Month: March 2011

Are you interested in how Seattle can build livable, walkable, transit accessible communities? The Seattle Planning Commission released their Seattle Transit Communities report (PDF) in November outlining tools and strategies for doing that. This Thursday at City Hall we have the opportunity to hear from three planning commissioners about what investments should be our highest priorities – like complete streets, transit stop improvements, mobile food, and more – and how we might fund them. While we’re in between major transit packages, these recommendations are the best things we can fight for to make the city more livable, so it’s important to be well versed in what our options are and what kind of benefits they bring. Take your lunch and bring along a coworker!

Seattle Transit Communities: Charting Our Path Forward
WHEN: March 10, 2011, 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm
WHERE: Bertha Knight Landes Room, City Hall

PubliCola reports, adds interesting details:

The bill has been substantially modified from its original version, which would have allowed King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties to pass a $30 license fee by a majority vote of their county councils. The bill that passed today pared the charge down to $20, excludes Pierce and Snohomish Counties, and requires a supermajority two-thirds vote of the King County Council, or a vote of the people, to pass the fee. (That last amendment was tacked on by Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-35), who ultimately voted for the bill.)

Aside from several rural legislators with unhelpful modifications and comments about a bill that only affects King County, interesting developments include Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Medina, Kirkland, Redmond, Crossroads) voting against the bill, and Transportation Chair Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-Camano Island) sounding very positive about it. As a matter of speculation, the latter might be because a short-term bill like this one doesn’t interfere with her rumored plan to bind roads and transit together into a ballot measure next year. Sen. Tom did not respond to a request for comment.

The bill still has to pass the House. I figured earlier that the $20 tab fee would just about avert Metro cuts for the next two years.

The supermajority requirement means that the Council would need at least one Republican vote (likely Jane Hague), but it could still pass with Seattle and inner suburban districts only. A strict party line vote means it would go to the ballot, incurring additional delay and expense. This might also affect the horse trading around Metro’s proposed policy guidelines.

Update 3:37pm – Streetcar up and running again.

Update 12:17 – I just spoke to Linda Thielke at Metro. The streetcar was heading northbound on Westlake but for some reason the switch at 6th and Westlake malfunctioned, sending the streetcar onto the southbound tracks and causing the rear wheels to derail. A re-railing truck should be on the scene by 1 PM.

Publicola is reporting that the SLU Streetcar has jumped its tracks close to Westlake. We’ll post updates as they become available. I would expect delays or more likely suspension of streetcar service for the next few hours.

Last week Mayor McGinn and Councilmembers Sally Bagshaw, Sally Clark, Jean Godden, and Mike O’Brien traveled down to Portland to learn more about Portland’s transit system. Below is an excerpt from the Mayor’s blog.

One thing that we immediately noticed is just how much passenger rail Portland now has. It seems like you can’t walk more than a block or two downtown without crossing streetcar or light rail tracks. The streetcar line and the Max light rail lines provide great coverage downtown and form the backbone for the east/west and north/south lines that connect downtown to the city’s neighborhoods and suburbs. Portland has been working on this system since the 1970s, and in that time they’ve shown how rail can revitalize a city. We’ve clearly got some catching up to do, especially as Portland is planning new rail lines.

A key to Portland’s success has been using public right of way for most of the rail lines. It significantly reduces construction costs by eliminating need to acquire expensive new right of way. They have integrated rail onto existing surface streets in a way that works for cars and buses while helping to improve the feel and pedestrian experience of the street.

It’s great to see city leadership spending the time to learn about transit. It would be interesting to know what the take away message for the council members were.

Seattle’s famous geographical and topographical constraints are commonly cited for our high transit mode share here.  For these very reasons, transit is often forced to consolidate and squeeze into major arterials  just to avoid water and hills.  The perk, of course, is frequent service along these arterials.  The floating bridges are a great example of this– 520 service between Evergreen Point and Montlake is quite fantastic dayround because of the sheer number of cross-lake routes that are squeezed onto the bridge.

From an operations standpoint, combined service can be problematic, for two reasons.  First, lots of service doesn’t always mean even service.  Transit schedulers like to plan trips using time points and pulses at major hubs, so faster drivers don’t go off schedule and riders can transfer to connecting routes.  Since schedules are primarily scheduled this way, buses can often bunch at the chokepoints where you do get combined service.

Second, the quality of combined service can be compromised if it’s not even branded as combined service.  Often, you’ll see passengers pass one bus by only to take another a few minutes later heading to the same destination.  More experienced riders are generally familiar enough with the system not to make such mistakes, but occasional and new riders tend to miss the mark.

Continue reading “Branding with Headsigns”

Interfering with Traffic from Jay Mallin on Vimeo.

by TIM BOND

Sound Transit held an open house for the S 200th Station on Wednesday evening. This was an opportunity for the public to explore the station features and alignment. Sound Transit had many staff members on hand with over 130 residents in attendance.

South 200th Station will be an elevated station connected to SeaTac/Airport Station by a 1.6 mile elevated guideway. The station will feature off-street parking, a kiss and ride facility, bicycle amenities including racks and lockers, and a bus transfer area (currently the station area is only served by Metro’s RapidRide A Line—which stops a block away). The station itself would span over S 200th Street making it quite visible by those that pass by on International Boulevard.

The station and alignment are still under preliminary design. Sound Transit would like to accelerate construction and move the opening date from 2020 to 2016. The cost of accelerating construction is approximately $40 million (in addition to the estimated $300m for station and alignment construction). This is due to additional financing costs as well as operational costs for starting service four years early. Sound Transit applied for but was not awarded a TIGER II grant. So far, ST has secured or is recommended to receive $15m in grant funding:

• $7m of CMAQ funding for the right-of-way phase through grant competitions through the Puget Sound Regional Council.
• ST is recommended to receive a total of $8m (spread over 2 biennia) through the WSDOT Regional Mobility grant competition. The Regional Mobility grants are expected to be awarded by the WA legislature this spring.

There aren’t any open grants at the moment, but when there are, Sound Transit will be submitting applications. Sound Transit is also conducting value engineering to determine if costs of the project can be reduced. More after the jump.

Continue reading “S. 200th St. Workshop”

As the aftermath of the CNG Fuel Fire continues to play out, PT has decided to standardize their weekday schedule at a reduced level:

Beginning Monday, March 7th, Pierce Transit will operate on a modified Saturday Schedule with additional service. This means:

MONDAY – FRIDAY
Saturday level service for most PT Local Routes

Weekday service for Routes 26, 61, 113, 406, 407, 413, 444, 446, 495, 496, 497

It goes on to say that Routes 102, 490, 601, and 603A will also operate select trips on weekdays.

Intercity Transit will operate Weekday service…

SATURDAY & SUNDAY service will operate as normal.

SHUTTLE will operate regular Weekday and Weekend service.

It’s a good commonsense move to come up with a static plan, rather than improvise the service level each morning. For this afternoon’s commute, though, you’ll have to check the PT website.

And now for something completely different.  If you’re free tomorrow night from 5:30-7:30pm (or later for an afterparty), Hollow Earth Radio is sponsoring “Light Rail Dark Rail”, a series of live musical performances onboard Link.  Performances start at IDS at 5:30, with “concertgoers” catching a southbound train at 6:00.  Once at SeaTac, you’ll have a choice of northbound trains, “Light Rail” or “Dark Rail”, but you won’t know which you’ve chosen until it departs.  Expect eclectic local music, nervous security guards, and surely dumbfounded passengers wondering what hit them.

• Metro announces the response to Luna Park concerns about RapidRide C.
• With luck we’ll have our own report on the S. 200th St. workshop tomorrow.
• WTA is adding signal priority for buses.
• New hybrid and “clean diesel” buses for ST, increasing capacity.
• I don’t put much stock in these subjective magazine rankings but if Vancouver is ranked most livable city in the world 5 years in a row it probably at least means it’s very nice.
• Assembling Link cars in Mukilteo.
• Josh Feit reads my mind on the anti-tunnel initiative.
• South Park Bridge construction might start in May.
• Do you have “Stockholm Syndrome?”
• Freight train derails in Chambers Bay, spilling 50 gallons of lye onto the beach.  Come on, Pt. Defiance Bypass.
• Decline in driving threatens assumptions of some highway projects; cities tearing down freeways, even when there’s no seismic threat.
• Warren Buffett making a killing on his investment in BNSF. Good for him.

This is an open thread.