Month: October 2016

[Update: Facebook commenters pointed out that the behavior I’m advocating for is already legal per Washington Administrative Code 468-510-020, which lifts the “keep right” requirement for the 40-mile stretch of I-5 from Tukwila to Everett, and on I-90 between I-5 and I-405.]

Every June, the National Motorist Association uses its own Lane Courtesy Month to produce a rush of news stories about the scourge of “left lane camping,” or drivers who remain in the left lane despite another motorist wishing to pass. A representative paragraph from Vox: 

That’s because even if you’re driving fast, there’s always someone going faster. If you promptly get back over after passing, that car will be able to pass you, allowing everyone on the road to get to their destinations as quickly as possible. If you don’t, it’ll inevitably lead to buildups of traffic and likely raise the chance of accidents.

That same reporter, in a conversation this year with NPR’s Robert Siegel:

When you’re traveling on the highway, the moment at which you’re most at risk of getting into a crash is when you’re changing lanes. And when you have people going slow in the left lane, as well as the right lane, then people who want to move faster kind of have to zigzag back and forth. They have to change lanes looking over both different shoulders, and it just increases the amount of possible accident scenarios that can happen.

Look at the two statements I bolded above, which to me seem inherently contradictory in urban settings. “There’s always someone going faster” assumes both the right of drivers to create differential speed conditions and your responsibility to yield to their desires. But the Solomon Curve shows one of the most dangerous driving behaviors is deviating from the median speed of traffic, whether slower or faster. So if you’re traveling near the speed limit in the left lane, you should have zero responsibility to move over and are in fact doing a favor for overall safety and flow. The notion of constant lane-switching to appease lead footed drivers is contradicted by the same writer’s second statement, that changing lanes is inherently one of the riskiest behavior. These two are irreconcilable.

Continue reading “In Defense of (Some) Left-Lane Camping”

OFF THE RAILS – Official Trailer from Adam Irving on Vimeo.

Sorry for the late notice, but this movie is screening at Grand Cinema in Tacoma on TODAY at 2pm (part of the Tacoma Film Festival).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/thelebers/4818925816/in/album-72157616309047339/

Bike racks at Metro base, photo by VeloBusDriver

Recently, a couple applicants for King County Metro driving positions who were turned down complained they were turned down for not owning cars.

I checked with Jeff Switzer, at King County Department of Transportation, who told me car ownership is not a requirement. However, you will need a plan for how to get to any of the seven bases around the county, for any shift at any time of day, dependably. Be prepared to explain your plan for “reliable transportation to work” during the inverview.

Former Metro driver David Lawson recounted his answer that got him hired:

I can’t afford one reliable car, so I have two cheap cars. I take care of both. When one is in the shop, the other one is working.

If you show up to the interview in a Car2Go, be prepared to explain your credible Plan B for getting to work.

As Zach detailed, 20-30% of drivers at the Seattle bus bases don’t alone drive to work.

Sadly, simply living near the bases won’t work. You don’t get a choice of base when hired. Eventually, you may be able to pick a shift for your preferred base, and at your preferred time of day, but that comes with seniority.

That said, now is one of the best times to become a Metro driver. With the severe driver shortage, drivers are on the waiting list to move to full-time shifts only 6 months as of late, if they have a good record, per Gutierrez. The job listing says under a year, but the shortage is apparently actually worse than that. Every Metro driver still starts on part-time, but the interminable multiple-year waits to get more hours are a thing of the past.

This morning Sound Transit released ridership numbers for September 30, the day a perfect storm of Mariners, Huskies, and an afternoon commute converged. And ridership lived up to the hype, with an estimated 101,000 riders, 18% higher than the previous record of 85,000 on August 25th. Sound Transit stretched its undersized fleet to the limit – running 3-car trains as often as every 5 minutes to clear the Husky crush – while simultaneously dealing with service disruptions due to a pedestrian/train collision in Columbia City at the peak of demand. (The person survived and is recovering.)

Though there were anecdotes of failed escalators and long queues to enter UW Station, overall Sound Transit emerged from the day showing that there’s nothing like high-capacity transit to soak up enormous demand in a minimal footprint. The primary pain for the day was borne by regular commuters, however, whose restructured routes rely on transfers that were either unavailable or up to 1/2 a mile away due to bus rerouting.

Sound Transit also released systemwide numbers for August, with Link averaging 69,000 weekday boardings, easily breaking the July record of 65,000. Weekend Link ridership continued to be strong as well, with 48,000 on Saturdays and 43,000 on Sundays. Sound Transit also had its first-ever 4 million boarding month, and Link alone accounted for 45% of Sound Transit’s total boardings.

• Seattle ready to waive some environmental process for infill development.
• Stabbing at TIBS.
• Fourth Avenue quietly gets a bus lane.
• ST survey shows that Link riders mostly walk to the train, and most of the rest take the bus. Riders are also disproportionately poor.
• Not really news, and I’m not one to hit a news organization too hard for being biased, but Seattle Times editors are shaping stories to read as unfavorable to Sound Transit.
• These seems like a reasonable response to a neighborhood upzone. Shoreline residents FTW.
• Rank-and-file Sierra Club members wonder why their organization opposes the only climate action possible this year.
• Metro fall foliage tours starting again.
• A conceptual plan for Issaquah Station, but it’s early days.
• Seatac Council taking a position on ST3 tonight.

This is an open thread.

The worst case scenario has occurred. Regional voters have turned away from the generational opportunity to expand traffic-separated transit, listening instead to a series of micro-objections about marketing budgets and email address management. Or perhaps they blanched at a $54 billion price tag that didn’t really mean anything. And at least a few voters thought that if they voted this down, they’d get something better, something more focused on their interests in particular. What now?

When confronted with this hypothetical, ST CEO Peter Rogoff said that “there is no plan B.” ST would, of course, “complete our commitments already made to voters” in ST2. “The Board would reflect on why it failed,” but cautioned that “it would be exceedingly hard to serve as wide a series of interests… while being different” from what voters just rejected. Mr. Rogoff hadn’t heard other Board Members talking about what would come next, and once again he thought it inappropriate to speculate.

But we can speculate!

Continue reading “Life After ST3: If It Loses”

The STB Editorial Board is starting work on its General Election Endorsements. If there are any non-obvious races where a particular candidate stands out on transit or land use, please let us know in the comments. Links to your claims about the candidate are very much appreciated.