Month: May 2016

At Thursday’s meeting of Sound Transit’s Capital Committee, staff updated boardmembers on both the latest concepts for expediting ST3 project delivery and modifications to the ST3 financial plan. It was an excellent and substantive conversation, and we’ll post video when it becomes available. CEO Peter Rogoff’s presentation on project delivery was a particularly good primer on how projects are developed and delivered in our region, one we’ll likely come back to again and again.

But the big news came later during a presentation on the financial plan, when ST’s Ric Ilgenfritz and CFO Brian McCartan led the committee through a discussion of subarea equity. While Sound Transit normally allocates project costs to the five regional subareas (Snohomish, North King, East King, South King, and Pierce) based on a determination of the proportional benefits that accrue to each, there is also a need to determine “systemwide assets” whose costs should be shared by all subareas. CFO McCartan gave the example of fleet and maintenance costs that should be equally shared between subareas even if the facilities that accommodate them are physically located in one subarea.

With that preamble by McCartan, Ilgenfritz then put up a graphic showing the future capacity constraints of the core segments underneath downtown Seattle, making the case that “All users benefit from core capacity expansion, and the core stations will carry the heaviest load.” CEO Rogoff then chimed in, saying “Ric put this in the positive frame, but it can equally be put in the negative. Absent new tunnel capacity, these regional lines will fail.”

The upshot is that, if the Board approves, Sound Transit will seek to allocate the marginal cost of the new Downtown tunnel to all 5 subareas as a systemwide asset. As a refresher, the Draft ST3 plan allocated 80% of the new tunnel’s costs to North King (Seattle), and 20% to Pierce County since the planned Green Line to Tacoma would use the new tunnel. This would presumably free up additional financial capacity (potentially a few hundred million?) within North King to either expand project scope, expedite project delivery, or both.

The committee seemed warm to the idea, as there was little pushback. King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci particularly rose to its defense, albeit asking for transparency in cost allocation to appease the inevitable criticisms of suburban money funding “a Seattle tunnel.” But the benefits of the new tunnel to suburban riders seemed clear. A trip from Lynnwood to SeaTac, for instance, would use both Seattle tunnels even though the trip originated in Snohomish and ended in South King.

Several groups asked for regional funding of the tunnel during the comment period, including Seattle Subway and the Seattle Transit Advisory Board (disclaimer: I serve on that board). And it makes a ton of sense. Rogoff is right that the “regional spine” is impossible as as a single line concept, that new core capacity is essential, and that all regional users will benefit from it.

Without regionalization, Snohomish County in particular would be getting a free ride, as all 3 King County subareas paid for the original Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel and Pierce County was already slated to contribute to the new tunnel. Recognizing the new tunnel as a regional asset would be good policy, and let’s hope the Board agrees.

Back in December we reported that the Office of the Waterfront would undertake a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) to study removal of the planned bus lanes on the future Alaskan Way. There was some confusion at the time because no organized groups were agitating for such an outcome, and that all parties had generally agreed on the merits of transit priority. But the number of understandable complaints about the overall roadway width from bicycle and pedestrian advocates exceeded a threshold that triggered SDOT to study a narrowed footprint. From our followup post:

Office of the Waterfront Director Marshall 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?

Well, that SDEIS has been published, and comments are due May 18. Read the full document here, or the Executive Summary here. And the results are a slam dunk. The SDEIS shows that removing the bus lanes would worsen travel times for transit, general purpose traffic, and freight.  Continue reading “Support Waterfront Transit Lanes: Comment Deadline May 18”

• Everett contemplates redeveloping the Everett Station area.
• Pierce Transit’s public feedback form is a service planning game.
• Subjecting fewer projects to design review would be a huge improvement.
• The next iteration of ORCA sounds cool, but won’t arrive earlier than 2019.
• A review of the new Seattle 2035 draft.
• Closing the viaduct wasn’t a disaster, but it noticeably boosted light rail ridership.
• Portland chooses light rail for its “Southwest Corridor.”
• Reader Michael Logsdon built this little tool for STB comments.

This is an open thread.

While ULink is already setting ridership records, it’s easy for this North Capitol Hill resident to forget about the First Hill Streetcar, the beleaguered line that opened in late January after a series of delays and technical problems.

Curious about the line’s ridership both before and after ULink, I asked SDOT for ridership data a couple weeks ago. Sadly, it appears that ridership data for the First Hill line is not available due to yet more technical difficulties. In a twist out of our robot overload future, it appears the computers know the answer but the humans don’t.

From SDOT’s Michael James:

Here is where we are with the data.  Our [automatic passenger counters] and servers are collecting data.  However, we are having technical issues transmitting it back to our source software program.  We are actively working to correct the technical issue.  As soon as we get and review the daily data, we would be happy to share it with you.

We did calculate monthly ridership using ORCA tap methodology for March 2016, which was 50,159.

So stay tuned for further stats and analysis, but if the ORCA data is reasonably reliable, it appears that the First Hill line is carrying roughly 1,600 riders per day. Though Link and the First Hill line are obviously very different services operating at different scales, a good shorthand appears to be that Link carries in a day what the First Hill Streetcar carries in a month. If 1,600 riders per day were a bus route, this would place the streetcar near the bottom of all-day routes within Seattle, in the same ballpark as Routes 31, 47, and 50. Given the short length of the line, other metrics such as ridership per mile would likely rank the streetcar a bit more favorably.

County Councilmembers Joe McDermott and Larry Gossett kindly offered some reasons for supporting more bus service in southeast Seattle last Thursday. STB supports adding more service in southeast Seattle that delivers real improvements to riders, which means avoiding wasteful duplication. The councilmembers’ arguments failed to explain why these specific route restructures (in particular, the extension of route 38 / proposed route 106 to the International District) are on the table.

For all the talk of unmet demand on MLK, the proposal has no additional service there. Indeed, by introducing reliability problems with no additional frequency, intra-MLK trips will likely get worse. Starting trips in the International District will scramble arrival times and degrade the transfer from Link to buses on MLK.

The councilmembers understand the advantages of replacing two routes (106 and 124) between eastern Georgetown and downtown with one (124) running twice as often, which is more likely to maintain proper spacing between buses. One alternative for the ID/Mt. Baker service hours would apply the same lesson to high-ridership route 7, potentially matching the peak frequency of Link.

Another alternative would actually improve service for the aforementioned communities on MLK Way by boosting its frequency beyond 15 minutes. This would also improve an already high-quality transfer at Mt. Baker Station. Either alternative is superior to running duplicate service which does nothing but avoid high-quality transfers between 7, 38, and Link. The Metro proposal effectively resurrects the 42, historically a poor performer. Continue reading “Editorial: Fix the SE Seattle Restructure”

It’s no subway, but Los Angeles once again has a train through the Westside to its world-famous beaches. The Metro Expo Line Phase II opens May 20. It’s been an exciting Spring for new rail openings this year.

After decades of deferred maintenance and neglect that has led to crashes, fires, and in some cases killing its own riders, the DC Metro will soon rip off the band aid with a year of painful closures and single-track operations affecting hundreds of thousands of riders. View the full closure details here. The intensive work will replace infrastructure that in many cases dates back to the first days of the system.

Meanwhile, at Sound Transit’s Executive Committee meeting on Thursday, Boardmembers were getting their first chance to review the draft ST3 financial plan when CFO Brian McCartan read a new proposed financial policy:

The Board will maintain capital replacement and maintenance reserves and annual budgetary amounts sufficient to fully fund the system in a state of good repair. Sufficient funds will be set aside to fully meet these obligations and their funding will have precedence over other agency expenditures.

Pausing to ask if Boardmembers had any questions, CEO Peter Rogoff turned on his mic. Perhaps mindful of his experiences in DC, he said, “There would be no greater crime that we could do to our children and grandchildren than to not do this.” Dow then chimed in as well: “I’m super excited about this. This is exactly the kind of thing government ought to be doing…We’ve had challenges over the decades with our roads and bridges, with our parents and grandparents investing in infrastructure and then not doing the things needed to maintain it.

Acting WSDOT Secretary Millar – whose agency has come under frequent fire for prioritizing highway expansion over maintenance – agreed, saying “As the manager of legacy assets, I think this asset management is a wonderful idea.” Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers was stunned that such policy language was so unprecedented both nationally and locally, saying, “I’m shocked and appalled we have to even adopt such a policy, and that it wasn’t done earlier. We’ve had significant discussions at PSRC regarding the difficulties we’ve had with our highway system by not having such a policy.” So at the committee level at least there was unanimous agreement that such a policy is necessary and prudent.

This is very welcome news, basically codifying Fix It First as official policy. Let’s hope the Board agrees in June, and let’s hope that WSDOT someday follows their lead.