Publicola broke the news on Friday, later confirmed by Keep Seattle Moving, that the group has suspended signature gathering for Initiative 118. Per KSM’s blog post, the “mayor will propose a Seattle-only ballot measure to preserve Metro service in Seattle” and they “believe the City Council will support a ballot measure.” Mayor Murray has previously stated that any effort to save Seattle buses should be long-term, regional, and take into account the various taxing obligations of the city beyond transit.
We look forward to seeing the details of the proposal on Tuesday. The mayor, council, and others have all been looking at ways to preserve bus service in Seattle after King County voters rejected Proposition 1 last month.
Update 1:12pm: this post has been updated for clarity. Calling Tuesday’s announcement a “deal” is not quite correct. Whatever is announced on Tuesday will likely have to be approved by Council and then go to the voters in the fall.
As part of the 2008 voter-approved ST2 package, Sound Transit was asked to evaluate high-capacity transit on several corridors. Originally scheduled for study in 2018, we’re getting them 5 years earlier thanks to the efforts of Seattle Subway and the McGinn administration forcing the issue a couple years back. We saw Ballard last year, and now we’re getting our first glimpses at alternatives for West Seattle-Burien-Renton. At this early stage both Bus Rapid Transit and Light Rail options are on the table.
Alternative “A” is a long, L-shaped route from Downtown to West Seattle and Burien and Renton that takes the ST2 study area literally. If Alternative “A5” looks familiar, it’s because it mirrors almost exactly the routing David mapped out in a post on the subject last year, tunneling to about Holden St. and surface-running thereafter. “A3” is a Delridge alignment, elevated South to Delridge and mostly surface-running beyond that, and “A4” is a BRT variant.
Alternative “B” splits the area into two separate lines, with one running from downtown to West Seattle, and another from Downtown, through South Park and straight on to Burien and Renton. Planners noted that BRT (“B2”) would not be sufficient to meet demand from Renton to Seattle. Light Rail (“B4”) in this alternative would serve the most riders (over 100K!) but would be the most expensive to construct, with two lines and everything north of Burien either elevated or in a tunnel.
Finally, Alternative “C5” runs mostly elevated light rail from Downtown to West Seattle, and then gives Burien/Tukwila/Renton a BRT route that’s not much different from RapidRide F. Renton-Seattle and Burien-Seattle commuters lose a one-seat ride in this scenario, but given the fiscal realities and other priorities of the South King subarea, that may not be possible anyway.
You can watch the presentation to the ST board at this link, which also includes bits on Lynnwood-to-Everett and I-405 BRT options. The comparison chart is below. Note that the costs* for most alternatives include a downtown Seattle tunnel south of Westlake, probably about $1 billion, but likely needed for a Ballard-downtown line as well.
West Seattle Blog has the full slide deck, which you can also find here. We’ll have more on these options in the coming weeks.
* “Draft costs shown are conceptual level estimates only and are used for purposes of comparison”
Cascades at King St Station Photo by Jim Wrinn – Editor of Trains Magazine – Original Image HERE
This Saturday, May 10, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Amtrak, WSDOT, Sound Transit and others are holding a free event at King Street Station for National Train Day. There will be free samples from Tom Douglas, a tour of a Coast Starlight train, children’s activities, booths, and an nScale model train.
Mayor Murray tweets some principles that will guide his (developing) plan to save Metro, doubles down on his opposition to I-118. Goldy translates the talking points of the two sides in a fair way right here.
Goldy also offers another revenue option, one that doesn’t require a public vote. If that’s the Murray plan I would have basically no problem with it, particularly if it leans mostly on the parking tax.
Seattle Transit Blog is eager to see Mayor Murray’s Metro plan, and open to the idea that it may be superior to the text of Initiative 118. However, we see no reason not to gather signatures for I-118 in the meantime. We simply cannot afford to wait for an alternative to develop, as Keep Seattle Moving must turn in 21,000 valid signatures from registered Seattle voters by early June.
Collecting signatures doesn’t necessarily mean the Initiative will be on the ballot. Ben Schiendelman, former STB staff writer and the spokesperson for Keep Seattle Moving, has told us that if the Mayor or City Council come up with a better solution they will drop I-118 and instead support that effort. We hope that the city does come up with a great solution. But until they do we need to keep working for I-118. As the $15 Now campaign has shown, the threat of a strong initiative can be a powerful tool for getting a superior final product.
In the next few days we will have an in-depth look at the benefits and weaknesses of I-118, and as soon as we have been able to digest the Mayor’s proposal we will do the same for it. But if Seattle wants to have the chance to chose the better of two options, we have to have two options. So go download the petition and start collecting signatures.
The STB Editorial Board currently consists of Martin H. Duke, Matthew Johnson, and Frank Chiachiere.
With all of the Prop 1 fallout and hopes for Initiative 118, Seattle vs. the suburbs rhetoric is fashionable once again. For those invested in that struggle, it’s worthwhile to read my assessment of inter-city subsidies. I also encourage you to steer clear of the rhetoric of subsidy altogether.
“to gather information from providers of rail services about service delivery options to provide more convenient, rapid, and reliable intercity passenger rail service between Vancouver, British Columbia and Eugene, Oregon.”
Noting that these submittals “are not responds to deliver the service”, WSDOT is nonetheless seeking input from the private sector (and presumably other governmental rail operators) about how to make Cascades more efficient and reduce its operating costs. If the responses sufficiently pique their interest, WSDOT may issue a full competitive Request for Proposal (RFP).
A little background: the Bush-era Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act of 2008 (PRIIA) forced Amtrak to cease funding operations of its most successful routes (state-supported corridors of less than 750 miles). It was a masterfully cynical bill, for though Republicans generally love to hate Amtrak, they also love once-daily legacy service in their districts, which just so happens to be colossally expensive to operate. So they wrote a bill that trimmed the muscle and left the fat, as it were.
Amtrak had been funding 20% of Cascades service, but from October 2013 onward Washington and Oregon have had to bear 100% of operating costs. Though Cascades farebox recovery is relatively good at roughly 66%, farebox recovery is a rate, not an outlay. As Cascades is mandated to add at least 2 more trips between Seattle and Portland by 2017 as a condition of receiving $800m in stimulus (ARRA) funds, it is important to remember that farebox recovery could continue to improve while total costs rise. With a stalemated legislature that loves to play politics with rail, it’s the total costs that matter. Ergo, Cascades has no choice but to seek ways to cut costs.
While I’m no fan of British-style privatization (I lived there in 2008-2009), even the most fervent Amtrak supporters can admit, at a bare minimum, that the superiority of Amtrak’s operating procedures is not self-evident. Anyone who’s watched the sharpie-and-sticky-note shuffle at King Street Station will attest to the wasted time and money that antiquated procedures cause.
This RFI seems to be a good faith attempt by WSDOT to step back and see how things could be different with respect to insurance, labor, food and beverage service, coordination with host railroads, etc. There is significant precedent in bidding out operations, but this mostly occurs in commuter rail corridors, such as Keolis operating Boston’s commuter rail, or Bombardier running the Brunswick and Camden lines in Maryland, or TransitAmerica running CalTrain. For intercity corridors, only All Aboard Florida – which plans to inaugurate service between Orlando and Miami next year – will operate independent of Amtrak.
It will be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this, but as a frequent rider of both Cascades and long-distance trains I’d love to see things shaken up and solid funding secured. I dream of the day that we can:
Run modern software that allows for increased turnover, so that trains don’t always leave Seattle half-empty.
End unnecessary queuing procedures and assign seats electronically (if at all).
Have automated station and train announcements.
Break even or turn a profit on food and beverage service.
Reduce unnecessary staffing.
Design the schedule with performance in mind, with arrival times that make daytrips in both Seattle and Portland desirable while introducing skip-stop or express services.
How would you like to see things change on Cascades, if at all?
Initiative 118, the Seattle-only measure using property taxes to avoid cuts to routes that spend at least 80% of their revenue hours in Seattle, is collecting signatures. It’s also collecting endorsements from Seattle legislators:
former mayor Mike McGinn… West Seattle Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon (D-34); West Seattle Rep. Eileen Cody (D-34th); Ballard-area Rep. Gael Tarleton (D-36); Southeast Seattle Sen. Adam Kline, 37th; Southeast Seattle Rep. Eric Pettigrew (D-37th); North Seattle Rep. Jessyn Farrell (D-46); and North Seattle Rep. Gerry Pollet (D-46th).
In an interesting bit of inside baseball, Mayor Murray got Sen. Kline to rescind his endorsement:
“He made a request,” Kline told me by phone. “I think he’s right. He pointed out that they wanted flexibility and I’m more than happy to give it to them.”… Kline volunteered that he’s on his way out of office and isn’t “subject to pressure,” nor did he get “steamrolled.”
This move made a lot more sense a short while later:
@dominicholden the mayor is putting forth his own proposal to save metro later this week.
It appears we’ll have two efforts to restore service cuts. As always, the merits of any proposal are highly dependent on the details. STB will take a closer look at the text of Initiative 118 later, and the Murray plan whenever it emerges.
Final results for last month’s King County roads and transit election at the precinct level were released yesterday. I compiled the results into an interactive map with numbers for yes votes, no votes, voter turnout, and number of registered voters. I also overlaid current Metro and Sound Transit routes on the map, using a solid dark line for all-day service and a wide white line for peak-only service.
Hover your mouse over or tap on your area to see how your precinct voted.
