By Frank on April 17, 2008
Two pieces worth reading on the Viaduct-Spokane St.-Mercer St. funding issue. Erica Barnett in the print edition of The Stranger, and Larry Lange on the P-I‘s Traffic Watch blog.
At issue is Mayor Nickels’ attempt to push a Mercer St. upgrade through the city council. Nickels doesn’t have the money for it, but he wants to link it to a rebuilt Spokane St. viaduct as a way to increase mobility when the Alaskan Way Viaduct comes down.
So far, the council isn’t buying, prefering to wait until more funding is secured. They may have a point. To the outside eye, it seems like Nickels is just rushing to get Mercer done so it’s nice and pretty in time for the Vulcan-built Amazon headquarters opening in SLU in 2011-2012, and he’s using the Viaduct as a convenient excuse. But that’s just idle speculation on my part.
That said, costs of a new Mercer St are going to continue go up, up, up. Maybe it is best to float a bond like the Mayor’s suggesting and get to work.
Rendering of Mercer St. looking west from SDOT.
Posted in BNSF, Eastside, inter-agency compacts, Trail, transit-oriented development
By serial catowner on April 12, 2008
If for no other reason, the current end of the Waterfront Streetcar will be remembered for the stunning pile of absurdities that have accumulated to do it in.
The beginning of this story is reported now as the need of the Sculpture Park for the land the carbarn stood on- when in fact, the arty types simply objected to the appearance of the carbarn. Let that soak in a minute- people who buy ‘modern art’ complaining about the appearance of the carbarn.
When this story broke, business types a few miles north offered space for the carbarn and money to extend the tracks, to the new labs and businesses near Interbay. This was turned down. Apparently the Waterfront Trolley “no longer fit into the city’s transportation plan”. That’s right, the same city that works overtime to attract cruise ships can’t see the role of a heritage trolley line running past the point where the passengers get off the cruise ships (not to mention the ferries).
So, what is the plan? That’s right- there isn’t any. They don’t know if the Viaduct will be rebuilt or replaced with a “surface option”, and they intend to “service the transportation grid around the viaduct”. Nickels said they would even be looking at streetcars as a way to carry the load during viaduct construction.
Gee, Mayor Nickels, you mean a streetcar like the one that used to be part of the transportation grid around the viaduct?
This is all doubletalk, and the reason they’re trying to snow us is that they’re ashamed of their real motives and their lack of ability to think or plan constructively for the future. Don’t expect a happy ending from this crowd- in spite of their cocktail party appreciation of art, they simply don’t get the big picture.
Posted in gregnickels, maps, newyork, Trail
By Frank on March 17, 2008
Two East-West routes that are critical to a post-Viaduct Seattle are still short funds in the wake of Prop. 1′s failure.
The Mercer cost estimate has increased $78 million since late last year, chiefly because of inflation and advanced design work that now includes property costs. The project would widen Mercer between Dexter Avenue and I-5 but not include reconnecting streets above Aurora Avenue.
Some $78.9 million has been secured for the Spokane widening, now estimated to cost $168.5 million, which includes $3.4 million from the Port of Seattle; new ramps would connect the Spokane Street Viaduct to the waterfront.
Lowering Aurora and reconnecting the streets above has always been the most appealing part of this project for me, but that’s because I don’t have to deal with Mercer during rush hour.
Also, if you’re interested, you can watch a video simulation of the 2-way Mercer and narrowed Valley streets here (22MB .avi movie). It sure will look cool when that new Amazon.com office goes in!
Posted in inter-agency compacts, Trail, transit-oriented development
By Frank on January 2, 2008
Don’t try and sneak through those red lights! 19 more red-light cameras are coming to Seattle next year.
The four that were installed in the pilot program cost $460K and brought in $1.1M in revenue, not a bad investment! Oh yeah… accidents dropped, too. 
Posted in legislation, Trail
By Frank on December 10, 2007
Vulcan welcomes the Streetcar! I guess they’d better. After all, they paid for the darn thing.
Meanwhile, the Times puts the Streetcar in the context of the last South Lake Union streetcar, built in 1890. Reading the article, a lightbulb finally went off in my head about why this thing, which I’ve been ambivalent about and which seems at first glance like an overpriced toy, actually matters:
The streetcar is meant to attract tourists, serve the cancer center, and help a new wave of office workers run errands downtown. For some, it will be a connection to express commuter buses or future regional light rail, at Westlake Center. Tracks run along the edge of Lake Union Park, which is being expanded and rebuilt with the idea that it will become a popular destination.
When New York first conceived of a subway — also around 1890, as it happens — it was because downtown needed to grow. You had lower Manhattan teeming with people, but farms and estates just a mile or two to the North. Why? There was no practical way to get up there and back in a reasonable amount of time. The Subway was, on a micro-level, the inner-city equivalent of the Trans-Continental Railway: it opened the frontier (i.e. Midtown Manhattan) to development.
While the parallels are obviously inexact, it seems that we’re seeing a similar trend here in Seattle 100 years later. Downtown is finally growing too big to walk from one end to the other in a reasonable amount of time. The streetcar opens the frontier.
Of course, streetcars still get stuck in traffic. But I don’t honestly see any other option for the city right now. People feel burned after the monorail, and it’s going to be a long time before we see another form of rapid transit to connect downtown and its immediately adjoining neighborhoods (Ballard, Queen Anne, West Seattle, etc.).
Ripping up Eastlake Avenue and other streets and removing parking spaces to extend the tracks up to the U. District will be controversial and difficult. But it may also be our only option. There are underutilized streets in the grid, and a well-designed streeetcar, with its own lanes and traffic signal priority, could actually work out pretty well for us.
Posted in gregnickels, Trail
By Frank on December 7, 2007
Two UW Profs have produced a study for 5 potential extensions to the Seattle Streetcar network, the Seattle Times reports. The study considers several financing options, from sales taxes to LIDs to dedicated parking fees, and posit the above routes and alignments “for exploration and comparative purposes only.”
We do know that people are more likely to ride streetcars than buses, but who will the ridership be for this downtown-centric line? Is it intended for commuters who work downtown and live there? Or is it rather for people running around within downtown, either tourists or workers who have multiple meetings or destinations? I’m curious.
Anyway, maps are fun, so dig in if you’re curious. The full report (.pdf) is here.
Posted in gregnickels, Trail
By Frank on November 25, 2007
I’m just now getting around to Mayor Nickels’ appearance on the P-I‘s Opinion Leaders podcast.
It gets interesting (for our purposes!) when he gets a question about the Viaduct. He notes that he’s been meeting with Ron Sims and Gov. Gregoire, that they’re approaching a consensus, and they have people working together on a solution. In his response, he touches on the following:
- Taking advantage of the underutilized street grid, especially 6th Avenue
- Moving the Alaskan Way Streetcar to 1st Avenue, to potentially connect it to Ballard and West Seattle
- Making I-5 more of a through-way and not a downtown street
- Not advocating for a tunnel or an elevated highway
- Some concerns about freight mobility
He also mentions the Embarcadero in San Francisco, a well-known example of an elevated freeway being replaced with a surface street, and notes approvingly the I-5 closure this summer in Seattle, which he said showed that traffic patterns are flexible.
Now, he didn’t commit to anything, but it sure sounds like hizzoner has all but embraced the so-called surface/transit alternative, that Sims is on board, too, and together they’re trying to convince the Governor to see the light. Good stuff.
I’m skeptical about a streetcar having enough capacity to serve the Ballard-Downtown-West-Seattle corridor, but at least he’s thinking along the right lines: no new elevated highway.
Anyway, he said we’ll hear more after the new year. Keep your eyes open.
Posted in BNSF, Eastside, lionel-industrial complex, ronsims, RTID, Trail
By Frank on October 23, 2007
I don’t agree with much of what Richard Morin writes for Crosscut but he sure is right about parking on arterial streets. I’m baffled by the fact that some of our arterials still allow parking — North 50th St through Wallingford comes to mind — either all day or outside of “rush hour” which is such a quaint notion in today’s economy as to be useless. There’s nothing quite like tooling along in the right-hand lane only to see a parked car right in front of you!
Posted in Trail
By Frank on September 23, 2007
The Sierra Club’s Miles O’Brien caused a stir recently by arguing that extending light rail from Sea-Tac to Tacoma was not the most efficient use of tax dollars. As Mike Lindblom reported:
O’Brien said South End trains would take too long to reach Seattle, because of the system’s slow surface segment currently under construction through South Seattle’s Rainier Valley. He suggests building separate lines outward from downtown Everett and Tacoma, serving local riders into those urban centers.
O’Brien’s right that it would be a long trip from Tacoma to Seattle on light rail. About 73 minutes, based on Sound Transit’s figures. That’s longer than the bus, and longer than Sounder. Fortunately, for people who need to commute from Tacoma to Seattle, we have the bus and Sounder.
That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if ST does something to address this, like having an “express line” to the airport that shoots down I-5 or Airport Way from SODO to Boeing Field and connects with the main trunk line. But that’s way down the line, so to speak. As to his point about building lines out from Everett and Tacoma, I agree! But in any logical model, the first line out from either of those cities has to be toward Seattle, because that’s where the ridership is, which is exactly what the ST2 plan does, no?
But, more importatntly, we have to compare the transit times against traffic in 2030., which, given the projected rate of growth in the Puget Sound, will be far worse than today (picture bumper-to-bumper on I-5 12 hours a day, 7 days a week). People may well be thrilled to be able to get from Tacoma to Seattle in just 73 minutes, virtually any time of day or night.
(Via Will @ HA, who gives us the much-needed populist POV)
Posted in europe, i5, Trail
By Frank on August 17, 2007
Speaking of Mercer Street and the Viaduct, it occurs to me, looking over the maps, that the future, post-Viaduct plan gets rid of the current off-ramp that connects Aurora Ave N to Mercer.
I’ve often noticed that the freight trucks that use the Viaduct and are headed North will often use Mercer St. to cross town and hook up with I-5. This lets them avoid I-5 where it gets congested around downtown.
I can’t see how they could do that in this new configuration. Once you’re on Aurora North, you’re prtty much stuck on Aurora North. You’ll have options to turn right on Republican or Roy, but (a) those are both hard right turns that will require trucks to make a nearly full stop, and (b) neither offers a straight, 4-lane shot to I-5.
Combine this with the planned SoDo interchange improvements that Will called out yesterday as part of RTID, and suddenly you realize that there will far less freight traffic using the Viaduct in the future. Connecting to I-5 in SoDo will be far more convenient than at any point North.
Posted in Eastside, legislation, Trail
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