Month: December 2015

The Pierce Transit Board of Commissioners voted Monday night to raise its discount fares from $0.75 to $1, and its Shuttle paratransit fares from $0.75 to $1.25, effective March 1, 2016. The discount fares include the Regional Reduced Fare Permit — for seniors 65+ and riders with disabilities — and youth 6-18. The regular fare of $2 was not impacted. Pierce Transit does not have a low-income fare at this time.

Meanwhile, STB has received word from Sound Transit spokesperson Kimberly Reason that a proposal to create a low-income fare on Tacoma Link will be going to its board in the near future. Tacoma Link is currently free, but is scheduled to start collecting fares as early as September 2016. The fare is set to start out at $1.50, or $0.75 for RRFP cardholders and youth.

Sound Transit’s board voted in November to implement fare changes on ST Express and Sounder, including introducing a low-income fare, to take effect on March 1, 2016. With a $1.50 low-income fare already in effect on Link Light Rail, that leaves Tacoma Link as Sound Transit’s only service not yet scheduled to have a low-income fare.

Fares for all fixed-route transit services that accept the PugetPass are below the fold. Washington State Ferries is the only agency that accepts ORCA, but not PugetPass. There is a customer satisfaction survey underway for ORCA. You can take the opportunity to urge the expansion of ORCA, PugetPass, and ORCA LIFT (the low-income fare program). Bikeshare is explicitly listed as an expansion option. The monorail is conspicuously not, but you can write it in. Continue reading “More Fare Changes for Pierce County Coming in 2016”

In this morning’s First Hill post, I inadvertently placed the Green Line Westlake station one block too far to the East compared to Sound Transit’s preliminary concept for the station . Oran has corrected the images in the original post, and I’ve revised the numbers accordingly. The numbers change a bit but the analysis doesn’t change qualitatively.

The Green Line subway that Sound Transit seems certain to propose next year has one stop between Westlake and International District/Chinatown, on Madison Street. Falling between two existing DSTT stations, it would greatly improve integration of Madison BRT into the rail system.

The Sound Transit concept places the stop at about Madison & 5th Avenue, right in front of the Central Library and a block from the I-5 trench. But what if we could use this opportunity to correct one of the most regrettable outcomes of Sound Transit 1, the deletion of First Hill Station?

Moving a station away from 5th takes the line away from the region’s tallest buildings, but these buildings are well-served by existing Link Stations. Nudging the line up to Madison and 8th Avenue has negligible impact on tunnel length (0.05 0.09 miles according to Oran’s software)*, and places all three hospitals within easy walking distance of Link (see walkshed map below).  Reaching Boren would be much harder, adding a quarter mile and in practice forcing transfers for many Green Line riders headed downtown,  but locates the station very near the hospitals and credibly serves Seattle University and the entirety of First Hill.

Although the 8th Avenue option isn’t a huge change in linear feet, the surface of 8th Avenue is 65 feet above 5th, and Boren is another 52 feet above that. That implies either an even steeper climb for the trains (before dropping down again to Westlake), a more expensive deep station, or both. And it involves tunneling under I-5 twice.

When I asked ST spokesman Geoff Patrick about these possibilities, he didn’t dismiss them, but I got the impression that the question was definitely outside the box. However, “it would be a board policy decision,” so if local officials understand that is feasible, desired, and very much needed, they can bring it onto the agenda. It’s certainly worth a look from ST planners.

* If tunneling costs $600m/mile, that’d be $30m $54m in additional expenditure on a multibillion dollar project.

A humorous animated take on “the high cost of free parking”. I also laughed at “why jaywalking is a crime” and “the reason car dealerships are the worst” from the same show.

via Streetsblog

In the latest ST3 study concept, with a one-seat ride from Ballard to the Rainier Valley, there are a total of 14 sensible transfers in Seattle: two at Sodo, between West Seattle and Rainier Valley; four at International District/Chinatown, between Redmond and either West Seattle or Rainier Valley; two at Westlake, between Ballard and Everett; and six equally appropriate at two or more of those stations, because the direction of travel through downtown is the same. In a discussion with ST spokesman Geoff Patrick and other ST staff, STB learned about some preliminary concepts for how these transfers might work.

Of course, these concepts are very preliminary. The Board hasn’t even committed to a second tunnel, much less accepted detailed transfer concepts. But they do indicate a staff thinking hard about how to avoid the transfer mistakes of the past.

At International District, Sound Transit would excavate a cut-and-cover station under 5th Ave S, directly east of the current station (see the figure at right). The new station mezzanine would connect directly with the northbound platform in the existing stop. From the existing southbound platform, riders would climb to the surface, decline to the northbound platform, and then work over to the Green Line mezzanine without having to cross the street.

This concept is miles ahead of past station designs, and significantly reduces the frustration of Sound Transit’s refusal to consider a center platform at the current ID station. Direct street access to the Green Line Mezzanine would be a nice addition. But then Oran developed a far better concept, with a tweak from me, shown at right. The beauty of this configuration is that it maximizes the ease of the most important transfers at International District, which are between East Link and either West Seattle or the Rainier Valley. I imagine a setup like this would be a substantially more complicated project, probably more expensive and with more service disruptions during construction, and I suspect Sound Transit will find a reason not to do it. But it’s worthwhile to put the optimal configuration on the record.

Although the all-surface transfer at Sodo is much more straightforward, switching Central Link to the Green Line and a new tunnel will require significant work in the busway corridor. As Geoff Patrick put it:

Subject to refinement during the environmental review and design processes, the existing tracks north of Massachusetts would be reconfigured to connect with a new alignment proceeding north to the vicinity of the current location of Stadium Station where it transitions into a new tunnel. The existing Stadium Station would be relocated to the west side of the E3 Busway and would serve the West Seattle to Everett line through the existing Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. All of the specifics will be subject to close review during the preliminary design and environmental review process, during which alternatives will be developed in consultation with the public, impacts will be evaluated and mitigation will be identified.

At Westlake, the Green Line will be traveling (roughly) North towards South Lake Union while the Blue and Red lines travel (roughly) East towards Capitol Hill.  As you can see in the figure below, the green line tunnel would pass to the  and below of the existing station. Stairs or escalators would connect the (mined) new mezzanine with either platform of the existing station. A transfer of this quality is crucial, as a decent Westlake transfer in this context fulfills the longtime wonk dream of a congestion-free transit connection between Lower Queen Anne, South Lake Union, and Capitol Hill, the informally discussed “Metro 8 Subway.”

On Tuesday I reported council testimony from the Office of the Waterfront that disclosed the new possibility of eliminating dedicated transit lanes on the future Alaskan Way. The Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) will include a new option that rechannelizes the roadway from 8 lanes to 6, retaining two general purpose lanes and a turn/ferry queuing lane in each direction. In his testimony before Council, Office of the Waterfront Director Marshall Foster strongly implied that the inclusion of this new option was at the behest of community groups in Pioneer Square, including long-time friends of the blog Feet First, and to that end my reporting included a 2013 blog post from Feet First that corroborated Foster’s testimony. The post called for shifting transit lanes away from Alaskan Way to the Sodo busway instead.

In subsequent correspondence with both Foster and Feet First’s Executive Director Lisa Quinn, they both strongly denied any intent to deprioritize transit. Lisa Quinn commented on STB yesterday:

In no way did Feet First propose eliminating a bus lane. Marshall Foster was mistaken and this was said out of context. The City made compromises to make the 8 lane highway work for people such as adding refuge islands etc. But, quite frankly, at the end of the day, there needs to be less lanes along the waterfront for people to cross. We have proposed other options to solve this safety issue for people crossing by eliminating the 2 turn lanes for the ferry to 1 lane. Additionally, we have called for more flexible lanes shared by freight and buses. Walking and transit are intrinsically connected. We need a transportation system that puts people first. The elimination of buses on the waterfront is not something Feet First has ever proposed.

In response, Feet First wrote a forceful blog post and quickly uploaded a joint letter from August – cosigned by TCC, Cascade, and Washington Bikes – that called for a narrower roadway but included suggestions that retained transit priority, either with shared freight/transit lanes or with expanded transit lanes from Dearborn to Columbia Street.

And that’s where the process gets a bit confusing. In Foster’s testimony he merely said “we got a lot of feedback from Pioneer Square and groups like Feet First” for a narrower roadway and then immediately proceeded into a discussion of eliminating transit to achieve it. But in a phone call this morning, Foster clarified that none of the groups he mentioned either asked for or support eliminating transit priority. So why the disconnect? Basically, the State and the Port.

Foster said the total number of comments asking for a narrower roadway hit “a tipping point” that forced the City to formally respond to their request, necessitating a SDEIS that studied a narrower roadway. However, Foster said the funding agreement between the State and the Port explicitly codifies two general purpose lanes in each direction, effectively prohibiting the City from studying reducing those lanes in the SDEIS:

Section II, A, 5: The Central Waterfront from Pine Street to Colman Dock will have two lanes in each direction plus a turning lane; the segment south of Colman Dock will have 3 lanes in each direction plus a turning lane.

So the City is in the odd position of being required to study a narrower channelization because enough of the community asked for it, but since the only mode not explicitly protected in its right-of-way allocation is transit, the City will study eliminating transit priority even though neither the City nor advocacy groups see that as a preferred outcome. Isn’t process fun?

We stand behind our reporting of Monday’s committee meeting, which relied on direct quotation of official testimony and published material, but we failed to grasp the full complexity of the situation and regret any hasty criticisms of groups such as Feet First.

Foster took a glass-half-full approach in our phone call, saying the DEIS is likely to show unacceptable impacts from eliminating transit lanes, and that such an outcome would actually backhandedly and belatedly codify the need for transit priority. And Mayor Murray’s office has been clear about its priorities while also deferent to process, telling us by email, “While the Waterfront EIS is considering more than one alternative, the Mayor is clear his priority is a new waterfront roadway with dedicated transit lanes.” And of course, all of us will have a chance to comment before the Final EIS is developed next summer. I hope that the walk, bike, and transit communities can coalesce around a vision for a walkable waterfront that also takes the mobility needs of 25,000 transit riders seriously.