Late last week, King County Executive Dow Constantine signed an executive order to further integrate regional transit planning and operations in the Puget Sound.

Transportation Choices welcomes this news and continues to appreciate Executive Constantine’s leadership for practical, common-sense, politically sensible solutions in the Central Puget Sound. The average voter or transit rider does not bother themselves with the alphabet soup of transportation agencies; any effort to smartly integrate large agencies is welcome news.

The executive order calls for better integration in transit planning and operations between light rail and bus. With U Link, North Link, and East Link all on the horizon, there is potential for massive transit efficiencies in both time and money. For riders in north King and Snohomish counties, bus service could be directed to truncate at the Lynwood, Northgate, and University District stations. While this would require a transfer to get downtown, it could save riders a significant amount of time; light rail will run every six minutes and take a  predictable  nine minutes to go from UW to Downtown. Current local (non-Sound Transit) bus hours currently spent sitting in I-5 traffic could be redeployed for better neighborhood and last-mile connections across the region.

Speaking of last mile connections…

Smart planning for bus, bike, and pedestrian connections around light rail stations is crucial for our long-term sustainability. Sound Transit’s current standard practice for suburban light rail stations is to build giant parking garages in order to meet the Federal Transportation Administration’s requirements for ridership. While parking shouldn’t be absent for the light rail system, it also shouldn’t be free. And, we believe there needs to be a better balance between parking, transit-oriented development, and access to stations by walking, biking, and bus. Better bus planning to and from light rail stations is a crucial step in finding this balance and building a better transit future.

Now if only WSDOT would start meaningfully planning for transit and all modes every time they spend a few million dollars. We like to dream, and we’re working on that too.

Thanks for all you do to support Transportation Choices.

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