Yes on Thurston County Intercity Transit Proposition 1

Posted on by STB Editorial Board
Photo by Bruce Englehardt

It shouldn’t come as a shock that STB would endorse a ballot measure that would add more bus service, including longer hours, more frequency, more and faster connections, and more right-of-way priority treatments, in an urban region that makes good use of it. Bruce Englehardt described in full what the measure would likely fund. It is both a response to lower federal funding, and an opportunity to match Olympia’s growth and extend service hours.

Thankfully, an organized campaign is getting the word out on the value that IT provides to its community. Not just a lifeline for the carless, the agency provides long-haul services to Tacoma, and thus to the core Puget Sound network. Today, it is the most fragile link in continuous transit service for the urban agglomeration from Everett to Olympia.

New Thurston County voters may still register to vote in person through Monday, October 29, at the Thurston County Courthouse, Building 1, during regular business hours. The Courthouse campus is a medium hike southwest from the Capitol campus, and served by Intercity Transit bus routes 12 and 42.

You can read the rest of our endorsements here.

Would backyard cottages make parking in Seattle harder?

Posted on by Peter Johnson
Off-street parking. Credit: Atomic Taco

The city’s released its final environmental impact statement (EIS) for accessory dwelling units (ADUs)/backyard cottages last week. Other sites in the urbanist blogosphere analyzed the entire document.

This post focuses on the EIS’s study of parking impacts in particular, since worries about street parking availability are a common anti-density talking point.

So: would the ADU proposal make parking on a side street difficult in Maple Leaf or Magnolia?

No.

In fact, not all that much would change (which is a point worth discussing on its own.) In its analysis of the preferred alternative, the plan that would create the most capacity for ADUs, the City projects that only 300 ADUs would be built. That’s about 10 percent of the 3,007 parcels that would be eligible for ADU construction—which itself is a very small slice of the 138,531 parcels in single family-zoned areas across the city.

Analysis of one of the two proposals that would eliminate the requirement that any ADU have a complementary off-street parking spot says that the City “do[es] not expect increased parking demand resulting from ADU production to exceed existing on-street parking availability under typical conditions.” The preferred alternative would create parking impacts that “would be very similar to, but slightly greater than, those described under Alternative 2 due to slightly higher ADU production.”

The EIS concludes that implementing the ADU plan will make only marginal changes to the single family-zoned parking supply, which is already robust. The EIS’s study of street parking supply, which used data collected from 2016-18, concludes that 56 percent of parking in single family zones is in use on a weekday.

That figure may actually overstate demands on the parking supply. Two of the four study areas are located in areas with high parking demand. The southeast study location is between the northeast edge of Columbia City’s business district and Genesee Park. The southwest study area surrounds the West Seattle Junction.

In short, existing evidence suggests that ADUs will not noticeably change the amount of parking available in Seattle’s single family neighborhoods.

Intercity Transit Pins Its Hopes and Dreams on Prop. 1

Posted on by Bruce Englehardt
An Intercity Transit bus at Olympia Transit Center

Voters in the Intercity Transit district, which roughly covers the cities of Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, and Yelm, will soon decide on Proposition 1, a ballot measure that would increase sales taxes by 0.4 percent in order to fund transit services. Intercity Transit currently levies a 0.8 percent sales tax, which makes up 79 percent of annual revenue.

The sales tax increase would raise about $16-$20 million annually and would be used to patch operational costs that were originally paid for using ever-shrinking federal grants (which makes up 8 percent of the agency’s annual budget). It would also be used to launch new services, including routes to underserved areas, improved frequencies, expanded evening and weekend service, and perhaps lead to a bus rapid transit system.

Continue reading “Intercity Transit Pins Its Hopes and Dreams on Prop. 1”

News Roundup: STAB

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40441865@N08/44793708352/in/pool-seatrans/

This is an open thread.

Yes on I-1631

Posted on by STB Editorial Board
“Son, we wanted to do something, but the oil companies said gas prices would go up.” (Wikimedia)

If you’re reading STB, you likely need no reminder that climate change is an emergency that requires urgent action. So we’ll dispense with the general case to take on some of the arguments, often in bad faith, deployed against this ballot measure.

First, familiarize yourself with the specifics of the measure. The carbon fee will discourage carbon-intensive habits and directly fund, among other things, transit and transit-oriented development. Purely from that perspective, our endorsement is inevitable.

And yet, we also enthusiastically endorsed I-732, last year’s measure, which used carbon tax revenue to cut regressive taxes instead of funding climate remedies. We find I-1631’s spending priorities to be largely worthy. But even if you don’t, recall that climate change is an emergency. We can’t wait for the ideal policy to come along to start taking action.

“Yes, fire season keeps getting worse, but I didn’t want to give spending power to an unelected board!” (Wikimedia)

Indeed, I-732’s failure suggests there is no political coalition for climate action with tax cuts. Many of the forces now criticizing “spending” and the costs borne by consumers had no interest in a remedy that returned money directly to taxpayers.

There are many attacks that are pure falsehoods, but the other that is superficially true is that the measure will not solve climate change on its own. While technically accurate, it ignores the power of collective action when nations and regions all over the world commit to change their economies to solve a crisis. Moreover, climate change is not a binary outcome: while it is too late to avoid at least some catastrophes, one degree of warming is better than 1.5, which is better than 2, and so on. Every large economy, like Washington State, that makes an effort will help a bit. And finally, a victory for I-1631 would provide a model of how climate policy can work at the state level, raising the possibility of action across the United States.

Vote for I-1631. The costs are modest, the benefits are large, and the fate of humanity may depend on it.

The STB Editorial Board consists of Martin H. Duke and Brent White.

ST Level 3 Recommendations, Criticism of Chinatown Plans

Posted on by Peter Johnson
Union Station from 5th Avenue South. Credit: Bruce Engelhardt.

In a meeting last Friday, Seattle and King County elected officials rejected the most expensive West Seattle Link alignment, endorsed a tunnel under the Lake Washington Ship Canal from Interbay to Ballard, and urged Sound Transit to significantly revamp plans for the Chinatown/International District (CID) station.

The rejection of CID plans, so far the most controversial of the ongoing process, came after pointed criticism from Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and members of the Seattle City Council.

The October 5 meeting marked the end of the Level 2 analysis for the new Seattle Link extensions, meaning the advisory group process is two thirds finished. The group of elected officials voted on the recommendations of the stakeholder advisory groups that have met throughout 2018.

The endorsements are strictly advisory, but are intended to guide the planning work of Sound Transit’s project staff. The votes don’t carry the force of law: the Sound Transit board will ultimately decide whether to approve or reject the results of the months long advisory process in 2019. In the meantime, agency staff will study the elected official-endorsed alignments further, and present more developed Level 3 plans to the advisory groups.

Seattle & King County criticize Chinatown plans

In pointed comments, several Seattle officials, King County Executive Dow Constantine, and County Councilmember Joe McDermott reiterated a growing consensus against a 5th Avenue South alignment. CID and Pioneer Square leaders have rallied against a 5th Avenue line. Continue reading “ST Level 3 Recommendations, Criticism of Chinatown Plans”

November 2018 Legislative Endorsements

Posted on by STB Editorial Board

Our three endorsements in the primary election remain:

Six Representatives, five Democratic and one Republican, stood up for Sound Transit against the MVET rollback efforts this year:

  • Jacqueline Maycumber (District 7, Position 1)
  • Beth Doglio (District 22, Position 2)
  • Joe Fitzgibbon (District 34, Position 2)
  • Noel Frame (District 36, Position 1)
  • Gael Tarleton (District 36, Position 2)
  • Nicole Macri (District 43, Position1)

All six have our gratitude and endorsement. They are essentially unopposed, so lets move on to some more interesting races.

State Representative, District 5, Pos. 1: Bill Ramos, a member of the Issaquah City Council, worked for the Federal Transit Administration from 2005 to 2013 as a Community Planner with emphasis in developing and managing the Tribal Transit Program and Rural and Small Urban Area Transit Systems. As Federal Tribal Liaison, he worked with 56 Tribes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska to help start or improve public transit on Tribal Lands. Continue reading “November 2018 Legislative Endorsements”

Register to Vote Today

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Intercity Transit bus (Erubisu/flickr)

Today is the deadline to register online to vote in the November election. If you’ve moved here, changed address, or otherwise haven’t registered to vote, the time is now.

Please go to MyVote.wa.gov, which is a portal for whatever registration transactions you need.

Only Thurston County is offering a strictly transit-related measure on the ballot. However, all Washington voters can vote on the Carbon Fee, I-1631, which will both encourage low-carbon means of housing and transport, and discourage carbon-intensive ones. Congressional races touch a wide range of issues. Furthermore, state legislative elections are probably the most underrated in terms of public attention and the impact they have on everyday life. The party balance in Olympia resolves issues around authorized transit taxes and the primacy of highways.

STB endorsements on transit and land use-related issues will be available soon.