Month: July 2013

• Seatac Airport plans a big new international arrivals hall.
• Real Change on the low income fare.
• Metro multilingual information has some translation errors.
• More bike storage on Amtrak Cascades.
• Capitol Hill Seattle asks mayoral candidates insightful questions about urbanism.
• Asking homeowners to help prevent mudslides on the tracks.
• Summary of the Lynnwood Link EIS.
• Mercer Island Station comments are obsessed with parking.
• A systematic way to evaluate TOD.
• TriMet thinks ORCA is too primitive for their next smart card.
• 60% of Portland’s new households have less than one car per adult, similar to Boston and well ahead of Seattle’s 38%. 25% of all Seattle households are “low-car.”
• A look at Oregon’s planning regime. ($)
• Just how empty are all those legally required parking spaces?
• Why mega-projects over-run.
• Buying transit tickets by phone set to take off.
• Seattle not the only city to be getting a new bikeshare program.
• Tinkering with transit maps.
• The dumb protectionist rule that killed Las Vegas-Los Angeles HSR.

This is an open thread.

Lynnwood is revitalizing its city center, hoping to establish a true downtown anchored by the future Lynnwood Link Station.  Commuters might become Lynnwood city center customers, while expansion of apartments offers homes for those who want to live near the station. The Link station will sit just to the southwest of the red Priority 2 area (see below), but Lynnwood is pushing for improvements to existing street plans and transit access sooner rather than later.

The Priority 1 blue circle contains darker dots indicating a primary focus on improving transportation in that street grid at those particular spots, though the color key is confusing.

There are four primary road and amenity projects in downtown:

Continue reading “Lynnwood City Center Project”

By now, it’s pretty clear that there are only four legitimate contenders vying to move on to the general election for the mayoral race. While we’re generally familiar with a lot of their broad-brush positions on transit, attitudes on more specific issues, like Metro funding, have remained somewhat of a mystery. Luckily, Thanh Tan at the Seattle Times has compiled a nice table which summarizes how the candidates stack up against each other on addressing the Metro deficit.

The answers are all strung together from minute-long responses in a KCTS debate (11:46-20:45), so I’d be hesitant to assess any of the candidates solely on the basis of their responses here. Although most of them are rhetorically supportive of transit anyway, what matters are the positions that set a candidate apart from the standard pro-transit boilerplate answers.

Interestingly enough, McGinn and Steinbrueck were probably the most unified in their remarks. Both shared similar attitudes on the necessity of new revenue and the impact of transit cuts. They were also equally vague about the specifics on new revenue, though Steinbrueck seemed much more willing to directly blame the Legislature for Metro’s woes.

Murray, unsurprisingly, was quick to deflect blame away from Olympia and seemed much more optimistic about a near-term solution for Metro. Given the hardline stance from Senate Republicans toward transit, I’m sure Murray knows what’s realistic and what’s not, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he were simply using his optimism as a campaign tactic.

Bruce Harrell veered away from the Metro shortfall completely and instead spent his time talking about the failed 2011 Prop. 1 measure. The $60 VLF wouldn’t have purchased any service hours for Metro anyway, so I’m unsure what Harrell was hoping to accomplish with his tangent. Nonetheless, any non-mention of Metro’s shortfall could be an ominous indication as to where his priorities would lie as mayor.

At the end of June, paper ticketbooks were no longer sold in King County. Metro is innovating in its approach to handling payments, slowly moving forward with a plan to implement cashless fares. The conceptual transit plan from March 2012 and an April 2012 plan to widen ORCA access both address cashless fares, with “The ultimate goal is to reduce or eliminate even off-board cash transactions…”

Metro’s Low Income Fare Options Advisory Committee is also moving forward, according to an excellent summary of their recommendations by Brent White.

The conceptual transit plan summarizes rider habits and backgrounds with data from a 2010 survey in order to provide some background: Accordingly, the plan lays out an agenda of marketing, promotion, and increased access to alternate forms of payment. Incentives include differing fare structures, waiving of fees for cashless payments, free transfers for cashless payment, expansion of ORCA vending locations to retail, and more. The plan also considers the socioeconomic diversity of the population Metro serves, with community partnerships and discount programs targeting specific areas.

Continue reading “Metro’s Cashless Plan”

The Seattle Transit Riders Union held a WtF, Olympia? rally last Saturday afternoon. Elected officials who spoke included County Executive Dow Constantine, Mayor Mike McGinn, State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D – 36th District – northwest Seattle), and State Representative Gael Tarleton (D – 36th District).

Mayor McGinn described how a coalition of mayors presented a united front for transit funding, including Mayor Skip Priest (R – Federal Way). However, when the mayor talked with a Senate Republican leader, who he did not name, he was told, “We want Seattle to starve until we get what we want.”

Sen. Kohl-Welles said the votes were there in the Senate to pass the transportation package (House Bill 1954), but that leadership would not allow it to come up for a vote. In a telling sign that transit advocates did not have a presence in Olympia, the senator said “I wish you were down here with us.” She offered that “There is hope the governor will call a special session.”

City Council Candidate Kshama Sawant also spoke. She called for an income tax on millionaires to help fund transit and other human services.

Speakers from a few other organizations expressed their solidarity with TRU. A few TRU members told their stories. A couple dozen gold-t-shirt-clad members worked the crowd, collecting testimonials on how people would be affected by cuts to Metro bus service. Some of those testimonials were read before being dropped into a cardboard bus that is slated to be delivered to Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom (D – Medina). Each mention of Sen. Tom’s name elicited booes from the crowd.

Among the decorations were several cardboard tombstones, including one stating “No cuts”. Others listed Seattle bus routes on the chopping block, including the 19, the 27, and the 7 Express.

The Sound Transit Board of Directors met this Thursday afternoon and took action on several big items. Video is available here. Supporting materials are available here.

Northgate Tunneling Contract

The highlight of the meeting was the approval of a $440 million contract for the tunneling from University of Washington Station to Northgate Station.

Before the meeting, there was some doubt that the Board would act on the contract, due to a protest from losing bidder Traylor/Frontier-Kemper.  That all ended when ST CEO Joni Earl announced that she had received a letter from TFK the previous day that they would not pursue a rebid.

Despite TFK clearing the path, there was still protest from a couple truckers who had some harsh things to say about ST’s record on minority subcontracting.  Elton Mason, owner of Washington State Trucking, complained that the winning bidder, JCM Northlink LLC, had used questionable and decertified subcontractors in its bid.  Elton said he sent a letter to ST a week ago with his concerns, and has now filed a complaint with the Federal Transit Administration.

Eli Mason, Vice President of the Minority Contractors Association, echoed the concerns about decertified contractors.

Though it wasn’t mentioned by name, Grady Excavating, a prodigious recipient of contracts under the state’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program, was kicked out of the minority-contracting program over a year ago.

When the item for the contract approval came up, staff went through how the subcontracting process was working for Northgate Link.  In particular, no actual minority percentage goals have been set on the overall project, as agency rules required that the disparity study from University Link be completed first.  That study is due to the Board in a few months.  Minority contracting goals are then set for each contract, but can vary from contract to contract.  Federal regulations call for an overall minority subcontracting goal for the project.

More after the jump.

Continue reading “ST Board Approves Northgate Link Tunneling Contract & Other Items”

As promised last month, here is the July 2013 Economic and Revenue Forecast from the Office of Economic and Financial Analysis.  I am NOT an economist but it appears the news is quite good.  2013, 14, 15, and 16 Transit Sales Tax estimates have been revised upwards.  If I have done my math correctly that comes out to about $7.9m additional revenues in 2014, $6.0m in 2015 and $7.6m in 2016 (I don’t know how to estimate this year’s additional income).  Certainly not enough to cover Metro’s $60m a year shortfall, but it does mean there is the potential for a little less bone cutting.  Assuming of course I did my math correctly.

I’ve attached my spreadsheet.  The numbers come from slide 28 (Transit Sales Tax Forecast) of the March Forecast and slide 29 (Transit Sales Tax Forecast) of the July Forecast.

Late last night word started spreading on Twitter that Pierce Transit was cancelling ALL of their planned 28% service cuts and most of the planned 84 layoffs.   It appears that so far this is NOT a mistimed April Fools prank; from the Tacoma News Tribune:

Pierce Transit said Wednesday it intends to cancel a 28-percent cut in service hours that had been planned for Sept. 29 and maintain current operations because of increased sales tax revenue.

The agency also said it intends to forego eliminating nearly all of the 84 positions that had been slated to be cut in the fall.

The turnabout is due to an 11-percent increase in sales tax revenue during the first four months of this year, said Chief Executive Officer Lynne Griffith.