Post-Parade Crush (Photo by the Author)
Post-Parade Crush (Photo by the Author)

This is an open thread.

55 Replies to “News Roundup: The Tokyo Model”

  1. Ballard Residents meeting with SDOT to discuss parking issues:

    http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2014/02/07/news/feb-13-central-ballard-residents-association-meet

    It sounds like restricted zone parking will come up here. I currently feel that this is a positive way to relieve some of the pressures home owners are feeling as growth continues in the area (at least until light rail and other high capacity transit arrives).

    I hope this will take some of the edge off of the opposition to new development, but I am not holding my breath.

    1. I went to the meeting tonight and it looks like restricted zone parking can’t really be used to solve the complaints of Ballard residents.

      For those who did not know:
      A) Restricted zone parking is designed specifically to limit the impact of non-residents on neighborhood parking (i.e. people working or visiting the area).
      B) The restricted zone parking permits can be sold to anyone who lives in the area (including apartment dwellers) and are limited to four per household. Micro housing (apodments) are limited to four permits per kitchen.
      C) Parking zones can only be addressed if all of the following apply:
      1) Parking is frequently 75% or more full
      2) 35% of those parked during full times are determined not to be residents
      3) 20 consecutive street curbs (roughly 10 blocks, running both sides) must be effected.

      The zone of constricted parking in Ballard that met requirements one and two was less than 20 consecutive street curbs, so they cannot get the restricted zone parking.

      Furthermore, since Seattle does not discriminate between home owners and apartment dwellers, the restricted parking would not address the issue they raised of apartment dwellers moving into buildings with limited parking and choosing to park on the streets as well (rather than not having a car).

      Given these facts I do not think those of us who advocate density and offered restricted zone parking as an option for residents living there can continue to do so unless Seattle changes policy on how these zones are enforced (I am not even sure that is a particularly good idea given how the zones are currently used).

      More creative ideas will be needed to help residents adjust to congestion in their neighborhoods as density continues to come in. Also… how can we encourage apartment dwellers to go carless outside of the downtown core given the current state of our transportation system?

      1. One solution I’ve seen proposed is to create an RPZ but only give parking permits to residents of existing homes in the area (before the RPZ got created). New developments would not be required to build any parking, but if parking is not provided, residents would have to either lease offsite parking from someone or not keep a car – they would not be able to park long-term on the street.

      2. I’ve never advocated using the existing RPZ program to meet Ballard’s parking needs. Instead, what I’ve advocated for is creating tradable, transferable parking permits, with an annual fee, capped at a level that ensures there are always enough spaces for everyone with a permit. There would be no limit on the number of permits you can have, nor any restrictions on where permit holders can live; the only rule is that you can’t rent out your permit, and you’ve got to be able to pay the fee (with low-income exemptions). Also, the zones need to be a lot smaller: if you’re at 65th and 24th, it’s not that useful if the only free spot is at 15th and 53rd.

      3. Discriminating between apartment-dwellers and SFH residents would be a terrible policy anyway. Today’s RPZ policy is designed to keep non-residents from parking on side streets. The policy of tomorrow needs to recognize that residents themselves can overload a neighborhood’s street parking, and that street parking is a limited, valuable, and fundamentally public resource.

        (To be totally clear, I stick in that “fundamentally public” part to emphasize my disagreement with a lot of folks around here that think permanent, capped, trade-able parking rights should be handed to today’s residents to try to buy their support for denser development that would increase the value of their new asset. There was a whole big-ass post about this a few months ago, and all the arguments are there. In general, though, I think a kernel that most of us can agree on is that residential curb space ought to have a price, as commercial curb space increasingly does.)

      5. @Aleks You would need to convince the city create such a program if you wanted that as an option. No such mechanism exists, and given that RPZ limits per resident and not per space, you would need a new (and potentially more expensive) way to track parking to achieve what you advocate.

      6. @Charles B

        Why not? Those new residents aren’t tax payers or citizens of the area at the time of the creation of the Restricted Parking Zone. So whose being discriminated against?

  2. Are we likely to see any other high capacity rail for the North King subarea in ST3 besides the Ballard alternatives, or are we more likely to see new BRT or streetcar lines to appear (or upgrades to existing lines)?

    1. ST is studying HCT in West Seattle and Ballard-Children’s. But it’s all up in the air which ones will be in ST3. ST is also updating its long-range plan — any new lines have to first be in the LRP. Then it has to set a common tax rate across all subareas balancing their wants and willingness to pay. When that’s all done they can compare it to the cost of these lines and see whether we can afford one, two, or three of them, and what priority order. There’s also a second DSTT to design, if we assume ST will reject the idea of truncating Ballard at Westlake and West Seattle at SODO. Ballard-downtown has the largest momentum, but it’s not 100% certain that won’t change, especially since it was the former mayor who spearheaded it.

      Other Link corridors — Aurora, Lake City, Georgetown — are not being studied in this round so have little chance in ST3. But they’re in the long-range plan, or at least Lake City is and I think the others are.

      There has been no discussion of other ST-funded BRT or streetcar routes in Seattle that I’ve heard. They’re all city projects. (Unless you believe DP’s paranoid fear that ST will adopt the Westlake streetcar as its Ballard-downtown “solution”.) We need to get at least one or two more light rail lines in Seattle before asking ST to fund any BRT/streetcar corridors. Madison BRT is progressing slowly; it’s still near the beginning.

      1. I wish we could organize a city wide vote to start funding ST now with whatever funds the citizens could vote on themselves without having to be the state to give us more authority.

        I’d like to think something like a LID could work, but from what I understand, only the folks sitting on property directly benefiting from the infrastructure can be taxed, which would probably be too expensive for grade separated light rail…

      2. @Mike – Right, I’m just wondering that since we have to tax each subarea at the same rate, what the “tipping point” is going to be for the other subareas. North King probably has greater transit needs than other subareas, but I imagine it also generates more revenue than other subareas, even if they tax at the same rate.

        So I guess I’m not really asking a “where will the upgrades go” question as much as I’m asking a question about balancing ST3. How much of a transit upgrade is enough for North King to support? How much of an upgrade will be enough for the remaining subareas to support? How do we reconcile if the different subareas are not willing to raise taxes at the same rate?

      3. ST is polling on that, and I think we’ll have to wait for the results before we can say anything definitive. Unless Ballard Sam wants to do some investigative reporting and conduct an independent poll so we can compare it to ST’s.

        What we know is that the outer subareas are *EAGER* for Link extensions and don’t want to wait any more. Specifically, Tacoma, Federal Way, Everett, and Issaquah are like that. That suggests the floor amount. The ceiling, I don’t know; the main thrust seems to be the six Link corridors ST is studying now. I haven’t heard much about other projects, except Tacoma’s moderate interest in more streetcars.

        Half-hourly Sounder South may be something to push for. I’ve heard more about it here than anywhere else though, which means it hasn’t captured the public’s imagination yet. But it would solve a whole lot of problems for south-central King County even if it’s not quite frequent. And even if we can’t achieve half-hourly in one step, we could at least set the vision and move toward it. But South King has the least money and the most (non-Seattle) transit needs, so it’s not clear how they’ll compete. Federal Way wants Link, Burien-Southcenter-Renton wants Link, and Kent needs some kind of express and RapidRide if all-day Sounder isn’t coming soon. That’s a lot of projects right there, in the poorest subarea.

  3. I was at the Licton Springs Community Council meeting where the power poles were discussed. No one really cared if they were moved, just that the proposed poles would be more than twice as high and up to 4 feet in diameter at ground level. If ST wanted to use normal diameter poles (even steel instead of wood) no one would have made much fuss.

    1. I got the impression from reports that I was seeing that ST was already taking about addressing the height issue. Hopefully this will resolve soon.

      1. The diameter was a bigger concern than the height from the residents at the one meeting I was at. 4′ diameter is wider than any utility pole I’ve ever seen.

      3. That’s thinner than the kind being proposed. Supposedly there are none like proposed anywhere in Seattle, but something similar from the 70’s is in place somewhere near Delridge.

    1. ST is updating its long-range plan, and is studying an Everett extension this year or maybe next year. ST3 will have to include something for the Snohomish subarea, and the Everett extension seems to be at the top of the list. We’ll know more when the LRP is finished and the study result is in. The only other projects I can think of are Sounder North improvements, more Swift lines, and 405 BRT. Sounder North is very controversial so most likely it will continue unchanged, neither augmented nor cancelled. 405 BRT depends on widening the freeway, at least in the WSDOT draft outline, so that may be on hold until 520 and the tunnel are squared away.

      That leaves Swift. CT has a list of four routes in its master plan, and the Bothell-Everett one got attention in Olympia last year, so that may be where Swift is headed. The other ones are Edmonds-Lynnwood-(somewhere), and I think something around Marysville. But the greatest momentum has been on the Lynnwood-Everett Link extension, and I don’t expect that to reverse.

      1. A Smokey Point to Everett SWIFT line would be a nice replacement for the 201/202. I hope CT is leaving some space at the new Smokey Point TC for a SWIFT station.

      2. After seeing both Everett to Lynnwood and Lynnwood to Bothell on the planning list, I wonder if there is hunger in Snohomish County for both?

        If we could manage to get ST3 to be big enough, we might be able to solve a bunch of the regional issues with one vote.

      3. SounderBruce: Community Transit does Bus Rapid Transit correctly. The SWIFT line would not replace the 201/202.

  5. There’s a ton of interesting information in the report referenced in this morning’s post: a good Metro analysis .

    The report is about the changes in ridership patterns observed since the start of RR C & D. It looks like people are attracted to frequent transit routes(!), even if they aren’t as rapid as advertised.

  6. This was discussed in an earlier thread, but I’m still curious: does anyone have any insight into the future of Rapid Ride? The 120 often comes up as a good future candidate for Rapid Ride treatment. With the priorities of the federal funding pool changing, is there any realistic possibility of seeing the 120 become Rapid Ride G within the next several years?

    1. I doubt much will happen in the near future given that Metro is in survival mode and will remain there until the revenue from any new funding source actually starts coming in.

      But Metro planning staff are well aware of the 120’s potential as a RR route. Some of them preferred it to the 54 (which became RR C). The question is whether, politically, the agency could convert a fourth Seattle route before adding at least one more in SKC or on the Eastside.

      1. For all our moaning about the political reasons to build RapidRide B, it does have 6,100 daily riders — not much less than the C, and more than the 131/132 common segment.

        The Bellevue “Transit Service Vision Report” proposes a new line connecting Totem Lake to Bellevue via Kirkland TC. I think that would make a great RapidRide candidate, but right now, there isn’t really a single bus that runs along that corridor; the ridership is split between the 255, 245, 234/235, and many other lower-ridership routes.

        In contrast, all of the previous RapidRide routes took corridors that were already part of the frequent service network, and brought them up to a higher standard. It seems less likely that Metro would take the risk of building RapidRide along a corridor that doesn’t currently have frequent service.

        Also, a lot of the ridership on the 255 is heading to downtown. Even if forcing a connection at South Kirkland P&R or Bellevue TC were the right thing to do post-Link, they’re probably not the right thing to do now. This means that the potential ridership along such a corridor, that isn’t already covered by the 255, is reduced further.

        South King County seems to have the same problem. The busiest routes by far are the 101, 106, and 150, but I don’t think Metro is going to use RapidRide for a freeway route. I could see a RapidRide corridor going between Rainier Beach and Kent/Renton, but again, I would expect Metro to introduce such a route first, before giving it the RapidRide treatment.

        Am I missing something?

      2. Random thoughts on this stuff:

        – IIRC the A Line replaced a route that wasn’t frequent at the time.
        – The 106 isn’t a freeway route but it would be a really strange choice for RapidRide for other reasons.
        – The non-freeway parts of the 150 (Kent to Southcenter, basically) are well-used.
        – Bellevue-Kirkland-Totem Lake has a familiar dilemma. Fast, good connectivity, cheap: pick any two. (OK, fast plus cheap might itself be a pipe dream around downtown Kirkland…)
        – The 120, like the 358, is an important route both in and out of Seattle. Is its connection to Burien worth anything politically? The “send the 120 to the airport” idea comes up every now and then… would a 120 that went to Burien then hit the freeway to SeaTac be even better?

    2. The real question is whether the Transit Now pot of sales tax money will continuing funding new rapid ride routes in perpetuity? Or is that pot of money tied up operating the Rapid Ride lines A through F, and Metro dependent on Federal grants for new RR lines?

      1. I don’t think it can fund any more RapidRide routes. I’ve never heard that as a possibility. But another part of Transit Now allows businesses to fund extra trips on their preferred routes, and that has been used to augment the 8 and 75, so we’ll probably see more of that gradually.

  7. Didn’t take long for Sawant to be exposed as yet another shill for the Downtown Syndicate.

    1. wat?

      As a certified shill for the Downtown Syndicate(tm), I can certainly say she’s not on the payroll.

    2. What? Opposing ridesharing, or voting to save Metro, means shilling for Downtown? Or is she involved in some other of these stories that I didn’t notice?

  8. Has there ever been a discussion about Sound Transit having the authority to collect transportation impact fees from new developments? I know Snohomish County has interlocal agreements with many cities and the state (WSDOT) that require traffic mitigation fees paid to impacted jurisdictions from the developers, but it seems like ST could use a similar technique for some projects.

  9. In case you didn’t read the article, the very first sentence from the Tokyo Model link is: “Whether you’re in London, Paris, New York, San Francisco, São Paulo or any bustling, Western metropolis, one thing is likely: Your rent is too damn high.”

    At first, I didn’t give this statement a second thought. “That sounds pretty accurate,” I thought to myself. But then I remembered some people on STB are always saying density is a goal we should strive for because it lowers housing costs, among other things. But this article is suggesting that large cities everywhere tend to have much higher rents. So now I’m confused. Who is telling the truth?

    1. I lived in Tokyo recently for roughly three years. Its true that rents can be high, but that is not always the case.

      I lived in the eastern portion of Tokyo proper right on a major transit line and my one bedroom apartment was only $600/mo. Density does mean that square footage is more expensive, but not always rent. Smaller units also afford much lower rents.

    2. Sam, you have to ask, “What would happen if these same cities were half as dense?” Would home prices be cheaper? Why? And where would the other half of the population live?

      Cities are more expensive in general because people want to live in them, or they have to live in them to be close to work, or they want to be near new business opportunities and networking schmoozing. In developing countries cities have exploded and overwhelmed their housing supply, which is why they’re expensive. Rural people move to the city for better income and standard of living, or because the job is only in a city, or because their farm was displaced by an export factory or cash-export crops or desertification.

      Housing prices follow the vacancy rate more than anything. So you have to build housing equal to your population growth or prices will rise. Most cities build far less than that, which is why their prices are rising. And anti-density activism is one of the primary reasons why they’re not building it.

      Also, some of the difference is because the housing is new, not because it’s denser. We’re just in a double whammy where the old housing is less dense due the anti-density movement mis last century. The problem is that it’s much less dense than it should be, so we can’t just accommodate a slight inefficiency and live with it. We have to make the housing a reasonable scale for the population.

      1. This sounds good, but play it out.

        What happens when a product becomes expensive.

        People find alternatives. Or someone comes up with a way to do it cheaper and easier.

        For example, when California and San Francisco became “too damn high” people fled North to Washington.

        Seems like at some point, other cities would start to bloom, creating competition.

      2. And Boise and other smaller cities. But then they lose the advantages of living in California. Depending on your profession, it may disadvantage you to not be in Silicon Valley, or near the movie studios, or music/clothing production facilities, or international trade, etc. (I stayed in a Santa Clara hotel that had six Asian channels on its cable TV, just to give an example of networking opportunities if you live there.)

        The right way to create satellite cities is to give them similar amenities as the central city. We can’t replicate historic places, but we could build walkable neighborhoods and full street grids in the suburbs so that Microsofties wouldn’t be so heavily concentrated on Capitol Hill. Some of them insist on living two blocks from the hippest clubs and they’ll never move, but others would move to the Eastside if it had more traditional and transit-rich neighborhoods.

  10. Is Sawant saying she is only representing the very poor? If something only helps the middle class then it’s not worth doing?

    1. I understand Sawant’s position like this (I’m not in this post taking a position on the matter really, and I know it’s risky to try to write someone else’s opinion from my own, very different, frame of reference — though I’m sympathetic to some socialist ideas, I’m sympathetic to a lot of capitalist ideas):

      – Sawant surely believes the working class and poor need more help than the middle and upper classes; she tends to believe they need help primarily to struggle against the moneyed elite.

      – TNCs want to promote the idea that they’re innovating by starting a new industry competing with the old industry of taxis and for-hire services. They like to portray themselves as part of a new “sharing economy” that lacks a regulatory framework. The opposing view, promoted by existing for-hire and taxi companies, is that they’re nothing but smartphone-dispatched for-hire services, entering an existing, highly regulated industry while blatantly ignoring that industry’s standing regulations. Sawant has clearly sided with the opposing view. (It’s worth noting that poorer, less connected people that try to start taxi and for-hire services outside of existing regulations are generally met with total crackdowns, not a period where they’re allowed to operate unfettered followed by a council session to pass special new laws to accommodate them.)

      – A socialist sees existing taxi and for-hire drivers as something like an organized labor force whose working conditions (wages, hours, insurance, etc.) depend on negotiations with business and labor. She sees this as a situation where labor has some control. When TNCs disrupt the industry they’re disrupting the negotiated status quo. They’re bringing in new ownership in the form of internationally consolidated companies (Uber and Lyft operate from SF to Seattle to NY to Paris) backed by international capital. And they’re bringing in new labor, labor that promises to be diffuse and hard to organize. The socialist view is that organized and consolidated groups have more power and win more battles, on either the labor or capital side of the equation.

      – Surge pricing makes perfect sense economically — when there’s more demand than supply can meet, the price rises and those willing to pay can secure better service. If everyone has the same means, this is wonderful: those with the most urgent needs can get where they’re going. In a society of vastly unequal means, the level of service you can command is dictated by your means, rather than your needs. A system with uniform prices and service is worse for the rich and better for the poor, at least initially. (A capitalist would respond that an efficient system has more potential to grow and serve everyone better — particularly that during demand surges eliminating supply constraints can provide better service for everyone and more economic opportunity for drivers.)

      So, overall, to the degree that the existing taxi/for-hire industry is inefficient, a socialist like Sawant sees this as a good thing, because it’s an indication that labor and poor consumers have won concessions against capital. When a company with elite backers and a plan for global growth enters a market like this and disregards regulations perceived as concessions to the workers and the poor, socialists see blood.

      1. And if the taxi system in Seattle didn’t have such utterly god-awful reviews, more people might be on her side.

        Unions and cartels sometimes understand the importance of maintaining a good reputation for providing a quality service or product.

        Sometimes they forget.

  12. So it’s high time to plan that RapidRide E inauguration ride Saturday. Seeing no more comments on that other thread, I suggest meeting at the southernmost station at 9:30am, at 3rd & Yesler. I intend to go at least northbound to Aurora Village. After that, i don’t know, south again? Or east on the 348 to try out the #65 extension at 145th & 15th NE? But that may require waiting half an hour twice so it might take a while. Does anyone have other suggestions? Nobody answered my question about whether the Olde 99 Pub is an especially good venue or just an intermediate location (or whether it’s even open Saturday morning), so I haven’t yet seen a reason to go there.

    1. Here’s another way. How’s this?

      9:45am – Take next E north to Aurora Village (with Linden deviation). Then E south to 46th (non-Linden routing). 44 east to Campus Parkway. 65 north to 145th & 15th NE. 347/348 to Northgate (or walk to I-5 and take the 512), 41/40/16 to downtown.

    2. And a potential schedule from ST’s trip planner.
      9:35-10:24am, RR E (#675), Prefontaine Pl & Yesler – Aurora Village TC
      10:33-11:10, RR E, Aurora Village TC – 46th & Aurora
      11:15-11:30, #44, 46th & Aurora – 15th NE & Campus Pkwy
      11:33-12:17pm, #65, Campus Pkwy & University Way – 145th & 19th NE (Tight connection! Half-hourly bus! It says the nearest stop is 19th, not 15th!)
      12:45-1:21, #512, I45th & I-5 – 5th & Pine (20-minute freq)

  14. Riddle me this: Why does the default map view on the KC tripplanner default to km (instead of miles)? (You have to click it to switch to miles.) Just laziness when they set it up?

    Also, is there a mobile version of the official tripplanner that I just can’t find? I’ve mostly abandoned using it on my phone as the current version is mostly unusable there.

    1. Perhaps they remembered that we’re all supposed to switch to the metric system, starting shortly after 1979. ;-)

      (Yes, we still should. Reagan was excellent at preventing sensible things from happening.)

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