• If you’re new-ish to Seattle, The Economist‘s digest of the state of housing in Seattle ($) is about as concise and accurate as you can get.
• But Uber and Lyft are still here — and they’re adding to total miles driven ($).
• UW Station escalators fail again ($), not quite as catastrophically as last time.
• Paine Field airport taking shape.
• 3rd Avenue improvements will start Monday.
• Trump not paying out $1.4 billion appropriated for transit.
• Madison BRT now in trouble, thanks to Trump administration foot-dragging and problems procuring the right buses. Move Seattle may not build many bus lanes, but its output of bad news is robust.
• Why new buildings all look the same. This piece misses design review, which is a gate easiest to pass through by doing what worked before, and appeals to neighborhood “character,” which is explicitly an argument for buildings to look the same.
• But really, don’t sweat it, because “dumb boxes” are great if you care about anything beyond aesthetics.
• 23rd Ave road diet marches on.
• ST’s Citizen Oversight Panel needs another volunteer.
• Trade war now threatening everything good happening in Seattle.
• Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Pierce Transit’s Route 1 BRT faces opposition from businesses that don’t want to lose parking.
• Council passes an ordinance to “save the Showbox,” although there are signs the legislation is badly flawed.
• If SBB is cool with Link destroying the Sodo trail, so am I.
• A refresh ($) in the Sodo mural corridor.
• Chris Karnes reports the Point Defiance Bypass will reopen next spring.
• A rezone in Greenwood.
• Intercity Transit will ask voters for another 0.4% of sales tax this November to fund more service.
• Portland is the new parking policy champion.
• Everett may reform its parking as well.
• Uber finds E-bikes reduce driving.

This is an open thread.

The Downtown Seattle Association is running a two-month “Waterfront Shuttle,” starting August 1st and running through October 1. It is free to ride and serves the stops shown on the map.

It is clearly aimed at tourists, although this month is a little late to start serving that market. It runs from 10am to 8pm, seven days a week, and hits many of the obvious tourist spots. The literature suggests people use the shuttle to access waterfront businesses after parking elsewhere downtown.

The money comes from WSDOT, as mitigation for their endless project on the waterfront. This year’s operation is a pilot to develop service concepts for future service should a long-term funding source arise. WSDOT’s mess will continue through 2019, so if the pilot is promising we may see another year of it. The DSA contracted with MTR Western to operate the buses.

The stated headway is “approximately” every 25 minutes, with no attempt to match any printed schedule. However, the end-to-end trip time is (at best) also 25 minutes. As 3 to 4 22-seat vehicles simultaneously serve the route at different times of day, the headways are often quite a bit shorter than 25 minutes. Although there are no real-time arrival information signs or data feeds, today DSA deploys “concierges” at major stops to communicate with buses on the radio.

When I first read about this service concept, I was skeptical that a 25-minute headway on a short-haul line would attract many riders. The DSA says that a total of 4,957 riders used the shuttle in the first two weeks, and (anecdotally) in peak hours these shuttles are sometimes standing-room-only. 35 riders per hour isn’t bad for new service with some of the limitations above; it would be great to see what a properly provisioned bus line could do.

Join Seattle Children’s innovative Transportation & Sustainability Department in one of two newly created, TDM-focused positions: a Parking & Valet Systems Manager and a limited-term Transportation Systems Coordinator.

Parking & Valet Systems Manager

This leadership role will manage Seattle Children’s new 24/7 patient and family hospital valet operation, the organization’s parking system, and other roadway and pathway hardscape assets for all Seattle Children’s worksites with a focus on the hospital campus. In addition to designing and delivering best-in-class, customer-centric valet services to patients, families and visitors who are seeking treatment or services from Children’s emergency department and outpatient clinics, the Parking & Valet Systems Manager will be responsible for providing a safe, effective and pleasant experience for employees and customers using Seattle Children’s parking lots, roadways and pathways. This position will work with a range of internal leaders to develop and deliver support systems, countermeasures, and capacity to optimize clinical demand flow.

Our ideal candidate has 5+ years of valet and parking management experience, excellent interpersonal and customer service skills, and enjoys providing value and convenience to families who are stressed by their Children’s health issue. Read the full job description and apply online. The position will remain open until filled.

Transportation Systems Coordinator – Limited Term

This new, limited-term Transportation Systems Coordinator position will provide a wide range of customer service and administrative support in the enhancement, development, and expansion of the department’s daily operations. Serving as one of the primary points of contact for in-person, electronic, and telephone inquiries, this position will assist employees with commute planning, parking needs, and responding to questions about Seattle Children’s transportation programs. In addition to participating in the department’s internal outreach efforts, this position will be responsible for the customer service and data management aspects of Seattle Children’s renowned Company Bike Program (see below for more information about the program).

Our ideal candidate has two or more years of customer service or administrative support experience, excellent interpersonal and customer service skills, is detail-oriented, and interested in bicycling. Read the full job description and apply online. The position will remain open until filled. Continue reading “SPONSOR: Two New Transportation Positions Open at Seattle Children’s”

It’s safe to say that Seattle transit advocates are uncertain about Mayor Jenny Durkan’s commitment to transit.  The fate of the Center City Connector continues to grow murkier. The Mayor told a large, powerful coalition of CCC advocates to talk to the hand.  Several transit and safe streets projects throughout Seattle have been delayed or canceled (although others have proceeded on schedule).  Funding shortfalls shrank and delayed RapidRide projects, while leaving expensive auto-centered projects like the Lander bridge unaffected.  One Center City lost many of its transit priority ideas in becoming Imagine Downtown.  Throughout all of this, the mayor’s office has not said much about transit, except occasionally to point out its numerical necessity in the most general terms.

The mayor, though, has continued to talk up one transportation proposal: congestion pricing.  Often called “decongestion pricing” by advocates who want to clarify its goal, the policy charges car drivers to enter central city areas, with higher charges during the most crowded hours. (Other policies such as HOT lanes and variable bridge/tunnel tolls are also forms of congestion pricing, but aren’t what the mayor is proposing.)  Central city congestion pricing has been implemented in London, Singapore, and Stockholm, but nowhere in the United States to date.  Among U.S. cities, only New York has seriously considered it, so far without action. Continue reading “Hearing About Congestion Pricing? Ask About Transit Investment.”

Entur_English from Endre Sundsdal on Vimeo.

Uniting public transport in Norway.

The Seattle Department of Transportation and King County Metro recently announced several useful measures they will take to improve bus priority on 3rd Ave.

3rd Ave has the densest collection of bus routes in the state, and is pretty much totally packed with buses maneuvering around each other during peak hours. Every measure taken to speed up this armada pays for itself many times over in savings for Metro and the ability to redeploy the saved service hours. Indeed, saving service hours on 3rd Ave is about the only way Metro can add more service while waiting for an eighth base to open. Metro had to turn down some service-hour funding from the City in part because of this practical ceiling on deployable service.

The clearest solution for 3rd Ave remains red paint, designating a ban on non-permitted vehicles 24/7/365. However, various downtown blocks still have parking garage entrances, loading dock entrances, two-spot parking cutouts, or a whole lane of parking. Nevertheless, many blocks have little reason for cars to be there beyond driving straight through without stopping. These blocks ought to be able to be painted red, without political pushback:

Northbound blocks without parking/loading: Continue reading “Easy Fixes Not Deployed for 3rd Ave”

Mike Rosenberg has another excellent piece in the Seattle Times, examining why housing construction in suburban King County has slowed while Seattle remains red-hot.

Overall, Seattle housing construction has grown 130 percent this decade compared to the average over the prior three decades, while housing development in the suburbs has dropped 43 percent from its historical average.

Add it all up and the county as a whole is actually on pace for a slight decline in the overall number of homes going up here this decade, despite Seattle’s building frenzy.

King County doesn’t have many large developable tracts of land left for single-family development, so developers have pushed into Snohomish and Pierce. But there’s plenty of opportunity for multifamily infill development.

As we’ve noted, some suburban cities are enacting development moratoria as they rewrite their zoning codes in the face of renewed growth. On the other end of the spectrum, Kenmore and Bothell are growing along the future 522 BRT corridor. Redmond is adding tons of new apartments in anticipation of light rail.

Despite all that growth, King County’s suburban cities still aren’t building nearly as much multifamily housing as they were in the 1980s and 1990s, according to the article.  As we’ve covered, growth is centralizing in Seattle and Bellevue, despite the PSRC’s plans to put more people and jobs in farther-flung suburbs.

With greenfield land running out, the next step – short of expanding the urban growth boundary – is to figure out how to do missing middle-style infill in the inner-ring suburbs.  That’s no small challenge given the preponderance of cul-de-sacs, lack of sidewalks, and infrequent transit service.  Fortunately light rail is coming, along with improved bus service, and there is no shortage of ideas on how to retrofit suburbia.

Suburban retrofits, however, require political will and currently there’s no political appetite for increasing density in single-family neighborhoods among Eastside electeds (there’s barely appetite for it in Seattle!). Nonetheless, more infill in the suburbs would be a huge win for regional equity. Adding housing capacity in these amenity-rich single-family neighborhoods (where zoning typically maxes out at just 3-5 units per acre) will make them more attractive to a new generation that wants more transportation options than the Eastside’s strip mall-centric built environment can currently provide, while relieving development pressures on lower-income neighborhoods in places like Seattle.

• WSDOT funding the waterfront shuttle.
• 2nd Avenue bike ridership up 16% since 2015.
• Subsidized Uber/Lyft rides on Mercer Island now more expensive, still subsidized.
• Dungeness Line buses from Port Angeles to Seatac considering adjustments to route, schedule, fares. The old operator had separate buses to Port Angeles and Port Townsend. The new operator (Greyhound) makes Port Angeles riders sit through an hour-long detour to serve both.
• Lots of ST outreach in West Seattle this month.
• Pony gives up some patio for Madison BRT.
• Everett Transit is reeling, cutting back service.
• David Cole connects the dots on Mayor Durkan’s passive-aggressive way of undermining transit.
• Spin noncommittal on remaining in Seattle. It would be a shame if SDOT had a great thing with competing bikeshare companies and screwed it up with too many fees.
• ST demolishing Mountlake Terrace homes to build temporary parking.
• Community Transit’s Fall service change is coming.
• It’s legal for a bike to run a red light ($) under some circumstances.
• An update on converting to electric buses.
• Joe Mangan argues for streetcars in Seattle.
• Demolition starts ($) around the future Lynnwood Station.
• We have way too much parking.
• Willamette Week asks readers for dirt on e-scooter riders, readers respond with horror stories about cars.
• Vancouver City Council asks Washington to build the Columbia River Crossing.
• Many of our readers, as teens, would have loved RailCamp ($).

This is an open thread.