Month: January 2011

• Metro will continue to allow bike loading downtown. Pedestrian safety enforcement is up.
• Mayor and Council appoint CTAC-III group to identify funding sources for a transportation package. It’s a good group. That package could come soon.
• SR 520 toll approved, off to the legislature, and possibly in place in the spring.
• SDOT got $87m from the feds last year.
• Please don’t spit on your driver.
• Pierce County cities fighting high-speed rail on safety grounds.
• Also in Pierce County: “I can’t believe so many people care about buses.”
• Slate on streetcars and monorails.
• Tim Burgess disputes Seattle Times account of relations with the Mayor, repeated here, and takes the grown-up road.
• Bellevue City Council asks for East Link delay. Light rail and the Bellevue City Council.
• Map of all Seattle stairways.
• Bike boulevard coming to Wallingford; Mountlake Terrace bike lane.
• A regional ferry district?
• Report on the most recent RapidRide C community meeting.
• Kirkland TC wrapping up next month.
• Loopholes in the Growth Management Act.
• Food trucks!
• Tunnel contracts signed, but is not “no going back final.”

This is an open thread.

The new design for the Montlake Triangle project was publicly presented at an open house hosted by Sound Transit and its project partners (UW, WSDOT, SDOT) on Wednesday. The project improves access for pedestrians and bicyclists to the University of Washington Link Station from the main UW campus, UW Medical Center, Burke-Gilman Trail, and area bus stops. It also improves the aesthetics of the area to create an inviting gateway to the university and enhance the Rainier Vista view corridor.

The new design essentially combines Sound Transit’s original plan with UW’s Rainier Vista Landbridge plan with modifications and additions. There will be a 30-foot wide pedestrian/bicycle bridge across Montlake Boulevard from the station house to the center of the Montlake Triangle, instead of a new signalized crosswalk. A landbridge connecting the Rainier Vista path to the Triangle will be created by lowering Pacific Place and the Burke-Gilman Trail, reducing traffic conflicts. A new plaza will be created inside the Triangle, framed by trees that will mostly obscure the busy intersection and street, while drawing eyes up towards the mountain. Another path leads from the plaza to a new crosswalk and bus stop on NE Pacific St opposite the Medical Center. The entire Triangle will be universally accessible with ramps and handrails.

Materials from the open house should be posted on Sound Transit’s UW Station project page by the weekend. You can find plenty of design documents from UW Capital Projects Office’s project page. Also, see more photos of the design model shown at the open house.

More details after the jump. Continue reading “Montlake Triangle Update”

[UPDATE: Cost estimate corrected.]

STB takes a strongly pro-streetcar stance, but personally I’ve never been all that excited about them. They have a lot of the same problems as buses, are more expensive, and I’ve preferred to invest my enthusiasm in truly rapid transit.

However, one of the things I’ve learned over the years is that every mode has its place, and the place for streetcars is short-haul, high-volume trips where the speed doesn’t matter that much and the capacity does. Some advance material from the Seattle Transit Master Plan advisory process has convinced me that the Seattle Streetcar Network deserves a lot more support than it’s getting. More after the jump. Continue reading “Streetcars and the Transit Master Plan”

Representatives from the Seattle Department of Transportation briefed the city council yesterday on early findings from work on city’s new Transit Master Plan. This is the first update to the plan in more than five years, and will likely in the end contain a recommendation for a major capital project such as an extension of light rail or the city’s streetcar network.

In the presentation, SDOT said it has asked reached out to citizens for information on their travel patterns and reviewed “the state of transit in Seattle.”

One strong conclusion is that 83% of transit trips internal to Seattle are not “work trips,” and are significantly less likely to head downtown. The city notes that urban-village-to-urban-village service is in general much weaker than urban village-to-downtown service. The image on the right represents demand for these trips. The city hopes to use the results from the Transit Master Plan to help Metro re-align city bus service.

PubliCola has a great summary of some information in the report:

– Queen Anne and Capitol Hill residents were the most likely in the city to use transit, with between 4,000 and 5,000 transit trips between those neighborhoods and downtown every day.

– Transit tended to be least reliable downtown (where buses are subject to frequent traffic jams) and in far-flung neighborhoods like White Center, South Park, and Bitter Lake (where service tends to be less frequent).

– The report also notes that Seattle’s transit system is oriented toward moving people to and from downtown at rush hour—”a fraction” of all trips in Seattle. Reorienting the system to serve more people outside downtown might be more efficient, the report suggests.

Capitol Hill Seattle blog has its own report with, of course, a neighborhood-focused perspective.

[Update @ 12am: train service all the way to the airport is restored.]

It’s snowing at a decently fast clip in Seattle, and all King County Metro and Pierce Transit buses are running on snow routes as of 9:30 pm. We haven’t heard terrible things about bus service around the area, so let’s hope everything passes smoothly.

[UPDATE: as of 11:11 pm, Sound Transit’s Twitter reports: “#STLink back to full service between downtown and airport.”]

Link light rail is experiencing more serious problems. According to Sound Transit’s Twitter, the car pictured above is somehow on the tracks near 144th & Macadam in Tukwila. As one can see from Google Maps’ satellite view of this area, these tracks are grade separated. Q13 reports that a car actually fell onto the tracks, just like a snowflake. KOMO reports that the driver escaped with minor injuries.

A rider alert isn’t available, but here’s what we know from twitter:

Link service is interrupted between Tukwila & Rainier Beach Stations. Link service is operating between Airport and Tukwila and Westlake and Rainier Beach. (tweet)

And later:

Bus bridge in place. (tweet)

The forecast is that rain will return to wash it all away by morning. I’d check your alerts before heading out.

Pierce Transit is holding a series of Open Houses, beginning tomorrow, to explain the Feb. 8th ballot measure asking for more sales tax. Staff will answer questions.

• Gig Harbor/Key Peninsula
  Wednesday, January 12, 5 – 7:00pm
  Gig Harbor Civic Center
  3510 Grandview St, on Routes 100, 102
• Sumner/E. Pierce County
  Tuesday, January 18, 4 – 6:00pm
  Sumner City Hall – Council Chambers
  1104 Maple St, on Routes 408, 409
• Lakewood/University Place
  Wednesday, January 19, 4 – 6:00pm
  Pierce Transit Training Center
  3720 – 96th St SW, on Routes 48, 300
• Tacoma
  Monday, January 24, 4 – 6:00pm
  The Evergreen State College (Commons Area)
  1210 – 6th Ave, on Routes 1, 16, 26, 28
• Tacoma
  Tuesday, January 25, 4 – 6:00pm
  Tacoma Goodwill Industries
  Milgard Work Opportunity Center
  714 S 27th St, on Routes 3, 26, 45, 48
• Puyallup/South Hill
  Wednesday, January 26, 4 – 6:00pm
  Puyallup Library (Board Room)
  324 S Meridian, on Route 402

You can also read the brochure.

A valid year-on-year measurement, unlike for Link:

The end of the year data shows continued ridership growth on the South Lake Union Streetcar.  There were over half a million riders in 2010, a 15 percent increase over 2009, and 25 percent greater than ridership in 2008, the first full year of operation.   The gains were driven largely by increased weekday trips.  Average weekday ridership was over 1,800,  peaking at over 2,200 in August 2010.  While seasonal peaks continue to be evident, employment growth in South Lake Union led to sustained ridership growth.  In fact, the month with the highest increase over 2009 was November with an increase of 128 percent.

For a fun but totally unfair comparison, at 1.3 miles it’s exactly 12 times shorter than Central Link (15.6 mi). The streetcar would have 21,600 daily weekday boardings for 15.6 mi at that rate of boardings per mile. Full 2010 Central Link ridership is not yet available, but is likely to be not too far from there.

If you’re looking to bail out from work today to beat the snow, Sounder’s giving you a new option:

In anticipation of adverse weather, two extra Sounder trains will operate Tuesday afternoon in addition to regularly scheduled Sounder trains. An early train will depart King Street Station southbound for Tacoma at 2:30 p.m. Another train will depart Tacoma Dome Station northbound for Seattle’s King Street Station at 3:50 p.m.

Another year, another light rail ride without pants. STB reader “Atomic Taco” has posted pictures of Sunday’s event to our Flickr pool and uploaded a fun video to YouTube:

Also note that our site logo, up top, is still in the pantless mood.

We almost missed this, but West Seattle Blog reports that Metro is meeting with three community groups about RapidRide C.:

The meeting starts at 6:30 pm Tuesday at the Senior Center of West Seattle (California/Oregon).

I couldn’t guess if there will be more struggles over taking parking to give RapidRide right of way. The meetings are open to the public.