A Way Forward: Seattle Built, King County Run Transit
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.
- Matt the Engineer's blog
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It's a compelling idea, Matt, but I see a couple of problems. First, Seattle simply isn't big enough of a city by itself to finance a "monorail-scale plan" in the way you propose. We were taxing ourselves to the brink to build the Green Line, and that was just one line (and it ended up having to be scaled back).
It's unclear to me how Seattle alone finds the few hundred million it would take to build a streetcar network, let alone the few billion it would take to build a grade-separated system.
So the alternative is to get the feds to help out. And why would they help a brand new agency with no track record (you'd have to have some kind of agency to design, plan and build the system) when there are so many others in the country that do have track records?
Who designed, planned, and built the SLUT? I'm guessing our little dept. of transportation. There's your agency, and your track record.
We didn't "tax ourselves to the brink" with the Green Line. Our vehicle tabs just approached those of California (which is pretty good, considering we don't have an income tax). We certainly don't have to build an entire system overnight, but we should start soon if we want both a livable city and reasonable density.
There's another option here. Sound Transit wants to build Ballard-Downtown rail, likely in ST3, which could be less than 10 years off. Gear up an agency to build a 2nd Avenue tunnel for them. That we can afford, and it would get us what we want.
North King subarea money from Sound Transit is going to have to go somewhere - partner up!
That's good news, Ben. Of course waiting 10 years plus the construction time sure sounds like a long time from now, but it's something.
Hmm. I agree with both the original post (Seattle needs a rapid transit network) and the first comment (Seattle cannot fund a rapid transit network). That said, I see the streetcar network as having potential in this direction -- I'd argue that streetcars in dedicated right-of-way with signal priority and stops no more than every 1/2 mile ought to be able to average 15-20 mph including stops, which is pretty decent for cross-town transit. I could also imagine incremental projects to, say, bypass tricky intersections having a significant performance impact.
The funding side is tricky but not out of the question. For capital investment, LIDs, Federal Small Starts funding and bonds covered by dedicated parking meter revenues all seems like decent options. I could also imagine charging developers for spot upzones if the network is successful enough at drawing development. For operations, rededicating Metro bus dollars for replaced routes ought to mostly cover it, and additional ad revenue can cover shortfalls.
I agree, except Sound Transit should run it, not King County. If the ST board decides not to put a plan up this fall, then Seattle alone should vote a Seattle-only tax to build light rail to Northgate, and to study options for a route along the Seattle Monorail Project route. Basically, we would build it, then just hand it all over to Sound Transit.
King County Metro runs Sound Transit's services in King County, remember.
But I agree that Sound Transit should administer it.
To me this seems totally obvious- put streetcars where electric buses now run, hang some more wire, and use the electric buses where diesels now run. For a while you can increase the capacity of the streetcar lines by adding more streetcars, and when the traffic becomes too great for this approach, take out some of the obstacles to faster running.
I am aware that everyone else will have all kinds of reasons this wouldn't work. I'm inclined to think transit in Seattle will develop very slowly until those reasons no longer hold force.