In light of all the news lately about East Link alignment choices, and in large part just because we haven’t had one, it’s well past time to have a meetup in Bellevue. Our planned date: Thursday, February 11th.
I’m waiting for a confirmation, but we should have space at the Rock Bottom. It’s a block from Bellevue Transit Center, in the Galleria – which I understand is neither a Kemper Freeman nor a Kevin Wallace property (although it’s probably someone with their values).
I’d imagine you should start filtering in around 6, but don’t worry if you can’t show up until a little later – I’m sure folks will be there until at least 9. Please comment if you can (or can’t) make it!
SeattleBubble just posted some very interesting numbers for the 25 most populated cities in the US. There are a few lessons from this set of data, but my favorite is how cheap this city is – as dense cities go. Click on the “Density” tab, and we’re #8. Our Income/Rent ratio is 5 – much higher than most of those above us. The next cheap city is all the way down at Denver – with a bit over half the density we have.
Of course San Francisco nearly catches us with an I/R of 4.9 and is over twice as dense as us, so although we’re less expensive, if you want density at a reasonable price you may consider SF.
Owning is a completely separate matter. While owning a home is much cheaper (per income) here than NY, LA, or SF, anywhere else more dense than us is a better deal. And housing in Detroit – just one under us in density – is practically free (seriously, $25k for a house? are they missing a zero?).
Why does any of this matter? Well, there’s the human aspect of wanting to be paid well yet not paying a fortune for housing and still living in a city. But what I see in these numbers is the drivers of density. To create density we need an attractive place to live and enough supply. Lumped in with an “attractive place to live” is income and cost of living, which includes rent. The price of housing alone doesn’t tell you much, since this can be offset by income. But an I/R ratio exposes this piece of “attractive place to live”. Of course, as a city becomes more dense it’s harder to meet housing demand with supply, so rents go up. So we expect I/R ratios to drop with density. The fact that ours is still high shows that we’re a comparatively attractive and affordable city, at least by this measure.
This week’s Sound Transit CEO newsletter contains an update on the work that Sound Transit is doing to mitigate Link noise.
A few months ago I told you about our plans to cut down the noise from Link light rail trains. (STB: see our previous coverage.)
Those plans included actually grinding the tracks to reduce train noise. I thought you’d be interested to know that the grinding was completed in the Rainier Valley in mid-December, and elsewhere on the line just before New Years Day. Although the grinding has reduced the high-frequency noise in many areas, there are some locations where it’s still present. We’ll measure noise levels again in early spring, after the grinding marks on the rails have worn smooth.
Another problem we’re working on is “wheel squeal” noise on curves, such as where trains enter and leave Mount Baker Station. In those areas we’re installing solar-powered machines that periodically dispense a dab of lubricant on the tracks. The track lubricators have been purchased and work is expected to begin in mid-to-late March. Work will take place overnight starting at 10 p.m. to minimize inconvenience to riders.
Finally, another noise problem in the Rainier Valley is the “ka-thunk” sounds created when a train goes through the crossover switches near S. Walden and S. Willow streets. A Sound Transit contractor will modify the two switch crossings so train wheels have a smoother running surface. Work will be scheduled between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. over eight weekends beginning in March. The project should take about two months.
As reported by multipleoutlets, the City of Seattle and House Speaker Frank Chopp appear to have shifted their opposition to the SR520 plan, with less emphasis on unworkable highway tunnels under the cut, instead pushing for the HOV lane to become transit-only. The Stranger claims they’ll ask for light rail tracks on the bridge in anticipation of Link operations across the bridge:
Sources tell us that city leaders will soon release plans for a set of specific requests. Among them, the sources say, the city wants: only four lanes dedicated to traffic and the other two lanes dedicated to transit only, light rail tracks laid on the bridge for future use, no ramp leading to the Arboretum, and a smaller footprint through the Montlake neighborhood. This layout could include a transit-lane connection from 520 to the north side of the ship canal.
Details on the changes in Metro bus service, effective February 6th, are available online. New red timetables and a special rider alert brochure will soon be available. The changes are now live on the Trip Planner and timetables will be posted online on February 5. This is a major service change, with over 80 bus routes affected. Highlights are:
New Route 156 to replace part of Route 140 service in McMicken Heights and will serve Southcenter, SeaTac/Airport Link, and Tukwila Sounder stations.
Route 194 replaced by Link light rail and expanded service on ST Express routes 574, 577, and 578.
Route 140 now serves Tukwila International Blvd station via Southcenter Blvd. It no longer serves McMicken Heights (use Route 156), the airport (use Link), and Air Cargo Rd (use Route 180).
ST 560 and 574 will be the only routes serving the Sea-Tac Airport terminal stops. All other routes will serve SeaTac/Airport Station (including ST 574)
Routes 76, 77, 216, 218, and 316 move to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel
Long-term construction reroutes for 73, 77, and 316 373 in the Northgate area.
More frequent service on routes 8, 9, 36 and 60 to improve connections to Link
More trips on routes between West Seattle, SODO, and downtown Seattle as mitigation for Viaduct construction.
Trip reductions on approximately 40 Metro routes
Previously covered: Sound Transit service changes, also on Feb 6.
This has been in my inbox for a while, but in 2009 Amtrak Cascades experienced a slight decline from the high gas prices and lower unemployment of 2008 while maintaining healthy gains over the recent past. According to the report, the drop in performance is mainly due to the Portland-Eugene corridor. In total, Cascades trains carried passengers about 118m passenger miles.
On a somewhat related note, if you participate in RailPlus — using regional passes to travel on Amtrak between Everett and Tacoma Seattle — you must obtain a “validation ticket” from the TVM with your ORCA card. Amtrak staff presumably don’t have ORCA readers.
By way of an official press release from the White House, the Cascades corridor is expected to receive $598 million from HSR (high-speed rail) funds, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. President Obama will be on hand in Tampa (guess who’s cashing in?) today to make the announcement of grants toward thirteen major corridors, the Pacific Northwest being one of them:
Improvements will be made to the corridor using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to provide rail passengers in the Pacific Northwest with faster, more reliable and more frequent service.
Seattle – Portland: Two additional daily round trips will be added between Seattle and Portland, for a total six; travel time will be reduced by at least 5 percent; and on-time performance will increase substantially, from 62 to 88 percent. Major construction projects include building bypass tracks to allow for increased train frequency and multiple upgrades to existing track and signal systems. Several safety-related projects will also be funded, including grade separations, positive train control, and seismic retrofits to Seattle’s historic King Street Station.
Portland – Eugene: Investments include upgrading Portland’s Union Station, and engineering and environmental work for track and signaling projects that will increase service reliability and reduce congestion.
Along with WSDOT and ODOT, other regions/corridors that have also been earmarked for HSR funds include the Northeast Corridor, Florida, California, the Chicago hub network, and Ohio. The White House website has individual releases for each regional grant. The Infrastructurist had speculated that out of all the contenders, Texas would likely get the shaft, but Fort Worth is expected to receive just a tiny bit. We’ll bring you more as soon as we figure out exactly what projects our $598 million will go towards. [UPDATE 7:26am: Here is a full list (PDF) of the grants from the White House.]
Yesterday, we reported that Mayor McGinn is likely to pursue a November 2010 ballot measure for light rail expansion.
During the campaign, the Candidate McGinn promised to offer a ballot measure “within two years” to expand light rail to the west side of the city. What route should his line take? What do you think we could build with, for example, ~$1.5 billion or so (with the rest of the funds going to bike and pedestrian improvements)? How big of a role should Sound Transit play? A tunnel through Downtown or a surface street alignment like Portland? Where would it be more cost effective to extend a streetcar line to rather than build a new light rail line to? How much should the voting public know before it expects to approve a multi-billion dollar funding package?
These questions will all be answered in the comments, to be sure. This is an open thread on McGinn’s likely ballot measure.
When we broke the story about the King County Council forming a Transportation Benefit District in unincorporated portions of the County, media outletswho noticed focused on the implications for the South Park Bridge. And rightfully so: collapsing bridges are an important story.
Unfortunately, that overshadowed the very interesting point that when former County Executive Kurt Triplett sent a letter asking Mayors to indicate interest in negotiating to form a countywide TBD that could save some Metro bus service, there were zero positive responses and many negative ones.
Gov. Gregoire vetoed an attempt to give counties to authority to impose a vehicle license fee for transit, citing the existing TBD statute that allows a similar fee. Unfortunately, said statute requires consent of at least 60% of cities representing at least 75% of the population. Triplett’s letter was an attempt to gauge support to create a Metro-oriented TBD.
I spoke with Doug Hodson, who was Triplett’s transportation manager and now does government relations for King County DOT. Hodson that was the point of contact in Triplett’s letter. His correspondents were generally city public works managers, and the response was overwhelmingly negative. Of major cities that didn’t respond negatively, Hodson only recalled Federal Way (non-committal, but positive) and Kirkland (no response). More after the jump.
Looks like Mayor McGinn is willing to compromise on his May special-election vote for replacing the waterfront Seawall.
It’s looking more and more like the decision to avoid the council was a rookie mistake. Of course, it could have been some kind of brilliant rope-a-dope designed to get them to focus on the date, not the wisdom of the election itself. But I’ll go with the Occam’s Razor explanation here. It was probably an oversight.
One of the minor, pleasant surprises of light rail is what a great amusement ride it is for small children. I’ve used it extensively for that purpose, and I can tell you that most little kids can easily become totally obsessed with the line and its stops.
One problem is that there isn’t a ton to do for kids within little-feet walking distance in many station areas. That’s certainly true when the weather is poor. Fortunately, Delicious Baby has a two-part series (1,2) to lay out lots of outing ideas for each station.
The only item I’d add at Seatac is going up to the top floor of the parking garage to watch the planes take off. If you’re OK with taking a connecting bus (or walking a longer distance) that widens the options to some pretty great parks in the Rainier Valley (Jefferson, Seward, and Kubota Garden).
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn yesterday seemed to confirm rumors that he’ll be running a ballot measure for in-city light rail expansion this November, a year earlier than McGinn’s deadline of 2011.
The possibility of a rail vote this year is the worst-kept secret around town. The Stranger quoted McGinn saying he’d like to have a vote this year and Publicola’s reporters have for weeks hinted that McGinn would be moving on a ballot measure sooner than expected, culminating with a recent report on McGinn’s strong opening statement as a member of the Sound Transit board.
His office wouldn’t answer directly when asked if the mayor planned to put a measure on the ballot this November. “During the campaign, he committed to put a plan before voters within two years,” said Aaron Pickus, a spokesperson for the mayor, “and during his inaugural address, the mayor affirmed that commitment.” But some actions can speak more clearly than [a spokesperson’s] words.
Yesterday, Publicola and The Stranger both reported that McGinn spent money from his own pocket to poll a potential measure for November.
This November, voters will decide a tax measure to fund light rail, pedestrian, and bicycle infrastructure. The measure authorizes up to two point one billion dollars in taxes over thirty-five years. If the election were today, would you vote yes to approve, or no to reject this tax measure?
66% Yes
21% No
13% Undecided
$2.1 billion is a lot of money for light rail and other green transportation improvements. (Central Link cost $2.6 billion in year-of-expenditure dollars to build.) We’d like to hear more specifics, though, including what role Sound Transit would play in building and operating light rail.
It now seems more likely than not that 2010 will have another vote for light rail expansion. A vote later this year would come just two years after the region — and Seattle overwhelmingly — voted to build Sound Transit 2 which extended light rail north to Lynnwood, south to Federal Way, and east to Redmond.
We’re back! Sorry for going dark for the last 48 hours. I’ve been migrating the blog software from Drupal to WordPress, mostly in an effort to cut down on comment spam and make it easier to post links and images.
In an ideal world, I would have warned everyone in advance that I was going to do this, but well… it was a rainy Sunday in Seattle and I was bored and I just figured… why not go for it?
Anyway, the site’s back. I’ve migrated over 1,100 posts, 1,500 comments, and 600 users. Your old login/password should work, which you’ll need to post comments. If not, you can go here and retrieve it.
I’m sure there will be some hiccups along the way, so by all means comment here or drop me a line (or AT orphanroad DOT com), and I’ll try to figure out what’s going on.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be cleaning up odds and ends and maybe making some layout tweaks. Normal blogging should resume shortly.
#7, I-5, Seattle
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 256
Worst bottleneck: Southbound, 45th St/Exit 169
Length of worst bottleneck: 1.46 mi
Weekly hours of congestion on worst bottleneck: 34
Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 21.3 mph
The expert opinion: “We have one major problem in downtown Seattle, and that is physical restraints,” says Paul Tosch, traffic reporter for KOMO 1000. “We only have so much room to put more freeway through downtown Seattle because we have water to one side and all the downtown buildings to the other. And I mean we don’t have room for one more lane.”
While most discussions about what transit can do for the environment almost always revolve around climate change, transit is part of a larger set of tools that are critical to save the Puget Sound. Frontline has a great documentary that looks at the environmental challenges that both the Chesapeake Bay and the Puget Sound are facing.
For the Puget Sound one of the most significant threats is surface runoff caused by impervious surfaces. Limiting sprawl and creating dense, and thus more transit dependent communities is one part of the solution. Reducing runoff through Low-Impact Development (LID) is another. I’m no expert and I know just enough to be dangerous so I’ll leave it there but certainly check out the documentary. Its very informative, both about what causes polluted waters as well as government regulations, or lake there of.
Drawing of proposed street configuration at Broadway & Harrison by Daniel Goddard
At a public meeting last Thursday, the Capitol Hill Community Council released their preferred alignment for the Captiol Hill section of the First Hill Streetcar. Unlike other proposals which would split the route between Broadway and either 11th or 12th Ave., the community council recommended keeping both directions on Broadway north of Union. The proposal, outlined in a memo sent to SDOT and the Mayor’s Office, also includes a separated bike path, and encourages an extension of the line north to Aloha St:
After broad outreach and discussion, the Capitol Hill Community Council has come to three key recommendations for the northern segment of the First Hill streetcar:
Plan to extend to Aloha St. The Aloha extension has been a consistent priority for Capitol Hill ever since the streetcar was first proposed. Even though funding for Aloha St is not yet secured, the extension should be fully designed and brought to a point of being “shovel ready” as part of this project, and the rest of the line should be designed in such a way as to maximize the feasibility of extending to Aloha.
Keep the streetcar on Broadway north of Union St. This keeps the energy and focus on the retail corridor and makes the system simpler and easier to understand, a key factor in attracting new riders. The Cal Anderson Park loop raises safety and running time concerns and interferes with the community’s plans for the redevelopment of Sound Transit’s light rail station properties, particularly the plan to move the Farmer’s Market to Denny Way and Nagle Place.
Reclaim the Street. Make the streetcar a catalyst for reclaiming the use of the right of way on Broadway. Specifically, consider eliminating the center turning lane on Broadway except at the major intersections and repurposing this space for bicycle and pedestrian use.
Also at the meeting, Ethan Melone from SDOT presented the different alignments currently being considered by the city. Although a two-way broadway option is being considered (in addition to various couplets), the current proposal from the city has the streetcar terminating on Denny between Broadway and 10th, which raised concerns from members of the community who are hoping to permanently close this section of the street (currently closed for the next six years for U-Link construction) and turn it into a pedestrian plaza as well as a permanent home for the Broadway Farmers Market. Concerns were also raised that this would preclude an extension north to Aloha.
The Seattle City Council will make a final decision regarding the alignment in April, and construction is scheduled to start in fall of 2011.
[UPDATE 12:25 PM: Tony Russo from the Capitol Hill Community Council sent in an updated version of the memo PDF linked above, containing “minor (mostly cosmetic) edits”. The link above now points to the latest version of the document.]
Although King County Metro has found short-term fixes to their ongoing shortfall, come 2012 they’re still going to have to either find significant new revenue or cut service.
With that in mind, in a proposal from Larry Phillips and Jane Hague, the county council plans to put together a transit task force (.doc) to make policy recommendations that could change the high-level design of Metro. These would not only include particulars such as how Metro grows or shrinks with available revenue, but goes as far as how they weight land use, environmental and social justice, and efficiency when determining where and how to provide transit, and even what Metro’s role in our transportation system should be.
I think this sounds like the kind of overhaul Metro needs. This year’s discussion of service cuts seems like it was just a window into a larger problem. As we’ve seen, Metro has routes that serve a few dozen people a day, and routes that serve eight thousand. Is it really Metro’s place to provide minimal service everywhere to the detriment of really usable core routes? How can we make Metro’s operations help serve our long term land use goals, but keep serving transit dependent communities? How can we stabilize Metro’s revenue so we don’t keep having to argue over it?
This task force could answer these questions. It will consist of a broad group of stakeholders – elected officials, representatives of social services, transit agencies, environmental, business, and educational groups, and others. Their timeline starts in February, with policy recommendations ready for implementation in September.
