Month: January 2015

A few weeks ago I attended the TCC organized Transit Talk. Along with transit champions Marko Liias and Jessyn Farrell, WSDOT Public Transit Division’s Stan Suchan rounded out the panel. During the Q&A I brought up the failure of our HOV system and asked what could be done, specifically mentioning HOV 3+ as a possibility in those stretches where even WSDOT admits the HOV lanes aren’t meeting reliability standards.

In my opinion, the answers were underwhelming. Senator Liias stated that it was very hard for a politician to take away something from a constituent without giving back something in return. Representative Farrell seemed to agree.

WSDOT’s Stan Suchan basically said the agency needed more time to study the situation. The agency has questions on whether moving to HOV 3+ would result in breaking down some current 2 person carpools into 2 SOVs, thus increasing congestion. To my mind the obvious question is if WSDOT’s definition of congestion is looking at person throughput or only vehicular.

Multiple times both Mr. Suchan and Senator Liias stated that we need to wait for the I-405 widening project to finish up and the results studied before anything could be done on other corridors. Considering that in many places our HOV lanes are worthless right now during peak hours, being no faster than the general purpose lanes, I found the need to wait years to fix the situation disappointing.

That was just my impression from an on the spot answer so I wrote Mr. Suchen in order to make sure I got the whole story. He was gracious enough to write back with substantive responses. Below are my questions and his full responses.

Continue reading “HOV 3+ not happening any time soon”

4th & Battery (SDOT Photo)

• Rampant bus-lane violations continue, but SDOT’s request to SPD for more enforcement appears to have been drafted but never sent.
• The Legislature is rightly looking to expand the distracted driving ban to include email and web browsing ($), not covered by the 2007 law.
• Republican Senators troll Governor Inslee, dropping a bill to kill Bertha and cancel the project. Just as quickly, Senate Transportation Committee Chair Curtis King (R-Yakima) kills it. ($)
• Publicola looks at the political process for ST3
• HB 1180 (ST3 authority) was heard yesterday by the House Transportation Committee (video here). Overwhelmingly supportive testimony runs from 15:30 to 93:00.
• Car vs. Link crash in Columbia City last Sunday. The scene was cleared in less than 10 minutes, and delays were minimal. Bravo!
• Mr Kubly Goes to Ostrava: frustrated by First Hill streetcar delays, SDOT Director Scott Kubly will make to trip to the Czech manufacturer. (Meanwhile, one of the streetcars is at sea near the Azores.)
• Under a new lease deal, Metro will pay the City of Renton 50% more for 25% fewer Park & Ride spaces at Renton Transit Center.
• Parts of NE 43rd and Brooklyn Ave NE have reopened to traffic.
• “A person walking their dog, and the dog takes a dump on your front lawn, you expect them to clean up after themselves.” – Senator Hasegawa on why Sound Transit should pay for residential parking permits. Thankfully, Martin follows that quote with something much more sensible.
• What is the future of Sea-Tac Airport? Another terminal? More satellite gates? ($)
• No more Route 2 misery. Spring St to get bus lanes this summer between 3rd and 6th.
• What do you think of a Swiss style tram from Port Angeles to Hurricane Ridge?

This is an open thread.

Tom Rasmussen has opted not to seek re-election to City Council.  According to The Stranger, transit advocates are “dancing on his grave.” Having attended the last STB board meeting, I can say with certainty that no grave dancing occurred, but it’s true that Rasmussen belongs to the camp who’d rather improve the existing bus network than spend money on streetcars.  He wrote thoughtfully on this site about his bus commute and how it might be improved.

West Seattle is at an interesting junction (ahem) in terms of transit: RapidRide C is quite popular and will be expanded with Prop 1. Development in the urbanized areas is continuing, despite the usual protests.

With expanded bus service in motion, the most immediate transit issue facing the new Council District 1, which covers West Seattle, is light rail and ST3.  Sending Link over the Duwamish will be geographically difficult and possibly unaffordable within Sound Transit’s self-imposed $15B regional package cap. On the other hand, federal grant money is always possible, the district has some well-connected residents, and keeping West Seattle in the fold is part of Seattle’s strategy to present a unified front in advance of a possible vote in 2016.

District 1 residents will get a sneak peek at potential candidates on February 5. I’d encourage our West Seattle readers to attend and let us know what you think.  It will be an interesting few years for whomever wins the seat.

At December’s Sound Transit Board Meeting*, Mayor Murray offered an interesting amendment to the “building blocks” section of the long range plan (79:30):

T18. In addition, as part of implementing a regional transit system, Sound Transit can explore policy and funding alternatives to address significant regional facilities, such as tunneling for future core system capacity through downtown Seattle; operations, maintenance and storage facilities; and transit vehicles.

The introduction began a bizarre sequence where Mr. Murray immediately left for another event, leaving Mike O’Brien to defend the measure; a series of board members stating that a second tunnel was an ST 4 or 5 discussion and therefore premature; and it finally going to defeat 6-8 (O’Brien, Constantine, Balducci, Phillips, Peterson, and Strickland voted yes).

This would have been the first (small) step to suspending subarea equity when funding a second downtown tunnel. This train of thought goes way back to the Mayoral campaign, where candidate Murray critiqued Mayor McGinn’s potentially city-only rail plans by saying that Seattle couldn’t afford light rail alone, and that tweaking subarea equity was the only way to build it. And in fact, if you define the minimum Seattle light rail increment as serving Ballard and West Seattle, that may be an accurate statement given the agreed revenue limits of the next package.**

Continue reading “Murray Suggests Regional Funding of Second DSTT”

In contrast to the awesome Senate Bill 5128, on which Senator Marko Liias (D – Mukilteo) collected the signatures of 19 Democratic colleagues to support granting Sound Transit authority to take a new package to the voters (commonly referred to as “ST3”), Senator Bob Hasegawa (D – Beacon Hill) found a way to get a hearing for his Senate Bill 5343: Go ask the committee chair who decides which bills get hearings in that committee.

Indeed, Sen. Curtis King (R – Yakima, and Chair of the Senate Transportation Committee) is signatory #2 on SB 5343. Smart move.

This bill is textually identical to last year’s SB 6489, which STB covered extensively.

The bill would make Sound Transit pay for the cost of residents’ parking permits in Restricted Parking Zones, which are created by cities, at the request of area residents, within the general area (undefined) of Sound Transit facilities and construction sites. Residents would be privatizing the public asphalt in front of their houses, making Sound Transit pay the City for this privatization, and not having to pay a dime for storing their cars on the public right-of-way, while denying non-residents the ability to park in the neighborhood.

Seattle has a low-income rate for parking permits of $10 per vehicle (for two years), answering objections that RPZ fees hurt low-income residents. The legislation is incompatible with the City’s program that sabotages the feasibility of this bill because there is no limit on the number of vehicles for which a resident can get a permit.

Meanwhile, Sound Transit is taking a much larger step to improve affordability for residents living around light-rail stations by introducing a $1.50 low-income fare on Link Light Rail, starting March 1.

SB 5343 merely subsidizes car ownership in these neighborhoods, and does nothing for the poor. It is being heard in committee Tuesday afternoon (January 27) at 3:30.

We continue to reach out to Sen. Hasegawa’s office for comment on the issue, but all requests have been ignored for nearly a year. For the record, I am a constituent of Sen. Hasegawa’s, I donated to his first State House campaign, and I have voted for him every time his name has been on my ballot.

Most observers believe that additional Sound Transit taxing authority is inevitably attached to the larger state transportation package. However, some intrepid legislators have sponsored a standalone bill that provide enough capacity, given voter approval, to fund a substantial amount of new light rail. Were this bill were to somehow avoid the shoals of the process, it would separate the region’s self-funded transit needs from the ongoing debate about statewide taxes and highway spending.

The Senate Bill is SB 5128, and its counterpart is HB 1180. The Republican-controlled Senate is generally perceived to be the main obstacle to passage, obviously. In the Senate there are currently 20 sponsors, leaving it five short of a majority, which are all among the 24 Democrats.

These sponsors include every Democratic senator that represents part of the Sound Transit District, save Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah/North Bend), who told me via email that “Nobody asked me to sign the legislation but I do support it.”

The three other Democrats are outside of the ST District: James Hargrove (D-Port Angeles), Brian Hatfield (D-Aberdeen), and Tim Sheldon (D-Shelton)*. I have not yet asked them about their position.

The Democratic votes are not only insufficient on the floor, but by exercising next to no leverage on Transportation Chair Curtis King (Yakima), they cannot bring such a bill to a vote. That is not true of the Republican members who represent part of the ST District. I emailed Sens. Andy Hill (R-Kirkland/Duvall/Sammamish), Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island/Newcastle/Bellevue), Joe Fain (R-Covington/Auburn), Pam Roach (R-Sumner/Enumclaw), Mark Miloscia (R-Federal Way), Bruce Dammeier (R-Puyallup/Fife), and Steve O’Ban (R-University Place/Ft.Lewis) to ask their position. Not one bothered to reply over the span of a week.

These seven senators — a few of whom are likely to have Light Rail or other major transit projects actually in their district in ST3 — are the center of gravity for such a bill. If you are a resident of any of these districts (check here), a handful of constituent emails and/or phone calls could make a big difference. If you are not, a note of thanks to your Senator (and a reminder to your House members to support HB 1180) is a gesture of often underestimated importance.

Furthermore, for the Olympia-inclined the House Transportation Committee will take up 1180 on January 28th at 3:30pm.

* Sen. Sheldon caucuses with the Republicans.