The 39 will connect with Link at Othello, Columbia City, Sodo, and all stations North. Although Sunday headways are improving from 60 to 45 minutes, Saturday and midday weekday headways are increasing from 30 minutes to 45. There’s also nothing being done about the lack of evening service, effectively cutting off the Seward Park neighborhood from Link after about 7pm.
There was talk of diverting the 39 to run Othello-West Seattle instead of downtown (and renumbering it as the 50), but that died thanks to budget constraints and complaints from the VA that they’d lose their one seat ride to downtown. The VA hospital is another example of a building that turns its main entrance away from their best transit option (the 36 on Beacon Ave), although unlike ACRS they didn’t finish their building a year ago.
39 years ago, the second Forward Thrust mass transit proposal failed at the ballot box. It was another 25 years before a regional ballot measure would go to the voters again.
Hey, where’s my post for Forties? I’ve been waiting for it!
The VA will, however, be building a major new addition in about 2 years (The search for a design firm just concluded, and they want to be ready for building permit in late 2011, or early 2012). This will hopefully bring the entrance to the corner of Beacon and Columbian Way.
Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but today on my commute through the bus tunnel they had the light rail trains running. First time I’ve seen them running during a live commuting time. Pretty cool
Like after 3pm?
Eye on Your Metro Commute reports that “Link trains are now operating in
the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT )
during peak hours.”
I wasn’t around during peak time but I noticed they’ve been testing the trains all day during the weekend and today at 8 pm. They’re running one car trains instead of two.
I saw a one car train at Mt. Baker Station today around 9pm.
I saw a one-car train stop for an old guy jaywalking on the tracks yesterday between Mt. Baker and Columbia City. He paused in the middle of a set of tracks to observe the train’s approach.
An excellent spot to get a real close look (for a moment)!
I hope they at least yelled at him, or otherwise informed him that that was not a good idea…
I stood between the tracks by the Othello station entrance and they honked at me like a freight train. When I was shooting photos of trains by Stadium one of the supervisors suggested that I stay at least 10 feet away from the tracks for safety purposes.
I was supposed to attend a safety training class on how to work safely around Link but I missed it. I heard it was boring anyway.
I bike to work on the path they put in along the light rail tracks in Sodo, and I routinely see cars stopped across the tracks. I’m wondering how many crashes it will take before drivers stop doing that.
They clanged the train’s bell at him. They also clang the bell at cars stopped at cross streets and at anyone who’s listening as they pull into the station, so I’m not sure it got the message across that time.
As far as the ten-foot rule goes, I’ve driven my car and ridden my bike within that distance of trains on MLK. Maybe that supervisor would suggest closing the left lanes.
People walk across six lanes of highway at 90th & Aurora all the time. I saw one guy clipped by a car, he went upside down in the air but managed to land on his feet. I can’t believe people are stupid enough to dodge six lanes of cars.
Dumb question. Is the consist in the picture for this post a two car train or a four car train? I thought a front and a back (identical I assume) plus the shared 3rd bogey made for a two car train but that would me a one car train would require a unique type of unit.
Not a dumb question at all. This is a 2-car train. Each car is 95 feet long, has six axles, and has a double-articulated center section.
OK, so they were running one car trains Sunday evening. I figured they’d have center sections they could add in that didn’t include drivers stations. On container trains it’s become common to share a wheel truck between cars. This arrangement seems like a waste of money and space. Not to mention there has to be a platform for the driver to get out and walk from one end to the other and passengers have to “guess” on which car might have seating space. You’re sort of stuck if you guess wrong. I just assumed you’d be able to walk the length of the train; it’s even more of an issue with bike loading.
Next dumb question. What’s with the obnoxious B-E-L-L. The buses don’t clang a bell as they’re entering a station or leaving. Speaking with a relative that lives off of MLK she said that’s her biggest complaint. Compared it to living in San Francisco cira 1930. The rest of the noise you can learn to live with but not the bells.
Bonus dumb question. What’s causing the heat waves coming out of the rooftop exhausts on the hybrid buses when they’re running in the DSTT? I thought they ran 100% on battery when in the tunnel.
I saw a train pass Othello Station and it had the bells I was expecting, but also a loud motor noise which I wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t just the little hiss the SLUT makes. So either there was something wrong with that particular car, or the trains are going to be louder than advertised.
Aw, I live a block off of MLK near the Henderson station, and I really like the bell! It’s cheerful, and it isn’t that noisy.
The newest MAX cars (Type 4) have only one operator’s cab per car so they’re always joined in two-car trains. No doors between cars, though. One MAX train has 8 bike racks (4/car) versus Link’s 4 (2/car).
The length of a single car determines how large the the bays in the maintenance facility have to be. We won’t be seeing longer single unit cars anytime soon.
The hybrid buses’ HUSH mode is a mix of all-electric and reduced-power diesel. So the engines are still running part of the time. Metro wanted all-electric only but Allison engineers determined that it would severely reduce battery life. The NREL report evaluating Metro’s hybrid buses describes HUSH mode operation:
• Before entering the tunnel, the batteries are precharged to maximum state of charge (SOC); the driver pushes a button on the dashboard to start this process.
• The driver initiates HUSH mode by pushing the precharge button one more time before the bus enters the tunnel.
• The tunnel has two types of areas—the big, open station areas and the tunnel tubes between stations.
• The hybrid buses operate in an all-electric mode while in the station areas, but while in the tunnel tube areas, the diesel engine is allowed to operate in reduced-power mode to allow for charging of the batteries (about 110 hp).
• The timing of the switch between all-electric operation and reduced-power diesel mode is based on vehicle speed once it is in HUSH mode (15 mph or more for reduced-power mode).
• While in the station area, the bus operates on battery power; however, the engine still rotates to operate auxiliary loads such as the air compressor; when the doors open at a station boarding area, the engine stops until the doors are closed again.
• HUSH mode is automatically de-activated by distance traveled or manually by the driver.
As for Link noise, they have more powerful motors than the streetcars. I also noticed that the newest DE60LFs (684x) were really noisy in the tunnel, more than the older ones. I hope that’s only part of the break-in process.
I posted more Link in the DSTT videos on my YouTube channel (click my name to access).
Thanks Oran, I think. So Portland MAX did the “half train” philosophy and we adopted the two fer philosophy?
>The hybrid buses’ HUSH mode is a mix of all-electric and reduced-power diesel.
So I’m not crazy. I did see the heat waves. The buses, relative to regular buses are “quite” but the trains are no better. All electric buses would have the edge. I’m still at a loss to understand all the damn bells with the trains in the tunnel. The noise is about the same so the idea the bell is needed to warn people they shouldn’t be there well they shouldn’t have been in the first place, makes no sense.