Angle Lake Extension Concrete Segment (Sound Transit)

This is an open thread.

106 Replies to “News Roundup: Advisory”

  1. Sitting on the CTA Blue line heading DT from the airport. Loud. Terrible ride quality. And a 40+ minute trip to DT. Really makes you appreciate Central link. Faster and better in all ways. Just need more coverage.

      1. It’s been a few years, but my memory is that while the CTA platform is better integrated into the airport itself, but the travel to get to the CTA platform from some of the terminals makes the trip to the airport link station look like a cakewalk by comparison. Even with the moving sidewalks in the terminals and tunnels it just seemed like a journey. And this is coming in on the big hub airlines, American or the former United.

        The great thing about SeaTac is it’s generally not too bad of a walk to the baggage claim to most terminals, thanks to the train between terminals.

      2. Guess you rarely come in via Concourse A.

        The walk from there to Link is about twice the distance of that from the furthest O’Hare gate to the central El station.

      5. And O’Hare’s trans-terminal climate controlled, well lighted and flag and art festooned tunnel has moving walkways to speed you to and fro.

      6. Zed,

        When anyone at Sound Transit (or in Seattle generally) demonstrates the slightest shred of interest in learning from mistakes so as not to repeat them, I will stop beating.

        But all I ever see is “Fuck up. Defend. Keep fucking up.”

      1. Yep–it’s $5 from O’Hare to anywhere else. That being said, I wouldn’t mind an airport surcharge for trips arriving/departing from the Airport station. Many, many cities do that (Johannesburg was something on the order of $10 or $15 extra!). And, yes, I use Airport Station quite frequently.

      2. Cities with surcharges also have a separate entrance from the airport and turnstyles, so that they can surcharge airline passengers but not neighborhood residents and bus transferees. JFK has a separate entrance from the AirTrain and turnstyles. SFO is in the middle of nowhere so there are no local riders, and it also has turnstyles (er, the BART equivalent). SeaTac is a shared, open station, and I don’t see how you could enforce an airline-passenger surcharge when anyone can buy a ticket from any machine and tap any reader and the system can’t tell the difference. Unless you surcharge the single-use tickets but not e-purses and passes. On the other hand, that could be an incentive to get an ORCA card right there. “Get a card or you’ll have to pay $5 ANYWAY!!!! (diabolical laugh) bwahahahaha!” (diabolical laugh)

      3. Mike, I suspect you’re being somewhat sarcastic with that last bit, but honestly it makes a lot of sense. The more ORCA cards we have the better!

    3. It should be a cautionary tale. Central Link is better because it’s newer. If we defer as much maintenance as Chicago did we’ll have the same crises. I mean, we do have the same crisis when it comes to road maintenance…

    1. I’m not fond of the total lack of geographic cues on map 2… in particular, the Charles is enough of an obstackle that it rellay needs to be acknowledged. I rather like both 1 and 3. I thinkl I prefer the design aesthetic of the latter, but the information density of the former.

    2. I like #2 best, and when I showed them to a non transit-addict friend he did too. It gives a better indication of frequency by showing multiple lines together where branches overlap. So, for instance, if all the green likes have a normal subway frequency of 5, 10, or even 20 minutes, I can see that common stations have four times the frequency. The same for the red lines. In #1, I can’t even tell whether the green lines have a common segment or where it is. #3, 5 and 6 look too thin and spidery, while #4 looks too cute and garish.

      1. There are a few really good ideas in #2: the utility of certain bus connections is better represented than I’ve ever seen it, and I’m glad that it hints at the proximity of Copley to Back Bay station and of Beaconsfield/Reservoir to the C Line (though a nearly-adjacent B Line stop is ignored).

        On the other hand, the center square is problematically large in depicting four transfer points all within 1250 feet of each other, the designer’s method of depicting the commuter rail network is deeply miguided (North Kingtown, Rhode Island is placed an inch from Braintree), and the visually heavy trunk-segment-as-four-parallel-stripes template has gone out of style for good reason.

        Oran is fond of #1, which is really just a tweaked version of the map they have today. I see some improvements in it, but there are just as many giant leaps backward (see: Cleveland Circle/Reservoir, the harbor shoreline, and the Silver Lines).

        My personal favorite is #5, which integrates a geographically-accurate downtown representation into a larger mostly-but-not-entirely-schematic map with shocking success and visual appeal. It needs a few tweaks as well, but it got by far my strongest endorsement in the poll.

      2. I bet they go with #1 or #3 – they seem the most like the next generation of the current map. I do like the map at the center of #5 – it would seem particularly useful for tourists who can get completely turned around in Downtown Boston.

        The only odd thing about #1 is it makes it look like the Blue Line is taking a 90 degree turn at State St.

      3. What’s wrong with four parallel stripes? It’s similar to showing more frequent service with thicker lines rather than having all lines the same size.

        I know nothing about Boston’s geography or what’s at which station, so I can’t comment on which ones are geographically accurate.

      4. Map 2 showing parallel stripes of the commuter rail lines is unnecessary clutter, while doing the same for the frequent Green Line branches is not. Also, the commuter rail lines should be knocked down in the hierarchy while the key bus lines promoted to greater prominence. Visually, Map 2 looks too heavy and cramped to me.

      5. Oran,

        I can’t even begin to express how much better I think #5 is than any T map that’s existed in my lifetime. You’ve had very little to say about it, and I’m curious why.

        It needs some line rearrangements, both to demonstrate the proximity of Copley/Back Bay, Brookline Village/Riverway, and the three connecting stops at Cleveland Circle, and to create space for the future Somerville extensions. It also needs to show the Blue Line/airport shuttle. But these seem like minor corrections to me.

      6. d.p.,
        The tweet was pretty much a kneejerk reaction to the announcement of the finalists. I’m not a fan of the contest rules for reasons another map designer has written about. . That aside, later in the day when I had a chance view them on a larger screen, I’ve actually posted a few comments on Facebook about it. Design-wise I do like #5. It’s pretty much a London bus spider map but for rapid transit. I didn’t know that the T map was known as the spider map, a term I equate more with the London maps. If MBTA selects this one it’ll finally bring the two together!

        The same comments about walkable station pairs (outside downtown) I had with the other submissions apply to this one too. Because this is a diagram, proximity alone isn’t enough. Make it explicit. Draw a line connecting those stations and add a walking person or something like that.

        It has a few nice touches like the ‘T’ created from line color blocks in the legend and defining what “frequent service” means.

        I think what makes this map really nice to look at is the good distribution of white space throughout the map and the use of hierarchy in the lines and text. The extended station names look a bit awkward and inconsistent to me. If it’s part of the station name like Kendall/MIT or Hynes Conv Ctr, it should not be knocked down in size. Tufts Med Ctr should be bold all the way, especially when Green Line is extended to Tufts University. Also, if Harvard has a “Harvard Univ” subtitle, why not a “Fenway Park” under Kenmore?

      7. I agree with you that what is most impressive about #5 is the overall layout: the pleasing proportions and visual breathing room, built into a map that provides a more true-to-life sense of scale than most spider maps (without going overboard on geographic accuracy).

        The designer makes more questionable choices at the fine-detail level. In addition to the arbitrary bolding/non-bolding within station names, I can’t actually figure out the bus-frequency hierarchy. The dotted-line “5-7 minutes between station things”, in addition to being weird, is plain old inaccurate: even at the worst of peak signal-system overload, Fenway to Kenmore takes 2.5 at most.

        But such details can be fine-tuned with ease, and revised until perfected if necessary. Better to get that overarching design right the first time. And to my eye, the overarching design of #5 is leaps and bounds over submissions that are mere tweaks on the long-in-the-tooth schematic that has existed my entire life.

        In a few neglected T stops, you are liable to find a map whose base predates the 1987 relocation of the Orange Line. The Southwest Corridor routing will appear as a pock-marked sticker on top of the original; the truncated E Line will be another sticker over that. And the result will look almost identical to the present-day map, minus the frequent bus routes. For the sake of both branding and clarify, an total overhaul is due. The minor-tweaks submissions are disappointing.

        Regarding out-of-system transfers: Making these explicit gets a bit complicated because, unlike the free train-to-bus transfers available with any CharlieCard, these cannot be made without an unlimited pass. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of T trips are taken with an unlimited pass (monthly or weekly), and the percentage is likely even higher for the sort of “advanced” trip that might involve an out-of-system connection.

        I think the current T map gets this right, at least at Cleveland Circle: the three lines bend together and nearly touch in a manner that unmistakably communicates their proximity. Strangely, no map has ever attempted a similar visual cue at Brookline Village/Riverway. I think the Green/Orange proximity at Copley/Back Bay should be made explicit, as an increase in west-to-south and Green-to-Commuter-Rail transfers here would do wonders to reduce peak crowding on downtown trains.

    1. Ouch. Those are really terrible reroutes on the 16 and 66, especially northbound, where reliability at night will likely disappear. Not sure they are worth the effort compared to just sending the buses up and down 3rd.

      The stop on northbound 1st nearside Seneca will also be a safety nightmare. They should take it out, and let people use either the stop on 1st farside Marion or the stop on Seneca farside 2nd.

      As for the 99… the less said the better.

      4. Well the good news is I get a 66 stop across the street from work. The bad news is I’m likely to be moving soon so this will only be a benefit for a limited time.

      5. Maybe putting a bus back on 1st will remind people why 1st is a profoundly stupid location for surface transit of any sort.

  4. Face of US poverty: These days, more poor live in suburbs than in cities

    Yet transit is not keeping up!

    For the poor, living in the suburbs can pose special challenges – challenges that social services officials say the poor are often unprepared for. Perhaps the greatest difficulty is transportation. Suburbs are built for cars, yet a car is beyond the means of many poor and low-income residents. Instead they catch rides with friends, ride bikes, or use suburban bus lines with limited service. These challenges are more than an inconvenience; they make poverty that much harder to escape.

    “If you don’t have a car, it’s very hard to get a job or to keep a job,” says David Cassel, head of the United Way of DuPage/West Cook in the western Chicago suburbs. “It’s also hard to access services.”

    Victoria Wainwright struggles with these difficulties every day. She lives on modest federal disability payments – about $850 a month – and income from an occasional job as a housekeeper. She can’t afford her own place, so she shares an apartment with two other women on a busy street in Wheaton, one of Chicago’s western suburbs. She has no car, so she was delighted recently when a friend gave her an old Schwinn. Otherwise, she walks, threading her way through back streets to her local grocery store because many of the main roads lack sidewalks.

    To pick up food at local pantries, which she depends on to make it from month to month, she asks friends for rides. She says the local buses often don’t run where she needs to go.

    “I used to go to the malls,” she says. “It’s a good opportunity to apply for jobs. But it’s hard to get there. It’s a lot of different buses. You make a lot of transfers. You spend a lot of time getting there.” Her two children live with their father in a neighboring suburb, but she is seldom able to go see them.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0911/Face-of-US-poverty-These-days-more-poor-live-in-suburbs-than-in-cities/(page)/2

    1. Yes, a somewhat predictable turn for America. Basically, our slums are now more like most of the slums in the world (it was only redlining that created inner city slums, or “ghettos”). All the more reason to build more housing in the city, where transit infrastructure is better (along with decent transit to the suburbs, as you mentioned). Of course, whether you are talking about the city or the suburb, transit is way more efficient when housing is more dense. Therefore, more apartments for the suburbs as well.

      1. As you say, we seem to be heading towards the path of Washington State as Sweden, when it comes to “poor” housing, meaning, from the outside it might be hard to tell the ghettos from the gated communities!

        You could have the best of both worlds if you focused transit in suburban density — like the apartment complex clusters, say, my area of Kent East Hill or the chains of them on 208th.

        So rather than the extremes of living in a 20 story high rise in downtown where a studio that costs $750,000, or trying to run a bus to every house on the Eastside, you’d say, hey, if you choose to live in these apartment complexes in the suburbs, the rent will be cheap, and we will have regular bus links to the majory transit arteries. If you choose to live in a home, then you’d better have the money to cover your own transit costs. If you are rich, then screw it, you can live in an apartment with a view of Elliot Bay and have your own helicopter.

        The notion of Suburban Density and having Chained Transit focus on it is my blueprint for this area.

      2. Meanwhile…

        Why America’s population density is falling

        In the US as a whole, population-weighted population density fell by 16 people per square mile between 2000 and 2010, while in metropolitan areas it fell by an enormous 405 people per square mile.

        What could be going on? The best answer, I think, comes from David Schleicher, a George Mason professor who’s an expert on the political economy of urban areas.

        …

        These rich and powerful have two important effects on urban density. Firstly, they decrease density just by moving to the city: they do that by dint of the fact that they live in larger homes with smaller families.

        http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/05/04/why-americas-population-density-is-falling/

      3. @JB: That’s absolutely correct. There’s a media narrative of an “urban renaissance” or something like that, but that’s only because wealthy, middle-aged people are overrepresented in the media. The statistics tell the story better than the media narrative.

      4. The real issue is what Krugman wrote in his second-last paragraph: “the average American was living in a somewhat less dense neighborhood in 2010 than in 2000, as population spread out within metropolitan areas.” In other words, the huge growth of the suburbs and exurbs in the 2000s real-estate binge, where land use grew exponentially more than the population did due to large lots and ultra-wide streets. In the city, consolidating apartments into larger units can really only happen in a few northeastern cities that have large apartment neighborhoods and lots of studios. It’s irrelevant to Pugetopolis,m because where has an apartment building been replaced by one with fewer units? The story in Seattle and Bellevue and the rest of the burbs is short buildings being replaced by tall buildings with more units. A few houses have been consolidated into McMansions but not that many, not enough to change the average.

      5. @Mike:

        That was my take too. A lot can probably be explained by the ongoing migration from dense northern cities to sparse southern cities.

        And here in the NW (and frankly in those parts of the NE that aren’t dying too) any de-densification of tenements has been pretty well offset by the conversion of light industrial properties into funky residences.

      6. Tenements in the northwest? Where? Would the run-down apartments on MLK count as tenements? What’s the difference between a tenement and a regular apartment?

      7. ten·e·ment [ ténnəmənt ]

        1.urban apartment building: a large residential building in a city, usually of three or more stories and with only basic amenities, where a large number of people live in self-contained rented apartments
        2.item of rented property: a piece of property, e.g. land or houses, held by one person but owned by another

        Synonyms: apartment building, apartment house, housing project, high-rise, apartment block, block of flats.

      1. They mention Tukwila in the article:

        In the Seattle area, for example, rising rents in the city have pushed low-income blacks into the southern suburbs, where they have joined waves of immigrants, local observers say. In Tukwila, Wash., poverty rose from 13 percent to 24 percent between 2000 and 2010 as the community attracted Bosnians, Somalis, Latinos, and blacks from urban neighborhoods.

        http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2013/0911/Face-of-US-poverty-These-days-more-poor-live-in-suburbs-than-in-cities

      2. But to answer your question, and in reference to falling density levels in urban centers, the principal audience for transit may end up being suburban poor, not downtown rich!

      3. An express bus to Kent, combined with RapidRide lines like Kent-East Hill-Renton-Rainier Beach and Southcenter-Kent-Auburn and a more frequent 168 would make it easier for the poor to get around. That would not only make life less of a burden, but the time saved would enable them to work more or do other things. It’s not a solution to poverty but it’s the minimum we should do.

      4. I meant a more frequent 164, not 168. The concentration of poor people, apartments, and transit riders seems to end at Lake Meridian. East of the lake seems to be more “drive until you qualify for a house” and “drive until you die”, so I’m not sure that they’d use buses even if there were more of them. It may be worth a pilot project if Metro ever has extra money, but it’s not in the same category of severe transit underservice that the inner Kent/Auburn/Renton neighborhoods are.

  5. Promotional video of the Spring District TOD project in the Bel-Red corridor, showing a four-car Link train pulling into the station.

  6. RE: •Bellevue’s East Link Citizen Advisory Committee appointments

    “two immediate conflicts of interest, … and a property owner immediately abutting the light rail line.”

    “there are no neighborhood folks.”

    These statements seem mutually contradictory to me. Or is “neighboorhood folks” code for NIMBY?

    1. The property owner immediately abutting the light rail line owned one of the famed 112th St condominiums. He’s not in the Surrey Downs neighborhood, nor the Enatai neighborhood. Instead, he’s one of the people who gladly sold out to Sound Transit to get away from the train :)

      There are a lot of NIMBYs near the rail line. It seems Bellevue carefully selected people (such as the former Sound Transit employee) who had no potential complaints.

      1. The accusation against the “Sound Transit emplyee” seems to be a bit of a stretch. A retired CE who previously worked as a consultant on Mount Baker station and parts of Central Link. It seems like she the background that the council was asking for, and being retired she would have no current professional stake in East Link.

      3. I’m sorry, but if she was paid by Sound Transit in the past (which she was) she sounds like a former employee to me. If you want people with background, why not fill the entire citizen’s advisory committee with Sound Transit staffers?

        I don’t fully believe that this is anything but window-dressing anyway. Do you really think that citizen’s advice changes what the city council does?

  7. UK H2 Mobility launches new website:

    http://www.ukh2mobility.co.uk/

    The aim of the UK H2Mobility project is to determine what needs to be done to enable the commercial deployment of hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) in the UK from 2015.

  8. Slimy move by WSDOT, possibly on behalf of Rep. Curtis King, the person holding the transportation forums. Despite the state GOP caucus site saying that King wanted to have a forum originally in Seattle, “WSDOT opted instead for Bellevue”, only to have one added to Seattle under duress.

    Now I’m not passing judgement here, but excluding the state’s major urban center and one of the biggest transportation customers in the state….this isn’t passing the smell test…

  9. The Time$ tweeted earlier that the state Supreme Court threw out Kemper Freeman’s challenge to light rail on I-90. Guessing STB will have more on this later, but…

  10. On Wednesday evening I spotted an Enviro 500 double-deck coach sitting in traffic on I-90 WB at Eastgate. The destination board said “96 EXPRESS,” but the bus appeared to be empty of passengers. This is the same model as CT’s Double Talls but was painted in what appeared to be a manufacturer/demonstrator paint scheme. Anyone know if this coach is in local testing or was merely in transit to somewhere else?

  11. So the Seattle transportation forum is being held in Bellevue? Is there some reason why they feel that the people of Seattle’s opinion doesn’t count?

      1. This is a statewide series of meetings and they originally were only planning one meeting in King County. Seattle only accounts for 1/3 of the population of King County. Why not hold it in Bellevue?

    2. Oct. 14 – Seattle 6-9 p.m.

      King County Courthouse, Room 1001, 516 3rd Avenue, 10th Floor , Seattle, WA 98104

      1. Ok then. We should go there and make sure we remind them that people who live in Seattle also want the State to spend money on regional transit.

      3. I’m planning to go (on the bus!) to the Eastside one next week. Should I be prepared to do anything, or just show up and cheer for transit support?

      4. I’d like to use transit, but I may be out of luck if it goes any later than 9:00. The last 234 to Kenmore is at BTC at 9:05. Also, I’ve never taken the 234 before, so I can’t vouch for its reliability.

        Is there any sort of itinerary for the event? I’d be okay with leaving early if I know what I’m missing.

      5. @Mark: If you miss the last 234 you could plausibly catch the 535 and switch to the 522 near UW-Bothell. I don’t know whether that’s an easy transfer to make or not, though…

  12. In the most recent Kenmore city council meeting, the topic of drive-through businesses came up. FULL DISCLOSURE: I was not there as I had other obligations that evening, but I did follow the discussion on the Kenmore Politics twitter account.

    The reason they came up is because the development of the new Kenmore village is not currently zoned to allow new drive-throughs (there can only be new drive-throughs along highway 522. The idea is that drive-throughs are detrimental to pedestrian-friendly areas, which is what the city is trying to create in Kenmore village.

    Is it possible for a pedestrian friendly area to also have drive-through businesses? Are there examples of such places being established?

    My thought is this: If we want to make a pedestrian-friendly business area, why would we want to support businesses where people never have to leave their cars?

    1. A drive through also seems like it would require less room for parking. I would rather they have a drive through and less parking then take up valuable space that could be used for more density or pedestrian friendly access.

    2. I met someone once who was actually refused service in a drive-thru because he arrived on foot, rather than in a car.

      4. That happened to me in San Diego once — I didn’t have a car (was next to the rail line), it was late when I arrived and the only place to eat in the area was a Jack in the Box where the interior dining was closed. Needless to say I was not amused (and still hungry!).

    3. Interesting question. It seems like as soon as there’s a flow of vehicular traffic in some area, that feels ‘unfriendly’. Parking lots are a little better, but still not exactly friendly. So, I have to agree that it would be best to not allow drive throughs if the goal is to promote a pedestrian friendly, walkable environment.

      1. Probably the best option for pedestrian friendly neighborhoods would be no parking lots or drive through access… unlikely to happen outside of a dense urban core though.

    4. I bet when the zoning rule against drive-throughs was introduced it had more to do with elitism than walkability. Drive-throughs tend to have lower-class associations with fast food and such, and people want to keep that out by the highway so their more prestigious neighborhoods can stay pleasant. Now all those sorts of regulations can be shrouded in different kinds of language…

      The question of what you do want is as important as what you don’t. I can’t think of a drive-through that I love or something like that, but the magnitude of any damage caused to the pedestrian environment is small compared to that of parking lots, and even then a big part of what’s wrong isn’t that there’s parking, but the way that parking dictates and dominates the urban form: blank walls or lots front the street while entrances primarily face parking, superblocks to accommodate parking lots, etc. If you want business entrances to the sidewalk ask for businesses entrances on the sidewalk. If you want a close mixture of uses, of different businesses on a block, ask for that.

      1. I’m not sure I buy the lower class association. I remember my parents using drive through dairies back in the 70s to buy milk and eggs on the ay home from errands. I also think that the lower class associations of eating fast food are relatively recent.

      2. Drive-throughs and fast food started in a completely different era when the middle class was expanding, families had only one car, assembly-line fast-food was a new and wonderful thing, etc. A teenage male had to show up with wheels and drive his girl to a date if wanted any chance of getting laid or married, and the destination of choice was often fast-food restaurants…. By the late 60s when I was a kid, fast food restaurants were a perfectly ordinary thing to do, and kids tended to prefer them over non-chain places because of TV ads.

        Then three things happened. (1) The nutritional quality of fast food went downhill with high-fructose corn syrup and more of it, people began to be aware of what the nutritional quality was, and the impacts of factory ranching, etc. (2) Well-paying manufacturing jobs evaporated, and it became clear that fast-food jobs were the last resort for the unemployed. (3) People with money began to demand higher-quality food, non-chain, and locally-sourced — the opposite of what fast-food joints offer. This all led to the perception of fast-food joints as lower class — especially if they’re in a space-wasting standalone building or strip mall.

      3. @Mike: +1, thank you for taking the time to explain in detail why Al’s suspicion was (in this instance) unlikely.

    5. Yes, Mark. Drive-through land use tends to have a car-dominant street facade. Generally speaking, pedestrian-friendly environments are focused around people on foot, not people in cars.

  13. A friend told me that a woman died in the Car – Metro Bus accident on Bothell Way Tuesday.
    Does anyone have any current information on the accident?

    1. To state the blindingly obvious, this pattern is reversed in the US. Urbanization in China is directly tied to substantial and intentional upheavals in rural life, inflicted by an authoritarian regime. In the US, where the urban/rural choice remains largely free, rural suicide rates far outstrip urban rates (more social isolation + lots of guns isn’t a great recipe for suicide prevention).

      http://www.dailyyonder.com/booze-guns-and-rise-rural-suicides/2009/09/22/2358

  16. I was looking back at the alternatives for light rail/streetcar service to Ballard and it seems that many options include a stop at Seattle Center (with the southern terminus at Westlake). That’s all great and dandy but wouldn’t that totally negate the need for the monorail? I know the monorail is privately run and not always viewed as public transit but I would hate to see it become a white elephant and potentially take the path of Sydney’s monorail. Maybe I’m just nostalgic but I can’t imagine Seattle without the monorail.

    1. The monorail is a basically a tourist ride. It has only two stops and just two vehicles. It will remain something tourists ride even after the center gets good transit connections.

      It probably does mean fewer round trip tickets though…

      1. Yea that’s my hope. I always did enjoy using it for transit as I could get a bite at the Westlake food court but in a pinch it’s not as handy.

      2. The monorail is fun, but the time you climb up to the top of Westlake center and wait for the monorail — its headways suck — you can practically walk to Seattle Center. At east with the bus, the headways are reasonable, and you don’t have to make an all or nothing commitment.

    2. The monorail will not go away. It could only be replaced by a citywide monorail, which is now off the table. A subway/streetcar/BRT will not replace its primary role or clientele, which wants to view the city from above in a 1960s World’s Fair vehicle. There are already several bus lines that compete with it and are cheaper (especially with a transfer), yet still the monorail turns a profit.

      1. If you don’t have a pass or transfer, the monorail is actually the same price as the off-peak fare for local buses. During the peak, the monorail is 25 cents cheaper ($2.25 vs. $2.50).

  18. Why is Pierce Transit cracking down on misbehavior on buses? That isn’t generally a bad thing, but being overly strict and handling situations poorly has gotten Pierce Transit on the news more than a few times (and in a negative way).
    And why are they all of a sudden emphasizing how cool it is that they use natural gas in their vehicles? Haven’t they already bragged about this just a few years ago? Their fleet has been fueled by CNG since the ’80s, so it’s not exactly news.

  20. I just read the link about the Sisley properties. There are some nasty people who live in Seattle. But I guess I’m not surprised; their cousins live down here in Vancouver.

    1. From what I’ve read, the Sisleys developed quite a bad reputation among tenants and neighbors. The blocks are called Sisleyville. Some of the houses were bulldozed and replaced with grass lawns because they were unfit to rent and the Sisleys didn’t want to build under then then-restrictive zoning. When the station area upzone was proposed, many Roosevelt residents opposed it both for the usual NIMBY reasons and because they didn’t want Sisley to make a windfall on 85′ or 125′ buildings. The upzone did occur, but it wasn’t as extensive as it might have been because of the Sisley factor. That’s a permanent loss for Seattle’s walkable future. However, I’m glad that at least some substantial upzone occurred, because I never expected it to be perfect, and something is better than nothing.

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