News Roundup: 4 Days

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
BeaconHillsation!, by litlnemo
"BeaconHillsation!", by litlnemo

Once U-Link construction gets a little further along, Link will accommodate 4-car trains, carrying up to 800 people each.

The are four stations in the Downtown Seattle tunnel.

The local media is in overdrive:

  • KING 5 news reports Sound Transit is scrambling to finish testing and get the elevators and escalators certified by the State.  On three separate occasions in the report, Mt. Baker Station is inexplicably identified as “Rainier Station.”  ST is confident they’ll finish on time.
  • The Sunday Seattle Times had a fantastic introductory graphic.  Use it to explain Link to your grandparents.
  • Mayor Nickels takes ownership of the Link project, for better or worse.
  • Lindblom has a nice capsule history of rail in Seattle.
  • The Times also looks at some public art at the stations.
  • It turns out that elevated section in Tukwila is too loud.  Sound Transit’s going to fix it.
  • The cities of Tukwila and Seatac start to realize they have a big asset there.  Better late than never, Tukwila.
  • The US High Speed Rail Association launches a website.
  • The Tahoe Regional Transit Agency asks STB readers to provide feedback on their new website.  Please send comments and suggestions to nhmachida@gmail.com.

Ray LaHood Gets It, Gregoire Doesn’t

Posted on by Adam Bejan Parast
Ray LaHood at Sound Transit O&M Facility
Ray LaHood at Sound Transit O&M Facility

Yesterday, an assortment of federal, state and local elected officials welcomed US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to Seattle. LaHood, who has been something of an unknown quantity when it comes to transportation, is maturing into what I believe many progressive transportation advocates have been dreaming for. This comes as a surprise, due to his background as a Republican Congressman from the relatively small city of Peoria, Illinois.

The first sentences out of his mouth praised Seattle for creating such a livable city and limiting sprawl. Unlike what the name of his official blog, The Fast Lane, suggests, he has been surprisingly vocal in his support of livable, walkable, and bikable communities as well as high speed rail and all modes of transit. Last month, under his leadership, the USDOT, EPA and HUD formed an interagency partnership for sustainable communities which will coordinate and align efforts of all three agencies to improve the livability of our cities.

All of this has attracted the scorn of Newsweek’s George Will after LaHood implied that the federal government should encourage and support less auto dependent lifestyles. Obviously, George thinks that’s a bad thing:

LaHood, however, has been transformed. Indeed, about three bites into lunch, the T word lands with a thump: He says he has joined a “transformational” administration: “I think we can change people’s behavior.” Government “promoted driving” by building the Interstate Highway System—”you talk about changing behavior.” He says, “People are getting out of their cars, they are biking to work.” High-speed intercity rail, such as the proposed bullet train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, is “the wave of the future.” And then, predictably, comes the P word: Look, he says, at Portland, Ore.

Continue reading “Ray LaHood Gets It, Gregoire Doesn’t”

News Round-Up: HSR

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Tempe Light Rail Bridge
Tempe Light Rail Bridge, photo by rail life.
  • Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is serious about competing for the $8 billion in High Speed Rail (HSR) stimulus money. The USDOT is going to complete an initial “application guidance” with instructions on how states can apply for HSR money by June 17th. There’s also a $1 billion per year HSR grant program whose application procedures were published May 18th, with WSDOT scheduled to supply an application and a final application by August 18th. Funded projects will by announced by February 17th 2010. There’s a stakeholder meeting scheduled for May 27th, where WSDOT will outline it’s plan for acquiring funding for HSR. We’ll keep you posted.
  • Pressure is mounting – this time from the Vancouver Sun – north of the border for the Canadian government to chip in border services for a second daily Amtrak Cascades run to from Seattle Vancouver BC. Previous posts on this topic here, here and here. Via the P-I.
  • NPI’s Andrew Villeneuve shares his thoughts on Link’s coming opening.
  • Here’s an easy (but expensive?) way to increase bike ridership in Seattle. H/T to Lloyd.
  • This is a great idea for a bus stop. H/T to Oran.
  • The Tempe Town Lake LRT bridge looks great during the day (see above) but even better at night.

Amtrak Customs Hold-up Temporarily Disappearing

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Amtrak 90253 Pacific Central Vancouver BC 2005_0112
An Amtrak Cascades train in customs quarantine at Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, photo by Stephen Rees

Amtrak Cascades has wanted to run another daily train from Seattle to Vancouver, but Canada’s customs agency has been asking Amtrak Cascades to cover the costs of Canadian customs service on the new run – around $1,500 a day – and Cascades doesn’t have the money. Because that money isn’t budgeted, the new service has been delayed. Thankfully, the Canadian Government’s hold-up has continued to get press from our northern neighbours (that’s the way they spell it, anyway), and the hold-up is going to go away, though only briefly ” before, during and for a short time after” Vancouver’s 2010  Olympic games. Here’s Jon Ferry in the Province (H/T to Lloyd):

Responding to increasing pressure, however, federal Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has finally agreed to waive the customs cash grab “immediately before, during and for a short time after the 2010 Winter Games.” The only problem is the extra trains are needed right now for what will undoubtedly be a critical summer tourist season.
…
[Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center Director Bruce] Agnew points to a Washington state Department of Transportation study showing that Amtrak passengers currently spend nearly $16 million Cdn a year in the Vancouver area. With a second train on the Vancouver-Seattle run, that could soar to as much as $49 million.

Saying they plan to temporarily waive the border fee may be a way for the Canadian Federal Government to save face and pray for a successful Olympic Games despite the worst economy in generations, but I’d take the Canadian Government’s position at face value. Anyone who dreams about Vancouver-Seattle-Portland high speed rail needs to pay attention to this topic: the US Federal Government is going to take a look at this customs issue before to making any long-term investments in high speed rail on Amtrak Cascades. If the Canadian government isn’t willing to chip in $1,500 a day – at most $547,500 a year – to make a second daily run possible, what hope is there of several daily runs, or anywhere near enough runs to make an investment by the federal government on this side of the border worthwhile?

This hard-line stance may have earned political points in Canada during the Bush administration, but I can’t imagine this is popular today. I’d hate it if Ottawa’s stinginess over just the customs fees on a second run jeopardized our chance of regional high speed rail. Come on, Ottawa, the train is going to get you guys millions in tourist dollars and you only have to pay the customs fees. Get on the ball.

News Round-Up: 66 days

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Tacoma Link
Tacoma Link, photo by Oran

Tacoma Link and SLU cars are 66 feet long (Link LRT cars will be 90 feet). 1966 was also the year of an infamous New York City Transit strike.

  • Bellevue’s Mayor, Grant Degginger, really wants a tunnel. Everyone but Microsoft seems to agree, but there’s not enough money, the cheapest tunnel is about $500 million more than the available funding. If Bellevue plans on relying entirely on federal funding and value engineering the rest of the line, they are probably going to wind up short. It’s going to need some local funding in Bellevue.
  • West Coast High Speed Rail? Maybe, but at 1,500 miles and $45 million a mile, it’s little more than a pipe dream.
  • Variable speed limits are coming to I-5 in South Seattle, as they are on I-90.
  • The federal transportation bill might be pushed back to 2010, rather than come in this year. If it includes more transit or better smart-road funding, I’d happily wait.

82 Days

Posted on by Ben Schiendelman
Sounder waiting to go
Sounder in King Street Station, photo by Oran

When Sounder opens to Lakewood, it’ll be 82 miles long. With daily ridership last quarter probably over 10,000 (it was over 9900 in the fourth quarter of 2008), I’d imagine the ninth train plus that extension should get us over 12,000 – if we don’t hit 12,000 before the extension opens in 2012!

In 1982, both the Tohoku (March) and Joetsu (November) shinkansen lines opened, providing high speed rail service north of Tokyo. We’ve got a long way to go in this country before opening two high speed rail lines in the same year!

Freedom

Posted on by Andrew Smith
700 Series Shinkansen
Happiness is a fast train (clang, clang, zoom, zoom). 700 Nozomi Shinkansen, photo by Not Quite a Photographer.

Yesterday morning I woke up in Tamami’s grandparent’s place in suburban Hiroshima (like Wallingford density) took a train into the city, bought a Shinkansen ticket and was cross-country to Tokyo before noon. That’s real freedom: just waking up and deciding I want to go all the way across the country today, instead of tomorrow, and getting there between breakfast and lunch. Not being trapped in a car or in an airport security line. Even by American standards that’s like waking up in suburban Seattle and being in downtown San Francisco by 2 pm, and there was wi-fi most of the way.

It’s not nearly as depressing coming back this time, knowing we’ll have a rail transit system for a good portion our city and region, and some sort of high speed rail for our greater region. Back in the States on Monday.