One of the more interesting details of last week’s Rainier Station Open House was the “bike cage” planned for the entrance. Rainier Station (regardless of its ultimate name) will have space for 20 bikes in cages on opening day, with space reserved to accommodate 12 more. Regular racks and lockers will accommodate a further 20 (eventually 28).
The video above may give you an idea what it’s about, but here’s the basic flow. A bicyclist obtains a smart card (Sound Transit hasn’t selected a vendor or a technology for this) that provides her access to the cage and represents whatever cash account is necessary to pay for it. She then uses her lock to secure it to the apparatus inside and leaves.
The bike cage is far more compact than lockers while providing more security and protection from the elements than a rack. The transparent fencing is a safety feature allowing people to see what is going on inside. There will also be closed-circuit television cameras for added security.
Sound Transit didn’t respond to my question about whether or not we’ll see these at other stations before 2023.
A video about Boston’s implementation this (which I gather is farther from Sound Transit’s vision than the one above) is below the fold.
The State Senate Transportation Committee is kicking off a series of open houses to discuss transportation funding. They’re meeting tonight in Bellevue. It’s open to the public. There will be another in Seattle in October, and several more throughout the state. If you care about Metro cuts or other transportation-related issues, it would be a good opportunity to make your voice heard.
On Thursday about 100 people joined around two dozen staff from various agencies to hear about the 30% design of Rainier Station. The event was at the Northwest African American Museum, a venue that stands to move up a few pegs on the tourist trail when it has easy light rail access.
Although various factors will prevent the station area from ever being Capitol Hill, there’s always more the City could be doing about zoning. In any case, one particularly appealing aspect of the station is the dual entrances on Rainier and 23rd Ave. Those will provide access to the pivotal 7 and 48, as well as the I-90 bike trail. From there, ST estimates travel times of 15 minutes to UW, 22 to Northgate, and 26 to Overlake. ST estimates those times will attract 3,000 riders in 2030, seven years after it opens: 2,000 from the 23rd Ave entrance and 1,000 from Rainier.
The bad news is that the distance between the two entrances is (unavoidably) quite a bit longer than a train length, meaning a longer walk for riders. On the 23rd Avenue side, after the portal* it’s a 330 feet walkway, terminating in a nice viewpoint of the skyline before descending to the platform.
Living in the Seattle area means having access to nature, even by bus. There are blueberry farms you can ride to, hiking trails, and recently I discovered a campground with a bus stop at the entrance.
King County’s Tolt MacDonald Park is unlike any campground I’ve experienced. It’s very close to the Seattle area, and just outside the city limits of Carnation. From the campsite it’s a 13 minute walk to the grocery store, complete with Starbucks. I wouldn’t be surprised if pizza delivery was available. Continue reading “Camping by Bus: Tolt MacDonald Park”
Going to be sitting at your computer today at noon? Sound Transit is hosting an online tech talk today at noon to discuss the Draft EIS for the Lynnwood Link extension. Topics will include:
Route and station alternatives for light rail in the Draft EIS
The project’s potential benefits and impacts
Possible effects on the environment, nearby properties and transportation
On Thursday, the Washington State Supreme Court published their 7-2 opinion (PDF), denying a laundry list of the usual anti-transit suspects their likely second to last attempt to block the construction of East Link.
This latest case started in Kittitas County – Freeman sued to block East Link there, perhaps looking for a more conservative judge than he’d find in King, and failed over a year ago. He appealed to the Supreme Court, and this week the result is clear: he’s burning his money on ways to block rail without success on any front.
The fight for rail in the I-90 express lanes is long – it started in the 1970s with the reconstruction and expansion of I-90, Sound Transit joined the party in 2004 to plan transit across the bridge, Sound Transit 2 funded it, and finally it’s happening!
Freeman’s suit alleged that because I-90 was partly (about 10%) built with state gas tax money, and state gas tax money is prohibited from use for transit projects, the state couldn’t lease the lanes to Sound Transit. There are a lot of specifics, but all of them were wrong, and unless you’re really fascinated by the legal contortions that folks like this will go to in order to try to stop transit, it’s really only worth reading the first couple of pages of background (PDF, look at pages 1-5), which are excellent.
So, assisted by attorney Phil Talmadge, who I expected better from, and the Eastside Transportation Association, a nonprofit you should never donate to, here’s the dirty dozen:
Kemper Freeman; Jim Horn; Steve Stivala; Ken Collins; Michael Dunmire; Sarah Rindlaub; Al Deatley; Jim Coles; Bryan Boehm; Emory Bundy; Roger Bell; and Mark Anderson.
It’s possible this will come back one more time – part of the decision came down to only five members of the court agreeing that WSDOT could lease the space to Sound Transit. The other four think the lease wouldn’t be constitutional, but that they can’t weigh in until someone sues when the lease actually takes place. Kemper Freeman may very well waste more of his money, and our tax dollars, with his attempt to litigate away the will of his neighbors.
When we last left the Center City Connector project, we were down to two alternative alignments: a 4th/5th Avenue Couplet and 1st Avenue. As I noted at the time, 1st Avenue had the momentum. Sure enough, it appears that 1st Avenue has been selected to move on to Phase 2. An SDOT report (.pdf) to the city council indicates that the 1st Avenue alignment had overwhelming support and was the better choice for connecting downtown destinations, minimizing impact to buses and bikes, and redevelopment. A second round of analysis will evaluate running the streetcar in exclusive versus shared right-of-way. A finance plan is still on track for January 2014.
