Studying the extension of light rail from Redondo Heights to Tacoma, and preserving future ROW, is part of ST2. If it weren’t for the long-term plan for the light rail to reach Tacoma, then I doubt any of South Link would have been included in ST2.

Brent, Link all the way to Tacoma may have been “the plan,” but “the plan” is crap!

Seattle and Tacoma share a consolidated metropolitan region, but they’re still 33 miles from one another. That’s as far as New York City and New Brunswick, NJ. It’s almost as far as Boston and Providence. Neither of which have 10-minute service… because neither of which could nearly support the demand for such a service.

Seattle and Tacoma are far. They’re never getting any closer. Trips between them should be easier, but they’re never going to be “spontaneous.” Building Link between them would be literally setting fire to billions of dollars that we don’t have.

There’s no demand generator in Federal Way at all. As an endpoint, it’s a dud. As a midpoint on a stupid Tacoma line, it’s a dud. It needs to die.

I’m not worried about Federal Way and Tacoma. I think in the end ST will propose something sensible. Its long-term wishlist (which I can’t find right now but I remember reading it) is more or less what we need, such as making Link 24 hours and making ST Express’ main routes as frequent as RapidRide. The problem is just waiting for funding, or having to compromise due to the lack of money. ST would build it all right now if it had the money.

There are several tradeoffs re extending Link to Federal Way and Tacoma. At this point I don’t feel strongly either way about it. The reason for Link to do it is the benefit of a single frequent line serving many overlapping destinations. People focus too much on downtown, too much on the airport, and too much on peak hours, as if these were the only factors that mattered. But people’s lives do not begin at 8am and end at 7pm, nor are they focused on downtown or the airport. Link’s travel time to downtown is one factor, but its travel time to all its other destinations is another important factor, and there Link shines even more.

Re Link as a Seattle-Tacoma express (or Seattle-Federal Way express), it’s already been established that Link will be 10 minutes slower than ST Express or Sounder to either Tacoma or Federal Way. (Assuming it’s 55 mph grade separated.) That may not be acceptable peak hours, but it would certainly make sense for Link to take over the off-peak times.

ST is mulling over some proposal for south of 200th, which may or may not be light rail. I’m inclined to just wait and see what it is, and then see what I think about it. ST Express can “extend” Link if it’s frequent enough — a super 574 — and that may be a solution for off-peak.

Another issue is the ultra-low density and long distance between Federal Way and east Tacoma. That’s really Pierce’s call as far as I’m concerned, because they’ll be the ones paying for it. My only insistence is that — if Link is not extended south of 200th or 272nd — ST Express must fill in, and that means: (1) 15-minute frequency full time, (2) one line serving all major stops rather than one line service some stops and another line other stops, (3) skip any dinky time-consuming stops like isolated P&Rs a few blocks away from the freeway exit, (3) improve the pedestrian environment around most stations, especially a pedestrian connection from FWTC to the SeaTacMall Commons thing.

“WHAT other destinations? It’s the endless sprawl; there’s nothing else to go to!”

South King or Tacoma to UW, Capitol Hill Bellevue, Lynnwood, Greenlake, Columbia City, etc. Just because you don’t make these trips doesn’t mean nobody does.

“because a Tacoma resident is going to bus it to Tacoma Dome, spend 75 minutes on Link, and then spend 25 minutes more on a dumbass streetcar to get somewhere like Fremont for the evening? At the time of day when there’s no traffic and they could drive the whole way in 40-45?”

I for one sometimes go to shows in Tacoma (6th Ave), and I’d like something better than a half-hourly 594 that stops running at 11:30pm. In my college days I used to go to events at UPS and PLU, and I might want to visit my uncle in Tacoma or such. I would gladly ride Link to downtown Tacoma (or Tacoma Dome) if it existed and transfer, and I’d be glad for the one-seat ride from the U-district or train-to-train transfer from Bellevue, even if it took 75 minutes. Because getting out of the train station and walking to the 594 stop, and waiting for the 594, is going to take less time than that, not. Not to mention it’s a diesel bus on the fucking freeway, guzzling oil and spewing fumes.

And Mike, no one is going from Federal Way to Green Lake on transit. Period.

Because there’s nothing and no one in downtown Federal Way, so no trips are actually starting there. Because our “Green Lake” station is a mile from Green Lake, with an unpleasant 12-lane highway in the middle of the walk and a refusal to upzone to create any additional demand/interest. And because 30 miles is a long freaking way to go for a jogging path.

The only reason anyone is ever going to make that trip is to meet friends or relatives for a family outing. And 99% will keep driving until the world is vastly different than it is today. What a pathetic rationale for blowing half a billion dollars.

“We’d be better off subsidizing 100 hours of Zipcar usage per year for every non-car-owner in the Seattle area than building a high-capacity train for such scant demand.”

That’s just cementing the supremecy of the car. It’s like when conservatives say, “Let’s cancel Amtrak and give everyone who would have gotten an Amtrak ticket an airline voucher.” We aren’t building high-capacity transit for scant evening demand. We’re building it for daytime demand, and we get evening capacity for free. It’s better to overbuild transit than underbuild it, especially after the severe underbuilding we’re living under. One more driver adds to oil and pollution, but one more transit rider improves the commerce of the city without those negative effects. The optimum amount of transit is enough to get people to where they want to go to. (Within reason, meaning a neighborhood center or corridor, not an isolated house.)

“it’s also as far as BART from SF to Fremont, CA”

Then why does it take an hour to drive from San Francisco to San Jose? Driving an hour from downtown Seattle gets you to Olympia, Mt Vernon, or the middle of the Cascades — far further than anyone is suggesting taking Link. That suggests to me that Fremont is about as far as Lakewood, which makes Federal Way about as far as Bay Fair — well within the reasonable limits of a subway/commuter rail hybrid.

d.p. has it right. You spend billions on high capacity transit when it’s going to get used all day everyday. Seatac Airport is a reasonable endpoint. It has all day demand an a significant number of people flying in don’t have a car at their immediate disposal (unless they rent and renting at the airport mid-week is uber expensive. DT to UW is the big demand and north to Northgate should see high demand too. Beyond that I don’t see much that makes sense as far as Link type capacity outside of Seattle proper. Even in Seattle it’s limited to the CBD and it’s immediate surrounding neighborhoods. Build that up and inch out from there.

And for the record, if Tacoma and Seattle were 15 or 18 miles apart, I’d feel different about treating Link as a modern-day interurban.

But 33 miles simply has a different effect on movement behaviors. It always will, no matter what you build.

Some people will commute that. Many still won’t. But nobody does routine errands or outings at that length. Nobody.

And occasional activities do not a consistent level of demand make.

The thing about traffic generators is that they don’t typically get traffic from only one direction. How many people will want to get to Sea-Tac or Highline CC from the south? We know that Westlake has very high traffic, but it’s clearly not the ideal endpoint.

I timed the drive when there weren’t traffic slowdowns. Traffic, but not slowdowns.

I did say ST Express would be an acceptable substitute between SeaTac and Tacoma if Link is not feasable. But I want to see ST’s real comparison analyses first before giving up on Link entirely. And it would have to be more frequent than the current 574. One option might be to make the 574 frequent, and add a frequent route from Auburn – Federal Way – SeaTac – Kent. That would make Link more accessible to the entire south county, providing a benefit that extending the line itself wouldn’t do.

The very next stop after S200th is Highline CC, which is probably like most colleges a solid all-day traffic generator.

Martin, this is actually two separate arguments, each of which is problematic.

1. The “very next stop” slippery slope:

S. 200ths, excellent P&R/highway access point that it is, is 1 mile past the current end of the line. Highline is fully 2.5 miles beyond that.

It’s a distance that, in city terms, would connect four neighborhoods. That’s not something you tack on for the heck of it; that’s tens or hundreds of millions of dollars that you had better objectively justify.

2. The “Highline must be a major generator” presumption:

Even erstwhile-STB frequenter Tim, who lived in the vicinity and had some past relationship to Highline CC, admitted that every inch of that campus’s design and ever fiber of its culture encouraged driving.

Inward-facing, flanked by parking lots, precisely zero pedestrianized pathways to the main road, no off-campus supporting businesses at all. And populated entirely by students who have spent nearly their entire lives in the sprawl, and for whom a licence and a low-budget junker were 16-year-old rites of passage. It’s not currently a trip generator of any sort at any time, and there’s no reason to expect that to change…

…Especially for a north-south linear corridor, which doesn’t really help the students’ South-King-centric movement needs anyway. Do you really expect that a sprawl-based student who drives from Tukwila or Auburn is going to start busing it all the way to the Link spine, just so that they can take it a stop or two to the periphery of the college, where they’ll have to walk across the same ample parking lot to which they could have just driven?

Sorry to be so cynical. Maybe someday, in the distant future, the sprawl will reorient itself in such a way that transit for intra-subarea trips becomes a reasonable option. But Highline CC is not an “if you build it, they will come” type of place, and it won’t be for a very long time.

Mike,
Given what I’ve seen of RR A and the PT 500 you can almost get away with Swift like stop spacing in that corridor without providing local shadow service. If you do put in shadow service it should still stop no more frequently than 1/4 mile and should be all one route from Downtown Tacoma to TIBS.

As for replacing the express buses this would only be something I would advocate doing outside of peak, especially evenings, nights, and weekends when demand is lower than peak-hour. At lower demand times frequency and span of service trumps travel time.

Mike,

S. 200th is inches from I-5. And that’s basically the only reason for it to exist in that location.

There’s two issues here. One is putting the P&R at 200th. The other is where the 574 and other express routes should meet Link. That doesn’t have to be 200th, because anyone arriving on a bus is not parking and vice versa.

For N-S bus transfers, it does have to be S. 200th, because the highway exit is right there (and would/should be improved further when the station is built).

Tukwila Int’l Blvd and the airport itself are not convenient to I-5 transfers, which is why none happen today.

Roosevelt “preserve neighborhood character” meme because there’s literally no neighborhood character to preserve.

Might not be your type of neighborhood but the public involvement in the station planning process I think proves you dead wrong. Some people want multi-family, some most want single family. Eroding Seattle’s single family choices because ST needs a ventilation shaft just pushes more people out to the ‘burbs and creates a zone that’s neither fish but is foul.

With Federal Way, the distance from there to anywhere,

Why is it so difficult for the Seattle Centric to understand that dispite being in King County Federal Way is a close in suburb of Tacoma; you know, the second largest city in the State! If light rail really can spawn development then that’s where it’s needed in spades. Federal Way has been loosing jobs because Weyerhaeuser has been shrinking it’s presence. Couple that with Russel’s move to Seattle because they were able to snarf up the WaMu building at fire sale prices. One major employment center that’s not going away is JBLM. Federal Way needs to do a 180 on it’s transportation focus.

*For the record, “the artists and start-up companies that have been or will be priced out of Seattle” refers to the finite and never-to-increase supply of architecturally significant and historically place-making buildings that tend to attract broke artists and start-ups. That’s something that downtown Tacoma may be able to offer more cheaply.

As for total residential supply, as I said above, sufficient upzoning would have the effect of lowering the cost of living in Seattle.

[d.p.] Artists and startups don’t necessarily need “architecturally significant and historically place-making buildings”… they simply need *old* buildings. Old buildings are cheaper, partly because of competition (newer buildings are more desirable), but mostly because older buildings have fewer costs (no mortgage, lower taxes).

This is the real downfall with building insta-neighborhoods and mega-projects: the lack of old buildings means that small, local stores (or lower-income people) simply can’t afford to move there. And it’s especially bad if every building is built at the same 30-year depreciation rate, since it means that they’ll all get rebuilt/renovated at the same time, thus perpetuating the issue.

But for a neighborhood like Capitol Hill, with a lot of old buildings but a lot of new construction, today’s luxury buildings will be tomorrow’s low-rent options.

The more we build now, the more options that artists and startups will have in 30 years. It’s weird to look at it that way, but it’s true.

[Bernie] First, you’ve got the facts wrong. About 65% of Seattle is zoned for single-family. That’s not a “limited supply” in my book.

And second, SFH and apartments *are* substitutable goods. I know 20-somethings who have chosen to rent a SFH because it’s way cheaper than getting an apartment in an area they like. I know middle-aged couples with kids who live in apartments because it’s the cheapest way to live in an area with good schools. Yes, there are some people who won’t consider certain types of housing (myself included), but there are definitely people for whom the presence or absence of shared walls isn’t their main concern.

Bernie:

Those massive expanses of white on your map are all s.f. No, that is not what any reasonable person would call “limited.” And the scattered specks and threads of l.r. zoning on your map are post-rezoning proposal; they’d have been far more scant beforehand.

Most of the downtown-adjacent parking you refer to is already zoned higher. Parking remains only if is a more profitable use of the space in the short or medium-term. And gee, why would parking be a profitable use on the periphery of urban centers? That wouldn’t have anything to do with the fundamental crappiness of getting around the city as well as around the region on transit, would it? And s.f. obsessions near and far would have nothing to do with that crappiness, would they?

The Rainier Valley has been depressed for decades; its physical, cultural, and economic isolation played no small role in its depression. The connective benefit provided by Link is likely to spur desirability and demand. So unless development keeps pace with demand (which is unlikely to happen; dumb fights like Beacon Hill can thwart demand-equalizing projects), overall prices in the Valley will rise.

And no, this is not a contradiction. For each individual unit built, price will still decrease relative to what the price would have been had that unit not been built. And the same is true on the macro (city-wide) scale.

Meanwhile, in an already desirable/costly place like Roosevelt, you would actually see the desired drop in cost if development came to be allowed in a significant way. You’d be allowing thousands of people to choose to live where transit meets their needs, rather than creating an artificial scarcity of transit-jackpot housing. You’d also be creating many smaller-than-a-bungalow units, which come with a much lower price tag than a mortgage on an s.f. house.

So even if the new transit-desiring demand causes a local price increase by square-footage, it’s guaranteed to lower the average price per unit.

And again, on the macro (city-wide) scale, more people living in Roosevelt means less competition for a s.f. home in Ravenna, keeping Ravenna price inflation in check and preventing Ravennans from fleeing for cheaper suburbs.

Aleks:

Totally interesting, and commensurate with my skepticism about any “planned” neighborhoods and from-scratch “renewals.”

Suggesting that the same artists and companies drawn to Pioneer Square in the past might specifically desire downtown Tacoma’s sense of place in the future did not come from thin air, though. After the gentrification of SoHo, then the Meatpacking District, then Chelsea, New York artists and innovators moved on to similar spaces in Hell’s Kitchen and Long Island City (Queens). It wasn’t only about age and cost; it was about certain types of interior spaces and exterior “places” that couldn’t be replicated in a decrepit 1950s neighborhood, no matter how inexpensive.

The same thing happened in Boston, with ex-Fort Point types heading to Somerville and the South End’s South-of-Washington district, then to Dudley Square and Watertown, then to Providence, Lowell, and Lynn.

Places with true character are in very short supply in the Pacific Northwest, which is why I see a Tacoma resurgence at some point on the horizon. (Though it still won’t justify 10-minute back-and-forth rapid transit any more than Boston-Lowell does.)

I think the driving force in many suburban or exurban communities desperately wanting rail transit is the illusion that their towns are special and deserving of fancy, shiny things.