Category: Guest Posts

Last week, I covered part 3 in the series about Seattle-Vancouver high-speed rail, covering the Bellingham-Vancouver segment; the first two parts, by Zach Shaner, covered Seattle-Everett and Everett-Bellingham. This piece, the last part, covers the possibilities for suburban stations. Is it better to build stations in Downtown Vancouver and Seattle, or in less constrained suburban locations? Are there in-between compromise options, urban but less central? The answer to the last question turns out to be yes in the intermediate cities, but in Seattle and Vancouver the answer is no: downtown stations are required.

Continue reading “Seattle-Vancouver High Speed Rail Part 4: Terminals”

Young Professionals in Transportation are hosting Seattle’s first TransportationCamp on Saturday, August 12, at the offices of MG2 in Downtown Seattle. Attendees will be given the opportunity to explore transportation topics, ideas, and emerging trends with fellow transportation professionals, students, and enthusiasts in a welcoming environment. TransportationCamp is structured like an Unconference, so rather than having scheduled speakers and seminars, sessions will be driven by attendees and take the form of open discussions, facilitated debates, and lightning talks.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite until August 9. Additional details are listed below.

When: Saturday, August 12, 2017

Time: 10am-5:30pm

Where: MG2, 1101 2nd Ave #100, Seattle, WA 98101

Who: Transportation nerds, enthusiasts, and professionals of all stripes

Registration: https://seattletransportationcamp.eventbrite.com

Contact: yptseattle@gmail.com

by Jonathan Hopkins

As readers of the blog are likely aware, transit usage in the Seattle area is booming. The greater Seattle metropolitan area had the highest transit ridership growth in the country last year, and is one of just six major U.S. urban areas where transit ridership increased in 2016. Some of this growth can be attributed to voter-approved service and infrastructure expansions. Others, to be sure, will point to our breakneck population and jobs growth. But these two facts alone probably don’t fully explain how, since 2010, downtown Seattle has added 45,000 new jobs but only 2,255 new solo car commuters. Overall, seventy percent of our job growth (over 31,000 trips) was absorbed by transit.

When Zach Shaner wrote that transit is saving downtown, he was right, and our business community knows it. Therefore, to thank riders and celebrate June as Ride Transit month, nine Challenge Seattle member companies donated over $22,000 in prizes to our first-ever Puget Sound Prize Patrol. Challenge Seattle’s CEO, former governor Christine Gregoire, noted that “Challenge Seattle companies are proud to support this effort to highlight how critical high transit ridership is to easing congestion and improving our region’s quality of life.”

These gratis prizes compliments of Alaska Airlines, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (in partnership with Bike Works), Boeing, Chateau Ste Michelle, Costco, Nordstrom, Puget Sound Energy, Starbucks, and Zillow Group allowed us to do something groundbreaking aboard transit. Instead of riders having their heads down, focused on their phones, they instead had their “best transit ride ever.” They weren’t riding in isolation, using transit as a utility. They were part of community, and shared together a sense of ownership over their daily choices to protect our environment and its economy. We hope it’s a meaningful message that lasts.

Most Employers Get It

Continue reading “Something’s Different Here: Seattle Companies Note Job Growth Requires Great Transit”

There’s been a good deal of recent attention to Seattle’s continued growth spurt. The Upshot column in the New York Times points out that we’re also one of the few cities that is growing denser as we add population. In fact, Seattle is already cited as the 8th most dense of the 50 most populous U.S. cities. I’ll expand on that last fact in this post – hopefully giving some context for what our current state of density means relative to the other large cities of the U.S.

Two questions arise naturally: What is a “large” city? And how should density be measured? Here, I’ll define a “large city” as one with at least 100,000 residents. Such cities are in the 99th percentile of population for all incorporated places in the U.S. – so that seems sensible. As for density, I find the population-weighted density metric to be more informative and interesting than the usual “population divided-by area” measure. Population-weighted density measures the density at which the average person resides and is less sensitive to the amount of vacant land within city boundaries. For an excellent example of why one might prefer weighted density, see Honolulu, Hawaii. The traditional density is about 6,000 ppl/sq. mi., but the weighted density is closer to 25,000. That difference is like suburban Renton vs. Lower Queen Anne, so it is significant!

How does Seattle stack up when it comes to weighted density? To find out, I pulled census block group level population estimates for all U.S. cities with over 100,000 residents from the 2015 American Community Survey. In all, I calculated weighted densities for about 300 cities. Here’s what the distribution of those densities looks like:

Continue reading “Seattle is Denser Than 90% of Large U.S. Cities”

How dense is Seattle? It depends on what geographic area is meant by “Seattle” and also temporal factors like day of the week and hour of the day. For instance, the Downtown Seattle Association’s 2014 economic report estimates nearly 60,000 residents in the “greater” downtown area (roughly, Mercer to SODO and Elliott Bay to Broadway) with a weekday population exceeding 230,000. That implies a pretty impressive density. And downtown Seattle isn’t alone. Redmond, per the census, has one of the largest increases in weekday population in the country. It’s interesting to see what effect this daytime concentration has on the distribution of people in the region and on overall measures of density.

Let’s look at downtown Seattle first. Using the Census Bureau’s 2014 LODES data on primary employment locations, I count about 225,000 jobs in greater downtown. The geographic distribution of these jobs by census block group is shown below. GIS files defining census boundaries came from the PSRC’s public data.

The area adjacent to Westlake Park dominates the map with nearly 40,000 jobs in its block group alone. And of course, most of those workers don’t live downtown; they had to come from somewhere else. The LODES data set comes in handy here because it estimates the home locations, as well as the employment locations, for all workers in the state. After the jump, I’ve mapped the percentage of the population that has a job downtown for every census block group in the metro area based on the 2014 LODES data.

Continue reading “A Few Ways to Calculate Seattle’s Population Density”

It is relatively easy to find data and visualizations for residential population density. Here is a map of Seattle census tract densities via the City of Seattle, for example. But everyone who commutes to a job knows (sometimes painfully) that a static view of residential density is just a slice of a larger, dynamic landscape. The geographic distribution of people in the city on an average Thursday afternoon is significantly different than it is at midnight on a Sunday. This is especially true for areas with strong, single primary uses like Paine Field (Boeing Factory), Overlake (Microsoft), and Downtown Seattle.

In an effort to understand these daily shifts in our region’s population density, I built a (very) simple model of the home-to-employer population shift on an average weekday for the Seattle metro area. I used two data sources: American Community Survey population estimates and Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics data with origin-destination employment statistics. Both sources are published by the Census Bureau and contain data down to the census block group level. Assuming that most* people with outside-the-home employment leave for work in the morning and return in the late afternoon, I produced the population density animation in the embedded video.

A few areas really stand out in the animation: the downtowns of Seattle and Bellevue, UW, the Microsoft headquarters in Overlake, and the Boeing Factory in Everett. If you know your Puget Sound geography, you can also spot the Boeing Factory in Renton, Factoria office parks, SeaTac Airport, and the warehouse district in Kent. There are also subtle decreases in density for heavily residential areas in suburban districts. Of course, these observations are not qualitatively surprising to anyone who knows the Seattle area. More interesting are the estimated population densities in these areas. Parts of downtown Seattle seem to achieve 5200,000+ ppl/sq-mile during some weekday afternoons – literally off of my scale! Good luck serving that kind of density with single occupant vehicles.

I should probably mention some obvious shortcoming of this model. It is built on a simple set of assumptions and cannot account for non-standard commutes, like night-shifts, and non-commute trips which are a certainly a significant portion of trips made**. The model also doesn’t know about the paths that people take between home and work. Still, it is quite striking to see how the region’s population concentrates into half-a-dozen CBDs during the course of a weekday. And I have a renewed appreciation for the economic importance of downtown Seattle to the region.

[*] I assumed that 80% of people with employment outside the home will need to commute on a given weekday. This is not a scientific estimate; it is a guess and nothing more.

[**] Non-commute trips are likely more spread throughout day and night, however, which would dilute their aggregate contribution to shifting population density

By Transportation Choices Coalition

The 2017 Legislative Session has been incredibly challenging for Sound Transit. On the heels of the passage of Sound Transit 3 in November, the agency has had to defend a host of bills designed to dismantle the voter approved plan and change its governance structure. Last Friday, the Senate passed ESB 5893 which slashes Sound Transit’s Motor Vehicle Excise Tax authority from 1.1% to 0.5% among other things. TCC opposed that bill.

In the House, legislators are considering a relatively more modest proposal, HB 2201 which will create a $780M direct revenue gap in the Sound Transit 3 finance plan or an estimated $2.3B impact once you factor in higher borrowing costs. This bill was passed by the House Transportation Committee and seems well on its way to approval by the House as chronicled by the blog here.

Let’s recap for a quick moment how we got to this point. In 2015, as part of a deal on the Connecting Washington Transportation package, the Legislature granted Sound Transit the taxing authority to seek voter approval for a transit expansion plan. At the same time, it voted to approve an increase in the gas tax to fund road projects without requiring a public vote. It was a deal that advocates including Transportation Choices Coalition (TCC) made for a chance to complete the high capacity transit system that has eluded us for nearly 60 years.

Fast forward to 2016, hundreds of meetings and tens of thousands of public comments later, the agency put forth a $54B transit expansion plan the details of which has been discussed in great depth on this blog.  A grueling six-month campaign ensued and despite the best efforts of the opposition spearheaded by the Seattle Times, voters approved the plan by nearly 54%. The Puget Sound region finally embraced its transit destiny. Or so we thought.

As 2017 kicked in, higher MVET renewals started appearing in mailboxes, a media feeding frenzy ensued, and anti-transit legislators seized the opportunity to attack the voter-approved plan and the agency. TCC which led a broad coalition of business, labor, transportation, environmental and social justice advocates to pass the ST3 responded with a broad strategy which included an on-the-ground staff presence in Olympia, a joint coalition letter signed by 26 business, labor and community groups, and thousands of emails and petitions to legislators urging a measured approach that does not derail projects.

Yet here we are, battling bills that jeopardize projects, in the name of tax payer relief.

TCC cannot support HB 2201 as it is currently proposed. We appreciate the need to address tax payer fairness and find reasonable solutions that do not impact voter-approved projects.  We suggested improvements to the legislation to address tax fairness for working families while keeping voter-approved projects on track including:

1. The reimbursement or credit should only be provided to cars valued at or below $30,000, providing relief to middle and low-income families who need it the most.
2. Find solutions to reduce the $780 million revenue gap created by this bill, either by limiting the tax adjustment to working families or other policy options that address the loss of revenue to Sound Transit.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much traction to move these changes forward.

Let us pause for a moment to consider the irony – the most progressive taxing source available to pay for transit, the MVET, is being undermined in the name of fairness in a state that has the most unfair tax system in the nation (Seattle Times $). That a measure approved by 700K residents which took three years and an incredibly robust public dialog to shape, can be so easily be scuttled by so few.

It will be easy to point fingers and assign partisan blame. Instead I encourage you to consider the following – transit is under attack at the federal and state level. Transit funding is being politicized for bigger battle – the control of the State Legislature. We should be careful to separate the policies from the politics. Voters want more light rail to more places. It is why ST3 passed last year. Now more than ever transit advocates and our broader coalition will need to stick together to defend our gains at the ballot. I urge you to join us in our fight by signing up for updates and opportunities to engage with your elected  representatives to hold the line on transit.

SEATTLE SUBWAY

Democrats in the Washington State House have passed a bill out of committee that will cut $2.3 billion dollars from the voter approved Sound Transit 3 (ST3) package. Following a well worn Democratic strategy of caving to the slightest pressure from the right, this signals that Democrats intend to pass the bill out of the State House. The bill will then be sent to the Senate where it will be further degraded (the Senate version cuts $6 Billion in transit) and then sent to the Governor.

In passing this bill, Democrats seem to give in to magical thinking:  “While this would reduce a stream of revenue on which Sound Transit depends for future expansions, Democrats said it won’t impair the transit agency’s ability to carry out the $54 billion worth of projects in the Sound Transit 3 plan as promised.”  This is an entirely unsupported statement.  Overriding the will of the voters and cutting transit funding will, in 100% of cases, lead to less transit and to transit built more slowly.

House Democrats now appear to be a lost cause.  Let Governor Jay Inslee know that this attempt to override voters is entirely unacceptable. Puget Sound voters were clear in their support of transit expansion. Further, making changes after the vote is an act of bad faith in regards to the state transportation bill passed in 2015. ST3 funding was a hard fought win for the Puget Sound Region in that negotiation – which also funds billions in highway expansion without any public vote.

Transit has a sad history in this state and tends to be the focus of constant second guessing and lack of investment. Washington is dead last in transit funding at the state level and has the most regressive taxes in the country.

Here the issues intersect:  The most progressive funding source in our state is being attacked in an effort to cut transit funding.

At the same time Democrats in Olympia are pushing cuts to local funding, Trump and Republicans are pushing for billions of dollars of cuts to ST2 and ST3 projects at the Federal level.

Governor Inslee:  This is an opportunity to be on the right side of history and support a better, more environmentally responsible future for our state.  Please veto this bill.

Contact Governor Inslee here and let him know you support a veto by emailing him, faxing him at 360-753-4110, or calling his office at 360-902-4111.

This past Thursday evening the City of Redmond held a public meeting about bus and rail planning for the future Downtown Redmond light rail station, part of the City’s ongoing Downtown planning. The City asked the public to give feedback about four station area concepts, with the eventual goal of providing the City’s recommended station area concept to Sound Transit.

Concepts 1 (West at-grade) and 2 (West elevated) would locate the station along the north side of Bear Creek Parkway across from the Heron Rookery and close to existing high density apartments. The station itself would be along the northern rear of the triangular station area, tail tracks extending west across 161st Ave NE, with a transit busway parallel on the south. Pedestrians would need to cross at the far ends. Between the busway and Bear Creek Parkway would be a parking area with a single entrance off Leary Way NE, and the shoulders of Bear Creek Parkway would be used for bus layover space.

Concepts 3 (East elevated) and 4 (East at-grade) would locate the station on its own block just north of Redmond Town Center and with vastly better TOD potential. The station would be surrounded on almost all near sides by bus loading, with comparatively better bus-rail transfers due to minimal need to cross a street. There would be short term parking and general pick up drop off along the far side of Cleveland St, and some additional layover and parking to the east across 166th Ave NE. Notably, instead of tail tracks west across 164th Ave NE, the City proposes a center storage track back towards the east. The lack of tail tracks may require slower approach speeds to the station.

Comparing the east and west locations, the City additionally noted that the east location had fewer impacts to existing public parking and reduced impact to the Redmond Central Connector. Though not explicitly called out in the presentation, City planners in early consultation with Metro envision the new light rail station as the main transit hub for Downtown Redmond in place of Redmond Transit Center. The west station area concepts have more bus layover space than the east station area concepts, so an east station location would involve more lines continuing to terminate at RTC for the layover space.

ST3 documentation envisioned that the Redmond extension would elevated through SE Redmond Station and then proceed at-grade through Downtown Redmond, so it will be interesting to see if Sound Transit will elevate should Redmond prefer an elevated station area concept. Representatives from Sound Transit at the meeting were quick to disclaim that this is a City-led effort, and the City too emphasized that it could only make a recommendation. That said, Redmond mayor John Marchione is now as of this week a vice chair of the Sound Transit Board.

An online presentation and public feedback form is now live. The questionnaire closes February 5th, and this matter is anticipated to be reviewed by the Redmond City Council at its February 28th study session.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) initiative is advancing through the cycles of public comment and feedback. One of the major venues is an online tool hosted at http://hala.consider.it, where each neighborhood’s proposing zoning changes are detailed and commented on individually.

Unfortunately, a quick trip last weekend through the current opinion “levels” in some of the HALA pages was disappointing — a whole lot of neutral or negative opinions in many of the places where ST train lines are already coming, and sooner (Roosevelt, Northgate) rather than later (Ballard).

One in particular deserves special mention for its markedly negative responses: the West Seattle Junction proposal, which roughly covers the two denser areas of the Triangle and Alaska Junction. The future of this area is unambiguous, thanks to the passage of ST3; there will be Link stations in the not-quite-so-distant future that can be predictably ballparked to center around the busy intersections of 35th/Avalon and Alaska/California — the two densest parts of the neighborhood. But looking at the zoning proposal’s response pages you’d never know it — a whole lot of SFH ranting and raving about how density will ruin  neighborhood “character” and destroy their property values (?!). West Seattle has a chance to be truly prepared for the arrival of the train lines given the ST3 time horizon, and a lot of people aren’t seeing it.

My point is simple: Seattle needs HALA, and now, HALA needs us, the urbanist, density-supporting community. Those opinion pages won’t be ignored; online comments (especially negative ones) tend to be taken pretty seriously by agencies around here. I want to call on the STB community to act, to take a few minutes and write comments in support of HALA’s proposals. The links below will take you directly to the response page for each neighborhood proposal.

West Seattle: https://hala.consider.it/west_seattle_junction–in-general-the-draft-zoning-changes-for-west-seattle-junction-accur

Roosevelt: https://hala.consider.it/northgate–in-general-the-draft-zoning-changes-for-northgate-accurately-reflects-the-princ

Northgate: https://hala.consider.it/northgate–in-general-the-draft-zoning-changes-for-northgate-accurately-reflects-the-princ

Ballard: https://hala.consider.it/ballard–in-general-the-draft-zoning-changes-for-ballard-accurately-reflects-the-principle