Mayor Mike McGinn is slated to unveil his (sexy, sexy) 2012 budget proposal to the public on Monday, but straight from the mayoral diary comes this tidbit today:
The Citizens Transportation Advisory Committee asked the public what they wanted through surveys, focus groups, and public hearings. They found that the two most important transportation issues facing Seattle transportation, according to the survey, were inadequate transit and traffic/congestion. Poll after poll over many years has shown Seattle voters want a rail system that connects their neighborhoods. Reflecting public support and their own careful analysis of Seattle’s transportation needs, the Committee proposed in their final report in July that the City fund planning for high capacity transit systems, including rail, on those corridors identified in the Transit Master Plan.
To meet these needs, we must begin planning now. That’s why my 2012 budget includes $1.5 million to conduct that planning work. This money comes from the sale of the Rubble Yard property to the state. We received $19.8 million for that property, and while the bulk of it is going to maintain our roads, it’s also a good idea to use some of it to start planning for faster, more reliable transit to handle our growing needs. The $1.5 million will be used to further develop the top priority high capacity transit corridors identified in the Transit Master Plan. As our work to complete the Plan continues over the next weeks and months, that analysis will further clarify where those funds should be used to enhance transit in Seattle.
East West
Just saying …
“Dear… Diary… today I totally fell in love with mobility and rail!”
Ummm, I thought that Sound Transit was the agency in charge of light rail planning. When did that change, and why?
The City has failed to complete necessary maintenance on its own roads and bridges due to lack of revenue, even with the much-touted Bridging The Gap ballot measure voters willingly passed a few years ago. The City can’t even keep up with necessities, and now it wants to spend millions on rail transit planning?
What is wrong with these people??????
@3 when the suburbs tried to steal transit service from Seattle when we pay most of the bills and run the profitable routes.
Shifting $1.5 million away from existing repairs in favor of planning, eh?
Yesterday McGinn proposed shifting $1.8 million away from planning (the homeless encampment) in favor of existing repairs (community centers). Pickus said it was because it makes more sense to spend dollars on shovel-ready stuff.
That was yesterday, though.
But nothing for the homeless shelter in Lake City? Well…it was Nickels who wanted to end homelessness…this guy just wanted everyone on a bike.
It would help to know what specifically would be delivered for this $1.5 million. For example, what does “further develop the top priority high capacity transit corridors” actually mean?
Are we securing permits? Doing studies? Making pretty drawings and animated videos?
Who, ultimately, would use these plans, Sound Transit? Are they ok with outsourcing the planning phase?
Will @4, doing Sound Transit’s job of planning for light rail doesn’t put one additional bus-hour on Seattle streets. Nor does it advance the old battle with the ‘burbs on transit service.
If Seattle were serious about improving in-city transit service, they would be resurfacing the streets that city buses run on and buying more bus-hours from Metro.
Time to do some real thinking, Will; get beyond the bumper strip slogans.
Based on the $30 billion already spent you nincompoops should already have at least 1000 miles of light rail built — if you had built it at grade and not inside tunnels like light rail is supposed to be built.
Cienna’s headline is grossly misleading, as the seven “high capacity…corridors identified in the Transit Master Plan” for which the mayor is looking to plan encompass no true subway or light rail lines.
The seven corridors and their suggested “solutions” include (take note, @7):
– a grossly ineffective streetcar line via Westlake to Fremont and Ballard
– a frankly unnecessary streetcar line up Eastlake
– a redundant downtown streetcar “connector” on 4th/5th
– a Bus Rapid Transit corridor on Madison (actually a good idea in theory, though the current plan leaves much to be desired)
– various window-dressing improvements on cross-town bus routes. These might make routes like the 44 marginally less excruciating but should in no way be construed as “high capacity” anything.
The mayor is right that Seattleites want a long-overdue rapid transit system to get us around the city. The mayor is rightly concerned Sound Transit’s obsessive “regional” focus could leave us forever starved for in-city rapid transit connectivity.
But he is wrong about the form he envisions “improvements” taking. Seattle’s current crap bus system ensures that every trip takes 5-10 times longer than it would in a car. Nobody in their right mind actually prefers it. Why spend hundreds of millions on pointless, kneecapped streetcars that will still take 3 times longer than driving — 6 times longer if headed anywhere but downtown — ensuring that still nobody in their right mind would prefer it.
The most effective single-line solution was already approved “for study” by the voters in 2008’s Sound Transit 2 proposal: a 3-mile, full-on light rail subway connecting Ballard, Phinney, and Wallingford to the UW, Capitol Hill, and downtown line, putting all of those currently disconnected places — which represent most of North Seattle’s density — within 14 minutes of one another at all hours of the day.
This is how to get the most dramatic improvement of mobility for the fewest miles of track. And Sound Transit is supposed to be “studying” it already. The mayor should be figuring out how to employ political capital to turn study into action. Why he would rather chase after less expensive yet totally pointless projects is anyone’s guess.
Let’s be clear: this $1.5M is to be spent on “planning”, not “doing”.. How courageous and bold!
@10: Thanks for the summary.
It’s telling when commenters do a better job reporting the news than the actual reporter.
@11 so you want us to build it without planning?
That’s how we got that Tunnel Monstrosity that is sucking up transportation dollars in Seattle and nearby counties and endangering the 520 bridge financing, with a net result of fewer sidewalks built and more potholes unfilled city-wide.
Planning is a necessary precondition. Doing things on napkins leads to Gold-Plated Tunnels we don’t need for Billionaires who won’t pay for them.