Month: April 2010

As Pierce Transit is considering deep service cuts, some cities have begun to rebel saying that if cuts are made then their taxes will be used to fund little or no local bus service. The Tacoma News Tribute reports that five cities are looking are leaving Piece Transit.

Representatives from Bonney Lake, Buckley, Orting, Steilacoom and DuPont met last week to discuss the possibility of “de-annexing” from Pierce Transit.

So far the group is just researching its options, officials said. But they agree their residents shouldn’t pay for service they don’t receive.

Tacoma Tomorrow has two excellent posts covering the issue in detail. First, Chris Karnes has a post covering the amount of revenue from the various cities that goes to Pierce Transit. The five suburbs raised about $3.1 million in 2009. The second post, by Evan Siroky, covers the effects of upcoming service cuts on the individual cities which certainly belies this action. All of the cities would have reduced service in the future, except Orting, which has no service at all right now.

According to the TNT article, the cities don’t yet know of a legal solution to actually leave Pierce Transit, so it’s likely this story is being floated to implore the agency to target its cuts toward other cities and carve out service for the suburbs in question. As we’ve noted in the past, Pierce Transit only levies a 0.6% sales tax, with the state maximum being 0.9%. Both Community Transit and King County Metro levy the full 0.9%, so Piece Transit has some capacity to raise additional revenue. However, even a plan from Pierce Transit assuming new funding would cut service for these suburbs.

One note: the cuts in local bus service could be a pain for these municipalities, but a county-wide bus system is primarily in existence to reduce congestion and increase mobility — on a limited budget — for a county as a whole, and local interests may sometimes conflict with that mission.

Some of you may have recently heard about the Seattle-Puget Sound area Partners in Preservation initiative, where 25 local landmarks will vie for grant money through your votes.  It just so happens that King Street Station is one of the finalists.  The station is currently undergoing a restoration with funds from the 2006 Bridging the Gap levy.  However, those of us familiar with the restoration work know that the apportioned funds are still not enough.

From the SDOT Blog:

King Street Station is fortunate to be a part of this year’s program, seeking funding for restoration of the grand staircase leading from the Jackson Street Plaza to the lower main waiting room of the station. This funding would restore the granite and marble stairs and brass decorative features.

Voting requires registration of a new profile; anyone can cast a vote once a day until May 12, 2010.  The winner will receive $1 million in preservation grants.  King Street Station is a vital civic component to the city that will be ever more important as we bring better and faster passenger rail to America.  Start voting now.

Yesterday, we covered a letter that the Seattle City Council sent to the state on SR 520 that included some reasonable recommendations, and echoed some of the arguments we’ve made recently. It points out that pontoons for light rail could be added later and aren’t an immediate concern, as I argued last week. It says that bus service is probably a more “flexible and effective form” of transit than light rail for this corridor, as Ben made the case. And the letter softly supported the concerns of McGinn’s report regarding a gap in the eastbound and westbound spans through the arboretum, which might be necessary to build light rail in the future; Martin would support that if the cost were right.

But the letter is clearly a rebuke of the Mayor’s light rail report and McGinn’s lobbying to delay construction of the bridge until a transit plan, including rail, is fully complete. McGinn hasn’t just failed to get his city’s council on board, though, he has also failed to convince many strong transit advocates of his case. Case in point: not a single blogger from this site is in agreement with the mayor, even though the phrase “seattle transit” is literally our name.

One can’t help but wonder what this use of political capital is getting McGinn (besides possibly a gap in the Foster bridge). Just as Mayor Nickels developed a reputation of not being able to work with the state and present a unified Seattle coalition, McGinn is falling into the same trap. On the other hand, McGinn has made the council’s position seem moderate and the state may be willing to cut them a better deal. And McGinn’s incredible and authentic zeal for transit is exactly what we need next year, when he plans present a ballot measure expanding rail in the city.

A word of caution for the town’s mayor, though: when you’re coming late to a battle, like the deep-bore tunnel and the 520 project, we can’t totally blame you for lacking a built-in constituency and nibbling at the edges of a project to destruct it. But for a rail plan that will be your own doing, it’d be smart to put the lie to the perception of “six-shooter McGinn” and get something solid in front of people, long before election day.

Sound Transit is asking visitors to their website to fill out a short two-minute survey. We’ve brainstormed ideas on improving ST’s website back in October. It wouldn’t hurt to fill out the survey and let them know what you want to see improved.

A couple of grad students are trying to help OneBusAway systematically collect ideas for further extensions and prioritize those changes. To that end, they’ve created a short survey not about OBA features themselves, but about how people would like to give feedback to OBA.

PubliCola reports on a letter (text here) the Seattle City Council sent to WSDOT about modifications to the west side of the 520 bridge. It’s worth going into in some detail, as a pretty good example of what can be achieved to improve transit without sending WSDOT back to the drawing board.

Crucially, the Council asserts that the proposed modifications fit within the $4.65 billion budget for the project and require no additional EIS, preventing delays. I’m not deeply concerned about avoiding delays for their own sake, but am eager to avoid pouring substantial additional resources into marginal transit improvements.

There are about a dozen transit-related recommendations, most of which are great; some are suboptimal but hardly terrible. More after the jump.

Continue reading “Council Issues 520 Recommendations”

The Seattle City Council is set to vote on a resolution that would endorse the idea of extending the First Hill streetcar north to Aloha. According to jseattle of Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, Ethan Malone said during a meeting of the Capitol Hill Community Council last evening that the draft language allowing the city to move forward with the streetcar project will allow Seattle’s Department of Transportation to attempt to secure funding for the extension.

An extension north to Aloha could boost ridership on the First Hill streetcar and Link light rail, supporters argue. The First Hill Streetcar that went before voters on the 2007 Roads & Transit measure terminated at Aloha, but the scaled back 2008 ST2 measure scaled back funding for the streetcar and put the responsibility for construction on SDOT, who promised it could build the line cheaper. The catch is that SDOT is also responsible for cost overruns.

People who have seen the city council’s draft resolution tell us that the city is not yet setting aside funding for a streetcar extension, but instead simply authorizing SDOT to search for funding. The department would be free to begin discussions with Sound Transit on a way to get help funding preliminary engineering for the extension. SDOT could also come back to the city council itself and ask for funding. As reported on Monday, funding that preliminary engineering would make the extension “shovel-ready” and open it up to federal funding, like so-called small starts or TIGER-like merit-based funding. Having the project shovel-ready could also allow for it to be included in Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn’s rail expansion measure he plans to bring before local voters next year.

More on the First Hill Streetcar extension after the jump…

Continue reading “City Council to Endorse First Hill Streetcar to Aloha”

If you live in Whatcom County or know someone who does, remind them to register to vote in the April 27th Whatcom Transit special election, which would allow a sales tax increase to avoid service cuts.

Monday, April 19th is the last day to register.  At this late date, registration can only be done in person at the Auditor’s office: 311 Grand Ave. , Suite 103, Bellingham, WA; Monday-Friday, 8:30 AM – 4:30 PM.