What the Mayor Told Us Last Night

Posted on by John Jensen

As you heard earlier this morning, Greg Nickels (the Mayor of Seattle) came to our blog’s meet-up last night. After delivering a speech detailing is 21+ year history of trying to bring rail transit to the region, the Mayor asked the audience for some questions. Here are the more interesting facts we found out:

  • Nickels said he wasn’t “convinced” about a 12th avenue streetcar rather than one that runs along Broadway. He implied that it wouldn’t serve the same area that the original First Hill stop promised in Sound Move would have. But he said there is time to look at 12th, and that the city should.
  • The First Hill Streetcar may not pursue federal funds because it can delay a project for years and the city is attempting to open the line ahead of the planned 2016 date.
  • But the 1st Ave (ID, Belltown, Lower Queen Anne) Streetcar will pursue federal funds and will be started during his next term if re-elected. This line will link the First Hill Streetcar and the South Lake Union Streetcar.

More after the jump!

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Meet-Up, Plus Rapid Ride Photos

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Metro_Rapid_Ride_Front-Side_View_05-04-09Thanks for everyone who came to the meet-up. Our guest this time was Mayor of Seattle and Sound Transit board chair Greg Nickels. Nickels was awesome, he gave a history of Link and Sound Transit that only someone who has sent years leading the fight for light rail can, and spent a long time answering questions about light rail, streetcars, transit oriented development and buses. It was a great meet-up, and I’m always impressed by the transit acumen our readers have. We’re really lucky to have such smart readers.

Also present was Shefali from TCC, who I want to encourage people to contact for Link opening event volunteer opportunities.

Seattle is playing host to the American Public Transit Association’s Bus and Paratransit Conference, and Metro unveiled its Rapid Ride BRT buses, as well as bus stops, more photos below the fold.
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Transit Cuts Coast-to-Coast

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Via Streetsblog, here’s a CNN news clip on transit cuts being faced in St. Louis.

Okay, that’s admittedly a bit melodramatic, but it does illustrate some of the real-world effects of cutting transit service. St. Louis’s METRO is looking at about a 15% service cut. King Country Metro was looking at some larger, somewhere around 20%. Thankfully, the property tax authority that Olympia gave the county for transit should plug about a third of the hole, but still 13% cuts in service are not going to be pretty. At least Olympia helped, Missouri’s state government refused to move at all on transit funds.

75 Days

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Atlanta - MARTA
MARTA station, photo by Charles Fred

75% is the share of construction costs for Forward Thrust the Federal Government would have paid. King County taxpayers would have had to come up with just 25%.

In late 1975, construction started on Atlanta’s first MARTA line, the East-West line. The Urban Mass Transportation Administration – the Federal Agency that become the FTA – gave MARTA the $600 million it had set aside for our area’s failed Forward Thrust that year. Operations on the West line began in June of 1979, and began on the West Line in December of 1979.

Update from Ben:

Amusingly enough, while looking for light rail related ’75s’, I found another countdown from a year ago – here’s a post made when Phoenix’s light rail had 75 days left as well. I think everyone gets excited about having a new transit system!

Also, New Jersey Transit’s SEPTA’s (thanks) light rail system has 75 stations.

New Metro Website

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

On Friday Metro unveiled a new website design, which as far as I’m concerned is a major improvement on previous versions, in particular the extremely wordy one that immediately preceeded it.

The “Reports” tab is a godsend to transit wonks like us.  In this respect I believe they’re leapfrogging ST’s site, which has long been the gold standard for planning documents.

Frank at Orphan Road pretty much says everything else that needs to be said.

BRT in LA on Streetfilms

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Here’s an excellent video on the Orange BRT in Los Angeles. It’s interesting to see rail-emulation features of the line: dedicated right-of-way, off-board payment, low-floors, etc. However, on my trip on the Orange Line I noticed that some sections of the line the bus went through normal traffic on normal city streets. I also learned in a bit of research that, somewhat ironically, a part of the line was built on an old railway right-of-way Los Angeles County owned. The tracks were removed.  The line saw about 26,600 per day riders last year and cost about $330 million to build in 2004.

News Round Up: I-90, I-90, I-90

Posted on by Andrew Smith
  • The DJC is reporting new details on new joints that are being installed on the I-90 bridge. Apparently the old joints are broken and need replacing but unfortunately, the new joints being installed are not compatible with Light Rail and will need to be removed again before East Link can begin testing sometime between 2015 and 2020. The work will close the center roadway express lanes for three weeks starting Monday, and will cost WSDOT and the Feds $5.3 million.
  • Metro is offering incentives to vanpool riders during the express lane closure, and notes that commutes will be worse on I-90 and SR 520 mainly in the westbound direction in the morning, and eastbound direction in the evening. The delays could be 30-40 minutes, so plan accordingly.
  • In other I-90 news, the speed limits on I-90 are now variable, and traffic, weather and road work can move the normal 60 mph speed down to 30 mph.
  • The first stimulus-funded transportation project in the state is beginning this week in Ellensburg on I-90.

News Roundup: Northwest in the Global Media

Posted on by Martin H. Duke
Photo by Stephen Devights

Some stories we haven’t mentioned over the last few days:

  • The BBC does a story on American high-speed rail, and highlights Amtrak Cascades. (H/T: Erik)
  • Metro GM Kevin Desmond profiled in Mass Transit Magazine.  (H/T: Orphan Road).
  • Sound Transit awarded the contract to upgrade the Sounder track between M Street in Tacoma to Lakewood, thanks to $4.6m in Federal Stimulus.

Classification of Transfers by Headway Length

Posted on by Adam Bejan Parast
Metro Transfer Mockup by Oran
Metro Transfer Mockup by Oran

After reading Martin’s post about the SW Seattle service changes here, here and here I wanted to add a few comments about transfers. Basically, not all transfers are equal. I know this is pretty basic but this point gets overlooked a lot, especially in places like Seattle, where few routes have less than 10 minute headways. Ever ask how to get somewhere by bus and be told to “take route # to ___  and transfer to blah blah blah blah blah”? Yeah you kind of glaze over and zone out  when they say transfer. In these circumstances lots of people decided to drive, take a taxi or don’t even make the trip.

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