All posts by Sherwin Lee

Who says luxury hotel amenities are limited to spas and room service?  This hotel in Tokyo has something for train and transit enthusiasts as well.

Yesterday, Vulcan Real Estate unveiled an electronic transportation and amenities kiosk in the lobby of Amazon’s Phase 2 building.  The first of its kind, the touch-screen kiosk features both static and real-time information for neighborhood transit services and amenities.  If you want to get a preview on how it works, you can view the kiosk’s testing in the Youtube video above.  The project is the result of a public-private partnership between Vulcan, Metro, and the City of Seattle, which requires a Transportation Management Plan for Vulcan’s properties.  At the bare end of the plan, the City requires racks for paper brochures and schedules.  The kiosk, however, takes it up a few notches.

From the official press release (PDF):

Traditional transportation management plans include racks of brochures in downtown office buildings that display local transit agencies’ schedule information. These materials require regular updating, printing and distribution.  Because the kiosks are automatically updated, they provide a more user-friendly, eco-friendly, and accurate solution for riders. With the touch of a button, users can view real-time arrival times for Metro bus routes, find streetcar stops and arrival times, as well as pinpoint nearby restaurants, shops and services on an interactive neighborhood amenities map.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “Transit & Amenities E-Kiosk Unveiled in South Lake Union”

This week will feature the installation of new RapidRide shelters along the new Pacific Hwy South A Line.  Like Swift, the shelters will be branded differently than normal shelters.  You can check out pictures from the RapidRide blog, which also has other miscellaneous info for the new line.

From the blog:

Metro is installing the first RapidRide shelter frames this week on the A Line corridor, which is also sporting RapidRide banners from light poles to let people know about the new service. Still to come as the launch date draws near: more shelter frames, ORCA fare card readers, real-time arrival signs–and glass in the shelter frames!

The A Line is scheduled to commence service on October 2, 2010 during the fall service change.

By now, most of us have either heard about or seen the yard and lawn signs that are popping up around South and West Bellevue, particularly around 112th Ave SE & Bellevue Way.  For those who haven’t, the signs’ text reads: “NO TRAINS in our neighborhoods!” amidst a bright red background.  The signs are part of efforts to try and sabotage Sound Transit’s preferred B2M alignment, and instead support B7, the BNSF route that four Bellevue city councilmembers like.  The signs also bear a website, which turns out to be that of “Build a Better Bellevue”, a pro-B7 coalition I’ve mentioned in the past.

Unfortunately for “Better Bellevue”, the signs are illegal.  While they do sit alongside other election signs for candidates running for office, they themselves are not election signs, and there are a few city codes that stipulate what can and what can’t be posted on city streets.  Thanks to an anonymous tipster, we were able to get some answers from a City of Bellevue code compliance supervisor:

For purposes of the City of Bellevue’s Sign Code (BCC 22B.10), “political sign” is defined as “signs advertising a candidate or candidates for public elective office, or a political party, or signs urging a particular vote on a public issue decided by ballot.”  See BCC 22.B.10.020, Definitions.  Yard signs carrying a political message NOT relating to a current ballot measure or candidate are permitted on private property, but not on public rights-of-way in the City of Bellevue.

The last part is the most important, because while the signs are perfectly legal on someone’s lawn, they are not allowed on city right-of-way, where the vast majority of them are.  While it appears that there might not be as many as there were a month ago, I’ve been told that there are still a large number of them not on private property.

There’s no doubt that the debate revolving around East Link has yielded a number of lies.  Most are complete nonsense, but there are few that can spread dangerous misinformation.  I want to direct your attention to a letter from Bill Hirt, an anti-Link critic who has had a compulsive passion for writing an extraordinary amount of letters to local papers.  From the Seattle Times:

The Council majority could simply refuse to grant those permits, stopping the light rail in its “tracks.” Stopping East Link would undoubtedly please Bellevue residents, the majority of whom voted against its funding in 2008.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “A Few Lies out of Many”

Last month, the South Lake Union Streetcar had record ridership, finally breaking the 2,000 mark with a weekday average of  2,193 boardings and a weekend/holiday average of 1,459.  This is about a 15% increase over June’s weekday ridership, and a 9% increase in daily ridership over the same period last year.  Weekend/holiday boardings were actually lower this year, likely due to the construction at Lake Union Park, which limited the number of fireworks viewers in the areas.  You can view the full day-to-day breakdown here.

One observation to point out here is that historically, July tends to be the peak of streetcar ridership with summer tourists flocking into town.  While the numbers have followed a curve in years past, Amazon’s continued move into the area may help buck that trend– two phases of the campus have now been completed with three more to go.

H/T: Michael Arnold

[UPDATE: Commenter Mike Orr has a nice synopsis of the talk in the comments.]

This is a friendly reminder that the author of Human Transit, Jarrett Walker, is in town and will be speaking at GGLO’s offices tonight about conflict and debate within transit planning.  Here are event details from Great City, which is hosting:

As transit becomes more popular, many cities are having intense and often bitter quarrels about what kind of transit to build or operate. Working from his 20 years of experience as a transit planning consultant, Jarrett Walker examines some of the most common confusions that affect debates about transit, and that often lead to disappointing outcomes. He then suggests strategies for clarifying transit debates, by recognizing the unavoidable “hard choices” that arise from transit’s intrinsic geometry and costs.

The event will be from 5pm to 7:30pm at GGLO’s Space on the Steps (at Harbor Steps).  Even if you don’t read Human Transit (which you should), this will be a good one to make.

For those that don’t get their fill of sustainable transportation from the brownbag, Streets for All is having their kickoff party at Nector Lounge in Fremont from 7:00pm – 2:00am. The Mayor and members of the City Council should be in attendance.

*RSS readers: This was published prematurely last night (7/28), so don’t be alarmed.  The presentation is today, July 29th.  Apologies for the inconvenience.

With our extensive and ongoing coverage of East Link planning, we get plenty of confused comments about the background, alignments, and our commentary more often than we’d like.  So I’ve decided to create a “brief” rundown summary on where we’ve gotten with East Link, what is yet to be done and our thoughts on the more transit-friendly (or unfriendly) alignments (with many many links attached).  If you’re already an expert on the matter, you won’t learn much below, but constructive discussion is always welcome in the comments.

East Link, the extension of Link Light Rail to the Eastside to Overlake (Redmond), was passed as part of the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure in 2008.  The extension will run from International District Station east along I-90, across Mercer Island, and north up Bellevue Way and 112th Ave SE into Downtown Bellevue, where it will go east through the Bel-Red Corridor and terminate at Overlake Transit Center.  The entire alignment is divided into five segments, A, B, C, D, & E.  Planning for the segment E extension to Downtown Redmond was funded by ST2, but not construction.

More below the jump.

Continue reading “A Rundown on East Link”

The Sound Transit Board’s choice to proceed with a west-side running alignment for 112th Avenue in Bellevue wasn’t the only big news yesterday.  The Board also moved to authorize (PDF) expanded Sounder service for the South Line.  The expansion will cost $185 million in an agreement with BNSF as part of ST2 funding, and in turn will get four new daily round-trips between Seattle and Tacoma, increasing the current 9 round-trips to a total of 13 round-trips.

The really exciting news doesn’t stop there.  According to the Sound Transit news release, the “perpetual” rail easements purchased from BNSF also open a window of flexibility:

The expanded service will add four peak direction, peak hour trains to the Seattle-to-Tacoma Sounder schedule, with flexibility to run reverse commute and midday service based on ridership demand.

For those of us who’ve been saddened by freight priority snuffing out midday Sounder service, this possibility is good news.  According to the motion, the purchase of the first easement will come by the end of this month, with the second easement’s purchase by January of next year.  This will allow ST to incrementally add service, with the first round-trip slated for service by July 2012, the second by fall 2014, the third by summer 2015, and the last sometime in 2016.

While we eagerly await the construction of U-Link, a partnership between the University of Washington and Sound Transit will allow real ordinary people around the region to partake in the art project that is to embrace the face of the University Station construction wall. The U-District Daily blog reported about this last month, and Sound Transit is now setting up photobooths in the area for people who want to participate.

Tomorrow and next week, the photobooth will show up at Tukwila International Boulevard Station and on the UW Campus in an effort to get ordinary Link commuters as well as UW students, faculty and staff:

Friday, July 23, 4pm to 8pm:

Tukwila Station (TIB), ground or mezz level: 15426 35th Ave S. / Tukwila

Wednesday, July 28, 8am to 5pm:

UW Hospital café, main/1^st floor: NE Pacific Street. / Seattle

Yesterday, Link Light Rail had its first birthday, one year after revenue service was inaugurated on July 20, 2010.  One year has passed by extraordinarily quickly, and while the past 365 days have not gone by perfectly, I think most of us can conclude that this was a good inaugural year.  I’m not one of the lucky thousands that get to commute by Link daily, but I often spot the trains in the downtown tunnel, and every day they get fuller and fuller.  Whenever I am on the trains, the atmosphere is generally bubbly.  People are chatting.  Kids are gazing out the windows.  And you always have someone enjoying a book. People are glad that there’s finally some form of rapid transit here in Seattle.

The people I talk to are eager to see Link built out to the U-District, then to Northgate, south to Federal Way, and to the Eastside.  I often say that our younger generations have a greater stake in this region’s future than anyone else.  This isn’t age bias– it’s a fact.  Link isn’t just for us to use at the tail-end of our lives.  It’s for the whole lives of the babies and will-be babies of 2030, 2060, and further in the future.  By the time North, South, and East Links are completed, we’ll all be a little bit older and perhaps wiser, but I don’t think any of us will change our minds about how building Link was a good thing. Hopefully we can all say, “I’m glad we finally got this done.”

Link has had its share of critics.  Make no mistake about it.  They’re still around and they’ll be around for a while.  They’ll be poring over documents and EISes, conducting peer reviews and studies, and will spend their whole lives proving something that people no longer care about.  But 2008 was living proof that voters across this region are seeing mass transit as a real alternative.  Critics alleged that Sound Transit falsely advertised the ST2 plan with bloated facts and figures.  Come 2030 and ask any transit rider: will they really care?

Looking back at the pile of posts we had on opening weekend, it’s clear that this is something we were and continue to be excited about.  When we’re all old and frail, and Union Station is lined with portraits of Link’s conception, wouldn’t it be worth it to say, “I was there.  I saw it happen.  I helped make it happen.”?  Happy first birthday, Link.

Post your personal Link experiences below.  We’ll be sharing them for the rest of our lives.

[UPDATE 10:29pm]: Meeting recap and thoughts are at the very bottom.

[UPDATE 1:41am]: I’m told the meeting finally adjourned close to 1am.  Though the council was expected to choose a 112th Avenue option, they did not do so, instead drafting yet another letter to Sound Transit reiterating support for B7.  The vote was 4-3, as expected.  A disappointing move, considering everyone else outside the magical world of B7 has moved on.

I’m currently at the Bellevue City Council meeting to cover the council’s study session regarding East Link discussion.  On the agenda tonight will be reports from the independent B7 studies and some discussion of the 112th options.  A large number of B7 supporters are here, and there is word that a petition is to be delivered supporting B7.  Follow the stream.

6:14pm: Steve Sarkozy, city manager, introduces a briefing on the B7 studies, giving the context of the current stage in East Link planning.  He reminds the council that all the new alternatives that have surfaced since the DEIS will be carried forward into more updated analysis in the SDEIS, and finally the FEIS.

6:17pm: Bernard Van de Kamp, regional projects manager, takes over and introduces the four contracts that were executed to study B7.  Potential salmon impacts between B3 and B7 will also be discussed in a report from a Utilities department representative.

Continue reading below the jump.

Continue reading “Bellevue City Council Meeting- LIVE”

Tonight, the Bellevue City Council will discuss the results of a few independent studies it contracted out regarding further analysis of East Link’s B7/BNSF alignment, the City’s “preferred” alternative.  Though not an unexpected move, I last balked at a few decisions, including the feasibility of moving the South Bellevue Park & Ride further south to connect with B7 at I-90.  As if that was our only concern.  Over the weekend, Bellevue city staff released documents that highlighted the reports of these studies.  While there was some new information brought to light about small-scale concerns with B7 and the DEIS, the fireworks that the City may have been expecting to launch B7 to stardom were not there.

You can find the PDFs of the reports at the City’s website here, and attached summaries in the packet (PDF) for tonight’s study session.  More below the jump.

Continue reading “No Fireworks from Bellevue’s Independent B7 Studies”

On Thursday, Sound Transit’s Capital Committee held a meeting to discuss the 112th Avenue options that have dominated the “airwaves” recently.  There was heavy turnout, roughly 60 to 70 in attendance.  The comment period was long and featured a variety of stakeholders.  Due to heavy “public interest,” Fred Butler, chair of the capital committee, moved the public comment period ahead of the committee presentation and discussion.  Because the issue at hand was about the 112th Avenue and Hospital Station options, Butler heavily emphasized having comments focus on “those alternatives” alone (in other words, he didn’t want to hear anything about B7).  You can view the meeting in full at ST’s website.  More below the jump.

Continue reading “ST Capital Committee Nixes Center-Running for 112th”

Last Friday, I explained a potential dilemma between advocates of a 112th Ave west-side alignment for East Link (Option 2), and those of a retained cut on the east-side (Option 4).  Some construed my post to mean a Surrey Downs vs. Bellevue Club showdown, which I did not intend to be the case.  On Monday, I spoke with Betina Finley, an early B3 supporter who ran an unsuccessful city council campaign last year, who clarified some of the rationale behind the Bellevue Club’s letter and subsequent petition.

Though the Club has supported B7 in the past, I was told that Bill Thurston, club president, has recognized the wisdom in moving forward on B2M.  Unlike Thurston’s rational disposition, Surrey Downs still wants any and every train as far away from them as possible.  While they are more partial to the east-side retained cut, the prevailing sentiment has still largely been “B7 or bust” as evident by a puzzling new pro-B7 campaign.  More below the jump.

Continue reading “The Push for East Link on the Westside of 112th Ave”

In my recap of the 112th Avenue East Link options, I mentioned that Option 4 would likely gain the most traction among South Bellevue residents.  What I didn’t mention is that it could brew an internal conflict among the pro-B7 faction.  While the Bellevue Club and Surrey Downs has been nearly unanimous in their call to push Link far far away to I-405, the two could probably not disagree more on a 112th Ave option.

The Bellevue Club, which I said would likely lose a few tennis courts and street-side landscaping, has been pushing for Option 2, a west-side running option which would ironically displace 46 residences, most, if not all, from Surrey Downs.  While the club is still fervent in promoting B7, we know that ST has no interest in advancing that option.

Surrey Downs, on the other hand, campaigned on the whole premise that they would not have their residences impacted, much less torn down for silly screeching trains.  Outside of their support for B7, they have clung tight to Option 4, which would burrow a retained cut on the east-side of 112th.

In a letter to their members, the Bellevue Club’s rationale:

The impacts of the center and eastern alignments cannot be mitigated and permanently affect the use of the Club. Commencing with a construction period estimated beyond two years, excavation of 22,000 SF of green belt 635 feet long removes the west side of the property. The character of the our garden setting is blighted beginning with the removal of thirty year old pines on 112th Ave SE. More troubling is the loss of outdoor recreation areas, four tennis courts, pool decks, garden decks, water elements and patios all positioned most favorably on the west side of our property.

…The western alignment as it passes Surrey Downs would impact only two homes which is less than 1% of that neighborhood. As to the Carriage Place Condominiums north of Surrey Downs, from discussions we have had we feel, if appropriately compensated, would welcome selling…

Outdoor recreation areas, patios, and more…all worth the displacement of 46 homes (not just two, as the letter states)!  Considering the general apathy about the displacements coming from this letter, it seems unfair that Sound Transit should be the only scapegoat here.

Yesterday, the FTA announced winners of two competitive federal grant programs, the Urban Circulator program, and the Bus and Bus Livability program.  The City of Seattle won $2.4 million in grants of the latter program, which will be aimed at improving King Street Station and the Westlake Hub.  This is all in addition to existing funds and money from Bridging the Gap.

From the FTA’s website:

The City of Seattle will restore the historic King Street Station and improve the Westlake Hub,  creating two intermodal transportation hubs in downtown Seattle that connect rail, bus, streetcar, and pedestrian networks in Seattle’s Center City. Improvements to these two hubs are critical to implementation of Seattle’s Center City Access Strategy to revitalize 10 downtown neighborhoods, fight regional sprawl and build a sustainable economy and community.

Nationwide, a number of recipients will be using the money for streetcar projects and others for existing transit improvements.  Big winners include Cincinnati, New York, and Chicago.  Elsewhere in Washington State, Skagit Transit will get $2.8 million for a park and ride.  In which district?  It just so happens in Mary Margaret Haugen’s, who we know has been the darling of transit advocates.

I suspect it wouldn’t have taken long to manifest, but at long last, the great East Link War has begun to deteriorate into ideological nonsense.  Back in May, I specifically warned that this kind of rhetoric would have no place in planning for a key infrastructure project like Link.  On Tuesday, my plea was thrown under the bus (no pun intended) by B7 supporters at the East Link workshop.  There was no shortage of anger seething among those who were unhappy with the 112th Avenue option.  Martin Paquette, who I quoted in the recap of the previous workshop, had this to say about Tuesday’s meeting:

[Tuesday’s] session, which built on the previous one, was all about the 112th Avenue alignments.  It was a very negative evening, and Surrey Downs was overwhelmingly present, [it] mostly stayed on task, discussing the technical specifics and Sound Transit kept their cool.  However, the audience attitude (not surprisingly) was typified by the one fellow who said, “you’re giving us a bunch of lousy options so that we’ll just have to go with the lesser evil,” and also probed into whether Claudia Balducci was in a conflict of interest situation being both on Council and Sound Transit; and Betsy Blackstock, who stood up out of turn and accused them of withholding answers to the very critical question they all wanted answered (subject immaterial, as far as I’m concerned).

Here’s the real stinger:  Geoff Bidwell, a pro-B7 resident, decided that public testimony wouldn’t satisfy his frustration, so he was kind enough to distribute these flyers (PDF) out at the workshop and throughout South Bellevue neighborhoods. Notice anything unusual?  More below the jump.

Continue reading “Editorial: B7 Supporters Resort to Ideological Nonsense”

After some scattered speculation here and there and a bit of clamoring for more ad revenue anywhere and everywhere, it looks like Link will debuting its first ad wrap sometime soon.  Thanks to an unnamed tipster, we’ve learned that train #105 has been in the shop getting dressed up with a full advertisement from City University, giving Link it’s first full-body wrap.  We’ve seen plenty of bus wraps before and while not everyone is wooed by them, I would say that doing likewise for Link is a healthy part of breaking in the system.

The trains should be “rolling in a day or two,” said Bruce Gray, a Sound Transit spokesperson. The deal includes posters at Link stations and will generate about $8,000 a month for six months, according to Gray.

As for bus shelter wraps and ads, those we are still waiting on.

Last Thursday, the Sound Transit Board heard a report (PDF) on the varying options that have been studied for East Link’s B and C segments.  In April, the Board’s go-ahead with the 112th Ave/B2M segment (see image above) accelerated the alignment into preliminary engineering.  The Board also chose two downtown preferred alternatives: C9T, a tunnel, and C11A, a surface alternative in the event of inadequate funds for the tunnel.  For those unfamiliar with the storied history of East Link planning, the B2M alternative is the most direct path to the Bellevue Transit Center, but because runs so close to neighborhoods, has been targeted acutely by NIMBY residents in South Bellevue.

The report given on Thursday was heavy on how a 112th Avenue alignment could work with “community interests.”  Six options were studied which mix-and-matched various 112th Ave modifications (at-grade, side-running, center-running, etc.) with the downtown C segment options, the C9T tunnel and the C11A surface alignment.  A brief rundown of the options before I get to my scatterbrained thoughts:

More below the jump.

Continue reading “Design Options for East Link through Bellevue”