Month: June 2011

To expand a bit on Andrew’s post yesterday, the three alternatives Community Transit is considering have basic philosophical differences:

• Alternative I preserves the current system, but running much less frequently.
• Alternative II restores Sunday service, at the price of even deeper frequency cuts to the existing network.
• The third alternative is the most interesting one: no Sunday service, but a total restructure of the route network to emphasize a few frequent corridors. Commuters into Seattle would generally have to transfer into a dramatically reduced number of Seattle-bound routes from new peak-only feeders.

The third option invokes a lot of the themes I like to emphasize: more direct routes, focus on key corridors, and a more gridded system. My first instinct to endorse Alternative III wholeheartedly. However, the key to a network that forces transfers is that the component routes have to be frequent. As far as I can tell, nothing but Swift will ever run more often that every 30 minutes, which I don’t think is frequent enough for this kind of thing.

If budget relief is on the horizon, then Alternative III is the best baseline from which to grow a better system, one based on the excellent long-range plan they published earlier this year. But if CT is going to be stuck in a rut of providing basic service for a while, then the answer is not clear to me.

The Puget Sound Regional Council is looking for public comment on projects for $9.7 million in Federal Transit dollars for 2012. The complete list of projects is here, and the current plan includes spending half of the money on I-90 LRT (every penny counts at this point). If you’re unfamiliar with the PSRC and its role in transportation funding, I wrote a fairly detailed post on the subject here a couple of years ago. Submit your comment by June 23rd.

How to comment:

Mail: Puget Sound Regional Council
ATTN: Kelly McGourty
1011 Western Avenue, Suite 500
Seattle, Washington 98104-1035
E-mail: tipcomment@psrc.org
In Person: June 9 at 9:30 a.m. or June 23 at 10 a.m. at PSRC

These beautiful bus shelters in Cleveland have won an American Instutite of Architects Small Project Award. More information here, here and video with the designer here. Thanks to Mike Fisher for the tip.

Last week STB and a host of advocates sent a letter to the Mayor, City Council and DPD urging them to take a larger leadership role in the Roosevelt rezone process. We believe DPD needs to conduct a more encompassing planning process that includes much higher heights and densities around the station area. As we reported earlier the proposed rezone is woefully inadequate.

Please join us by adding your name to the the letter below.

The Hon. Michael McGinn

Mayor

City of Seattle

600 4^th Avenue, 7^th Floor

Seattle, WA 98124-4749

Re: DPD’s Proposed Roosevelt Rezone

Dear Mayor McGinn:

We urge you to take a leadership role regarding DPD’s currently-proposed rezone in Roosevelt.  As you know, several individuals and groups have written to comment on the proposed rezone, which will constrain development capacity within close proximity to the future Roosevelt Sound Transit Station.

The creation of transit-oriented communities supports the significant public investment in transit that will occur in Roosevelt as a result of the new station.  Transit investments are most effective when combined with opportunities for more people to live, shop and work near the stations.  The Planning Commission’s recent Transit Communities Report identified several communities, including Roosevelt, as areas in which more housing and infrastructure should occur to take advantage of the investment in transit.  Futurewise’s Blueprint report made similar recommendations related to the Roosevelt neighborhood.

The current zoning plan as proposed by DPD constrains development in the station area, a 5-10 minute walk, to primarily single family housing, with only 2-3 blocks of additional NC-65 zoning in the neighborhood core. The core, areas currently zoned for NC3-65, have no proposed increases in density. Other proposed changes are primarily minor single level “step ups” to transition from the slightly larger core to surrounding single family housing (Ex. LR1 to LR2), or character changes (Ex. LR to NC).

All together the current plan will only result in an increase in housing capacity of only 350 units. A majority of this increase is immediately adjacent to I-5, where Sound Transit originally proposed to build the station.

The Roosevelt community successfully lobbied Sound Transit to move the station closer to the heart of the Roosevelt neighborhood in order to create a vibrant neighborhood center.  DPD’s plan does not properly increase capacity in the correct locations to take advantage of the great work accomplished by the Roosevelt community in moving the station, and the plan fails to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage the creation of a transit community in Roosevelt.

We believe that in order to fully take advantage of the transit investment in the Roosevelt neighborhood, and the work accomplished by the Roosevelt community members in moving the station, DPD must undertake a full station area planning effort complete with an Urban Design Framework Plan, similar to the planning efforts in South Seattle, South Lake Union, West Seattle, and other transit-oriented locations.  Such a planning effort must include much higher heights and densities than currently exist in the DPD plan, which will ensure the appropriate level of development in close proximity to the public’s $300 million investment in the Roosevelt Light Rail station.

Signatories below the jump. Continue reading “Petition: Roosevelt Rezone”

In their  board meeting last week, Community Transit presented 2012 system change alternatives. Due to revenue cuts, Community Transit will be cutting service another 20% next year (they cut 15% last year). You can see the alternatives, read about the detailed impacts, and learn how to provide input here.

I don’t live in Snohomish County, but the alternatives are fairly interesting – if bleak – to investigate. All three alternatives shorten the service day by two hours, reduce Swift frequencies and eliminate routes, but that’s just the baseline. Alternatives I and III do not restore service on Sundays and Alternative II includes massive frequency reductions.

As an aside, we’ve already seen Pierce County’s Pierce Transit moving forward with its deeper cuts, and this is a depressing preview of what’s to come for King County’s Metro. There is a way for Metro to get some additional funding (via $20 car license fee) to stave off some of the cuts that will come down, but it will require a County Council vote and then likely a ballot measure. If you live in Bob Ferguson’s district, make sure to email him and let him know you want him to vote yes.

A London bus driver experiences the life of a bus driver in Manila. And I thought Bangkok’s traffic, buses and life of the poor was tough, Manila’s is tougher. This is more than just driving buses. This is plain survival.

Metro has released the results of their trolley environmental and life-cycle evaluation study, recommending that new trolley buses are purchased. The report concludes that:

• It is more cost-effective to replace the existing fleet with electric trolley buses based on reasonable federal fixed guideway funding scenarios.
• The electric trolley bus generates significantly lower GHG emissions and has a lower total annual energy consumption. Seattle City Light generates 98 percent of Seattle’s electricity from non-GHG emittingsources (hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and biomass).
• The environmental comparison favors the electric trolley bus regarding traffic, noise, air quality/climate change, energy, and environmental justice.

The primary component of the study is the life-cycle cost comparison, which includes cost of the buses, fuel or electricity, bus and overhead maintenance, removal of the trolley overhead system, and construction of new fueling facilities at Atlantic base. This section also included a sensitivity analysis which is helpful when projected costs or income are likely subject to unpredictable variation.

The report unequivocally shows the GHG benefit of the trolley system, which emits 21 times less CO2e (equivalent units) than a diesel system, due to the fact that Seattle City Light gets 98% of its energy from non-GHG emitting sources.

Another interesting section, especially for those of you that have been following, is the section on the auxiliary power units (APU). The study looked at both battery and diesel based APUs, comparing their costs, performance, and impact on operations. The report goes on to recommend a lithium ion battery system that can propel buses 1-mile or more. A system like this would reduce 75% of diesel replacement requests and be more redundant in the case of unplanned interruptions of power or reroutes.