Via Good Magazine and Yglesias. Tomorrow is Swift Opening, so we’ll have the thread today.
52 commentsSaturday Open Thread: Highway Map
An ORCA Trick That Shouldn’t Work
I often travel with someone who relies on a student pass. They recently lost it, and as none of the schools around here are yet on ORCA, that means they’re out of luck for the rest of the quarter. As a result, when we ride a bus, I typically pay for them out of my e-purse.
In order to do this, I have to ask the operator for a “group fare”. The operator takes the ORCA reader out of service, adds two adult fares, then puts it back into service – the next swipe uses my pass for one fare, and my e-purse for the other, automatically. The operator has to do this, you can’t just double swipe – the system assumes that’s a mistake or a “pass-back” (and that’s a good thing, it prevents double-withdrawals that users might not even notice).
Many bus drivers don’t know how to do this, though – so much of the time, the operator just hands out a free transfer. I encourage taking advantage of this – Metro needs a reason to improve their operators’ ORCA training. According to @VeloBusDriver, the button to do this on the ORCA console has an icon showing multiple people, but it’s so rarely used that operators sometimes forget about it.
There’s one more interesting point here. How does the second user (or third, or fourth) in a group fare transfer to Link? ORCA customer service doesn’t seem to know.
90 commentsNeighborhood Street Fund
While poking around SDOT’s website after seeing the photo above, I found a nice long list of past and potential sidewalk and traffic calm projects funded by Bridging the Gap, via the Neighborhood Street Fund. Over the past year I have seen many of the current projects, but didn’t realize they were the result of a specific, neighborhood led program. The photo above shows the Lander Festival Street, which will act as a continuation of the Beacon Hill station plaza. A ribbon cutting event will be held on December 5th. This is just one project funded by the program over the last year. I’m a bit disappointed that they didn’t use bricks or some other kind of non-concrete paving material material but I’m sure there is a long story behind that.
SDOT is working with the Neighborhood Councils to rank and prioritize the next round of potential projects. Thanksgiving is always a slow news day, so if you need a distraction from family stuff, take a look at the project list. There is a good number of them.
Which is your favorite? Which do you think is most necessary?
16 commentsRoute 16 Update
The public comments on Route 16 stop consolidation are in, and they’ve saved a few bus stops that were previously slated for elimination, bringing the count from 33 to 27 stops (out of 109) eliminated.
The list of stops that will cease to be served on November 29th is after the jump.
Continue reading “Route 16 Update”
| 9 commentsColumbia City Site Purchased By Developer
Today the DJC is reporting that the 6.25 acre site of Zion Preparatory Academy in Columbia City has been sold to development company JC Mueller for $5 million.
Across a small street from the station, this property is planned as transit oriented mixed use, including continued operation of the school. With expansion of the Rainier Vista community to the north, this bodes well for future Link ridership.
46 commentsSnohomish County Service Change
[UPDATE: Commenters are referring to the same Everett transit site that I linked to below, as if I didn’t know about it. However, it is NOT a list of changes, unless someone wants to go through each schedule route by route and compile the differences.]
On Sunday we’ll be tweeting from the Swift Opening, which we’ve already discussed. However, Nov. 29th will also be the day of the next service change for Community Transit and Everett Transit. Big changes:
- Route 114 eliminated, with the trips moved to the 116.
- Route 100 eliminated, cuts to the 101 (to be replaced by Swift)
- Elimination of the downtown Everett loop.
- CT 177 becomes ET 70X.
- ET adds other routes, renumbers everything. I wish they’d published a summary of changes somewhere.
Crosstown Traffic
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
In the comments to this STB post on McGinn’s solicitation of ideas, one of the readers links to the rapid trolley network, an idea that was commissioned as a possible component of the surface-transit alternative to the Viaduct replacement.
Matt Fiske wrote about this idea in Crosscut back in March (I could’ve sworn I wrote about it, too, but I can’t find any reference in the archives).
Obviously the buses are run by the county, but Seattle can still play a fairly significant role in getting transit through the city more quickly. Indeed, the report lists them out:
- Business Access and Transit or BAT lanes allow transit coaches to operate in the outside lane shared only with right-turning traffic. BAT lanes can help improve operation speeds and reliability of routes.
- Bus bulbs are another option to improve speed on trolley routes. Bus bulbs allow transit to stop in-lane, saving time necessary to re-enter traffic flow and provide additional space at bus stops for passenger facilities. Bulbed bus stops require less curb space than bus pullouts due to pull in and pull out distances.
- Turn restrictions that focus on areas with heavy pedestrian traffic or where left turns may be unprotected or where right turning vehicles may be delayed by large pedestrian flows.
- Transit queue jumps provide a lane or green time allowing transit to enter a signalized intersection ahead of general-purpose traffic.
- Routing changes could go around congested intersections but may require new segments of electric trolley overhead.
- Transit signal priority could provide trolley coaches with better speed and reliability through improvements in signal timing including adjustments to signal length and cycles. Transit Signal Priority allocates green time at signals to favor transit flow.
Almost all of these fall within the city’s domain and would be a huge boon for in-city transit. Sadly, none of them are included in the report’s cost estimates. *
In fact, if the network had any hope of being “rapid,” you’d have to invest significantly in the street-grid bottleneck between downtown and Capitol Hill. Almost all of the proposed rapid routes — much like the current routes between Queen Anne/Belltown and Capitol Hill/CD (2,3,4,8,10,11,12, etc.) — would waste a ton of time getting from one side of I-5 to the other, especially during rush hour. Finding a way to prioritize crosstown transit between, say, 5th Avenue and Broadway would be a big help.
* The report does calculate $142M in capitol costs for new trolley wire, improved stations, new fare collection systems, and a new electrical substation. Street improvements are outside the scope of the analysis.
6 commentsSeattle Head Tax Repealed
The Seattle City Council gave final approval to repeal (only McIver against) the $25-per-employee-per-year “head tax” that funded $4.5m a year in transportation improvements, notably for bicyclists and pedestrians, and exempted employees who didn’t drive alone to work.
Although Council President Richard Conlin insists bike and ped projects won’t be harmed, there’s discontent among advocates for those projects, and understandably so. That said, there may be less here than meets the eye.
There are two nice things about the head tax: one, it provides money for important projects, and two, it collects revenue in a manner that discourages socially destructive commuting.
Councilmember Sally Clark has a characteristically frank assessment of the revenue side:
The loss of revenue from the Employee Head Tax does mean we’ll have to shift some spending priorities. We’ll pay back bond debt over a longer period and, ultimately, pay more. Because the Commercial Parking Tax now generates more revenue than expected, I don’t expect the total volume of street projects completed will be any less than what was promised when Council adopted these taxes, but we’ll take on fewer “extra” projects in the coming years because we’ll use the unexpected higher revenue from the parking tax to pay off debt instead of revenue from the EHT.
One hope for further revenue is Nick Licata’s proposal to direct the Mayor to study diverting $15m in annual mobile speed van revenue to the pedestrian fund. That passed in the budget today, and Mayor McGinn will have to report by March 1st.
The other issue is the deterrent to driving, and I don’t think that the head tax was all that effective for that. Assuming the $25 incentive was even worth the staff time for the business to claim, the tax was entirely transparent to the commuter, the one that decides which mode he or she was going to take to work that day.
31 commentsReady to get rid of your extra car?
This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
If so, SDOT will give you a pile of free stuff.
If not but you’re a single occupant commuter, promise to change your evil ways for two months and they’ll still give you $60 in bus tickets and a discounted Zipcar membership.
Already doing the right thing? Well, no free stuff for you. But thank you anyway.
0 commentsSwift Preview Ride
Community Transit conducted a dry run (simulated operations) of Swift BRT on Monday and STB was offered an opportunity to ride. CT is doing final testing and driver training before service begins on Sunday afternoon.
I boarded Swift with Community Transit representative Mike Allende at the Airport Road Northbound Station for Everett. The Swift bus pulled in really close to the curb and the doors lined up with markers on the platform called “welcome mats”. This process currently takes about 10 seconds but should be reduced as drivers get used to it. As to why no level boarding? CT considered it but decided to go with a slight step. One reason given was that roadway and vehicle conditions can vary, making it difficult to guarantee a level boarding every time. A fully loaded bus, tire pressure, ruts in the roadway, for example, creates a height difference. Combine that with the expectation of level boarding and people might trip when it isn’t truly level. The bus dwelled for 10 seconds and then we were on our way. Swift will make stops at every station like a light rail train. There are no bell cords but there’s a special request button for wheelchair users.
Continue reading after the jump…
Continue reading “Swift Preview Ride”
| 85 comments