Everett Freeway station

  • The new $31.2 million center-freeway station in South Everett looks amazing (see photo above). Sound Transit built it. The new station will save buses from having to merge from the left lane to the exit, and then from the right lane into the carpool-lane, and also has 400 parking spots. Nice, though of course 400 spots seems to low, we should be building 1000-spot park-and-rides.
  • Thanks to a $2.2 million FTA grant, Metro and Sound Transit are adding 12 more hybrid buses to the fleet. The difference in fuel use between hybrids and normal diesel buses isn’t huge, but the operation costs are in total much less.
  • The P-I editorial board is praising metro for honoring its promise to more service from Transit Now. I second that, it’s great to see KC Metro find creative ways to fund its operations. Hopefully if we get a more more transit-friendly administration, we can see the agencies get some help.
  • Metrolink in the LA area is putting in safety controls in wake of last weeks horrific train crash. According to the News Tribune article, Sound Transit and BNSF have no plans to put in so-called “positive train controls” on the Sounder lines.
  • Lakewood Sounder stations opens Saturday. The opening ceremony is Saturday, Sept. 20, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. at 11424 Pacific Highway SW Lakewood, WA.

34 Replies to “News Round Up”

  1. If Link is ever extended North to Everett … I would assume that they’ll build a station here for it.

  2. You always talk about how many spots should be there, be where is all the land and money going to come from for those spots?

    1. Future additions to the number of parking spots would likely come in the form of a parking structure, as has been done at other park and rides around the region. Surface parking is cheap to build (once you have the land), so makes sense as an initial lot when you are making assumptions about the demand. Structured parking can cost anywhere from $15,000-$30,000 per stall, so “proving” that there’s a demand for it tends to make it easier to justify the cost.

  3. Another commuter train crash in LA this morning. It crashed into a bus.

    http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-metro20-2008sep20,0,355169.story

    Interesting stats in the article …

    “Since the Blue Line debuted in 1990, the rail service has tallied 90 fatalities, 20 of them suicides, said Rick Jager, a Metro spokesman.

    Of the total fatalities, 64 involved the train and pedestrians, and 26 the train and vehicles, officials said.”

    I’m not making a point, that’s just more deaths than I would have expected.

    I still hope ST takes some serious measures in assuring that train operators or conductors will not text, or talk on cell or bluetooth phones while on the job. I think audio and video monitoring of them should be done. But I’m sure the union won’t go for that.

    2. Sam, this was probably because LA’s light rail’s at-grade section isn’t adequately signaled or separated. I don’t know the specifics, but that’s my best guess – the bus driver ran a light or didn’t notice the train approach.

      But I know you don’t care about the facts. Hell, you don’t even understand what the difference is between light rail and commuter rail.

      I already explained to you that Link, our light rail system, will have automatic train stop so that accidents with other trains can’t happen (not without some huge system failure *and* a distracted driver). WSDOT is asking for money for automatic train stop that will work with our commuter trains. And as evidenced by Tacoma Link, our light rail system should have absolutely minimal accidents – Tacoma’s our testbed for the signaling and better overall at-grade design that we’re using in the rainier valley.

      Now that you know these things, if you keep spewing the same mess without addressing the knowledge you now have, I will start editing your comments inline with reminders that you already have this information. Brad can tell you that I love doing that.

      1. Every time I’ve seen an edited post like that, I’ve not been impressed–it’s felt like an abuse of power. I think it tends to detract from your arguments, and makes the audience more sympathetic to the edited author. Direct replies in the comment structure are much more effective.

  4. I would love to see a survey put out by Sound Transit or any other transit agency to see if people would be willing to put up $2 to $50 for parking. I’m sure with that would come attachments such as “Agency must provide full time security including CCTV cameras during P&R hours”

    On a personal level and getting off the love of transit and being “just a normal transit rider” I would fully support no more than $5 a day for parking on top of my daily bus fare (I use a discounted employee $4.50 FlexPass and yes, I use it for all the zones) So while I may fork out $150 bucks for a 3 month pass, I would on top of that be putting on upwards of another $100-110 a month for the privilege to park there. To put $5 dollars to prospective I took most of Sound Transit’s major Park and Rides.

    At $5 per person, a day….This is divided by Day/20 days/260 days. No special events or deduction for carpool/vanpool or motorcycle

    Ash Way Park and Ride 1019 spaces = $5095/$101,900/$1,324,700

    Auburn Station 676 spaces = $3380/$13520/$878,800

    Eastgate Park and Ride 1614 spaces = $8070/$161,400/$2,098,200

    Everett Station 481 spaces with 440 coming soon 921 spaces = $4,605/$92,100/$1,197,300

    Federal Way Transit Center 1200 spaces = $6,000/$120,000/$1,560,000

    Issaquah Transit Center 819 spaces = $4,095/$81,900/$1,064,700

    Issaquah Highlands Park and Ride 1000 spaces = $5,000/$100,000/$1,300,000

    Kent Station 1101 spaces = $5,505/$110,100/$1,431,300

    Lynnwood Transit Center 1260 spaces = $6,300/$126,000/$1,638,000

    Lakewood Station 600 spaces = $3,000/$6,000/$780,000

    Northgate Transit center + Extension P&R 788 spaces = $3940/$78,800/$1024400

    Redmond Transit Center 386 spaces = $1,930/$38,600/$501,800

    South Everett Freeway Station 400 spaces = $2,000/$40,000/$525,000

    Tacoma Dome Station 2410 spaces = $12,050/$241,000/$3,133,000

    $18,457,200

    What could 18 million +/- a year buy us?

    P.S. Yes, I was bored and took the hour to do that.

    1. I was just in Chicago, and at the Rosemont CTA Station near O’Hare airport, they charge parking $3 for 18 hours; that’s a pretty good deal compared to parking in the Loop.

      Seattle (and its suburbs) really should have something like that…

  5. About the Hybrid buses:

    Are these the ones with the overhead wires or are these different?

    If so, why is it so hard to get the majority of power from electricty?

    1. Hybrids are similar to a hybrid car (like the Toyota Prius). They have a deisel engine that runs a generator to power a bank of batteries, and use regenerative braking to recapture energy from the brake system. These are the busses that currently run in the DSTT.

      The older Breda busses with the overhead wires as well as deisel engines were known as duel-mode busses.

      1. erm… I meant dual mode bus. Unless of course they used them for jousting competitions at the bus rodeo. :-)

    2. Hybrids don’t use the overhead wires.
      Also, overhead wires for buses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. They’re great for slower in-city routes, but I believe they have a low speed limit, making them unsuitable for expresses, and they cost a lot to maintain. They’re very different from the wire system used for a train, which is tensioned for higher speed and doesn’t have a ‘cup’ interface like the buses use – an interface that tends to fall off around corners or hitting too hard of a bump…

      1. With high-speed wire, a trolley bus top speed would be about 45 miles an hour. Probably a little slower on curves.

      2. Yeah, but ‘with high speed wire’ assumes infrastructure we don’t have. Still, it’s interesting to know. We couldn’t do it on the freeway.

      3. I am not an engineer, but I would think the design that could handle the tension of the wires is not possible. Not only that, but if there is any thing structures that might require special design (for example a low bridge).

        Secondly, it could only be one route. Any switch at a potential exit would require the bus to slow to 5 miles per hour.

  6. regarding accidents between LRVs and traffic/people (there are lots of videos on YouTube of this)

    does anyone know why they didn’t keep link elevated down rainier avenue? would it have been that much more expensive to build (vs. on the ground)

    would also have cut time to the airport down quite a bit if they had done that.

    2. AJ’s hit the nail on the head. The community said ‘no way’.

      Regardless, accidents are basically a straw man issue. The trips taken on the train will prevent twice as many accidents as they might cause. Remember that a lot of those trips would otherwise be car trips!

    1. Oh my goodness, the pantograph damage video looks really scary. The train was going at 120 km/h, which is much faster than Link’s average speed, when the pantograph broke. Yet the French manage to make the TGV go 574 km/h and break a world record. Of course, I bet they did special checks to the catenary before they tried that.

      Overall, I don’t worry about Link’s OCS failing. It should be much more reliable than the trolleybuses.

  8. Ben, I, and about 99.9% of the population use the terms light rail and commuter train interchangeably. I know the distinction is important to rail buffs, but it’s really not to anyone else. I’m sorry. That’s just reality.

    Question. Do you believe there needs to be added safeguards on LINK trains to ensure operators are not distracted by cell phones? I hope you’re not suggesting that no serious accident can happen (with a stalled truck, etc.), even if they are distracted.

    I’d like to hear your thoughts on this, but this time, lose the tone.

    1. Sam is right that most people don’t know (or care to know) the difference between light rail and commuter rail: trains are trains

      1. I would also appreciate if the disagreement in comments could be more civil.

        Along those lines, I respectfully submit that I think most people can tell the difference between Heathrow Express and the Underground in London, Amtrak and MAX in Portland (or the L in Chicago or Metro in DC, etc. which yes I know is not light rail). Part of that is branding, but a lot of it is just knowledge of the local system. Of course, that latimes article just referred to it as “the Blue Line train” until the end when it mentions it is one of the nation’s busiest light rail lines.

    2. I think it is inevitable that at some point there will be some link crashes, especially in the Rainier Valley. But they are trying as hard as they can to minimize the number and the impact of any crashes. I agree with you that it would be a good idea to have another safeguard to make sure drivers don’t talk on their phones, although i’m not sure what an appropriate one would be. And remember, cell phones caused this crash, but the next one could be something entirely different. I hope that we can be proactive and not just reactive.

    3. Safeguards added to what? That’s the thing. We haven’t had these issues here with Sounder, or with Tacoma Link, or with the Seattle Streetcar. I don’t know how many buses a day run without hitting anything… thousands of round trips daily. So I think this is a case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

      I do apologize for being rude… I have noticed you’re being more civil, and I should give you more credit for that. I just feel like I addressed this a couple of days ago already.

  9. My first comment didn’t attack anyone, so I was surprised Ben was somewhat rude to me. That said, I’m still going to try to be more civil on this blog, as I do have an interest in public transportation, and would like to learn more about it, too.

    1. *Group hug*

      Sam, ST/Metro should fire people who use their cell phone while operating trains — and that should be made policy.

  11. Did anyone see the debate? I think Gregoire came across as quite pro-transit, although it looks like she was deliberately avoiding the subject of light rail.

    1. She endorsed Mass Transit Now, though, by pointing out how Sec. Hammond strong-armed bus improvements to the front of the line on her behalf.

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