I keep thinking that I'm almost passed the final crisis when another crisis hits. After getting looped into an email thread with four corporate VPs yesterday that kept me working until 9:30 at night, I've come to the realization that the crises aren't likely to end in the next three months, and [...]
The problem with single-author blogs is that, when something big changes in that author's life, the blog goes silent.
I recently took a new position with Microsoft, and in addition to more frequent travel than in the past two years, I'm the project manager and finance guy for a virtual team [...]
From David Brewster, Editor of the anti-Sound Transit sit Crosscut:
[Light rail] skeptics such as former Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald normally propose a better way to spend all those rail dollars, namely on buses, vanpools, and bus rapid transit. They make a compelling case, at least on paper.
The problem is, [...]
There's an on-running meme in the anti-rail world of accusing Sound Transit of corrupt practices, and this has surfaced creatively in a story in the PI where "free-market think tank" Washington Policy Center (WPC) suggests that Sound Transit is making contributions to to groups like the Transportation Choices Coalition [...]
I'm in Houston for another trade show, and while I've got this whole northeast-liberal Texas-is-bad prejudice (I think it started with good-natured ribbing of my college roommate, who claimed to be Texan, but was born in San Diego and grew up just about everywhere in the US but Texas) I'm [...]
Tim Eyman's website claims his group successfully paid for the collection of 290,000 signatures for I-985. That should be enough to get I-985 on the ballot this November.
The wording on Eyman's website is a little odd--I mean, it's not July 3rd yet...
Thanks to your months of hard work, persistence,' [...]
As of today.
Yeah, if you have a hands free set, it's still legal, no matter how dangerous. And it's only a secondary offense. But it's a start.
[...]Or at least, re-read the third part.
When I stumbled upon former State Transportation Secretary and Sound Transit Board Member Doug MacDonald's anti-light rail series on Crosscut last week, what struck me more than anything was how toxic the comment thread was. A few choice quotes:
Did Dougie ride the bus? Did [...]
This post could also be called "Why retail politics, gorgeous weather, and motorcycle gear are a bad mix."
Rob Johnson at the Transportation Choices Coalition had an idea last week: that transit bloggers and transit activists and other transit-y folks go knock on doors around the homes of Sound Transit Board [...]
Last week, I signed up for a breakfast hosted by the Washington Policy Center (WPC) featuring Dr. Ronald Utt of the Heritage Foundation, who was talking about what cities around the country are doing to reduce traffic congestion.
I was feeling a little like an interloper in enemy territory--I hadn't [...]
I've been waiting for this article since a member of the mediation committee showed me some partial diagrams of the main 520 plans a few months ago. The PI article goes into detail on the plans, but the key issues seem to be the tunnels vs. the salmon. Apparently, [...]
It's Dump the Pump day, where the transit agencies and local governments encourage you to get to work via something other than your car.
Like Bike to Work Day in California (when scarce bicycle space on Caltrain utterly disappeared with all the fair-weather warriors trying to cram onto the bike car), I [...]
According to Austin Jenkins, this short story in the Seattle Times that ranked Seattle 9th in terms of congestion nationwide, with the 520 Bridge as the worst chokepoint was conducted by (and thus paid for) by a company who's CEO has already made a $2,800 contribution to Rossi's [...]
In a Seattle Times Op-Ed today, Montlake community activists Jonathan Dubman and Rob Wilkinson call on Sound Transit to make a greater investment in transportation connections at Montlake. Sound Transit, they argue, should not to miss the opportunity to link Link and a new 520.
The asks, I believe, are:
Erica Barnett SLOGs that Tim Eyman' has 225,000 signatures for his I-985 transportation ballot initiative, a mere 10% shy of the 250,000 needed to get on the ballot, and 50,000 shy of his target of 275,000 signatures.
I-985, if you recall, will take the following wonderful actions
According to the Seattle Times, the three Snohomish County members of the Sound Transit Board--who were skeptical, and possibly in opposition to, a light rail plan going to the ballot this fall--are warming to the idea, considering the continuing rise in gas prices and a modification of the plan [...]
Goldy @ HASeattle is asking bloggers and such to help Gov. Gregoire get out the message that Republicans--namely Dino Rossi--don't take climate change seriously by pointing to a post she (her staff) posted on DailyKos. I love HASeattle... 90% of the time at least... and I have contributed some money [...]
I'm still fascinated by all the astonishing things going on in the world as a result of our over investment in infrastructure based on the assumption that gas prices would never rise.
My blogging has been rather pathetic since getting back from Stockholm. I blame Orlando.
First, going from Stockholm's orgy of non-car-centric transportation Mecca to Orlando's gas-addicted suburban wasteland was profoundly depressing (it wasn't sprawl. It was a wasteland that was actually on fire when I arrived around midnight on the [...]
Like many other mass transportation buffs and environmental activists, I am really excited by the recent run-up in oil prices. But the run-up can't continue endlessly: Demand, at some point will drop in response to prices, which is already happening in the US, Europe and other places.
So write Gov. Gregoire, KC Exec Sims and Mayor Nickels in a joint opinion piece about the Alaskan Way Viaduct published in the Seattle Times, not necessarily about the 1905s decision to build the Viaduct, but about making a decision to replace the Viaduct based on the traffic models [...]
I want to go to bed, but the bar below my hotel room is LOUD. Currently, the DJ has "Flashlight" by Parliament-Funkadelic pumping away. I like the song, but it's eight minutes long. And I'm tired.
I will likely go downstairs and work on my blind SQL injection demo in the [...]
Every four or five weeks, I search for "PRT" or "personal rapid transit"Â on OrphanRoad. I'm looking for this video that Frank posted back in February about ULTra, "a new concept in travel for the 21st Century." I do it because I'm sort of obsessed with the video. I can [...]
I think every rail mass transit crazy goes gah-gah over Europe's choo-choos. I am currently going gah-gah over Stockholm's rail.
I'm in Stockholm for the first time in my life, and the airport to city-center connection is so beautiful and simple. Get on a train at [...]
UPDATE: read the three great comments below from Frank, Matt & Orin. They point out some mighty big holes in my idea.
Almost a year ago, I was interviewed by a fellow putting together a documentary on the Alaskan Way Viaduct, and as we were wrapping up, an idea popped into [...]
Strolling onto the 7:30 am Cascades to Portland, Katie and I were greeted by new, brown leather seats in business class with easier to use tray tables and headphone controls. New carpet too. And... new everything. New wall and ceiling paneling, new metal grates over the heaters... I'd say it [...]
Most bicycle commuter routes in the city are dangerous, far more dangerous than they need to be.
Waving free cups of coffee, inane contests and yet-to-be-implemented master plans in the faces of potential bicycle commuters is insulting. What are we, children? Until the city—SDOT and the police, in [...]
When I moved here almost two years ago, it was partly because what remains of my family (mom, sister, nephew and niece) moved to Portland, and of the few places where I can pursue a career in marketing application infrastructure products (SF Bay, Armonk (NY) and Redmond) this was closest [...]
At the beginning of this year, I never expected a streetcar expansion plan to be an issue we would be discussing. I figured the top issues would be Sound Transit in 2008, the 520 bridge, tolls, and "central transportation planning" (which will be alive and well thanks to Dino [...]
From the front page of today's New York Times--the top right article, no less--the word is that, across the nation but specifically in the West and South where there are few alternatives to driving a car alone, drivers are reacting to $4 per gallon gas by taking mass transit.' [...]
There are two great stories in The Stranger/Slog today about transportation and land use planning.
First, Erica Barnett's takedown of Dino Rossi's transportation plan, part article, part Slog post. Here's the gist:
Added up, Rossi's estimates are billions and billions of dollars less than what state engineers and [...]
According to the PI, Tim Eyman just took out a $250,000 mortgage on his house to help pay for I-985, an initiative that would, among other things, restrict revenues from future highway user fees (congestion pricing, tools, etc.) to be spent exclusively on repairing and expanding the road in [...]
UPDATE: Erica Barnett takes Seattle Times reporter Susan Gilmore to task for suggesting that most of the options Gilmore list as on table--like a bored tunnel and a bridge--are not really options at all.
I was tempted to title this "WSDOT did not hear us on the Alaskan Way Viaduct," [...]
I've got a fixation on distracted drivers, so considering the PI's recent report in the Getting There column about a reasonable demand from some guy, Rick Downer, that carpool drivers be forced to use carpool lanes at all times, I have to applaud this new program from the US [...]
Mike Lindblom of the Seattle Times has further details of yesterday's Sound Transit board meeting, where the board voted to mail out draft plan information to voters to solicit feedback before deciding whether or not to put ST 2020 on the ballot for this November. The mailings should go [...]
The Seattle Times has a story covering the "Traffic Choice" congestion pricing study conducted at the behest of the Puget Sound Regional Council. The result: traffic congestion would be a "thing of the past."
Not that a region-wide congestion pricing plan is on the table.
"We're [...]
So said Mary McUmber (photo right)--a former member of the Puget Sound Regional Council and current board member of Futurewise--at the Earth Day/Sound Transit 2008 press conference this morning when asked whether she thought Sound Transit's Board would vote to bring a new light rail package [...]
I proved in my last post, to my satisfaction at least, that our current transportation structure is regressive (and I'm hoping that this series will sway, even just a little bit, the opinion of one blogger).
So on to my second question: How would the addition of a regressive structure [...]
UPDATE: The Puget Sound Biz Journal just made some corrections to this article, making this post utterly pointless. Corrections (additions) are underlined below.
A media advisory (below the jump) from the Transportation Choices Coalition announces that TCC and several other groups, including the Sierra Club, will call for Sound Transit to [...]
The city needs suggestions for parking-space test sites, preferably in Capitol Hill.
In the follow-up of the scooter parking forum with city council members Sally Clark and Jan Drago, the City is looking at some test sites for motorcycle pay-by-space meters common in San Francisco--basically, instead of a sticker, [...]
As one commenter, Angus Grieve-Smith, pointed out on my Lexus-Lanes posts, while congestion pricing may appear inequitable or regressive, this says nothing about whether the existing system is regressive or not.
It's been more than a decade since I earned $26,000 a year, so I thought, instead of talking [...]
Some fun statistics in the New York Times today (check out the multimedia stuff if you're curious) about our dependence on oil.
One in every nine barrels of world oil goes into American gasoline tanks.
Since 1980, American consumption of oil has risen 21%, while the rest of the major industrialized [...]
So asked a reader, Scott, in an email to me yesterday.
The whole question:
"Why does this off-peak open-HOV lanes proposal keep coming up in Seattle? Like in Tim "Horse's Ass" Eyman's latest initiative [I-985]. It makes zero sense to open those lanes during the exact times they aren't needed. [...]
Eyman maintains that I-985 supports Auditor Brian Sonntag's "congestion" audit of the Department of Transportation...
Of 22 major recommendations in Sonntag's report, only synchronization of traffic lights is addressed in I-985.
The audit doesn't recommend limiting tolls on Seattle's bridges or high-occupancy toll lanes (HOTs), [...]
I found the video below, of Carnegie-Mellon Econ. Prof. Lester Lave, arguing about greatly increasing the gas tax, in an editorial from today's PI.
Two of Prof. Lave's proposals:
I just can't let this report go. Too juicy.
New HOV lanes can be bad. From a greenhouse gas perspective. OK, of course they're bad, but I always assumed that they would always be better than general purpose lanes. Not so, and SR-91 is an example.
The study of toll [...]
For your reading amusement and pleasure, here is Dino Rossi's transportation plan. It's all about providing one government-mandated choice with massive skepticism about capitalism.
I'm at work, so I can't really analyze more right now, but it's a long time before the election. I'm already excited about extrapolating [...]
This past week after New York's Assembly Democrats killed NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's cordon/congestion pricing plan over equity issues, the New York Times ran two worthwhile reads on the op-ed about how to address the equity concerns related to congestion pricing.
Owen Gutfreund, a professor or history and urban studies [...]
In my post last week examining a study on HOT lane usage in Southern California's SR-91 (photo right), I treated the written report the way I treat market research PowerPoint presentations at work: I find the pretty graph I want and then read up on the [...]
Housing costs and transportation costs. They're two sides of the same coin, but I've never seen it mapped out so clearly.
[...]The decision by New York's Assembly Democrats to kill NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's cordon/congestion pricing plan for Manhattan was largely made based on issues of inequity--namely, that the plan locks out hard-working Bronx, New Jersey and Queens residents from driving into Manhattan, while making it easier for Wall Street fat-cats [...]
So says Shefali Ranganathan of the Transportation Choices Coalition, one of several organizations working to bring Sound Transit to the ballot in 2008.
The petition signatures will be delivered to the Sound Transit board meeting tomorrow.
[...]I've been waiting for this: seven new connector routes, four in Seattle, three on the Eastside. The Eastside routes will start running on April 21st:
The Seattle routes will start on May 5th:
More details to follow when I figure [...]
New York Democrats have killed NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan because, well, on an island where the monthly rent for a parking space can easily exceed $500 a month, the plan would hurt low-income drivers. Who probably take the subway anyway.
It's an argument that pops up [...]
I chatted with Rob Johnson of Transportation Choices Coalition at the TCC open house this evening to get a little more background on my post earlier about conservatives taking a governance reform package to the ballot this November.
Here's what Rob had to say: ever since Sen. Haugen's bill [...]
So says Erica Barnett in an article in yesterday's Stranger: conservatives and transit opponents may be moving to put a version of Sen. Haugen's governance reform measure on the ballot in November. As Erica points out, this would allow all of Washington state a vote on Sound Transit's future, [...]
If you would like to see transit on the ballot this year, let ST know by signing this petition.
Here's the info from Transportation Choices Coalition:
SOUND TRANSIT ON THE BALLOT IN '08 - SIGN THE PETITION
Transportation Choices Coalition, Fuse, Environment Washington and Futurewise are working together to build [...]
The Sierra Club's Mike O'Brien forwarded me this letter that the Sierra Club sent to Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl and the Sound Transit Board today documenting the three primary areas that the Sierra Club would like Sound Transit to address in its forthcoming new ballot measure, or ST [...]
The two-wheeled vehicle forum was just step one in a longer conversation. Councilmembers Sally Clark and Jan Drago sent the Vespa Club of Seattle and other organizations involved a letter tallying up our concerns, and listing out next steps for the city.
For those who missed it, the entire session, [...]
That's what Mike O'Brien, Director Chair of the Cascade Chapter of the Sierra Club, had to say about Sound Transit's potential plan to go to the ballot this year at a transportation forum hosted by Friends of Seattle this evening. Not quite what I want to hear from the Sierra [...]
(Between crises at work) I spent my lunch hour at a Transportation Choices Coalition Friday Forum today, and here's the skinny from TCC on what became law in Olympia this session.
Reducing per capita VMT
By 2020, if we take no action, Washingtonians will drive 75 billion miles every [...]
The results of Sound Transit's market research are on-line, including the summary deck presented to the board, and the results of both the web and phone surveys.
Forget about the web survey. The sampling method makes the results irrelevant statistically, except as a showing of which extremist camp [...]
The Sierra Club may be on the brink of opposing another Sound Transit expansion, even though it no longer includes over 150 miles of new roads. So says the Stranger in a story by Josh Feit.
Transit board member and King County Council member Dow Constantine [commented]: "They [...]
I owe a more detailed post about last night's scooter forum, but last night was also the one-year anniversary with the girlfriend. She pulled rank on the blog.
Quick update: few concrete action or decisions, but there was a broad understanding that the city would research ways to improve the situation. [...]
The PI has given the scooter community a little more love in anticipation of our meeting with councilmembers Sally Clark and Jan Drago this evening at 5:30 in the Bertha Landes room in City Hall.
Here's why we're advocating:
[Eric] Pravitz, a former city employee and spokesman for [...]
Now that' it's on seattle.gov...
City Councilmembers Jan Drago and Sally Clark are hosting a forum from 5:30 to 7:30 pm this coming Tuesday to discuss ways to make Seattle more friendly to scooter, moped and motorcycle riders.
Details:
What: Forum on Motor Scooters
Who: Councilmembers Jan Drago and Sally J. Clark, [...]
(of for the love of... I spelled 'activity' wrong in the title when I first posted this. 't' and 'n' are next to each other on my crazy Dvorak keyboard)
Via Stephen Rees's blog, a recent brain imaging study from Carnegie Mellon University proves that "listening to anything reduces the [...]
Erica Barnett reports on Slog:
Yesterday, those crazy cyclists got their wish, when the city’s department of transportation (SDOT) announced that “based on further analysis,” the department will cut the number of lanes on Stone Way to two, and install bike lanes on both sides of the [...]
Financing 520 passed 29 to 19, as did the tolling legislation. And I believe they passed yesterday, not today.
I guess an order of consideration report means "we're voting on this now."
[...]Erica Barnett writes in this week's Stranger:
A majority of the Sound Transit board now appears to be leaning toward a vote on a transit-only ballot measure in 2008.
Sound Transit's 18-member board has until March 29 to decide if it wants to put a transit package on the [...]
From the Transportation Choices Coalition:
VMT proposal passes Legislature as part of the Climate Action and Green Jobs bill
Transportation Choices Coalition has lead a strong coalition of environmental partners to advocate for a cutting-edge policy proposal that would set state goals to reduce per capita vehicle [...]
If I correctly understand what an "order of consideration report" is, both the tolling legislation (E2SHB 1773) and the funding plan for SR 520 (ESHB 3096) are out of the Rules Committee and up for a floor vote in the Senate. Tomorrow, I think.
Both bills have already [...]
Back when Tim Eyman first filed I-985, I wanted to scream that I-985 isn't about auto-sales taxes, it's about controlling tolling revenue which could easily exceed $1.5 billion annually if people continue to demand more road capacity but refuse to pay more in taxes to have it built.
[...]If you haven't seen the more in-detail stories on the new 520 Bridge replacement timetable which I mentioned briefly in my post on the 520 funding bill in Olympia, here's one from the PI.
But don't get excited about that date. It probably won't happen: in testimony before [...]
Knute Berger has an in-depth piece on recent market research around tolls and variable pricing in the Puget Sound Area. The piece highlights the huge gap between what voters want and what government can deliver without taxes.
Berger bookends the piece with three bits that summarize the dilemma [...]
The Senate Transportation Committee met for over three hours this afternoon to consider a whole bunch of bills passed by the House, including the Governor-request HB 3096 establishing a funding plan for replacing the 520 Bridge. The funding plan--passed by the House a few weeks ago--was passed by the Senate [...]
Sound Transit has a web survey up asking YOU about what you'd like to see in the next Sound Transit ballot package (and when you'd like to see it).
Via STB.
P.S. I tried to send an email to EMC Research via its website about this, but it bounced: [...]
Here's a quick update of the bill tracker I published a while back.
| Act | House Bill | Status | Senate Bill | Status2 |
| Tolling Guidelines | 1773 | Passed, now with Senate Transpo Cmmtte. | 6355 | Still with Rules Cmmtte. |
| Reducing VMT | Died in Committee | 6822 | Still with Rules Cmmtte. | |
| Green Jobs Bill (includes VMT) | 2815 | Passed, now with Senate Water/Energy/Telecom Cmmtte. | n/a | n/a |
| Nakata Act | 2564 | Passed, now with the Senate Transpo [...]
And then there were threeAccording to an article in today's PI, there are now just three 520 Bridge plans:
All I ever see are empty buses...
Number of comments: 2
...cry those who hate mass transit. Yes, yes, you're so right; those Sound Transit buses are always empty. And they're obviously more empty every year. Hence the additional 500,000 ST bus trips people made in Q4 2007.
Because we don't have enough 520 plans already
Number of comments: 1 Here's a new one, reported in today's Seattle Times. It's sorta like the Pacific Interchange, except the interchange is shifted to the current location of the MOHAI, which is moving to a new spot elsewhere in the city.
This is as opposed to the existing designs:
|
Sound Transit is talking about going to the ballot with less light rail and more commuter rail and BRT
