Some Art with Your Rail

The City wants art for improving the SLU streetcar stations, with three awards of $30,000 each. I wonder what sort of art I should submit?

Also, Sound Transit has selected an artist for the Capitol Hill Station, thanks Orphan Road for the pointer.

Sound Transit Workshop

I went to the Sound Transit workshop today, and it was interesting to see the various proposals. Here's a pdf of the presentation.

• I was disappointed that more Sounder service to Tacoma wasn't included (the biggest increase was to just 15 daily round-trips), though that route is at or near capacity already. I guess this is because BNSF won't give much more potential service on that route?



• It was interesting to see that none of the plans proposed light rail south of Des Moines, which is really only one station south of Sea-Tac, or north of Northgate which is only three stations north of UW station. This is probably okay, I don't know the ridership numbers exactly, but I doubt you'd get a lot of riders. The largest plan still had light-rail to Overlake (though not Redmond).



• Nearly everybody there I spoke with seemed to think 2010 was the time to go back to ballot, which was what I have been leaning toward as well, with the recession and all. The one thing that could change my mind, is would be if Obama gets the nomination, he would drive young voters to the polls and vastly increase the likelihood of it passing in 2008.



• I was suprised to see things I had never heard of before, like a Everett Streetcar (Everett Link?), Tacoma Link extensions to TCC, and a Northgate Freeway BRT station (where that would get built, I have no idea).



• There was one Eastside Rail proposal, though I still think this is a bad idea, since most of the path is single-way and tops speeds are about 15 mph.

This map shows what the districts could look like if Mary Margaret Haugen's bill passes.


Update
Here's a TNT article about it from the Pierce County perspective. Is it just me, or is TNT much better than at least the Times and probably the PI as well?
Did anyone else go?

Possible Metro Strike

Erica C Barnett mentions a possible Metro strike, because the union did not accept the county's last contract. That's a scary thought. I hope it doesn't happen or I might be working from home for a considerable time. However, I don't agree with the "refusing to pay fare" comment though. The FTA provisions that if you accept FTA money, you have to excuse people who make reasonable attempts to pay but can't afford it. It's a public service after all.


What would you do if Metro striked?

New Bus Schedules

One period in the bus rider's life that is pregnant with anticipation is the days before the new schedule comes out. As someone who has two non-ideal transfers to get to work, I'm always hopeful that the schedule will be tweaked in such a way so as to make my life a lot easier.

As someone who also works in a very poorly-served area, I'm also eternally hopeful that the service will get better. The comment period in 2005 about major Eastside service revisions got my hopes up, but as usual Metro planning is opaque when they're not specifically asking for your opinion.

I'm usually disappointed.

Today the new schedules came out. Check here to see what lines are affected beginning Feb. 9. Sound Transit's new schedule booklet is available here.

Highlights:

• Tacoma LINK runs later on weekdays, and with more frequency (and fewer hours) on Sundays.
• Rte 248 replaces the part of Rte 540 east of Kirkland, and extends to Avondale Rd.
• Rte 221 is a new Route from Eastgate to Education Hill (Redmond) via 148th Ave.
  
• Routes 8 and 70 have more frequent service to SLU, thanks to some of the employers in the area.
  

Reminder: Sound Transit Workshop Today, 2-4 pm

Sound Transit is holding its workshop today to discuss any new transit plan. The workshop will be from 2 to 4 p.m. at Union Station, 401 S. Jackson St.

Hope to See you there!

A mini-RTID?

According to the Everett Herald, Snohomish County is mulling over a local transportation improvement district using the authority they have under the bill that created RTID.

It's unclear how the various bills that would revoke RTID's authority come into play here.

Good thing we voted down light rail to get rid of RTID! At least it's early, so no reason to panic.

via Sound Politics.

More ORCA

This has already been linked in the comments, but I highly recommend this UW website about some pros and cons involving ORCA.

As this is likely to affect a large number of us, and there some privacy issues, it's worth paying attention to.

I'm one of those people who are willing to trade a little bit of privacy for a few bucks and a lot of convenience, so I'm not unduly alarmed. However, it is nice to know exactly what I'm giving up.

More HB 3311

Update:
It looks like Judy Clibborn won't let the bill hit the floor, because I guess she wants her constituents to have to pay for the state's roads I guess.

Original Post

From the DJC, they have specific information about the taxing abilities brought up in HB 3311.

House Bill 3311 would allow a regional transit authority to levy an 0.8 percent motor vehicle excise tax and an 0.4 percent sales tax if both were approved by voters. The transit authority could also tax retail car rentals at a rate of 2.172 percent and impose annual car tab fees of up to $100.

Sound Transit currently levies an 0.3 percent MVET tax, an 0.4 percent sales tax, and an 0.8 percent car rental tax.

...

HB 3311 now goes to the House Transportation Committee

I think the article is wrong on the point that they can only get a .4% sales tax with voter approval, because they were asking for .5% in Prop. 1 for RTA.

The Park-and-Ride Dilemma

At the meet-up, we had a short discussion of suburban park-and-rides that got me thinking. Giant parking garages are really a double-edged sword.

First, I'd like to dismiss the utopian-environmental argument that potential train riders will take the bus to the park-and-ride if there is inadequate parking. This is nuts. The whole idea of using transit for strictly local travel doesn't really take off until non-car-ownership is a reasonably convenient option, which it most definitely is not in the suburbs. People spurned at the garage will drive to work. So you're losing ridership, short term.

On the other hand, as Ben pointed out to me this weekend, put too many parking spaces around a station, and you suppress transit-oriented development (TOD). I grew up not far from the Shady Grove terminus of the DC Metro, which has 5,467 parking spaces (!) that totally surround the station Dodger Stadium-style. Now, the rules are a bit different for the end of the line, because you want to capture all those people driving from points north, but it's been over 20 years now and I can't help but notice the lack of TOD around that station.

So there's a definite short-term vs. long-term tension there: put in too little parking, and no one rides your system; put it too much, and you end up suppressing the TOD that's one of the big benefits of rail in the first place.

There are a couple of courses of action this points to:

(1) Build vertically. If you must have lots of parking, build that garage high so as to not take away vital real estate from long term development options.

(2) Manage demand. As I've mentioned previously, a nominal parking fee may allow to utilize resources more effectively. For a buck or two, someone who actually would consider taking a bus, bicycle, or walking, might choose the alternate mode instead of going for the most convenient option. A dollar or two also won't discourage too many people from riding.

As a fringe benefit, this kind of demand management could fund electronic signs to let drivers know when the lot is full, reducing commuter frustration. As commenters from a previous post suggested, this is a major bummer when you have a train to catch.

Answer to the ORCA question

Last year, I asked, "what happened to Orca?", central Puget Sound's "One Regional Card for All". The card was supposed to be usable on all public transportation in the region, but was already a year late when I asked that question, almost a year ago.

Well, thanks to anonymous in the comments, we find via Kiro that ORCA is in serious jeopardy thanks to the troubles the vendor, Australia-based ERG Group, is having with the Sydney regional government.

Every city has one of these card systems, I'm amazed that our area just can't move to another vendor. What do you guys think?

Another Transit Bill in Olympia?

Update, see below.
Bill 3311 will be brought today. Sponsors are Representatives Simpson (who wrote we should raise the gas tax to pay for roads), Pedersen, Sullivan, Kirby, Kenney, Williams, Conway, Eddy, Hasegawa, Cody, Nelson, Hudgins, Sells, Ericks, Wallace, Appleton, Rolfes and Chase.

I don't have any details about the bill, but its title is "Concerning regional transportation governing authorities". Should be interesting!

Update:
Here's the bill, House Bill 3311. Its main effects are to strike-out the RTID language, effectively destroying RTID, and possible bringing back Sound Transit's MVET authority. This is definitely a good, pro-transit bill.

The language in the bill is pretty dramatic. My favorite line is right in the beginning:

The legislature acknowledges that it has historically been, and should continue to be, the responsibility of the state to prioritize and fund the costs of repairs, replacement, and construction of state transportation facilities.

I love it! Don't let the state off the hook for paying for its own roads.

Here's some goodness related to Sound Transit in general:

The legislature recognizes that the regional transit authority (STB: Sound Transit) serving the central Puget Sound area has been effective in implementing regional transportation projects that have significantly improved mobility in the region.

And some specific love for light rail:

The legislature further finds that a fully completed light rail line running through the state's largest city would serve substantially more commuters from the northern and southern parts of the central Puget Sound area and would reduce congestion along the most heavily congested streets and highways in the state. Current funding will not permit completion of the light rail system in the central Puget Sound area as planned to help meet the transportation demands forecasted for the region. Additional funding would afford voters the opportunity to fund completion of the light rail system in areas with high ridership and where light rail is the most efficient and environmentally sound transportation alternative.

Tips for Snow Busing

In case in snows again tomorrow, here's some advice:

• Wait for buses at the bottom of hills, never at the top. The bus is less likely to get there.
• Buses might be on altered patterns for severe weather, check here for updates and information.
• Be patient, your bus will likely be late.
• Telecommute if that's an option.

What am I missing?

Interesting Bus Day

I waited 25 minutes for 545, and when it finally came, it got so packed that every seat was taken (not unusual) at least 25 people were standing, and people had to be turned away.

Other than that it was a nice commute. How about you, did the snow screw your commute up?

Transit Meet-Up #2, Success!

I learned a lot yesterday at our Seattle Transit meet-up. Highlights of the night:

• Bill LaBorde (who is really cool, btw) giving an awesome briefing of Sound Transit happenings.
• Frank from Orphan Road getting cornered by Ben in the January out-doors at the 47th Parallel.
• The Fish Tacos at CC Ale house.
• Learning that having a kid might be a lot of work.
• We decided that the Blue Scholar's "Joe Metro" is Seattle Transit's official theme song.

Next one will be in a month, hope to see you there!

Update here's the video for "Joe Metro"

Vesely on Governance

Here's Jim Vesely again on governance. He's sure that an elected board is better:

Opponents, some of them already on the current board, warn that directly elected transportation commissioners would only bring out the aficionados and the nuts. Rice and Stanton make a good case why that wouldn't happen and why a new system would bring about the most valued coin of all: a return of voter trust.

Where's the case that nuts wouldn't get on the elected board? Of course Vesely doesn't say the case is, just that it probably exists.

A Regional Transportation Authority would behave quite differently if created by the state. (STB weren't RTID and RTA created by the state already?)

Seven people would report directly to voters, six elected within King, Pierce and Snohomish counties and one elected at large from the three counties; three would be appointed by the three county executives; the state transportation secretary and the director of the Puget Sound Regional Council are automatic members. Members directly elected by voters would be seven, combined with five appointed/designated members for a 12-member board. They would be part-time government, without full-time salaries.

Rice-Stanton may have said it would be part-time government, but the Haugen bill, which is based off of Rice-Stanton called for full-time salaries. But part timers sounds more scary. As I've said repeated, which agency in this region has part-time, directly elected board members? The Port, the biggest disaster of them all. Why would we want to model our transporation agency on that?

Seattle Transit Meet-Up

Sound Transit is having a workshop next week to discuss any new transit plan. The workshop will be next Thursday, Jan. 31, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Union Station, 401 S. Jackson St.

Also, Saturday at 7pm the Seattle Transit Community is meeting at Columbia City Ale House for transit talk and fish tacos.

ST2.1 in 2008? Maybe not

ST might wait until 2010 according to PI this article.
Here's the pros and cons of 2008 vs 2010 in my mind:

2008 Pros

• Sooner is better.
• Projects are cheaper if they get started earlier.
• A large progressive turn out for the general election would help likelyhood of passing.
• The state would not have yet had a chance to mess around with Sound Transit.

2008 Cons

• Voters unlikely to approve spending increase in a recession year.
• If Hillary or Obama self-destruct, we could get another defeat, which could ruin ST's chances of ever coming back

2010 Pros

• Global Warming will play more into the debate
• Congestion will be even worse, which might lead people to approve transit
• Central Link will be open, which should excite people into building more rail.
• More time to investigate proposals that could pass.

2010 Cons

• If congestion gets much worse, people may not want to approve long-timeframe transit projects and would prefer short-time frame projects.
• If migration slows, taxation models could be off, and projects could cost more money with rising materials costs.
• Will Sound Transit still exist then?

So I don't know. Which is better? Obviously, I would prefer getting it built as soon as possible, but I'm not sure getting it on the ballot as soon as possible is the right idea. What do you guys think?

SB 6772 Comments (II)

The bill has picked up two more sponsors: Sen. Marr (D-Spokane Outskirts) and Sen. Pridemore (D-Vancouver). Sen. Marr is the Assistant Majority Floor Leader.

So far, Rodney Tom is the only sponsor that actually represents part of the Sound Transit district.

********

I've gone through the 80 pages of legalese. Here's the bill so that you can read for yourself, as I'm not any kind of lawyer. There are good and bad things about this bill, plus some things that could go either way.

The good things:
- The RTA would be authorized to collect sales taxes, vehicle excise taxes, and employee taxes solely for the purposes of high-capacity transit. (Section 516-518) I believe this expands their taxing authority. Of course, ST is currently limited by voter approval, not state legislation.

- The employee tax would be waived for any employee that has at least half the cost of a transit pass subsidized, or if the company has implemented an appropriate commuter-reduction plan (Section 307).

- Local municipalities can add their own stuff to the plan, effectively allowing for uneven levels of taxation if the benefits will be distributed unevenly. (Section 204)

- The Sound Transit staff essentially lives on in the new RTA (Section 210). I'm not sure Josh Feit's fears about losing the $750 million FFGA for University Link is well-founded. Also, we're not flushing over 10 years of hard-earned experience.

The bad things:
- The agency loses its focus on transit to also build roads.

- It's also probably destined for a period of administrative chaos as they absorb road planners from RTID, which could have very negative impacts on Central Link startup and University Link groundbreaking.

- I think it's unlikely you'd see a transit-only package go before the voters under this construct. That means that the Sierra Club et al. will be de facto opponents of rail for the foreseeable future.

- It's certainly not explicitly in the bill, but I believe Daimajin is right when he suggests that this is an attempt by the rest of the state to stop funding their obligations on state highways in the region. It gives people clamoring for road projects somewhere to go besides the state legislature

The uncertain things:
- There are 10 voting commissioners: 3 appointed by the county executives, one elected at-large, and 6 elected from equally sized districts (Section 201). I'm skeptical this will work out in favor of the pro-transit forces, but I'm naturally pessimistic about such things. By my count, these districts work out to about one each for Snohomish, East King, and South King, and one-and-a-half for Seattle and Pierce County. If the most promising Link segments are to Northgate and Bellevue, you're talking maybe 2 1/2 districts in favor. With the King Co. appointee and the at-large (?), you get 4 1/2 out of 10. The district lines will be important.

- Sub-area equity is gone. This is good in terms of producing an objectively better plan, but not necessarily good in producing one acceptable to the voters. It'll be much easier to characterize it as "sending all our money to Seattle," even if that's not the case.

- Section 503 goes on and on about monorails. (!) Huh?

- If I read Section 313 correctly, only 10% of the employee tax and MVET can go to HOV projects. The rest has to go to commuter rail. The text is clear as mud, so I'm particularly unsure of this conclusion, as it seems to conflict with Sections 516-518.

I can imagine both good and bad outcomes from this bill, but I think the downside is a lot bigger than the upside.

The good outcome is that the pro-transit forces gain a narrow majority on the board, the staff handles the ST transition with grace, and ST 2.1 takes advantage of the uneven taxing options to make a rail-heavy and yet politically palatable plan, perhaps with a little more track laid than we've dared hope. The state continues its historical level of funding of highway projects, calling on the RTA to only fund the gold-plated aspects of projects like SR 520.

The bad outcome is that the reorganization causes ST to take its eye off the ball and jeopardize University Link. Ron Sims nominates some anti-rail, pro-BRT guy, the highway lobby bankrolls an anti-rail majority on the board, and we see pavement, pavement, pavement. Anytime the Puget Sound region asks for state money for roads, the legislature tells us to go see the RTA -- while continuing to send our gas tax dollars anywhere else in the state that wants them.

Quite frankly, I'm pleased with ST's performance over the last few years and pessimistic about the mood of the electorate. I'm reluctant to jeopardize that performance, and doubtful that this bill will produce something better.

So it's not the end of the world, but puts a lot of hard-won gains at risk. It could actually make us better off, but it's far more likely to do the reverse.

Or perhaps I don't speak lawyer and I don't know what I'm talking about.

Route 17

Metro is thinking about messing with Route 17 to divert some buses out towards Golden Gardens Park via Seaview Ave.

They're holding public meetings, soliciting public comments, etc., if you're interested.

SB 6772 Comments

So I've gone through the bill once. I'm gathering my thoughts and will share them later.

I contacted Senators Kohl-Welles and Murray today, which I thought was only fair given the mentions I've given them recently. They both stated unequivocally that they do not support this bill. Senator Murray's statement:

I do not support the bill and as I have said before I will support Sound Transit should they decide to go to the ballot this year.

and Sen. Kohl-Welles:

I do not support nor am I a sponsor of this legislation. I have always been and continue to be a strong supporter of Sound Transit.

So there you go.

Metro Passes 110mn riders per year

A 7% increase from 2006. That's with the tunnel closed most of the time.

"Personalized Rapid Transport"

Apparently the United Arab Emirates plans to build a "carbon-neutral city", with all the kind of stuff you imagine would be involved.

Interestingly, residents are supposed to be no more than 200m away from a Personalized Rapid Transport station, which is the system where people get into their own little pods and whiz around the track to their destination.

I hesitated to post this because PRT is a refuge for many light rail opponents, who are nominally pro-transit but oppose any plan that actually emerges from the political sausage-making process because it uses the wrong technology, or goes to the wrong neighborhood, or is paid for by the wrong tax, or is coupled with the wrong roads, etc. ....

Still, overall the city is a project that I hope is successful, for obvious reasons.

Here it Comes

After talking to some people, I've discovered that last year's governance reform bill (SB 5803) -- which I linked to here -- was reintroduced only as a part of standard Senate procedure, and indeed was killed only a few days later.

The bill that Josh Feit was talking about, SB 6772, is being introduced to the Senate today. Its sponsors are Sen. Haugen (D-Camano Island) and Sen. Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue/Redmond).

I may not have time to really study it till tonight, so as promised I'm going to refrain from shooting off at the mouth about it.

UPDATE 11:36 AM: Carless in Seattle has read the bill, and is mainly indifferent to it. His analysis is good, though.

Governance is About Letting the State Off the Hook

Mary Margaret Haugen's (D-Camano Island) bill that she is bringing forward would disolve RTID and wrap Sound Transit into a bigger "roads and transit" organization. Didn't we just see this play out to a disaster? I've spoken before about how a partially elected board is more likely to cause problems than an appointed board (Haugen's plan includes 7 elected officials and three appointed officials), and Martin has asked why reform when nothing really seems wrong?

I was asking Ben why a Senator from Camano Island and Senator Marr (the likely co-sponsor) from Spokane care so much about roads and transit in Puget Sound. The answer is simple: the state does not want to pay for the roads in our area that are in bad shape. They want the local voters to have to tax themselves for the fixes, and let the state off the hook. Haugen doesn't care either way whether we build more roads or more rail, as long as the state doesn't have to pay for fixing the Alaskan Way Viaduct or the Evergreen Point floating bridge.

This is reprehensible. Even if you are pro-roads and anti-transit, you can't want to let the state off the hook for its own roads, while we build roads with our gas tax for the rest of the state. SR-520, SR-99 and SR-167 are the state's responbility. This P-I piece about the bill explains her motivation clearly:

"We (the state) cannot fully fund everything that is needed across the state," she said.

Can't? Geoff Simpson says a penny-per-gallon increase in the gas tax statewide would pay for all the state's transportation problems. That may be optimistic, but it can't be hugely off. If not a penny, then a nickel.

This is ridiculous. If Ed Murray, Frank Chopp, Judy Clibborn, and the rest of the region's legistlators care about their districts, they would fight for to force the state to repair and improve the roads that the state owns.

What Gives On Governance? Geoff Simpson, others

Here's a great opinion piece in the PI from Geoff Simpson (D-Covington) about our regional transportation woes and the crock that "governance reform" is. Simpson also minces no words saying that that effort is solely about finding money for roads instead of transit.

Simpson rightly points out that voters are not going to like congestion pricing when they figure out what it means: basically paying for driving. I promise if any elected official implements congestion pricing on a large scale, he/she will be voted out of office and be replaced by a officer whose entire platform is getting rid of congestion pricing. As he says, increasing the gas tax is a much better way of tackling the issue of paying for roads.

On the so-called "governance reform" side of things, there seem to be some mixed messages about the efforts of transit-haters. Josh Feit is convinced Mary Haugen is pushing that bill through the legistlature, and Ed Murray says the bill is dead. I hope Ed Murray is the correct one.
Update: It looks like Josh was right.

Fantasy Maps

I am super hopped-up on pain meds after dislocating somepart of my spine snowboarding, but here's some fantasy maps of Seattle I found online. This thumbnail is reprinted with no permission whatsoever.

Gregiore's Climate Action Plan: Where's the rail?

I'm late posting this, because after my last Global Warming post, my cred might seem suspect. But Gregoire's plan seems even more suspect. Fast action for climate change, huh? Where's the rail then? Diesel buses sitting in congestion aren't going to get us back to 1990 levels very quickly. Light rail could help.

What's Gregoire's plan? Uh, it's shared rides. I'm all for that, but if you're talking about climate change in a region where most of the electricity comes from zero-emission hydro, you had better start talking about rail, because transportation is the majority of the GHG emissions here.

This is a serious issue. Look at what Jon Talton about Seattle's future, in particular, how lack of transit could break Seattle over the next 30 years:

Muro also looked at his hometown and worries about innovation and productivity growth. According to Brookings data, productivity per job has been weak since the 2001 crash. "Are you keeping up with Helsinki, Frankfurt and Barcelona, your real competitors? It's a tough game now."

How that game will be influenced by Seattle's "way" may be another question. It's not just that Portland builds popular light rail while Seattle dithers and argues or that leaders were apparently reluctant to rock the boat at the Port of Seattle.

It's that top-drawer competitors such as Singapore and Ireland are fast, efficient and agile in drawing capital, building infrastructure and embracing the next waves of wealth-creation.

So it's more than just, climate change, it's a question of our future prosperity. What kind of city will this be in 50 years? Are we really better situated than climate-change-averse cities like Phoenix and Dallas? For all Seattle's "green" cred, I see a lot of enviro-mind people driving SOVs (and SUVs) each day.

What do you think? Am I off base? Is Gregoire right on this and I'm wrong? Let me know in the comments, and let Gregoire know that light rail needs to be a part of any climate change solution in our area.

Update: There's a meeting of the Climate Advisory Team in Olympia on Friday starting at 8:30 am in that is open to the public. There will be a public comment period mid-morning. If you care about rail, will be in Olympia mid-morning Friday with nothing to do, go there and make your voice heard.

Battle Stations, Everyone

2 UPDATES BELOW -- Keep Scrolling.

We've been warning you for quite some time now about governance reform, most recently here.

Well, Josh Feit reports that the chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, Sen. Haugen of Camano Island, has written a bill that dissolves Sound Transit and replaces it with an elected board.

As he points out, this threatens the $750 million grant that University Link depends on.

I believe this is the bill. I haven't had time yet to fully digest it, but Section 310 is the one that deals with Sound Transit and incorporates it into the new organization, which would pretty much hire all of Sound Transit's old employees and assume its responsibilities.

Here's the procedural history of the bill. I see that other sponsors include Ed Murray of Capitol Hill and Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Belltown, Queen Anne, and Ballard. Why Sen. Murray wants to mess with an organization building light rail through the heart of his district is beyond me.

Anyway, it's time that we mobilize to make sure this thing is dead, dead, dead. Briefly, why it's a horrible idea:

(1) Sound Transit consistently passes audits with flying colors. Special-purpose organizations with directly elected boards (Port of Seattle, Seattle Monorail Project, Seattle School Board) have a recent history of graft and incompetence. Why would we seek to replicate that governance model here?

(2) The Sound Transit board is filled with politicians dedicated to delivering real rapid transit. Lord knows who could get on an elected board with a few bucks from Kemper Freeman and the road lobby. Tim Eyman, everyone? I'm not a lawyer, but if I read Sec. 305(2) correctly, a new transit plan will require unanimous approval by the commission to be put before the voters, meaning one commissioner elected by people in Monroe can stop the entire region in its tracks.

(3) This creates some risk for the University Link federal funding agreement.

(4) The "Regional Transportation Commission" has a dual focus of roads and transit. Haven't we been through this already?

We have a Democratic super-majority in Olympia -- it's unbelievable we have to fight off our state government like this. If Governor Gregoire signs this bill, I will vote for Rossi this fall, simply so that the Democrats come up with a leader that is merely neutral to transit, instead of actively hostile. If this passes, there isn't anything left for Dino Rossi to screw up.

Contact your legislators.

UPDATE: Sen. Murray has once again placed a thoughtful response in the comments. The bill I cited is now dead as of today, assuming that's what a "Senate Rules 'X' File" means.

It's not clear to me how that relates to the Haugen proposal that Josh Feit mentioned. Remain vigilant, but I don't see it listed anywhere under Sen. Haugen's sponsored bills.

UPDATE 2 (1/21/08): Sen. Kohl-Welles also replies in the comments, reaffirming her support for transit.

I firmly believe that the Seattle delegation considers themselves pro-transit and pro-rail. To be anything else would be both foolish and politically suicidal. However, to this layman it appears that their names keep on ending up on bills that we here at STB consider to be hostile to Sound Transit, and therefore hostile to rapid construction of new rail capacity. This probably has something to do with the proverbial sausage-making in Olympia, but it'd be nice if for once the maneuvering was over providing funds to accelerate or extend projects, rather than coming up with cheap administrative fixes that can be manipulated by the road-building lobby.

However, I promise to do a bit more homework on these bills. No more flying off the handle at Josh Feit rumor-mill posts. I owe that to the readers if I ask you to contact your legislators.

"You need some sort of rapid transport system in the city."

So say convention visitors.

Boy do we!

Could the Vancouver Transit Model Work Here?

Crosscut lead me to this Vancouver Sun article about Public-Private-Partnerships paying for transit.

Here's the idea from the Sun piece:

It works something like this.

A public-transit rail route, whether SkyTrain or light rail, is put on the drawing board by government and key stations are selected. These areas of the city become designated high-density urban-residential development hubs, with highrise towers.

That rezoning generates a major spike in real-estate profits -- through more condos and commercial spaces to sell -- that could be retained by local government or TransLink, to pay for the new services. Or, more likely, under this provincial government, that valuable new urban density can be sold off to the private sector. For that, they would absorb some or all of the cost of building and running the new transit lines.

Could that work here? I see a few problems:

• We currently want to run transit through the most-developed areas. Places like downtown Bellevue, Northgate, and the University District are already pretty dense. The lines through the South and the North to a small extent could work this way, but I don't think that Eastlink could have this effect.


• Our Municipalities have not shown a lot of eagerness to capture the gains from upzoning. I know Seattle has a charge for exceeding zoning limits, but the chrage is fairly small, and is no where near enough to build a light rail line from. Bellevue doesn't capture the money at all.


• The places it would work best may not want to absorb the density. Places like Federal Way, Kent or Mountlake Terrace may not want high-rises in their cities.

What do you think?

Update
According to Frank at Orphan Road, this scheme is illegal. If it's illegal, we might as well go ahead with the even shadier plan of buying the land with eminent domain, building light rail then selling it after the prices go up. That way you capture all of the gains.

What is BRT like again?

Joyce Eleanor, who is CEO of Community Transit, had an opinion piece about CT's Swift bus-rapid-transit (BRT) system in today's Times. It's a pretty cool piece in that it talks about how much federal money is being kicked-in, how it looks like it'll attract about a million riders a year (are those new riders, though?) and the technology to make it actually BRT instead of just BT.

The piece leaves me with a few questions, though I am quibbling. Ms. Eleanor says "Swift is a bus line that mimics a commuter train". A commuter train? Sounder is our commuter train, and I don't think that's what she meant. If it mimicking a commuter train than this can't be true: "We believe that most people will ride Swift for shorter journeys along Highway 99, possibly creating an incentive for economic development as you might see along a light-rail or streetcar line." In addition to being bad grammar (who is possibily creating what?) if it's mimicking commuter rail, it's not creating a lot of development. I don't see a ton of new development around Sounder Stations.

I know this is pedantic, but I am annoyed with the "BRT can be anything and everything" crowd.

Engaging with Conservatives

Confronted with a choice for governor between an incumbent that wavers between doing nothing for transit and actively working to inhibit it, and a challenger that consistently works to inhibit it, I'm wondering if there's a better way.

I've been doing some thinking about how to build a coalition for transit in this state. Rather than engage 5% of the electorate that is theoretically pro-transit but finds a reason to oppose any actual plan, why not work on capturing some segment of the ~45% of the electorate that is historically opposed to transit?

Transit advocates tend to emphasize two key arguments, neither of which is appealing to conservatives. First, they talk about global warming. A large number of conservatives simply refuse to believe that the Earth is warming at all, that humans are responsible for it, and/or that the costs of doing something about it outweigh the benefits. The arguments are intensely technical, so anyone emotionally invested in debunking global warming is going to be pretty difficult to dissuade. Other environmental arguments, such as encouragement of dense development, are also unpersuasive to people who might idealize living in a place like North Bend.

The other key argument is quality of life for people who use transit. Obviously, riding a train is much better than riding a bus. Rail critics often prefer BRT because of its "cost-effectiveness," which has its own distortions, but they essentially don't care about the quality of the ride because they don't plan to use transit. They're certainly not particularly energized about BRT proposals like Transit Now, except when attacking light rail. Selfish arguments are common to all parts of the political spectrum on many issues, and are difficult to defuse with persuasion.

I think that transit advocates, in their efforts to dissuade car use, have soft-pedaled a national security argument that naturally appeals to conservatives. Specifically, every gallon of gasoline consumed, on a bus or in a SUV, ultimately puts money in the pockets of people who are either strongly anti-American (Hugo Chavez), or are actually trying to kill us (various Saudis). Of course riding a bus is much less damaging than driving an SUV, but neither compares to riding a hydroelectric-powered train.

The two things preventing recognition of this by right-wingers are (1) a failure of rail advocates to properly exploit this (frequently due to a distaste for raw appeals to patriotism), and (2) economic illiteracy, something that is much easier to counteract than unwillingness to pore through the details of climate simulations.

There's a general perception that we can avoid dependence on "foreign oil" by reducing our consumption by a bit, or drilling for more oil in Alaska; both Democratic and Republican politicians have pandered to this belief. There's a related argument that because the gasoline that we buy here in Washington generally comes from Alaska, that we aren't putting money in the pockets of those that wish to do us harm. Some simple logic, involving basic economics, debunks both of these notions. Stay with me:

Oil in North America is generally expensive to produce. The oil sands of Alberta cost around $9 to $14 dollars per barrel to extract. Offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico is obviously an expensive proposition. In contrast, the Saudis pump oil out of the ground for less than $1 a barrel. So, a little thought experiment: if demand for oil suddenly collapsed, sending the price dramatically downward, who would still be producing profitably? That's right, the Saudis, while all the other producers went out of business. So we'll never be "independent" of foreign oil.

Secondly, even if we get all of our oil from domestic sources, that still lines the pockets of oil producers that we don't purchase directly from. Since oil is a fungible commodity, whatever demand we do generate raises the price of oil, which benefits all the producers. If our consumption were lower than our production, excess American oil would be exported to the world market, lowering the price.

Therefore, anything that reduces American demand for oil, regardless of the origin of that oil, reduces the revenues of oil producers, some of which is diverted to organizations hostile to the United States.

I think Bill Maher coined the slogan "When you ride alone you ride with Bin Laden." I might also suggest "Support the troops: Take Public Transit." If I were a better graphic artist I might make the posters myself. At any rate, I think it's a more productive proposition than quibbling over small differences with the Sierra Club. You'll never get the dedicated anti-tax zealots, but there are others willing to pay for congestion improvements and enhanced national security.

Has anyone out there tried this line of argument? Any transit skeptics out there moved by it?

Rail can't work in the Northwest

This morning, the premier of British Columbia announced a C$14 billion transit plan. It makes me want to weep for King County. The link is a pdf of the proposal. More coverage here.

First, as Frank at Orphan Road points out, this is an initiative at the provincial level. Meanwhile, our state not only contributes nothing, but actively works to frustrate local transit agencies by threatening to reorganize them out of existence.

The plan builds or expands four rail lines. To add insult to injury, there are also nine BRT lines, all of which involve dedicated bus lanes, off-board payment, bypasses of key intersections, and so on.

By the way, Premier Campbell is best described as a conservative in BC politics.

Are we that execrably led, or is our electorate simply that clueless?

Sounder Park & Rides

komotv.com has an interesting story about commuters in Auburn complaining about the lack of parking at Sounder stations.

Since the story could alternately be titled, "Commuter Rail too popular," I find it hard to get too worked up about this. Still, it's nice to capture everyone that wants to be a transit user.

"I appreciate that and my suggestion would be to keep calling and e-mailing and writing to Sound Transit and ask them when will the second parking garage be built," [Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis] said...

"We would like to build more parking in Auburn. We don't have the money to do it today and to do that, we need voter approval," said [Bruce Gray of Sound Transit].

Some thoughts:

• Perhaps disgruntled parkers should direct their anger at their immediate neighbors, who voted more that 60% against Prop 1, and therefore voted down those parking garages. They didn't vote no because of global warming -- it was because they opposed a transit plan that "sent all the money to Seattle." Well guess what -- if you won't pay for Seattle, Seattle won't pay for you.
  
• This is pretty concrete evidence of rail bias, and that transfers kill ridership. What doesn't get mentioned in the article is the possibility of taking the bus, although there are 10 bus lines serving the station. Why? Because buses stink and people are unwilling to ride them. It's also evidence that opposing park-and-rides at the outer stations because it encourages local car use is self-defeating.
  
• When demand exceeds capacity of a free commodity, there's a simple solution: charge for it. A nominal daily parking fee of a couple of bucks will still allow the lot to fill to capacity, but encourages people to seek alternate methods if they live only a couple of blocks away, live right next to a bus line, have someone that could drop them off at the station, etc. And hey, maybe those few bucks can help build a new garage.
• The fact that people in the Kent valley desire additional Sounder service (and the attached amenities) is useful for building a coalition for more transit. Voters in that area are unlikely to get any direct benefit from any proposed light rail line, except additional mobility from the King Street Sounder station if they work for, say, the University of Washington. It's good to know that there's a relatively inexpensive carrot we can give to that region.
  

Via Orphan Road.

Metro Wants Feedback on Eastside BRT

Here's the article in the Bellevue Reporter. Metro wants to put expanded service between Bellevue and Redmond for commuters with 10 minute headways, three-door buses, and few stops.

Should be cool, there are four dates for the meetings:

Tuesday, Jan. 15, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Bellevue City Hall, 450 110th Ave. N.E., Bellevue;

Thursday, Jan. 17, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Redmond City Hall, 15670 N.E. 85th St., Redmond;

Saturday, Jan. 19, Noon-2 p.m. at Crossroads Bellevue Mall, 15600 N.E. Eighth St., Bellevue; and

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 4-6 p.m. Bellevue Transit Center, 108th Avenue Northeast and Northeast Sixth Street, Bellevue.

WSTB on Ferries

In case you're interested, Brian over at the Washington State Transportation Blog has been staying on top of the ferry situation much better than I ever could.

If you care about ferries, definitely check it out.

Gregoire's 520 Plan: Interesting Positives

As I'm looking over the recently announced 520 plan and discussing it with other transit supporters, something very unlikely seems to come out: Positive effects on future cross-lake transit.

The original 6-lane alternative for 520 would have been built to support light rail later. This really only means making the pontoons wide enough to handle more weight, but the effect it's had on the cross-lake transit discussion in the wake of Proposition 1's defeat has been to create sudden interest in building transit across 520 instead of across I-90. This is bad for several reasons - 520 would be much more expensive to engineer, it would be hard to serve both Bellevue and Redmond, and a train transfer at Husky Stadium would reduce ridership and cause commuters into downtown to endure crush loads. I-90 is built to handle rail transit, and because Eastside commuters would come into Seattle from the south, they wouldn't be forced to cram onto trains already packed with people from North Seattle.

The design change proposed as part of this plan would cut $400 million from the cost of the 520 project. It would narrow the bridge and pontoons: Each lane would go from 12 feet to 11 feet, and future support for light rail would be eliminated. But light rail over 520 isn't anywhere in near-term planning, and won't be until well after we build rail to Northgate, the East Link extension and likely a project in the Ballard-West Seattle corridor. By the time we talk about putting rail on 520, any new bridge could already be halfway through its operating lifetime.

Bus transit across 520 to several major destinations already exists. Many daily commuters use these routes for only some of the week - but with tolling going into effect, some of these commuters who have the option of transit can ride more often, possibly reducing congestion. This small shift combined with those who choose to switch from their cars to a cheaper transit trip will also boost cross-lake transit use, making potential ridership for the East Link project higher and more likely to receive Federal Transit Administration grants - and votes here at home.

Streetcar Network

Yesterday, there was pretty interesting piece in the Daily Journal of Commerce (behind paywall) about the city's streetcar plans, and Tuesday's Transportation Committee meeting:

The preliminary plan shows a line running from Ballard through downtown to West Seattle, lines connecting Fremont and the University District with the existing South Lake Union line, a line extending from Pioneer Square through the international district, and lines running to Capitol Hill and through the Denny Triangle to Uptown.

...

The plan was done by the Seattle Department of Transportation, the Streetcar Alliance and Heffront Transportation, a private consultant hired by the city last year. Most of the lines are similar to ones presented in a report by the Seattle Streetcar Alliance last month. Heffront recommended adding the line connecting Fremont and Queen Anne with South Lake Union based on projected growth in those areas.

I like that route, I really like the "Uptown route" as well as the University District Extension of the SLU car. The Ballard-West Seattle route I dislike, because it sees a cheap way out of getting real rapid transit through that area, and let's face it, a street car average 10-15 miles an hour would take a long time to get from Ballard or West Seattle to downtown.

The monorail folks (these guys are still around?) have the same fear I do with regard to that line:

But transportation activist Michael Taylor-Judd, president of Friends of the Monorail, testified to the committee that a streetcar network cannot be a substitute for rapid transit.

“They are not a rapid transit solution,” Taylor-Judd said. “Streetcars running in the street with traffic do not solve public transportation problems.”

The get more development and more riders than buses, but yeah, it's not real rapid transit.

The next steps:

A network plan with specific route options will be presented to council May 1, said Ethan Melone, SDOT's streetcar project manager. Between now and then, organizers will work with Metro, Sound Transit and others to see how the streetcar fits into existing transit systems and how to pay for it.

Finally, concerns for the bicyclists among us:

Several other members of the public also testified that the right-hand location of the streetcars has been a hazard for bicyclists, who traditionally travel in the right lane through traffic. They testified that bicyclists have been injured when their wheels got stuck in the tracks of the streetcar.

Crunican said SDOT is looking into ways to mitigate the impact of the streetcar on bicyclists and will report back to council monthly on the progress they're making. She said options include running the streetcar in the center or left-hand lanes in certain areas of the city.

I think it's overall a positive development, though I hope it doesn't turn into a way to get transit on the cheap to places like Ballard and West Seattle.

What do you think?

520 getting tolls, never getting light rail

Today at Bellevue City Hall, the Governor did a press conference with Sims and others about proposed tolls on 520. The short of it: we're getting them, and the state should kick in half, about $2 billion, for the replacement. Here's a short PI blurb, and here's the release from the Governor's office. No information on the price of the tolls.

As long as the pontoons are wide enough to accomodate future rail lines, I'm happy.
Updated 12:35

Rapid Ride: This is what 0.1% buys you?

Earlier, I linked to the first details Metro released about RapidRide Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on the Eastside and to West Seattle. I assumed all the details were the same as for the Pacific Highway segment, but after scrutinizing things more carefully I see I was wrong about that. Metro is promising almost nothing above what we see with a conventional express bus.

Let's go through Metro's promises one by one. I'll use the text from the Eastside line:

After RapidRide service begins, Metro's plan is for buses to arrive every 10 minutes during the busiest morning and evening travel hours. At other times between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m., buses will come every 15 minutes. Between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., buses will come every 30 minutes.

We're talking about less service than Metro route 7. Woo hoo!

RapidRide buses will have low floors and three doors, so people can get on and off quickly. Depending on the outcome of a pilot project, a new fare payment system might be used that would allow riders with passes to pay before they board the bus, and enter through any door.

So we "might" see off-bus payment. I assume they're referring to ORCA, but doesn't Metro want to implement that system-wide anyway?

RapidRide stations and stops will be placed where the most riders gather, at reasonable walking distances along the corridor. Bus stops will be farther apart than they are on typical routes, so RapidRide trips will be faster. Metro planners are working with the local communities to choose the best places for stations and stops.

In other words, an express bus. Perhaps you've heard of them?

Other features might be added to speed up RapidRide service. For example, as buses approach intersections, they could send signals to traffic lights, requesting that green lights stay green longer or red lights switch to green faster.

It's nice that they "might" actually do something to actually make the buses run faster. I wonder if that's contingent on getting more revenue from somewhere, because God forbid that Metro get anything done with a mere $50 million extra per year.

Note what's not mentioned: any sort of transit-only (or even HOV) lane anywhere along the route. This bus is stuck in the same traffic as the old bus. But it might make a couple of green lights it didn't before!

All RapidRide stops will be lighted so people can see around themselves and be seen. With buses arriving more often than they do today, people will spend less time waiting at bus stops. Metro Transit Police will be on buses and at bus zones more often for fare enforcement and other security monitoring.

Bus safety is one reason people don't take transit, but is far behind speed and inconvenience, which this plan does nothing to solve.

At the busiest stops, where many people catch buses each day, Metro will build stations with more room for the expected number of riders. These stations-placed about every mile along the route-will have shelters, benches and trash receptacles. The shelters and signs will look different from those you see at regular Metro stops-they will have a special RapidRide style and color scheme. Waiting areas will be well-lit, increasing security. Electronic realtime signs will tell people the actual number of minutes before the next bus will arrive.

Incidentally, now that they've thoughtfully added a legend so that we can actually decode the route map, you can see that not all of the "stops" are actually "stations". So half the time on this route, you still might be standing next to nothing but a pole in the ground with a route number of it, with no electronic signs, enhanced security, or anything else.

And you can see from the map there are tons of stops, many more than a light rail line would have had. Again, this bus will be anything but "Rapid."

Between the major stations, RapidRide bus stops also will have signs and other features to give them the distinctive RapidRide look. In some cases shelters and benches may be added or improved. Stop-request signals, which people can use to alert the bus driver when they are waiting for a bus at night, may be provided at these stops.

The buses will be easily recognizable with the RapidRide design and color scheme. All buses will be high-capacity, low-emission hybrid vehicles designed especially for RapidRide.

It's slow, but at least it's rebranded! As for nice shelters and so on, what they're really describing is just bringing up a lot of really crappy Metro stops to some kind of minimum standard. That's nice and all, but it isn't a replacement for Light Rail.

In fairness, the West Seattle page adds this:

Other features might be added to speed up West Seattle RapidRide service. Business Access & Transit (BAT) lanes would help buses move faster through the corridor. The City of Seattle is considering transit lanes for portions of work in conjunction with the transit-only lane on SW Spokane Street and the West Seattle Bridge.

It sounds like this depends on other funds from the city rather than the Transit Now package. But hey, it's better than the Eastside situation.

This is really pathetic. Metro could very easily have hired a few transit cops, spruced up a couple of stops, bought a couple of extra buses, and run a "253 express". They could have even posted instructions on how to get bus arrival information using the mybus.org SMS service, and gotten about 95% of the benefit for around $1 million. They would also have avoided the confusion that will arise from appearing to add another transit provider to join Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit buses operating in this area. And oh yeah, it'll take till 2011 for this to get realized.

Compare with Community Transit, which was creative with Federal grants and was able to start planning for a superior BRT line without a tax or fare increase. Examples of shoddy projects like this make me wonder why anyone would want to disband Sound Transit and move its responsibilities to the county agencies.

The 0.1% Transit Now levy generates approximately $50 million per year. Collected for 12 years, it would have gotten us half the money required to get to Northgate by 2018! It's ridiculous to suggest that incremental improvements like these would produce anything like half the effect of the Northgate line.

To argue that Bus Rapid Transit is viable alternative to Light Rail is to insult our intelligence. Won't someone truly interested in alternatives to sitting in traffic please run against Ron Sims?

State Auditor Gives High Praise to Sound Transit

Expanding on a point from Martin's post yesterday, the state auditor had a lot of nice things to say about Sound Transit. Here's the press release.

Check out the video of the auditor's presentation, especially around 7:38 and 12:45. At the first point, the auditor mentions how good the audit was and that good the performance audit was also good. Then he "steps outside (his) boundaries" and compares and contrasts the Port's audit against the Sound Transit. At 12:45, the auditor does another backhanded compare and contrast, idenifying ST as an agency in "the good camp" when it comes to full cooperation, as opposed to other un-named agencies (ie, the port) which view audits as a "negative thing" and are unreceptive and unresponsive.

So let's sum up, according to the auditor, Sound Transit is "definitely" in the "good camp" when it comes to audits, and is doing a "good job" when it comes to accountability. The elected agency Rice-Stanton wants to use to model the Sound Transit replacment? $100 million dollars in waste, criminal investigations, art projects that cost four times their promised cost and the taxpayers can't even see, and denials from the elected officials that are supposedly more accountable?

Accountable to whom? Definitely not to the taxpayers or the state auditor's office. If there's any question whether governance "reform" is about destroying light rail before it's even born, we can ask anti-rail billionaire Kemper Freeman or anti-rail writer Ted Van Dyk.

Why governance reform?

The stated rationale for governance reform is that Sound Transit is an unaccountable agency, out there mismanaging our funds with no oversight.

Well, the latest state audit of ST came out, and for the 6th time out of 7, the audit has been completely free of negative "findings". Moreover, the agency was commended for its "culture of continuous improvement".

Governance reform advocates demand a directly elected board, like we the Port of Seattle. You may recall that the Port's last audit, uh, didn't go so well.

Of course, what this is really about is murdering light rail in its crib, before rolling trains boost its popularity. Attacks on Sound Transit's management are merely a fig leaf that plays on the public's memory of the agency's initial failures. While those failures matter, it's unclear why one would reform an agency that is now a model of probity.

More Governance Scheming

Jim Vesely has a silly editorial in the Times today about the future of transportation in the area. Of course he is for the Rice-Stanton Governence machine, seemily for the sole reason that the current system is a "flop" and we don't know who's in charge.

We know the current system is a flop. It grows from county councils and executives and local mayors and city councils named to a federated board. Maybe it works in theory, but it leads to the most damning of conclusions about government: Who is in charge?

Maybe it works in theory? Who's in charge? Is that anymore than we know about the Rice-Stanton plan? Does it work in theory? I'm not even sure. The most similar agency to what Rice-Stanton perscribes is the Port of Seattle: an unaccountable agency that is the most corrupt in the region. It wastes money like no other. But I guess at least we know who's in charge. Right?

Vesely devolves from vague concerns about creating unaccountability into smearing Sound Transit: "Certainly, the current politically inbred structure of Sound Transit will oppose the most radical changes in its governing body." Yikes.

This quote is the one that bothers me the most:

Meanwhile, there are ideas about deep tunnels under downtown Seattle; questions of a five-year boring-and-tunneling task right next to UW's Husky Stadium and the havoc it would bring; the now-uncertain funding of the most distant Sound Transit rail lines; and the near-collapse of the Washington ferry system.

What havoc is that? He doesn't describe it at all, or give any indication of what it would be. Vesely just brings up the fear, uncertainty and doubt that is destroying the public discourse today. The havoc? It's tunnel boring. A few buildings will be razed, some dirt will be taken out of the staging area on Broadway, and part of the parking lot at the UW is going to be destroyed, but that's hardly havoc. The construction of new condos all over town is a similar "havoc" but on a much larger scale.

It's not obvious that voters want any governance scheme, and it's not obvious that implementing Rice-Stanton is going to lead to faster improvements in infrastructure. What we'd get is more bureaucracy, more elected political positions without any accountability but to the voters, and yet another agency in the region, this one seemingly modelled after our region's worst example.

This governance scheme is a terrible idea and hugely premature. Voters should get the chance to approve or reject rail by itself before a new agency is crated to build roads. If Olympia wants us to build more roads, they have the power to tax us and build them, using the gas tax or the nickel tax we approved in 2005. Creating a brand new agency in charge of transportation is not the answer to any question but "how can we add more politics and prostering to our transportation debate?"

Friday Transit Round Up

Gregoire promises to remove the viaduct whether Seattle likes it or not:

With or without Seattle's approval, the state will tear down the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2012, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday.

"It's coming down in 2012. I'm taking it down -- the middle," she said, referring to the elevated portion of the span that runs roughly from Battery Street Tunnel to Pioneer Square, which has been the most vexing and controversial piece of the transportation puzzle.

"That's the timeline. I'm not going to fudge on it. And if we don't have some alternative by then, boy are we going to have a mess on our hands because it's coming down."

Great. Bring it down no one will miss it, that's been my position for ever.


The Daily Journal of Commerce ran a great piece by Claire Enlow about how we are reaching "peak pavement" (best quote so far of 2008).

You've heard of peak oil. That's the point when oil production is at its maximum and begins to decline. We don't know when it's coming, or if it has already passed. Some would argue that oil is a kind of renewable resource. The earth makes it and we use it, like teenagers on an allowance.

But by the time we know how much oil is left it may be too late. The impacts of oil and the cost of our dependence on it may overwhelm anything we can do to reverse the damage. That would include global warming, massive pollution and distorted international relations.

She talks about how great the streetcar is. The streetcar is okay, real rail is awesome.

Apparently, the 306 and 312 have terrible service and sometimes they are so crowded that they stop picking up passengers at some of the last few stops. Yikes. I've seen the same problem on the 545 where the bus doesn't even stop at Montlake sometimes when it's really crowded. The scary thing: sadly, trunk route service will degrade as traffic gets worse.

Finally, Tim Eyman has a rediculous transportation initiative for next year.

More Transit "NOW"

Metro has followed up its details on South King County BRT with info on the line between Bellevue and Redmond, and the one to West Seattle. No big surprises about the design of the lines, and I refer you to my earlier comments here and here.

For a program called "Transit NOW", it's sure taking a long time. These two lines won't be complete till 2011.

Metro is soliciting comments, and the maps are interesting. It would have been nice if they'd bothered to include a legend explaining the difference between the blue station dots and the red station dots.

Anyway, comments are due by February 1st. They're considering a couple of routing options. I don't plan to ride either line very much, but I'm usually in favor of picking the route with the fewest detours.

The only RapidRide proposals we haven't seen are to Ballard and along Aurora.

Metro Raising Fares

As announced previously, Metro is raising its fares by a quarter for most of its ridership beginning March 1. This isn't surprising given that the last fare increase was in 2001. What's mildly annoying is that in each case the increased fare means we have to carry more quarters around, and wait longer for people to root through their pockets. I'd almost prefer if they went straight to $2.00/$2.50.

I suppose I could just buy a more valuable pass, but for obscure reasons related to my commute patterns, the structure of my employer's subsidy, and the fact that each increment of value must be used 36 times in a month to pay for itself, I find it cheaper to buy the $1.50 PugetPass and top it off with the odd dollar for the $2.50 Sound Transit fare. Now it'll be three quarters -- grrr.