Straeto Bus in Reykjavik. Wikimedia user Jóhann Heiðar Árnason.
Overall Grade: C-
I had the great opportunity to visit Iceland for a few days last week. I found a nation blessed with natural wonders, an evocative history and interesting food. The capital city of Reykjavik has a compact core with world-class shopping, cuisine and nightlife. But the city’s all-bus transit system, Straeto, (there are no trains on the entire island) could use some improvement.
Straeto operates as if they visited U.S. Sun Belt cities to learn best practices:
Confusing mess of zigzagging, partially redundant lines? Check.
30 minutes or greater headways outside of peak hours? Check.
Off-street transit centers? Check.
Opaque and contradictory public information? Check
General public unaware or uninterested in how to use transit? Check.
Faster to walk 30 minutes in town instead of using transit? Check.
On the plus side, the rolling stock is nice. Fold-up bench seating on one side provides lots of open floor area for wheelchairs or strollers, as is typical for Europe.
Metro Director of Service Development Victor Obeso
by VICTOR OBESO
Bruce Nourish recently voiced his opinion about Metro Transit’s Route 16 – a long-time Metro route that has been serving Fifth Avenue North by the Seattle Center for many years.
Despite his claims to the contrary, we care deeply about our customers. Readers and riders know there are always trade-offs when designing a transit route and schedule. We work hard to balance riders’ interests and carefully constructed guidelines as we evaluate potential changes – and key among them is customer feedback. We also must respond to changing real-world conditions, including massive multi-year construction projects that affect service and travel times.
Route 16 has been providing excellent access to events and activities at the Seattle Center for many decades. However, Metro recognizes times have changed. Traffic has grown worse in the area and ongoing construction projects have further increased the time it takes for Route 16 to serve the area. At the same time, major increases in employment in the South Lake Union area are creating more demand for this route to shift toward the east to provide more convenient access to South Lake Union. But there are still many riders each day that enjoy the very convenient access to the Seattle Center that Route 16 provides.
The route serves thousands of riders each day. Based on analysis, the indirect path fails Metro’s route directness guideline in one direction (outbound +7 minutes for through customers) but meets the guideline (inbound +3 minutes for through customers). This illustrates the tradeoffs associated with making a decision to change the route or not. One might suggest that the inbound routing serve Fifth Avenue North while the outbound routing use Aurora Avenue North. But this would violate another Metro Service Guideline that calls for easy to understand services that have predictable routings. By splitting the route to travel on Fifth Avenue North in one direction and Aurora Avenue North in the other direction would make it difficult to understand for riders and might impact overall ridership negatively.
Metro, in the past, has considered moving Route 16 off of Fifth Avenue North in order to remove the route from the severe traffic and delays but public feedback was mixed and no changes were made. When riders of the route were asked about a change to Aurora routing via on-board surveys in 2002, over half of the respondents indicated a preference for the Seattle Center routing. This is likely because many riders who use this route most often to get to or from work downtown might also benefit from the direct Seattle Center routing for events.
However, we do recognize that the upcoming Mercer Street project and Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement construction will continue to impact the area and perhaps further delay service. Additionally, long-term the east-west street network between Denny Way and Harrison Street is slated to be rebuilt allowing customers to more easily access bus routes on Aurora Avenue North.
Due to the planned Mercer project, Metro intends to change the existing routing on Fifth Avenue North to Aurora Avenue North in order to avoid street and lane closures and to provide more reliable service to the large number of riders traveling between North Seattle and downtown Seattle. We understand that this would negatively impact the riders who travel between North Seattle and Fifth Avenue North so this change is not taken lightly.
Victor Obeso is Director of Service Development at King County Metro.
Over the years, the Seattle Transit Blog has done several posts on hiking Puget Sound by bus. Some of the amazing hiking trips posted on the blog include Point Roberts, Wallace Falls, Shaw Island and Friday Harbor, and the Olympic mountains. There have even been several links posted offering suggestions for transit hikes across the greater Seattle area.
As I read through the amazing list of Seattle transit hikes, one of the problems that always bugged me was how to actually go out and do them. After all, for people that aren’t used to riding transit, or aren’t used to riding transit except to work and back, taking a bus to a remote trailhead you have never been to before without a car can seem downright scary. I can still recall my first bus trip to Tiger Mountain and how, halfway through the hike, I suddenly felt cut off from civilization because I didn’t have a car parked at the trailhead, even though the bus ran every half hour and I had hours to get back before the last one.
Thinking about this, I decided that the best way to get new users to overcome the inevitable anxiety of bus hiking for the first time is to do so in the context of a group. Since all the Seattle hiking groups I know about drive or carpool to trailheads, I decided to create my own meetup group that would focus on transit-accessible hikes which would allow the group to ride the bus together to and from trailheads. The group is called the Seattle Transit Hikers and our first meetup is scheduled for January 6, when we will hike from the UW campus to downtown Seattle.
I plan to lead a hike with this group every 2-3 weeks, during which, we will explore the numerous transit-accessible trails in the region. Some of the destinations I have in mind for the coming months include Discovery Park, Carkeek Park, St. Edwards State Park, Couger, Squak, and Tiger Mountain, as well as numerous trails through the city of Bellevue. If there is interest, I may also consider some more ambitious trips, such as Mt. Si, Anacortes, perhaps even an overnight camping trip on Whidbey Island.
I am also looking for volunteers to lead hikes so I don’t have to lead them all. If any of you are interested, please let me know. The group already more than I ever expected – 62 members signed up in just 3 days! I think it’s going to be a great success.
After reading Martin’s excellent analysis (and follow-up) on why the restrictions on the use of Gas Tax money don’t really matter, I thought it was worth bringing up another salient fact. Often in discussions regarding the gas tax, people bring up the 18th Amendment to the Washington State Constitution. People summarize this amendment as stating that gas tax money can only be used for “highway purposes” and leave it at that. While the words “highway purposes” are indeed used by the amendment, it’s interesting to look at how it defines highway purposes. Below I quote the 18th amendment as found here.
“SECTION 40 HIGHWAY FUNDS.All fees collected by the State of Washington as license fees for motor vehicles and all excise taxes collected by the State of Washington on the sale, distribution or use of motor vehicle fuel and all other state revenue intended to be used for highway purposes, shall be paid into the state treasury and placed in a special fund to be used exclusively for highway purposes. Such highway purposes shall be construed to include the following:
(a) The necessary operating, engineering and legal expenses connected with the administration of public highways, county roads and city streets;
(b) The construction, reconstruction, maintenance, repair, and betterment of public highways, county roads, bridges and city streets [emphasis added]; including the cost and expense of (1) acquisition of rights-of-way, (2) installing, maintaining and operating traffic signs and signal lights, (3) policing by the state of public highways, (4) operation of movable span bridges, (5) operation of ferries which are a part of any public highway, county road, or city street;
Today the Pierce County Auditor is slated to certify the failure of Pierce Transit Proposition 1 by a thin margin of 704 votes, out of more than 200,000 votes cast (49.83% Approved to 50.17% Rejected).
There is really no way to sugar coat the potential impacts of the failure of Prop 1. This will mean an uncertain future for many riders in Pierce County, restricting access to jobs for low-income individuals, health care for people with disabilities, and schools for college and high school students. With the failure of Proposition 1, Pierce County is on course for drastic service reductions in 2014 in the realm of a 50% cut of current service levels. That is on top of a 43% cut in service since Pierce Transit’s 2007 peak of roughly 625,000 fixed route service hours.
Weekend and weekly midday service are slated to disappear and no buses would run after 7pm on any day. Paratransit service for seniors, disabled veterans, and other people with disabilities will vanish along with the fixed route.
For comparison, bus service would be lower than when Pierce Transit first began operating back in 1980. If nothing is done, it would mean less service than cities smaller than Tacoma such as Olympia and Bellingham. It would render the local transit system incapable of providing even a minimal level of mobility.
Washington’s annual statewide commuter incentive campaign, Wheel Options, kicks off today. The prizes this year are particularly generous, with many $100 gift cards, several hotel packages, and a grand prize trip to the lush, linguistically unique, and (to put it mildly) independently-minded Basque region of Spain. All participants who log at least 6 non-driving trips in October will qualify for all prizes and will automatically receive a coupon for a free companion fare on Amtrak Cascades.
As its name suggests, RideshareOnline (RSO) has traditionally focused on matching commuters whose needs aren’t met by fixed-route transit, including carpoolers, vanpoolers, etc. Those who are already dedicated transit commuters — likely most of our readership — may have had little use for RSO in the past. But it has been expanding its reach and is now the primary tool through which incentive campaigns are implemented in our region. Given the easy qualifying threshold for Wheel Options and the growing number of other incentive campaigns (such as Metro’s Rideshare Rewards), it is well worth your time to familiarize yourself with both Wheel Options and RideshareOnline.
If you already have an RSO account, you will use the same login and password for Wheel Options. Registering as a new user through Wheel Options will also cross-register you in RSO, and for future campaigns you will be able to use the same login credentials.
UPDATE: According to Wheel Options’ Facebook page, high site traffic has temporarily disabled their calendaring features. Stay tuned.
UPDATE 2: Wheel Options’ calendar is up and running again. While they do not anticipate any further issues, technical support is available at wheeloptions@wsro.net.
Disclaimer: The authors are involved with Wheel Options as part of their employment.
This blog has often covered transit-accessible hikes that can be accomplished in a day. But many of the most beautiful areas of Washington are out-of-reach of the day-hiker — even one who relies on a personal vehicle to get them to the trailhead. This summer, two of us set out to see if we could use transit to reach some of these more remote destinations. The result was an eight-day excursion that brought us from downtown Seattle past our State’s capitol, through the heart of Olympic National Park, over international waters to Victoria BC, and home, relying entirely on public transportation and our own feet.
The trip started with a five-leg transit journey from Seattle to Lake Quinault Lodge, on the south-west edge of Olympic National Park. The following is a weekday itinerary: the trip is possible on a weekend, but transfers don’t work out quite as well.
by KEVIN DESMOND, King County Metro General Manager
Adam’s Aug. 31 post about the C and D line and RapidRide program expressed disappointment that our launch at the end of the month will not include ORCA readers and the real time signs that are standard at major RapidRide stops. Both of these features require communications backbones and downtown Seattle is a complex environment to lay fiber. We are taking advantage of a planned, Seattle funded project to install the fiber next year, and by doing so we are stretching very limited public dollars as far as we can.
We have a vision for our transit service downtown which includes RapidRide. We applied for and received two federal grants, in partnership with Seattle, to enhance the transit environment downtown, especially on Third Avenue. The grants, along with existing RapidRide funding, will allow Metro to install ORCA readers, real time signs and develop other off-board payment/ticketing devices.
Staff from both Metro and the city of Seattle worked shoulder to shoulder for many months in order to deliver the C and D lines to downtown Seattle – on time and on budget. They’ve problem-solved literally thousands of details as we count down to the Sept. 29 launch. We admit not every feature will be fully operational – but at launch what people will get is better connections, service that’s more reliable, less wait time to catch a bus, transit signal priority at many intersections, real-time arrival information at stations, well-lit shelters and great new Wi-Fi coaches.
Come Sept. 29, we will have readers at 16 stations on the C Line and 21 at stations on the D Line. So there will be a clear benefit at many heavy boarding locations.
Contrary to Adam’s transportation vision, we will never be able to mimic the exclusive, separated right-of-way rail enjoys. RapidRide is designed to operate on compact urban streets – and that’s the beauty of our bus rapid transit program.
We don’t have to guess if these new lines will meet the need of more riders. We already know. Since the A Line between Federal Way and Tukwila was launched in 2010, ridership has increased nearly 50 percent, meeting our five year goal after just two years. It’s the same story on the B Line serving Redmond and Bellevue – ridership up 15 percent since launching last year. On these already high ridership corridors in Seattle, we know RapidRide and Metro’s complementary routes will need to evolve over time to manage and respond to peak demand. Continue reading “Op-Ed: RapidRide will be Popular with Riders”
While the office of Secretary of State is not typically involved in transit decisions, Nickels has a track record of going above and beyond in office in ways that benefit transit. He is one of the truly special pro-transit leaders of this generation, and we are excited about his possible leap to statewide office.
Mr. Nickels understands the influence of a few rich donors hijacking the initiative process to produce ill-considered ballot measures that cripple transportation financing, and threaten valuable long-term projects at their weakest point. In Olympia, he would propose a statewide discussion of how to change our initiative process to bring it back to the people. He would also help prevent statewide initiative attacks on local transit funding.
The Bel-Red area, Segment D in East Link speak, has been highly touted by the planning community. To realize this vision City of Bellevue and Redmond worked out the BROTS Interlocal Agreement with the Spring District as the center piece. But this whole segment, which includes two stations and a new P&R have been eclipsed recently in the Collaborative Design Process discussions. I think it’s important to highlight a few of the issues which can have a huge effect on the future landscape of this area.
Little in the way of cost savings have surfaced through the Collaborative Design Process, but there are opportunities for a fuller street grid and improved pedestrian access if Bellevue and ST work together on the new 15th/16th street corridor.
Use of “low impact design elements” and existing stream beds to channel runoff contribute perhaps $2M in savings, but these elements can be abused if not bird-dogged by citizens. The 130th St. P&R is shown with Goff Creek left buried. Let the promised daylighting of Kelsey Creek stand as a reminder of what can happen.
As far as development goes, a recent Seattle Times article notes Wright Runstad may break ground in the Spring District next year and is already selling off parcels for residential development. The multi-developer rather than single developer model is what Group Health switched to in Overlake to accelerate construction. However, the city council has not fully funded the infrastructure projects in the Bel-Red corridor.
Also much angst has been expressed over some low traffic crossings being at grade; SE 4th for example. Yet there is no similar concern over crossing NE 20th St at grade just prior to transitioning to elevated along SR-520. NE 20th carries 23,000 vehicles every weekday. That’s the same volume as Bellevue Way going through downtown.
Of course the real heavy lifting is going on in Bellevue’s Budget One process. Staff and the City Council are in effect accelerating project plans where concurrency with East Link is required. It’s a “messy job” finding the right balance between studying design alternatives, making compromises and then committing to one idea. But it’s important to remember that the vision that prevails today will determine what Bel-Red looks like in twenty years.
