Open Thread 48

58 Replies to “Open Thread 48”

1. “Seattle Times ($) reports that housing prices are climbing again.”

   It says the price of single-family houses and condos is climbing again. It doesn’t mention rents, which are over half the households in Seattle and a large minority outside it. Rents may usually rise in tandem with owned units or exceed it, but sometimes they move in opposite directions. There have been periods in the 2020s when owned units rose but rents didn’t, because of the number of apartments that had been built recently, the increasing demand for houses with work-from-home, and the inability of houses to scale to demand because they take so much land that has already been built out in most of King County so there isn’t any space for more except infill, and zoning and regulations block much of the potential infill.

   1. I’m hopeful that, in the short term at least, this is what is happening. An historic level of multifamily has been coming online, and vacancies rates have been up above 5 nationally.

      The future is less bright, looking and a reversal of thus trend in permitting.

2. There’s been a lot of social media debate recently about urbanists, density, and families which got me thinking. Suburban housing (both apartments and SFH) is largely unusable without cars.

   Meanwhile cities are building mid/high-rise apartments but units are rarely suited for families. Townhomes would seem like a kind of a middle ground in cities, but many new ones aren’t very large either or have layouts not suited for families.

   So the vast majority of new construction with at least 3bed/1500 sqft is coming in neighborhoods that require cars. The market is simply not supplying enough family housing in walkable communities. We’re locking into decades more of car ownership because Lynnwood can’t become Ballard (even though it has more residents).

   1. That’s all mostly zoning and NIMBY attitudes. Most folks can’t imagine life without a car, so they refuse to legalize ability to live without a car unless it’s right next to places that are already car-lite. Parking minimums, FAR coupled with height limits and setback requirements, all add up to a perpetuation of the suburban form. Developers only build in response to the market and zoning – they don’t have much choice.

      1. It is almost entirely due to the zoning. Some people prefer their own yard, and ultimately that means sprawl (you can’t make more land). But a lot of people are simply priced out of the market. They would gladly live in a place in the city, if they could afford it. This is true of apartments (of various sizes) as well as row houses. The market is there, but the zoning prevents it from being built. Keep in mind, it is perfectly legal to build a mansion anywhere in the city, but you are only allowed to add a lot of places to live in a handful of places.

         Personal anecdote: I raised my three kids in various places in the area. We started out in Bellingham, then moved to Lynnwood. Then we moved to Green Lake, Ballard and eventually Magnolia. Only once did we rent a house (in Green Lake). In every other place we rented an apartment. It was tight (especially when my former mother-in-law lived with us) but doable. I don’t think I could afford any of those places anymore.

         It really has less to do with the size of the places as the number of places. You can raise a family of three (or four) in a one-bedroom house, just as you can live in a studio apartment. Parents sleep in the living room, kids in their room. As kids get older that gets tougher (and a two bedroom becomes a lot more attractive) but there are generations of kids raised in similar places in big cities. Living in an apartment in Manhattan or Brooklyn is not really different than it was back in the day; the only big difference is people are paying way more for rent.

      2. “there are generations of kids raised in similar places in big cities”

         Like the Summit apartments in the 1970s, where my friend in north Lynnwood grew up with a sibling or two. She says the apartments were full of families then.

      3. It is easy to forget that suburban apartments *are* full of families. In my neighborhood there are more children in the apartment complexes than entire blocks of single family homes! They even have dedicated children play areas! And very few of these are 1500 square foot/3 br. The main reason they are in the suburbs instead of Town is affordability. Very few people *want* to live in a “worst of both worlds situation” (car dependent, usually small parking stalls to meet the mandated minimum, and you have neighbors directly above, below, and beside you). You bet many of these people would live in a comparable apartment in Town, where they would be able to save on car expenses. The problem is the zoning in Town is such that it only makes sense for developers to build high end apartments. (Yes, many would also prefer to live in suburban single family homes, but as they way, “They aren’t making any more LAND.” New construction single family homes, even on small lots, are going for close to $1Mil in Lynnwood these days).

      4. Exactly Brandon. It really comes down to cost. The cost is across all types of housing. If a city has expensive studio apartments it will have expensive one, two and three bedrooms (and vice-versa). Zoning is responsible for the high cost.

      5. The reason there are so many kids in suburban apartments is because there are so many kids in suburbia. I believe Seattle has the lowest percentage of kids to residents in the U.S. most suburban apartment complexes are near transit, which is critical for subsidized or affordable housing since the cost of a car can equal the housing subsidy.

         The reasons they move to the suburbs are public safety, schools, and open green spaces. Some of the school districts on the Eastside are like parks and have free school buses. . Plus Seattle has built housing geared for those living alone or couples.

         The reason they live in apartments is because they can’t afford to buy or rent a single family home at today’s prices and interest rates.

         The Seattle Times had an interesting series of articles this weekend about housing affordability. Many couples are moving to Snohomish, Pierce, Kitsap and South King Co because they all want a single family home but can’t afford one in the greater Seattle/Eastside area. Some are even moving to other parts of the state or out of state to afford a house. There is a ton of undeveloped land in these areas that now can be developed profitably with all the Seattle money looking for a single family home. Not underdeveloped land. Undeveloped. A ton of it in the four county area although you have a longer commute and more sedate lifestyle that is better for raising kids and easier with work from home. They may not be making new land in downtown Seattle but there is plenty of it undeveloped in the four county area.

         One big issue is the wealth disparity in Seattle. According to one article in the Times, the top 70,000 households earn over $400,000/year while the bottom 70,000 households have 2% of the wealth. Builders naturally build for the upper 70,000 households so very little marginally affordable market rate housing is being built. Plus the cost of new construction has soared.

         The biggest concern today is displacement, or older more affordable multi-generational (Black) housing being redeveloped out of existence, which is why Harrell’s plan specifically reduces zoning in south Seattle and the new council rejected a new mixed use development in south Seattle that would have displaced more affordable existing housing. Displacement and multi-generational housing (Black) are the new buzzwords.

         Housing prices in suburbia — certainly on the Eastside — are not cheaper than comparable neighborhoods in Seattle, and neither are rents. Just the opposite.

         When it comes to schools, nearly a quarter of K-12 students in Seattle attend private schools which can run $20,000/year not including the better high schools that can run $40,000/year for each student. McCleary hasn’t done any of the public school districts any favors, and now suburban districts like Vashon and Mercer Island and Bellevue are poaching Seattle students to make up for their student losses post Covid in order to get the $11,000/year state funding per student for general education including the equalization rate for this area so they don’t have the massive cuts the Seattle District is looking at.

         I thought the conclusion by the housing expert in The Times’ article was particularly depressing; in a very wealthy city like Seattle with such a huge wealth divide more people will have to accept they will have to rent forever, in part because builders don’t build new affordable market rate housing. In that case I would expect a bigger push for rent control. Right now there is a class suit over the software Seattle landlords use to set rents that might be a start toward rent control which could incentivize more developers to build more affordable housing in such a wealthy city, maybe even some units geared for families with kids that are not shoeboxes.

      6. @Fact Check.

         You are confusing cause and effect. The reason there aren’t more kids in Seattle is too little housing. Otherwise housing (of all types) wouldn’t be so expensive. The reason there is too little housing is because of zoning. Everything else falls from this.

         Of course there are some families that want to live in a large house. But there are plenty of people who would be happy to live in a row house or apartment. They can’t. They can’t because they simply won’t allow them to be built. Which gets me to your statement:

         Builders naturally build for the upper 70,000 households

         This is nonsense. If this was true they could get rid of the zoning tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. Think about it. There is no maximum lot size. There is a minimum lot size. There is nothing stopping anyone from tearing down an apartment building and putting up a big house. It is against the law in most areas of the city to do the opposite. Look around the city and you see evidence of this everywhere. Builders everywhere build to the maximum available density. Another statement:

         Seattle has built housing geared for those living alone or couples.

         Wrong again. Developers are building whatever it makes sense to build, based on the market and the zoning. It is pretty common for new apartment buildings to have amenities for children. There aren’t enough places for kids because there aren’t enough places. Think about an apartment next to Green Lake. This would be a wonderful place for a family. Are there are lot of apartments next to Green Lake? No. The city won’t allow them. So the few that do exist get bid up, and typical families can’t afford to live there. Same goes for various parts of the city that are great for kids.

         This statement of yours is really misguided:

         The biggest concern today is displacement, or older more affordable multi-generational (Black) housing being redeveloped out of existence which is why Harrell’s plan specifically reduces zoning in south Seattle and the new council rejected a new mixed use development in south Seattle that would have displaced more affordable existing housing.

         OK, again, you are confused. Upzoning does not cause displacement. If an area becomes more popular, then redevelopment can happen, with or without a zoning change. A cheap house (being rented out) gets replaced by a really nice house. A cheap apartment gets replaced by a nicer apartment. This can happen without any development whatsoever. They can decide to replace the cheap appliances with new ones, or give the place a new paint job and raise the rent. Or they can just raise the rent without doing anything! I realize this must boggle your mind, but landlords often raise the rent so high (without doing anything) that residents can’t afford the new rent. They are then displaced!

         You have it backwards. Restrictive zoning increases displacement. There are various studies confirming this, as well as one that specifically looked at local zoning issues:

         “The urban village strategy has not been able to mitigate the displacement of BIPOC residents because it perpetuates a land use and zoning policy that was specifically designed to limit their housing options,” the analysis says, referring to Black, Indigenous and people of color.

         The analysis adds: “With 75% of residential land excluded from accommodating more affordable housing types, low-income BIPOC residents are left confined to certain sections of the city, competing for limited affordable housing opportunities.”

         In other words, we have displacement because of zoning. It is fairly simple. The reason we don’t have cheaper housing is because we don’t have more housing. The reason we don’t have more housing is because of the zoning.

      7. Ross, My comments come directly from the article in The Seattle Times. Harrell made it clear he is limiting upzoning in S. Seattle because it leads to displacement, which is now the primary concern of the affordable housing council. Same with the Seattle council’s wise decision to reject the old canard that new “affordable” housing will be more affordable than the housing it replaces, especially in S. Seattle.

         There are fewer kids in Seattle because fewer Seattleites have kids. That is the demographic. There are more dogs than kids in Seattle. The Eastside has way more kids and housing costs on average are 1/3 higher than in Seattle for comparable neighborhoods. The main draw of the Eastside is the schools. Now Eastside schools are poaching Seattle students for the state McCleary funding. Ouch.

         The point The Times makes and I think you don’t understand is builders build for the higher incomes because the profit is greater, and as Tacomee has pointed out new construction will always be the least affordable per sf. Builders hate affordability mandates. It basically is impossible to build new construction of any size with a kitchen and bath for 60% AMI or less, and that is where the land is cheap.

         If you have a city in which the 70,000 top households have incomes over $400,000 and the bottom 70,000 have 2% of the income/wealth builders are not building for those with the 2%. The article also points out King Co. is losing lower income native residents with low and moderate incomes, with mostly foreign workers with much higher incomes replacing them who don’t want affordable housing.

         Those are the people who are being left behind, and it is their multi-generational older housing that is being DISPLACED.

         Build all you want, or I guess let the builders build all they want. The new construction won’t target low or moderate incomes. Seattle has been on a ten year building tear and housing prices continue to go up and up because more and more wealthy people move to Seattle displacing the less wealthy, and their new housing displaced the poorer citizen’s housing.

         King Co.’ affordable housing council has recently segregated each city’s GMPC future housing growth targets into affordability bands based on AMI. Cities must meet these goals although some are unrealistic. For example, Bellevue is required to have nearly 90% of its future housing target be between 0% and 60% AMI, which will shut down any development along East Link because no builder can afford this. Classic example of progressive idealism meeting financial reality. Like the builders are going to take the financial hit. So Bellevue plans to ignore the mandates, but still require reasonable affordability set asides in new multi-family construction because the city can use height incentives to subsidize that (or could before 10% commercial loan rates).

         But here is the kicker. ALL the affordable housing targets must be in a dense zone. No matter how “affordable” nothing in the single family zone counts toward the affordability mandates because the affordable housing council ASSUMES you can’t build affordable housing in a single family zone, and you never build affordable housing in a zone that requires a car because the cost of the car equals or exceeds the housing subsidy.

         What the council doesn’t want is cities claiming they upzoned the SFH zone and that meets their affordability mandates when the builder will just build a SFH with no affordability mandates.

         Look at Seattle. In 2017 it amended its residential zone to allow three dwellings per SFH lot and raised FAR to 50%, which of course applied to a SFH. What did Seattle get? A lot of SFH’s with 50% FAR that is way out of scale. Because Seattle has so many rich people who can afford and want a big, new SFH. Who doesn’t?

         Not to be rude but your understanding of housing is very simple.” Build it and prices will decline no matter where you build it”. To be fair that simple idea was the predominant theme for housing advocates until recently when SB 1220 forced cities to ask where did all the Black residents go, and why have housing prices continued to soar when new construction since 2010 has kept pace with population growth.

         It has turned out that housing affordability in a region with such discrepancies in wealth and income is much more complicated than just build more, which more and more policy experts are discovering may have been the problem.

         At least the regional housing groups are beginning to better understand the issue and how complicated it is, although I think their solution is unrealistic without massive public subsidies. Or as the housing expert noted in the article people living in a very expensive high income city like Seattle will have to begin to accept the European concept they will likely rent forever, although European cities and nations have more rent control and not so much consolidation in the market.

         I think you will see Harrell and the council pivot from the old build it baby and prices will come down approach, because the truly care about finding a solution to AFFORDABLE housing, which no one including the legislature in HB 1110 thought could be in the SFH zone. HB 1110 has NOTHING to do with affordability.

      8. Harrell made it clear he is limiting upzoning in S. Seattle because it leads to displacement

         Then Harrell is ignoring the facts. Look, this wouldn’t be the first time that a politician simply gets it wrong (out of ignorance) or purposely distorts the truth. I can claim that umbrellas cause rain, but that doesn’t mean that it is true. There is simply no study to support that idea (whereas there are multiple studies to support the opposite).

         There are fewer kids in Seattle because fewer Seattleites have kids.

         That statement is redundant. That is like saying “This restaurant is expensive because the items on it are expensive.” It says nothing. You are ignoring the actual cause, which is the cost of housing. As the cost of housing increases, various families are priced out of it. if you can’t afford an apartment in Seattle (for your family) you move to Renton or Lynnwood. The reason it is so expensive is because they haven’t added enough places to live. If we allowed developers to build a lot more places to live then a lot more low and middle income people would live in the city.

         The point The Times makes and I think you don’t understand is builders build for the higher incomes because the profit is greater,

         Then why do they prevent them from building apartments? Seriously, if no one wants to build an apartment building, then why is it illegal? That makes no sense. Look, the only reason they build new houses in my neighborhood is because it is the only think they can build!

         Are you honestly disputing this idea?

         If you are I can cite examples. It takes a while, but they are out there. This block has new apartments, because they allow it. This block down the street has new townhouses because they allow it. This neighborhood has nothing but new houses because that is all they allow. In every case they are building as much density as they possibly can build. They aren’t “building only for the higher incomes” — it is exactly the opposite.

         Keep in mind, this is on top of the extra regulations that are involved with apartment buildings! Think about that for a second. You own a big chunk of land that is zoned for apartments. You can build houses tomorrow. But instead you go through the very expensive regulatory process to build an apartment building. This can delay the project for months if not years, based on superficial things like the color of the doors. Yet developers still do it, because the demand for relatively affordable housing is still much greater than the demand for expensive houses.

         For that matter, just look at the price of housing types. Again, I can do the math if you want. Look at a lot that has been developed for an apartment. Now look at one that has row houses. Not look at one that has houses. I suggest Lake City, since that area has had plenty of development lately. Now just look at the gross value of each place *per acre*. Yeah, I get that building apartment is more expensive, but minus the regulations, the profit margin for condos is much, much higher. That is because there are more of them! Make a dozen townhouses each worth 500K, or one mansion worth two million. Clearly it makes sense to build the former.

         You keep ignoring this basic fact: If developers have no interest in building anything that is affordable, then why the hell do we make it so difficult for them to build it?

         and why have housing prices continued to soar when new construction since 2010 has kept pace with population growth.

         What??? That is absurd. Housing supply has not kept pace with demand. Not even close. We aren’t Tokyo.

         It has turned out that housing affordability in a region with such discrepancies in wealth and income is much more complicated than just build more, which more and more policy experts are discovering may have been the problem.

         Citation please. Again, I can cite studies that say the opposite.

         Not to be rude but your understanding of housing is very simple.” Build it and prices will decline no matter where you build it”.

         Yes, because all the studies support that idea. You can’t find a since study showing the opposite. It really isn’t something that scholars debate. There aren’t economists out there wondering if supply and demand isn’t real. It is. By the way, here are some studies that support my take on things:

         https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/hier1948.pdf
         https://furmancenter.org/files/Supply_Skepticism_-_Final.pdf
         http://seattle.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9611821&GUID=81FE334E-2E8E-4EDE-8CD1-4EB80458233E

         You don’t have to look at studies, you can just look at parts of the world where they have actually built lots of housing (like in Germany or Japan). Look at the biggest, most popular city on earth: Tokyo. To quote this article:

         In the past half century, by investing in transit and allowing development, the city has added more housing units than the total number of units in New York City. It has remained affordable by becoming the world’s largest city. It has become the world’s largest city by remaining affordable.

         It really isn’t that complicated. Seattle added a bunch of jobs, but not enough housing. Thus demand was higher than supply, which lead to higher prices. https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/12/09/workers-need-homes-so-why-isnt-our-zoning-keeping-up-with-job-growth/

      9. There is a ton of undeveloped land in these areas that now can be developed profitably with all the Seattle money looking for a single family home. Not underdeveloped land. Undeveloped.

         Sorry, Fact Check, but a lot of us don’t want the entire Puget-Willamette Lowland paved. Take your “Not underdeveloped land. Undeveloped” ideas somewhere else. Maybe Nebraska? There are millions of acres of fertile prairie around Omaha and Lincoln. That’s plenty for all the narcissists of the country to breed up a storm.

         If, as seems possible now with national work-from-home, Central Puget Sound growth is going to slow dramatically, adding to the human-caused cancer — i.e. “growth” — destroying Mother Nature’s body isn’t a good idea.

         It’s interesting how cancer is so often called “a growth” isn’t it? A bit of a Freudian slip there?

      10. Tom Terrific, I don’t know why you are angry at me. I live in an apartment. I like urban living. I support the PSRC’s vision that the vast majority of future housing growth should go in existing urban areas with walkable transit and retail.

          But there is strong demand for a single family house. The article not me was pointing out that now that Seattleites have and are willing to spend $550k to $750k for a SFH in these outlying areas it has become profitable to develop these undeveloped lots.

          These lots are already zoned for development, mostly SFH with fairly large lot minimums to maintain more trees and vegetation. These lots are not outside the UGA, nor are they being rezoned from rural or agricultural zoning. This basically is how Seattle grew in the past.

          Most of the four county region’s privately owned land is zoned for development, most SFH. There just hasn’t been the population or demand or money to develop it. I also think work from home is a big factor. It is a lot easier to take the Bremerton ferry to Seattle once or twice/week than five days/week.

          So please don’t blame me for the existing zoning or market forces. I can’t afford a $550k to $750k house. But apparently others can and are willing to move farther out to get their dream.

   2. I was heartened to here Tacoma Housing Authority had included 50 3-bedroom affordable units in their 2 big housing projects just being completed.

      https://tacomaweekly.com/groundbreaking-event-launches-housing-hilltop-p4596-117.htm

      It’s not that you can’t build family housing, it’s that the market forces generally push private developers not to. Government incentives can change that, if we choose to.

3. Seattle proposes school closings. ($) Danny Westneat points out we tried that fifteen years ago believing declining student rates were permanent, then it reversed and there was a school shortage. He also says the Seattle school district has continued to slowly regain students since the covid plunge, and midyear is only 300 short of last year’s level. But that closing several schools at once schools causes families to move away or not come to Seattle, so it creates a death spiral.

   1. I believe that the concern seems to be that many schools are well below capacity. The District has not identified which schools are appropriate to close, which suggests that the estimate of 20 closures is a macro calculation.

      However, there are many complicating aspects to this. Seattle still has many elementary schools that can be reached by walking, and that’s great! The problem is that many parents are still obsessed with driving to these nearby schools to pick up their little ones for whatever reason. The elementary school close to me has its entire attendance zone within 1 mile, yet there are five buses and a traffic jam every day — beginning as early as 20 minutes before the bell rings. Parents park their cars, leave them unattended, and wait inside the school grounds next to the building doors!

      Some parents do walk to get their kids. I rarely see kids walking home by themselves. I always thought that one of the joys of urban elementary schools was that kids could reach the school as easily as a neighborhood playmate.

      It’s not the school near me, but there is another option called a “walking school bus”. There are some in Seattle:

      https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2023/03/30/walking-school-bus-bailey-gatzert-elementary/

      Unfortunately, even though the idea is 15-20 years old, the walking school bus concept remains a novelty. I can see it being a novelty in Sammamish, but this is Seattle! Why we need to hire school bus drivers (and the expense of a school bus) rather than pay a teacher’s aide a little more money to lead a walking school bus group seems ridiculous and costly. It might even be cheaper to keep students at more elementary schools, and do things like close off classrooms or building sections than to have to introduce more transportation measures like adding more school buses and drivers, and staff managing more traffic around the school.

      If parents want to keep their nearby elementary school open, they should begin by walking their kids to school and back home in bigger numbers. Then they’d have a stronger case to leave a school open. Neighborhood elementary schools can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions — but only if more students are walking.

      Finally I’ll add that the school near me is very diverse (only 45% non-Latino white), and that the demographics of these parents who are driving and waiting are just as diverse. It’s not an ethnic thing. I’m seeing many immigrant parents from across the world in those cars.

   2. In my opinion the board is setting itself on fire (metaphorically). The district has financial problem. It needs money.

      The state has money. The state also controls how much a local district can raise (and how it can raise it). The public wants the district to have money. Thus it is the state that is ultimately responsible for this mess, but they are largely ignoring it. My guess is they won’t ignore it now.

      1. Seattle got a slug of money from the McCleary decision as well as Covid. They turned around and negotiated at 20% pay increase for the teachers. At the time that this contract was negotiated it was already projected that within 3 years the district would not have enough money to pay the teachers what was negotiated. That problem and reality was literally swept under the rug… like let’s pretend it’s not there and we’ll deal with it later. Here we are.

         Seattle Public Schools have also made a series of unpopular decisions including closing gifted programs and keeping schools closed far longer than necessary during Covid. While demographics are certainly a factor, parents are also leaving the district for other school districts and for private schools. Once gone, they don’t come back. Unfortunately these are unforced errors and the consequences are now here. Closing neighborhood schools will give new fuel to families departing the school district.

         It’s a sad disaster that should have been dealt with at the time of the McCleary spending. Should the state divert some spending on homelessness or climate change to bail out the school districts? That could be a solution. The negotiated teacher contracts are a source of the problem, how do you make sure that this doesn’t happen again? There need to be legislative constraints on teacher contracts to prevent the same thing from happening.

      2. Teachers have been perennially paid less than those with a similar level of skills and education. And our high housing costs mean the cost of living is high. Teachers shouldn’t have to struggle to make a living or have a middle-class life, or take a significant pay cut to be in the profession and educate the next generation. That drives good teachers away. That’s the motivation behind the pay raise. Not having it perpetuates a broken and unsustainable education system, one that more parents will flee for private schools.

   3. My elementary school in the 70s had a jogging class one year. Students were supposed to jog or walk a mile on a specified route in the neighborhood in the afternoon. That could be replaced with a walking school bus and students would still get exercise.

      1. If I remember correctly, there’s a “bike bus” in Portland that’s become very popular in its community recently. It’s just one day a week now, but it seems easily scalable, especially if parents are commuting in the same direction or working from home.

   4. This is not just happening in the city. School districts all over are closing schools, because immigration is down and birth rates are declining.

      My daughter’s school in Bellevue is likely to close next year. We’ve made up a lot of the demographic decline by admitting students from other districts, but that’s not a long-term solution.

      Of course these demographic changes may not be permanent. But keeping schools around for 15 years of under-enrollment is not practical. Closing the schools need not be permanent, either. We can open more schools if and when the demand comes back.

      1. Gotta wonder if these schools are really becoming “empty,” or is it more that they’re going from being historically overcrowded to operating at closer to their designed capacities.

4. So the same day I’m burying my mom:
   https://www.chicagotribune.com/obituaries/lita-grier-chicago/

   WSDOT proposes to drop long-planned bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure that resulted from three decades of planning and negotiation I was personally involved in, that inspired her to do parks advocacy herself in Chicago:

   https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/05/10/state-proposes-to-drop-bike-and-pedestrian-tunnel-from-seattles-roanoke-lid/

   I first showed up to a meeting about the lack of bike facilities in this corridor in 1992 and a generation has been born and grown up without them.

   I spent years – about 15 years actually – as part of citizen groups working with city and state-funded urban design and engineering firms, funded by legislation I helped author, which led to an epic planning process concluding, after years of bitter, hard-won debates, to this infrastructure that the state now proposes to cut.

   We don’t have money for this, but we have money for three separate gargantuan lids (which were built FIRST, before seismically-unsound Portage Bay crossing) in Medina, Hunts Point and Yarrow Point, home to multiple billionaires, which are all exempted from the state’s new density requirements? We’re being told today we can’t ever complete this bike trail, even after collecting tolls, forever?

   Excuse me, this is absolute B*LLSH*T

   1. Sorry for your loss, and I agree, it is BS.

   2. I send condolences.

      It is pretty amazing and sad that the feature is up for elimination.

      The lids are also another example of how participation carries with it a bias to cater to high income people with more time and money. It manifests itself in transit projects too — especially when ST creates a “stakeholders” committee that consists mainly of nearby wealthy property owners and executives of corporations — while not adding a committee that consists of riders that actually use the system.

      It’s universally called the “Seattle process” which whitewashes the income bias that often comes with it.

   3. Totally agree. I rode this route for a decade, and was always amazed that a route connecting two of the most dense areas in the state was borderline suicidal to traverse on a bike.

5. On Monday I’m going to reach out to Senator Jamie Pedersen (WA 43rd) who has been involved in this for years, suggest others do the same:
   https://senatedemocrats.wa.gov/pedersen/contact/

   Also CM Joy Hollingsworth in whose Seattle district 3 WSDOT proposes to cut long-promised mitigations that WSDOT are on record repeatedly insisting were “integral to and inseparable from” the rest of the project ; Logan Bowers is her legislative director https://www.seattle.gov/council/hollingsworth

   After plowing through the Arboretum and proposing a new 7 lane highway that is about 2.5x the width what is there now, with a decade of construction truck traffic on city streets, WSDOT is now using tree-preservation as a reason to cut bike/ped infrastructure.

   We shouldn’t even have to argue the merits of this. That was already done, successfully, years ago. This is about transportation equity, sustainability, and most of all, prior commitments, all at the same time. We should cut one of the redundant HOV or auxiliary lanes before we cut the bike lane. Or we could just do what the region and FHWA agreed to years ago.

6. Link station closures move to Capitol Hill. “1 Line station at Capitol Hill is closed until end of service today due to police activity. Train are currently running between Northgate Station and University District Station, and Angle Lake Station and Westlake Station. Link Shuttle buses are replacing the 1 Line between University of Washington Station and Westlake Station.”

   1. Murder on the platform – stabbing, sounds like a terrible scene. I went through CHS earlier in the day – always unnerving when it hits close to home.

      Obligatory disclaimer about small sample size but that’s 2 murders in 3 months on Link.

      I’m a regular Link commuter and a bigger cheerleader for transit than most people outside this blog. But it’s honestly not great out there right now. I had an unhinged guy yell at me for walking behind him on the platform last week; then he stared me down on the train the entire ride. Obvious drug dealing at station entrances. Much more vandalism than I see on any other American transit system.

   2. I understand why they would close the station (to investigate) but I don’t understand why they would close the line. It seems like the trains should just go through the station (without stopping). Maybe they needed to gather evidence on the tracks themselves. This is unfortunate, but I would guess fairly normal. They close off freeways when there is a fatal accident (again, to investigate).

      If they close off the station (but not the line) then it still causes problems given our really bad stop spacing. If University Street was closed (for several hours or even days) it would not be the end of the world. Riders would use other (nearby stations). Riders who don’t want to walk could catch the frequent buses on the surface. It isn’t ideal — you would want them to fix it as soon as possible — but not the end of the world. Timing matters as well. Evening rush hour (especially during the pandemic) would be the worst simply because so many people use that station (and the ones next to it). Things would be messy.

      With Capitol Hill Station you have a stop that is both very busy and isolated. My guess is this is rare. Stations that are isolated tend to have fewer people (which allows the agency to better deal with the problem). Stations that are very busy (like the ones downtown) tend to have nearby stations. Our inability to build a lot of stations in a busy area makes things much worse when we have to close a station. Of course if the line itself is closed then things are really bad no matter what.

7. Why does the entire Link line shut down when POTUS motorcade travels on I-5? Link out to remain running and be an alternative when the freeway is closed. There is literally one crossing of I-5 with two trains each 10 minutes. How can a Link rider cause any threat to the president when the rider doesn’t control where the train is. Frankly, closing the line means someone could theoretically walk onto Link’s bridge and become the security threat.

   Closing Link represents a lack of understanding. The NY subway doesn’t shut down when the President is in NY. Why isn’t Sound Transit pushing back on the Secret Service? Sound Transit seems way too complacent about letting Link get shut down.

   1. And again yesterday light rail was shut down for 6+ hours between 3 busy stations because something happened in one station. It was a horrific stabbing, but no reason why the train can’t run through that station after a reasonable closure if that’s even necessary. This stuff is going to keep happening if nobody is going to help mentally ill people.

      The bus shuttle wasn’t explained well or operated well.

      1. I was wondering that too. How long does it take to ensure the stabber is not still at large in the station and to search the platform for evidence? I wondered if ST close the station for the rest of the evening for logistical reasons, since it had already ordered shuttles and rescheduled trains, and maybe didn’t want to change it again in the evening for just a couple hours. But then it was closed again this morning for “police activity”. ST can’t control how long the police order a crime scene closed. Still, we know ST is overeager to close stations during nearby protests, and I can’t imagine a station remaining closed that long in New York or London. But maybe they are.

      2. Sure seems like they could have shut the station while still allowing trains to pass through without stopping, maybe at a speed restriction.

      3. @Carl,

         Did you miss the part about this murder occurring on the tracks?

      4. Yeah, I did. I thought it happened on the platform. Didn’t realize they also pushed the victim onto the tracks.

   2. Anti Terrorism and honestly a bit of security theater measures would be the likely answer if you were to probably ask a former secret service person. A lot of measures that secret service does may seem illogical to us but we’re also not the most politically powerful person on earth. And post-JFK Assassination and quite frankly even the attempted Ronald Raegan Assassination there is a lot of more care and concern some might say that borders on paranoia to protect the President from any possible harm. And that includes public transit infrastructure.
      Like during the inauguration of Biden in 2021, WMATA was heavily surveillanced and had entire lines or even the system shut down for hours or whole days during the lead up to and during inauguration day as a means to prevent security threats from happening. Some of it definitely reminds me of my time in Paris, where military police were common in major tourist areas as an terrorism deterrent and security theater for visitors as Patis has been the target of terrorism over the years.

   3. @Carl,

      “ There is literally one crossing of I-5 with two trains each 10 minutes”

      Currently Link crosses I-5 three times, and crosses SR-518 once. Additionally, Link runs in the center median of the Airport Expressway, and runs parallel to SR-518 for a short stretch, and also runs parallel to I-5 for a short stretch in Tukwila and another short stretch between north Roosevelt and Northgate.

      I haven’t been in town for awhile, so I don’t know Biden’s movements, but I’m sure they wouldn’t shut down Link just because. And you can pack a lot of explosives on a 4-car Link train.

      And there isn’t a lot of pushing back you can do against the Secret Service. I once had a co-worker who found a way around Secret Service protection of the President and got within 10 ft of President Clinton. He then wrote the company about what he had done with the stated goal of showing the security team what they could do better.

      Things didn’t work out well for him professionally after that. Big stink.

      1. The motorcade won’t use the airport expressway since he arrives and deplanes at the cargo area. Link isn’t close enough to SR-518 to be a threat, nor is it close to his direction of travel where it parallels I-5. Unless you don’t trust the operators, no one on board the train controls when the train might cross I-5. It’s just not a viable attack vector. This is someone deciding to close down Link because they can, even if the potential threat is infinitesimal, and because they place no value on the impact on the transit public. They don’t shut down all of I-405 just because it has an intersection with I-5, even if they may have to shut that intersection (and the SR-518 section) and they only shut that for a minimum time.

      2. @Carl,

         “ Unless you don’t trust the operators”

         Exactly! It is the Secret Services job not to trust anyone.

         And the Secret Service does not report to ST. This is not a negotiation.

      3. “Link isn’t close enough to SR-518 to be a threat”

         The issue isn’t whether it’s close enough, it’s whether the Secret Service thinks it’s close enough. The feds vetoed SeaTac station’s original location closer to the terminal after 9/11, so it had to be redesigned at its current location, and that delayed the station’s opening 9 months after the rest of the initial segment. The feds also coerced Metro to put “security stops” at both ends of the DSTT, which let Link trains through but buses had to stop, even though you could tell from a distance that it’s a Metro bus and they didn’t actually do anything during the stop (e.g., check the driver’s ID).

8. Sound Transit Service Alerts says elevator outages at 2 Line’s South Bellevue, Bellevue Downtown (ST calls it Downtown Bellevue Station), Spring District, and Redmond Technology? Already?

9. What happens in other cities when a murder occurs in a station?

   The King 5 report Sam found said it wasn’t just a one-off stabbing, but 2-3 people were repeatedly attacking somebody, as if targeting them or really wanting them dead.

10. It’s not just a one-time station closure because of a serious attack, it’s that on top of closures and interruptions several times a week for over a year, for things as varied as “signal issue”, “mechanical problem”, “power failure”, “police activity”, “protest”, “platform-tile repair”, “collision”, “object on track”, “maintenance”, “escalator/elevator outage”, and probably more. All together they seem to happen a lot more than in other cities, and it gets to the point that you start wondering if your trip today will encounter a 20-40 minute delay, and if there will be any information on whether it will end in a few minutes or several hours. Some of these are outside ST’s control; others are unavoidable issues that happen in every system; others look like the disruption could be minimized with better response and communication procedures; others are because of the level crossings (collisions, car stopped on track) that ST could have prevented with grade separation. All of these together just get to be too much, and it feels like it’s not normal for a subway to be delayed or reduced every couple days.

    1. I’ve never been in NYC or London without there being lines having scheduled closures or reduced service or something during my stay.

       Admittedly they have a lot more lines but I remember having to go all over the place to get to the Seahawks’ Wembley game due to a line closure. It’s not that uncommon even in big transit cities.

       1. I think the key is redundancy. They tend to have a lot more stations and a lot more lines. As I wrote up above (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/05/11/open-thread-48/#comment-931691) just better stop spacing would help for the occasional station closure.

    2. Totally agreed Mike.

       The failure rate for 1.5 modern lines is pretty darn high.

       I’ve lived in Boston and NYC – two cities with ancient subways. NYC has its share of problems certainly but I can’t say it was worse than here.

       More tellingly the failure rate of Link is many times higher than the failure rate of driving. My wife and I have similar commutes – she drives and I take Link. She’s had 0 days where the drive took more than 15 minutes longer than planned. I’ve had at least 6 in the past 6 months, even with me avoiding a lot of the single tracking weeks.

11. I was double checking the rapidrides.

    For rapidride K apparently they are relooking at the alignment just south of bellevue downtown.

    https://www.psrc.org/media/8676

    Originally after reaching bellevue downtown it’d take NE 4th street. Apparently they’re looking at rerouting it to reach the East Main street station and then whether to stay on 112th ave and cross i-405 later or cross it immediately on main street.

    1. They’ll probably have it go on SE 8th street since new affordable housing is being built just south of SE 8th and 118th.

       And did anyone in those route planning meetings address the elephant in the room, which is the route is designed in such a way that K Line buses will be behind schedule much of the day?

    2. I don’t care for the K-line in general; I feel like if they wanted a RapidRide that goes through Kirkland, simply sticking with the existing route 250, with only minor tweaks (e.g. removal of the Bear Creek P&R detour) would be better.

       I don’t feel that bus riders are really gaining anything by having the Bellevue route be the one that takes 108th vs. Lake Washington Blvd. or having the Bellevue->Kirkland bus do Kirkland->Totem Lake rather than Kirkland->Redmond. Without clear benefits to ridership by shuffling around how the various bus segments are combined, it is better to just stick with the already-established route. The K line just reeks of a route that was originally conceived prior to the service restructure that created the 250, a routing which, for inertia reasons, nobody bothers to question.

       Also, Kirkland and Eastgate are already connected to each other on the 245, so adding an additional route that does the same connection feels rather awkward.

       1. > I don’t care for the K-line in general; I feel like if they wanted a RapidRide that goes through Kirkland, simply sticking with the existing route 250, with only minor tweaks (e.g. removal of the Bear Creek P&R detour) would be better… Also, Kirkland and Eastgate are already connected to each other on the 245, so adding an additional route that does the same connection feels rather awkward.

          The K line is a combines of the 250 and the former 271 (will become 220) on lake hills connector. It’ll be slightly easier to reach kirkland to eastgate and vice versa as it’ll through run rather than having to transfer. Though one segment dropped is the kirkland to redmond segment which I guess will become a separate route.

          https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/250.pdf
          https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/220.pdf

    3. I’d rather have the K on south Bellevue Way instead of 112th. It’s ignoring a large ridership market for a small one. For instance, Bellevue Way to Factoria.

       The western dotted-line alternative is an interesting compromise: it gets the highest-ridership part south of the transit center, and addresses the gap between Old Bellevue and East Main station. But it creates a U-shaped or fork-shaped detour like the ones derided on the F line.

       But you ask, wouldn’t the K on Bellevue Way be redundant with the 554? Well, maybe the 554 doesn’t have to be on Bellevue Way. It could go on 112th instead of the K, and make just a couple express-like stops. That would probably be faster travel time from Issaquah to Bellevue TC. Although it wouldn’t serve Bellevue Square.

12. King county replied to my email about the route 554.

    I asked “For route 554 in the east link connections can you clarify if the 554 will reach Issaquah Highlands for the regular frequency portion?
    The map below shows it turning around at i-90 but that seems a bit odd/weird for it to backtrack right before the highlands transit center rather than reaching it.”

    > Thank you for your message. At this time, Sound Transit plans for Route 554 to retain regular service to/from Issaquah Highlands
    > Best,
    > King County Metro Community Engagement

    https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/554.pdf

    Perhaps I should have worded my question slightly better for a more precise answer, but it seems like the 554 will continue to issaquah highlands

    1. Why did you ask Metro about the 554? That is a Sound Transit route — you should ask Sound Transit. Metro just does what ST tells them to do. Metro has no direct 554 planning role.

       At least Metro was smart enough to wash their hands of any responsibility and simply refer to “Sound Transit plans” in their response.

       1. I was kinda asking multiple routes, so asked about the 554 at the same time. But you’re right I’d get a more accurate answer from sound transit

       2. > Why did you ask Metro about the 554? That is a Sound Transit route

          Also just double checked the east link connections web page I used the email they listed for asking questions about it so I assume the person should generally know about the routes in the plan?

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