Eli Sanders interviewed Rep. Reuven Carlyle in the Slog, assessing blame for Metro’s predicament and suggesting a way forward:

Until a statewide package passes, Carlyle said, “I think the pain points are going to increase everywhere. Pierce County is feeling it. King County is now feeling it. What is the argument against a statewide transportation plan, other than that taxes are a bummer?”…

[Murray can lead] by loudly connecting the dots for Seattleites who want action to save Metro, telling them exactly who to send money to in order to flip the handful of state senate seats that Democrats need in order to get Metro the money it needs.

Although I wouldn’t expect a Democratic legislator to say anything else, this comment is both misleading and self-serving.

The Republicans have run the Senate for less than 18 months. Metro’s funding crisis is in its sixth year. The Democrats had about four years to find a long-term solution for Metro. Aside from the two-year $20 vehicle license fee that is about to expire, neither party in Olympia has done anything. This includes Gov. Gregoire’s immediate abandonment of her commitment to include Metro funding in the deep-bore tunnel deal, her direct veto of a $20 vehicle license fee for Metro in 2009, as well as former Senate Transportation Chair Haugen’s decision to hold off on Metro relief until it could be yoked to a massive highway expansion bill. Metro advocates would be naive to believe a Democratic majority would automatically bring new funding.

And that’s the argument against a transportation package that eludes Mr. Carlyle. Any conceivable transportation package will trade the maintenance of existing transit for a massive expansion of highway capacity. This will spew greenhouse gases, expand sprawl, and add to future highway maintenance costs. (Check out last year’s (Democratic) House proposal for an example of a terrible bill.) Chances are good that a bill will automatically authorize the highways — endless subsidy of drivers is too important to risk at the ballot box — while the transit will likely require a county vote. As we’ve seen, county votes are not necessarily a slam dunk.

This isn’t to suggest that there aren’t a handful of good legislators,* or that Republican transportation policy is, in any way, good for the future of the state. They despise taxes that discourage destructive behavior and would be perfectly happy to do nothing but build highways. However, those desires are in tension, and their control of the Senate at least thwarts the only slightly better Democratic ideas.

For many of you, there are other issues where the Senate Majority will make a big difference. But until we see a real commitment from the Democratic Caucus to focus on the road maintenance backlog rather than highway expansion, transportation is not one of them. Local battles have much more potential for good outcomes in transportation and land use, and you should focus on those.

* Liias, Fitzgibbon, and Farrell are all exceptional, but not enough to stem the tide of bad ideas in their own caucus.

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The weather is supposed to be exceptional Thursday, but this is important enough to spend a couple of hours indoors, even if it’s nice outside:

The City Council’s Planning, Land Use and Sustainability Committee is holding a public hearing to take comments on our revised zoning proposal. The meeting is on May 1, 2014 at 6:00 p.m., in the 2100 Building, located at 2100 24th Ave. South. Please check the Committee agenda a few days before the meeting for more information.

For density opponents, it’s never the right time to allow for growth, and they’ve successfully delayed this action several times while the Rainier Valley suffers. The North Rainier neighborhood is currently a car sewer sitting atop one of the biggest transit hubs in King County, but could become a place to go rather than a place to get through.

Opponents from the adjacent, affluent, single-family Mt. Baker neighborhood (not actually a subject of the rezone) trot out the usual meaningless objections to “scale” and “character,” as well as the “but where will they park?” question straight out of 1965. If density and transit can’t work here, with Link, three (7, 48, 8/106) frequent bus lines (even after coming Metro cuts), transit-dependent populations, and two other bus lines providing 360 degree transit mobility, then it can’t work anywhere.

Dense development near the station will bring jobs to the most economically challenged sector of Seattle, jobs that don’t require a graduate degree. It will provide more accessible housing and retail for the transit dependent. It will also increase transit usage in the city by focusing people and attractions in one of the few places where our transit system will remain robust, come what may. Furthermore, there would be more housing in a part of the city where rents and house prices are relatively affordable.

Here is a useful presentation on the proposed rezone. It is not nearly enough — in ever-livable Vancouver at least double the heights proposed here would go without saying — but would be a huge step forward for the neighborhood, the city, and the region. My report on the most recent of these hearings includes an embed of the (often quite reprehensible) testimony.

We lose these battles when the young people most accepting of density and with the most future at stake decide to blow it off because they think they have better things to do. Don’t let it happen again.

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Vignelli Transit Maps by Peter B. Lloyd and Mark Ovenden is the story of Massimo Vignelli’s famous (infamous?) 1972 map of the New York City subway system. The map was controversial because it ignored geographic and station location and stuck to a strict 45- and 90-degree grid, and was eventually replaced by the MTA in 1979. You can see a high-resolution image of the map here.

The book covers the story and people behind the map, as well as the importance of transit maps and how they are designed. There are a number of interesting details on map features such typeface, colour, and cost as well as lovely images of the maps. Where the book does fall a bit short is on answering the question of whether the map was better or worse than those that came before and after it. Even though the book is rather large, some of the maps are illegible because they require even larger formats.

I think Vignelli Transit Maps is a nice companion to the 2007 work Transit Maps of the World. The former will give you some of the tools to help understand that thoughts that went into some of the later. I picked up my copy of Vignelli second-hand for much less than the Amazon price, but I would say it’s worth it if subway maps are an interest of yours.

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A whole lot of asphalt. But it will revolutionize the Snohomish County transit situation.

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French Economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been translated into English by Arthur Goldhammer, and it has made quite a stir. Paul Krugman’s review is probably the best, and Matt Yglesias’s is the best “TL;DR” version. To summarise briefly, Piketty studied wealth (capital) growth in the nineteenth and twentieth century and has concluded that without considerable government intervention the 21st century will look a lot like the Gilded Age. That is, wealth will continue to accrue only a very select few at the top of the wealth curve (the “.01%” you could say), and that eventually elites will inherit all of their wealth, with little chance of a change in social status between generations. Piketty says this undermine democracy and turn society into an oligarchy, if it already hasn’t.

What does this have to do with transportation? Well, capital and wealth accumulating to only a few is scary enough, but I think it also helps explain one of my pet subjects, the decline in infrastructure across the United States. Public infrastructure is capital as is any other. With all wealth accumulating to just a few, there’s less money left over for big public infrastructure projects, which is why the interstate system could be built in the middle of the 20th century, but a project of that scale is completely unimaginable today. Piketty does not go into any detail on this subject, nor does any of the commentary on the book, but it’s worth keeping in mind as an explanation for why it’s so difficult to even keep public buses funded.

As an aside, I do recommend Capital in the Twenty-First Century, even though it’s not the easiest read.

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For some time we have known that the coming Metro cuts would not fall all at once, but would be implemented in 4 phases corresponding with the normal triannual service change process. At a press conference yesterday, Metro released details of all 4 phases. The phasing is thoughtful and clearly attempts to minimize rider pain and inconvenience as long as possible, with each successive round of cuts being relatively more painful than the last. Each of the phases has a distinct theme, very roughly as follows:

• Phase 1  (September 2014) could be called the lower-hanging fruit, delaying any systematic restructures while eliminating duplicative peak routes, express variants of core routes, some First Hill peak routes, and all the old night owl milk runs.
• Phase 2 (February 2015) restructures service in Central Seattle, South Seattle, Renton, Kirkland, and to the peak network in South King County.
• Phase 3 (June 2015) restructures service in North Seattle, including a complete overhaul of service in Fremont, Ballard, the UDistrict, Roosevelt, Maple Leaf, Northgate, and more. All-day service in Magnolia is essentially gutted, down to a single loop.
• Phase 4 (September 2015) is the final phase and brings the West Seattle restructure.

Route by route details of each phase below the jump…

Continue reading “Metro Cuts: When and Where”

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• Sound Transit surplus property near Othello Station will be developed with affordable housing, 2/3rds of it consisting of 2- and 3-bedroom units.
• Fourteen developers vying for Sound Transit’s Capitol Hill Station surplus property. Developer to be selected over the next month.
• King Street Station restoration recognized. It really does look beautiful.
• The Mercer West two-way transition is about to begin! This doesn’t happen every day.
• “And the fatality numbers are striking: in Jacksonville, pedestrians are killed at a rate 15 times higher, and cyclists 19 times higher, than in Seattle.”
• Repairs to Bertha will take at least a year to complete. Can we please confirm that Seattle isn’t responsible for cost overruns and ensure that Seattle Tunnel Partners has the financial means to finish?
• The full council approves the West Seattle Whole Food alley vacation, ending a messy, confused and misplaced fight.
• Hedreen hedges bet on its alley vacation contingent, 1,600 room hotel. Backup plan is smaller, with no affordable housing, no public art, and in my opinion an inferior street-level design and circulation plan.
• Group Health to sponsor 15 of the 50 Bike Share stations, mostly in Capitol Hill and SLU.
• Puyallup looking at how to improve access to Sounder.
• Access and transportation are the biggest hurdles for the Seattle Arena.
• 49ers fans seeing red over the interior color scheme of SF’s new BART trains.

This is an open thread.

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Proposition 1 was the last chance to avoid deep, countywide cuts, and the first installment of those cuts will take effect in September. However, Friends of Transit, the Political Action Committee founded and operated by former STB staffer Ben Schiendelman, announced yesterday the intention to file an initiative for the November ballot to recover quickly:

The proposed initiative would increase the city’s property tax by $0.22 per $1,000 of assessed value between 2015 and 2021. The measure is estimated to generate $25 million a year in revenue, enough to fund as much as 250,000 hours of bus service. This funding would help stave off cuts to routes operating completely within Seattle, and may help reduce cuts to routes operating between Seattle and other cities. The property tax increase requires a simple majority vote for approval.

If a measure like this were to pass and work as intended, this would be great news for transit in the areas that most need it to function. As this measure would run on the November ballot, it couldn’t take effect until January 2015, when many cuts have already been in effect for months.

Friends of Transit has not yet finalized the language of the initiative, and we are a long way from a campaign. I asked Ben how he envisions this would work in practice. “The council would be directed to buy service to offset Metro’s service cuts (the language references the cuts documents) for routes with 80% or more of their hours in Seattle,” he explains. Mr. Schiendelman says that the package is resourced to cover all of the routes that qualify, but it would be up to the City Council to implement it and prioritize where necessary.

Nevertheless, there are things to like about this proposal and things to be concerned about any city-only measure:

Continue reading “A Seattle Initiative to Save Service”

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Danny Westneat had a column last week on the rapid development of South Lake Union and Denny Triangle that elicited a fair amount of eye-rolling from the urbanist set in my Twitter feed. Here’s the nut graf:

I’m no Lesser Seattle type. Growth means jobs, and density means a vital city. But wasn’t it supposed to be managed growth, or smart growth? Plopping down the biggest development in city history on two blocks with little provision for infrastructure seems helter-skelter. Not smart.

I admit I rolled my eyes the first time through as well, especially when I got to the only quote in the piece, from reliable density foe John Fox.  But let’s take Westneat at his word that he’s in favor of smart growth, where we plan for transit, schools, and parks to go along with our deluxe apartments in the sky.

If you really want smart growth, it follows that you’d need more central planning — something Seattleites have traditionally resisted.  In fact, you’d want the exact opposite of the decentralized, neighborhood-driven process that Fox’s SDC advocates.

Instead of quoting the SDC, Westneat might have taken the opportunity to highlight Seattle 2035, the major planning initiative currently being undertaken by DPD.  Or, he might have looked to his paper’s own archives, where an accessible story comparing Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, written 11 years ago during the last building boom, is still quite relevant:

But when it comes to livability, we seem stuck in first gear and our neighbors are more than a little condescending. Seattle’s OK, they say, but a little crass. Yokels on planning. Bumpkins on design.

“Seattle has an ethic of passivity,” says Portland developer John Russell. “People throw up their hands and say there’s nothing we can do.”

“I can’t figure out why you guys don’t build better buildings,” says Homer Williams, the developer behind the burgeoning new Pearl District and the upcoming Macadam restoration along the Willamette River.

…
Continue reading “Smarter Growth Means More Planning”

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If you haven’t been following the Proposition 1 discussion obsessively, you might not have a firm idea of what the (now inevitable) Metro cuts will look like. David Lawson’s analysis of the Seattle and Eastside cuts are useful references, amended by the recent slight uptick in projected revenue.

South King County’s cuts are equally deep, but are not accompanied by a major restructure and so did not merit the kind of analysis David brought to the other subareas.

Metro’s website about the cuts is here.

[UPDATE: Here’s a document about phasing, where the first 166,000 hours go away this September.]

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