The early election results from Pierce County are not good. Andrew Austin of TCC broke down the district results, and found that it passed strongly in Tacoma, lost narrowly in Gig Harbor and Puyallup, and was slaughtered in the exurbs. PT’s reserves run out in 2012, so expect a 35% service cut over the next year or so.

Meanwhile, Jefferson County voters passed an identical tax rate increase to preserve their transit service. This will not only avoid a 22% service cut but actually allow modest increases in the coming years.

Two observations:

• While there is no single reason the PT measure failed, I question any decision to put transit measures in obscure elections. Low-turnout elections are likely to miss young people, who are an important pro-transit constituency.
• Fans of agency consolidation living in other counties should consider this result and the Prop. 1 results from 2008 and ask themselves if they really want their fates tied to the Pierce County electorate.

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Metro has updated their maps. Take a look. As Jack Latteman said at our last meetup, 3rd Ave is now a rainbow of frequent service.

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One of the sad things about Bellevue’s East Link debate is that from a regional perspective, it has tampered with the city’s can-do reputation.  With Bellevue being perceived as the “party of no” in all of this, a lot of people (especially those left-wing crazies from Seattle) like to think “to hell with Bellevue!” Or “light rail straight to Redmond!”  The truth is a lot of Bellevue residents voted for ST2, are eager to see rail, and are pretty peeved by recent opposition to Sound Transit.

Last night’s Bellevue city council meeting was probably the most spectacular evidence of this as 40 or so members of a new coalition called Move Bellevue Forward (MBF)* filled the council chamber to support Sound Transit’s preferred alignment, B2M.  Though East Link was not on the discussion agenda, it was a light rail kind of night as the new group came out swinging with testimony from Terry Lukens, Connie Marshall, and Mike Creighton, all former Bellevue mayors.

More of last night’s meeting below the jump (video available on Bellevue TV).

Continue reading “A new Bellevue group for light rail”

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Recall that we’re having an informal meetup tonight at 6pm, at the Columbia City Ale House. Be there.

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Despite our present trend toward quantifying everything, I still frequently prefer to make more qualitative, intuitive judgments about the livability of neighborhoods.  The single best shorthand I know is an affirmative answer to the question, “If I lived here, would I walk to the grocery store?”   Consider Capitol Hill, where in just over a square mile there are 7 major grocery stores, sewn together by dozens of small markets and convenience stores.  Or walk around Lower Queen Anne; Metropolitan Market is quite the neighborhood anchor, isn’t it?

So it’s a great loss for First Hill that its only full-service grocery, M Street, shut its doors last week.  King 5 quotes a customer named Tony Lucas, “It’s like a desert out here.  The closest one is on Broadway and University.  I’m not going to walk that far.”  There is still easy transit access to groceries – including Metro #2 and #12 (to Kress, Pike Place Market, Madison Market, Trader Joes, or the Broadway/Union QFC) – but losing easy walking access considerably diminishes urban quality of life.   Walk Score gives the intersection of Boren/Madison a score of 97, a “Walker’s Paradise”, while giving Broadway/John an 89, merely “Very Walkable.”  Could anyone possibly walk around those two areas and argue that those scores are merited?

If you live car-free or car-lite, give thanks for your neighborhood grocery stores, patronize them liberally, and show them the value that comes from having a dense pedestrian customer base.  Walkable neighborhoods can’t afford not to have them.

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VeloBusDriver had a great post this weekend with a “to do list” of changes to Metro’s current fare system that he thinks should be implemented if Metro decides to eliminate the Ride Free Area (RFA). While I’m not going to dive into which changes I think are needed, at least not now, I want to emphatically state that the outright elimination of the RFA without significant improvements to Metro’s fare system is unacceptable. The question shouldn’t be whether to have a RFA or not, it should be what improvements can be made to the fare system so that the RFA isn’t necessary.

I’m actually optimistic that elimination of the RFA could be a net positive change but only if Metro takes a holistic look at the fare system, including both how it’s structured and how it’s collected. Previously I wrote about how Rapidride’s fare system in incompatible with the RFA.

Below is VeloBusDrivers full post.

Metro is currently studying the effects of eliminating the Ride Free Area in Downtown Seattle.  While I favor the elimination of the Ride Free Area for a host of reasons, it is critical that fare collection be fully optimized before implementation of such a policy.  The steps below would incentivize ORCA use, speed boarding, and also streamline collection of payments:

• Ubiquitous ORCA availability at drug stores, grocery stores, Coinstar vending machines, train stations, airport, hotels, etc…  $10 for a pre-loaded $5 ORCA card with a small built-in profit for the vendor should be possible.
• Tourist-friendly ORCA cards with day and multi-day passes should be readily available
• Provide discounts for loading large dollar amounts onto ORCA cards to further incentivize ORCA use
• Coaches would be tap/pay at front door, exit through rear door except at high volume stops such as transit centers and certain downtown stops.  Designated high volume stops would have off-bus ORCA readers and drivers would open ALL doors.

More after the jump. Continue reading “Ride Free Area To Do List”

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H/T: Atomic Taco.

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Oran already wrote about some of the ORCA and fare results, but those come from a Metro-commissioned survey of riders on the A line, for which you can read the summary or the full survey results. The press release indicates that weekday boardings have increased from 6,000 on the 174 to 7,500 on the nearly identically routed A Line. Metro doesn’t regularly release route ridership figures but Spring 2009 numbers are here.

I don’t know what there is to say except that people like it when service improves. I was somewhat amused that the most popular suggested improvement was “less fare enforcement,” above.

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