Month: February 2013

Quite apart from the equity issues associated with treating car and transit modes equally, it’s worth pointing out that keeping the overall deduction level at $240 per month seems on its face like terrible public policy.

The vast majority of transit users are spending much less than that on their tickets and passes*, so most of the deduction isn’t of much utility. On the other hand, it’s probably not the worst thing in the world to turn a few long-haul drives into commuter rail trips.

Meanwhile, show me a place where employees pay $240 a month to park, and I’ll show you a place with severely constrained car capacity and robust transit alternatives.

Given the current federal fervor for austerity and closing tax “loopholes,” it seems like a broad-based reduction in this tax deduction would have positive impacts on congestion and transit use in the most ideal transit markets, while creating little grief at workplaces that are essentially unserviceable for transit. In an ideal world we’d let the transit subsidy be higher than the parking one, but cutting both is the next best thing.

* I tried to get more precise numbers from APTA, but no luck.

Bruce’s excellent post boils down the importance of frequency.  If there’s currently a long time between vehicles, cutting this time in half can shorten travel times even more than speeding up trips.  However, it’s important to consider how a city or county can go about increasing frequency.

Option 1: Provide more transit.  In theory this is easy.  Double the number of vehicles and drivers, and you cut wait times in half.  Of course in the real world we often live with fixed budgets, and adding buses and drivers simply isn’t an option.

Option 2: Condense service into corridors.  Instead of adding service, we can remove some routes and move buses to others.  This results with a set of frequent buses, but a further walk for some riders.

Option 3: Speed up service.  Although Bruce’s post contrasted speed with frequency, one can actually benefit the other.  If a single vehicle and driver can run a route twice in the time it used to take them to run it once, then you’ve doubled not only speed, but also frequency and vehicle capacity as a bonus.

As Seattle builds up a streetcar network, let’s not forget Option 3.  Giving streetcars their own right-of-way, giving them signal priority, and designing the street for quick boardings can speed them up tremendously.  And with this speed comes higher frequency at the same operating cost.

This is an open thread.

Last week, Metro presented a set of ideas for improving mobility in the Snoqualmie Valley area, ideas which could also save the agency a little money. You can read the slides here, but here’s the gist of it, for those of you who are already familiar with the existing network:

• Route 311 would be truncated at Woodinville. Riders from Duvall headed to Seattle would transfer at Redmond Transit Center from the 232 to the 545 or 542; to Woodinville, they could transfer to DART 931 (but let’s be serious here, they’re going to drive).
• Route 224 would be truncated at Duvall. Its frequency would increase to every 90 minutes, and it would deviate to serve Redmond Ridge. A DART-like service would take over coverage of the Valley, from Duvall to North Bend.
• Route 209 would shift east to serve Snoqualmie Ridge, rather than Fall City, except during peak periods, in the peak direction, when it would serve its current alignment. (At those times, Snoqualmie Ridge is served by the 215). Its frequency would increase to every 60 minutes.
• Route 215 would skip the Issaquah Transit Center, making for a faster trip into downtown.
• Metro is also seeking grant funding for a “Community Mobility Center” where local residents could sign up to reserve a car or bicycle for a certain time.

My only objection to this is that the peak-only route of the 209 should be renumbered (208 is available). Routes which share the same number, but go to different places, are an abomination which should be scoured from our transit system. If the bus you took to get to work (or wherever) won’t take you back home, your transit agency has failed you (and Metro is about to start failing a whole lot of Eastgate riders). With high-quality urban service, you shouldn’t have to memorize a schedule; with high-quality suburban or rural service, you’ll need the schedule, but you shouldn’t have to carry around a map. We should demand high quality in all Metro service.

Overall, the proposal seems to do a good job of moving service to where the people are, emphasizing connections at well-served suburban transit nodes, improving frequencies (such as they are) and providing alternative service types in places where fixed-route service is unworkable and pointless. By any measure, what happens in the Snoqualmie Valley isn’t going to make or break our transit system, but changes which improve mobility and save money are no-brainer optimizations that Metro should be seeking out, investigating and executing everywhere, relentlessly, as fast as humanly possible; and such opportunities are in essentially limitless supply with our current transit system.

I’m pleasantly surprised at the level of ambition demonstrated in the proposal. I hope it’s well received and implemented without much ado. You can email comments to Metro at haveasay@kingcounty.gov.

Yesterday Commute Seattle released initial results from their 2012 Center City Mode Split Survey, an update to a similar survey done in 2010.   There is some good stuff there, including their Press Release,  a two-page explanatory memo, and a one-page Summary. The full study will be released in a few weeks.

Here’s the good news:

Two-thirds (66%) of Downtown commuters are not driving alone, up from 65% in 2010

The drive-alone rate continued its steady decline in 2012, dropping to 34.2% in 2012, compared to 35.2% in 2010 and an estimated 50% in 2000.

Public transit (43%) remains the single most popular choice, up from 42% in 2010

Sound Transit set ridership records in 2012, and King County Metro approached its pre-recession record set in 2008. Though the bus is by far the largest transit mode  (35.7%), bus commuting as a share of all commute modes declined one-tenth of one percent (-.1%) due to the even faster growth of rail, walking, bicycling, vanpooling and teleworking.

Non-motorized modes now represent 13% of all commute trips

Walking (6.3%) bicycling (3.3%) and teleworking (3.0%) are growing rapidy, increasing by 11% since 2010 and by 80% since 2000.

However, there is still work to be done:

Net congestion is up, even as drive-alone rates decline

Though the drive-alone rate declined one percent (1%), an estimated 20,000 jobs have been added in Downtown since 2010.  In nominal terms, thousands of new cars are traveling into Downtown daily.

I look forward to the full release and digging through the data!

Some people like to talk and write about “greedy developers.” Greed is an attribute of people; there are definitely greedy real estate developers in Seattle. But there are also greedy bus drivers, greedy kindergarten teachers, and the greedy guy who makes 10 trips to the all you can eat sushi bar. Why one profession attracts greedy people and one does not is a sociological question, not an economic one. Consideration of how a piece of land becomes a financially viable project should dispel the notion that real estate development is a greed driven enterprise, or an easy way to exploit zoning and “laugh all the way to the bank.”

The business of real estate development is often characterized with a simple story of rich fat cats buying up land, building things on it, and then reaping massive profits by selling off what they build. However, like any business or organizational venture, real estate development is no sure thing. Business is like love; it’s about taking risks. One does not find Mr. or Ms. Right by sitting a home watching television; such a venture requires engagement and vulnerability.

Real estate development is about transmuting risk into profit; it requires taking a chance. The certainty levels of profit in real estate development are very low, and if they were higher there would be many more cranes than are on the horizon now. Projects that are coming out of the ground now came a long way, and it may have taken years of work and lots of money to get it done. Here’s a quick sketch of the factors affecting development.

Continue reading “A Fistful of Contingencies: Developers, Risk, and Profit”

• Crosscut on The Geeks Who Cracked the ORCA Card; What Your ORCA Card Never Forgets.
• Ballot measure to prevent I-90 tolls planned.
• Delridge closed at Trenton for paving this weekend; Route 120 detoured.
• Puget Sound Bike Share straps on its helmet and charges ahead.
• Bridging the Gap 2013 Goals, part one and part two.
• “Let some dirt get under your fingernails… I have come to love the iconography of Aurora Avenue.”
• Christchurch, New Zealand, shows us what Pioneer Square might look like after the next big quake.
• The Ray LaHood Exit Interview.
• SF Muni: All-door boarding increases bus speeds, reduces fare evasion.
• Has $29m gone missing from Tacoma Link?
• Earth to Clackamas County: You’ve already agreed to Portland-Milwaukie light rail.
• Advisory committee formed to explore low-income fare options.
• Wallyhood goes deep on the 45th St bus bulbs.
• Seattle blinks on International District parking rates.
• Seattle Public Schools considering City University building for new downtown school.
• Sightline comes out swinging against coal-terminal builder’s finances (Sightline’s report here).
• Bus on a Fiscal Cliff.
• Mayors across state call for gas tax hike for transportation.

This is an open thread.

As we announced a couple of weeks ago, the next Seattle Transit Blog meetup will begin at 4:43 PM on Friday, at 3rd Ave S & Main St. We’re going to ride the last trip of Route 42 to the Columbia City Ale House, to celebrate the benefits all Metro riders will collectively share from the reallocation of the resources required for this route to more effective use.

We will board the last outbound 42 from 3rd & Main, disembark at Rainier & Alaska, and proceed to the Columbia City Ale House for food and drinks. (Be a few minutes early, or check OneBusAway, in case the bus is ahead of schedule). The Ale House is 21+, but I’ll also be at Caffe Vita, just a block away, from about 4 PM, for those of you who can get away early and want to chat for a while. If you don’t work downtown or can’t get off work in time, you can join us at your convenience by using one of the many other vastly superior transit services (Link, 7, 8, 9X, 50) which can get you within walking distance of Columbia City.

For the folks left out by the 21+ age restriction at the Ale House, I feel your pain, and I’m truly sorry, but the budget for this meetup is $0, and it’s virtually impossible to find a free, fun, all-ages venue which can accommodate such a gathering.

See you guys there!

On Monday night, Bellevue hosted a hearing on its process for adopting a rail overlay district, a package of land use code amendments that would effectively streamline permitting and design standards for East Link. Timely adoption of the amendments is important, as it would provide certainty for Sound Transit to baseline the project at 60% design. If Bellevue were to gridlock the process now, the delay could be significant, in terms of both cost and the city’s political capital.

Unfortunately, East Link opponents haven’t let up. They turned out in droves on Monday night to bash the code amendments, some throwing in jabs at ST and councilmember Claudia Balducci, an East Link supporter. Ron Lewis, Deputy Executive Director of Link, braved the trip to Bellevue City Hall to speak in favor of the amendments, which helped add to what seemed at times like a tenuous chorus of support in the sea of negativity. You can watch a video of the hearing here.

Although relations between ST and Bellevue have improved since the East Link MOU was adopted in 2011, newly recharged opposition could easily distort public opinion to the detriment of the process. If you’re interested in adding support for the code amendments, the public hearing’s virtual comment period will end today at 10 AM. Comments can be emailed to the City’s legal planner, Catherine Drews or the Council itself.