Martin and I chat briefly about big ST parties, and then go through the reader mailbag. Topics include alternatives for ST3, the Seattle Process, zoning, improvements to STB, and much much more.
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When Move Seattle passed last November 3, the mood was jubilant. An expected nailbiter became a comfortable 17-point victory, with the beers flowing at the election night party at the Belltown Pub hastily morphing from a hedge against disappointment to the fuel of celebration. The city had put the War on Cars before voters and won, marking a fundamental shift toward safe streets, a complete bike network, and transit priority in our city.
The following day, Tom Fucoloro at Seattle Bike Blog was still feeling the buzz:
Urban cycling’s long existential crisis in Seattle is over. Bike lanes and safe streets are a core piece of our city and our politics. Putting walking, biking and transit first is mainstream policy now, and we have serious funding to back it up.
Since the vote, there have been a series of disappointments. Within a week of Move Seattle passing, the concept design for Madison BRT announced the deletion of transit priority east of 18th Avenue, leading yours truly and others to worry more broadly about Move Seattle’s “Rapid Ride Plus” corridors. On November 16, the city, Metro, Sound Transit, and the Downtown Seattle Association announced a new $1.5m “Center City Mobility Plan” (CCMP) that probably should have been made public before the vote. On account of the CCMP, bike advocates have been told that all Downtown bike lanes have been put on hold until 2019 or later, and to put it mildly, they’re not happy.* The CCMP will:
(Establish) a transportation vision for 2035…(and) create a near-term transit operations and transportation management plan by mid-2016 along with a public realm plan for enhancing the right of way to better serve residents, employees, shoppers and visitors.
Image: Seattle Bike Blog
Part of the impetus for the CCMP was revealed 4 days later on November 19, when Metro announced its bargain price sale of Convention Place to the Washington State Convention Center, leading to the closure of Convention Place Station once construction begins and the end of joint bus/rail tunnel operations as early as 2019. By definitively planning for the end of joint operations, the CCMP will do what (amazingly) no plan has done before, including the Downtown Access Strategy, Access Seattle, Downtown Seattle Transit Coordination, Downtown Transit Capacity White Paper, and the Center City Circulation section of Seattle’s Transit Master Plan. That’s just from the past 3 years. So you can understand the ruffled feathers when officials wait until after a yes vote to say “we need to delay projects pending further study.”
Then there are the seemingly crossed wires of communication. In late October, Mayor Murray stood at Graham Street and said, “I will guarantee it [will be built]. I’ve shown in my time in the legislature that we can deliver transportation projects as we say to the voters we will deliver them.” Yet on March 24, the Sound Transit Draft Plan proposed Graham Street coming on line in 2036, a decade after Move Seattle would expire, negating its nominal $10m contribution.
In March, Councilmember Mike O’Brien added a proviso to the Pronto buyout that mandated that select protected bike lanes be built prior to any Pronto expansion, just weeks before SDOT announced the 1-2 year delay of those same bike lanes. The reasons for the delay are twofold: the putative need to complete the CCMP, and SDOT’s miscalculation of costs. According to a staff presentation to the Transportation Committee last week, SDOT had used a nice round number of $1m/mile in its calculation of lane-miles to be built with Move Seattle funds, but now says it has underestimated by 30% ($1.3m/mile).
The bait-and-switch many are feeling is legitimate, as the campaign for the vote was one of enthusiasm, commitment, and possibility, while the reality has been considerably more pedestrian.
On the other hand, though it stings when our favored projects are cut or restructured, it’s important to remember that this variability was baked into Move Seattle from the start. The Seattle Times used this “slush fund” criticism in its anti-levy editorial:
Because Move Seattle’s plan is so vague — the suggested projects are contained in a non-binding addendum to the ordinance — there’s a risk funds could be siphoned off to pay for mistakes and overruns on current projects.
But Martin also had a great piece on why “slush funds” are a feature not a bug, and I suggest re-reading the whole thing, as it’s now more relevant than ever:
To actually construct a measure that would neutralize this talking point, Seattle would have to write a package that literally could not adjust to changing conditions. If a federal grant were available but we had to provide matching funds — multiplying the return per dollar — or if growth skyrocketed along one particular corridor, SDOT could do nothing about it. It would be an idiotic way to run the city.
This is all part of a disturbing trend in local politics. Voters tightly constrict the expenditure of any block of revenue, limit the growth of the general fund, and then complain that worthwhile projects require special levies.
SDOT’s Norm Mah was refreshingly frank about this when he told Next City’s Josh Cohen:
“The 2015 plan reflects unstudied but [Bicycle Master Plan] prioritized corridors in CC from 2015 to 2019…Based on the evolving nature of the center city, SDOT did not make a commitment to having all the [Center City Bike Network] construction complete by 2020.”
But despite the cataloging of errors above, and the failures of communication from agencies to the public and between agencies themselves, process critiques should have less force than technical ones. As this is a transit blog, let’s try to answer the question of whether or not the main contention is legitimate. Do Downtown bike lanes need to wait or be deferred on bus capacity grounds?
Continue reading “The Center City Mobility Plan: Sensible Study or a Process Punt?”
For my last 2016 fundraising post, I thought I’d share a few words from some current donors, explaining why they support STB:
I read a lot of news, but it’s not always satisfying. I read Seattle Transit Blog a lot, and I think it’s the perfect niche for local news. There’s stuff I can easily look up, news that other sources are covering, and data I can get from public sources. The stuff that’s hard to find is ‘inside’ information/good reporting, long-term perspective, in-depth analysis, and stories that no one else covers. STB has all this! – Daniel
I am happy to give because transit is a proxy for the issues I care the most about, specifically climate change and density. Supporting STB hopefully allows more readers who also care about these and other transit-related issues an independent place to engage. – Zach
Does that sound like you? Then join Zach and Daniel and send a few bucks our way. We’re doing more and more of that in-depth reporting and analysis thanks to your support. You can sign up for a recurring donation of just $1 a month. It’s painless and you probably won’t even know it’s missing.
When I told my wife, who has many years’ fundraising experience, that I was hoping for 100 new donors this year, she said it was pretty ambitious for any organization to add 100 new donors in a year. I didn’t know any better at the time; it just seemed like a nice round number. And it looks like we might actually hit it! So far 62 new donors have stepped up, joining most of last year’s donors, who have renewed for a second year. Thanks again, to all of you.
If you’re feeling generous, remember that a printed version of Oran’s beautiful Seattle Transit Map is available to those who give $150 or $12/month. If you’ve already given at that level, I’ll be contacting you shortly to get your mailing address.
Make a donation or click on the donate button above. Seattle Transit Blog is a 501(c)4; donations are not tax-deductible.
BY SEATTLE SUBWAY
As regional stakeholders continue to work on the inevitable push and pull of budgeting for a massive transit expansion, we want to make sure that a huge improvement to the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) system plan isn’t overlooked: designation of “provisional projects.” Adding provisional projects will cost next to nothing to implement while adding the potential for ST3 to accomplish a lot more. A provisional project is a project that, if funding becomes available, can be built as part of the ST3 plan without an additional vote. Without a provisional designation, a project cannot be built without further voter approval.
The draft plan for ST3 provides voter authority for “provisional projects” if additional funding becomes available in the twenty-five year duration of ST3. Each of the five Sound Transit subareas should have one or more projects ready to go if additional funding becomes available
Sound Transit knows that each of these projects has merit now, but is waiting on a future ballot measure to pay for them. But there are many ways that funding could become available, before the next vote. These include:
This year alone, Sound Transit light rail projects will come in $240M (10%) under budget and receive $600M in unexpected federal grants. Our economy is booming, and twenty-five years of growth could add hundreds of millions of additional funding to ST budgets. Let’s authorize engineering and construction of “provisional projects” now, to maximize the benefits of any savings on other projects.
West Seattle Junction to Burien, Ballard to UW, Kirkland to Bellevue, Paine Field Connector, and Tacoma Mall must be designated as “provisional projects” when the Board votes in June.
Last week, the US Census Bureau released 2015 population estimates by city. To nobody’s surprise, Seattle continues to grow rapidly, having added 15,300 more residents in the year ending June 2015. Seattle has grown by 74,000 residents (12.1%) in just five years. Seattle, for the third year in a row, is among the five fastest growing cities in the nation. Seattle, with 684,000 residents last year, is now the 18th largest city, overtaking El Paso and Detroit.
Seattle’s growth was 44% of the 34,800 residents added in King County in 2015, or 41% of the 179,400 added in King County since 2010.
Among cities larger than 50 thousand population, only Bellevue (+2.4%) and Marysville (+2.5%) grew faster than Seattle (+2.3%) last year. None have grown faster than Seattle over five years. (A few smaller exurban communities have posted higher growth rates).
Bellevue added 3,200 residents in 2015, bolstering its role as a major employment center for the Eastside. Tacoma added 3,300. Everett added 1,200. Nine other cities added over 1,000 residents, including Issaquah which saw a 5.8% growth spurt and almost 2,000 new residents.
Renton, growing more slowly, nevertheless saw its population exceed 100,000, becoming the sixth city in the region to reach this milestone.
Last December I made the modest proposal that the 5th and Madison Station in Sound Transit 3 move three, or even six, blocks east. This would reduce overlap with the existing tunnel stations. More importantly, it would bring First Hill — one of the densest neighborhoods in the Northwest, with three hospitals and Seattle University — into the Link walkshed after circumstances screwed them out of their Sound Move station. Oran’s calculations showed that it was as little as 0.09 miles more distance to tunnel.
Although the idea made it into a letter from the First Hill Improvement Association, it didn’t catch fire. Seattle-based activists have been more excited about elevating Link to Ballard, or 130th St. Station. Those are worthy causes, and the same order of cost as a First Hill Station — and chances are good that both will win. At the same time, I think most neutral observers would agree that, on the merits, First Hill should be a higher priority than either, and it’s a shame that no one in a position of influence greater than mine has made a stink about it.
As a further headwind, Sound Transit staff found tunneling under I-5 for U-Link to be a troublesome experience, and does not like the idea of doing so twice more in a matter of blocks. Sound Transit paid a contractor $23m to prepare I-5’s foundations for a tunnel boring machine to pass through. To do so twice would therefore probably cost around $50m and introduce some risk. It’s hard, but we know it’s possible, because they’ve done it (pretty much flawlessly) before.
It’s late in the day. In about a month, Sound Transit will lock down the package for November, and we should know most of the substance of the final plan by later this week. If the Green Line goes to the ballot as-is, the kerfuffle over “22 years to Ballard” will create extreme pressure to discard edgy alternatives early in the process. If anyone with substantial influence on the process is going to make this happen, the time is now.
The first part of New York City’s long awaited Second Avenue Subway, 2 miles and 3 new stations, is expected to open this December.
Yesterday, Sound Transit released its latest figures on ULink, including daily ridership for April. Weekday ridership is holding at roughly 60,000 per day, and two Fridays in April (8th and 29th) set new records at 82,000 weekday riders:
In April we reported early ridership trends on Link light rail were beating expectations after opening two new stations on Capitol Hill and the University of Washington. On this the two-month anniversary of opening the University Link extension, we think it’s a good time to check in on our early ridership estimates. It turns out our early ridership estimates for a record-breaking day was low and we set another ridership record in late April.
Sound Transit collects and verifies ridership data over the course of several weeks. The latest updates show Link set two new single-day ridership records on April 8 and April 29 with an estimated 82,000 riders – surpassing the previous single-day record of an estimated 71,500 on February 5, 2014 when Seattle celebrated the Seahawks Super Bowl victory downtown.
The update also confirmed that most ULink trips are taking less than the conservative 8 minutes the schedule quotes, and closer to their 6-minute promised time once buses leave the tunnel:
Trips between the University of Washington and downtown Seattle are averaging two minutes faster than initially expected – dropping from an already impressive eight minutes to six minutes between UW Station and Westlake. The initial eight-minute trip estimates were based on early train testing. Real-world experience shows those trips are taking six minutes. Our online schedules are now being updated to reflect the faster trip times.
Lastly, the update also contained proportional station level ridership for the first time. Each station is listed as its percentage of all Link boardings, and UW Station has vaulted into second place behind Westlake:
One of the ironies of land use policy around here is, relative to Seattle, suburban jurisdictions have often been willing to upzone more aggressively in advance of light rail’s arrival. Kent and Des Moines, for instance, jointly up zoned the Midway area for up to 200′, while nothing at Capitol Hill Station will exceed 7 stories and we are having intense policy fights about adding backyard cottages.
Though the City of Bellevue is more properly called a “second city” than a suburb, it remains surprising that much of their light rail station planning has been more aggressively urban than Seattle’s, a fact for which Bellevue deserves praise. Its ongoing Downtown Livability Initiative, slated to be adopted later this year by council, sets aggressive targets for the redevelopment of the East Main Station area, currently occupied by large parcels with 1970s-era low-rise hotels such as the Sheraton and Red Lion. From a city memo:
The Downtown Livability CAC recommended further analysis of buildings up to 200 feet in height and 5.0 FAR in the Downtown OLB District between NE 4th Street and Main Street. The current height limits are 90 feet and 3.0 FAR for “residential” and 75 feet and 3.0 FAR for “nonresidential”.
In the East Main Station Area, the CAC is currently considering 200 to 300-foot tall buildings and up to 4.0-5.0 FAR on the Red Lion site and sites south to SE 6th Street. Current zoning provisions generally limit height and density to 75 feet and 0.5 FAR in this area.
But this planned upzone may not happen at all. In a new development, the upzone is at risk because city employees are seeking to preserve a partially obstructed view of Mt Rainier from a City Hall balcony.
Continue reading “Will Bellevue Kneecap Development to Preserve Its Employees’ Views?”
It’s been well over two months since our last listener mailbag. If there’s a question you’d like Frank and me to answer, put it in the comments and we’ll get to as many as we can.
The podcast should air sometime next week.