When the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel finally got cellular phone service last March, the tentative expectation was that the Beacon Hill Tunnel would follow later this year. University Link has long had it, so Beacon Hill is the last segment that drops calls and freezes page loads.
ST spokesperson Kimberly Reason told me earlier this week that cell service there is now scheduled for mid-2018 “to allow for design modifications for the power infrastructure.” So for a few months longer, you’ll be forced to read dead trees or talk to your neighbor for at least a few minutes on every trip.
Sound Transit’s ridership continues to rise, fueled mostly by light rail expansion, according third quarter ridership numbers released by the agency last week. Ridership across the system was up 6.5% over the same quarter in 2016.
In an accompanying press release, Sound Transit lauded current year-to-date ridership in 2017, up 26% on Link and 12% across the entire system compared to the same time period last year.
“The ridership gains within our region are very significant in contrast to recent ridership reductions in many other regions, with Sound Transit services seeing some of the strongest growth in the nation.”
All transportation modes posted ridership increases, except ST Express bus service which declined 0.6%. ST Express posted the same ridership decline last quarter and once again, ST attributes that decrease to low fuel prices, “which tends to depress bus ridership.”
Light rail ridership continues to climb, showing strong growth of 13.5% during the third quarter compared to the same time period last year. Overall this year Link ridership is up 26%.
Behind every bus driver and Link light rail operator is a team huddled behind a crowd of computer screens, monitoring buses and trains as they traverse the region. Sound Transit’s Link Control Center (pictured above) and King County Metro Transit’s Control Center (TCC) are collocated inside Metro’s Transit Control Center Building on the south side of the city.
But when there is a breakdown or a medical emergency, the TCC is ready to respond 24 hours a day. Last week on a rainy afternoon, coordinators spoke in hushed, unhurried tones as the evening commute commenced.
Frank and I are taping soon, so please leave your questions for us in the comments. As always, try to keep it to a single question, and we’ll do the best we can (given no prior preparation) to answer it.
King County’s population growth has consistently outpaced housing creation. Housing is percentage of prior year total units.
Last year, the population of King County grew 48,600, or 2.3%. The housing stock grew 14,700, or 1.6%. The gap, 0.7%, is a rough measure of our failure to create enough housing.
This is the sixth straight year when population growth exceeded housing creation in King County. Snohomish and Pierce appeared more balanced until 2014, but now face heightened housing pressures as displacement of King County workers from expensive local housing markets grows.
The gap between population and housing growth is an increase in household size. Over this decade, 11.5% more King County residents have squeezed into 8.3% more housing units. That might not seem so large, but it’s about 27,000 missing homes. Those on the margins of the housing market live with parents longer or take on more roommates. Some are homeless. The housing shortage also manifests in rationing via higher rents and rising home prices.
The other safety valve to the housing shortage has been the displacement of King County families to neighboring counties, and particularly to the South Snohomish suburbs. The role of Pierce and Snohomish Counties in the regional housing market goes beyond more housing units. Specifically, they provide much of the new single-family housing growth in the region. Seattle is 21% of the region’s housing stock, but just 2% of added single family housing since 2010 is in Seattle. Distant developments on the edges of the urban growth area have helped to fill a second housing gap, a deficit of housing for families in King County. But in recent years both Pierce and Snohomish are increasingly unable to keep up with demand. Continue reading “The regional housing gap”
The King County Council recently approved a $2.75 all-the-time flat fare, which will take effect in July of 2018. This will eliminate most of the passenger-requested resets on ORCA readers that require operators to push some buttons on the reader, and eliminate one more source of fare arguments. Community Transit has followed suit on the ORCA reader resets by proposing that each of its commuter routes have a single fare for each payer category.
Sound Transit hasn’t yet put forward a similar proposal to get rid of ORCA reader resets on inter-county ST Express bus routes, but has been looking at the issue. Any ST Express fare restructure would likely be implemented in latter 2018.
If the Sound Transit Board opts to transition to route-based fares to replace the county-line-crossing surcharge, thirteen routes would alter their fares. Fifteen ST Express routes do not cross a county line, and would therefore be unaffected by such a fare restructure: 522, 540, 541, 542, 545, 550, 554, 555, 556, 560, 566, 567, 577, 580, and 596.
Last week’s Seattle Times profiles some Phinney activists ($) who are fighting some relatively affordable apartments because the project doesn’t include parking. A McGinn-era policy relaxed parking requirements in frequent transit corridors. The current standard is 15-minute intervals, which nearby Route 5 doesn’t meet due to unreliable trips, and a few schedule adjustments to time transfers that bring headways a bit above 15.
The city is planning to update the rule to include corridors like Route 5. There’s no good reason to have parking requirements anywhere, regardless of transit service levels, so any relaxation is a step in the right direction.
It goes without saying that parking requirements raise the cost of housing, especially for the increasing number of people that find it necessary or advantageous to own fewer cars than the exurban norm would suggest. Furthermore, building more parking than the market demands increases the likelihood of owning a car, which only increases congestion in the neighborhood. But activists obviously don’t care about all that: they use the city’s right-of-way for free car storage now, and they don’t want to have to share with newcomers:
But the neighbors say the parking regulations are unrealistic and misguided. They also argue that a lack of on-site parking disproportionately affects people who must rely on cars to get around, such as parents with young children.
Thanks to bad land use and transit underinvestment, there are absolutely lifestyle choices that can make it hard to follow your daily routine without a car — especially for parents. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy here is astounding. These neighbors have structured their lives to “need” a car. That is absolutely their right. But they’ve neglected to a secure a home where they can store that car without using public property on their street. Or perhaps they have a garage, which is filled with stuff, in which case this is simply a matter of inconvenience.
Again, that’s all fine and good, and I don’t begrudge them that. But then, these same people expect newcomers to, in effect, buy or rent a space regardless of whether they have any interest in owning a car. This is a tax on newcomers to further subsidize the existing freebie from SDOT.
These newcomers are often people with far fewer financial resources than residents who, in many cases, have benefited from enormous windfalls in property values over the past few years. It is a thoroughly regressive policy, especially during a housing shortage, and bravo to Rob Johnson and the rest of the Seattle government for scaling it back wherever they can.
As one who experiences Link’s load factors daily, I’m fascinated by the patterns that I can recognize. We see the two rush hour peaks, and that the most crowding occurs to and from the Rainier Valley. There are also inconsistent peaks around lunchtime and 10pm, which I assume are related to day and night games.
It’s also interesting that the practical limit appears to actually be about 200 people per car. Frequent riders will recognize the case where it is actually impossible to add riders. Given the seating layout, I don’t see how a “crush load” of 252 is feasible.
