- Yesterday’s Seattle Times had a front page article about the cost of gas making people think twice about living in the suburbs. We’ve covered this in the past.
- Over this past weekend, the Times had another article about how americans are driving less and using public transit more. Includes a nice chart.
- Yesterday’s PI had a story about streetcars. There are a few things I’d like to point out:
- “The South Lake Union Streetcar reportedly costs $180 per hour to operate, compared with about $120 for a Metro bus.” This is an intentionally misleading figure. Trains of any kind generally have a higher capacity than a bus, encourage dense transit-oriented development, and are usually much more enjoyable to ride (no potholes in steel rails!). A streetcar will almost always have higher ridership when compared to a bus with the same service, and will always encourage more people to try transit. The measly $60 difference is insignificant.
- “About 30 people boarded the purple streetcar between 12:30 and 1:30.” Anti-rail advocates are always quick to mention the SLUT’s “light” ridership, ignoring the fact that the South Lake Union area is under heavy redevelopment. The city’s 20 year grown target for the area is to add 8,000 new residential units, and we’re already 19% of the way there in just over three years! And don’t forget that Amazon.com is planning to move to the area, which will bring thousands of jobs. I also heard that on the 4th of July, every train from Westlake to SLU Park was completely packed for a good three hours.
- The average price of gasoline is holding at $4.35 in Washington state. A $2 bus ride isn’t sounding bad at all, especially with a transfer!
Transit News Roundup
The PI endorsed the surface and transit option … well the study of it at least. In this op-ed piece, the paper “strong encourages” the council to “approve the $8 million study”. They also seem to support amendments to the proposal that would keep improvements that would lead to replacement from being started.
They also sort of come out against the streetcar, saying that its usefulness is suspect and that funding it will get in the way of expanding bus service in the city. I agree that the city can’t afford to lose any bus improvements, but the street car could become part of a larger network of cars that will cross the city and improve mobility dramatically. San Francisco’s Muni cars are a huge part of it’s transportation system, though I have to concede in some places they resemble Link more than the streetcars Seattle is building.
King-5 had a piece about how transit ridership is up. All the major transportation agencies in the region have seen year-over-year increases of about 8-10%.
Metro Transit
– Boardings were up 8.9 percent in April 2007 compared to April 2006, translating to about 30,000 more weekday riders.
Pierce Transit
– Boardings were up 8.7 percent in April 2007 compared to April 2006.
Sound Transit
– Bus boardings were up 10 percent overall in April 2007 compared to April 2006.
– Sounder commuter train boardings were up 27 percent in the same period.
Community Transit – … double digit increases in April 2007 compared to April 2006. That’s similar to the jump from the same time last year.
Apparently, gas prices, traffic fatigue and new employment is the cause. But as more people take transit, the demand for more transit will grow, and the political movement behind building more will grow.
Finally USA today discussed the 100 million more people who will live in America by 2040 (a couple million of which will live in the Seattle region), and how transit projects are being approved all over the country.