On the 2nd anniversary of La Paz, Bolivia’s gondola system they shared some numbers. And they’re amazing (quoted from the article, emphasis mine):

• 43,248,826 passenger trips between May 29, 2014 to March 31, 2016 (22 months)
• ~60,000 riders per day with a daily network record ridership of 162,465
• At 10km (3 lines), it would be tied with the Newark Light Rail as one of America’s shortest American rapid transit lines.
• However, it transports more daily passengers than 72% (26) of Light Rail Transit/Streetcar systems in the US
  6,500 daily boardings per kilometre. In comparison, this mean that Mi Teleférico’s average daily boardings per kilometre is 17% greater than the highest average daily boardings per kilometre for LRTs in the US (Boston’s MBTA light rail: 5,368)
• 99.3% availability (Red Line: 99.4%, Yellow Line: 99.2%, Green Line: 99.3%)
• 2 accidents on cable car (due to falling tree and user behaviour) vs. 9,181 traffic accidents in La Paz (2015)
• >100% farebox recovery ratio / 0% subsidy. Median farebox recovery ratio in US stands at ~35%
• ~US$21 million in revenue (Bs150 million)
• ~US$500,000 in tax contributions (Bs3.6 million)
• ~US$1.3 million in advertising revenue (Bs8.9million)
• 1397 direct jobs generated
• 4899 indirect jobs generated
• Time Savings: 1,200 years (2015)

The city is planning to expand from 3 gondola lines to 10.

The time people report going to or coming home from work has a significant impact on transit operations. As we all likely know, if many travel at once, overloads are possible, but service might not be available if few travel to or from work at a specific time.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released this table in 2004, twelve years ago. While this table is still useful (for instance, more people reported going to work around 6 am than all full-time workers between 10:30 and 3:30, which suggests that early-morning service may be more useful for workers than more mid-day service), it is outdated; search efforts to find a newer table have not been successful. Does anyone know if a more current edition of this information is available?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/flex.t07.htm

Apple has quietly launched support for transit directions in Seattle. While it’s yet listed as a supported city on their site, selecting transit for directions between two points in the Puget Sound area now works:

One of the flagship features is displaying the footprint of underground stations along with the exact locations of entrances and exits:

The app even lists the Seattle Center Monorail as an option:

Earlier this week on the main blog, Zach posted about, and Metro responded to, potential problems with weekend service in Northeast Seattle after the Bus2Link restructure. Coincidently, I had started generating isochrone maps originating at one of the locations called out in the aforementioned posts, Roosevelt and 65th. Unfortunately, these maps and their scores largely support Zach’s contention, that while weekday service has allowed more destinations to be reachable more often, weekend service has in fact suffered.

This post will share a set of three maps apiece for weekday, Saturday, and Sunday service. The first two maps are a side-by-side comparison of pre-restructure and post-restructure service at Roosevelt and 65th. The third map is the difference between the first and second maps. For those unfamiliar with the isochrone maps and scores I’ve generated in previous posts:

1. The maps are centered at a single starting point, in this case Roosevelt and 65th.
2. For every minute of the day, a map is generated at that point in time. The presence of a dot at a bus stop signifies that there is at least one point in time when that bus stop can be reached within 30 minutes, by starting at the origin point and using some combination of public transit and walking to get there.
3.  For the comparative maps, the color of the dot depends on how many points of time in the day that one could start at the starting point and reach that point. Colors range from navy blue for points that be reached infrequently to hot pink for points that can be reached often.
4. The comparative maps have two scores associated with them. The first is a count of the stops reached. The second sums the number of times per day each stop can be reached, thus favoring networks that allow a broad number of destinations to be reached regardless of the time of day. I refer to this score as the “reachability score” throughout this post.
5. For the difference maps, the color of the point signifies whether the point can be reached more or less often after the restructure. White dots signify no difference, more strongly black dots show an increase in reachability, more strongly red dots show a decrease.

Let’s get to the data:

Weekday

Comparative map

Difference map

The reachability score shows a 4% increase, largely on the back of large frequency gains within Northeast Seattle. The 62 and the more frequent buses on the north/south corridors appear to be excelling at improving mobility within this region.

This improvement is pulled down by a reduction in the number of times destinations in Montlake, Eastlake, the Denny Triangle, and  the northern part of downtown can be reached in under 30 minutes. The decline of reachability in Montlake can be attributed to the split of the 45 from the 48. The reliability that the split offers likely outweighs the disadvantages (as these maps use Metro’s schedule data, there’s no accounting for  congestion or accidents). The decline in the latter two areas represents a more concerning situation. Neither of Metro’s suggested options for getting downtown—the 45 to the Link nor a one seat ride on the 62—allow one to get to downtown within 30 minutes as often as the prior network did. These routes are less direct than the deleted 66, and their higher frequencies do not offset that. Of course the 30 minute time limit is arbitrary—perhaps at 31 minutes the situation changes entirely—but some cutoff had to be made.

Nonetheless, the weekday system’s increased score represents an improvement in general mobility. If nothing else, the map demonstrates a more coherent system: destinations fairly close to Roosevelt and 65th are reachable far more often than they previously were. But a coherent network is small consolation for anyone whose access to downtown has been impaired.

Saturday

Comparative map

Difference map

The reachability score on Saturday shows a 5% decrease. The general look of the difference map is the same: improvements in Northeast Seattle offset by decline in Montlake, Eastlake, the Denny Triangle, and the northern part of downtown. The reason for the decline, in spite of the superficially similar map, appears to be the shorter span of service for Northeast Seattle routes on Saturdays versus weekdays. In this case, Metro’s cache of remaining service hours may help close this gap.

Sunday

Comparative map

Difference map

The reachability score on Sundays shows a 6% decrease. While the same successes and concerns of the weekday and Saturday map are clear, a new set of issues has arisen. The north/south arterials show a reduction in reachability north of 80 Street NE, particularly 15th Ave NE and 5th Ave NE. This is not unexpected: though route 62 has the same 15 minute frequency, the connecting north/south lines suffer from frequency degradation on the weekends. Expectedly, the maps confirm that Zach’s general assertion, infrequent transfers perform worse than infrequent one-seat rides, holds true in this specific case.

Overall, I feel it must be underscored that five out of the seven days of the week, on the days when the most people use transit, the Northeast Seattle restructure lets people get to more places at more times of day. Metro should be lauded for not just making a drastic change, but a beneficial one. Metro should also be lauded for its quick, but measured, response to concerns. Hopefully data such as these scores and maps, can help target future responses and avoid gross overreactions such as a total rollback. And of course, the entire restructure can’t be judged just by reachability from Roosevelt and 65th, I hope to continue this series of Northeast Seattle maps with the other locations cited in the previous posts.

New York – A leading presidential candidate released this statement today, weeks after Seattle opened up its light rail extension.

What a great train line. Such a beautiful train. America doesn’t build trains like this anymore. We lose on trains. When I’m President, we will build great trains. Beautiful trains. Long trains. The longest trains. Trains so long that nobody can question the length of anything else of mine. We will be the train leaders.

Our trains are the greatest. Our streets are the greatest. We have the greatest streets. Unfortunately, we let the worst people onto the greatest streets. Bicyclists. They wear funny hats, break our laws, and just don’t seem to care about our transit culture. Now, some of these bicyclists are okay. Some of these bicyclists are ridden by kids. We love kids. But when I’m president, we will build a large, beautiful wall around all the bike stores, and we will make Schwinn pay for it! The bike lobby will be schwinned when we start winning again.

We got a death problem that we need to face. Thirty-thousand or more people die from attacks caused by cars. And what does the President do about this tragedy? Nothing. Our president refuses to even call it what it is, the “war on cars”. I will lead the war on cars. That is why I am, today, proposing a complete and total ban on any private automobile travel in this city until we can figure out what is going on. Now, my opponents might call me a bit extreme, but we can make exemptions. This country always makes exemptions; I know how to make the best exemptions. We can exempt fancy cars like Ferraris and outlaw every other car. This is how we win the war on cars. We will win when I’m President.

This line is the best rail line in the world. We will build great lines like this throughout this great nation. We won’t get fooled like we have every year on this date. We will win, and we will make our trains great again.

I have long opposed the plan that it seems that Sound Transit is planning to adopt (from https://seattletransitblog.com/2016/01/08/the-future-of-st-express-frequent-feeder-service/) where ST will end all express bus service to Seattle, and instead truncate buses at Kent-Des Moines station, on the basis that travel times will double overnight from all destinations south of and including Federal Way due to slower travel and added transfers, and that fares would be higher as well. What’s even more deplorable is that Sound Transit is not really considering major network changes or service additions to accommodate for this, but instead is mostly considering reducing the amount of service hours allocated to ST express, meaning that we’re essentially building out billions of dollars of light rail lines just so we can have less and worse express service without any new connections or anything.

But as poor of a deal this is for the Federal Way or Tacoma or Lakewood to Seattle travel scenario, which has gotten a lot of love from Sound Transit in recent years, this potentially opens up a whole new network of express bus scenarios. I made a map of one such scenario, with the assumption that Thurston County joins ST (a big assumption for sure, but can be adjusted if that doesn’t happen). Of course, truncating and reinvesting alone won’t be enough to cover all of this service, so there will need to be a service hour increase, but I think it makes sense in a time when new transit investments are being made. This would provide a nice immediate service element of ST3 (or maybe a second ST3 vote if the first one fails), since a common criticism of big ST measures is that the timeline is always 15-25 years before we see new service. Also, there are improvements for essentially everyone in the South King/Pierce taxation area of Sound Transit, so this may be a winning plan for the suburbs, although it will bother urbanists who think “Sound Transit” is really “Seattle Transit” and then is confused why the ST3 draft plan has light rail going to suburban areas.

Some themes in this plan:

• Pierce County is a first-class citizen, with new off-peak service to South Hill, Bonney Lake, and (yes) Orting
• All Seattle travel is done via a transfer to Link Red Line at Kent-Des Moines Station
• Bellevue is treated as a job center and commute destination, and gets direct service to make up for long Seattle travel times (which cause even longer Bellevue travel times without direct service)
• Olympia Express is integrated into Sound Transit Express, streamlined, and expanded to accommodate Seattle and Bellevue travel with one transfer
• I-5 has distinct peak-only routes and off-peak-only routes, mirroring today’s system, while 167 has off-peak system that is sufficient for peak hours as well
• Three routes to more remote Pierce County destinations run hourly, all converging to form a 20-minute spine that runs from Sumner to Auburn to Kent to Kent-Des Moines station
• Peak-only two-directional 599 accommodates non-King County commutes, with service to Tacoma shadowing peak-only 592 (and catching Pierce/Thurston commuters that fall in the cracks of lost Tacoma connections during peak), and service to Tumwater (shadowing the 609).
• Most (not all) service to Lakewood serves Lakewood Sounder Station, transit center, and 512 park and ride in a triangle, expanding on the one route (574) that serves Lakewood TC, and better enabling people to (love it or hate it) park at Lakewood TC and take transit to Seattle or Bellevue
• Services that connect to light rail have headways of multiples of 6 in peak and multiples of 10 off-peak to match Link
• Services that connect to Sounder AND are specifically designed to be Sounder connectors have headways of multiples of 20 (30 at the edges) to match Sounder
• I-405 BRT is not a single arbitrary route, but is a redundant overlapping of several routes. These routes are BRT on I-405 between Bellevue and SR 518, and have all the speed advantages of BRT on that segment, but also have the flexibility to go off BRT and (less rapidly) go to areas beyond the BRT portion of the route. Combined BRT routes run every 10 mins from Renton to Bellevue and every 20 mins from Burien to Bellevue

• 582 tail is Lakewood (Stn and 512) to Tacoma to Puyallup
• 583 tail is Orting to South Hill to Puyallup
• 584 tail is Bonney Lake
• All three routes converge from Sumner to Auburn to Kent to KDM

Entering the first work week with ULink open and the Link Connections restructures in place, there will be a flood of anecdotes about whether or not the changes are working. Eventually, ridership numbers will serve as a more concrete measurement of the efficacy of the changes to the transit network. Until then, it’s still possible to take some cursory measurements of the potential for rider benefit using the isochrone map generator that I posted on the blog two weeks ago. Whether these measurements of transit network potential measure anything real and important is another story. You be the judge!

Below are three sets of two maps apiece. As a recap of how these maps work:

1. They’re centered at a single starting point.
2. If a bus stop can be reached within 30 minutes by some combination of public transit and walking, there’s a dot at that point.
3. The color of the dot depends on how many times of day that one could start at the starting point and reach that point. This is in rainbow order, with bright red signifying small numbers and dark violet signifying high numbers.

The first map in each set is generated over the full day of March 17, before the opening of ULink. The second map in each set is generated over the full day of March 31. For each map, two “scores” are included. The first is a counter of the number of stations reached. The second sums the number of times per day each station can be reached, thus favoring networks that allow a broad number of destinations to be reached regardless of the time of day. Both of these scores are fairly flawed, but can be useful when used comparatively and viewed with healthy skepticism. Let’s get to the data:

Start point: Capitol Hill Station

Before: static map; station count: 1774 weighted count: 994130

After: static map; station count: 2375 weighted count: 1291599

Scrollable, zoomable maps (your browser may hate you for this)

Given 30 minutes of transportation time, reaching UW from Capitol Hill was reasonably achievable (at least according to published schedules) before ULink. While improving upon this already good reachability, what really shines through is how much more feasible it is to reach points north and west of the university within 30 minutes. A similar pattern holds for downtown: reaching it within 30 minutes was already nearly a given, but shaving time off the journey allows better chances of reaching West Seattle, not to mention the destinations directly served by the Link. One thing I specifically wanted to observe was any impact of the reduction of the 43 bus. This map shows improved reachability in its corridor, but might not tell the whole story: 30 minutes seems like a generous time allowance for Capitol Hill to Montlake and this map says nothing about reaching downtown from Montlake. But those are maps for another day.

Start Point: UW Station

Before: static map; station count: 2014 weighted count: 758513

After: static map; station count: 2543 weighted count: 1324769

Scrollable, zoomable maps (your browser definitely hates you now)

The weighted count score and the map both make it easy to see a large increase in destinations reachable within 30 minutes. Even with suboptimal station placement, the bus connections appear to work well enough to make locations varying from Lake City to Sand Point to Westlake reachable at many more times in the day. The reachability improvement to downtown is staggering, though it is important to keep in mind that this map does not measure reachability from a portion of the campus where the now-truncated 70-series expresses had a nearby stop. Again, a map for another day.

Start Point: Beacon Hill Station

Before: static map; station count: 1912 weighted count: 989892

After: static map; station count: 1891 weighted count: 1015671

Scrollable, zoomable maps (your browser would have already killed you, but ran out of memory to do so)

I generated this map because I wanted to show the impact of ULink and Link Connections in a neighborhood to which they did not directly pertain, and I already had an existing Beacon Hill Station map. (The limiting factor on why I can’t be generating these maps every second of every day is a daily quota on looking up the walking distance between locations.) There’s a marked improvement in reaching the immediate vicinity of the new stations. The spread of improved reachability around them is weaker than I expected, but I would want to do more analysis before ascribing this to bad bus connections rather than simply running out of time taking the Link. Another interesting component is the decreased station count score. I suspect this is merely the result of some adjustment of the Link schedule so that it no longer aligns as perfectly with some runs of the 41 and 11 buses.

I am hoping to generate more of these comparative maps in the next couple of days. If you’d like one of your neighborhood, give it a shout out in the comments and I’ll do the best I can. I’d also be interested in any comments or issues with methodology or results; if you find this week that this data doesn’t match your observations, we ought to work together to figure out why!

Today, 3/26/2016, begins a new era in Seattle transit service as the route 48 that we’ve known for the last 6 years is split into 2 routes: the 45 travelling from Loyal Heights to the light rail station at Husky Stadium and the 48 which will run between the University District and Mt. Baker Station. In 1980, route 48 followed the familiar core path from Loyal Heights to Franklin High School, where the current Mt. Baker Station exists. But southbound from S. Hanford St. and Empire Way S. (today known as Martin Luther King Jr. Way South) the 48 followed a different route on its way to its terminal at South Seattle Community College. Southbound from Franklin High School the 48 stayed on Rainier Avenue until Alaska Street where it turned west and climbed up to Beacon Hill, passing the VA–but not detouring into the parking lot–on a routing similar to current route 50. From Beacon Hill, it apparently used Spokane Street and the low level route to cross the Duwamish and then headed to its terminal at SSCC (kind of a combined 50 and 125).

Midday headways were at about 33 minutes and peak service could be as frequent as every 6 minutes. Evening service was every 30 minutes on the UW to Franklin HS core with buses scheduled every 60 minutes on the extensions north and south. There also were a variety of intermediate turnbacks and short-runs scheduled in the timetable. Weekday trips began at the endpoints and at Beacon & Columbian (near the VA Hospital), Rainier & Hanford (Franklin HS), Montlake Station, 45th and 15th in the University District and at Greenwood and 85th.

In the future we may see the 48 evolve again if money can be found to electrify the gaps along 23rd Avenue E. Some STB posters have suggested combining an electrified 48 with the 7 and creating new 1-seat rides between Rainier Valley and the Central District. Since its creation in the mid-1960s as a shuttle between Mt. Baker, the Central District and the University of Washington, the 48 has changed from short shuttle route into one of the longest in-city routes and back to a shorter route providing high frequency service. Has any other route been as drastically modified during the last 36 years as the 48?

I became fascinated with public transit planning at the beginning of the outreach process for Link Connections. By the time Alternative 3 came out, I was drawing lines all over maps of Capitol Hill, attempting to design a better network. What I soon realized, though, was that I had no reason to believe that my designs were any better that Metro’s alternatives, nor could I defend them against potential objections. So I scrapped those half-finished plans and sought to develop a tool that would allow some semblance of objectively measuring a hypothetical transit network. What I ended up with is an isochrone map generator; you can see an example of what it generates given a 30 minute range starting from Beacon Hill Station.

I suspect isochrone maps can be a useful tool for transit planning. They can help sell a reluctant community on a beneficial restructure. Showing isochrone maps of before and after the restructure provides a visual demonstration that while the specific routes traversing that community may change, the restructure allows more destinations to be reached at more times of day. That is a difficult assertion to communicate with route maps, even ones that show frequency. By generating isochrone maps from a variety of starting points, revisions of a transit network can be objectively compared by calculating a score derived from counting the number of points reachable within some amount of time, weighted by the percentage of the day when those points can be reached. Furthermore, generating isochrone maps can highlight the needs of transit riders unlike ourselves. By tweaking the generator in ways such as halving the walk speed, limiting the walking distance, or prohibiting transfers of a certain length after dark, it can produce maps that emulate the characteristics of other riders. By seeing their view of the transit network, we can evaluate the impact of restructures with less intrusion of our own biases.

I’m surprised King County Metro does not use isochrone maps publicly in its restructuring process. Perhaps there is a lack of tools; other than Mapnificent—which undermines its utility by making simplifying assumptions about transfer timing—I haven’t found others. But perhaps they simply aren’t compelling in practice. To figure that out, I’d like to give the readers, writers, and commenters on this blog an opportunity to make use of the map generator. The articles and comments here contain an abundance of restructuring ideas large and small. I welcome anyone in this community to propose any restructure experiment that they feel would benefit from having isochrone maps generated. I can only process a limited number of requests, so priority will be haphazardly based on personal interest and ease. (Providing modified versions of Metro’s general transit feed specification files makes life easiest, but simple changes like eliminating a route or comparing the regional impact of an existing restructure are fairly simple for me to do.) Nonetheless, I’d encourage erring on the side of putting forth ideas. After all, if isochrone maps can make our arguments more logically grounded and ideas more worthy of actual implementation, finding a way to generate them is time I’d consider well spent.