by KEVIN FUTHEY

Working together, by Mike Bjork
"Working together", by Mike Bjork

One of the most basic, intrinsic human desires–and pleasures–is movement. But how do people want to move in a city? Is speed all that matters?

When we end up in tight spaces like cities, efficient transportation is much more than an economic imperative; it’s a moral one, as well. People who can quickly, safely, and confidently move about their environments aren’t just going going to be more productive; they’re going to be happier. Transit discussions, like those about economics, often fail to integrate the underlying human experiences that accompany change.

I was a light rail supporter before I relocated to Seoul in 2008 for work. I spent my year there commuting by rail every day, and since I’ve been back I’m even more adamant about the benefits and necessity of our developing system because I know now how it will make people’s lives better.

It’s not just about getting to work quickly. It’s going shopping, going to the park, going out for dinner with friends, exploring new parts of town, and staying out until 5am on that crazy Saturday night waiting for the first morning train to take you home. It’s fun to have fast and reliable transportation not simply because it’s fast, but because it gives you time later to go slow.

We desire this experience, I believe, and suffer through our tediously slow car commutes only because there is no comfortable alternative–yet. We were supposed to have gotten started in the 60s, and it’s a shame that we’re so behind the curve. Nevertheless, as we develop our light rail and bus service, we’ll begin to experience how fast commutes yield time for the things that really make us happy.

And then it’ll be hard to stop building.

61 Replies to “Speeding Up To Slow Down”

  1. Well said, Kevin.

    However, I was recently reminded that Link is actually pretty slow. I was in Vancouver yesterday and sped around town on SkyTrain, which made me think of how agonizingly slow Link is at certain spots along the line. For example, crawling southbound out of SODO station, up around the curve and into the Beacon Hill tunnel. Or, the stretch between ID/Chinatown and Stadium stations. Or, barely keeping pace with automobile traffic on MLK. Why did we build a “rapid” transit system that goes so slow?

    1. Well, the trains are allowed to move no faster than the posted speed limit for automobiles along MLK Jr. Way. Whenever any car drives past Link, they are speeding, but you will often find that the train easily catches up and passes them when priority is given.

      Trains must slow down between Stadium and the DSTT, this is where joint operations are happening.

    2. It’s not just the raw speed of any service, it’s the speed relative to the other choices out there.

      Furthermore, it’s the reliability. Being able to have confidence in commute time affords people a larger window each day in which to plan activities.

      When you can estimate your commute down to +/- 3 minutes versus 30 minutes, that’s freeing up time.

      But sure, I do expect and hope to see Link get a little faster as the system matures.

      1. Yes, I understand that Link is better than other transit modes in our city due to greater reliability and a dedicated right of way. My point is that we have constructed a rail transit system that is slower than those in other cities. I’m not saying that Link is bad, or that Link is worse than busses or driving. I’m saying that Link is worse than rail systems in other cities, such as Vancouver, because it travels much, much more slowly. And yes, MAX in Portland is also slow.

        If we are going to continue making huge investments in transportation infrastructure, we should not aim for them to simply be better than busses. We should aim for them to be as good (fast, reliable, comfortable) as they can be. Clearly, there are examples of systems in other cities that are much, much faster than ours. I’ve been on Link with friends who were taking their first Link ride five times, and on each of those occasions the friend soon commented, “Huh, I thought it would be faster.”

        This is similar to the debate about streetcars, in which some argue that it is okay for a streetcar to run in a regular lane of traffic because it is more comfortable and has a higher capacity than a bus (and spurs development along the route). However, that means that the streetcar will never be faster than traffic, and will be stuck in traffic just the same as cars and busses. Why go to the trouble and expense of building a system that is obviously not as good as it could/should be?

        1. CHH,

          Exactly. Especially about the streetcars. Give them dedicated lanes or don’t build them as the city has designed them. It would be fine to have a streetcar that ran in mixed traffic in a residential collector area, as long as it had a trunk line in reserved ROW of some sort between the edge of the collector area and the CBD. This is exactly how the streetcar/light rail systems in Boston, Cleveland, and San Francisco work.

          But putting them in mixed traffic in the CBD as Portland has done and Seattle proposes to do is crazy. It halfway works in Portland because there is relatively little traffic on 9th and 10th Avenues. But in Seattle, with only six through north/south arterials, it would be a catastrophe to run them in mixed traffic on First Avenue.

          I don’t think you’ll ever be able to improve the curve between SODO and the maintenance facility. Somebody didn’t want to spend five million knocking down the building at the southeast corner of Lander and Fifth South, so the system is stuck with that super slow curve.

          Penny wise, pound foolish.

        2. No, the mistake a lot of you are making is to not understand where you’re saving the time.

          The big time-savings are in not having to work and earn money to be able to afford the car.

          The streetcar can be slower than the automobile and still save you significant time.

          In fact, if you take your saved time as a third day off each week, or several extra weeks off each year, it may be more valuable to you than it would be as a ten-minute savings on a daily commute.

          Considering that almost all of us have built lives that are not as good as they could or should be, it might pay us to use some extra time reflecting in a quiet place, far from the yardstick of traffic.

        4. The funded expansions of Link should be much faster than Central Link. Especially North of downtown where there is 100% grade separation and few sharp curves.

          The one that is a bit of an open question is what sort of rail to build past the currently funded expansions. What is being done for U Link/North Link is nice, but rather expensive in terms of per-mile construction costs. Ridership on additional lines may not justify that sort of expense. On the other end the Ballard/Freemont streetcar alignment offers several places where it is likely to be faster than the current SLUT as there are opportunities for giving the line exclusive ROW along Westlake and Leary.

        5. Maybe Link just seems slow. Link actually has a higher average speed than the new Canada Line in Vancouver. The Canada Line takes 26 minutes to cover the 9.3 miles to the airport (21.4 mph), Link will take 36 minutes to travel the 15.6 miles to SeaTac (26.0mph).

        6. The perception depends in part on the train’s operator and cooperation with signals. Link feels fast when trains don’t get stuck at lights, trains accelerate confidently out of stations and trains coast smoothly without jerks.

        7. Some operators drive much faster than others. It kills me when we crawl to near walking speeds through the Beacon Hill tunnel or up the ramp to elevated sections, but just last week I took Link from BH to Westlake and it was super-fast. I felt like giving the driver the thumbs up because he clearly knows how to operate a train.

          My point is, I think operators will get used to it.

        8. Here’s the problem with “perception.”

          I can’t drive from Vancouver International Airport to Waterfront Station in 26 minutes most of the time. In fact, it could easily take almost double that time.

          I can, however, drive from Downtown to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in less than 36 minutes, and I can do so much of the day. At some points, I could even follow the exact route of Link in a car, and still go faster than light rail.

          Why don’t we go faster when we DO have grade separation?

          Or, to echo Ben, how soon can we throw the buses out of the tunnel?

        9. What does driving have to do with anything? I suppose you could just take a cab, too.

          You can easily drive to the Vancouver airport in less than 30 minutes, it’s a straight shot down Granville and then over the bridge to the airport drive. Traffic’s not that bad in Vancouver outside of rush hour. So I guess you’ve proved your point that there’s a problem with perception.

    3. ‘Why did we build a “rapid” transit system that goes so slow?’

      Because Sound Transit was afraid voters would not approve a higher bill for a fully grade-separated system. We’re lucky we got as fast a system as we did. There are still people who complain Link is the most expensive LR system in the country, as if it’s not precisely this investment which makes it more usable than other systems.

      1. Also, to be fair “rapid” is not an exact term. Link is faster than MAX but slower than BART. Add more stations and a fully grade-separated system takes more time, too.

        I will say that I expect U-Link to be quite rapid. It’s all tunnel and only two stations.

      2. Voters rejected the bill the year before, so I’d say Sound Transit was right on.

  2. Also, just to toss it out there, there is a 10mph restriction at Royal Brougham due to construction. Once the new off-ramp is completed, speed will increase to 30mph.

    1. Do you happen to know how much moving buses out of the transit tunnel would speed up Link?

      1. Would that allow faster speeds in tunnel along with making it so that Link doesn’t have to wait for buses to clear the stations?

        2. It would allow for Link not waiting for buses to clear. That’s been a huge issue, adding 2-3 minutes on some trips I’ve taken.

      2. Another question would be how can we speed up buses in the tunnel as to not delay trains?

        The former Breda tunnel buses had three doors, the new tunnel hybrid buses have only two doors.

        Even with pay-as-you-leave, how come buses take so long to load and sit at platforms longer than trains.

        I find the way buses are being loaded in the tunnel rather inefficient, especially when the platform is fully occupied. Buses that serve the front bay get stuck behind buses unloading at the rear bay. People see the bus start walking towards it, driver opens door and lets them on more people walk to the bus, then bus in front clears platform, that bus pulls up and opens door again to load more passengers. They need to change the policy.

        I’ve observed cases during peak hours where one group of buses occupy the platform for 4 minutes. The front bus has a clear signal to leave the station and sits there for 3 minutes after retracting the ADA ramp.

        Can we make wheelchair loading faster by using the passive restraint system featured on Swift and other systems?

        1. It would help if policies were clarified or enforced for the bus operators. Once the doors are closed and bus is moving, it’s gone. I hate to be the one running down the stairs late to my bus, but I don’t expect the driver to open the doors AGAIN just for me. Of course, I’m grateful when they do, but they shouldn’t. It holds up more then the passengers on that one bus.

          As for the passengers who get POed when the driver won’t open the doors again, they need to deal with it. The trains rarely do that.

        2. This may be a case of buses being early and having to wait until their scheduled departure times.

        3. It was the outbound 194 at Westlake. If it were 3 min ahead schedule then it should have left Convention Place 3 min later, not sit at Westlake for 3 min and block other buses and trains. I thought there was a system that dispatches buses and trains such that they are in the correct order and on schedule. The tunnel was designed for quick loading and unloading and we should do all we can to make it way.

  3. Yes, I had a similar experience living in Japan which made me realize that freedom includes freedom from cars.

    1. “… freedom from cars” – my fondest wish. Freedom from the tyranny of the automobile culture and all its trappings.
      Thanks, Keo

    2. Kind of ironic that the best selling cars in the United States are Korean and Japanese.

    3. That’s what LaHood recently said about livability – places where people can choose not to own a car.

  4. might enjoy this article in the oregonian today about transit usage at orenco station (the famed new urbanist community near the MAX line). i think it ties pretty nicely into this post. youve got several wacko teabaggers claiming that a neighborhood with a choice of travel options is somehow therefore taking away ones car. i guess theyve been inhaling too much of randall o’toole’s ass gas.

    kind of a BS title especially when you read the whole article (hmm, why are few residents not using the regional MAX trains to commute to work? because the main employment location for most residents is adjacent and in short walking distance of the neighborhood)…

    Residents of transit-oriented Orenco Station still driving cars to work
    http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/despite_urban_design_most_oren.html

    1. I actually stayed at the Orenco Road Holiday Inn Express and had the most incredible experience. It is a “cheaper” Pearl District but just as nice, warm and inviting.

      If anyone gets a chance to take Amtrak down, it’s simple to take the Cascades to Portland, the Yellow or Green line to Pioneer Courthouse and a nice ride to Orenco Rd/231st. All in all, about an hour ride out and you really can take it in just unique the different stations and the communities around them are. Orenco is definitely the nicest out of all of them.

  5. In training, is there a standard style that is taught to operators regarding speed/acceleration? I understand that, like bus operation, there is an individual aspect in manually operating a train, but there is a clear difference in percieved “speed” of trains between operators.
    In the tunnel, for example, some operators will ring the bell once, zip right into place on the platform and seem to leave the station at full speed whereas others will slowly move along the platform, ringing the bell most of the way.
    From University Street to Pioneer Square, Stadium to Sodo, and pretty much any separated straightaway are also places where I definitely feel a difference in operating style.

  6. Golly, it may be that I have lived in Seattle forever, and know it so well, but it seems like link from the Airport to downtown is much quicker than the train from PDX to downtown Portland, or the train from O’Hare to the loop. Bart to SFO is pretty quick, however.

    btw, does anyone have the proposed route that would have been built in Forward Thrust?

      1. Interesting map. Very Boeing-centric. I guess Southcenter did not exist at the time. Interesting that they hit Ballard and Renton, but not Fremont nor SeaTac. I like the Lake City path, and the two stops at Lower Queen Anne, but they missed the planning for Capitol Hill – I doubt anyone at Broadmoore is going to want to get out of their Series-7s and take Link around town.

        1. And once Boeing laid off 60,000 workers in the region at the time, the whole plan of heavy rail serving two Boeing plants went down the tubes.

          Southcenter Mall opened July 31, 1968 and I-5 from Seattle to Kent opened in 1967. I guess the thought was who’d take the train if you could easily drive there?

      2. I’m personally glad the Forward Thrust plan did not get adopted. It did not serve Northgate, the Airport, or South Center. Who did they expect to ride it during the middle of the day?

        And who did they expect those stations along Lake City Way to serve? Not to mention 23rd and Union and Empire and Madison. Were they planning to replace what are pretty nice neighborhoods all along the east Seattle line with mid rises? It was after all to have been heavy rail mostly in tunnel.

        It was designed by Parsons-Brinckerhoff as I recall. They envisioned a BART-like system in a city one fourth the size of the Bay Area. It would have been a mistake.

        1. I think it’s a mistake to impose Forward Thrust on real-life 2009 land use patterns. It’s reasonable to hope we’d adjust land use to put more interesting destinations where the stations were.

        2. Anandakos, 23rd and Union is a hellhole. Heaven forbid we have a train to replace some of the empty lots and shooting galleries with midrises.

          Also, I don’t see why Northgate and Southcenter are even on your radar. The developers of Northgate didn’t want a train, and Southcenter didn’t exist.

        3. I lived near 23rd & Union for a while. While I wouldn’t quite call it a hellhole I will say putting in mixed use development on all 4 corners would be an improvement.

          Currently the SE corner is a couple of strip malls sitting behind large parking lots, the SW corner is a vacant lot, the NW corner is a gas station and the NE corner is a derelict fast food restaurant that was the scene of a recent brutal murder and robbery.

          One issue is I believe the current zoning has a 40 ft height limit which just doesn’t pencil out with what you can charge for housing in the area. a 65 ft. height limit along both 23rd and Union would make more sense.

        4. Ben, if you think 23rd & Union is a hellhole, you must live quite a sheltered life. You need to remember that there are people who live in that neighborhood who appreciate your website, but don’t appreciate your frankly arrogant and uniformed opining.

          I don’t live in the CD, but I work in the CD, and I get very tired of people villainizing that neighborhood. Anyone who has lived in a real city knows it’s not that bad.

        5. Lake City is fairly high density (for an outlying Seattle neighborhood) and is one of the few areas in the city where building additional density would not interfere with views, etc. It has a fairly large, reasonably flat area where much of the existing land use is not single-family housing. It’s also on the historic transportation route to Bothell, Woodinville and so on. It actually would be a very good neighborhood for up-zoning and high-capacity transit–particularly now that the auto dealerships that take up much of the land aren’t, shall we say, doing so well.

          The route through Central Seattle and NE Seattle actually had a great deal to do with expected freeway development (RH Thompson Expressway, etc) where some of the construction cost of rail would have been mitigated by including it with the freeway right-of-way. This is where the comparison with BART is most relevant; we can all be fortunate that the Thompson, Sand Point floating bridge and other freeways were never built thru town.

  7. What I would like to see after the buses are moved out is a minor tunnel renovation to strip out unnecessary bus infrastructure and implement more rail-oriented features. I think a barrier fence in the center of the trackbed should be installed in each DSTT station. I still see people skipping across the roadway to catch buses and that’s too dangerous when headways go up for Link trains.

    1. definitely a fence in the middle, but is there anything else that can occupy or share some of that dead space that is now occupied by that 10-12 ft wide bypass lane? obviously its too narrow for a center platform. some artwork or perhaps a water feature?

    2. Won’t that center “lane” need to be available for emergency vehicles/tow trucks even after the buses are removed?

      1. I don’t think that they will need the center lane for emergency vehicles/tow trucks. Look at how the Beacon hill tunnel station was built.

        As for what to do with the center lane I think that a center platform can fit.

        http://www.flickr.com/photos/wings777/3590000075/sizes/l/

        The Light rail vehicles hug the outside platform better. So there is the center lane plus more. Even if the center platform is really small, it will accelerate boardings/deboardings and it will make transferring from one line to the next super easy

        1. Measured the photo on screen with my ruler and it looks like the center space would allow a platform that’s slightly wider than the current side platform. I could fit a narrow escalator and stairway in that area with space left for a path to an elevator plus emergency exit stairs (I think ADA and fire regulations require those two). Or get rid of the escalators for the center platform, the side platforms already have those. That’ll simplify the design.

          The problem is where do those stairs and elevators connect to the mezzanine level? Westlake’s mezzanine occupies the area above the center lane. The Metro customer stop’s line is in the way of one of the access. University Street looks most feasible. Pioneer Square’s ticket machines on the north side wall need to be moved elsewhere. International District’s plaza has to be modified.

        2. You are not seriously suggesting closing down Westlake Station for a year to put in a center platform are you? That’d be tens of millions of US$! There are FAR better ways to spend the money than to retrofit an already existing and compliant station.

        4. The only station where a center platform might justify the expense would be ID, so make easier transfers from South to East (and vice versa).

          However, why not just build the center platform and let pax cross at-grade? Why all the extra expense of elevators, etc.? I realize that there will be trains coming every 3-5 minutes, but geez, I don’t think the public is so stupid that we can’t cross 10 feet of track on our own. Plus, as pointed out above, it’s not like the link operators are exactly speed demons when pulling in or out of the station either.

        5. They would rather not have anyone in the trackway at all.

          If grade crossing is permitted, ADA-compliant ramps on the platform to get down to track level, cross, and then back up to the center platform are required. That consumes platform space and gets in the way of train doors when we start using 3-4 car trains.

        6. Not that I suggest closing down stations either, but I think at Westlake, the height of the mezzanine would allow regular stairs to angle off to the sides of the center walkway at mez level.

          Wouldn’t it be cool, though, if the work could happen with the stations still open? Or at least during the 4 hours of closure every night…

        7. I bet a center platform could be added in International District between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. (Obviously in more than one night.) Having the mezzanine at the surface seems like it would help speed things along.

    3. On a related note, why is it that busses can no longer utilise the center lane to pass? If I recall correctly, busses could pass at stations before the big renovation for Link. Authorizing passing (even in specific situations like breakdowns) could have saved many minutes/hours spent stuck in the tunnel.

      1. No, it wouldn’t. You’re still stuck in your ‘section’ in the signaling system, even if you can pass.

  8. Pingback: Speeding Up To Slow Down – Seattle Transit Blog | Seattle News on Twitter

  9. Wow. Great post. Rail makes sense for well-traveled corridors, the same way freeways eventually eclipsed the arterials and streets model.

    Next time a rail critic uses the tired “vanpools and buses” argument, ask him why I-5, I-405 and I-90 were ever built. City streets and arterials “did the job” just fine before these destructive, socially engineered highways cut their way through our neighborhoods.

    At least the induced development along rail lines enhances society.

Comments are closed.