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Light Rail via 520

By Frank on December 14, 2007

Theodore Lane and Bill Mundy take to the Times’ op-ed page to argue in favor of routing the East Link via a new 520 bridge, rather than over the I-90 bridge. It’s an interesting thought experiment. After all, one could build the new bridge with light rail in mind, rather than retrofitting it and scraping off concrete to get the weight down, which is the current plan, I believe, for the I-90 alignment. They further argue that the real employment growth is along the 520 corridor, from UW to Redmond.

But that’s about where the interestingness ends and reality kicks in. The idea that you could save money by to Overlake directly loses weight when you consider how many fewer people you’d serve by going that route. Lane and Mundy try to account for this by advocating a “Bellevue spur.” But once you’ve built a two or three-mile spur into downtown Bellevue, you’ve removed much of the cost savings that was the basis for the route in the first place. Further, such a spur would abandon Seattle’s Central District and Mercer Island completely. Not so for the I-90 alignment.

It should be said that Ron Sims, in his now infamous op-ed, also pooh-poohed the I-90 alignment as “slow and cumbersome.” But Sims was arguing against Eastside rail altogether. And it’s hard to see how a grade-separated light rail would be any slower or more cumbersome than the expanded bus service he was advocating as an alternative.

Bottom line: if we’re going to do light rail across the lake, I-90 is still the best bet.

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If You Build It, They Will Come

By Frank on December 11, 2007

Portland, OR Edition:

The Overlook, a 30-unit condominium complex at 3990 N. Interstate Ave., is the first along the MAX yellow line to develop with the so-called smart growth ideas in mind.

The concept aims to reduce urban sprawl and preserve the environment by putting people in dense developments that are close to retail services, parks and public transportation. The city of Portland is rezoning Interstate Avenue to emphasize similar buildings.

The tone of the article is a bit odd… is “smart growth” really such a new idea in Portland? I realize they caveat it as “first along the yellow line,” but still… weird. But maybe I don’t understand Portland as well as I think I do.

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UW Station Design

By Frank on December 11, 2007

On display at the HUB tomorrow evening.

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If You Build It, They Will Come

By Frank on December 7, 2007

Norfolk, VA edition:

Developers of three projects – Wachovia Center, Belmont at Freemason apartments and a Residence Inn – said the city’s starter light rail influenced their business decisions. Having modern transit within a short walking distance delivers a steady stream of potential customers and provides an alternative to driving for residents and workers, they said.

Wachovia Center is a 22-story tower and apartment building that will include office, retail and residential space on Monticello Avenue.

“The fact that there will be a light rail stop right out the front door of our project was a key part of why we selected that site,” said Thomas G. Johnson III, vice president of sales and development for Nusbaum Realty, the project developer.

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Houston Light Rail Mishaps

By Frank on November 29, 2007

Check out this video, and always check your blind spot when driving in Houston:

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Ottowa Light Rail

By Frank on November 28, 2007

I can’t say that I really want to move to Canada (though I toyed with the idea after the ’04 elections!), but it’s sorta fascinating to get a glimpse at how light rail is being talked about in Ottowa:

City council set the municipality on a new $2-billion transit path Wednesday when it approved a series of projects as immediate priorities, but the questions of what to build first and how to pay for these things remain.

With very little dissent, council set its top priorities as a downtown tunnel, light rail to the south of the city, completing and extending the bus transit way the west and Barrhaven, and developing a new dedicated transit route in the east.

That’s right, folks — the city council just decided that they wanted a $2B light rail system, and so they made it happen. I can’t imagine any of our elected representatives here in the Pacific Northwest being so bold as to, you know, represent their constituents instead of punting the decision to the people in a big, confusing public vote.

Now, I won’t pretend to understand Ottowa politics, but from what I can gather, the old city council approved the rail system, then got booted out of office, the new council killed the contract, and then brought it back but without the expensive and controversial downtown tunnel (any of this sound familiar?). So it’s not all wine and roses up North. Still, the differences are telling:

Bay Councillor Alex Cullen said it is going to be a challenge for the cash-strapped city to come up money for its share of the cost of the plan, but he’s confident a way will be found. He said both the provincial and federal governments have been saying they want to get into the transit funding business in a big way, so it will soon be time to hold them to their word.

“Once we are ready, we will be asking them for money, which they have and we don’t,” he said. “It’s time to get moving, and we are. We just have to keep focused and see this through.” [Emphasis mine]

Can you imagine Governor Gregoire saying “man, we sure are excited to give Seattle money for light rail!” The feds, certainly, have been generous (due in no small part to Sen. Murray’s work on the Appropriations Committee). But I certainly wouldn’t say that either the State of Washington or the U.S. Government “want to get into the transit funding business in a big way.” But it sure would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Bonus Fun Fact #1: Ottowa has a very successful BRT system, but it wasn’t getting the ridership they projected and the buses were crowding.

Bonus Fun Fact #2: The current light-rail, the O-Train, is a Diesel Multiple Unit on a single-way right-of-way, not unlike the BNSF corridor being proposed for Seattle’s Eastside.

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Housing Prices

By Frank on November 27, 2007

Seattle is no longer the hottest housing market in America:

Seattle’s 12-month reign atop the nation in annual home-value increases came to an end in September, according to a report released Tuesday.

Charlotte, N.C., posted a year-over-year increase of 4.72 percent, just ahead of Seattle’s 4.69 percent, according to Standard and Poor’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.

How could that have happened?! Let’s see… Charlotte opened a brand-new light rail system this month, and Seattle voted one down.

Coincidence? I blog… you decide.

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New Routes and Subarea Equity

By Frank on November 8, 2007

There’s some interesting discussion on STB on what a revised Sound Transit initiative might look like. Scaling back to Northgate and Bellevue sounds reasonable, but it would really hurt ridership.

The real issue, it seems, is how you design a package inside the Sound Transit RTA district that spends so much on King County in particular. Subarea equity dictates that you raise the same amount of money from all sub-areas and re-invest it in those areas (RTID has a similar policy for roads — funds raised in each county are re-invested in that county).

Obviously King County gets more because it contributes more, but even that doesn’t account for the disparity of building light rail to Northgate and Bellevue while investing in nothing that crosses the Pierce or Snohomish County lines.

This gets to why subarea equity is a double edged sword. While it allows the different subareas to feel like they’re all getting their money’s worth, it hamstrings the planning process. Planners can’t just make investments where they’re best for the region, they have to make sure the projects get doled out equally among the subareas, regardless of whether that’s the best use of the funds.

This came into sharp relief in the Prop. 1 debate. We all thought we were voting on a $17B (or $47B) package, but in truth, each subarea was really voting on its own, smaller package that got reinvested in its area. The “yes” folks didn’t really do a good job of getting that particular message out. And I don’t blame them — it’s legitimately confusing!

Either we’re one region or we’re not. This solomonic solution seems to be giving us the worst of both worlds. Prop. 1, following this strategy, tried to walk the line between being a holistic, regional plan and being a targeted, local plan, and it succeeded at neither.

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Charlotte's Nice This Time of Year

By Frank on November 7, 2007

The foward-thinking residents of Mecklenburg County, NC beat back an effort to dismantle Charlotte’s regional transportation agency, CATS, despite the fact that the Blue Line, which I’ve written about before, hasn’t opened yet. The vote was 70-30 in favor of keeping the half-cent tax.

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Light Rail for Me, But Not for Thee

By Frank on November 2, 2007

Dan Savage is fond of writing about the awesome airport rail links in the cities he visits. Now that the light rail is funded from the Stranger’s offices on Capitol Hill to SeaTac, it would seem that the paper is far more circumspect about endorsing light rail.

Consider this line about the proposed SeaTac-to-Tacoma light rail in The Stranger’s anti-Prop. 1 editorial:

The line itself (through a low-density area) may feed sprawl in South King County, instead of promoting dense urban development that will grow alongside light rail stations in North Seattle.

Josh Feit admits the paper “caught hell” for that, and rightly so.

Today, Feit is going back and forth with Will @ Horse’s Ass over this. Will says the stations along the line will lead to transit-oriented development, Feit says they’ll lead to more sprawl.

I’m with Will. Growth is going to come to South King County anyway. And while Feit is right to note that “light rail is not just a pour and stir fix,” it is an important part of the equation. If you get out in front of it with good growth management (which we have) and a light rail line (which we will have) then the kind of growth is much more likely to be centered around the rail stations than freeway exits. Once the growth happens, buying up right-of-ways for trains becomes much more expensive.

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