began contributing to the blog in 2008 in the run-up to the 2008 Prop. 1 transit package, and worked with Ben on the Mass Transit Now campaign. He grew up in the sprawl of Orange County, California before moving to the Puget Sound in 2003. A software engineer, John has lived in Redmond, Bellevue, and Capitol Hill. After serving as a board member and the blog's first general manager, he stepped down in late 2011.
I. Yesterday was the day that the EPA issued new vehicle emission rules that will raise mileage standards across the board in the United States. Obama announced the plan early in his administration, and it was spurred on by governors from various states, including our own Christine Gregoire. No foolin’.
II. The day before, Obama announced the government would make much of the east coast available for off-shore oil exploration and drilling. He said during his announcement: “But what I want to emphasize is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy. And the only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and long term.”
III. The week before that, the Obama administration said it remains firmly opposed to a gasoline tax increase to fund the next federal transportation bill, even though many point out an increase could reduce emissions and raise substantial revenues.
Eastlake bus stop. Photo by flickr user photocoyote.
Central District News is reporting, in an impressive scoop, that the city is developing a transit master plan, in the model of the city’s bicycle and pedestrian master plans. They quote the mayor’s office:
The new Transit Master Plan, which we expect to begin developing within the next few months, is envisioned to serve as a blueprint for transit investments in the same way that the recently adopted Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plans are guiding the development of improvement to help make biking and walking easier in Seattle.
Seattle Department of Transportation spokesman Rick Sheridan outlined the broad goals of the transit master plan to the neighborhood blog:
Develop transit service and capital investment priorities and recommendations
Make commitments to provide minimum levels of speed and reliability for high-ridership transit routes
Identify minimum service frequencies and span of service for high-ridership routes
Generate more transit funding to support growth in Seattle and the region
Improve coordination with Metro and Sound Transit planning activities
Include a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transit vehicles
When asked about how much public feedback would be incorporated into the plan, Sheridan told us that “public involvement is absolutely needed” to shape the plan.”
“There will also be an advisory committee supporting the work made up of members of the public,” Sheridan said. “However, full details concerning these elements have not yet been worked out.”
The plan is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2011.
Yesterday, the city council released the executive summary from its 520 replacement study. The conclusion? Basically, there aren’t any options on the table that meet all of the councils goals effectively, but the city council could pursue some changes on the margins. Publicola reports:
In addition to suggesting that the city council push for higher occupancy minimums for HOV lanes and continue to work with the legislature for more transit on the bridge, the council’s report recommended that the state reduce the size of the Montlake Interchange on the Seattle side of the bridge; ditch a proposed seventh lane over Portage Bay, instead using bridge shoulders for merging and I-5 exiting; and working to reduce the impact of traffic on the environmentally sensitive Arboretum.
In related news, the Mayor’s office was planning on releasing its report about light rail over the new SR-520 span but now they’re planning on “putting it out early next week,” according to Aaron Pickus, a spokesman for McGinn.
King County Metro has posted a data file that defines all of its routing and scheduling information to its servers for anyone to access.
The data is in the GTFS format, which stands for Google Transit Feed Specification. This feed powers Google Maps’ transit directions and third-party services like One Bus Away. Transit agencies across the world are exporting their data to the de facto industry-standard format, so some applications based around GTFS that are built for Portland’s data, for example, could also work for Seattle depending on the context.
“King County is home to some of the best and brightest tech minds in the world, and we want to tap into their ingenuity,” said Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond. “Our customers love the apps that are already out there for their phones and computers, and we think there is a lot of potential to create more.”
Metro began opening up the feed late last year, but this is the first time that anyone can access the data without first contacting the bus agency. Developers can access the data file directly online, but must agree to King County’s terms of use. Notably, the terms do not prevent developers from profiting from their use of the data.
Most transit agencies do not post their feeds directly online, and Metro is taking a progressive step that should be applauded.
Transportation for America has done a poll that shows a vast majority of Americans want more transportation funding, including for rail, and 59% think that public transit is a better solution to congestion than building more roads (38%).
David Brooks: “The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.”
Are we going to get a new federal transportation bill this year?
Update 3/31 @ 11:20am: The governor’s office tells us that this veto just affects the “legislative intent” section of the bill, not the underlying contents which still directs a work group to study high-capacity transit over the bridge. However, the underlying legislation — with the “intent” section vetoed — does not direct “any final design of the state route number 520 bridge replacement and HOV program accommodate effective connections for transit, including high capacity transit, including, but not limited to, effective connections for transit to the university link light rail line” as the intent section did. I don’t know if other legislation has this provision.
And while the legislation does direct a King County work group to study high-capacity transit over the bridge, it does not require the bridge accommodate any plans from that group. However, we now understand what the governor’s office meant when it defined a section as “vague;” unfortunately, that section had a stronger requirement for high-capacity transit than the rest of the bill, on my reading.
The Seattle PI report we link to below has not been changed as of this writing.
Original report: The Seattle PI reports on another of today’s vetoes, this time not so transit-friendly.
The governor also vetoed a section of the bill [authorizing the 520 bridge replacement] that directed planners to come up with a final design that could handle both carpool lanes and light rail. However Shelton said the governor still supported ultimately seeing whether the replacement span that connects Seattle with its Eastside suburbs could ultimately accommodate high-capacity transit. She felt the language in the bill first section was “vague.”
“We still have work groups addressing those issues,” [a Gregoire spokesman] said. “The work is still going to get done.”
Light rail across SR-520 is a long time away from being seriously considered. Even in the long haul, though, it would be an up-hill lift to build light rail across the bridge if it meant removing capacity — even if that capacity were just HOV lanes. I think if we were to add light rail to the bridge, it should be done in addition to the HOV lanes on the bridge. So that section of the legislation made sense to me; what’s possibly vague about it?
According to the Seattle Times, UW is continuing to push for a more expensive Rainer Vista extension plan that will connect the university to a cross walk on Montlake which leads to the Husky Stadium light rail station.
UW officials are pushing for what they consider to be a more elegant idea. The university calls it the Rainier Vista extension, which would add $12 million in cost.
Instead of a skybridge, transit riders would use a new crosswalk on Montlake Boulevard, aided by a new, midblock traffic signal. State traffic engineers warn that change could worsen traffic on Montlake.
Riders could reach the campus via a new “land bridge” to be built over Northeast Pacific Place. The bridge would help create a visual connection with the UW’s Drumheller Fountain.
(…)
The transit board likely will consider the issue in May, according to project director Ron Endlich. The UW proposal is estimated to cost $18.8 million, of which the UW, Sound Transit and the city each were to contribute $4 million. The transit agency also would contribute $6.8 million “in savings” by not building the skybridge.
The university since has tried to trim those costs. In recent drawings for bidders, the “land bridge” has been slimmed to 35 feet wide instead of a 100-foot-wide version that was shown at a public forum Dec. 2.
The Seattle Times has a busy graphic showing what the plan would look like here (.pdf).
We spoke briefly about a similar plan in early December and later analyzed that plan’s safety and directness. We concluded that a similar plan is a slightly more direct walk for pedestrians than Sound Transit’s current design, but we don’t have any analysis of the plan that UW is proposing today. My base reaction is that whatever reasonable request the university makes, it should be considered.
Los Angeles is asking for a federal loan as an advance on its transit tax revenues, in a plan that would take a 30-year rollout of transit projects to just a 10-year schedule that saves money in the process. Would a plan like that work for Sound Transit 2’s regional light rail expansion? Publicola reports that it just might:
This week, Bill LaBorde, policy director with Transportation Choices Coalition (a mass transit advocacy group), is in Washington, D.C. meeting with staff from Reps. Jim McDermott’s and Norm Dicks’ offices and Sen. Patty Murray’s office to make the pitch. (LaBorde was also planning on dropping in on Reps. Jay Inslee and Adam Smith.)
Sound Transit has not reviewed or put their official stamp of approval on TCC’s play for a light rail cash infusion from the feds to speed up construction, but LaBorde says Sound Transit told him that lacking cash flow is a factor in the elongated timeline.
Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick tells PubliCola “more money sooner is better … there are [Sound Transit] projects that could probably move faster if there was money sooner.”
However, he said Sound Transit would need to look at the details of any plan before signing off on it.
With a relatively tight schedule already, we could probably save just a few years with a federal loan, and we’ve already heard from sources at Sound Transit that experienced project managers are hard to find. But a loan of some kind may simply be needed to keep ST2 on schedule, as the “conservative” part of ST’s revenue forecasts have largely been eaten up by the deep recession well before most design work has even began.
This morning, we posted on a Seattle PI report that had city experts hinting that an expensive light rail expansion couldn’t be funded with city sources alone. Mayor McGinn responded today at a press brown bag event, saying that he plans to build an affordable line.
“We are going to try to minimize the amount of expensive infrastructure” associated with rail construction, McGinn said, mostly by building rail on the surface on existing city streets. That, obviously, would mean taking out lanes of traffic—a move that caused major political problems for the now-defunct monorail, whose concrete pylons would have taken out traffic lanes in West Seattle, Ballard, and downtown.
McGinn said he isn’t worried about the political implications of removing traffic lanes. And he declined to commit to a specific light-rail route, saying, “We’re not starting with lines on a map.” He noted, however, that 15th Avenue NW—where the monorail was supposed to run—would be “an obvious corridor” to get to Ballard.
No follow-up today on the comments from McGinn spokesman Mark Matassa, who told the PI that the mayor “hasn’t gotten to the point of studying how [light rail] might happen, and whether it would go to a vote, or what the funding source would be.” It seems to us on the outside that the city should begin studying possible routes now if a vote is on the table for next year, as McGinn promised during his campaign. We’ve sent a message to mayor’s office to clarify.
Sound Transit bus ridership up ridership up 3%, in contrast to other local bus agencies who have lost riders. Sounder ridership down 11%.
Sound Transit 2010 Service Implementation Plan published. Projects 26,600 Link boardings in a matter of months, but apparently ST doubts its own estimates because of the recession and Link’s headway and fare policies. No word on if the projected boardings taking these factors into account are available.
Highways destroy cities, or at least decrease their population.
Legal constraints on city indebtness. Image from the PI.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn plans to bring a light rail measure to the ballot next year, but can the city afford it? According to the the city’s analysis, perhaps not. The PI reports that the city may be unable to create enough debt to finance an expensive light rail expansion:
The city has about $1 billion in unfunded capital needs outside the viaduct project. The city’s central staff analysts told the city council Monday that a large transit project such as light rail that costs between $1.5 and $2 billion would blow the debt limit, or at least wipe out room for anything else.
(…)
Noble said a Seattle light rail line possibly could be paid for through Sound Transit’s taxing authority or a Transportation Benefits District, under which the city could impose a sales tax increase or vehicle licensing fee. It would require voter approval and have to generate about $200 million per year, he said after Monday’s meeting.
Another potential problem is that the City Council is considering a Transportation Benefits District to help pay for viaduct-related costs.
Of course, if the light rail plan McGinn proposes is on the cheap (as McGinn hinted in the campaign, with allusions to Portland’s at-grade Max light rail) or if the city raises its relatively conservative debt limit, things could be different. It’s important to note that McGinn may need state legislation to help with this process, another risk toward passing a plan. But what kind of plan will McGinn be offering? From the report:
“He hasn’t gotten to the point of studying how that might happen, and whether it would go to a vote, or what the funding source would be,” McGinn spokesman Mark Matassa said. “At this point, it’s just something to be discussed.”
Which, if true, is a discouraging sign. A rail plan being presented to voters in November 2011 should be in planning stages right now as to have the details by this time next year. We hope the Mayor’s office is playing coy here. For what it’s worth, the basic structure floating around town is Link-style light rail to West Seattle that connects at SoDo and a SLUT extension to Fremont and Ballard.
The council voted 7-0 to send a letter to Sound Transit in support of the “C9T” option, which would tunnel beneath 110th Avenue Northeast before emerging at Northeast Sixth Street and jutting east to cross I-405 to a station at Overlake Hospital.
It appears the city council has plans to cover some of the additional costs associated with the tunnel option, which is about $285 million more expensive than Sound Transit budgeted for its preferred alternative — an at-grade couplet along 108th Avenue Northeast and 110th Avenue Northeast. The excess costs must be covered by the city.
There is still a funding gap which the city hasn’t identified how to fill, but is probably hoping Sound Transit brings some clever ideas to the table. In an open letter last month, we asked Sound Transit to consider putting Eastside commuter rail funds unlikely to be utilized toward East Link. That money is currently earmarked for I-405 bus service expansion, but many would agree that serving downtown Bellevue should be ST’s primary concern on the Eastside.
The Bellevue City Council is meeting on downtown light rail now (6:00pm), and you can view a live stream right here. The City Council is considering a draft letter regarding its preference of the C9T alignment, though more controversy could come up during the meeting.
Seattle’s Department of Transportation has recommended the Two-Way Broadway alignment for the First Hill Streetcar. The recommendation was given in a presentation to the interested parties Wednesday night, according to Richard Sheridan from the department. The recommendation was first reported by Central District News; an impressive scoop.
The park loop initially proposed, which would have had the streetcar route encircle Cal Anderson Park, was dropped because it “didn’t have a lot of advantages” and was “creating more concerns” than keeping the route on Broadway north of Union, according to Ethane Melone, who headed the recommendation process for SDOT.
The Two-Way Broadway alignment performed the best on most metrics the city measured; perhaps most importantly in this climate, it is expected to be the most frugal option. SDOT’s presentation also covered the cost of perhaps extending the Broadway line north from its planned terminus at John St north to Aloha: just $20 million, but some money would be needed to fund the design of the extension in the short term to make the exention “shovel-ready.”
“If that extension were funded by the early part of 2012,” Melone said, “it could be added to the construction contract, and completed at the same time or shortly thereafter.” He also noted that the quarter-mile extension could be completed “in a matter of months” regardless of when it’s funded. Mayor McGinn’s light rail package that will be sent to voters sometime next year could well include funding for an extension.
The exact configuration on Broadway is to-be-determined. The city will be looking at a proposal from the Capitol Hill Community Council for a two-way “cycle track” that is separated from traffic. A cycle-track would have little impact on parking, Melone said, but would require removing the center-turn lane from Broadway.
Some neighborhood groups are likely to be disappointed by the recommendation after heavy lobbying for a 12th Ave Couplet alignment, which this blog editorialized against. Melone told us that the stations being separated by distance and grade could have made the line “less intuitive” to ride and create “a perception of inconvenience.” First Hill hospitals hoping for alignments that pass closer to hospital entrances were probably expecting this decision after earlier analysis concluded their favored alignments were much more expensive than other alternatives.
SDOT made its recommendation to Mayor McGinn, who will in turn make a recommendation to the City Council, who has the final say. CHS reports that the mayor has said he’s leaning toward the Broadway alignment.
[UPDATE 8:00 am: This TV report provides some video of what the shields look like. It’s hardly an airtight seal.]
The Seattle PI reports that Metro will install Plexiglas barriers between drivers and passengers in a handful of buses as a trial run.
After a bus driver was beaten and knocked unconscious while behind the wheel, officials with King County Metro Transit are exploring whether to enclose drivers behind Plexiglas barriers.
As a pilot project, security partitions will be installed in a small number of buses, General Manager Kevin Desmond said. More details, including costs, will be announced in the next few weeks, he said.
I’m not so sure that Metro’s limited dollars should be going to Plexiglas barriers. As the article notes, a barrier could cement a notion that buses are unsafe. And if a passenger’s first source of aid is behind a barrier, wouldn’t that make one feel less protected? While bus drivers can go through dangerous parts of town, it stands to reason that if a bus is an unsafe place to be then passengers and not just drivers should be protected. That means things like security cameras and a random police presence could be more effective for overall safety than Plexiglas barriers for drivers.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced this morning that a light rail ballot measure will come next year, in November, 2011. Publicola reports:
At the press conference this morning where he answered questions about the seawall proposal he sent to the City Council this morning, Mayor Mike McGinn also revealed that he has no intention of trying to put light rail expansion on this November’s ballot.
“I think it’s highly unlikely that we will propose light rail expansion this year,” McGinn said. “I think we will move forward in 2011″ instead.
His announcement comes just over a month after the Mayor polled the possibility of putting a light rail on the ballot this November. While it’d be exciting to have a ballot measure this year, we’ve editorialized that any proposal should be planned carefully — which would’ve been hard to do in just a few months.
McGinn ran on the promise of delivering a light rail ballot measure within two years of his election. Past comments have suggested he would pursue a plan to deliver rail to the west side of the city.
A Mercer Slough flyer from years ago. Image from HistoryLink.org.
Remember that tonight is the night to show up in favor of your favorite East Link alignment:
The Bellevue City Council could make a very bad decision Monday night tonight, choosing to change its preferred alignment from the superior B3 alignment to the environmentally-questionable B7 alignment that skips the South Bellevue Park & Ride, instantly losing thousands of daily riders for East Link…
WHAT: Bellevue City Council meeting to discuss the light rail alignment in South Bellevue WHEN: Monday March 1 at 6:00pm. Public comments are taken at the beginning. WHERE: Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. NE (one block from the Bellevue Transit Center)
A Mercer Slough flyer from years ago. Image from HistoryLink.org.
The Bellevue City Council could make a very bad decision Monday night, choosing to change its preferred alignment from the superior B3 alignment to the environmentally-questionable B7 alignment that skips the South Bellevue Park & Ride, instantly losing thousands of daily riders for East Link.
Transportation Choices Coalition has the details:
The City Council meets on Monday, March 1st to potentially reconsider its decision to serve the South Bellevue Park and Ride with a light rail stop. Last year, the City Council picked an alignment (B3) that would bring a light rail stop to this popular Park and Ride. The city council — with its two newly elected councilmembers — is considering switching its preference to an alignment (B7) that bypasses the South Bellevue Park and Ride, runs along the freeway and would serve the much smaller Wilburton Park and Ride, potentially leaving hundreds of transit riders in the lurch.
Show up on Monday and urge the council to keep light rail service to the South Bellevue Park and Ride.
WHAT: Bellevue City Council meeting to discuss the light rail alignment in South Bellevue WHEN: Monday March 1 at 6:00pm. Public comments are taken at the beginning. WHERE: Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. NE (one block from the Bellevue Transit Center)
Action on the B segment may be taken as early as 6pm, so please try to be there at or before then. Comments are scheduled for 8pm, but a stronger showing at six will be more influential. The meeting will be in conference room 1E-113, next to the council chamber.
[…] The South Bellevue P&R is a critical transit access point and must be served by East Link, since ST Express route 550 will no longer exist once light rail begins service. However, even the modified B7 has environmental concerns that leaders should consider carefully. We are confident the legal, financial, and environmental obstacles of crossing environmentally-sensitive wetlands will prove that B3S is the more practical and affordable alignment. […]
The final decision on the alignment comes down to the Sound Transit Board. Many on the board have expressed their desire to see regional light rail built in the best way possible; a good route will enhance the chances of future expansions of Link passing the ballot in the future and bringing light rail to communities that boardmembers represent, the thinking goes. Make no doubt: skipping the South Bellevue Park & Ride will hurt East Link deeply. The Sound Transit Board should overrule the Bellevue City Council if the council decides to be unconstructive rather than find an acceptable compromise.
As we reported in December, this year’s federal transportation budget includes $600 million in merit-rewarded grants that can go to highways but also to transit and even bike projects, much like the TIGER grants from the stimulus. The WSDOT Federal Transportation Issues blog has wonky details on how this $600 million will get rewarded.
The Democratic leadership in the Senate decided to split its jobs agenda into multiple, smaller voters. Last week, the body passed its first jobs bill with a tax break for new hires to incentivize businesses to hire in the rough economy, extend highway funding, and other small measures. It’s expected that the Senate will considering around $15 billion in TIGER-style transportation grants. That’s well below the $50 billion the administration had floated, but is still encouraging. Merit-based grants are a smarter way of doling out transportation dollar compared to giving money to states based on formulas, since state departments of transportation more frequently fund highways than transit.
While Senate first jobs bill funded the highway trust fund for many more months, but the House didn’t pass the bill this week and instead sent the Senate a measure to extend highway funding for a 30 days (so the House could amend the Senate jobs bill, if it chooses). The increasingly dysfunctional Senate was unable to pass the 30-day extension with a simple voice vote due to one Senator’s objection. Oddly enough, the department of transportation may simply not funded past this Sunday and could actually shut down. The House could vote on the Senate’s jobs bill early next week to continuing funding USDOT.
The highway trust fund needs regular advances from the general fund due to falling gas tax revenue.
I. Yesterday was the day that the EPA issued new vehicle emission rules that will raise mileage standards across the board in the United States. Obama announced the plan early in his administration, and it was spurred on by governors from various states, including our own Christine Gregoire. No foolin’.
