All posts by David Lawson

2015 has been a terrific year for us at STB.  We made Zach Shaner (previously a longtime staff writer) our first-ever paid part-time reporter, and the move has tremendously improved our range of coverage.  We added two fantastic volunteer writers to our team, Seattle’s Erica C. Barnett and Kirkland’s Dan Ryan.  You, our readership, have grown in number–and continued to provide one of the most substantive and interesting comment sections to be found anywhere on the internet.  We’ve had plenty of news to cover, between University Link restructures, Move Seattle, landmark legislative elections, increases to Metro bus service, and Sound Transit’s preparations for next year’s big vote.

Even in such a news-packed year, one topic clearly dominated the conversation: Sound Transit 3.  In order, these are our most-read and most-commented posts of 2015.

Most Read

1.  A Transportation Solution for Today and Tomorrow, by guest poster Seattle Subway (July 14).  This is an exhortation to Sound Transit to think big for ST3, in terms of both dollars and years.  It appears to have worked, with ST expanding its preliminary 15-year time horizon to 25 or even 30 years in some scenarios put forth in the latest ST3 planning materials.

2. Dear Mercer Island: Public Space is for Public Use (Sept. 29).  Zach’s on-the-scene report covering Mercer Islanders’ numerous requests for special treatment by Sound Transit — in exchange for locating the south Eastside’s best transit facility in a non-residential area of the island — struck a huge nerve.  The report was cited in several local news outlets, and sparked a fascinating debate regionwide.

3. Seattle Subway’s Recommendations for the Sound Transit 3 Survey, by Seattle Subway (June 8).  This feedback was reflected in a number of Sound Transit’s proposed options for ST3.

4. ST3 – Once in a Lifetime, by Seattle Subway (Dec. 1).  Following up on the #1 post above, this post introduced Seattle Subway’s “STComplete” vision for a large ST3 proposal, with lines connecting essentially every transit-favorable community in the region.

5. Westside Seattle Transit Tunnel, by Seattle Subway (Feb. 18).  This February post presented Seattle Subway’s vision for a two-headed downtown tunnel serving both Uptown and South Lake Union.  Sound Transit ultimately did propose a second downtown tunnel as a core element of their ST3 vision, although the concept is somewhat different.

6. Sound Transit’s Conceptual Study: Should You Be Worried? (Apr. 24)  Martin’s careful look at Sound Transit’s tentative, suburban-heavy batch of initial ST3 concepts triggered an outpouring of angst and of support for bigger, bolder, more urban projects.  The agency’s later ST3 concepts turned out to be much closer to what we and many of our readers would like to see.

7. New Metro Buses Coming, by guest poster Ricky Courtney (June 22).  A quick update on Metro’s fleet plans, as the agency scrambled to convert options and get more buses quickly in light of Seattle Prop 1 and a strong economy.

8. Seattle’s ST3 Input (July 28).  Martin’s exposition, updated by another, later post, of SDOT’s input into ST3 station locations, focusing particularly on the Uptown-Ballard line.

9. Seattle Should Demand High-Quality Rail (Aug. 18), by Seattle Subway.  Following up on Martin’s post above, Seattle Subway also covered SDOT’s input.  The group continued to argue for a two-headed WSTT and, less controversially, complete grade separation.

10. The Full $15 Billion (June 29).  In this post Martin celebrated the successful inclusion of the full amount of requested taxing authority for ST3 in the state Legislature’s final transportation bill.

Most Commented

Continue reading “Top 10 Read and Commented Posts of 2015”

Last week, County Executive Dow Constantine transmitted an ordinance to the King County Council containing proposed changes to Metro’s Strategic Plan and Service Guidelines.  These are a big deal for King County bus riders; they will shape how Metro service evolves over the next decade or so.  There is a lot to digest in the documents.  We have spent the usual quality time reviewing them, and I spoke last week with Metro Deputy General Manager Victor Obeso and Supervisor of Strategic Planning Chris O’Claire about some of the most important proposals.

We have covered the history of the Service Guidelines and Strategic Plan on a few occasions.  In short, their 2011 adoption by the King County Council replaced an ad hoc planning process often driven by individual Councilmembers’ wishes with public, verifiable criteria for planning service additions, reductions, and restructures.  Executive Constantine rightly wrote in his transmittal letter that the Guidelines helped “make the transit system more efficient and better focused on the county’s most important public transportation needs.”  The Plan and Guidelines represent exactly the type of political guidance that the Council and Executive should be providing to Metro’s professional staff.  This sort of guidance is entirely different from interference with micro-level planning decisions.  It’s essential to ensure that the Metro system reflects the values and preferences of King County’s voters and taxpayers and remains accountable.

A bit more about the process underlying the recommendations is after the jump.  First, the major headline recommendations:

Revise the categories of routes used for Service Guidelines analysis.  Currently, routes are divided into two categories: “serves Seattle core” and “does not serve Seattle core.”  All routes that touch downtown, the U-District, SLU, Ballard, or certain other dense neighborhoods are in “serves Seattle core,” regardless of whether they are core all-day routes, suburban peak expresses, or infrequent coverage routes.  The proposal would scrap these two categories and replace them with “urban,” “suburban,” and “alternative service” categories, based on the areas the routes primarily serve.

Provide special protection for peak-only services.  Service Guidelines Task Force members felt that Metro’s September 2014 cuts, and proposed further cuts that did not occur, exacted too heavy a toll on peak-only services.  The proposed changes would protect peak-only services that enjoy either a travel time or ridership advantage over all-day alternatives from the first round of future reductions.

Revise criteria used in corridor analysis.  There are a number of different changes included in this bucket, with the most significant being 1) a change in the definition of “low-income” used in setting target service levels from 100% to 200% of the federal poverty level (for a family of three $20,090 annually), and 2) inclusion of park-and-rides together with other types of ridership generators.  Metro’s Ms. O’Claire estimated that all of the corridor-analysis changes would significantly increase the amount of new service recommended under the Guidelines, by approximately 250,000 hours over today’s recommendation of 471,650 additional hours.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “Changes to Metro’s Strategic Plan and Service Guidelines”

Metro announced today that, as part of the U-Link restructure scheduled for March 2016, it will change route 10 to use John St and Olive Wy, rather than Pine St, between 15th Ave E and Bellevue Ave E.  The change comes in response to concerns that the previous final restructure plan, as modified by Metro after turns at 19th Ave and Madison St proved unworkable, did not provide enough connectivity to Capitol Hill Station and removed service between the dense Summit neighborhood and downtown.

We advocated for the change, but were hardly alone.  Lots of people independently suggested it, and it played prominently in many different discussions of the restructure.  While it’s not perfect — it compromises north-south connectivity within Capitol Hill and may result in some overcrowding on route 11 — the change will improve connections to Link and preserve service for the many downtown riders in Summit.  Metro should be commended for its flexibility in implementing this change at the very last minute.

The last few weeks have been deeply discouraging for close followers of Metro. First we learned that Metro and the King County Council were raising the white flag on any significant effort to improve Link access, or bus service generally, in Capitol Hill. Then we got wind of Metro’s new proposal in SE Seattle, which would resurrect a redundant service pattern that Metro already canceled once because of low ridership, while cutting a couple of services proven over the years to perform better.

In both cases, the common thread is political interference with professional planning decisions. That needs to stop. In a time of plentiful resources, entire neighborhoods with thousands of residents–including Summit, east Capitol Hill, and Georgetown–are about to undergo major cuts in bus service for the sake of appeasing a few activists who do not represent many riders. The process hands ammunition freely to those who would paint transit as a sop to special interests and a waste of public money, rather than the core public infrastructure it is.

The Council adopted a professional service planning process (the Service Guidelines) in 2011, based on guidelines enacted into law, to avoid what had become a chronic pattern of micromanagement by Councils and Executives that left the county with an incomprehensible, spaghetti-like transit network. The process has resulted in meaningful service improvements and sharply increased ridership in neighborhoods across Metro’s service area, and helped ensure that Seattle’s Prop 1 funds went to solving real problems. But recent events, almost all occurring behind closed doors, appear to be signaling that the Council’s professional process is essentially dead, and Metro is back to direct planning by politicians and their appointees. Along with the public, we are reduced to relying on hearsay, rumor, and leaks; the players offer little or no insight into how decisions are made until after the fact. More details underlying this state of affairs as applied to Georgetown in particular, after the jump.

Continue reading “Metro’s Political Problem Hits Georgetown”

(UPDATE: Metro’s Victor Obeso has responded, saying Metro is “actively considering” this change.  Mr. Obeso’s full statement is below the story.)

By now, everyone is familiar with our dismay over the lack of a meaningful Link restructure in Capitol Hill, and in particular over some of the major losses that Metro’s final restructure package is imposing without much countervailing benefit.

Arguably the worst loss in service is to the Summit neighborhood, one of the city’s densest. Summit is currently served by two frequent routes running along Olive Way: route 43 to downtown and Capitol Hill, and route 8 to Uptown and Capitol Hill. (There is also the vestigial, infrequent 47 to downtown.) Today, each of the 8 and 43 has 4 buses/hour during the day. The restructure adopted by the County Council slightly increased frequency on the 8 to 5 buses/hour, and cut the 43 altogether except for peak-hour, half-hourly service.  In the ordinance, the lost service on the 43 was fully replaced by route 11, moved from Pine Street to Olive Way and John Street through Capitol Hill. But now, route 11 has been moved back to Pine without any other change, leaving no replacement for the 43, and almost no downtown service, for Summit residents.

The story of why the 11 ended up back on Pine is political, convoluted and not worth rehashing here. But the good news is there is an easy, and still-possible, way for Metro to salvage Summit service.

Metro should move route 10 from Pine to Olive and John.

Together with Link, this would fully replace current 43 and planned 11 service for Summit residents. In addition to making Summit whole, the move would make a new connection between one of Capitol Hill’s major business districts and Link, and meaningfully improve east-west service from Link generally. It would not significantly reduce transit access for anyone or make any common trips significantly more difficult. For Pine riders, frequent service would remain along Pine, on routes 11 and 49. Riders on 15th south of John would have no more than a three-block walk, on flat terrain, to either the revised 10 or the now-frequent 11 or 12.

Legally, this change could be accomplished as an administrative change, not subject to County Council approval, because no part of the route would move more than 1/2 mile. Practically, the could be done with the same resources as currently planned for route 10 and with almost no change to existing schedules. The outbound trip time using Olive and John is 1 to 2 minutes slower at some times of day than the outbound trip time using Pine, but current recovery time is sufficient to absorb those additional minutes.

Metro should make this happen. It’s easy and would make things better. Please let Metro know by calling (206) 553-3000 or submitting an online comment.

Statement from Metro Deputy G.M. Victor Obeso: “Changing the path of Route 10 is an idea we are actively considering, based on constructive feedback and in light of Route 11 remaining on Pine Street. Moving Route 10 off of 15^th Avenue East to carry riders along East John Street past Capitol Hill Station is a concept Metro planners examined during the Link Connections effort. Our focus continues to be on serving our customers with the connections they want and need, and work to balance community support and concerns as we consider changes to bus service.”

UPDATE: Metro’s Jeff Switzer provided some corrected information about the routing of Routes 65 and 67.  See below the jump for details.

Yesterday, the King County Council approved an ordinance directing Metro to restructure service in much of North Seattle and on Capitol Hill in conjunction with the opening of University Link.  The restructure is now final and official.  What you see in the ordinance is what you will get in March 2016.  Metro has not yet put final detailed information online; when they do, we’ll update this post with a link.

Final approval seems almost anticlimactic after the process, which is the longest and most public process I’ve seen in over two decades of following Metro closely.  From Metro, we saw initial maximum- and minimum-change ideas, a second proposal responding to feedback on the initial proposals, and then a substantially different final proposal to the Council when further feedback was lukewarm on the second proposal.  Metro assembled a Sounding Board (on which our Zach Shaner served) to help advise it on the changes, and held numerous public hearings following each proposal.

After Metro submitted its final proposal, the Council’s Transportation, Economy, and Environment Committee held a long, dramatic hearing focused on the Northeast Seattle part of the restructure.  Committee Chair Rod Dembowski, rumored through much of the process to favor scuttling the restructure altogether over concerns about the UW Station transfer environment, strongly denied that intent and introduced an amendment to fix what he saw as significant problems with Metro’s proposal.  Councilmember Dembowski’s amendment, which (among several other changes) restored partial service on routes 43 and 71 and mostly eliminated Metro’s proposed route 78, passed the committee and remained in the final ordinance passed yesterday by the council.

In addition to the U-Link restructure, another ordinance passed yesterday makes official the split of the RapidRide C and D Lines.  RapidRide C will now terminate in South Lake Union—dramatically improving bus connections between SLU and downtown, and connecting SLU with West Seattle for the first time in several years—while RapidRide D will now terminate in Pioneer Square.

We’ve always been enthusiastic about the restructure, particularly in Northeast Seattle, and we’re very happy to see it become final.  Details of the Dembowski amendment, which represents the only changes from Metro’s final proposal, are below the jump.

Continue reading “It’s Official: Council Adopts U-Link Restructure”

Faithful readers already know Sound Transit is headed for a banner 2016.  University Link alone would be enough to ensure that; it will connect the three most important transit destinations in Washington state with frequent, fast, high-capacity transit for the first time, replacing bus routes that are one of Seattle’s most notorious time sinks.  Also no surprise are the opening of Angle Lake Station and a new midday round trip on South Sounder.  But that is not all the agency has up its sleeve to drive an expected increase of 18 percent in total system ridership.  Last week, ST released an early draft of its 2016 Service Implementation Plan, which includes a most welcome surprise: a substantial increase in ST Express bus service.

The increase is a surprise because ST Express stubbornly has remained a zero-sum program for several years, despite the expanding economy. ballooning ridership, and rapidly recovering tax revenue streams.  Expansion of oversubscribed routes such as the 550 and 545 has been paid for by chopping the span of service of less popular routes, while increasing I-405 congestion has resulted in cut trips on South King County-Eastside routes.  This time, there are no cuts and no surprises, just a very peak-heavy expansion driven primarily by overcrowding relief and better connections to U-Link and Sounder.  Details below the jump.

Continue reading “ST Adds All Sorts of Stuff for 2016”

Late yesterday afternoon, Metro transmitted to the King County Council a proposed ordinance including a final U-Link restructure proposal, along with a few other changes also scheduled for March 2016.  Executive Constantine issued a press release summarizing the proposed changes.  UPDATE:  Councilmember Larry Phillips has introduced the changes as two separate ordinances.  2015-0350 covers the changes related to U-Link, while 2015-0349 covers the RapidRide C/D split and other miscellaneous changes.

There are some important differences between the final proposal and Metro’s last proposal, which we covered in March.  But the basic idea is the same.  In Northeast Seattle, Metro is proposing a major restructuring that would double frequency on almost all of the area’s all-day routes, and add some new coverage, in exchange for requiring some off-peak riders to transfer to Link or another bus to go downtown.  In Capitol Hill, Metro is proposing a less extensive set of changes mainly intended to improve frequency and reliability on busy routes and connect more areas to Capitol Hill Station.  As with the March proposal, there are almost no changes to SR 520 service, although Metro’s Victor Obeso said yesterday that proposals for SR 520 are likely to be reintroduced later in an Eastside-specific process.

I and the STB staff I’ve talked to are extremely happy about the Northeast Seattle proposals in particular, because they would profoundly improve all-direction mobility in a part of the city where the bus network is decades old and built around infrequent rides to just two destinations.  I see this ordinance as the best opportunity the Council has had in years to improve the usability of Seattle’s transit network, and urge the Council as strongly as I can to pass it.

Details of the proposals below the jump.

Continue reading “Metro Sends Final U-Link Plan to Council”

Metro is taking a survey in preparation for its new Long-Range Plan, which Victor Obeso generously talked with us about a few months ago.  The Long-Range Plan, which is separate from Metro’s short-term Strategic Plan, will be the agency’s first long-range plan in decades.  The last day to take the survey is Sunday, August 9.  We encourage all STB readers to weigh in today, no matter how (or whether) you use the bus, and no matter whether you typically agree with our views or not.

A bit more about some of my own answers below the jump, for those who are interested.

Continue reading “Last Chance to Fill Out Metro’s Long Range Plan Survey”