Here’s another installment of the series in which STB writers travel around to other cities and make wild generalizations about their transit and land use. This post will arbitrarily grade San Diego’s better-than-I-expected transit system.
Sound Transit officials are the latest group to be hurt by the ongoing federal government shutdown—the Federal Transit Authority isn’t returning their calls. As a result, the agency’s environmental review process for the West Seattle-Ballard Link line could be delayed.
The shutdown, engineered by President Donald Trump, has required Federal Transit Agency (FTA) employees to go on furlough, according to Sound Transit officials. Sound Transit can’t proceed in the environmental review process—which is supposed to start with a 30 day public comment period in February—without FTA participation.
“We hope it will be in February, but we can’t give you a specific date yet, because we have to talk to the federal government, and they won’t return our calls,” said Sound Transit project lead Cathal Ridge, adding later that FTA officials have been furloughed due to the ongoing government shutdown.
Continue reading “Federal government shutdown adds uncertainty to ST3 planning”
In recent years, Metro has said two problems prevent it from delivering asked-for levels of service: insufficient staffing and limited space in bus bases. According to Metro spokesperson Jeff Switzer, Metro has caught up with staffing demand (“Now Hiring” notices on vehicles notwithstanding) and will be able to keep pace. The main challenge now is basing.
As ridership has grown in recent years, Metro has struggled to meet the level of service it’s been asked to provide. Earlier this year, for example, the City of Seattle reappropriated bus service funding to projects including year-round free transit passes for public school students, because Metro couldn’t provide all the service Seattle was paying for.
In an interview with STB, Metro’s director of capital projects, Diane Carlson, and capital projects managing supervisor, Jeff Arbuckle, explained Metro’s plan to meet the basing needs of a growing vehicle fleet through 2030. Metro also provided STB with a planning document laying out the program.
The planning document does not include project costs. However, related requests in King County Executive Dow Constantine’s proposed 2019-20 budget, from September 2018, would add up to about $89.5 million in capital projects for the overall basing plan.
Good news: traffic deaths in Seattle were down significantly in 2018, according to SDOT according to the latest available data from SDOT. But we’re still far from Vision Zero.
Please note that collision data for 2018 is incomplete, as reporting is still in progress. The data in this story was released on December 19, 2018 and downloaded on December 25, 2018. The City’s internal data collection is ongoing.
Ten people were killed in collisions this last year, down from 19 the previous year, the 2010s annual average of 19, and a decade-high 27 in 2016.
When Sound Transit takes over the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) later this year, it will take over the DSTT’s escalators. It’s not yet clear whether Sound Transit will be responsible for making them work better.
Sound Transit has had some trouble with escalators. Dramatic system failures crippled Sound Transit’s Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium stations in recent years. Sound Transit has also managed chronic, extended escalator and elevator outages in older Link stations, to the frustration of riders with disabilities. King County Metro, which presently operates the DSTT, has also had escalator struggles.
The failure of I-1631 has allowed Governor Jay Inslee to continue an annual tradition: he announced another climate action plan to great fanfare.
The plan leaves plenty to be desired. The package’s proposed $129 million in “clean transportation” funding doesn’t invest in any land-based, local transit.
In an extended press conference about the Seattle Squeeze on Thursday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, WSDOT, SDOT, and Metro laid out their plans to mitigate the planned mobility crisis.
It’s a mixed bag. The coordinated government effort does include some promising transit benefits, but doesn’t go as far as it could—by the agencies’ own admission.
The officials—WSDOT’s David Sowers, SDOT’s Heather Marx, and Metro’s Bill Bryant—presented a long list of changes to downtown mobility, organized into three categories:
In a press conference yesterday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan named Washington, D.C. District Department of Transportation (DDOT) official Sam Zimbabwe the new Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT).
When Zimbabwe is confirmed by the Council—Durkan said she expects him to start work in “early January”—he will be SDOT’s first permanent director in a year. The mayor described Zimbabwe as a proven manager of capital projects, who will manage SDOT effectively after years of dysfunction.
Durkan also laid out an ambitious “unified vision” for multimodal transportation and a dense, transit-oriented built environment, and called transportation the “backbone of equity,” striking back against urbanist critiques of her administration.
Continue reading “Durkan names “multimodal kind of guy” Sam Zimbabwe SDOT director”That U.S. Census Bureau data says so probably doesn’t surprise you.
However, the data pokes holes in the narrative that Silicon Valley transplants are the main reason for the Puget Sound’s explosive growth in population—and housing costs.
More of the out-of-state newcomers to King County from 2012-16 were from California than the rest of the top five states combined. Eight of the twenty out of state counties that sent the most people to Seattle are in California.
However, more of the people new to King County were nearby already. Most of the people who moved to King County in the same period already lived in Washington, and the Puget Sound region itself. Together, Pierce and Snohomish Counties sent more people to King County than California.
Also, Southern California sent more new residents to King County than the Bay Area, and Los Angeles by itself sent nearly as much. The five Bay Area counties (San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda, San Mateo, and Contra Costa) sent 5,158 people. Los Angeles County sent 4,550. The Southern California counties (Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, and San Bernardino) sent 8,542.
The Census Bureau estimates that 143,088 total new residents moved to King County between 2012 and 2016. That number combines people moving from foreign countries, people moving from other U.S. states, and Washington itself.
The data comes from U.S. Census Bureau figures compiled from 2012-16’s American Community Survey (ACS) statistics, which estimate county-to-county migration in each county in the United States. These figures measure only in-migration—the number of people who moved to King County—not net migration, which would account for the combined in- and out-migration.
Add another workaround to the list of fixes for the Period of Maximum Constraint Seattle Squeeze Carpocalypse: King County is increasing the number of Water Taxi ferry sailings between West Seattle and Downtown.
The Water Taxi is adding an additional vessel starting on January 14, which will allow the following service improvements between then and March 27:
King County’s release also mentions “additional parking available on Harbor Ave SW, SW Bronson Way, and Pier 2 with free shuttle connector,” and “no charge for bikes onboard, additional bike parking available at Seacrest Park.”
Metro will set up additional last mile service to get passengers on board the new boat. As Bruce wrote on Tuesday, Metro is rolling out app-dispatched Ride2 shuttle service to the West Seattle dock, along with additional bus service on Routes 773 and 775 from the Junction and Admiral District/Alki, respectively.
The Water Taxi will undoubtedly be a more reliable, and likely faster, mode than the bus. As Metro head of service development Bill Bryant told STB in October, travel times for the Sodo segment of West Seattle buses is likely to increase by 50 to 100 percent.
Find maps for 773 and 775 buses and Ride2 here, plus timetables for the buses.
Learn more about Metro’s revised bus service plan for the Viaduct closure here.
We’ll create a more comprehensive post rounding up all updated Downtown transit service on the eve of the Carpocalypse.
