3rd Ave Transit Mall Seattle from HazelScher on Vimeo.

(H/T: Will Green)

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As mentioned in Thursday’s news roundup and in a recent Publicola article, on Tuesday, the State Senate passed Senate Bill 6001, its supplemental transportation appropriations bill. Among the amendments tacked onto the bill was this strike at Sound Transit, sponsored by Sen. Bob Hasegawa:

“(10) As a condition of eligibility to receive grant funds under this section, a regional transit authority must:
(a) Consider the potential impacts of that facility on parking availability for residents nearby;
(b) Provide appropriate parking impact mitigation for residents, as determined by the authority in collaboration with the local government of the area in which the parking impacts occur. Parking impact mitigation may include, but is not limited to, subsidizing zoned residential parking permits in the vicinity of the facility; and
(c) Pay for the costs of the parking permits in the vicinity of the facility, if a local government implements zoned residential parking permits as a direct result of the parking impacts of the facility.”

The language of this amendment is similar to Senate Bill 6489, also sponsored by Sen. Hasegawa. That bill got out of the Senate Transportation Committee, but made it no further.

The amendment does not define “vicinity”. Nor does it specify a cap on how much a city can charge for Restricted Parking Zone (RPZ) permits. In theory, the City of Bellevue could deem the whole city to be in the “vicinity” of Sound Transit infrastructure, declare the whole city to be an RPZ, charge $1 million per annual permit, and require Sound Transit to pay the entire cost of these $1 million annual parking permits.

It is unclear why Sound Transit should be accountible for difficulties neighbors have parking their cars, in the public right-of-way, in front of their own homes, when other public infrastructure, like colleges and ferry docks, have RPZs around them, and their governing agencies are not being asked required to pay for RPZ permits.

It is also unknown whether the senator tried to intercede with the City of Seattle over the $65 cost of a 2-year parking permit (or $10, for those who qualify as low-income). If the neighbors don’t want to pay this small amount to park in front of their homes, they have a more direct option: Dissolve their RPZ.

Requests to Sen. Hasegawa’s office for comment on the amendment have gone unanswered.

Update: Commenter cuyahoga points out that permits in some of the 33 RPZs (2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20, A, and B) are fully or partially subsidized by the University of Washington, North Seattle Community College, Harborview Hospital, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Providence Hospital, Group Health Cooperative, Swedish Hospital, and Landmark Theater.

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Here’s what we know so far about the SR-99 tunnelling project:

1. Bertha, the tunnel boring machine (TBM) has been more or less completely blocked since early December.
2. The TBM was damaged in part by a metal pipe WSDOT installed to study this tunnel project’s feasibility.[1]
3. The tunneling won’t start again until the end of the summer, with the tunnelling contractor, Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) hoping it will begin by Sept. 1st at the earliest.
4. The TBM had problems early on, during testing after construction in Japan.
5. Internal reports from the STP and WSDOT show that there are more problems with coordination and oversight. It also shows that the tunnelling was never on track, even before the current stoppage.

Here’s what we know about the traffic and funding for the tunnelling:

1. Viaduct traffic is down 40% in the past three years.
2. In order to raise the needed tolls to help pay for the tunnel, more trips would need to go through the tunnel than currently travel the viaduct. It’s worth noting the viaduct serves more locations[2] than the tunnel would.
3. WSDOT’s traffic projections have been off, as traffic as been declining on all roads, rather than increasing.
4. There’s also confusion over who will pay for the now-certain cost-overruns.

All of these bullet points are new bits of information since we last voted on the tunnel, back in 2011. Take a look at this map here. Continue reading “Should we continue with Bertha?”

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• Sound Transit settles on a Tacoma Link alignment.
• SDOT writes about overhead wire crossings.
• Yet another example of how Seattle’s legislative delegation is embarrassingly bad on transit and urbanism issues: Sen Bob. Hasegawa (D-11) pushes an amendment to force Sound Transit to subsidize parking and car ownership. Because we’re not spending enough on cars, I guess.
• Yonah Freemark finds some statistical evidence that rail service improvements attract more riders than bus ones, though that might be a function of the land use that the rail inspired (on the East Coast) or followed (on the West).
• Mike Lindblom has the final numbers for the day of the Seahawks Parade ($): 71,000 on Link, 38,000 (!) on Sounder, 586,000 boardings on ST and Metro buses.
• After significant revisions, City Council regulates informal taxis, in a 5-4 vote. The most firmly anti-TNC Councilmembers (Licata, Sawant, O’Brien, Harrell) voted against.
• Struggles over moving Tacoma’s Amtrak station to Freighthouse Square.
• ST awards contract for 1,050 parking spaces at Angle Lake Station; includes retail, dropoff area, and space set aside for TOD.
• NYT article ($) about gentrification labels longtime residents with skyrocketing property values as “victims.” Higher property taxes are a bummer, but are vastly superior to lower property prices.
• Google buying bus passes for low income kids in San Francisco.
• CalTrain planning to electrify by 2019.
• Utah now provides real-time information compatible with Google Glass.

This is an open thread.

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The owners of the Seattle Greet Wheel, Great Western Pacific, have announced a plan to build a gondola from the Convention Center to the waterfront on Union Street. Here’s KUOW on the subject, and the Seattle Times has more details, including a potential route map, and this bit of detail:

At a news conference, Griffith said the system would run east and west; be privately financed; require no tax dollars; pose no risk to the city; and bring people into the waterfront area of the city, a region that is now difficult to access due to lack of parking and continuing construction.

I few bits of detail:

• The cars are supposed to be 40 or 50 feet off the ground, which would pose privacy issues for any apartments or condos on that street at or around that height.
• No word yet on how much a trip would cost, or whether an Orca could be used.
• The system would be paid with private financing, but use the public right-of-way.

I think a gondola there is a great idea, but I think there might be better ways to get it than let a private developer finance, build it, and operate it. With private operations, the system is likely to be a one-off, and the trips are likely to be rather expensive. I wonder if there isn’t a way to get this paid with private money but operated publicly.

Last time I was in London, I rode the “Emirates Air Line” (different from Emirates Airline), a gondola that opened in London for the 2012 Olympics. The gondola was originally meant to be entirely privately financed, but the project went significantly over-budget. In the end, Emirates Airlines paid £36 million of the £60 million price tag in exchange for 10 years of “branding” of the line, which is included on Transport for London rail maps along with the Underground, the Overground and the Docklands light rail.

Now, Seattle’s not London, and we’re not hosting the Olympics, but there may still be a way to get this or other gondolas paid for without significant public expenditure while still maintaining public ownership. The best thing about contracts for naming rights is that they can expire. What do you think? Is it worth it to let a private company put their own fixed infrastructure over the public right-of-way?

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Per a request for proposals (RFP) posted on Sound Transit’s contracting website:

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SDOT’s Transit division is restoring and rehabilitating a pair of old streetcar stops, which, with the passage of time, have become rather dilapidated bus stops. One is in the Rainier Valley, for which a community meeting was held last week, and another is just outside Fremont, at the intersection of Westlake and Dexter, for which the meeting is this at 6:00 PM this Thursday at History House of Greater Seattle, in Fremont.

The Fremont shelter probably lost quite a bit of ridership in the September 2012 service chance, when Route 40, which runs through the heart of Fremont, replaced Route 17, for which this stop is the closest to Fremont. Still, the stop continues to serve about 50 riders per day, despite its current sad state. Getting this stop shipshape, ideally with better lighting and real-time arrival information, would be a real service to riders.

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Update: The North Sounder train has been cancelled for Saturday, March 8, due to a mudsline. This will also affect some Amtrak runs Saturday, and possibly some Sunday. Any mudsline on the track triggers a 48-hour waiting period before passenger train service can resume through the affected area.

Sound Transit has just announced that it will be running Sounder train service to the Sounders’ season opener match, this Saturday, March 8, against Sporting Kansas City. Sounder will also serve the second match on Saturday, March 15, against Toronto FC.

Notice the unusual schedule for this Saturday, as first kick is at high noon. Trains depart Lakewood at 9:45am and Everett at 10:15am. Returning trains depart 35 minutes after the match.

The match on the 15th is at 1:30 p.m. The Sounder schedule for next week is not yet set.

Sound Transit’s media team graciously provided this poster with some details regarding ramping up ST Express and Link service. Link is expected to run its normal schedule pre-match, and roll out however many trains it takes to clear the crowd after the match. Sending trains to go into service at Stadium Station is a possibility, if needed. But the public information officer assures me that if you head to Stadium Station to go south, you won’t be watching full train after full train pass you by.

There will be extra buses on stand-by after the matches, which will go into service as needed.

For getting to the match this Saturday, a couple extra 594 buses will depart from Tacoma Dome Station at times that will be determined live-day to handle overload. A couple extra 512 buses will depart Lynnwood Transit Center at 9:30 and 10:00 a.m. Metro-operated routes will deploy extra service as needed.

If you haven’t been to a Sounders match before, consider going to the pre-match party in Pioneer Square that starts an hour and a half before the match, followed by the March to the Match an hour before the match. The party is family friendly, with prizes being distributed to a few lucky kids. The party and march feature the tunes of what is probably the only professional soccer marching band in the world, Sound Wave.

If you come by bike, be sure to be there early. There is lots of bike parking on the northwest side of the stadium, but it all gets used.

Regardless, plan to show up early, as there is a line to get through the security check, and make sure any bag you bring with you fits within the size regulations. If you plan to bring food or drink, take a look through those regulations.

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I didn’t attend the South Bellevue Station Open House last month, but the materials are online. They are largely focused on appeasing people afraid of density — “No Transit Oriented Development” is prominently printed on the fifth slide, and there are lots of words about mitigation.

Although STB is not friendly to park-and-rides, especially when free to use and publicly funded, a few stations in a system can function primarily as a useful transfer point for buses and access point for cars. Positioned at an elbow in the line; on the way to Downtown Bellevue; and with limited walkshed, neighbors hostile to density, and decent highway access, South Bellevue is one of the points where parking is least objectionable.

With 1,500 stalls, ST projects 4,500 boardings per day at this station in 2030, which (in an apples-to-oranges comparison) would have ranked fourth in 2012. Projected travel times are 14 minutes to Chinatown, 16 to Overlake, 24 to UW, and 49 to Seatac. The UW time is actually a couple of minutes faster than the afternoon scheduled time for the 556, and the Seatac run is at the high end of the scheduled range of the much less frequent (but more direct) 560, for whatever that’s worth.

The parking, as it should be, is behind the station rather than hiding the train from the street:

Continue reading “South Bellevue Open House Materials”

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Amtrak has started a “writers’ residencies” program that would allow free rides for writers on long-term train rides. The first such residency went to Jessica Gross, who wrote about her experience in the Paris Review.

I am in a little sleeper cabin on a train to Chicago. Framing the window are two plush seats; between them is a small table that you can slide up and out. Its top is a chessboard. Next to one of the chairs is a seat whose top flips up to reveal a toilet, and above that is a “Folding Sink”—something like a Murphy bed with a spigot. There are little cups, little towels, a tiny bar of soap. A sliding door pulls closed and locks with a latch; you can draw the curtains, as I have done, over the two windows pointing out to the corridor. The room is 3’6” by 6’8”. It is efficient and quaint. I am ensconced.

I’m only here for the journey. Soon after I get to Chicago, I’ll board a train and come right back to New York: thirty-nine hours in transit—forty-four, with delays. And I’m here to write: I owe this trip to Alexander Chee, who said in his PEN Ten interview that his favorite place to work was on the train. “I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers,” he said. I did, too, so I tweeted as much, as did a number of other writers; Amtrak got involved and ended up offering me a writers’ residency “test run.” (Disclaimer disclaimed: the trip was free.)

So here I am.

The Wire has many more details about how the program started and how it might work in the future. It’s worth noting the number of residencies are limited, but I think this is a great idea. Personally, my best writing* is done when I am completely alone, and I can imagine beautiful scenery might help spur the imagination.

What do you think? Is this good advertising for Amtrak or a waste of funds for an agency deeply in debt?

*Though I’ve never had anything more than a short story published.

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