[TRU Research] CTR data request

Thu Jun 27 21:40:45 PDT 2019

So cool, thank you! I will peruse more closely tomorrow. A word on the networks and then some other stuff that may (or may not) be of interest: 

My CTR contact at SDOT got back to me and said they are working hard on a final version of this draft CTR Strategic Plan <https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/TransportationOptionsProgram/CTR_Draft_Strategic_Plan_Jan2019.pdf>, which “will have the full list of employers along with details about each of the CTR networks, although not the 1-to-1 matching of companies to networks as you’re asking for.” So we’re on our own matching employers with networks. Stephen, you already did some work here identifying neighborhoods <https://seattletransitpasses-research.pbworks.com/w/page/133437828/Potential%20CTR%20Targets> for some of these companies. Another thing to note is that the new strategic plan is going to change the way they divide the city into networks— see page 21 <https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/TransportationOptionsProgram/CTR_Draft_Strategic_Plan_Jan2019.pdf>. So maybe we shouldn’t get too hung up on this, we just need to get some sense of which companies are really bad actors, and the networks and corresponding targets are at least some kind of proxy for what kind of transit access their worksites have.

SDOT staff were supposed to report to the city council’s Transportation Committee next Tuesday about this new CTR plan, but apparently that’s now been postponed till July 30. 

I read through the plan in some detail last weekend, and noticed that in a way it is set up to fail. I sent the following explanation to SDOT staff and a couple of councilmembers:

The draft plan states: “[Drive Alone Rate] DAR targets were set based on analysis of past CTR survey data and a 2035 future DAR target of 25%, which is identified as the citywide commute trip goal by the 2015 Move Seattle Plan and as the citywide all trips goal by the Seattle 2035 Comprehensive Plan.”

The part about Move Seattle is correct, on Page 3: <http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/MoveSeatte-FinalDraft-2-25-Online.pdf> “Decisive action to meet our goal of 75% of commuters getting to work without their personal cars by 2035 is needed to keep us on track to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”

However, the part about the Comprehensive Plan isn’t. On Page 75: <http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/OPCD/OngoingInitiatives/SeattlesComprehensivePlan/CouncilAdopted2019.pdf> The mode-share target for “all work trips” to Seattle is listed as 65% not driving alone by 2035. The mode-share for “non-work trips” in Seattle is listed as 75% not driving alone by 2035. In other words, 25% DAR is the target for non-work trips, not all trips. The all trips goal would presumably be somewhere between 25% and 35%, depending on the total ratio of work and non-work trips.

This raises the question, was it intentional that the Move Seattle plan is more ambitious, or did that originate in a misreading of the Comprehensive Plan goals? I have emailed Michael Hubner, who is listed as the contact for Move Seattle issues, to ask about this.

That is the small concern. Reading whole the draft plan, it’s pretty clearly based on the more ambitious of the two goals, 25% DAR for all commute trips by 2035. That leads to my larger concern, which is that while the plan adopts this 25% goal, the benchmarks are set such that we’re not going to meet it:

The plan sets benchmarks to get CTR employers down to a citywide average DAR of 25%. The plan also sets benchmarks to get center city employers down to 19.2%, a level consistent with a citywide DAR of 25%. But there is no plan for the rest of the city. Given that current drive-alone rates for CTR worksites (31.46%) and the center city (29.7%) are far below the citywide average of 51% (according to the 2018 Traffic Report <https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/Reports/2018_Traffic_Report.pdf>), even if all the plan’s benchmarks are met for CTR and center city commutes, we’ll be lucky to hit 35% overall by 2035.

Of course, the other question is whether 25% DAR citywide by 2035 is even an ambitious enough target, in the context of climate change etc. My other observation on this plan is that looking past the verbiage it’s not really about climate change at all, rather it is (look at page 28 <https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/TransportationOptionsProgram/CTR_Draft_Strategic_Plan_Jan2019.pdf>) a plan whose big vision is to maintain rush hour traffic at current levels for the next fifteen years.

> On Jun 27, 2019, at 5:10 PM, Stephen DeSanto <rachidian at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Okay, I have a list of companies which:
> Are on our CTR Targets list
> Were not listed as Seattle CTR Champions
> and adds this 2017/2018 WSDOT survey data for each:
> drive-alone rate (as dat_rate)
> total weekly trips reported
> weekly drive alone trips
> This list is here: https://seattletransitpasses-research.pbworks.com/w/file/134329350/ctr_champions_2018_unranked_vs_wsdot_drive_alone.csv <https://seattletransitpasses-research.pbworks.com/w/file/134329350/ctr_champions_2018_unranked_vs_wsdot_drive_alone.csv>
> 
> Keep in mind some companies might not be Seattle CTR Champions because they're elsewhere in King County. If someone has an idea to connect these places with network/location, I can add that in.
> 
> My employer (ExtraHop Networks) reported a drive-alone rate of 10%, is located in the Downtown network (target 20%) but we're not CTR Champions? Feels bad, man.
> 
> If anyone wants to check my work, or build on these results, I can share my Jupyter Notebook (python).
> 
> On Tue, Jun 18, 2019 at 10:11 PM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>> wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Turns out WSDOT is much more forthcoming with employers’ CTR report data than SDOT is— see below and attached. One useful project would be to make a table or spreadsheet listing the “unranked” employers in this list Stephen made <https://seattletransitpasses-research.pbworks.com/w/page/133894899/CTR%20Champions%202018>, with a column for the drive-alone rate reported in their 2017/2018 survey (gleaned from the attached data) and another column with the target drive-alone rate for their “network” <http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transportation-options-program/commute-trip-reduction-program/2013-2018-networks-and-targets>. This will allow us to see which companies actually fell short of meeting their target, and by how much.
> 
> Unfortunately I don’t know of an efficient way to identify each employer’s network. I just emailed my SDOT contact, who gave me the list of Seattle CTR companies, to ask whether he can share a version that lists their networks. So maybe let’s give him a day or two to respond before we do it the slow way and look each one up.
> 
> Mike and I are going to chat Thursday morning about our survey data, so we should be able to get some analysis going soon after that. Stay tuned. Maybe we could try to meet up sometime in the next few weeks to assess our progress etc.
> 
> - Katie
> 
>> Begin forwarded message:
>> 
>> From: "Wandler, Michael" <WandleM at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:WandleM at wsdot.wa.gov>>
>> Subject: RE: CTR data request
>> Date: June 18, 2019 at 8:49:57 PM PDT
>> To: "katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>" <katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>>
>> Cc: "Gotla, Ricardo" <GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov>>, "Nguyen, Amber" <NguyenAm at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:NguyenAm at wsdot.wa.gov>>
>> 
>> Hi, Katie,
>>  
>> I am attaching our CTR aggregate report.  I believe it has the information you need.  If you look on the Worksites_CountTowardsGoal sheet, each row represents one survey’s results for the listed worksite.  Each employer surveys once every two-year cycle, so some worksites have up to six survey results since 2007-08.
>>  
>> For each survey, we have information on vehicle miles traveled, non-drive alone rate, greenhouse gas emissions, total trips by mode type, and percentage of total trips by mode type.
>>  
>> If you would like to know more about how we do some of the calculations, please check out this website:https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/transit/ctr/surveying-employees <https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/transit/ctr/surveying-employees>.  It has many things you will potentially find helpful, like a blank copy of the survey, how VMT and GHG are calculated, FAQs, our policy for response rate, et cetera.
>>  
>> I hope this helps!
>>  
>> Michael S. Wandler | 206.464.1215
>>  
>> From: Gotla, Ricardo <GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov>> 
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 2:25 PM
>> To: Wandler, Michael <WandleM at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:WandleM at wsdot.wa.gov>>; Nguyen, Amber <NguyenAm at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:NguyenAm at wsdot.wa.gov>>
>> Subject: FW: CTR data request
>>  
>> See CTR data inquiry below. Happy to hand this off to either one of you or follow up myself. You’re call. If either of you do respond, please Cc me.
>> --
>> Ricardo Gotla (he/him pronouns)
>> O: 206.716.1114
>> C: 360.867-8308
>>  
>> From: Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>> 
>> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 2:07 PM
>> To: Gotla, Ricardo <GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:GotlaR at wsdot.wa.gov>>
>> Subject: CTR data request
>>  
>> Hi Ricardo,
>>  
>> Thanks for the call just now— the request is below. We’re particularly interested in reported drive-alone rates, but if there is other shareable info that would be great too.
>>  
>> Thanks!
>> Katie
>> 206-781-7204
>>  
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>  
>> From: Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>>
>> Subject: CTR data request
>> Date: June 12, 2019 at 8:14:20 AM PDT
>> To: ctrsurvey at wsdot.wa.gov <mailto:ctrsurvey at wsdot.wa.gov>
>>  
>> Hello,
>>  
>> I’m doing some research on CTR efforts in Seattle and King County. I’m wondering whether I can obtain drive-alone rates reported by CTR-affected employers, and any other easily-shareable information that WSDOT collects about their CTR programs.
>>  
>> Happy to chat by phone if that’s helpful— 206-781-7204.
>>  
>> Thanks!
>> Katie
>>  
>> Katie Wilson
>> General Secretary
>> Transit Riders Union
>> https://transitriders.org <https://transitriders.org/>
>> 206-781-7204
>>  
>> The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and poor people, including students, seniors, and people with disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power we need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet. We will fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation system in Seattle and beyond, so that every human being has access to safe, affordable, and reliable public transit.
>>  
>>  
> 
> 
> 

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