Month: November 2012

One of the more underappreciated outcomes of the election is the vacancy in Attorney General-Elect Bob Ferguson’s old seat on the King County Council. Of all the various levels of government, the County Council is probably the most important legislature for determining how transit actually operates, as it exercises tight control over King County Metro and approves the Executive’s appointments to the Sound Transit Board.

To fill the vacancy, Executive Dow Constantine will soon nominate three candidates, and the Council will pick their next colleague from that list. To find out what we’re in for, and allow readers to tell their representatives what they think, STB asked all seven contenders simple questions about their views.

STB’s endorsement will come in a few days. If you live in District 1, you should let Executive Constantine know who you want to represent you. If you live in one of the other districts, tell your councilmember how they should vote in this process.

Briefly, the candidates are: Kenmore Mayor David Baker, real-estate attorney Rod Dembowski, Shoreline City Councilmember Will Hall, Shoreline State Rep. Cindy Ryu, former Futurewise attorney Keith Scully, low-income housing activist Sarajane Siegfriedt, and King County Deputy Ombudsman Chuck Sloane. Mr. Dembowski was the only one who either did not check his publicly available email or chose not to respond. [UPDATE: I now have responses for Dembowski, who was able to see his opponents’ responses before sending his.]

We’ve summarized all the responses in the chart below the jump; they are my characterizations . The names in the header row link to a pdf of their full replies.

Continue reading “King County Council District 1: The Candidates on Transit”

The blurb is enough to show the Times didn’t investigate this story at all:

“Bellevue City Council members are angry Sound Transit didn’t tell them it was considering building a large rail yard in the city last year”

Basically, anti-rail Bellevue City Council members Kevin Wallace and Jennifer Robertson have found a new way to oppose East Link. They claim that they had no idea that Sound Transit was considering maintenance facility locations in Bellevue! No idea at all!

Except that not only have these identical maintenance facility locations been in the final environmental impact statement for East Link for over a year, they were also in the draft environmental impact statement published in 2008 (see section 2, “alternatives considered”). They’ve even been displayed at Sound Transit open houses – including at least one physically in Bellevue City Hall. Furthermore, comments on maintenance facility options are included in correspondence dating as far back as 2009 between the City of Bellevue and Sound Transit on East Link options.

Given that I’ve personally spoken to more than one Bellevue City Council member about possibilities for a maintenance facility, and that it came up in the investigation of council member Kevin Wallace, it’s clearly a falsehood that they are in any way surprised about this part of the East Link project.

The Times says one thing to try to cover this ridiculous allegation:

“But Sound Transit officials told Bellevue in 2009 they had decided instead to locate a major rail yard south of Seattle and store a limited number of trains on the Eastside.”

In discussions I’ve had with Sound Transit staff, that option has never been a long term solution, and I don’t believe that a rail yard was ever cancelled, just delayed.

The supposed paper of record for our region shows significant bias in this piece, and fails to fact check Bellevue city council members, or accurately portray their knowledge of the largest infrastructure project in their city. I look forward to a correction from the Seattle Times.

Next Thursday, Bellevue will host an open house and scoping meeting on its newly-launched Downtown Livability initiative (.pdf), which is expected to address a range of topics, from building height limits to street-level pedestrian amenities.  While the City is still in the early stages of pre-scoping, there’s a fairly comprehensive list of analysis areas online (including street food, wahoo!).  The impetus behind the initiative is largely moving downtown Bellevue away from its current character as a monolithic office-oriented district to a more vibrant mixed-use neighborhood.

Design and planning wonks will appreciate what the open house will have to offer.  From the news release:

The open house will engage a wide range of stakeholders including property owners, design professionals, residents and the Downtown workforce. Participants can visit four display stations that will highlight enjoying downtown, downtown design features, mobility and a 3-D modeling of downtown.

Maps and visuals will examine many facets of downtown living which include public spaces, parks, building form and height, design guidelines, sign criteria, maintenance standards, the pedestrian corridor, and more. Staff will be available to take public input on the scope of the Downtown Livability Initiative. The public comment scoping period runs through December 31, 2012 and early public comment is encouraged.

While the initiative is separate from the Downtown Transportation Plan Update, both projects will be advanced in conjunction with one another, borrowing elements and work where appropriate.  Building mid-block crossings and through-block pedestrian connections, for example, will go hand in hand with the Livability Initiative’s design and wayfinding elements.  The project will also be complementary with ongoing Transit Master Plan work and East Link implementation.

The project reflects one of Bellevue’s most serious downtown planning efforts to-date, so ped/bike/transit and density supporters would do well to have a say in the process.  The open house and scoping meeting will be held at Bellevue City Hall Room 1E-108 next Thursday, November 29th, from 5 to 7pm.  Comments will also be accepted through email at downtownlivability@bellevuewa.gov.

• Metro asks riders to help speed up RapidRide.
• PubliCola rounds up last week’s zoning meetings, with more fireworks than usual.
• Pierce Transit measure seems to be dead.
• State rail planning workshops overflowing; new session Nov. 29th in Seattle. Please RSVP.
• Report from the Federal Way light rail open house.
• Mayor McGinn’s office considering ads around bus stops. Hallelujah.
• Super-early ridership numbers from Lakewood.
• Seawall draft environmental impact statement is out. Comment online or attend the Dec. 5th open house.
• Transportation Security Administration killing 242 people per month by creating incentives to use dangerous roads, as do all policies that devalue transit and high-speed rail.
• Kitsap Transit budget likely stable until 2015 and 2016, when things go badly.
• Special Sounder service tomorrow, but canceled on the North line due to mudslides.
• 300 more units coming to Capitol Hill.
• PubliCola demolishes the latest paleolithic op-ed in the Times.
• A meditation on Beacon Hill Station and runners.
• The cognitive dissonance of progressive density opponents.

This is an open thread.

Sound Transit recently released its 3rd Quarter ridership report, and it is good news all around for Link, including improved reliability, solid ridership growth, reduced operating costs, and reduced customer complaints.

Reliability: Comparison across years and across modes is a bit of a mess because each mode’s definition of reliability is different, and Central Link moved from a schedule-based reliability metric to a headway-based one this year. These metrics are defined every year in the budget.

ST Express defines “on-time” as no more than 10 minutes late. Sounder must be no more than 7 minutes late at the terminus. Central Link now defines on time as maintaining headways within three minutes of the expectation but the budget doesn’t specify a time standard.* In previous years, a train was defined as late in accordance with the internal Link schedule.

With all those warnings, here’s the chart:

Continue reading “ST 3Q 2012 Ridership Report”

While Metro won’t be making any changes in north-central Seattle with the opening of RapidRide E next September, the agency is proposing some minor changes to the bus network in Renton with the concurrent opening of RapidRide F. The F Line will replace Route 140, boosting peak headways to ten minutes, and extending frequent service into the evening and weekend; Metro is also seeking funding for an extension of the F Line to The Landing, an urban village development a couple of miles north from the 140’s eastern terminus at Renton Transit Center.

The are five routes near the 140 alignment which Metro proposes to modify or delete:

• Deleting Route 110. This seems to be a Sounder-Boeing commuter shuttle with very modest ridership numbers, which duplicates the 140 for much of its length, and is within a quarter to a third of a mile of the Landing extension for almost all the rest of its length.
• Deleting underperforming DART route 908, replacing most of its fixed route with minor changes to DART 909 and Route 105.
• Converting the little-used hourly Route 155 to a DART route.

These changes seem straightforward and sensible, and I hope Metro is able to come up with funding for the Landing extension, as it looks like a cheap and east way to boost ridership and mobility in that area. I particularly like how Metro staff have, for the 110, shown the number of boardings along segments of the route which don’t directly overlap the F Line. Getting real ridership data out to the public in an understandable form is essential for having intelligent public debates about spending transit money.

Metro is having two open houses on this subject, at the following times and locations:

Tuesday, Nov. 27
Renton Technical College
Room C-111
3000 NE Fourth Street
6-7:30 p.m.

Thursday, Nov. 29
Renton High School
400 S Second Street
6-7:30 p.m.

You can find more information, including maps and a survey, at the Have a Say website.

Finally, not a Metro proposal at all, but something which I think would be a huge mobility improvement for area: a concept I outlined on the blog a while ago, to restructure the 8 and 106. This would double the daytime frequency of the 106, and much better connect riders in Renton to their neighbors in Skyway and the Rainier Valley, at minimal cost to Metro.

Sound Transit has announced that a mudslide between Seattle and Everett has occurred and Sounder North service will be canceled until Wednesday evening at the earliest. Amtrak service will also be canceled.

Northline Sounder service between Seattle and Everett is canceled for the evening commute on Monday, 11/19 because of mudslides.  Sounder northline trains will not be available until the Wednesday, 11/21 evening commute due to the 48 hour moratorium for passenger train service.