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135 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Getting From A to B”
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Sunday Open Thread: Getting From A to B
This is an open thread.
This is an open thread.
This is an open thread.
Standing room only at 7:30 am this morning on the 120. Imagine how many people would use it if it were on better than half-hour headways!
You’re complaining about your bus being standing room only, but that’s actually a good thing.
Not necessarily and you know it. It could just as easily be a sign of a failed restructure as a successful one.
Either way, SRO on a bus is not fun. It’s only slightly more tolerable on a train. If a route is consistently SRO that means it needs more service. Full stop.
As I’m sure you understand, Sam, since if I’m not mistaken you mostly drive, there is great appeal to the ability to make a trip easily, spontaneous, when you need to, right now. This is especially true for basic, short- to medium-length, non-commute trips such as errands at 7:30 AM on a Sunday morning.
These are the trips for which 30 minutes versus 15 minutes versus even better make a world of difference. At 30, you’re dealing with a mostly captive audience. At 15 or better off-peak, you introduce a whole new world of “choice” demand.
If the buses are SRO at 30 minutes, it means there is huge untapped potential for better service.
Not at 7:30 on a Sunday morning, it’s not. If the bus is SRO then, how full is it going to be at 10:30 on the same Sunday?
120 needs to be 7.5 minutes peak, 10 minutes weekdays and Saturday daytime and evening, and 15 minutes nights and Sundays.
SRO may be acceptable when the seat pattern on the bus is designed for it, i.e. enough aisle room to easily walk around standees. The new Orions and the RapidRide buses get close to meeting this criteria.
SRO may be unavoidable on routes with articulated buses on <5 minute frequencies (at least until the service is switched to rail).
I can tell you from experience that neither of these conditions are true on the 120 on Sundays.
Metro, please increase evening and Sunday frequencies on the 120!
Not complaining, Sam, just stating a surprising observation. I’m glad it’s SRO, because that means the route I depend on daily is thriving, and will likely be around for a long time (also, I personally don’t mind standing for a 15 minute ride). Now when the bus is so full during peak trips that it skips my stop, as it did twice this week… that’s when I complain.
Were those two buses truly full, or were the standees crowding the front, as happens on many other buses, where the driver has to ask them to move to the back (which adds another minute or two to the trip)?
I rode the 511 northbound to Lynnwood around 7:30 yesterday morning. There were actually a good 20 or so people on board, which is a lot more than I expected for 7:30 on a Saturday morning in the reverse direction, especially with the lackluster CT connections in store for you when you get there.
One thing I did notice, though, was taxis parked at Lynnwood TC to handle connections that CT couldn’t handle. With the quality of the CT bus system, this seems like a no brainer – if you just missed your hourly connecting bus due to one-too-many change fumblers on the 511, blowing $10 on a taxi seems far preferable to sitting at the bus stop an entire hour.
My roommate is going to Langley this morning. He could take the 512 and transfer at Ash Way to the Mukilteo bus, ride the ferry, and have his sister pick him up on the other side… except that the Mukilteo bus doesn’t run on Sundays. I thought of that during the night and thought, “I’d better remind him in case he forgets and goes up to Ash Way and has to turn around.” So he ended up driving the whole way, using a ton of gas and freeway space and space on the ferry.
(Taxis are not realistic at $2.50 a mile. If they charged less they could be a replacement for buses in low-density areas. But people can’t be paying $10 or $20 or $50 a day on any regular basis.)
There is a lack of freeway space on Sunday mornings?
Cars use gas, produce carbon emissions and aggrevation, and require a lot of money to buy and maintain even on Sunday mornings.
I wonder if CT and ST will be part of Metro’s OB connection protection system.
Norman, yes there was between Dearborn and Mercedes this morning. Stop and go over half the time.
The calculus of taxi vs. driving is affected a great deal by whether you are a car owner or not. If you don’t own a car, 512 to Everett Station, followed by taxi to Multilteo (about 7.3 miles one way), even both ways, is still way cheaper than renting a car, paying to take the rental car on the ferry, and driving all the way. However, if the cost of the car is sunk, then gas and ferry becomes cheaper.
A bicycle would be another viable option for the Mukilteo connection, if only the it wasn’t such a crapshoot trying to depend on the two bike slots available on the 512 bus.
It also makes a difference which taxi company you use. I recently switched my business from Yellow Cab ($2.50 + $2.70 per mile) to Eastside for Hire (only $2.25 per mile) and found them just as reliable, but costing less. And contrary to what the name suggests, I have confirmed by experience that they both pick up and drop off passengers in both Seattle and Lynnwood.
“I wonder if CT and ST will be part of Metro’s OB connection protection system.”
In case you’re wondering, they aren’t. Yesterday, when my 511 bus pulled into Ash Way P&R, I noticed the CT winding bus to Multilteo pull out at just the right moment so everyone on the 511 could see it pull away, yet no one coming of the 511 could transfer to it. If anyone was making that trip, their options included to sit at the P&R for a full hour or call a cab.
Fortunately, my “connection” was not a CT bus, but a group of people carpooling to the mountains to go hiking, so I was spared having to deal with this. On the return trip, late enough in the evening, when the 511 drops to hourly, we arrived back at Ash Way P&R at the same time a southbound 511 just left. Fortunately, someone in the group who showed up with a car was headed back to Seattle, so I didn’t get stuck waiting a full hour for the return bus.
For people that aren’t so fortunate, ST could have made things a lot easier by replacing the 510/511 with 512 in the evenings when the frequency of both routes drops to hourly. Can anyone seriously argue that an extra half-hour waiting for the bus to either Lynnwood or Everett is worth it just to get people to Everett, once the bus finally does show up, a mere 7 minutes faster? Especially when ridership to Lynnwood is actually greater than ridership to Everett?
“Cars use gas, produce carbon emissions and aggrevation, and require a lot of money to buy and maintain even on Sunday mornings”
Buses use diesel, produce carbon emissions and require a lot of taxes on the general public to buy to subsidize the people who ride them. New cars are much more energy-efficient than buses. Cars cost far less to operate per passenger-mile than Metro or ST buses or Link light rail.
Do you really want to argue that buses don’t produce carbon emissions?
“The calculus of taxi vs. driving is affected a great deal by whether you are a car owner or not.”
Yes, but the calculus of being a car owner is affected a great deal by how comprehensive transit is.
efficiency depends on how many riders in the vehicle. An empty bus would surely be less efficient than a Toyota prius. A full bus would beat a prius unless the prius was running on electric the whole trip. i sense a troll on these blogs.
You also have to consider the energy overhead of manufacturing the vehicle itself. A once-a-month taxi ride in an SUV is still more efficient than a Prius that gets used only for that once-a-month trip and nothing else.
The effort to get 512s to replace the 510 and 511 in the evenings and on Saturday is winnable. ST sees it as a fallback, and service disprovement, and has said they only plan to do it as a cost-saving measure if it becomes necessary.
If a whole bunch of people write to them during the run-up to the SIP process, and help their service planners understand why shorter headway on the 512 is preferred over longer headway with fewer stops, I bet it will happen. But they need to hear from riders in Snohohomish County. (That’s not to say they will ignore comments from non-Snohomish-County rider.) If you live in Snohomish County, writing to your elected officials might also help. Think of all the business Snohomish County has lost because they’ve made Lynnwood and Everett such unattractive places for outsiders to spend an evening or weekend.
“If a whole bunch of people write to them during the run-up to the SIP process”
What’s the SIP process? Is that regular service changes or the Link planning?
Don’t standing room only buses makes the most efficient use of the buses’ space?
If they’re standing room only at what should be off-peak times, it indicates that they’re turning away customers at peak times.
That doesn’t necessarily follow, especially when the frequency at peak is four times what it is on Sunday.
Moreover, platform hours is a zero-sum game. Adding service on Sunday can only reduce peak capacity, unless more money is found or the buses start getting more priority treatments to move faster.
It’s not completely the same. Adding new peak capacity usually requires the purchase of new buses (the definition of “peak” is when all your buses are in use), which, unless you can utilize federal grant money, runs at several hundred thousand dollars per bus. Adding runs on Sundays, on the other hand, simply means running the buses you already have for more hours.
Also, adding a service trip just for the peak often requires the addition of at least as many deadhead hours as service hours, because it has to travel to and from the base to operate only 1 or 2 trips. On the other hand, when a bus is running all day, the cost of the deadhead to and from the base becomes amortized over a large number of trips, making the cost per trip of deadheading a lot smaller.
Standing room only on a Sunday morning? That’s the most unusual thing I’ve ever heard of. It must be a group of thirty people all travelling together.
Early Sunday mornings sometimes have surprising volume. People in security, retail, janitorial, etc. jobs are commuting.
I used to drive the first 73 local on Sunday morning as regular work. The seats were mostly full before I even got to the U-district. The students weren’t even awake yet — it was commuters, mostly riding downtown.
On any route, more frequency will increase ridership, and it has very little to do with whether it is SRO. Riders letting non-full buses pass by when they see them full of standees are a distinct minority of the ridership. There are lots of routes that are SRO, and not just at peak. If they aren’t SRO much of the time, it is likely they will get their service level cut as Metro is forced to find more and more efficiencies. Taxpayers demand it.
Some of us don’t mind standing on the bus or train. If you see other people standing, don’t assume they are bitter about standing. Now, if *you* need a seat, and nobody is offering it, please ask the operator for assistance. They are there to serve.
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As to the 120, I agree Delridge has gotten the shaft for years. Anyone getting on the 120 in Delridge is lucky to get a seat. Delridge is stuck with the political problem of having to fight with western West Seattle over service hours within the subarea equity rubric (which is now less formalized, thanks to recent county council decisions to emphasize performance over geography). As you may have noticed, western West Seattle is more vocal than Delridge.
It’s also a basic problem of Delridge’s location, that it’s not on the way to Alaska Junction but parallel to it. That forces West Seattle to have two hubs rather than one, which is harder to serve. Alaska Junction gets the most service because it’s the center and the biggest commercial district, and Delridge has to scramble for the pieces.
The C/120 combo provides a combined 17 trips to West Seattle at peak of peak. If both routes are full, and you try to combine them, all you get is a mess … or a good argument for a grade-separated rail line to West Seattle.
OneBusAway has made it a lot easier than it used to be to let a SRO bus go by to get on the identical, half-empty bus right behind it. At least once every couple of weeks, I find myself letting a 545 go by that I technically could have squeezed onto in favor of a 542 less than 5 minutes behind it.
I don’t think he’s complaining about having to stand, just that it’s a well-used route that could probably support greater frequency. I used to live in Delridge and 100% agree. I was amazed at the random times when the 120 was very full, and the fullest bus I’ve ridden in my life (anywhere in the world, although I’ve been on fuller trains), was the 120 on New Year’s Eve.
Delridge and Junction are very different corridors-as different as Fremont and Wallingford, and maybe more so. Have you ever tried to walk from Delridge to California Junction? I have, it’s quite a workout, and takes probably 30 minutes. The 120’s hub is White center, which is certainly a hub n it’s own right. And let’s not beat around the bush: Delridge is the poor corridor, which is why it has a less vocal population that’s also (I’m guessing) more dependent on transit. That’s why you have non-commuter trips that are very full, and exactly why it needs more trips.
Although I do have to laugh at the outrage over being passed over by full busses, as this happens to me almost daily on the 358.
Sigh – the Delridge bus has come a long way from being a route that was a shuttle to SW Spokan St on Sunday and nights. At that time, you had to transfer to the 15 or 18 to continue downtown.
Oran, did Dublin just redraw the maps, or did they actually create the dedicated corridors through the city and truncate many of the local bus routes that ran along the lines?
I can see many parallels between our current peak route structure, our Link and RR spines, and the whole question of forced transfers that Dublin is tackling.
I just wish the theory of HCT (rail or bus) worked as well in practice as it seems to on paper. I know Seattle is playing catch up, but would like to see some payoffs on Link, Commuter Rail and Streetcars in the near term, not in 2030.
Watching this, and appreciation the advancements in graphic information design post Tufte, I ended up with the thought…you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
That is, the problem of “explaining” and obsolete centrist city’s transit is not one of using better words. The centrist hub and spoke is inherently wrong and confusing.
So we don’t need better maps. But a whole new pattern of living that respected the sparser nature of towns and exurbs.
“But a whole new pattern of living that respected the sparser nature of towns and exurbs.”
What exactly does this mean – are you suggesting that transit should simply give up serving Kent and Federal Way altogether, with the solution that people should be commuting from Kent to Black Dimond (by car, of course), rather than Kent to Seattle?
I am saying that people only think in lines when lines are all the choice they are given. And more so with radial lines.
When you build for two dimensions instead of 1, many problems get solved.
“When you build for two dimensions instead of 1, many problems get solved.”
If you hadn’t already noticed, our cities have been built in 3D since the dawn of civilization.
As for transportation networks, we already have a 2D grid of streets (and transit lines), made up of cris-crossing lines. I have no idea what you’re talking about.
What John Bailo may be talking about is that in many suburban areas, the transit network (or at least the frequent transit network, or the transit network that runs at times other than 7-6 Monday-Friday) is all radial. A case in point is that to get from Puyllup to Tacoma outside of rush hour when the Sounder and PT route are available, you have to take the 578 north all the way to Federal Way, then backtrack south on the 594.
Or in Washington D.C., the red line makes a bit U-shape out to Shady Grove and Glenmont, but making that local trip between Shady Grove and Glennmont that could be driven in only 10-15 minutes is a mess. You can either take the red line all the way to downtown and back again, or you can transfer at, I think Rockville, to a bus that is hourly outside of rush hour and fairly circuitous to boot.
To get from Puyallup to Tacoma, I am not sure why you wouldn’t take Route 400. You’re round-about tour would only need to be done weekdays after 8:30 and on weekends.
@OV
Essentially if I leave my home, travel in on a radial rail or trunk highway and then enter an elevator to the third or 30th floor, then you are really traveling in not much more than one dimension. Because the the two end points of the trip are only reachable by a singular route. (Think of laying the buildings flat on a piece of paper to visualize.)
Building for two dimensions means distributing destinations around the complete metropolitan grid. (Like putting the Sonics in the Tacoma Dome).
So, yes, the interesting part of the vid is that he correctly sees a fast subway as a kind of abstraction. Once in the system, I can pop up anywhere and distance becomes nearly irrelevant given sufficient train speed.
But also there is then no reason to centralize and only use one dimension of travel. A crisscross, multinodal design for metro areas makes more sense based on land use, and also this idea of an abstracted high speed transit system (whether public or personal).
OK, but I really don’t see how our current system isn’t already that. It’s getting more so with every major restructure of service. You won’t see disagreement from me that a gridded multi-destination network is easier to understand and more useful for a wider variety of trips (compare LA’s bus network to suburban Washington DC’s spaghetti mess of routes).
“You’re round-about tour would only need to be done weekdays after 8:30 and on weekends.”
Tons of people go places after 8:30 PM and on weekends and a functioning transit system should be able to handle it. In Seattle, this would be the equivalent of forcing you to go from Lake City to Greenwood by going through downtown and back.
The problem here is that Piece Transit is too broke to offer such a functioning system.
…or the transit demand is too low to prioritize funding for it.
I don’t think this is even an official plan. Frankly, I think there’s still too many overlapping services.
Mic, the world is full of places where the dozen or so major transit spines — rail or bus, grade-separated or just really, ridiculously frequent — are in such a different stratosphere of effectiveness that no one in their right mind would suffer the slog of a one-seat ride rather than make a transfer to one of those services.
Here’s one of my favorite Boston examples: Alewife station.
A concerted anti-highway campaign killed what would have been the disastrously destructive Northwest Corridor, Southwest Corridor, and Inner Ring highways. The Concord Turnpike, as a result, literally dead-ends when it hits the Cambridge border. So in the ’80s, the Red Line was extended to serve North Cambridge, West Somerville, and a massive P&R right where the road stops. All bus riders from west and northwest, and more importantly a very large percentage of drivers, switch to the subway here. You’d be insane not to.
Similarly, you’d be insane to wind through inner-city traffic on an infrequent bus — even in a straight line — when you can in-and-out on subway services that come as often as every 2 minutes.
Seattle’s problem is that it runs neither frequent nor good enough spines to reduce its acutal and perceived transfer penalties. That it makes the transfer logistics hostile as well is just icing on the cake.
I was thinking about the standing room only buses. At peak times the Red Line from Alewife is standing room only all the way through Boston. They have even added some train cars which have no seats in order to increase standing capacity.
The Red LIne runs 250+ passengers per car on 6 car trains every nine minutes during commutes.
It’s actually every 4.5 minutes during commutes. 9 minutes for each branch.
Those seatless cars work like a charm. Much more comfortable when busy!
It can work a bit too well. When I lived in Boston (near Kendall), my girlfriend at the time commuted into Boston. She had serious problems with multiple trains not having any room on board at Kendall, sometimes having to wait half an hour.
d.p. I totally agree. That’s why I keep singing the same notes over and over. Transfers at the same platform in the DSTT make sense. Running E.Link to Ballard, hitting CPS (Convention Center, Lower Broadway, and high rises) then to the ‘Center of Amazon Universe’ (current and future insane development), Seattle Center (used to be the highest rated activity center in the PS), lower Queen Anne, Magnolia and Ballard would make more sense than going to Broadway station. After Broadway, it’s a push from the East side to U-W on 520. North of UW, jump off the bus and get on Link to Lynnwood. Riders transfer all the time when it’s going in the same direction, on the same platform, with high frequency and it’s intuitive. Seattle has a way of making everything difficult. Even simple bus routes have multiple mutations on routings, signage, and fare structure. In Seattle, you really, really should get a medal for riding the bus every day. Really!
These are the things we CAN do. Getting bogged down on 15,000 boardings per day at LTC, as justification for “OMG-the tunnel is full” just precludes some realistic debate on the possible, not the impossible.
Transit riders in our area are not willing to pay high enough fares to pay for the service you want. You want better transit, are you willing to pay doulbe or triple the fare you pay now? Or, are you only willing to increase taxes on other people to pay for your improved transit service?
The actual OPERTAING cost (not including any of the capital costs) of Link or ST express bus is in the neighborhood of 75 cents per passenger-mile. Are you willing to pay the acutal OPERATING cost of your transit trips (while still payingn zero of the capital costs) with fares at about 75 cents per passenger-mile with no monthly pass discounts or any other discounts, but just a stratight 75 cents per passenger-mile?
Because, if you are not willing to pay for it, then stop whining.
The initial plan for the Red Line Extension would have gone past Alewife to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights with an eventual expansion potentially to Lexington Center and 128 (via what is now the Minuteman Bike Trail). Folks in Arlington at the time killed it. I think the giant park and ride works ok but it would have worked a lot better going to places where people could have actually walked to the stations.
Norman, are you willing to pay a per mile fee when registering your car? Lets say you drive 10,000 mi a year, would you be willing to pay for those 10,000 mi? Or are you just going to tax me to pay for it?
David: I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.
Yes, the Green Line trolleys sometimes gets so packed that you physically can’t get on.
But failing to find room on a Red Line train has happened to me about once in the last 30 years. Those train cars are HUGE — significantly wider, in fact, than most New York subway cars.
Your ex-girlfriend sounds to me like one of those West Seattle types for whom anyone not getting a seat equates to the vehicle being “oh, the humanity” packed. If she’d waited at the first car at Kendall (inbound) she would have been just fine.
Norman: fares have doubled in Seattle and service quality has dropped. Your complaint has more to do with inefficient allocation of resources than anything to do with user cost.
You know what else is an inefficient allocation of resources? All of those billions of dollars for highway and road projects that *I* subsidize. If you’re not willing to pay the true cost of your driving, then stop *lying*.
Hardly. She was perfectly willing to stand in a crowded car, but she weighed less than 100 lbs., so was unable to have much effect by pushing and shoving. Usually if the first train was full she could squeeze into the second, but on several occasions she couldn’t get into multiple trains.
Kendall is the point of most crowding and the worst stop to get on inbound.
As I’ve said many times, I would love to pay higher fare in exchange for Metro creating a low-to-no-income reduced-fare ORCA card, so that those who pay more can afford to, by definition.
David:
Alewife commuters concentrate toward the rear cars. Harvard Square users concentrate toward the front, though they aren’t as concentrated in the 8am hour as the Alewifers are, and they largely aim for the 2nd car because it offers the best Green Line transfer. The rest of the stops funnel people toward the middle.
I stand by my recommendation that the best place for her to board at Kendall would have been the very first car — emptiest arriving at the station, and furthest from the Kendall fare gates.
Kevin:
You’re preaching to the choir. I had an awful Saturday-night bus bunching experience on the normally-high-frequency 77 a few weeks ago. Arlington is very much within the “inner urbanized area” and with more foresight from its electeds it should have and would have had rapid transit service.
But as an example of what Mic was asking about — a situation in which transferring to the trunk is unquestionably preferable to any existing or hypothetical one-seat ride (including driving your car!), Alewife offers a perfect illustration.
There are more inbound riders than you think at Harvard in the morning, and they are most heavily concentrated throughout the first three cars, not just in the second car.
We lived in a location where we entered Kendall station via the east entrance, which puts you naturally at the first car inbound and the last car outbound.
Alewife works very well for the use you describe — so well that it compromises the utility of the line for commuters who start within the city.
David, going *inbound* from Kendall, I remember — as a kid — walking across the Longfellow Bridge, even though it’s a mile walk. That one segment can indeed be the most crowded on the Red Line.
Arguably the Blue Line should cross the river as well as the Red and Green Lines. But just *try* to get the MBTA to expand rail service as it should have been doing all along. They’ve been avoiding doing legally mandated Big Dig Mitigations for what, 2 decades now?
…Forgot my last point: Given how much faster North Link will be than rush-hour commutes via I-5, it’s surprising to me that you don’t think North Link will serve much the same function. (Despite stopping, it will even be faster than off-peak trips on I-5 once you count time to find parking.)
“Transit riders in our area are not willing to pay high enough fares to pay for the service you want”
Nor are automobile drivers willing to pay high enough tolls to rebuild 520. At current toll rates ($3.59 during peaks) they are only bringing in enough to pay for about 1/4 of the project. And then there’s the deep bore tunnel on 99 where the state may just give up collecting tolls to avoid diverting cars onto Seattle’s streets which, I will remind you yet again, are paid for primarily through property and sales taxes, not registration fees or gas taxes.
I don’t pretend that my fares pay for all the transit I use and you shouldn’t pretend that the gas taxes and registration fees you pay on your car pay for all the roads you use.
“Norman, are you willing to pay a per mile fee when registering your car? Lets say you drive 10,000 mi a year, would you be willing to pay for those 10,000 mi? Or are you just going to tax me to pay for it?”
I pay the full operating cost of my car. What a foolish comment.
I also paid the full capital cost of buying my car. I did not receive any subsidy from you or anyone else when I bought my car. I also paid taxes when I bought my car and whenever I buy gas, tires, services etc.
How much of the cost of the buses you ride does your fare pay for? Try zero.
How much taxes do you pay on your transit fare? Try zero.
“Nor are automobile drivers willing to pay high enough tolls to rebuild 520. At current toll rates ($3.59 during peaks) they are only bringing in enough to pay for about 1/4 of the project. And then there’s the deep bore tunnel on 99 where the state may just give up collecting tolls to avoid diverting cars onto Seattle’s streets which, I will remind you yet again, are paid for primarily through property and sales taxes, not registration fees or gas taxes.”
The new 520 bridge and the deep bored tunnel will be paid for with gas taxes and tolls. Bus riders will pay neither gas taxes nor tolls to use the 520 bridge. So, motorists are paying the full cost of the new 520 bridge and tunnel, while bus riders will pay NONE of the cost of the 520 bridge when they ride across it on buses.
But, of course, you don’t even address the question of OPERATING costs, which motorists pay in full, and transit users pay only a fraction of. When I drive across the 520 bridge, I am paying the full cost of my gas, tires, etc. When you take a bus across the bridge you are paying only a fraction of the cost of the dielse, tires, etc. that the bus uses. Transit riders are getting an [almost] free ride by making taxpayers pay most of the cost of their trips while motorists pay the full cost of their trips, plus the cost of the roads that buses and motor vehicles use.
“I don’t pretend that my fares pay for all the transit I use and you shouldn’t pretend that the gas taxes and registration fees you pay on your car pay for all the roads you use.”
This is so pathetic. I pay all the operating costs of my auto trips. You pay a fraction of the operating costs of your transit trips.
I pay gas taxes, tolls, sales taxes, MVET, license fees, parking fees, etc. which go to pay for roads. Transit users pay zero taxes on their fares, so they pay NOTHING for the roads their buses use when they ride those buses.
Transit fares pay NOTHING of the cost of the roads buses use. Motorists pay taxes and fees on their vehicles, gas, etc. (including tolls) equal to all the money spent on highways and roads in our area.
Face it, transit riders are getting a (almost) free ride, while motorists pay their own way.
Transportation is a fundamental need in a city larger than one square mile. Even if you arrange everything in mostly self-contained neighborhoods, people will still have reason to travel to other parts of it. That’s why European cities have comprehensive local transit, regional transit, and intercity transit, so that it’s convenient enough to be the first choice for many people. Driving is properly a luxury pastime like ultralight planes or corporate jets. Yet our cities and suburbs are designed to be skewed towards driving as the first choice, and those without cars face a moderate disadvantage (in central Seattle) or a severe disadvantage (in the suburbs). If people took a fraction of the money they’ve spent on cars and highways and put it into comprehensive public transit, they could get around most of the time without cars and their taxes would be lower too. Then they could buy a car as an extra if they wanted to, rather than having to buy a car they don’t want because the transit options are so minimal.
norman i suspect you build your own roads right?
Every time Norman drives downtown, he reaps the benefits of his tax dollar’s contribution to transit. Without transit, he would have a much more difficult time finding a parking place and the traffic on downtown streets would probably be considerably worse as well.
However, maybe Norman never actually visits downtown, so he would say that it doesn’t matter.
Face it, transit riders are getting a (almost) free ride, while motorists pay their own way.
Face it, the nine paragraphs of unpasteurized bullshit you just spewed have been debunked by every independent economic analysis and every budget/accountability office in existence more time than any of us can count.
And your “debunking” amounts to “Nyah, nyah, yes I do.”
Seattle lets people like you wallow in their Fact Free Zone, but I’m under no obligation to indulge your abject delusion.
Get some new lines or shut the fuck up.
Given how much faster North Link will be than rush-hour commutes via I-5, it’s surprising to me that you don’t think North Link will serve much the same function.
The T goes everywhere those northwesterly commuters could possibly want to go. Link will not, which is why it will remain minority-appeal transit even in its own corridor.
And I-5 isn’t even all that bad in the direction with express lanes open.
“The T goes everywhere those northwesterly commuters could possibly want to go. Link will not, which is why it will remain minority-appeal transit even in its own corridor.”
Because the majority of them are going to lower-density areas (15th E, 24th E, 85th NE) rather than high-density areas that do have stations (Broadway, U-District, 65th), and Link is just totally useless if it doesn’t go to those places.
“And I-5 isn’t even all that bad in the direction with express lanes open.”
When driving down I-5, it’s actually quite rare for the express lanes to work out. Nearly always they are either closed in the direction you want to travel or don’t have an entrance or exit in the right place.
Just a general comment here: I used a speedometer app on my phone. I find that it’s pretty accurate (have checked it against a speedo in a private vehicle) and find that for in town use connecting close-in neighborhoods the speed generally is no greater than 18 MPH. On express routes it may get as high as 30 MPH! On light rail the maximum speed encountered from SEA-TAC to Westlake was 30 MPH with much of the journey much slower than that.
That doesn’t sound right. Link runs at 55 mph for long stretches on the section between Rainier Beach and SeaTac/Airport. It tops out at 40-45 mph in the Beacon Hill Tunnel and through SODO.
Source: peeking at the train’s speedometer through the cab door window
Link’s speed is about the speed limit every time it’s on or next to a road. You don’t need any speedometer—all you have to do is look out the window to see the train getting slowly passed by cars that are going slightly over the speed limit.
Agreed that your light rail speeds are wrong. I ride Link every day and it typically cruises at 35 mph down MLK and faster than that everywhere else.
And there were plenty of express buses I used to drive where I would cruise up against the 65 mph governor for significant stretches.
I suspect this persons speedometer app is measuring the average speed between 2 points including stops and slow downs. It’s a fair measurement and can be fairly compared to other modes of transportation.
I think the average speed on Link will improve with the opening of UW Link and NorthLink and each additional segment afterwards.
If you look at the running times, the average speed of Link between Westlake and SeaTac is around 30 mph. Since this includes the tunnel, plus all the station stops, the top speed has to be considerably faster than this for the math to work out.
After reading about ST’s Link naming policy, here are my ideas for naming the lines:
Red Line: Husky Stadium-IDS
Blue Line: Westlake-SeaTac
Green Line: Westlake-Eastside
What do you guys think?
White w/Blue wave Line – Eastside over I-90 on windy days.
Green Line – Ballard to Sodo
Red w/ Orange Line – lost RR-G bus took a right after Westlake and is somewhere under Capitol Hill
Rainbow Line – Variable destinations and alternate routes
Orange w/ Black Line – Equipment sold to BNSF for $1, then leased back for undisclosed annual/perpetual payment deposited in Swiss accounts in exchange for cancelling North Sounder contracts.
First, the Link hub (where the north trains diverge) will be ID Station, not Westlake.
Second, there is nothing wrong with having two color brands on the north line. Riders heading to the eastside may want to not get on the train headed to the airport, and vice versa.
Why not the Purple Line for Husky Stadium?
Then have to paint them all every time the Cougars whip there butts.
…so, like once every 6-8 years. ;)
*their. You really are a Coug…
There’s no turnback between Intl Dist and Northgate, so any train that goes to either one or Westlake will go to all of them. The most likely scenario is a Lynnwood-Des Moines line full time, and Lynnwood-Redmond line peak hours changing to Nothgate-Redmond off-peak. Other scenarios may include a third line Lynnwood-Stadium or Northgate-Stadium in the peak and/or mid-day.
how about:
http://seattlesubway.org/vision
Hey!
It’s kind of a problem when the half-hourly Sunday only-bus-from-real-Ballard 40 is already 15 minutes late before it even comes down 24th.
I was curious about what the reliability would be like on the 40 from the first time I saw the route map.
Were you able to see where it got delayed? The natural culprits are Meridian approaching Northgate and 105th approaching Aurora. 15 minutes seems a bit extreme for either of those spots, though.
It doesn’t have to be one big thing – a bunch of small delays can add up fast. For example, sometimes, buses are lazy just getting out of the gate. I’ve seen several cases where if the bus is scheduled to leave Northgate TC at 2:00, the driver interprets this as an instruction to leave the layover space at 2:00, pull up to the bay at 2:02, and actually leave Northgate TC at 2:05. From this, add in a couple of signal cycles to turn left onto Northgate Way and another couple of signal cycles to cross Aurora. Then the Greenwood intersection has a poorly located bus stop that requires the bus to wait multiple 2+ minute signal cycles whenever anyone is getting on or off at that stop. Now, add in a couple of change fumblers/fare arguers plus a wheelchair and you’re easily up to a delay of 15 minutes.
The 5 from Northgate was regularly late. If Metro is using the same trip timings for the 40 as it used for the 5, then the 40 will be similarly late. There’s also the problem of the Mercer Curtain, which still requires waiting through multiple light cycles when the box is blocked by traffic on Mercer. And there is the problem of unfamiliarity with the new route. On my only trip on the 40 the driver had to stop and explain the route 3 times between downtown and Ballard to passengers who wanted to go to Northgate.
Having a one seat ride between Fremont and Ballard with 15 minute headways is going to be hit, however. Just about every stop on that segment had a passenger waiting. I did notice that southbound buses from Fremont were signed DOWNTOWN SEATTLE/BALLARD which would be inaccurate and confusing for a passenger that only used headsigns for information.
if the bus is scheduled to leave Northgate TC at 2:00, the driver interprets this as an instruction to leave the layover space at 2:00, pull up to the bay at 2:02, and actually leave Northgate TC at 2:05. From this, add in a couple of signal cycles…
And this is why curlicue “transit centers” are fundamentally anathema to frequent urban transit. Northgate TC needs to die.
On no route was the discrepancy between “good” and “bad” drivers more apparent than on the 75. Only really on-the-ball drivers should be allowed to pick the 40.
We’re about due for a STB meetup aren’t we?
The sand is running out on the hourglass for us to be able to do a meetup on the 42. But, personally, I think those platform hours could help a lot of people over in Delridge. Can’t we just euthanize the 42 early and put those buses in other poor neighborhoods where the capacity is woefully inadequate?
I rode a nearly-packed 120 in the afternoon off-peak last week — in the counter-peak direction.
It would send the wrong signal if the C Line got an emergency capacity upgrade, and the 120 did not.
Wrong. The people of King County have spoken, MLK and Little Sigon are special destinations that absolutely have to be connected with a one-seat bus ride at all costs, because the two people that take advantage of that connection are very important – much more imporatant that the people squeeezing into overcrowded #120 buses.
Also, the 120 is not allowed to get an emergency upgrade. That’s a special privilege reserved only for RapidRide lines, and the 120 is not a RapidRide line.
Martin is one of those two people, and he approves of the 42’s elimination.
Can’t we just euthanize the 42 early and put those buses in other poor neighborhoods where the capacity is woefully inadequate?
Even if we did, the 42 is one bus, running about 40 platform hours a week. On the 120 it would be a small bandaid on a gaping wound. a 120 round trip is ~2 hours, killing the 42 would only add 4 RTs a day to the 120.
For whatever reason, the Delridge/White Center/Ambaum corridor doesn’t get heard. The restructuring that created the 120 was the only good thing to happen to it, bus-wise, within my memory. Most recently, the 125 got severely cut despite having higher ridership than a lot of service elsewhere that was preserved. Sadly, I’d expect the C to go to 10 minutes all day before we get any fix for the 120, even at peak hours.
Looking forward to this week, when the Sounder to Lakewood will have actual hardcore commuters who know what they’re doing, know where they’re going, and don’t stand around where people are walking through.
Charles brought up an interesting question. Will the Puyallup and Sumner parking lots be less full when Lakewood trains stop running? That would show how much people from past the southern terminus have been driving to the closest station with parking available.
My recollection was that Tacoma Dome station had available parking. Is this not true?
Don’t know. I was telling Mike (whom I ran into on the 49) about my trip to the Sounder opening festivities and related a story (complaint) from a family not being able to find parking in the “red” lot in Puyallup and getting a parking ticket for their troubles. The ST rep suggested that these stations would relieve some parking congestion up the line.
Tacoma dome mabye, but probally not by a whole lot. Most of tacoma domes riders are bus riders. It may ease the congestion at 512 PnR although judging by the ridership on the first train today that might not be much. Sounder usually attracts new riders rather than having a lot of converts from the bus, from what i hear anyway.
With a good bus connection, 512 P&R may be a reliever for Lakewood Station parking. But that would mean either relying on Sound Transit routes that are affected by Seattle traffic, or riding PT with the proles.
You lost me at “I’m a graphic designer”.
Allow me to offer a perhaps daft suggestion for funding emergency capacity upgrades on the C/D Line and 120: Use money from the SDOT budget. But make it solely to buy extra service until the next pick. After that, if the buses are full, Metro should find a way to meet demand on those routes. $1 million is about the order of magnitude of what it would take to apply this bandage.
As I understand it, the roadblock to adding capacity is budgetary, not operational.
do they have enough buses?
They just added ca. 30 RapidRide buses to the fleet. I don’t think they decommissioned 30 other buses that quickly. Space at the bases may be an issue.
This weekend I tried out the new 32 to get from Fremont to Queen Anne. I was baffled by the bus driver, who was asked on Nickerson if the bus went to Ballard, clearly used to the 17. The driver told this rider that she didn’t go to Ballard, and that she should get off on 12TH AVE W and walk to Ballard.
Thanks, bus driver.
How would you get from Ballard from there? It sort of depends where on Nickerson you are and where in Ballard you’re going. Possible answers: walk to Fremont and catch the 40; cross the street, take the 31/32 to Fremont, catch the 40; get on this bus, get off at 15th/Emerson and transfer to the D line (the 32’s route map lists this as a transfer point but I’m not really sure how to do it).
The easiest way to explain to someone in 15 seconds would be “take this bus to Emerson, walk to that stop right there (point to the clearly visible stop 50 feet away), and catch the D bus.”
15th & Emerson is a truly obnoxious intersection, but southbound 32 to northbound D is probably the most workable transfer there.
My normal buses have been largely a rotation of new drivers since the changeover. I had to coach a new guy through the 24 route yesterday.
The 32’s last stop before taking the “city center only” underpass really is at 12th Ave W.
One would do just as well to stay on the 32 all the way to Dravus and cross over there.
That’s what I recommended also.
Did they remove the old 17 stop that was immediately before the bus turned left to go across the Emerson bridge? That stop was almost directly next to the northbound RR D stop. The stop no longer appears on Google Maps.
I suppose they might have, since now the 32 stops on southbound 15th at Emerson immediately after turning onto 15th. Too bad for 31 riders!
…or not.
Looking again, I see the 32 is using the underpass, not crossing the bridge, to get to 15th from Nickerson. So neither the 31 nor the 32 actually stops anywhere near 15th and Emerson. That’s a bad mistake, listing 15th and Emerson as a transfer point!
It’s fair to say that there is no workable transfer from the westbound 31 to the D Line, and that the transfer from the west/southbound 32 to the D line is at Dravus. On the other hand, it’s easy to transfer from the D to the eastbound 31 and 32.
The 31 hasn’t used that stop right before the bridge in years, either, and the stop before it (at the 13th lane split) lacks any sidewalks.
So even before, a 31->15 transfer required crossing Nickerson twice or walking 750 feet in-lane.
The first draft of the restructure moved the 31 from Emerson to Dravus, which would have made it infinitely more useful and reliable. That change didn’t survive, because Seattle won’t stand for useful/reliable!
As a former Magnolia resident, I strongly disagree that Dravus could be considered “reliable” under any circumstances. And the intersection would need substantial reconfiguration to allow buses to turn right from southbound 15th onto westbound Dravus — right now there is not enough room.
Emerson runs into trouble for a brief period at the end of the PM peak (the bridge opening armageddon), when very few people are riding westbound on the 31 anyway. It’s pretty reliable the rest of the time. Dravus is trouble all. day. long.
…I say “westbound” where I mean “eastbound.” What I would give for an edit function.
As a frequent rider of the former 17, I can tell you that it wasn’t just the 6 PM armageddon. The entire PM peak throws a wrench in the 3-way merge and backs traffic across the overpass. Bridge openings at any time of day can take 10 minutes to clear.
It’s especially offensive to suffer this if you’re not even using the bridge whose opening has such effects on you.
Dravus is comparatively stable. There’s plenty of eastbound traffic accessing 15th, but the green light holds for quite long, and right-on-red helps to keep it moving the entire cycle.
The 31 pretty much never uses articulateds; the 2.5 lanes available westbound on Dravus would give shorter buses plenty of room to turn. There’s also an extended right turn light there that keeps the right lane from ever backing up (whereas “RapidRide”, one lane over, can get stuck for multiple cycles).
IIRC, the new 31 routing was kibboshed by the lack of sidewalks on quiet 20th Ave W. Yeah, because that’s so much worse than what people have to deal with around Nickerson/Emerson!
I spent more than my share of 10-minute periods waiting for that light eastbound, usually not at the PM peak, but during the middle of the day! The cycle is so long that once the backup starts there is nothing to be done.
And on the turn, the issue is not the space available on Dravus to turn into, but the space on 15th to turn from. There are two lanes, both narrower than standard (I want to say 10 1/2 feet), bounded by high curbs on both sides (as in, if you curb your bus, you’re not bouncing a bit, but scraping metal) with a very narrow curb radius. You can’t set up because the lane is so narrow. And you can’t split lanes because of that right-turn-friendly light cycle you’re talking about. You’d have to pull a 40-footer clear into the intersection before starting the turn, something I know from experience takes three full lanes of space to turn into. I don’t think there is any hope of making that turn with a 60-footer without splitting the lanes.
Also, the 31 is now using a fair number of 60-footers thanks to its new through route with the 65 and 75.
I don’t know about the 60-footers, but I’ve seen fairly large trucks (as large as a 40-footer) make the turn without trouble.
And I think you’re exaggerating on the Dravus traffic. This city really doesn’t have any “10-minute” backups that aren’t caused by a drawbridge or by I-5.
Ah, right, it wouldn’t stop at 13th. I would probably get out and walk from 12th personally, if it was daylight, but I’m pretty happy to walk. Though I recall once accidentally taking a 17 instead of an 18 when I really needed to get to the south part of Interbay and ending up at 12th at night – that was not fun. Truly obnoxious intersection.
Huh, come to think of it, I did end up giving similar ‘walk to ballard’ instructions yesterday to some tourists who were trying to get to the Ballard Locks from downtown via the 24 (! – I guess that actually sort of works) and missed their stop by a fair bit. I hope they made it.
I think you might’ve steered them wrong. According to Google, from 4th & Pike, taking the 24 or 33 to 32nd & Government and then walking to the locks via the pedestrian rail overpass is several minutes faster than either the 40 or the D & 61 combo—and probably much faster if the bridge goes up, or if it’s rush hour, or if the transfer from D to 61 takes more than a few minutes.
With the service reduction to Ballard, it would probably behoove a lot of former 17 riders to remember the locks and that overpass. If time of day, weather, and transfer timing happen to work, taking a 24 or 33, walking through the locks, then transferring to the 61 (or just continuing on foot) could be a rather nice alternative to transferring under the bridge. Even if it weren’t faster, it’d probably make for a nice alternative route occasionally.
Their problem was that they were -already- on the 24, but had passed 32nd & Government by a number of stops and were going south again. So it was a question of waiting for the 24 to come back when they didn’t know where their stop was visually [and all the drivers are new – this one had -no idea- of the route and I was guiding him] or just walking north maybe a mile to the locks (they had written directions from the stop they wanted). I don’t know what they eventually decided on.
The Delridge corridor and Route 120 are seeing significant investments over the next 18 months to improve the roadway, access to bus stops, a northbound peak-only bus lane, bicycle lanes, signal priority, and more. And with the latest change, Westwood Village is now a hub to rival the junction for buses, and the 120 terminates there.
The 120 doesn’t terminate at Westwood, it stops by there.
The move to Westwood doesn’t bring any extra connectivity — it just preserves connectivity with routes (22, 54/C, 125) that were taken out of White Center. It does help a few riders, but just slows down the route for more of them.
The peak bus lane may make more of an impact. I’ll judge when I see it. But I think residents in that corridor would be right to feel slighted: their trunk route isn’t frequent enough, their #2 route just took a severe cut, and they just lost a connection to much of Sodo (unless they walk seven blocks).
I also noticed that the posted schedule at the W Prospect northbound stop still showed the cancelled 24 night trips despite being a new schedule with the 32 and D. That’s unfortunate.
Trip Planner has half-fixed their D/24 transfer issues. Northbound looks fixed, but they’re now trying to claim the SB D to NB 24 transfer should be accomplished by getting off at Galer and walking to W Prospect. Admittedly, this is actually better than the transfer point they had earlier, which was downtown.
Observations this afternoon and evening:
1. There are some A-Line buses being used on the C/D Line. The C/D Line, FWIW, is much less full than the 120 off peak.
2. The ORCA loading assistants are getting better at using the hand-held readers, as are the passengers. The loading assistant at the southbound platform at ID Station had the drill down really well, tapping at a rate of about one card per second. I’d suggest filming him for training purposes.
3. Platooning still has some kinks to be worked out southbound and is totally not happening northbound.
4. Headway control is not happening with tunnel routes. I saw two 106s go through together, two 255s go through together, two 550s go through together, two 41s together (which is hard to avoid), and three 41s a little bit later all on the same platfrom at once. These were all in their outbound direction. I hope it would be easy to implement a rule that only one bus of a particular route can be deployed between each pair of trains.
5. One of the big slow-downs was drivers opening doors for runners. I watched as a supervisor reprimanded one of the drivers for doing that. One of the 41s at the head of the block of three waited for a runner, and then his bus stalled for a couple of minutes. There ought to be a “No running on the platform” rule, in addition to clear instructions to operators to only open the doors once per platform.
6. A couple inbound buses kept their doors closed while waiting along the platform, and then opened them once they got to the front, turning themselves from the back of one platoon into the front of the next platoon, and blocking Bay A buses, which leads me to …
7. The big source of slow-downs northbound in the tunnel is that Bay A is overwhelmed. Even if platooning were happening right, passengers were boarding quickly, inbound drivers were only unloading once per platform, and the hand-held readers were functioning as quickly as the ones on the buses, there would still be delays caused by too many buses using Bay A. That list includes the 41, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, and 316. Given the rule that only two buses can be considered to be at a bay at once, and any bus further out must stop again at the bay, Bay A cannot handle the peak volume — 29 buses in one hour — unless they are spread perfectly evenly among the sixteen platoons that should be going through in that hour. And it would require all inbound buses going northbound to queue up behind a pair of Bay A buses and use the space at the south end of the platform, which is not happening.
A better distribution of the northbound peakload would be 41/316 (15 peak buses per hour) at Bay A, and 71-74, 76, 77, and 255 at Bay B (17 peak buses per hour). This would require some training, rider alert signage, and a little duct tape to cover the old numbers. But I think it is a fix that can be executed quickly.
Errata:
In the final paragraph above, Bay B would have 22 buses per hour under my proposed bay redistribution. So shift the 77 to Bay B, and Bay B would then have 18 buses per hour, with Bay A having 19.
For comparison, Bay C (101, 103, 106, 150) has 16 bus per hour at peak, and Bay D (216, 218, 550) has 15 buses per hour at peak.
When you compare the 29 buses per hour at peak serving Bay A, it is no wonder the platooning algorithm (which doesn’t prevent things like unloading buses stopping twice and blocking a Bay A slot) breaks down.
Errata #2: There aren’t enough trains for the 41s and 550s to be limited to one of each between each train. For those two buses, at least limit them to one per platoon. It is painful to watch a half-empty 41 pull up right behind a crushloaded 41. It is even more painful to watch the front 41 keep opening his front door for a runner, who doesn’t notice the second 41 right behind it, and then have the first 41 stall out.
.
Slightly related:
You may hear announcements in the tunnel about going upstairs to catch the 212 etc. to Eastgate P&R. Metro has for years been trying to minimize the number of express buses going all the way out to Issaquah. They attempted to do that during this pick by having just four 218s per hour. It backfired, as commuters going to Eastgate continued to use the 218 instead of the 212, and overwhelmed the 218s.
So, starting next Monday, the 218 will no longer stop at Eastgate P&R going eastbound for the duration of this pick.
Actually, to get from A to B, you take the A-Line (wherever you might be on it), ride it to S 176 st and Pacific Hwy, hop on the 560 to Bellevue transit center, then board the next B-Line that leaves (wait up to 15 minutes). THAT, my friends is how you get from A to B (Line).
It’s really much shorter to walk from Bay A to Bay B.
Come to think of it, A and B are less than an inch away from each other!