Starting in January the planning process for the Transit Master Plan will start in earnest. The past few months have been used to create a work plan, create an advisory board (which Martin is on), and other scoping type work. Below is the draft scope of work from the enabling resolution 31238, as passed by the council. The meat of the project is in Task 3 and Task 4.
The West Seattle to Ballard corridor will certainly be a major focus on the study, and it should be. However, I think it is important everyone doesn’t forget the rest of the transit network. Seattle is in an interesting position. Because of Metro’s budget woes simply saying that corridors need more service is somewhat of a moot point. Rather, capital projects that improve the efficiency, speed, reliability and integration of service, especially if it is within the city’s purview will in the short term will be very valuable.
For example, it would be great to see minimum thresholds for speed and reliability for routes. The larger the gap between the performance threshold and actual performance, the more aggressive the solution should be. A structure like this is critical because it counteracts the natural tendency of bus projects to be watered down, which we are already seeing. A high level topic that I’m interested in is the restructuring of service due to North Link, and the inevitable re-orientation of service from a downtown centric system to a more gridded and transfer based system. As Link expands north and east the “gravity” of the system will grow to the point that reorientation of the bus system will be obvious.
Scope of work after the jump.
SEATTLE TRANSIT MASTER PLAN
DRAFT SUMMARY OF CONSULTANT SCOPE OF WORK
July 26, 2010
Task 1.0 Project Management and Internal Review
Working with the SDOT project manager, the consultant shall regularly report the status of the project budget, work effort progress, and schedule. Reports shall be straightforward, easy to read and understand, logically organized and structured to provide the relevant and important information, and include early identification of challenging issues and their effective resolution. The consultant shall work with the SDOT project manager to respond to input from the policy and technical reviewers (i.e., city and agency inter-departmental team) as well as the public advisory committee (i.e., Transit Master Plan Advisory Committee) assembled to help guide the project to completion. All work products should be produced to facilitate development of the Transit Master Plan as a web-based document.
Deliverables: project scope and work plan, progress reports, schedule and budget updates, camera-ready copies of color maps and exhibits, production of presentation materials
City Responsibilities: assemble policy/technical teams and public advisory committee, schedule meetings, prepare meeting summaries, collect and summarize all written and verbal comments from project teams
Task 2.0 Analyze Existing and Future Conditions: Transit in Seattle Today and Into the Future
The consultant will produce a high-level snapshot of the state of the Seattle transit environment report (included in Briefing Book). The purpose of the report will be to describe the current and future conditions of Seattle’s transit system, identifying both positive elements as well as areas of concern (gap analysis). The report will identify core policy and performance principles; examine national and international best practices with special emphasis on the user perspective and suggest strategies for Seattle; identify accomplishments of the 2005 Seattle Transit Plan; summarize governance and funding issues; and provide a foundation for the items that the Transit Master Plan will address.
Deliverables: State of the Seattle Transit Environment report
City Responsibilities: aerial photos, demographic and land use data, travel demand modeling data, roadway network, traffic volumes, and levels of service (where possible)
Task 3.0 Conduct Modal and Corridor Analysis
The consultant will develop evaluation criteria (including in-depth market assessment) and related methods and apply these criteria to define high priority service improvements and assign the most appropriate and environmentally sustainable transit mode by corridor and alignment. Included in this work will be the following analyses: 1) an assessment of roadway, signal system and other rights-of-way improvements that could be made to improve existing service levels; 2) evaluation of higher capacity and/or more sustainable transit modes such as bus rapid transit (BRT), streetcar, light rail, and electric trolley; and 3) identification of potential fiscal, operational and policy constraints associated with particular modal assignments.
Potential future transit modes will be compared to existing or planned service types (for example, in the Ballard to West Seattle corridors, a comparison of Rapid Ride with other BRT typologies and rail alternatives). Where appropriate, a phased approach to final modal choice will be indicated. Also anticipated as part of this analysis is a definition and establishment of up to three levels of hierarchy within the existing network of high ridership corridors based on both transportation and land use characteristics.
Deliverables: mode definition and application technical report, literature review of previous corridor studies to determine the range of ridership potential and capacity requirements for corridors, evaluation criteria and methodology, modal and corridor assignment maps and descriptions for each of the high ridership corridors, corridor and alignment options maps/graphics, conceptual cost estimates
City Responsibilities: ongoing review of products
Task 4.0 Develop 2030 Transit System Plan
The consultant will explicitly define and describe the elements of a 2030 integrated transit system plan focusing upon the high ridership transit network and system infrastructure and service expansion. The system plan will incorporate the analysis from Task 3 and include technologies, vehicle characteristics, new lines of service, electric trolley expansion, capital projects, and operational and roadway design/engineering improvements.
This task will identify ways to improve the current transit system to be more efficient, effective, and customer friendly. The consultant will identify ways to address the challenges of changing travel patterns, increasing costs, and operational and physical constraints that affect on-time performance. The breadth of this task will be defined with the consultant but may include the following activities: updating transit routes and service levels as needed to match current travel patterns; developing project sheets for routes; identifying specific actions to improve non- motorized access to stops and stations, including transit nodes and transfer points, and improve streetscape and urban design; and prioritizing investments for a variety of funding scenarios.
Deliverables: prioritization methodology, project lists, project sheets (including conceptual design and cost estimates), draft and final plans
City Responsibilities: ongoing review of products
Task 5.0 Identify Implementation Strategy
Develop a clear implementation plan for policy and programmatic actions to support the growth and environmental sustainability of transit service in Seattle. The implementation strategy will assign roles and responsibilities and will include a range of funding scenarios and performance goals (e.g., transit vehicle GHG reductions).
Deliverables: implementation strategy (in draft and final plans)
City Responsibilities: ongoing review of products
Task 6.0 Public Outreach and Engagement
Implement a comprehensive public engagement strategy that will result in meaningful input on transit in Seattle from a range of stakeholders including residents, businesses, major institutions, agencies, policy makers, transit agency employees, and others. Special attention will be required to enlist the participation of “under-represented” communities such as immigrants and non-native English speakers. The consultant must present analytical methods and technical findings in ways that can be clearly understood by the general public.
Deliverables: public outreach strategy, outreach and presentation materials, participation in public meetings, meeting summaries, summary of all written and verbal comments
City Responsibilities: FAQs, mailing lists, advertising, meeting locations and logistics, translation and interpretation services, website development and maintenance
Thanks for posting this.
Three minor observations:
(1) The city opted to make use of consultants, rather than have city staff handle this completely in-house, which will make the fiscal attack dogs foam at the mouth about the cost of consultants. These will probably be the same fiscal attack dogs who last week were complaining about the high cost of government employees and their pensions. Kudos to the city for this cost-saving measure. ;)
(2) Transit riders are not listed among the “stakeholders” to whom the city will do outreach. Outreach to transit users is cheap and should not be neglected. All it takes is some signage on top of signage. Indeed, notifying users is the best way to get political support for the reforms that get proposed.
(3) Portraying this process as planning transit through 2030 seems like a case of over-promising. Certainly, the plan will need more updating as technology gives us opportunities (e.g. the rise of smart cards, electronic tolling, signalization priority innovations) and as Link’s routing gets fleshed out. The quickest way to kill this process is to portray it as setting the city’s transit system in stone for the next 20 years.
I have to agree on the stakeholders, though of course many riders are covered by “residents.” It’s also too bad that the public input doesn’t occur until Task 6.0! Riders have a lot of knowledge that could help experts with modal analysis for example.
Where do you see a schedule of tasks? They do not have to complete the tasks in numerical order. I would think, at the very lease, Task 6 would be done concurrently to Task 4 and 5. It could also be a part of Task 2.
I’m not implying a schedule, I mean stakeholder input could improve aspects of other tasks as well.
For a mere $2000, the city could buy ads on a dozen Metro buses publicizing the TMP process and inviting input.
@Kaleci A schedule is in the link to the resolution. The tasks are necessarily is sequential order. For example Task 6 will be concurrent with all of the other tasks.
Your local tax dollars at work… along with a picture of small children standing at a bus stop and smiling as they board a bus? ;-)
The City better hurry up and lock in that ad buy. Executive Constantine just admitted to the press that Metro is charging way too little for the ad space … now that he doesn’t have to buy any campaign ads for another three and a half years. ;)
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The city should be be thinking in terms of transit survival, in addition to transit improvements. Buckle up. The ride of your life is just beginning.
[Many off-topic responses deleted below]
It’s kind of odd that most “Tasks” are spelled out with quite a bit of detail, but “Task 5.0 Identify Implementation Strategy” has a rather sketchy and vague outline of what is to be produced. The reality is that we already have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done–the problem is that we have no idea how to move from planning to implementation.
I hate to be nit-picky, but the phrase is “moot point,” not “mute point.”
You must not hate it too much. ;)
Thanks.
This plan also needs to address how to integrate into the city’s master plan for Bike/Walk corridors. If done well, a multi-modal transit system which uses these other two modes will help us all move around the city.
Looks kind of shallow, and seems to restate the same things over again, akin to a mantra.
Task 5 is guess is left purposely vague and is barely even noticeable.
Why the “special attention” for some groups? I don’t get that part.
I like the idea of getting some routes efficiency to be better. Others are hopeless.
It is just the draft and should be clarify with the consultant as the project moves forward. By using generalizations like this the city keeps the scope of work more open than if it narrowly defined, putting them in a better place with relation to what the consultant can be expected to do.
Thanks for the thoughtful post. One quibble: please don’t assume that all of the most effective actions to improve transit are on the capital side. Both the city and county ought to consider operating improvements as well.
Seattle operates the streets, which are transit rights of way, so the city has in some ways a bigger impact on transit reliability than Metro does. Where transit priority signal treatments are in place, they need to make sure they work. Where they’re not, basic things like updating signal plans, adding detection and connecting signals together can make a big difference in whether transit keeps moving.
Metro could do a lot more as well on the operating side. A small investment in service control staff dedicated to maintaining headways and doing triage on reliability problems could go a long way to improving service on the road today. I know it’s hard to add more supervisors when service is on the chopping block, but it should be evaluated alongside capital improvements because in many cases it will be a more effective investment.
Great points. I certainly didn’t mean to say that operation type improvements aren’t important. The ones you point out are great examples.
Seattle doesn’t run many of the most important bus corridors, like I-5 and the Lake Washington bridges. (I don’t know how much control Seattle has over Lake City Way and parts of 99.)
20% of the rides in Metro (or more?) happen on the trolley routes. None of those use any of the corridors you mention. All of them happen on streets Seattle owns and operates.
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