Month: February 2016

This post concludes our summary of ST3 feedback letters. Previous installments include East King County, Pierce County, Seattle, South King County, and Snohomish County.

Belltown Community Council

Belltown’s letter unsurprisingly laments its exclusion from the proposed Ballard line, losing out in favor of South Lake Union. It proposes resurrecting earlier Seattle Subway-style plans for SLU to be served as the starter neighborhood for an SR 99 line, with the Ballard line running through the heart of Belltown instead. Anticipating objections that SLU’s employment density requires it be given priority, the letter argues that Amazon’s new Rufus campus demonstrates that employment is increasingly concentrated in areas traditionally considered Belltown, and that such employment would be equally well served by a 4th Avenue stop as it would one at Westlake/Denny. The letter includes significant documentation of Belltown’s density, employment, and amenities, and criticizes the neighborhood’s exclusion from light rail and streetcar planning.  Its desire to be served in ST3 has found traction here on STB as well, with both Frank and Seattle Subway taking up the cause.

Federal Highway Administration

The FHWA limited its comments to areas of common interest between light rail and interstate highways, offering a sentence or two on each candidate project within an interstate catchment area. Their comments are a mixed bag, progressive for a highway agency in some places and traditionalist in others. First, the FHWA seems to favor urban arterials for light rail as opposed to interstates:

Using Interstate right of way as a primary conduit as opposed to an arterial like SR 99 debases the opportunity for appropriate urban densification and its commensurate economic development. (emphasis mine)

FHWA also asks that Sound Transit choose its target market, arguing for either urban arterials with densification, or freeway light rail with more car-centric access provided, but not freeway light rail without parking:

Since the light rail extensions appear to serve car‐based commuters and relies heavy on the existing Interstate, Interchanges, and Park and Ride lots, the ST3 projects may have the potential to increase trips on I‐5 as well as the local system adjacent to those lots and interchanges…We have concerns that placing stations at existing interchanges could significantly increase congestion and decrease safety. ST will need to identify impacts to those interchanges and ensure that the proposed light rail will not prohibit future interchange improvements nor should ST actions result in increased cost to WSDOT to improve those interchanges in the future…If these light rail extension are to serve car based commuters then additional parking needs to be considered. If Sound Transit is assuming to acquire (temporary during construction or permanent) WSDOT parking lots then they could potentially be displacing highway users’ parking at park and ride lots. This will need analysis and may require mitigation.

In what seems like an argument both for transit quality and for minimizing conflict with its highway interests, FHWA believes that ST should take grade separation as a first principle:

A base assumption should be all crossings are grade separated unless there is a compelling reason, regardless of cost. Span lengths should fully span interstate facilities including any future expansion.

Lastly, like many other observers, FHWA also seems puzzled by the lack of connection between South Bellevue and Eastgate under current concepts for light rail between Totem Lake and Issaquah:

This plan leaves a gap in the system along I‐90 between Bellevue Way and Eastgate. That connection should be provided to eliminate the out of direction link through downtown Bellevue and provide a more desirable route to Eastgate.

First Hill Improvement Association, Mercer Corridor Stakeholders, Microsoft, Northwest Seattle Coalition, Queen Anne Community Council, and Transit Access Stakeholders after the jump. Continue reading “Community Feedback on Sound Transit 3”

March Madness in rail line openings begins on the 5th in Los Angeles. The 11-mile, 6-station, Foothill Gold Line extension in the San Gabriel Valley opens March 5. When the Regional Connector through downtown LA opens in 2021, the Blue and Gold Lines will be joined, forming a continuous line 48.6 miles long between Long Beach and Azusa. A future extension from Azusa to Montclair will add another 12.6 miles, making this line rival the Everett-Seattle-Tacoma Link spine in length.

Did you know King County has a program to give out free youth ORCA cards to family members of LIFT card recipients at Public Health offices that issue LIFT (low-income ORCA) cards? I sure did not, and I make it an obsession to stay up on these details. The program is not advertised on Metro’s LIFT pages, nor at the ORCA card vendor site. Rochelle Ogershok at King County confirmed the existence of the pilot project program and the upcoming decision of whether to make the program permanent or discontinue it.

CLARIFICATION AND UPDATE: The passes on the cards are not free. Only the card fee is waived. Also, per Ogershok, the county is not discontinuing anything. It has been “testing” the card waiver element for youth and will be deciding in the next handful of weeks whether it needs to make any adjustments.

The program is an ingenious extension to the ingenious program of giving out ORCA LIFT cards as part of a menu of services offered at Public Health.

The program supplements the free youth ORCA cards and passes that are given out to middle and high school students enrolled in Seattle Public Schools who live more than 2 miles from school, or live more than 1 mile from school and qualify for the reduced or free lunch program ($).

Of course, making the youth ORCA card free for everyone 6-18 would be even better, but Ogershok confirms there are no such plans.

Any program that gets more riders paying with ORCA rather than cash pays for itself after a few rides through the time saved by paying with ORCA instead of with cash, as Metro has documented well — a savings of 4.6 to 6.9 seconds per boarding.

In the case of regular ORCA cards, Metro has a partial excuse for the $5 fee (the highest price in the nation, by far, for a bus smart card). It does not want cardholders to treat the cards — which cost Metro $2-3 — as disposable. But that reasoning really does not apply to youth, as getting that card requires waiting a few days to get one in the mail, or making a special trip to a Metro customer service location (of which there are only two, and one is closed several weekdays per month), during weekday business hours. Moreover, kids do not need an ORCA card to get the youth fare on most transit services, including Metro, so there is little incentive to make the effort to get the card.

Given the number of families living in poverty, and the dearth of locations where one can walk in and get a youth ORCA card, making youth cards available at Public Health and other facilities that distribute LIFT cards makes mountains of sense. But if the program is not advertised, don’t expect adults applying for a LIFT card to ask about the program, nor to bring copies of their kids’ IDs to get youth cards. Please keep this program, and don’t keep it a secret.

Wednesday was the deadline for bills to get voted out of their original house in the state legislature. Nine bills dealing with affordable housing made it through, including one pushed by Mayor Ed Murray. Murray has been heavily pushing Senate Bill 6239 (sponsored by Sen. Joe Fain, R – Auburn) as enabling some of the 65 recommendations of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda. Marc Stiles at the Puget Sound Business Journal reported on how the bill would work, and why Mayor Murray is pushing it.

Fain’s bill is just one of several awesome Republican-sponsored bills on the topic.

The next deadline these bills face is next Friday, February 26 to get voted out of a policy committee in their second house, unless the bill got referred straight to a fiscal committee, as happened with Substitute House Bill 2971. After that, the bills have through Monday, February 29 to get out of a fiscal committee, if they have to go that route, and then Friday, March 4 to get voted out of their second house.
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2nd Substitute Senate Bill 6239, originally by Sen. Fain, would allow a city or county to create a local property tax exemption program to promote the preservation of affordable housing available for very low-income households. The tax exemption could apply for up to 15 consecutive years, but could be extended for an additional three years if the project meets certain energy standards.

The exemption would apply to certain multi-family properties if at least 25 percent of their units are rented at rates that are affordable to households with an income up to 50 percent of the median family income of the area. The threshold household income level could be lowered to serve severely low-income households, or raised up to 60 percent of the median family income in high-property-value areas. The multi family property would have to be part of a residential or mixed-use project and have a 90 percent occupancy rate. It would have to provide at least half of its space for permanent residents.

The city or county would be allowed to establish its own additional requirements, including a limit on the number of units eligible for the exemption, and designate target areas for affordable housing.

The tax exemption would be cancelled if the owner fails to meet the affordable housing requirements or intends to discontinue compliance, fails to complete a rehabilitation plan, or fails to substantially comply with any applicable building, safety, or health regulations.

The Senate Committee on Human Services, Mental Health & Housing amended the bill to allow local governments to require construction work on affected properties to pay at least the prevailing wage.

The bill was amended again in the Senate Ways & Means Committee to remove that prevailing wage amendment, remove the waiver for temporarily having too many “over-income” tenants, and to keep tenant income information used to process the property tax exemption private.

2SSB 6239 passed in the Senate 36 (yeas) – 13 (nays) – 0 (absent) – 0 (excused) on Tuesday, with the Republican Caucus split down the middle.

Given the unanimous Democratic support for Republican Senator Joe Fain’s bill in the Senate, one would normally expect smooth sailing in the Democrat-controlled House. However, Rep. Gerry Pollett (D – North Seattle) put up some resistance to 6239’s companion bill in the House, House Bill 2544, as reported by Josh Feit at Publicola. HB 2544 failed to get out of the House Finance Committee.

2SSB 6239 is scheduled for a hearing in the House Committee on Community Development, Housing & Tribal Affairs at 1:30 pm on Monday, February 22.
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The other eight housing bills are detailed after the jump. Continue reading “Mayor Murray’s Preservation Bill and Eight Other Housing Bills Survive Halfway Cut-off”

Usually a booming local economy comes with high fuel prices, as fuel demand rises commensurately with demand for housing and other commodities. But despite a strong local economy, weak global demand and purposeful oversupply from OPEC have given us historically low fuel prices. There are a number of reasons why low fuel prices are a policy and environmental disaster, including exacerbating climate change via induced demand, reducing the competitiveness of renewables, and incentivizing sprawl and new vehicle purchases. Low fuel prices are also not having the full stimulatory effect that we’d expect, with oil-dependent economies in the Midwest and South suffering as they idle their suddenly uncompetitive shale fields.

But for local transit operations, where diesel is still the workhorse of our transit network, the low fuel prices are an unexpected and welcome windfall. I reached out to Metro to ask about their fuel purchasing practices and budget estimation, and the savings are indeed significant. Unlike airlines, Metro does not hedge their fuel purchases, but purchases fuel on a daily basis under the state fuel contract. Currently, Metro is paying just over $1/gallon for diesel, an unprecedented low. Metro GM Kevin Desmond told the blog that “every $.10 drop saves us $1m per year,” and the 2015 budget assumed $3 per gallon, creating a potential $20m in additional revenue. As fuel prices came in lower than expected, Metro revised its budget estimate downward to $2.25/gallon, so costs are still coming in below budget.

Metro’s Jeff Switzer said that Metro has reinvested some of the savings in 70,000 bus hours (roughly $10m), spread over the September 2015 and March 2016 service changes. On the ground, this has meant boosting E-Line frequency from 12 minutes to 10 minutes, boosting I-90 peak service, and other improvements.

Metro also stresses that any fuel-related windfall is inherently volatile, and that a conservative deployment of unexpected resources is the wisest course. And they’re right of course, as the windfall could evaporate at the whim of OPEC.

• Don’t believe the hype; Seattle drivers are great.
• Want to serve on a HALA Community Focus Group? Applications are due Friday, February 26.
• Obama’s transportation budget is pretty great. Since it doesn’t stand a chance, Yonah Freemark gives it a simultaneous introduction and eulogy.
• Check out CityLab on light rail’s future in Seattle, featuring Seattle Subway, Sound Transit staff, and good footage of ULink stations.
• Aloha Streetcar Extension still $10m short; city evaluating Local Improvement District to make up the difference.
• Pierce Transit workforce is aging, but then, aren’t we all?
• Mercer Island hiring more consultants to negotiate with Sound Transit over “mitigation” for giving them a light rail station that they voted for.
• Apodment restrictions not curtailing apodment construction, but they are raising the price of the lowest-priced units. Nice work Seattle City Council!
• SDOT is extending the Fifth Avenue contraflow bus lane.
• A tour of the First Hill Streetcar stops.
• Anti-tolling study used questionable methods.
• Doug MacDonald argues for tolling ($). My take: it’s true that the project introduced new chokepoints, but highway widening always just moves the chokepoint around — it’s a not a product of the tolls.
• Portland environmental groups apparently valuing left-wing solidarity over environmental causes, opposing a flat-rate payroll tax for 42% more bus service, which (incidentally) would apply to nonprofit employers as well.
• Governor Inslee proposes changes to I-405.
• State/Contractor relations on the deep bore tunnel project at a new low.
• Roger Millar is the new acting WSDOT secretary ($), and therefore the newest ST Board member.
• Mobile phone tracking may lead to better bus routes.

This is an open thread.

[Update, Friday 10:46am: Freighthouse Square owner Brian Borgelt has responded to recent coverage here and elsewhere with a scathing email that a source shared with STB, reading in part, “the legion of dingbats has attacked en masse, as they always do.” Read the full email here.]

[Update, Thursday 12:03pm: Though the News Tribune didn’t disclose the financial terms under dispute, a source speaking on condition of anonymity disclosed to STB that the assessed value of WSDOT’s portion of Freighthouse Square is $300,000, that WSDOT has offered Borgelt $1.5m, and that Borgelt is demanding $6.1m]

The Tacoma News Tribune broke the news Wednesday night that planned Amtrak service at Tacoma’s Freighthouse Square (FHS) may be in jeopardy. Negotiations with current FHS owner Brian Borgelt have gone badly enough that WSDOT has initiated eminent domain processes and is now publicly looking for alternative locations for Amtrak as a fallback plan.

WSDOT’s Janet Matkin wrote to a Tacoma advisory committee to relay the news. From the News Tribune:

“Negotiations to purchase the identified portion of the building are at an impasse and any further delays that impact the construction process will make it impossible for WSDOT to meet deadlines for building the new station,” Janet Matkin, WSDOT’s rail division communications manager, wrote to advisory committee members.

A new station is necessary because the department beginning in mid-2017 will reroute Amtrak passenger trains from their present waterfront route to a route through South Tacoma, Lakewood and DuPont. The new route will relieve congestion on the tracks along Puget Sound and cut several minutes off Amtrak’s Seattle-Portland schedule.

“Funding for the new station is through a federal grant and the Federal Railroad Administration determined that under this grant, negotiations to acquire the building could not begin until October 2015. The grant also stipulates that all construction for the station must be completed by summer 2017. No alternative funds have been identified to extend the construction beyond this deadline,” the department wrote.