By Frank on June 30, 2008
Check it out here. I like the interface: clean, simple and optimized for mobile devices. I’ve been using this one for a few months, and it’s okay, but takes forever to scroll down to to the stop you want. I think organizing the data primarily by bus, rather than by stop, makes more sense, at least for my use.
I like the intuitive appeal of “I’m at this intersection, what buses are coming my way?” But in practice, there are just too many intersections for the interface design. And most of the time you’re probably really only interested in one or two known buses.
(via)
Posted in bus trolley, regional transit, tolls
By Frank on June 30, 2008
If you’ve been wondering what’s up with the new bus-only lanes on Elliot Ave W, This week’s Getting There column has some answers.
I’ve also noticed that SDOT is paving the area of the street where the bus stops with concrete, instead of asphalt. This is being done at Metro’s request, they tell me.
Posted in policy
By serial catowner on June 28, 2008
Anyone who was driving in 1972 knows that things could get ugly out there. Reporting in a Wall Street Journal blog, Keith Johnson cites Jeff Rubin, who sees $200/bbl oil in 2010, $7/gallon gas, and the removal of 10 million cars from our current fleet of about 57 million.
This change is expected to occur among the poor, but will those who can afford to change be laggards? Surely it hasn’t been poor people snapping up decayed inner city housing in Seattle for $400,000-$500,000 a house for the past five years. Call me crazy, but I would expect the middle classes to be just as proactive in reading the tea leaves here.
And this might be just as good a place as any to offer a transportation-lite dietary tip- collards and dandelion greens (not the dandelions you find in your lawn) will grow year round in Seattle. You’ll thank me for it later.
H/T to Brad Plumer for the link.
Posted in Uncategorized
By Frank on June 26, 2008
Larry Lange reports in the P-I. Here’s my favorite:
A third “surface” option similar to the second but with waterfront traffic handled using six lanes on Alaskan Way and Western Avenue. Estimated speed: 30 mph. With all three “surface” Third Avenue would be restricted to transit traffic downtown and 10-minute Metro “Rapid Ride” service is assumed on Aurora Avenue, West Mercer and from West Seattle.
Several of the other alternatives assume a First Avenue streetcar in the scenario. I don’t get that. I mean, a First Ave streetcar is cool and all, but how does it help displaced Viaduct traffic? All the people who jump on the Viaduct to get from Pioneer Square to Belltown? Then again, one of the other alternatives assumes a Lake Forest Park Park-and-Ride. How that affects the Viaduct mystifies me. But traffic flows are crazy things, and I defer to the experts.
Politically, though, it seems like the ones that make major changes to I-5 — like a single managed toll lane — are going to be the most difficult and time-consuming to implement.
Posted in Eastside
By Frank on June 25, 2008
Try doing this with a bus:
DART is updating its fleet of 115 light rail vehicles (LRV) by inserting a new, low-floor insert between the existing sections of the vehicle adding seating capacity and improving access through level boarding. The newly modified vehicles began service on June 23, 2008.
Known as Super Light Rail Vehicles (SLRV) because of the greater length and added passenger capacity, the SLRV will seat approximately 100 passengers compared with 75 on the current vehicles. Standing passengers on the vehicle can nearly double the capacity.
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Posted in i5, taxes
By Matt the Engineer on June 25, 2008
In my previous post, I argued that:
1. Seattle needs a city-level mass-transit system – not to replace, but to augment the bus system.
2. King County is the wrong agency to build this.
There were several comments about how the branding a Seattle transit agency would be confusing. I’m not sure I agree (many other cities handle this fine), but I’m ok with not having a new agency as a requirement.
Here’s my proposed compromise: We build all of the infrastructure, buy the trains, then ask King County to run it. They may need to pay for a few new drivers, but it would certainly be an easier sell than having them come up with all of the initial capital.
Of course, this is exactly what’s happening with the streetcars. But I’d argue that streetcars aren’t enough. Unless they’re completely traffic-seperated, they’re just busses with increased ridership (good, but still slow and inefficient). What we need is a monorail-scale plan. We could still use streetcars (though light rail may be better), but elevate them, put them in tunnels, or just make their path completely seperate from cars.
Posted in drivers, sierraclub, Trail
By Frank on June 24, 2008
I’m going to try to refrain from ad hominem attacks against former WSDOT secretary Doug MacDonald, who is in the midst of a 3-part series on Crosscut arguing against Sound Transit expansion.
(Seriously, though… diesel is at $5/gallon, causing Metro to cut back service, and the Crosscut editors think we need to hear an argument for more diesel-powered buses? What planet are these guys on?)
MacDonald’s installment today takes bus ridership numbers and extrapolates wildly, arguing that they provide an open-and-shut case against light rail.
But his logic is flawed. He focues on the bus lines that have shown the biggest increases, not the ones that are biggest in absolute number. He says that 550, which parallels East Link, grew at only 7%, while the 535 grew at 31%. This, he argues, proves that light rail is a waste of money. Or something. But if you look at the absolute numbers, the 550 is still has 425% more riders than the 535. Because the 550 is on a core corridor. That’s why it would be better served with rail.
But the real fallacy is the argument that we should spend more on buses because buses have more riders. That’s totally backwards. By that logic, we should never build a highway because a highway has zero riders before it gets built.
In absolute numbers, connecting Lynwood, Federal Way, Redmond, Bellevue, and Seattle with a high-capacity, high-frequency rail link is an incredibly smart long-term investment for the region. Every argument otherwise relies on some kind of logical sleight-of-hand. That should tell you something.
Posted in airport
By Frank on June 23, 2008
“Investment in Amtrak’s infrastructure has been in decline,” says the reporter from CBS news in this clip. The passive voice! As if the investment just sorta naturally started declining on its own!
Of course, here in the real world, there was nothing natural about it. The Bush administration and the Republican-controlled congress starved Amtrak of funds for seven years. Very intentionally. Why is that so hard to say?
CBS does its viewers a real disservice by failing to point this stuff out, regardless of which President or party is responsible. Politics and democracy only work if people believe that things are the way they are because of the decisions made by elected officials.
Otherwise, why bother voting if these things just happen magically and people are helpless to stop them?
(via)
Posted in tacoma
By Frank on June 23, 2008
Yes Dan, these people really do live on another planet.
What boggles my mind sometimes is how some of the people who live in the vast swaths of single-family, auto-oriented Seattle fail to see the benefits of upzoning around their area. There are large tracts of Seattle where one cannot walk to a coffee shop (let alone a grocery store, bank, or dry cleaner). The reason for this is that the density in these areas is supremely low. When we upzone MLK around the stations, suddenly these businesses become viable, and lots of single-family homeowners in the surrounding neighborhoods have all sorts of amenities within walking distance.
The piece about schools is totally puzzling. Southeast Seattle is quick to raise hell when the School Board threatens to close their schools. Wouldn’t more students in the area make school closures less likely?
To be sure, I sympathize generally with the plight of Southeast Seattle. As the least wealthy quadrant of the city, it tends to end up with the short end of the stick far too often. So I can see how this beleagured, constantly-under-assault mentality develops. But, as I noted above with respect to schools, increasing the area’s density is likely to give them more clout, not less.
Posted in soundtransit
By Frank on June 22, 2008
Gas prices, South Sound edition:
Thurston Regional Planning Council senior planner Pete Swensson said home-buying decisions can change when consumers are faced with higher fuel prices.
A likely result is that the county’s urban housing market could strengthen while the rural housing market softens, Swensson said.
Home Hunters Realty of Olympia broker Helen Wilkins agrees. She said that if gasoline prices continue to rise, it could result in a huge influx of people wanting to live closer to town.
“It’s all about the cost of getting to work,” Wilkins said. “We used to measure everything in miles and time, but now it’s five gallons to the office.”
Paul Krugman recently wrote, ” some major public transit systems are excited about ridership gains of 5 or 10 percent. But fewer than 5 percent of Americans take public transit to work, so this surge of riders takes only a relative handful of drivers off the road.”
But sometimes I wonder if the coming growth in transit use in America will be exponential, not linear. As more people move closer in, it will have a multiplier effect: more goods and services closer in, which attracts more people, etc., etc. It only took 10 or 15 years for the American middle class to abandon the cities. It could easily take less than that for a healthy majority to move back.
Update: More on the coming deluge:
In a survey of its agents by real estate brokerage Coldwell Banker, 81 percent said they are seeing more interest from prospective buyers in urban living because of high gasoline prices. Fifty-four percent said access to public transportation is more important to their clients now.
Posted in Seattle Metro
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