A few weeks back, I decided to exercise my freedom in going into the office more than I needed to and commuted downtown on a Friday. The first thing I noticed was how much emptier my usual bus was. Of course, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Friday ridership is down relative to the other days of the week, although none of the local transit agencies publicly report this kind of breakdown.

Many employers now operate a hybrid working mode, with workers in-office some days of the week, and at home the others. The problem is that “hybrid” is a spectrum: some companies don’t require in-person work but provide an office for those who want it, some companies mandate a few days in-person, chosen at the discretion of employees, and some companies mandate specific days in-person. This lack of predictability makes it difficult to plan for the right amount of service across the week.

Transit agencies have already shown willingness to cut trips and even entire routes for being low-performing. But it raises the question: for commuter routes, especially, does an altogether different schedule for Fridays make sense? This would create potentially four schedule categories for routes that have weekend service: Monday-Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

There are some immediate downsides that come to mind:

• Schedule complexity: riders might have increased difficulty sorting through the right schedule and not mistakenly consulting the wrong schedule.
• Regularity for M-F riders: those who still need to take transit all five weekdays might be unduly burdened by a different Friday schedule. This is particularly true of those in the trades or other professions that do not accommodate remote work.

On the flip side, trimming extremely unproductive trips on Fridays might provide a useful source of hours that can be reinvested in other lines or bolstering all-day service elsewhere, particularly with an uncertain future financial outlook. That said, employment patterns continue to evolve post-COVID so looking at day-of-week ridership will be an increasingly useful tool for planners to consult in the coming years.

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Seattle’s bus network used to be focused on bringing people to work downtown. As our city grew, it spread its wings across First Hill, Capitol Hill, Fremont, and the Eastside. Though Amazon was earlier in the middle of downtown, it now occupies South Lake Union (SLU) and Bellevue. While a one-seat bus ride to downtown used to be the norm, once you have more destinations to cover, it becomes more important to develop a network of interconnecting lines. Besides the frequency on the lines, the connecting points between the lines determine how easy or time-consuming the transfer is. We built transit centers to help connect lines. With light rail construction, most stations also became places where multiple bus lines would intersect. Mount Baker Station is a good example where transfers could be much better if the buses would serve the Link station more directly instead of having to walk and cross a busy road.

Continue reading “Connection Points” | 38 comments

Countdowns: East Link Starter Line (April 27, 11am), Lynnwood Link (August 30).

Transit Updates:

SDOT is closing the Spokane Street Swing Bridge (low bridge) for 10 days starting Friday, April 19 (planned reopening on Sunday, April 28). SDOT is offering free rides on Metro or the Water Taxi for impacted users.

Systems Integration Testing will begin soon on the Downtown Redmond extension of the 2 Line.

Local News:

Erica C Barnett (PubliCola) reports on broad-base advocacy for a more ambitious Transportation Levy. Public feedback on the proposed Levy is open until April 26.

Ryan Packer (The Urbanist) reports on King County Councilmember Mosqueda’s efforts to refine the Preferred Alignment for the West Seattle Link Extension to save businesses in North Delridge that are currently slated to be demolished. The owner of one such business, Matt Larson (The Skylark Cafe), has penned a letter questioning whether ST followed its own property acquisitions and relocation procedures appropriately. Erin Rubin, the owner of neighboring Mode Music Studios, has also starting asking for help to prepare for relocation.

Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz writes in The Urbanist about how the Department of Natural Resources is now looking to lease State-owned land to affordable housing developers to help solve the housing affordability crisis.

Opinion/Miscellaneous:

Meet Andre Bacon, the Seattle Central College student who drives the Seattle Monorail (Seattle Collegian)

Tom Fuculoro (author/editor Seattle Bike Blog), parent of a former attendee of Pike Market Preschool, calls for a car-free Pike Place (Seattle Bike Blog). The piece has a neat history of the various changes to vehicle/pedestrian access to Pike Place Market over the decades.

The Seattle Times ($) reviews close.city, the website that lets you build your own walkability map for any city in the USA based on open data.

Reece Martin writes about how many transit plans are stuffed with priority vanity projects, but building transit on a plan that you can actually follow is powerful.

The Urbanist began a deep-dive series on proposed projects in the draft Seattle Transportation Levy, starting with the multi-modal Corridor projects.

Continue reading “Open Thread 45” | 70 comments

Yesterday, I had the chance to join members of the press in a media tour of South Bellevue Station, which will open for Link operations in just a matter of weeks when the East Link Starter Line begins service. As things currently stand, the ELSL will open to the public on April 27th, while the full extension across I-90 is still tentatively set for 2025.

At South Bellevue, the accompanying park-and-ride garage has been open for more than two years and the station itself has been finished for quite for time. However, only recently was tile replacement completed on the platform, which was necessary after quality issues surfaced during the initial installation. According to Jon Lebo, East Link Executive Director, Sound Transit placed full-time inspectors over the replacement work to avoid repeat mistakes.

Operationally, the ELSL has been undergoing pre-revenue testing at the scheduled headways of 10 minutes. Lebo indicated that operator staffing is already at desired levels, with well over 100 operators hired specifically to drive ELSL trains. When the line opens, two-car train service is expected to serve roughly 6,000 daily boardings.

Matt Sheldon, Deputy Executive Director of Planning & Integration, also gave some additional insight into the system-wide service impacts that are anticipated. No immediate service changes are planned for the ELSL opening but once the full cross-lake 2 Line opens, the 550 will be completely replaced, with its Bellevue Way market covered by the rerouted 554. Mike has previously written about the broader suite of changes.

According to Sheldon, Sound Transit is also continuing to look at paid parking options across the system, but the Board hasn’t given direction about specific locations to target. I asked if the agency had looked at updated park-and-ride utilization forecasts, given that many park-and-rides are much barer than they were pre-COVID. Sheldon indicated that no new forecasts have been done (Metro has not updated their publicly-available reports since 2017), but was optimistic that the ELSL will create new ridership markets and that South Bellevue Station parking will gradually fill in over time.

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It’s been a couple weeks, so the roundup is longer than usual. Today, a total solar eclipse will pass over much of the central and eastern United States.

Countdown Clocks:

April 27, 11:02am: First East Link Starter Line Train from South Bellevue Station. Discover the 2 Line.

August 30, 10am(?): Lynnwood Link Extension (1 Line). No schedule for first train yet. Some neat aerial photos from ST’s drone photographer Ken Lambert on X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/SeaTimesFotoKen/status/1776001156394762448

Local News:

Sound Transit hired Terri Mestas, most recently head of LAX’s nearly-complete expansion/renovation, as Megaproject Czar (officially “Deputy CEO for Megaproject Delivery”). ST press release; coverage by The Urbanist and The Seattle Times ($).

Mayor Harrell published the draft Transportation Levy for the fall ballot, proposing $1.35 billion in “maintenance and modernization”. Coverage by The Urbanist, Cascade PBS (formerly Crosscut), and The Seattle Times ($).

Community Transit proposes to formally end collection of the higher fare for commuter buses in the fall, since it will be eliminating the commuter routes after Lynnwood Link opens (Community Transit blog).

Federal Way City Council approved a development plan to bring up to 1,600 homes and a lot of new office/retail space next to the Federal Way Link station (The Urbanist)

Sound Transit modified their contract with Siemens to add 10 link cars to the current contract of 152 new Series 2 light rail cars, totaling 162 new cars by 2028 (The Urbanist). As of February (pdf), Siemens had delivered 125 cars, reportedly enough to fully support East Link and Lynnwood Link service.

Councilmember Kettle (D7) wants to remove the potential pedestrianization of Pike Place Market from the Seattle Transportation Plan (PubliCola).

Continue reading “Open Thread 44” | 72 comments

As part of the work surrounding 130th Station in north Seattle, SDOT has started making plans in the area. While this initial work has focused on the area east of the station, this is a proposal for changes to the west. The goal is to improve pedestrian, biking and transit connections to the station.

Station Background

130th Station is designed primarily to connect riders from the east and west (Lake City and Bitter Lake). There will be some who walk and ride to the station, but I expect the vast majority to arrive by bus. The crossing bus route will also connect riders in the north end (for one- and two-seat rides not involving Link). It’s essential that the bus avoid congestion. At the same time, 130th is also one of a handful of I-5 bike and pedestrian crossings in the north end. People need a way to walk and bike through the area safely and easily. In this essay I largely ignore the issues east of the station, but propose the following set of changes to the west:

Improvements:

Continue reading “Multi-modal Improvements West of 130th Station” | 44 comments

Sound Transit announced the Lynnwood Link extension will open August 30th. That’s just under five months from now. Happy Labor Day present.

Mike Lindblom in the Seattle Times notes that Link will switch to a flat $3 fare when Lynnwood Link opens, and that Paine Field extension is targeted to open in 2037, and Everett Station in 2041. That’s 13 years and 17 years from now.

To put all of this into a timeline:

• April 27: Line 2 Eastside-only starter line starts from South Bellevue to Redmond Technology.
• August 30: Lynnwood extension starts. Link fares switch to a flat $3.
• September 14: Metro’s north end and Community Transit bus restructures.
• 2025: Full Line 2 from Lynnwood to Redmond Downtown starts, along with Metro’s Eastside bus restructure.
• 2026: Federal Way extensions statrs, along with Metro’s south end restructure.
• 2035: Tacoma Dome extension, the southern terminus of the ST3 Spine.
• 2037: Everett Industrial Center extension.
• 2041: Everett Station, the northern terminus of the ST3 Spine.

Doug Trumm in The Urbanist has more background on the planning.

This article will be updated if new information or commentary comes out.

This is an open thread.

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The Swift Orange Line BRT launched on Saturday. I tried it out Sunday afternoon with my friend in north Lynnwood, who lives northwest of Ash Way P&R. The Orange Line is a limited-stop east-west bus route between Edmonds College, Highway 99, Lynnwood city center, Alderwood Mall, Ash Way P&R, Mill Creek, and McClollum Park. It runs every 10-12 minutes weekdays, and every 20 minutes weekends and evenings. Swift is Snohomish County’s version of BRT, running frequently on arterials RapidRide, but stopping only every mile like Link, some ST Express routes (512, 550), or the upcoming Stride BRT.

(Map by Community Transit. A larger version is in the link at the top of the article.)

The Orange Line joins two existing Swift lines in Snohomish County. The Blue Line runs southwest from Everett to Aurora Village. The Green Line runs southeast from the Everett Industrial Center to Canyon Park. Community Transit is building a few other Swift lines and extensions. The next ones will be a Gold Line north from Everett Station to Smokey Point, a short Blue Line extension south to the future Shoreline North/185th Link station, and a Green Line extension southeast to UW Bothell. [Correction: The Gold Line will not go to Lynnwood.[

Transfers: Orange-Green at three stations in Mill Creek. Orange-Blue at 196th & Highway 99. Orange-512 at Lynnwood Transit Center or Ash Way P&R.

My friend was skeptical of the Orange Line at first because it still wouldn’t address her biggest problem: the last two miles to her house, and the hourly bus that goes only halfway to it. But after riding the Orange Line on Sunday she said it will be very useful to get to central Lynnwood, and it opens up travel to to Mill Creek and McCollum Park, which she’d rarely been to because there wasn’t good east-west bus service on 164th.

Continue reading “The World is Orange” | 85 comments

King County Metro has started the first phase of South Link Connections, which will be used to determine how Metro bus should be changed upon the launch of the Federal Way Link Extension, which is anticipated to be in 2026. This phase is mainly a needs assessment, where Metro listens to feedback from riders, or potential riders, about how they use transit service, and what changes might benefit them. After the feedback period is over for phase 1, Metro will consider the feedback and use it to develop service concepts for phase 2. These service concepts will be the first glimpse of what the eventual network will look like, and is likely to have different concepts weighed against each other to see which one sees the best reception from the community. In phase 3, we will see what Metro’s proposal is likely to look like, with the only changes from this point being minor changes.

The scope of the project includes routes 156, 162, 165, 177, 181, 182, 183, 187, 193, 631, 901, 903, and the RapidRide A Line, as well as fully suspended routes 121, 122, 123, 154, 157, 178, 179, 190, and 197. This will be the first time metro has solicited feedback on these suspended routes since March of 2021, as well as the first time since intentions to restore them in 2022 all but disappeared as did their numbers on bus stops.

There is a survey up, and Metro is also accepting applications for the South Link Connections mobility board. Mobility board applications are open until May 10th. The survey does not have a deadline listed, but it is most likely the same, as the phase 1 timeline is from March to May, 2024. There are also virtual information sessions on April 3 at 12:00 PM, April 21 at 10:30 AM, and May 6th at 6:00 PM. You will find links to register for these on the South Link Connections website.

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King County Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit start their semi-annual service changes today, Saturday March 30. Pierce Transit’s changes start tomorrow, Sunday March 31. Stephen Fesler at The Urbanist has a detailed list of the changes. The agencies have their own lists, linked at the beginning of each section. I won’t repeat all the details but instead focus on higher-level trends.

King County Metro

Metro changes start Saturday, March 30.

Seattle is reallocating its Seattle Transit Measure (STM) levy investment to different routes to better match the city’s goals. The winners are RapidRide H (several trips), 21 (1 trip), and 28 (several trips). The losers are the 5 (1 evening trip), 10 (4 evening trips), and 56 (4 trips). As a result, the 10 will be half-hourly after 7pm, as it was before 2016.

Changes unrelated to the levy:

The Eastside has one route change: route 221 is moved to Overlake Village Station to prepare for the 2 Line light rail in April (see below). The 221 is a coverage route serving 164th in Bellevue, 148th in Redmond, Bellevue College, downtown Redmond, and Education Hill.

Routes 45, 73, 118, and 119 have schedule adjustments due to higher off-peak ridership. Route 57 is adjusted so that the 56 and 57 can provide alternating 20-minute service after the loss of some 56 trips. Coverage routes 631 (Burien) and 931 (Kent) have several trips restored.

Continue reading “March Service Changes” | 79 comments

Community Transit ridership increased 23% in 2023. A third of total riders were on the Swift Blue and Green lines.

Apply to the one of Seattle’s transportation advisory boards by April 15 if interested.

What’s happening with the 520 reconstruction project in Portage Bay.

Efforts to lid I-5 in more of downtown Seattle continue. Activists have been working on this since 2010. One concept would lid from Madison Street to Thomas Street, aka the library to Seattle Center.

How WSDOT designs maps to show event and road-closure congestion bottlenecks throughout the state on busy summer weekends.

National transit expertise could help cities in Canada and the US with common problems like expanding capacity, electrifying trains, upgrading signaling, and rebuilding stations.

Trains on the Moon. The US government is studying whether passenger and freight trains would be feasible on the moon. Why, when we don’t have cities on the moon yet? For astronauts on long-term missions. Alon Levy says low gravity will require wide turning angles.

This is an open thread.

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Three buses currently serve the east side of Green Lake: The 20, 45 and 62. As soon as Link gets to Lynnwood, the 20 will go away. There are aspects of the 20 that should be adopted by the other routes. However, this will require the help of the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). Here are the things that SDOT and Metro can do to significantly improve transit in the area:

62

The 62 was created with the U-Link restructure. It replaced part of what was then the 16. I don’t have a link for the route but you can see it on Oran’s old map (it went from Northgate to downtown via Aurora and Green Lake). This helps explain why a southbound 62 goes the wrong direction (north) on Ravenna before heading back south on Woodlawn. With the Northgate restructure, planners hoped to improve the route in this area by having it follow Latona and 56th to Meridian. Unfortunately, changing the route would require SDOT to harden the street and they couldn’t do it then. Now that Metro is about to get rid of the 20 it is time to push for this. By following the previously proposed route, it would improve things in couple ways:

1. There would be better coverage in the area (especially with the 20 gone). The bus would run through the middle of the neighborhood, minimizing the distance someone has to travel to get to a bus stop.
2. It would be considerably faster. This is not only better for riders of that bus, but it saves Metro money, which would allow the agency to increase service levels (there or elsewhere).

45

The 45 was essentially split off from the 48 with the U-Link restructure. North of 65th it has followed that route for as long as I can remember. In contrast, the old 16 (and more recent 20) follow a different path through the area. Both are problematic. I propose having the 45 follow the current route of the 20 (like so) but with some changes by SDOT.

Right now the 20 encounters two significant problems in that area. The first is turning left from 1st to 80th. Although both streets are arterials, there are no traffic lights or stop signs there. As a result the bus spends a lot of time waiting for a break in traffic. The second is that eastbound rush-hour traffic often builds up along 80th. This can delay a bus considerably.

But the pathway of the 45 is not without issues either. It is common for traffic along the lake to be very slow (especially on nice days). The path of the 20 covers the area better, so that is preferable even if it is only as fast as the current 45. Changing the route and making it faster would require a couple fixes (with a possible variation):

• Add eastbound BAT lanes between Wallingford Avenue and 1st. This would require getting rid of some parking and moving southbound 80th closer to the curb. This would have a side benefit: Safety. Right now drivers exit the freeway and then make a sweeping right turn (downhill) on 80th. There is no merge there, so drivers often go too fast. This would act like a chicane, slowing drivers.
• Add a stop sign or traffic signal at 80th & 1st. The cheapest option would be a stop sign there. A traffic signal would work, especially if it was triggered by a bus (or a beg button for pedestrians or cyclists). Either a stop sign or traffic signal would again improve safety and make crossing the street a lot easier.

Both of these changes are relatively minor, but the benefits would be big. With the loss of the 20, these changes make more sense than ever. Contact your city and county representative (especially if you live in the area) to request these improvements.

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This week (March 17-23) is Transit Appreciation Week! Be sure to thank your bus driver or other transit operator for the hard work they do.

Sound Transit Announcements:

New initiatives to reduce crowing when Lynnwood link opens; reviewed by The Urbanist.

Link 1 Line single-tracking for late-night station maintenance for the next month: Trains will run every 15 minutes after 11pm March 17 to 25, and every 20 minutes after 11pm April 2-17.

News Roundup:

Port Townsend turns parking mandates into “recommendations” (Urbanist).

“Year of Housing 2.0” mostly died in the Senate (Urbanist).

Bi-annual street parking rate changes kick in on Monday (SDOT Blog).

King County became the 12th most populous county in USA last year (Seattle Times [$]).

Mayor Harrell proposes exemptions to rules and reviews for commercial-to-residential conversions in downtown in accordance with HB 1042 passed last year (Urbanist).

Paris maintains affordability by providing public housing, now serving 25% of the population. (NY Times [$])

Seattle’s first protected intersection is nearing completion (SDOT; Twitter). A protected intersection includes concrete barriers between the bike lanes and vehicle lanes to provide additional protection for cyclists and pedestrians.

Opinion and Miscellaneous:

Comprehensive Plan is not ‘Space Needle Thinking’ (Urbanist Op-Ed).

“Everyone Thinks Their Transit Is The Worst” (Reese Martin of RMTransit).

“Why the Shortest Route Isn’t Always the Fastest” (RMTransit video).

“More of America’s Lost Metro Systems” (UrbanDox video; Seattle focus at 7:04)

Upcoming Open Houses and Events:

March 19: One Seattle Comprehensive Plan at Cleveland High School, 6-7:30pm.

March 26: Drop-in session to hear about changes to the street grid around OMF-S as part of ST’s preferred alternative.

March 28: Chinatown-ID info session regarding racial equity outcomes for Ballard Link Extension. 4 – 6 pm at the CID Community Center, 719 8th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104.

April 17 and 23: Online webinars reviewing feasibility of potential SLU station location west of SR-99 tunnel at 5th and Harrison. Online Survey opens April 10, closes April 24.

This is an Open Thread.

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Seattle’s much-delayed Comprehensive Plan update was released last week by the Office of Planning & Community Development (OPCD). Coverage of the broad points of the plan was quickly provided by The Seattle Times ($), The Urbanist, The Stranger, and Crosscut. The primary takeaway image is the “Future Land Use Map” (FLUM), here:

Coverage of subsequent disappointment from housing density advocates was then provided by The Urbanist and The Seattle Times ($).

The plan itself is full of florid prose describing how it supposedly expands housing opportunities across the city, meets equity goals, invests in walkable communities, and meets the challenges of climate change. It establishes “Key Moves” and proposes policy changes that sound good on the surface, but the proof will be in how these policies are implemented.

Continue reading “The Comprehensive Plan Must Do More” | 62 comments

State Legislature to allocate $200M from the Climate Commitment Act toward hybrid ferries, assuming the Act isn’t repealed by I-2117 in November.

Free carpool parking permits are returning to the Angle Lake Station parking garage.

King County Metro has broken ground on its interim electric bus base in Tukwila.

The movement to add density to suburban neighborhoods transcends political boundaries (New York Times gift article).

March 11 [today]: Seattle YIMBY is organizing a silent protest at City Hall to support more density than proposed in the draft Comprehensive Plan.

March 12 and March 14: Sound Transit is hosting drop-in sessions for Federal Way Link Extension project updates at Highline Community College on.

March 12, 14, and 21: SDOT is hosting a series of open houses for the Aurora Avenue Project.

March 14 in Loyal Heights: Seattle is hosting its first of eight Draft One Seattle Plan (comprehensive plan update) Open House events.

March 16: Seattle YIMBY also hosting a walking tour in Ballard showcasing of existing housing that would be illegal to build today.

May 5: Emerald City Ride returns with a crossing over the high West Seattle Bridge and a loop around West Seattle.

Articles on the recent West Seattle Link Extension station planning meetings, Seattle Transportation Plan, and draft comprehensive plan update are in the works.

This is an open thread.

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Since 2021, SDOT has been working under a Pedestrian and Bicycle program grant from WSDOT to “reimagine” Aurora Avenue North from the northern end of the SR-99 Tunnel to 145th street. Based on community input provided during a series of meetings last summer, SDOT has released concept art depicting four potential general corridor concept designs: “Walkable Boulevard”, “Bike Connection”, “Center-Running Bus Lane”, and “Maintain Capacity”. Since Aurora varies in width along its route, there are versions of each graphic for a 90-foot roadway and a 106-foot roadway.

The Aurora Project is split into five segments:

Note: This map shows the Aurora Project area as diverting to Linden between N 63rd and Winona, but review of details from previous community meetings shows this is not actually under consideration. Also, Aurora Bridge and the Woodland Park section are excluded from segments 1 and 2, respectively, due to “unique constraints and challenges”.

Continue reading “SDOT Ideas for Aurora” | 84 comments

[Correction: an initial version of this article listed incorrect single-tracking times. We regret the error.]

Link will be single-tracked this weekend, March 9-10 from 10pm to the end of service and from the start of service to 9am, according to Sound Transit spokesperson John Gallagher. Trains will run every 12 minutes between Angle Lake and UW, and every 24 minutes between UW and Northgate. Just in case you were nostalgic for the recent 3-week reduction. The southbound track will be closed for maintenance.

[Update 2: All trains will terminate at UW Station.Passengers continuing further will transfer to another train.]

To get through the 24-minute area by bus, Pacific Street buses run every few minutes from UW Station to U-District Station. Getting to Roosevelt or Northgate Stations is more complicated. Route 45 serves Roosevelt Station, and Route 67 serves Roosevelt and Northgate Stations, but neither of them come particularly close to UW Station. To transfer at UW Station to the 45 or 67, walk 7 minutes north across the Rainier Vista greenspace to Stevens Way. Going back to UW Station, the 45 stops on Stevens Way, while the 67 stops one block north of the station on Montlake Blvd.

This article will be updated as more information comes in. So far there hasn’t been an email announcement or website update.

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Stephen Fesler has an intriguing article in The Urbanist saying Metro should move away from RapidRide in its next expansion phase. That sounds like potentially a very good idea. This would not decommission current lines or those that are under construction or in late planning that have already received grants, but it would redirect resources beyond that more regular bus service and incremental improvements instead of additional RapidRide lines.

Metro’s long-range plan is called Metro Connects. It has two concepts: an Interim network for ST2, and a 2050 network for ST3. Current revenue trends can only do a small part of it, so it would need a countywide Metro levy to do the rest. King County was going to put it on the November 2020 ballot, but covid intervened and demanded all their attention, and then they wanted the Harborview expansion alone on the November ballot, and since then they’ve talked about it but haven’t done anything.

Metro Connects has a combination of RapidRide, Frequent, Express, and Local routes. “Frequent” is at least every 15 minutes for 18 hours weekdays, 12 hours weekends. “Express” means stopping every 1-2 miles all day. “Local” is for coverage routes running every 30-60 minutes. (Sometimes two Local routes overlap for combined 15-minute service on part of their runs.) In the original Metro Connects in 2016, Metro proposed filling out the alphabet of RapidRide lines, so going from six lines to around twenty. Seattle had a half dozen of these lines in the Move Seattle levy. Since then, both have scaled back. The current 2050 vision has the five under construction or planning (G, I, J, K, R), and the rest as potential “candidate” projects.

The G Line will open this fall. The I will start construction this year; the J next year. The K and R are awaiting full funding.

Fesler argues that the recent and current RapidRide projects are taking too long, cost too much, and aren’t delivering as much transit-lane priority as promised. A speedy BRT-lite upgrade can take two or three years, one for planning and one or two for construction. The G, H, I, and J are taking 8-14 years. The R is simply an upgrade of the 7, and many of the transit-priority upgrades and next-arrival displays are already finished, and the only new extension is a half mile to reach Rainier Beach Link station — yet the earliest it can open is 2028, four years from now.

“The dirty secret of RapidRide,” Fesler writes, “is that, at its core, it’s cheap, quick, and easy to implement — if we dispense with all the bureaucratic effort to secure federal and state grants and carry out repetitive block-by-block street fights which delay those grants. Those fights often lead to local jurisdictions jettisoning bus lanes and queue jumps, anyway, which are a key feature to deliver the “Rapid” part of the service.”

We could just finish the G and I, and divert the rest of the RapidRide money to regular bus service and spot street upgrades like the 40 is getting. That would provide more frequent routes, in more neighborhoods, more quickly than the RapidRide vision. We desperately need more frequent service throughout Seattle and King County, so that people can get around to jobs and appointments without undue waiting, and to make transit more competitive with driving. That’s more important than a few RapidRide lines that won’t be that much more rapid. Incremental improvements can gradually get us to the same point, without the cost of red buses.

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The Urbanist has a 2024 advocacy agenda.

SDOT is selecting construction contractors for seven projects including street upgrades for bus routes 40 and 48, 4th Avenue protected bike lanes, pedestrian bridge reinforcement, and other sidewalk and bike projects.

Route 8 has a fan club who wants to speed it up. The have a petition to the city that’s looking for signatures.

Pine Street will close March 9-10 between Melrose and 8th Avenues to convert that segment to one-way westbound. [Update 3/6/2024: The closure is Saturday March 9 between 7am and 5pm. Wet weather could extend it into Sunday.] Pike Street was converted last November. This extends the one-way system east to Melrose Avenue in southwest Capitol Hill. It’s part of a complete-street makeover for Pike-Pine.

Where New York subway cars ($) go for repair.

Eastside Transit: a YouTube channel with videos on the Line 2 Starter Line testing.

This is an open thread.

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