A Martin mentioned last week, at 3:30 PM today King County Metro will host an open house on the extensive service cuts that could come if the legislature fails to provide a sustainable local revenue source for the agency; this will be followed by a public testimony to King County’s Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee from 4-8 PM. This may be your best chance in this legislative session to say your piece on how the cuts would affect you.

From the Metro Future Blog:

If sustainable transit funding does not become available through efforts by the Legislature, an estimated $75 million annual revenue shortfall could force Metro to reduce bus service beginning in fall 2014. Metro has identified 65 routes at risk for elimination and 86 routes at risk for service reductions.

The potential cuts would create a transit system with fewer travel options and longer travel times, with buses that are more crowded and less reliable. These effects could cascade through the system as bus routes are eliminated and riders compete for space on other already-crowded routes.

So far, Metro has been able to avoid these cuts through $798 million in reforms, reductions and additional revenue – such as the implementation of the congestion reduction charge, a temporary $20 charge on vehicle licenses for two years. The fee ends in 2014, and without new sources of revenue, Metro must reduce service.

Open house and public hearing Tuesday, May 14
Union Station, 401 S. Jackson St., Seattle

3:30 p.m. open house
4-8 p.m. public testimony
Can’t attend? Submit your testimony online.

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Now that Sound Transit has cleared the hurdle of finalizing the entire East Link alignment, the next step is chugging through final design of the project.  There will be an open house for the downtown Bellevue segment this Thursday, May 16th from 5 to 7pm at Bellevue City Hall, and another for South Bellevue on May 30th at the Bellevue Hilton.  The Bel-Red open house was held in early April prior to adoption of the final alignment, since none of the cost savings options applied to the Bel-Red segment.

The final design process allows Sound Transit to advance specific design elements for the alignment– we’ll likely get glimpses of some architectural renderings as well as site plans of the stations.  Station naming will also be finalized, in line with public input and other Board-endorsed guidelines.

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After a series of comments that challenged the STB consensus on various Sound Transit-related issues, I asked Sen. Murray to explain his positions in more detail.

In the email exchange reproduced below, Sen. Murray says he doesn’t support governance reform anymore, expresses his support for ST3, and explains why he thinks Seattle would do better without subarea equity:

1) Can you explain what exactly your vision for transit agency consolidation is? What agencies would merge? Are governing board members appointed, elected in districts, or elected at large? By what criteria would it allocate resources? Would it have responsibility for roads or zoning?

Unlike those who believe that transit planning is a zero sum game, where a benefit in one jurisdiction necessarily means a loss to others in the region, I believe that Seattle will benefit from better transit service via a cooperative relationship with our growing, increasingly dense inner-ring suburbs. Every day tens of thousands of people enter Seattle from the suburbs, and vice versa, travelling from homes to jobs and other destinations. Our goal must be to maximize the number of these trips that are made via transit rather than single-occupancy vehicle, while also supporting transit usage in Seattle between neighborhoods.

So, I have long believed that smart regional planning and cooperation, based on forward-looking transit and land use policy principles, is something worth encouraging. Until a few years ago I thought the best way to achieve that cooperation was through creating one consolidated transit agency that was dedicated to maximizing the efficient allocation of our transit dollars to move the most people in the Seattle metropolitan area. The other factor for me that heightened my interest in consolidation was that in the past there was poor coordination between transit agencies, particularly between Sound Transit and Metro, something that consolidation would obviously have been designed to address. Many successful cities around the country have vibrant bus and rail systems that support and complement each other to create near seamless experiences for the riders. Seattle has a robust bus system and a growing rail system that also must be coordinated to the maximum benefit of the user. Fortunately this issue is being addressed and the agencies now work together and coordinate much better than they did even a few years ago.

However, after watching the debates around governance reform evolve – what started as an idea championed by pro-transit progressives morphed into a stalking horse for some anti-transit elements – and after feeling some of the backlash (including from places like STB), I realized a few years ago that my approach was wrong. It is not that I have changed my opinion about the importance of regional cooperation, or my belief that a stronger alliance between Seattle and our inner-ring suburbs is the right way to build up our transit infrastructure most effectively; I have not. But I realized that these divisive and polarizing governance reform debates were not the way to get this done. I realized, rather, that regional cooperation must be an organic, incremental and evolutionary process, as Seattle and suburbs like Bellevue become more like one another in terms of urban culture and land use principles.

My goal today is to make our transportation system work better – all aspects of it – including public transit in Seattle. Agency consolidation may no longer be necessary, but the coordination and integration of our transit agencies remains important. My approach now is to focus our attention on continuing to improve coordination between the agencies – and building collaborative regional ties – to put together the next round of transit investment and to earn the public’s support for ST3.

2) Would you support Sound Transit 3 if it retained the current governance structure?

Continue reading “Ed Murray on Transportation”

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More on this English experiment here.

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In the comments to my last post on transfers, a few people referenced Jarrett Walker’s excellent post on Seattle’s prospects for carbon neutrality, which discusses Seattle’s geographic “chokepoints” such as lakes and cliffs.  Some commenters argued that these chokepoints make a gridded bus network impossible, but I don’t think that’s right.  Walker’s point is simply that geographically-induced chokepoints can improve transit usage, provided enough of the capacity in the chokepoint is given over to transit*:

Transit planning is frustrating in such a place, but road planning is even more so.  Ultimately, Seattle’s chokepoints have the effect of reducing much of the complex problem of mode share to a critical decision about a strategic spot.  If you give transit an advantage through a chokepoint, you’ve given it a big advantage over a large area.

None of this is inconsistent with having a grid.  If transit is given priority at critical chokepoints (crossing Lake Washington or the Ship Canal, say) then transit suddenly has a major advantage throughout the city. This advantage increases the more grid-like the system is, since you can increase the area of the city that’s a single transfer away from using transit across the chokepoint.

As I said in the last post, Metro does a fantastic job of providing one-seat rides to downtown during rush hour, but it can (and should) push to provide better all-day access in places where land use patterns warrant it. Given the looming budget crisis and limited resources, exchanging one-seat rides for all-day mobility via transfers should definitely be on the table.

*Another great Walker post, on the Portland grid’s 30th anniversary, discusses the political challenges of moving from a radial network to a grid.

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A few weeks back ST released their corrected February 2013 ridership report (an Excel error threw off Sounder numbers in the earlier version) and once again the system had healthy year-on-year gains for most services.

February’s Central Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday boardings were 25,370/18,015/12,934, increases of 14.4%, 21.0%, and 12.2% respectively over February 2012. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 8.7% (21% North, 9% South)*, but Tacoma Link continued it’s downward trend, – 2.3% weekdays (although part of this is due to running Sunday service on President’s Day).  ST Express Ridership increased 7.5% (part of this is counting tunnel trips).  Overall weekday system ridership was up a very healthy 9.0%.

The report for March would normally be released around this time, but due to the cancellation of this month’s Operations Committee meeting the numbers will be rolled into the 1st Quarterly Report due out at the end of the month.  Bruce Gray was kind enough to provide us with their March Link ridership estimates which show continuing strong growth:  26,485 Weekday, 20,771 Saturday, and 14,603 Sunday riders.  Weekday ridership in March was up 13% from last year.  Ten out of the last 12 months have had higher than 10% year over year growth.

My charts below the fold.

Continue reading “February 2013 ST Ridership Report and March Link Numbers”

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For those who couldn’t attend last Wednesday’s Government Performance and Finance Committee meeting, you didn’t miss much. Some time between printing the official agenda and starting the meeting Councilmember Burgess pushed back the Ship Canal Crossing Study and University District to SLU Study to the May 15th meeting. In an earlier post we mentioned some reasons why these studies are important:

The Ship Canal Crossing study is key to putting solid numbers to the results of the City/Sound Transit Downtown to Ballard HCT study. Besides that, a new crossing is a needed project in its own right (see Bruce’s great outside the box proposal). The Council has previously stated its desire to start the Eastlake study this year, but recently some members have started pulling back.

Both of these projects are needed. We have the money, the Council just needs to follow through on its prior commitments and allow the Mayor to fund them. The more shovel ready projects we have, the better able we are to compete when federal dollars come available.

Unfortunately, yesterday Councilmember Burgess’ staff let us know that the initial discussion of these items will be pushed back even further, to the June 5th Government Performance and Finance Committee meeting. Apparently, they need more time “to sort through technical and policy questions related to [the] transportation items.”

Quite frankly, that is a cop out. These are studies that have been in the works for at least a year. Not only did the council unanimously vote to adopt the Transit Master Plan, but the Council has previously stated its desire to start the UW-SLU study this year. A new Ship Canal Crossing is not only called for in the Transit Master Plan, but also the Pedestrian Master Plan and the Bicycle Master Plan. The Bicycle Master Plan was completed in 2007.

Continue reading “Councilmember Burgess Delays Transit Infastructure Projects…. Again”

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Unhappy cities consider severing ties with Pierce Transit

• Transit quality vs. income in San Francisco.
• I think a lot of readers are confusing the increase in developer height fees in South Lake Union and the lower absolute limit on heights along the lakeshore. This Sharon Lee column explains the two items well, and points out that the City Council’s changes are a net loss for affordable housing.
• Dominic Holden demolishes anti-apodment arguments.
• Pictures from U-Link, now 65% complete.
• A new tourist “trolley” starts in Seattle this month.
• Comments from the Ballard open house.
• Tales from the bus tunnel.
• PSRC’s “Growing Transit Communities Strategy” open for public comment through June 7.
• Runaway ST Express bus kills 2.
• Anti-light rail ballot measure in Vancouver apparently dead.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE: Broken King 5 video embed removed — BJAN.

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PubliCola beat me to this point by a couple of days, but the internet sales tax bill making its way through Congress — it just passed the filibuster-happy Senate 69-27 , with your two Senators voting yes — has large implications for any local agency that largely funds itself with sales tax, which of course includes transit agencies across Washington.

For this bill, the Department of Revenue says that FY 2015, the first full year of implementation, the State would receive $113m in additional revenue. By 2017, projections expect compliance rates to stabilize so that revenues increase by $333m per year. Using my estimate that Metro revenues are 5.6%* of the state total, that amounts to $6.3m escalating to $18.6m annually for Metro.

Metro’s total 2015 budget gap is $60m, so this doesn’t come close to solving the problem. But it does mean they’d cut a little less core service, and if a tax package does pass it’d be a little more new service and a little less backfilling old service. And of course it’s the same story for Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Community Transit, and so on.

The bill is S.743,  the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013. In the House, where the bill awaits action, the equivalent is  H.R. 684. Letting your Representative know this is important to you always helps. In particular, Washington’s Suzan DelBene is on the subcommittee currently reviewing this legislation, and she is also a cosponsor of the bill.

*Goldy’s back-of-the-envelope estimate has slightly higher numbers. I based my 5.6% number on the 2012 state sales tax estimate of $7.241 billion and 2013-14 Metro budget’s 2012 sales tax estimate of $402.9m. His Sound Transit numbers don’t include the Snohomish and Pierce County contributions, and they count areas of King County not in the district.

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One of the stranger proposals that came out of last month’s joint meetings between Sound Transit and Puyallup was the idea of a new “transit station” on Shaw Road, just less than two miles east of downtown.  Although I’m still trying to figure out what “transit station” actually means, it sounds like Puyallup officials are referring to a brand new Sounder station– which would mean new platforms and presumably new parking.

So far, the Puyallup City Council hasn’t bought into proposals for more parking at the existing station or anything that would put more pressure on the downtown core.  According to the Puyallup Patch, many on the council have warmed up to the idea of a new station, an idea which Sound Transit has balked at:

Most on the Puyallup City Council agreed with the idea that adding more pressure on the historic downtown core is not a feasible option and that a Sound Transit center on Shaw Road could help ease traffic, for both Puyallup and Sumner.

During a joint planning meeting on April 30, Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl said that a full service station at Shaw Road isn’t possible and is “a much more expensive scenario” than Sound Transit can commit to.

While I’m no railroad expert, I’d suspect that BNSF and the FRA wouldn’t be too pleased with a new mainline station, especially given the already short distance between Puyallup and Sumner.  I’m also wary of the bad precedent this could set– a new Shaw Road station planned solely for park-and-ride customers would be the first not to serve a downtown core or activity center.  That’s hardly the kind of regional planning investment we want to be making.

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