S. Kirkland Park and Ride - 16

S. Kirkland Park and Ride – 16 by WhenEliseSings

This is an open thread.

23 Replies to “News Roundup: Special Session”

    1. Well, if nothing else that will certainly be a boost ridership when it opens. I would rather this not be the way that happens though…

  2. Per WSDOT, I am sending in a comment to the people at the bottom of this page in support of HOV 3+ and tolling in general. Given the likely outpouring negative comments, I’d invite everybody to do the same.

    1. Perhaps HOV 3+ could be a spur to initiate some sort of subsidized taxis approach to transit.

      If you are forcing 3 people into a car, it’s getting to the point where their combined fares + a subsidy equivalent to the fully loaded boarding costs of traditional modes of transit, might make economic sense.

  3. To the article on not taxing development. Why on earth would we make the same mistakes the suburbs made. I mean, I understand the argument, development in the city is good, development on the fringe is bad. but at the same time, new development, to some extent, is still new development, and that imposes tremendous costs to the city, wether its a house in enumclaw, or a highrise in Seattle. Arguably, the highrise in Seattle creates larger capital costs, due to the complexity of infrastructure required to serve it (You can’t just build a wider road, and new tunnels (road/bus/bike/subway, whatever) are super expensive). Arguing against charging developers for the costs they impose on society makes no sense. If urbanists are going to argue for charging the suburbs, they have to be consistent and apply that in the city as well.

    1. I agree. But, it’s still consistent to argue that taxing development in the city but not in suburbs is worse than the current model, so we shouldn’t change to that.

    2. Except that dense development also broadens the tax base, and the infrastructure costs are manageable if you have (scalable) rail transit.

    3. The argument is it’s a citywide benefit so the city should fund more of the infrastructure.

      One suggestion I like is for the city to make more detailed neighborhood master plans, with reference buildings a the maximum zoning, and pre-permit development at that level with all the variances and design reviews and EISs. Then a developer could get a permit easily for that scope of building, with only a design review for the architecture. That would be the best way to get buildings at the maximum density, and lower-priced units, appearing more quickly to meet demand.

      1. Martin, sure, dense development broadens the tax base, so does suburban development. Neither do so at levels great enough to pay for themselves, because if they did we’d have a world class transit system by now, the streets wouldn’t be crumbling, and there would probably be sidewalks in every part of the city. None of those three things is true, so we probably need to say, hey, person building a large building(small building, whatever size), pay for the costs you incur to society.

    4. There’s people on this blog that seem to think that developers are a bunch of starving, peasants, barely making ends meet as they go from project to project. And apparently they are also a very generous bunch that will pass on tax breaks to the tenants that move in!

      Of course, this is not how capitalism works in reality and these people are either extremely ignorant or paid shills for the developers.

      1. There’s people on this blog that seem to think that developers are a bunch of starving, peasants, barely making ends meet as they go from project to project. And apparently they are also a very generous bunch that will pass on tax breaks to the tenants that move in!

        There’s something I’ve never understood about this argument.

        Supposedly, developers will always pass on tax increases, but will never pass on tax reductions.

        So let’s imagine a hypothetical scenario. First, you raise property taxes by $100/month. Every developer passes on this increase. Next, you lower property taxes by $100/month. No developer passes on this savings. Now, nothing has changed, except that everyone is paying $100/month more in rent.

        If everyone was willing to pay $100/month extra in rent, then why aren’t these evil developers *already* charging $100/month more?

        Basically, one of these statements *must* be false:

        1. Developers charge the highest rate that the market will bear.
        2. Developers pass on all tax increases.
        3. Developers never pass on tax reductions.

        Do you disagree?

      2. Scenario:

        Developer A built his condo complex full of 2000 sq ft units, actively selling for $X00,000.

        Too late for Developer A’s complex, Seattle decides we owe our gratitude to these selfless superhero developers and awards tax reduction to all future developments, of which Developer A’s complex would have met the requirements.

        Developer B gets his condo complex taxes reduced thanks to Seattle’s generosity. His complex is directly across the street from Developer A and almost identically, full of 2000 sq ft units.

        Seeing that Developer A is actively and successfully selling his units for $X00,000 does Developer B:

        1. Say “Aww shucks! Seattle is such a swell city full of keen folks that want to look out for poor lil me! To show my sincere thanks, I’m going to take each unit and reduce the price by {tax savings}/{total units}!”

        or

        2. Sell the units for the market price of $X00,000, pocketing the tax savings (thanks suckers!), because heck, that’s Capitalism?

        Giving tax breaks to developers works when you are a city struggling to attract developers. Seattle does not have that problem. All we are doing is using taxpayer money to further line the pockets of already well-off people, something we do too much already.

      3. That scenario works fine, until developer C builds condos for something less than the luxury market, and all of a sudden construction costs + taxes > market value of the units.

      4. Aleks: in an uncompetitive market, it is in fact true that developers will pass along all tax increases and no tax cuts. They’ll also raise rents just ’cause they can! Or because their dog looked at them funny!

        There is a question as to how competitive the rental market actually is. This is an objective question.

      5. Aleks: in an uncompetitive market, it is in fact true that developers will pass along all tax increases and no tax cuts. They’ll also raise rents just ’cause they can! Or because their dog looked at them funny!

        Again, I ask you: if a landlord could raise the rent by $500 without losing any tenants, why haven’t they done it already?

        If we postulate that landlords operate with perfect monopoly power, then it would be the case that landlords are charging exactly as much rent, to the dollar, as people can afford to pay. If they charged a dollar higher, then their tenants would leave. If this is true, then landlords have zero ability to pass on cost increases, since we’ve already stated that their tenants won’t be able to pay even a dollar more in rent.

        If landlords have monopoly power, but are charging less than their tenants can afford to pay, then the question is: why? Why would they be leaving money on the table?

      7. @RapidRider: No, that doesn’t appear to be what’s happening. Rents are up over the last couple of years, but appear to have decreased in the last six months. This supports Aleks’ assertion that rents are priced in a free-market fashion rather than monotonically increasing.

        I only have one (quickly binged) reference but it’s more data than anyone else supplied: http://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-seattle-rent-trends. Note the statement at the bottom: “The average apartment rent over the prior 6 months in Seattle has decreased by $32.5 (-2%)”

  4. Today, the 556 I was on was 24 minutes (!!!) late to South Bellevue P&R. Although admittedly this is the worst so far, unreliability is clearly a chronic problem, and will likely get worse in the future, especially on the corridor between DT Bellevue and South Bellevue. Fortunately, East Link will provide a congestion-free path along one of the most-congested parts of the corridor: however the Bellevue Transit Vision still envisions 556 and 560 buses continuing to do the slog up 112nd, which will have almost no riders during peak hours because everyone will be on Link by this point. I only see two answers to this problem, and each has significant issues:

    -if it is at all possible, the segment of East Link should allow buses to drive on it. Operationally, this should be feasible as East Link is only planned to run every 8 minutes. However, it seems that there would be significant capital expenses in adapting the guideway to both buses and trains.

    -Otherwise, the 560 and 556 should be truncated at South Bellevue Station during peak hours, with perhaps a coverage route remaining on 112th if necessary. This forces extra connections, but it is the only other reasonable way to avoid a reliability/speed disaster while maximizing frequency.

    1. *Of course if the 556 is truncated to South Bellevue-Issaquah, there will still need to be fast service between Bellevue and UW. However, 556>Link will be much faster than just 556 for trips from Eastgate or Issaquah to UW, so really the section between S Bellevue to DT Bellevue will be a waste of service hours that no one will use.

  5. Driverless “pods” to be introduced in UK town

    The “pods”, which will travel at 12mph, will ferry people around Milton Keynes on designated pathways.

    In the automated versions, passengers travelling to their selected destination will be able to browse the internet, check emails, read the newspaper and play games inside the pod.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-24849948

Comments are closed.