Commuters face a collision of multiple transportation projects in a small place at one time. While delay of the Washington State Convention Center Addition project offers a slight reprieve, when buses do leave the tunnel sometime in 2019, the One Center City (OCC) plan is intended to keep buses, people and cars flowing through downtown during the “period of maximum constraint.”

After spending more than a year planning, the OCC group missed its goal of having a final mobility plan with near-term and long-term recommendations completed by December 2017. Though scheduled to meet monthly, the OCC Advisory Group hasn’t met since last September.

Nor has the city begun implementing the near-term recommendations released last September by the group. Those recommendations include installing a cycle track on 4th Avenue; shifting more buses to 5th and 6th Avenues; and converting 3rd Avenue to an all-day transit-only street.

This recent pause in the One Center City planning has transit advocates worried that time is running out to implement strategies that might lessen congestion and improve mobility. Continue reading “One Center City Plans Delayed”

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Christiana Figeueres was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who led the COP 21 climate talks in Paris. She got better results on climate action from 195 world leaders than the state legislature has produced.

This is an open thread.

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• Emergency plan spends modestly ($) on signals, Subway’s biggest woe.
• PBOT: Traffic deaths up, despite Vision Zero efforts.
• Minorities are the demographic engine of millennial urban growth.
• Seattle’s voters and leaders know the value in keeping commuters out of cars.
• Beyond the MetroCard: Faster buses, better access to commuter rail, fairer fares.
• What would the ultimate child-friendly city look like?
• Clarified e-assist bicycle rules head to the Governor’s desk.
• As Seattle transit ridership skyrockets, Metro works to keep up with demand.
• Minneapolis: Judge rules in favor of Southwest LRT.
• The movement to destroy Warsaw’s tallest building.
• Urbanism and standards of respectability.
• The Freedom Railway: a 1,860km journey across Africa.
• Frequent transit nodes and what they mean for urban village expansions.
• Affordable housing ($) in Seattle is not the enemy.
• For waterfront revamp, Seattle weighs fees ($) for downtown property owners.
• “We’re listening, Department of Transportation says on the future of driverless cars.
• Digging into the foundation ($) of the housing cost crisis.
• New Hudson tunnels are canceled. Again.
• Metro opened a gift shop. The Internet mocked it. But the true believers came ($).
• Rome’s subway project keeps digging up archaeological marvels ($).
• Montreal’s iconic subway cars becoming creative spaces.
• As subway crisis takes up “so much oxygen,” ($) the buses drag along.
• The ticking time bomb for suburban retail.
• Scientists just showed ($) what building a new suburb does to the atmosphere.
• 35th Ave NE: A project at risk.
• Pierce Transit solicits qualifications for foot-ferry service feasibility study. It boggles my mind that Tacoma and Pierce Transit are considering this when their fixed-route bus service is pathetic and their future connection to the Link spine is threatened by state and federal cuts.
• City council gets first look at draft amendments to parking reform legislation.
• Wenatchee-area buses could start earlier, run later under Link Transit’s route proposals ($).
• Minneapolis leaders consider allowing fourplexes citywide to relieve housing shortage.
• Vancouver, WA parking efficiency study could lead to changes.
• A Japanese photographer traces how cities are built and destroyed.
• FTA finds tracks in “black condition” but WMATA routinely reclassifies them.
• We may look back on today’s traffic as “light and dreamy” if we don’t get “Urbanism Next” right.

This is an open thread.

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Over a decade ago, when Bonnie Todd, executive director of operations, joined Sound Transit, the agency was focused on constructing the first phase of the light rail system. With less than two years before Link was scheduled to begin operating from downtown Seattle to SeaTac, Todd was charged with building and shaping the future operations department. In honor of International Women’s Day, the Seattle Transit Blog’s Lizz Giordano interviewed Todd about her experiences. (Answers have been edited for clarity and length.)

LG: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in your 10 years at Sound Transit?

BT: Well, we opened light rail. That was huge. When I first got here, there wasn’t even really an operations department. There was this little group called ‘Transportation Services’; I’d always laugh and say that sounded like a hotel shuttle. I’ve since found out that on the West Coast it’s not an uncommon term for an operations group.

But [the operations division] was very small; the agency had been very capital-focused. When I came in, there was maybe 21 months until we were going to open light rail. There hadn’t been quite the focus on operations and it really crept up on us.

One of the things that was very enticing about the job offer was that I really had a blank canvas of sorts to work with. I had worked for the American Public Transportation Association for about four years, where I did audits of rail transit agencies all over North America. I had a real understanding of what worked well and what didn’t and what was critical to put in place for an operations department to be efficient, be safe and have the right processes in place. Continue reading “Q & A with Sound Transit’s Executive Director of Operations”

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Employee shuttles are a common sight in many prospering cities. There are things to like as an independent observer: they often cover underserved source-destination pairs at no cost to the public. Conversely, they might make some public routes unviable, stranding non-employees who might have used the route. There are also sometimes conflicts with public transit for curb space.

Smaller employers don’t have the resources to set up these schemes at all. If the service replaces a widespread ORCA passport schemes, it takes resources from transit. Among the most farcical outcomes is the spectacle of empty Microsoft shuttles passing empty Amazon shuttles on SR520 where a public route could fill both legs.

Enter Metro’s “shared employee shuttles” program. This is part of the agency’s charter to promote alternate transportation solutions. Metro serves as a matchmaking service and “supervises” operations, but the funding and operations are private. The routes are meant to “complement” public transit routes rather than compete with them.

For employers, it’s a mixed proposition to be under Metro auspices. Metro says that state law makes them “the sole provider of public transportation services in King County,” so a rogue operation would be against the law. (The law a has an exception for single-employer shuttles.) Metro will facilitate right-of-way and curb space negotiations with cities. On the other hand, employers will pay a nominal fee for processing applications, and will have to share their performance and rider survey data with Metro.

The first “cycle” will accept proposals from groups of 2-5 employers through April 3, and the pilot program will run for about a year.

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Declaring the first season of Trailhead Direct a success, King County is preparing for a second season while considering expanding the program to North Bend.

Trailhead Direct provided hikers an option to access trails in the Issaquah Alps using public transportation. The pilot program, which ran on weekends and holidays from early August to mid-October, aimed to reduce congestion at trailheads and broaden access to public lands.  

Nineteen-seat vans ran every 30 minutes between 7 am and 6 pm, picking up riders at Issaquah’s two park-and-rides and stopping at three trailheads on Squak and Tiger mountains. Riders were charged an off-peak fare.

According to Lizzy Jessup, a project manager at King County Parks, about 900 hikers used the service, averaging roughly 40 riders a day. An on-board survey found over 90% of riders thought the service could reduce congestion at trailheads, and many riders wanted to see the service expand to more locations. The on-board survey also found hikers accessed the Trailhead Direct shuttles both by driving themselves to the park-and-ride lots and also by taking Metro route 271 and Sound Transit route 554 from Seattle.

Jessup said King County Parks and King County Metro Transit are still weighing possible changes to the route and timing of the shuttles for next year. She added that, due to low ridership, the stop at the Issaquah Highlands Park and Ride will probably be eliminated this year.

The two King County agencies also hope to expand the program and connect to trails in North Bend. Jessup said one consideration in North Bend is using satellite parking lots to add parking near trailheads.

On Tuesday, members of the outdoor community gathered to brainstorm ideas on alternative transportation to the outdoors and the future of the Trailhead Direct service, hosted by the Wilderness Society and the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust.

Continue reading “Trailhead Direct to Continue for a Second Hiking Season”

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