This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
So says Mayor Nickels, or at least he says it costs less for Seattle. McGinn apparently has no response.
Metro Cuts Brown Bag is Wednesday
UPDATE: I’m told it’ll be Triplett attending, but not Constantine.
I really wish I could make this, but the City of Seattle is hosting a brown bag meeting at noon, August 12, at Seattle City Hall. Many key players will be there.
It’s unclear to me if they’re going to introduce anything that we haven’t covered already, but if anyone has the time to attend we’d appreciate a report in the comments, or you could even email us a guest report!
On Wednesday, Aug. 12 join Seattle City Council’s Transportation Committee for a special noontime session.
The format is designed to engage decision-makers and stakeholders in a frank conversation about looming Metro budget shortfalls and what they may mean to Seattle transit riders.
The discussion will include members of the city’s Transportation Committee, King County Council Chair Dow Constantine, Metro General Manger Kevin Desmond, as well representatives from the Downtown Seattle Association, Transportation Choices Coalition and city neighborhoods. Acting King County Executive Kurt Triplett is also invited.
Attendees will hear a presentation of proposed changes in service by Metro transit and a discussion by the panel participants, followed by audience questions.
Who: Seattle City Council Transportation Committee
What: Brown Bag meeting on Metro service cuts
When : Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009 – 12 noon
Where: City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue – Council Chambers, Floor 2
Bike Share Expo Today, Tomorrow
Bike sharing is slowly coming to North America, and King County is kicking off the conversation in Seattle with a Expo today at the SLU Discovery Center (10am to 6pm) and tomorrow at Redmond Town Center (noon to 8pm). DC had the first bike sharing system in North America, but it failed to deliver due to a small and dispersed bike station network. This summer Montreal unveiled the first real bike share system in North America. Called Bixi, the system has 3,000 bikes and 300 stations. Bixi is similar to Paris’ Velib and other bike share systems in many ways. Hallmarks of the most successful systems are:
- Electronic, subscription based systems that make riders accountable for bicycles while they are checked out (see Copenhagen’s city bike program for why)
- Fare structures that encourage short rentals and thus high turnover (rentals shorter than 30 minutes are typically free)
- A large, dense network of biking sharing stations (Paris’ stations are spaced at internals of 1000 ft)
- Privately operated by advertising companies that are given adverting monopolies in the city (two big companies are Clear Channel and JCDecaux)
- Unique, well maintained and theft determent bikes (Bixi won several design competitions for their bikes)
- Real time management of the number of bikes at each station (from personal experience I know Barcelona does this very poorly while Paris does much better)
- Implementation accompanied by significant investment in bicycle network infrastructure
Metro has already sent out a Request For Information so hopefully this event won’t just be a tease and something will come of it. Stop by today or tomorrow and check it out.
Greg Nickels for Mayor
All serious Seattle candidates say they’ll fight for transit, but Mayor Greg Nickels has an especially sterling record on this score. On the most important issue facing this region — whether or not to build rail — Nickels has been on the right side of the argument, and in the cockpit of many of the key decisions. As Sound Transit enters another decade of crucial and complex projects, we want his voice to maintain the region’s focus on our ultimate goals.
As Mayor, one’s ability to impact transit operations is limited. However, Nickels has a solid record of finding ways to make a difference and to deliver. Through the Bridging the Gap levy, Nickels funded bus lanes, bicycle lanes, and partnered with Metro to get additional bus service outside the 20/40/40 framework. Nickels also put his political capital on the line for the Streetcar network — one that we support, and one that continues to be controversial.
We’re also pleased with the Mayor’s general willingness to overcome “neighborhood activists” to provide the livable density that is both an environmental imperative and critical to a livable, vibrant city. In liberal Seattle, associating oneself with the interests of Paul Allen can be risky, but we’re very excited about the path that South Lake Union has taken under the Mayor’s leadership.
Most important, however, is the Mayor’s instrumental leadership of Sound Transit. As Chair of the Sound Transit Board, Nickels was the critical player in getting Sound Transit 2 on the ballot in 2008, a move that looks even better in hindsight than it did then. It is his legacy.
That’s not to say that we have no disagreements with Nickels. In particular, we think he gave in too easily to other interests on both the Waterfront Streetcar and the deep-bore tunnel. We are especially concerned that enormous expenditure on the tunnel could crowd out the city’s other transportation priorities. But these concerns are balanced against a long record of leadership and results on our regional priorities.
We should also say a few good words about Mike McGinn. Mr. McGinn’s passion to build light rail at all costs is not quite that of Nickels, but his stance on the issues matches ours nearly perfectly. Indeed, if there were no incumbent in this race, McGinn would be a strong contender for our endorsement. However, given an incumbent with a strong record on the issues and a history of cutting through Seattle process to achieve results, substantial agreement is not enough to win our endorsement.
Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council endorsements and our King County Executive endorsements. This concludes STB’s series of endorsements.
Sunday Open Thread
Mmmm…. BART:
Conservatives and Transit
One reason I try to steer this blog into a fairly narrow focus on transit and land-use is that there’s no fundamental reason that pro-transit views have to go along with progressive ones, and I’d like to keep the pro-transit tent as big as possible. Although I’m pretty sure the whole staff is left of center to varying degrees and we all voted for Obama, there’s no reason to start going off on pro-lifers or whatever and alienating people that might just be interested in a decent alternative to congestion.
Additionally, I find it fairly perverse and frustrating that land use, parking, and zoning is one area where the conservative/libertarian ideology seems not to follow through. Given that these issues tend to tear apart progressives, allies on the right would be useful in bringing about positive local change.
This is all a roundabout way of introducing a not-especially-new Infrastructurist interview with pro-transit conservative William Lind. In the interview, Lind brings hundreds of words with serious intellectual firepower, and doesn’t once mention global warming or other environmental issues that dominate the discourse in the Seattle echo-chamber. It’s a useful reminder that there’s a whole arsenal of arguments out there that doesn’t require one to evaluate dueling climate models, ones that might win votes in the future.
Lind also has a book out on the subject with the late Paul Weyrich.
Metro Ridefree Survey
Frank at OR has the details, although it’s obviously unscientific, and there is no apparent way to see if it’s from Metro, the City of Seattle, or somebody else.
Metro Rider Survey
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
Metro Someone* appears to be conducting a “quick and dirty” survey on the Ride Free Area. It appeared in a Google ad in my Gmail.
This could be part of Metro’s effort to close its budget gap by extracting more money from Seattle for the RFA.
* Not Metro, apparently.
Constantine or Phillips for County Executive
Unlike most elections, we have an excellent choice of candidates in the King County Executive race. A strongly pro-transit voter could feel good about supporting a few different candidates if the voter felt strongly about some other aspect of the candidate’s platform or personality.
Nevertheless, we’ve chartered ourselves to consider the transit and land use portfolio of the candidates, and in our judgment Dow Constantine and Larry Phillips are the best of the group. Each candidate deserves your consideration.
Phillips and Constantine have been steadfast supporters of Sound Transit. Although there’s no immediate political action on Sound Transit on the horizon, we should see the groundwork for the Sound Transit 3 package form over the coming years. Further, it’s reasonable to expect some sort of crisis in the next few. In that event, we want an uncompromising friend of ST in the critical County Executive spot.
On Metro, Phillips has presented the most detailed plan to address Metro’s funding gap, though it is much the same as every credible plan to fix Metro’s problems. Constantine is deeply involved in addressing the Metro crisis through his chairmanship of the Regional Transit Committee. Constantine and Phillips have equally good judgment and candor to address Metro’s budget.
Both candidates represent Seattle on the King County Council and understand that cutting the highest demand routes makes no sense. Constantine received a degree in Urban Planning from UW and shows unique honesty when he says that Eastside commuter rail along the BNSF corridor is not going to happen. Phillips has a well-organized, strong campaign and when he met with us it became clear that he’s a true transit wonk.
Though he doesn’t haven’t as solid of a pro-Sound Transit record as his peers, Ross Hunter has very interesting ideas about tying bus service to density and has been critical in getting more funding authority for Metro in the legislature.
Nevertheless, we’re more impressed by Constantine and Phillips’s credentials than the others. Vote Dow Constantine or Larry Phillips for King County Executive. We hoped to endorse a single candidate, but the differences on transit between the two are simply too insignificant to make a meaningful distinction.
Our editorial board is Martin H. Duke, Ben Schiendelman, and John Jensen, with valued input from the rest of the staff. Read our Seattle City Council endorsements.
STB Meet-Up Features McGinn, O’Brien, Beer
If you didn’t happen to make it to our blog meet-up last night at the Columbia City Alehouse, you missed out. First of all, going to a bar in Columbia City is a great excuse to ride our light rail line. Second, you missed great presentations from various politicos.
First up was Dow Constantine’s chief of staff, Chris Arkills. Dow’s running for Executive of King County and had planned to attend our meet-up, but the League of Women Voters failed to consult us when scheduling their candidate forum… So, instead, Dow sent a trusted adviser (and a fan of the blog) our way to talk about the West Seattle Water Taxi, Metro’s funding gap, and light rail. We’ll be endorsing for the executive race tomorrow.
Next up is Mike O’Brien, who’s running for Seattle city council, position 8. Just yesterday, we endorsed O’Brien and it was great to hear him speak. He is a very charismatic vote for land use, density, and transit. He speaks in depth about improving bus service in particular but within the confines of the abilities of the council job. Our one reservation was his hesitance to support streetcar expansion — he said he’d generally err on the side of more bus hours. For a corridor like 1st Ave in Seattle, this blog has maintained that a streetcar simply provides more efficient and better service than a bus where the density supports it. 1st Ave has that density, and we hope O’Brien comes around at least on this proposed line. O’Brien passion against the tunnel is unparalleled — well, except for one other guy…
Last up was Mike McGinn, candidate for Mayor of Seattle. He spoke defiantly and eloquently against the SR-99 tunnel and pledged to prevent the tunnel from being built in this city. Obviously a proponent of the surface/transit option, McGinn used various questions to draw attention back to the tunnel and the resources it’ll require to build. Within a few minutes, the tunnel was compared to the monorail, Hillary Clinton, and RTID. Like O’Brien, McGinn has qualms about streetcar expansion and particularly finding a funding source for it. However, on most issues and especially land use, McGinn was convincing and earnest. We’ll be endorsing a candidate for Mayor on Monday.
After a lengthy Q&A, the Transportation Choice Coalition pub crawl met up with us and brought Jesse Israel along. We endorsed Israel for Seattle city council as well, and go to hear more of her thoughts. (She’s definitely a streetcar supporter!)
For a bit more depth, you can follow our Twittering of the meet-up. Thanks to all of you who showed up, especially the politicos who gave us their time.