Community Transit, heading into this weekend with a minor service change to add late night and midday service, is proposing the addition of 21,000 bus hours of service (a 6 percent increase) in September 2017 and March 2018. The service proposal includes new service from Lynnwood to the Boeing Everett plant, as well as extensions and modifications to existing routes to improve connections at transit centers. Both service changes are funded by the 0.3 percent sales tax increase passed by voters in November 2015, which will also fund the next Swift line (between Edmonds, Lynnwood and Mill Creek).
San Juan Islands from Chuckanut Drive south of Bellingham (Photo by the author)
In Part 1 of this series we looked at the Seattle-Everett segment of a potential high speed rail (HSR) service between Seattle and Vancouver B.C. We looked at the paucity of available right-of-way, the likelihood of repurposing the I-5 express lanes, and the topographical challenges involved in descending from 500′ in South Everett to a sea-level Everett Station. In Part 3 we’ll look at the approach into Vancouver, and in Part 4 we’ll look at inland routes and ideas for suburban terminals. But for today’s Part 2 let’s look at the middle third of the trip, from Everett to Bellingham.
For HSR trips between major cities, the highest speeds are usually reached in the intermediate rural areas, with slower approach speeds to the anchor cities being relatively common. So we would reasonably expect to fly through the farmlands of Snohomish and Skagit Counties. How would we do it? Continue reading “Seattle-Vancouver High Speed Rail Part 2: Everett to Bellingham”
Route 500 is among several Pierce Transit routes slated for frequency improvements on March 12.
After approving the restoration of 59,000 annual service hours in April of last year, Pierce Transit took a long and hard look at its existing route network, with some help from the public. The result is a service change scheduled for Sunday, March 12, which will affect 31 routes and add 35,000 service hours that were cut during the recession, building upon a service change from September. Some routes will be deleted and replaced with re-aligned routes, while others will see frequency bumps and later weeknight service. To make sense of the overhaul, Pierce Transit has released an interactive map of major changes that can be sorted route-by-route or by the type of service improvement; individual routes also have dashcam videos (example: Route 53), showing the drivers’ view of modified routes.
With Pierce Transit lagging behind peer agencies to the north, and a real need for better transit service to serve Pierce County’s growing population, the change will be yet another leap forward in our regional transit system. Pierce Transit is also jumping on new transit technologies, mostly funded by FTA loans, like rideshare partnerships, on-board Wi-Fi, electric buses, and better security. An additional 10,000 service hours could be added in the September 2017 service change, to complete Pierce Transit’s goal of 59,000 restored service hours in 2016 and 2017.
The full list of changes is below, after the jump.
The Seattle Times wants your neighborhood arterial to look like this. Photo by Bruce Englehardt.
In recent years, the Seattle Times has published many editorials and columns skeptical of transit, or any transportation mode except private cars. STB hasn’t usually responded, because events have shown amply that every day the Times gets more out of step with citizens’ increasing desire for alternatives to sitting in traffic. And the Times gets credit for consistently excellent news coverage of transportation topics, led by ace reporter Mike Lindblom.
But the Times’s latest ($) finally warrants a response, because it distills so many myths and bad ideas about transportation into a few words. The idea is not to get into a fight with our local paper, but to explain why transit investment is the only way to free people from congestion. The Times’s core request — to provide so much capacity for car traffic that a complete closure of I-5 would have little effect on car travel times — is geometrically impossible. Worse, any attempt to make it happen would cause profoundly destructive consequences for the city and its residents. And the reasons (below the jump) show exactly why support for transit, not more car capacity, is the best way forward from our congestion woes.
What could have been: A subway from Magnolia Bluff to Madison Park (with a few transfers), among other neighborhoods.
On March 5, 1912, some 40,000 Seattleites filed into voting booths across the city to decide whether its future would be directed by a 273-page comprehensive plan designed by civil engineer Virgil G. Bogue, a practitioner of nationwide “City Beautiful” movement.
The plan was bold and ambitious, fitting for a newly-christened city that was in the middle of a massive period of growth following the Great Fire of 1889 and the Alaska-Pacific-Yukon Exhibition of 1909, capitalizing on recent public works projects by city engineer R. H. Thomson (for whom the R. H. Thomson Expressway was to be named). Thomson’s ongoing regrade of Denny Hill would provide 38 acres of flat land for a grand, European-style civic center in modern-day Belltown. The civic center would feature a central train station (replacing the then-new King Street Station) and a city hall designed in the Beaux-Arts architectural style, resembling Paris more than New York (with a strict height limit on buildings, advocated for by Bogue).
Clallam Transit Route 14 from Port Angeles to Forks Eric C. (Flickr)
On Labor Day Weekend 2010, my partner Sarah and I traveled to Nanaimo, B.C. the cheap and lengthy way: via the Bainbridge Ferry, Kitsap Transit #90 to Poulsbo, Jefferson Transit #7 to Four Corners, Jefferson Transit #8 to Sequim, Clallam Transit #30 to Port Angeles, the Black Ball Ferry, and the former VIA Rail Malahat. We returned to Seattle via the BC Ferries and Amtrak. The experience was luckily seamless, but it really was only for the insane among us. Ever since that trip, we’ve done the sane thing and driven our car anytime we’ve gone to the Olympic Peninsula.
Clallam Transit Route 123 – branded as the Strait Shot in honor of the Strait of Juan de Fuca – will turn the 5-seat ride of old into a simple 2-seat ride, a ferry and a timed bus connection. The bus will make very limited stops, including Poulsbo and Sequim (see map).
The service will run twice daily on weekdays and Saturday, with a morning and evening service in each direction, and one evening trip in each direction on Sundays. There will be timed connections from the Bainbridge Ferry to the bus, and also an onward timed connection to Forks, turning the former 6-seat ride to Lake Crescent and Forks into a 3-seat ride with timed connections.
There is already a one-seat ride between Seattle and Port Angeles, the WSDOT-subsidized Dungeness Line from SeaTac Airport to Port Angeles via Downtown Seattle, Edmonds, and Kingston. Including the respective ferry trips, The Strait Shot will be slightly faster than the Dungeness Line from Downtown Seattle, 2 hours and 50 minutes versus 3 hours.
The proposed $10 one-way fare may seem steep, but as an out-of-boundary service, Clallam Transit intends to run it at 100% fare box recovery. As a 75-mile trip in just 2 hours, the service will be very competitive with what is usually a 1 hour and 40 minute drive. The Strait Shot will also be considerably cheaper than the Dungeness Line, even though the latter includes the ferry fare within its fare.
Clallam Transit is holding a public hearing on the proposal on March 20 in Forks, and online comments may be submitted to info@clallamtransit.com by March 15. If this comes to pass, Sequim, Port Angeles, Lake Crescent, Forks, La Push, Neah Bay, and more will be far more accessible than ever before. Quick car-free weekenders will be a convenient reality.
This Transportation Planning and Engineering Division Intern will assist City of Redmond staff to plan and deliver multimodal transportation projects and programs in this growing community and regional jobs center. Major projects underway include the Overlake Village transit-oriented development, the arrival of East Link light rail, and the development of Downtown Redmond into a mixed use urban center.
Depending on the successful candidate’s skills, primary duties may include:
Map production
Data analysis, including geospatial analysis and statistical analysis
Research into transportation policy, standards and practices, and related topics
Memo and report composition
Document layout
Graphic design
Clerical tasks such as data entry
Field data collection
Database development and maintenance
This position does not have a significant civil engineering component.
**Preference will be given to applications received by Friday, March 17, 2017.**
