Month: March 2021

• Comment on the equity aspects of Northgate Link
• Alon Levy explains why Pacific Northwest HSR is marginal based on the return on investment
• BLM buses
• Longer pedestrian signals ($)
• ST contractor was defrauding its workers
• Here’s a good primer on there is no substitute for building more units
• Shoreline apartments popping up everywhere
• Metro’s survey on transit needs in Skyway
• An update on Everett Transit merger options ($)
• 26 minutes on the new Southworth foot ferry ($)
• Good that SeaTac may reduce parking requirements but the Downtown Chicago comparison is… overheated
• But “modest upzones” around Seattle’s nearby Link stations
• State transportation budget may just focus on the basics
• Jarrett Walker is hiring in Portland

This is an open thread.

U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-Washington), along with six other senate Democrats, introduced a bill Thursday that would boost funding for Sound Transit as reported by The Seattle Times. The bill would partially offset the financial effect of the COVID-19 pandemic by providing an additional 30% of the cost of the Federal Way and Lynnwood Link extensions, adding up to about $1.9 billion for Sound Transit. Though both projects are on track to open in 2024, the financial boost would have a significant impact on the $11.5 billion affordability gap that is the primary cause of the realignment process that Sound Transit is undergoing. Getting nearly $2 billion from the federal government on its own would put Sound Transit about halfway to the $4 billion “additional capacity” options in its illustrative scenarios for alignment.

Being a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Murray has a lot of influence in this area. Though the standalone bill is unlikely to get 60 votes in the senate, the provisions of this bill could be included in the next budget reconciliation bill as it is budget-related.

• SDOT has prioritized its spending plan for the new $20 Vehicle License fee; comment by 3/30
• Maybe the feds will bail us out on the West Seattle Bridge
• New startup will let you lease an e-scooter
• Surprise: anti-rail Washington Policy Center doesn’t like bus improvements either
• PT service ($) starting to recover
• Hilltop Tacoma Link now 75% complete
• Vancouver, WA transit activists getting organized
• Seattle Process starts for Fauntleroy Dock replacement
• Meet Washington’s traffic safety honcho
• Amtrak is liable ($) for the 2017 Dupont crash
• Beyond “ridership” and “coverage”, there’s “access“
• Learning to love the bus ($)
• If Alon Levy is HSR fantasy mapping, it’s not really a fantasy anymore
• Transit marketing is simply different

This is an open thread.

Seattle’s Clean Transportation Electrification Blueprint (via the Seattle Times):

Seattle will lead the transition to an electrified economy, supplying residents with clean electricity via a reliable, carbon free electric grid. In this fossil-fuel free future, the air is clean. People will take electric buses, ferries, or light rail to work, shopping and other destinations. A robust bike lane network will make it easy for Seattleites to leave cars behind and use bikes, e-scooters, and e-cargo bikes or walk. Ships at port are plugged in, every package delivered to your doorstep comes on an electric van, truck or e-bike. Silent, clean, electric trash and utility trucks will service neighborhoods.

Sounds great! Also perhaps a bit ambitious for an administration that kills bike lanes and prioritizes car traffic at the hint of neighborhood opposition. Or a city council that hemmed and hawed last year about whether to add an additional five-hundredths of a percent to a sales tax for transit.

Congestion pricing, once the mayor’s big idea for mode shift, has been relegated to a sentence or two. Overall the thinking in the report is more in line with the current Democratic Party approach, which has de-emphasized painful tax schemes (less necessary in a world of cheap money) and prioritized the so-called troika of “standards, investments, and justice.”

In the spirit of justice, the report welcomingly acknowledges that the city’s past focus on EV charging infrastructure was inequitable and that the community preferred electric public transit to electrifying private infrastructure.

However, Metro is scaling back it’s electrification and expansion plans, so the city may have a problem securing the copious bus service this plan assumes.

And yet! And yet! The Biden administration is handing out billions to transit agencies. A national infrastructure bill is on the horizon. The politics of climate change are shifting. The Seattle electorate is changing. We’ll have a new mayor next year. And whatever shortcomings this “blueprint” has, it’s a more ambitious decarbonization initiative than has been proposed by any other U.S. city.

• Southworth Ferry starts March 29th
• Transit workers vaccine-eligible on March 17th
• Speed limits falling on Seattle’s state routes
• Feds will send $800m ($) to Puget Sound transit agencies
• Link to your vaccine appointment is free
• Seaway TC receives green award
• Mercer Island still suing ST over getting too many buses
• Land use bills advancing to Senate
• Remember: weekend Link construction closures all through April
• Pierce Transit considering large-scale stop consolidation ($)
• Tax exemption for electric bikes passes Washington House, on to Senate
• Fed stimulus will restore the Empire Builder to daily
• Hear about how to revitalize Portland

This is an open thread.

In the final twice-a-year planned service change before the Northgate Link restructure transforms north Seattle bus service this fall, King County Metro is keeping it simple and not making many substantial changes to the bus network. Certain routes are gaining or losing a handful of trips, and bus bay assignments at Auburn Station are changing. There are no routes that are fully suspended making the jump to fully or partially restored, as the long road to recovery is just beginning. The changes take effect on Saturday, March 20, 2021.

Continue reading “Metro’s March 2021 service change makes minor adjustments”

• Speed limits dropping to 25mph
• Cascades Talgos off to the scrap heap
• “Suspicious device” closes TIBS for a while
• Safe access to Judkins Park Station
• Finally, the highway-industrial complex steers towards maintenance ($)
• Comment on OMF South — should ST pay to clean up a toxic site, or focus on transit? Here’s a writeup of alternatives
• Southworth fast ferry might open this month
• If the gas tax is racist, you’ll have to cancel me
• Clean fuels bill ($) is making progress
• Local grant to improve transit information for the underserved
• A tunnel to Whidbey?
• Four bills to fight car dependencies

This is an open thread.

East Link might open in as little as 18 months. Like any rail opening of that magnitude, there are many opportunities to reorganize bus service to reduce redundancy, improve access, and serve new priorities.

Metro and Sound Transit are creating a citizen sounding board for these changes, and they’re paying $50 per hour:

“Are you someone who:

• Lives, works, and/or travels within Eastside communities? These communities include but are not limited to areas east and south of Kenmore, east of the I-90 and SR 520 bridges, north of east Renton (such as Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond), and west of Sammamish and Issaquah? Or do you live, work, or travel in Seattle’s Chinatown/International District and/or Judkins Park?
• Is a transit rider or a potential transit rider?
• Are able to bring your perspective as an individual, not representing the interests of an organization?
• Are willing and interested in drawing connections between racial equity, transportation issues, and access to opportunities?”

Apply by the end of this month to participate from April to November 2021. It’d be helpful for some board members to have an appreciation for transit planning principles.

This weekend, there is a full closure of the SR 520 bridge over Lake Washington. Closures of the bridge in at least one direction is going to be a somewhat common occurrence for the next few years as WSDOT works on their Montlake lid project, which will ultimately improve bus service from the eastside to UW, and get buses out of the general purpose westbound off-ramp that often gets backed up with traffic.

All buses that use the bridge are going to be rerouted from Friday, March 5th at 11:00 p.m. through Monday, March 8th at 5:00 a.m. Routes that are affected include Sound Transit routes 542 and 545, and King County Metro routes 255 and 271. Stops that are missed include the Evergreen Point and Yarrow Point freeway stations, and local stops in Medina that are west of 100th Ave NE. Aside from those missed stops, the reroutes are configured to serve the same stops in the same order that it would normally, just with some significant delay due to the fact that buses have to divert to I-90.

While this configuration is optimal for reducing confusion and making sure service operates as normally as possible, it does lead to some highly inefficient operation for routes that go to the U-District. Routes 255, 271, and 542 westbound detour south to I-90, travel west toward downtown Seattle, but continue back north without stopping in downtown, and take SR 520 eastbound, then continues as normal on Montlake Blvd E. This is particularly awkward for route 255, as last year its southern terminus shifted form downtown to the U-district to expand service. However, when the bridge is closed, the situation is completely different in a couple of ways.

Continue reading “SR 520 bus service when the bridge is closed”

• Volunteer for ST’s Citizen Oversight Panel
• Sound Transit appealing Mercer Island permitting decision
• Sharrows as a “compromise” between bike lanes and doing nothing
• Kitsap Transit buys a used foot ferry as a Southworth backup
• Here comes the Northgate Pedestrian bridge
• Virtual tours of this year’s new Link stations
• Everett considers an “offensive” to bump itself up in Link priority
• Checking in on C-Tran
• More ST land donated for affordable housing
• SBB reports on the endless quest to fix Mt. Baker
• Lowering highway speed limits
• Land use planning in the area south of Tacoma
• Two-person freight railroad crews ($) still required
• Suburban road grids make buses more expensive
• “Cut-and-Cover is Underrated”
• Study says it’s largely the sacred “public input” that makes infrastructure in the US cost so much

This is an open thread.