.
Sound Transit has completed 14 miles of track from Tukwila International Boulevard to Westlake Station today. There was a ceremony at the Link Operations and Maintenance to mark the occasion. I’ll post the photos I took tonight when I get home, but in the mean time you can check this link for some details and video, and here’s the official press release.
Five board members, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, King County Council Member Julia Patterson, King County Council Member Larry Phillips, King County Council Member Dow Constantine, and King County Executive Ron Sims. took part in “hammering the golden spike” signifying the completion. They took turns offering speeches, and I think from their speeches it’s possible to glean their support for an expansion ballot measure this year.
Greg Nickels is the ST board chair, and he went first, giving a speech about how great the progress has been, but how just as this project is not finished, the road to expansion of Sound Transit isn’t either. Nickels is a vocal supporter of going to the ballot this year, and his speech showed that as well.
Ron Sims was next, and he had no speech prepared, and instead grabbed Link director Ahmad Fazel and sort of put him on the spot to give a speech. It was funny, and while it’s refreshing to Ron Sims still have a sense of humor, it also shows how little engaged he is in Link that he couldn’t be bothered to give a speech.
Julia Patterson gave an impassioned speech about how much Puget Sound residents are going to want light rail when it gets up and running. The speech was great, I’ve never head Patterson talk but she’s got a definite knack for engaging the listener with fresh phrases, and not tired cliches. However, I wasn’t completely happy with the subtext of her message, which I felt was that Sound Transit may want to wait until 2010 to go to ballot.
Larry Phillips I’ve heard talk before, and he has a natural inclination for straight and clear talk. He made it clear to me that wanted Sound Transit back on the ballot this year.
Dow Constantine was last, and he strikes me as a bit of an intellectual, and spoke about transportation and land use planning, and sustainability. He reminded me a lot of Ben talking.
So of the five that showed up to the ceremony, it looked like two were definitely for going this year, one was leaning against, one made no indication either way, and one looked completely unengaged.
Ok so on to my other thoughts:
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I use Seattle’s bus tunnel like a rail subway system. Any time during the day I can walk down an escallator, hop on a bus, walk back up, and I’m across town. I can get from downtown to King Station for asian food of all varaities, and make it back by the end of my lunch hour. Because it’s free, because it’s easy, because it’s fast, and because service is frequent it really beats dealing with surface street busses.
I’m excited about how much faster real rail will be next year, as the bottleneck of people getting on and off will be reduced. But I’m afraid of keeping all of the functionality we have with busses. Will I have to stop somewhere and pay? Will they run along with busses in the tunnel, or will the busses be moved to the street? What will be the initial headway? Will it stay open late?
If anyone out there knows the answers to these questions, I’d love to hear them. If not, tell me how/if you use the tunnel.
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Here’s a fascinating history of the Cincinatti Subway, which was planned and built in the 1920s, but never finished or opened.
Via Daryn blog, I find that Mike Ross, the artist who was chosen to work on the art in Capitol Hill Station, is concerned his project might be canceled due to public outcry over the use of decommissioned fighter jets in the installation:
————— Forwarded message —————
From: Mike Ross mikenon@gmail.com>
Date: May 22, 2008 11:04 AM
Subject: Sculpture may be canceled — please help
To: Mike Ross mikenon@gmail.com>Hey folks. As some of you know, I was selected to make a sculpture for Seattle’s new subway station in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I proposed a sort of stylistic sequel to Big Rig Jig, using a pair of fighter jets. The jets would be deconstructed into pieces, painted pink and orange, and spread out along organically-inspired curves above the station platform between the ceiling beams (they have high ceilings in this station). The exact design is not yet finished. But you can see mock-ups of some early variations here:
http://www.mikenon.com/capitolhill/
The project is in now in danger of being canceled, and I need your help.
Several people have written letters to Seattle’s transit agency, Sound Transit, complaining that the piece is offensive, a glorification of war, and culturally insensitive to neighborhood residents. The area’s 43rd-District Democrats have even passed a resolution officially condemning the sculpture:
http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/…
Unfortunately, the only people who have been moved to write letters are those who object to the sculpture, and the transit agency is seriously considering canceling the project. It has been demoted from “approved” to “not yet approved,” and the rest of the station development is now proceeding without the sculpture, until we can
demonstrate significant community support.I am hoping that some of you might know people in or near Capitol Hill, Seattle, who can see the potential of the sculpture, and who disagree with the idea that it is offensive or a glorification of war. It may use military technology, but it is not just a pair of jets — it’s jets, chopped up, painted pink, and made to look like two birds
kissing. There is a peaceful message there, and I believe the artwork will ultimately be accepted by its detractors as an object and process which references many of their own views. But before that can happen, the transit agency needs to know that there are people in the community who support the sculpture.If you know anyone who might wish to write a letter or email (emails are just as good), they should send it to the following two people:
Joni Earl, CEO
joni.earl@soundtransit.org
Sound Transit
401 S. Jackson St.
Seattle, WA 98104Barbara Luecke, STart Program Manager
barbara.luecke@soundtransit.org
Sound Transit
401 S. Jackson St.
Seattle, WA 98104Thanks for any help you can offer. Please feel free to forward this email.
Mike Ross
mikenon@gmail.com
The 43rd Democrats protested the piece for being culturally insensitive? That’s embarrassing. I can understand thinking a local artist should do the piece, though I’ve seen a lot of local art and I’m not always impressed. Knowing these people are out to sabotage the art, and put something in that inspires less conversation makes me more attracted to the art than I was before. I think using the warplanes as art pays homage to Seattle’s former reputation as the Jet City, though it’s fair for recent migrants to Seattle to not appreciate this. I also think two pink fighter jets kissing is a nice play on “swords to ploughshares“. I also think it’s ironic that people who claim to fight for tolerance and a range of ideas oppose something that falls outside their way of thinking.
I like it, and I’ve written emails to those mentioned above. What do you think? Is this really culturally insensitive or an over reaction?
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I just got back from a weekend in San Diego, and I have to say, it was really spectacular. I’d been there once as a little kid, but not since. Balboa Park is one of the best city parks I’ve ever seen:
Oh, and I caught sight of the Sprinter, San Diego’s DMU commuter rail:
One nice thing about an area like that — not unlike Seattle — is that you have a relatively well-developed coastline, with a rail right-of-way running right down it. And since it’s prime coastal beach real estate, the population density around the little downs is actually fairly high. Add to this the super-nice weather that makes it easy to bike or walk to the station, and you have the makings of a pretty decent transit system.
Don’t get me wrong, I realize that SoCal is still very auto-dependent, but it’s a good start.
Photos by Flickr users chrisclark and ericharmatz used under a Creative Commons license.
These pre-fab apartments on Westlake could be really interesting. The article focuses on the affordibility aspect of the units, which cost far less to build than traditional buildings. I wrote a little about them late last year, and I was concerned because the designs I saw at the time were hideous. But the proposed design (warning! huge pdf) is actually attractive, and especially attractive relative to the standard building being thrown up around here. And if this can be built to be affordable to “work-force” renters (those earning between 80~120% of the city’s median income), then I would love to see more of these being built when compared to this areas average beige and green building being thrown up.
What do you think about prefab apartments? Would you live in these?
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Here is a breakdown for 2007 average weekday ridership (click on the picture for a higher quality image). I have an excel file with lots of data in it and I have just started to play around with some of the data. This graph is pretty self explanatory. Per my last post I think that Metro should give the top 10 (or more if there is money) routes BRT treatments for routes along major arterial/corridors (48,7,5,etc) and enhanced service as well as ITS, ATIS, and choke point improvements for neighborhood routes (2,3,4,49,43,etc). Also you will see that RapidRide is taking over a few of the routes that currently have some of the highest ridership (a notable except is the Bellevue/Redmond route).
54 – West Seattle RR
358 – Aurora RR
174 – Pacific Highway South RR (It will start where LINK ends and go south)
15/18 – Ballard RR
230 – Bellevue/Redmond RR
Looking at the ridership numbers makes it obvious Metro didn’t just take its highest ridership routes when it decided to implement RR. In addition to politics I think a major objective of Metro was to serve corridors that will not see HCT for a while and try to create a “backbone” that covers as much area as possible and makes sense economically.
You can also see that LINK serves many of the same corridors that the highest ridership routes do. It will be interesting to see how LINK effects ridership on those routes.
One last point. The highest ridership route for the Eastside is the 550 at 19th place. The highest none UW/CBD to Eastside route is the 230 at 29th place. Pretty pitiful. This just goes to show how much wealth and sprawl kill transit.
This is a pretty interesting opinion piece about the approaching end to the car era. These days you can’t open anewspaper without reading about people moving their commutes to transit, or how expensive gas has become and how it will only get more expensive. So there’s nothing really new in this piece, but its succinct and I thought it was worth sharing.