Posted Sun, Feb 5, 3:19 p.m.

Following up on the borrowing: The schedule of bonds already issued and planned by Sound Transit are detailed in the agency's 2011 Financial Plan, posted online on its Financial Documents page. Look at pages 31 and 32 for "bond proceeds. $1.6 billion borrowed so far, 1999 through 2011. $5.5 billion ...

Posted Fri, Feb 3, 1:35 a.m.

And in the ridership department, Sound Transit's light rail in Seattle is not reaching the passenger count upon which the $500 million Federal grant making it possible was earned. http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/Linkpassengercount.htm

Posted Fri, Jan 20, 12:05 p.m.

http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/Linkpassengercount.htm On the first Seattle light rail segment -- from downtown to the Airport -- Sound Transit has conceded as of October 2011 that the ridership forecast promised to the Federal funding agency to gain a $500 million grant is not achievable for the present line and its stations. This ...

Posted Mon, Jan 9, 1:54 p.m.

Doug MacDonald's essay is very educational, highlighting the many benefits of WSDOT's emerging tolling approach to capacity management. However, even as a strong supporter of facility tolling and the eventual evolution to universal road use fees, I also agree with dbreneman that "where I choose to go is just none ...

Posted Sat, Jan 7, 8:07 p.m.

I posted two pictures from the Kent Kammerer memorial on January 6 at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2990822496442.154339.1438511308&type;=1&l;=5d772f6418

Posted Sun, Dec 18, 12:51 p.m.

Here's a practical tip for Seattle folks who seek a transit ride to Vancouver, BC -- take the bus. Costs less and gets there quicker than the train. Leaves more often than the train. Drops you off in multiple downtown Vancouver locations. Leaves Seattle from just off Aurora near the ...

Posted Sun, Dec 18, 12:27 p.m.

The 15/18 bus are speedy with dedicated peak period bus lanes in the Interbay for some of the route. The slow downs come when the Ballard drawbridge over the ship canal lifts. The route map I saw recently for the Ballard Streetcar from downtown had the Ship Canal crossing in ...

Posted Sat, Dec 10, 10:40 a.m.

Crossrip -- Over the next decade of East Link development and construction, if the project is not stopped by lingering I-90 issues (there are several), ST staff may very well seek $215 million in Federal Grants per the description you have found. Maybe that much will be available. Have patience. ...

Posted Sat, Dec 10, 3:20 a.m.

Crossrip: I just pulled up Sound Transit Resolution 2008-10 and don't see any reference to Federal grants, nor do I have any memory of Board direction to ST staff to obtain "a large FTA grant for East Link." Help me out. There is an appendix you say? Here's my understanding: ...

Posted Thu, Dec 1, 7:32 p.m.

My understanding of Federal New Starts grant requirements -- where the big bucks for Sound Transit light rail come from -- leads me to believe that East Link light rail across Lake Washington between Seattle and Bellevue wouldn't qualify under the stringent Federal rules. It costs too much for the ...

Posted Thu, Aug 11, 6:24 p.m.

On the question of retrofits and repair of the viaduct, here is my perspective: It is perfectly safe to drive on until a wrecking ball or earthquake destroys it. Quoting the Viaduct protectors at WSDOT: "Is the viaduct still a safe structure on which to drive? "Routine safety inspections and ...

Posted Tue, Aug 2, 3:34 p.m.

Brewster's review is a terrific starting point to understand the whole twisted tale of our planned CBD bypass tunnel. Another bit of good reading from the 2006 historical era of "a great big dysfunctional, feuding family" is the Glen Pascall economic analysis sponsored by Seattle Downtown Association, with interesting financial ...

Posted Fri, Apr 15, 12:38 a.m.

There are cities of today that have retained seemingly complete, citywide street tram networks, for example, Melbourne Australia, map at http://bit.ly/QL1EI . A map of Seattle's tram lines from yesteryear is at http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/SeattleStreetRailwayMap1916.pdf The question now is the sensibility of rebuilding streetcar lines in Seattle compared to other transit investments. ...

Posted Fri, Apr 8, 12:57 p.m.

My comments related to transit have stimulated MadisonAve to join the comment stream here with a personal attack on my work and ideas as linked to his inaccurate theories of my motivation and associations. The online record of all his anonymous comments at http://crosscut.com/account/MadisonAve/ shows that what he writes now ...

Posted Sat, Apr 2, 12:01 p.m.

Wells, A deep bore tunnel as a replacement for the Viaduct was rejected during DOT Secretary MacDonald's period of service, which ended in the summer of 2007. The decision to build a deep bore tunnel was made by Governor Gregoire in late 2008.

Posted Sat, Apr 2, 11:53 a.m.

Thank you Dinosaur for your follow up on my comment about buses vs trains. Indeed, Sound Transit took a sliver of the money from the 2008 voter approved doubling of the agency's tax take and added two more route 510 express buses from Everett to Seattle in the morning, and ...

Posted Fri, Apr 1, 11:44 a.m.

Bus rider MacDonald is saying that for the public money invested, buses provide far more service to far more people in far more places than passenger railroads like Sounder. With public transit, money matters and equity matters. Read in Wikipedia how the Bus Riders Union (BRU)in Los Angeles took on ...

Posted Thu, Feb 3, noon

Wells -- You write about rationalizing that "the astronomical cost of driving is less expensive than investing in rail mass transit that should cost less in the long run." The cost of driving -- in tax funded public expenditures and private spending and in environmental externalities -- is accepted by ...

Posted Thu, Feb 3, 10:08 a.m.

Sjenner- The train is NOT less expensive than the bus from Seattle to Canada. Round trip commuter fare on the best of the buses, the Canadian quickcoach.com (up to a 6 day stay allowed) Seattle (curbside near Space Needle) to Vancouver, BC downtown (drop off many places) is $51. Five ...

Posted Wed, Feb 2, 7:41 p.m.

slame, Former DOT Secretary Doug MacDonald is opining in his comment above that there are higher priorities to spend tax dollars on than the twice daily Amtrak Cascades passenger train. His comment has nothing to do with whether he rides the train or not. I've been on the train from ...

Posted Mon, Jan 17, 4:30 p.m.

Here's the ugly arithmetic of transit's financial non-sustainability: for the combined five public transit systems in the Sound Transit taxing district, the ratio of expenditures to boardings has doubled from $4.30 per passenger trip in 1998 to $9.43 in 2009. This comes from the data reported by the agencies to ...

Posted Mon, Jan 17, 12:20 p.m.

Seconding the comment above by Dick Nelson, I'm thinking society will find it easier to improve the environmental impact of cars and highways than to change the human behavior and spatial characteristics that cars have spawned over the past century, now manifesting worldwide. As for public transportation, the year over ...

Posted Mon, Nov 1, 3:09 p.m.

Hooray for process! It took a while to find, but buried in the just-released deep bore tunnel EIS "APPENDIX P Earth Discipline Report" on PDF page 80 is the detail, the money shot, on one big risk during tunnel construction: "Ground loss at the tunnel face and around the tail ...

Posted Mon, Nov 1, 2:23 p.m.

Theory versus experience: New passenger trains provide seats for passengers who now go by car or airplane or bus, but the question arises, how many will board the train compared to available alternatives, and is the revealed mode shift worth the extraordinary government investment? Worth, in the case of new ...

Posted Thu, Sep 30, 9:50 p.m.

Pepper2000: On telecom and travel relationship: http://www.globaltelematics.com/mediachoice/ http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/telecom/publist.html

Posted Tue, Sep 28, 12:52 p.m.

The lawyers involved in this case were quite articulate in making their points in front of the Supreme Court on September 16. The one hour recording by TVW is linked at http://twitter.com/#!/JN_Seattle/status/24693858543 . I'm betting the Court will force Washington State DOT to declare formally with proof that the Center ...

Posted Tue, Sep 28, 12:10 p.m.

On author Berger's point about moving ideas instead of people: Ongoing research from academics continues to suggest that the Internet, cell phones, and other forms of telecommunications stimulate the physical movement of people to a greater degree than substituting for it, which was the case for dial telephones and CB ...

Posted Sat, Sep 25, 9:28 p.m.

Possibly another factor in the Canadian government decision not to subsidize the second Amtrak train to BC is the Canadian-based luxury bus company QuickCoach. It runs 5 to 8 buses per day between Seattle and Vancouver depending on the season, and puts on extra buses to meet surges in demand. ...

Posted Fri, Sep 17, 6:23 p.m.

Another technology to throw into the alternatives analysis for future urban transportation systems is the combination of privately owned, electric, battery-powered automobiles operating on public streets under automated control. This technology may simply evolve into existence whether we like it or not, beginning with luxury cars. Electric cars are now ...

Posted Fri, Jul 9, 7:31 p.m.

While waiting the arrival of high speed rail between Seattle and Vancouver, BC, I recommend http://www.quickcoach.com . Seven summer departures per day, eight on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Wi-Fi on board. Leaves from a location near the Space Needle. About $50 round trip. Faster than the twice daily Amtrak Cascades.

Posted Sat, Jun 5, 11:19 a.m.

At the Union Station meeting, the Governor declared that the cost overrun assignment made by the Legislature was merely an expression of intent. Seems to me it's time for Seattle City Council to pass a counter-expression of intent that benefits City residents.

Posted Thu, May 13, 8:48 a.m.

Those PowerPoints that MacDonald refers to are all posted at http://ow.ly/1JoB7 as well as the agenda for the meeting tonight May 13.

Posted Sat, May 8, 4:34 p.m.

Roads & Transit in 2007 failed at the polls. Sound Transit waited a year, resubmitted Prop 1 with taxes only for itself, and got all the money it wanted in the Mass Transit Now election of November 2008. The South Park Bridge, never funded, is set to close on June ...

Posted Fri, Apr 30, 9:13 a.m.

All Task Force meetings are open to the public. The next meeting is Thursday, May 13, 5:30-8:30 p.m. at Mercer Island Community Center, 8236 SW 24th Street, Mercer island.

Posted Thu, Apr 29, 9:03 p.m.

Essay on PSRC's Transportation 2040 Plan in the Kitsap Sun online, with lively discussion in the comments following: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/apr/28/my-turn-inconvenient-truths-about-transportation/

Posted Thu, Apr 29, 11:03 a.m.

MadisonAve is not an employee of Sound Transit.

Posted Thu, Apr 29, 2:04 a.m.

Per sjenner, monorail looked pretty good at one time, and then "sounded bad to lots of people once they knew the true cost and the way it would be financed." I was one of many people in Seattle who changed his mind about the Green Line monorail once the numbers ...

Posted Sat, Apr 24, 5:18 p.m.

A short version of Sound Transit's 2010 financial plan is posted at http://www.soundtransit.org/About-Us/Financial-Documents.xml about halfway down the page.

Posted Wed, Apr 21, 5:22 a.m.

Another part of the Sound Transit vision that may not be coming true is the number of people riding on its trains. The forecast seems to have melted down between 2008 and 2010. The Puget Sound Regional Council's 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan described by Jordan Royer and Knute Berger over ...

Posted Mon, Apr 19, 8:34 p.m.

Urban planners are overly optimistic in their vision for more walkable cities! But they should try to make this work. I personally like the vision, as would many others. I recommend getting the retail grocery industry involved. http://supermarketnews.com/ for example.

Posted Mon, Apr 19, 12:04 p.m.

Thanks to Jordan Royer for shining a light on the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) Transportation 2040 Plan to be approved on May 20 at a General Assembly of elected officials. The Plan is marvelously educational for those officials, like Seattle Mayor McGinn and Port Orchard Mayor Coppola, who apparently ...

Posted Mon, Apr 12, 1:23 a.m.

If Amtrak and Greyhound aren't your cup of tea for the Seattle to Vancouver, BC run, try http://www.quickcoach.com. Priced between Amtrak and Greyhound, with Wi-Fi on board, these Canadian buses are used a lot by cruise ship passengers, but have commuter pricing if you come back within 6 days. Buses ...

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 10:22 p.m.

Bellevue City Council Monday night March 8 voted 4 to 3 for a version of the Vision Line as the preliminary preferred alternative.

Posted Wed, Mar 3, 6:13 p.m.

Mhays is right that in Seattle when gas prices were high and the economy was humming, the transit loads were screaming for more buses, more often. Instead, we have one shiny light rail line built to the Airport at over $2.5 billion plus operating costs, now including ongoing wheel squeal ...

Posted Tue, Mar 2, 11:59 p.m.

Mhays, I stand corrected. Thank you for the reference to the City of Bellevue survey, which I hadn't noticed before. Based on what you have found, a case can be made that Bellevue CBD workers are trending rapidly (aboard buses!) toward a much higher transit market share than what I ...

Posted Tue, Mar 2, 4:42 p.m.

A new story in the The Seattle Times indicates crossing Mercer Slough is off the table. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011228474_bellevuelightrail02m.html But there are other ways to align the tracks to get to the Bellevue light rail station location criticized in the above piece, in which one assertion caught my attention: Hinshaw's statement, "The ...

Posted Wed, Jan 13, 11:29 p.m.

As a general point, given Seattle Central Link Light Rail's lousy performance to date (ridership and fare collection), and given the various derailment threats looming for cross-Lake East Link, Van Dyk does a public service in keeping reconsideration of what to do with Sound Transit's tax stream on the agenda. ...

Posted Fri, Jan 8, 4:50 p.m.

Madison, the upgrades to local bus service in the form of full line upgrades like Metro Rapid Ride and CT Swift, not to mention ST Regional Express, plus the use of unbundled transit elements like expanded stop spacing, bus-only lanes, and transit signal priority are not mysterious -- they are ...

Posted Fri, Jan 8, 2:50 p.m.

$2.50 for a train ride to the airport is indeed a bargain for the fare-paying passenger, considering the $2.4 billion cost to construct Airport Link and $125 thousand per day to Sound Transit for operating the two car trains and maintaining tracks and stations. But in addition to choosing new ...

Posted Mon, Sep 28, 2:52 a.m.

carls -- Some of the governments' infatuation with figuring out road use fees comes from the forecast that non-petroleum fueled cars are going to become a much bigger fraction in the mix of vehicles on the road -- cars "fueled" with batteries, hydrogen, natural gas, or compressed air. Some combination ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 12:59 a.m.

Sound Transit's ridership forecasts for this train DID assume that it would be a free ride in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, just like the buses are. So if the passenger load on Link Light Rail comes up a little lower than expected in the months and years ahead, charging ...

Posted Sun, Sep 20, 12:44 p.m.

"Hmm, did I even scan that thing when I got on?" Matt, understand that the fare checkers have an embedded, long-range radio frequency identification (RFID) microchip embedded in their right index finger that knows whether your ORCA was properly scanned at the station before you got on the train. It's ...

Posted Wed, Sep 2, 9:55 a.m.

One footnote to MacDonald's latest essay for Crosscut is that he also wrote an 11-page lawyer-speak version for the attention of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), delivered last July 31. In this letter he notes that PSRC's draft, not-yet-approved Metropolitan Transportation Plan for year 2040 with five future investment ...

Posted Fri, Aug 21, 3:11 a.m.

I'm surprised that historian author Feliks Banal doesn't know that Forward Thrust in the late 1960s proposed building a grade-separated "heavy rail" subway, like BART in San Francisco, not an on-the-street "light rail" like MAX in Portland. Picking up on the author's point, we can still imagine what Martin Luther ...

Posted Mon, Jul 27, 12:05 p.m.

The "plan" document for the "I-5/Surface/Transit Hybrid Scenario" referenced by Mike O'Brien above is a State DOT fact sheet dated December 2008 that clearly references the deep-bored bypass tunnel as an optional add-on to be explored for feasibility, NOT an alternative to what O'Brien wants. The fact sheet he points ...

Posted Wed, Jul 22, 1:58 p.m.

@lorenbliss I love a new argument -- build more urban trains to save newspapers! Sorry, you didn't write that. It's my improper extrapolation of your enthusiasm for our new train. But I see so many folks on Seattle buses reading tiny text on little screens of cell phones, iPods, iPhones, ...

Posted Tue, Jul 21, 8:25 p.m.

@Rob: There are lots of theories on the losing side of how the Mass Transit Now campaign for Prop 1 beat the NoToProp1 campaign. I don't know why with any certainty. Let the winners tell the tale. I have published a post-election take on the Yes campaign's messages at http://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/howSTwon.htm, ...

Posted Tue, Jul 21, 2:44 p.m.

The timeline for Sound Transit's accomplishments is not unreasonable for the scale of its track record measured by the staggering commitment of billions of local tax dollars, despite a localized future pin prick of mobility impact. Digression: Read the PSRC Transportation 2040 Plan at http://www.psrc.org to compare the massive dollars ...

Posted Sun, Jul 19, 12:09 p.m.

Rail mass transit in Washington DC area has hit a wall, and I'm not referring to the recent tragic collision where a train hit a train. To deploy transit quickly to meet mobility needs not being met by MetroRail, the future expansion now planned in that area is buses, buses, ...

Posted Thu, Jul 9, 2:30 p.m.

Rob K: Until I was 35 years old, I simply would not have listened to any of the arguments that colleagues and I make today about the impact of light rail on Seattle. In Washington, DC, as a younger man, I knew vaguely about people who talked like I do ...

Posted Thu, Jul 9, 1:36 p.m.

The documentary movie Van Dyk praises, "Fog of War," is a great way to learn about McNamara. He does shed a tear or two on camera about President Kennedy, and makes a startling claim about Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Posted Wed, Jul 8, 11:06 p.m.

Madison Ave, I have never been paid by a think tank or by any organization for my research on light rail hazard analysis. It's a personal cause brought on by discovering six years ago the documented details of how the light rail industry and sponsoring governments avoid responsibility for the ...

Posted Wed, Jul 8, 8:51 a.m.

Be very careful driving/walking/biking around light rail tracks. Year after year, the accidental fatality rate per passenger mile in America for light rail is up to three times greater than the fatality rate for urban driving. U.S. Government statistics reveal this inherent danger. See the new chart at http://tinyurl.com/kmac9o. This ...

Posted Sat, Jul 4, 3:36 p.m.

Chris Vance asks, "Will a few tweaks to Metro bus routes really make an appreciable dent in regional gridlock?" Answer: No. But a "few" tweaks to the Metro system are not the only alternative for County leadership. How about a lot of tweaks? Also, the appropriate measure is not the ...

Posted Sat, Jul 4, 2:34 p.m.

Update on my post above about 100,000 people on Link Light Rail Opening Weekend Day: Sound Transit reports planning for 350 people each on its "high-capacity transportation" trains 7 minutes apart. Plus a lot of waiting in line, listening to entertainment. http://www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans/Project-Updates/Link-Grand-Opening.xml

Posted Sun, Jun 28, 6:54 p.m.

Sound Transit's pre-Prop1 take of a million dollars per day in tax collections could have been used to buy more buses and build bus lanes all over the region in pinch points where buses are slowed now. Just a few of the pinch points in the I-5 corridor were documented ...

Posted Fri, Jun 26, 2:25 p.m.

Where those new train tracks go down Martin Luther King Jr Way would have made a good electric busway. That won't happen, but it shows that if you spend enough money and endure difficult negotiations, you can find space within the surface grid for bus lanes ... and bike lanes ...

Posted Fri, Jun 26, 1:48 p.m.

Mhays, I really hope you take the time to look at PSRC's computer models of 2040, and inform the agency if you think the models need modification, perhaps with a new or adjusted alternative to the five scenarios this planning agency has mapped out. 2040 is 60% of the way ...

Posted Fri, Jun 26, 11:45 a.m.

What I'm always trying to grasp is the essence of rail's essentialness as an ingredient in the urban transit mix that still always includes buses. What makes rail essential? What I've heard is: 1. Only way to get high people-moving capacity in a corridor. 2. Attracts far more riders than ...

Posted Fri, Jun 26, 9:35 a.m.

There are routes in America and the rest of the world where buses -- some very nice and some less nice -- do provide "high capacities well," and do draw discretionary riders. Los Angeles Metro is showing that with its Metro Rapid bus lines on two dozen arterials, and its ...

Posted Sun, Jun 21, 8:45 p.m.

Dick's map is online at http://www.newgeography.com/content/00857-the-geography-class-greater-seattle

Posted Tue, Jun 9, 11:21 p.m.

The HBO series "Band of Brothers" takes one right inside WW II in Europe. It was playing on cable all day on the D-Day anniversary, June 6. Gripping.

Posted Thu, May 28, 7:37 p.m.

Rob K, useful postings. Thank you. Wendell Cox does approach public policy with strong opinions, so it's useful to read other opinions. I think it's hard to approach the "sprawl" topic of this thread from a purely dispassionate point of view. When I was younger and working in DC in ...

Posted Thu, May 28, 12:13 p.m.

Reinforcing Bern Grush from Toronto, our local road pricing guru at Puget Sound Regional Council taught me that there is a world of difference between optional HOT lanes and shoulder-to-shoulder pricing of all our major thruways, the direction that PSRC -- bless their hearts -- is taking us in "Transportation ...

Posted Thu, May 28, 11:59 a.m.

As long as we are swinging at the poetic, unexpected truth in Wendell Cox's work, swing at this one, just out: "Portland: A Model for National Policy?" http://www.newgeography.com/content/00818-portland-a-model-national-policy . Quoting Cox: "Yes, Portland did increase its transit use, but failed to increase the share of travel on transit and the ...

Posted Wed, May 27, 3:22 p.m.

Terrific essay and discussion. Thanks to Crosscut and its readers for bearing down on what researcher/commentator Alan Pisarski terms the “Neighborhood View" versus the "Globally Integrated View." This is a good opportunity to point out Pisarski's new data-rich but highly readable paper "The Tipping Point" at http://www.heritage.org/Research/SmartGrowth/wp052209a.cfm . If it ...

Posted Sat, May 23, 1:48 p.m.

Think long range, big picture. Road user fees with off-peak discounting, rural area allowances, impoverished traveler allowances, and all manner of other twiddling for various legitimate interests yet to be determined are an alternative to the present system of paying for roads. Of course the money collected needs to go ...

Posted Sun, May 17, 12:25 a.m.

While waiting for more trains and faster trains, travelers can journey today from downtown Seattle to downtown Vancouver, BC on one of about 16 daily buses from three different private companies. Compared to present-day single Amtrak train, the bus trip is faster and costs less. One of the companies offers ...

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 5:54 p.m.

R: Looking at a Sound Transit map from the late 1990s of the voter-approved version of Central Link, I see that four stations were eliminated for what you call "very specific and serious reasons" -- First Hill, Graham, Boeing Access Road, and South 144th. Glowing descriptions of the purpose for ...

Posted Sun, Mar 22, 1:49 p.m.

The Crosscut piece on Seattle's trolley bus plan gone missing has opened my eyes to examples in other cities: The lost trolley bus plan of Portland, Oregon is documented at http://www.cafeunknown.com/2006/10/off-line-too-soon-portlands-electric_09.html . The lost trolley bus plan of Los Angeles is documented at http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1533&context;=ced/places . Trackless electric trolley buses apparently ...

Posted Sun, Mar 22, 11:29 a.m.

I'm not sure what Ted Van Dyk means by writing, "The relevant ballot measure also left open Sound Transit's future taxing authority, if financial shortfalls developed. It is never too late to correct a mistake. State and local officials should be looking for a way to do so." Does correcting ...

Posted Thu, Mar 19, 1:37 a.m.

Let's see, finishing the Rapid Electric Trolley Bus Network so compellingly detailed here in Crosscut, completing all the missing lines on the map above, lots of geographic coverage, costs $142 million. So how many feet of light rail subway (including station costs) do we get for $142 million, serving a ...

Posted Sat, Mar 14, 4:27 p.m.

Update, March 14, 2009: Prop 1 passed overwhelmingly last November, and the regional sales tax jumps up a half cent on April 1, doubling Sound Transit's daily take of revenue. In these economic hard times, the agency CEO is quoted in a cover story of the March 2009 Progressive Railroading ...

Posted Sat, Mar 14, 4:01 p.m.

For a comprehensive overview of trackless trolleybuses present and past, go to the Electric Trolleybus Homepage by Richard C. DeArmond at http://www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/morph/index.htm . This web page links to 40 other sites worldwide that explore this technology further. There are pictures of the brand new trolleybus coaches -- regular length and ...

Posted Tue, Feb 3, 7:20 p.m.

MadisonAve: The graphics for the informal briefing I heard on the Washington DC area plans for bus improvement are at http://www.gobrt.org/WMATA_PriorityBusCorridors_Jan12_2009.pdf . A sketch plan of improved bus services inside the District of Columbia limits is the D.C. Govt brochure at http://ddot.washingtondc.gov/ddot/lib/ddot/masstransit/dcaa/execsumm_2008-03-11.pdf All the official planning documents of the main ...

Posted Mon, Feb 2, 7:23 p.m.

mhays: Expanding capacity on Sound Transit's Link light rail by adding trains --thus reducing the time between trains -- is going to be blocked from happening by built-in bottlenecks along the line that slow down the trains: the 90 degree bend in the downtown Seattle tunnel, the 18 signalized intersections ...

Posted Mon, Feb 2, 12:19 p.m.

At some point in the future -- well before the end of the coming decade of tunnel and floating tracks construction -- the Seattle-centric light rail spine on which so much popular hope rides will reveal itself as not having enough capacity and ridership where and when needed to provide ...

Posted Wed, Jan 7, 8:44 p.m.

Podcar advocates keep on pushing to build Podcar cities. Seems to be a worldwide movement. See http://www.podcar.org/ithacaconference/index.htm . Why not wish them well? In the meantime, Sound Transit has won the hearts and minds of Puget Sound regional voters, who doubled the agency's tax take permanently last November 4. Within ...

Posted Wed, Dec 31, 1:39 p.m.

Data point from an interesting and detailed, statistics-based ranking of urban areas by a smart growth advocate using Census surveys and other data that I recently stumbled upon: QUOTE The cities with highest overall ranking in “Major US Cities Preparedness for an Oil Crisis” are as follows: 1. San Francisco ...

Posted Wed, Dec 31, 1:09 p.m.

Fifty miles of light rail (including a subway to Northgate) is now a regional public commitment, and to many citizens (most of whom are not regular transit riders) it may be a beautiful thing no matter what it accomplishes. However, the permanent two million dollars per day in Sound Transit ...

Posted Wed, Dec 24, 5:03 p.m.

The Boston Globe story I quoted from in the previous comment is at http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/11/16/big_dig_pushes_bottlenecks_outward/ .

Posted Wed, Dec 24, 4:58 p.m.

Let's look at what we can learn from the real "Big Dig," that is, the original highway tunneling project through downtown Boston, replacing an elevated highway called The Central Artery. Billions were spent, more billions than expected, but does traffic in Boston flow better now that the decades long mega-project ...

Posted Thu, Dec 18, 9:45 a.m.

To Knute Berger, and Aubrey Davis: Sorry about the misattribution in my comment above of Dec. 17, 11:36 am. Knute's computer-generated "signature" at the bottom of the comment he entered Dec. 16, 7:51 pm, fooled me into imagining that I was looking at paraphrasing, and that the voice had changed ...

Posted Wed, Dec 17, 11:36 a.m.

Knute Berger claims in a comment above that Sound Transit's "2000 budget is still being met." This is wrong on several levels, especially if the focus is on the Seattle light rail program, Sound Transit's centerpiece. The Central Link Light Rail future construction budget through 2009 as certified by Sound ...

Posted Fri, Oct 24, 6:52 p.m.

Prop 1 compared to what? You want to know what? Compared to the program described in the Sound Transit no-new-taxes 2009 budget posted (buried, obscurely) on the web at http://www.soundtransit.org/x1230.xml . See if you can spot it. Ironically, Sound Transit held a public hearing on this budget in Union Station ...

Posted Thu, Oct 23, 8:23 p.m.

Jon Talton: "There is no big money, pro-transit lobby in this country." OK, but in Seattle, Sound Transit's vendors and employees have opened their wallets a bit to get Prop 1 passed. You may recognize some Sound Transit contractors on the top end of the contributor list for Prop 1 ...

Posted Tue, Oct 21, 5:06 p.m.

Killing Prop 1 likely kills light rail? Where do you get that idea? Sound Transit has issued a no-new-taxes budget for 2009 that waxes eloquently about light rail from the Airport to Husky Stadium. I was sitting beside Mayor Nickels last week when he confirmed to the P-I editorial board ...

Posted Tue, Oct 21, 4:52 p.m.

Thanks to Sound Transit and the 1996 tax approval, the Seattle region is now beyond mono-modalism. Light rail is fully funded and close to opening from downtown Seattle to the Airport. (Based on Federal status monitoring reports and risk assessments of "HIGH" in the 2009 Sound Transit no-new-taxes-budget posted on ...

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 11:05 p.m.

RE: The Opportunity Cost of Sound Transit 2: Since Prop 1 passage would pull an extra million dollars per day in taxes out of the regional economy, growing year by year, and since the light rail expansion funded won't open for business for over a decade, I expect food, clothing, ...

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 10:33 p.m.

Expert Review Panel has one more meeting before the Prop 1 election: The one remaining meeting of the Sound Transit Expert Review Panel before the election might take a look at the dramatically changing economic climate and force ST to make its financial planning more realistic. That would be a ...

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 10:24 p.m.

Sound Transit publishes no-new-taxes budget: If Prop 1 goes down to defeat, it's not like Sound Transit goes out of business, or that light rail will stop being built. The agency has recently published a 2009 no-new-taxes budget! It's posted on the Financial Documents page. Click on 2009 Proposed Budget" ...

Posted Mon, Sep 29, 7:12 a.m.

Prop 1 lets traffic congestion increase: Transit Fact of the Day #1 Sound Transit's plan does not reduce congestion - In fact congestion gets much worse. According to Sound Transit's long range plan,and studies by the Puget Sound Regional Council, daily delay on the freeway will more than double under ...

Posted Sat, Sep 6, 5:29 p.m.

Three bus lines from Seattle to Vancouver, BC: There are three different inter-city bus companies serving the Seattle to Vancouver, BC corridor: Greyhound, Cantrail, and Quick Shuttle. I've tried them all. My favorite is Quick Shuttle, since it has Wi-Fi Internet aboard many runs and I can read Crosscut while ...

Posted Sat, Sep 6, 4:53 p.m.

RE: Can't we all just get along?: David Brewster and Crosscut are most certainly not anti-Sound Transit. Note Brewster's echo of a pro-Prop 1 campaign theme in the subtitle above about the "weight of 40 years of paralysis about transit planning," then starting off by quoting a leading supporter of ...

Posted Sun, Aug 31, 2:47 p.m.

RE: Nobody Ranks Higher than ST: MadisonAve notes, "recent research showing infrastructure projects - especially transit infrastructure - dramatically helps (not hurts) local economies." Comment -- research also shows that how well the transit infrastructure actually performs, and what it costs, determines how much it helps or hurts the local ...

Posted Sun, Aug 31, 12:05 p.m.

RE: ??????: Digg, You and others who read the law closely make the point that there are limits on Sound Transit's spending authority and/or borrowing authority, and I wish you all well in making the point stick, in court or otherwise. As you point out, Sound Transit's unseemly haste in ...

Posted Sat, Aug 30, 9:21 p.m.

Boondoggle or Not? Here's what Sound Transit says is coming from Prop 1: As implied by David Brewster, what's a boondoggle is partly a function of what you get from what you pay. With Sound Transit, we are seeing what we are paying more clearly than what we are getting ...

Posted Mon, Aug 11, 8:02 p.m.

RE: The tax hike is permanent: The words quoted by KerryG about "rollback" were issued in 1996 to apply to the Sound Move taxes we are paying now. The failure of Prop 1 in November 2007 represented "absence of voter approval of any plan to expand the system," yet there ...

Posted Mon, Aug 11, 6:08 p.m.

$6.85 toll is a straw man: Clark Fredrickson writes: "Ready to pay $6.85 round-trip to drive across the 520 bridge? Me neither. That's the proposed toll that would raise money to help pay for improvements to the floating fossil." No, wrong, there is no government proposal to institute $6.85 or ...

Posted Mon, Aug 11, 2:30 p.m.

The tax hike is permanent, not 15 years: Prop 1 may be a 15 year construction program this time, but it's a permanent tax hike. There is no sunset on either part of the Sound Transit sales tax -- no end to the 1996 part, and no end to the ...

Posted Sat, Aug 9, 2:56 p.m.

interaction of transit fares with Sound Transit Prop 1 revenue increase: The relationship between bus transit fares and Sound Transit's current Proposition 1 to double its revenues with a 1/2 cent sales tax hike should be explored. Sound Transit now collects one million dollars per day in regional taxes, and ...

Posted Sun, Aug 3, 11:30 p.m.

It's the communications system, not the trains and tracks, that are behind.: The indication that Link light rail in Seattle might not open on schedule is arriving monthly to insiders in Seattle and Washington, DC in what are called "Project Management Oversight" reports from the independent engineering firm STV, Inc. ...

Posted Sat, Jul 26, 6:54 p.m.

What SecDOT Paula Hammond thinks: What Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond said on KIRO radio about buses and/or passenger railroad trains on the I-90 floating bridge corridor is available for hearing via your computer or other mp3 player by downloading this mp3 file. (A recording of Barack Obama's speech in ...

Posted Fri, Jul 25, 6:03 p.m.

No sunset on 1/2 cent transit sales tax hike, and light rail test ride already funded: Brewster writes, "ST2 [1.1 MB PDF] definitely responds to many of the political criticisms that sank Proposition 1 ... It says the taxes should be rolled back in 2038, when the phase has been ...

Posted Tue, Jul 22, 11:54 p.m.

RE: Van Dyk's Sound Transit performance claims are valid: BNSF personnel operate the Sounder, with ST paying BNSF. BNSF owns the tracks, and ST buys rights to use them. ST owns the Sounder rail cars. ST pays Amtrak to maintain the cars. As stated on the Sound Transit web, "How ...

Posted Mon, Jul 21, 7:54 p.m.

Van Dyk's Sound Transit performance claims are valid: Van Dyk makes claims about the high cost and poor performance of Sound Transit's railroads that are frequently poo-poohed as old news, invalid complaining, maybe even whining. I don't agree. He's still right, and his assertions are current! Van Dyk Claim: "Sounder ...

Posted Thu, Jul 17, 1:33 p.m.

RE: Assumptions: What a fine, informative, up-to-the-minute summary of what's going on with Sound Transit from David Brewster! And the discussion in the reader comments following Crosscut's market-leading coverage from other civic opinion leaders like Doug MacDonald, Ted Van Dyk, and Ben Schiendelman of our region's transit dreams is generally ...

Posted Wed, Jul 16, 2:50 p.m.

RE: Theory and "Studies" vs Results: Ross Kane asks, "Have you ever actually used MBTA trains? The "A" Train? The METRO in D C ? The Paris METRO? BART? Or better yet, light rail in Portland? The SKY TRAIN in BC ?" Yes, yes, and yes. Like Ross, I've ridden ...

Posted Wed, Jul 16, 2:02 p.m.

BRT plans: Given the constraint that too much of overall regional transit funding is going to Sound Transit for its urban railroad network planning and construction, I've been satisfied for some time that that the ongoing bus improvement planning efforts of King County Metro, Community Transit, Everett Transit, and Pierce ...

Posted Tue, Jul 15, 2:13 p.m.

RE: Urban myths abound: Ben is quite right that face-to-face interaction is important to economic and social health. I'm famililar with some of the literature on this point, and I respect Ben's observations on this topic even though we have never interacted face to face. However, Central Puget Sound region ...

Posted Tue, Jul 15, 1:37 p.m.

Manhattanization: Ben Schiendelman's review of history reminds me that the word "Manhattanization" was used in the campaign against the King County Forward Thrust subway plan of 1968. Some people don't want Seattle to densify to the levels found in Manhattan and Hong Kong, densities that would justify subway lines, costing ...

Posted Sun, Jul 13, 6:24 p.m.

buses rock: This responds to comments aimed at me from "R on Beacon Hill" (Roger Pence, a Sound Transit community relations professional), and "transit guy," who is Rich Borkowski, co-founder along with Roger of the rail-advocacy association People for Modern Transit. My summary response to these articulate advocates, and to ...

Posted Sun, Jul 13, 1:35 p.m.

Automated stop announcements a good idea: C.R. Douglas' observations on the effectiveness and appeal of automated location announcements on buses is spot on. The buses in both Austin and Houston Texas have this kind of information system installed, as do some of the buses in Vancouver, BC. If there isn't ...

Posted Tue, Jul 8, 8 p.m.

a dozen ways to make bus travel faster: The comments before this one have a single minded focus on just one of the dozen ways to make door-to-door travel using the bus faster ... exclusive bus lanes, preferably that a non-bus vehicle cannot enter under any circumstances. This is the ...

Posted Mon, Jul 7, 2:20 p.m.

disrespectful capitalization: Capitalizing "fluoridation" is disrespectful to Fluor Corporation, Fluor Filigran, and other people and things named Fluor that have nothing to do with fluoridation. At least that's my theory. What's your theory?

Posted Mon, Jun 30, 8:21 p.m.

Response to "new right of way is necessary": Coming from a transit scholar and activist like Bill LaBorde, his reaction to MacDonald's pointed analysis is exceedingly, breathtakingly wrong. To illustrate, Bill writes just above in the comments, "For [commuters to have the real choices they need], new right-of-way is necessary. ...

Posted Sat, Jun 28, 1:06 p.m.

Tens of thousands of more buses -NO. Instead: just a few hundred more moving well!: An anonymous comment above is "John Niles and Doug MacDonald both know it's both unsustainable and ineffective to dump tens of thousands of buses on already clogged streets and arterials, trying to make buses act ...

Posted Wed, Jun 25, 10 p.m.

making a judgment on railroad limitations, not ignoring how smooth and spacious it is: Richard-the-transit-guy notes that trains are "more reliable, smoother, more spacious, and just a better overall experience." Let me grant these characteristics for a moment, despite the fact that some trains compared to some buses don't win ...

Posted Sun, Jun 22, 11:01 p.m.

buses rock: Both part 1 and part 2 are a fun read. Thanks! America needs more intercity bus service, including big buses providing service like Greyhound once did, ones that "flag" stop at the smaller places along the way between the bigger cities. Here's hope: Click on The Return of ...

Posted Sun, Jun 22, 12:14 p.m.

"2 million tires per year, finely ground, flushed into the bottom of the Sound": What an image: "2 million tires per year, finely ground, flushed into the bottom of the Sound!" So every motor vehicle is a mobile point-source of pollution. Paying for the solution should come from a tax ...

Posted Fri, Jun 20, 8:33 p.m.

road tolling doesn't require tracking: Knute, you write it frequently, so you must believe it, but it ain't so. Above you wrote, casually, illustrating a larger point, "The Puget Sound region is contemplating widespread road tolling that would allow drivers to be tracked." Road tolling, even widespread, does not intrinsically ...

Posted Mon, Jun 16, 12:44 p.m.

Fact of the Day: 95% of homes in King County have easy transit access: While nationwide "no more than 20% of households have easy access to buses or trains," the access to transit is much better in the urbanized areas around Puget Sound. For example, King County Metro published a ...

Posted Tue, May 27, 11:12 a.m.

RE: right of way and budget constraints: In connection with my own research, I've found several transit ridership causation/motivation research projects that have found the speed of the bus/transit once it gets going is NOT the most important factor in the attraction to transit for so-called choice riders who could ...

Posted Tue, May 27, 10:58 a.m.

RE: ULI Report $800 per person per year for Seattle includes a lot of light rail: Indeed, I've read the ULI report and the Hartgen report behind the ULI report table on page 35, and the PSRC report from which Hartgen got his numbers for Seattle. The $800 per person ...

Posted Mon, May 26, 12:19 a.m.

performance reporting by a government agency: Former Secretary of Transportation MacDonald knows plenty about government agency performance reporting. His legacy of performance reporting established during his years running WSDOT is on display in the WSDOT web here. He called his quarterly reports the Gray Notebook. He brought comprehensive public reporting ...

Posted Sun, May 25, 1:37 p.m.

reducing traffic congestion, continued from above: The intent of Link is to create a trunk-spine-service into which buses will feed from both sides of the spine and beyond the end of the spine. With Link light rail limited to four-car trains by design, 800 people per train, we already have ...

Posted Sun, May 25, 1:20 p.m.

reducing traffic congestion: "Carless" is generally right that "if reducing traffic congestion is the goal, the only effective response is to change the pricing method for roads from time waiting in line to money." That's a theoretically sound generalization for high growth corridors, and especially growing corridors with limited capacity, ...

Posted Wed, May 21, 10:36 a.m.

Our revolution's history -- key book: I wish D. Parvaz well in her studies. I hope she has time on the banks of the Charles River to read a key book on the USA's founding revolution that has captured my current attention, The Unknown American Revolution by Gary B. Nash, ...

Posted Sat, May 3, 6:02 p.m.

RE: yes, Link Light Rail is low capacity: Transit guy: For some years now, after having read lots of internal ST documents, I've been holding and sticking with the conclusion that the first Link light rail trains as planned by ST could run quite full. The passenger load in the ...

Posted Wed, Apr 30, 10:42 a.m.

yes, Link Light Rail is low capacity: Roger, when I say the Link light rail Seattle subway is low capacity, I mean in relationship to the $500 million per mile price tag of the northward tunnel extension, and in relationship to the pretensions of Sound Transit and others who think ...

Posted Tue, Apr 29, 1:16 a.m.

RE: Article forgot to mention the Capitol Hill Station: Richard Borkowski made a nice catch on Van Dyk's error! If Van Dyk had written "terminus" instead of "station" in his reference to the Husky Stadium, his comment on disruptions and being well-served by transit already would have been totally correct. ...

Posted Mon, Apr 28, 2:16 p.m.

RE: Questions for J S Niles: Mr. Coles: Summary of a long response to your questions: Sound Transit's board indeed has the discretion to scale back projects to stay within the voter-approved spending limits, but ST shows no signs of exercising that discretion. ST shows many signs that it will ...

Posted Sun, Apr 27, 5:59 p.m.

RE: Seriously Van Dyk?: Josh, when you make that claim about rail capacity and 10 freeway lanes, say "12 freeway lanes," not 10. It's called the "12 freeway lanes myth." Sound Transit used to make this argument, but not lately. It's been discredited in recent years. The myth is based ...

Posted Sun, Apr 27, 1:39 p.m.

RE: Does transit journalism really have to be this bad?: Yes, indeed, Prop1 had huge provisions for roads, specifically, 93 miles of bi-directional highway, compared to only 50 miles of bi-directional light rail track. However, the spending and taxes were heavily tilted toward Sound Transit. The $47 billion cost acknowledged ...

Posted Fri, Apr 25, 3:54 p.m.

RE: AND THIS IS BETTER THAN A GAS TAX BECAUSE...: ... because the gains reported in the new PSRC study -- based on computer modeling to see how the real-world results from 275 households would apply if road user fees were universally applied -- are staggeringly large. At the same ...

Posted Fri, Apr 25, 3:15 p.m.

New evidence of need for transportation governance reform: If the submission to voters of Proposition 1 (slaughtered in the fall election 56 to 44 after five years of serious bureaucratic work including focus groups and poll after poll) wasn't evidence enough that we need some kind of transportation governance reform ...

Posted Fri, Apr 25, 12:11 p.m.

Big brother tracking systems - nyet: As the 34 page Traffic Choices summary report from Matthew Kitchen of PSRC points out (posted here), vehicle location determined by GPS does not need to leave the vehicle. In semi-technical terms, the tolled-all-the-time car of the future could have a "thick client" that ...

Posted Thu, Apr 17, 1:10 p.m.

For the record: Now that the regional transportation tax increase of Prop 1 has been defeated (Nov 6, 2007; NO=56%), electronically-enabled road pricing, fine-tuned to offer lower fees outside of rush hours to motivate off-peak trip-making, is more inevitable than ever in Western Washington. The on-going collapse of the revenue ...

Posted Thu, Apr 17, 12:57 p.m.

Political champions: Big, politically difficult ideas require champions. Taking down the Viaduct: Greg Nickels, Christine Gregoire, and Dino Rossi, among others. Pricing/tolling roads to manage congestion: Mary Peters (President Bush's Secretary of DOT) and Paula Hammond (Governor Gegoire's Secretary of DOT), among others.

Posted Tue, Apr 15, 12:26 a.m.

Tracking is not required: There are ways to do electronic road user fees (tolling) without tracking drivers and cars. Think about it. It's a matter of what information goes to the billing agency at the time of the tolling transaction. Don't assume a giant central computer base that knows all ...

Posted Mon, Apr 14, 11:06 a.m.

SR 520 likely to be tolled curb to curb, not with HOT lanes: Contrary to what the article says, all available information from WSDOT and the Legislature indicates that SR 520 across Lake Washington will be tolled not with optional HOT lanes, but with tolls applied all the time to ...

Posted Mon, Apr 14, 10:36 a.m.

RE: Hot Lane not so hot!: Arties4453 description above is not how it will go, assuming all systems work as planned ... and this is a pilot program after all. Fine tuning is likely to be needed, although the basic principles and technology work in other places. The forthcoming SR ...

Posted Sun, Apr 13, 10:36 a.m.

RE: Privacy: Electronic tolling systems can be designed to protect privacy. We all just need to insist. In particular, systems based on GPS boxes in the private vehicle can be part of a tolling process that does not send locational information outside of the car. Billing agencies should only be ...

Posted Wed, Mar 19, 12:32 p.m.

Tolling has advanced with new laws passed by legislature: See this summary.

Posted Wed, Mar 19, 12:22 p.m.

cost of light rail across I-90 to Eastside: VanDyk writes that light rail on I-90 is expensive. How expensive? 11.4 mile Int'l Dist to Overlake Hospital is priced in 2006 dollars at $1.5 to $2.2 billion depending on aerial or underground for the Eastside land segments, not including vehicles and ...

Posted Tue, Mar 4, 10:04 p.m.

RE: Sound Transit survey is improved, but ...: Mr. Tiptoe, when it comes to transit, I'm a bus lover and a van lover. Transit buses and van pools already accomplish more for Seattle than light rail accomplishes for Portland, San Jose, Denver, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, and Denver. Knowing ahead ...

Posted Tue, Mar 4, 1:42 p.m.

Sound Transit survey is improved, but ...: EMC has now improved the survey taking experience, to be sure. However, one ongoing irritation to long-standing critics of Sound Transit's billions and billions in spending for so little transit ridership is this: an option promised in the 1996 election establishing the agency ...

Posted Tue, Mar 4, 2:01 a.m.

RE: a sad band of ST haters plays the media again: The anonymous tiptoeing tommy misportrays me. I haven't driven a car into the Seattle downtown since last June. My most frequent mode of travel recently is on public buses. Along with others, based on the evidence, I prefer buses ...

Posted Mon, Feb 25, 10:53 a.m.

Sound Transit research methods: The setup for the Sound Transit survey questionnaire doesn't discuss the qualifications of respondents, which raises questions about Sound Transit's methodology and intent. There is a nationwide network of urban rail fans cheering for Sound Transit to build its subway (see www.lightrailnow.org for example), and a ...

Posted Sun, Feb 10, 7:24 p.m.

face-to-face proximity is different: There is a growing body of worldwide research that explains why the proximity of face-to-face interaction is better, or at least different, in its effect on personal and organizational performance, than interacting through the electronic communication of telecommuting. I gave a talk at Transportation Research Board ...

Posted Fri, Feb 1, 4:31 p.m.

Internal roadblocks previously seen: I go to the San Juans very infrequently, but I do distinctly remember a Border Patrol screening in 1988 at the Anacortes landing meeting a ferry from Orcas. Could that have been a boat that started out in BC? If so, the bad guys, if any, ...

Posted Mon, Jan 21, 11 p.m.

Polling validates tolling as acceptable to the public: Let me supplement Knute's comment, "The tolling debate is moving to the front burner and no one is sure where the public stands." Three recent post-Prop 1 opinion polls by varied parties suggest tolling is acceptable to the public, compared to the ...

Posted Sun, Dec 30, 2:30 p.m.

Prop 1 rejected density, lots of urban RR lines, and some roads: Berger: "You find a stark example of this in the agenda of the more-roads lobbyists who still believe that bigger and more highways will lift us out of congestion. A good sign: voters rejected that foolishness as embodied ...

Posted Sun, Dec 30, 1:55 p.m.

RE: Interesting, relevant article: While I agree that Pugh O'Mara's essay is relevant and interesting, I also find the post-modern urban planning ideas in the essays of Berger, Morrill, and van Dyk interesting as well, in addition to them being grounded in keen observations, research-based analysis, and an understanding of ...

Posted Sun, Dec 23, 6:14 p.m.

RE: Why is this about Sound Transit?: Dear Rep. Eddy, Thank you for your comment and for your service in Olympia. Governance reform is about more than Sound Transit, but what to do about this agency is central to reform efforts, because of this agency's prodigious appetite for regional resources ...

Posted Fri, Dec 21, 8:58 p.m.

rearranging the org chart boxes is not enough: Digg Newsvine write: "Mullin, Vaska and Gorton are all ultra-pro Sound Transit. Reid Shockey was nothing but a go-along to get-along type on the ST Citizen's Oversight Committee. Now they want to take power from ST? Doubtful. ST'll be just fine, whatever ...

Posted Wed, Dec 19, 12:19 p.m.

Cascadia Center and I-605: Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute has never advocated building the I-605 outer beltway. The Center participated in a WSDOT funded study some years ago of a railroad, pipeline, and trail corridor to the east of I-405 and the urbanized area to which others, not Cascadia Center, ...

Posted Wed, Dec 19, 12:23 a.m.

RE: Husky Stadium light rail line: On the contrary, Mr. VanDyk is arguably correct in writing that the November 6th rejection of Prop 1 leaves Sound Transit with insufficient cash to build the Seattle subway light rail tunnel to Husky Stadium. Sound Transit claims everything is OK, but I've seen ...

Posted Fri, Oct 26, 1:42 a.m.

Fund "maximum rail" before "starter rail" is operating?: Some of the details of this Prop 1 deal turn me off. There are 13 pages of details in Prop 1 as printed in the County Voters Pamphlet. Check out this gem from the Sound Transit portion of the details of Prop ...

Posted Mon, Oct 1, 3:10 p.m.

terrific Steve ...: ROFL. I was wondering why I was so happy... you are what you eat.

Posted Sat, Sep 29, 3:52 p.m.

Prop 1 lets traffic delay in 2030 become 79% greater than today: "The Myth of Gridlock" is a very insightful essay. The big picture Berger paints is worth pondering. Keep clam. Here's a detail that's important: Mossback writes, "If the [Prop 1] measures pass, RTID estimates that traffic speed will ...

Posted Mon, Sep 10, 11:27 p.m.

dedicated bus lanes: Many hundreds of miles of semi-dedicated, partially-dedicated, or sometimes-dedicated bus lanes provide better geographic coverage and more service than a few dozen miles of light passenger rail. For each billion dollars you want to spend on public transit, there is a choice -- a few miles of ...

Posted Mon, Sep 10, 11:10 a.m.

depends what you mean by "basic": There is nothing "basic" about a six-mile light rail subway tunnel at $500 million per mile. There is nothing "basic" about running passenger trains on the I-90 floating bridge with 5 miles of empty right-of-way between each train. There is nothing "basic" about running ...

Posted Sun, Aug 19, 1:48 p.m.

"Fat City" academic paper cited by DN is compelling: I find compelling the 2006 academic paper "Fat City" authored by an international research team of credentialed people and cited by DN. The paper offers quantitative, empirical data that counters the thesis that sprawl causes obesity. Here is the money quote ...

Posted Sun, Aug 12, 2:53 p.m.

Rail is NOT the only solution -- it's a non-solution; totally symbolic of ... what?: Sean writes: "Rail is the only solution that provides a fast, reliable way of traveling the city's corridors at any hour of the day. It is the only solution that reduces commuting times, at least ...

Posted Thu, Aug 9, 5:20 p.m.

Ballston Corridor shaped also by parking prices and I-66: While the dense Ballston-Rosslyn urban corridor in Northern Virginia served by the Metrorail subway has been shaped partially by the existence of that train service, it has also been partially shaped by easy access to Interstate 66. A recent case study ...

Posted Thu, Aug 9, 4:35 p.m.

RE: Rollback of ST Taxes: Commentor Digg Newsvine has read the same legal documents that I have, and while he accurately describes what Sound Transit should do, I don't expect ST to act the way he describes if Roads & Transit fails to pass. If RAT fails, I don't expect ...

Posted Fri, Aug 3, 9:37 a.m.

Even with trains, buses rule: Mr. Echols asserts, "Sound Transit's ... system will see 350,000 daily rides, more than King County Metro's bus service currently provides." As technical director for CETA, Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, let me comment: Trusting Sound Transit's ridership claims of 350,000 per day 20 years ...

Posted Thu, Aug 2, 4:22 p.m.

Roads & Transit taxes: Roads & Transit taxes in actual dollars that will be collected, taking into account inflation and growth, using Sound Transit and RTID's growth factors are as follows for the first 20 years: Continuation of Sound Move taxes, $11.4 billion (In 1996, the campaign said we would ...

Posted Sun, Jul 15, 6:19 p.m.

Seattle's Tacoma-type trolley is coming soon: Casey notes, "As a Seattle resident, I'm going to put aside my envy. Tacoma already has a working light rail line." Envy can be assuaged by looking at those new tracks down Westlake in Seattle. The South Lake Union Trolley is the functional equivalent ...

Posted Thu, Jul 5, 4:14 p.m.

The numbers are difficult, but worth trying to find the formula: Mr. Echols has written a fine essay, exactly capturing the key consideration: "finding the right combination of public and private money to float a useful and economical service." With a $38 billion, 20-year transportation package coming up for a ...

Posted Sat, Apr 28, 12:33 p.m.

Soul of Seattle: Spot on about Seattle Center: "It's unique and it's ours and it can still work." The Center needs continuous upkeep and incremental improvement, but lets not get carried away with the "imagineering," to recall a past dead end.

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 3:50 p.m.

Government planners at work: The discussion on sprawl and density needs to be informed by the earnest activity of the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), made up of elected officials from King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap Counties, supported by a central staff of professionals working in a downtown Seattle office ...