If we’re to be a “climate refuge,” we’re going to have to find a way to accommodate more people. That’s why it’s all about building more units instead of the other stuff.
Last week — by sheer chance, the day an oil train (harmlessly) derailed in Interbay — the Puget Sound Regional Council released a staff report on the transportation and economic impacts of the Gateway Terminal, a proposed bulk-goods export terminal at Cherry Point, near Bellingham. This facility would primarily serve to transport coal from Montana to China, using BNSF’s rail lines to cross the northwest, and the bulk of this study is focused on impacts to road users of increased rail traffic on BNSF’s Puget Sound lines.
In general, I don’t have much to add to the Gateway debate (I think building it would be an appalling mistake, on the basis of coal’s global climate impact), but there are a couple of nuggets about Washington’s rail infrastructure that are important to the state’s future regardless whether or not the Gateway Terminal gets built.
First, “gate-down time” — the average amount of time, per day, that road users will be delayed at grade crossings — will rise significantly throughout the region due to the coal-induced increase in train traffic associated with Gateway. The impacts will be particularly severe in railroad towns with many grade crossings, such as Marysville, Auburn and Puyallup. Second, even if Gateway is not built, freight traffic is expected to reach similarly-problematic levels of gate-down delay by 2035 (as shown in the graphic above), simply through secular growth in economic activity and shipping.
One obvious conclusion is that if Washington had a rational state transportation policy, WSDOT would be busy building overpasses and underpasses at high-impact crossings, both in Puget Sound and around the state. We don’t have such a policy, of course, as the pathetic pavement quality on I-5 in King County testifies every time I drive on it, but along with taking a “fix it first” approach to highways, a sensible statewide transportation policy would include a grant fund to help localities pay for grade-separation projects needed to keep their roads working.
PSRC has helpfully studied all the crossings in our region, and identified 34 high-priority individual grade-separation projects, at $50-$200 million apiece. This would be a great list for the state and region to start working on, but I’d like to see a little more ambition in certain areas. Between Everett and Marysville, in particular, the existing BNSF trackage is characterized by tight curves, extremely old bridges, and an extraordinary number of grade crossings, all of which impose frustrating speed limits on passenger trains, and degrade the safety and quality of life in the surrounding neighborhoods. A real commitment to the state rail network might include replacing that section of track with new river crossings and full elevation through Marysville.
A new tradition started back in 2009, when Seafair started having free shuttle buses between Columbia City Station and the entrance to the paid viewing area for the hydroplane races at Genesee Park, which also happens to be a great place to simultaneously watch the Blue Angels airshow.
You can also now ride King County Metro route 50 from West Seattle all the way to Genesee Park. Route 50 connects to Link at Othello Station, Columbia City Station, and SODO Station. If you miss the last shuttle bus, just take route 50 back to Link, in either direction.
There’s something about modern streetcars that causes people — many of whom have sensible things to say about transit, and some of whom I know personally and respect greatly — to start spouting peculiar and contorted arguments in favor of building more of them. The last few days have brought a couple of new entries in this genre: this defense of slower-than-walking streetcars from New Urbanist writer Robert Steuteville, and this Seattle-focused post from Scott Bonjukian.
For a thorough and fair parsing of those arguments, this (sadly anonymous) letter written to Jarrett Walker makes excellent reading, but the denouement deserves to be carved onto the wall of Seattle City Hall (emphasis mine):
If, as admitted in the article, mixed-traffic streetcars don’t particularly offer useful transit, nor are they necessarily the only/best/cheapest placemaking tool, then I have to wonder if 30 years from now we’ll look back on them as yet another expensive urban renewal fad. (American cities are still littered with half-dead “game changing” fads from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s.) We ultimately need rapid transit and “place mobility,” but mixed-traffic streetcars are hardly a prerequisite for creating the latter.
So far I’ve hesitated voicing these opinions to fellow urbanists because I don’t want to alienate any friends, but I’m increasingly skeptical of the streetcar fervor. Given that (A) mixed-traffic streetcars are simply slower and less-flexible than mixed-traffic buses, and (B) that the benefits that are packaged with properly-prioritized streetcars (dedicated lanes, signal priority, durable shelters, etc.) could just as easily be packaged with buses, I wonder if the streetcar fervor is an example of simple “technograndiosity.” At the end of the day, I’d rather have ten bus lines reaching twenty useful places than one streetcar line reaching two useful places.
Fortunately for me, upsetting the orthodoxy of my follow urbanists will not hurt my career, but I hope, for the sake of America’s younger cities, that the writer will not have to silently endure for too many more years. The primary public policy problem of teeming, traffic-strangled West Coast cities like Seattle is to keep buses moving while we build out fast, high-capacity systems, permanently endowed with their own right-of-way. Streetcars — especially of the short-line, not-very-frequent variety we’ve built in Seattle — do not meaningfully bear on that goal, and it pains me to tally all the money that is misspent in building them, and the effort misplaced justifying and defending them.
The Century Transportation Authority has gathered the requisite signatures to put an initiative on the fall ballot for a $5 car tab fee to plan a monorail route between Ballard and West Seattle. Oran detailed the proposed route over two years ago.
We may have a few qualms with Sound Transit, but creating yet another agency to build a transit line using a different technology is problematic, to say the least. It would make more sense to use the city’s taxing authority to accelerate light rail to more neighborhoods.
The best case here is that any attention this measure draws will send yet another signal to Sound Transit, SDOT and the state legislature that there is a huge demand for high-capacity rapid transit within Seattle, and transit-strapped residents aren’t interested in waiting decades for it to materialize. This new monorail’s promised opening date of 2019 is probably fantasy, but it may resonate with some voters who want transit relief and want it yesterday.
More likely, though, it will simply confuse and frustrate people while setting real transit back a decade or more.
Arriving at an unfamiliar airport, you see multitudes of signs directing you towards taxis, shuttles and public transit. So many questions arise: Which should you take? Do I have enough time to take transit? The answers to these questions vary widely depending on the airport. There is a lively and valuable debate over the priority, value and social equity of airport transit links. However, this post is from the point of view of a traveler, ranking the transport options between the world’s 50 largest airports and their central city by comparing the best transit alternative to a taxi. After traveling a fair amount in the past few years, I wanted to compare transit outcomes for travelers and identify the best practices.
Transit Service Type
Transit Time Penalty* (Minutes)
Average Frequency (Minutes)
Airport Express Rail
3
17
Subway/Metro
15
8
Light Rail
16
11
Regional Rail
18
24
Seattle (Link)
21
10
Express Bus
25
32
Bus
50
32
Multi-modal
53
17
(*) Time penalty over taxi. Transit time accounts for waiting and transferring time.
The total travel time required to use airport transit is compared to the uncongested midday travel time of a taxi. Congested taxi travel times were used for some notoriously clogged cities, such as Jakarta and New York. The transit time is based on a traveler arriving at the airport (the largest international terminal, to be precise) in midday, and waiting one-half the vehicle frequency for the next ride. The same method is used to estimate time for any transfers, including any shuttles required to access the transit station.
Seattle offers Sound Transit Link light rail service between Sea-Tac Airport and downtown Seattle. It performs in the middle of the pack (31st out of 50) on the transit time penalty, but much better on frequency (tied for 10th out of 50). Link is in the ball park for light rail airport service, although a bit on the slow side compared to the taxi alternative. Light rail and subway systems can offer much better frequencies than the other types of airport transit because they pool demand from a variety of high-demand, all-day sources. As an extra bonus, although not accounted for in the rankings, a variety of destinations in the metro area can be reached as frequently from the airport as downtown. Dedicated airport transit services, even at the largest airports, don’t generate sufficient ridership for sub-10 minute frequencies. In that aspect, Seattle is blessed that its airport is along a natural corridor of transit demand.
Members of the 1000+ Chinese drill team, the only one of its kind in the US
Just when you thought it was safe to travel again, the Seafair Torchlight Parade has arrived. Yes, 4th Ave will be closed all evening from 3:30 pm to 10 pm, and 38 34 bus routes will be re-routed. These include routes C, D, E, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 21, 24, 26, 28, 33, 36, 40, 43, 47, 49, 66, 70, 99, 120, 125, 131, 132, and ST Express routes 512, 522, 545, and 554, 577, 578, and 594.
For those wishing to get across the parade route, use this nifty little map of all the accessible tunnel corridors throughout downtown. Westlake Station is my favorite shortcut under 4th Ave street closures. You can grab the fold-out version of this map at Westlake Station.
For the unaware, the Torchlight Parade is a big deal. Thousands of spectators claim spots along the street with fold-up chairs hours before the parade. Over 150,000 apectators are expected to show up. Sounders fans, whose game against the LA Galaxy got moved to Monday night, will be showing up in force as World Cup heroes Clint Dempsey and DeAndre Yedlin serve as Grand Marshalls. Mariners fans will also get to show up this time, as their game today is at 1 pm, instead of the usual 7 pm.
Downtown Seattle isn’t the only location where Seafair will be stressing the public transit system. Renton River Days will impact 10 bus routes serving downtown Renton, including routes F, 101, 105, 106, 107, 148, 169, 240, 908, and 909.
Metro and Sound Transit each have alert services to which you can subscribe.
Addendum: Sound Transit Express routes 512, 577, 578, and 594 are also on re-route until 10:00 pm downtown.
Until its peak year in 2011, Amtrak Cascades had been an unqualified success story, with strong and growing ridership and ever-higher farebox recovery ratios. It seemed like exceeding 1 million annual passengers and achieving near-profitability was right around the corner. Well, new challenges have arisen and Cascades has begun to struggle modestly, resulting in a small but growing funding problem.
Despite being showered with nearly $800m in capital money by the 2009 stimulus package, the federal contribution to operational funding was cut in 2013 as mandated by the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act of 2008 (PRIIA). In a feat of brilliantly backwards federal thinking, PRIIA committed the feds to divest from the most successful Amtrak lines (corridors under 750 miles) while continuing to fund the least successful (those over 750 miles). Such a mandate placed operational funding primarily in the hands of an even more recalcitrant body, the Washington State Legislature, which has shown little interest in achieving anything beyond what is mandated by the stimulus funding (two more Seattle-Portland trains), much less the Long Range Plan.
Chart from WSDOT’s 2013 Amtrak Cascades Performance Report
Over the past two years, farebox recovery has fallen from 66% to 59%, with the squeeze coming both from stagnating revenue and operating costs that continue to rise by $1m per year despite no added service. Ridership has declined in each of the past 3 years, albeit modestly, from an all-time high of 848,000 in 2011 to 807,000 last year. The lost ridership can likely be attributed to competition from Bolt Bus in the Seattle, Portland, Bellingham, Vancouver, and Eugene markets, and also from worsened speed and reliability from construction that is intended to address both issues. Continue reading “The Case for Express Cascades Trains”
The Sound Transit Board voted yesterday to recommend building a 25-acre rail yard in Bellevue near the Spring District real estate development in the Bel-Red Corridor.
Sound Transit looks to triple their current light rail fleet from 62 to 180, as well as expanding their light-rail system from 16 to 50 miles. Because of the projected growth, a new maintenance facility is needed to go along with the current facility in the Sodo neighborhood, as the latter is expected to reach its full capacity by 2020.
The BNSF site in Bellevue’s Bel-Red corridor west of 120th Avenue NE was among the four sites that Sound Transit narrowed down in the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) completed in May. The other sites considered were in Lynnwood and two other Bellevue locations, with one being adjacent to the SR-520 and the other being a modified version of the BNSF site. Detailed version of the site map for the original BNSF site can be found here.
Courtesy of Sound Transit
The EIS considered a number of factors to measure the impact that would be left by the new light rail operations base including: noise and vibration; land use; visual and economic impacts; social, neighborhood, and social service impacts; and, impacts to parklands, open spaces, and other natural resources.
Seattle Subway’s Comments on the Sound Transit Long Range Plan Update Draft Supplemental EIS
This is the final post in a series we’ve been doing related to Sound Transit’s Long Range Plan Update Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (“DSEIS”). The comment period is over on Monday, so be sure to get your comments in to LongRangePlan@soundtransit.org before the deadline comes. This post calls out conflicts between the goals of the LRP and its content. If you want to skip the wonkiness but agree that we should push for the best quality rail system possible for future lines in the region, you can copy our comments and send them to Sound Transit in support.
Sound Transit uses its Long-Range Plan to identify and select corridors and technologies for future transit packages. We are currently in the comment period for the Long-Range Plan Update, which means there is an opportunity to give feedback to Sound Transit in regards to the big picture. Sound Transit last updated this document in 2005, four years prior to Central Link opening, and it shows. Sound Transit must review decisions that were made in its early days and are still affecting its direction now, as Seattle and the region have changed a lot in the 15 years since Sound Transit’s inception. We will frame our comments in the context of Sound Transit’s DSEIS’s Goals and Objectives for their Long-Range Plan (page 1-5).
Section 1: “Provide a public high-capacity transportation system that helps ensure long-term mobility, connectivity, and convenience for residents of the central Puget Sound region for generations to come”
“Increase the percentage of people using transit for all trips”
“Provide effective and efficient alternatives to travel on congested roadways”
Grade separation provides the most efficient and effective way to move people. It eliminates interference from other traffic and maximizes transit’s speed. Grade separation is a true alternative to congested roadways. The higher speed and frequency that a grade separated system enables creates the greatest increase in ridership as well. This, combined with the fact that nearly all of the 55 miles of lines Sound Transit is currently building are grade separated, make the following section of the LRP DSEIS out of place:
As the Puget Sound region continues to grow, excellent transit connections between Eastside communities will be crucial. The quality of transit options available to those communities will shape the safety, convenience and environmental quality possible for their residents and workers. Our vision for rail service to Issaquah would create new connections from Issaquah through Bellevue to Kirkland, would improve trips bound for Downtown Seattle, and would dramatically improve access between the I-90 corridor and North Seattle.
Mike Lindblom reports ($) that after a short delay the Seattle Council approved the Downtown Streetcar’s locally preferred alternative in an 8-1 vote, with only Nick Licata voting against. I summarized the salient points in coverage of the previous meeting. Now SDOT will pursue federal grants and leaders will attempt to identify a good funding source for the city’s contribution.
“This agreement adheres to the principles I insisted on many weeks ago: Don’t rely on money we don’t have; don’t spend one-time money for on-going service; and use objective criteria to make decisions on saving or cutting service,” said Executive Constantine. “I want to thank members for arriving at legislation that balances Metro’s budget, and that is sustainable.”
The TrEE Committee passed the ordinance unanimously last Tuesday. In a sign of continued tension, Councilmember Dave Upthegrove had some interesting things to say about the process:
“I want to thank the Executive and Chair Phillips for working on a proposal that I could at least hold my nose and vote for,” said Councilmember Dave Upthegrove. “It took a little longer than everyone hoped, but I am pleased that the current ‘Majority Coalition’ decided to vote for the same proposal today that they rejected yesterday. I’m not sure what caused them to change their minds, but I am grateful that the Executive and Council Chair brought this proposal to us yesterday and that it is finally moving forward.”
The just-approved ordinance allows Metro to move forward with 161,000 hours of specified cuts in annual bus service hours in September. The council also approved, in principle, allowing Metro to cut another 188,000 annual hours in February of 2015. However, those cuts, including the specific routes, will need further council action.
The prior dispute involved several issues, including using one-time funding sources to temporarily shore up the operating budget and various deviations from Metro’s service guidelines. A main argument was whether to approve the February cuts now or wait for the next budget forecast. The compromise is that the Council agreed to the overall level of February cuts, but not the specific route adjustments, at this time.
Metro is still planning for another 200,000 hours of cuts in June and September of 2015, based on current revenue projections, but the Council will handle that in a later budget process.
Other than the 161,000 hours of cuts in September, these numbers do not take into account the impact if Seattle voters pass the proposal for a Seattle-only revenue package to avoid bus service cuts in Seattle.
Let’s get this on the table right up front: West Seattle should receive a light rail line in the next Sound Transit funding package (ST3). STB has covered this issue before with articles about possibilities, options presented, and even the hazards of regionalism. What might actually be included in the next regional package, and how does the study presentation impact the ST board’s decision? We think that a better presentation of the information contained within this study would serve the Sound Transit board and West Seattle well when it comes time to select corridors for ST3. As currently presented, the study makes the West Seattle line appear less cost effective than it should be. Seattle Subway has some suggestions to improve this.
As others have noted, this study is comprehensive to the point of being difficult to comprehend, and contains routes and options that cost more than $8 billion and are well beyond what the region will build in near future. We have two main requests to help make this information easier to understand and analyze.
The idea that tolling is some insidious stealth tax, or a fundamental violation of the inalienable right to drive anywhere, for free, with unlimited subsidy is a well-established cancer on the Puget Sound’s discourse. Nevertheless, I was astonished at the boundaries of the 520 tolling debate, as presented by Ellis Conklin in the Seattle Weekly last week and Alexa Vaughn in The Seattle Times ($) yesterday:
Had [they been notified], then perhaps there may have been a possibility of allowing motorists to drive for free across the 520 floating bridge – at least the idea would have been broached in a meeting of the seven commissioners.
****
PCC Logistics, for example, relies on westbound truckers to deliver goods on time to its Port of Seattle facility. The company handles import, export, refrigerated and general cargo for customers.
Even though its trucks will be rerouting, Beth Sanchez, the company’s customer-service manager, says that the company is still warning customers that there could be long and unpredictable delivery delays….
Companies and workers will also have to deal with the costs of extra gas and, if using the westbound 520 bridge, the tolls. The state has no plans to waive or reduce tolls for crossing 520 and will be allowing intermittent openings for boats.
The decision to not reduce tolls for those traveling westbound has angered some daily bridge-crossers.
Why, if only there was some way to make sure 520 would be uncongested, so that freight and other businesses that depend on reliable travel could do so!
The debate as presented in these two reporters — and, to be fair, as framed by Washington State officials who are either unimaginative or muzzled — is basically that it would be great if we could grind 520 to a halt too by lifting the toll, but shucks, we still have to pay for the bridge.
This is absurd. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to expand our highway capacity and “ease congestion” does massive damage to the environment and ends up inducing the same congestion. But in that debate, the establishment wrings its hands about the economy and the need to move freight around, because time is money. When maintenance dramatically reduces highway capacity, however, no one cares enough about businesses to do the one thing that might help.
I agree that freight operators, the handyman with his tools, and so on need uncongested highways. And because shorter trips on the highway feed directly into their bottom line, tolls are but a fraction of the cost of sitting in traffic because there’s no alternative. The answer, if policymakers really care about businesses like PCC Logistics, is not to suspend the toll but raise the toll to whatever level keeps 520 free-flowing this week.
As an added bonus, the really poor people — that would be the ones on the bus — also benefit from normal operating speeds. In fact, anyone interested in a fast and inexpensive option would naturally gravitate to the choices that consume the least scarce road space, which benefits everyone.
As part of the Federal Way Link extension, Sound Transit draftedfour alternatives that would connect the Angle Lake Station, which is expected to open in 2016 on Pacific Highway (SR-99), to the currently unfunded Federal Way Transit Center. The Kent-Des Moines station, expected to open by 2023, is the first stop after Angle Lake. Voters approved S. 272nd Station in 2008, but there is not yet funding to get there. Funding to construct the all the way to Federal Way could come from grants or a future ballot measure. The alternatives follow I-5, stay on SR99, or switch between them with Kent/Des Moines as a transition station. ST is also considering additional stations on SR99 at S. 216th St. and S. 260th St.
ST has as many as eight potential locations for the Kent-Des Moines station. Project Team Manager Sandra Fann said that the details of these locations are not yet officially decided, but all of them are expected to be accessible to the Highline campus. Some of the options include having the station on the east side of campus; west east, or in the median of the Pacific Highway South (SR-99); west or east of 30th Ave South, or along Interstate 5. “These locations are based on a combination of ideas brought up by cities along the way and logic from an alignment perspective,” Fann said.
City officials from Kent, having already massively upzoned their share of the station area, prefers the station to align with SR-99 while the City of Des Moines would rather have the light rail go on I-5.
Kent City Councilmember Dennis Higgins said he prefers an alternative that serves the people and neighborhoods by the station. “Generally speaking I think a routing down the freeway median doesn’t meet that criteria,” Higgins said. “I know such routes are more disruptive during construction but in the long run they serve the public much better.” Continue reading “Debate Over the Future Kent-Des Moines Station Site”
Last Thursday, Sound Transit held an open house to present the Mercer Island Station 60% design. In addition, there were several preliminary design options for integrating bus and rail at the station.
An animation of a Link train traveling from International District Station past Mercer Island was playing when I arrived. I didn’t hear many comments and questions as I moved around the room except for one notable exception: Several people expressed concerns about the loss of the express lanes. (For those who are unaware, SOV drivers are currently able to use the express lanes between the Mercer Island and Seattle.)
The station platform will be located between 80th Ave SE and 77th Ave SE where the current I-90 reversible express lanes are. The center platform will be accessible from both ends of the station and will be served by an up escalator, staircase, and elevator at each entrance. In addition, a Kiss & Ride area will be added at the 77th Ave SE entrance, and each entrance will provide seating, ticketing, and ORCA readers. There is even an area near the entrance marked “Future Vending”.
For those looking for bike parking, Mercer Island Park & Ride currently offers bike lockers that can be rented by the month and several well utilized bike racks. In addition to these existing spots, the station will include 8 new bike lockers, a secured bike cage for up to 50 bikes, and a bike rack area. I was told the bike rack area is designed to be convertible to another secured bike cage, should demand warrant it. In short, Mercer Island residents should have no shortage of places to stash a bike when Eastlink opens in 2023.
4 different options were presented for integrating bus and rail operations. These included various bus pick up and drop off locations, layover locations, and routing options. There were two Metro planners discussing these options. Interestingly, they were openly talking about potentially truncating all bus routes that currently travel across Mercer Island into Seattle. Not many people appeared to be paying attention to this information, even though, with increased frequencies, it could provide far better bus service throughout a large portion of the Eastside.
While there are still significant details to work out, especially with the Bus/Rail integration, the designs appeared to be a good example of multi-modal design, especially given the site constraints.
The Open House Boards, Staff Presentation, and details maps can be found here.
