All posts by Martin H. Duke

In 2017, Metro began a pilot where it allowed employee shuttles from Microsoft and Seattle Children’s Hospital to use nine public bus stops scattered around Seattle, in exchange for a fee. Aside from money, sharing stops might improve inter-system transfers and foot traffic. But beyond global concerns about how the shuttles impact public transit ridership, the local concern is that shuttles might cause delays at these stops. A UW/UC Davis study used Metro’s real-time data to measure the impact of the pilot on reliability data six weeks before and after the pilot began.

You can see that none of these stops are particularly saturated to begin with:

The quickest summary is that shuttles didn’t make much of a difference at all. The raw on-time data suggest things got a bit worse, but that data did not control for other reliability issues. When the study applies those controls, the effect disappears. When the study applied advanced statistical techniques to individual stops, they found a small negative impact on Stop B. Notably, this stop has only one bus length of space.

The study recommends expanding the program at other “low volume” stops. It’s good news that sharing stops provides a few benefits without causing significant problems. But it’s intuitive that quiet stops could stand to take a few more buses. It would be far more interesting, if riskier, to try this out and some of the really busy stops in the system and understand what the limits of this program are.

• Thank goodness: the Denny Way bus lane is finally here. There’s more to do.
• Mayor Durkan also stalling improvements to the First Hill Streetcar.
• Capitol Hill is better than ever.
• Photographic evidence at least some Waterfront Shuttle trips are well-used.
• SBB’s bikeshare guide is up-to-date now.
• This David Gutman article ($) is a little quick to accept Mayor Durkan’s attempt to blame every problem in Move Seattle on the previous administration.
• Potential conflicts of interest abound in the contract to evaluate SDOT and the CCC.
• WSDOT veteran is the latest interim SDOT director ($). She seems to be strong on project management, which would be nice.
• SDOT promises its employees that it will do better.
• Construction workers on strike, projects frozen.
• Things have taken a turn the worse lately, but we have a lot to be grateful for, as only a Portlander can point out.
• Your kid’s ORCA card may be in the mail.
• Little buildings coming to Capitol Hill, big ones to First Hill. That’s backwards.
• Most you probably understand the bus route numbering system, but here’s a primer ($).
• 2,000 hours on a bus is an education of its own ($).

This is an open thread.

In his years on the Seattle City Council, Nick Licata consistently supported running more buses in traffic. He was also a frequent opponent of capital investment for higher-quality transit. Never a leader on bus lanes, he engaged in a little concern trolling about Move Seattle before ultimately supporting it.  He opposed light rail until its opening made it incredibly popular in Seattle. And his strident opposition to streetcars never wavered.

This is useful context for his recent op-ed ($) opposing the Center City Connector. Most of the arguments have been rehearsed elsewhere, and I personally find them unconvincing. But I want to focus on one assertion, important enough to become the op-ed headline, and unintentionally revealing about the mindset that produces it.

Clearly if the CCC is built, there will be more transit riders on the three streetcar lines. However, SDOT has not projected how many will be new transit riders or riders moving from bus lines to the CCC. Those switching transit modes will only divert revenue from the larger bus network serving to bring employees and shoppers to our downtown while reducing the traffic congestion that is choking access to it.

Continue reading “The Windshield Perspective on Rail Projects”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40441865@N08/35683763610/in/pool-seatrans/

• 51,000 bus boardings on 3rd Avenue every day!
• If you missed it, there was an important update to the Madison BRT story. We’re still looking into it.
• Grist rides along with the people that keep LimeBikes running and properly positioned.
• Study says private shuttles can easily share stops with public buses.
• The Oregonian travels to Seattle to try out our e-bikes.
• Part of 17-year-old Kent Sounder garage closed for repairs.
• Let’s get started with an e-scooter pilot.
• Seattle Dept. of Neighborhoods held an “election” where people could vote for projects to get money. Here are the results.
• Council mulls upzone in Rainier Beach ($).
• Injured kids – and a neighborhood rally – lead to long-delayed safety improvements at Rainier & Henderson.
• Meet a 7-time champ of the ‘Metroadeo‘.
• Sound Transit 2nd Quarter ridership numbers are out. Link is up 6.2% year-on-year.
• King County trying out modular housing.
• Will the driverless car always be 2 years away?
• NIMBYism is bipartisan ($)
• The cycle of outrage about bus restructure proposals.

This is an open thread

Within one month of Seattle imposing new regulations and a $50 per bike per year permit fee, Sarah Anne Lloyd reports that both Ofo and Spin are on their way out.

When Ofo first announced its departure, the company attributed the decision to the new fee structure, which adds up to $250,000 for a fleet 5,000 bicycles (or $50 per bike). Fees go toward administering the bike-share permit, addressing equity issues, and developing parking solutions for the bicycles…

Like with Ofo, which also recently announced its bikes wouldn’t be returning, a Spin spokesperson cited high permit fees as a deciding factor.

If the companies are truthfully blaming the new fees, it would be a spectacular own-goal from the City. A light regulatory touch made Seattle into a dockless bikeshare success story. Taxing into oblivion the lowest-cost, lowest-impact transportation service imaginable while dumping cash into buses, trains, and cars would mock all the goals Seattle ostensibly has.

However, Ofo is broadly retreating from the U.S., and Spin may pivot to e-scooters. Blaming regulators is a better excuse than “we ran our business into the ground.” So readers can choose to believe the best or the worst about what SDOT and City Council wrought.

Regardless, never fear: JUMP (Uber) and Motivate (Lyft) are not deterred by exorbitant permit fees ($).

Though the city’s recently passed bike-share regulations allow up to four companies to operate up to 5,000 bikes each, only three applied for permits. The application period recently closed.

Continue reading “Bikeshare Out, Bikeshare In”

• If you’re new-ish to Seattle, The Economist‘s digest of the state of housing in Seattle ($) is about as concise and accurate as you can get.
• But Uber and Lyft are still here — and they’re adding to total miles driven ($).
• UW Station escalators fail again ($), not quite as catastrophically as last time.
• Paine Field airport taking shape.
• 3rd Avenue improvements will start Monday.
• Trump not paying out $1.4 billion appropriated for transit.
• Madison BRT now in trouble, thanks to Trump administration foot-dragging and problems procuring the right buses. Move Seattle may not build many bus lanes, but its output of bad news is robust.
• Why new buildings all look the same. This piece misses design review, which is a gate easiest to pass through by doing what worked before, and appeals to neighborhood “character,” which is explicitly an argument for buildings to look the same.
• But really, don’t sweat it, because “dumb boxes” are great if you care about anything beyond aesthetics.
• 23rd Ave road diet marches on.
• ST’s Citizen Oversight Panel needs another volunteer.
• Trade war now threatening everything good happening in Seattle.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Pierce Transit’s Route 1 BRT faces opposition from businesses that don’t want to lose parking.
• Council passes an ordinance to “save the Showbox,” although there are signs the legislation is badly flawed.
• If SBB is cool with Link destroying the Sodo trail, so am I.
• A refresh ($) in the Sodo mural corridor.
• Chris Karnes reports the Point Defiance Bypass will reopen next spring.
• A rezone in Greenwood.
• Intercity Transit will ask voters for another 0.4% of sales tax this November to fund more service.
• Portland is the new parking policy champion.
• Everett may reform its parking as well.
• Uber finds E-bikes reduce driving.

This is an open thread.

The Downtown Seattle Association is running a two-month “Waterfront Shuttle,” starting August 1st and running through October 1. It is free to ride and serves the stops shown on the map.

It is clearly aimed at tourists, although this month is a little late to start serving that market. It runs from 10am to 8pm, seven days a week, and hits many of the obvious tourist spots. The literature suggests people use the shuttle to access waterfront businesses after parking elsewhere downtown.

The money comes from WSDOT, as mitigation for their endless project on the waterfront. This year’s operation is a pilot to develop service concepts for future service should a long-term funding source arise. WSDOT’s mess will continue through 2019, so if the pilot is promising we may see another year of it. The DSA contracted with MTR Western to operate the buses.

The stated headway is “approximately” every 25 minutes, with no attempt to match any printed schedule. However, the end-to-end trip time is (at best) also 25 minutes. As 3 to 4 22-seat vehicles simultaneously serve the route at different times of day, the headways are often quite a bit shorter than 25 minutes. Although there are no real-time arrival information signs or data feeds, today DSA deploys “concierges” at major stops to communicate with buses on the radio.

When I first read about this service concept, I was skeptical that a 25-minute headway on a short-haul line would attract many riders. The DSA says that a total of 4,957 riders used the shuttle in the first two weeks, and (anecdotally) in peak hours these shuttles are sometimes standing-room-only. 35 riders per hour isn’t bad for new service with some of the limitations above; it would be great to see what a properly provisioned bus line could do.

• WSDOT funding the waterfront shuttle.
• 2nd Avenue bike ridership up 16% since 2015.
• Subsidized Uber/Lyft rides on Mercer Island now more expensive, still subsidized.
• Dungeness Line buses from Port Angeles to Seatac considering adjustments to route, schedule, fares. The old operator had separate buses to Port Angeles and Port Townsend. The new operator (Greyhound) makes Port Angeles riders sit through an hour-long detour to serve both.
• Lots of ST outreach in West Seattle this month.
• Pony gives up some patio for Madison BRT.
• Everett Transit is reeling, cutting back service.
• David Cole connects the dots on Mayor Durkan’s passive-aggressive way of undermining transit.
• Spin noncommittal on remaining in Seattle. It would be a shame if SDOT had a great thing with competing bikeshare companies and screwed it up with too many fees.
• ST demolishing Mountlake Terrace homes to build temporary parking.
• Community Transit’s Fall service change is coming.
• It’s legal for a bike to run a red light ($) under some circumstances.
• An update on converting to electric buses.
• Joe Mangan argues for streetcars in Seattle.
• Demolition starts ($) around the future Lynnwood Station.
• We have way too much parking.
• Willamette Week asks readers for dirt on e-scooter riders, readers respond with horror stories about cars.
• Vancouver City Council asks Washington to build the Columbia River Crossing.
• Many of our readers, as teens, would have loved RailCamp ($).

This is an open thread.