A week ago, Publicola’s Darren Davis invited his readers to submit “impassioned, prosy comments” on the Seattle Department of Transportation’s fare change proposal for the one, soon to be two, streetcar lines the department manages. Intrigued, I decided to take Darren up on his idea, and drill into the details of SDOT’s proposal, to see if there were any devils worth writing about. It turned out there were.

SDOT’s fare proposal has four central components:

1. Harmonizing the streetcar fare with Link Light Rail, by reducing the adult fare by a quarter, and raising the youth/senior fare by a quarter.
2. Implementing the ORCA LIFT program, a regional reduced fare for low-income adults.
3. Implementing a new, streetcar-only day pass, available from streetcar ticket machines.
4. Ceasing the acceptance of the paper transfers issued on King County Metro buses. Transfer credit will be available only when using ORCA.

(Currently, streetcar-only day passes exist, but are sold only in advance, to bulk purchasers. The existing day pass is pretty obscure: I didn’t even know that fare media existed despite regularly using and writing about transit for the 4.5 years I’ve lived here. This is the first time Seattle will be selling streetcar day passes from ticket machines on the street, and for all practical purposes, this will be the first time the public will be exposed to them.)

Parts (1) and (2) of SDOT’s proposal, harmonizing single-ride fares, are grand ideas, and I support their implementation wholeheartedly. They achieve the stated purpose of the streetcar fare change, which is to enhance regional integration of transit, and give transit riders a more predictable, comprehensible experience.

More after the jump. Continue reading “Seattle’s Streetcar Fare Proposal is a Step Backwards”

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On Valentine’s Day, Metro and Sound Transit will implement their February service change, bringing a handful of small changes to the transit network. This is the last ‘quiet’ service change for a while, as upcoming service changes promise to be much more extensive. June will bring a taste of Prop 1 improvements, September will fully flesh out Prop 1 while restructuring tunnel service for ULink, and next March will bring the big ULink bus restructure. In the meantime, here’s what you can look forward to next week.

Metro 

• Route 7: Tweaks the schedule to improve the Prentice Loop
• Route 50: Reinstates the VA loop
• Routes 55, 111, 114, and 143: These routes will no longer serve Bell, removing 25 buses from Bell Street Park during the PM peak.
• Routes 193, 303: These two First Hill peak routes will have their last trips leave much later (7:40pm).
• Route 204: Sees its evening service span expand by one hour.
• Routes 212, 255, 312: Minor schedule changes.
• DART 913: Route revision in Kent.
• Route 628: A new peak-only route serving North Bend, Snoqualmie, and Issaquah Highlands.

Sound Transit

• 522, 592: Minor schedule changes.
• 590, 594, 595: Major schedule changes to better meet demand.
• 574: Southbound frequency reduced from 15 to 20 minutes from 12-3pm.

Fare Changes (March 1)

• Metro fares go up by $.25 across all fare categories except Access, which rises by $.50.
• Link fares go up $.25.
• The new Low-Income Fare, “ORCA Lift“, begins.

Construction Detours

In early April, routes 4, 8, and 48 will begin an 8-month detour, on which more this afternoon.

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King County is a large and diverse area, including the populous region in and around Seattle and much more rural spots like Vashon Island and the Snoqualmie Valley. That leaves King County Metro with a widely disparate service area.

As part of the ongoing efforts to streamline Metro service over the last few years, the County has been developing a program called “alternative service delivery,” whereby it creates or adjusts transit service for rural communities that might be better served by something other than a fixed-route Metro bus, such as a community shuttle or Dial-a-ride (DART) service.  These alternative services, according to Metro, can cost half as much to operate as a fixed-route bus (which generally costs between $140-$160 per hour).

This week Metro announced a new route as part of this service, the 628, which will traverse I-90 between North Bend and Issaquah Highlands during peak hours. Metro will contract with Hopelink to provide the service, and riders will be able to call ahead to schedule off-route pickups.  Metro’s Rochelle Ogershok says that this peak service will complement the all-day 208 (which had some service reduced in the September 2014 cuts), providing access to difficult-to-serve areas of the Issaquah Highlands.  Additionally, riders will get a reverse-peak express between Issaquah and North Bend on I-90.

Alternative service delivery came out of the various performance audits and improvement measures that Metro undertook during the belt-tightening days of 2009-2014.  Providing more flexible transit options will be a big benefit to rural areas and allow for better service at a lower cost.

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Last Monday, House Bill 1180, which would give Sound Transit authority to take a new capital and service improvement funding package (“ST3” as we like to call it) to the district’s voters, was passed out of the House Transportation Committee. On Thursday, the bill was referred over to the House Finance Committee.

The next step for the bill is to get a hearing in the Finance Committee, at the discretion of Committee Chair Reuven Carlyle (D – representing the Ballard, Queen Anne, and Magnolia neighborhoods of Seattle).

Update: HB 1180 is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday at 3:30 pm. You can view the hearing live.

Continue reading “HB 1180 Moves to Finance Committee, Hearing Tuesday”

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A while back we told you that Sound Transit was going to put out an RFP for vendors to install cell service in light rail tunnels, including the downtown tunnel and U-Link.  Well, the bids are in and we have a winner.  The winning vendor, Mobilitie, will install cellular service for all 4 major US companies, and pay Sound Transit for the privilege of doing so (Mobilitie will, in turn, charge the telcos for the service).  Per ST (pdf):

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• Sound Transit and Senator Patty Murray will celebrate the completion of Tukwila Station on February 18th at 2pm. Meanwhile, there’s chatter of a Tukwila NBA/NHL arena. ($)
• Sound Transit is looking to extend the Northgate Pedestrian Bridge funding deadline, to February 2016.
• Metro’s Long Range Plan site is now live. Take their (very important!) survey here.
• King County has introduced a Transit Carbon Offset Program, with carbon credit proceeds invested directly in transit. This program is the first of its kind for a U.S. transit agency.
• Seattle’s red-light cameras have reduced collisions by 23%.
• Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-My Hero) has introduced legislation to double the gas tax.
• Streetsblog rounds up all the transit goodies in Obama’s budget proposal.
• Slow-growth activist Bill Bradburd has jumped into the citywide race against Sally Clark.
• 4 months for 2 sentences: it’s been slow-going for the Mayor’s housing affordability commission. ($)
• The repair pit for Bertha has reached its full 120′ depth, apparently without further settlement problems. ($)
• Cyrus Habib (D-Kirkland) has proposed regulating Uber/Lyft etc at the state level. ($) Read the text of SB 5550 here.
• Peter Steinbreuck has completed his analysis of the city’s Urban Village strategy. ($) In short, new residents materialized as predicted, jobs didn’t quite, growth was successfully directed into Urban Villages, and single-family homes have been ‘protected’. The Urbanist has a good two-part analysis (1, 2)
• 15 Yaletown developments in Vancouver BC have been put on hold by the B.C. Supreme Court in a controversy over land swaps and affordable housing, and developers are ‘in shock’.

This is an open thread.

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SDOT is conducting an online survey about the Madison Street BRT project, which is in the planning process.  This project is intended to provide fast and frequent bus service along Madison Street between downtown and 23rd Avenue, using dedicated right-of-way.  The last day to take the survey is today.

The survey asks for community input on design priorities for the BRT right-of-way; priorities for transfers to and from the BRT; the location of future bike routes serving the corridor; and priorities for pedestrian improvement.  The transfer question is particularly important because transfers from Madison/Marion to 3rd Avenue bus service and the downtown transit tunnel are currently bad, and would have gotten even worse under early draft Madison BRT plans.

If you care about the future of the Madison corridor, please take the survey this afternoon.

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Here’s the press release:

The Obama Administration’s FY 2016 budget proposal includes $74.99 million in Small Starts federal funding for extending the Tacoma Link light rail line… Expansion of the 1.6-mile light rail system between the Tacoma Dome and Theater District stations requires partnership funding before the expansion can be built. The 2.4-mile expansion requires approximately $75 million in Small Starts funding, $50 million in ST2 revenues, and $40 million from the City of Tacoma, a key partner in the project. To date, Sound Transit and the City have worked together to secure $13 million in grants for the City’s contribution to the project.

So if Congress were to actually enact this, they’d still be $27m short. ST has long anticipated this grant and the news therefore doesn’t really alter the status quo.

The extension would go up to the Stadium District and then turn south on MLK Way.

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