Dan Ryan

Vanpools are a Success Story

March 14, 2015March 14, 2015 by Dan Ryan

Bob Pishue, of the Washington Policy Center, has a recent piece highlighting the growth and improved economics of Metro’s vanpool program. He notes that Metro’s vanpool program is now running a farebox recovery rate of 107%. Other programs in the region are also doing well. Pierce Transit’s vanpool program is at 73% and Community Transit is at 70%. All of these numbers have been trending up.

Ridership is up too, outpacing other transit modes. In the ten years to 2013, Metro’s vanpool ridership grew 96%, and the program is now the largest in the nation. All other Metro modes grew 25% in aggregate. Operating costs per rider have fallen from $3.10 in 1996 to $3.02 in 2013, a 34% decrease in real terms. Pishue credits reduced operating costs to increased ridership. While scale efficiencies may play a part by spreading the burden of administrative overhead, shorter average trip lengths (down from 27 miles to 21 miles) have also reduced mileage-related costs.

These are great numbers, although Pishue goes too far in arguing they make the case for reducing investments in bus and light rail. Martin expanded on that point in response to a previous Washington Policy Center advocacy piece in 2010. It’s interesting, however, to look at why vanpools are successful and to understand their limitations.

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Parking and Suburban Transit

February 16, 2015December 18, 2015 by Dan Ryan

Sound Transit is pursuing improvements to station facilities at Puyallup and Sumner to accommodate growing Sounder ridership. These include the addition of several hundred parking stalls at each location.

At Sumner, the improvements include a 400+ stall parking garage to complement existing surface parking. At Puyallup, the agency plans a garage with up to 400 stalls, and another 300 surface parking spots to be built or leased at two other locations. The area around both stations will also see pedestrian and bicycle improvements. These include pedestrian bridges over the station railroad tracks. The improvements are to be completed by 2020.

The $94 million price tag was reported on these pages a few weeks ago, and wasn’t universally applauded. Why is a transit agency spending so much on parking? Shouldn’t we be investing in transit service over car storage? Why can’t we charge for parking on city streets to manage spillovers? Aren’t there alternate investments to improve transit ridership without enabling sprawl?

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Senators Agree to Transportation Package with ST3 Authorization

February 13, 2015December 12, 2020 by Dan Ryan

A bipartisan group of Senators yesterday announced that they had reached agreement on most elements of a transportation package that included authorization for Sound Transit 3. The authorized tax levels were lower than the Sound Transit request, which limits the potential size of the package and increases the reliance on sales tax. However, the agreement would still allow the agency to proceed with a package roughly the size of Sound Transit 2 (ST2).

The Senate agreement would permit up to $11 billion in tax revenue over 15 years. There is some confusion resulting from there being two different $15 billion sums in the discussion. The original Sound Transit request is for $15 billion, would provides room for the Board to explore which tax types are least unpopular and find the optimal package size.

The second $15 billion is a potential overall capital project package size, which ST staff used in an exercise and Martin speculatively mapped to projects. Staff picked this number because it was the same size as ST2 and therefore considered politically practical, but the ST board has not decided on the package’s size. Due to bond financing, a $15 billion package requires about $9 billion in taxing authority.

Sound Transit Updates the Long Range Plan

December 29, 2014December 12, 2020 by Dan Ryan

On December 18, the Sound Transit Board approved updates to the Long Range Plan, last revised in 2005. The corridor map saw 13 additions. There were also several text amendments. Most were uncontroversial, particularly those that were bringing the LRP up to date with other policies adopted since the last LRP update in 2005. Some, particularly those that seemed to have implications for ST3, were more challenging for the board.

I’ll describe the text amendments first, and then the map changes.

Cost-Effective ST3 Options on the Eastside

December 6, 2014December 12, 2020 by Dan Ryan

A ST 535 waits to re-enter I-405 (WhenEliseSings/Flickr)

What would Sound Transit do in East King County if it were trying to maximize the effectiveness of the ST3 package? How many transit riders could be served within the constraints of a likely ST3 package?

I’ve borrowed Martin Duke’s calculation of a $2.6 billion “budget” for East King. Martin estimates this from the $15 billion request to the Legislature, converted to $10 billion in 2014 dollars (to align with the corridor study cost methodology). With $800 million committed to completing East Link to Redmond, that leaves $1.8 billion for other projects.

The approach is to calculate cost per rider (using the mid-range of estimates from the corridor studies). The options are ranked and the best are selected, unless they duplicate an already selected option. Many of the options are close substitutes, so it makes sense to select only one. For instance, 405 BRT occupies three of the top six slots, but only the highest ranked of these is selected. I ignore other options which were not reviewed in the corridor studies (such as the bridge to Sand Point).

Building Transit on I-405

November 1, 2014December 12, 2020 by Dan Ryan

In recent weeks, Sound Transit has released several corridor reports for the Eastside. These were previewed in meetings in May and June, but I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at the options for Sound Transit on the Eastside. The reports offer quite a bit more detail, and some occasional editorial comment. First up, I-405.

Sound Transit has a long-held commitment to BRT on I-405, dating to Sound Move in 1996, and updating the I-405 master plan in 2002. The master plan envisioned all-day service with 10 minute headways along the length of the corridor. Since then, Sound Transit has built a number of HOV direct access ramps on the highway and transit center projects serving local and regional service along the corridor more generally. Most of those are toward the north end of the corridor, in places such as Totem Lake in Kirkland. Practically speaking, this has translated to a set of express services on the highway that are low-frequency outside peak, and subject to reliability issues in the increasingly crowded HOV lanes.

Showcasing BRT on the Eastside.

October 7, 2014December 12, 2020 by Dan Ryan

Sound Transit has an under-appreciated opportunity to build a world-class BRT on the Eastside.

Train service faces well-known geometric challenges in East King. Cities are not linearly aligned, so high quality rail service means many rail lines. But the Eastside urban centers are mostly much smaller than potential stations in Seattle, requiring large investments in either feeder bus service or park-and-rides. Either way, conspicuously high costs per rider are inevitable.

The one obvious linear corridor for rail service on the Eastside, Seattle-Bellevue-Redmond, is already mostly funded, and the line will obviously be completed to downtown Redmond in ST3. So what should be the next priority for East King?

If the goal is to build something for the cities that were left aside in ST2, that suggests Kirkland and Issaquah. So naturally, thoughts turn to a Kirkland-Issaquah rail line. But Kirkland and Issaquah are not a significant trip pair. Not even enough to warrant a Metro bus today. So it makes sense, if at all, only as a portion of a network connecting all the major Eastside cities and Seattle.