May 10, 2012 at 11:30 am
by Adam Bejan Parast
 geoff271989/Flickr This is an open thread.
May 10, 2012 at 7:39 am
by Martin H. Duke
 Yesterday brought the heartbreaking news that PubliCola is folding. Luckily, friends of STB Josh Feit and Erica Barnett are landing on their feet at Crosscut.
It’s a small ecosystem of local sources that focus heavily on transit and land use, so this loss will be keenly felt. PubliCola, and Erica’s writing in particular, was the closest thing to STB in the for-profit realm. It’s true that enthusiasts like us can cover many functions previously exclusive to the formal media, thanks to ease of publication and widely available source material on the internet. But volunteers with day jobs have difficulty covering press conferences, unrecorded midday board meetings, or hanging around city hall to pick up the tidbits that construct a larger narrative. I don’t think STB competes with other sources, but rather, complements them with additional information and in-depth analysis. One less sister publication will make our jobs harder, not easier.
Best of luck to Josh and Erica. PubliCola will be missed.
May 9, 2012 at 9:12 pm
by Sherwin Lee
The President is making another swing into town tomorrow, May 10th. That means you can expect lots of traffic tie-ups, which, in our bus-dominant world, means transit delays. Two major closures to be aware of are at Convention Place Station and Pine Street. Metro has more details here:
From about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Convention Place Station (CPS) in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel will be closed to all pedestrian access. Buses will continue to travel through CPS, but will not stop there. No passengers will be allowed to board or exit buses in the station, or access the tunnel from the CPS entrance at 9th Avenue and Pine Street.
During this time please board or exit all tunnel buses at the other four tunnel stations, or at their regularly posted surface street stops before they enter or after they leave CPS. Sound Transit Link light rail service is expected to operate normally in the tunnel during this time.
Additionally, from about 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m. on Thursday, Pine Street will be closed west of I-5. During this closure there will be no bus service on Pine Street between I-5 and 3rd Avenue.
May 9, 2012 at 12:07 pm
by Adam Bejan Parast
Community, Environment and Planning by Rachel McCaffrey
Sightline, a Seattle bases sustainability think tank, which does a lot of unique, data-backed research in the transportation field, and is looking for help this summer. I wanted to pass this along this internship announcement via UW’s Community, Environment and Planning (CEP) tumblr account, since it’s probably perfect for someone in our readership. Also above is a shameless plug for CEP, which both Sherwin and I major in, and Sherwin has a cameo in. I would encourage our young readers to check out both.
Sightline seeks a motivated, organized, and self-starting data geek for a summer internship. You must be able to demonstrate strong academic credentials, meticulous attention to detail, excellent data analysis skills, experience with spreadsheet software, a passion for simplifying complex data into a clear and understandable story, and a commitment to a sustainable Northwest.The project: Assist Sightline’s research team in compiling, analyzing, and interpreting data on traffic and transportation from the Pacific Northwest and beyond. After decades of steadily increasing car traffic, vehicle travel has stagnated – even as state and provincial governments are planning billions of dollars to rebuild and widen urban highways. Our look at traffic figures suggests that the region simply doesn’t need—and can’t afford—these costly highway megaprojects. We need a research intern to help compile and analyze traffic trends, demographic data, state budget reports, and other sources of information that help us tell the story about the changing demand for car travel, and our declining ability to pay for more and bigger roads.
This position is unpaid. Sightline’s interns commit to working at least 24 hours per week for at least 10 weeks during the summer. Interns are provided with office workspace, including a computer and email account, along with a bus pass.
To apply: Please email a cover letter, resume, and at least one example of analytical work to mieko@sightline.org by May 21. Sightline Institute encourages candidates from all socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds to apply.
May 9, 2012 at 7:01 am
by Martin H. Duke
 wikimedia The Sound Transit Citizen Oversight Panel (COP) is an internal watchdog that observes Sound Transit’s various functions and identifies risk areas. They produce some of the more interesting reports to come out of the agency.
Anyhow, they’re looking for members of the public, especially from South King and Pierce Counties, with some kind of relevant expertise to fill some vacancies:
To Qualify You Must:
• Be a registered voter within the Sound Transit District
• Reside and/or work in King County, Pierce County or Snohomish County within the Sound Transit district boundary
• Have experience/skills in one or more areas of expertise related to the panel’s responsibilities-business and finance management, engineering, large projects construction management, public facilities and service, government processes, and public policy development or review
• Be able to attend meetings twice each month during normal business hours.
More application details are here.
May 8, 2012 at 2:38 pm
by Sherwin Lee
 Photo courtesy majinandoru Update: Looks like Publicola’s Erica Barnett beat me to the punch prior to the publication of this post, tackling issues not addressed in this piece. See her rebuttal for more.
The Seattle Times took yet another crack at Mayor McGinn’s parking and transportation policies today, arguing against proposed elimination of parking minimums near transit and furthering the “war on cars” myth so beloved by transit opponents. The piece builds a rather misleading case with irrelevant data, essentially arguing that Seattle’s car ownership rate doesn’t support eliminating parking minimums.
There’s a fundamental misunderstanding of parking and land use at work in this piece– elimination of parking minimums has very little to do with how many households own cars citywide, and much more to do with the effects on real estate pricing that such requirements have. Lynn Thompson, the piece’s author, doesn’t mention anything about the connection with housing, which was one of the Mayor’s primary arguments, nor does she address the issue that housing costs are artificially inflated when parking costs are bundled in.
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May 8, 2012 at 11:30 am
by Matt Gangemi
 wikimedia There was recently a long, passionate, and strange argument in the comment section of STB about whether food should be allowed on the bus. Some of the more bizarre (to me) arguments include: buses are so slow, I need to eat at some point in the journey and people shouldn’t eat on buses because Americans are fat.
I have a solution. I’ve been reading Darrin Nordahl’s book Making Transit Fun (we’ll have a review here in a few weeks), and this idea would fit right in to the theme.
The idea: change Metro policy to disallow all food except carrots. Hire a pleasant, friendly salesperson to wear Metro orange from head to foot. Buy large local organic carrots, wash and dry them, and cut the ends off (so carrot top litter doesn’t become a problem). Then have her hop on and off not-packed-full buses, selling carrots for $0.50 each. And give her an ORCA card reader to charge from your ePurse.
Yes, carrots are loud. But that’s part of the fun. Imagine hopping on a bus and finding it full people crunching on carrots.
Benefits include:
- Carrots are healthy. There goes the Americans are fat argument.
- Carrots are food. There goes the OMG I WILL STARVE argument.
- Carrots are clean. They have little smell, aren’t wet or sticky, and have no wrapper.
- This would be fun. It would support interaction between bus riders. It might boost ORCA adoption, as you can actually buy something with it. It might even drive up ridership, as people see the news stories about bus carrots. It would certainly make the bus feel a little more friendly and inviting.
May 8, 2012 at 8:00 am
by Frank Chiachiere
 Corridor 6 from the Transit Master Plan In addition to the rapid streetcars for the North End, one interesting aspect of the recently-finalized Transit Master Plan is the proposed Madison Street BRT. (Martin did some analysis of this line a year ago). The line would run on 5-minute headways from 5am to 9pm and 15 minute headways evenings and weekends. The corridor is challenging, as the plan notes, due to “the diagonal nature of Madison (which leads to many intersections and odd traffic movements) and the frequency of signals.” Nonetheless, Madison Street is taking on a ton of new multifamily development between I-5 and 23rd Avenue, which makes it a good candidate for high-capacity transit of some kind. Since the 9% grade is too steep for rail, BRT is a good alternative.
Meanwhile, an alternative service to First Hill is under construction in the form of the First Hill Streetcar. While Martin and Zach have already made good arguments about why the streetcar isn’t primarily designed to Downtown-First Hill traffic, once both are operational it will be interesting to see which mode gets the lion’s share of blue scrubs in the morning.
May 7, 2012 at 11:38 am
by Bruce Nourish
Martin’s post about signal priority on the First Hill Streetcar brought to mind an exchange I had with SDOT staff about signal priority on the RapidRide D line, which will replace Metro’s current Route 15. In particular, I raised an issue that an STB commenter had mentioned to me, namely that the inbound left turn from Elliott Ave W onto W Mercer Pl (where the bus turns from Interbay to make the deviation through Lower Queen Anne) is, under its current configuration, likely to cause unacceptable delays:
Regarding the D Line (Downtown-Uptown-Ballard), there is a signal at Elliott & W Mercer Pl that, from 2 PM to 8 PM, presents a very long (3-4 minutes, I believe) red signal to traffic turning from Elliott to Mercer. This will have a dramatic effect on the speed and reliability of the inbound D Line unless it is fixed. What kind of signal priority will the D Line receive at this light? If it’s the usual ~15 second hold-or-advance-green it will be completely inadequate at this light.
Here is the response I received from Enrique Garcia, Signal Timing Engineer at SDOT:
The reason for the wait time on the southbound left turn movement is that, in the PM peak commute hours, there is a high influx of northbound traffic. Our goal is to provide progression on the main arterial for this large traffic volume. This may result in side street and left turn movements having to wait a bit more. The idea is that once you are on a main arterial with good progression, the stopping should be minimal. I monitored this location and although the wait time can be a few minutes for the southbound left turn, the signal clears out the queue once the movement is serviced.
We are currently working on the re-timing of signals for the installation of the D Line Metro project. The specifics have not yet been finalized, so at this time we cannot say what kind of signal priority will be implemented at this location. We will, however, be taking an in-depth look at the timing and adjusting it to accommodate all modes and directions of transportation as efficiently as possible.
This answer, while totally reasonable as a discussion of engineering trade-offs, does not address* the policy question of whether good signal progression for arterial car traffic is more important than ensuring speed and reliability on a bus route that is being held forth by Metro and the City as a flagship BRT route. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether your transit runs on steel or rubber tires, what matters is whether it’s frequent, reliable, and a speedy way to get in to, out of, and (most importantly) between dense urban areas. SDOT aren’t to blame for RapidRide’s 15-minute off-peak headways, but they have have a lot of say in how fast and reliable the C, D and E lines will be, and Elliott & Mercer is where we shall find out exactly how much the City of Seattle is going to Walk, Bike and Ride the talk.
* And I’m not faulting Garcia — I wouldn’t expect an SDOT staff member to address a policy question such as I’m doing in this post.
May 7, 2012 at 7:36 am
by Martin H. Duke
 seattlestreetcar.com One of the more exciting ideas in the new Transit Master Plan is the Rapid Streetcar Network, which is a way of having Seattle control its own transit destiny. The crucial word is “rapid,” which makes this potentially transformative rather than a fancier bus line. The lines would have significant stretches of dedicated right-of-way and ubiquitous priority treatments. But how are Seattle’s existing and under-construction lines doing in this regard?
According to SDOT’s Ethan Melone, of the 18 signalized intersections on the South Lake Union line, ten have some sort of signal priority or preemption, while only one has a queue jump.
That’s not ideal, but it’s a magic carpet compared to the First Hill Line. I count twenty-two signals each way, and Mr. Melone confirms there will be only four priority signals: across Broadway & Boren and Broadway & Howell in both directions; southbound, the left from Broadway to Yesler and the right from 14th to Jackson, across the diagonal of Rainier/Boren; and northbound, the left turns on and off 14th Ave.
Mr. Melone explains that cost, which is “a few thousand dollars per intersection,” is not the constraint. Instead, the transit lines and high vehicle volumes that cross Broadway make “it difficult to prioritize green time for the streetcar through movement, because of the impacts to transit/traffic on the other movements.” However, he adds:
Signal priority is therefore pretty limited, but we have made other changes—signalized left turn pockets on Broadway, the southbound exclusive track on 14th, and the streetcar-only approach lanes at each terminus, some new left turn restrictions—that supplement the signal priority in terms of speeding up the streetcar operation as much as possible in this corridor.
I find this disappointing for reasons of perception and branding. Although from an engineering perspective the time penalty of a traffic light may be small, coming to a complete stop creates the perception that the ride is slow. If the city can show voters that the streetcar network is more than just more transit stuck in traffic, they might be more inclined to support it. And frankly, if rail isn’t a means of making priority more politically viable the capital expense is much less compelling in corridors that don’t need the extra capacity.
As a candidate, Mayor McGinn understood this, saying that we should “strive to make [the FHSC] quick and separate it from traffic as much as is feasible.” Obviously, there are many cooks in the kitchen of this project besides the Mayor, but it’s sad his department hasn’t been more imaginative in fulfilling that sentiment.
May 6, 2012 at 7:33 am
by Martin H. Duke
May 5, 2012 at 11:00 am
by Bruce Nourish
Tomorrow, meeting at Pike St & 4th Ave at 1:25 PM, is the Georgetown Steam Plant Transit Tour that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the blog — see that post for all the details. I’ll be joining the trip later on from Little Saigon. I hope to see you on the bus!
May 5, 2012 at 5:00 am
by Andrew Smith
Check out these Queensland Rail public service announcements. I think they are brilliant. The parodies are good as well. Here are the Queensland Rail “train etiquette 15 behaviours” below the fold.
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May 4, 2012 at 11:30 am
by Adam Bejan Parast
 Riders called for concrete proposals from candidates (Time by Mary Turner) This is an open thread.
May 4, 2012 at 7:00 am
by Roger Valdez
 Saving Bauhaus: How much is it worth to you? After reading my post, the organizers of the City Builder Happy Hour asked me to present my idea for a Neighborhood Real Estate Investment Trust. The following is more or less what I presented on Tuesday night at the happy hour. This market-based approach to “saving” neighborhood buildings was delivered on May Day, not far from the riotous mob of anarchists trashing downtown.
We hear it all the time: “What? That great building with the cool coffee shop just got sold! Damn developers!”
But the truth is that when property changes hands the new owner is making an investment, and an investment is about creating a financial return. Developers aren’t necessarily setting out to destroy existing buildings, but in order to build more housing and make a profit, sometimes they do.
What if all of us pooled our resources to buy real estate and develop it ourselves? Imagine 1200 people in Seattle each contributing $1200 (about the same as buying 1 espresso drink a day for a year) to a Neighborhood Real Estate Investment Trust. That would generate more than a million dollars ($1,440,000) that could be applied to the purchase of that great building with the coffee shop. And if the property is managed well, the funds from operation and increases in equity over time would mean than initial $1000 investment would gradually produce a return, money that could be put back into buying more iconic properties.
In the United States, a Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT, is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. To be a REIT, a company must distribute at least 90 percent of its taxable income to shareholders annually in the form of dividends.
What distinguishes REITs is that they have transferable shares. An investor can by a sliver of a project in the form of a share, get a return from dividends paid from increases in equity or profitable operations, and sell the share later at a profit to another investor.
The beauty of a Neighborhood REIT is that it is market-based preservation that would get neighborhoods into the development game. As property owners, average Seattle residents could decide not to build out the site, but keep the building just like it is. But they’d still have to manage it, collecting rents, making repairs, and taking care of overall maintenance. They could choose not to maximize profits, but focus on maintaining use and the existing structure.
There is an example of this in Great Britain called the Ethical Property Company; they buy properties, sell shares, and keep older buildings in use renting them to non-profits and community based groups.
A Neighborhood REIT could allow everyone to invest in dense, walkable, livable, transit oriented communities so we could get all those benefits plus some of the financial ones as well.
May 3, 2012 at 2:08 pm
by Matt Gangemi
As BoltBus starts up 4x a day bus service between Seattle and Portland, building on QuickCoach‘s 7x a day service between Seattle and Vancouver BC, it might be a good time to look at a country with inter-city bus travel that really works. I’ve already looked at Istanbul’s wide array of travel options, now let’s consider the best way to get between cities in Turkey.
 Ankara Bus Terminal, Tomek Türkiyede (more…)
May 3, 2012 at 7:46 am
by Zach Shaner
 Photo by Atomic Taco Perhaps the most pressing concern about the September elimination of the Ride Free Area (RFA) is the likelihood of severely degraded peak-hour travel times within the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel. Without significant mitigation, the already precarious mixed bus-rail operations of the DSTT are certain to get much worse. Of particular concern are northbound trips in the PM peak, as each crush-loaded departure (particularly to Northgate and the UDistrict) will require at least an additional minute of platform time to accommodate fare payment, in addition to the mandatory and time-consuming inspection that each Link train makes before proceeding from Westlake to the Pine Street Stub.
The DSTT currently operates approximately 1,500 trips per day, 750 in each direction. Median overall headway is every 3 minutes in the morning and evening, every 30-60 seconds in the peak, and every 2 minutes mid-day. This offers impressive capacity but – like closely stacked dominoes – precious little room for error. Bus and train breakdowns, cash fares, overly discursive drivers and passengers, overly restrictive train/bus separation requirements, and wheelchair/bike accommodation, can and do cause cascading delays whose magnitude is far greater than the sum of the individual behaviors.
In the absence of instituting proof-of-payment (POP) in the DSTT, it is clear to me that the transition to Pay-as-You-Enter will require reducing overall tunnel bus frequencies in order to avoid a total breakdown of service reliability. Thankfully our agencies are able to “tunnel” or “surface” routes with far less public process than is normally required when a service change is being considered. As someone who commutes from Convention Place to Tukwila every day – in which my mornings are a reliable 30-minute breeze and my afternoons a variable 50-minute headache – I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking in big-picture terms about the proper role of the DSTT in our regional transit system. Below are 5 principles – roughly in order of importance –that I offer as one model for determining which routes to keep underground.
Principle 1: Common corridors should be served by common stops.
Principle 2: Keep routes slated for future LINK conversion.
Principle 3: Remove local routes.
Principle 4: Until the DSTT is rail-only, keep all-day express routes to regional transit hubs.
Principle 5: Except where it conflicts with Principles 1 and 2, remove peak-only routes.
What would the DSTT look like under these principles? And would it solve the capacity problems that will be brought on by the elimination of the RFA?
More after the jump…
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May 2, 2012 at 2:31 pm
by Zach Shaner
 Photo by Oran Metro just announced that during Bike to Work Week (May 14-18), any cyclist loading their bike on a Metro bus will ride free. All Metro-operated Sound Transit routes (540, 542, 545, 550, 554, 555, 556, and 560) are also included.
More information and a link to the promotion will be added when it becomes available.
May 2, 2012 at 11:30 am
by Adam Bejan Parast
 Poster Board Last Wednesday Sound Transit and the City of Bellevue held an open house to share some of the preliminary ideas they have come up with to reduce East Link construction costs through the city. Now that ST and the City are partners, both have a financial stake in the project, and thus more buy in as well as more critical attention about the cost of mitigation that the City previous pushed for.
The biggest cost saving ideas unsurprisingly had to do with the Downtown Bellevue station and tunnel. Four alternatives designs were presented at the open house. (more…)
May 2, 2012 at 6:42 am
by Oran Viriyincy
 Map of Metro routes with low ORCA use. Most of the routes with the lowest usage, below 30%, are concentrated in South King County. Metro released a report on strategies to increase access to ORCA cards. The report looks at the current state of ORCA market penetration, who’s using ORCA, who’s not and why, what the agency has done so far to increase use, and what more can be done. Short term plans and opportunities for the next year include: more retail outlets, more outreach, simplified procedures for conducting promotions, more TVMs, considering day passes and disposable cards. Long-term strategies include: fare incentives and new technologies like payment with contactless credit cards and mobile phones. All of these are discussed in the report. Some highlights are presented below.
Key message from customer feedback and Metro’s Rider/Non-Rider Survey: “youths, seniors, and people who have disabilities, limited English proficiency, low incomes, or no bank accounts often find it difficult to get and add value to ORCA cards. The $5 card fee is often cited as a barrier to ORCA use.”
The report gives the reason why we haven’t seen a day pass considered until now: “Before the ORCA system was launched, the ORCA Joint Board … agreed not to introduce new fare products until ORCA was well-established.” Three years since launch, the agencies are reviewing regional day pass options (pricing and validity) with a goal for implementation towards the end of 2012. The report also explains how the day pass would work. No automatic pass/daily fare capping mechanism (patented) was mentioned.
Limited use (disposable) ORCA cards are being considered as a lower cost alternative for infrequent riders and visitors, not people with low incomes. The fee for issuing a limited-use ORCA card would be $2 compared to $5 for a standard card. That includes $1 for the card itself and another $1 in processing costs. The standard card itself costs $2.50.
Fare incentives include discounted e-purse fare and elimination of paper transfers. The e-purse “discount” would be achieved by raising cash fares. Metro notes that such changes would require it to perform an analysis of impacts on and mitigation for low-income or minority riders, as mandated by federal regulations.
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