Orphan Road

Okay, so I guess we're a go for a 2008 vote. Ben's done a great liveblog of the ST board meeting.

Meanwhile Erica Barnett is demanding apologies, which seems ridiculously premature. Let's wait until this fall's ballot passes, shall we? I personally supported last year's Prop. 1 because I thought it was a compromise that stood a good chance of passing. I'm cautiously optimistic about this new proposition, but it's far from a sure thing. We can't count on Obama voters alone -- tens of thousands of whom will probably split the ticket and vote for Rossi -- to save us.

Victory is far from assured.

Now let's get to work.

Ho hum. Another quarter, another ridership record for Sounder, up 31% YOY.

Gee, it sure seems like people in the Puget Sound like their rail transit and want to see more of it. Too bad the Seattle Times is looking down their noses at these folks and basically telling them to go screw themselves.

Sorry to be crude, here, folks, but where's the last place on Earth where people still buy and read printed newspapers? THE GODDAMNED TRAIN, THAT'S WHERE. The paper's worth peanuts these days, you'd think that an injection of tens of thousands of new rail riders into the area would make them smile.

I know, I know... the Times editorial board and ownership is staffed by honorable public servants who would never use the editorial page to advance their financial self-interest.

Oh wait.

I think I posted this a while back, but I've updated my Google maps of Link and Sounder alignments based on the proposed 15-year plan from Sound Transit.

http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=103428233658015669918&hl=en&gl=us&p...

Reader Mark sends a comprehensive fantasy map of "Sound Transit 3."

Once we get ST2 passed, I'll feel a little more comfortable engaging in this kind of fantasy. Nonetheless, I like how he's integrated Seattle with the surrounding communities into one, large metro area. That's how it should be.

Update 7/16/08: Mark's map was actually the Google Earth image that you get to after following the link. My apologies.

As we know, Sound Transit is debating whether to go back to the ballot in 2008 or 2010 with a new expansion package.

I hear that Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl currently does not have the votes to go back to the ballot in 2008. Snohomish County Exec Aaron Reardon and King County Exec Ron Sims are both planning on voting "no." Reardon because light rail wouldn't go far enough into Snohomish County, and Sims because he's anti-rail altogether.

Pierce County Exec John Ladenburg, who's running for Attorney General this year, may also vote "no" to avoid any controversy.

Mike Lindblom lays out the various dillemas facing Sound Transit as it debates whether to go back to the ballot in the fall.

There are two main hurdles, it seems: getting Snohomish County to sign off, and deciding whether anxiety over $4 gas makes people more transit-friendly, or just more concerned about the economy and thus less likely to support a tax increase.

What I've been hearing, second- and third-hand, is that local officials are pretty confident about a re-vote in 2008. The plan would be a 0.5% sales tax hike. The thinking is that, if they do the full 0.5%, but shrink the route a bit at the ends*, they can pursue a more aggresive timeline and open by 2018 or 2020.

Also, for what it's worth, Bus Chick states unequivocally that there will be a vote in '08.

* Exact amount of shrinkage TBD, but I think it's reasonable to assume Lynwood to the north, Overlake Hospital (which is not as far as Overlake Transit Center, sadly) to the East and Federal Way to the South. Federal Way's been aggressively urbanizing their downtown, and they deserve to be rewarded with a rail stop.

A senior economist. You know, the kind of person who could help scope out the revenue forcasts for a new ballot initiative.

Brian notes that the Seattle Streetcar ridership is up, especially during peak travel times. Still, there are no doubt plenty of off-peak runs that are empty or nearly empty. But if you read Krugman today, that's not necessarily a bad thing:

Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

Atrios comments:

Obviously it makes sense to focus spare mass transit dollars on population centers, but it also makes sense to change the way we think about mass transit and not have those dollars be so sparse. Development corridors could incorporate mass transit from the beginning, at the very least with right of ways preserved and zoning around planned station locations in anticipation of what is to come.

The Seattle Streetcar, for all its faults, is the rare public transit investment that anticipates future growth by trying to do exactly that. Of course, spurring infill redevelopment is not the same as opening up new land for development out in the hinterlands. But it achieves a similar goal.

[Central Link is similar, but mostly along MLK. When you take into account the full, envisioned Link to Northgate and the Eastside, it's more about serving existing communities than trying to spur redevelopment.]

PS: I like Krugman's column title, "Stranded in Suburbia." People tend to associate auto-dependent lifestyles as somehow more "free" than transit-oriented ones. But that's obviously only true as long as you can afford to keep filling the tank. Otherwise you're... stranded.

Goldy's hearing things:

I keep hearing about a hush-hush poll that’s been conducted, that bodes very well for a Sound Transit Phase 2 package, should one appear on the fall ballot. Hmm… I wonder if the popular support for transit has anything to do with this?

I’m not sure who conducted the poll, or what size the sample, but I’ve been assured by those who have seen it that it wasn’t a puff piece, and that it strongly tested the proposal’s negatives. (And by “negatives” I’m assuming they mean the price and the taxes.) This leads me to believe that it was probably conducted on behalf of folks weighing the risks of getting behind an ‘08 ballot measure.

Good stuff. I like the community outreach that ST's been doing, but it's not the rigorous kind of stuff you use to green light a 2008 vote.

I've gotten so numb to huge ridership gains for transit in the past few months that it didn't quite sink in that Sound Transit's increase of 15% in March is a really big deal, so thanks to Martin for pointing it out. He's right to be amazed at how ST has managed to keep the costs-per-boarding almost flat while it adds new, relatively empty reverse-commute trains.

Here's a chart from the report (.pdf) that caught my eye:

It's interesting that many of the biggest gains were on routes that don't begin or end in Seattle: Lynwood-Bellevue, Issaquah-Northgate, Lakewood-SeaTac, etc. This says to me that some very car-centric communities have caught the transit bug, which is great.

Of course, many of the really, really popular routes, in absolute numbers, are the ones that go between Seattle, Lynwood, Bellevue and Redmond. You know, the kind of high-capacity, high-demand corridors that would be most economically served by, say, a choo-choo train.