Community Transit is holding two workshops in Everett where average riders will go through a planning exercise:
We are limited to 25 participants for each workshop.
If you are interested in attending please RSVP with your date preference no later than March 18 to Donna Clausen at donna.clausen@commtrans.org. If you can make either date, please let us know; that may improve your chances of being selected.
Sat., April 9, 9 – 11:30 a.m. OR Tues., April 12, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
Having done this kind of thing in the past, I’d say it’s pretty rewarding.
While there were no raised voices this time around, plenty of heated emotions and rhetoric were still enough to make last night’s Bellevue city council meeting a spectacle. The most recent chapter in the saga started last Friday when the Seattle Times reported that councilmember Kevin Wallace failed to disclose a deal he signed with GNP, which, in short, has sought to reactivate the Eastside rail corridor from Renton to Snohomish in addition to the Redmond spur. Shortly after the story broke, the City of Bellevue announced it would be hiring an outside investigator to look into Wallace’s situation.
The evening started off with a spate of public comments, ranging from support of the investigation to testimony decrying it as a “waste of taxpayer money.” Both B2M and B7 supporters were present, the latter not explicitly emphasizing support for investigating Wallace, but that rather it include both Grant Degginger and Claudia Balducci, who have been accused by a few of having conflicts of interest of their own. B2M supporters, on the other hand, expressed frustration with the lack of transparency recently pioneered by Wallace.
Aside from comments about the investigation, there was one testimony from a Robin Ray, who launched a blatant attack on the pro-light rail group *Move Bellevue Forward (MBF), accusing it of being “sponsored by Sound Transit” and Tim Ceis. Ray didn’t back up or cite any of his claims, and instead attempted to discredit MBF through a mostly emotional plea. While citizens are free to say anything they want, it interests me why Ray chose to make his claims to the city council, which has no part in the group.
As far as I’m concerned, whether or not Kevin Wallace’s dealings with GNP are a conflict of interest isn’t the only problem. The greater concern is the fact that he didn’t disclose the deal at all, especially while the council was voting on spending $670k to further study B7. Under the precedent of recusal, the council may not even had Wallace’s critical fourth vote to proceed with the study.
More coverage on the Seattle Times as well as live tweets and analysis from our Twitter last night. The meeting is also now available to watch on Bellevue TV.
*In the interests of disclosure, MBF is a group I am involved with, but these opinions are my own and not on behalf of the organization.
In 2006, the Congress for New Urbanism released a report that is still the most important piece of literature on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project – a study that found major flaws in WSDOT’s work and suggested the surface/transit option was a good choice even from a traffic congestion perspective.
Chapters of this organization, such as Cascadia (not to be confused with Discovery Institute’s Cascadia), bring discussions like this local. Architects, urban planners, designers and more are all represented. This year, their summit (PDF) is in Portland, and focuses on how to bring urbanism to the forefront of the sustainability discussion.
CNU Cascadia has two great speakers lined up, Kingston Heath and Steve Mouzon – both write about sustainable placemaking, each with different focuses. They’ll also have a streetcar tour showcasing good design and urban planning – projects we can learn from here, especially in South Lake Union today and on Capitol and First hills in the next few years. Tickets are only $35, and it’s a good excuse for a trip on Amtrak Cascades.
1. Bike racks. You probably only need one for every 5th car or so, but it should be easy to add. Would probably get more use up hills than down.
2. Perth Australia is renovating its waterfront, and has just proposed a $30M gondola system to connect it to Kings Park (called a “cable car” in the image here).
3. In considering if such a system is appropriate for our city, it’s useful to look at what it can do. Here’s a great list of aerial trams and gondolas that are the highest, shortest, etc. Some useful numbers: tallest support pillar is 373′ tall, and longest run is 2.8 miles and takes 15 minutes (in New Mexico). The longest unsupported span is at Whistler at 1.9 miles. I’m not sure of the world’s fastest – the Genting Highland claimed to be the fastest at 13.4 miles/hour, but Whistler is 15.7 miles/hour and there may be faster ones out there.
4. Capacity. Medellin has a capacity of 3,000 passengers per hour per direction at 12 second spacing. Assuming 100 passengers per bus, that’s 30 buses an hour capacity. I would guess that beats our bus demand between any two points in the city. We can start with wider spacing to save money, but design in the ability to add cars in the future.
In a good post on HSR Yglesias makes a common sorta-true observation:
Now a separate question is whether there’s any feasible way to actually do this in a country that doesn’t have a French (or Chinese) level of central political authority empowered to build straight tracks through people’s suburban backyards. The answer seems to be “no.”
Of course it would be very difficult to build a sufficiently straight right of way through sprawling single-family subdevelopments, much less a place like Greenwood. As luck would have it, however, we’ve built very straight, wide, reasonably graded rights of way between all our major cities via the interstate highway system.
Although building local transit lines in the freeway is a suboptimal choice, HSR has limited stops. Building connecting tracks into the center of cities, or linking with existing tracks for these stops, is comparative child’s play, and can even enforce discipline with respect to the number of stops between major destinations.
That’s not to say that we’re on the cusp of change; for starters, Washington’s 18th amendment would almost certainly prevent taking lanes in places where the median wasn’t wide enough. And there are undoubtedly lots of necessary projects beyond putting down tracks and stringing wire. But the necessary political change is “merely” a shift from total preeminence of the car, rather than a sudden willingness to have bullet trains in the backyard. It’s clear to me that if true bullet trains are ever going to happen in the Northwest it’ll be this way.
[UPDATE: I buried the lede here. Judging from the comments, people are watching the video and not reading and offering suggestions on the STB visitor guide.]
The Seattle Channel recently produced this transit-oriented users guide to the City in 2005. It’s a little more focused on attractions than getting around.
Last week I threw together this visitor guide for people visiting Seattle and trying to get around using public transit. It’ll remain on the right sidebar for reference.
I got a note from the T4W people pointing out that I didn’t read the bill language correctly: the removal of tolling obstacles applies to Transportation Benefit Districts and therefore could help benefit a Seattle-only measure, but all of the other authority is awarded to transit agencies like Metro, Community Transit, and Sound Transit. So it is a “game changer,” but for transit agencies rather than for any city-funded initiative.
Sound Transit’s authority wouldn’t kick in until January 1, 2016.
[UPDATE 2: I didn’t read the bill correctly. Numerous revisions below, plus a correction in the next post.]
[UPDATE 3: 5 more representatives have been added to the sponsorship list. Just go to the website.]
Sen. Scott White (D-46, North Seattle) is rapidly emerging as the pro-transit star of the Senate. PubliCola reports that he joined with transit stalwart Rep. Marko Liias (D-11, Edmonds), 10 other Senators, and 14 9 other Representatives to introduce bills HB 2016 and SB 5874, a part of Futurewise and Transportation Choices Coalition’s new Transportation for Washington campaign.
Both bills would expand the taxing options for Transit agencies beyond the vehicle license fee and sales tax, but for transit purposes only. The list of tools that would be available to local jurisdictions and voters:
for TBDs, tolling, which already was allowed but with some procedural obstacles removed;
a vehicle excise tax based on fuel efficiency;
partial repeal of the sales tax exemption for gasoline to fund transit;
a motor vehicle excise tax, based on the value of the vehicle and therefore more progressive than a straight license fee.
I can’t believe this has great chances so late in the session, but if it passes this year or in 2012, it absolutely changes the game for cash-strapped transit agencies the big Seattle transit ballot measure that might appear that year. Serious city-funded rail investment is suddenly in scope with all of these tools, limited only by the willingness of voters and the timidity of the City Council.
At times we criticize the Seattle-area delegation for largely being AWOL on transit issues, so I applaud them for showing up in force on the sponsorship list. If you live in these districts (below the jump) let these legislators know you applaud their continued efforts to make this happen.
Who’s absent: Republicans (predictably, but sadly), anyone at all from the Eastside, and Speaker Frank Chopp, representing the densest, most pro-transit district in the State.
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