All posts by Martin H. Duke

Pro-transit, pro-bike, pro-density voters might be forgiven for thinking their vote and their input don’t really matter. We vote like-minded candidates into office, we pass taxes to fund forward-thinking transportation projects, and we participate in developing master plans. And then, when it’s time to actually take the road space for buses or bikes, a few neighbors complain, or sue, and SDOT chickens out. A handful of well-resourced reactionaries hold a veto on progress.

One of the more egregious instances of this was the demise of the 35th Avenue NE bike lane. Inspired by this debacle, outgoing Councilmember Mike O’Brien is trying to pass legislation this fall to give these plans force of law. Anytime SDOT spends $1m or more on a street with a bike lane in the master plan, it has to build the bike lane or write a letter to the Council explaining why they didn’t. This is pretty much what our own David Lawson proposed back in March.

Lester Black reports that Mayor Durkan, often blamed for what happened on 35th, supports the rule. So here’s hoping that there’s one less veto point for safe and rapid transportation. What Seattle needs is not more great plans, but reform of the institutions that block progress.

• The engineer that put tracks on the I-90 bridge. It’s not necessarily great that Sound Transit had to commission groundbreaking engineering work, but the people involved should be proud of their achievement.
• Erica Barnett interprets the Seattle Council primary results.
• What can Sound Transit do to cut down on 9 Link crashes per year?
• Limepods a vector for crime?
• Seattle’s e-scooter pilot mysteriously slow to arrive.
• There is no problem with West Seattle buses ($) that can’t be solved immediately with adequate commitment to bus lanes.
• 8th Avenue protected bike lane opens.
• New water taxi terminal opens.
• Metro is just going to try different stuff to fix the West Seattle mess.
• Mayor Durkan, rhetorically, is on the side of the bus lane vigilantes.
• I’ve praised the virtues of elevated trains before, but Bill Savage did it better.
• Sumner wants a pedestrian bridge ($) for Sounder access.
• First Sound Transit came for the burger stands, and I said nothing. Now they’re coming for the produce markets — or at least some of the market’s parking.
• MVET lawsuit rolls on.
• Washington has the intention of building an intercity transit network, though it’s skeletal.
• Seattle considers amending its Comprehensive Plan.
• Kevin Desmond gets a nice pay bump in Vancouver. Portland, too.
• Vandals may have brought down sea-to-sky gondola.
• Rail projects are expensive but Uber’s losses are bigger.

This is an open thread.

Apparently fed up with rampant bus lane violations, an unidentified woman took the initiative last week and inspired equal parts of praise and outraged driver entitlement. She also inspired the Greenways movement to run a similar event Monday, which Heidi Groover covered ($).

Grasping the spirit of the moment, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff called them “heroes“. The organs of Seattle city government definitely did not:

SPD spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said frustrated transit riders should channel their feelings into “more productive’ efforts like lobbying lawmakers to allow camera enforcement. Whitcomb said bus-lane enforcement is “a regular area of focus’ for traffic officers but stationing officers on crowded downtown streets during rush hour can worsen congestion.

The city establishment feels the pressure to fix the bus lane problem and does what they do best — deflect blame to Olympia. Lobbying may or may not make things better eventually, but the bravery this week improved some bus commutes immediately.

There is no transit performance metric quite like ridership. However, when any metric becomes the single point of evaluation, it can lead to bizarre conclusions.

Last month’s High Speed Rail study counted riders, and some readers couldn’t resist comparing the numbers to middling local transit routes. But it’s one thing to take riders between adjacent neighborhoods and another to deliver them 180 miles away.

A project’s cost, at a first approximation, is proportional to its length. Single-minded attention to cost per rider means never building a long-distance project at all, which is nonsensical. That’s not to say that passenger-miles is a perfect metric, either. It favors long-haul routes that are irrelevant to the spontaneous trips that enable urban living. But a comprehensive evaluation must consider both when the difference in spatial scales is this large.

Moreover, Seattle-area transit and HSR aren’t fiscally in tension with each other. A state subsidy to Puget Sound transit that actually moves the needle is inconceivable. Meanwhile, HSR could connect cities all around the state with the wealth centered in Seattle, at a time when it is increasingly hard to drive there. This aligns with Olympia’s traditional responsibility for intercity rail and bus, and offers a good value proposition to voters across the state.

• Does Seattle housing policy help solve inequality?
• Getting rid of surplus ST property; ST rewarding cities that upzone a lot, unlike Seattle.
• More fare enforcement ($) on streetcars?
• The story of ReachNow’s abrupt shutdown.
• Study says e-scooters aren’t that great for the environment, mainly because of driving around for repositioning and cleanup. There are policy recommendations!
• Link + Via wins a grist race to Seward Park.
• New developments in South Snohomish County.
• Uber starting to sell transit tickets ($).
• If they can’t fix self-driving cars, they want to fix the humans they interact with instead. Bad idea!
• It can be done: Europe edging toward car-free cities ($).

In Friday’s post, we quoted Metro’s slide indicating more Link trains after 2021. Sound Transit says Metro did not check with them when announcing new train headways. It will remain every 6 minutes peak and 10 otherwise, with no trains turning around at Stadium. In 2023, it will be every 4 minutes peak and 5 off peak through downtown, with the South King and East King branches each getting 8 and 10. We regret the error.

• Link train hits, severely injures pedestrian ($) at Rainier Beach. In Kent, Sounder and Amtrak are apparently used for two suicides.
• SDOT requests $9m to move the Streetcar project along.
• Pierce Transit ahead of everyone on real-time info signs.
• Patch has informative interviews with candidates in Renton and Bellevue.
• Lots of problems with save-the-Showbox maneuvers.
• Now there’s a business model that impounds e-scooters.
• Amtrak matching $750K ODOT grant to improve Cascades in Oregon.
• No fast ferries next week.
• Underground Tacoma Dome Link station is dead ($).
• CCC now scheduled for 2026, but still needs money.
• Roundup of candidate positions on the Streetcar.
• No one told me ST3 was going to destroy all the burger stands.
• Metro’s apprenticeship program.
• Wherever parking is threatened, Lisa Herbold is there.
• CAHSR funds might end up going to local rail projects instead.
• Jarrett Walker is hiring.

This is an open thread.

Frank and I will tape on Wednesday. Please put the questions you have for us in the comments below before then. The usual rules apply — make it a question, and only one question.

• Puyallup planning downtown development ($).
• It looks like the Renton Water Taxi is going to happen. Previous report here.
• BC leaders lukewarm on HSR.
• TriMet trying attention-grabbing lights on buses.
• Farewell ReachNow ($).
• A rundown of Council candidate bike positions.
• Uber supports congestion pricing for all ($).
• The same, but for housing.
• Philadelphia fed study says actually gentrification (as distinct from displacement) is good.
• Highlights from the Times’ “building light rail faster” ($) event.
• Whatcom Transit getting wifi, real-time info, and a fare card. (!)

Last week we discussed Limebike raising its prices to 30 cents per minute. Numerous people have, using their apps, since reported a 25-cent rate. A spokesperson for Lime explains that “As we enter the busy summer travel months, we’ve adjusted our pricing in some markets to ensure that our service is reliable and that we can continue to offer excellent operational support where riders demand it most.” Lime did not explain if our commenter’s experience may have been a poorly timed encounter with congestion pricing or some other sort of trial.

Although company statements and materials are cagey about rates, anecdotal evidence from the app suggests that the typical rate is now 25 cents per minute. Though now a 67% increase over earlier in the year instead of 100%, I believe the rest of the analysis in that post stands.

• Feds send $100m for Federal Way Link.
• Mike Lindblom has a great article on why Link takes so long ($). See also Zach from 3 years ago.
• Minor changes to Madison BRT, open house coming soon.
• First Hill Streetcar improvements watered down due to local opposition.
• Kirkland may add “missing middle” housing.
• A low-income fare is a contentious issue in Spokane.
• By the time we get our e-scooters, there may not be any companies left.
• Kent playing hardball, blocks Metro facility with a zoning change.
• King County approves North Eastside restructure with small changes from the original concept. The 255 is leaving Downtown Seattle next year.
• Things to do at each Seattle Link stop.
• Nathalie Graham reviews Link’s stairs.
• Minor improvements for RapidRide H (Delridge).
• Local startup with yet another e-vehicle for sharing.
• Mayor Durkan signs ADU bill into law.
• Jarrett Walker on tunneling MAX under downtown.
• BC inches closer to allowing ride hailing.

This is an open thread.

[CLARIFICATION 7/15/19: anecdotal evidence suggests that most people are quoted a rate of 25 cents a minute.]

Last week, frequent commenter asdf2 made an important observation:

On another note, the per-minute price to ride a Lime bike has now gone up again to $0.30/min., exactly double what it was just 6 weeks ago. Assuming 6-8 minutes per mile (which is about as good as you expect for a route with stoplights), this translates into a marginal cost of $1.50-$2.10 for each additional mile traveled – a figure that is now *higher* than the marginal cost per mile riding in a Lyft or Uber car with a paid driver.

(I don’t know if Jump has matched this price increase or not, as neither their website nor their app discloses their prices).

• 625 more battery buses ($), and a new base for them.
• Kent charging ST $6.7m for permitting work.
• Mountlake Terrace permitting in its last throes.
• Open House about a North Sammamish Park and Ride on July 11th.
• Seattle approaching 750,000 residents, is the fastest-growing large city in Washington on a percentage basis (!)
• Amazon to build the tallest building in Bellevue next to the transit center and future station.
• SDOT quietly ruins another bike lane project.
• Sumner’s 500-space Sounder garage ($) is “back on track.”
• TriMet will study putting the MAX in a downtown tunnel.
• Oregon is about to effectively eliminate single-family zoning. The whole state.
• Google Maps can now tell you if your bus is crowded.

This is an open thread.

• 1,500 free ORCA cards ($) for public housing residents.
• Montlake freeway station is closed indefinitely.
• The era of cheap, plentiful bikeshare appears to be over.
• Employers can talk about encouraging transit use all they want, but if they’re building huge parking garages ($) it’s just talk.
• ST ticket machines downed by an outage ($).
• Official report slams everybody involved in the Amtrak crash.
• Last chance ($) for Mountlake Terrace station comments.
• Mixed use by Mercer Island Station.
• Downtown bus stop changes.
• An update on Lynnwood’s TOD plans ($).
• New bike limits on the water taxi.
• Transit to 12 great parks.

This is an open thread.

After years of protests that it couldn’t be done, and six years of study and work, Sound Transit has finally found a way to put next train arrival times on the existing message boards at stations that opened in 2009. Capitol Hill and UW Station opened with this capability in 2016. Between Angle Lake and Westlake, arrival times rapidly rotate with other messages. Riders need wait no more than a few seconds to get the key info.

The picture above is on the mezzanine level. There is a similar sign on the tunnel entrance, a good indicator on whether or not to hustle. At the platform level, the signs only display the relevant direction (see below).

• Recent Link maintenance problems partly related to the heat.
• The 44 gets a little more bus lane.
• Tacoma Council suggests a Link alignment ($).
• Here are the ADU amendments that actually passed. Next stop: full council.
• Seattle’s War on Vacancy.
• Metro giving Sammamish its own microtransit pilot.
• SDOT tweaks Bike Master Plan, but it’s heavy on “pre-planning.”
• Amazon planning a universal “bicycle benefit.”
• Seattle lowers Lime and Jump bike caps ($) after parking violations.
• Portland ready to double down on bus lanes.
• A NIMBY speech template.
• New Flyer buys a double-decker company.
• Mixed use on Mercer Island
• Leading Pedestrian Intervals are being added at some Seattle intersections
• Lots of apartment bans in American cities. STB generally goes with 2/3, not 81%, but you can take your pick.

It appears Seattle may finally allow various types of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU) in most of the city. These units generally provide inexpensive rental opportunities, but are frequently illegal to build.

For a summary of where we stand today, you can’t do much better than the City’s onepager. (A somewhat longer summary is here.) The changes are projected to add over 2,000 new rental units over the regulatory status quo through 2027 and reduce the number of single-family teardowns by almost a quarter.

The proposed legislation would make changes to regulations governing ADUs; the changes include: allowing two ADUs on a lot, removing the existing off-street parking and owner-occupancy requirements for ADUs, introducing a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) limit for single-family lots, increasing the maximum household size for lots that have two ADUs, and other changes to the size and location development standards regulating DADUs.

page 1, Council Staff Report

There are 11 amendments under consideration. Probably the most impactful ones are CM Herbold’s separate proposals to ban short-term rentals in ADUs authorized by the bill, for obvious reasons, and restoring a milder form of the owner-occupancy requirement. Applicants would have to lived there for a year before applying, though they would not have to remain there to rent out this space. This amendment is meant to limit “speculation.”

The two material objections to more ADUs are (1) more competition for publicly provided parking spaces, and (2) the possibility of poorer people living in the neighborhood. As neither is particularly attractive as a public policy principle, we instead hear process objections (the subject of the recently dismissed lawsuit) and concerns about neighborhood “character” and aesthetics.

Although I personally find single-family homes bigger than about 3,000 square feet aesthetically displeasing, in principle I’m not a fan of simply banning them. However, if new restrictions neutralize the “character” objection, it’s a compromise I can live with to get more units per acre. If this compromise also incentivizes making large units easily divisible into separate rental units, so much the better.

The Sustainability and Transportation Committee will discuss the legislation on June 18th and may vote on it then.