Month: May 2017

• Erica interviews Jessyn Farrell.
• Metro running a survey about I-90 trailheads.
• Vision Zero making progress, but is it enough?
• The first reviews are in for Pierce Transit Route 15 (Tacoma-Pt. Defiance)
• The indispensable Heidi Groover interrogates Bob Hasegawa’s views on transit.
• Is it too early to allow private bikeshare in?
• One Center City group collecting input.
• Streetcar/Bike Safety lawsuit rumbles on ($).
• South Bellevue East Link construction meeting tonight.
• NYT says developers lovin’ that transit.
• Swift Bus Lanes coming to 128th St SW.
• Sen. Steve O’Ban (R-University Place) makes the case ($) to take $4 billion in voter-approved taxes from Sound Transit, citing “substantial contingencies.” No doubt, he will make the agency whole if revenues come in below projections.
• Washington House votes to slash Sound Transit 3 funding by $2 billion in a 64-33 vote, including all Democrats.
• Large Othello empty lot may become “equitable” development.
• Checking in on Seattle’s monorail.
• Lots of Vision Zero data.
• Savage follows up his magnificent displacement essay with more on arbitrary city boundaries.
• Seattle Neighborhood Greenways hiring.
• ReachNow cars having problems on ferries.
• Willamette Week does some MAX fantasy mapping.
• Los Angeles considering total overhaul of their bus network.

This is an open thread.

All ST service was higher in March of 2017 than last year. With University Link opening in March of 16 this is the first month with partial U-Link numbers, which showed in Link’s Year over Year growth finally dropping down from the 80s and 90s.

Average daily ridership for Link in March was:

• Weekday: 67,174 (+54.4%)
• Saturday: 43,824 (+11.5%)
• Sunday: 34,688 (+30.0%)

Other weekday modal ridership stats:

• Sounder: 17,172 (3.8%)
• Tacoma Link: 3,279 (3.5%)
• ST Express: 64,080 (2.6%)
• Sound Transit Systemwide, +20.8% Weekday, +19.7% Total Boardings

My charts after the break. Continue reading “March 2017 Sound Transit Ridership”

After about a decade of planning, legislative showdowns, and lawsuits, two-way HOV operations (R8A)* are to begin on Sunday, June 4th. WSDOT expects delays the first Monday, as people learn about the new configuration. A significant opening in its own right, two-way operations are an omen of even greater changes to commutes in the corridor, and to the way that transit advocates think about I-90.

For years, HOVs (and any vehicles from Mercer Island) have used the 2 express lanes in the peak direction between Seattle and Mercer Island. Only east of Mercer Island were there more traditional HOV left-lanes, allowing buses in either direction to bypass some traffic. This works great for the stream of morning express buses into downtown Seattle. But anyone trying to commute out of Seattle by bus or HOV** would spend time mired in general traffic. Worse, in the afternoon westbound there would be a difficult merge into general traffic on Mercer Island.

The reverse-peak commute is indisputably better beginning next week. With peak-direction HOV capacity dropping from two (express) lanes to one, the impact on those commutes depends on how well WSDOT manages demand by adjusting HOV thresholds and introducing tolls. Based on experience on other highways, the long-term prospects are not great.

For transit advocates, however, the long-term prospects are largely irrelevant: at the end of this project, Sound Transit has replaced the capacity it is claiming for light rail tracks, and East Link construction can begin in earnest. Bus traffic between Mercer Island and Seattle will one day be no more than a trickle, and WSDOT’s successes and failures will have little impact on transit commutes in the corridor.***

*The configuration opening on Sunday is named “R8A” for the option that represented it in alternatives analysis. In sufficiently wonky circles, the name stuck for reasons that are not entirely clear. However the blame may lay not a million miles from this website.

** I did this for five years, and fantasized about this day. In a way typical of long-lived transit projects, I have long since moved on from that work site and job.

*** Though if buses terminate on Mercer Island, HOV lane congestion will still matter.

Mike Lindblom, The Seattle Times [$]:

Sound Transit and its allies in Congress say they’ll fight a 2018 budget proposal by President Donald Trump that yanks $1.1 billion to build the Lynnwood-Northgate light-rail extension — half of that project’s entire funding.

The White House policy change would also remove an anticipated $500 million grant for the Angle Lake-Federal Way extension, scheduled to open in 2024, and 12 other projects still in development.

…

The White House policy change would also remove an anticipated $500 million grant for the Angle Lake-Federal Way extension, scheduled to open in 2024, and 12 other projects still in development.

Not a good development for Sound Transit.  The agency took an additional step to issue a joint statement with Los Angeles Metro:

“The administration’s assertion that our regions can deliver transit solutions for our citizens without federal partnership is uninformed, misguided, and unfair. The voters of our communities stepped up and voted to tax themselves to provide a path out of punishing congestion. For that bold action, they should be rewarded at the federal level, not punished.

It’s too soon to speculate what exactly Sound Transit would do if it lost all federal funding.  Presidential budgets are typically thrown in the recycling bin by congressional appropriations committees, but at the same time this one does represent the ideological commitments and priorities of a large faction of the Republican party, and the Republican party does have near-complete control of D.C. right now.

Earlier this month, Congress got together on a six-month spending bill that restored funding [$] for Lynnwood link and other local rail projects (such as the Center City Connector streetcar), so it’s possible something similar may happen when the budget process resumes.

Meanwhile here in the Other Washington Heidi Groover at The Stranger notes that HB 2201 passed the House in Olympia.  The bill would lower car tabs for ST3, costing Sound Transit as much as $2B.

Using the same technology licensed from Alweg, Tokyo’s monorail opened two years after Seattle’s monorail for the 1964 Summer Olympics. It is ten times longer and connects central Tokyo to the airport. There’s that and they also built a bullet train.

Finding your way through Link stations just got a little bit easier if you have a smartphone in hand or a computer. A map of Link’s SeaTac/Airport Station is now available on Google Maps. Included on the map are the locations of station amenities and features such as entrances and exits, ticket vending machines, ORCA card readers, stairs, elevators, and escalators. When zoomed in, you can change levels to see what’s on the mezzanine and platform levels. And coming soon is the ability to take a virtual tour inside the station so you know exactly what to expect.

Indoor mapping has the potential to be a great navigational aid but there are obvious omissions in Sound Transit’s first try that would puzzle those unfamiliar with the station. Since SeaTac will be the model for the rest of the system, it is important to get it right.

Continue reading “Link Station Interiors on Google Maps”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lamarjspurgle/34783939126/in/pool-seatrans/

• djw has some theories about the latest Republican attack on Sound Transit.
• I endorse the latest Dan Savage gentrification screed 100%.
• PSRC gathering comment on their next round of transportation grants.
• Rob Johnson says HALA is working. Data here.
• Madison BRT work begins.
• Metro to increase park-and-ride enforcement.
• All the lawmakers that claimed to not understand how car tabs work (hey, Bob Hasegawa) must not have been paying attention when Senators killed an amendment ($) that would have used lower valuations.
• Now three bike share companies interested; regulatory framework could be ready next month.
• Mercer Island files injunction to stop Link construction; court strikes down earlier MI obstruction tactics.
• Not exactly peer-reviewed science, but an experiment suggests Key Arena has a slight transit advantage ($) over the Sodo arena site — even before Link serves Lower Queen Anne in 2035.
• How to measure East Link success.
• Half-price Link bike cages.
• Rich Smith is unhappy with Link signage.
• WSTC meeting June 22nd to organize some feedback on light rail service to West Seattle.
• Holy cow, Google Maps.
• New bus route in Spokane.
• The end of parking.
• Why are there NIMBYs?

This is an open thread.