All posts by Martin H. Duke

• Legal motions in the I-976 lawsuit.
• People don’t like the new Link announcement voice, designed to get your attention during Connect2020.
• All that home construction we’ve seen in Washington? It’s not nearly enough.
• “Symphony” narrowly wins the “rename University Street Station” survey.
• Dow Constantine appoints 4 ST Boardmembers; only change is Renton Councilmember Ed Prince for outgoing Redmond Mayor John Marchione.
• I-405 BRT has an online open house.
• Seattle seeking preapproved designs for backyard cottages.
• It’s almost time for a legislative session. A low-carbon fuel standard ($) is getting another shot. Rich Smith rounds up everything in play.
• Now there are scooters for people with disabilities.
• Skytrain sparking in the ice, also has some frozen door issues.
• Lime pulls its scooters from several Sun Belt cities.

This is an open thread.

• Metro hiring for tons of different jobs.
• State hero Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon trying to remove regulatory barriers to housing construction.
• Link headways slide from 12 minutes to “13-15“.
• When do we get to start using the Columbia St pathway?
• Just keep the center platform at Pioneer Square. It saves money, time, and is better for riders.
• ECB goes inside ST’s attempt to spin last year’s youth fare enforcement kerfuffle.
• The US is building a lot of rapid transit — but much less than other nations and not nearly enough.

This is an open thread.

• WSDOT looking at adding Spokane ($) to the HSR plan.
• USDOT is auditing SDOT’s usage of federal funds in several projects. It is a criminal inquiry.
• Bothell man arrested for joyriding in a stolen Sound Transit golf cart.
• Overlake TC bus stops have moved.
• Everett Transit facing a future of declining revenue, will consider merging with Community Transit ($).
• Seattle Council figures out its new committee assignments. Dan Strauss will chair Land Use & Neighborhoods and Alex Pedersen Transportation & Utilities.
• New stairs at Capitol Hill Station.
• More bike lockers at Link stations.
• In a classy move, Uber’s app now presents transit options.
• There’s polling going on for various possible King County transit tax measures.
• Job opening: help Amazon employees use transit more.
• Translink’s Kevin Desmond not afraid of ridehailing.

This is an open thread.

Geekwire reports that the carshare company will shut down across North America in February. Cars will start disappearing well before then.

This step is not surprising. Lime recently shut down their similar Limepod service. ShareNow itself is a merger from weakness of two previous competitors. Recent tinkering with the fee structure was a likely signal of operational problems. Only Zipcar, with a membership fee and slightly longer rental periods, remains.

Meanwhile, Limebike is using the December expiry of its permit to punt on the unprofitable winter season, coming back in the Spring when Seattle starts allowing electric scooters. If other cities’ experience is an indication, the scooters will dominate and the bikes will wind down. Only Jump remains as a bikeshare option this winter.

• Peter Rogoff gets an “excellent” (not “outstanding”) job evaluation ($).
• ECB checks in on Alex Pedersen’s first few weeks in office. Not great!
• Republicans want to gut the general fund to subsidize highways deferred by I-976.
• University Place Mayor Kent Keel is the new ST Board Chair. Dow Constantine vice-chair.
• Sound Transit open to cutting car tabs ($), but they want to make up the revenue hole.
• Northgate Pedestrian Bridge construction begins Jan. 13th.
• Bellevue reaches the limits of car capacity ($).
• Landslide south of Tacoma cancels Amtrak runs ($); Pt. Defiance Bypass would have avoided it. It’s incredible that there is still no firm plan to start using the new track.
• Limebike taking a strategic pause for the winter.
• There’s a $40 bus to Crystal Mountain.
• Gov. Inslee releases his 2020 transportation budget proposal.
• How ride-hail companies could be helpful to cities.

This is an open thread.

• A crowd in Renton gets to question some transit leaders. I wish we had a better canned answer for what cities can do to get better transit service given the service guidelines.
• More details on reduced Link service this winter.
• Someone had to say it: the deep-bore tunnel tolls aren’t high enough.
• Sounder vs. car in Edmonds.
• Now Kenmore and Kirkland get a rideshare pilot, but with volunteer drivers.
• I-976 precinct results ($) show it failed inside the Sound Transit district that was the core of the argument. But both Eyman and Pierce County will join the court case.
• More bike lockers for Link.
• ShareNow shutting down in February. More on this later.
• Official questions about ST fare enforcement disparities.
• WSDOT wins this round of the SR99 tunnel lawsuit.
• Two robberies at Renton Transit Center.
• Planning for a Vehicle-Miles Traveled (VMT) tax grinds on. Just raise the gas tax!
• Less federal bureaucracy when painting bus lanes red.
• But USDOT will audit some local projects more carefully ($).

This is an open thread.

If you’re reading this, there’s some year in which you became very interested in Puget Sound area transit services. For me, that year was 2006, and I found Jim Kershner’s Transit: The Story of Public Transportation in the Puget Sound Region to be a concise, readable, and richly illustrated overview of all that has gone before.

Unlike other books ($) in this genre, this work starts all the way at the beginning, with horse-drawn streetcars, and takes us to the ST3 vote and beyond.

Seattle’s streetcar system began as an amenity common to all modern cities, and entered a period of public ownership in 1919. The system ultimately collapsed due to poor fiscal judgment among city leaders, the apparent superiority of auto ownership at Seattle’s mid-century wealth and population level, and even competition from “jitneys” — the Uber and Lyft of their day. For a work targeted at transit fans, Kershner is admirably clear-eyed about the system’s weaknesses. Partially legitimate critiques of modern streetcars were doubly so for their poorly maintained, always-stuck-in-traffic forebears.

• Supremes uphold the stay on I-976; tax cut is off indefinitely. Cuts coming anyway.
• A report from the Delridge Station open house.
• Bus lane enforcement cameras are getting it done in NYC.
• Seattle rolls out rules for the e-scooter pilot.
• Metro has a survey on more water taxi routes.
• Roosevelt over 95% complete.
• Lynnwood approves large development near future station.
• A deadline for ST fare enforcement recommendations.
• Pierce County attempts to defend I-976 in court ($).
• Seattle lowering speed limits ($) after a bad year for traffic deaths.
• Portland adopts minimum parking requirements — for bikes.
• On the other hand, ODOT wants to reduce carbon emissions by speeding up cars.
• Sorry to see her step away from the Herald, but congrats Lizz ($)!

This is an open thread.

The latest round of Federal Way Link public meetings came with a website. There isn’t anything of interest in terms of station area design that Bruce didn’t cover in detail over two years ago.

Nevertheless, there’s new information about the artists that have been selected for each station. I’m of no use for art criticism, but the word “plaza” comes up far too much. Except where the environment is already quite dense, for plazas read “long walks where buildings should be”.

ST did itself no favors four years ago by publishing a map that exaggerated the turns and deviation necessary to mostly run down I-5. But in the end, there’s one station with a college nearby and in the heart of a very ambitious rezone; one unexciting freeway station with little around it; and one right in the core of Federal Way. If you’re super-bullish about the SR99 corridor’s potential, ST has forgone the possibility of more infill there. But otherwise, the stations are pretty well placed.

Anyway, ST wants your opinion on station names, so fill out the survey.

• If half of Limebikes are unrentable at any given time, that seems like a problem.
• ST kicking bikes out of the train between University St and Chinatown during the “Connect 2020” period of great crowding; also, 5 cents/hour bike lockers.
• In the wake of the Amtrak derailment report, ST sacks its chief safety officer ($). There were significant procedural violations.
• There’s a new book out ($) on the troubled early days of Sound Transit.
• Now that the I-5 lid people are talking seriously about putting big buildings on it instead of a park, I’m excited.
• Two residents allegedly attempt suicide-by-Sounder ($) in the same day.
• Republican calls for special session to pass I-976 into law if overturned in court.
• Permit parking at Lakewood Station.
• When it comes to cars, efficiency is bad.
• Tacoma does some rezoning. Federal Way has big plans for their station, too.
• Lizz writes about the interurban to Everett ($).
• WSDOT lists projects immediately deferred by I-976.
• ST measuring “shear wave velocity” in West Seattle.
• Jefferson Transit passes a budget.
• Geek out on the NYC Subway map.

This is an open thread.

At first glance, there is little rhyme or reason to which buses use which avenues in Downtown Seattle. In fact, there is some structure to these allocations, although there are a bunch of exceptions. Assigning rules does point to some situations where a swap or two could allow heavy bus users to commit it to memory.

For simplicity, let’s only worry ourselves with outbound buses.

* Although the bus is ultimately heading north, board it at a southbound stop.

There are presumably myriad reasons for deviations from the rules. The 630, for instance, starts from First Hill so going all the way to 2nd would take time. But the simplicity advantages of swapping, say, the 41 for the 37 and 125 are pretty clear.

A glance at the CT system map doesn’t reveal any obvious rhyme or reason to the 2nd/4th split . As we have 5 years before all of those routes go away, perhaps a revision is not in the cards.

If I’ve missed something, please indicate that in the comments.

• All Tacoma public high school students getting free ORCA cards.
• ST schedules for today and tomorrow.
• Big development ($) slated for Lynnwood TC.
• Tim Eyman running for governor.
• More bike lockers, fewer bike racks at UW Station.
• West Seattle forum provides some Link planning feedback.
• Metro drivers pushing for more safety measures.
• New Seattle Uber/Lyft tax ($) approved.
• The Black Friday “fare strike” is dumb.
• WSDOT releases a list of projects ($) delayed by I-976.
• I personally like the new station exit numbers but you can fill out the survey.
• New permit parking in Mercer Island and Issaquah. If you want it enough, you can now always park there.
• Feds send Washington $10.4m for bus infrastructure improvements.
• Amtrak seeking customs preclearance to speed up Canada trips.
• $150,000 for 85th St BRT station area planning.
• Tacoma HOV lanes finally open.
• Hot Link construction pics.
• Flixbus service to Spokane getting some bad reviews.
• Vancouver, BC reaches tentative transit labor deal, avoids total bus shutdown.
• Alon Levy with clear thinking about fare evasion.

This is an open thread.

Frank and I will tape the next podcast this evening. Leave your questions for us in the comments. The usual question guidelines apply.

• KUOW interviews Pierce County Executive and ST Board dissident Bruce Dammeier on why he voted for I-976 — but he’s wrong on the vote totals and a bunch of other facts.
• Flixbus is the newest intercity bus company.
• Serious talks about an Everett Transit-Community Transit merger ($).
• Sound Transit holding public meetings on the South King Link Maintenance Facility.
• Dow Constantine lays out the fiscal hit from I-976.
• More big plans for 3rd Avenue.
• Tolling drops downtown tunnel traffic 20% on the first day.
• Tacoma Dome Link station might take out part of Freighthouse Square ($).
• Access bus vs. downtown building.
• Danny Westneat says it’s time for King County to go it alone ($) on light rail.

This is an open thread.

Katherine Khashimova Long recently published a fine piece of reporting ($) on how many “luxury” condos have unclear ownership, potentially mere financial assets that are left “empty as the city grows less affordable for its middle- and lower-class residents.”

That may very well be the outcome thanks to our many arbitrary restrictions on building enough housing supply to meet demand. But in a more-forward thinking policy environment, the desire of the world’s super-wealthy to park their cash in Seattle would be a huge opportunity.

• A bus lane and queue jump coming to… Olympia?
• Seattle car ownership ($) dropping.
• RapidRide G passes through another gate on the way to opening.
• If Seattle can’t afford sidewalks maybe just slow down the cars.
• Public meetings coming for Link extensions to Federal Way and Tacoma.
• Lawsuits against I-976 from both Seattle and King County.
• Nothing brings out the pitchforks like threatening a burger stand ($).
• Move Seattle releases its 3rd Quarter report.
• Congressional delegation says USDOT should just fund South Link already.
• Portland Subway could save 12 minutes per trip.
• Translink is on strike.

This is an open thread.