Spokane: Central City Mobility Open House - October 26th, 2010

If you are passionate about the future of transit and live in Spokane this would be a great event to attend.

Thank you for your interest in the Central City Transit Alternatives Analysis project. Please join us for our next public open house where you can learn about the short-listed alternative routes and transit modes and once again offer your comments. We hope you’ll stop by and bring a friend too!

Central City Mobility Open House - Tuesday, October 26, 2010

South Campus Facility

(412 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., next to the WSU Bookie)

3:30 to 7:00pm – Drop by anytime – Remarks from Mayor Verner at 3:30pm

Recognizing the interrelationships between three important projects affecting downtown and its surrounding areas, the University District, Spokane Transit Authority, and the City of Spokane have partnered to hold this “Central City Mobility Open House.” In one venue you’ll be able to comment on our project, as well as learn about other “mobility” focused projects planned for the Central City area, including the Central City Transit Alternatives Analysis, the East Sprague Redevelopment Study and the University District Bicycle and Pedestrian Bridge.

Need to get up to speed? View past Sounding Board meeting notes and documents and input from the first public open house held in June at http://www.connectspokane.org/.

To date, your input has helped us identify travel patterns, needs, and opportunities; develop a long list of activity areas, alternatives, and modes; and screen this long list against a set of key questions. Now it’s time to share the results of the screening process and take a look at the shorter list of alternatives and modes.

Join TCC at "Conversations RE: Tacoma" October 21st

TCC will be presenting at this event. Come and join us in the discussion on sustainable transportation.

 

Sustainable Transportation: The Future Is in the Past

October 21st at 6:30pm

Washington State History Museum

The creation of new, attractive urban spaces relies on good, non-automotive mobility options. Ironically, American cities used to rely on an infrastructure of inter-city and inter-urban rail, street cars, biking and walking. The guide to what will work best in the future has already proved utile and well-designed in the past. In this forum three experts in sustainable transportation will analyze historic conceptualizations of mobility with a view towards how that vision from the past can become a prescription for a more livable urbanity.

Speakers:
Al Runte, Author of Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation
Andrew Austin, Transportation Choices Coalition
Diane Wiatr, Mobility Coordinator/Urban Planner, City of Tacoma
Moderator: David Nicandri, Director, Washington State History Museum

Individual pre-paid tickets are $7.50

Tickets at the door are $10.00.

Students are admitted free with school ID.

Click For Tickets: Brown Paper Tickets

More Info: http://retacoma.com/

Questions: info@retacoma.com

Please pass on the info to anyone you feel would be interested. All are welcome but seating is limited so register to secure your seat.

Thank you,

ReTacoma

Save Our Buses Campaign in Pierce County is LIVE

I have been working hard over the last few weeks with a dedicated group of volunteers and community leaders to get the Save our Buses campaign up and running in Pierce County.

Similar to many transit agencies across the state and nation Pierce Transit is facing a drastic funding crisis due to a precipitous drop in sales tax revenues.  Despite significant cuts in staff and service, Pierce Transit will be forced to cut service by a drastic 35% percent if new revenue is not secured.

The Pierce Transit Board has decided to ask voters for a small sales tax increase of 0.3% to SAVE OUR BUSES in Pierce County.  For only three pennies on every 10 dollars spent voters will be able to save drastic cuts to transit service, which will disproportionally hurt our residents who need transit service most.

If Proposition One Does Not Pass Next February:

• All of the frequent service in the system will be reduced from 15 minute headways to 30-45 minute headways making it incredibly difficult for working families to catch the bus to work.
• Weekend service will be drastically slashed with minimum of 60 minute headways across most of the system; this will severely hinder transportation access for our elderly and low-income residents.
• Service in many outlying areas of the County will be eliminated as will SHUTTLE service for disabled people, leaving thousands of residents stranded without any alternatives.

The Save Our Buses campaign needs your help.  They have launched a great website, are registered with the PDC, accepting online donations and up are on Twitter and Facebook.

Also Mayor Strickland and Councilmember Terry Lee have agreed to Co-Chair the campaign!

Our Twitter Handle is: @Save_our_Buses

Our Facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurBuses

What Can you do to Help?

• DONATE!  Every campaign needs the financial resources to get its message out.  Please consider making even a small contribution to the campaign, which you can do online or by mailing us a check to"Save our Buses, PO Box 735, Tacoma, WA, 98401-0735 

• SIGN UP for our listserve to get updates about the campaign, please send us an e-mail at info@approveprop1.com with your contact information.  The campaign will need your help down the stretch getting the world out. 

• TELL YOUR FRIENDS: Share THIS blog post, invite your friends on Facebook and help get the work out about this important campaign

100 Useful Tips for Car-Less Living: Tip #3 Get a Transit-Oriented Job

Does having a job where you can talk about transit funding, multi-modal transfers, compact walkable development, and transit oriented communities every waking moment sound like fun to you? Then you probably already know that you are a huge transit nerd.

Transit nerds don't always fit into %100 into larger society.  People look at us weird when we show up 10 minutes late to meetings dripping from head to toe with our bike helmet in hand.  They don't always understand why we sometimes are forced to live days planned down to the minute.  And they (especially significant others of transit nerds) don't understand why we talk about land use and bus systems while on vacation.

At Transportation Choices Coalition, we'll understand you.  If you've experienced some of these symptoms of transit nerdyness then make sure to renew your membership to TCC.  If you experience all of these symptoms, then you should consider apply to work with us, because its not every day you can apply for a job where you get to hang out with cool like-minded transit nerds 40+ hours a week.

On a personal note, I love waking up every single day and going to work knowing that I am fighting for something I believe in; to live in a world where people can leave their cars at home and hop on their bike or catch transit to get to work, visit friends, or go to the doctor.  Working for Transportation Choices Coalition has made my decision to live my life without the burden of a car easier and more meaningful.

Considering joining us, here is the e-mail from Rob about the job:

TCC IS HIRING A NEW POLICY DIRECTOR! 

Love the exciting world of public policy?  Think you’ve got what it takes to convince policy makers to create more transportation choices?  Join our staff and help us win!  We are hiring for the position of Policy Director.  This is a senior staff position. The Policy Director is a key part of the staff leadership team and helps to develop and lead organizational and program strategy. The Policy Director is responsible for all state and federal policy programs including developing our state transportation policy agenda; directing our lobbying at the state and federal level, building political support for our agenda; coordinating the policy component of legislative, issue-based, and ballot measure campaigns; and organizing legislative coalition partners around our priorities. The position requires some media interaction and assistance with fundraising.

CLICK HERE for the job description and application details.  Position closes on November 12.  We will review applications on receipt so applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.  Join our team! 

On a related note, the position is being vacated by Bill LaBorde who is moving on to become the new Legislative Assistant for Seattle City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen.  We at TCC really appreciate Bill’s work here over the past two years.  In his second stint with TCC he set some pretty lofty goals for us as an organization and led us through some tough legislative battles.  Bill has long been a trusted voice on transportation issues at the local, state and national level and we’re proud to see him go on to this coveted position.


Rob Johnson
Executive Director
Transportation Choices Coalition
811 1st Avenue, Suite 626Seattle, WA98104
Phone: 206.329.2336
Fax: 206.329.2705www.transportationchoices.org

Liveblogging the JTC

I'm at the Joint Transportation Committee meeting at the absolutely beautiful new Redmond City Hall (their council chamber are plush).

The ferry system discussions are over and the committee is on to other items for discussion.

Right now the committee is item #5 regarding an update for the statewide transportation plan.  The presentation is pretty benign so far with some consultants going over plan integration and federal requirements for State transportation planning.

There are a surprising number of legislators here especially considering its campaign season.  Attending are Representatives Moeller, Armstrong, Takko, Clibborn, and Liias and Senators Haugen, Swecker, Hatfield, and Kastama.

Also it looks like TVW cameras are here so video will probably be online down the road.

Stay tuned

1:45pm:
They've moved on to discuss refunds and taxes collected on non-highway fuel taxes (i.e. snowmobiles, boats etc.).  Still fairly dull discussion but tolling report is next!

2:05pm:
WSDOT's tolling division has started its presentation on the 167 (Pierce County) and 509 (SeaTac to I-5) tolling studies.  Tolling on both projects could make a significant amount of money that could help pay for the construction projects.

On 509 it is estimated that traffic on the new road would be about half as much with tolling on the new road, but it would still be a net revenue and relieve congestion in the corridor.  Also interesting to point out all of their modeling assumes that transit vehicles would be exempt from the electronic tolls, this is a diversion from some current policy where transit is forced to pay tolls when crossing the Narrow's Bridge on Highway 16 between Gig Harbor and Tacoma.

2:25pm
Under full build option of 167 traffic diversion off of 167 would be around %50.  Diversion is worst on the West side of the highway near I-5. WSDOT studied also tolling 509 and HOT lanes on I-5 to get a sense on how that might raise revenue and lower diversion.  The more that is tolled revenue would increase modestly but get nowhere near covering the cost of the project (would cover less than %50 of the cost in every option.

WSDOT also studied what it would cost to build out 167 in a phased manner starting with just one lanes in each direction instead of two.  In this scenario tolling could cover almost %50 of the cost of the projects, in all other scenarios tolling could cover only around %10-15.  They heard from stakeholders at RAMP that the freight, government folks in Pierce County didn't want to look closely or seriously at the phased in build out of 167.

2:58pm:
WSDOT gave an update on 520 bridge replacement.  Nothing new here, just an update on the meetings and funding picture.  Senator Haugen mentioned that she hopes the UW and the Mayor of Seattle stay on board and constructive in regards to the project.

3:10pm:
They are now getting a DOL update.  I'm signing off.

On Today: Joint Transportation Committee Meeting in Redmond

The Washington State Joint Transportation Committee will be meeting at Redmond City Hall today from 10am-3:30 today and has a very full and interesting agenda.
 
The morning's discussions are dominated by updates on the Ferry System and studies so its a little outside of TCC's normal purview.  The afternoon on the hand is right up our ally.

520, tolling for 167, and receipts of revenue that fund many of WSDOT's multi-modal programs are all on the docket.

It doesn't look like TVW will be covering the meeting so I will try to put up any really interesting tidbits that come out of this meeting on this blog post.

Five Years and Counting!

The Seattle PI today did a great profile on Anirudh Sahni and his longtime fight to get the ST545 bus to serve Capitol Hill.

TCC was happy to support Anirudh in his efforts to add better Eastside Express service to Capitol Hill in years past.  Ridership numbers have proven this move was not a mistake.

The PI captures Anirudh's energy as a transit advocate to fight for this stop, it is truly a great example to demonstrate the challenges and huge success that one dedicated transit advocate can make.

For more info:
http://cid-c860276fca6026d2.office.live.com/view.aspx/545/Index.docx

Thank you Anirudh!