I have post on it here: Subway and lrt safety

Kenyon Street does not allow left or U turns from the southbound lanes.

Makes me wonder what is distracting drivers so much to miss all these warnings.

It’s also interesting that the 124 almost shadows Link, just making a big detour from SODO to TIB. So you could take one down and the other partway back, for instance to get to the Museum of Flight.

I think there will be a Georgetown express train eventually, stopping at SeaTac and then Tacoma. But that’s a few decades away.

I’m sure there are some complainers, because there are always complainers no matter how good or bad a system is. What leads me to believe it is fiction is that you, and you alone seemingly, seem to always find these malcontents. The guy in Sodo might just want to catch an earlier train if he always has these problems. I haven’t had the train make me late for work yet, and that is including Wednesday’s delay (which was an extra 10 minutes for me).

Your 52 minute trip time is misleading because it was not a normal service day — it was pre-announced that there would be shuttle buses and delays. So why complain? These are things that happen any time, and as I’ve said elsewhere, delays happen to buses, too.

As for the guy at the SODO station who said he was going to be late for work AGAIN because of Link “light snail”: I overheard him loudly complaining to a Metro supervisor on the SODO south-bound platform last Saturday at about 2:30 in the afternoon. Find out who that Metro supervisor at SODO last Saturday afternoon was, and he can confirm that “anecdote.” I bet he remembers that guy’s complaints.

By the way, my trip from Westlake to SeaTac on the shuttle bus, then Link, took 52 minutes last Saturday.

And I guess the guy in Lindblom’s story on Link and MLK Way, who screamed at a Link train, and flipped it off, was just fiction, too?

If you have more than one track, you can detour around an accident, have local and express trains, etc. Buses, by the way, can’t detour if all the lanes on the only road are blocked, either — their sole advantage is a large installed base of roads.

And incidentally they can’t be scheduled or dispatched to the same level of accuracy as trains, thanks to other road traffic.

Transit 101 here. Reducing the frequency reduces the ridership ALL DAY LONG on EVERY TRAIN because people plan their days based on the *availability* of a quick trip *if* they should need it (for an emergency or whatever). So that is not a reasonable option. 15 minutes is about the lowest possible frequency for a “turn up and go” service, and that’s a bit low — 10 is about right.

Running single-car trains sounds totally reasonable until you add in coupling/uncoupling cost and time. Given that this can only be done at the yard and involves the time of fairly expensive personnel, it may be that it’s not cost-effective.

In a system with *many* lines, you can certainly do something like this:
– run 2-car trains on the busiest line in rush hour, and 1-car trains with high frequency (say, every 2.5 minutes) on another line;
– run 1-car trains on all lines outside of rush hour, at a lower frequency, mothballing the 2-car trains during the midday

You may see something like this after Seattle gets more of a network. (And San Jose’s VTA, with multiple underused lines, should be doing it already.) On a single line you can’t get as many benefits from running variable length consists.

I think the problem here is:
1. They use automated announcements, not live drivers. (This is because live drivers often have a bad record with making clear, audible announcements.)
2. They don’t have a procedure (or perhaps even the tech?) for getting new announcements pushed into the cars immediately if something odd happens.
3. There is not an awfully large selection of announcements.

These are understandable errors and could be fixed in a couple of different ways, some cheap, none outrageously expensive. (I think the dispatching office should be able to record an announcement and upload it securely to all trains over, say, a few minutes….)

I know one of the previous accidents was at one of the “no left turn” intersections, without the illuminated “train approaching” light.

Incidentally, I entered Beacon Hill Station just after 4:15 yesterday and there was a relatively large crowd, and two security guards (including a ticket inspection agent) in there telling everyone about the crash. I only caught the tail end of it, but at least someone let people know. There should have been periodic announcements over the PA, though. (“Train has been delayed due to an accident on the line,” or something like that. I suppose they don’t want to upset or panic people, but come on!)

After I was there for about 10 minutes the two minute announcement came on, and then a northbound train came through two minutes later, so the delay wasn’t too bad for me. I don’t know how long the other people were waiting, though!

This would cripple service (by reducing it 50%) in SE Seattle in order to make the train run a few minutes faster for people going to the airport. Nice.

Link is not an airport shuttle. It goes to the airport, but for only 5-10 minutes additional time, it also manages to serve thousands of people in SE Seattle who were not well-served by the 194. It expanded quick, cheap and reliable service to the airport for thousands while also providing quick, cheap, and reliable service throughout SE Seattle and through downtown.

I understand that people who were affected by yesterday’s delay would be upset, but reasonable people know these things happen. And they happen on buses, too. One accident in the wrong place and time and your bus trip could also take three times as long as it’s scheduled to, despite buses’ vaunted “flexibility.” In general, Link’s arrival times will be far more reliable than the 194′s could be, and it runs more often and serves more people to boot. All of this worrying about express lines and skipping the Valley seems wasteful, to me.

Crossing MLK is much nicer now — upgraded signals and a place to wait in the middle of the street if necessary. Also, separation of the two sides of traffic.

Not to mention how much nicer the street looks these days.

“Everyone knows that the intersectsion along MLK were much more pedestrian-friendly and vehicle-friendly before Link trains started operating” is complete and utter fiction.