Month: September 2016

Mass Transit Now, the campaign to pass Regional Proposition 1, also known as Sound Transit 3, which this blog has wholeheartedly endorsed, is holding a series of campaign kickoff events around the region this week.

Everett: Monday, September 12 (tonight!) 5-7 pm, The Anchor Pub, 1001 Hewitt Ave.
The Anchor Pub is at the west end of Hewitt Ave, and in short walking distance of many Everett Transit buses, as well as Swift. Only three ET routes (2, 12, 70) don’t serve Everett Station, and those three also go nowhere near the Anchor Pub.

Seattle: Tuesday, September 13, 6-8 pm, Neumos, 925 E Pike St.
Neomos is four blocks south of Capitol Hill Station, at the southwest corner of Pike and 10th Ave.

Bellevue: Wednesday, September 14, 5:30-7:30 pm, Lunch Box Laboratories, 989 112th Ave. NE
Lunch Box Laboratories is four blocks north and a block and a half east of Bellevue Transit Center, on the south side of NE 10th St.

Tacoma: Thursday, September 18, 6-8 pm, 7 Seas Brewing, 2101 Jefferson Ave.
7 Seas is on the east side of Jefferson, halfway between S 21st and 23rd St, four blocks west and uphill from Pacific Ave (where the streetcar and most buses run), and a couple blocks south of UW Tacoma. Half-hourly Pierce Transit route 48 serves the nearest bus stops on Jefferson, connecting to other bus routes north of 17th on Pacific Ave.

Beginning tomorrow, September 11, Pierce Transit will improve midday frequency and expand weeknight service on 13 of its routes. This is the second major expansion of the system since the Great Recession, during which the agency cut much of its service, withdrew from several cities, and failed to pass two ballot measures. Pierce Transit joins Metro, Sound Transit and Community Transit in adding service this weekend, during a coordinated region-wide schedule change.

The system’s busiest corridor, route 1 on Pacific Avenue and 6th Avenue, will see midday frequency restored to 15 minutes. Route 2, serving Lakewood and University Place, will see midday frequency boosted to 20 minutes. Route 51 will be revised to terminate in the Springbrook area of Lakewood instead of the Lakewood Sounder station. Other routes are receiving additional trips to extend service later on weeknights.

A full list of changes is available after the jump.

Continue reading “Pierce Transit Restoring Midday and Night Service”

The idea that carsharing membership would reduce vehicle ownership is intuitive.  However, the overall impact on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) is less obvious. While an explicit per-mile charge discourages marginal driving, carsharing can also avoid an inconvenient transit trip for travelers who would not have purchased a car, or would have been deterred by the expense of parking.

A new study by UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) is based on Car2Go vehicle data and a customer survey. It examines these tradeoffs in five cities, in increasing order of density: San Diego, Calgary, Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver. Seattle’s results are broadly in line with the other four. The core finding is that most Car2Go users keep their cars,  and Car2Go use simply increases their driving. However, a minority sells a car (or neglects to purchase one) due to their membership, and their effect is large enough to make Car2Go’s impact a net reduction in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and Greenhouse gas emissions.

A study that determines why people are selling cars inevitably introduces the imprecision of survey data, but the finding holds up against very conservative assumptions about how much those unbought cars would have traveled. Car2Go provided trip data, and survey access to its customers. The study’s funding came from several different governments and Car2Go itself.

The study estimates that each Car2Go in the Seattle fleet leads to the sale of 3 private cars, suppression of 7 would-be car purchases, and a net reduction of between 19,000 and 59,000 miles of driving annually. (The high uncertainty is due to the difficulty of figuring the amount that a car not purchased would be driven). That comes out to between 6 and 14 metric tons of greenhouse gases per vehicle. Cumulatively, that’s between 12m and 34m miles of driving eliminated from Seattle in one year. Continue reading “Study: Car2Go Reduces Vehicle Ownership, Driving”

Yesterday County Executive Dow Constantine launched the official Long Range Plan process, moving it from a (very good) draft to an actionable item of legislation. Now called “Metro Connects“, the County Council will tinker with and debate it through the autumn, with expected adoption in early 2017. As a reminder, the plan would a number of good things: commit Metro to a full alphabet of Rapid Ride routes, double ridership by 2040, comprehensively restructure Metro’s system to feed a Sound Transit 3 buildout, move toward a cashless system, and enact a de facto ban on new transit parking with Seattle and other inner-suburb activity centers.

Though yesterday’s launch was a process milestone, the plan’s formal release doesn’t add much to what we already know. But more newsworthy, Dow also took the opportunity to preview the next biennial budget, and it contains a number of substantive improvements independent of Metro Connects.

Boosted by a continued strong economy and solid wage growth in King County, Metro will be in expansion mode:

• Dow’s budget proposes $30 million in new service hours, including overcrowding relief on 27 routes, reliability improvements to 60 routes, and frequency boosts on a further 18 routes.
• Metro’s capital program is back, with a 6-year capital spending plan.
• There will be $215m set aside for bus base capacity, including a new South King County Metro base.
• Responding to legitimate concerns over operator safety and comfort, the plan will put cameras on 100% of Metro’s fleet ($8m) and expand Metro’s operator comfort stations ($7m)

We’ll have to wait until late September to see the list of routes proposed for improvements. Though the non-supplantation clause in Seattle’s Prop 1 agreement should ensure that Seattle gets its full proportional share of improvements, we’ll be there to analyze it along the way. And as the Metro Connects process moves through council, it will be interesting to see the degree to which council meddling alters the plan. So stay tuned and engaged throughout the fall, but things are generally looking up for Metro.

Most people who have a vehicle choose to use that vehicle to get to and fro rather than opting for travel via public transportation. However, using public transportation is often the smarter choice; using public transportation is better for the environment, can be more cost effective, and is often safer. The following highlights the top five benefits of using public transit in Seattle:

1. Using Public Transit Is Better for Your Health

Studies show that users of public transit are more active than those who choose to drive their own vehicles. This may be explained by the fact that using public transit often requires a fair amount of walking, too, as people are forced to walk from the area of transit to their final destination. Being more active and moving more frequently can extend your life.

2. The Environment Needs It

An environmental crisis is looming. Not only should we be concerned about our reliance on fossil fuels, but also on the fact that transportation sources like vehicles emit approximately 26 percent of total greenhouse gases in the U.S. By taking public transportation, you are doing the environment a big favor, which could very much impact you and your children in years to come.

3. It May Be Safer

There are thousands of car accidents in the United States each year. In the year 2014 alone, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that there were 32,675 people who died in traffic crashes. The number of people who died in public transportation accident is much smaller. For example, a 2013 study found that the bus occupant fatality rate was 45 deaths per 100,000 accidents, compared with 251 deaths per 100,000 accidents for passenger vehicles.

4. Public Transportation Is Cheaper than Owning a Car

Another reason to choose public transportation over driving is that public transportation is almost always a much cheaper option than is owning a car. Cars not only require money to purchase, but also money to fuel, to park, and to maintain. Further, employers and other organizations may subsidize some of the costs of public transportation for employees. Transloc.com reports that public transportation saves a household around $6,251 annually.

5. Helps Foster a Sense of Community

Another major benefit of public transportation is that it helps to foster a sense of community – people who travel together are more likely to feel connected to one another than are those who drive alone. Further, public transportation is available for all people, providing accessible transport to individuals regardless of age, demographics, income, and more.

Consider Using Public Transportation More

If you don’t already use public transportation on a routine basis, consider making this important lifestyle change. Using public transportation can save you money, improve your health, reduce your risk of injury, foster a sense of community, and help the environment.

In the event that you are in an accident – via public transportation or personal vehicle – a talented Seattle car accident lawyer can help you. Don’t hesitate to reach out to a skilled legal professional for immediate assistance.

• Charles Mudede joins our crusade to make the Monorail accept ORCA.
• Labor group endorses ST3.
• U-Link stations allow busking.
• Zoning at Angle Lake.
• CHS has details on Judkins Park station.
• Sound Transit reserved HOV parking now accepting applications.
• Metro short of drivers, canceling trips.
• Putting the ST3 price tag in perspective.
• The Seattle City Council has largely killed microhousing, which is a tragedy for many people of modest means…
• … but 7 floors of microhousing ($) are going in at Roosevelt.
• More drivers ticketed for texting.
• A look at Seattle’s top ten bus corridors.
• I-732 polling is close.
• Cliff Mass calls environmentalist I-732 opposition a “Nader moment.”
• Even Chelan ($) gets on the road diet bandwagon.

This is an open thread.

ST3 opponents are wearing the $54 billion figure like armor. It’s doubtful that a 25-year program expressed in year of expenditure (YOE) dollars results in a figure that people can meaningfully evaluate, but that’s the number the press has settled on. There’s the median $169 per adult estimate, which hides a lot of variation, or the online tax calculator that’s a bit more complicated. But anyway, $54 billion is a lot of money.

On the other hand, there’s this:

Zillow says Seattle home values up 15.7% YOY. Ergo single family homeowners net worth increased $10.8 billion in a single year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

— mike eliason (@bruteforceblog) September 1, 2016

( The story is here, and says that the median single family home went up 14.3%, to $642,000. If there are 138,000 detached homes in Seattle, that comes out to $11.1 billion if you assume the median is the same as the mean. That means that $11 billion is an underestimate. Be advised that median home prices have their own problems. Mike used somewhat different inputs to get the $10.8 billion figure, but it’s really beside the point.)

For comparison, the entire Seattle portion of ST3 — light rail from Ballard to West Seattle, two infill stations, plus interim bus improvements — costs $6.8 billion in 2014 dollars at the high end of the estimates.

Some homeowners have earned the past year’s valuation gain through investment or sweat equity. But most others, including me, have seen a hefty boost to our net worth, passively, thanks to robust job creation and regulations that create artificial scarcity. If Seattle would simply capture about 60% of the single family home windfall in one year, it could fund the entire 20-year program for Seattle to transform transportation in several of the city’s most important corridors. That’s without touching the majority of residents that don’t live in detached homes at all. Moreover, not only would federal grants cover some of the projects, but income tax deductions mean that the Federal Government would effective cover up to a third of the project simply through the tax code.

Of course, this isn’t a real proposal. It’s not easy for the government to monetize that much of the capital gain in property, it would be hideously unpopular, arguably unfair, and in any case the legislature hasn’t granted the necessary taxing authority. But the point is that Seattle is a wealthy city that can easily afford this investment, scare numbers aside.