With things shut down for the night, Sound Transit estimates that total ridership was 45,000. We’ll see how tomorrow affects the full weekend figure.
Remember that Link runs 10am-6pm tomorrow.
Our Feet Are TiredI’m sitting here after a lot of rides, letting my feet rest and thinking about all we’ve seen. A few comments on the trips taken today: Tukwila had serious crowds. Sure, not three or four hour waits, but there was a steady wait of 20-30 minutes (some 3-400 people) through most of the day. I really like the station – the bus bays under the platform will allow for easy transfers, and I think several adjacent properties look like they could become transit oriented development. Othello had a great little festival – there were breakdancers and live music, some local artists selling their creations, the Undriver’s License folks and Transportation Choices Coalition were there. The Station at Othello Park also had a presence – essentially the first TOD for Central Link, a six story project with about 20,000 square feet of retail and some 350 apartments will break ground shortly on the southeast corner of the intersection. The developer also wants to build something similar in the space to the northeast of the station. Columbia City has some fantastic public space on the corners just to the east of the platform – it does feel like Sound Transit helped the city out a lot, creating plaza space that we’re going to be very thankful for in the next few decades. Mount Baker is cool space, but definitely needs a coffee stand and a newsstand. I hope the neighborhood uses the station for gatherings, but there’s a dearth of seating. There’s also a huge TOD opportunity around this station. I was worried that Beacon Hill would take up too much space, wasting land that could be used for density later, but I think they’ve done a good job here too. It looks like the space just to the south of the main station could be a cafe or restaurant with seating spilling over onto the station plaza. All we need is to get rid of the parking lot across the street… I’ve taken a lot of photos, and I’ll be doing a photo post or two later on tonight when I get them off the camera. One last note: the spoilsports trying to downplay ridership are not to be believed. Every single train I’ve been on in the last eight hours has been standing room only. If anything, I suspect Sound Transit is undercounting, given how overwhelmed the people with the counters have looked. Early Media RoundupAll our multimedia people are still out on the trains, but here’s what’s out there right now:
My impression: a well-run event. It was almost the perfect sweet spot for someone looking to ride: packed trains, but modest waits. ST’s hiring of performers to entertain lined-up riders was a nice touch. Ridership UpdateAs of 3pm, the ridership total is 30,500. Waits are consistently 15-30 minutes. The noon total was 13,000. The STB predict-o-tron says 50,000 the first day. Follow us on twitter @seatransitblog all day. Riding the Rails All DayEric, Bejan, Martin and I are riding Link all day! I started at Westlake, then met Bejan and Eric at Beacon Hill to check out the amazing public art. The deep sea creatures in the stations are beautiful, and be sure to have a look at the bubbles in the wall across from the elevator! You can’t miss them. Surface level at Beacon Hill is also nice, the station plaza has wonderful bamboo and some seating. We had lunch at the Columbia City Ale House (remember the meetups we’ve had there?) and we’re heading back out to zoom down to Tukwila and see some of the other stations. We also tried out the ticket vending machines. While Link is free this weekend, I was still able to add money easily to my ORCA, and you can buy them at TVMs as well! Be sure to come out today! The lines aren’t bad, everyone seems to be loving the train, and you’ll probably run into someone you know! We’ll post more later. The First TrainThere are two of these, actually. About half an hour ago, Mayor Nickels’ train started at Westlake, and Mayor Jim Haggerton of Tukwila’s train started there. The two trains met at Mount Baker station for the opening ceremonies. We’ve got a short clip of Haggerton’s train headed across the Duwamish: Update: Here’s Dave Ross introducing the mayors at Mount Baker Station. “Seattle has a working light rail system!” Edit: Apparently, it may be a few minutes before these videos are “processed”. Just Under 3 HoursGood morning everybody! Apparently, there’s some kind of train thing happening today. Last night I went on the very last preview ride with Oran. Some of Seattle’s original transit supporters were present – Jim Ellis and Aubrey Davis both rode to Tukwila. This was also the first time I’ve seen state legislators on board – Representative Scott White (46th LD) was pretty pumped, although it’ll be some ten years before stations open in his district. Also from the 46th, Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez-Kenney seemed to enjoy the ride. I have to say, the bike rack issues reported by the Stranger don’t seem so bad. The bicycle in question was that of City Council candidate and Sierra Clubber Mike O’Brien – a tall guy with a big bike. Most bikes aren’t going to stick out into the aisle nearly as much as his did, and cyclists will learn to hold onto their bikes when they’re on the hangers. There is a difference between these hangers and those on the MAX in Portland – their racks allow bikes to hang parallel to the direction of the train’s movement, so they do swing less. Perhaps when we get more trains, we can design this differently. We’ll see you all on the train today! 3 Hours Jim Ellis and protege If you haven’t checked recently, our Twitter feed has been relaunched, so that it’s no longer just an announcement of each post on the blog. Today, especially, it’ll be hopping. ******** Today is for Jim Ellis, who’s been fighting for this day longer than anyone else. It’s for all the tourists who have shown up at the airport and wondered where the train was. It’s for baseball fans who found the bus schedule useless in post-game congestion. It’s for anyone who’s sat on the 7, 36, or 42, slogging up the Rainier Valley. It’s for ST CEO Joni Earl, who saved this train from oblivion. It’s for Patty Murray, Greg Nickels, Ron Sims, and all the other politicians that made it happen. It’s for anyone with a stroller or wheelchair that had to struggle with the bus lift. It’s for revelers who’ve had to leave something early because that’s when the last bus left. It’s for millions of Puget Sound voters who finally did the right thing. It’s for my son and Andrew’s daughter, who will always have a fast, safe, and reliable way to get around. Commenter Lloyd has a few others who deserve recognition:
and Kaleci:
RIP, guys. Add your dedications in the comments. 12 Hours "Link + Bike", by Atomic Taco Two nice pieces of reporting from the Stranger today: The Link bike rack doesn’t appear to work so well in practice:
Dominic Holden reports Metro is not collecting as many 5 million fares a year (out of 400 million rides), but he isn’t all that concerned about it. The figure is highly questionable, as many commenters on Slog have pointed out. 16 Hours: A Tour of Light Rail StationsBeacon Hill Blog has a great tour of the Columbia City neighborhood being served by Link light rail starting in sixteen hours. They also have tours up of the Othello station, Rainer Beach station, and the Tukwila station. 17 Hours: Recent Light Rail Consternation C-curb in action We all heard about the c-curb madness. A few weeks back. (Our very own Oran has a great photo gallery on Flickr of the intersection in question. It’s worth a view.) And it sank in a little bit: Light rail means more than some temporary changes and construction delays, it means an altering of our city. Mostly this alteration is a good thing: Less emissions, less crowded buses, more options. But in other cases, change can be frustrating. Sometimes you lose free parking opportunities in another neighborhood from your own. Sometimes you get wires in the way of your view. Sometimes you can’t make a left turn into a gas station. And, you know, any change will end up frustrating at least one person used to the time before. My neighborhood, Capitol Hill, has seen its own share of changes because of light rail. But on the other end of it, once we’re used to these changes and annoyances and benefits and efficiencies, the city is going to be better off. Light rail opens in seventeen hours and twenty minutes. Guest Post Series: Almost Thereby GREG NICKELS, Mayor of Seattle and Chair of the Sound Transit Board This is the last installment in my recollections leading up to the opening of Sound Transit’s first Light Rail line on July 18, 2009. In six previous installments I have reflected on the highs and lows of the twenty-one years that I have been involved in this epic journey.
In many ways, the ground breaking on November 8, 2003 ended the political debate over whether mass transit would serve Seattle (though ST 2 engendered a vigorous debate on whether it should be extended beyond Sound Move).
In my first month as Seattle Mayor I gathered all the City staff working on the project and let them know our job was to team with Sound Transit to make sure the system got built — as promised to the voters. This was a relief to many staff who really did not know whether the previous administration supported or opposed building the project.
Once we broke ground, I enjoyed visiting the construction impacted neighborhoods twice a month and talking with the property owners, shopkeepers and residents; trying to anticipate, prevent and solve problems. In doing this I was taking a page from Seattle City Councilmember George Benson’s work during the construction of the Downtown Seattle transit Tunnel in the 1980s.
Like grief, dealing with a huge project in your neighborhood is dealt with in distinct stages. Fear, anticipation, resignation, relief and excitement among them. Seventy-five percent of the small businesses along the MLK portion of the route at the start of construction are still there – I’m proud of that. The street has been transformed, as has the neighborhood. And the presence of Light Rail will connect the people of the Rainier Valley neighborhood to lots of new and exciting job and educational opportunities – just a short train ride away.
Columbia City is approaching this opportunity most creatively, going so far as to have pedicabs available to whisk people from the station to their historic business district nearby where Light Rail riders can enjoy great restaurants, a farmer’s market and theater.
This first line will be warmly embraced, especially when the thirteenth station – SeaTac Airport, opens late this year. But it is only the beginning. The next line, north from downtown to the University of Washington, received its $813 million FFGA in December and has already broken ground. Those two underground stations on Capitol Hill and at Husky Stadium will basically mark the completion of Sound Move and will open in 2016.
After the defeat of the infamous doomed shotgun marriage of Roads and Transit in 2007, there was little political appetite to explore a transit ballot for 2008. Given our experience in 1996 (and $4/gallon gasoline), I was convinced that the 2008 Presidential ballot was the right one for light rail. In addition I believed that the Legislature would take away the region’s ability to place transit on any future ballot (as they had stopped Sound Transit in 2006) and take the taxing authority for highways. Fortunately there was a core of ST Board members willing to engage the issue and we went to work. Ultimately on July 24th all but two Sound Transit Board members agreed upon a plan and it went on the ballot.
Sound Transit 2 passed with 57.02% yes vote on November 4, 2008 – 60.5% in King, 54.21% in Snohomish and 49.08% in Pierce County. Light Rail will expand north from the University to Northgate and on out to Lynnwood, south of the airport to Federal Way and east across Lake Washington to Bellevue and out to Redmond. These projects will be complete in 15 years. I have no illusions that there will be no further challenges in building such an extensive set of projects (such as the current economic crisis) – there is a lot of work ahead! But when complete, 70% of the residences and 85% of the jobs in Metro Seattle will be within an easy bus ride, bike ride or walk of a rail station. With a capacity of one million passengers a day, it will transform how we get around.
I’ve wondered — how often does someone get to see through such a journey in their career? From the 1988 advisory ballot through passage of ST 2 and opening the initial line it has been an amazing adventure. While certainly not easy (1995-96 and 2000-01 come to mind!), it has been an incredible honor to work with the elected officials on the ST Board, the staff (Joni Earl for instance) and particularly the interested citizens (Mona Lee and Dick Burkhart come to mind) who have engaged, often passionately in this saga. I do wish the voters had approved the Forward Thrust plan in 1968, but what a ride my generation would have missed! For someone who wants to make a difference in people’s lives it has been the chance of a lifetime.
 Waiting Paitiently for Passengers, by Furchin This is the last installment in my recollections leading up to the opening of Sound Transit’s first Light Rail line tomorrow. In six previous installments I have reflected on the highs and lows of the twenty-one years that I have been involved in this epic journey. In many ways, the ground breaking on November 8, 2003 ended the political debate over whether mass transit would serve Seattle (though ST 2 engendered a vigorous debate on whether it should be extended beyond Sound Move). In my first month as Seattle Mayor I gathered all the City staff working on the project and let them know our job was to team with Sound Transit to make sure the system got built — as promised to the voters. This was a relief to many staff who really did not know whether the previous administration supported or opposed building the project. Once we broke ground, I enjoyed visiting the construction impacted neighborhoods twice a month and talking with the property owners, shopkeepers and residents; trying to anticipate, prevent and solve problems. In doing this I was taking a page from Seattle City Councilmember George Benson’s work during the construction of the Downtown Seattle transit Tunnel in the 1980s. Like grief, dealing with a huge project in your neighborhood is dealt with in distinct stages. Fear, anticipation, resignation, relief and excitement among them. Seventy-five percent of the small businesses along the MLK portion of the route at the start of construction are still there – I’m proud of that. The street has been transformed, as has the neighborhood. And the presence of Light Rail will connect the people of the Rainier Valley neighborhood to lots of new and exciting job and educational opportunities – just a short train ride away. Columbia City is approaching this opportunity most creatively, going so far as to have pedicabs available to whisk people from the station to their historic business district nearby where Light Rail riders can enjoy great restaurants, a farmer’s market and theater. This first line will be warmly embraced, especially when the thirteenth station – SeaTac Airport, opens late this year. But it is only the beginning. The next line, north from downtown to the University of Washington, received its $813 million Full Funding Grant Agreement from the Federal Transit Administration in December and has already broken ground. Those two underground stations on Capitol Hill and at Husky Stadium will basically mark the completion of Sound Move and will open in 2016. After the defeat of the infamous doomed shotgun marriage of Roads and Transit in 2007, there was little political appetite to explore a transit ballot for 2008. Given our experience in 1996 (and $4/gallon gasoline), I was convinced that the 2008 Presidential ballot was the right one for light rail. In addition I believed that the Legislature would take away the region’s ability to place transit on any future ballot (as they had stopped Sound Transit in 2006) and take the taxing authority for highways. Fortunately there was a core group of ST Board members willing to engage the issue and we went to work. Ultimately on July 24th all but two boardmembers agreed upon a plan and it went on the ballot.  U-Link Groundbreaking, by Steven de Vight Sound Transit 2 passed with a 57.02% yes vote on November 4, 2008 – 60.5% in King, 54.21% in Snohomish and 49.08% in Pierce County. Light Rail will expand north from the University to Northgate and on out to Lynnwood, south of the airport to Federal Way and east across Lake Washington to Bellevue and out to Redmond. These projects will be complete in 15 years. I have no illusions that there will be no further challenges in building such an extensive set of projects (such as the current economic crisis) – there is a lot of work ahead! But when complete, 70% of the residences and 85% of the jobs in Metro Seattle will be within an easy bus ride, bike ride or walk of a rail station. With a capacity of one million passengers a day, it will transform how we get around. I’ve wondered — how often does someone get to see through such a journey in their career? From the 1988 advisory ballot through passage of ST 2 and opening the initial line it has been an amazing adventure. While certainly not easy (1995-96 and 2000-01 come to mind!), it has been an incredible honor to work with the elected officials on the ST Board, the staff (Joni Earl for instance) and particularly the interested citizens (Mona Lee and Dick Burkhart come to mind) who have engaged, often passionately in this saga. I do wish the voters had approved the Forward Thrust plan in 1968, but what a ride my generation would have missed! For someone who wants to make a difference in people’s lives it has been the chance of a lifetime. The author is the mayor of Seattle. 1 Day "Meet at SODO", by Atomic Taco Less than 48 hours! Come here for all your opening day coverage! Saturday, we’ll be massively ramping up our post frequency. Follow us here; better yet, try twitter, where it’ll be even more excessive. The whole staff will be roaming around, posting and tweeting; we welcome your photos in the Flickr pool. And oh, so much news:
Seattle Times Gets LazyI’ve decided, provisionally, to stop whining about the perceived editorial slant of the Times. Every editorial desk has its own biases, including STB’s, and there’s no reason to get particularly worked up about the fact that theirs is substantially different from mine. However, there are two really major facts missing in Sonia Krishnan’s really weak piece about the lack of park-and-rides around light rail, facts that could have been included with a little more research, or, just reading this blog: First, for all the poor souls who have no choice but to drive to light rail, there are scattered pay lots in the Valley. In my part-time effort I’ve identified two: one near Beacon Hill (with very restricted hours), and one 3 or 4 blocks from Columbia City. At $3/day, along with fares it would cost you 7 bucks a day to go downtown, which beats driving there. Through the magic of the market, this is provided at no cost to the taxpayer. Of course, light rail opponents aren’t interested in the system’s cost when they’re bashing it for not including their pet feature or routing. Secondly, this has to be about the weakest unchallenged complaint of the year:
Her Metro bus stop is in flux! Why, every morning, it randomly moves about as if by magic! It is factually incorrect to state that the route change is “unclear”; King County has decided on the change and publicized it. If Ms. Hunter is “unclear” how her route might change, she might have paid a little bit of attention to the three mailers that Metro sent to everyone in the Valley, or come to an open house, or seen any of the local ads, or occasionally checked the Metro website, or even now gone here. And it isn’t as if the September 19 service change won’t get more publicity in the Southeast than usual. I’m being a little harsh on Ms. Hunter here: people are remarkably ignorant of developments that affect them greatly, and should have the right to be. But for a local reporter who ostensibly “covers” transportation to not be aware of this — or not bother to point it out — is pretty contemptible. It would be trivial to check if bus changes would affect Ms. Hunter’s commute, but Ms. Krishnan declined to do so. Hutchison on Transportation Susan Hutchison (Wikimedia Commons) Andrew Villenueve, over at the Northwest Progressive Institute Blog, did us all the public service of transcribing King County Executive Candidate Susan Hutchinson’s remarks at a candidate forum in North Bend last month. Money quote:
The 120-page 2006 PSRTC report is not the arch-conservative document it’s often made out to be, as it comes out pretty strongly in favor of congestion pricing and higher taxes. However, Hutchison is referring to its prescription to form a 15-person permanent commission, 60% elected, that would control all road and transit revenue and expenditure, as well as land-use decisions, in a four-county area. The 6 appointees would be appointed by the governor, and could not be a serving elected official. This report, obviously, was one inspiration for the infamous 2007 roads-and-transit ballot measure that failed, largely due to that very linkage. At any rate, this kind of reorganization is well beyond the powers of the King County Executive. We’ve said bad things about governance reform in the past, and will do so again in the near future. On another note, Hutchison’s website contains this under the subject of “Transportation”.
Metro, as many of you know, is already planning to institute full scale GPS tracking in 2010. The Hutchinson campaign did not reply to an email asking for details on these two items, as well as for confirmation of the quote above. Full text of the question and response after the jump. And please, let’s keep the comments oriented towards transportation and land use. (more…) 2 DaysSound 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. Train Schedules for your phone! Sounder at King Street Station by Brian Bundridge Are you a busy person and on the run, trying to get to the train station before that last one leaves? Never miss a train again with TrainLogic! TrainLogic has a mobile application for Blackberry or any java enabled phone for cheap! The application is subscription based at $7.50 for six months. During the six months, application updates and any schedule changes and modifications are included in the cost. I requested the Amtrak Cascades to be added to their schedules and they did it in just a few days! Excellent and friendly customer service. The schedules available for our region; Sound Transit Sounder Commuter Rail and Tacoma Link I have been using the app on my Blackberry 8330 and will be testing it on the Blackberry Tour (Verizon Wireless) when I receive the device. The application itself has been great and uses very little memory. If you are on the run and need to know when that next train is, this app is definitely the one for you! If you need a schedule added for your region, simply e-mail them and they’ll gladly add it to their list. Metro Receives Stimulus Funds for New Buses Orion VII bus from Daimler Buses (manufacturer photo) King County Metro Transit announced today that it will be purchasing 93 new buses from Daimler Buses through a $46 million grant awarded under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act. King County Metro originally requested funds for 60 new buses but lower costs than expected allowed them to get 33 more. The agreement includes options to purchase 400 more buses in addition to the initial 93 buses over 5 years. Metro said they expect to see the first prototype delivered in about a year and the rest of the ordered buses delivered in early 2011. The Orion VII buses will feature a modern look, low floors, air conditioning, and hybrid-electric technology which reduces fuel consumption, noise and emissions. They will replace Metro’s aging fleet of 40-foot Gilligs, which will be 14 years old when the new buses arrive. That’s two years longer than the expected life span of a transit bus. The Gilligs that Metro currently has are high floor and don’t have air conditioning. Over 700 hybrid-electric Orion VIIs are currently in service in New York City, Toronto, and San Francisco. Transportation 2040: Be Bold Transportation 2040 Alternative Costs Transportation 2040, the update to Destination 2030, is a major decision point for the region. We have a choice to boldly move forward to reduce congestion, better fund transportation, and reduce CO2 or we can shy away from controversy and choose a business as usual alternative that hardly fixes these issues. PSRC has been working for over two years on this update and it is currently soliciting public feedback on five different proposal alternatives. PSRC uses a scenario based planning process that emphasizes how a particular policy objective or decision will affect the region. These alternatives often fill out the full array of possible policy directions and are compared to a single “baseline” which includes current conditions plus funded projects (Nickel, TPA, ST2, RapidRide, Swift). I began to outline the alternatives myself, but I think these slides from a PRSC presentation to the Quality Growth Alliance will give you a better overview. I have included key slides but it is probably best if you download the presentation here. If you would like to learn more about the alternatives read the 42 page Plan Alternative Chapter (5.9 MBs) or the 38 page Executive Summary (16 MBs). PSRC titles the alternatives one through five as follows.
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