Mar

31

Westside light rail

Filed Under Streets for All, Transit, Transportation | Leave a Comment

We’ve had a lot to blog about in transportation news and commentary lately…

This is, by far, the most exciting nugget we’ve had to share. While it is just a start, it is movement in the right direction:

A light ballot measure for westside light rail

Unbowed by the gloomy budget news he dispensed this week, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is still working toward his 2009 campaign promise to offer rail transit, linking West Seattle and Ballard to downtown.

The latest strategy, outlined in a letter from McGinn to a transit advisory group, suggests asking voters this year to approve just $10 million — enough money to complete 15 percent of the design for an 8-mile line. Taxpayers already are being asked this fall to double the Families and Education Levy right after a recession.

“The level of design work funded would allow us to seek federal grants for construction, as well as develop a timetable for a larger ballot measure to fund construction,” says McGinn’s message to Kate Joncas, Downtown Seattle Association director, and Ref Lindmark, a King County transit planner who helped plan the 2006 “Bridging the Gap” measure to improve city roads and bicycle-pedestrian travel.

via Politics Northwest | A light ballot measure for westside light rail | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Mar

29

Seattle Transit Blog: Can Rail Cause Sprawl? | PubliCola – Seattle’s News Elixir

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Deeper into the conversation about transit service expansion and sprawl:

Seattle Transit Blog: Can Rail Cause Sprawl?

On Seattle Transit Blog today, Andrew Smith asks: Can rail lines between suburbs and cities actually cause the kind of sprawl transit is ostensibly supposed to help prevent?

The argument that it can, basically, is this: If you build rail lines out to sprawling suburbs, like highways, they’ll drive more people to live far away from cities, prompting expanded suburbs (and exurbs) with single-family, car-dependent development and zoning patterns that require people to own cars and drive just about everywhere. (Josh made a version of this point in Fizz the other day, when he argued that a state grant for commuter trains to Lakewood constituted a victory “for sprawl over density.”)

STB, however, makes a convincing case that in places like the Puget Sound region, rail is both necessary and unlikely to result in the sort of development that we would consider sprawl. (First Hill, STB notes, was considered sprawl in the Victorian era, and streetcar suburbs like Ballard would count as sprawl by the standards of the era in which they were built).

via Seattle Transit Blog: Can Rail Cause Sprawl? | PubliCola – Seattle’s News Elixir.

Mar

24

Score one for sprawl

Filed Under Transit | 2 Comments

4. You know how the legislature supposedly favors elitist urban Seattle over “real” Washington like Kent and Tukwila and Sumner.

Hmmmm … The house transportation committee passed the transportation budget yesterday with an amendment that killed a Seattle Department of Transportation grant for a transit priority corridor on Market/45th St., swapping it out for more commuter trains to Lakewood.

Both worthy projects, but score one for sprawl over density and against Seattle.

via “So, Soundgarden at Your Campaign Kick-Off?” | PubliCola – Seattle’s News Elixir.

Nov

19

Friday funny: High-Speed Busses

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Obama Replaces Costly High-Speed Rail Plan With High-Speed Bus Plan

h/t The Infrastructurist

Jun

1

Capitol Hill Community Council’s Complete Streetcar Campaign

Filed Under Bicycling, Capitol Hill, Design, Environment, Gas prices, Parking, Pedestrians, SDOT, Seattle, Streets For People, Transit, Transportation, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Great City volunteers and sustainable transportation advocates on Capitol Hill have been conspiring and brainstorming together for years.  We’ve been thrilled to see the great traction our friends on the Capitol Hill Community Council (CHCC) are getting with their innovative “Complete Streetcar” concept.  Here’s an update from the CHCC’s Mike Kent:

On Tuesday, May 4th, more than 50 transit advocates and active community members joined the Capitol Hill Community Council’s Complete Streetcar Campaign at Capitol Hill’s Sole Repair lounge in celebrating the group’s recent successes.

Million Dollar Nile regaled Capitol Hill Complete Streetcar fans with the world premiere performance of "My Streetcar's on Broadway" -- a twist on the Sir Mix-a-Lot classic.

The day before, the Seattle City Council voted into law legislation that brought the proposed First Hill Streetcar closer to completion.

Complete Streetcar Campaign supporter Web Crowell created the animations which ran on a loop throughout the event on Sole Repair’s flatscreen monitors throughout the night


The party honored the group’s success in advocating for an alignment that would run in both directions along Broadway north of Union Street, instead of looping around Cal Anderson park.

The group’s next steps include calling for an extension of the proposed streetcar route beyond Denny Way to the northern end of Broadway near East Aloha Street, as was originally envisioned, and pushing for a streetscape plan that includes, among other things, a separated two-way cycle track.

If you are interested in becoming active with the Complete Streetcar Campaign, send an e-mail to chcc.streetcar@gmail.com.

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