Matt the Engineer questions running light rail through the Rainier Valley because Matt thinks it’s slower to the airport than a bus and the train isn’t building communities by going through existing neighborhoods.
I think Matt is wrong about a couple of things. Sure, the line may be slower to the airport than the 194, but the 194 is much slower to the airport than Link will be from Beacon Hill, the Rainier Valley, and also Capitol Hill and the University District when U-Link gets built. That’s an important thing to think about, Central Link was not built to be the only line, and U-Link construction is ready to start.
I’m sure Martin, who lives in the Rainer Valley, can comment on the level of development taking place on MLK due to link, including bike trails people will actually use, some 1,500 homes by now (the line doesn’t open for a full year) and massive revitalization in general. The line would have gotten a fair ridership without that TOD, but the ridership with it will be massive. As the city shows, car ridership in the Valley is the lowest (pdf link) in the entire city.
I think it’s a great routing. Better than the industrial areas by a fair amount, better than Rainier Ave by a fair amount, and a lot cheaper than West Seattle. We will definitely need a route through West Seattle some day (ST3?!?), but, for now, I think they’ve made a great decision.
Yeah, it was kind of a silly question to ask… I really thought we had been over this many times before.
Ben is wrong. There is nothing silly about questioning the logic of running the line down MLK. It’s our role as citizens and tax payers to question it. Ben, if you want to be a cheerleader for whatever government tells you, and for the line, that’s fine, but I will continue to speak out against poor decisions, like routing a rail line through the rainier valley for political and development reasons.
“No Question: Rainier Valley was the perfect place for Link.”
“I’m sure Martin, who lives in the Rainer Valley, can comment on the level of development taking place on MLK due to link.”
So that’s all we have to show for it? It won’t move people quickly, it won’t get people out of their cars, it won’t reduce congestion, but it will make people want to build some newer building along the path? Amazing.
[diam] I never said Link isn’t building communities around itself. I just think starting where there isn’t a community might be a better/faster/cheaper/less disruptive way to go. All of the development you mentioned would still happen, just in a different area.
What you’re describing is perfect for a city-level mass transit system – getting people around from one neighborhood to another. But a regional transportation system needs to get people from one city to another. To do this it can’t be winding and slow – it needs to be straight, stop rarely, and travel long distances.
Yes, this is just the first phase of Link. But imagine 50 years from now, when it’s extended far north and south, and people are trying to get quickly from Tacoma to Seattle or even Edmonds. It seems like a bad idea to slow down for neighborhood-level connections.
As I mentioned in my post, I wasn’t around when these decisions were made and it’s too late to change them. I’m just curious to the reason it was built like this. If the answer is that it’s meant to function more as city-level transit, then I have my answer. I really think Seattle needs a city-level transit system, and if this is it then I’m a bit dissapointed.
I think we already have the kind of North/South regional transit you are talking about– Sounder. Tacoma, Everett and Edmonds all have stations.
Link is meant to…. well link everything inbetween.
The Rainer Valley and Beacon Hill have as many people as Everett, Shoreline or Lynnwood.
In fact, the only other city in our region with more people than the Rainier Valley is Tacoma.
Just because one place is called a “neighborhood” of a big city and the other is called a “city” of it’s own doesn’t mean that the latter is somehow more important.
Just a info tidbit.
All ridership projections for LINK do not include the ridership generated from new TOD around the stations.
Having discussed a question before is hardly cheerleading.
Matt, Rainier Valley is extremely underdeveloped. Redlining kept it from growing with the other close-in suburbs. While I don’t advocate wholesale redevelopment and gentrification, the development we’re seeing is largely in marginalized space – old subsidized housing, open space. The businesses being replaced on Othello were, I believe, owner-operated, so the local owners are reaping the benefit.
In terms of longer distance travel, we will need another line, or more work done for Sounder and Cascades. Light rail could never have done that job.
Yes , I thought we’d finished this discussion also. Sam, travel times on Link light rail, between downtown and MLK stations, will be about twice as fast as current express buses (7 EX. and 42 EX.) not to mention that the train will come many times more often than the bus.
The fundamental purpose of Link is to connect Regional Centers, no matter what city they are located in. If it can also connect with Urban Villages as it moves between Regional Centers, so much the better.
There will always be trade-offs between speed and ridership. Omitting Rainier Valley from the south line would’ve saved cost, yes, but not in proportion to lost ridership. Or put another way, cost per rider would’ve gone UP if we’d put the line in the Duwamish Valley instead of Rainier Valley
If ST was to have a south leg, the Rainier Valley was appropriate for the greater ridership it would generate. It’s too bad Seattle did not allow its construction without widening MLK Jr. Way South.
But note the following.
First, if the line deviates through the Rainier Valley, it should not be a regional line, as it will be slower than buses in the dynamically tolled limited access highways and south Sounder.
Second, it should not have been the first line built. Decades of studies bys PSCOG, JRPC, RTA, and Metro have all concluded that the north corridor would attract the most transit ridership by far. The north Link LRT between downtown and Northgate will be metro-lite; it will connect several urban centers where bus transit goes slowly and where its new transit right of way will penetrate several pedestrian oriented urban centers. By building south first, ST has limited the transit capacity of downtown Seattle for a critical decade (DSTT closure and AWV project). It will not be expanded until about 2018 when Link LRT reach NE 45th Street and the University District express buses can be restructured. The fateful decision to build south-first and south only was made by the ST Board in early 2001 when they seemed in survival mode. A much better first line would have been between South McClellan Street and NE 45th Street. The initial segment could have been between Capitol Hill and McClellan while they learned to go under the Montlake Cut instead of Portage Bay. The South King County Link LRT funds could have been redeployed on a frequent Route 194 and center access ramps at Industrial Way. After the 2001 decision to build south first, ST needs new funding to fulfill its most important mission: Link LRT between Northgate and downtown Seattle.
For ST2, it would be great if they added a station at South Graham Street.
My quick observation: I rode the 36 from Downtown to Beacon Hill to check out the Chief Sealth trail yesterday. It was around 7 pm and the articulated diesel bus was packed all the way past the future Beacon Hill station, after that it was well filled down to Myrtle near Othello Station. The bus was 10 minutes behind schedule by the time it arrived there.
While I don’t go down there regularly, the experience gives me the impression that Link would certainly alleviate capacity problems and speed travel by allowing people to quickly get to their neighborhood by rail and do local trips on the bus or on foot etc.
anonymous, there was absolutely no way in hell that Sound Transit was going to take on the much higher risk University Link project before they built the lower risk Central Link project.
I hate hearing all this “should” crap. No, really, you’re not experienced at this. You don’t know things that the project managers and engineers didn’t. They made good decisions – sure, there are some small things that could have been better, but the big decisions were the best decisions possible. The key is understanding why.
Hmm, sounds like *somebody* has forgotten that the University was refusing to allow transit at all, but especially not on the west side of the campus where the Physics labs are.
Nor, in fact, were there any plans to close the AWV before the 2001 quake had revealed a major fault running under Pioneer Square and retro-fitting was ruled out.
To me it’s a no-brainer. The untapped market with high growth potential and low acquisition costs was MLK Way South. A West Seattle route needs a high-level bridge, and the industrial flats are just a big potential superfund site.
As for connecting the cities of the region, it seems pretty obvious by now that what is needed is a high-speed rail line for passenger trains only between Salem and Vancouver BC. A full half of the traffic at Sea-Tac is regional commuter flying, which loses market share to rail where HSR serves cities less than 400 miles apart.
As for the idea that it is a “poor decision” to route a rail line for political and development reasons, well, I’m sorry, but in a capitalist democracy those are exactly the reasons that drive decisions. A previous generation got pretty fed up with the idea that “making the trains run on time” was a good reason to give up their power at the ballot box.
High speed rail to Vancouver and Portland woudl be awesome.
Oran Viri, yes, the current Rt. 36 is a mess — way overcrowded, and they can’t get the additional units deployed because of the County Council’s 20/80 split in favor of the suburbs. Not to mention the different routings and terminals due to mixing trolleybuses and motor coaches.
The initiation of Link light rail service next year will be a blessing, with the 36 serving the ID/Chinatown, Beacon Hill, and Othello stations, ridership will be distributed more evenly on the line
Even if I can drive it faster, once the link makes it to Federal Way, I will always use it to the airport and on day trips with my family to The City.
I looked into traveling to Seattle by bus for a day trip. But it proved to be a big hassle and I ended up driving and paying for parking and all that. (And then rode the monorail while were there.)
I am “transit fragile.” I (and even moreso my wife) are leery of buses. They are slow, potentially more dangerous (probably a quite illogical thought on our parts) and not at all fun. Any time I’m the passenger in a vehicle, I’m uptight and watching all the other cars around me and on transit, concerned about missing my stop.
Contrast that with light rail. To me (and my family), this is an amusement park ride. You swoop and soar over the city, you pass through, over and under very scenic and diverse areas, and even when you don’t have dedicated right-of-way, you’re still up higher and in a massive structure that will hold up much better in a collision with a car.
To me, light rail also shows more commitment by urban planners. Bus routes can be changed (abandoned) at a moment’s notice. A rail line says that they believe in the area and that it’s worth serving long-term.
(Of course, so do freeways… more disruptive, but they can’t go on a transit strike… but does that happen as frequently here as it does in Los Angeles?)
James, I love your comment. It represents most people so well – when you say light rail shows more commitment, that’s what developers see when choosing where to build. When you say you’re leery of buses for so many reasons, that’s why Sounder gets 10,000 riders a day and the Tacoma-Seattle bus service doesn’t.
When was the last time Metro or ST cancelled a bus route? And why was it cancelled? What was the ridership?
I keep hearing about how buses are inferior because they are impermanent, but are they impermanent in theory or in practice as well?
Anon, you’re kind of missing two points.
First, when people invest in property, it doesn’t matter to them if the bus has always gone there. If there’s rail you can assume the route will be less likely to change. That kind if thinking isn’t even irrational, it’s just common sense.
And frankly, if you ever plan on buying a house, you should get up to speed on the difference between an easement and the fact that “they always let us drive there”.
Secondly, if the bus route is really going to be there forever, it should be replaced by a streetcar for the savings you get over the long run with rail transit.
Thanks everyone for the informative (if perhaps a bit too passionate) discussion. I’m still not convinced it was the best strategy, but it’s nice to hear some of the background (superfund site? were toxin levels tested?).
[james] I’m not a huge fan of busses, but I think [anon] (previous comment) is a bit right. The last route to be abandoned in this area was the waterfront trolley. Then again I’ve never heard of a light rail line being dropped, anywhere in the world.
[same anonymous]
I do own my home, and part of the reason I bought in the neighborhood I did was because it’s (relatively) well-served by transit. Bus transit. Bus routes that have not fundamentally changed in decades. Metro, frankly, would have to go bankrupt in order to cancel these routes because of the political outcry if they were to be cancelled.
As for the “long-term savings” inherent in a streetcar — what savings would those be? The capital costs alone — going over a bridge, laying down rails — to say nothing of the additional maintenance required for rails would seem to argue against streetcars (unless, of course, they have their own ROW).
As a homeowner, the addition of a streetcar would increase my monthly property taxes (due to the increased AV). And don’t even get me started on TIFs — any local businesses that chose to finance a streetcar through a TIF would pass their extra costs on to me, the consumer.
Ben,
Was it not the politicians on the ST Board making the decision in 2001, rather than the engineers?
Cat,
My May 17 post suggested the Montlake Cut alignment would be chosen. In the time period ST has been building to SeaTac, they could have built between South McClellan Street and Capitol Hill. While doing that, they would have found the Montlake Cut alignment optimal.
James,
ST could soon run 15-minute headway (bus) service between the Tacoma Dome station and downtown Seattle via Federal Way using the South 317th Street center access ramps. It will be fast.
anonymous the first:
Strasbourg is a great example here. As they build rail, they cancel bus service in the same corridors. Whether or not Metro does that is a political question independent of mode choice.
Sound Transit has made it clear they will cancel (or just as importantly not increase) ST Express bus service where Link serves the same corridors. Northgate and Bellevue will cause truncation of Everett service at Northgate during peak times, and ST route 550 will disappear with East Link.
On your property taxes? How myopic. I guess you don’t want your roads fixed, either?
most recent anonymous:
These projects all have to be packed up for FFGA submission. You can’t just build them all willy-nilly when hundreds of millions from the FTA is at stake.
Anonymous the first:
I’m confused. Why would your assessed valuation (which I assume is what you mean by AV) go up because there was a streetcar nearby? Is it because your property’s actual value went up? With a 1% property tax rate, it seems like it would take 100 years to eat up the value you just gained. How is that a bad thing?
Or is there something I’m missing wherein the assessed valuation doesn’t match the actual value? And if that’s the case, isn’t that a problem we ought to fix?
Ben,
The most recent Seattle Streetcar report (from a couple weeks ago) included in the operating costs for the U-District line a savings from replacement of route 70. So, it looks like Metro is okay with replacing buses with rail too.
There’s a little confusion when someone compares the cost of a bus with the cost of a trolley system. In reality, of course, a bus, like a trolley, is just the end-point or delivery vehicle of a service- movement. The system for a bus is much like the system for a trolley. You need streets for the buses to run in, you need fuel to make the axles spin round, you need places for riders to wait for the bus or trolley, shops to maintain the vehicles, etc etc etc. None of this is free.
It might be a little more understandable that people say “Well, we have the streets anyway, the marginal cost of adding buses is trivial. But that’s not true either. The durability of the street is exponentially related to the hammering effect of the wheel loadings. Buses and big trucks pound streets to rubble. The city rather dramatically proved this about 20 years ago when they completely rebuilt the intersection where Fairview N reaches Lake Union. Within about three months all the new pavement was cracked and broken by the concrete trucks from a ready-mix plant then located there.
So, without going on and on, if we calculate the actual costs, over the actual lifetime, the efficiency of steel-wheel-on-steel-rail and the lower labor costs, combined with the higher population densities providing a better tax base and better ridership, make the trolleys cheaper than buses.
In fact, even 40 years ago, when gas was 25 cents a gallon, electric buses were cheaper to run, including the cost of building new overhead, than diesel buses. That’s the reason you have electric buses in Seattle now- engineers proved that, the public was convinced, and a public vote forced the city to rebuild the electric bus lines they intended to scrap.
As for your taxes going up, well, they might-but so do your revenues. That’s the economic magic that makes cities economic powerhouses which can subsidize the rural areas.