There is a real estate bubble growing in China and massive cities of mostly empty buildings are going up.
This is an open thread.
dxʷləšucid signs
Some time ago I contemplated whether our buses—wherever they are on Coast Salish lands—would bear place names in dxʷləšucid (Lushootseed), the language of indigenous Coast Salish peoples from Nisqually all the way to Skagit. It was early winter of 2018 when I began packing for my trip to the Samoa archipelago. Something caught the corner of my eye outside the faculty offices of the UW Anthropology department: the Burke Waterlines Map. I perused the map, pinned to the bulletin board unfolded, and, curious as to where the Lushootseed place names belonged on the map, began to piece together village by village, water site to water site, into my head already deeply colonized by the more familiar English place names I was taught to know, love and sometimes hate.
What if public transportation can bear these place names?
Continue reading “dxʷləšucid signs”The Downtown Seattle Association wants to re-imagine Third Avenue
In 2009 the City of Seattle commissioned a study that called Third Avenue “uninviting, unattractive and generally a dreadful place to walk, shop or wait for a bus.” In 2014 Metro commissioned a design study on ways to fix the street. That led to the Third Avenue Transit Improvements Project, and will eventually result in a much-needed transit-only signal at Third and Denny.
Yet, after all these studies, few would consider the street to be substantially transformed.
Over the same timeframe, more buses have been added. In 2010 2011, Routes 15 and 18 (now RapidRide C/D), along with all the West Seattle routes, were moved from First to Third to accommodate Viaduct construction. Then in 2016 the Seattle TBD added funding for more service on all bus routes, including many on Third. Finally, earlier this year the bus tunnel closed and a whole bunch of buses moved upstairs.
There are advantages to this consolidation. Buses can be given priority right-of-way, off-board payment systems can be installed and transfers can be streamlined in much the same way that certain hub airports get bigger and bigger over time: more destinations lure more riders, which in turn justify more destinations.
But there are downsides as well: the street can become unpleasant, overcrowded, and choked with diesel fumes. And if Third is perceived as a bad place for business, merchants on other streets will fight against a busway on their street, leaving Third even more crowded.
According to the Downtown Seattle Association, the latest group to try and “fix” Third Avenue, the sheer number of buses and lack of sidewalk space creates an uninviting environment. Their recently-released vision plan for the street imagines wider sidewalks, a much-improved pedestrian experience, and a more efficient deployment of buses through the corridor.
Continue reading “The Downtown Seattle Association wants to re-imagine Third Avenue”News roundup: it’s just talk
- 1,500 free ORCA cards ($) for public housing residents.
- Montlake freeway station is closed indefinitely.
- The era of cheap, plentiful bikeshare appears to be over.
- Employers can talk about encouraging transit use all they want, but if they’re building huge parking garages ($) it’s just talk.
- ST ticket machines downed by an outage ($).
- Official report slams everybody involved in the Amtrak crash.
- Last chance ($) for Mountlake Terrace station comments.
- Mixed use by Mercer Island Station.
- Downtown bus stop changes.
- An update on Lynnwood’s TOD plans ($).
- New bike limits on the water taxi.
- Transit to 12 great parks.
This is an open thread.
Next train signs are finally here
After years of protests that it couldn’t be done, and six years of study and work, Sound Transit has finally found a way to put next train arrival times on the existing message boards at stations that opened in 2009. Capitol Hill and UW Station opened with this capability in 2016. Between Angle Lake and Westlake, arrival times rapidly rotate with other messages. Riders need wait no more than a few seconds to get the key info.
The picture above is on the mezzanine level. There is a similar sign on the tunnel entrance, a good indicator on whether or not to hustle. At the platform level, the signs only display the relevant direction (see below).
Continue reading “Next train signs are finally here”Seattle Subway: It’s time to start work on ST4
People love riding Link. The more Sound Transit builds, the more Seattle votes with our feet. But planning and building expansions can take decades. It’s clear that we need Link expansion beyond what is currently planned, and our rapidly growing city and the burgeoning climate crisis demand we take action without delay. That’s why it’s time for Seattle to start working on ST4, the next round of Link rail expansion.
Looking ahead to the completion of ST3’s Seattle expansions in 2035, we see a city that has made huge strides building high quality transit but still lacks a comprehensive subway system. It’s a system that will still have frustrating gaps, lacking stations in our densest residential neighborhoods like Belltown and First Hill. We must think bigger and bring service to the entire city. A true Seattle Subway means being able to catch a train in Georgetown, Wallingford, or White Center and take a ride to Lake City, Crown Hill, or Fremont. ST3 is a huge step forward, but it falls well short of the vision of ST Complete, the vision of a Seattle fully connected by high-quality transit.
Seattle can’t afford to wait; it is imperative that we take charge of our future. Seattle is adding more residents than all King County suburbs combined. Our next expansion vote should come in 2024, on the heels of the opening of major expansions to Northgate, Bellevue, Redmond, Federal Way, and Lynnwood. More people than ever will be riding Link. More people than ever will be asking: Why can’t we have Link in our neighborhood? We must be ready with the best possible answer: You can.
Continue reading “Seattle Subway: It’s time to start work on ST4”Seattle District 2 candidate ratings
District 2 has seven candidates for an open seat on the Seattle City Council. While none of them are uniformly outstanding on transit and land use issues, some are much better than others. As a reminder, here’s our rating system.
Excellent
The two candidates in this tier share a lot of common ground. They are both for safer streets, more housing types in single family zones, and prioritizing transit. In both cases, concern about displacement veers into unproductively demonizing developers. We would not characterize them as transit wonks, and there are occasional positions we don’t like in their policy mix. But we believe the impact of either overall would be strongly positive.
Continue reading “Seattle District 2 candidate ratings”Sunday Open Thread: District 4 MASS Forum
The Moving All Seattle Sustainably Coalition held a candidate forum for the Seattle City Council’s 4th District on May 30, 2019. Rooted in Rights made the video, and provided a transcript.
Candidates attending included, from left to right:
- Cathy Tuttle
- Frank Krueger
- Beth Mountsier
- Joshua Newman
- Ethan Hunter
- Heidi Stuber
- Shaun Scott
- Emily Myers
- Sasha Anderson
We posted the videos and discussed the races for Districts 2 and 3 previously.
This is an open thread.
About our 2019 endorsements
Endorsements for city council races are starting to trickle in, and we are hard at work on ours as well.
With regards to the City Council, we have many, many candidates who are seeking their first office. This new council will see many important issues over the next few years. Some that are top of mind for us include:
- Lifting the apartment ban on the majority of Seattle’s residential land
- Keeping large housing projects from getting bogged down in NIMBY complaints
- Staying strong on bike and bus priority in the face of parochial (or mayoral) pressure
- Increasing funding for buses, either through a renewed Seattle TBD or another measure, hopefully in a way that helps get buses out of traffic
Unlike previous cycles, rather than select a single candidate we will rate candidates as “Excellent”, “Good”, “Fair,” or “Poor” based on their estimated policy impact, positive or negative, on transit and land use progress in Seattle. As most candidates in city council races don’t have any legislative or political experience, we’ll rely what’s in their platform and what they’ve said at various debates.
Here’s how we define those terms. This is evolving so we reserve the right to be inconsistent, but we’ll do our best to explain our thinking.
- Excellent candidates are ones who have a passion for transit-related issues and the desire to spend political capital making our issues their issues. It’s one thing to call for the elimination of single-family zoning in a debate, it’s quite another to craft the policy and push it over the finish line.
- Good candidates are ones we mostly agree with on issues but we either have some reservations or we don’t think that transit is a particular focus or passion.
- Fair candidates we may disagree with on one or two major things and are at best a continuation of the status quo on the council.
- Poor candidates are unqualified or hold many positions we actively disagree with.
The first round will come shortly. For city council, we’ll be offering ratings in Districts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Lisa Herbold in D1 hasn’t drawn any pro-transit/pro-density opposition, so we’ll save our ink.
In the meantime, let us know in the comments if there are any suburban races we should be thinking about.
The editorial board consists of Martin Duke, Brent White, and Frank Chiachiere
News Roundup: War on Vacancy
- Recent Link maintenance problems partly related to the heat.
- The 44 gets a little more bus lane.
- Tacoma Council suggests a Link alignment ($).
- Here are the ADU amendments that actually passed. Next stop: full council.
- Seattle’s War on Vacancy.
- Metro giving Sammamish its own microtransit pilot.
- SDOT tweaks Bike Master Plan, but it’s heavy on “pre-planning.”
- Amazon planning a universal “bicycle benefit.”
- Seattle lowers Lime and Jump bike caps ($) after parking violations.
- Portland ready to double down on bus lanes.
- A NIMBY speech template.
- New Flyer buys a double-decker company.
- Mixed use on Mercer Island
- Leading Pedestrian Intervals are being added at some Seattle intersections
- Lots of apartment bans in American cities. STB generally goes with 2/3, not 81%, but you can take your pick.