Seattle Center City Streetcar Workshop

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Seattle Center City Streetcar Workshop

• July 20, 2007

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Evaluation Criteria for Seattle Streetcars
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Transit Plan - Goal

• Transit every 15 minutes 18 hours a day 7
  days a week

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Existing and Future Transit
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Seattle Candidate Streetcar Corridors

• All UVTN routes are initial candidates for
  streetcar service.
• Today
• Criteria Evaluation
• Mapping Exercise

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Screening Criteria

• Grade
• Street Geometry
• Physical Barriers
• Possible Terminal Location
• Utilities
• Volume/Capacity Ratio
• Duplication of Service
• Transit-Supportive Land Uses
• Industrial Zoning

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Grade

• Grades inhibit streetcar operations
• 0 to 6 - acceptable
• 6 to 10 - if all other screening criteria are
  met
• gt 10 - eliminated

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Street Geometry

• Interchanges
• Turning movements (lt90 unacceptable)
• Weaving or curvature needs
• Exclusive right-of-way needs
• Transit priority needs (bridges, underpasses)
• Wheel noise

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Other Physical Barriers

• Low bridges or skyways
• gt14 of vertical clearance
• lt 14 of vertical clearance fatal flaw
• Narrow streets
• Lane widths narrower than 10 ft is a fatal flaw
• At-grade freight railroad crossing
• Requires difficult approval process fatal flaw

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Terminal Location

• Needs reasonable location to terminate and
  connect to other transit
• No strong connection to transit hub is treated as
  a fatal flaw

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Utilities

• Relocation of major utilities (water, storm or
  sanitary) may be too costly
• gt6 ft from trackway
• 3-6 ft from trackway
• lt3 ft from trackway

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Speed and Reliability

• Traffic congestion inhibits successful streetcar
• Corridor or segments with volume/lane ratios
  greater than the average plus one standard
  deviation is treated as a fatal flaw (unless
  exclusive ROW)

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Duplication of Service

• Corridors that directly compete for riders with
  existing or programmed LRT service should be
  eliminated.

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Land Use Types
Low Medium High
Airport General Commercial Small Scale Commercial General
Golf Course Downtown Secondary Office Downtown Edge
Industrial General Office-Residential Medium Density Downtown Entertainment
Industrial Light Mixed Use - Residential Medium Downtown Primary Office
Institutional (E.g. Cemetery) Office / Convertible Space Downtown Retail
Protected Open Space Residential Medium Density Live Work Units
Parks Residential High Density
Water Mixed Use - Residential High
Railway Mixed Use with Retail
Residential Low Density Office- Residential High
Retail Single Story Transit Oriented Use
Trolley Railway
Vehicular Right-of-Way
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Land Use Types, contd

• Low transit-supportive land use
• Residential density lt 10 units/acre
• Industrial
• Low-scale commercial development
• No significant mixed-use development

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Industrial Zoning

• Streetcar garage needs to be located on track
  connected to main alignment
• No industrial zoning within ½ mile of corridor is
  treated as a fatal flaw.

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Summary

• Physical Barriers
• Low bridges or skyways
• gt14 vertical clearance
• lt 14 vertical clearance
• Lane widths narrower than 10 ft
• At-grade freight railroad crossing
• Possible Terminal Location
• No strong connection to transit hub is treated as
  a fatal flaw

• Grade
• 0 to 6 - acceptable
• 6 to 10 - if all other screening criteria are
  met
• gt 10 - eliminated
• Street Geometry
• Interchanges
• Turning movements (lt90 unacceptable)
• Weaving or curvature needs
• Exclusive right-of-way needs
• Transit priority needs
• Wheel noise

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Summary, Contd

• Duplication of Service
• Corridors that directly compete for riders with
  existing or programmed LRT
• Transit-Supportive Land Uses
• See list
• Industrial Zoning
• No industrial zoning within ½ mile of corridor

• Utilities
• gt6 ft from trackway
• 3-6 ft from trackway
• lt3 ft from trackway
• Volume/Capacity Ratio
• Volume/lane ratios greater than the average plus
  one standard deviation