Month: May 2015

The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel will be closed for the next two weekends (May 30-31 and June 6-7) to allow further preparatory work for U-Link. Per Bruce Gray at Sound Transit:

Similar to what we did in the Beacon Hill tunnels in March, we’re testing the newly upgraded fire/life/safety and train control systems in the DSTT over the weekend of the 30-31. The following weekend, if all goes well, we will make the final switchover from the old to the new systems in the DSTT and integrate with U-Link ventilation control. Finishing this upgrade is an important step towards connecting all tunnel systems later this summer and being ready for more intense testing scheduled through the fall.

Link Light Rail will only run between Stadium Station and SeaTac Airport Station, and will serve all stations in between. A free shuttle (route 97), as well as regular routes 101, 106, 124 and 150, will serve the bus stops closest to Stadium Station and SODO Station. All the tunnel buses except route 255 will run on 2nd and 4th Ave through downtown. Route 255 will run on 4th and 5th Ave. Route 97 will run on 3rd Ave. A full list of stop locations for the re-routed tunnel buses is here.

The Mariners will be playing here both of these Saturdays and Sundays. The Sounders will be hosting the New York Red Bulls at 2 pm on May 31. Three-car Link trains will be running all day on the 31st. Sounder will be serving the simultaneous Sounders and Mariners games on May 31, and the Mariners’ game on June 7.

Pedestrian safety video from the Luas light rail in Dublin, Ireland.

On Thursday, the Seattle Times’ Gene Balk broke the news that Seattle was no longer number one. Our time as fastest growing city in the nation lasted only a year. While it’s sad to no longer have those bragging rights I think a bit more context is in order.

Continue reading “Seattle’s Population Growth in Context”

A few weeks back Owen Pickford made the urbanist case for linkage fees, a controversial proposed tax on new construction that would fund affordable housing:

Seattle urbanists often conflate additional building costs with limits on housing; frequently suggesting that regulatory cost, not housing limits, are the biggest impediment to affordable housing. The result of this mistake has been detrimental to urbanists’ goals, creating an adversarial relationship between urbanists and affordable housing advocates. Furthermore, blurring the lines between housing limits and regulatory costs induces urbanists to overlook the most important factor in housing affordability: land values.

This week Dan Bertolet wrote a rebuttal:

To put a finer point on it:  Pickford’s position contradicts the standard methodology used by the City of Seattle, King County and countless other municipalities to estimate “buildable land,” that is, land that can be redeveloped. This alone should be enough to cast serious doubt.

For bonus credit, here’s Martin’s take from last fall when the fees were first announced.

Bertolet has the stronger argument, but I wish he’d discussed the actual recommendations on the table instead of refuting the concept in the abstract. The linkage fees are designed to be higher in the central city and taper off in the North and South ends, which would seem to mitigate concerns about the development of “marginal” lands.  That said, to the extent that linkage fees keep cheaper market-rate housing from getting built while at the same time pushing up the costs of high-end housing, they are problematic.

Monday, May 25 is Memorial Day.

King County Metro, Pierce Transit, Everett Transit, Intercity Transit, the South Lake Union Streetcar, the West Seattle Water Taxi, and Sound Transit will be operating on Sunday schedules (which means no Sounder).

Washington State Ferries will be adding trips on select routes, so check your particular route’s schedule.

Community Transit will not be in service, hopefully for the second-to-last time ever (with the last time hopefully being Sunday, May 31). Sunday service resumes on June 7 after 5 years of no CT Sunday bus service.

In addition to Sounder and Community Transit, Kitsap, Mason, Jefferson, Clallam, Skagit, Whatcom, and Island Transit will not be in service on Memorial Day. The Vashon King County Water Taxis will also not be in service.

Bucking this trend will be the Monorail, which will be open regular weekday hours, 7:30-11:00, well beyond the hours of the Northwest Folklife Festival.

Also, Sounder will be serving the Sounders match vs. Sporting Kansas City this Saturday, arriving in town ca. 5:00, and departing ca. 9:30. First kick is set for 7:00.

• It lives: the First Hill Streetcar has made its first “low-speed test run” along the full alignment. Though some might say that specifiying ‘low-speed’ is a bit redundant for this project. (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• When it comes to happiness and commuting, mode matters more than time. Walking, biking, and commuter rail score highest for commuter satisfaction. (Vox)
• There’s only one way Amazon can achieve two-hour Prime delivery in New York City: deliver by subway. (Gizmodo)
• More details on Capitol Hill Station development, as the developer met the public and community groups last Saturday. (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• First the ubiquitous “Caution: Vehicle Exiting!” warnings, and now “Caution: Bus Turning!” as Metro debuts buses than flash a strobe and emit a warning when turning. As a Downtown worker, I can’t think of anything I want less than another mindless bit of noise pollution. (Seattle Times, $)
• Are you surprised? Bertha is more extensively damaged than previously thought, and repairs will extend indefinitely beyond the previously announced August timeline. Expect a new timeline to be release in June. (Seattle Times, $)
• I think it’s safe to say the The Urbanist disagreed with Matthew Johnson’s take on Pike Place and cars.
• The first 500 VIPs have christened the MAX Orange Line on its debut passenger ride.  (Oregon Live)
• “I think what’s happened in Ballard will happen in Everett.” Reasonable expectation or Projections Gone Wild? (Herald)
• 20 months of construction on the heart of 23rd Avenue (John to Jackson) begins on June 8. When complete, the road will fewer but wider lanes, a turn lane, better sidewalks, and new pavement. (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Why did the chicken cross the road? To rally for a safer Rainier. (KIRO)
• Crosscuts asks: Puget Sound drivers, what will make you get out of your car?
• “It was purely accidental,” BPD spokesperson Seth Tyler told the Seattle Times. “Our past practice is that we don’t cite the driver in that kind of instance.” If you’re going to nearly kill a child and inflict tens of thousands of damage on someone’s home, you can get off without even a citation if you do it in a car (Seattle Bike Blog)

This is an open thread.

We invite you to join us for our next STB Meetup on May 29 from 5:30-7:30pm at the Impact Hub in Pioneer Square.

Metro planners Ted Day and Jeremy Fichter will join us to discuss the U-Link restructure, with a brief presentation beginning at 5:30 and plenty of time for open Q&A thereafter. At roughly 6:30, we will head over to Good Bar down the street for beer, snacks, and continued conversation.

Meetups are a great opportunity to meet your fellow readers, get a little face time with agency staff, and to get more involved with transit advocacy more generally.  We hope to see you there! We also encourage you to attend Metro’s Link Connections Public Meeting tonight from 6-8pm at Seattle Academy (1432 15th Ave).

When: Friday, May 29, 5:30-7:30pm
Where: Impact HUB, 220 2nd Avenue S. (2nd & Washington)

Our transit system, like any other, has many problems. Many will cost a lot of money to fix, or will require the political will to basically ignore the perceived interests of drivers. But a few of them are the result of nearly inexplicable agency policies. The delays and inconvenience are small in the scheme of things but they communicate to riders that their time isn’t valuable. As with any internet listicle, I wouldn’t get too excited about the precise rankings below:

5. Missing or inaccurate real-time data. Brian Ferris and Caitlin Bonnar detailed the technical problems with Metro’s data in January. Real time information is absolutely critical to a decent experience when riding unreliable transit, even at moderate frequencies, and quite useful even with frequent and reliable modes. Data problems degrade it considerably.

At least Metro exports their data; Community Transit still isn’t sharing it with onebusaway (OBA). And as for Sound Transit…

4. Misused electronic signs. The wonder of electronic signs is that they can change dynamically to reflect real-time conditions, but the ones in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) are almost entirely wedded to canned policy announcements. OBA data, or even Sound Transit’s Twitter feed, would provide much more useful information to users.

Continue reading “Top 5 Irritating Agency Operations Habits”