As part of the Federal Way Link extension, Sound Transit drafted four alternatives that would connect the Angle Lake Station, which is expected to open in 2016 on Pacific Highway (SR-99), to the currently unfunded Federal Way Transit Center. The Kent-Des Moines station, expected to open by 2023, is the first stop after Angle Lake. Voters approved S. 272^nd Station in 2008, but there is not yet funding to get there. Funding to construct the all the way to Federal Way could come from grants or a future ballot measure. The alternatives follow I-5, stay on SR99, or switch between them with Kent/Des Moines as a transition station. ST is also considering additional stations on SR99 at S. 216th St. and S. 260th St.

ST has as many as eight potential locations for the Kent-Des Moines station. Project Team Manager Sandra Fann said that the details of these locations are not yet officially decided, but all of them are expected to be accessible to the Highline campus. Some of the options include having the station on the east side of campus; west east, or in the median of the Pacific Highway South (SR-99); west or east of 30^th Ave South, or along Interstate 5. “These locations are based on a combination of ideas brought up by cities along the way and logic from an alignment perspective,” Fann said.

City officials from Kent, having already massively upzoned their share of the station area, prefers the station to align with SR-99 while the City of Des Moines would rather have the light rail go on I-5.

Kent City Councilmember Dennis Higgins said he prefers an alternative that serves the people and neighborhoods by the station. “Generally speaking I think a routing down the freeway median doesn’t meet that criteria,” Higgins said. “I know such routes are more disruptive during construction but in the long run they serve the public much better.” Continue reading “Debate Over the Future Kent-Des Moines Station Site”

Yesterday the Seattle City Council* voted unanimously (Tim Burgess was absent) to send a $60 vehicle license fee and 0.1% sales tax increase to the November ballot to save bus service. The measure would mostly maintain the service level in the City of Seattle and preserve some trips to and from the suburbs. The final approved version is here. Public comment at the hearing was unanimously in favor of preserving bus service. There were also several amendments.

The first change from the Mayor’s proposal is that both taxes expire at the end of 2020, rather than in 10 years.

Nick Licata made a point of verifying that any surplus after restoring service levels could not be used for, as he put it, “more capital-intensive fixed rail projects” because the legislation specifically authorizes “Metro transit bus service hours.” Of course, this language would also seemingly prohibit various sensible bus capital improvements, like transit signal priority, bus lanes, trolley wire, off-board payment, and so forth, using TBD funds.

Mike O’Brien sponsored a (unanimously) successful amendment to set aside up to $2m for increasing “access to the low-income fare program” and “developing and potentially funding additional no-income and low-income products for Seattle residents.”

Tom Rasmussen earned unanimous approval of an amendment he said was inspired by the League of Women Voters, that “clarifies” that “the first priority for the funding is to preserve existing routes and prevent Metro’s proposed service cuts and restructures,” and demands the public process that is typical in Metro restructures anyway. The LWV, represented yesterday by occasional STB commenter Joanna Cullen, has been a reactionary force against restructures that would boost Metro ridership by rationalizing the route network, specifically to Route 2. Multiple sources assure me that this language does not prevent sensible, ridership-driven restructures after the usual public process. It’s perhaps inevitable that introducing city funding also introduces another veto point for restructures. But I would have been happier if the amendment didn’t pass.

The most interesting part of the afternoon was the argument over the sales tax. Councilmembers Licata and Sawant floated a plan to replace the relatively regressive sales tax portion with an employee head tax and commercial parking tax to generate about the same amount of revenue. They convinced no one to cross over and lost 6-2. I am relatively relaxed about regressive taxation for transit, as the spending itself is quite progressive.  But the arguments yesterday are interesting.

Continue reading “Seattle Council Sends Metro Tax to Ballot”

Five years! For a blast from the past, check out our opening day coverage from back in 2009. A lot has changed since then, some of it the world affecting Link, and some of it Link affecting the world. How has the opening of Seattle’s first all-day rapid transit line effected your life?

Yesterday, Sound Transit released some numbers that are icing on Link’s birthday cake. May saw a twenty-three percent increase in average weekday ridership, year-on-year, over 2013. Yes, you read that correctly: twenty-three percent! (Okay, it’s actually 22.7%, but close enough.) Now if you look at my charts you’ll see that May 2013 was a relatively low growth month, but still that is pretty amazing!

May’s Central Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 33,650 / 27,910 / 17,412, growth of 22.7%, 17.1%, and 18.8% respectively over May 2013. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 9.7% with ridership increasing on both lines. Total Tacoma Link weekday ridership declined 6.2%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up 5.9%. Total Sound Transit average weekday boardings were up 10.1%. The complete May Ridership Summary is here.

My charts are below the fold. Happy Birthday Link!

Continue reading “May 2014 ST Ridership Report – Happy Birthday!”

The recent opening of the sixth and final RapidRide line was an occasion for Metro’s General Manager Kevin Desmond to take a victory lap in an email, highlighting high ridership numbers and customer satisfaction scores as well as federal grant contributions to the project’s success.

To things stand out: first, that RapidRide now accounts for 12% of Metro’s daily trips – 50,000 riders, with nearly half of those on the D&E lines alone. It shows that targeted investments in a few corridors can really move the needle for a large portion of bus riders.

Second, ridership has more than exceeded 5-year targets. Now, of course you can expect anyone whose performance is tied to a metric to set expectations low enough that they can safely knock them out of the park, but the serious hiccups that Metro faced when lines C&D launched make it clear that Metro genuinely had no idea how much pent up demand there was in this city for better transit experiences. Turns out they will ride, and you don’t even have to give them good coffee or good music.

As we’ve been saying on this blog for years, the gap between RapidRide and “real” BRT is fairly large. It stops too often, doesn’t run often enough, doesn’t have much exclusive right-of-way, and launched without crucial features like off-board payment.  It was basically just enough BRT to get Uncle Sam to help pick up the check.

Still, some of the kinks have been worked out, the downtown ORCA readers are here, and it’s now a crucial part of the region’s transit ecosystem. So what’s next? As the map at right suggests, the initial six corridors spread coverage across the county. With that task out of the way, there are several routes, mostly in Seattle, that would benefit from RapidRide treatment. Given that Sound Transit is now working closely with Metro and Metro is selling service to SDOT and we’re all one big happy family, there are a few things off the top of my head that these agencies could do to make RapidRide even better:

1. More exclusive right-of-way
2. Faster, more direct service on the D line
3. Bring more in-city routes to RapidRide standards.  Contenders might include the 7, 44, 48, 120 and Madison St. BRT
4. More frequent service! 19-minute peak headways are inexcusable

How else could RapidRide be improved? Let us know in the comments.

• New ride service regulations likely to levy a 10-cent surcharge ($) to subsidize wheelchair-accessible cabs.
• Washington State Transportation Commission, which sets tolls on 520, didn’t find out about upcoming I-90 construction any earlier than July 1st. But they state — correctly — that it would be unwise to suspend the toll.
• Congress may delay highway fund from running out of money, but only by subsidizing highways rather than raising user fees (gas taxes).
• An interesting tradeoff ($) for those who obsess over density “impacts:” allow more height in exchange for a park?
• King County deadlocked; Metro waiting for instruction to execute cuts.
• CHS writes up the 2.
• ST Capital Committee punts on recommending a Link Maintenance Facility location.
• Kitsap getting its fast ferries back.
• Mukilteo Sounder getting a second platform.
• Burien Town Square will take a long time ($).
• Fun with car ownership statistics ($).
• Smart, but ultimately unconvincing, doubts about whether density will limit housing prices.  As with most of these arguments, the author doesn’t consider the landscape if supply is more constrained.

This is an open thread.

Last week Zach reported on the 7-day WSDOT construction project that will reduce Westbound I-90 to as little as one lane. The potential for epic backups, engulfing both transit and drivers, is obvious. I asked WSDOT Spokesman Travis Phelps and Traffic Engineer Mark Bandy what the exact implications were for transit, and what more could have been done.

The first half of the closure, Stage 1 depicted above, is “probably more impactful” than Stage 2, and it’s no accident that the bulk of this work will occur over the weekend. With the HOV lanes entirely closed, buses will merge into general traffic, thus discouraging their use at the point of maximum need for spatial efficiency. I asked Mr. Bandy if WSDOT would consider making one of the remaining lanes HOV, setting aside for the moment that the planned configuration withers to one lane for a short stretch.

He said in any project “we would assess if it made sense to make one of the lanes HOV,” but the agency’s experience was that to create compliance WSDOT would “have to paint it and put the markings down,” rather than use a sign or other simple measure. The restriping operation itself would be a matter of days, in support of a closure that will only amount to 3 or 4 days. “If we were talking about this configuration in place for 3 months we’d be having a different conversation,” Bandy said.

So Stage 1 will be a disaster; Stage 2 may be mildly better for transit. As a transit user,  if you can possibly delay your trip to the later part of the week, that would be wise.  The bad news is that I-90 buses will have to share the HOV lane with all mainline traffic when it withers down to one lane. It would be theoretically possible to instead divert all SOV traffic into the collector/distributor lanes and leave the HOV lane clear, but Mr. Phelps dismissed that as “difficult.” If there’s a saving grace for the 554 et al it’s that they’ll occupy the continuous lane and therefore have an advantage over merging traffic.

Continue reading “More on Next Week’s I-90 Trouble”

Yellow Cab by AntyDiluvian on Flickr

By an 8-1 vote, the Seattle City Council formally approved new regulations on transportation network companies, such as Uber and Lyft, per the broad outlines of the agreement sketched out by Mayor Murray.  The “caps” that represented the bulk of the controversy have been repealed. Councilmember O’Brien was the lone “no” vote;  he explains his thinking here.  Get all the details at PubliCola and GeekWire.

It’s a new era for taxis in Seattle as well, including the introduction of transferable “medallions” that cab owners can treat as equity.  As I said previously, this is another solid win for Murray, who’s shown an ability to move legislation forward by assembling a broad coalition and giving everyone something in return.  He’s also shown a deftness at getting what he wants through the council by scrambling ideological fault lines.