Buses over Streetcars

Erica Barnett points out that the FTA seems to be implementing rules that push for buses over streetcars because the "densification" element would be removed from the cost-effectiveness criteria. This would likely remove some of the funding that we used here to build our streetcar line.

Erica is incorrect that this could remove funding for light-rail or heavy rail rapid transit lines. This would be a HUGE worry for University Link that has not yet been approved for federal funding. The good news is that the "densification" factor is not necessary for that project, since the cost-benefit for that project is time of commute and number of commuters.

We have little to worry for the moment about federal funding for light rail.

Seattle Can Learn From Other Cities on the Viaduct

This isn't really transit related, but when thinking of a replacement to the viaduct, it's important to think back the the Embarcadero Waterfront Freeway in San Francisco that was destroyed and not replaced, and also to think about the Big Dig in Boston that replaced the elevated I-93 with a tunnel with an astounding final cost of $14.8 billion.

The contrasts are pretty big. Both had the side effect of freeing their waterfronts from separation with the city and from shadows and noise. But San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway carried up to 110,000 cars daily the same high-end as the viaduct and without it, supply shortage shifted demand to alternate routes and means of transportation along their waterfront.

Boston, on the other hand, has wasted $14.8 billion digging a tremendous tunnel. Granted, I-93 is more important to Boston than the Viaduct is to Seattle or the Embarcadero Freeway ever was to San Francisco, but it's worth noting how huge projects like this can balloon out of control and cost a fortune, when they may not even be necessary in the first place, as the Embarcadero Freeway shows.

These things always get me thinking, how much transit can you buy with $14.8 billion? About 36% more than all that was in Prop. 1.

Bus Tunnel Back Open

...as of this morning. It had been closed sense last week due to computer failures.

Also, the streetcar still has bugs to work out.

Hopefully with two years of testing under it's belt, Link will open without a hitch, though it doesn't seem likely.

3 minutes

Yesterday the US Congress approved $88.6 million for ULink and Central link. This is slightly less than the $94 million mentioned before for 2008, though the difference is all coming out of ULink, which means that we probably will still get all the money in total, it might just take longer.

In the press release I received it had this quote:

The project connects the three largest urban centers in the region: downtown Seattle, Capitol Hill and the University District. It will offer much faster travel times for transit passengers than buses. Light rail will carry passengers from downtown to the University in 9 minutes instead of 25 and to Capitol Hill in 6 minutes instead of 14. Trips between Capitol Hill and the University District will take 3 minutes instead of 22. Riders will also enjoy reliable service no matter how bad the weather or traffic congestion.

Three minutes!

Update: Added the press release.

There a few things to read into this, since the Feds have already given Sound Transit $20mn before the finally grant decision on University Link. First, it looks like University Link is going forward regardless of the death of Prop. 1. This shows that Ted Van Dyk and his "Battle of Stalingrad" quote were wrong, that ST will be able to complete that segment regardless of whatelse happens. 3.15 miles more subway for Seattle!

Also, it shows just how badly we need real, rapid transit here. This got the highest possible rating, and just two stations adds 70,000 riders to the line. This is basically the cheapest transportation project attempted in recent memory in this area. At fully one-tenth the cost of widening I-405, this will add more than more than 25% as much people-moving capacity..

Here comes governance reform

At one of the News Tribune blogs, David Seago reports on Gov. Gregoire's visit to the editorial board. There's good news and bad news.

The bad news:

The governor said she was prepared to introduce her own RTG [Regional Transportation Governance] legislation for the 2008 session, but she agreed to let state Sens. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and Mary Margaret Haugen, D-Camano Island, take the lead in crafting a proposal...

RTG means no more Sound Transit, no more Regional Transportation Improvement District - bodies comprised of elected city and county officials from Pierce, King and Snohomish counties.

Daimajin has discussed at length why this is a bad idea. Briefly, I oppose it strongly because (1) new agencies tend to be paralyzed by indecision and incompetence for several years, while Sound Transit is now operating smoothly; (2) Any new entity is likely to both dilute the vote of pro-transit Seattle and lose most of its rail transit focus; and (3) an elected board is unlikely to approve the taxes necessary to build a good rail system.

By the way, Ed Murray is the one you can thank for the ST2/RTID marriage in the last election, in spite of representing one of the most liberal districts in the state.

I was led to this blog entry via David Brewster on Crosscut, who adds:

The first political showdown will be Sound Transit's decision next February whether to go back to the ballot in 2008, this time with no roads component. House Speaker Frank Chopp opposes the 2008 submission, fearing that some of his Democratic candidates in the suburbs will be forced to take a stand on a tax increase. Olympia has threatened Sound Transit that if they go ahead with the 2008 vote, they can expect to be punished by enactment of a regional governance entity that will weaken Sound Transit's autonomy and its dedicated taxes. Waiting to 2010 for the Sound Transit II vote may also give enough time for the regional governance entity to be enacted.

How far back has the Prop. 1 failure set us? A generation?

A wee bit of good news via Seago:

And the notion of "sub-area equity," Gregoire said emphatically, has got to go. That gave us a little shudder, because the principle that the money raised in each county should be spent each county is pretty much Holy Writ in Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Sub-area equity prevents us from building a system that serves the most riders. If key leaders are starting to recognize that, it's a good thing.

Still, in state races I'm pretty much a single-issue voter on transit, and the Governor has yet to give me a reason she'd be better than Dino Rossi, which is pathetic.

UPDATE: Sen. Murray has a fair response in the comments, that you should read. It is certainly true that he renounced his support for the ST2/RTID marriage quite some time ago, which is something I should have pointed out in the original post.

As for his claims about opposing RTID from the start, he sponsored this bill about RTID, and Section 8 (an amendment added by the Senate) is where the linkage is established. Judge for yourself (I'm no journalist), but to me that's ancient history. I'm glad to see our Seattle delegation standing up for a 2008 ST2.1 vote, and that's what matters.

This Governence Reform is a Terrible Idea

I want to add to the great post Frank at OR wrote in response to Ted Van Dyk's latest Crosscut piece calling for a transportation "mega-agency" with a directly elected board that would have control over both transit planning and roads planning. Frank takes the similar position to the one I made last time, but Frank goes into more detail. Trust me, as with everything he writes, the whole thing is worth the read.

I've got something to add to the argument. There are some huge advantages to a federated board relative to a directly elected one. First, a federate board can plan transportation and transit around other major regional agendas. When Bellevue approved this development, they had light rail in mind, and it helped having the Bellevue City councilwoman who approved the development be on the Sound Transit board. There is definitely a synergy between the council members and mayors approving development and planning their cities and the transportation agencies.

Secondly, elected officials working on the same board are going to have an easier time coordinating efforts amongst each other vis-à-vis elected officials in different agencies. Compare efforts like Rainer Valley zoning and the Bellevue Plan to the trouble that larger, directly-elected agencies like King County and the Port of Seattle have had dealing with something as straight-forward as a rail purchase. Months of negotiation and a final solution still hasn't been reached.

Finally, a directly elected regional officer/board would look just like the port, with little accountability, no oversight, and terrible corruption. Want your city/county council members to have bargain with an agency like the Port?

Sure, an elected office with taxing authority would be able to get work done faster, but it would also be able to do damage much faster. The agency Rice-Stanton envision would have the power to dictate route planning for local agencies, literally franchising routes downward from on high. Imagine if a Ted Van Dyk, Tim Eyman or John Niles became chair of this regional transportation agency? It'd either be roads all roads with Van Dyk, complete tax shutdown with Eyman, or all buses all the time with John Niles. Transit haters could run routes that no one would ride and point to it as proof that transit is a waste. That doesn't sound like an effective agency.

What we have currently is a group of local, elected officials who know their constituents and know their areas' long term plans working together to create transportation packages to bring to voters who ultimately have the say on it all. That seems reasonable to me. What Eyman, Ted Van Dyk, and John Niles want is a regional agency subject to politicization and direct-election propaganda. In their vision, every four years a new group could come in and do away with the progress made in the last go. How is that to our region's advantage?

How to Name Urban Rail Ways

The Overhead Wire has a post about how rail lines should have numbers not colors. For example, in Chicago and Los Angeles all the rail lines names are colors, ie, "blue line", "red line", while in New York the "services" are numbered "A", "7", etc. I agree that numbers allow for more lines/services, but maps like colors. Almost every city in America (also, Washington, Boston, etc.) with a rail system uses colors.

I prefer names over numbers, because they allow for more information. The London Underground has names, and there's little question where some of the lines go. The "Waterloo and City" line goes between, well, Waterloo and the City of London. In Tokyo the lines are named, too. The Toyoko line goes between Tokyo and Yokohama, and it's obvious from the name (if you speak Japanese).

It seems like we are going toward naming our lines, but giving them terrible names: "Central Link", "Tacoma Link", "First Hill Streetcar", "South Lake Union Streetcar", and "Sounder". I may be jumping the gun, since we only have really one line and it's not opened yet, but I propose this if we ever get an integrated system, either light rail or streetcars: we both letter our lines and give them names. San Francisco does it this way, with the "N Judah", "9 Potrero", "T Third Street", "38 Geary" etc. This way it could be the "T Tacoma", "S South Lake Union", "F First Hill", "D Denny", etc.

What do you guys think? Are letters better than colors? Names better than letters?

UW Station

If you look at the UW station plans, you'll see that the station will have one exit facing North with a ramp toward main campus and another facing toward the hospital. It's deep underground because it has to cross the cut, which means it needs to go under the water. I love the design, especially how the ramp faces the mountain as you walk to the station, but the one bad part of the design is it's distance from Montlake bridge where the buses crossing 520 ride. Small problem.

Bicycles, South Lake Union, plus others

A lot of noise has been made about how the Streetcar tracks in South Lake Union are bad for bikes. So I went down there yesterday on my bike and I have to say, I didn't have that problem. I guess if you are riding along the same area where the streetcar is, it could be dangerous to be in the tracks, but why not go one block down? I only crossed the tracks at a 90-degree angle.

Oddly, there are a ton of other, old tracks in the street down there, and they don't have this problem, I wonder why only the Streetcar tracks get the complaints.

On a completely unrelated note, I went to a Thunderbirds hockey game yesterday and learned that the team is moving to Kent and will play in a venue across the street from Kent Station. They play at Key Arena now, but it seems that next year you'll be able to take sounder down to Kent for T-Birds games. Oddly, the T-Birds play in a division that has Everett in it, and Everett and Kent are both about the same distance from Seattle, so if the T-Birds move down to Kent, they ought to be called the Kent Thunderbirds, not the Seattle Thunderbirds. At least that's my opinion.

UW Station Plans, 520, Eastside Rail

There's an article here about the UW station plans which were on display yesterday. Look forward to a post from me with more on the station design.

Seattle Times ran this op-ed from Theodore Lane and Bill Mundy about how 520 is the right corridor for light rail rather than I-90. I agree a line on there makes sense, but it doesn't make more sense than one on 520. First, it doesn't go through Downtown Bellevue, which has nearly as many workers (about 100,000) by itself as the "SLU/University/Redmond" area which has 113,000. Plus, you still hit Redmond and you hit more residents along I-90. Plus, the ST2 plan goes through this, though I guess the 520 proposal could too if it were built right.

Lastly, Ron Sims has let the Port buy the BNSF line. He wanted the tracks torn up, mostly because the thinks they would need to be replaced, and also because it makes it worse for bicyclists. The value of the route for transit has been questioned because it goes pretty far from the major employment centers there.

Light Rail, Jim Ellis and the ST board

Streetcars and buses are great, but the we still need real rapid transit and in this region that means light rail. As we know, the Sound Transit Board is meeting today to discuss the future for light rail, the main question being whether to come back to the ballot in 2008 or later.

David Brewster at Crosscut seems sure it will only come back in 2010. I'm not so sure. I think if Dino Rossi moves into the governor's mansion in 2009, there won't be a Sound Transit in 2010 to go to the ballot. That Brewster piece about Jim Ellis (who's not dead) is fascinating btw.

More No. 8 buses

According to this there will be more no. 8 service along with more no. 70 bus service. The 70 will run every ten minutes, and the 8, which I sometimes take from Denny and Stewart when it's raining, will start running every 15 minutes from 6-7:30 up from 30 minutes.

What's interesting is that $109,000 of the approx. $800,000 needed to fund the increased service comes from SLU business. Seems scary to me, like wealthy business can throw money at the city and the city will buy them more bus service. What do you think, should we worry about county bus service for hire?

Viaduct Meeting Tomorrow

It's not a public comment meeting, but you could submit a written comment and listen to the latest thinking:

The State, King County and the City of Seattle are working together to create a solution for the central waterfront section that can be broadly supported and implemented. Our intention is to develop a recommended approach in December 2008 for consideration by the legislature in 2009.

A key part of this effort is the creation of the new Stakeholder Advisory Committee, which was formed by Governor Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims, and Mayor Greg Nickels. The committee will be made up of 30 individuals representing various constituencies and community groups throughout King County. WSDOT, KCDOT and SDOT will lead the committee to engage key stakeholders, listen to ideas, and conduct a transparent public involvement process over the next year.

The first committee meeting will be held Thursday, Dec. 13, 4 to 7 p.m. at Town Hall in Seattle. The meeting is open to the public, but it will not be a forum for open comment. The public is invited to submit written comments at the meeting or through viaduct@wsdot.wa.gov. Comments can also be submitted at any time on our hotline, 1-888-AWV-LINE. For more information, please visit the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall Replacement Program Web site.

Anyone who attends is encouraged to report about it in this post's comments.

Snohomish County BRT (Swift)

I'd like to expand on Daimajin's short comments about Snohomish BRT. First of all, you can find a lot more info than the Times article here. It's a big improvement over King County's plans, although of course the geographic scope is smaller.

Kudos to Snohomish County leaders for getting this done with an electorate that is generally less transit-friendly than King County. Bonus points for getting it done without a tax or fare increase, and not taking it through a laborious public vote.

The project should be done in 2009. King County's version, RapidRide, won't have its earliest portion done before 2010 despite being launched over a year earlier. It will mesh quite nicely with RapidRide's Aurora Service, terminating at Aurora Village. People living along this corridor can access jobs in places like Fremont far faster than the current best option of going downtown, and then back north.

Swift would appear to have the same features as RapidRide, except:

• The 10-minute headways will be 20 hours a day (instead of peak-only).
• It has on-board bike racks served by their own door(!)
• Ticket machines are at the stations, while RapidRide envisions that passengers will still fumble for change on board.
  
• Seven miles of the route will actually be bus-only instead of HOV. Anyone who's ridden 405 Northbound in the afternoon can tell you the difference, although Swift will still have to deal with the usual idiots trying to turn right.
  

I really wish the people responsible for this were running the BRT shop at Metro. They seem to be doing a lot more with a lot less, at least in this narrow case.

But in spite of all the things they've done right, it's still not light rail. An 80-passenger bus every 10 minutes is nothing like an 800-passenger train every six in terms of capacity, and therefore has dramatically lower potential for high-density development along the line. It also will not be truly separated from traffic. At the same time, what they've done here is about as much as you can do with buses before you start to approach the cost of rail.

In the long run, light rail can be run with four or two-minute headways. Buses can't, because the timing is unreliable and they end up bunched up (See: Metro Route 48). Bigger trains, shorter headways: Light Rail moves a lot more people than BRT, even when BRT is done right.

But BRT is a good option for a corridor that won't see rail for a long, long time.

UPDATE: Reading between the lines more carefully, I should point out one weakness in the plan: apparently, the ten miles of the line that are not bus-only lanes are general purpose lanes. Given the rather tight constraints they were under, I still think they did a really good job. It's just not quite as much of a slam dunk over RapidRide.

Street Car photos

Here are some photos from the streetcar event:

It's a beautiful train.

Joke's run it's course guys.




These are from Ryan, thanks! Nickels said "I don't care what you call it, as long as you ride it!"

Viaduct Idea

Via Slog, the Governor says the viaduct surface option is an "open question". The state has $2.8 billion lined up for a viaduct replacement, with a rebuild costing about $4 billion, and a surface option something like $2 billion.

So I have an idea. You want Seattle to be an "international city" in the future, let's do what hundreds of other "international cities" have done and spend the $2billion difference between the surface and the rebuild on light rail. $2 billion should be able to a buy LRT subway from West Seattle to lower Queen Anne and possibly even Interbay, especially with a bit of federal funding thrown in.

What do you say?

Street Car Openning, other transit

Here's a bit of a streetcar opening round-up:

• The PI has a summary for those who haven't been paying attention, they also talk about development and how the streetcar is good for business.
  



• Not everyone is so excited. Apparently Bicycles are protesting the streetcar because it hurts them.



• Please journalists, I emplore you, stop using the Streetcar named desire joke. Oh and the SLUT joke is tired, too, bloggers.



• Apparently, the monorail would have opened Saturday if magic, Santa Claus, GI Joe and unicorns got together, solved the inheritent technological, financial and organizational problems, and the bozos in charge could have actually got it out on time.

In other transit news:
Community Transit and Everett Transit are jumping on the BRT bandwagon with a "trainlike" (rofl) bus-service on 99 from Aurora Station in Shoreline to Everett. They have a nice map and describe BRT as this region thinks of it:

Sleek new, articulated buses will operate on a 17-mile corridor along Highway 99 — which in Everett becomes Evergreen Way and then Rucker Avenue — using automated ticketing, special lanes and signal priority at busy intersections to streamline trips. Buses are to arrive at stations every 10 minutes.

Yup, sounds like normal buses. Though I do laud Snohomish for increasing transit service up there. The program should be in affect by 2009.

David Brewster On SLU

With the streetcar in place and ready to ride tomorrow and all the talk of upzoning SLU, this David Brewster opinion piece makes a lot of sense.


Anyone going to ride the streetcar tomorrow? The opening ceremony is at 11:30 near Westlake Mall.

Transit Maps of the World

I picked up this book over the weekend. I didn't even know it existed until I saw it in Kinokuniya and bought it on the spot.

The book is awesome and fun to look at. Martin, Nick, Ben and I met with Andrew on Saturday at Columbia City Ale House for the city's best fish tacos, beers and transit talk and I think that we all got a kick out of the book. A couple of disappointing things:

• For Seattle it lists the monorail, and says that light rail is proposed.


• It only shows the Metro map for Tokyo, which gives a false impression since those stations are less than half of the total train stations in Tokyo, and it also only shows BART/Cal Train for SF instead of showing Muni.


• It doesn't have a map for Yokohama, Portland or Vancouver.

Small gripes, the book is great.

Are Subways the New Urban Status Symbols?

Business Week asks the question. They mention the obvious reasons: crowding, energy costs, and standard of living. But they also point out that some "big city glamour" is involved in building transit, and that even places like Charlotte, Phoenix and Los Angeles are building Subways.

Except Seattle is special... But not as special as Rennes, France a city of 212,000 with density similar to Seattle's and a full-fledged subway line.

If Rennes can build a subway, why can't Seattle?

Five more Streetcars?

Here's a Times article about more street car lines in the future. These conversations should be no big surprise to anyone here, since the city commissioned one study a few years ago.

Anyway this study was done by the UW Urban Planning department and paid for by the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. Their study shows that the neighborhoods with streetcars will develop quickly, and create a more permanent and fixed development.

Personally I love the idea of a Capitol Hill-Queen Anne line running along Denny. I worry about building one to West Seattle, however, because that would lower the inertia to build a proper rapid transit line out there.

What do you think?

Edmonds Station holiday open house:

On Saturday, Edmonds Amtrak Station has their annual holiday open house. If you're interested in chatting with Sounder staff and learning about next year's service improvements, or learning about the history of the Great Northern railroad that originally turned Seattle into a boom town, I recommend it! It'll run from 9am-3pm.

The old freight half of the station was converted some years ago into a railroad club's model train layout, complete with little towns and such. I don't know if someone will be there, but during open houses they usually run model trains and talk about the history of the state.

Mayor wants all City employees on transit by 2009

According to the P-I, Nickels wants to give all 10,000 city employees transit passes (the $54 one-zone kind) by 2009, and start by subsidizing passes by $30 next year. The City now gives $15 per month to all employees.

It shows that Nickels doesn't just talk when it comes to promoting transit. The article has this great quote from Sightline spokeswoman Elisa Murray:

It's healthier and it's safer: taking the bus is more than 10 times safer than driving a car" -- which results in a fitter working environment, fewer accidents, fewer lost work days and increased employee productivity, Murray said.

Van Dyk Continues his diatribe against Transit

You can listen to his townhall talk here (seriously, how old is that guy?). I don't think anyone is surprised to find out that Van Dyk was fired from the P-I "after an editor suggested he had already written his denunciation of a roads and transit levy." The piece says "quit" but my insiders at the P-I say fired.

Bizarre Streetcar Piece

The P-I ran a bizarre article about the streetcar saying how its expensive and only as fast a bus, but may get a bunch of different riders:

Mari Stobbe, a manager at the nearby Autism Spectrum Treatment and Research Center who came in for coffee a short time later, also said she'd ride the streetcar. "I'd never take a bus. I've never been on a bus. I've never had any desire to be on a bus," she said. "(But) the streetcar seems like it would have a different feel."

That's the stuff I like to hear. Imagine what real rapid rail transit would do.

And the streetcar also would help handle those moving into the 6,000 housing units and 3 million square feet of office space either recently built or coming within four blocks of the line, Seattle transportation director Grace Crunican said in the same briefing.

Anyway in the name of being "balanced" there is a bunch of stuff about how silly the streetcar is, and how "SLUT" is such a funny acronym. Yuk yuk yuk.

Walkable Cities

Dan Savage points out this MSNBC article about the most walkable cities in America. DC ranks first, with Seattle sixth. Dan is stunned that Seattle could be sixth without rail transit, but I'm not suprised. Seattle is built around dense urban villages, like DC is, and has a good commute pattern centered around a few job centers in the City that has allowed a few nice walkable neighborhoods.

Since the study is based on per-capita walkable places, NYC ranks very low, ironically because density is so high.

But I am in disbelief that Los Angeles could be ranked 12th. In Downtown LA, many of the side walks aren't even wide enough to put a few people in a row on the side walk, and I rarely saw anyone walking down the street anywhere in the city. See the image, the side walk is no more than four feet wide.


Update:
What to make of the Puget Sound Business Journal's analysis?

Cities were ranked by their walkable urban places divided by population. Seattle scored high, even though it's the largest city in the rankings without a meaningful rail transit system.

Survey coordinator Christopher Leinberger, a real estate developer and visiting fellow at Brookings, said rail transit plays a "significant role in catalyzing walkable urban development," with 65 percent of the walkable urban places being served by rail transit service.

Eastside Rail

Orphan road has been running a great series of posts about Eastside rail.

Make sure to read them.

Carless in Seattle has a fancy map that fits density over the bnsf line that shows what Ben and I have been trying to say, that the line is very far from employment centers.