2013 is going to be a relatively light year in terms of actual service delivery, although of course planning and construction will be continuing full steam.
With 2012 set to expire and a new year on tap, it’s always good to relive the blog’s top posts of the year, for whatever they’re worth. Below are the STB posts with the most reads and most comments of 2012.
Most read posts of 2012
Bolt Bus Coming to the Northwest – by Andrew (5/1): Big news was big news when one of the Northeast’s premier intercity bus services announced plans for the Pacific Northwest.
An Update on Seattle Subway – by Ben (8/10): Advocacy efforts to hasten the building of more inner-city rail continue to chug along.
Tracking the Bus Tracker Problems – by Wayne Watanabe & Mark Hallenbeck (4/23): Metro’s real-time information was a real pain earlier in the year. Since then, things have been looking up.
The Awfulness of Mt. Baker Station – by Martin (4/18): Martin takes on the many design issues at Mount Baker, a vital multi-modal transit hub in Southeast Seattle.
Last September Metro moved all Magnolia service over to 3rd Ave, but in a hilarious oversight they left the 82-Night Owl on 4th Avenue. 4th/Wall, pictured above, is served only by the 82 in the middle of the night, at 2:19 and 3:34am. Yet it still has a full shelter! STB contacted Metro about this and they have since announced that on January 5th the 82 will move to 3rd Ave.
The next loneliest? 2nd Avenue at Broad, Cedar, and Bell, served by a grand total of 4 trips/day on the 123.
Starting Jan. 2, Metro will operate the Westlake Customer Stop only the first four and last four business days of every month, rather than every business day. The hours will be 9-5:30 on those days, as before. Metro is doing so “to more efficiently focus services at the times of the month when transit customers use the facility the most.”
According to spokesman Jeff Switzer, about 60% of the stop’s 4,000+ monthly sales in November were conducted during the 4 first and last business days. By comparison, the Westlake TVMs conducted about 17,000 sales, the most in the system. The original plan was to close the stop entirely to save $260,000 per year, but the end of the ride free area placed new emphasis on ORCA availability. As he told me:
However plans changed. With the RFA ending, our implementation plan identified expanding ORCA sales as a priority to streamline pay on entry. We revised our plan and a 2013/2014 budget was adopted that kept the Westlake Customer Stop open during peak times (first 4 and last 4 business days each month) and redeployed staff on other days to sell ORCA passes at community centers, senior centers and other locations using a new portable “customer service terminal.” Under this approach, staff go to where the potential transit customers are, and will better be able to answer questions from people who might not otherwise come to Westlake Station to buy ORCA passes.
Although there are tons of remaining places to perform ORCA operations, the other 14 or so business days the only option to interact with a knowledgeable human, and get specialty cards like youth and senior ORCAs*, is either at these new customer service terminals or at Metro headquarters on Jackson St.
Switzer added that Metro will examine how this turned out at the end of 2013.
2013 will be a volatile year for Amtrak Cascades. In October, WSDOT and ODOT must assume the full operating costs for the service, as Sec. 209 of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (PRIIA) requires that the feds divest from all state-supported corridor trains of less than 750 miles. Without additional funding from the legislature, losing Amtrak funding will mean a 23% hit to the operating budget, or $9.8m annually.
Chart from WSDOT
But in the 2012 State Transportation Budget, the legislature largely tied WSDOT’s hands, mandating that Stanwood Station be served in perpetuity, that Amtrak Cascades runs may not be canceled outright, and that WSDOT actively plan for a 3rd Vancouver BC roundtrip. Alternatively, WSDOT is actively looking at truncations to make up the shortfall. At the State Rail Plan meeting I attended on October 31, WSDOT staff said the most likely victim would be trains 513/516, which could revert to terminating in Bellingham instead of Vancouver BC. In the context of the nearly $1B in capital grants received between Seattle and Portland, WSDOT is rightfully committed to adding a minimum of two more SEA-PDX trips; in any funding shortfall, service north of Seattle would have to take the hit. While highly regrettable, truncating a Vancouver BC train would be the least worst option.
Lastly, while mostly overlooked at the time, lawmakers included an earmark in the 2012 budget to study the costs and benefits of adding an Amtrak Cascades stop in Auburn:
5) $300,000 of the multimodal transportation account–state appropriation is provided solely for the department to conduct a study to examine the interconnectivity benefits of, and potential for, a future Amtrak Cascades stop in the vicinity of the city of Auburn. As part of its consideration, the department shall conduct a thorough market analysis of the potential for adding or changing stops on the Amtrak Cascades route.
Until now there has been no process by which cities could appeal to WSDOT to add their city as a stop. Several cities have informally expressed interest; Blaine has long wanted a stop to draw potential riders from Surrey and White Rock for whom neither Vancouver BC or Bellingham are convenient. Lakewood officials have held out the possibility of a stop as one means of getting them to drop their opposition to the Point Defiance Bypass. Auburn’s study will likely set criteria by which cities may apply for stops in the future.
Amtrak Cascades is a huge success story, with annual ridership of nearly 1 million and farebox recovery at 65%. With greater frequencies, new rolling stock, a more direct route, and improved running speeds in the next few years, the future for intercity rail between Seattle and Portland looks bright. But with dozens of annual mudslide-induced cancellations, British Columbia’s lack of investment, and plans for truly massive freight expansion north of Seattle, the future for Vancouver BC service is grim.
A week ago, at the Tap House downtown, Seattle Transit Blog hosted another excellent meetup, featuring as speakers Metro General Manager Kevin Desmond and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. Our speakers came with interesting and informative speeches, and our readers plied them with detailed questions. For a couple of hours afterwards, everyone mingled and had great conversations about transit. It was a smashing success, and we’d like to thank our guests and our readers who made the evening possible.
Metro GM Desmond spoke on two subjects: lessons learned from the roll-out of RapidRide C & D and the associated service change; and what’s ahead for Metro in 2013 and 2014. Some of the high points culled from the speech and Q&A:
As the September service change approached, Metro management seriously worried about the ability of the agency to execute three major changes (RapidRide C & D implementation, RFA elimination, and West Seattle-Ballard restructure) at once; at times the pace of change felt almost “suicidal”.
After the first couple of chaotic days, Metro managed to get things under control, and travel times through downtown have stabilized at the levels predicted by staff based on prior simulations and analysis. Desmond called out the “lots of smart people” who work for him.
Seattle is a very different market from the suburbs. When the A & B Lines were rolled out, they were immediately and universally liked by riders. The C & D reaction was very different, much more mixed, even from those who didn’t lose service; for instance, riders had to get used to more “urban” buses with fewer seats but more standing room. Desmond acknowledged the complaints about lack of schedule and OneBusAway information for RapidRide and said that “should be getting better” soon (and indeed it is).
There’s not likely to be any more “big bang” service changes like the last one. The sheer volume of complaints from disaffected Seattle riders (and voters) vastly exceeded expectations. As a public agency, Metro can’t ignore public opinion; especially as the agency may well soon have to ask voters for more money at the ballot.
Metro is working with SDOT on “a schedule everyone can live with” for improvements associated with RapidRide E. Reading between the lines here, my suspicion is that, just as many of the facilities and improvements for the D Line were not ready on schedule (among other things, stops not constructed and signal priority not turned on for weeks after launch), something similar has happened for the E Line. If that’s the case, delaying the E Line to make sure the service starts right out of the gate seems like a great idea to me.
Earlier this month, the many jurisdictions in King County banded together to present a unified transportation proposal (.pdf) to be considered before the State Legislature. The proposal, signed off by the county, the City of Seattle, and the Sound Cities Association (all the other suburban cities in the county), is a direct ask for local funding options primarily through leveraging a sizable gas tax increase that would mostly benefit the State.
There are three specific elements to the proposal:
An 8-cent statewide gax tax increase, with a 65/35 split between state and local needs, respectively.
An increase of councilmanic authority to directly impose a vehicle license fee (VLF) from $20 to $40 in Transportation Benefit Districts (TBD). Anything remaining out of $100 could be brought before the voters.
A 1.5% Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) that could be passed councilmanically or by popular vote. According to Fred Jarrett, 60% of the MVET would go to Metro, while the remaining would be divvied up among the county and cities for roads.
Gas tax proposal (and allaccompanyingopinions) aside, the asks are fairly significant. Doubling the councilmanic VLF authority to $40 could arguably ease pressure off any remaining VLF increase that would go before a public vote. And as Martin mentioned earlier this year, a 1% MVET alone would be sufficient to plug Metro’s annual deficit of $60 million. An additional 0.5% on top of that could presumably go toward a substantial service increase*.
The proposal is among many that the Legislature will have to juggle for the upcoming session, so the chances that King County will get everything it wants is extremely slim. Any funding authority will also have to clear both the Senate and the House, which will be no mean feat of its own.
*We can assume an effective 0.9% MVET for Metro assuming it gets a 60% share of the proposed 1.5% rate. A 1% MVET is estimated to generate up to $100 million annually, so some back-of-the-napkin math gives us $90 million a year for Metro, more than enough to cover the deficit.
South Lake Union is looking up. Rezoning proposals represent an opportunity that would turn other cities emerald green with envy.
Council land-use chair Richard Conlin is looking for a council vote by mid-February At this point, he sees a general consensus building around the mayor’s plans.
If the instinct is to worry about views, then keep the outlook for Seattle’s economic well-being unobstructed as well.
This is a good observation for two reasons. First, the swap is views for 1) jobs, 2) housing, and 3) social benefits like low-income housing and workforce-training facilities. Second, we should be encouraging the investment here and not elsewhere.
The other surprising bit is the mention of further transit investments:
More offices, apartments and condos provide a critical mass for further investments in public transit. All the talk could indeed turn into a people-moving reality.
This is from a group that famously advocated voters reject ST2 just four years ago. Maybe attitudes are truely changing in on Fairview and John, or maybe it’s the fact that their properties are part of the rezone, either way, it’s welcome.
