Seven months after the kickoff event, the South Lake Union Mobility Plan has been released. The plan, led by the SLU Community Council, Uptown Alliance, and both the Greater Queen Anne and SLU Chamber of Commerce, is structured around seven key mobility themes. Below is my high level summary with some commentary. The report is a refreshingly light read and looks pretty slick.
Connect Communities: This section is all about East-West connectivity. If you tried to sever the connection between Capitol Hill, SLU and Uptown you’d be pretty hard pressed to do a better job than what we already did with I-5 and SR-99. This section calls for reconnecting the grid over Aurora, improving East-West bike/ped travel, and designing Harrison St to accommodate future East-West bus service.
Increase Transit Service: The plan proposes to improve connections between Capitol Hill, SLU and Uptown with new service operating on Denny/Fairview/Harrison. It also proposes pulling some downtown routes off I-5 at Mercer St, routing them through SLU on Fairview into downtown. The plan mentions BAT lanes on Fairview.
Serve Regional Access & Mobility: Boils down to funding Mercer West. Also make sure Republican doesn’t get hosed by vehicles exiting the deep bore tunnel.
Encourage Walking: A smattering of pedestrian enhancement projects, such as green street improvements to Thomas St and complete the Lake-to-Bay Loop Trail. It also includes reconnecting the grid at Aurora and possibly a new bridge across I-5 somewhere north of Denny. I think the two highest priorities are reconnecting the grid at Aurora and making sure new sidewalks and streetscapes are built to a high design standard.
Support Biking: In my opinion this section could have been bolder. The plan calls for adding a few signals to help cyclists cross arterials. It suggests that if BAT lanes are added to Fairview they could be shared between buses and bikes, in my opinion a DOA idea. No mention of cycle tracks. The plan calls for a bike share program but that is kind of a freebee unless company/developers are willing to chip in some seed money. King County is currently in the process of studying this.
Leverage Private Transportation Investments: We have already seen some of this with employers chipping in to fund the 3rd streetcar during the PM peak period and Route 70. Also calls for providing passenger load zones for private shuttles along public streets and new legislation that “makes it easier for private business to share shuttle resources”. I wonder what they have in mind.
Create Hubs for Mode Transfers: The plan proposes creating “mobility hubs” at Thomas and Harrison (a future RapidRide station) and on Valley St at the SLU Streetcar station. In case you haven’t been keeping up on your transportation lingo, mobility hubs (otherwise called “new mobility hubs”) are an idea the Cascadia Center and other tech firms have been peddling. It essentially boils down to a tech heavy transit center, with traveler information, electric car share, bike share, and other amenities.
The City Council will be briefed on the plan in their chambers, Monday at 10am.
As last weekend’s weather represented the start of Silly Season for Seattle Happiness, I thought I’d write up another carfree Saturday daytrip. Deception Pass State Park, bringing together Fidalgo and Whidbey islands, is a pretty spectacular place. As the bridge between the islands is itself a prime attraction, Deception Pass is a premier roadtrip destination, and can get very crowded on sunny weekends.
This 12-hour, relatively easy Saturday transit loop takes you from Seattle to Whidbey Island and back via Amtrak Cascades, Island Transit #411W, Island Transit #1, Washington State Ferries, Community Transit #113, and Sound Transit #511. It allows time for a beautiful train ride along the central Sound, a 90-minute brunch in Mt Vernon, 4 hours of walking along the beaches and bays of Deception Pass, and has you back in Seattle before a June sunset. Variations could allow a nice hike to the top of Mt Erie or an alternate return via Port Townsend and Bainbridge (only attempt on weekdays!).
And this loop is verycheap. Island Transit is a fare-free agency, and doing the loop counter-clockwise gives you a free ride on the Clinton-Mukilteo ferry. Aside from your Amtrak fare ($13-$20), with an ORCA card this trip allows you to ride 5 buses from 3 agencies for only $3.50!
It’s service change season, and for Pierce Transit it’s time to implement a 20% cut. Unlike most such cuts, most riders will see an improvement, because PT had already reduced service by 20% due to the natural gas fueling station fire in February, a reduction that is no longer necessary. This service reduction will be based on achieving system objectives rather than the logistics of emergency fueling, resulting in a better situation for most riders.
There are more PT cuts coming in October. I don’t really know anything about the PT system, so I’ll hand it off to Chris Karnes at Tacoma Tomorrow to critique it.
On a happier note, thanks to Bellingham voters Sunday service is back in the city limits. Alert reader Elliott Smith sent us the flyer above.
GM CEO asking for higher gas taxes rather than regulations forcing more fuel efficient cars. This makes sense both from a consumer and producer side, as well as an efficiency argument. Politically disastrous however. (H/T to Erik)
UPDATE 4:31 – The Slog has an interview with Jim O’Halloran, chair of the Roosevelt Neighborhood Association’s land use committee. In the piece Jim says “We’ll take the density but we expect to have considerable influence on how and where it’s accommodated.”
In response to the letter we added our signatures to (and 60+ of you did as well), asking for more leadership on the Roosevelt station area rezone, the Mayor has sent a letter to Diane Sugimura, Director of the DPD asking for her department to revisit the proposed zoning changes. The letter is below.
Diane,
This is to follow up on our earlier discussion on Roosevelt zoning issues. Since before taking office, I have been listening to community input on potential heights and up zones. I have also had time to reflect on the briefing you provided.
At this time, I believe the city needs to take towers “off the table”. Towers do not appear consistent with expectations for this neighborhood. At the same time, I believe that given the significant investment in light rail, and the potential for good neighborhood-scale development, the city needs to take a closer look at heights above 40 feet, such as 65 and 85 feet.
I look forward to DPD coming forward with new proposals to reflect this direction, and give the council a broader range of choices. The decisions we make now will be in place for a while. It is important to set the stage for good transit-oriented development.
I appreciate all of the thoughtful work you and your staff have done on this issue.
The only thing I would add is that I would urge the city to truly “bookend” the range of proposed rezone alternative in any future studies. The rezone currently proposed would likely reflect a minimum action alternative (and not even really, this rezone was based on the 2006 neighborhood plan which should have already been implemented), with at least two additional alternatives, each more dense than the last. The additional alternatives needs to be bold and visionary, not token gestures. Future proposals should focus on the entire neighborhood, not just on the the Roosevelt Development Group (RDG) properties. A well distributed range of alternatives will give everyone the information necessary to make informed decisions.
Capitol Hill community event featuring music group Toy Boats (playing from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.), Come by and learn about Sound Transit and its light rail construction projects. Bring the family to enjoy balloon animals and face-painting.
Link light rail construction site tours will also be given. View the tunneling boring machine as it prepares to launch towards downtown Seattle. Please be sure to wear sturdy shoes. People wearing open-toed shoes will not be allowed onto the site.
You’ve no doubt seen the new, green schedules if you ride Metro. Starting Saturday, Metro operates their summer schedule, which includes a reroute on Airport Way in Sodo, and other minor changes (generally, clipping a trip or two) on the 1, 7, 17, 21, 27, 33, 36, 39, 42, 49, 71, 72, 73, 99, 110, 116, 180, 181, 202, 204, 209, 210, 242, 345, 910, 913, and 917. These cuts complete the short-term 2010-11 plan for “low-impact” Metro cuts, although in 2012 the budget may fall off a cliff.
Additional service on SR520, part of the plan for bridge replacement and funded by a special allotment of property tax, will arrive on October 1, according to Metro spokeswoman Rochelle Overshok.
To expand a bit on Andrew’s post yesterday, the three alternatives Community Transit is considering have basic philosophical differences:
Alternative I preserves the current system, but running much less frequently.
Alternative II restores Sunday service, at the price of even deeper frequency cuts to the existing network.
The third alternative is the most interesting one: no Sunday service, but a total restructure of the route network to emphasize a few frequent corridors. Commuters into Seattle would generally have to transfer into a dramatically reduced number of Seattle-bound routes from new peak-only feeders.
The third option invokes a lot of the themes I like to emphasize: more direct routes, focus on key corridors, and a more gridded system. My first instinct to endorse Alternative III wholeheartedly. However, the key to a network that forces transfers is that the component routes have to be frequent. As far as I can tell, nothing but Swift will ever run more often that every 30 minutes, which I don’t think is frequent enough for this kind of thing.
If budget relief is on the horizon, then Alternative III is the best baseline from which to grow a better system, one based on the excellent long-range plan they published earlier this year. But if CT is going to be stuck in a rut of providing basic service for a while, then the answer is not clear to me.
The Puget Sound Regional Council is looking for public comment on projects for $9.7 million in Federal Transit dollars for 2012. The complete list of projects is here, and the current plan includes spending half of the money on I-90 LRT (every penny counts at this point). If you’re unfamiliar with the PSRC and its role in transportation funding, I wrote a fairly detailed post on the subject here a couple of years ago. Submit your comment by June 23rd.
How to comment:
Mail: Puget Sound Regional Council
ATTN: Kelly McGourty
1011 Western Avenue, Suite 500
Seattle, Washington 98104-1035
E-mail: tipcomment@psrc.org
In Person: June 9 at 9:30 a.m. or June 23 at 10 a.m. at PSRC
These beautiful bus shelters in Cleveland have won an American Instutite of Architects Small Project Award. More information here, here and video with the designer here. Thanks to Mike Fisher for the tip.
Last week STB and a host of advocates sent a letter to the Mayor, City Council and DPD urging them to take a larger leadership role in the Roosevelt rezone process. We believe DPD needs to conduct a more encompassing planning process that includes much higher heights and densities around the station area. As we reported earlier the proposed rezone is woefully inadequate.
We urge you to take a leadership role regarding DPD’s currently-proposed rezone in Roosevelt. As you know, several individuals and groups have written to comment on the proposed rezone, which will constrain development capacity within close proximity to the future Roosevelt Sound Transit Station.
The creation of transit-oriented communities supports the significant public investment in transit that will occur in Roosevelt as a result of the new station. Transit investments are most effective when combined with opportunities for more people to live, shop and work near the stations. The Planning Commission’s recent Transit Communities Report identified several communities, including Roosevelt, as areas in which more housing and infrastructure should occur to take advantage of the investment in transit. Futurewise’s Blueprint report made similar recommendations related to the Roosevelt neighborhood.
The current zoning plan as proposed by DPD constrains development in the station area, a 5-10 minute walk, to primarily single family housing, with only 2-3 blocks of additional NC-65 zoning in the neighborhood core. The core, areas currently zoned for NC3-65, have no proposed increases in density. Other proposed changes are primarily minor single level “step ups” to transition from the slightly larger core to surrounding single family housing (Ex. LR1 to LR2), or character changes (Ex. LR to NC).
All together the current plan will only result in an increase in housing capacity of only 350 units. A majority of this increase is immediately adjacent to I-5, where Sound Transit originally proposed to build the station.
The Roosevelt community successfully lobbied Sound Transit to move the station closer to the heart of the Roosevelt neighborhood in order to create a vibrant neighborhood center. DPD’s plan does not properly increase capacity in the correct locations to take advantage of the great work accomplished by the Roosevelt community in moving the station, and the plan fails to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to leverage the creation of a transit community in Roosevelt.
We believe that in order to fully take advantage of the transit investment in the Roosevelt neighborhood, and the work accomplished by the Roosevelt community members in moving the station, DPD must undertake a full station area planning effort complete with an Urban Design Framework Plan, similar to the planning efforts in South Seattle, South Lake Union, West Seattle, and other transit-oriented locations. Such a planning effort must include much higher heights and densities than currently exist in the DPD plan, which will ensure the appropriate level of development in close proximity to the public’s $300 million investment in the Roosevelt Light Rail station.
Community Transit 'Double-Tall' bus, photo by Oran
In their board meeting last week, Community Transit presented 2012 system change alternatives. Due to revenue cuts, Community Transit will be cutting service another 20% next year (they cut 15% last year). You can see the alternatives, read about the detailed impacts, and learn how to provide input here.
I don’t live in Snohomish County, but the alternatives are fairly interesting – if bleak – to investigate. All three alternatives shorten the service day by two hours, reduce Swift frequencies and eliminate routes, but that’s just the baseline. Alternatives I and III do not restore service on Sundays and Alternative II includes massive frequency reductions.
A London bus driver experiences the life of a bus driver in Manila. And I thought Bangkok’s traffic, buses and life of the poor was tough, Manila’s is tougher. This is more than just driving buses. This is plain survival.
It is more cost-effective to replace the existing fleet with electric trolley buses based on reasonable federal fixed guideway funding scenarios.
The electric trolley bus generates significantly lower GHG emissions and has a lower total annual energy consumption. Seattle City Light generates 98 percent of Seattle’s electricity from non-GHG emittingsources (hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and biomass).
The environmental comparison favors the electric trolley bus regarding traffic, noise, air quality/climate change, energy, and environmental justice.
The primary component of the study is the life-cycle cost comparison, which includes cost of the buses, fuel or electricity, bus and overhead maintenance, removal of the trolley overhead system, and construction of new fueling facilities at Atlantic base. This section also included a sensitivity analysis which is helpful when projected costs or income are likely subject to unpredictable variation.
The report unequivocally shows the GHG benefit of the trolley system, which emits 21 times less CO2e (equivalent units) than a diesel system, due to the fact that Seattle City Light gets 98% of its energy from non-GHG emitting sources.
Another interesting section, especially for those of you that have been following, is the section on the auxiliary power units (APU). The study looked at both battery and diesel based APUs, comparing their costs, performance, and impact on operations. The report goes on to recommend a lithium ion battery system that can propel buses 1-mile or more. A system like this would reduce 75% of diesel replacement requests and be more redundant in the case of unplanned interruptions of power or reroutes.
Roger Valdez over at Seattle’s Land Use Code has a pretty amazing piece today about the analysis – or lack of it – that went into Sound Transit’s decision to waste the airspace above the Roosevelt station and build what amounts to a suburban commuter station.
This isn’t really new. In the US, transportation agencies aren’t incentivized properly to get involved in land use. Their incentive is to build the lowest risk option available to them, which is, unfortunately, generally a terrible choice for the neighborhood.
In this case, Sound Transit claims they did no economic analysis of potential development on their Roosevelt site before deciding it wasn’t worth it. With a six story mixed use building adjacent to them on one side, and a developer who’d like to build 12-15 stories on the other side of the street, I have no problem calling that decision embarrassingly dumb for the neighborhood.
Unfortunately for us people who care, it’s quite smart for the agency. They’re not a developer – they can’t spin up a limited liability corporation to build a building and then let that LLC declare bankruptcy if the building fails. They’re stuck with what they build, which means the risk to them is very high – both financially and politically – if they don’t have an absolutely sure thing. It makes sense that they wouldn’t do an economic analysis, because the chances are vanishingly small that it would show them anything other than “don’t build anything but the station.”
What really needs to happen here is that we need to fix Sound Transit’s incentives. There aren’t easy solutions here – it’s essentially impossible for them to partner with a developer when they have a ten year planning timeframe. But there are solutions, and we need to make them happen soon enough that the agency doesn’t become hated by the neighborhoods it builds in – because that’s a great way to sink ST3 and beyond.
There’s a habit of considering ridership projections as an essentially political document — and with all the arguing, perhaps they are — but at its heart lies a technical model with actual inputs and assumptions. One of those inputs, of course, is previous ridership, when that data exists.
I’m a bit late on this, but now that ST has a full year of Central Link ridership data with Seatac station included, it has another input to its model. As that ridership was lower than expected, it’s caused a general downward revision to ridership going forward. The upshot is that 2011 ridership is projected to average 25,000 weekday boardings, instead of 31,000. There are also revised estimates for Tacoma Link, Sounder, and ST express.
ST spokesman Geoff Patrick tells me that these estimates are the first that use 2010 ridership as an input. They also incorporate the latest economic forecasts; Patrick points out that “there are 30,000 fewer jobs in downtown Seattle today than there were in the year 2000.”
It’s a little odd to me that there’s still supposed to be a big jump in 2011, and then much smaller increases through to 2016, so my (totally amateur) instincts tell me this number is still too high. In any case, models are always wrong, although they do have their uses. In the next few days, we’ll have a more detailed analysis of the ST ridership model and its errors.
Speaking of Japan, having lived two blocks away and using it everyday, I would never say this is the worst crosswalk ever, rather one of the very best in history of the world.
ST has released the new booklet for the service change effective June 11th 12th. Significant revenue-related cuts to express service begin now. Changes listed in the booklet:
The 599 eliminated.
The Burien-West Seattle leg of the 560 is now peak-only.
On Sundays only, ST will consolidate the 510 and 511 into a 512 that serves both markets.
No more 535s on Sunday.
Fewer trips on the 540, 554, and 566. The 554 becomes a 20-minute headway route.
One more 550 trip.
The 586 goes into summer-quarter mode, meaning less service.
A new Tacoma Link stop at S 11th St opens sometime this summer. Headways drop to every 12 minutes, all day, Monday-Saturday, and every 24 minutes at all other times. This is up from 10 or 20 minutes currently. It’s far past time that ST published a schedule for service that infrequent.
There are “minor schedule adjustments” and route changes all over the place, so if you use ST check it out.
There’s no obvious change to the Central Link schedule, but there’s mention of “minor adjustments.” Because weekday headways are advertised as “10-15 minutes” there’s no way of telling if they’re cutting any of the trains that used to provide 10 minute headways during the day. [UPDATE: Oran says "The minor changes to Central Link [are] the extension of the last 3 trips of the night to Beacon Hill Station and route 36 trip to downtown connecting with the last Link trip. I wrote about that 2 months ago.]
Sorry for the short notice, but this afternoon the Community Transit Board will discuss three alternatives for how to cut 80,000 hours of bus service this year. One option restores Sunday service, which results in deeper cuts elsewhere in the week:
Three service alternatives for Community Transit’s February 2012 system change will be presented to the agency’s Board of Directors at its June 2 meeting. The meeting will take place at 3 p.m. in the Board Room, located at 7100 Hardeson Road, Everett (accessible by Everett Transit Route 8).
This 20% cut is on top of the 15% cut implemented last June.
