And yet, we’ll have numbers like that before 2030.

Regardless, it’s the type of train used on RER A that contributes to it’s high capacity, more so than having short headways. The headways of RER A are not much shorter than what is possible with Link, and it’s the headway that limits the number of trains that we can shove through the downtown transit tunnel.

Seattle metro is about 3.5 million – that’s about the same measure, and leaves you with 1/3 to 1/4 the population (I was understating, we’re bigger than I thought).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_metropolitan_area

As you can see, my facts are straight.

In 2030, we’ll have 285,000 people per day on Link – our north-south line will carry more than double the RER A. And that’s not including potential increases due to further line expansion in the meantime.

RATP is well known for being self-important and making big claims about their impact, it helps them with leverage during labor disputes and helps them get money. But that number is pure horse manure, and looks like they just added up the total ridership of all the connections in the next several minutes, not the passengers who’d actually be affected.

Besides aren’t some of those signaling upgrades mandated no matter how many trains a day are run?

And saying Paris is only four or five times larger than Seattle is hugely misleading. The Paris region is over 20 million people, the largest metro in Europe. Paris itself is also one of the most densely populated cities in the world. I also didn’t say it carried 15,000 per trip: what I said was a delay of 10 seconds affects 15,000 people.

That means the train is late for connections and transfers, amplifying the effect.

I understand you’ve got some good ideas but you need to be a little more pragmatic. I think you ignore too many facts. I’ve said nothing controversial. Frankly, there’s no debating the fact that Paris’ RER A line functions quite well with more branches and higher frequency and more capactiy than Seattle will ever need through downtown in our lifetimes.

Paris is only four or five times larger than Seattle.

To put it in perspective assuming 1/2 of the Link passengers are using the station during AM and PM peak that is 3000 pedestrians per hour, 50 per minute, or one every 1.2 seconds.

I don’t think the current plan has direct access to the triangle garage from the station. I’m not sure if routing that volume of people through the garage is a good solution for pedestrian access anyway.

I agree the pedestrian plaza looks promising, but I don’t know if it is likely to happen at this point. No matter what is done I think there needs to be pressure to ensure the area is done in such a way that it is convenient and friendly for pedestrians, bikes, and transit rather than making everyone else adapt to the cars.

We need to make sure a sane design for pedestrian and transit flow is used for UW station. There will be 35,000 Link riders passing through the Montlake/Pacific area every day in addition to the existing heavy pedestrian traffic, not to mention the additional people who may be using it as a transfer center or as an alternative to the Montlake Flyer stops.

I see that you are exactly correct about the bus turnaround and it is in the right direction. They need an escalator or at the very least stairs that cross under Montlake and come up somewhere in the triangle. If there’s a parking lot under it, mores the better. It probably has a tunnel to the Med Center so there’d be direct no road crossing, weatherproof access from the station to the Med Center. Not nice walking in a garage, but it’s not wet…..

Somebody killed the sky bridge, and it wouldn’t have served the triangle anyway. It was for pedestrians from the campus.

Now there’s supposed to be a pedestrian walkway across Montlake between Pacific and Pacific Place midblock. That’s certainly direct, but pretty unpleasant and likely to be a huge traffic jam.

Pictures here;

http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/projects/link/north/UW_Station_Aerial_View_of_Station.pdf

http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/projects/link/north/ULink/mar_09/site_plan.pdf

This is the same basic thing as what I wrote about Roosevelt. I am truly amazed that they don’t have plans for escalators up into that triangle across the street between Montlake, Pacific, and Pacific Place. What a perfect place for a bus turnaround! There is lots of space for loading on the southeast side of Pacific Place (northwest side of the triangle). The buses could just go around the triangle in clockwise rotation in bus only lanes. There’s even a “free right” cut at the north corner.

Does anyone know why this was omitted?

Don’t worry about Eastlake and the 7X’s. Betcha that the ETB’s reign surpreme there once Link comes as far as Brooklyn. The 70 will be a seven days a week early to late operation like the other trolleys.

The one bad thing about it is it doesn’t go very near Brooklyn Station. Perhaps they’ll bring it over to Brooklyn for the layover loop on 43rd instead of 50th.

Brooklyn is going to be crawling with buses. “Crawling” perhaps a bit too literally.

Most transit stations above or below a major thoroughfare have stairs that meet the surface on both sides of the major street. Yes, they can move the nearside westbound stop on 65th at 12th to farside and then there’s no crossing required for west and southbound buses. There’s not much room there because of the eastbound to northbound left turn bay, but it can probably work. Maybe a bus cutout will be needed.

But the people coming out of the station and catching a north or eastbound bus at the southeast corner of 65th and 12th are going to be inconvenienced daily for years into the future. There should be a stair that surfaces on that corner. For the 48, 71, and 72 there is no other choice than to stop on the southside of 65th; the 73 could easily follow Roosevelt and 12th into Lake City Way for a quicker access to 15th north of 80th, but that would deprive 15th of its current fifteen minute midday service between 65th and 80th. For the 48 the stop could be nearside or farside, it’s all the same. For the 7X’s coming from the U-district via the Ave, Ravenna and 12th, the southeast corner is the only choice.

Now it may just be that it makes the most sense to have the 7X’s follow their current route to 47th and University Way and link at Brooklyn, deviating from the Ave to Brooklyn for a block or two from 47th to 43rd in order to be over the Brooklyn station. That seems like an overall better idea to me, but it will deprive Roosevelt of most of its traffic. I believe than Ben did say that his statement that Roosevelt was to be the transfer point was somewhat tentative so this is all speculation.

Except the station diagram, which presumably really does express what they plan to do.