Month: March 2012

Considering how important peak oil is to our society and our future, I’m constantly amazed at how few people have heard of it, much less understand it.  I’m no expert on the subject, and most of the information in this piece comes from the Internet – I won’t even bother to reference much, you can get it all from Wikipedia.  But I thought a brief summary of the issues involved might raise the level of debate when the issue comes up.

What is peak oil?
Peak oil is simply the point at which petroleum production is at its historical and future maximum. It is not an end to oil production, only a point in time when the market changes dramatically. In fact, it’s roughly the point at which half of all oil that will ever be extracted has been extracted. The consumption of oil has increased almost continuously from the day a use for it was discovered, and at the point of peak oil this will have to change. Continue reading “The Peak Oil Post”

WSDOT has released some renderings of the 520 replacement bridge. Oddly, they all seem to show few or no cars on the bridge. I really want to know what you think, so please put your opinions in the comments.

Continue reading “520 Bridge Renderings”

by MIKE ORR

Sound Transit is deciding where to put light rail stations between Northgate and Lynnwood and held a series of open houses on the subject this month. Although many here were upset that ST chose I-5 rather than Aurora for the line, we need to make sure it’s the best I-5 line possible, and each station has different potential for serving people and improving mobility.

The current proposal at right shows six potential stations, two with wiggle room: 125th-130th, 145th-155th, 185th, Mountlake Terrace Transit Center, 220th SW, and Lynnwood Transit Center. Last year’s Alternatives Analysis had only 145th, 185th, Mountlake Terrace, and Lynnwood. The other two locations have been added based on citizen feedback. (Documents and maps are in the extensive North Corridor library.)

At March 17th open house in Edmonds, ST reps Roger Iwata and Matt Sheldon said that ST has no fixed number of stations in mind; it depends on whether all the stations are cost-effective. 130th and 145th are rather close for two stations but 125th and 185th are probably too far apart. This means a 125th or 130th station could push the 145th station north to 155th. The budget at this point is elastic enough to support all six stations if necessary, though further engineering may show otherwise. If the cost estimates indicate ST can’t afford all the worthwhile stations, it may have to defer one without abandoning it entirely.

Each King County station is 1/2 mile from either Aurora Ave N or 15th Ave NE (whichever is closer), and 3/4 mile from the other avenue. Here are some thoughts about each station, based on my walking and bus tour of the station areas: Continue reading “Link North Corridor Stations”

[List of Senators deleted upon request of Futurewise]

Over a week ago almost 100 organizations, including this one, signed a letter to Governor Gregoire urging her to sign the bill that given voters the option to preserve or restore the level of transit service in their communities.

Before that, though, the final (House) version of SB 6582 has to make it back through the Senate, which according to Futurewise is where it’s most at risk.

Let your Senator know what you think.

• Pitchforks come out at hearing on minor, sensible land use changes. I didn’t realize narrow storefronts, which are pro-pedestrian and pro-small-business, could actually be unpopular.
• Why OneBusAway makes mistakes.
• I-90 HOV lane project completes phase two of three; official opening today.  It improves bus flow and fills legal requirements to build light rail.
• New Northgate parking surprisingly unpopular.
• Dense project at Northgate would unfortunately destroy low-income housing.
• Big project in Columbia City.
• WTA considers reliability improvements, more service. Hearing tonight.
• Citizen input on the central waterfront sounds terrible.
• The big pot of federal rail money in Washington.
• Governor signs transportation budget, includes $9m for local transit agencies.
• GM trying to get the disinterested young to covet cars.
• Remember, the RFA open house is tonight.

This an open thread.

On Tuesday, I was correctly admonished for not providing data in an opinion piece where I criticized another opinion piece for not having data.  Sorry about that.  As penance, here’s some data about the neighborhoods that have recently increased paid parking hours from 6pm to 8pm.

SDOT published a very detailed report (34MB PDF) from two large parking surveys.  The first was performed in November 2010, before rates were increased.  The second was performed in June of 2011, after rates increased.  The report was intended to show the effect of this rate increase, but I’m more interested in the shape of the curves to see if charging for parking after 6pm could be beneficial.  Of course the real useful data, comparing parking rates and turnover before and after the longer parking hours were implemented isn’t available yet.

Let’s start with Capitol Hill, the area discussed in the original Times piece:

Continue reading “Parking is Hard to Find when Parking is Free”

Although it’s natural to get excited about any proposal to run grade-separated transit between Ballard and West Seattle, the monorail proposal Oran described this morning is not one worth supporting. First of all, the proposal is deeply flawed for all the reasons our commenters are slaughtering it. Supporting a plan that subsequently collapses merely reduces faith that this city can ever resolve its transportation problems.

Signing a petition isn’t even useful as “a statement” that people demand rapid transit in this corridor. By going for a ballot measure without really laying the groundwork, CenTran is working at cross purposes with the Seattle Subway organization, which in my opinion has a much, much more feasible approach to making something really good happen. Moreover, Seattle Subway actually understands what makes a transit system work, which is not a line with downtown parking garages, zero transfer points to Link, and PRT.

There is a very low signature threshold for this type of initiative – only 3600. Please don’t help bring about a vote that will end up giving transit a black eye, and sabotage carefully developed efforts to build a system of which we can be proud. I’m happy for there to be yet another movement that’s building enthusiasm for transit, but sending them to the ballot in August is premature and counterproductive.

This is the second of two posts on this subject; you can read the first one here. 

In the previous post, I discussed the difficult problem Sound Transit will face in providing the legally required compensation for lost parking on the Northgate Mall property during construction. In this post, I’ll discuss the two other issues in play.

Long Term Park & Ride Capacity Loss

As is well known by now, the North Link ROD stipulates 1:1 replacement of all P&R capacity permanently displaced, and this fact has dominated most of the previous coverage of this subject, including mine. In learning more, I’m increasingly convinced this is perhaps the least vexing of the problems that faces those of us who don’t want publicly-financed garages at Northgate. Let’s look at this in more detail.

First, the 1:1 stipulation does not require that the current total capacity of roughly 1,500 stalls be maintained indefinitely into the future, and even if the language of the ROD did not change, it could perhaps be skirted by simply reducing total P&R capacity independent of the North Link project.

More importantly, the ROD dates from 2006, before the 2008 ST2 ballot measure, so the ROD actually refers to the original “North Link” project that extended as far as Brooklyn Station and was subsequently extended to Northgate with the passage of ST2. There would be a compelling case to go back to the FTA and argue that circumstances have changed since the signing of the ROD, and that the language of the ROD no longer aligns with local policy as applied to the extended project. The biggest hurdle would be getting a majority of the ST board to agree, which isn’t a vote I’d care to wager on either way.

More after the jump. Continue reading “In Depth on Northgate Parking, Part 2”

[See update at the end of this post. –Ed.]

On the 50th anniversary of the Seattle Center Monorail, a new group called the Century Transportation Authority (CenTran) is making an attempt at building a Ballard to West Seattle monorail line by forming a city transportation authority and building on the work done by its predecessor Seattle Popular Monorail Authority (SPMA). According to a press release from the group’s founder, Elizabeth Campbell, published on the West Seattle Blog, 3,600 signatures are required to put the authority’s creation to a public vote in August 2012. CenTran does not yet have a financing plan but aims to create one that is “up-to-date” and “viable”. It is working with the city’s high capacity transit planning effort. It estimates the line will be in operation by December 2018.

CenTran is also seeking to fill positions on its board. Among current members of its interim board are Elizabeth Campbell, known for advocating a Viaduct rebuild and Paul Toliver, a former Metro Transit director and SPMA board member.

The proposed line will be fully grade separated, 16 miles long with 18 stations and cost $1.4 to $2 billion. The alignment resembles the cancelled Green Line with several key differences. The line would run along 24th Ave NW or 15th Ave NW from Crown Hill through central Ballard. Then it will cross the Ship Canal in a new transit/pedestrian drawbridge next to the Ballard Bridge. Instead of going through downtown on 2nd Avenue, the line will run along Alaskan Way on the waterfront. A personal rapid transit (PRT) system will provide circulation from waterfront monorail stations to downtown destinations. From the waterfront, it proceeds to 1st Ave S by the stadiums and over the Duwamish on the West Seattle Bridge, continuing on an alignment similar to the original Green Line to Morgan Junction, with an extension to High Point and Westwood Village.

Reactions on neighborhood blogs in West Seattle and Ballard were mixed, with some expressing support and some thinking of it as an early April Fools joke. CenTran must apply lessons learned from the failure of the original monorail project if it is going to succeed at its goals. I do not know whether this group will work with other community advocacy efforts to build more rail in Seattle like Seattle Subway and the Ballard Spur. [UPDATE: Seattle Subway’s Ben Schiendelman confirms that this group has not contacted his movement, which now includes the Ballard Spur group.]

Full disclosure: I turned down a request from Campbell to hire me to produce maps for an undisclosed project (which might not be related to the monorail proposal) in September 2011. I also volunteered my time to design Seattle Subway’s map.

Over the last year or so, we’ve covered the parking situation in the Northgate station area as it has evolved, consistently advocating against the use of scarce transit dollars to build parking in urban areas. Unfortunately, the situation is becoming more complex, not less, as time goes on and more details come to light, and in a pair of posts, I’m going to examine all the issues and possible solutions I’m aware of in depth. There are three distinct problems Sound Transit must address, and a handful of solutions, most of which involve ST building a parking garage and some (rather tenuous) ones which don’t.

First, let’s take a look at all 1,500 or so parking stalls currently provided, by public agencies, to transit users in the Northgate area. Below is a map of the area (from the recent Capital Committee presentation), showing the location and capacity of these lots, followed by a table summarizing all the information related to capacity and displacement, both at the height of construction and at the completion of the project; I’ll talk about the “private uses” section of the table later.

	Type	Sharing	Public P&R Capacity	Temporary Displacement	Permanent Displacement
WSDOT	Surface	Exclusive	139	139	0
Metro West Parcel	Surface	Exclusive	289	289	117
Metro East Parcel	Surface	Exclusive	464	0	0
Thornton Place	Garage	Shared	350	0	0
Northgate Mall Garage	Garage	Shared	280	0	0
Parking loss for private uses (not shown on map)
Northgate Mall	—			451	62
Strip Mall *	—			11	2

Continue reading “In-depth on Northgate Parking, Part 1”