Constellations

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

cc_constellationWhile we’re on the subject of art, one interesting tidbit I learned about at the MLK Street Fair was the origin of the pictograms associated with each station. It turns out they’re supposed to be constellations, as explained in this brochure.

The basic idea is that one plots out the locations of several points of interest in the vicinity of each station, and then connects those points in a way that suggests some shape, which then becomes the pictogram.

For example, in the Columbia City “map” at right, the leftmost “star” is the light rail station, and the other stars are various landmarks along Rainier Avenue. All in all, it requires a healthy dose of imagination, but no more so than real constellations.

I suppose the pictogram program is an attempt to make the system more accessible for the illiterate and non-English-speaking, and that’s fine enough. It might not have hurt to come up with a scheme a bit easier to reverse-engineer, but how such a scheme would work isn’t immediately clear.

Parking Maximum Makes Sense

Posted on by Andrew Smith

This idea from the Stranger’s Erica Barnett makes a ton of sense. Especially around light-rail stations, we shouldn’t need more than a single parking spot per residential unit. Tying it to the number of residential units makes less sense than the number of bedrooms. I would make the law like this: in dense areas -especially those around light rail stations – aparments get half spaces baseline, and an additional half a space for each bedroom. So a building with 40 studios would have 20 spots, and a building with 40 one bedrooms would have at most 40 spots, and a building with 40 two bedrooms could have at most 60 spots.

What do you guys think? Is putting a cap on parking spaces a good idea or more nanny-statism?

Another Little Improvement For Amtrak Cascades

Posted on by Ben Schiendelman

Every year or two, we get rid of one more place where people can cross the train tracks. This time it’s one we’ve all been holding our breath for – Royal Brougham. The state, city, and federal governments (not to mention several others) are about to start work on elevating the roadway over the track, increasing safety for sports fans and increasing reliability for our trains.

The amount of freight going through here is immense. What seems to happen at this crossing is that a freight train will pass by, and someone will walk out behind it, assuming it’s safe – only to be hit by a train coming the other way, on the next track over. I’ve gotten to sit on a delayed Amtrak train down at Spokane Street to wait for the coroner more than once.

It’s easy to blame individuals for walking on the tracks (and seriously, how dumb do you have to be to go around the gate?), but that doesn’t solve the on-time performance problem this creates, or the delay for cars and people when a train is moved through the intersection on the way to and from King Street Station and the yard. So we’re slowly removing the problem crossings.

There are a few others funded – I think they’re all between Seattle and Tacoma, as that’s probably the most heavily utilized track in the region, and it goes through downtown Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, and Sumner – cities that will probably continue to grow as our commuter rail service matures and expands.

Here’s a map. You can see the new overpass there at Royal Brougham, which includes a very square looking little loop to get back to ground level. There will also be a pedestrian elevator on the west side with a ramp on the east – this will make it slightly more of a pain in the butt to get over to light rail. The big curved line is the offramp connection from I-90 to the existing Atlantic St. overpass. By the way – note that a single grade separation, a new offramp, and an intersection rebuild costs over $180 million (unless I’m mistaken, and that cost includes the Atlantic overpass as well, but still). These projects are not cheap – it always gets my goat when people say things like light rail are ‘too expensive’. Relative to what? This is the same as the cost of two elevated light rail stations.

Link Architecture In the P-I

Posted on by Andrew Smith

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This P-I piece by their architecture critic talks about the interesting way architecture in Link stations and there’s a companion piece by the P-I’s art critic on Sound Transit’s public art program, “STart”. The two pieces are accompanied by a beautiful gallery of photos of the various art installations and station architecture. If you don’t know, Sound Transit spends one percent of non-tunnel capital expenditures on public art, which means all 1% of the amount spent on constructing tracks, elevated segments, park-and-rides and Sounder and Links stations is spent on public art.

In net, it’s a good thing, and the authors of the two pieces agree. Regina Hacket, the art critic calls Sound Transit’s art program “phenomenally effective”. On architecture, Lawrence Cheek of the first pieces speaking about the Link stations “they are colorful, richly detailed and considerate of human scale. Some seem likely to become emblems of their neighborhoods, and the whole system may speak well of Seattle”. Great.

Some of the art is really awesome and has won awards, some of it makes people – as Martin put it – “mad beyond reason” (I guess the one thing the 43rd democrats have in common with Tim Eyman is that neither likes Sound Transit’s art). I don’t like all of it, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not nice having it.

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The art I like the best is the series of temporary pieces at the corner of Broadway and John in the buildings that will soon be torn down for the Capitol Hill station. It puts what otherwise would be a dead space on the street to some use, and it gives local artists an audience that might otherwise not ever see their art. Some of them are really great, and engage the passer-by, especially at night, see the image above.

I haven’t had a chance to judge all of the architecture of Link, but I have been in the Tukwila station a few times, and I love it. It looks great from the outside, and inside it’s a wonderful monument to transit. The other big station concepts are the Mount Baker station and the Beacon Hill station, neither of which I have been in, though here are some early photos of the Mount Baker station.

In all, I think that Sound Transit has built a really attractive system, and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the system will look like, especially the underground stations.

In Crosscut Today

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

Whoa, did you see that Crosscut piece?

If you’ve been reading this blog or gone over to the Mass Transit Now website, you won’t read much you haven’t seen before.  What’s important, though, is who it’s by: Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon, Edmonds City Councilwoman Deanna Dawson, and Everett City Councilman Paul Roberts.

These people aren’t the “true believers.”  They’re not in the tank for light rail, as we are.  They’re not part of the Seattle Mafia.  In fact, they were skeptics early in the process and were brought on board only when they were sure that Proposition 1 did what was needed for the region.

Much more useful than more of Mayor Nickels preaching to the converted.   Bravo.

$700 Billion…

Posted on by Ben Schiendelman

…I’m just sayin’.

These are the high speed rail corridors the USDOT has identified in their overall plan. If your rail line is on one of those green lines, and we ever pass an Amtrak funding bill with grant money for high speed rail, you can get those grants. Note that Amtrak Cascades is one of those corridors.

Given that the California project is $40 billion (although that’s not all of those lines), I’d say we could get most of this done for $700 billion. This could be our new Apollo project  – it would create jobs all over the country, we’d probably end up building at least one new railcar company (as well as helping the ones we have), and you can bet this would spur more renewable energy development.

While we need a New New Deal for infrastructure, we don’t really have the money. Especially not if we’re giving it to banks.

Children’s Book Recommendation

Posted on by Matt Gangemi

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

The Little House, by Virginia Lee Burton. She had cities figured out when she wrote this back in 1942.

You’ll notice the correct progression of efficient transportation. Buses turn into streetcars, then turn into light rail. Finally subway systems are built as buildings get taller and taller.

Making the Seattle Streetcar more attractive

Posted on by Brian Bundridge

The Seattle Streetcar – the hidden stepchild very few know about. It hides in South Lake Union, known commonly and jokingly as the S.L.U.T by some. The question many wonder – How do we make the Streetcar more viable and popular among the residents of Seattle. There are a lot of ideas, many which the City of Seattle has already taken a firm stand on. Everyone has their opinion on where they would love the route to go and I agree with all of them, however there is an important segment that would benefit greatly – Serving the Central Business Core of Downtown Seattle.

While I understand that the City of Seattle would like the SLU Streetcar to continue down First Avenue, this is a route that should be avoided. It would make the connection to the 1st Avenue Streetcar but that is where it ends. There hasn’t been a lot of forethought by the City of Seattle in this regards of making the connections much more seamless than painful and cumbersome.

These are my ideas for the Seattle Streetcar network;

Downtown Core routing;

This route will be an extension of the SLU route by continuing Southbound on Westlake in the Right-hand lane. The stop for the Southbound will be at 5th and Pine, next to the Seattle Monorail Station. The route will continue South with stops at University Street, Marion Street, James Street, and Jackson Street. The route will then turn Right onto Airport Way and Right again onto 4th Avenue South. The route will return North on 4th Avenue with stops at Weller Street (Sounder Connection), Main Street, James Street, Marion Street, Seneca Street, and Pine Street. The route will turn Right onto Olive Way followed by the shallow Left to reconnect to the SLU line.

This routing would bring in the best possible ridership, it would capture passengers from Sounder or Amtrak, provide connections and easy walk to Qwest or Safeco Field. It would provide a transfer to the Waterfront Streetcar (Ahem), First Hill Streetcar, and a short walk to the First Avenue Streetcar. The cost would be about the same as the initial segment – The reason for this being the additional 4-5 streetcars needed to cover the gap of the route. This routing could increase ridership upwards of 4,000-6,500 a day at 12 minute intervals.

Jackson Street Streetcar;

The routing for this Streetcar is perfect for the most part but I would make some changes in the International District. The line should continue West to Occidental Avenue where it would turn left. The line would continue down Occidental until 1st Avenue then turn Right on First Avenue back to Jackson Street for it’s continuing run. This will allow the new development at Qwest Field to populate more and serve the stadiums, King Street Station, and the future condos and apartments going in soon. I would also propose the Streetcar going as far as 31st Ave/Frink Park. This would serve some of the Leschi/Mt. Baker residences. This routing would provide at least 2 school connections (Leschi and Washington Middle School) – Ultimately, this should go all the way out to the High School and eliminate the KC Metro # 14 and those buses redirected to the 1, 2, 3, 4.

That is all that I have on this subject for now…What are your thoughts on this? Would most of this be prohibitive enough that the city should ignore it? How would you feel about a line going through Downtown?

The Bus Bunch

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

The prolfieration of low-cost bus service between cities in the Northeast is either total genius, or a stunning indictment of our rail infrastructure (I think you know where I stand). The fact that rail service between DC, NY and Boston continues to be too slow, expensive and unreliable for regular use is very sad. And this is Amtrak’s best route!