All posts by Sherwin Lee

With each passing day, the proposed transportation package from the House Democrats is looking more and more like the Roads & Transit measure that failed in 2007.  Both may go down in history as unique proposals that united both pro-transit and pro-road forces in opposition.  Anti-tax forces haven’t been giving the package any love either– Monday’s Elway Poll made it clear that the general public isn’t interested in paying higher gas tax and car-tab fees.

While any opposition to such a highway-centric package sounds good, it’s important to not take away too much from the poll.  It’s a no-brainer that no one actually likes paying more taxes.  But if you associate a benefit to the cost of tax increases, people tend to have a stronger willingness to yield.  Of course, that depends on what those benefits actually are and how you frame the question.

Let’s take a look at the Elway’s poll question (.pdf).  The wording leads by outlining the package’s potential benefits, and asks the respondent to prioritize accordingly:

The legislature is looking at some potential transportation improvements. Of course, transportation projects are expensive and take a long time to complete. So the question is where to spend taxpayer dollars. I am going to read a list of projects that could be included in this package. As you think about the state transportation system over the next 10 years, tell me whether you think each project should be a Top priority for state government, a High priority, Low or a Not a priority for state government:

• Expand major highways around the state to reduce commuter congestion and increase freight mobility
• Provide money to the state ferry system to upgrade and maintain the system and keep fares down
• Repair and maintenance of existing roads and bridges
• Provide money to local mass transit systems

Continue reading “When it Comes to Polls, Framing is Everything”

With big plans in the works for its downtown, Bellevue is recruiting intensely into the public realm for those interested in having a say on the City’s Downtown Livability Initiative.  First, a few words about the project.  With the exception of the downtown subarea plan, Bellevue has never really had a concerted downtown planning effort on this scale.  That’s why this project is significant– it would run the gamut of all downtown planning issues, from rezoning to street food.

Here’s where people like you come in.  To solicit input, the City is hosting seven different focus groups (see .pdf), each one targeted at a specific stakeholder group (see below).  Don’t panic if you don’t fit into any of the categories– if you’re truly passionate about the future of downtown Bellevue, then you probably belong in the “visionaries” category:

The meetings will include a brief presentation on the Downtown Livability Initiative, followed by small group, facilitated discussion. Discussion topics will include design, amenities and transportation issues. Feedback from these focus groups will help shape potential changes to the Land Use Code for downtown Bellevue.

Participants are encouraged to attend the meeting that best fits their stakeholder group, but are welcome to attend any meeting that is convenient. Meetings will be in room 1E-108.

·  Architects and planners, Tuesday, March 5, 2-4 p.m.
·  Property owners and developers, Wednesday, March 6, 8:30-10:30 a.m.
·  Brokers, Wednesday, March 6, 4-6 p.m.
·  Large companies and retailers, Thursday, March 7, 2-4 p.m.
·  Former Downtown Plan Advisory Body members, Friday, March 8, 8:30-10:30 a.m.
·  Institutions and visionaries, Monday, March 11, 8:30-10:30 a.m.
·  Residents, Tuesday, March 12, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

To make an RSVP, shoot an email to DowntownLivability@bellevuewa.gov.  If you’re unable to attend but still want to pitch in two cents, thoughts can still be emailed in.  The City will also report on its progress at an open house later this year.  More on the project, including existing plans, maps, and data, can be found here.

In one of its rare 7-0 votes, the Bellevue city council unanimously adopted a light rail overlay into its land use code last night.  If you’re confused about what was actually adopted versus what was proposed, you’re not alone.  The land use code amendments went through multiple iterations in the past week, some of which occurred the night before the council meeting.  The bottom line, however, is good news: the overlay, as adopted, would no longer add significant delay to East Link.

If we rewind to last week’s council meeting, you might recall that those batch of amendments could have stuck 12-24 months of delay on the schedule, simply because of restrictions on Sound Transit’s ability to apply for permits.  The restrictions were worrying enough for ST to prompt both parties to go back to the drawing board– negotiations in the ensuing days churned out so many revisions that City staff had to color-code the amendment alternatives for Monday’s meeting.

The end result is a kind of give-and-take agreement.  Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl gave the council her commitment, in person, to ask for board authorization of property acquisition no more than 60 days after adoption of the final alignment.  The City, on the other hand, agreed to an amendment which would allow ST to apply for permits after initiating the property appraisals process (Alternative 1 on slide 5 – .pdf), whereas last week’s draft would have required waiting until after initiating condemnation.  Ultimately, the net outcome keeps East Link on schedule.

The adoption of the overlay is one step in fulfilling the Memorandum of Understanding (.pdf) that was signed between Bellevue and Sound Transit in 2011.  ST is expected to wrap up environmental work on the cost-savings work next month, paving the way for a hopeful April date in approving the final alignment.

This is an open thread. [Sorry WordPress ate the video all day today.- MHD]

Last year, Transportation Choices Coalition formed Books on the Bus, a book club that allows local transit riders to collectively read and discuss a quarterly book selection.  The fall 2012 selection, The Hustle, will be the topic of a panel discussion next Monday evening that will include the book’s author, Doug Merlino, among others:

The Hustle is a memoir by Seattle native Doug Merlino about a 1980s middle school basketball team intentionally formed across race and class lines. Merlino was a member of the team, who, 20 years after its dissolution, decided to locate all of his former teammates. The story is a fascinating exploration of the ways in which race, money, and opportunity shape our lives.

Most Books on the Bus selections will be written by local authors or have subjects relevant to local issues and contexts.  For those who joined in on the fall reading period or are simply interested in doing a future Books on the Bus reading, the panel discussion will run from 7pm to 9pm next Monday at Elliott Bay Book Company.

Being accustomed to sub-par transit and an auto-centric North American lifestyle can give way to extreme geekery when visiting other developed nations with old, dense, transit-rich cities.  I’ll have that opportunity over the next three weeks when I pay a visit to South Korea and Taiwan (the place of my family origin).  Once developing countries, both nations have become known for advancements in industry and technology on top of centuries-old cultures.

Many STB writers and readers who have experienced urban life in East Asia have pointed to these places as the sources of their love for cities and transit.  For those who have visited South Korea and Taiwan, in particular, any transit or planning-related sightseeing tips will be valuable in helping make this trip decidedly “academic.”  To be more specific, the bulk of my time will be spent in the Seoul and Taipei metropolitan areas, home to old urban cores and extensive rapid transit networks.

Going off our Transit Report Card series, I’ll debrief my observations and findings upon returning back to the States at the end of the month.

With 2012 set to expire and a new year on tap, it’s always good to relive the blog’s top posts of the year, for whatever they’re worth. Below are the STB posts with the most reads and most comments of 2012.

Most read posts of 2012

1. Bolt Bus Coming to the Northwest – by Andrew (5/1): Big news was big news when one of the Northeast’s premier intercity bus services announced plans for the Pacific Northwest.
2. BREAKING: 4.2 Miles of Copper Wire Stolen from LINK – by Zach (5/11): Even transit isn’t immune to rampant copper thefts. Nearly a quarter million dollars worth was stripped from Link’s guideway.
3. An Update on Seattle Subway – by Ben (8/10): Advocacy efforts to hasten the building of more inner-city rail continue to chug along.
4. Tracking the Bus Tracker Problems – by Wayne Watanabe & Mark Hallenbeck (4/23): Metro’s real-time information was a real pain earlier in the year. Since then, things have been looking up.
5. Bellevue Council Spins Tales, Seattle Times Repeats Them – by Ben (11/24): Plans for a rail maintenance base on the Eastside incited a storm of unwarranted controversy and questionable journalism.
6. The Solution to 3rd Ave? Commerce. – by Sherwin (3/9): I opine about certain ways to deal with ongoing problems on Third Avenue, though not everyone agreed with me.
7. The Awfulness of Mt. Baker Station – by Martin (4/18): Martin takes on the many design issues at Mount Baker, a vital multi-modal transit hub in Southeast Seattle.
8. Service Change & RFA Elimination Open Thread – by Martin (10/1): STB readers had lots to say the day of Metro’s biggest service change ever.
9. Don’t Plan With Anecdotes – The Data Says We Need Eastlake. – by Ben (10/31): Competing arguments about the utility of rail along Eastlake set up one of the bigger debates we’ve seen within transit advocacy circles.
10. Super Simple Stuff – by Andrew (5/5): Public service announcements borrowed from Australia boils transit etiquette down to one thing: common sense.

More commented posts of 2012 below the jump.

Continue reading “STB’s Top Posts of 2012”

Earlier this month, the many jurisdictions in King County banded together to present a unified transportation proposal (.pdf) to be considered before the State Legislature.  The proposal, signed off by the county, the City of Seattle, and the Sound Cities Association (all the other suburban cities in the county), is a direct ask for local funding options primarily through leveraging a sizable gas tax increase that would mostly benefit the State.

There are three specific elements to the proposal:

• An 8-cent statewide gax tax increase, with a 65/35 split between state and local needs, respectively.
• An increase of councilmanic authority to directly impose a vehicle license fee (VLF) from $20 to $40 in Transportation Benefit Districts (TBD).  Anything remaining out of $100 could be brought before the voters.
• A 1.5% Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) that could be passed councilmanically or by popular vote.  According to Fred Jarrett, 60% of the MVET would go to Metro, while the remaining would be divvied up among the county and cities for roads.

Gas tax proposal (and all accompanying opinions) aside, the asks are fairly significant.  Doubling the councilmanic VLF authority to $40 could arguably ease pressure off any remaining VLF increase that would go before a public vote.  And as Martin mentioned earlier this year, a 1% MVET alone would be sufficient to plug Metro’s annual deficit of $60 million.  An additional 0.5% on top of that could presumably go toward a substantial service increase*.

The proposal is among many that the Legislature will have to juggle for the upcoming session, so the chances that King County will get everything it wants is extremely slim.  Any funding authority will also have to clear both the Senate and the House, which will be no mean feat of its own.

*We can assume an effective 0.9% MVET for Metro assuming it gets a 60% share of the proposed 1.5% rate.  A 1% MVET is estimated to generate up to $100 million annually, so some back-of-the-napkin math gives us $90 million a year for Metro, more than enough to cover the deficit.

An awesome safety campaign from Metro Trains Melbourne. (H/T: Anne Barnes)

This is an open thread.

In yesterday’s post on Gregoire’s transportation package proposal, Ben alluded to a GOP coup in the State Senate, which I’ll expound upon a bit.  The coup is being officially referred to as a “majority coalition caucus“– the result of two conservative Democrats*, Rodney Tom (48th) and Tim Sheldon (35th), partnering with Senate Republicans to create an effective majority.  It’s a direct challenge to the majority that the Democrats thought they had won following the election, and only possible because Tim Probst fell 74 votes shy of winning Don Benton’s seat to represent the 17th (Vancouver).

Back in late November, the Senate Democratic Caucus rolled out its own plans for committee leadership– Ed Murray would have been Senate majority leader and Tracey Eide Transportation Committee chair, among others.  Eide’s promotion was something we foresaw had the election results worked in favor of a Mary Margaret Haugen defeat, which is exactly how things panned out.  Thanks to this new coalition, however, all of the Democrats appointments are now in question– what it means for transportation, and transit, specifically, remains to be seen.

Continue reading “Transit’s Long Road to Olympia”

Transportation Choices Coalition, one of our biggest allies in Olympia, will be hosting their Friday Forum today on the upcoming 2013 Legislative session.  With fresh leadership and a new makeup in the Legislature, there are a lot of questions swirling around what we can expect for transit coming out of Olympia next year.  As I correctly predicted last month, former Senator Mary Margaret Haugen’s defeat in the 10th indirectly led to the promotion of Senator Tracey Eide to Senate Transportation Chair.

However, political junkies who have closely followed the election aftermath will also know that the Senate Democratic majority might not be as safe as once thought.  Tim Probst’s challenge of Republican Senator Don Benton’s seat failed by just 74 votes, which could turn the tables on the Democrats by giving the Republicans an effective 26-23 majority.  How that affects the Legislature’s ability to push through transit-friendly legislation will be a topic of conversation at today’s forum, along with a number of other issues:

So what does this mean for the 2013 Legislative Session and our priorities.  Will there be a transportation revenue package?  Will the Legislature step up to save transit across the state from further cuts?  What bills will TCC be working on next session?

Get the answers to all these questions and more.  Join our Policy Director Carrie Dolwick for a sneak peak at our 2013 legislative agenda and what’s next for Olympia.

For those that are free around lunchtime, this preview of the crucial 2013 Legislative session will be immensely informative.  The forum will be held in Room 121 of the King County Chinook Building from 12pm to 1:30pm.

The Everett Herald put out a story yesterday detailing the City’s evolving plans to make the Everett Station area more palatable for development and future growth.  In addition to luring private TOD investment, part of the City’s wishlist also calls for the construction of a 500-space parking garage, a massive increase over current capacity.  On a higher policy level, there’s actually lot to like about Everett’s plans, which amount to a needed step forward toward assuming greater municipal control of station area planning.

From The Herald:

Separate from the parking study, city planners are exploring possible ways to encourage multifamily housing and shops near Everett Station. They invited neighboring property owners and others to an informational meeting Wednesday.  The current thinking is to rezone the 10-acre Everett Station site to allow the multifamily housing. As part of the proposal, height limits would rise to 80 feet, from 65 feet now.

While it doesn’t appear that Everett is pursuing an extensive master planning process, revisions to the City’s zoning code may be warranted, given existing land use restrictions.  Currently, the station area is zoned as C-2ES (.pdf)– Heavy Commercial/Light Industrial– and actually prohibits multi-family housing uses, let alone TOD.  There are a few pleasant surprises in the zoning code, however, like the inclusion of pedestrian-oriented design guidelines and planning principles.

The other piece to ongoing station area planning efforts is the possible addition of a parking garage, which might come with a price tag of $15 to $18 million, by the city’s preliminary numbers.  With a minimum of 500 additional spaces, the cost estimates amount to as much as $36,000 per stall or more, a hefty public investment given the fact that parking demand at Everett Station is still currently well within available capacity.

While the land use and parking components are separate planning efforts, any public money spent on Everett’s dime can easily siphon funds away from other critical infrastructure projects in the city.  Instead of building the garage on its own, I’d like to see the City open up opportunities for private actors to determine best uses within the station area, which could include private pay parking, if need be.

Next Thursday, Bellevue will host an open house and scoping meeting on its newly-launched Downtown Livability initiative (.pdf), which is expected to address a range of topics, from building height limits to street-level pedestrian amenities.  While the City is still in the early stages of pre-scoping, there’s a fairly comprehensive list of analysis areas online (including street food, wahoo!).  The impetus behind the initiative is largely moving downtown Bellevue away from its current character as a monolithic office-oriented district to a more vibrant mixed-use neighborhood.

Design and planning wonks will appreciate what the open house will have to offer.  From the news release:

The open house will engage a wide range of stakeholders including property owners, design professionals, residents and the Downtown workforce. Participants can visit four display stations that will highlight enjoying downtown, downtown design features, mobility and a 3-D modeling of downtown.

Maps and visuals will examine many facets of downtown living which include public spaces, parks, building form and height, design guidelines, sign criteria, maintenance standards, the pedestrian corridor, and more. Staff will be available to take public input on the scope of the Downtown Livability Initiative. The public comment scoping period runs through December 31, 2012 and early public comment is encouraged.

While the initiative is separate from the Downtown Transportation Plan Update, both projects will be advanced in conjunction with one another, borrowing elements and work where appropriate.  Building mid-block crossings and through-block pedestrian connections, for example, will go hand in hand with the Livability Initiative’s design and wayfinding elements.  The project will also be complementary with ongoing Transit Master Plan work and East Link implementation.

The project reflects one of Bellevue’s most serious downtown planning efforts to-date, so ped/bike/transit and density supporters would do well to have a say in the process.  The open house and scoping meeting will be held at Bellevue City Hall Room 1E-108 next Thursday, November 29th, from 5 to 7pm.  Comments will also be accepted through email at downtownlivability@bellevuewa.gov.

[RSS readers: A previous version of this post was prematurely posted.  See below for the most updated version.]

One bit of good news to come out of the election was a strong showing from pro-transit legislative candidates, particularly those we endorsed.  The more surprising of these, which was actually more of an anti-endorsement than anything, was the defeat of Senator Mary Margaret Haugen by her Republican opponent, Barbara Bailey.  As we outlined in our endorsement, the promotion of a new Senate Transportation Committee chair from a Haugen defeat gave us more to cheer about than anything in Bailey’s transportation platform.

Many commenters rightfully expressed the concern that losing Haugen in the Senate could eradicate a Democratic majority, a risk we were willing to take given the previous majority’s lukewarm attitude towards transit.  At any rate, those fears were allayed after Democratic control was maintained by commanding victories from other Senate candidates, including pro-transit standouts like Jessyn Farrell, Marko Liias, Jake Fey, among others.

Haugen’s defeat means that the current vice-chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Tracey Eide, will most likely be elevated to chair, a position that can make the difference between transit legislation passing and failing.  While Senator Eide doesn’t share the same pro-transit credentials as some of peers, her track-record for legislation friendly to transit advocates has been solid.  Most recently, she’s made tangible commitments to light rail expansion southward, even as her fellow South King County legislators cried foul.

While Senator Eide has her work cut out for her, she’s proven to be a reliable vote for transit, and an even more valuable one now given a likely promotion to Transportation Committee chair.  We have reason to be optimistic moving forward– but it will take commitment on all sides of the State government to get Olympia back into the picture.

This is an open thread.

Starting this week, Metro will add four new C Line trips in the evening peak, two of which start today, the other two starting next Monday.  Three of the added trips won’t be through-routed with the D Line, which will help avoid reliability issues coming through Lower Queen Anne into downtown.  According to Metro, the trip adds, which are funded by a contingency reserve, are meant to help alleviate evening service gaps caused by such poor inbound D Line reliability:

Traffic in downtown Seattle poses a daily challenge for bus schedules on the best of days. Metro schedules its RapidRide buses for 10-minute service during the peak commutes – even higher at 8-9 minutes during the highest ridership times about 7- 8:30 a.m. and 4:30-6:30 p.m. But traffic, events and other factors can cause buses to be delayed. Buses might bunch up and arrive together when riders are expecting more frequent service.

Analysis of recent transit travel times shows intervals longer than 10 minutes between buses during the evening commute. Inserting additional bus trips is expected to help fill those gaps in arrival times, [Metro GM Kevin] Desmond said.

C Line ridership may very well be Metro’s most pleasant post-service change surprise and a good indication that the the West Seattle restructure is working well.  Operationally, however, route performance continues to suffer thanks to things like on-board payment and downtown congestion, to which fixes would unfortunately be illegal recipients of Metro’s contingency of service hours.

One way of breaking up a fight.  Not really recommended.

This is an open thread.

One of the features of redeveloping the Bel-Red corridor will be the addition of a new street grid in place of what is now a broken network of backroads and lightly used collectors.  The City of Bellevue is planning to establish a new central thoroughfare, which by current grid orientation, is tentatively designated NE 15th/16th Street.  Renaming of the arterial, plus parallel streets to the north and south, is currently under consideration.

Given the pressure to completely overhaul the Bel-Red corridor’s identity, the City might be more inclined to give NE 15th/16th a unique place-based name for the purposes of neighborhood branding.  On the other hand, NE 14th and NE 18th, by my inclination, would be better off as numbered streets to maintain the grid’s function as a reference for orientation.

Input and suggestions for the street names are currently being solicited online with a November 30th deadline.