This morning, Sound Transit announced the official opening day of the Federal Way Link Extension, which will extend the 1 Line to three new stations beyond its current terminus at Angle Lake. An opening ceremony will be held across the extension on Saturday, December 6, 2025, kicking off full 1 Line service to the new terminus at Federal Way Downtown.

Continue reading “Federal Way Link to open on Dec. 6” | 0 comments

Local Transit & Land Use:

• Sea-Tac is testing an automated shuttle between the Seatac/Airport Link station and the airport terminals (The Seattle Times, $). Reportedly about 7% of the airport’s daily passengers arrive and depart via Link.
• After Sound Transit gets the 2 Line running across the I-90 floating bridge, it may have difficulty running trains every 4 minutes through Seattle under real-world conditions (The Urbanist)
• The planned Link 4 Line between Issaquah and Kirkland will serve neither city’s urban core, but a Bus Rapid Transit line would serve both cities and the Eastside better (The Urbanist). Stride S4?
• Why Shoreline’s Vote to Erase Parking Mandates Is a Big Deal (The Urbanist)

National News:

• 20 years after Hurricane Katrina knocked out passenger rail along the Gulf Coast, Amtrak’s Mardi Gras line has resumed service between Mobile and New Orleans (New York Times, gift link). ‘“I’ve just always wanted to ride Amtrak,” said Pat Stancliff, 71, as she waited to board her first train ever.’
• A budget shortfall has led Philadelphia’s transit authority (SEPTA) to cut its bus and rail services by 20 percent with fare increases and more cuts to come (New York Times, gift link)
• The Cross Bronx Expressway tore the South Bronx of NYC in half, and residents are concerned upcoming major repairs (and proposed traffic mitigations including new temporary bridges) will once again leave lasting impacts on the community (The New York Times, gift link). Parallels with WSDOT’s I-5 maintenance?
• The FTA is looking to remove consideration of the “social cost of carbon” from grant applications (Smart Cities Dive)
• The new NextGen Acela trains promise faster travel and more seats – but arrive as US rail faces an uncertain future (The Conversation)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: first train ever” | 48 comments

California high-speed rail is good, is well under construction, is likely to survive federal grant loss, and could be improved with a conventional-speed interim extension. (Alan Fisher)

Los Angeles has big rail and BRT expansion plans. (Nick Andert (nandert) via RMTransit)

In June we covered the LAX metro station and the K line in Los Angeles.

This is an open thread.

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Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: FAB Lane in SODO” | 55 comments

Recent Transportation Headlines at The Urbanist:

• SDOT To Unsnarl Westlake Avenue Transit Pinch Point
• Sound Transit Breaks Ground on Stride Electric Bus Base in Bothell
• Sound Transit’s 2 Line Is Even More Popular Than We Thought
• Op-Ed: PCC Provides Model for State Rail Ownership in Washington State
• Shoreline Makes Good on Pledge to Stop Mandating Car Parking Citywide

Other Transportation:

• An interview with Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine (KUOW, audio-only)
• King County Metro’s fall service change will add over 900 weekly bus trips (Metro Matters)
• WSDOT is one step closer to getting new ferries (WSDOT Blog)
• Freeway construction costs are increasing faster than inflation, just like transit projects (Eno Center for Transportation)
• Parked cars, especially those with dark paint, contribute significantly to the urban heat island effect (Carbon Copy)
• The future is cloudy for Amtrak’s ambitious plan for state-supported rail lines (Railway Age)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: one step closer” | 90 comments

A tale of two cities.

Redmond city planning led to massive TOD around Downtown Redmond and Overlake Village stations, and expedited the Link planning. (Yet Another Urbanist)

Kemper Freeman’s war on transit. (Yet Another Urbanist)

This is an open thread.

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Upcoming Link Disruptions:
– Several sporadic periods of reduced evening service for construction of Pinehurst Station
– Downtown tunnel (Westlake to SODO) will be closed Saturday, August 23, from morning to 1pm, for East Link testing. Shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes.

Local Transit News:

• Sound Transit has begun updating its 2026 Service Plan – stay tuned for details (Sound Transit). ST also sent WSDOT its annual update to its 6-year Transit Development Plan in July, with the main change being the delayed opening of the “full” 2 Line between Seattle and Redmond.
• Yesterday, Sound Transit broke ground on its new Bus Base in Bothell (The Platform). Construction is expected to finish in 2029, supporting all-electric bus service on three freeway-based Stride lines.
• Community Transit just released its 6-year Transit Development Plan (CT News). Planned changes include future expansion of the Swift BRT network, increased frequencies on some routes, and expanded Zip shuttle service.
• The recently-opened Downtown Redmond Station is now the 2 Line’s busiest stop (The Urbanist)
• Island Transit will spend a federal low-emission fleet upgrade grant to buy hybrid diesel-electric buses instead of hydrogen buses (South Whidbey Record). As we summarized last year, Island Transit said it would only buy hydrogen buses if it was “confident in the supply of the fuel.” Meanwhile, Intercity Transit is waiving its standard procurement rules to allow its General Manager to directly negotiate for goods and services related to hydrogen buses (The Jolt News)
• The cost to build a bus in the USA has increased 68% since 2021 and will continue to rise due to new tariffs (Smart Cities Dive). Federal income from these tariffs are likely to be offset by the drag they impose on the overall economy (KUOW).
• The scoop on why Beacon Hill Station was closed for 9 hours last Wednesday (The Seattle Times, $). In short: emergency ventilation fans failed routine testing and needed repair. Fire codes forbade public use “until all life-safety systems were 100% operable”.

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: light rail culture” | 75 comments

The first ever bus routes. (The Tim Traveler) Hint: They’re in France and have to do with Blaise Pascal.

Three good things about Metro buses and ST Express by a visitor. (Trains are Awesome)

The London Underground has express services. (Ontario Traffic Man via RMTransit)

This is an open thread.

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Elections Headlines:

• Michael Westgaard, candidate for Renton City Council Position 1, made transit improvements a central pillar of his campaign (The Urbanist). Westgaard will proceed to general election.
• Tacoma Faces Pivotal Moment in Crowded Primary Election (The Urbanist)
• Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) helped Zohran Mamdani win a decisive victory in the recent NYC Mayoral primary election (New York Times, gift link). RCV will be implemented in some Seattle primary elections in 2027.
• Select results at end of roundup. Coverage by The Seattle Times ($), The Urbanist, and KUOW.

Transit & Streets:

• New WA foot ferries envisioned for San Juans, Everett, Bellingham (The Seattle Times, $).
• Community Transit shares more details on upcoming Gold Line (The Everett Herald, $)
• Seattle is suing the Trump administration over funding threats including “roughly $370 million, mostly in transportation grants” (The Seattle Times, $).
• Washington’s new work zone speed cameras cite 7K drivers in first 90 days (KUOW).

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: 2025 Primary” | 131 comments

Pike Place Market with cars in 2022, and without cars in 2025. (Juan Rodriguez)

Cars were removed from Pike Place in April due to a building construction project blocking a lane. They were supposed to return this month but Mayor Harrell extended the ban to spring 2026. The city is taking advantage of this temporary pedestrianization to study how people are voting with their feet and cars; e.g., any changes in foot traffic or vendor sales. Some people have long advocated for a permanent ban, while some drivers complain about losing the ability to quickly drop into a shop and leave. Some vendors are concerned they may be losing sales as people walk in the middle of the street and don’t see the shop rather than being forced to walk directly in front of the shop. But there’s is a great opportunity to create a truly pedestrianized street to complement the early-1900s market and new overlook walk and waterfront renovation.

Serfaus, Austria, population 1000, has the second-smallest subway in the world. (TFS Transport via RMTransit) Why does it have it? Skiers! Cars are banned in the village. The U-Bahn runs from the consolidated parking garage through the village center to the ski lift.

The smallest subway according to some criteria is the Carmelit in Haifa, Israel. It’s 1.1 miles long with 6 stations. Other contenders can be found by doing a web search for “smallest subway in the world”. It partly depends on the criteria: shortest length, fewest stations, lowest capacity, smallest host city, and whether funiculars (steep-incline services) are eligible.

This is an open thread.

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On Monday, King County Metro announced fares will increase on September 1, 2025, for multiple Metro services and for the Seattle Streetcar, which is owned by SDOT but operated by Metro.

Continue reading “Metro and Seattle Streetcar fares increasing on Sept. 1” | 22 comments

Local Transit & Streets:

• Sound Transit is preparing for a possible early opening of the Federal Way Link Extension – as early as this year (The Platform). The “Crosslake Connection” of the 2 Line is still expected in early 2026 with live wire testing scheduled to start this week. ST Boardmember and King County Councilmember Pete von Reichbauer: “After years of getting coal in our stocking, I am hopeful that South King County will get an early Christmas gift”.
• Dogs on leashes are officially allowed on Sound Transit vehicles (The Seattle Times, $)
• Pike Place Market’s two-month car-free “pilot”, kicked off by utility work, has been extended through next Spring (The Seattle Times, $).
• The Bremerton Fast Ferry’s weekend service is back to summer-only, with WSDOT no longer funding Saturday trips during Kitsap Transit’s winter sailing schedule (The Urbanist). The Fast Ferry’s boosted weekday service is funded through August 2026. Additional coverage by The Seattle Times ($). Announcement from Kitsap Transit.
• Seattle has teamed with the Open Mobility Foundation to build a system to notify autonomous vehicles of emergency road closures and other incidents self-driving cars may not detect during operations (KUOW).

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: early Christmas gift” | 51 comments

Livability in Melbourne, Australia. (CityNerd) The Seattle waterfront streetcars in 1982-2005 came from Melbourne. When an Australian friend who’d grown up in Melbourne visited, I took him on the streetcar. It really reminded him of his childhood. The current Melbourne streetcars ave a green-and-yellow style that looks like a Metro bus on rails. And they’re in mixed traffic, because that’s how they were built a century ago.

New Zealand. (CityNerd) Ray says Australia and New Zealand have a lot in common with the US, including sprawl and freeways and sometimes inadequate transit. But where they’re different or changing, it shows what American cities can do.

This is an open thread.

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The Bellevue Arts Fair is this weekend if you’re looking for something to do. It’s a large free annual festival of artists’ booths and other artsy activities. It started Friday and continues Saturday 10am-7pm, and Sunday 11am-6pm. Here’s a map with the event locations. The fair started in 1948, and has been running annually my entire life. I’ve attended it several times in the past and always find several interesting things.

Events & Locations

The biggest part is a couple hundred artists’ booths in the Bellevue Square parking garage. It’s a curated set of artists selling paintings, prints, photography, and metal sculptures. Being inside the garage with asphalt and white lines and oil stains beneath you and concrete all around is a bit of a bummer, but you quickly forget about it once you start looking at the art.

Continue reading “Bellevue Arts Fair” | 17 comments