Month: December 2015

This is part of a series of posts looking at Sound Transit’s candidate projects for ST3.

The communities on the North end of Lake Washington have been in an unfortunate no-man’s land when it comes to regional transit discussions. Straddling Sound Transit’s North and East King subareas, and used by plenty of Snohomish County residents, SR 522 has often played second (or third) fiddle to the I-5 and I-405 corridors.

The cities and neighborhoods along SR 522 – from Lake City to Kenmore to Bothell – realized somewhat late in the game that getting organized is the key to getting on Sound Transit’s radar. But organize they did and ST has responded with a proposal (pp. 70-83) for connecting SR 522 to Link via NE 145th St as part of ST3.

The plan comes in two parts. Part one is a BRT project along SR 522 that fills in the gaps in existing HOV lanes along the corridor. For $311M, ST would acquire property and conduct the capital projects necessary to keep buses on SR 522 running smoothly from the Seattle city line to Bothell, with a possible extension to I-405 BRT. A separate project would then connect those buses to the Link station at 145th.

Continue reading “ST3: BRT on SR 522 and NE 145th St”

October saw the largest gain in Link ridership in a year. In fact it was the bookend to what at first blush looks like a ‘bad’ year for Link. For the first time since the line opened in 2009 Link was held to single digit ridership growth for a 12 month period. From October 2014 to September 2015 Link averaged only 6.4% year over year growth.

However that number is a bit deceiving. It is important to note that the year of Oct. 13 to Sep. 14 was Link’s best 12 months on record. Ridership grew 15.9% in that time period. A significant part of the higher than normal (normal for Link being 10-11%) bump was special event ridership. The year from Oct. 13 to Sep. 14 had three Seahawks weekday home games, a Super Bowl Parade and the first Mariners season since 07 worth talking about. Special event ridership is nothing to scoff at. Seattle’s worst traffic days are generally tied into afternoon events (and god forbid a fish truck turn over during one of them). Not only does Link take tens of thousands of cars off the road during the regular commute, but it takes the most cars off the roads on the worst traffic days.

Long story short, Link only had a no good very bad 12 months because the year before it had extremely higher than normal growth. Were the numbers to be revised down to average only 10.3% (the average for the prior year, Oct. 12 to Sep. 13), the 12 months ending Sep. 15 would have seen 10.1% growth. So calm down, ridership is still strongly heading in the right direction. And enough editorializing, here are the numbers.

October’s Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 38,297 / 22,138 / 25,205, growth of 17.8%, 0.3%, and 27.5% respectively over October 2015. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 9.8% with ridership increasing on both lines. Tacoma Link’s weekday ridership increased 0.4%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up 3.3%. System wide weekday boardings were up 8.1%, and all boardings were up 5.3%. The complete October Ridership Summary is here.

My charts below the break. Continue reading “October 2015 Sound Transit Ridership Report: Link up 18%”

There are two open houses tonight for those of you interested in transit advocacy, one in Eastlake and the other in the Rainier Valley.

Roosevelt-Downtown HCT
The Roosevelt-Downtown High Capacity Transit project will hold an open house tonight from 6-8pm in the TOPS School Cafeteria in Eastlake, in advance of identifying a Recommended Corridor Concept in early 2016. The plan could include dedicated transit lanes, protected bike lanes, both, or neither, all dependent on community feedback and neighborhood negotiation. Given Eastlake’s vocal neighborhood residents and the natural constraints of the corridor, there are likely to be intense debates about the tradeoffs and relative priority of cars, buses, bikes, and parking. For the bike advocacy perspective, see Seattle Bike Blog, Cascade’s, or Seattle Neighborhood Greenways views. And if you can’t make it tonight, there’s another meeting in the UDistrict Thursday.

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 6 – 8 p.m.
TOPS School, Cafeteria
2500 Franklin Ave. E, Seattle

Thursday, Dec. 10, 6 – 8 p.m.
UW Tower, Cafeteria North
4333 Brooklyn Ave. NE, Seattle

SE Seattle Restructure
Metro will hold a meeting on the proposed restructure of Routes 8, 9, 106, 107, and 124 Wednesday evening at the Filipino Community Center. The proposal would combine Route 38 (south half of Route 8) and Route 106 to form a frequent all-day connection between Renton, Skyway, and the Rainier Valley, a meritorious idea that we’ve supported since it was first proposed in a service cut scenario in 2012. Unfortunately, the proposal also halves Downtown-Georgetown service and adds a duplicative 4th route between Mount Baker and the International District. We’d encourage attendees to listen to the planners and the community at this open house with an open mind, while also asking hard questions of staff. Suggested questions to ask:

• Could better all-day, evening, or weekend frequency on Route 106 be achieved  for the same service hours as extending the route to the International District?

• Why does Metro propose cutting service to Georgetown when the 2014 Service Guidelines Report called for 25,000 hours to be invested on the Route 124 and Route 131 corridors?

• The 2014 Service Guidelines Report did not target any additional investments for the Route 7 and Route 8 corridors. Why are the other 58 corridors targeted for investment being left behind?

• Are there additional options for a Route 106 terminus that would be less duplicative and create better network connections? What about the Central District, Yesler Way, First Hill, or South Lake Union?

• A major rationale for splitting the Route 8 in the ULink restructure was to restore reliability along the route. Does this proposal undo that work? Does Metro think a Renton-IDS route could be reliable for riders?

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 6 – 8 p.m.
Filipino Community Center
5740 Martin Luther King Jr Way S (MLK & Orcas)

• Judkins Park Station plan wins national award.
• Tacoma Link design concepts.
• Metro rolling out TripPool program to organize carpools to park-and-rides.
• Your guide to the new federal transportation bill.
• Seattle Times shows precinct maps for Seattle’s last election.
• City of Tuwkila has a new survey out on transit improvements.
• Community Transit approves a 2016 budget.
• Seattle gives “preliminary approval” to 58 stories at Rainier Square.
• 250 units in Roosevelt to go before Design Review.
• Because Frank jinxed it, mudslides close down North Sounder.
• Pedestrians die in collision with Metro bus near Northgate, in Auburn vs. Sounder train.
• Portland Streetcar tries closing stops to speed things up.
• WSDOT cancels ferry runs due to maintenance.
• Bertha may start up this month.

This is an open thread.

Start watching at 22:20

[Update: Mayor Murray’s office has responded, saying “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.”]

Yesterday at the city’s Special Committee on Central Waterfront, Seawall, and Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program,  Office of the Waterfront Director Marshall Foster quietly dropped a bombshell: the city will study the impact of canceling bus-only lanes on the future Alaskan Way.

As a refresher, current plans call for buses to exit SR 99 near the south tunnel portal at Royal Brougham, accessing a reconfigured two-way Columbia Street via dedicated bus lanes on Alaskan Way. Dedicated lanes have long been seen as essential mitigation for the loss of freeway access implied by the Downtown-bypassing Deep Bore Tunnel, so much so that former Governor Gregoire sold the plan as the “tunnel plus transit” plan.

To be clear, the proposal to cancel transit lanes is just one alternative in a new Supplemental Draft EIS.  The option with dedicated transit lanes remains in the EIS and is still on the table. Foster said that community feedback and concerns about pedestrian safety are driving the addition, and that the SDEIS will evaluate the impact of narrowing the street by 24′ by eliminating the the two transit lanes:

“We got a lot of feedback, especially in Pioneer Square…that we needed to look at a narrower Alaskan Way; that especially in the South End that the roadway was too wide. There was a lot of concern about pedestrian ability to cross that street safely and comfortably…based on that, we worked with the State, worked with King County, and the ferries, and we’re going to include an alternative that looks at a narrower Alaskan Way. The key thing that will change is that it will not include dedicated transit lanes south of Yesler.”

Foster specifically cited Feet First, the pedestrian advocacy organization, as a community stakeholder that had suggested removing transit lanes to narrow the roadway. And he’s right. In a September 2013 post Feet First decried the “8-lane highway” planned for Alaskan Way and rallied their supporters to submit comments in support of 3 ideas: overall lane reductions, variable ferry fares to manage demand, and moving the transit lanes elsewhere.

Continue reading “Waterfront Bus Lanes May Be Endangered”

In response to community complaint surrounding the largely rescinded Capitol Hill restructure – in which Route 11 reverted to E Pine Street after SDOT denied Metro’s request for needed improvements to 19th Avenue – Metro is proposing modifying Route 10 to serve Capitol Hill Station via E John Street and Olive Way.

Last week on the blog, David wrote about the merits of this idea, hailing it as an ‘administrative’, zero-cost change Metro could make to atone for the lost connectivity caused by the deletion of the off-peak Route 43 and the failure to move Route 11. Though it does little to help between those losing key frequency east of 15th Avenue, the proposal would do a number of good things:

• Restores frequent all-day connections between Pike/Pine, Summit, Capitol Hill Station,  and Hilltop
• Provides a new connection between Link, the 15th Ave E business district, and Volunteer Park
• Increases service on Olive and John from 5 buses per hour to 9
• Restores trolley service to the John/Olive corridor

Current ridership data also supports this change. Between Bellevue Avenue and 15th Avenue, Route 43 has double the daily ridership (2,240) compared to Route 10 (1,170). The stop furthest from either John or Pine, at 15th/Howell, currently sees 150 boardings per day. If adopted, those riders will have either a maximum 2-block walk to frequent service on Routes 8/10/11 or a 5-block walk to the south entrance of Capitol Hill Station at Nagle/Denny.

Metro is seeking feedback for six days only, given the need to having everything nailed down before the Christmas holiday. Please take their short 3-question survey and let them know your thoughts.

Full text of Metro’s blog post reprinted after the jump. Continue reading “Metro Proposes Moving Route 10 – Take Their Survey”

King County Metro rolled out a restructure proposal last month that would, among other things, change bus travel patterns in southwest Beacon Hill and Georgetown.

The proposed route 107 extension would be a boon for students and employees of Cleveland High School, with a new one-seat ride to a wide swath of south Beacon Hill. It would also give residents along that path better access to the soon-to-expand Link Light Rail system, and improve frequency on 15th Ave S.

For a portion of Georgetown, the proposal degrades transit options, by removing route 106 service between Georgetown and downtown, as David pointed out.

But that begs the question: Why is route 60, which serves southeast Georgetown and heads to Beacon Hill Station, not seen as a frequent option for heading downtown? The answer lies in a basic routing error: The route skirts the southern edge of Georgetown heading south (S Albro Pl / Stanley Ave S / 13th Ave S / S Albro Pl / Ellis Ave S), and misses most of central and northern Georgetown heading north (following Carleton Ave S / S Bailey St / 13th Ave S / S Albro Pl). Riders using route 60 to get home have to backtrack northward after departing the bus.

There is a way for route 60 to serve a larger walkshed in Georgetown: Have route 60 cross through Georgetown on Corson Ave S and S Lucile St (which is essentially one long street that becomes an overpass over the railroad tracks and under I-5), between E Marginal Way S and 15th Ave S.

Not only does this widen route 60’s walkshed and remove the Carleton/Ellis couplet, but it also provides direct service to the Georgetown campus of South Seattle College, and save several minutes of travel time for through riders.

A further problem with the current Carleton Ave S path is that it features a series of traffic circles, forcing the bus to crawl down a street that was clearly not designed for bus travel, and frequently scrape its tires. In a conversation I had with a King County Department of Transportation employee a few years ago, it was indicated that SDOT put the traffic circles on Carleton Ave S without consulting King County, and that if King County had been consulted, it would have said No.

Route 60 currently runs 20-minute-or-better headway during the day on weekdays, and 30-minute headway late into the evening seven days a week, thanks to 2014 Seattle Proposition 1 funding. Compare this to 30-minute headway on routes 106 and 124, which tend to be much less reliable than route 60 due to traveling through downtown. Route 60 could easily become the favorite route of many Georgetowners with a simple tweak to put its routing where it can serve the most riders, and take the most direct path to Beacon Hill Station.

Route 124 currently does a better job of reaching northeast Georgetown, but could also improve its walkshed and travel time via a similar restructure, traveling on Corson Ave S between E Marginal Way S and Airport Way S. It, too, has to suffer the Carleton Ave S traffic circles.

One additional tweak that could be considered is decoupling route 124 from route 24 downtown, and putting route 124 in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, which would be an essentially 1-to-1 switch with peak route 106 trips, proposed to no longer go into the DSTT. This would improve reliability on route 124 and potentially improve usage of the tunnel off-peak if route 124 gets an all-day frequency bump. The decoupling from route 24 would be a prerequisite to that all-day frequency bump.

The travel time savings from straightening the path of routes 60 and 124 through Georgetown could help pay for that frequency bump for route 124. Indeed, having each 60 and each 124 travel along Corson three times per hour in each direction all day on weekdays would give central Georgetowners a bus headed in the downtown direction every 10 minutes, if the routes are synchronized well.

Metro’s Comment Period

Metro is continuing to collect input on the restructure proposal, via phone, email, and a survey, through Wednesday, December 23. There will also be a public meeting:

Wednesday, December 9, 6-8 p.m.
Filipino Community Center
5740 Martin Luther King Jr Way S, Seattle 98118

Sound Transit staff presented a financial analysis at Friday’s workshop in support of ST3 planning. Perhaps in response to Seattle Subway’s ST Complete proposal, or the general desire to fund more projects than the new revenue authority allows in 15 years, the analysis explores breaking the rule of thumb (from the 2007 and 2008 votes) that 15-year packages are more politically palatable.*

As someone interested in the ultimate shape of ST3, there are three things you should take away from this analysis:

1) Don’t confuse different types of dollars. This is probably the most boring of the points but also the most important. This mistake will result in lots of unworkable projects and lots of misleading talking points for the no campaign.

All of the corridor study cost estimates are in 2014 dollars. All revenue figures are in Year of Expenditure (YOE) dollars.

We all know what 2014 dollars are. A YOE dollar’s true value varies over time, and is worth less than a current one. Thus a $15 billion revenue package sums up numbers in different units, and doesn’t actually communicate much. But it’s much easier to compute for the boffins, because fewer assumptions are built into the model.

So how we turn 2014 dollars into YOE? The short answer is, you can’t. You’d have to understand the phasing of various projects, how cash flow varies over those phases, and then apply the correct inflation rate over those years. Last year, I very roughly took some historical ST1 phasing information, and made a guess that $3 in YOE dollars buys you about $2 in 2014 dollars. That’s a bit better than a wild guess, and in any case only valid for a 15-year time frame. ST will have to do some detailed staff work to work out the translation.

2) 20 years buys a bit more, 25 years a lot more.

The headline figure in the legislature last session was $15 billion. That figure referred to total (YOE) collections over 15 years. Because ST will also sell bonds, apply for federal grants, collect fares, and so on, any amount of collection enables a larger amount of capital spending. A 15-year revenue cycle using all three taxes (sales, MVET, property) provides about $26 billion (YOE) for projects, which may involve tough choices and/or some value engineering.

Another five years, as one might expect, gets you 33% more taxes. But due to bonding limitations and so forth, the total budget goes up to only $30 billion (YOE), which may be about enough to build the Board’s apparent highest priorities. But give it another 5 years (through 2041) and ST1 and ST2 bonds start retiring, restoring ST’s bonding capacity and raising the total budget to as much as $48 billion (YOE). Of course, that far out the actual purchasing power of those dollars is likely quite a bit diminished from today. That should be enough to build everything the Board seems to prioritize, and a several additional projects (Ballard-UW, anyone?) to boot.

3) Subarea Equity may not mean what we think it means.

Most observers probably learned something when ST CFO Brian McCartan explained the true origins of the policy that taxes collected in one subarea must (roughly speaking) be spent in that subarea. As it turns out, the statute only requires that the proposition ”identifies the degree to which revenues generated within each county will benefit the residents of that county.” The restrictions on spending are a matter of board policy, and the board can change it.

Josh Feit’s report quotes several board members expressing sentiments that a project’s physical location has little to do with who really benefits. That’s a good thing, as subarea accounting is a futile exercise only necessary due to excessive parochialism.

In Sound Transit 1, Subarea Equity was generally understood to advantage the suburbs over Seattle. Around the time of Sound Transit 2, I was one of the people arguing that Link reaching the city line meant the valence had reversed. Today, I’m not sure what to believe. Mayor Murray certainly believes the case for Seattle projects is convincing.

Moreover, the corridor studies suggest that the most productive system would involve shipping at least some dollars from East King County to Snohomish County, leaving the traditional Seattle/suburb rivalry entirely out of it. As always, the board will have to balance regionwide merit against electoral feasibility, and the outcome is unclear.

* It is debatable, to say the least, that package length had any impact on differing outcomes in those years.

Chicago from the “L”. I enjoy the view from elevated trains.

A Ride In The City from RYANJBOLGER on Vimeo.

Among the dozens of projects and corridor studies presented at the ST3 Board Workshop yesterday, perhaps the most interesting new concept was an operational idea to effectively split the spine into more manageable corridors. Though unspoken by regional leaders, the light rail spine has always been more of a political conception than an operational one, as running a pure Everett-Tacoma line was always going to be a stretch (at best). Such a line would be over 2 hours end to end, require additional maintenance facilities, restrict scheduling options, and likely require operator changes on every single train.

At the same time, Sound Transit has recognized something that advocacy groups such as Seattle Subway have long noted, namely that a new downtown tunnel for a Ballard-West Seattle line would waste that tunnel’s capacity, hence Seattle Subway’s idea for a bus-rail tunnel instead. Not at all keen on that idea but cognizant of the operational realities, Sound Transit has come back with an exceedingly ambitious and exciting proposal (see my unofficial map above):

• Blue Line: Everett to Redmond (6 Minute headways)
• Red Line: Everett to West Seattle (6 Minute headways)
• Green Line: Ballard to Tacoma (6 Minute headways)
• 3 minute headways between Everett and International District/Chinatown

South from International District Station (IDS), the Red Line would serve Stadium and Sodo in new tracks west of the current stations before running elevated to West Seattle, terminating either at Alaska Junction or White Center. The current station at Stadium would be demolished and rebuilt as part of Green Line construction. The Blue Line, meanwhile, would head east as planned to Mercer Island, Bellevue, and Redmond.

The Green Line would serve Tacoma, Federal Way, SeaTac, the Rainier Valley, Downtown Seattle, South Lake Union, Queen Anne, Interbay, and Ballard. From a rebuilt Stadium station, the line would enter an expanded International District Station via cut-and-cover construction on 5th Avenue South. IDS would essentially be a 4-track station, potentially with  cross-platform transfers between southbound Green Line and northbound Red and Blue line trains. North of IDS, the Green Line would run in a new deep bore tunnel through Downtown to Queen Anne, with stations at 5th/Madison, at Westlake (beneath the current station), at Westlake/Denny, and at Queen Anne/Mercer. There the tunnel would emerge and run elevated through Interbay to Ballard.

Sound Transit’s Ric Ilgenfritz walked the Board through this idea, and it was clear from the presentation that Sound Transit prefers this concept to a standalone Ballard-West Seattle line. Though there are drawbacks, such as permanently leaving out Belltown and requiring Snohomish and North Seattle riders to transfer to reach the Rainier Valley and Sea-Tac, etc, the operational benefits are immense:

• By freeing the Northgate-IDS core from the Rainier Valley line, you could potentially increase frequency beyond 3 minutes and improve reliability to near 100%.
• Transfers would be world class at both Westlake and IDS, both contained within their respective stations.
• Travel between South Lake Union and Capitol Hill (the “8 subway”) would be effectively solved with a simple underground transfer between a 6-minute line and a combined 3-minute line.
• The new Madison station would connect with Madison BRT for additional eastbound options. It might be even better a couple blocks east as a true First Hill station, but that’s a post for another day.
• The new tunnel would rebalance passenger loads, taking pressure off the current tunnel while better utilizing the new tunnel.
• This option allows ST3 to be built out with 4 maintenance bases instead of 5.
• Operations are much simpler, and labor much more reasonable, when no single line exceeds 90 minutes end-to-end running time.

What do you think?