Today Obama accounted a new plan to spend $50 billion dollars on our transportation infrastructure. From my perspective the news worthiness of this isn’t so much the money, after all $50 billion dollars won’t go too far, the big news is that it hints at what the surface transportation reauthorization might look like when congress gets around to it. This could include:

• Use of an infrastructure bank, allowing for front loading of projects, which is good news for LA’s 30/10
• Consolidated and possibly mode blind federal funding structure based around broad goals (preservation, mobility, air-quality, etc.) rather than todays structure with hundreds of mode specific and narrowly defined programs
• Livable communities becomes an important federal funding priority among other “soft” goals of our transportation system
• Integration of HSR efforts with the rest of the transportation funding structure

Initial reaction from the Transport Politic. Press release below the jump.

The President today laid out a bold vision for renewing and expanding our transportation infrastructure – in a plan that combines a long-term vision for the future with new investments. A significant portion of the new investments would be front-loaded in the first year.

This plan would build on the investments we have already made under the Recovery Act, create jobs for American workers to strengthen our economy now, and increase our nation’s growth and productivity in the future. At the same time, the plan would reform the way America currently invests in transportation, changing our focus to enhancing competition, innovation, performance, and real analysis that gets taxpayers the best bang for the buck, while moving away from the earmarks and formula debates of the past. In prior years, transportation infrastructure was an issue that both parties worked on together, and the Administration hopes the same can be true now.

Some of the tangible accomplishments of the President’s plan over the next six years include:

• ROADS: Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads – renewing our commitment to the backbone of our transportation system;
• RAILWAYS: Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail – enough to go coast-to-coast;
• RUNWAYS: Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of runway – while putting in place a NextGen system that will reduce travel time and delays.

The President’s plan would accomplish this through:

• An up-front investment. The President will work with Congress to enact a new up-front investment in our nation’s infrastructure – an investment that would help jump-start additional job creation, while also laying the foundation for future growth. This initial investment would fund improvements in the nation’s surface transportation, as well as our airports and air traffic control system.
• A vision for the future. The President proposes to pair this with a long-term framework to reform and expand our nation’s investment in transportation infrastructure. Since the end of last year, when the last long-term surface transportation legislation expired, these investments have been continued on a temporary basis, even as the trust fund to finance them has fallen into insolvency. If we are to enjoy the benefits that come from a world-class transportation system, Congress must enact a long-term reauthorization that expands and reforms our infrastructure investments and returns the transportation trust fund to solvency. To jumpstart job creation, this long-run policy front-loads – through a $50 billion up-front investment – a significant share of the new infrastructure resources. As with other long-run policies, the Administration is committed to working with Congress to fully pay for the plan.

The long-term framework includes meaningful reforms:

• The establishment of an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on investments of national and regional significance that often fall through the cracks in the current siloed transportation programs;
• The integration of high-speed rail on an equal footing into the surface transportation program to ensure a sustained and effective commitment to a national high speed rail system over the next generation;
• Streamlining, modernizing, and prioritizing surface transportation investments, consolidating more than 100 different programs and focusing on using performance measurement and “race-to-the-top” style competitive pressures to drive investment toward better policy outcomes.
• Expanding investments in areas like safety, environmental sustainability, economic competitiveness, and livability – helping to build communities where people have choices about how to travel, including options that reduce oil consumption, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and expand access to job opportunities and housing that’s affordable.

Specifically, the President proposes to make the initial up-front investment in the following areas:

• Roads. The nation’s highways serve as the backbone of our transportation system. Many roads and bridges are in need of repair and expansion and many of the Americans who want to do this work face high unemployment right now. Our investments would be focused on modernizing the highway system’s critical assets while providing much-needed jobs.
• Rail. Many parts of transit systems have been allowed to fall into a state of ill-repair. The President’s plan would help address this by making a major new investment in the nation’s bus and rail transit system. The Administration is also committed to expanding public transit systems and would dedicate significant new funding to the “New Starts” program – which supports locally planned, implemented, and operated major transit projects. In addition, the Administration is committed to building on its investments so far in high-speed rail – constructing a system that will increase convenience and productivity, while also reducing our nation’s dependence on oil and cutting down on pollution. The President’s plan would also invest in a long-overdue overhaul of Amtrak’s fleet.
• Runways & NextGen. The Administration proposes to invest in our nation’s airports by improving their runways and other equipment and facilities. We also propose a robust investment in our effort to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system (NextGen). This investment will help both the FAA and airlines to install new technologies and, among other improvements, move from a national ground-based radar surveillance system to a more accurate satellite-based surveillance system – the backbone of a broader effort to reduce delays for passengers, increase fuel efficiency for carriers, and cut airport noise for those who live and work near airports.
• Infrastructure Bank. The President proposes to fund a permanent infrastructure bank. This bank would leverage private and state and local capital to invest in projects that are most critical to our economic progress. This marks an important departure from the federal government’s traditional way of spending on infrastructure through earmarks and formula-based grants that are allocated more by geography and politics than demonstrated value. Instead, the Bank will base its investment decisions on clear analytical measures of performance, competing projects against each other to determine which will produce the greatest return for American taxpayers.

Photo by VeloBusDriver

TransitSleuth tweets: “Hmm, what would increase bus ridership in Seattle? I want to create a top 10 list. :)”

I’ve thought about this a bit so I’ll give 11:

1. More density. Density begets ridership.

2. Bus lanes and signal priority. Slow buses are a frequent complaint.

3. Higher gas prices. Tackle the demand side. See 2008.

4. An end to socialized and/or regulated parking, possibly a higher commercial parking tax. Ditto.

5. A branded frequent-service network. RapidRide is a start.

6. More frequency, particularly East-West. Too many dense places in the city are too far apart by bus.

7. Payment reform. This is also part of speeding things up. More off-board payment would help. Popularizing ORCA through a small fare discount would speed adoption and boarding time. There are couple of ways to get rid of the pay-as-you-leave policy, but the important thing is to introduce the board in front/get off in the back and improve flow on the buses.

8. More presence by transit security.

9. Real-time arrival where possible. GPS is being installed over the next year and will improve the accuracy of onebusaway, but RapidRide is the only part of the system that is planning message boards at stops.

10. Stop consolidation.

11. More standing room on crowded routes.

Notably, only items 6 through 9 require serious outlays of cash. 1, 3, and 4 can actually generate more revenue for government. What’s lacking in most cases, is political will, generally on the part of the King County Council but also the City of Seattle.

Photo courtesy Antoni Slodkowski via Reuters.

Who says luxury hotel amenities are limited to spas and room service?  This hotel in Tokyo has something for train and transit enthusiasts as well.

[UPDATE: Please note also at right our links to Oran's and Sherwin's twitter feeds, which are distinct from STB's but quite transit-intensive.]

A big shout out to all of our followers. Thanks for making STB and our twitter feed one of the source that you turn to for your daily transportation nerdom. All of the writers at STB do this because we want to help change the Seattle region for the better and your follows, @Seatransitblog, RTs and #FF all help us know we aren’t wasting our time. Thanks!

Vancouver Bike Lane, by Mike Bjork

Josh Cohen decisively debunks the idea that cyclists are freeloading on the contributions of drivers:

The Seattle Department of Transportation’s 2009 annual report breaks down the agency’s $340.8 million budget by funding source. The gas tax accounts for $13.4 million, or 4 percent of that total. The full budget breakdown (in millions):

Grants & Other: $96.9 (29 percent)
Debt: $77.4 (23 percent)
Bridging the Gap (a property-tax levy passed by voters in 2007): $60.9 (18 percent)
General Fund: $42.3 (12 percent)
Reimbursables: $42 (12 percent)
Gas Tax: $13.4 (4 percent)
Cumulative Reserve Fund: $7.6 (2 percent)

There’s no obvious problem with this funding distribution because we’re all supposed to use the streets. But the corollary is that we’re all supposed to (safely) use the streets — not just people in cars with a right not to be inconvenienced by slower vehicles.

Moreover, the width of many city streets is a function of the space that cars take up. You could get by with one-lane streets, two lanes on roads that carry bus routes, in the absence of cars.

It’s also always worthwhile to mention the enormous subsidy that driving gets in the sales tax exemption for gasoline.

Photo by Oran

As a cost-saving measure, Sound Transit will begin running one-car trains on evenings and weekends when no event makes high ridership likely. The one-car runs will begin as early as 7:30pm on weekdays and in some cases all day on weekends.

Spokesman Geoff Patrick explained:

It is a cost-reduction measure in response to the recession’s significant impacts on agency revenues. Demand during those late-evening hours can be met with one-car trains, and the agency will save about $460,000 annually. We will operate two-car trains when there are sports events or other happenings that will increase rider demand.

The change does introduce some operational complexity in that in-service trains must be split in the O&M Facility or the Pine Street Stub Tunnel, but there is a net savings in doing things this way.

It can be tough to keep the various layers of transportation plans straight, but the Washington Transportation Commission is doing one to cover the next 20 years.

The usual organizational suspects are hosting a public meeting tomorrow at lunch to talk about the plan and receive comments. Details after the jump.

UPDATE 6:05 PM (Adam here) – As a few of our commenters have already pointed out this is a public involvement travisty, with WSTC not even hosting a single real meeting in the Seattle area, home to over half the state’s population. I contacted the WSTC on August 18th saying as much, and they still did not add real meeting in the Seattle area. Below is a response to my e-mail questioning why there wasn’t a meeting in Seattle and below that is my response.

Thanks for your question about WTP 2030 listening sessions.

The five listening sessions have been scheduled to provide broad statewide input. The listening sessions are part of a broader public input plan aimed at gathering input from a diverse range of people and groups across the state – east and west, urban and rural. The public can view WTP 2030 on the Commission’s website: http://wstc.wa.gov/WTP/default.htm and provide comments via a public input tool http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WTP2030DRAFT1or submit comments via email or in writing. The plan also includes outreach to bloggers like you. We’re hoping that coverage in your blog will help us disseminate the draft plan and gather public input.

Specifically regarding the location of the listening sessions  – the Everett and Kitsap sessions will provide opportunities for outreach to the broader Puget Sound region including urban and rural areas north to the Canadian border.  The other three listening sessions provide outreach to Southwest Washington in the Vancouver metropolitan area and to Yakima and Spokane in Eastern Washington.

Finally, the Transportation Commission also regularly meets in communities throughout the state. (The Commission’s July meeting was in Seattle and the November meeting will be in Bellevue.)  These meetings are open to the public and they usually take public comments on transportation issues.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions about WTP 2030 or the public input process. We really appreciate your interest in WTP 2030.

… and my response…

I have to say though this is a major oversight. Everett is not Seattle and to not have a listening session in the largest city of the state is ridiculous and begs the question of whether or not the commission is trying to skew results. I doubt that is the case but I wanted to tell you that is how it looks from an outsiders perspective and certainly is a juicy headline. If they wanted to cover the north they should of had an event in Bellingham, but don’t shortchange the largest city in the state.

The announcement.

 

SEPT. 3 FRIDAY FORUM REMINDER: Visioning Transportation for the Next 20 Years

King & Pierce County residents, join us this Friday for your ONLY chance to hear about and weigh-in on Washington Transportation Plan 2030, the state’s 20-year comprehensive transportation plan. What’s your vision for transportation across the state over the next 20 years? Washington invests less than 1% of its transportation resources on public transportation, less than just about any other urbanized state. Adding highway capacity has been the state’s focus over the last several decades while bicycle and pedestrian needs continue to be an afterthought on most state projects, undercutting our state’s climate and land use goals. What’s on your wish list for transit, bikes and sidewalks in our region?

Washington Transportation Plan 2030 (WTP 2030) sets a 20-year course for Washington State’s transportation system. The plan’s goal is to highlight long-term funding shortfalls, service needs, and system-wide mobility and safety needs, along with recommended solutions and approaches aimed at moving the state’s transportation network into the future. Again, the Sept. 3 Friday Forum will be the only chance for King and Pierce County residents to hear about the state transportation plan and weigh-in with comments in person. Please plan on attending before you begin your Labor Day weekend.

WHAT: Washington Transportation Plan 2030 with Transportation Commissioner Dan O’Neal and Paul Parker, Commission staff lead for WTP 2030.
WHEN: Friday, Sept. 3, 12:00pm – 1:30pm
WHERE:  King County Public Health – Chinook Building, Room 115, 401 Fifth Ave., Seattle (at Jefferson St.)

As always, feel free to bring your lunch.

Co-sponsored by Bicycle Alliance of Washington, Cascade Bicycle Club, Cascade Land Conservancy, Commute Seattle, Feet First, Futurewise, King County Conservation Voters, Sierra Club – Cascade Chapter, and Streets for All Seattle.

"Link, SB SODO Station, 4:39pm, Monday", by Oran

• Sound Transit Board approves the agreement to lease the center lanes of I-90 from WSDOT. Basically, the money ST is putting into building the outer HOV lanes is offsetting the rental cost, and then some.
• ST awards D-to-M Sounder contract to low bidder MidMountain, after initially spurning them for PCL because some forms were late. The $40.8m bid is $800,000 below PCL’s and $26m below the original estimate.
• Ballard resident petitioning for a Sounder station. STB’s previous discussion of infill stations is here.
• John Fox seeks to get Yesler Terrace declared a historic landmark, preventing its redevelopment.
• SDOT bringing the evidence on road diets.
• Attempt of private bus lines to sue Metro for competing with them falls short.
• New lawsuit alleging that purchase of BNSF Eastside corridor was illegal.
• It’s official: Bellingham (not the Whatcom Transit District) to vote on 0.2% sales tax increase in November to save bus service. More background here.
• SDOT counting bikes and peds, needs volunteers.
• Tacoma way ahead of Seattle in enabling urbanist development.
• WSDOT looking at HOT lanes on 50 miles of I-405, for the second time.
• APTA circulating a petition to Congress for more transit funding.
• Dog patrols on Amtrak Cascades this month.
• Stabbing at the South Hill Transit Center.
• Bikes on buses are great but I’m not sure about cars on buses.
• Fun with next train signs.

This is an open thread.

Photo by Atomic Taco

Facing a steep cut in service in 2012 and planning a February ballot measure to stop the bleeding, Pierce Transit is making some non-service cuts, mainly by hitting their non-union employees.

On August 26th PT announced the elimination of management positions. Nonunion employees will also not get wage increases in 2011, and will have to pay more for their health care. The savings will amount to $1.2m through 2012, a fraction of their $50m annual long-term deficit. That’s in addition to $72m in savings through 2012 achieved with previous staff cuts, fare increases, and deferred capital projects. And of course another fare increase is coming down the pike.

The TNT has more about PT’s main labor cost:

Those cuts, however, will not apply to the bulk of Pierce Transit’s work force. Some 845 transit union members won a contract that calls for a 4 percent hike this summer. Agency officials wanted to renegotiate; union leaders refused, saying their members earned their wages and benefits – and suggested there are other places to cut.

“We’ve asked (to renegotiate) twice, and they’ve said no twice,” said agency spokeswoman Treva Percival. “Their contract is up again next year. Negotiations will probably start in the spring.”

Tour Group at YMCA

Last night Feet First (great pedestrian advocacy group) hosted their second Walk & Talk tour guided by Tom Rasmussen. The tour started in the Triangle of West Seattle (bounded by 35th, Alaska, and Fauntleroy) and headed east stopping at destinations along the way, ending at a casual reception.

The first stop was the YMCA followed by the new “Link” development. The Triangle is an interesting area. Up until just a year or two ago the whole area consisted mostly of light manufacturing and auto dealership, a large number of which are out of business now. The area is prime for redevelopment, due to its location and underlying zoning. As a casual observer of developments in this area over the last few years it’s interesting how omnipresent the themes of transition and parking are.

More after the jump.

Several large developments are stalled due to the economy while Link is set to open sometime next year. I was surprised and very please with how Harbor Properties, which is developing Link, chose to deal with parking in the development. A majority of the parking is provided below grade, with an off-site surface lot acting as a relief valve. This is a great solution for a transitional area like this where demand for parking from residents could be higher than supply in the garage, but will most certainly shrink as the area becomes denser and a car-free lifestyle becomes easier.

While this area of West Seattle has always enjoyed good service to downtown Seattle, Harbor Properties certainly is hyping RapidRide which will stop just a block away. They will be including a real-time information display in the lobby of the building. For those interested in a bit of back story about the RapidRide alignment wrangling check out the West Seattle Blog. Additionally, there is a Triangle Advisory Workgroup dealing with issues in the area. Take a look through some of the documents if you are interested.

Look for more of these tours accross the city as well as PARK(ing) day (9/17) hosted by Feet First.

UPDATE 12:28 Detailed map of RapidRide C Line with BAT lanes and TSP.

xkcd

Critics of transit investment – especially rail investment – frequently cite a failure to achieve a budgeted ridership estimate as evidence of the ineptitude or corruption of the agencies planning the lines in question.  While I never wish to discourage due criticism, ridership estimates are constructed via theoretical models, and critiquing a model for being wrong is tautological, akin to critiquing a human for being mortal. Frustrated at popular confusion over the nature of modeling, I thought I’d write a post on the limitations and capabilities of models.  To my mind there are four main points:

More after the jump…

(1. Ridership models attempt to quantify what would otherwise be qualitative phenomena; they translate dynamic human behaviors into static numerical inputs. Any number of input factors (endogenous variables) may be included in the construction of the model, such as tolerable walking distance, seasonal weather patterns, political affiliations, other transit connections, demographics, while other inputs are excluded (exogenous variables), such as unforeseen economic recessions.  In short, modeling is all about throwing numbers at sentiments in search of rigor.  (For philosophical problems with this approach, see Nancy Cartwright’s “The Vanity of Rigour in Economics”)

(2.  Models aggregate particular behaviors upwards to create generalized assumptions. Such “bottom-up” science is inductive, and it has long been recognized that such reasoning is useful but tricky.  You may see 1,000 black cats and conclude that all cats are black, only to see a white one.  Similarly, all transit riders are willing to walk ½ a mile, until they aren’t.  Etc etc…

(3.  Simpler models are better.  One tricky feature of models is that they are better at sketching a picture than painting it.   The more variables one includes, the more sensitive (i.e. touchy and error-prone) the model becomes.  Thus modelers try to select only the core components driving behavior.  Never let anyone impress you by boasting about how complex their model is.

(4.  Models don’t do any real work; rather, they merely actualize the assumptions they contain. The incredible ability of models to describe system dynamics far exceeds human capacity, but the inputs the models contain are usually entirely human-derived.  A model is thus like a psychiatrist; you litter it with anecdotes and it tells you what they mean.  But they don’t give you any information about the veracity of the anecdotes themselves.

Despite these many flaws, models nevertheless tend to outperform human judgment alone.  While they may never be right, they’re almost always close.  Models do a wonderful job of establishing baseline approximations from which to tweak, experiment, and innovate.  When we use predictive models to aid the formation of transportation policy, we should only do so with a clear understanding of their limitations. Variances of 10-20% from modeled estimates are par for the course, and patience should be afforded to transit agencies when their models either under- or (more often) overestimate ridership demand.  The real success of a transit service is its relative and ongoing performance once its baseline is empirically (rather than theoretically) established, and by this criterion Link is doing very well.

odmp.org

Today Pierce Transit resumes its “not on our bus” program, involving uniformed personnel increasing their presence on buses and around bus stops. It is designed to cut down on “unlawful and disruptive conduct on bus routes, at transit centers, and at bus stops near certain high schools.”

This is the second time they’ve done this. Last year’s effort yielded 750 “contacts” with 68 riders receiving 90 day bans from Pierce Transit. Banned riders are posted in the operator’s lobby and the historical recidivism rate is only 3%.

Full press release after the jump.

TACOMA, WA – Starting Tuesday, Aug. 31, Pierce Transit, the Tacoma Police Department, and the Tacoma Public Schools are partnering for “NOT ON OUR BUS,” a zero-tolerance enforcement operation of unlawful and disruptive conduct on bus routes, at transit centers, and at bus stops near certain high schools.

Uniformed Pierce Transit Police, Security Officers, and Service Supervisors, along with Tacoma Police Officers will increase their presence on buses and conduct spot checks of identified bus stops and boarding areas near high schools.  Undercover Pierce Transit Police and Security Officers and Tacoma Police Officers will also be riding buses and monitoring transit centers to enforce the State of Washington and the City of Tacoma’s Unlawful Transit Conduct Codes.

Riders who are found to be violating the Unlawful Transit Conduct Codes may be held immediately accountable by exclusion from Pierce Transit services for 90 days.

From October 30th through November 20, 2009 the “Not on Our Bus” effort was implemented to address a number of “Quality of Life Issues” on buses, at transit centers, and at bus stops near certain high schools.  The program was highly successful and yielded a safer transit environment for student passengers, and the general public.  Nearly 750 contacts were made, resulting in 68 ninety-day exclusions from Pierce Transit services for disorderly behavior or criminal activity.

Emphasis areas:

Pierce Transit Routes: 1, 2, 10, 11, 16, 42, 51, 53

Pierce Transit Facilities: Lakewood Mall Transit Center, Tacoma Community College Transit Center, Tacoma Dome Station, Tacoma Mall Transit Center

Tacoma Public Schools: Foss High School, Lincoln High School, Mt Tahoma High School, Oakland High School, SAMI, Stadium High School, Wilson High School

For information about the State of Washington and the City of Tacoma’s Unlawful Transit Conduct Codes, visithttp://www.piercetransit.org/alerts/rcw.htm.

Tacoma has been kicking around the idea of adding a Link stop at Commerce & 11th, which would cut the stop spacing in that stretch from about 1/2 mile to about 1/4 mile. The Tacoma Daily Index has lots of detail on this project, which would cost about $135,000.

You can watch the Council Study Session on this subject right now (scroll all the way down to “Tacoma City Council Study Session”).

(Via The Transport Politic Twitter Feed).

After a Metro audit recommended doing away with the trolleybus system to save money, there’s been a lot of anxiety about its future and questions about the conclusion that the system is, in fact, more expensive. In response to these concerns, the King County Council commissioned a detailed study on the cost/benefit tradeoffs associated with trolleys. Last week Dow Constantine’s office transmitted a plan to conduct this study.

In this kind of thing assumptions and ground rules are all-important. After considering a wide array of technologies, Metro has narrowed down the comparison to diesel-electric hybrids vs. trolleys. Conventional diesels, battery electrics, compressed natural gas (CNG), and fuel cell systems were dismissed for various reasons.

The evaluation criteria fall into five categories: environmental impacts, likely to favor the trolleys; scheduling impacts, likely to favor the hybrids; cost advantage, which the audit gave to hybrids but is disputed by trolley proponents; and both the impact on both state/federal grants and existing legal agreements, which I can’t even begin to assess.

Importantly, the cost study will include a sensitivity analysis of energy costs, which will capture the benefits of relatively stable-cost electricity. The study is expected to begin this fall and release a draft report early next year. Some other thoughts about the trolley argument here.

If you last checked this blog Friday around lunchtime, you should go and read the substantially revised SR520 post from Friday afternoon. It’s of great interest to anyone interested in effective transit over the new bridge.

"Metro banishes Mercer Island to the bottom of Lake Washington", by Oran

Mercer Island is going to experiment with a shuttle van up Island Crest Way to feed the Park & Ride, which on average is 100% full:

City Administrator Rich Conrad said Metro has agreed to supply a van and assist the city with the task of searching for a securing parking. So far, the city has agreed to provide volunteer drivers…

The need for a north-south shuttle stemmed from lack of parking at the two-story Park and Ride, which was expanded more than two years ago in an effort to add more parking. Parking spots increased from 250 in 2006 to 447 in 2008 after a two-year, $19.1 million expansion project.

What’s curious about the article, an earlier article on the subject, and a related editorial in the Mercer Island Reporter, is the failure to even mention existing Metro bus service. The 204 provides mid-day and weekend service in that corridor, while  the 202 covers both directions in the peak and goes on to Downtown Seattle. In either case, headways are roughly a half-hour. Both are middling routes by Eastside performance standards, a little below average but by no means dogs.

I suspect that making the shuttle distinct from Metro may save money by not having to pay into Metro’s relatively high cost structure. It’s elsewhere referred to as a “vanpool experiment” and there’s talk of volunteer drivers, so it’s clear they’re looking to do it on the cheap. On the other hand, not integrating with the network is only going to make it harder for people to find out about it and make it less reliable.

Attempts to contact Mercer Island leaders and staff on the shuttle proposal did not produce a response. More on the parking shortage after the jump.

It must be said that said that the parking crisis is partially a result of earlier shortsightedness by the Mercer Island Council:

“Sound Transit came prepared to expand the lot — they had enough money to add hundreds of stalls — but the Council opted for a smaller expansion,” Conrad said.

He said the Mercer Island City Council asked Sound Transit to almost double the size of the lot, which held 257 cars before the expansion, and spend the other money allotted for the project on building more parking space east of Mercer Island. The Council hoped that doing so would reduce the number of cars from off-Island that tended to park in the Mercer Island lot, Conrad said…

Sound Transit suggested building a taller lot to cut costs per stall, but the City Council opposed this idea to protect the surrounding neighborhood.

Oops!

(H/T: Jonathan Frazier)

From Grist, measuring governments at all levels:

Photo by VeloBusDriver

Josh Cohen reports on Beacon BIKES:

According to Beacon BIKES! representative Dylan Ahearn, the group thinks the bike master plan is too focused on creating a neighborhood-to-neighborhood bike network that caters primarily to the commuter crowd. His group wants to create an intra-neighborhood network that helps people (especially children) ride safely between Beacon Hill destinations.

“When I’m biking around the neighborhood, I try and imagine whether it’d be safe my five-year-old daughter to ride on the road,” said Ahearn. “If we can [create facilities that] accomplish that, we’ll have succeeded.”

As mascot of the casual cyclists, I have to say “Bravo”. I don’t begrudge the regional trails and other improvements that serious bicyclists have won for themselves, but improvements to one- and two-mile trips can open up a whole new population to bikes. That builds the political coalition, but more importantly makes bicycling safer for everyone by building the presumption of drivers that there are bicycles around.

In my feeble experience cycling, I’ve found that it’s that one-to-two mile threshold under which it’s faster than taking transit, give or take the specific circumstances of the trip. That kind of mobility is important for people looking to go without a car, or a family going to one car. Long trips and long commutes are about recreation and exercise; the shorter ones are about practical mobility. There’s nothing wrong with the former, but it’s the latter where the masses are.

[Note: This post is a substantial revision of two posts that were accidentally written based on outdated materials and taken down. If you did read those, you'll find that the situation for SR520 buses has gotten substantially worse.]

Proposed Montake Dual Bascule Bridge Cross-Section (WSDOT)

Last week’s SR520 meeting had lots of pictures of how Montlake Blvd is to be configured when the project is done. The plan includes a transit lane in each direction to improve connectivity between the interchange and the Husky Stadium light rail stop, absolutely critical if the Montlake Flyer Stops are removed to save money and reduce the overall width of the interchange. The bad news is that some compromises in the project, made with good intentions, will make this connection not quite as smooth as it might otherwise be. You can find the meeting materials here, especially the key presentation.

Proposed Cross-Section at Hamlin St. (WSDOT)

Note that there is no Southbound HOV lane in the picture above. More after the jump.

HOV Lanes

The Northbound HOV lanes will be on the inside to facilitate the large number of buses turning left onto Pacific Blvd. Unfortunately, that means that buses serving stops directly adjacent to the station will end up either not using the lane or fighting across the traffic.

Southbound, the picture is even worse. Lanes will be on the outside to support buses headed south beyond SR520 like the 43 and 48, meaning eastbound buses will have to make their way through traffic to a left turn. Furthermore, the HOV lane ends somewhere between the bascule bridge and Hamlin St, so the 43 and 48 will have to fight with the traffic merging on and off of SR520.

Bus Stops

WSDOT (Click to Enlarge)

The takeaway from the diagram above is that the involved agencies haven’t really figured out what to do with bus stops in the vicinity of the light rail station. However, there are two oddities with the stops further South:

• The Shelby St. stop serves routes traveling in the inner HOV lane, so either the stop will have to move to an island or buses will have to weave in and out of traffic to serve it.
• Buses destined for Seattle stop several blocks south of the SR520 offramps, so there is a clunky transfer for people going from the Eastside to destinations around 23rd and 24th Avenues.

I think the whole bus plan for the West interchange has to go back to the drawing board. If the deletion of the Flyer Stops is not to make bus trips much more laborious, there must be an effective connection between SR520 and the UW Link station so that it’s an adequate alternative to continuing downtown. I would suggest three critical changes:

• Northbound HOV lanes on the outside to support a stop on the Eastside of Montlake and close to the Link station. This allows riders to disembark without waiting for a left turn onto Pacific and avoids a street crossing. This would also support the marooned Shelby stop.
• Southbound HOV lanes on the inside to avoid all the SOV traffic using the on and off ramps, and allowing uncongested progress to the HOV ramps.
• A stop for 24th Avenue-bound buses somewhere in the vicinity of the direct-access ramp stops to allow transfers for riders headed South.

It’s come to my attention that I somehow managed to pull the materials from the July 22nd SR520 working group meeting, instead of the August 19th one. I’ll be doing a complete rewrite and getting something correct up shortly.

Sorry for the confusion.