All posts by Bruce Nourish

Bruce Nourish grew up in rural England and suburban Phoenix, before discovering his love for cities and mass transit during two weekend visits to Portland and Seattle. His degree is in Physics, and he works as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google. Bruce's posts focus on publishing and visualizing King County Metro's data in order to discuss and advocate restructures of Seattle's bus network to be more efficient, cost-effective and reliable. He joined the blog in Summer 2011. Commute: Bike or bus from Belltown to Fremont. Key Routes: 2, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 49, 70, Link.

News Roundup: Incompatible Charging Systems

October 5, 2017October 4, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

Minneapolis gets a $1 low-income fare.
Helsinki is in the vanguard of the war on cars, and I’m jealous.
Bremerton fast ferry still struggling with mechanical issues.
Tacoma planning for growth in the Tacoma Mall area.
Transit is a key part of not loving city-accessible trailheads to death.
Tri-Met contemplating a $1.7b property and vehicle tax measure to pay for Southwest Light Rail and other projects.
The rail that fails.
Rideshare companies are trying to figure out how to serve elderly people. This turns out to be more challenging than serving the mostly-affluent, younger urbanites who have hitherto comprised their primary clientele.
Vancouver for a day: Take a crazy, fun round trip from Seattle in 16 hours ($). Not discussed in the story: the writer took BoltBus; a day trip on Cascades would make your time in Vancouver short indeed.
The Times Traffic lab writes up ($) Tacoma’s proposed fast ferry study, surveys the recent history of passenger ferries.
Local VC group Madrona Ventures, who are fond of releasing speculative reports on regional autonomous vehicle adoption (here’s a writeup last year’s ($)) have released another ($) (direct PDF link). For no stated reason, and without reference to the fact that I-5’s HOV lanes carry up to four GP lanes worth of people at rush hour, they propose that HOV lanes be opened to AVs within the next year.
Bellevue Reporter blurbs Metro’s Eastside RapidRide plans.
Utah senior citizens find more freedom on public transit ($).
Curbed Seattle goes deep on how cities and local agencies prioritize surplus land for affordable housing.
Port of South Whidbey really wants more parking at Mukilteo. Hot quote: “It doesn’t make any sense to me that this Washington State Ferries multi-modal facility is being built with no plan for [more] parking.” Results from multi-agency parking study due soon.
West Seattle Transportation Coalition had an SDOT rep over for a monthly meeting.
DC is the next bikeshare challenges-of-success story.
Thanks to SEPA, the city will spend more than a year on an EIS to catalog all the possible impacts of liberalizing backyard cottage construction before voting on the idea. The EIS now is in the scoping phase, where you can comment on what should be included in the study. Among the things that won’t be studied: the deleterious effects of our NIMBY housing culture and the endless procedural filibustering that perpetuates it.
On the brighter side, the city has proposed some very, very good parking rule changes.
Metro GM Rob Gannon touts ($) Metro’s laudably aggressive electric bus adoption efforts. The biggest hurdle: incompatible charging systems between manufacturers.
The Economist discusses dockless bike share.
The Senate Republicans’ ST witch-hunt goes to Everett.
Small Uptown upzone approved.
Spokane parklets to be made permanent.
Amazon finally leases some office space that’s truly convenient to Link.
Someone has finally written a paper showing what people who understand transit have known for ages: most recent streetcar projects, aren’t particularly effective transit.

This is an open thread.

News Roundup: Rise and Fall

September 29, 2017September 29, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

A bonanza of ST hearing coverage in the media: King5, Seattle Times ($), Tacoma News Tribune, KIRO, Q13 Fox, KOMO.
ST head Rogoff op-ed in the Tribune.
More on the history and revitalization of Spokane’s East Sprague neighborhood.
Old streetcar maps of Spokane.
Boise downtown keeps growing, could get a 5,000 seat soccer and baseball stadium.
It’s not just Seattle, Wenachee has a housing crisis ($) and a group advocating to address it.
Brier Dudley is shocked — shocked! ($) — to discover that advocacy has been going on at TCC, proposes new rules ($) to deal with this threat. The editorial board eats it up ($).
By way of contrast, David Gutman has an excellent watchdog piece on the ridership and revenue projections of the Central City Connector ($).
Dow, T4W endorse Durkan, SeaSub doesn’t.
Seattle recently revised its default speed limits and it’s apparently causing confusion.
Some in Nashville concerned that light rail will exacerbate gentrification.
Sonoma-Marin commuters discover their new train.
CM Juarez wants less heavy commercial, more walkable neighborhood commercial in Licton Springs.
An architect and rancher from eastern Washington visits Seattle, takes an offhand swipe at Link.
From the “expensive ways to move small numbers of people” department, Tacoma may study a foot ferry to Seattle.
NBBJ to design 24-story tower with 229 units in the U District ($).
Bellingham locomotive to get restored at the Northwest Railway Museum in Snoqualmie.
Boston officials imagine a “super card” that could get you on the T, a Hubway bike, a Zipcar and possibly even an Uber or Lyft ride. The goal of seamless any-mode transit payment is laudable, but inventing yet another city-specific card is not the path forward, given that contactless credit cards and mobile wallets are already in service.
What happens when you turn off the traffic lights at a busy Amsterdam intersection?
If you bike for exercise, consider biking to your ride.
Lake Forest Park wants to make SR 522 and SR 104 safer, more accommodating to transit, and more walkable and bikeable. There open houses coming up.
Pioneer Arthur Denny’s Capitol Hill hotel.
Metro Megazine surveys America’s scattershot HSR efforts.
I-405 toll lanes are revenue positive but get overcrowded in the peaks, so of course our legislature is not debating whether to raise the peak price cap, but whether to scrap tolling.
The Stranger tells newcomers how to avoid driving your car in Seattle.

This is an open thread.

News Roundup: Frequency in Tri-Cities

September 22, 2017September 22, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

Rob Johnson drops his push to make Uptown upzone more aggressive due to public comment. Show up to meetings, everyone.
Ben Franklin Transit (serving the Tri-Cities) launches a restructured network that’s designed to to improve frequency and directness on core routes, and extend the span of service. There is now all-day 15-minute service between four major transit nodes, and service runs until 7 PM on Saturdays, 8 PM on weekdays.
Also in Tri-town: brakes fail on a potato-hauling truck, it T-bones a transit bus at 55 mph. Amazingly only one person was seriously injured.
Lyft hires transpo consultants to re-imagine LA’s dense, but way too wide, Wilshire Boulevard. More like this, please.
Curbed rounds up a selection of Seattle streecar pictures from across the decades.
Seattle Bike Blog writes up the new One Center City proposal (our coverage here).
Times covers the City Council hearing on Key Area ($); conflicting messages from the city on whether transpo management money will focus on the real task of moving people, or the folly of achieving “free flowing” car traffic and abundant parking.
Capitol Hill NSF projects roll on through the design process, notably including reader David Seater’s proposed improvements to John St east of Broadway.
Times covers ST’s Lynnwood presser ($), some nice Northgate pics.
Puyallup Eagles members vote to reject Sound Transit’s offer to purchase building, needed for Puyallup station improvements; they want mo’ money.
Times editorial board has found a hill to die on: $100,000/space park and rides.
More people will be allowed to busk at light rail stations, but yeah, don’t play Wonderwall.
Curbed tells you how to work SeaTac Airport.
Tukwila elevator out of service Sep 18th-22nd.
Streetsblog plays off Seattle vs Munhall, PA in their Sorriest Bus Stop in America contest. The Times has a sensible response ($) from Metro (the stop is essentially unused, they’re considering removing it).
Spokane’s East Sprague Street — a business district akin to Seattle’s Aurora Ave, which went sharply downhill after it was bypassed by I-90 — gets a curb-to-curb rebuild, making permanent a prior road diet, and adding high-quality transit and pedestrian facilities.

This is an open thread.

Spokane Transit Begins Implementation of STA Moving Forward

August 21, 2017August 21, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

STB hasn’t written much in-depth about transit in Spokane since the passage of their scaled back STA Moving Forward initiative in November of last year, which followed the failure of the original package in 2015. To catch up on the Spokane Transit Authority’s progress in implementing Moving Forward, I reached out to Director of Planning and Development Karl Otterstrom. What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of our email interview.

Seattle Transit Blog: What parts of STA Moving Forward have been implemented or are currently in progress? I know there’s been some service improvements, you’ve got new artics on the way, and you’ve broken ground on the West Plains Transit Center.

STA Moving Forward is a ten-year plan for more and better transit service. It is phased to avoid debt and make implementation more manageable. As part of the effort behind the second ballot measure in November 2016, the STA board directed us to accelerate elements that could move forward sooner. Part of our response was introducing new service at both the May and September service changes. In future years we intend to make STA Moving Forward service adds just once in a calendar year, devoting other service changes to timepoint adjustments and other minor revisions as necessary.

IMPLEMENTED: During the May service change, we added the following service:

Continue reading “Spokane Transit Begins Implementation of STA Moving Forward”

Metro Survey for SODO Commuters

July 26, 2017July 25, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

King County Metro has a survey up, aimed at people who work in the SODO area, which the agency defines as between Royal Brougham Way and Lucille Street. This is part of Metro’s Community Connection program, “in which Metro works with local governments and community partners to develop innovative and cost-efficient transportation solutions in areas of King County that don’t have the infrastructure, density, or land use to support regular, fixed-route bus service.”

I have several questions in to Metro about how these alternative services might be applied to SODO, and whether any changes to SODO’s fixed-route service could be possible. While I’m waiting for answers, I wanted to get this survey link out, as the deadline is tomorrow, the 27th, so if you’re a SODO commuter, go fill it out.

Open House: Northgate Pedestrian Bridge

July 22, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

On August 3rd, SDOT is hosting an open house for the Northgate Pedestrian/Bike bridge project:

At the open house:

See the latest Northgate Ped/Bike Bridge design and get a sense of what it will be like to use the bridge.

Learn about the route for the Northgate Neighborhood Greenway.

Get information on other transportation projects and programs in the Northgate area.

Talk with project staff and share feedback.

Join us

Thursday, August 3
5:30 — 7:30 PM (drop in any time)
Hampton Inn & Suites
9550 1st Ave NE, Seattle

This project is a culmination of years work by transit and walkability advocates, elected officials around the region, and people who live in the neighborhood. It will directly connect the region’s transit spine to an a college, a park, a business district oriented around medical services, and a still-relatively-affordable neighborhood with lots of multifamily housing. If you live nearby, or will use this bridge, show up to show your support, and to make sure the design will work for you.

Upcoming SDOT Transit Spot Improvements

May 19, 2017May 19, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

It’s been a while since we checked in with SDOT’s Transit Spot Improvements program. This is a small pot of money for SDOT engineers to make minor improvements to transit operations and rider amenities, which would not otherwise be funded as part of a RapidRide corridor project, an arterial repaving project, or a larger state or federal grant. Some improvements are fully SDOT funded, and some are cost-shared with Metro.

Here’s what SDOT has on the docket for 2017. I’ve omitted a few projects that are purely maintenance of existing facilities, important though that is.

Location	Schedule	Description
Olive Way & Boren	Q2	Install EB queue jump (saving 87 sec/trip).
Broadway & Yesler	Q2	Upgrade signals to improve streetcar turning movements (saving 130 sec/trip).
Olive Way, Terry to Minor	Q2	Install EB peak period transit lane.
Aurora Ave, 115th to 145th	Q3	Refresh transit lane markings.
15th Ave NW & Market	Q3	Install rear bus pads for RapidRide D.
Railroad crossings, TBD	Q4	“Exempt”/”Tracks out of service” signs to allow Metro buses to avoid stopping at RR crossings.
Various, TBD	Q4	Install protected left-turn signals
Various, TBD	Q4	Install channelization, signs and markings to improve operations.
Lake City Way & 125th	Q4	Install bus bulb.
Blanchard St, east of 3rd	Q4	Install BAT lane (saving RapidRide C 4 min/trip); new RapidRide stop at 6th.
15th Ave NW, Leary to Market	Q4	Install BAT lane; install ped signal at 53rd.
Westlake, Blanchard to Fairview	Q4	Install red painted transit lanes.
Route 60, TBD	Q4	Provide rear door pads for various route 60 stops.
Broadway, Pine to Marion	Q4	Install SB transit lane, subject to traffic analysis and outreach (saving 55 sec/trip).
Terry, Republican to Mercer	Q4	Rechannelize to improve streetcar operations.

I don’t have too much to say about the project list overall, other than that everything sounds great, and I want more of it, faster. I’m especially happy about the 15th Ave NW ped signal, which will provide benefits far beyound transit. Perhaps missing from the list are heavily-used stops in the Fremont area, and speed and reliability improvements on the Uptown couplet.

One thing, in particular, I’m interested in hearing about in the comments: suggestions for left-turn pockets and other signage and channelization improvements. I’ll collect suggestions that seem feasible to me and forward them to SDOT.

Kitsap Transit Looks to Rethink Service and Revive Ridership

May 16, 2017May 15, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

Process and timing (image: Kitsap Transit)

Late last year, Kitsap Transit made news with the passage of its foot ferry initiative, which provided the funding to fulfill a long-standing dream of fast, cross-sound passenger service. For those paying attention to the less-sexy, workhorse transit modes, however, news across the sound has been bad for years. Like every sales tax-dependent agency in Washington, KT took a haircut in the great recession, beginning in 2008.

In 2009, the agency responded in many of the ways familiar to those of us who remember King County Metro circa 2010-2013: raising fares, deleting routes, reducing almost all the remaining routes. Unlike Metro, KT never took the high-pain, high-gain opportunity to rethink the structure of the bus network, leaving riders with a network of mostly circuitous, infrequent routes and some incomprehensible schedules.

The intervening eight years have not got well for KT, or their bus riders. After a predicable initial decline from the cuts and the recession, annual ridership has been stagnant since 2010. Much more worryingly, this stagnant ridership comes on increasing levels of service, as sales tax revenue has crept back up; the productivity of the bus network is declining, which suggests the bus network is structurally failing in some way.

While Kitsap county has not experienced anything like Seattle’s residential or employment growth, it’s a part of our booming city’s commuter belt, with a natural advantage to non-car modes: even without considering the upcoming foot ferry service, it’s much cheaper and easier to walk on to a Seattle-bound ferry at Bainbridge or Bremerton, than it is to drive on.

While the analogy is not perfect, the agency’s situation most reminds me of Pierce Transit in 2011: a tax-hostile electorate, a benefit area dominated by transit-hostile land-use patterns, and increasing costs have put the agency in sustained decline, at a time when it should be growing. Fortunately, KT’s leaders seem to have realized the severity of their case, and are going to the public with an outreach effort that sounds quite fundmental in scope:

Kitsap Transit is conducting a comprehensive analysis of our current bus service that will incorporate:

Community input gathered at in-person workshops, an online open house and an on-board survey

Data on current ridership patterns

Projected population growth in Kitsap County

The purpose of the analysis is to understand how our buses currently connect riders to neighborhoods, city centers, social and community services and ferries. We want to hear from a broad group of transit users and community members, including people who might not use transit now. We are also committed to working with those in the community who are dependent on transit.

More after the jump.
Continue reading “Kitsap Transit Looks to Rethink Service and Revive Ridership”

Pragmatism, Efficiency, and Who Shares

May 4, 2017May 4, 2017 by Bruce Nourish

On Sunday, the Seattle Times wrote up ($) SDOT’s Employer Shared Transit Stop Pilot program, which started a week prior. It’s a good writeup, although transit nerds probably won’t learn too much they didn’t already know. From SDOT’s page:

The City of Seattle and King County Metro are collaborating with Seattle Children’s Hospital and Microsoft to conduct a six-month pilot that will allow these participating organizations’ employer-provided shuttles to temporarily share a select set of public transit stops with King County Metro buses. This pilot was carefully developed over the last two years. The pilot project will test the feasibility of allowing employer-provided shuttles to use public transit stops while minimizing impacts to public transit operations.

As someone who both cares a lot about public transit, and the space given to public transit, and also someone who uses an employer shuttle occasionally (not one in this pilot), I have a few reactions.

First, I applaud SDOT and Metro for spotting a growing trend, and proactively experimenting with a pilot program to get real-world experience in managing it. Rule changes are generally easy to reverse if they don’t pan out, and I’ll take data over endless process and waffle any day.

Second, I think there will be mixed operational results from the stops chosen (you can see a full map on the SDOT page). Some, like SB 15th Ave E @ Mercer, seldom see more than a bus every ten minutes, and an additional shuttle using the stop is unlikely to cause delays for public transit riders. Others, like SB Queen Anne @ Harrison, are very heavily trafficked. ~~That traffic includes RapidRide D~~*, on which SDOT and Metro have spent a lot of money in the name of speed and reliability. A noticeable level of conflict between shuttles and transit in the peak period seems inevitable, and any resulting delays will undermine the effort and money spent on the RapidRide program.

Of course, this variety of stop profiles will yield more interesting data, and may have been an intentional part of the pilot’s stop choices, although SDOT doesn’t call it out as such.

Finally, I note the dead hand of America’s great cognitive bias in street space allocation: when a new actor arises and asks for street space, the first people whose interests are traded off are all those who don’t drive and park their own car in the public right of way. Particularly depressing is the suggestion quoted in the Times article, that “if more loading zones are freed up, officials eventually could change some of those loading zones to public parking.”

Curbside parking (as distinct from loading) is, in general, the least valuable use of space, on a busy thoroughfare in a dense neighborhood. If the primary motiviation for a permanent shared stop program is to eventually add a couple of dozen parking spaces to SDOT’s street parking inventory across the entire city, then that is a fatally worthless premise. If, on the other hand, the purpose is to make each street function better overall (e.g. can we please have a bike corral by the pilot stop at Ballard & Market?), and any negative feedback on transit conflicts is taken seriously, then this program may prove meritorious.

If you have your own scaldingly hot take on this pilot program, please share it with us in the comments, and then email it to sharedstoppilot@seattle.gov.

My email Q&A with SDOT, lightly edited, is after the jump.

* UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, the D Line skips this one stop in Uptown. Nevertheless, it’s a busy stop for all the routes coming southbound out of Queen Anne, and SDOT and Metro have spent a chunk of money on making those routes faster and better, so I think the point mostly stands.

Continue reading “Pragmatism, Efficiency, and Who Shares”

Storm Warning for Friday and Saturday

October 12, 2016October 12, 2016 by Bruce Nourish

Cliff Mass is sounding the alarm on his blog, about some pretty serious weather incoming from the Pacific:

Starting Thursday, we will enter a period of extraordinarily active weather with the potential for heavy rain, flooding, and a highly dangerous windstorm with the potential to be an historic event. The coastal waters and shoreline areas could well experience hurricane-force gusts, with a lesser but serious threat for strong winds over the interior. Keep in mind that there is still uncertainty in the forecasts, more so for the wind than the rain.

I have no more insight into the likely impact of these storms than the average STB reader, but disruption and delay to all modes of travel in Western Washington seems certain, and the Puget Sound Friday freeway commute, in particular, is probably something you’ll want to avoid if you can. On the coasts of Washington and Vancouver Island, rain will be torrential, and wind gusts may approach hurricane force, so nonessential travel anywhere near there should be avoided.

Keep an eye out for updates from the National Weather Service and local agencies (WSDOT, King County Metro, Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Intercity Transit, Community Transit). My favorite reading in these situations is the detailed local synopsis put out four times daily by the NWS.