Month: October 2008

• The UW School of Public Affairs had an event about light rail according to the P-I’s Larry Lange. The post is short on details, but it does discuss how Portland and Vancouver faced similar arguments before building their transit systems: it costs so much, takes so long, and no gaurantees it will work. I’m sure the same argument was made on the first underground railway built in London. With their systems such a success, it’s encouraging to know we’re not any different, and it can get built here even with our political climate.
• Also via the P-I blogs, Ballard may get a Water Taxi along the lines of what West Seattle has. This must be from the secret tax imposed immediately after the election last November.
• The Stranger has strongly endorsed Prop. 1. I did get a little annoyed by the Stranger saying “We told you it’d be back!” Especially after I spent a lot of time calling board members, pushing them to get the thing on the ballot, and lobbying members who were on the fence. It didn’t just get on the ballot because they said it would. Anyway, the endorsement is very sincere and very encouraging, and I hope that it helps get votes.

As we did for the primary, STB plans to post transit-oriented endorsements for the November general election.  (I’m sure you’re all wondering where we’ll come down on Prop. 1).  That should come out within a week, but until then we’re willing to entertain nominations for otherwise obscure politicians we should be endorsing.  There are a lot of legislative districts, and we’re certainly not able to keep tabs on all the candidates.

Anyone we should notice?  Let us know in the comments.  We’re looking for candidates that roughly to conform to our core transit principles.  Things that help:

1. A link to something they’ve done that conforms to those principles.
2. A link to something they’ve said that conforms to those principles.

What isn’t particularly helpful, however, is “I spoke privately to x and she said what I wanted to hear.”  Not only is it unverifiable, but that’s what good politicians do, whatever their actual intentions.

We focus on transit here, obviously, but I want to introduce you to a few local blogs on a related topic: land use.

First, there’s Streetscape, on the Daily Journel of Commerce’s website. The DJC is Seattle’s third daily newspaper, and focuses mostly on construction and business. Streetscape talkings about how Seattle is changing because of building, and how to preserve the parts of the city we love. It’s a good read.

The second is the Green Building Blog, also on the DJC’s site. This blog is devoted to environmentally-friendly building practices, the economics of green building and how energy use relates to land-use. It’s a good read, but sometimes I wish it’d get more detailed about environmental analysis.

The third is one of my absolute favorite blogs, Huge Ass City. Huge Ass is about urbanization, how to make the street space interesting and what makes a building great. The coverage of transit-oriented development is top-notch, and the bloggers there keep great track of how much development is happening in the city. If you are going read one of these blogs, read this one.

While it’s likely that the Seattle P-I Editorial Board will endorse Proposition 1, the board met with proponents Greg Nickels and Carla Saulter and opponents John Niles and Mark Baerwaldt this past week and you can watch the debate online. I believe the P-I will be publishing their endorsement this Sunday.

The newspaper published their No on I-985 endorsement online last evening — it will run in the newspaper tomorrow.

Between Prop. 1 and the presidential election, it’s been pretty easy to forget that there’s also another Eyman initiative on the ballot.  I-985 would divert a significant chunk of the state general fund into a road-building account.  More directly relevant to transit issues, it would stop directing 1% of spending into public art (threatening federal funding for our projects) and open up HOV lanes to general traffic in “off-peak” hours.

As pointed out in numerous places, the measure’s definition of “peak” — 6-9 am and 3-6 pm on weekdays — is not at all fully inclusive of the times there is congestion.  There’s a certain disconnect in the logic here: that buses and carpools won’t be hurt by opening up the HOV lanes, but that somehow there’s congestion that single occupancy vehicles will be able to avoid by using them!* [Update Below]

There are more extended critiques in the P-I and Crosscut.  It’s nice to see the segment of Prop. 1 opponents that is intellectually honest, people like Doug MacDonald and Ron Sims, come out in vocal opposition to this measure.  I’m wondering, however, where the rest of the buses-and-vanpools-can-do-it-better crowd is.

Inadvertently, however, Tim Eyman has been very helpful to the Mass Transit Now campaign, by illustrating one of the big problems with Bus Rapid Transit.  Although BRT is almost always inferior to rail in terms of passenger capacity, environmental cleanliness, and operating costs, it’s true that with sufficient political will (especially the will to convert existing lanes to bus-only), a large portion of rail’s benefits can be captured by a properly designed system for a fraction of the cost.

A BRT system that relies on HOV lanes is not that ultimate system, but even its modest objectives are perpetually under threat by activists that want to loosen restrictions on those lanes.  No one’s going to try to open up light rail tracks to general-purpose traffic.

Lastly, I have trouble figuring out the coalition that’ll support I-985.  After all, diverting money from the state general fund into a congestion account amounts to a massive transfer of wealth into the areas that experience congestion.  I’m not sure who in Eastern Washington wants their programs cut to build roads in the Puget Sound that the locals don’t even necessarily want.

Bus Photo from dot.gov; Eyman photo from komonews.com.

* UPDATE: It’s been rightly pointed out to me that one paragraph above is brutally phrased.  I’ll try again.

Outside peak hours, either there is congestion or there isn’t.  If there isn’t congestion, opening up HOV lanes to SOVs doesn’t offer any benefit to anyone, and the measure is pointless.  If there is congestion, then the claims that opening up HOV lanes won’t interfere with the efficient operation of buses and carpools is simply false.  Either way, it simply can’t be the case that I-985 simultaneously helps single-occupancy vehicles and doesn’t harm HOVs.