Smart Growth Seattle’s Roger Valdez (who has written quite a bit here) is going to be on a housing panel tomorrow night:
What’s missing from Seattle’s discussion about housing is the idea that people should have more choices about where they want to live in our city. That’s what Smart Growth Seattle is all about: increasing the supply of choices for where people live.
Our discussion about housing should be about increasing choices, from small, affordable apartments all the way to what we typically consider houses. In the end, what people want is a place to call “home,” whether they rent or own. This matters to everyone. When people oppose new places for people to live, they’re making it harder for everyone to find a way to be happy.
They started last year, and plan to have their system running in 2015. They’ll have 13 stations, 8 miles of travel, and expect 250,000 passengers per day at opening with a full capacity of over a million passengers per day. It will be a privately funded system, paying for itself with farebox recovery. Because of poor power reliability in Nigeria they’ll build two redundant generators at each station that needs power. They’ll have cameras and intercoms in each of the 300 cabins. The total cost of the system will be $500M, and fares will be between $1.28 and $1.92 per trip.
I’m not proposing we build such a large system here, and such a system would certainly cost more in Seattle than Lagos. But surely a line or two connecting our subway system to areas of potential ridership couldn’t be that bad an idea.
In 2016, when the Alaskan Way Viaduct is closed and demolition begins, King County Metro will lose its primary conduit into downtown Seattle from West Seattle and southwest King County. While all post-Viaduct pathways will be significantly slower and less reliable, the agency has to figure out the best replacement according to some combination of speed, reliability, access to the city center, and ease of operation. After eliminating options deemed unworkable, the choice basically boiled down to variations on two themes: a waterfront pathway, following the surface Alaskan Way to Colman dock, then up the hill to 3rd Ave via some combination of Marion and Columbia; and a Pioneer Square pathway on some combination of Main and Washington.
As announced on the Metro Future Blog last week, the agency is proposing a two-way configuration on Columbia Street. Beyond the announcement, Metro has quite a bit of information up about the decision. There are some easily-digestible nuggets also on Metro Future about the pathways not chosen and likewise in this fact sheet, and a report which comprehensively analyses the four final alternatives. To get right to the bottom line, skip to PDF pages 67-69 for a tabular summary of the results. As far as I can tell, the report seems thorough and well written, with reasonable conclusions.
I’ve said my piece on this already, but for posterity: the two-way Main St pathway, pictured above, would have provided by far the best intermodal connectivity and access to the south end of downtown, and been almost immune from ferry traffic congestion, all for the ongoing cost of about a minute in travel time inbound, and three minutes outbound. The pathway would have been significantly more expensive to implement — Main Street completely rebuilt with wider sidewalks, custom paving and bus shelters — but it could have become a beautiful and functional gateway to one of the few truly urban places in Seattle, and provided year-round activation to the often-forlorn Occidental Mall. By contrast, Columbia is nothing more than a pipe for cars.
Unfortunately, the people with the most to gain from a Pioneer Square alignment fought the hardest against it, and when I discussed the alternatives with Metro staff some months ago, it was made clear that whatever the technical merits of this pathway, well-connected anti-bus NIMBYs had foreclosed that possibility; a Columbia pathway was almost a foregone conclusion. The question now is whether Seattle will give Metro the transit priority treatments needed to get buses reliably through the mess at Colman Dock.
Link over the Duwamish – Photo by Mike Bjork/Flickr
On Wednesday May 1st, starting at 9:30am (if possible sign in at 8:30 to ensure a spot) the Seattle City Council’s Government Performance and Finance Committee will be taking public testimony on the Mayor’s supplemental budget, including study money for a new Ship Canal Crossing and the University District to South Lake Union transit corridor from the Transit Master Plan.
Both of these projects are needed. We have the money, the Council just needs to follow through on its prior commitments and allow the Mayor to fund them. The more shovel ready projects we have, the better able we are to compete when federal dollars come available.
Come out Wednesday and publicly show your support for moving transit in this city forward. If you can’t attend in person, be sure to submit your comments via email before May 1st. The Government Performance and Finance Committee is made up of Tim Burgess (chair), Nick Licata, Sally Clark and Mike O’Brien but it’s a good idea to cc the rest of the Council as well.
Funky new shuttle proposed for the Snoqualmie Valley.
Tomorrow afternoon, the King County Transportation, Environment and Economy Committee (TEEC) will host a fairly important public hearing on a whole bunch of proposed Metro service changes for Fall of this year and a few upcoming ones next year. While this isn’t going to be the palooza that preceded the massive Fall 2012 shakeup, there are some fairly significant countywide service proposals on the docket, including implementation of the E and F Lines, I-90 revisions, and the Snoqualmie Valley alternative service delivery project– Bruce has covered just about all of these.
Here’s the rough breakdown of routes that the TEEC will take public comment on:
Delete the 211’s South Bellevue P&R deviation (wahoo!)
Delete the 215’s Issaquah TC deviation
Revise the 216 routing to serve Issaquah Highlands instead of North Issaquah
Spring 2014
Implement the E Line
Delete the 358
Summer 2014
Implement the F Line
Delete the 140
Delete the 110
The public hearing will be held tomorrow, April 30th from 4pm to 5pm at the King County Council Chambers. There will also be an open house preceding the hearing at 3:30pm, where you can get a detailed description of each proposed change. The TEEC will pass on its recommendations to the full county council, which is expected to vote on the changes in May.
On Monday, April 29th, from 5-7 PM at Q Cafe, the Seattle Department of Planning and Development will hold a community open house to obtain feedback on their proposal to rezone a portion of Interbay:
For the past six months, city planners have been studying possibilities for the future of Interbay. Metro has introduced Rapid Ride frequent transit, and new apartments and offices are under construction in the area. Newcomers, ranging from small craft distiller Sound Spirits to large retailer Petco, have joined long-standing businesses like GM Nameplate and Keller Supply to become part of the business community. And more change is likely.
Some background: the public process for this rezone has been underway for some time, and of the original three concepts — an urban village, an industrial area, and a “local production district” — the choice appears to have been winnowed to down to some variation on the third. You’re probably wondering what a local production district is, so here’s the blurb from the DPD concept:
Industrial lands develop in ways that support growing opportunities for locally-produced, customized, specialized, small lot production. […] Integrates retail and production uses. Small parcels accommodate independent businesses, and large parcel offers centralized management of campus-like environment.
What this translates to in policy is a rezone from Industrial General (IG), which is what most people would think of as industrial (e.g. much of SODO, the Ballard docks) to Industrial Commercial (IC). The best example of IC zoning that I know of is the area of Ballard just northwest of 15th & Leary, which hosts an eclectic and growing mix of microbreweries (which retail on-site), car mechanics, bike shops, bars and other businesses, all housed in a jumble of buildings of various vintage and quality. This is, I believe, what DPD is aiming for in the part of Interbay west of 15th Ave NW. One minor code change, to create a neighborhood retail area at Dravus & 14th, is also proposed.
Ship Canal Connector. Map from Our Interbay.
At this point, the urban village concept having been rejected, this rezone doesn’t seem to hold out the possibility of increasing housing availability in any meaningful way, rather it’s mostly about allowing more productive non-residential use of a swath of the city that’s well-served by transit, which seems like a good idea in as far as it goes.
One transportation investment in this area that strikes me as forehead-slappingly obvious, and would aid the success of the proposed local production district, is to connect the recently-built Ship Canal Trail to Thorndyke, via a short section of trail, on existing public right-of-way underneath the Emerson St ramp, as shown on the map at right. Today, the trail passes within a hundred yards of the proposed rezone area, but the only safe and sane way for a bicyclist to get into the area is by detouring more than a mile through Magnolia. Anything DPD could do to move this connection forward would be highly desirable.
The proposed changes seem unlikely to be controversial, but it’s always good to have pro-transit, pro-bike, pro-density comments so DPD’s public feedback isn’t all just whining about parking. If you can’t attend Monday’s meeting, take the online survey here. Finally, if you’re interested in Ballard zoning, a similar rezone process will begin in May for the 15th & Market area of Ballard, an area now dominated by very car-oriented development, so I’ll try to keep an eye out for that.
Yesterday the Sound Transit Board unanimously approved the Bellevue Council’s recommendation for cost savings, including numerous noise mitigation projects but a relatively poor site for the downtown station. I’ve said my piece on this subject, but here are some explanations from Board members with solid urbanist credentials:
Seattle Councilmember Richard Conlin: “Fundamentally it’s because this keeps the process moving without throwing it back into more confusion, and recognizes the good work that Claudia did in getting the $5 million for ped improvements, ensuring that ST will not be asked to pay for the HOV lane, and getting this to be required approval for the light rail line so that we do not have to fear further litigation or delay from Bellevue. Also, the ST ten minute walk statistics showed that the losses were minor for moving to the 6th avenue station and there was no measurable ridership loss.”
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn: “The design and cost savings were a compromise with Bellevue that moves the project forward.”
Bellevue Councilmember Claudia Balducci did not offer a comment in time for publication.
The Seattle Department of Transportation has proposed eliminating two small loading zones and a handful of parking spots in order to extend the very busy pair of bus zones in downtown Fremont to cover essentially their entire respective block faces, as shown on the map above. We’ve written at length before about the specific problems at these stops (along with some other transit problems on Leary between Fremont and Ballard) but the letter from Metro succinctly states the case:
The need for these revisions is driven by an increase in transit service and ridership in the area as well as interest in improving general traffic flow along the block. Since September 2012, transit service to these bus stops has increased from about 8 buses an hour to 15 buses per hour during the peak, greatly increasing the likelihood of concurrent bus arrivals at both northbound and southbound bus stops. Since two large buses can’t fully pull to the curb at either the northbound or southbound bus stops, buses often have to block a general purpose travel lane until the space is cleared. This causes delays to riders and to drivers that get stuck behind the waiting buses. Similarly, restricting parking along the block will allow buses to move through intersections without having to wait for vehicle queues from the traffic signal to clear.
Over 1000 riders use these bus stops each day; we believe these revisions will provide a great benefit to them as well as general purpose traffic.
If you’re someone who uses these stops and you want to comment on this proposed change, email your comment to Jonathan.Dong@seattle.gov by May 3rd. Absent supportive comments from riders, the public feedback might well just be grumbling about parking loss from adjacent businesses, so if this will benefit you, be sure to make your voice heard.
I talked on the phone to Car2Go CEO Nick Cole a couple of weeks ago, to follow up on our last interview, and relay some of your questions; apologies for the delay in getting this published. I did ask if car2go could share heat maps, or some other graphic of Seattle’s demand, but they declined. They did, however, point out a video from South By Southwest showing car2go usage in Austin one weekend, which while not official, is apparently accurate.
Bruce: Everyone seems to agree the car2go refueling process is terrible for users. Do you plan to make any changes to it?
Nick: Refueling is a necessary evil, of course. Unlike competitors, car2go only requests (not requires) that drivers refill the car below a certain fuel level, so most users will be able to avoid it if they wish. Essentially, we crowdsource refueling: for example, there are apps [e.g. free2go] which show users cars that are eligible for the refueling bonus; this is much cheaper for us than paying someone to go out and refill cars. The current bonus seems to provide an adequate incentive to keep the cars fueled, so there are no plans to change it.
One common request is for the option to buy down the insurance deductible; $1,000 is more liability than many people would like to carry. For example, ZipCar allows users to do this on a monthly or per-trip basis. Are you guys planning to offer this?
Yes, this is something we want to offer. We are talking to our insurance company now, and we hope to offer something by the end of the year.
Another is for the ability to drive in other countries, e.g. I’d like to be able to drive in Vancouver or London with my Seattle membership. Is this something you could offer?
Again, this is another thing we want to offer, and we’re working with our legal team to make it happen. car2go is a global company, and we want car2go to be globally seamless. Keep in mind, though, It’s quite a lot of work: we have to solve more than just the US-Canada problem, we also have to solve Germany-UK, Canada-France, Austria-US, etc.
