Traffic in Seattle is notoriously terrible, and the most oft-cited causes are strong economic growth and lack of rapid transit. While both of those factors are at play, it’s underappreciated just how the details or our freeway construction actively contribute to our daily traffic headaches.

Put aside for a moment the myriad complaints about I-5 in Seattle  – that there is zero HOV priority between Northgate and Union Street, that the antiquated and unidirectional express lanes still freely permit SOVs, and that such SOVs are forced to exit in our fastest growing neighborhood (South Lake Union), etc. – there are also basic engineering reasons why our daily bottlenecks occur so predictably.

Consider just the area between NE 45th Street and I-90. In that roughly 4-mile stretch there are six overlapping 4-lane merges, four of which are attributable to Mercer Street alone. They are:

1. NE 45th Street to eastbound SR 520 (4 lanes in 0.8 miles)

Cars headed to the Eastside from NE 45th Street have just the 0.8 miles of the Ship Canal bridge to merge across 4 lanes to access the left-side exit to eastbound 520.

2. Eastbound University Street to eastbound SR 520 (4 lanes in 2 miles)

Cars using the University Street on-ramp are dumped into the left lane of northbound I-5 just as cars are merging left to access the Mercer Street off-ramp. Those headed for SR 520 have a bit longer (2 miles) to cut across all lanes of traffic to access the SR 520 on-ramp.

3. Eastbound Mercer to Eastbound SR 520 (4 lanes in 0.8 miles)

4. Westbound SR 520 to Westbound Mercer (4 lanes in 0.6 miles)

The Mercer-to-520 merges are the tightest in the city, 4 lanes in just 0.6-0.8 miles. Both merges dump you into the left lanes before requiring a quick merge to access right side on ramps.

If you wondered why Metro’s proposed Route 311 from Woodinville to South Lake Union would have used the express lanes via 42nd street instead of merging directly to Mercer, this is why. The merge is too short to be done safely by buses, and frankly cars have no business doing it either.

5. Eastbound Mercer to Eastbound I-90

Cars using the Mercer on-ramp to southbound I-5 are dumped into the left lane just as it again becomes an HOV lane for the first time since Northgate, forcing all SOVs to immediately merge. Those headed from Mercer to I-90 have to merge further, needing to cross 4 lanes in 1 mile in to access the collector-distributor lanes where the I-90 ramps are located.

6. Westbound I-90 to Westbound Mercer (7 lanes in 2 miles)

Requiring 7 lanes in 2 miles, this is perhaps the most chaotic of them all. At the I-5 on-ramp from westbound I-90  (near Dearborn), cars merge into the right lane of the 4-lane “collector-distributor” lanes, and they have until Madison Street (1 mile) to merge all the way left to the through lanes. After Madison, the collector-distributor lanes rejoin the mainline in the center-right lane, requiring cars headed for Mercer to make another 3-lane merge in 1 mile to access the left exit at Mercer.

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Enough wonk. The gist is that our 60s-era highway engineers cut corners and didn’t anticipate today’s traffic levels, requiring most Downtown-to-Eastside traffic to merge across all lanes of traffic.  Cars using these pathways clog the highway with merging pressure, and transit can’t use these routes for safety reasons, further incentivizing those who need them to drive.

Short of tearing out I-5, we could clean up some of these traffic patterns, but it would require some pretty unpopular tradeoffs. We could restrict SR 520 access from Downtown Seattle to those using the right-side on ramps to northbound I-5 (Cherry and Olive) and prohibiting 520 access from the left-side on ramps (University and Mercer). Heading toward I-90 from Downtown, we could likewise restrict access from left-side on ramps (Mercer) and require such cars to use right-side on ramps (Yale, Spring, and James). We could also prohibit movements from NE 45th Street to 520, requiring cars to use Ravenna Boulevard or Montlake. In each of these scenarios, I-5 would flow a bit more smoothly and collisions would likely fall. Transit impacts to would be mixed, with the improved flow helping operations but with unknown traffic redistribution patterns possibly hurting transit too.

So if you ever wonder why I-5 backs up by mid-day 7 days per week (especially in the reverse peak direction), it’s often less about the total volume of cars and more about the merging pressure so many drivers introduce through no fault of their own. So when your traffic-choked bus finally gets onto I-5, you can direct a good portion of your ire not at the cars with their blinkers on, but at the shortsighted engineers who force them to do so. Mercer’s recent rebuild aside, the ghost of the Bay Freeway helps it keep making messes.

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Have questions about ST3 and want to ask them directly of the powers that be? Tomorrow evening is your chance. Tuesday evening from 5:30-7:00pm in Union Station’s Ruth Fisher Boardroom, Transportation Choices Coalition will host its latest in its series of “Transit Talks”, this one devoted entirely to ST3.

TCC’s Director Shefali Ranganathan will join County Executive and ST Board Chair Dow Constantine, Seattle Mayor and Sound Transit Boardmember Ed Murray, King County Executive and ST Board Chair Dow Constantine, King County Councilmember and Sound Transit Boardmember Claudia Balducci, and Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. The panel will be moderated by Erica Barnett.

Tickets are not required, but due to space limitations, TCC asks that you register on their website here.

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February was the last full month of Original Segment ridership data. But we’re not quite finished. When the March numbers are released Zach will request ridership by day so there will be one last post before we shift gears to U Link ridership. Look for a more retrospective and even predictive post at that time. Also, since my last ridership post ST updated their 2015 rough monthly estimates which had the effect of smoothing out the wild swing in growth rates across the year.

February’s Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 35,875 / 23,513 / 17,300, growth of 11.3%, 33.4%, and 5.3% respectively over February 2015. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 13.6%. Tacoma Link’s weekday ridership decreased 7.3%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up .8%. System wide weekday boardings were up 5.2%, and all boardings were up 9.9%. The complete February Ridership Summary is here.

My charts below the fold. Continue reading “Feb 2016 ST Ridership – The End is Near”

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Sound Transit and King County Metro have been brainstorming ways to make their free-ride programs work for each others’ services, in response to a petition by the Transit Riders Union.

The county distributes paper tickets through non-profit agencies that serve homeless clientele. These tickets are honored on ST Express buses operated by Metro. Sound Transit distributes day passes that are only accepted on Link. The tickets cost the agencies 20% of face value, which is to say 50 cents for most tickets. The day passes cost the agencies $1.00. Naturally, most agencies opt not to get involved with the more expensive, less versatile, Link passes.

ST and Metro are considering a plan to offer a combo of a Link day pass and some tickets, for $1 cost to the agencies.

Multi-service day passes were offered back in 2012, but those passes went away after numerous complaints, including the use of erasable ink to fill out the dates, and failure by distributors to fill out a date. They were kept on Link because fare enforcement officers could take the time to check for fraud.

The free ticket program is the very definition of the acronym “PITA”. Agencies have to go through a one-year certification process to be allowed to give out tickets. The agencies have to collect personal information each time they give out a ticket. They have to pay the county 20% of face value to receive those tickets. They have to keep lobbying for more tickets as the homeless population balloons. For clients, having to get free bus tickets one at a time is the worst possible situation, next to no transit access at all. Often, there are no tickets available. Having the tickets not be usable on Link, when various trips now require using Link, is forcing a fresh round of pontification.

Trying to bring transit fare media distribution into the 21st century, through e-purse and/or pass uploads at hundreds of agencies, is far beyond what most agencies serving the homeless population are set up to do. Indeed, at all four locales in the US that have programs to give out free monthly or longer passes for the homeless population (Santa Clara County, Phoenix, Minneapolis / St. Paul, and Miami / Dade County), the job is shunted off to non-profits to deal with, and minimally advertised.

The ORCA LIFT program has served those who can’t afford to pay the full fare well, but it wasn’t designed to solve the problem of those who can’t afford to pay any fare. However it, along with the youth ORCA card and the Regional Reduced Fare Permit for seniors and riders with disabilities, may play a key role in solving the problem of homeless access to public transit.

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My suggestion:

First, give out paper monthly passes, covering the rest of the current month, at all the agencies currently offering free one-ride tickets. The passes would have the month and year clearly printed on them, and could be printed in a distinct color/design for that month. This solves the problem of invisible ink and failure to fill in dates that led to the demise of the free multi-modal day passes.

Second, when giving out a pass (or when telling a client that the monthly supply has run out), also provide a voucher that certifies that individual is eligible for a free monthly pass for the next month, and directs the recipient to locations (possibly Public Health, possibly Metro’s customer shops) where that voucher can be converted to a monthly pass for the stated month on an ORCA LIFT, RRFP, or youth ORCA card. The pass for the current month could also possibly be convertible to an ORCA pass, with proper identification.

Third, to make the concept of free transit access for the homeless more palatable to the general public, set a date for the elimination of paper transfers. Make ORCA cards widely available for free for a period surrounding the cut-off date.

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Opened in 1902, first Pacific Electric interurban rail line between Los Angeles and Long Beach was the last to close on April 9, 1961. As seen in this film, the trains and tracks were in very poor condition while new freeways were being built. Much of it reopened as the Blue Line light rail in July 1990.

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One thing I neglected to mention in my recent suggestion for better span of service on restructured Metro routes was that Metro had already set aside a cache of service hours within the restructure to proactively respond to overcrowding and reliability issues. Several STB writers have seen Metro staff in the field tallying riders on key routes, and it appears they have enough preliminary data to start tweaking.

Beginning next Monday four routes – 28X, 62, 373, and 73 – will see a total of 6 additional trips.

Route 28X has seen the highest number of complaints of overcrowding, with the restructure retaining its midday frequency but cutting its peak frequency by 26% – going from 23 to 17 trips between 5-9am. The 28X will see two additional morning trips in the 8-9am hour, with the aim to retain 10-minute headways until 9am. One trip will be added in the 5pm hour to allow 6-7 minute headways in the peak of the peak.

Route 62 has also received overcrowding complaints, though only for the southern half where it has taken over Wallingford-Fremont service from Route 16 and Fremont-Dexter-SLU service from former routes 26 and 28 local. Accordingly, Metro will add two morning trips between 7-8 am, originating at Ravenna/65th instead of Sand Point. This will provide 7-8 minute service between 8-9am from Green Lake to Downtown via Fremont.

Route 373 currently begins service from Aurora Village at 6:00am, and Metro has heard complaints from riders wishing to connect to Link a bit earlier, and has also observed “standing loads on all morning Route 373 trips.” It will add a single trip at 5:45am, arriving at UW Station at 6:30. Because the 373 and 73 live loop together at UW Station, Route 73 will see an additional trip also, leaving UW Station at 6:30 and arriving in Jackson Park at 7:00am.

Bravo to Metro for being responsive in adding trips just 3 weeks into the restructure, and let’s hope it’s the start of more tweaks to come as riders’ trip patterns settle over the coming months.

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No matter how devoted we may be to a life of transit (or walking or bicycling), etc, most of us still find ourselves behind the wheel at least semi-regularly. After 7 years without a car, I’ve made peace with car ownership and am frankly very glad I again own one. Those of us who grew up in suburbia or rural America likely landed in Seattle with our lead foots intact, frustrated by what we perceived as the well-meaning incompetence of other drivers. We may have even nodded our heads at the Allstate report saying Seattle has some of the worst drivers in the U.S.

But the very things that draw many of us to Seattle– vibrant street life, narrow(ish) streets, density of people and services, bodies of water, and topographic variation – are often direct impediments to driving. So I’d like to echo this great post from from Tom at Seattle Bike Blog with 15 ways you can stand out from your lead-footed peers and drive like a good Seattle Urbanist.

1: Yield for buses. Every time. Period. If you see a stopped bus with its left-turn signal flashing, yield. If a moving bus is trying to merge into your lane, let it. Every time.

2: Yield for people. Every time. Treat every intersection like the legal crosswalk that it is. Be nicer than people expect you to be.

3: Give thanks for transit. Every time you get frustrated driving behind a bus, breathe, imagine 40-100 additional cars in front of you, and give thanks instead.

4: Check your mirrors obsessively. Expect a cyclist to be approaching every single time you open your car door, change lanes, or turn. Get used to never quite feeling relaxed when you drive. You’re operating potentially lethal heavy machinery, you should be a little stressed and at full attention.

5: Slow down. If driving on crowded arterials, resist the urge to speed even a little. Go ahead and be the annoying one going 25mph on Rainier or 40mph on Aurora. Wear impatient honks from other drivers like a badge of pride. If you’re cresting a hill and can’t see beyond it, slow to a crawl. If you’re driving into the sun and your squinting impacts your field of vision, lay off the gas. Anytime humans on foot or bike are nearby, ease off a bit.

6: Drive below the speed limit on neighborhood streets. Drive 15mph or less, or slow enough to evade and not kill 100% of distracted children who may run out into the street.

7: Relax about cyclists and red lights. Learn to differentiate between the risky behaviors that deserve your scorn and the harmless bending of the law. If a person biking in front of you runs a yellow or newly-red light, give thanks that they’re the last through the intersection rather than in front of you when your light next turns green. If they treat the red light like a stop sign (as is legal in Idaho), understand that people biking are operating a much more nimble vehicle. People on bikes sit higher than those on most cars, and unimpeded by glass or structural steel, they also have a much wider field of vision that you do as a driver, increasing their chances of maneuvering safely. Cut them some slack.

8: Own an ORCA card, even if you drive every day. Keep at least $20 on it. Be ready and able to take transit at a moment’s notice rather than feeling locked into driving for lack of cash.

9: Drive with a light foot. Accelerate slowly, brake steadily. Be boringly predictable. If you see a red light in front of you, immediately ease off the accelerator and coast to a stop. Learn the light timings of your most frequented streets (e.g. 20mph on 4th Avenue downtown) and drive just fast enough to clear every green light. Think more about average speed and less about top speed. A good shorthand rule: if you’re making Marilyn McKenna angry, you’re probably doing something right.

10: Don’t make unprotected left turns through busy intersections (think Broadway/John, Olive/Denny, etc). Not only will you back up traffic, but you’ll be tempted to punch through if you get a clearing, endangering crossing pedestrians. Instead relax, take an extra minute, and whenever possible either use a signalized turn or make three right turns instead.

11: Don’t circle for parking, ever. Make one pass at your desired street parking location, and if it’s full, use the nearest garage. Make peace with routinely spending a few bucks to store your large piece of property. Rather than pinching pennies, value your time for what it’s worth.

12: Don’t block the box, ever. Don’t proceed across an intersection until you have at least two car lengths in front of you, so that you won’t block the box even if another driver cuts you off at the last minute. When other drivers honk at you for waiting, ignore them.

13: Don’t honk your horn unless there is an imminent threat of a collision, and never out of frustration or anger. Don’t let your impatience cause noise pollution and stress to those around you.

14: Don’t look at your phone, period. Turn off the ringer and stash it in the glove box until you turn off the car. It can wait. Drive simple cars with the least amount of distracting tech. If you need to stay connected during your travel time, there’s this great thing called transit that allows you to browse and tap and text to your heart’s content.

15: Be on the way. To the fullest extent possible, arrange your life to give yourself transportation resilience. Even if you drive for everything else, don’t drive during peak hours. Even if you rarely take transit, treat it like basic infrastructure you need to learn. Know what transit routes are near you and where they go and how often, just as you know the streets around you.

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• Board members Rob Johnson and Joe McDermott share their critique of the ST3 draft plan.
• Community Transit speaks up for I-405 tolling; apparently no one else cares enough about alternatives to congestion.
• Snohomish County legislators suggest other subareas pay more to accelerate construction to Everett.
• It looks like Renton will be the steward of quality for I-405 BRT.
• The Transport Politic analyzes ST3.
• Kitsap foot ferries moving forward.
• Owen Pickford’s very wonky case for inclusionary zoning.
• Kitsap Transit short of drivers, may have to cut service.
• Josh Feit on why Ballard will take so long.
• Issaquah pumped for ST3, Sammamish not so much.
• Capitol Hill business picking up.
• Survey suggests Seattle owns 4,500 fewer cars thanks to car share.
• Seattle Times editorial sets up a “No” recommendation ($) on ST3 with contradictory conditions, conditions that the highway widening package it supported would never pass.
• Cascades ridership down, but may recover after construction delays end.
• Headline claims Link expansion has intensified parking problems, but it turns out the problem is just that riders have to pay.

This is an open thread.

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Here’s an inconvenient truth I’ve been thinking about lately: Sound Transit could build faster, but we don’t really want them to. While we may individually clamor for the end product – trains now! – at every step of the way we also work against speedy delivery. We cherish our own democratic participation, we demand that our appeals for mitigations be heard, and we require that government not be allowed to harm other public interests in pursuit of its mandate.

We could easily imagine alternative scenarios that would build us new urban subways in under a decade. We could:

• Free ourselves from the conservatism required by private bond markets by levying higher taxes or creating centralized financing through infrastructure banks (see: European Investment Bank).
• Reform NEPA and SEPA to provide streamlining or categorical exclusions for transit projects.
• Be more aggressive with eminent domain takings, and drive harder bargains with affected residents and businesses (see: China).
• Repeal the Buy America Act to import cheaper labor and off-the-shelf materials
• Enact public-private partnerships (see: Denver or the Canada Line) or cede control of projects to firms through consolidated design/build contracts (see: Bertha).
• Ruthlessly cut-and-cover our tunnels through the heart of Downtown, providing no guarantees of continued access to nearby streets or buildings (as when Pine Street was closed for two years for the DSTT).
• Stop caring about noise abatement and work around the clock.
• Preclude neighborhoods from participation in station construction details, and build what we want when we want it.
• Require Sound Transit to use public capital for profit, becoming a master developer and creating massive TOD on all of its projects as part of its financial plan (see: Hong Kong).
• Ignore the advocacy community in favor of faster top-down planning, rendering useless the many oversight committees, advisory boards, our cadre of transportation nonprofits, and uppity blogs like ours.

Continue reading “ST3 is Slow Because It Reflects Our Values”

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