Comments on: Rapid Ride: F Line

By: Center Platforms - Seattle Transit Blog

Center Platforms - Seattle Transit Blog — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:49:58 +0000

[...] To speculate a little more wildly, in the distant future Link may more or less follows the RapidRide F Line from Burien to Southcenter. Tukwila Station would be an obvious place to switch between the [...]

By: Designing for Livability Liveblog Part 3 - Seattle Transit Blog

Designing for Livability Liveblog Part 3 - Seattle Transit Blog — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:23 +0000

[...] bike rikes, and will lack other amenities of Swift. On the other hand, RapidRide will have up to six lines whereas Swift is just one [...]

By: Mike Orr

Mike Orr — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:23:13 +0000

Would this start running after all the other RapidRide lines, or earlier? If it’s going to the end of the line, it will be several years away.

By: dreya

dreya — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:59:23 +0000

Hopefully Metro will be able to expand on and mature applications like this one.
http://your.kingcounty.gov/kcdot/transit/inmotion/se-seattle/

As for Marketing itself– who has the budget?

By: Mark Dublin

Mark Dublin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:35:02 +0000

Level boarding, off-coach fare collection, electronic reader-boards- as someone said above, all bus transit should have those features. Streamlining is pretty too, but at thirty-five miles an hour…somebody with vehicle engineering experience, tell me how much fuel you’re really going to save.

My guess is you’d gain a lot more efficiency by giving the coach at least as much lane reservation between stops as LINK gets in Rainier Valley. King County Metro’s own acronym for the lane system is sadly accurate: BAT lanes. Like in “Belfry?”

“Business Access/Transit.” Think about it. One of the chief advantages of rail is that nobody would dare put tracks in a lane also advertised for business access and call it “rapid”. Business Access/Express Track? Great abbreviation there.

Seriously, reporters interviewing officials need to cut to the chase on this one. Express transit gets car traffic out of its way, period and paragraph.

By: VeloBusDriver

VeloBusDriver — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 19:11:58 +0000

“Embarrassments”? Um… That’s a little strong, don’t you think?

By: barman

barman — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:48:57 +0000

It happens to me a lot too, but usually because I use a non-standard format.

For example, you must enter it as 4/31/09 and not 04/31/09 or 31/04/09 etc…

It’s extremely annoying. For the Sound Transit survey I made sure to give them a big talk about their horrible transit planner. They should hire the same guys who made Vancouver’s TransLink website, their maps and planners put Metro to serious shame. In fact, just about every city’s site does.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:44:58 +0000

According to the study documents there is an at-grade section along 518, the Downtown Burien and the section at the 518 & 99 interchange would be elevated.

How much per mile are the South of Sea-Tac segments? I get about 3 miles between Tukwilla International Blvd and the Burien TC. That would make elevated $314/mile, which sounds a bit high. Indeed it is as Sound Transit estimates the entire 8.9 mile corridor from Burien to North Renton to cost between $1 and $1.4 Billion in the Burien-Renton rail issue paper.

Assuming the 2.6 miles to Burien can be built for the average cost of the entire line or less. I get a high figure of around $410 million and a low figure of $300 million for just the Burien to Tukwilla segment.

By: Joe F

Joe F — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 10:36:35 +0000

Destination 2040 Alternative 5 (http://www.psrc.org/projects/trans2040/deis/ch3.pdf) includes high-capacity transit between Burien and Renton, and ST is scheduled to study the line in more depth as part of ST2. It wouldn’t be cheap but it would definitely be ST’s most important east-west connector after Seattle-Bellevue-Redmond, and it’s likely to be the next in line for the South King subarea after South Link gets to the county line.

There are three main east-west corridors in South King County: Renton-Burien, Kent-Des Moines, and Auburn-Federal Way. Of the three, Renton-Burien is by far the most transit-ready and the furthest along in terms of employment and housing density.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 09:19:23 +0000

If it is all elevated and the same cost per mile as the south of Sea-Tac segments, it would be $940m.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:13:42 +0000

The bit about extending to S. 320th if ST is a SWAG (Silly Wild-Assed Guess) on my part. I’m assuming the first goal for any funds leftover in the South King sub-area Link account would go toward getting to S. 320th since it is clearly an important regional destination and a logical end-point for the South Link line.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:09:13 +0000

Well I’m not sure getting a grant for going to S. 200th would free up enough money to build Link to S. 320th by 2023. It might, but the drop in tax revenue might eat up any savings from getting extra Federal money. Also it is a bit further from S. 272nd to S. 320th than from the Airport Station to S. 200th.

By: Mike Orr

Mike Orr — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:54:25 +0000

How much would it cost to build a shuttle line from Burien to Tukwila I.B. with one or two 1-car trains? If Burien and Tukwila could build this themselves, perhaps with a matching grant from somebody, it could be seamlessly extended to Renton later. And just the presence of a segment would encourage people to build the rest of it faster.

By: Mike Orr

Mike Orr — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:45:22 +0000

See the comments by Chris Stefan September 19th. Apparently ST applied for a stimulus grant for the Airport-to-200th segment, and that might free up enough money for 320th.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:28:08 +0000

This is an example of how Mike McGinn’s proposal for a City owned fiber to the premises network actually has implications beyond just broadband service for undeserved neighborhoods. It would make it much easier for SDOT to implement an ITS on all Seattle arterials, which makes implementing transit signal priority easier. It also means Metro and ST can use the network to talk to systems both on-board and at transit stops.

Another reason to support the broadband proposal is the likelihood it would lead to many more people telecommuting which has all sorts of good impacts on land use, transportation, and the environment.

By: alexjonlin

alexjonlin — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:27:08 +0000

I think having them run together for a mile or so along the 518 wouldn’t be too bad.

By: Martin H. Duke

Martin H. Duke — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 23:01:38 +0000

There will be ORCA readers on the buses, just no TVMs at the stops to allow you to buy a ticket. You can still pay cash on-board.

By: Oran

Oran — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:08:52 +0000

There will be signal priority. The question is how much priority? I really don’t know. And you’re right, it depends on how well Metro cooperates with the traffic engineers and their signals. Metro invested money into building a fiber optic network along RapidRide corridors to power the signal priority, next bus info, ORCA payment system, and other on-board communications. They should get something more out of it.

With the way RapidRide is setup, implementing signal priority on the same level that Link has (freeflow between station stops) will be a challenge to coordinate. I’m not saying it’s impossible but RR has much more stops than Link has and doesn’t have a lane to itself.

By: Kaleci

Kaleci — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:21:30 +0000

Oops – Vision 2040, it was Destination 2030.

By: Kaleci

Kaleci — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:20:56 +0000

Hal,
First it has to be in the PSRC long range plan. I couldn’t find it in their Destination 2040 plan – but I will admit I didn’t look too hard.

http://www.psrc.org/projects/vision/pubs/vision2040/index.htm