Meanwhile in the Rail news….

Posted on by Brian Bundridge

While the legislature continues to shoot down R8A, I did some investigation in regards to the Amtrak rail funding and its dramatic change mentioned here previous. It appears that 98% of the rail capital project funding has been completely eliminated. The remaining 2% is going to very, very small projects, such as Tacoma Rail engine facility improvements, a new connection for BNSF/Tacoma Rail in Roy, and a spur to a cement plant in Everett. Yippe…

Stanwood Station however did keep its funding and Amtrak Cascades will serve the station when it opens this Fall. I have heard that the funding for Leavenworth Station has been eliminated but I have not found anything that confirms this officially.

24 NEW SECTION. Sec. 225. FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION–
25 RAIL–PROGRAM Y–OPERATING
26 Multimodal Transportation Account–State
27 Appropriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$34,933,000
28 The appropriation in this section is subject to the following
29 conditions and limitations:
30 (1) $29,091,000 of the multimodal transportation account–state
31 appropriation is provided solely for the Amtrak service contract and
32 Talgo maintenance contract associated with providing and maintaining
33 the state-supported passenger rail service. Upon completion of the
34 rail platform project in the city of Stanwood, the department shall
35 provide daily Amtrak Cascades service to the city.
36 (2) Amtrak Cascade runs may not be eliminated.
p. 27 SSB 5352.

1 (3) The department shall begin planning for a third roundtrip
2 Cascades train between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. by 2010

While the state will “aggressively” seek federal funding from various stimulus sources, the damage and lack of credibility has been done. What the state has effectively done is damage any chance of securing funding because all projects require matching funding from the state. With the state effectively killing this funding, this no longer gives the state the chance to receive any stimulus funding.

While I understand the need and reasoning for reducing the budget, a lot  more critical things were cut. I am still at a lost however how I-405 manages to get a several million dollar increase in funding, along with the I-5 Pierce County HOV lanes while rail and other projects are being cut.

We talk about alternatives and ways to reduce GHG but when it comes to making progress on doing that goal, a few select people make sure that it does not happen. In this situation, we, the people of Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia all want alternatives to driving. We all want an alternative to flying. The Amtrak Cascades service and passenger rail are our ways to that goal. Until we have people in our government that also see that goal, we will never go beyond what we have currently for many more years.

We all know by 2012, gas prices will be at record levels. By 2012, we could have had a very good and integrated transportation system, ranging from buses, carpool, light-rail, and passenger rail. Each mode works together but people will not make the critical change needed until the services are provided. The Cascades program will be very critical and by not investing now, we will lose any forward movement at such a critical time.

Nearly every state is looking forward to adding more passenger rail, except for our region, where roads are now king of our society.

Pressure Mounts on R8A, State Transit Support

Posted on by John Jensen

The Seattle PI (again, and again) and the Times have today written more coverage about R8A funding controversy that has only gotten worse in the last few days.

What has begun as a matter of the state’s budget withholding $24 million necessary to build the two-way HOV lanes on the I-90 bridges needed to run light rail along that corridor, has recently escalated to what appears to be nearly outright hostility to the light rail plan that voter’s approved last year. One move we didn’t cover, but deserves mention, is the move to disallow Sound Transit from the state’s competitive Regional Mobility Grants even — one of the few ways that the state actually gives financial support to transit.

Larry Phillips
Larry Phillips

King County Councilman Larry Phillips offered a sharp rebuke of the House budget that is the source of all of the concern. Phillips once again looks impressive on transportation is continuing to illustrate that he’d be a great county executive — a position he’s running for. I’ll quote a SeattlePI.com piece from reporter Aubrey Cohen:

“I frankly don’t understand what the House transportation folks are doing,” [Phillips] said.

Voters clearly indicated their desire to see light rail soon in Mercer Island and Bellevue, he said. “Literally hundreds of millions of dollars are in the bank, waiting to be deployed.”

The state House transportation budget thwarts the will of voters by blocking Sound Transit’s East Link light-rail plan, according to [Phillips].

“While the people of this region are eager to move forward with building light rail and leave behind the endless debating and delays of the past, legislators continue to throw up roadblocks that thwart the will of voters and delay light rail,” he said, referring to a budgetprovision that stalls construction of rail along the Interstate 90 bridge over Lake Washington.

“Thwart the will of the voters,” absolutely. Well said.

Kudos to the PI and the Times, as well Horse’s Ass and Publicola, for covering this story. And to Mr. Phillips for inserting himself into this very important issue.

World’s Best Toy

Posted on by Andrew Smith

japan march 4 066My four-year-old nephew has been playing with this. If you can’t see from the picture (it’s not a good one), it’s a bridge with a road section on top and a train part on the bottom and it comes with a bus and a little Marine Liner train. I rode the Marine Liner – which connects Honshu and Shikoku – years ago, during a trip I mentioned in a previous post, and it’s cool to see that real kids toys are made from real train lines. According to the manufacturer, Tomika, you can even connect it to other roads and train sets.

I’m pretty sure Tamami is glad that Hinano is a girl after seeing the way I got excited over this toy, if we’d had a boy I’d already have filled bought a ton of train sets and more. But this is better than just a train set: it’s a bus and train set with a suspension bridge! Come on, this is the best toy ever. You’re with me, right?

Walkscore Transit Map

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

It’s still an early beta, it seems, but Walkscore’s transit map for Seattle is pretty awesome. Click on an address and it tells you how far you can travel from that address, via transit, in 45 minutes at any time of day.

Very cool.

Clibborn (and Chopp) vs. East Link

Posted on by Ben Schiendelman
Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island
Judy Clibborn, D-Mercer Island

Ever since Sound Transit chose Interstate 90 as the preferred alignment for East Link light rail, a concerted effort to “protect” I-90 from the project has come from a few legislators – but mostly the office of Representative Judy Clibborn (41st, Mercer Island), chair of the House Transportation Committee.

I’ve written about this a little in the past, but it seems time to lay out a framework of her sustained attack on transit. She has repeatedly spoken in favor of transit as an idea – but not any of the transit that comes to her district. For a representative whose district voted over 55% for Sound Transit 2, her opposition seems misplaced.

As much as I pay attention to all this, I’m still not sure when her opposition started actively, but the first thing I see in law is a proviso from her in the 2007 transportation budget, ESHB 1094. This proviso requires that an ‘access plan’ be created to allow Mercer Island residents to use the new HOV lanes in single occupancy vehicles after the center lanes are closed to traffic:

“Expenditure of the funds on construction is contingent upon revising the access plan for Mercer Island traffic such that Mercer Island traffic will have access to the outer roadway high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes during the period of operating of such lanes following the removal of Mercer Island traffic from the center roadway and prior to conversion of the outer roadway HOV lanes to high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. Sound transit may only have access to the center lanes when alternative R-8A is complete.

The same year, she moved some R8A funding out from the 2007-2009 budget, as mentioned previously on the blog, to 2017 and beyond. Remember that this was early in the year before Roads and Transit came in November – this was almost a pre-emptive strike in case R&T passed.

Clibborn also pushed for an “Independent Review Team” to (hopefully) bolster her claim that light rail over I-90 was like the “Big Dig”. When that IRT released their report, essentially giving light rail a thumbs up from an engineering perspective, she told attendees of the hearing that they should be ready to hear about a “show-stopper.” Sounds like that was wishful thinking.

With light rail seeing support that just won’t quit, and that likely to be bolstered by Link opening this year, she’s exercising a ‘nuclear option’ now. Not only has she defunded R8A, it sounds like the state plans to hold light rail over I-90 hostage. Today’s transportation plan halts negotiations for the I-90 express lanes between WSDOT and ST, pending yet another review from a panel that House Transportation appoints. Oh, goody.

Frank Chopp, D-Capitol Hill, Wallingford
Frank Chopp, D-Capitol Hill, Wallingford

What’s worse, sources tell me that Speaker Frank Chopp (43rd, my district, went over 80% for ST2, also note he appointed Clibborn) wants Sound Transit to fund $1 billion, yes, that’s $1,000,000,000, of SR-520 replacement as payment for the I-90 lanes. Apparently that’s what those express lanes are worth to him, even though they were over 90% federally funded (yes, really!) – and the federal government (the GAO) says that states can’t use the proceeds from air rights sales on interstate highways (PDF, page 5). Here’s the excerpt:

“The statute states simply that any federal share in the net proceeds, which a state receives as a result of the sale, use, lease or lease renewal of such property, is to be applied to other eligible title 23 projects. Logically, the use of the term “federal share” indicates that the federal share retains its character as federal funds. Furthermore, by providing in § 156(a) that states must dispose of real property at fair market value, unless the Secretary grants an exception for a social, environmental, or economic purpose, the statutory text evidences a strong and on-going federal interest in any revenues generated from such disposal. In our view, this is a clear indication that the federal share of these proceeds should continue to be treated as federal rather than state funds.”

Don’t these people realize we’re paying attention now? Sound Transit is not your personal ATM, Mr. Speaker.

Further Delays for East Link in House Transpo Budget

Posted on by Eric Butler

The House Transportation Committee just released their 2009 budget proposal (press release here). Not surprisingly, it includes more delays for R8A, the project that would reconfigure I-90 HOV lanes to make room for East Link Light Rail:

(17) The department shall not sign the final environmental impact
statement for the east link project or negotiate an airspace lease with
sound transit for the use of the Interstate 90 center roadway for
exclusive use by light rail until completion of an independent facility
asset assessment by the joint transportation committee.

You may remember that the last study requested by the state confirmed that the I-90 bridge can handle light rail. Much of our state government remains opposed to building light rail across the water despite overwhelming support from the voters. Perhaps these representatives are under the illusion that if they keep requesting new studies, one will eventually tell them what they want to hear.

Unfortunately there isn’t much time left to influence this budget. There’s a public hearing today at 3:30pm (stream), with an executive session closely following tomorrow at the same time. Full agenda here.

We’ll have more information on all this later tonight.

Capitol Hill Streets for People Meeting Friday

Posted on by Eric Butler

With demolition to make way for light rail beginning on Capitol Hill, and the possibility to see streetcar construction start next year, the neighborhood is in for a long haul of non-stop construction for the foreseeable future.

Since streets around the area will be torn up anyway for this construction, I began to wonder if this might be a great opportunity to rethink how to make them better for not only cars but bicycles, transit, and people, rather than put everything back exactly as it is now.

I quickly found that I wasn’t the only one envisioning better streets, and now that the discussion has started about what to do with the land above the station once construction is complete, it seems like the perfect time to start the conversation.

Anyone interested is invited to an informal community discussion this Friday 7:00pm at Moe Bar (please RSVP). Learn more about the streetcar project, and share your ideas for how to make Capitol Hill an even more vibrant, walkable community.

Transit Heroes

Posted on by Andrew Smith

I want to share the story of scene I witnessed, but first I want share with you what I was thinking about when I saw it happen.

Last week, a mysterious hero saved a man’s life after he fell onto the subway tracks in New York. The man fell off the platform onto the tracks and the hero jumped down, picked him up, and put him back on the platform before an oncoming tram came. The hero board the next train, and seemed to slip into anonymity. Eventually the man came forward, Chad Lindsey of Manhattan, magazine proof reader and aspiring actor.

Continue reading “Transit Heroes”

Metro’s 3 Billionth Rider

Posted on by Andrew Smith
King County Metro Transit
Photo by flyer_e901

On March 31st, Metro’s 3 billionth rider will board. King County wants photos of you riding the bus for their flickr pool, and you can email the photos to king county, and you can see the already submitted items here (while you’re at it, feel free to add the photos to our flickr pool as well). Metro was formed in 1973 by combining Seattle Transit (which served the city) and the Metropolitan Transit Corporation, which served the suburbs.

3 billion riders in 36 years is quite a lot, from King County’s press release:

Using information published by the Washington State Department of Transportation, 3 billion is the number of all vehicles that have traveled on Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle for the past 30 years.

They also have a slightly weird carbon footprint game thingy in celebration of the event.