Street Car Openning, other transit

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Here’s a bit of a streetcar opening round-up:

In other transit news:
Community Transit and Everett Transit are jumping on the BRT bandwagon with a “trainlike” (rofl) bus-service on 99 from Aurora Station in Shoreline to Everett. They have a nice map and describe BRT as this region thinks of it:

Sleek new, articulated buses will operate on a 17-mile corridor along Highway 99 — which in Everett becomes Evergreen Way and then Rucker Avenue — using automated ticketing, special lanes and signal priority at busy intersections to streamline trips. Buses are to arrive at stations every 10 minutes.

Yup, sounds like normal buses. Though I do laud Snohomish for increasing transit service up there. The program should be in affect by 2009.

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Port of Seattle Welcomes Virgin America to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

Posted on by Gordon Werner

Fourth New Airline to Announce Service in 2007

(Seattle — December 12, 2007) — The Port of Seattle is pleased to announce that Virgin America will begin serving Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with seven new daily non-stop flights to San Francisco and Los Angeles starting in March of 2008.

Virgin America’s new routes will begin on March 18, 2008 with three daily non-stop flights between Seattle and San Francisco International Airport. On April 8, 2008, three daily non-stop flights will begin between Seattle and Los Angeles International Airport. A fourth daily flight between Seattle and L.A. is scheduled to begin on May 11, 2008.

“We are pleased to welcome Virgin America to Seattle,” said Port of Seattle Commission President John Creighton. “Virgin America will offer Puget Sound travelers an additional airline choice with some unique, tech-driven features and flight amenities.”

Virgin America’s new planes feature mood lighting, custom-designed leather seats, and an advanced in-flight entertainment system which allows passengers to order food, watch one of 25 movies or satellite TV, play videogames, create an MP3 playlist, and access air-to-ground broadband internet service.

“The addition of Virgin America to Sea-Tac Airport will help further economic development and tourism for the Seattle region and the state,” said Creighton.

This is the fourth new airline to announce service to Sea-Tac in 2007; earlier this year, Air France started non-stop service to Paris, AeroMexico started non-stop service to Mexico City, and Lufthansa announced non-stop service to Frankfurt. And, earlier this week, Northwest Airlines announced new non-stop service to London.

–Source: The Port of Seattle

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Viaduct Agreement

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Sims, Nickels, and Gregoire are now all singing from the same hymnal. This is big:

The agreement directs the three transportation departments — the Washington State Department of Transportation, King County and Seattle Department of Transportation — to consider the entire system of streets, transit service, and freeways from Lake Washington to Elliott Bay, and from Northeast 85th Street to South Spokane Street in evaluating solutions that keep people, goods and services moving.

“The Alaskan Way Viaduct needs to be taken down on Seattle’s central waterfront for safety’s sake,” Gregoire said. “The question we need to answer is how we move people and goods to keep this region thriving in the long run when we no longer have the viaduct.”

They haven’t come to a decision, mind you… they’re just coming to an agreement on principles for making a decision. That said, everything in this press release seems to indicate that they’re open to new solutions, including potentially a surface-street replacement. Phrases like “fiscal responsibility” and “environmental stewardship” leap out as thinly-veiled code words for “not another viaduct.”

Update: (Via CIS) the Seattle Times fills in some more details this morning.

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If You Build It, They Will Come

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

Portland, OR Edition:

The Overlook, a 30-unit condominium complex at 3990 N. Interstate Ave., is the first along the MAX yellow line to develop with the so-called smart growth ideas in mind.

The concept aims to reduce urban sprawl and preserve the environment by putting people in dense developments that are close to retail services, parks and public transportation. The city of Portland is rezoning Interstate Avenue to emphasize similar buildings.

The tone of the article is a bit odd… is “smart growth” really such a new idea in Portland? I realize they caveat it as “first along the yellow line,” but still… weird. But maybe I don’t understand Portland as well as I think I do.

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Deadline Near on Eastide Rail Deal

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

The Port and the County have until the end of the year to buy the Eastside rail line from BNSF. Apparently they’re making good enough progress that Ron Sims has backed down on his ultimatum. Either that, or he’s realized he’s run out of cards.

The bottom line is that the Port wants to buy the corridor, and they have the money and the votes to do so. The point of contention among the commissioners is what to do with the tracks. But here’s soemthing that should give everyone pause:

When the three-way agreement among the port, the county and BNSF Railway was made public Nov. 2, the deal’s announcement included the stipulation that BNSF would remove the single track from a little-used section of line between Woodinville and Gene Coulon Memorial Beach Park in Renton. That section would be leased to the county, which would lay the trail on top of the rail bed after BNSF had cleaned up any contaminated soil.

You can see why Sims doesn’t want to keep the tracks in place. Having the County on the hook for any soil contamination would not be fun for anyone (assuming there is actually contamination). Better to let BNSF clean it up before the public takes ownership, even if that means taking out the tracks.

Finally, I think you have trust the transit agencies here. If they don’t think there’s the ridership to support transit, they’re probably right, and it’s going to be an uphill battle to do it without their support. There are just too many moving parts (literally!). Remember the last time some folks tried to do an end-run around the transit planners?

Update: Link fixed.

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Transit Maps of the World

Posted on by Andrew Smith


I picked up this book over the weekend. I didn’t even know it existed until I saw it in Kinokuniya and bought it on the spot.

The book is awesome and fun to look at. Martin, Nick, Ben and I met with Andrew on Saturday at Columbia City Ale House for the city’s best fish tacos, beers and transit talk and I think that we all got a kick out of the book. A couple of disappointing things:

  • For Seattle it lists the monorail, and says that light rail is proposed.
  • It only shows the Metro map for Tokyo, which gives a false impression since those stations are less than half of the total train stations in Tokyo, and it also only shows BART/Cal Train for SF instead of showing Muni.
  • It doesn’t have a map for Yokohama, Portland or Vancouver.

Small gripes, the book is great.

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Major Paving Complete for Sea-Tac’s Third Runway

Posted on by Gordon Werner

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, December 10, 2007 – Major paving of the third runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is now complete. This visual milestone is an opportunity for area media to take aerial shots of the new runway, which is scheduled to begin operations in November of 2008.

The major paving completion includes the main 150-foot wide, 17-inch think runway that stretches 8,500 feet long. Additional hand paving of the aprons and connections to the adjoining taxiways and construction of asphalt shoulders are still to be completed, along with painting, FAA certifications, signage and other preparations.

— Source: Port of Seattle

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Northwest Airlines Announces New Non-Stop Service from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to London Heathrow

Posted on by Gordon Werner

Fourth new international service added this year

The Port of Seattle and Northwest Airlines today announced the start of new international daily non-stop service between Seattle and London, to begin June 1st. Northwest Airlines is one of the largest airlines in the world; together with its partners, the airline provides service to more than 1,000 cities in 160 countries on six continents.

“We are very excited to announce additional non-stop service to London,” said John Creighton, Port of Seattle Commission president. “International routes offer increased trade, travel, and tourism to and from their destinations – so this is good news to our entire region.”

The announcement was made at a press conference today in the Sea-Tac Airport Conference Center. This is the fourth new international route announcement for Sea-Tac Airport this year. This brings the total number of non-stop European destinations from Sea-Tac to six: Air France to Paris; British Airways to London; Lufthansa to Frankfurt; Northwest Airlines to Amsterdam and London; and SAS to Copenhagen. Other international service from Sea-Tac includes six airlines with non-stop service to Asia, two to Mexico, and four to Canada.

Source: The Port of Seattle

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I, For One, Welcome Our New Streetcar Overlords

Posted on by Frank Chiachiere

This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.

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Vulcan welcomes the Streetcar! I guess they’d better. After all, they paid for the darn thing.

Meanwhile, the Times puts the Streetcar in the context of the last South Lake Union streetcar, built in 1890. Reading the article, a lightbulb finally went off in my head about why this thing, which I’ve been ambivalent about and which seems at first glance like an overpriced toy, actually matters:

The streetcar is meant to attract tourists, serve the cancer center, and help a new wave of office workers run errands downtown. For some, it will be a connection to express commuter buses or future regional light rail, at Westlake Center. Tracks run along the edge of Lake Union Park, which is being expanded and rebuilt with the idea that it will become a popular destination.

When New York first conceived of a subway — also around 1890, as it happens — it was because downtown needed to grow. You had lower Manhattan teeming with people, but farms and estates just a mile or two to the North. Why? There was no practical way to get up there and back in a reasonable amount of time. The Subway was, on a micro-level, the inner-city equivalent of the Trans-Continental Railway: it opened the frontier (i.e. Midtown Manhattan) to development.

While the parallels are obviously inexact, it seems that we’re seeing a similar trend here in Seattle 100 years later. Downtown is finally growing too big to walk from one end to the other in a reasonable amount of time. The streetcar opens the frontier.

Of course, streetcars still get stuck in traffic. But I don’t honestly see any other option for the city right now. People feel burned after the monorail, and it’s going to be a long time before we see another form of rapid transit to connect downtown and its immediately adjoining neighborhoods (Ballard, Queen Anne, West Seattle, etc.).

Ripping up Eastlake Avenue and other streets and removing parking spaces to extend the tracks up to the U. District will be controversial and difficult. But it may also be our only option. There are underutilized streets in the grid, and a well-designed streeetcar, with its own lanes and traffic signal priority, could actually work out pretty well for us.

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Are Subways the New Urban Status Symbols?

Posted on by Andrew Smith


Business Week asks the question. They mention the obvious reasons: crowding, energy costs, and standard of living. But they also point out that some “big city glamour” is involved in building transit, and that even places like Charlotte, Phoenix and Los Angeles are building Subways.

Except Seattle is special… But not as special as Rennes, France a city of 212,000 with density similar to Seattle’s and a full-fledged subway line.

If Rennes can build a subway, why can’t Seattle?

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Five more Streetcars?

Posted on by Andrew Smith


Here’s a Times article about more street car lines in the future. These conversations should be no big surprise to anyone here, since the city commissioned one study a few years ago.

Anyway this study was done by the UW Urban Planning department and paid for by the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. Their study shows that the neighborhoods with streetcars will develop quickly, and create a more permanent and fixed development.

Personally I love the idea of a Capitol Hill-Queen Anne line running along Denny. I worry about building one to West Seattle, however, because that would lower the inertia to build a proper rapid transit line out there.

What do you think?

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Edmonds Station holiday open house:

Posted on by Ben Schiendelman

On Saturday, Edmonds Amtrak Station has their annual holiday open house. If you’re interested in chatting with Sounder staff and learning about next year’s service improvements, or learning about the history of the Great Northern railroad that originally turned Seattle into a boom town, I recommend it! It’ll run from 9am-3pm.

The old freight half of the station was converted some years ago into a railroad club’s model train layout, complete with little towns and such. I don’t know if someone will be there, but during open houses they usually run model trains and talk about the history of the state.

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