The history of Gasworks Park. (Fourth Place) Even if you’ve heard some of the history you probably don’t know all of it.

From downtown Portland to Mt Hood by MAX and bus routes. (Climate and Transit)

I made a similar trip to Grouse Mountain in British Columbia in the 90s. From downtown Vancouver I took the SeaBus to Lonsdale Key, a local bus to a transfer stop in a residential area, a second local bus to the Grouse Mountain parking lot, and the ski lift to the resort. It was summer so there was no skiing, just an outdoor space similar to Gasworks Park where people picnic and a building with a documentary movie. The Grouse Mountain website says bus #236 now goes all the way from Lonsdale Quay to Grouse Mountain (a 25-minute ride), and in the winter there’s a shuttle bus from downtown Vancouver to Grouse Mountain.

This is an open thread.

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On March 28 the full 2 Line will open with Crosslake service. The next nationwide No Kings march is on the same day. Having both at the same time raises logistical issues like overcrowded trains in the Crosslake segment and downtown street closures. It’s worth thinking through the implications of this early. Hopefully Sound Transit and Metro will have extra service as needed, and a robust plan for downtown street closures. We can point out any blind spots they may have.

Past Link openings have several busfuls of people coming to the speeches, and full trains for the first few hours of service as people try out the route and stations and take their kids to the festivals at all the new stations. We don’t know where the Link speeches will be: most likely Judkins Park, Mercer Island, or Bellevue Downtown station.

The last No Kings march brought over 90,000 people to downtown Seattle, many coming on Link and buses. They blocked part of Pine Street and 5th Avenue for three hours. The first Women’s March started at Judkins Park and went up the entire 4th Avenue.

Continue reading “2 Line and No Kings” | 41 comments

In January, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) announced the RapidRide J project reached a significant milestone: completion of the Eastlake water main replacement. It may seem odd for a transit project to be celebrating utility work, but this is a great example of how city departments can work together to improve the built environment.

While branded as a transit project, the J Line project is more of an Eastlake corridor overhaul project. Wesley Lin shared a breakdown of the project in 2024. When construction finishes next year, crews from SDOT, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), and King County Metro will have installed the following transportation, utility, and urban greening features infrastructure.

• Transportation
  • Transit
    • 2 miles of dedicated bus priority lanes
    • 20 bus stations
  • Biking
    • 3.7 miles of protected bike lanes
  • Walking
    • 2.87 miles of repaired sidewalks
    • 177 improved crosswalks
    • 131 upgraded curb ramps
  • Driving and freight
    • 2 miles of repaved streets
    • 33 intersections equipped with new traffic signals
• Utility
  • 1.7 miles of upgraded water main
  • 27 new fire hydrants
  • 174 new connections to homes and businesses
• Urban Greening
  • 190 newly planted trees

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: RapidRide J Project Update” | 80 comments

Two teenagers were shot and killed at bus stop on Rainier Ave near South Shore PreK-8 on Friday (KUOW). Both were students at Rainier Beach High School. Students and community members including Mayor Wilson and new SPS Superintendent Ben Shuldiner gathered at the now-closed bus stop on Monday afternoon (The Seattle Times, $).

On February 7 (Saturday), 1 Line service will be suspended between Federal Way and Angle Lake. During the closure, crews will conduct inspections and make adjustments to the traction power system to improve system reliability. Buses will replace 1 Line trains between Angle Lake and Federal Way, operating every 10-15 minutes. In addition, passengers can use the A Line between Federal Way and Tukwila International Blvd station.

Transportation

• Seattle’s I-5 lane closures wreak havoc on worker commutes (The Seattle Times, $). “Some are turning to other forms of transit, such as bicycles and the Link light rail, or flexing their work schedules.” City Planner Kadie Bell Sata says revive I-5 is the missed off-ramp from car dependence (The Urbanist)
• NYC Mayor Mamdani campaigned on making MTA buses fast and free, but the latter may cost upwards of $1B annually to replace free fares. The Transit Costs Project proposes A Better Billion, an ambitious plan to expand the subway instead. As the New York Times puts it: Free Buses? How About Expanding the Subway by 41 Miles Instead? (gift link). Alon Levy dove into the cost modelling details on their blog (Pedestrian Observations).
• What is Complete Streets design, and why should we all be using it? (Fast Company)
• A Love Letter to the Articulated Bus (Thoughts About Cities)
• Congestion Pricing’s Unexpected Winners: Suburban Drivers (Bloomberg CityLab)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: A Better Billion” | 159 comments

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is maturing from what I reported two years ago. While Waymo, Zoox (Amazon), and Tesla compete to replace taxis in the U.S., China (Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide) is already a bit further along. The rollout has shown that AV technology requires expensive sensors but proved itself unless there is a major disruption.

What about if you install such technology in a bus? Many transit providers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe have partnered with startups such as Holon or Navya or more traditional electric bus manufacturers such as Karsan to test on-demand and fixed-line autonomous bus services. This often happens in partnership with the AV software platform provided by Beep. WeRide is partnering with Yutong for global rollout. These vehicles are usually smaller than traditional buses to serve routes with less ridership. As the buses do not require a driver, they may allow Metro to provide fixed services in low ridership areas where King County currently operates their on-demand Flex service.

The Metro Flex service currently uses traditional minivans with drivers. They have partnered with Via to operate this service. Via already has partnerships with vendors such as Navya and May Mobility. At some point Metro may either offer fixed routes using AV buses in such areas and/or partner with one of these AV providers to operate a driverless on-demand service. Jacksonville Transportation Authority is already testing such AV based service. Holon is already building a factory in Florida to supply them to Jacksonville and the U.S. market in general.

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A long-awaited ORCA feature is finally available to (some) transit riders: Open Payments. Riders of the RapidRide G line are now able to use common contactless payment methods such as tap-enabled credit cards and digital wallets on smartphones to pay fare at ORCA readers installed along the line. The feature has been in the works for ORCA for years, with a full rollout expected this spring after this “soft launch”.

As of today, riders are able to pay fare (full-price adult fares only) by tapping their credit or debit cards, or digital devices like phones and watches. The system will accept taps from the most common tap-enabled bank cards or smart devices, including iPhones. Unfortunately, ORCA cardholders are still unable to load their ORCA card into digital wallets on iPhones.

Continue reading “Tap-to-pay soft launches on RapidRide G” | 55 comments

Tacoma’s abandoned railroad tunnel. (Pretty Gritty Tours)

1980 Seattle bus and walking tour. A short KCTS documentary. (Tom Speer)

A realtor looks at Seattle in ten years. (Living in Seattle with Sean McConnell) Best taken with a grain of salt, and he’s trying to drum up buyers, but here’s what people are saying. Just don’t look too closely at a Ballard to Bellevue trip on light rail.

This is an open thread.

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Yesterday, King County Metro launched its next generation of battery-electric buses (BEB) with a new livery and upgraded operator safety partitions. The new buses from Gillig will begin service on February 2, 2026 with periodic service on routes 105, 128, 161, 165, 184, and the F Line. The rollout of these buses marks a key milestone for Metro as it continues towards its goal of a zero emission fleet by 2035.

Metro’s new fleet will be based out of the brand new Tukwila Base. The Tukwila Base has capacity for 120 buses and sports 123 pantograph chargers. Each 40ft Gillig bus has an estimated range of 240–280 miles and can carry up to 68 passengers. Metro’s initial order with Gillig was for 89 battery-electric buses. If the agency is satisfied with the buses from this order, it will have the option to purchase up to 395 buses.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: New Battery Buses” | 87 comments

Earlier this week, Sound Transit shared an updated proposal for its ST Express restructure that will be implemented later this year. In response to the initial ST Express restructure proposal, Sound Transit received nearly 4,500 survey responses and in-person feedback at three open house events. Using that input, the agency has proposed minor adjustments for a few routes.

Sound Transit is accepting feedback on the new proposal between now and February 9, 2026. To provide feedback, attend one of the open house events listed below, or email servicechanges@soundtransit.org.

Information Sessions:

• January 30 from 12 to 1 pm
• February 3 from 6 to 7 pm

New Changes

Since the previous ST Express restructure proposal, only the routes below have been updated.

Continue reading “Sound Transit’s 2026 Service Plan (Phase 4)” | 99 comments

There Are No Safe Streets under Fascist Occupation (streets.mn)

Transportation:

• Sound Transit Board Abruptly Removes Key Committee Chair Ahead of Pivotal Year (The Urbanist)
• New Seattle bikeways coming to Space Needle ahead of World Cup (The Seattle Times, $). Free coverage from Seattle Bike Blog.
• World Cup Cities Set to Win $100 Million in Federal Transit Aid (Bloomberg CityLab)
• The Light Rail’s Cross Lake Connection Will Be an Aries (The Stranger)
• ‘Moving San Francisco’ exhibit highlights 122 years of SF Muni magic (Mission Local)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Fascists in the Streets” | 117 comments

On December 6, 2025, Sound Transit’s Link extension to Federal Way (FWLE) welcomed its first passengers. This 1 Line extension added three new stations along eight miles of new track south of Angle Lake. The three new stations — Kent Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way Downtown — are located in suburban communities between SR-99 and I-5. Each station has connections to local bus service, pickup and drop-off areas, and lots of parking. In a Board of Directors Meeting on December 18, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine shared the three new stations had a combined 16,000 boardings on opening day.

Sound Transit’s ridership dashboard has been updated to include the December ridership data for the three new Link stations. While these initial data can share some insights, it is worth noting a few reasons why this data may not represent future ridership. First, the FWLE opened on December 6, so a week’s worth of ridership is not measured. Second, opening day brought many more riders than usual as people wanted to check out the new stations. Third, King County Metro’s South Link Connections restructure has not been implemented yet. Once these changes are implemented, more south King County residents will have a more direct bus route to a Link station. To reduce the impact of the first two anomalies, the analysis below is focused on the average weekday ridership, adjusted for the number of days the stations were open. With those caveats in mind, let’s take a look at the December ridership data.

Continue reading “Early Look at Federal Way Link Extension Ridership” | 72 comments

Praise for Link from a British perspective. (CityMoose)

Toronto’s Finch West light rail, which opened in December, is slower than Link’s surface segments. (Not Just Bikes)

This is the gray line in the top left of Toronto’s subway map. It’s not the Ontario Line we featured in the automate Ballard article two weeks ago, which is not in that map and is under construction.

This is an open thread.

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This morning, Sound Transit announced the East Link Extension segment between South Bellevue station and International District/Chinatown station will open on March 28, 2026. When it opens, the 2 Line will be extended from South Bellevue station to Lynnwood City Center station, via Seattle. This extension will open two more Link stations: Mercer Island and Judkins Park.

Since the live wire test in September 2025, Sound Transit has run test trains and conducted operator training across the I-90 bridge. In preparation for the extension opening, Sound Transit will begin simulated service for the full 2 Line in February. During this final stage of testing, 2 Line trains will run the full length of the line. Passengers will be allowed on the trains between Downtown Redmond and South Bellevue, and between International District/Chinatown and Lynnwood City Center. Passengers will not be permitted on the trains between International District/Chinatown and South Bellevue.

Continue reading “Full East Link Extension Will Open March 28” | 203 comments

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the First Hill Line streetcar in Seattle. The 2.5 mile, 10 station line connects Pioneer Square, the International District, Yesler Terrace, First Hill and Capitol Hill. Since 2016, the line has carried over 10 million passengers.

The First Hill Line launched in 2016 after years of delay. Construction of the route was primarily funded by Sound Transit as a mitigation for dropping a proposed First Hill Link station. Sound Transit contributed to funding the route’s operations with $5 million annually until 2023. In 2024 and 2025, the Seattle Transit Measure provided funding to operate both streetcar lines.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: First Hill Streetcar Turns 10” | 36 comments

Reminder: From 10pm on Friday, Jan. 23, through Saturday, Jan. 24, the DSTT will be closed between Capitol Hill and SODO stations for signal upgrades. Shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes. Normal service will resume on Sunday, Jan 25, to serve the NFC Championship game. The Los Angeles Rams will play the Seahawks at Lumen Field at 3:30pm. Edit: the original closure was scheduled for the full weekend, but has been shortened to avoid impacting service for the major sports event.

Local Transit News:

• Sound Transit is accepting applications for volunteers from the Snohomish, North King, East King, or South King subareas for its Community Oversight Panel (Sound Transit)
• Metro studying transit improvements on Route 60 (Metro Matters)
• The First Hill Streetcar — weird, hard-working, and a little lonely — turns 10 (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Kitsap Transit riders can now sign up for automated rider alerts (Kitsap Transit News)
• WA bill would clarify line between e-bikes and e-motos, task state staff with developing enforcement guidelines (Seattle Bike Blog)
• E-Bike Boosters Ask: Is It All Downhill From Here? (Bloomberg CityLab)
• Pierce County’s Tight Budget Forces Tough Choices (The Urbanist) with potential impacts to transit service
• Seattle’s new Waterfront bike lanes topped a list of best new bike lanes opened nationwide last year (People For Bikes)
• Op-Ed: Light Rail Could Transform Bellevue’s Eastgate into Urban Oasis (The Urbanist)
• Uber Profits At Our Expense (The Overhead Wire)
• Seattle Is Building Light Rail Like It’s 1999 (Bloomberg CityLab)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: like it’s 1999” | 133 comments

On New Year’s Eve, SDOT posted a short video highlighting several projects it completed in 2025, distilling a longer summary shared in a blog post earlier in December. The blog post gives roughly equal space to each of its major initiatives, highlighting SDOT’s “Hot Bike Summer” of street improvements, various bridge maintenance projects, ongoing transit improvements, implementation of the Seattle Transportation Plan, community outreach efforts, and traffic incident response.

The 2.5-minute video spends little time showing transit improvement projects, but the opening highlight in SDOT’s video is the Beacon Ave S & 15th Ave S Safety Project. Only a few months after SDOT completed this project, a cyclist named Alley attempted to cross the freshly reworked Beacon Ave S at Stevens Street. Tragically, Alley was struck and killed by a driver who fled the scene.

Continue reading “SDOT’s Year in Review reveals room for improvement” | 19 comments

As ST3 construction cost has skyrocketed, Sound Transit is considering truncating the Ballard line at Smith Cove for now. Ballard riders would need to continue on the bus as very few people live around that station.

When Paris faced similar topography challenges to serve the end of line 8 by bus, they built an aerial gondola line instead. Building such line is far cheaper than extending the subway underground a recent short video explains while still providing faster transit times than the bus lines. The gondola line just opened in December and was built by Doppelmayr who constructed and operates many cable-operated systems here in the U.S. as well as around the world.

Continue reading “Learn from Paris: Gondola line over Ship Canal” | 109 comments

Evan Edinger tries the buses in suburban southern New Jersey.

That video got a lot of comments saying why public transit can’t work in the US. So Evan made another video refuting these claims. It’s a comedy.

The second video also refers to his walking to school video, which we covered in September

This is an open thread.

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Yesterday, Sound Transit’s Rider Experience and Operations Committee shared an update on the agency’s 2026 Service Plan. Along with aggregated community feedback on the previously shared ST Express service changes, the Sound Transit announced a pilot night-owl route between Sea-Tac Airport and downtown Seattle.

This is an open thread.

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This morning, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced two executive orders delivering on campaign promises: one will accelerate production of emergency shelter and affordable housing, and the other will quickly implement transit improvements starting on Denny Way. Executive Order 2026-01 directs SDOT to “design and install at least one dedicated bus lane on Denny Way, with the goal of significantly improving the reliability, speed, and performance of Route 8 and other transit services operating in the corridor.”

Route 8 has long suffered from chronic congestion on Denny Way in South Lake Union (SLU). The crosstown route uses the only east-west corridor that connects the Seattle Center and SLU with Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, this corridor is also a popular feeder street for I-5. In 2018, an eastbound bus lane was installed on Denny between Minor Ave and Steward St. Despite the one-block-long bus lane, Route 8 continued to flounder in traffic. As South Lake Union has grown, the route’s reliability has continued to suffer. In July 2025, the Fix the L8 campaign hosted a race during which people walked, danced, and paraded on Denny between Dexter and Stewart Avenues faster than a Metro Route 8 bus. Consequently, construction of more dedicated bus lanes on Denny became a significant promise of Wilson’s campaign for Mayor.

Continue reading “Mayor Wilson’s First Orders: Denny Way Bus Lanes and Housing” | 15 comments