For those that asked; I have uploaded photos of two trains: the Southern Pacific 4449 on its journey out to Spokane, Washington and ultimately to Train Festival 2009 in Owosso, Michigan, and Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” display train in Seattle. I was quite busy =P
Click on the photos to see the gallery!
Another part of the June 17 Regional Transit Committee meeting was another round of discussion of Metro cuts. Once again, the Committee punted on giving Metro firm guidance on service cuts, instead holding out hopes that painless internal cuts can close the gap. The Metro presentation, which contains little new information, is available here.
Seattle Councilmember Jan Drago was something of an exception (43:00 in the video), as she read into the record a letter from the City requesting that:
Drago remarked that the high productivity plan resulted in an “unacceptable” loss of 40% of Eastside riders, while the other plans were unacceptable to the West subarea ridership.
Both Issaquah Councilmember Fred Butler and Sammamish Councilmember Kathy Huckabay spoke in favor of higher fares to close the gap, in conjunction with various unspecified efficiency improvements.
The King County Council must decide on a cuts policy by September to allow them to go into effect by February, although there’s talk of delaying the decision to January 2010 and the actual cuts till June 2010. By burning through more cash reserves this way, the Council might get more time to scrounge for cash, and, it must be said, postpone a decision till after the election.
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
PSRC has released the Transportation 2040 draft environmental impact statement, which will be used to guide regional planning for the next several decades. There are several alternative scenarios considered (in addition to the “baseline scenario” – i.e. nothing):
Note that these are all just guidelines, and all the specific investments mooted are just a way of creating the scenario for accounting purposes. There’s nothing to suggest that we can’t mix and match.
Alternative 5 provides far and away the most transportation funding. Check out the description of the proposed expansion projects:
Alternative 5 Roadways
Alternative 5 would include limited investment in roadways.
Improvements would primarily include completion of HOV
lanes on I-5 and SR 16 and regionwide chokepoint and
bottleneck improvements.Alternative 5 Transit
Alternative 5 promotes an interconnected transit system that
reaches beyond ST2 by building out the Sound Transit Long-
Range Plan. It would extend express bus and rail (both light
and commuter) service and increase core, connector, and
specialized bus services throughout the region. Light rail or
other high-capacity transit would connect Everett and Tacoma,
extend to downtown Redmond, and serve Ballard and West
Seattle. In addition, commuter rail would connect Renton and
Snohomish via the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe (BNSF) rail
corridor. Alternative 5 would invest in new passenger-only
ferry service to serve demand rather than expanding the auto
ferry system, and transit service to ferry terminals would be
improved. Investments in the transit system would stimulate
mixed-use development near transit centers and rail stations.
Cities would have funds for complete street projects to
support safe, walkable, communities.
Note that only Alternative 5 includes Ballard/West Seattle HCT. Again, that’s not to say that the only way to get light rail to Ballard is to toll 15th Ave NW and Leary Way, but that’s one way of getting the necessary revenue.
There’s a comment form open for the next week or so, so be sure to let your voice be heard.
(via PPB)
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
I’m a bit late on this, but it’s great that the Canadians have relented and allowed a second Cascades run between Seattle and Vancouver. They’re calling it a “pilot” project through the 2010 Olympics, but I’m guessing it will stick around after that. I expect ridership will be quite high, and soon they’ll have created a vocal constituency for the 2nd train.
Martin at STB says it will leave Seattle in the evenings and come back in the morning. That’s much more reasonable. The prospect of catching a 7am train out of Seattle was never all that appealing to me. But being able to leave on a Friday night and come back either Sunday morning or evening? Brilliant.
Two tidbits from the June 17 Regional Transit Committee meeting, on which I’ll file a more full report later. Go to 1:45:00 in the video to follow along at home:
View the RapidRide C project page here. An earlier reaction to the RapidRide project is here.
Via Greater Greater Washington, Infrastructurist names 11 great, demolished train stations. No prize for guessing #1. 6 more here.
While we’re on the subject of intercity rail, Frank at OR points to this great NY Times Magazine piece on California HSR.
And on a completely unrelated note, the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel will be closing at 7pm each night this week. Buses will be diverted onto the surface streets.
Lots of people have been emailing us about the news that Canada’s government has agreed to fund the border guards to allow a second Seattle-Vancouver round trip, one that will go all the way to Portland.
It’ll leave here in the evening, and come back in the morning.
According to the Times, it’ll start next month. The bad news is that the fix is temporary: it’s only through the Paralympic Games, which finish March 21, 2010.
I’m sure Brian will be back with more, but please resume your weekend merrymaking.
Thursday’s photo of UW Station set up a barrage of complaints in the comments about how ugly the station is. Art-hating barbarian that I am, my problem is much less the design of the station than the fact that it’s an isolated structure.
The quarter-mile radius around light rail stations are extremely valuable properties with which to do intensive land use. There’s a somewhat less valuable band out to a half-mile, and of course that’s often further constrained by topology, etc.
I’ve already ranted about how Husky Stadium isn’t very intensive land use, but Sound Transit isn’t doing us any favors by falling in love with the plaza-in-a-park design. You see this at Husky Stadium, Beacon Hill, to a lesser extent at Mt. Baker, and to a small degree even the other Rainier Valley stations.
I’m sure that promising to bring a plaza or a park is a much better selling point to the community than saying you’re going to bring a whole bunch more residents. Nevertheless, I’d be all for incorporating stations into a much larger building built directly on top of, or immediately adjacent to, the station, as is done at many of the downtown stations.
This weekend, there are several special rail related events happening in the Pacific Northwest;
July 3-5; Disney’s A Christmas Carol train tour will be open for display Friday and Saturday 9am to 7pm and Sunday 9am to 4pm. The train will depart early morning to Spokane on July 6th.
July 3rd: The Southern Pacific 4449 steam locomotive will be departing Portland’s Union Station at 8am for it’s long journey to Michigan for Train Festival 2009. The locomotive will be away for about 3 months as it tours the Midwest. There are tickets still available for day trip segments if your interested (short notice) This is the first time this century that a privately owned steam locomotive has traveled outside of its home terminal. The last locomotive to make this trip was the ATSF 3751 in August and September 1992. Union Pacific Railroad, which owns the 844 and 3985 steam locomotives travel yearly to various locations across the United States.
July 4th: The Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad will be having a party on both trains with free cake, flags, and live music on-board the trains.
Feel free to add on to the calendar!
Have a great and safe 4th of July!
U-Link opens in 2016.
Central Link (Westlake to Seatac) is 16 miles long.
Lots of items on this last day before the long weekend: Continue reading “16 Days”