City says streetcar is on track even if trains look empty
By Mike Lindblom
CHRIS JOSEPH TAYLOR / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Problems with the fare machines have plagued the streetcar in its first few months. On Wednesday, Tommy Grimes, of Alabama, left, found his money rejected by the machine. Glenn Myers, of Seattle, had no better luck. Most riders avoid the hassle, using King County Metro Transit passes.
April ridership
31,906
total riders
1,064
daily average
97%
On-time performance
Streetcar facts
Opened: Dec. 12, 2007
Route: 1.3 miles
Construction cost: $52 million
Annual operating cost (estimate): $2.1 million
Share of operating cost from cash fares: 5 percent
Fares: $1.75; age 65 and older, 50 cents; persons with disabilities, 50 cents; youth (ages 6-17), 50 cents; children 5 and younger, free
Tickets are valid for two hours and can be used within that time for another streetcar ride or to transfer to a King County Metro bus. These forms of payment also are accepted: Metro Pass, Puget Pass, Flexpass, GO Pass, U-Pass, Visitor Pass, Regional Reduced Fare Permit (with monthly or annual sticker), and active Metro bus transfer slips
Schedule: Every 15 minutes; 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday and holidays
Heading to lunch, a group of downtown employees chose to ride in style, on a purple South Lake Union streetcar.
Jane Nelson fed a colleague's $10 bill into the ticket machine aboard the moving train, then tried not to topple, as she passed proof-of-payment slips to the others, in a human chain. "Did we look like we knew what we were doing?" she asked. They managed to finish just before the one-mile ride ended.
Seattle could use a few hundred thousand more customers like these.
Streetcar use has lulled since December, when the novelty factor, holiday shoppers and free rides kept the trains full throughout the opening month.
Six months into the city's streetcar revival, a chasm exists between backers such as Mayor Greg Nickels, who says the line is exceeding expectations, and a common public perception that the streetcars look empty.
In fact, ridership is almost exactly where the city predicted it would be the first year — about 1,000 average daily trips, based on logs by streetcar drivers. Sounds high, but it breaks down to eight riders per one-way trip. Since some people get off partway, five or six typically are aboard.
During a recent midday stretch, six to 22 people were aboard the streetcar during a 2 ½-hour period, while a rush-hour sampling found 20 to 30 riders.
And passengers like Nelson, who pay cash for the $1.75 adult ticket, are even fewer. Ticket sales cover 5 percent of the estimated $2.1 million annual operating cost, mainly because the overwhelming majority of riders use King County Metro Transit passes.
Even after crediting the streetcar with a share of pass sales, passengers still cover only about 14 percent of operations, compared with 22 percent for the countywide bus system. (Cash fares on Metro buses cover 6 percent of operating costs.)
"That is not, obviously, a stellar performance from a financial viewpoint, but it's also the first year," said Jim Jacobson, deputy general manager for Metro, which operates the city-owned streetcar line. He said ridership will grow as the neighborhood develops and more trains are added.
Then again, the point of the $52 million line never was to break even, but to promote housing density and business growth.
Other trends look more positive. After a rainy beginning to 2008, daily trips ought to surpass the 1,000 mark soon. Summer tourists, attracted in part by the new Lake Union Park, are likely to pay cash instead of using passes.
Sponsorships and a federal grant do help with operating costs, but taxpayers foot most of the bill.
Summer riders will find the trains are quicker, and less prone to stalls, than last December.
"It's clean. It's air-conditioned. It's roomy," Nelson said.
Ticket machines that didn't work in January are fixed. But how to pay remains confusing.
On the trains, the orange-trimmed ticket machines take only cash, no plastic. On the sidewalk, a set of four machines takes only plastic, no cash.
Trains sometimes wait for visitors as they fumble with the outdoor machines, not knowing they can pay onboard, said Christine Rimorin, a daily commuter who suggests making rides free.
Two people, in a group of five headed to lunch, held cash in their fists, thinking a Metro inspector would collect fares. One person eventually bought a ticket from the machine; another didn't.
One woman didn't because she thought her ride would be free since she boarded in the downtown zone that's sometimes free for buses.
Another repeatedly flattened her dollar bill, but the machine repeatedly spit it back, and she gave up. "Please eat my money," pleaded a business visitor from England, until the machine finally accepted.
Esther Franada of Kent tried the streetcar on her first day of work in South Lake Union. She tried in vain to buy a ticket. She didn't need to — she had a Metro pass.
Only 1 to 2 percent of riders evade paying the fare, Jacobson said. Spot-checks are sporadic, but are supposed to increase this summer.
"I think I've been checked twice," rider Jeff Whiteaker said. "It would be pretty easy to cheat."
Jacobson said officials still are considering what payment methods work best. "Our intent is to continue to experiment with these things," he said.
Catching up
Seattle is far behind Portland, whose first line surpassed 4,000 weekday rides within six months of starting service in 2001, and has since expanded. Sound Transit's free Tacoma Link, which opened in 2003, averages 2,925 trips per weekday.
Kevin Phelps, a former Sound Transit board member from Tacoma, said officials wanted to encourage people to try mass transit as part of a regional system that included buses and trains. Phelps said Seattle should consider free rides.
"What if they could triple or quadruple their ridership?" he said. "I think it does a lot of damage to the overall image of mass transit, when you have a lot of unused capacity going back and forth."
Seattle is banking on the arrival of new employers such as Amazon.com and UW Medicine, along with new condos, to boost ridership.
Consultants predict it will triple by 2020, and city transportation officials this month presented their ideas for four new streetcar lines to run between Queen Anne and the Central Area, between Ballard and Fremont, between South Lake Union and the University District, and between Capitol Hill and First Hill.
The city's streetcar project manager, Ethan Melone, says his first step is to make streetcars a fixture in South Lake Union. Ridership then will increase.
"I think what we are trying to do is provide a reliable level of service," he said.
Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com
Transportation
Friday, May 23, 2008
Seattle Streetcars are empty
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Plans to expand Seattle Streetcar program
Seattle goes gah-gah over choo-choos
As Seattle considers a plan to extend the South Lake Union Streetcar line, it's time to decide whether returning to a 19th-century transportation method is really the answer.
By Ross Anderson
We have seen the future of Seattle mass transit, and it looks suspiciously like the past. It is shiny and red and goes clackity-clack between South Lake Union and Westlake. It travels at a maximum speed of 20 mph and costs about $40 million per mile to build.
Seattle, it seems, has gone downright gah-gah over choo-choos. Whatever the price in dollars and aggravation, the city is determined to take the A-Train. We haven't yet completed that $2.7 billion-dollar rail line to Sea-Tac, but Sound Transit is desperately seeking more billions to extend that line to Northgate. We have the new South Lake Union Streetcar. And this week, planners unveiled their sketchy visions for streetcar lines in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and the University District.
All this stokes the ongoing debate: How do we best relieve traffic, or at least provide an alternative way to get around? More roads? Or buses? Or rails? If the rail buffs have their way, we'll soon be looking at and living in a cityscape reminiscent of another century — the 19th.
The operative map for Seattle's transit vision is about a century old. You can go back to 1910, when Gramma and Grampa got around town just fine on a system of about 70 miles of streetcar tracks, including the legendary Interurban trolley that rumbled all the way to Everett and Tacoma. It was a fine system, and we probably should have kept it.
But we didn't. The tide turned in about 1911, when the city hired a smart fellow (read "consultant") named Virgil Bogue to come out and draw up a bold new plan for Seattle. Bogue looked around, hired a crew of draftsmen, and produced an inch-thick document calling for an elaborate, New York-style transit system, with subways and elevated trains and a tunnel under Lake Washington.
Put to a popular vote, the Bogue Plan lost by nearly 2-1. That was the beginning of the end. By the 1930s, the city was ripping up tracks and replacing streetcars with buses. The Interurban made its last run in 1939, just as engineers were completing the first floating bridge across the lake. By the beginning of the War, the transition was complete; Seattle had banked its future on the automobile.
Rail buffs blame a nationwide conspiracy by General Motors to sell more buses. But rail transit was always geographically challenged in Seattle. All those picturesque hills and lakes serve as significant obstacles to streetcars that don't climb hills, and don't float.
In any event, things haven't worked out well. In the late 60s and early 70s, voters rejected plans for new freeways and for a proposed rapid transit system. So the city had to grow and prosper without any major expansion of its transportation system. For some time, the preferred strategy was buses, or more precisely "bus rapid transit," which uses express buses in exclusive transit-only lanes, including the downtown bus tunnel.
But by the 1990s, the city was gridlocked. Drivers rolled down their car windows, shook their collective fists and bellowed something like "Do something. Do anything. But fix this mess!"
And that's more or less what's happening. Government is doing something and anything — digging holes, pouring concrete, laying rails, buying railcars — in a desperate attempt to rebuild what it dismantled 70 years ago. It's a system development by committee, or by many committees. Sound Transit builds light rail and operates those commuter trains to Tacoma and Everett. King County Metro builds and runs the new streetcar, along with the existing bus system. The state is adding HOV and transit lanes to the freeways. For a while, we had yet another agency building a monorail, until it collapsed on itself.
Which is what skeptics expect to happen with some or all of those other railroad-builders. Critics of rail trail transit scored a huge victory last fall when voters rejected Sound Transit's bid for billions more tax dollars. Yet the streetcar fad suggests that somebody out there is still determined to ride those rails.
Rail critics see their own conspiracy. Randal O'Toole is an Oregon economist and self-styled libertarian who argues that Seattle is about to join dozens of cities that have got little or no benefits from the billions spent on light rail. Trolleys and streetcars are 19th century technology that is too slow, too dangerous and too expensive, he says. "Light rail is simply one more way to take money from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers and put it in the pockets of wealthy businesses."
Coalition for Effective Transportation Alternatives, a citizen group opposed to light rail, argues that Seattle had built one of the world's best bus systems, and could adapt HOV lanes and traffic lights to move express buses more efficiently than light rail.
But for every O'Toole there is a Todd Litman, a Victoria, BC, consultant who travels the world advising cities from Dubai to Valparaiso to San Jose how to build rail transit systems. And Litman is pro-streetcar. "Seattle originally developed around streetcars and railways," Litman says. "It doesn't make sense to argue that it can't work again."
Litman learned his way around transportation issues as a volunteer bicycle advocate in Olympia, and eventually studied transit issues at Evergreen State College. He frequently finds himself at odds with the likes of O'Toole.
Ultimately, the choice between rail transit and bus transit is made by passengers, he says. "There is a bias out there. People will pay more for a Mercedes than for a Chevy. There is nothing wrong with people wanting something more prestigious, and they view light rail and streetcars as more comfortable and more prestigious."
But do taxpayers want to pay $40 million per mile for a little prestige?
John Niles, a transportation consultant and critic of light rail, is a little kinder toward streetcars. They are probably a mistake, he says, "but the scale of the error is so much smaller than with light rail."
Streetcars have a few things going for them, he says. South Lake Union businesses are picking up part of the costs of the new line, and hopefully that would be the case with other lines, he says. They may attract some tourists. And neighborhood businesses are very fond of them.
"As transportation, they don't make much sense," he says. "But they're nice. They're an amenity. They're street candy."
* Ross Anderson is a freelance journalist and blogger who lives and works in Port Townsend, Wash. His blog can be found at rossink.com.
My grandmother used to say
Report a violationPosted by: hacknflack on May 13, 2008 8:06 AM
Editor's Pick " when they passed out brains, they though they said TRAINS, and they MISSED theirs..."
As a multi generational resident, and one who works in and around Seattle transportation, I was interested to read the proposal for a new Seattle Streetcar Network.
I am a supporter of light rail, streetcars, cable cars, and any form of pragmatic transportation. But I am curious about the lack of discussion of an interbay route.
King County staff spent time and our money to review a potential extension to Interbay from the old Benson Trolley route about five years ago. We were told both the Port of Seattle, and the major tennant of Pier 86 office park, Amgen, were very interested. Now even MORE development is going on in this corridor with Whole Foods, condos, and most importantly, the new Cruise Ship terminal scheduled to open next summer.
With a majority of the more than 200 plus sailings a summer planned from the Port of Seattle’s cruise ship terminal at Pier 90/91, this dock is poorly served by METRO and Sound Transit. At a time when we are attempting to build a green city, forcing ships to plug into the dock, we are bringing upwards of 6,000 folks PER DAY in and out of this pier.
Further, this line could be built mostly on land ALREADY owned BY THE CITY (through Myrtle Edwards Park), and run parallel to existing heavy rail. A simple extension of the current Benson Line could bring streetcar access to the thousands of folks working along Elliott, at Pier 86, and the pier, along with Smith Cove. Clever routing could even bring it to the Interbay neighborhood. Clever routing could even make it circle around Nickerson, serving SPU and South Freemont Bridge, then back south to meet up with the current line at South Lake Union.
The line could also take the WEST side of the Elliott Street parking from Denny North, and on the sidewalk from Broad Street to Denny, and a spur could climb up and over the bridge, or stay on the east side of the tracks and head north on 15th.
The other end of the line should and could be extended through the ID, and even then curve down under the freeway interchange of I-90 and I-5, and circle over to Safeco Field and the Quest Exhibition Center, then loop back in to the line.
I am aware that when they built the SAM Sculpture Park, the right of way for BNSF left not enough room for the trolley line. I believe this could still be achieved by routing via the pedestrian side of the bridge (to the west) or with the help of a safe signal / bypass to insure the trolley would only venture through the gap when there was no train. (a similar signal system was installed at the Monorail after the crash).
I believe the Port might even help fund the line for the sake of traffic reduction and tourism. Currently Metro does such a poor job of service to the offices of the biotech firm at Pier 86, Amgen hired a private company to offer their employees a SHUTTLE service that runs all day long between their other offices and that site.
At first glance, it would appear that this line could even pay for itself with the ridership potential, yet there is no mention of it.
I believe the new terminal would be a great candidate for a Trolley Line. I would hope it would be studied.
by: vito on May 13, 2008 8:54 AM
I suspect the City's energy behind expanding a streetcar system is simply to be able to control and add capacity to transit within Seattle without having to beg or pay off Metro. This is an indicative of a larger trend to plan for transit at a regional level where regional solutions - such as light rail - always benefit at the expense of locally focused investments - such as bike facilities. This creates disincentives for dense communities which could actually make transit work.
Bring back the cable cars
by: dn on May 13, 2008 9:49 AM
Why do we let the other city by a bay attract zillions of tourists and their dollars when we could easily compete? Since streetcars are at best amenities and not mass transportation systems (and becoming commonplace across the country as an urban disease akin to penis envy spreads), we should go for the transit vehicles that would really attract interest and can navigate the downtown grade. There must be at least one in a museum somewhere that could be resurrected. Crosscut should start a campaign.
It's not about moving people
Rby: paddystclair on May 13, 2008 11:40 AM
What struck me about the plan to put streetcars through Freemont and on to Ballard is how closely the route followed areas that have been the target of developers who need to get rid of many of the industrial/business tennets before they can construct high priced water view condos. It's not like the City hasnt used "special developement taxes" before in order to preasure smaller business to relocate (See South Lake Union) in favour of larger firms easy aquisitions of those locations. So maybe the streetcars are designed to move people-- just not as transite.
My paranoia grows when I see a posting as sensical as the first one on this column. An Interbay route would serve an obvious need, have less impact on traffic, and create a positive first impression on visiting tourists who could disembark on peir 99 and be downtown in 10 minutes. An Interbay route would follow an historic rail line, connect dowtown residents to accessable grocery shopping ( once the new shoppng center has opened) and provide thrilling vistas if routed through Mrytle Edwards. In short, an Interbay line might actually move people--as opposed to the Slut, which we must admidt, is an over priced Disney ride for Mr Allen's vanity and Mayor Quimby's ego.
An Interbay route wont get ride of those pesky small business along Leary though--so I doubt that the City will find it very profitable.
"through Myrtle Edwards Park"
Report a violationPosted by: kieth on May 13, 2008 12:02 PM
In my mind I had trouble following the route described but I would be concerned about rail line going "through Myrtle Edwards park". Isn't the Park only a few hundred feet wide in several places (and even less in some places); how much park would remain if a streetcar line (northbound, southbound) went through there?
Street Cars worked great for me-
Posted by: JGropp on May 13, 2008 1:52 PM
As a kid, I rode the streetcars from Wallingford down through Fremont along Westlake. I just now looked carefully at your historical picture to see me getting off the streetcar to get my braces tightened- but I wasn't in the picture. Jerry Gropp Architect AIA
mment
better ideas?
Report a violationPosted by: david2 on May 13, 2008 7:55 PM
Editor's Pick So, what is the 21st century option, then? Maybe we can get some of those Japanese high-speed trains that would get us from downtown to the airport in 2 minutes...
I'm not a huge fan of the streetcar, given that it has to wait in traffic like everything else. On the other hand, it's cleaner and newer than the buses, and those signs that tell you when the next train is arriving are nice.
Individual cars obviously aren't the future; a city needs mass transit once it reaches a certain size. (I don't own a car, personally, and at the rate gas prices are going, my interest in driving is only declining.)
Whoever said "Seattle has one of the world's best bus systems" must not have lived in many cities. (Or else I've just been extremely fortunate in the places I've lived.) You can't even get from downtown Bellevue to Seattle after midnight, service is infrequent off-peak, buses are packed on-peak, bus-priority corridors are rare, no real-time arrival signs, few per-stop schedules... lots of room for improvement.
Age isn't a valid argument one way or another, anyway. Lots of old things are still good. (I'm still rather fond of the wheel.)
My hopes
sjenner on May 14, 2008 11:27 AM
1. The city council and whoever's paying the bill (nearby property owners, city residents, etc) have full and accurate information about just how much it costs to operate these trolleys, and where the funding will come from on an ongoing basis.
2. They won't slow down buses and make traffic worse.
3. The overall impact on air quality would be positive. Creating traffic jams could outweigh any positive impact of more riders on trolleys than on buses, which might or might not happen anyways.
As I looked at the diagram of the route maps in the paper, I was struck by how little land there is near to the proposed routes, particularly Eastlake. This creates a somewhat different situation compared to South Lake Union when it comes to taxing nearby property owners. There simply isn't that much property to tax.
DMorrill on May 14, 2008 3:47 PM
The streetcar plan is tragic and insane. We replaced streetcars with electic trolleys for the sane and simple reason that they are far more effective. Rail cars on arterials interefere with cars, delivery trucks, bike, busses, pedestrians and will create congestion and impede the flow of traffic. It is simple math and queing theory. Cuteness is not an acceptable basis for transportation planning.
O'Toole by the way is totally correct in his analysis of the economic of rail, including in Portland and Vancouver. Now folks here support rail on romantic grounds rather than economic effectiveness - there are few riders relative to the capital and operating costs, and a small payoff relative to alternative investments --but that's our right. Still the solution for quality uncongested transport is well understood by economists. If people had to pay closer to the real costs, via congestion pricing, tolls, parking, etc, carpooling and an extensive superior bus system would ensure an effective transport solution.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Metro pulls plug on plans to reinstate historic waterfront trollies
Waterfront streetcar: Is it gone for good?
By Stuart Eskenazi
MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES
The vintage streetcar line that ran along Seattle's waterfront, but was suspended on a temporary basis more than two years ago, will not resume for at least 10 years, if at all.
Metro Transit, which ran the line, has lost patience with a much-delayed project in Pioneer Square that would include a new maintenance and operations facility for the waterfront streetcar. The facility is necessary for returning the nostalgic trolley to service.
Particularly popular with tourists, the 1.6-mile streetcar line was launched in 1982. It was pulled from service in November 2005 when its maintenance barn — where the cars were stored and serviced — was torn down to make way for the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park.
In June 2005, city, county and Port of Seattle officials trumpeted a replacement facility in Pioneer Square. At the time, King County Executive Ron Sims said he hoped the new facility would be finished within two years and the streetcar back in service by the 2007 summer tourist season.
Now the 2008 summer season is almost here, and there's still no maintenance facility.
Circumstances have changed since that 2005 announcement, said Kevin Desmond, Metro general manager.
"The waterfront streetcar line is still something the county would like to see resume, but it now has larger issues weighing on it," he said.
Construction to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct is scheduled to begin in 2012, and the streetcar would not be able to operate while work is under way. Construction is expected to last until at least 2018.
"It doesn't make sense for us to try to move quickly to get a new facility up and built," Desmond said. "We wouldn't be able to do it before having to suspend service again anyway because of the viaduct."
Also since the 2005 announcement, the city has expanded its vision for a streetcar system — a line that would run modern streetcars like those operating in South Lake Union, not the 1920s-era trolleys that ran on the waterfront. Sound Transit also wants to run a streetcar through First Hill/Capitol Hill.
Desmond said a streetcar transit system would not preclude Metro from running the historic trolleys again as a summer-only tourist attraction.
Desmond sent a letter last week to developer Greg Smith, principal of Urban Visions, to inform him that the county was tired of waiting on his project.
"Now, even under the most optimistic scenario, it does not appear that the maintenance facility can be complete before 2010," Desmond wrote.
Smith's project was to combine the maintenance facility with a restaurant, parking and either offices, condominiums or a mix of the two.
Smith received clearance from the city to build 30 feet above the 100-foot height limits for Pioneer Square. But delays on the project led to warnings from King County more than a year ago that it could pull the $7 million it had set aside to help pay for the building. The city and Port of Seattle committed $1 million each.
Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said the city agrees that building a maintenance facility specifically for the vintage streetcars, and only for service on the waterfront, no longer makes sense in light of the viaduct construction schedule and the city's plan for streetcars as transit.
"The kinds of investments we make in the streetcar need to serve that purpose," he said.
Desmond said the vintage streetcars are shrink-wrapped and stored in a Metro warehouse south of downtown. They'll stay under wraps until they are put back into service — or sold, should that become their fate.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Tacoma Streetcars tries to team up with Sound Transit
This month two more neighborhood councils, representing the North End and downtown, have allied themselves with Tacoma Streetcar’s simple vision: a citywide streetcar network connecting Tacoma’s neighborhoods.
Also this month, Sound Transit announced that its 2007 ridership jumped 12.5 percent compared to an overall U.S. increase of 2 percent. That means Sound Transit recorded roughly 1.5 million more trips on its fleet of express buses and commuter trains. Rising gas prices should drive those numbers up this year – and might drive more support for streetcars.
At its board meeting Thursday, Sound Transit representatives plan to discuss whether to present us voters with another package of transit upgrades later this year. The board also will mull over what transit expansions to put in that package. It’s scheduled to vote April 10.
Tacoma Streetcar, five neighborhood organizations and a downtown transit committee have written letters to Sound Transit asking that any package presented to voters include an intracity streetcar network for Tacoma.
I sat down last week with Morgan Alexander, who founded Tacoma Streetcar three years ago, to talk about his progress and what he expects next.
What would you tell Sound Transit before its decision on the next transit package?
We’re saying, “Yes, you should do it, and yes, it should have streetcars on it.” That’s been our big push right now. I think there’s an opportunity for Tacoma, if Tacoma would just seize it, to ask for something. To say, “We want this and we want this to be streetcars.” Instead of just kind of reacting later when Sound Transit proposes something we really don’t want. I see it as an opportunity for Tacoma to take a proactive stand.
During your public presentations, how do you describe the difference between downtown’s Link light-rail line and streetcars for the neighborhoods?
It’s really confusing. The easiest way I explain it, a standard streetcar system is a quarter the cost of a light-rail system. You get four times the bang for the buck with a standard streetcar. And people understand that.
Do you see a streetcar network in Tacoma starting out with a one-line extension from Link as a test before branching out from there or do you see it starting with multiple lines to various areas?
With Sound Transit’s involvement, I think there could be enough to extend both ways to start. The best-case scenario would be at least one line up to the Stadium District and the other way, since the city’s already done studies on it, out Portland Avenue up to Salishan.
Who do you see as potential partners in the financing?
Sound Transit, of course. The Puyallup Tribe, because they paid for the Portland Avenue study, they could bring a lot to the table. Then it’s a mix of federal grants, state grants, private money, local improvement districts.
What’s the main obstacle you face?
Right now, with the uncertainty in the economy and having people still think of the long view, that we still need to make investments. We can’t just sit down and not do anything. Because when the economy does pick up, we’re going to be left in the dust. Seattle just opened up their new streetcar line, and they’re already talking about six additional lines. Honestly, once we get a taste of it down here, when we get it out into the neighborhoods, I think people will be demanding more.
What arguments do you hear from people opposing streetcars?
It’s really just your typical voice about any public project: “Why is our tax money going to this?” “I don’t want to pay more taxes.” I really haven’t heard any fresh arguments.
I’m hoping that there’s enough civic-minded people, enough community-minded people who want to see more investment in their neighborhoods, to convince everyone else.
How has the progress you’ve made so far matched with what you expected when you started Tacoma Streetcar?
It’s been kind of bittersweet. I went into it thinking really long term – like 20 or 30 years. But I was really surprised and pleased at the initial response: the fact that I was able to twist Tacoma Councilman Tom Stenger’s arm enough last year that he proposed a resolution of support; now the city manager is working on a plan, and it’s being given serious consideration. It’s been kind of bitter because I want a streetcar now, and I still don’t see one. It’s hard to be patient.
Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Fix the Arterials! Street cars belong in theme parks!
Transportation: Can't we all just get along?
With the new year, wouldn't it be great if we could start to approach our transportation planning and investment collaboratively, instead of staying locked in confrontation?
The place to start is for each "side" to give up unproductive extremist positions and predictions. I'll go first. My opposition to rail transit is of long standing, and I welcomed Proposition 1's defeat. But I also realize that the majority of the population likes the idea of rail and is willing to pay for more; that is the citizens' right.
So all predictions that rail is "dead" are nonsensical. I suspect that the downtown-to-Sea-Tac Airport line will be sufficiently popular to induce the area's voters to complete the line to Northgate. (I just wish we had an above-ground design rather than a tunnel.) But beyond that, the next best link, if any — north to Lynnwood, south to Tacoma, or east on Interstate 90 to Bellevue, or east to Redmond on a new Highway 520 floating bridge — is terribly uncertain and should be subject to very thorough and careful cost-benefit and alternatives analyses.
Given the potential for bus rapid transit (BRT) for the north and south corridors, and via I-90 to Issaquah, the 520 high-tech corridor alignment would probably be most effective for rail transit, inasmuch as 520 needs to be replaced anyway.
Now, for the response from the other side, those environmental groups, planners, and urbanists who believe that in the future we all will live and work in high density cityscapes and that the private car is doomed. I suggest they simply give up that absurd and unhelpful delusion. Let's agree that there will be no more full-fledged "freeways" (which wouldn't be free in any case), but we will have to spend billions on road improvements and replacement to keep the highly interconnected material economy going.
Can't we just admit it, and set some realistic timetables? On my priority list, besides 520, would be Interstate 405, Highways 2 (inexcusable neglect), 522, 169, 9, probably some way to address the downtown Interstate 5 bottleneck, and, of course, the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Another way to ease congestion is to upgrade some critical intersections by such improvements as grade separation.
At the same time, the region needs to recognize that construction alone cannot meet future demand or relieve congestion and that we must implement demand management and other constraints on the unfettered growth of single-occupancy-vehicle driving. Besides the Highway 167 experiment (HOT and bus lane), let's look at additional corridors for BRT and selective tolls or congestion pricing. How about 520 and I-90 — soon! Such tolling is inevitable. And it seems only fair that those folks who choose to work on one side of Lake Washington but live on the other should pay a little extra for those preferences.
And I'll yet again draw attention (with little hope) to the over-reliance on freeways and the gross under-utilization of a basically fine network of urban arterials. To make them work better, we'd have to grasp the nettles of reducing parking, and changing unloading, turning, and parking regulations.
My cordiality and cooperative mood is not unlimited, however. I have to say that streetcars, no matter how cute, belong in theme parks, not interfering with bus, car, truck, bicycle, and pedestrian use of roads. Not one more inch!
Finally, as to the big issue of changing governance: Many people want to believe that it isn't incompatible visions but decision-making organization that is the underlying cause of our political gridlock. Some have suggested a transportation czar as a savior. I fear that is exactly the wrong way to go, as would be an elected board, which would simply reproduce the confrontational gridlock of incompatible interests.
Another problem with a powerful regional transportation authority is that it ignores the fact that almost all the transportation infrastructure we are talking about is of a paramount state and federal interest, and that, ultimately, it is the state government and Legislature, led by representatives of the Seattle region, that must be responsible for these vital decisions.
- Richard Morrill is an urban demographer and taught for many years at the University of Washington's Department of Geography.
