- Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu backtracks on his statements that gas prices should be higher and that we should avoid using coal. As Tyler Cowen puts it “if he can’t get appointed [because of his] favoring higher gas prices, and in a honeymoon period at that…well…you see where this is headed.” Obama’s guys giving in this early?
- The video here is pretty long, but it’s always encouraging to see transit mentioned in the stimulus conversation. Money quote from Obama Economic Policy Team member, Madhuri Kommareddi:
“Infrastructure is a part of his plans for a number of reasons. First, it can help simulate an immediate job creation, which is a central component of the President-Elect’s economy recovery plan. Second, it’s an opportunity for us to meet a lot of those unmet needs that have really grown over the past several years, and in some cases several decades. The President-elect very much wants to look at forward-thinking investments. How can we expand our public transit systems?“
Via Streetsblog.
- Ken, telling someone to focus on the road and put away distractions when driving thousands of pounds of steel forty or fifty miles an hour is not remotely equivalent to changing diapers.
- California might halt $1.8 billion in roads projects due to budgetary problems.
- This is for Brad. What to do with abandoned suburbs? Developments like this that were abandonned or only partially completed.
- Last week the Freakonomics blog had a pair of posts in favour of congestion pricing. I didn’t get a chance to read them until just now, but they are worth a read. The first post discusses the mechanics and motivation for congestion pricing, and mentions the HOT lane on SR-167.
What’s the bottom line here? The state of Washington recently opened congestion-priced lanes on its State Route 167. The peak toll in the first month of operation (reached on the evening of Wednesday, May 21) was $5.75. I know, I know, you would never pay such an exorbitant amount when America has taught you that free roads are your birthright. But that money bought Washington drivers a 27-minute time savings. Is a half hour of your time worth $6?I think I already know the answer, and it is “it depends.” Most people’s value of time varies widely depending on their activities on any given day. Late for picking the kids up from daycare? Paying $6 to save a half hour is an incredible bargain. Have to clean the house? The longer your trip home takes, the better. Tolling will introduce a new level of flexibility and freedom into your life, giving you the power to tailor your travel costs to fit your schedule.
The second post goes into the evidence supporting congestion pricing. A good read.
- This is funny.
We really need more HOT lanes. What a fantastic way to generate revenue/fight congestion.
For that matter, convert the entire interstate system to toll roads. Then the FHA can pay for itself, and it would encourage transit use.
Bus to Seattle stands at $3.00 from Tacoma.
Sounder to Seattle is $4.75.
Gas is hovering around $2.10 a gallon, and the family car gets ~15 mpg, I-5 Tacoma to Seattle is roughly 30 miles give or take. Plus parking fees, etc. =~$4.20+.
When (not if) it hits $3.50 again I’ll not be worrying, I bike and bus everywhere as it is. Also, I can walk out my front door out to the bus line (PT 501 here in Milton) and thanks to the beauty of the Puget Sound interoperability, getting to Seattle will cost me no more than $4.75. Period.
An added benefit to I-5 being a toll road: People will be less inclined to drive it. They will want to ride-share, or take transit. I am not proposing that every stretch of asphalt have a price tag for each time you drive it, but rather just the principal routes like 512, 167, 405, 90, 520, and 5 in the major urban areas, from say Olympia to Everett. Extend ST to cover the I-5 corridor to Olympia. I’d bet that we could even extend Sounder to Olympia (Not Centennial Station, To downtown) and make that work too. The tracks are there to be improved.
And the tertiary effect: gas prices will go DOWN. There will be less demand for the product, and the price will drop. At least until the supply tightens up at least…
It’s actually unclear that the tolls, as they stand, pay for the infrastructure.
I think the big thing that Obama should do now is include Intelligent Vehicle Systems as a central part of a combined stimulus/Detroit bailout approach.
The moment we go from a one lane HOT system to a two lane HOT will be the time – say within 5 years.
Extend ST to Olympia? Are you crazy? The more you expand the district, the more rural and suburban “No” voters, who see no benefit for them in transit, you bring into the district. That means that we will NOT have the political will to pass these thing. Without Seattle’s dense, urban voters, ST2 would never have passed. If anything, we should shrink the district. The tighter and more urban you make the district, the more political support you have. If ST were shrunk to just Seattle, we would have built twice as much light rail by now.
Expanding the Sounder to Olympia makes sense, light rail, no.
From observing the heavy rail folks from ST here in Tacoma I don’t think the organization is working all that well. Through South Downtown they’ve been trying to bully through a rural track design through a decidedly urban area.
The Sounder could be seperated from the Link, theoretically. Getting that alternative on the table would be a good thing, but it would take some work, and quite a bit of ‘bridge’ building….
You are more or less describing the Japanese highway system.
I agree, tolls are needed but before that can happen, this is what I honestly believe would need to happen…
Increase in Sounder Service – We are getting 23 trains a day by 2015. That is fine but in order for tolling to work, we would need to run at least 40 trains a day (20 each direction) in order to provide “buffer” service. During “light” hours, use those MCI buses as a “TrainBus” option (see, http://westcoastexpress.com/trainBus.asp?PageID=STATIONTRAIN&MenuSubID=STATION-TRAINBUS) ((This should be done anyways….))
Link would need to be extended to Tacoma Dome Station. This would benefit those whom need to go between Tacoma and Federal Way, etc. We already know the service frequency would be every 6 to 15 minutes, so no worries there.
Tacoma Link would need to be extended to Tacoma Community College at least, in order to serve those in Fircrest, etc.
Frequent bus service would also be needed in all 3 counties, in order for tolling to work. Once the transit end of the system is completed, King, Pierce, Snohomish and the State of Washington could realistically toll I-5, I-90, SR-520, SR-99, SR-167 to their hearts content at the same or more than what the transit fares are currently and into the future.
Either way, if we were to do tolling without transit, you can imagine just how bad things would get on every mode of transport in our region. If you thought the gas hit was bad, just wait sit back and think about just how many people would use the bus system instead of paying $0.50 to $10.00 for variable/congestion price tolling.
If I had a Benz, was making that $500 a month payment, and had to add nearly $20 bucks a day for tolling, another $70 to $120 for gas every week.. I’d look for alternatives real quick…but then again, there is a reason why I got a motorcycle (G)
I like this “trainbus” idea.
The Link light rail specs for the tunnel allow joint operation of buses and trains on the same right of way. In some areas this makes sense, others, no.
Tacoma Community College (via UPS??) is a great priority destination, the Tacoma Mall likely ranks about the same for local priority. In my mind we need to build some sort of grade seperated service to access both of these areas, presumably with some sort of ‘Y’ near 705. In any case this design should be a hot topic soon. Substantial portions of the existing track will need to be rebuilt, at least all of the single track portions (1/2?).
From 272nd, the currently funded southern terminus the route is very straight forward, just a shot down 99, until somewhere around the Puyallup River. The Puyallup Tribe has offered to put up some money for an EQC stop and this will likely drive the planning from this end as much as TCC, Mall, and Airport Connections.
I don’t honestly see why they could not extend Link down 99 (which would make it eerily similar to what we had with the Interurban RR) through Fife and over the Puyallup River to join into where the Tacoma Link ends now.
As far as Sounder being separate from Link, I thought it already was? Aren’t the two ROW’s decidedly different, ad serve entirely different rider bases?
As far as extending Link to Olympia, definitely not. And as far as the ST district extension, I only mean Olympia itself and the I-5 corridor, to include the 6xx buses and an extension of Sounder.
Click for a map made by myself explaining my crazy heretical rants:
Argh it didn’t take my link the first timne…
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=47.007182,-122.827148&spn=0.157558,0.30899&z=12&msid=115248289259666793295.0004608aaa5f9b1f47f3f
copy and paste into your browser…
Hmm, interesting idea. I’d forgotten about that ROW.
My only real quibble is the station locations and potential storage track location.
Not sure the 4th & Jefferson site works as a station since trains more than 3 or 4 cars long would block 5th or even Legion. Also a parking structure would need to be built nearby. It is close to the transit center though. BTW the building at 4th & Adams with the sporting goods store used to be a train depot and there was once a small yard in the area.
Perhaps a better location for a Station and Storage would be the old depot and yard at 7th & Columbia? Not ideal for a station but plenty of room for a long train. Bit of a question where you would put parking though.
The brewery warehouse/bottling plant site near E street might be a good spot for a Tumwater Station or at least storage tracks if one of the downtown Olympia sites doesn’t work out. If there is already a downtown station this location might be a bit close though.
Then of course you’d want a station at Centennial. Have to find room for a parking structure, a siding, and crossovers though.
Next station should be DuPont, the transit center is close to the tracks already.
Not sure about Ft. Lewis or Tillicum. You only need one or the other and either would be a bit close to another station. Also to get base personel to use Sounder or ST Express the arrival/departure times would need to correspond to base shift changes and there would need to be shuttles to various employment centers on the base.
Didn’t the Seattle-Tacoma Interurban run where Sounder now runs, or you meant the type of service? By the way, here’s a great documentary about the Interurban from the Seattle Channel.
There are provisions in ST2 that could allow Sound Transit to extend Sounder down to Olympia without annexations:
I would love to be able to use transit from Olympia all the way up to the Canadian border and pay with a single ORCA card.
I’d like to see Sounder down to at least DuPont and ST express in Thurston County (at the very least have ST take over the Olympia Express routes).
Sounder to Thurston County would be ideal but I don’t see how to serve anything other than Centennial Station easily. The ROW Nathan points out above has some promise but has some problems as well and would take quite a bit of money to develop.
As far as I know the proposed alignment for Link South of S 200th to Tacoma follows 99 more or less.
Sounder and Link don’t run on the same tracks and can’t due to FRA regulations. Joint light rail and heavy rail operation has only been approved on lightly used branch lines with strict time separation. The line used by Sounder is a heavily trafficed Class I main line.
Sounder would more closely parallel the old interurban than Link at least South of Seattle. North of Seattle the interurban ran more or less in the same corridor as 99 (in fact you can see the old ROW from 99 in a number of places).
One of the initial reasons I decided to vote for Obama was the fact he was from a real city with real transit. He knows what real urban life is like and what it needs to thrive. Good to see that my decision was correct.