Month: May 2015

(Metro’s “Ted Talks” about each subarea are available on Metro’s website.)

In March, Metro released two alternative proposals for the service change that will take place in March 2016, at roughly the same time Sound Transit’s University Link opens.   We spent a lot of time covering (and mostly praising) “Alternative 1,” an ambitious restructure of service in Capitol Hill, northeast Seattle, and across SR-520.  “Alternative 2” was strictly a minimum change proposal.  As planned, Metro has now developed a single new proposal, based on feedback it received on Alternatives 1 and 2.  This proposal will be subject to one more round of feedback, after which Metro will send a final proposal to the King County Council for adoption.

The new proposal can be summarized like this:

• In Northeast Seattle, Alternative 1 was adopted almost entirely, with only minor changes.
• In Capitol Hill, Metro got negative feedback on both alternatives, and this proposal is substantially different from either of them.
• Across SR-520, Alternative 2 was adopted—that is, almost nothing will change.

We should emphasize that, unlike either Alternative 1 or Alternative 2, this proposal includes funding from Seattle Proposition 1.  The service levels in this proposal are the service levels riders can actually expect to see in March 2016.

We remain as enthusiastic as always about the Northeast Seattle restructure, which will bring 15-minute service to a startling number of new corridors and create several new connections.  The Capitol Hill restructure is a “minimum pain” change for everyone but Montlake residents—but it’s also “minimum gain,” with several opportunities missed to increase frequency and connect riders to Link.  With three regular SR 520 riders on staff, we are quite disappointed by the abandonment of any change along SR 520.

Details below the jump.  And, as with our earlier coverage, many thanks to Zach Shaner for serving on Metro’s Sounding Board and providing much assistance with these posts.

Continue reading “Metro Releases Next U-Link Restructure Draft”

Last Thursday, the Sound Transit Executive Board reviewed a proposed draft project list for the Sound Transit 3 ballot. On May 28, the full Board will consider and perhaps amend this list. After June 4, the public will be asked to comment on the draft project list, and the subsequent comment will guide the Board in further whittling down the list to a feasible proposal for ST3.

Sound Transit’s Geoff Patrick explained yesterday that the public outreach will “ask people’s views about the priority level for each project on the draft list, and to identify projects they think should be added or deleted”. The public will not be specifically asked about projects that are not on the draft list. So while the door is not closed to members of the public who may point to their own priorities, the presented options will be the “starting point for the Board and public’s conversation”.

Predictably, the draft project list for Snohomish, Pierce and South King is focused on completing the spine. All of their projects are just alternate alignments for doing so. Snohomish’ goals will be hard to achieve without large revenue transfers from elsewhere. The draft list includes costly projects such as alignments to Everett via Paine Field and a further extension to North Everett.

North King has ten projects to consider; all are light rail and would serve West Seattle or Ballard. Mayor Ed Murray would like to add Madison BRT to the list. The quality of the eventual outcomes in North King will depend on how these goals are balanced.

East King has just three options on the draft list. These are (i) the Eastlink extension to Redmond, (ii) I-405 BRT from Lynnwood to Seatac, and (iii) a light rail line from Totem Lake to Issaquah via the ERC and I-90.

The first two are highly likely to be in the final plan, and I endorsed their inclusion along with the BRISK BRT network last week. The last cannot, because even the maximum revenue authority sought by Sound Transit won’t support all three. The high-end cost estimate for Totem Lake to Issaquah rail is $2.67B (vs. about $900M each for East Link and I-405 BRT). With Eastside revenues well under $4B, Sound Transit could build to either Totem Lake OR Issaquah, but not both. Depending on the size of the final revenue authorization and competing demands from Everett, they may not build either end.

Continue reading “The Eastside Needs Better Choices”

It’s probably a sign of regional progress that access to transit always receives prominent mention in any discussion of a potential arena site. I suspect that wouldn’t have happened in 1965 or 1980 or even 1995, although in each of those cases we didn’t have much in the way of traffic-separated transit that freed attendees from horrendous pre- and post-game congestion.

According to the wonderful NHL to Seattle blog, there are three arena sites still under consideration: the well-known Chris Hansen Sodo site, Downtown Bellevue east of I-405, and a new location near the Tukwila Sounder station. Superficial glances at route maps are nice step, but how do the transit features of each site stack up to an expert eye?

Sodo (1st Ave S & S Holgate St)

Assets: Central regional location. Within reasonable walking distance of the great Sodo/Pioneer Square transit hub, providing access to ferries, Link,  Sounder, and the busway. Regular service runs frequently deep into the night and on weekends.

Liabilities: Most of those assets are a long walk away, with frustratingly indirect pathways, and are unpleasant for pedestrians.

Scope for Improvement: Major work to improve pedestrian access. Most effective (and expensive) would be to break up some of the superblocks and provide new exits to Sodo and Stadium stations, providing more direct access to the arena that lies between them.

Overall Grade: B+. People would take transit to events here no matter where they live, although fewer than would if the arena were an easier walk.

Bellevue (NE 4th St & 116th Ave NE)

Continue reading “How the NBA/NHL Arena Sites Stack Up”

Emerald Express (EmX) is a popular and growing BRT system in Eugene OR.

It looks like Link’s ridership growth is pulling out of last winter’s slowdown. Throw out last February’s Superbowl parade and so far this year Link is growing at around 9%. Last year’s ridership gains were so high (high teens!), I don’t think it possible to match them this year, but a return to low double digits (what it was averaging before last year) would be nice. It would also be enough to comfortably get us back to pre-launch (and pre-recession) estimates.

March’s Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 32,893 / 21,898 / 17,452, growth of 9.9%, -2.2%, and 3.2% respectively over March 2014. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 10.4% with ridership increasing on both lines. Tacoma Link’s weekday ridership increased 6.9%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up 3.0%. System wide weekday boardings were up 5.9%, and all boardings were up 8.0%. The complete March Ridership Summary is here.

Sounder is doing great, 25% growth in Jan, 10% in both Feb and March. ST Express is marching along. How much more can it grow before overcrowding becomes an issue? Tacoma Link seems to have finally turned around. New employer down there?

My charts below the fold. Continue reading “March 2015 Sound Transit Ridership Report – Taking off again?”

• Sound Transit is gearing up to accept bids for East Link’s downtown Bellevue tunnel. (PSBJ)
• The final Move Seattle levy proposal is out, 3% larger than originally proposed due to rising tax proceeds. Lots of protected bike lanes, neighborhood greenways, funding for Graham St and Mt Baker improvements, and also some notable deletions, such as Yesler trolley wire. (The C is for Crank)
• File under things never to do: a man evading his fare on North Sounder tried to escape by pulling the emergency brake. (Seattle Times, $)
• The Transit App now supports Everett Transit (The Urbanist).
• The FEIS for a potential NBA/NHL arena was released yesterday. Watch the the soundbite version (KING-5), or read it in all it’s 1,600 page glory. (DPD)
• Even Houston, TX is now considering a freeway removal project. (CityLab)
• More of this, please: a Republican lawmaker from Virginia will stage a ride-a-long on the DC Metro to protest proposed federal funding cuts. (The Hill)
• What to expect from Olympia’s special session: a long, sleepy wait. (TCC Blog)
• Mayor Murray announced yesterday an intent to expand Pronto Cycleshare “citywide”. While I applaud greater access, let’s hope that the fundamental station density that makes bikeshare work is not forgotten along the way. (Seattle Bike Blog.)

This is an open thread. 

At Thursday’s Sound Transit Executive Committee meeting, the staff presented its proposal for the draft project list for Sound Transit 3.  The board will amend and approve this draft list at this month’s meeting and there will be public comment all summer. In the fall, Sound Transit will launch more detailed studies with refined cost and ridership estimates of all these projects. Next June, the Board may decide on overall package size and define its approach to subarea equity, allowing to pick from this menu of choices and determine what goes on the ballot.

Any worries that the study concepts last month limited the range of projects were unfounded. Nearly every project covered in one of last year’s long-range plan studies appears here, with some new permutations. There are five categories of project:

1. ST2 Leftovers: anything voters approved in ST2 that ST had to defer due to the recession; most notably, Link to Star Lake.
2. Existing system enhancements: infill stations, Sounder runs, DSTT improvements, etc.
3. Corridors from the ST2 High Capacity Transit (HCT) studies: both the spine (North Everett/Tacoma Mall/Redmond) and “additional corridors” in Seattle and on the Eastside.
4. Systemwide programs from the LRP: IT and access improvements, more corridor studies, financial reserves.
5. Supporting System Expansion: vehicles, maintenance facilities, ST4 planning.

I’ve reproduced the other slides that have specific projects below. I chatted with ST bigwig Ric Ilgenfritz to clear up some points that might not be evident from the short descriptions.

Continue reading “ST Staff Submits “Draft Draft” ST3 Project List”

City council member Tom Rasmussen stopped by the council’s planning and land use committee this week to express his view that the city’s new parking recommendations—which would, among other things, continue to allow new developments to be built sans parking, while encouraging alternatives to driving such as carsharing, biking, and riding transit—might violate the city’s Comprehensive Plan.

The recommendations (all meeting materials available here) were based on a survey of 219 newly reviewed or permitted residential developments in parts of Seattle where no parking is required, which found that three-quarters of developers are choosing to build parking anyway, despite the fact that parking adds between $20,000 and $50,000 per space to the cost of new developments (or about $500 a month per unit in rent) and reduces the total number of units that can fit in a development. The market, not the government, determines whether a developer chooses to build parking.

The developments with parking comprised 16,600 units; only 2,400 units in the survey will have no parking, mostly in places with easy access to frequent transit such as Capitol Hill, the Central District, Ballard, and the U District. The rest will average 0.55 spaces per unit.

A separate survey, King County’s “Right-Sized Parking” study, found that in Seattle, about 35 percent of parking spaces in multifamily buildings go unused, becoming, in planning committee chair Mike O’Brien’s words, “a wasted resource.”

Continue reading “Seattle’s Parking Proposals are Reality-Size”

This week, I’ve sketched out an Eastside package Sound Transit should consider for ST3 funding. A key element of that is the BRISK network that would connect the Eastside with fast, frequent and reliable HCT service. Today, I’d like to discuss what it might cost and what needs to happen to make it a reality.

Assuming a $15 billion dollar ST3 package and subarea equity, all of the lines described can be built. The complete portfolio of capital improvements described may, depending on the accuracy of the cost estimates, is roughly in line with the projected east subarea revenue. The cost estimates are based on Sound Transit’s corridor studies, augmented with guesstimates for additional capital investments not in their corridor studies. Those estimates are derived from actual costs from comparable projects elsewhere in the region, but some of those estimates are necessarily speculative.

No funding from the cities, WSDOT, or the Federal Transit Administration is assumed. However, Congress has shown interest in supporting high-quality BRT services as part of ongoing Federal Transportation Bill discussions, so it’s possible future funding may be available.

While the projects are somewhat differently arranged, all of the corridors proposed have analogues within combinations of corridors studied by Sound Transit in 2014 (plus the East Link extension). BRISK matches Sound Transit’s Long Range Plan with HCT or BRT as an identified service for all of these corridors.

Their mid-point capital costs from Sound Transit’s corridor studies are:

ST Corridor Study Alignment	Capital Cost ($ 2013)
East Link from Overlake to Redmond	$760M
I-405 BRT (Alternative A3B, I-405 Study)	$800M
UW to Totem Lake (Alternative B1a, UKR Study)	$210M
UW to Redmond via 520 (Alternative C1, UKR Study)	$55M
Totem Lake to Issaquah + Highlands Extension (Alternative B1, B1a, KBI Study)	$1,405M

By Sound Transit’s numbers, that would mean a total capital investment of $3,230M. Arguably $200M or more of I-405 BRT costs should be assigned to Snohomish County, commensurate with ridership. The remaining $3,030M would fit very comfortably within a fully funded ST3 package. However, network I’ve described is more robust than the corridor studies assume. Major additional elements include direct access ramps and inline stations to improve access and travel times. These add incremental capital costs could add roughly $820M, for a total of $3,850M. That’s slightly over one-fourth of ST3 projected revenues, so just on the edge of what’s possible.

Continue reading “Making “BRISK” a Reality”

Since we last reported on the Madison Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project back in February, SDOT and Nelson Nygaard have been busy refining concepts with an eye toward identifying a Draft Preferred Alternative in June. Tonight from 5-7pm, SDOT will host an open house at Seattle Academy (1432 15th Avenue) to update the public on the status of the project. Tonight’s presentation will reveal SDOT’s updated thinking on several key decision points for the project, including but not limited to:

• Downtown’s eastbound pathway: Marion or Spring?
• Downtown’s western terminus: 1st, Western, or Alaskan Way?
• Eastern terminus: 23rd Avenue or MLK?
• “Open” or “Closed” system?
• Center,  Side-Running, or a mix of both?
• Where should the I-5 vicinity stations be located? 6th or 8th Ave?
• How should SDOT integrate bicycle facilities along the corridor?

This is a very important stage in the process, and if you live, work, or travel along this corridor, we encourage you to attend tonight’s meeting. Just as one example, alignment decisions made now will have cascading effects on the eventual shape of the line. For instance, a side-running solution could be an “open” system shared by several routes, which would frame the BRT project as primarily a capital improvement that could adapt to various service planning concepts over the years. By contrast, choosing a center-running solution that requires left door boarding would turn a capital project into a permanent service planning concept as well, requiring new vehicles and a dedicated route in perpetuity. Whether this would be a feature or a bug is for SDOT, Metro, and the public to decide, but the decisions and tradeoffs are substantial.

If available, we will update this post tomorrow with SDOT’s slides from the presentation.