PSRC Transportation Plan

(I submitted the following to “transportationplan.participate”.   I posted it since the PSRC has ignored countless earlier emails referring to posts on this blog.)

PSRC Transportation Plan

The Jan 11^th Seattle Times Editorial, “New Transportation Plan Must be Pragmatic,” criticism of the Puget Sound Regional Council’s transportation plan is well founded.   The premise for the plan is summarized in the following excerpt:  

There should be an increased reliance on express lane tolls and user fees, such as a road usage charge, that are phased in as toll system technology and user acceptance evolves over time. Toll and fee rates should be set in a manner that strives to improve travel benefits for users of the express toll lane system and manages system demand during peak periods of the day. The use of toll revenues should also evolve over time towards increasingly broader uses.

The PRSC plan envisions $27.6B of the $39.9B in new revenue needed by 2040 will come from “Road usage charges”.  They assume user acceptance will “evolve over time” allowing them to increase tolls and divert revenues towards “increasing broader uses”.  They “strive to improve travel benefits for users of the express toll lane” but do nothing for those unwilling or unable to pay.

Those assumptions, along with the assumption, $5.1B from a “Carbon Tax on Fuel,” seem somewhat “optimistic”. They project Sound Transit won’t need any new revenue, having $61.6B to spend by 2040 with $42.4B spent extending light rail.

They propose to use the money to make “Key Investments”, in King, Kitsap, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties on highways, transit, and local roadway and trail projects.  What’s interesting is none of the PSRC "Draft" King County Investments include projects for cross-lake commuters.   They include light rail from Kirkland to Issaquah, but ignore East Link.   They could have proposed Bus Rapid Transit  (BRT) for I-90 commuters that would have been infinitely better than light rail.  Instead they proposed BRT for I-405 but nothing for SR 520: apparently ignoring the needs of cross-lake commuters from both sides of the lake.

They applaud how, “Transit’s use in the central Puget Sound region grew at a faster rate than any of the 52 metropolitan areas with a population of more than one million people.”    Yet the PSRC “Stuck in Traffic: 2015 Report” included a “pie chart” showing the percentage of transit riders had increased from 8.6% in 2010 to 9.8% in 2013, yet traffic delays between 2010 and 2014 increased by 52%.  The Dec. 26^th Seattle Times headline,  “Everett to Seattle: 94 minutes in the morning” suggests 2016 transit ridership increase did little to reduce congestion. 

The entire PSRC plan is predicated on people choosing to live within easy access to transit or to work;

The strategy contains numeric guidance adopted for counties, cities, and towns to use as they develop new population and employment growth targets and update local comprehensive plans. These land use assumptions serve as the basis for local and regional transportation planning.

Their  “regional growth strategy” assumes an additional “510,000 people will walk or bike daily as a form of transportation” and “more than 620,000 additional people will live within half a mile of frequent transit”.  That by 2040, transit ridership will increase to 510 million annually.    Yet their “managed lanes network” does little to expand commuter access to transit near where large numbers of commuters currently live or may want to live. 

They admit current “park and rides fill very early in the morning” and assume 18,000 new parking stalls will be built; apparently unaware Sound Transit ST3 P&R funding is limited to adding 8560 spaces between 2024 and 2041.  Thus it’s not clear who will provide funds for the additional nearly 10,000 stalls: a significant improvement but far more are needed.

In conclusion, the PSRC includes plans on how they intend to get additional funds but very little on how they intend to spend them. ("towards broader use"?)  Clearly, they would be well advised to be “more pragmatic”.