News Round-Up: Density

Posted on by Andrew Smith
3rd & Pike St.
3rd and Pike from Robin Kiley

Senate Approves Stimulus Plan

Posted on by Andrew Smith
United States Capitol Building
Photo by gawnesco

The Senate has approved their version of the stimulus plan in a 61-37 vote. All Democrats and three Republicans – Senator Arlen Specter, of Pennsylvania, and Senators Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine – voted yes, with the remaining Republicans present voting no. Judd Gregg (R-NH) was not present for the vote, and a winner in Minnesota Senate race between Al Frankin and Norm Coleman has not yet been seated.

Because the Constitution requires that both Houses of Congress pass the same bill, the next step is for the Conference Committee to meet and resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions. Senator Specter has stated that he wants most of the what was in the Senate version to come back from Conference, which could mean the bill will look more like the Senate version in the end. Both Houses have to vote a final time before the bill can be sent to the President to sign into law, and without a 60-seat majority in the Senate, the Democrats will need at least two Republican votes to end debate and avoid a filibuster.

Friday the Transport Politic had a nice chart showing the differences between the House and Senate bills on Amtrak and transit, and I’ve reproduced it here.

Program Passed House Bill Proposed Senate Bill
Grants to Amtrak $800 m $850 m
Grants to States for Rail $300 m $250 m
High-Speed Rail 0 $2 b
Total Rail $1.1 b $3.1 b
Transit Formula Funds $7.5 b $8.4 b
Fixed Guideway Modernization $2 b 0
New Starts $2.5 b 0
Total Transit $12 b $8.4 b
Discretionary Grants 0 $5.5 b

I wonder how transit will fare in the “discretionary grant” programs. It’d be the first chance to see Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in action and find out if he’s just another road warrior. Personally, I’d rather see Congress fund New Starts – which give cash to local transit projects – than High Speed Rail. Which would you rather see?

Update: Here’s a comparison of the timelines and levels of spending and tax cuts between the two versions of the bill.

The State of Sound Transit

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

After diligently ignoring the good news only the day before, the Times at least acknowledged the positive in the much more significant annual report of the Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel (pdf).

Find out more about the panel itself here.

The report is an outstanding, concise, independent summary of the state of the agency.  Here are a few tidbits that jumped out at me:

News Round Up: Action Needed!

Posted on by Andrew Smith


The Chamber Group Simple Measures, performing on the Streetcar, via the PI big blog.

  • The Nedler amendment that would tack on another $3 billion in transit funding to the Stimulus package has passed the House Rules Committee and is heading to the House floor. Email your congressional delegation and urge them to vote yes on the amendment.
  • The DeFazio Amendment failed, however.
  • Our world’s climate is a complete catastrophe, and urgent action is needed, according to planners with the Munich Re Group, the world’s largest reinsurers. They note that financial losses due to climate change already number in hundreds of billions and are rising.
  • This bill, SB 5377, is running through the state Senate, and is the perfect partner in sustainability to HB 1490, the bill that requires dense development around transit stations. SB 5377 would let the state provide grants and loans to governments and non-profits that developed housing or the infrastructure for supporting increased housing near stations. Special consideration will be given to projects that build low or moderate income housing. I hope to hear more about this bill, particularly news of it moving forward.
  • There are a ton of open houses on the Sound Transit calendar this week. Take a look below the fold and see if there’s one in your area.

Continue reading “News Round Up: Action Needed!”

News Round Up

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Lining up for the north bus
Bellevue Transit Center, by Oran via the STB flickr pool.
  • The Obama administartion is looking at creating an infrastructure bank based on the European Investment Bank. Through this mechanism, states or transportation programs could borrow money through the feds at a very low rate. H/T to Zach.
  • An anti-viaduct initiative is moving foward. The initiative would prohibit any use of City property to be used during construction. The initiative filers have until July to come up with 18,000 signatures.
  • I recently found this interesting blog, the National Journal’s expert blog. The blog features short posts by transportation experts like BSNF CEO Matt Rose, Gov. Tom Kaine of Virginia, and Robert Puentes of the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. In a recent post entitled “How Would You Improve The Stimulus Bill?”, Pete K. Rahn, the director of Missouri DOT has this to say:

    The $30 billion highway and bridge amount does not live up to the rhetoric preceding the release of the overall package. $30 billion is not going to “repair America’s crumbling roads and bridges” and it does not represent “the greatest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower.” At under 70% of a normal annual highway appropriation, the program lacks critical mass. The transportation portion should be doubled. A change I would make to the proposal is to allow the use—on a one-time emergency basis—of transit funds for system operations due to the severe decline in other ordinary revenues. I don’t believe any other areas of the stimulus proposal have to be reduced to increase the transportation-funding portion

    Amen, brother!

  • On the other hand, President Obama has pushed through rules allowing states to set more strigent fuel economy standards than the feds do, something Former President Bush wouldn’t allow. So much for Republicans being the states’ rights party…
  • State House Transportation Chair Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island) has an op-ed in the Times about the future of Washington State Ferries. Basically, she outlays the budget troubles facing the Ferries service: a $3.5 billion budget shortfall over the next 22 years if current service is to be maintained. Ouch.
  • Josh Feit over at Publicola has more details on the Futurewise and TCC v Seattle Displacement Coalition fight over the Transit Oriented Development Bill going through Olympia.
  • The Times had a piece over the weekend on how the Viaduct replacement decision was made. In short, business leaders and the Port were dead against the surface options.

Another Look at the Stimulus

Posted on by Andrew Smith

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about what’s wrong with the stimulus package and it’s really easy to critisize a bill that tries really hard to please everyone. But looking at the stimulus from a different perspective, in 2007, the Federal Government spent $2,730 billion (more was spent in 2008), of which $8.875 billion when to the FTA and was spent on transit. So about 1/3 of one percent of the total budget went to transit. With this stimulus package, $825 billion (or $550 billion if you think tax credits aren’t spending) will be spent in total, and $9 billion will go to transit. That’s nearly 1.1%. So compared to most government spending, this stimulus is very transit heavy. And $2.1 billion for New Starts is about 50% more than a typical year’s worth of spending.
 
Still, even conservatives agree that tax cuts are crappy stimulus and the stimulus will not keep cities from cutting service or raising fares. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has authored an amendment to the bill to authorize more funding for transit, so it’s not too late to email your congressional delegation and tell them you want to see more transit in the final draft of the stimulus bill. Especially Patty Murray, who’s in the Senate commitee looking at the bill right now.

A couple of videos below the fold.
Continue reading “Another Look at the Stimulus”

Transit Oriented Communities Bill Proposed in the Legislature

Posted on by Andrew Smith
Olympia Dome
Washington Capitol Building, From Flickr User Clappstar

Yesterday was the first day of the legislative session in Olympia. With the budget issues facing the Legislature, things look pretty bleak all around[1] but there might be one bright spot policy-wise: Transportation Choices and Futurewise are running a bill that seeks to capitalize on the ST2 investment. The bill which will be sponsored by Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-Vashon Island) and Senator Chris Marr (D-Spokane) will encourage transit oriented development around transit stations across the state. The bill is entitled “Creating Transit Communities” and will create land use guidelines and incentives to ensure that dense, walkable, and accessible development takes shape around light rail and BRT stations.

More info below the fold.

Continue reading “Transit Oriented Communities Bill Proposed in the Legislature”

All PNW Amtrak trains suspended

Posted on by Brian Bundridge

Due to the flooding in Western Washington, Amtrak Cascades, Amtrak’s Coast Starlight, and Amtrak’s Empire Builder is suspended due to the severe flooding. This restriction also applies to ALL freight trains. If you have loved ones on the train, they will be returning to their respective stations.

  • #11 arrived PDX
  • #501 arrived PDX 300p
  • #500 arrived SEA 200p
  • #506 is coming back to PDX… Stopped around Ostrander.
  • #507 is turning at Olympia…. going back to Seattle..

BNSF also has a 200′ washout at Martin on the Stampede Subdivision and reportedly, there is a wash out on the Bellingham Subdivision which would make the North end trains suspended as well.

Update: 6:07pm – BNSF has pulled all the switch machines (which throws the railroad switch automatically) between Centralia and Chehalis. Slide at Solo Point near University Place. BNSF is under water at Mt. Vernon with reported extensive damage to main-line. Sumner and Puyallup has been ordered to evacuate from Brock Hansen of Puyallup.

Update: 6:20pm – WSDOT is closing a 20 mile segment of I-5, between exit 88 near the Lewis/Thurston county border south to exit 68, the US 12 interchange connecting with Morton and White Pass. WSDOT is planning to close I-5 between Fife and Tacoma in the next hour or two. Hwy 410, I-90 between North Bend and Easton, US 2 and Hwy 12 all remain closed.

Update: 7:15pm – The BNSF Railway bridge in Sumner is reportedly buckling from the force of the river.

News Roundup: Stimulus, Stimulus, Stimulus

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Crowded Westlake
I don’t have time to write a real post on the stimulus, but here’s some noise from around the internet.

  • Thomas Friedman took a trip to China and is depressed at the state of our transportation infrastructure. Going abroad is usually the best way to notice just how bad it’s become here. Friedman also wants to raise the gas tax, which I think is a great idea with gas prices so low; average gallon price across the county is now less than half of its peak a few months ago. The money could be used to pay for alternative energy projects, or even just pay for the stimulus package.
  • Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman wants the stimulus money given to states, arguing that an increase in federal spending won’t do much if it’s accompanied by a matching decrease in state spending. The states do need some help with medicaid and budget gaps – our state government is going to have to cut $5 billion – but I would be very disappointed if the final call for infrastructure spending ends up going through the state capitols first. As Erica Barnett points out, to states, “infrastructure” means roads.
  • At the same time, some members of Congress are pushing to increase mass transit’s share of the stimulus cash. James Oberstar, who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wants to increase the transit share for the $85 billion or so that will be spent on transportation in the stimulus package. Chuck Schumer wants $20 billion for MTA in his state, and John Kerry has been calling for spending on high-speed rail.
  • Capitol Hill is getting set for light rail construction to start.
  • Light Rail openned in Phoenix over the weekend, and things went smoothly. I look forward to the same thing happening this summer.

I am less worried that the stimulus money will all go to highway projects than I was last time I wrote about the topic. The $12 billion number the Oberstar article states could be spent on transit would be a massive increase, since currently only about $2 billion a year is spent on by the FTA capital projects. For a comparison, the capital costs of all light rail in Prop. 1 package passed in November was about $7 billion. Still, there’s no way to know how much will get spent here, so it’s worth letting your congressional delegation know that you want transit in the stimulus package.

Photo by Oran, from the STB flickr pool.

More Obama Panic

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

Bloomberg is reporting the sample of state stimulus plans publicly released are roads-heavy.  While that’s bad news, it shouldn’t be surprising at all:

Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, this is not shocking because most state constitutions are structured to limit the power of the major metropolitan areas.  Just imagine what would happen if the stimulus check were simply handed over to Olympia!

This bears watching, but I’d say it’d be most productive to make sure that our Congressmen and Senators know that we want a lot of the money delivered straight to the city and county level.  As our very own mayor is quoted in this Washington Post article:

In Seattle, Mayor Greg Nickels said that the list of projects submitted by Washington state included only one in Seattle, for a ferry dock, while the city has ambitious hopes for removing a hulking highway ramp in a revitalized neighborhood and accelerating a light-rail expansion.

“Metro areas really are the engines of the economy, and to the extent that this can go directly to the metro areas rather than a cumbersome state process, it will have more effect,” Nickels said. “States can do a nice job in rural counties, but in metro areas it’s not always a good relationship or very nimble.”

As it stands, Congress, wanting to keep things simple, plans to disburse the money under existing formulas — funding for roads and bridges will go to state governments, while money for public transit will go to the local agencies that receive transit funding.

Image from Wikimedia.

News Round-Up

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Bellevue Buses in snow
Image by Oran via the STB flickr pool.

I hope you’re holding up. I’m, personally, getting a little stir crazy locked at home. With a sick newborn at home, I’m on a short leash.

News Round-Up

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Jackknifed Articulated Buses

With snowpocalypse upon us, it’s difficult to make time to post on all of these, so here’s a news round-up.

  • The Beacon Hill Station construction is coming along, according to the Beacon Hill blog. Apparently the big blue wall will come down in February or March. Via Seattlest.
  • Thurston County’s Intercity Transit will probably ask voters for a tax increase, according to the Olympian. Currently, Intercity Transit gets a 0.6% sales tax, and the increase would move the rate to .8%. Under state law, transit agencies can have up to a .9% sales tax. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this over the coming year.
  • According to Community Transit, Swift was supposed to break ground Thursday. I doubt that it did, with Snowpacolypse and everything. Swift has been moving along really quickly, especially compared to Rapid Ride. Both Swift and Rapid Ride were approved in 2006, and Swift is ready to begin construction, and Rapid Ride construction has not started yet.
  • Obama’s stimulus plan keeps growing and is now up to $850 billion. Every time I read an article about the stimulus that doesn’t say “transit”, I worry a little bit.
  • The results from 520 Bridge tolling poll I mentioned last month have been released, along with a HOT lane discussion.

Photo of Snowpocalypse by Oran in the STB flickr pool.

Raise the Gas Tax Now

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

Since the breathless predictions I linked to this summer apparently aren’t going to happen, I was going to write a piece on how it’s a great time to raise the gas tax.  However, Michael Kinsley has covered all the main political points in Time, while  Mike Lillis in The Washington Independent goes a little deeper into the economics, for those of you so inclined.

All I can add is that this is equally good advice at the state level.  Kinsley’s right that there’s no reason, in principle, to object to the gas tax unless your policy goal is to maximize gasoline consumption.  In any other case, the state could take the money to cut other taxes or subsidize whoever it is you think is being hurt by this proposal.

UPDATE: Of course, here in this state our wonderful state constitution restricts our ability to offset the impact of tax increases by forcing it to all be spent on roads.   There’s another thing Olympia could fix if they weren’t obsessed with asphault.

Stimulus Update

Posted on by Andrew Smith

SNDR_MtRainier0908_ppt
According to this article P-I, the state is looking at something like $250 to $500 million in stimulus spending for infrastructure. That leads me to believe something like about $50 or $100 billion will be spent on the federal level for transportation. So that’s the good news.

The bad news: I heard Christine Gregoire on NPR say she wants the stimulus money to be given directly to state governments, and have the states spend the money as they see fit. Our state government’s Department of Transportation is basically a highway and ferry organization, so if Gregoire’s state grant concept does happen, I am not hugely optimistic that many of the transit projects mentioned in this post would be funded.

So take a minute and let our congressional delegation know that we want some transit to be funded in the stimulus package.

Forget Olympia, It’s Congress

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Contra Ben’s post, chalk me up as doubtful we’ll get anything out of Olympia. I gave up on that place a long time ago, and the current budget situation means we’re getting nothing for a good long while.  I’d be thrilled if they just fixed the bridges that are about to fall down.

On the other hand, President-elect Obama has declared his intention to put forth a $500 ~ $700 billion infrastructure plan that would generate some two to five million jobs.  To be an effective stimulus, of course, the money has to be spent soon, so projects that require years of public hearings aren’t going to be helpful. Obama has set a time frame of two years for for the projects.

Here’s a handy guide to some things that could be done right away, if only the money were in the bank, helpfully organized by Congressional District:

Continue reading “Forget Olympia, It’s Congress”

PTBA and Rural Sounder

Posted on by Martin H. Duke

Before we get too far into planning Sounder to Stanwood, Marysville, Orting, Olympia, and God knows where else, I think it’s useful to apply a little reality check from the last election.

This blog spent about 0.01% of its time in 2008 worrying about it, but there was a ballot measure in Snohomish County to extend the Public Benefit Transit Area to the Southeastern part of Snohomish County. This would have been a 0.9% sales tax increase to bring signficant bus service into these areas, which aren’t that far from Downtown Seattle in the grand scheme of things.

To make a long story short, this relatively modest measure got killed in the strongest possible pro-transit tailwind.

Areas like this, in general, contain dispositionally transit-averse voters who will contribute relatively little in terms of tax revenue and make it harder to pass needed measures.  Furthermore, people that live in these areas and work in major regional job centers are indicating a pretty strong preference to live as rural a lifestyle as possible, inconsistent with the growth that makes high-quality transit worthwhile.

I’m all for more Amtrak service to facilitate the occasional trip to or from Seattle, but subsidizing this kind of daily commute is not where we want to dedicate resources.

Image of Maltby from Flickr contributor Don Decoud.

What’s Next

Posted on by Andrew Smith

I don’t want to move away from Prop 1’s amazing and inspiring victory this week, but I want to talk a bit about what the future holds, both for this blog and for transit in Seattle. My main motivation for starting this blog was to provide a (virtual) place to go for those interested in a transit in our area to become keep informed and to meet like minds, as well as to advocate for a Sound Transit exansion. Even though thankfully the second goal is no longer necessary, there’s still plenty going on to keep activity here into the future.

The following stories will certainly be among those that we track here over the near future:

  • Link Light Rail Opening
    Obviously, Light Rail in Seattle has not been complete yet. Central Link’s opening is going to be a huge news story here over the next 14 months. I have taken one ride on Link, and I can hardly wait to take it again. The opening is going to be a huge step for transit here, and honestly, a really fun one.
  • Metro’s funding gap
    Light Rail will be a major part of our transportaion future, but it cannot be successful without a healthy Metro. Our hugely popular bus system still has a massive funding gap, and what it takes to close that gap is an open question. Fare increases, increased advertising and possibly even service cuts are on the horizon. This is a huge issue, and Metro expects the gap to continue into 2010, so I anticipate this story to continue for some time.
  • 520 replacement
    The plan for the 520 replacement has becomclearer, but we still have no idea how it’s going to be paid for.
  • Alaskan Way Viaduct
    On the viaduct, we don’t even have agreement on an approach. Will it be a tunnel? A new elevated freeway? A retrofit? Surface and transit? And how are we going to pay for it?
  • Streetcars
    Seattle still has plans to create a streetcar system, and with Prop. 1 passing, we are gauranteed at least one more line, the First Hill streetcar. Will streetcars get expanded? Can the Waterfront Line be resurrected? Also, Tacoma also has a growing movement toward building a streetcar system.
  • Rapid Ride service
    I really worry that if Metro is forced to cut service, this will be the first to go. Hopefully service won’t be cut, Rapid Ride will be completed, and will become a great success. The first Rapid Ride route is slated for a 2010 opening.

On the advocacy side, I see some potential causes for the greater public transit good:

  • Getting Metro More Funding
    Metro is a critical part of transportation in King County – more than 17% of commutes in Seattle are taken on Metro buses – and we need it as healthy as possible. Metro has maxed-out its sales tax capacity as provided by the state law, and has a massive funding gap of about 10% of costs. Metro may be forced to cut service, which will be a tragedy not just for those who use or rely on Metro, but for traffic in our region. Other than fare-box recovery and increased advertising, there is essentially no mechanism whereby Metro can secure more funding.
    There are a few ideas floating around on how to allow for more greater funding. There do seem to be provisions in the state code to allow for the creation of transportation districts levied by either business taxes or property taxes. Ron Sims has been floating the idea of legistlation around creating such a district, and I would support this whole-heartedly. I am not completely sure about the state law surrounding this, and I will follow up on this in coming weeks. If state law does not allow such levies, we should push for either an initiative allowing for other funding sources or for our legistlators in Olympia to pass law allowing for it.
  • Light Rail transportation investment district
    It might make some sense to pass a light rail investment district to bring rail to the western side of Seattle. The monorail had massive public support before the taxes came up short and the organization fell apart. Prop 1 does provide funding for studies of light rail expansion to West Seattle and Ballard. If the numbers work out, it could be an idea worth pursuing.

There are certainly more than the list above, what’s on your mind? What do you think about these ideas?

Mea Culpa

Posted on by Andrew Smith

Along with Martin, I apologize for doubting a transit-only package would pass. I was clearly wrong. I have a very strong feeling that much of the credit for this year’s Prop. 1 passing goes to Barack Obama, and the enthusiasm around the candidate that drove people to the polls. We’ll never know whether last year’s Prop. 1 could have passed this year, though I doubt it would. I also don’t know if last year’s package could have passed in 2007 without roads, though it seems obvious now that it would have done better than it did tied to roads. So I was wrong, and I apologize.

Part of my bitterness last year with the Sierra Club and the Stranger was because I supported the roads portion of the proposition. Most of the roads were new HOV lanes, which are very important to good bus service, or necessary investments like the 520 bridge or the South Park Bridge. I still want many of those roads projects completed.

What I didn’t understand at the time was the actual motivation for tying the RTID roads to Sound Transit. Those in Olympia who put forth RTID don’t know how they will come up with funding to replace these bridges and create those HOV lanes, and are scared of the backlash in their districts of raising funds statewide to build roads projects in the Seattle area. The political cost is apparent in the large failure margin of I-985 in counties outside the Central Puget Sound area, where most of the benefit would have been concentrated. I know now that last year’s transit package wasn’t married to roads because anyone thought that the roads would help transit pass, they were married because the roads supporters knew the transit would help the roads pass, and Olympia wanted to punt the State’s responsibility to taxpayers in our area. I was wrong on each of these counts.

I know I upset some people by arguing that defeating RTID wouldn’t prevent global warming – global warming being the Sierra Club and the Stranger’s main argument against the package – and I still believe with that. The solution to global warming lies entirely in investment in non-fossil fuel energy sources, and the best way to achieve that end is through a carbon tax, especially an escalator carbon tax. With a carbon tax, auto makers will be forced to make more efficient cars, inventors and researchers will be encouraged and subsidized to find effective alternatives, and energy companies will be incentivized to invest in clean energy solutions. Cancelling roads projects won’t have any effect other than the statement to politicians encouraging them to get their act together on climate change. I don’t apologize for my opinion, though I am sure most of you don’t agree.

This year’s measure was also much better than last year’s. There is a little more Sounder service, and a lot more buses than last year. Sure there is less light rail, but I am confident that ultimately, we will get all the light rail from last year’s plan and more. I was wrong last year, and I am very glad that I was.