Month: December 2017

Unsurprisingly, regional and national transportation news has been dominated since Monday by the tragic Amtrak 501 derailment. Because many of our readers are following the news of that accident via traditional or social media, and every outlet is working with the same (small) set of facts, I elected not to try and summarize all the 501 coverage, but to focus on other things that happened this week. STB’s reporting and commentary will continue in other posts.

If, nonetheless, you have room in your brain for one more 501 story, make it this KNKX interview with All Aboard Washington’s Lloyd Flem, who knew two of the deceased, Zack Willhoite and Jim Hamre, through their transit advocacy. “I can say with clarity, on behalf of both men […] that we do not believe the future of transportation is an infinite amount of pavement so everybody can drive alone, all the time, everywhere.” Words to live by.

The roundup:

• NE 65th St plans move ahead with reduced sidewalks, lack of crossings.
• Airports are losing money ($) as ride-hailing services grow.
• Support bike lanes along the Roosevelt RapidRide.
• Rep. Macri wants rent control.
• Salt Lake City’s new transit master plan.
• There’s an incipient apartment shortage in Spokane.
• The physical scars of the old Mercer Mess are starting to fade.
• How high should SR 99 tolls ($) go?
• Here’s how Metro Transit decides whether your bus is on time ($). David Gutman’s doing great work on the Metro beat.
• Washington’s I-405 express tolls should rise past $10 ($) to keep traffic moving. Yep.
• Hikers raved about King County’s new trailhead shuttle, but now it needs more users ($).
• Five transit agency execs (including Rogoff) rank funding shortfalls, Positive Train Control challenges among chief concerns.
• Seattle Bike Blog has concerns with the 65th St redesign.
• Erica discusses anecdata in the AirBNB debate.
• Under new leadership, Capitol Hill Community Council aims to build on its unusually progressive legacy.
• Head of Washington State Ferries has plans for hybrid-electric ferries.
• Adding lanes doesn’t reduce congestion. So what is TxDOT doing?
• Ellensburg proves no town is too small for top-notch bikeways.
• A deep dive into a value-added real-estate portfolio.
• World’s steepest funicular rail line to open in Switzerland, I’m jealous.
• Living cheek by gill in modern cities is possible — but it isn’t easy.
• Philly makes moves to reopen Franklin Square ghost station.
• Vera Katz, former Portland mayor, dies at 84, Jarrett has thoughts.
• Elon Musk has feelings on transit.
• Luas Cross City service expects 10m extra passenger trips a year.
• State of U.S. rental market: Rich get more options, poor suffer affordability crisis.
• Could wealthy neighbors kill Seattle’s plan to build affordable housing in Magnolia (again)? The quoted comments of Magnolia residents are disgusting, and the effectiveness of their obstructionism is at the root of our housing crisis, but I would be more enthused for this housing project if it weren’t in one of the hardest places in Seattle to serve effectively with transit.
• Where a “home for everyone” collides with “not in my neighborhood.” Oregonian Editorial Board goes into bat for more housing.
• Decade since recession: Thriving cities leave others behind.
• Sound Transit okays bus-on-shoulder on I-5 in Lynnwood.
• These bikes were made for Seattle, in which Knute Berger — surprising me, at least — comes out as an enthusiastic utility cycling advocate.
• Seattle’s bike-share pilot program ends this month, but the bikes are staying.
• Erica: The real surprise in Durkan’s staffing announcement was who wasn’t mentioned.
• Times Op-Ed for HALA: Neighborhood coalition threatens to make Seattle less affordable ($). A Times reader responds, denouncing Ballard as a “town-house ghetto“.
• Shenzhen goes all in on electric buses.
• Capitol Hill Seattle interviews outgoing Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce leader Sierra Hansen. Notably, she discusses why the North Broadway streetcar extension lost the support of the business community. Alas, it was for a bad reason (loss of parking and loading zones) rather than any good reasons (e.g. the mixed-traffic alignment has unimpressive ridership numbers and suffers most of the same problems as our buses.)

This is an open thread.

Over a year and a half after the new State Road 520 bridge opened to car traffic, pedestrians and cyclists will finally be able to cross Lake Washington using the floating bridge. The new 2.7-mile 520 bridge shared-use path, linking Seattle and the Eastside, is set to open at 3pm on December 20.  

Not only will this expand commute options, the new SR 520 path will also add to the 60-mile Lake Washington Loop Trail. Cascade Bicycle Club is planning several inaugural rides starting on both sides of the bridge to celebrate the grand opening.

On Cascade’s blog, Vicky Clarke, a policy manager for the group wrote that “For the region, the bridge trail represents a step toward our future: transportation infrastructure that’s accessible to all, and the ability to get more places by bike.”

An “out and back” version of the trail, which extended from Medina about 1.3 miles across the bridge leaving Seattle just out of reach, has teased bike commuters and pedestrians since it opened in summer 2016.

On the Seattle side, the complete trail set to open Wednesday starts at Montlake Park near the Arboretum and runs along the north side of the rebuilt bridge, ending in Medina.

Continue reading “SR520 Bicycle and Pedestrian Path Opens Today”

Although the human impacts are miniscule compared to those of the accident itself, there will be only minor changes to Amtrak Cascades service until further notice. According to Janet Matkin of WSDOT, the state has already taken possession of enough rolling stock to run all scheduled Cascades trips. Obviously, these trips will take the old route around Point Defiance until further notice, adding 10 minutes to all trips and increasing reliability incidents due to freight conflicts.

This means that trains will stop at the old station location on Puyallup Ave. in Tacoma. This morning’s train 502 from Portland was cancelled, but that should be it for cancellations.

The Eugene-Portland segment will have more changes, per Amtrak’s statement:

Beginning Dec. 20, Cascades Service from Eugene to Portland, OR will be operating with substitute equipment and limited amenities, including no food service, checked baggage service, business class or bikes. Pets will still be allowed on board. Additionally, Trains 505 and 508, which were scheduled to operate as thru service between Eugene and Seattle, will now operate only between Seattle and Portland. New Trains 515 and 510 will be introduced on the segment between Portland and Eugene and will be a cross platform connection at Portland for passengers traveling north of Portland.

Matkin said that inspection of infrastructure at the accident site is ongoing, so it is impossible to say when trains may use the new track segment again.

With the national attention that yesterday’s tragic derailment is getting, we felt it would be best to provide a bit of context about the accident’s site: the Point Defiance Bypass. While it is a “new” railroad, built primarily for passenger use, the corridor is over a century old and some pieces date back decades. The bridge over Interstate 5 in particular was built in 1936 over an older highway and was given new tracks as part of the project.

On May 1, 1891, the Tacoma, Olympia & Grays Harbor Railroad announced the completion of a 25-mile railway from Lacey to Lakeview (approximately where South Tacoma station is today), forming a new branch of the Northern Pacific Railway. The main line from Lakeview to Tacoma had been built in 1873 and continued south through what is now Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM) towards Tenino. Although a parallel route was built along the coast and around Point Defiance in 1914, this inland route was sparsely used as a freight route by Northern Pacific, and later Burlington Northern to access the JBLM and South Tacoma areas.

By the 1990s, the railway was underused and caught the interest of WSDOT, who were planning what would become the Amtrak Cascades network. While Amtrak trains were using the route along the coast, the state’s 1997 Intercity Passenger Rail Plan envisioned a faster, inland route coupled with a new multimodal complex in Tacoma to link up with the Sounder and Link lines that Sound Transit planned for the city. The state legislature approved design and property acquisition funds in 2005, beginning a long series of back and forth meetings with cities, residents, the military, and other groups along the route. Sound Transit later acquired the whole corridor from BNSF in 2004.

President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package gave the bypass the boost it needed, providing much of the funding for the $181 million project and accelerating the completion date from 2019 to 2017 (a deadline mandated by the federal grant). By the following year, WSDOT was deep in environmental assessment and Sound Transit had already started moving dirt on the Lakewood to Tacoma segment. It received final approval from the Federal Railroad Administration in early 2013 and began construction in 2015, with work on the Nisqually junction completed later that year. The new station at Tacoma’s Freighthouse Square encountered a speed bump late into property acquisition negotiations, but was ultimately able to break ground in July 2016. Extensive testing on the whole corridor began in January of this year, with WSDOT and Sound Transit rolling out public service announcements about train safety. Passenger service began yesterday morning, and seemed to be going smoothly, until the train reached one of the final turns on the approach to Nisqually junction at 7:30 am. While the investigation has not determined the exact cause of the crash, early indications show that the train was traveling overspeed on a downhill section before the turn.

Amtrak Cascades #501 south from Seattle derailed this morning, while crossing over I-5 in the vicinity of Mounts Road, west of Dupont. There are at least three casualties, many injuries, and some carriages are a total loss. Our thoughts are with survivors, and the families of everyone on board. No root cause has been established, although there are no grade crossings on this section of the line.

I-5 will likely be closed for hours, so avoid freeway travel in this area and expect major disruptions.

Seattle Times is actively covering this disaster.

Update 10:28: “Per the Pierce County Sheriff, if you had a loved one on Amtrak Cascades 501, there is a family reunification center now at the Dupont City Hall. Please go there, NOT to the scene. The Amtrak number to call if you have family members on the train is 1-800-523-9101.”

Update 2:02 PM: Statement from WSDOT

Update 12/19 9:47 AM: New York Times: “The National Transportation Safety Board said at a Monday night briefing that the train had been traveling more than twice the speed limit before it derailed, or at 80 miles per hour instead of the allowable 30 m.p.h.”

Also, a detailed summary from Sandy Johnston at the Itinerant Urbanist discussing PTC, Amtrak, and much more.

Update 12/19 11:02 AM: Zack Willhoite, Pierce Transit employee and frequent STB contributor (MrZ) and Jim Hamre of All Aboard Washington, died in the accident.  Our thoughts are with their families and the communities they helped to build.

Yellow shirts filled Seattle City Council chambers, holding posters with hundreds of hand-signed petition along the walls. Members of the Transit Riders Union were out in force to voice their opinions to councilmembers, but the topic this time wasn’t potential bus cuts or a push for a low-income transit pass. Instead, the grassroots organization was advocating for an income tax on high earners.

The group’s inaugural 2011 campaign, Save Our Metro, began in response to King County Metro Transit’s plans to cut bus service after the recession caused a steep reduction in sales tax revenue. Now, six years later, the group’s mission has expanded to include this year’s push for a less regressive tax system.

“We were interested in not just forming a transit advocacy organization, but in building power by bringing large numbers of people together to fight for political gains in improving the transit system and other issues,” said Katie Wilson, the Transit Riders Union general secretary, describing the group’s origin.

For years, TRU fought for various transit measures that increased funding for bus service or expanded light rail. These raised sales and property taxes the group saw as regressive, which was frustrating.

To Wilson, one of the founding members of the group, the current suburbanization of poverty in the region led to a natural transition of issues for the Transit Riders Union.

Continue reading “How the Income Tax became an Issue for the Transit Riders Union”

This is an open thread.

10 years ago this month, to great fanfare, Seattle’s modern streetcar line opened, a 1.3-mile route between Westlake and South Lake Union.

Though it seems insignificant now, cast your mind back to 2007. The Seattle Monorail Project died just two years earlier, after costing the city $125M. A month before the streetcar opening, the Roads and Transit measure to expand light rail had just been defeated. Many people were openly questioning whether rail-based transit had a future in Seattle (Not coincidentally, 2007 is the year STB was founded). Thousands of people crowded into Westlake square to see our shiny new toy. I was working in the neighborhood at the time and recall the insane crowds on opening day.

The Seattle Streetcar system has had its ups and downs over the years. 10 years seems like a good time to look back at the system, and forward as the Center City Connector moves forward.

After ripping up the last of the city’s streetcars in the 1941, Seattle’s modern streetcar system kicked off with the South Lake Union line (setting aside the historic waterfront line). Half the funding was provided by local billionaire Paul Allen, who waned the line as an amenity to kickstart development in what was then the sleepy warehouse district known as South Lake Union.

Since then, mayors and Council members have had varying degrees of enthusiasm for streetcars. The streetcar system has taken on a totemic quality that made it about more than just a transit mode choice: if you were for it, it means you were for real estate development and “placemaking.” To be against it was to be for spending money on More Important Things. As with many things in this town, it became a question of What Do We Want to Be When We Grow Up?

Continue reading “Seattle’s Streetcar Turns 10”