Afternoon Jolt: State Budget, Sound Transit

“More than 20 percent thought it was too difficult to get customer information on how to use light rail.”

‘Cause it’s sooo effin’ hard to figure out how to use a train. For Pete’s sake, are these the same people who complain that there’s no instructions on a pack of toilet paper?

Jay, it is hard to change. And not only for people in SE Seattle.

It was hard for me to learn to drive in Seattle before I lived here full time. It was hard for me to learn to take the bus, even when it was paid for. Very simple once I learned where the stop was, and the times, and the process.

Even now, I had to look up the bus I took to Belltown the other night, when it left, how long it would take to get there. That was the 8, and the ride was an hour, not counting the walk to the bus and the walk to my destination.
Going home I decided to take the train. Faster, I thought.
But I had to get to the Westlake station, and had to ask people at the Westlake Mall just where the station was. Nobody was sure, but they pointed me in the general direction. Once in the tunnel, I wasn’t quite sure if I was on the right side to catch the train South.

Once on the train things were fine, but from the Rainier Beach station I still had a one mile walk home, on Friday, at 9 PM.

So it’s possible, it’s convenient, it’s all good: When you know the ropes.

Initially Light Rail was going to have more stops along MLK Jr. Way, but those were cut to cover cost overruns. Then there were to be circulating bus routes over to the East side of the Rainier Valley and along MLK to transport commuters and other riders to the rail stops. Mayor Nickels had Metro divert the money for the circulating buses to cover daily operating losses of his South Lake Union Trolley line. The bulk of the residents in the Valley, many of them low income elderly and/or handicapped, are expected to hoof it 1 to 2 miles to a train stop. Many can’t walk that far and others won’t, so the results of this survey are hardly surprising.

This a reasonable beef if the purpose of the rail was to transport current residents of the Valley, but it never was. The purpose was to build rail AND THEN density, to pack in more people.
That’s still the purpose, but so many idiots in the RV didn’t understand this, and are fighting the second part of it. TOD.

I took the train home because there were fewer stops.
That’s the point. It isn’t a bus.

A one-mile walk home is “convenient”?

Not to most people.

Maybe people in the Rainier Valley enjoy living there the way it was, and don’t appreciate train-loving idiots forcing their ideal of “density” on them.

I don’t doubt the people living there the way is was like it the way it was.

But the RV, and the City, and the Country, and the World are not the way it was. Sick’s stadium is gone, brother. Gone.

I have a car. I had the choice.
And I would take that choice again.

A mile is like four city blocks.

It is disingenuous to say that the purpose of light rail was never to transport the current residents. There may be a larger goal to encourage dense development near the stations, but it was sold as transit for the Valley. If it wasn’t designed to transport existing residents why has Metro bus service in the Valley been cut since the Light Rail line opened? The reason given by Metro was that the existing residents of the RV were being served by Light Rail.

A mile is 20 city blocks.

So 60% of Southeast Seattle residents don’t have trouble walking to a station? Thats pretty good for a rather short starter line.

The current residents misunderstood.
Or, really, the “leadership” misrepresented this to the peeps:

It was never, NEVER, sold as transit for the valley.
You were pwned.

I don’t know what city you live in.
But I like it! I’d live there.

Maybe we could do a city of 100 city blocks to the mile.
But then I’d have to walk 100 city blocks to the train.
That doesn’t sound so good.

Most transit studies show that the majority of transit uses won’t walk over 1/4 mile to a bus stop or train station. An average city block is 100 yards. A mile is 1,760 yards. So, a mile is about 18 city blocks. Very few transit users would walk a mile to or from a bus stop or train station.

Really? The Rainier Valley looks almost exactly the same today as before light rail went in. The same, brother. The same.

And not the safest thing to do at 9PM at the Rainier Beach Station—at least for a vertically challenged woman.

That’s because you don’t get out.

MLK is the new force. Vietnamese people rule the valley now.
And that is a good thing.

A secret: Dudes don’t like it, either.

But a better secret: It’s not any big deal for either sex.
There are some who get mileage out of your discomfort.
Maybe you do, too.

That works if it works.
But that’s not the reality.

Erica,
This poll was conducted in 2009 when light rail first opened. The goal of the survey was to better understand what motivates people to ride transit, how they perceive transit (especially light rail since it was a new mode) and the barriers they perceived to using transit. We primarily polled regular drivers instead of regular transit riders. What your post missed is that 80% believed that it was easy to get information about light rail and overall 60% thought that light rail was a positive addition in their community. Further, all respondents lived within a 15 minute walk to the station (of varying levels of difficulty depending various factors). They perceived the walk to be longer than it actually was which offered the opportunity of education.

We used what we learnt to develop tools, training and materials for an education program in the summer of 2010 where 100 residents chose to take the bus, train, walk or bike instead of driving.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify and provide context for this effort.

Shefali Ranganathan

Just seven percent of respondents said that if they need to go downtown they would use the light rail.

And yet the $1.6 billion per mile system was painfully routed through South Seattle specifically to tap into the high density and create ridership…

Dick:
It was painfully routed through South Seattle because there was no density. It was a wasteland.
Now, to get our money’s worth, we need to build that density.

It’s going to happen. And it is happening.

1/4 for buses, 1/2 for true rapid transit (which Link is).

Nice.

I like how you turned the easing of restrictions, allowing people to do what they want with their property, into forcing them to do something.

Don’t want to live in a condo or townhome? Don’t sell your SFH to developers. To my knowledge Seattle isn’t discussing using imminent domain to hand land over to developers.

Oh, Anc…
You said the words: Eminent domain (ED).

This is what “Fred” lives for. Expect a spanking tomorrow.

Whatever. You are seriously misinformed.

Did someone mention the Rainier Beach Station that is NOT even in Rainier Beach? Did anyone mention the number of robberies (some at gunpoint) at the Rainier Beach Station? Did anyone ever think about a reliable connection via bus from the Real Rainier Beach Neighborhood to the Rainier Beach Station (the one not in Rainier Beach)?

Can you easily get to West Seattle, U.W., or Queen Anne from the “Train to Nobody’s Job?” Light Rail is the modern equivalent of an old Disneyland “B-Ticket” ride. Fun for a few minutes, but the only place it stops is Fantasyland.

I tired to use transit from north seattle to the othello community center: the metro trip adviser doesn’t integrate the freakin’ train with the bus and advised me to bus it to westlake then take train then take ANOTHER bus to get to community center. The trip adviser also assumes I won’t walk more than half a mile and I have to go thru multiple views to find out what if I miss that bus when’s the next one. IT sucks and they don’t even have a good BUS MAP you can print and carry.

The lrt when I got on at the station did not have a sign saying BUY YOUR TICKET HERE, you have to wander around and figure out you need to go thru the turnstile first, then buy a card. Weird.

Then the train failed after two stops.

Your reference to tp is a racist slur as this came up in discussion of mexico in which fyi there are populations who don’t know how to read spanish and have little experience with what you consider to be a normal toilet. go ahead, mock the poor, asshole.

Ouch. Erica could’ve and should’ve talked to Shefali about the poll, instead of getting things so messed up. In my day, this was Journalism 101 stuff — talk to your sources, dammit.

Not one of Publicola’s prouder moments.

Pictures?

Agreed. The quality of low income people we have today is shocking, back in the olden day, when we taxed them mercilessly to provide services to other people with more money, they were more humble and cooperative about it. Today, damn, they bitch and moan, as if they think if THEY are paying sales tax for 45 years the project should benefit THEM, not some yuppies moving in later!

Oh well plus ca change….

No, we decided in 2005 to NOT built a train connection to West Seattle and Queen Ann, it was determined that having two train lines was a wild extravagance, and golly just look around the world at nyc paris all cities with successful transit, they get by with just one line inside the city. having multiple lines to go everywhere is a waste!

http://image.apartmentguide.com/imgr/540e5eff7c491d09d0a2da529878c7f1/550-367

The Station at Othello Park, due to open in March.

http://thestationatothellopark.com/

It would be nice to see Shefali’s comment offering more context to the polling data elevated to a post update…

People need to permanently forget some idiot notion that society and urban communities do not physically evolve on a constant basis. That neighborhood you live in today? It SHOULD be different in 20 years, because thats HOW IT ALWAYS WORKS IN CITIES. And pretty much always have. Want a neighborhood that doesn’t change? You buy a house 50-60 blocks deep into the suburbs, at the cost of the many amenities of city life. It’s that simple and that’s the price for a nice lawn and a neighborhood that will — maybe! — look the same at age 70 as it did at age 30.

As for people that can’t figure out trains in general, really? A fixed line train that goes from A to B, in particular, without forking lines? Do these people have a problem figuring out how a key goes into a lock or what to do with the genitals as well? Have they lived their entire life only moving around from point A to point B by getting in and out of a car? How do you even live in this planet without KNOWING HOW A TRAIN RUNS?? It’s 2011, not 1711, for fucks sake!!

If the population of NYC can suss out their maze of subways, and some people can’t figure out that the Light Rail “go fast on track to over there, whooooooosh!!” you can’t engineer or work around that beyond a certain degree.

People need to permanently forget some idiot notion that society and urban communities do not physically evolve on a constant basis. That neighborhood you live in today? It SHOULD be different in 20 years, because thats HOW IT ALWAYS WORKS IN CITIES. And pretty much always have. Want a neighborhood that doesn’t change? You buy a house 50-60 blocks deep into the suburbs, at the cost of the many amenities of city life. It’s that simple and that’s the price for a nice lawn and a neighborhood that will — maybe! — look the same at age 70 as it did at age 30.

As for people that can’t figure out trains in general, really? A fixed line train that goes from A to B, in particular, without forking lines? Do these people have a problem figuring out how a key goes into a lock or what to do with the genitals as well? Have they lived their entire life only moving around from point A to point B by getting in and out of a car? How do you even live in this planet without KNOWING HOW A TRAIN RUNS?? It’s 2011, not 1711, for fucks sake!!

If the population of NYC can suss out their maze of subways, and some people can’t figure out that the Light Rail “go fast on track to over there, whooooooosh!!” you can’t engineer or work around that beyond a certain degree.

Not true. Same for both buses and trains.

Wrong. I do get out. Go down MLK JR Way all the time. No different now from before the light rail went in. You ever been there?

And 7 percent even said they would use light rail if they needed to go downtown!

spending $1.6 BILLION on one little line was an unbelieveably stupid waste of money. Why throw good money after bad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9GJXv7NaA

Video taken from a Link train along MLK JR Way. See for yourself.

Barley – go to GoogleEarth and plant the pin at 45th and 15th NE and then draw the ruler line to 65th – you will see that it is exactly 1 mile.

Have they lived their entire life only moving around from point A to point B by getting in and out of a car?

–short answer from Seattle’s old guard “liberals”: YES. The 37th Dist Democrats and their tired political reps did everything they could to stop the “racist, dangerous train from hell” Naturally, none of the fearmongering came true. But the washed-up liberal class did a fine job of trying to manipulate immigrant populations to serve their own car-centric “progressive” vision for Seattle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9GJXv7NaA

Video from Link down MLK Jr Way, showing it looks the same as it did before Link went in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT9GJXv7NaA

Video from Link down MLK Jr Way, showing it looks the same as it did before Link went in.

“Pedestrian analyst Michael Replogle found that Montgomery County, Maryland residents will walk 1/4 mile median distance to a bus and 1/2 mile to a rail stop, and recommends assuming those distances for analyses (1984). ”

http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/articles/characteristics.asp

1) I disagree that it was a waste.

2) The people voted for it, and will likely vote to add more.

You do realize that the line has been open less than a year and half AND DURING THE WORST RECESSION SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION right? Yes? Tell you grasp that. Considering this infastructure should last well into the next century lets wait a little bit before we start saying it’s had no effect. We aren’t China or Soviet Russia where you can build a block of apartments in a week. This shit takes time ESPECIALLY when NIMBYs are blocking it every step of the way.

Google Maps integrates both the metro bus and the train. I’ve often found that an easier interface for planning bus/train trips than the Metro trip planner.

Thanks for the clarification. The reason I wrote about this yesterday is that the city council’s transportation committee discussed the findings for the first time this morning. And to be clear, the surveys were done in December 2009 and in 2010, not “when light rail first opened.” Similarly, the city’s traffic study, released just last week, was for data from 2009—which doesn’t make it less newsworthy.

That video is outdated. There are about 500-600 units of housing that have been either completed or started construction within 1/2 mile the Mt. Baker, Columbia City and Othello stations since that video was shot.

Best Development Practices: A Primer.
Ewing, R. (1999) EPA Smart Growth Network, pp. 1-29.
http://www.epa.gov/dced/pdf/BestDevprimer.pdf
- See p. 8. Suggest destinations to which we expect people to walk should be no further than ¼ mile distance. (References data from: Tabulations from the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS).)

It looks just the same now as it did before Link opened, genius.

Wrong. There is nothing that has been started since that video was shot.

Grover, I don’t know what you’re smoking. I rode the train from the airport to downtown this afternoon. There are lots of new apartment buildings being built RIGHT NOW!

You do realize that the line has been open less than a year and half AND DURING THE WORST RECESSION SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION right? Yes? Tell me you grasp that.

I’m pretty sure everything you see being built there is mostly or entirely publicly-funded.

There’s been more private development along Delridge Way, and that’s been done by the private sector without any new transit service (let alone light rail).

When I click on the link, an error message comes up.

Nothing has been started since that video was taken. And “lots” of new apartment buildings? LOL You are deluded.

Nothing has been started since that video was taken. And “lots” of new apartment buildings? LOL You are deluded.

Nothing has been started since that video was taken. And “lots” of new apartment buildings? LOL You are deluded.

You are misstating this figure. Studies have shown that almost EVERYONE, if they are able, is willing to walk 1/4 mile. After that the number of people willing to walk drops off, so for a 1 mile journey a smaller percentage of people will do it, but that doesn’t mean nobody will. With better service available people are willing to walk greater distances. They will also walk longer if the path is pleasant, safe, well-lit, full of interest, neighbors and commerce. Perceptions of distance are a hangup for people who are primarily drivers and unaccustomed to traveling more than from thier car to a building on foot. Most of thier walks might be in pretty hostile places like parking lots, and it’s then understandable they don’t want to walk, but they do it sometimes without even knowing it – 1 mile is about the distance from one end of a mall to the other and back. I regularly walk a mile. takes 15-20 minutes and I don’t even break a sweat. With half hour service, sometimes I get home quicker than waiting for the next bus. Your ref’s are very out of date and you are twisting the numbers to make an incorrect point.

Hmm…from the perspective of folks who’d been mistreated by most levels of government for decades, being told you’re going to run a surface-grade rail track through their neighborhood on one of two major arterials, while other parts of town are getting tunnels, could lead to some suspicion.

You should also keep in mind that many of these folks are transit-dependent, and any time you mess with a system that you depend on, you’re going to be concerned. A lot of folks only use transit for commute trips, and it’s a very different experience to use it for all your trips all the time.

All that said, I think Shefali’s comment is great and more accurately describes what I hear from folks in SE regarding Link. It’s also pretty clear that we need to put more resources into sidewalks and lighting to make it easier to walk to transit in SE.

Maybe the Salish people enjoyed living in Ranier Valley the way it was and don’t appreciate white europeans and asians coming here and forcing thier ideal of “liberty” on them.

Yeah, just 7 percent of habitual car drivers (at whom the survey was aimed) said they’d switch to using light rail for downtown trips. If I were an advertiser, I’d go to TCC before ClearChannel if they get this kind of success rate.

Publicola’s reporting on the ST survey is inaccurate. There is more information here.

http://seattletransitblog.com/2011/01/29/transportation-barriers-survey/