Link operator Kevin Gumke isn’t worried a robot will take his job anytime soon.
At least 55 metro lines in 37 cities around the world are fully automated, according to the International Association of Public Transport, an advocacy group that promotes public transit.
Many of these fully automated lines are closed systems, in contrast to Sound Transit which, at times, mixes with other vehicular traffic. The agency says it will eventually study automating or semi-automating parts of the Link system, but today, ST uses a hybrid system with operators and computers working together to operate the train. Here’s how it works:
Proposed apartment building “Phinney Flats” Credit: SJARCHITECT
In response to a successful challenge by a Phinney Ridge neighborhood group over the lack of onsite parking proposed for a 57-unit apartment building, the city is planning changes to the land use and zoning code that would allow the project to continue.
The legislation under consideration would change how the city defines “frequent transit service” areas, allowing developers to continue to build apartments without parking in transit-rich areas. The move would also require the unbundling of parking space rentals from lease agreements in buildings with 10 units or more.
A 2017 hearing examiner’s decision halted plans for an apartment building at 6726 Greenwood Ave., agreeing with the group, Livable Phinney, that the location of the proposed housing units did not meet the city’s definition of frequent transit service and therefore was not exempt from onsite parking requirements. A West Seattle group, Neighbors Encouraging Reasonable Development, has also challenged the city’s definition of frequent transit service.
Currently, the city defines frequent transit service as “transit service headways in at least one direction of 15 minutes or less for at least 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, and transit service headways of 30 minutes or less for at least 18 hours every day.” Onsite parking is not required for new buildings within a quarter-mile of areas with frequently-served transit stops.
New wind and wave criteria changes threshold for potential closures of the westbound I-90 floating bridge.
Better Metro bus service for Admiral/Alki? To paraphrase a now-retired Metro planner, if everyone in West Seattle complaining about bus cuts actually rode the bus, their buses wouldn’t have been cut.
Future expansion of I-405 would add two more HOT lanes from SR 522 (pictured) to SR 527 (Image: WSDOT)
As Sound Transit steps up planning for I-405 BRT, WSDOT is preparing to extend managed HOT lanes from Bellevue south to Renton. Meanwhile, a political consensus in favor of tolling has solidified. After an unsteady start, managed lanes have grown more popular with the public. Eastside cities are recognizing both the benefits in managing traffic and the need for toll revenue to fund future capacity expansion. Eastside cities have joined with transit agencies and local employers to lobby for continued tolling and an expansion of toll lanes at the north end.
The tried-and-true method of taking public comments, as seen at West Seattle
On Tuesday night, Sound Transit put on an open house in West Seattle that was well attended (a little crowded, at that) and seemed to generate good ideas. It had all the standard fare: a looping video of the project alignment; some rollplots with maps that vaguely showed the alignment over some aerial imagery; boards with basic information about the project; a venue with ample parking and a decent bus connection; and an audience of older people who were able to make the 6:00 pm start time by not working downtown. This post isn’t about that meeting, however.
This is the 21st century, and it seems like Sound Transit has finally updated the public comment process to suit it. The online scoping open house (which is open until March 5) features a neat comment system that allows you to place notes over an interactive map of the representative project alignment and vote on the comments of others. The comments can be sorted by the number of “likes”, providing a rough way of gauging the popularity of particular ideas, which makes the lives of us bloggers a bit easier. It seems to be a hit too, with over 600 comments generated in the first week of going online. While some of the comments were off-topic, off-kilter, or repetitive, a lot of the more popular comments offered good ideas, including some that transit advocates overlooked while pushing their own agendas.
Seattle’s $50M yearly investment in additional bus service has helped deliver frequent transit service to a majority of households in the city. After three years, the percentage of families living near routes with transit service every 10 minutes has more than doubled, SDOT says. Now a driver shortage could limit the extra service Seattle can buy from King County Metro Transit, as the city strives to bring frequent transit service to even more households this year.
Three years later, the city estimates 64% of households are within a 10-minute walk of all-day transit service running every 10 minutes or better, up from 25% in 2015, leaving the city only 8 percentage points away from its 2025 goal of 72% of households.
“As soon as the service gets out there, it gets filled up with riders,” said Andrew Glass-Hastings, SDOT’s director of transit and mobility, while giving members of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee the annual STBD report in January. “It’s a good thing, but it also means we are continually a little bit behind meeting demand for service.”
He pointed specifically to RapidRide Lines C and D, which remain overcrowded even as Seattle pays for more than a third of the service for both routes. But a Metro labor shortage might limit the city’s ability to purchase additional bus service.
Last week The Stranger published a wide-ranging interview with Governor Inslee, whose stated purpose was to drum up the grassroots for his carbon tax proposal. He doesn’t criticize legislators directly, but you certainly get the impression speaker Frank Chopp (D-Capitol Hill) isn’t exactly out in front of the climate activists.
When legislators want something to be a priority, they don’t create arbitrary additional obstacles for passage. See additional Stranger anonymous sources on Chopp here. Perhaps, as leader of his caucus, Speaker Chopp is saying that not all his Democrats are on board, and he won’t force them to take a tough vote. In any case, he certainly isn’t directing the full powers of his office at the problem.
But enough about carbon taxes. More to our usual subject, Heidi Groover asks what you’re all wondering:
This post was updated at 6:20 2.20.18 to include testimony and information from comments.
In a disappointing legislative session marked by mostly defensive effort to protect the Sound Transit 3 project list from cuts, there has been one bright light: Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5288, allowing Thurston County Intercity Transit to add an additional 0.3% sales tax within its district, if approved by voters.
ESSB 5288 passed the Senate last week on a 34-14-0-1 vote. It is scheduled for its second public hearing, in the House Finance Committee, today, at 3:30 pm. The hearing will be aired live on TVW. (Go to 58:30 in the video for the public hearing.)
Intercity Transit is currently allowed a 0.9% sales tax, like most other transit agencies in the state, but has enacted only 0.8%. Allowing 1.2% would bring it up to Community Transit’s level, but without being combined with the additional 1.4% Sound Transit sales tax that applies in the CT district. IT gets 63% of its revenue from sales tax. Nearly 5 million boardings are served each year, at a cost of $45 million in operating expenses and $33 million in capital expenses such as fleet renewal. The additional revenue it could get for the 0.3% extra sales tax is estimated at $18.1 million annually.
Intercity Transit has had to take on most of the burden for transit service between Tacoma and Olympia in recent years, as Pierce Transit and Sound Transit have eliminated Thurston-Pierce inter-county service. IT operates routes 603, 605, and 612 between Olympia and downtown Tacoma, and route 620 between Olympia and Tacoma Mall.
Intercity Transit also operates a free shuttle serving downtown Olympia and the Capitol Campus. The shuttle has 12-minute headway much of the day. The only other IT routes with headway better than half-hourly are routes 13 and 41, each with 15-minute headway during their peak periods, and half-hourly off-peak on route 41. Some combined corridors provide scheduled 15-minute all-day headway.
Intercity Transit’s budgets and strategic plans are available here.
A look at the preliminary project alignment for the West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions, shown by Sound Transit at the recent open houses for the early scoping process. Online comments are still being accepted at wsblink.participate.online until March 5.
Fifty years ago this week, February 13, 1968, 50.8% of Greater Seattle voters voted yes to the Forward Thrust rapid transit proposition. The construction of a 49-mile rapid transit system modeled after BART and the Washington Metro needed voters to approve $385 million in general obligation bonds. The remainder of the $1.15 billion cost would be picked up by the federal government. Unfortunately, the state constitution requires a 60% majority to approve such a bond so the measure failed and the rest is history.
But for the sake of this post, let’s assume it did pass and the system got built as planned. What would a Metro map look like? We’ve seen the scans of maps from the plans. What we’ve not seen is how the service would have operated. Here is a diagram I made that presents the Seattle Metro rapid transit system as if it were in operation in 1990, five years after completion of the initial system plan after several phased openings than began in 1976. I wanted to create a map with a 1970s design aesthetic but not clone the style of those iconic transit maps of the era.
