This is just me guessing, but some of our readers may be energized about rail to Ballard and West Seattle.
One thing that’s come up in comment threads is that the adding that sort of demand through downtown is going to end up requiring another right of way. The money-is-no-object desire is probably a Second Avenue tunnel, a mere block away from the DSTT to facilitate easy transfers between the two lines.
Unfortunately, I have an engineering estimate in my possession that tells me running the tunnel boring machine from the stadium to, oh, Queen Anne will cost infinity jillion dollars. So, what’s a rail fan to do?
The analysis I’ve done in this amounts to crayons on a map, but it occurs to me that we’re already going to be digging up the waterfront to replace the Viaduct and seawall with, uh, something. Nickels’ highway tunnel died a quick but painful death, but it’d be somewhat less ambitious to replace that with a rail tunnel, possibly emerging to run under the viaduct through Sodo.
Now, Sound Transit isn’t anywhere near ready to take on running light rail through there, but Mayor Streetcar could certainly figure out a way to make it a “streetcar tunnel” for a decade or two, and then switch it over to light rail in 20 years when they’re ready for it.
North of Stewart St.? South of Sodo? That’s a problem for route planners and taxpayers down the road. But the critical and expensive downtown segment would be locked in.
So we leverage the state’s expenditures for viaduct replacement, lock in construction costs now, and set ourselves up for the future (assuming we make the station platforms long enough to accommodate four cars). We’d be screwed today if they hadn’t excavated the bus tunnel in the 1980s, and perhaps it’s time to make a similar long term investment in our future.
Discuss.
What are the logistics of going under the existing 3rd avenue tunnel and adding another platform below?
I don’t think Alaskan Way is a good route because there will likely never be any development near any potential stops. And if you live in Ballard, you probably want to get downtown, not 3/4 a mile away from the central business district.
And a “streetcar tunnel” is pretty impossible to sell, I’d bet.
I honestly have no idea how the routing should go, and I doubt ST has much in the way of information either since I don’t think they have funds to study it. Maybe elevated? Maybe below the current tunnel through Downtown? Maybe a second avenue tunnel even if it is super expensive?
And would we route from UW to Bothell?
Love it. A light rail tunnel would be much smaller and less expensive than the car tunnel that was considered. If 99 is going away in Seattle anyway then you could even connect the light rail to one side of the current tunnel and leave the other side for cars.
See my post for a complete line (at least to W Seattle – I’m still not sure of the best way to get to Ballard).
[riz] I park near the waterfront every day and walk up to I-5. It takes me 8 minutes.
If you think that’s not good enough for WSeattlites, add a up-and-down the hill bus (about a 2-minute loop). We need one anyway, and it would be a lot cheaper than infinity jillion dollars.
I just don’t think a tunnel is viable in any way at this point. Eliminate all parking on 1st Ave, run a rail line all the way down 1st (preferrably down the middle, not the outside lanes) and viola – you reach all destinations. This is also a fabulous street for a bike lane, but I digress…and this should be done at all hours for bus service too BTW. (I hate riding the 21 home at 7:00 pm and have the bus zig-zag in and out of the right lane to dodge the parked cars.)
If the viaduct is replaced by surface routes, then run rail down there along Alaska. Yes, we West Seattle people can walk up to 1st to catch buses.
Would be a great idea to have something taking over the route of the Green Line. I keep seeing a poster on the PI Forums who thinks the project is still alive, and that the Monorail Board dissolved itself without the authority to do so.(Is it true by the way, I have not seen any stories in the news about any court case over it)
Now streetcar projects can evolve into Light Rail, and I would start with the Streetcar, but the cost of the tunnel in Downtown, although needed, I am just not sure. I am one that thinks the existing DSTT should have been wider, or an extra set of tunnels in place for future conversion, it probably would have been cheaper then.
Also, in Allied Arts’ presentation on a vision for the Viaduct-less Waterfront, they had an interesting CGI, showing a streetcar on Madison Street. Wonder if that would be possible.
What is the route and depth of the BNSF line underneath downtown Seattle and how does that affect any engineering of a new tunnel along the routes mentioned?
Hmm… this says it’s just west of 4th between Seneca and Spring, but must get all the way over past 1st somewhere north of that, running under or over the bus tunnel. Shoot, it only cost $1.5M back then, and was paid for by private companies.
then lets pay infinity jillion dollars. remember how the monorail got killed partly because its downtown routing didn’t integrate with light rail?
Ah, it looks like it passes below the bus tunnel. The Discovery Institute proposed connecting the two back in ’03 (which sounds like a good idea, especially if you add another light rail line to the mix).
I love this idea, as long as they’re digging for the seawall…
Going under the existing 3ave tunnel is very hard because there’s another tunnel down there that freight trains and sounder use.
The tunnel doesn’t click for me. It absolutely needs a close and straight-foward connection to Central Link.
I wouldn’t be opposed to trying to find some kind of surface light-rail solution for West Seattle-Ballard as long as it-
-Connects to Central Link at some point (MINIMAL walking, otherwise people WILL NOT make the transfer)
-Is at least as fast as a bus would be.
-Serves the same basic area that the Green Line would have.
-Takes maximum advantage of the infrastructure (if we need proper light rail vehicles over streetcar vehicles than so be it)
I think a surface solution like they have in Portland could be the solution we need for this particular corridor.
Central link is different. It goes far enough that it needs large sections where it can pick up speed.
I’m not so sure about West Seattle, it may need to be elevated if it is to extend to Burien, but if we are just going to Ballard or even Greenwood, I think a surface corridor could probably be established.
What about using 99/Aurora from Greenwood through the Battery St. Tunnel. From there I think a surface car on Western would work just fine. Truly, its only like 3/4 blocks to the 3rd Ave. tunnel, really not far. Then we go down through SODO and Georgetown and pop out over in Deldridge/West Seattle. That becomes the only really expensive tunnel section. For Alkiers, what about just a streetcar down to the foot ferry.
Here’s a map I made for Future Rail in Seattle
What do you guys think about this? All surface-
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=118219652458657252175.00044b1c0d9e9a9e2e054&z=11
Whoops, with link this time-
Click here for google map
Again, this is a potential, all surface, super-cheap route from Burien-Greenwood.
Why not put a tunnel under 4th?
Add Underground connections to each station, crossovers, and move Central Link the the 4th Ave Tunnel. The tunnel on 3rd would be for W Sea-Ballard, and buses.
[cale] you hit some heavy traffic areas on that path. But if it’s traffic seperated, I’d be for it.
Here’s an idea. Let’s use Martin’s waterfront tunnel, but add a pedestrian tunnel from the waterfront to Link. It’s around a 1000 foot walk – about 3 minutes (less if we add moving sidewalks). We’d still need to build a bored tunnel, but it would be much shorter and smaller.
A line could go from Ballard down Elliot, cross over the BNSF before the sculpture park, go under the existing railroad bridge at the park (west side and continue down Alaskan Way and then hand a U-turn into the INT district station. Sure you have to go South too go North … but the ride would be pretty quick and it would also give Ballard access to the ferry terminal via rail
Well, without getting too deep in the weeds on this one, I would say, close Second to automobile traffic, put two tracks in the center, run streetcars/light rail non-stop from one side of the free-ride zone to the other, and run buses north and south in the curb lanes.
This gives a very nice gradient and alignment, zero tunneling costs, and a transit spine easy to reach from every important part of downtown Seattle.
What is happening in Seattle is that the automobile routes are being de facto dead-ended short of the city core. In the 50s Seattle was built with automobile routes running right through downtown. Merchants of the time thought this was how they would keep their sales up.
But Seattle is just too narrow to handle the automobile traffic of a region that has added a million residents. When I moved in to Seattle, going through downtown was often the fastest way to get somewhere. Now it’s usually the slowest.
So hand-wringing about keeping the cars moving is not needed- that ship has sailed. As someone said on another thread, the best solution for the traffic snarls right now is just to close a few freeway ramps.
And the best solution for the next north-south route is to take a right-of-way that already exists and use it for a form of transit that actually works.
Some assorted responses:
- Tunneling under fourth (or whatever) isn’t demonstrably cheaper than under second; the key to my idea is that you get a large part of the costs for free, not because I have a particular love for using the waterfront.
- I support the idea of using some sort of moving walkway/escalator to get to 3rd Avenue. Can it really cost that much?
- If you take a street (1st, 2nd, and Western were all mentioned) and hand it over to trains, you (1) have huge political problems in taking away precious car capacity; and (2) limit your trains to the length of a city block, like Portland. No thanks.
- Don’t like the streetcar idea? Then send West Seattle buses through it. I’m flexible, as long as we can run LINK down the road.
- “Integration with light rail” is not a significant reason that the monorail died.
Martin, I totally agree that there are political problems with handing over a street to transit, but is the block length really an issue in Seattle? I’m pretty sure I’ve been in a line of 4 bendy buses on 3rd avenue, which means the blocks are presumably long enough for at least a 3-car Link-style train, which ought to be pretty good capacity.
Anyway, at some level, I think the deeper question is whether a Ballard-West Seattle line needs to be engineered to the same standard as Central Link. Personally my standard is whatever gets something that can average 35 mph built soonest.
Steve,
Good question. Here’s my stab based on “totally reliable” sources:
Wikipedia says it’s 95 ft per car, so you need 380 ft for a 4 car train, which gives you 800 people per train and as many 24,000 per hour, at absolute maximum capacity.
Dead reckoning on Google Maps tells me that most downtown blocks are 150-200 ft. So it’d be 2 cars at most, meaning you could run 12,000 people per hour at 2 minute headways.
If you want the Ballard end of the line to go anywhere beyond Ballard, that’s probably not enough capacity, but I’ll defer to someone who knows more about the relevant population densities and commute patterns.
Elevated wouldn’t cost infinity jillion dollars.
I’m thinking my guess is as good as anything I’ve seen Google do, and my guess for the N-S length of a Seattle city block would be about 400 feet.