Sound Transit 2 will extend light rail to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way, making Link a 2-county system. The first attempt at an extension failed 2 years ago.
U-Link will add 2 stops.
There will be 2 days of free rides before revenue service on Monday.
This is an open thread.
Today all of the elevated stations had security. The at grade stations and grade separated stations have been unprotected, aside from the caution tape and cameras.
I heard an incident today on the radio where everything was frozen around 14:00 in the tunnel. All buses were to hold where they were. I think most were in the bores.
14:00 is the time by the way, or 2pm for those of you stuck in goofy time.
*regular time
If you include Tacoma Link, it’s actually 3-county system
Link will also run with 2 car trains!
It has taken far 2 long for Seattle to have light rail
Indeed – *2* years short of 100 years since the first vote on rail transit!
The San Francisco Chronicle has an article today about a Muni crackdown on fare evaders. Folded into that general category are fares uncollected due to equipment malfunction. Maintenance or equipment issues that lead to lost fares isn’t even close to fare evasion, but that’s an interesting insight into how transit agencies approach the issue.
Recently, a number of card processors have been out-of-order on at least one leg of my trips throughout Seattle. (And the other day a Metro driver told me that none of them had been issued ORCA cards, so it sounds like drivers have no way to physically test the readers.) With the participating agencies soon to dump paper passes, if the processors go out, it sounds like we’ll have to pay cash for each leg of the trip, and I resent even the thought of doing that when I have a valid, fully-loaded ORCA card.
So, assuming the card processor issues are going to continue (including the ridiculous lack of validators or processors for the S.L.U.T.), has anybody heard what the policy is/will be when you have an ORCA card that can’t be used due to equipment malfunction, or have already used the card on one leg of a trip and are due a transfer? No transit agency has been able to answer that, so far.
A final note: On July 6, Cubic Transportation Systems, a longtime competitor of Vix ERG, announced it was acquiring (at least in part) Vix ERG’s U.S. operations. This means Cubic will now oversee ORCA.
Uh, so, I saw ST’s new “Travel Light” ad on Slog…
… it looks like the guy is hanging himself. WTF.
Maybe someone here can answer this. For those of use with a pass distributed by our employers, the Puget Passes are slowly being replaced by ORCA cards. But too slowly… Link is opening this weekend, but Metro is still sending Puget passes, not ORCA cards, to my employer each month.
So does anyone know what the Link policy is if you don’t have an ORCA, just a regular PugetPass? Obviously you can’t tap on without ORCA, and you shouldn’t have to buy a ticket from the TVM if you have already paid by purchasing a monthly pass.
As long as your pass is of a higher denomination than the Link fare for your trip, do you just get straight on to Link, and if a fare inspector comes about, you show them the pass? Or are you required to somehow get a Link ticket? I’ve been looking around on the ST and ORCA websites trying to find an asnwer to this, but none of them really seem to give a straight answer to this question.
As far as I know, a Puget Pass should cover the fare from one end to the other. I’ll just keep it handy in case I should be asked. I do notice one [unfortunate] difference between my old one and the new one, effective just this past July 1 (we’re not transitioning to the ORCA until July 2010): the old one had $4.75 written on it (max coverage, which allowed me to take the Sounder for fun) but the current card has no monetary “value”. Perhaps it is “assumed” it is good for all distances.
My FlexPass used to say $4.75 also, but now has no value printed on it. But I used it to ride Sounder to Edmonds last week, and the inspector just smiled at me and clicked his clicker when I showed it to him. Perhaps all of the flexpasses are the same value now (as opposed to the PugetPass which come in many denominations)?
Before I switched to ORCA my school-issued passes were $4.75 passes but the value wasn’t printed on them. I had no problem with Sounder, I showed it to a station agent and she said it was fine. The only confusion was from a Pierce Transit driver on one of a handfull of trips on the 594.
Yep, you’re correct. As long as it covers the value of your trip you won’t have to purchase an upgrade. Same for the Sounder.
Sound Transit just revised their published policy for the acceptance of bus transfers on Link so that they’re valid for a full fare:
http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Fares-and-Passes/Transfers.xml
Before, they were valued at $1.50 (a one-zone ST fare) with the exception of ST Express issued transfers which were counted as their full value. This will eliminate the need for cash users to purchase upgrades at TVMs.
Unless I missed something, what’s unclear is if transfers will be honored in the fashion for ORCA E-purse users. If not, it would create a monetary incentive for cash customers to continue paying cash for as long as possible.
You missed the last sentence:
Yeah, I was aware that they inter-system transfers were being eliminated but it seems like it will actually cost more to use ORCA E-Purses than cash and paper transfers until they’re finally eliminated.
If you want to follow the savings (as a non pass user) you’d need to use cash and transfers until December 31 after which you won’t have an option to save any money. I’d probably want to try to start gently encouraging people to use ORCA in the meantime while there’s still an option… Give people a discount for pre-loading $10 or $20 at a time or something.