To parallel the recent increases in Central Link ridership, more trips are being taken on the South Lake Union Streetcar as well. The latest data (PDF) shows that in March, there were a total of 1,347 daily boardings and 1,547 weekday boardings (when factoring out weekend ridership). This is an improvement of 20% over the same time last year. January and February numbers saw daily boardings of 1,173 and 1,268, respectively.
The continuing increase may reflect the rising occupancy rates of properties in the neighborhood like PATH, a non-profit in health research and medicine, which recently relocated 300 employees to a Denny office. The numbers, however, likely do not reflect Amazon’s move into its new headquarters, which just began earlier this month. Considering the move, ridership will likely exceed the original 2010 forecast of 1,350 daily boardings.
Again, like we’ve said many times with our Link ridership reports, one shouldn’t draw too many inferences about ridership numbers. While the streetcar is indeed two years older than Link, it was designed as a long-term investment for a neighborhood that is undergoing significant revitalization. Amazon’s move and other signs of growth in South Lake Union are indicators that will help make the SLU streetcar a success in the future.
(H/T: Michael Arnold)
How does ORCA work on the SLUT? I rode it from the Wooden Boats Center to Westlake on a whim the other day but couldn’t figure out how to pay with my ORCA card. There was some text about it being a valid form of payment, but it wouldn’t work on either the station equipment or onboard.
very simple.
if challenged for a fare … you simply show them your Orca card.
Uh… are there any plans to rectify this situation?
i’d guess they’ll reconfigure or replace the offboard payment kiosks for ORCA support whenever they’re ready for the First Hill project as well. Are any employer passes using ORCA yet? I know UW is not and most other major employers on the line provide passes: Group Health, Fred Hutch, Amazon, etc.
The onboard Czech payment machine on the SLUT is hilarious. “Welcome in Seattle” “2010.21.04” “Ticket is under print”
Amazon’s passes have been ORCA cards since this past summer.
HNTB switched to ORCA at the beginning of the year for our annual transit passes.
UW will be converting to ORCA next fall. At least that’s what they told me. I’ll be getting a new Husky Card with ORCA built in at the beginning of fall quarter.
The City of Seattle switched to ORCA for it’s employees at the beginning of the year.
Fred Hutch will switch to the ORCA in June.
The South Lake Union Streetcar was also designed to be a test case to show the city the time/cost for building streetcar lines … which proved that they can be done rather inexpensively and under budget.
Yep. Not to mention it had the benefit of being relatively cheap for the city (half the tab being picked up by business in the area) and a good base for possible expansions to Fremont-Ballard and University.
And residents in the area.
To its benefit, it does have better realtime arrival information than Link. It’s actually encouraging to hear that the SLUT is doing better, because even as fun as it is to make fun of its failure, it would be nice to have a useful streetcar line in Seattle.
The real-time arrival information is very useful and I hope the First Hill line will continue this (as I am sure it will). Here is also good information from the city website regarding the Westlake Hub Project that will make the terminus of the Streetcar a little more pedestrian friendly:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/westlakehub_streetcarplaza.htm
I never actually thought of the SLUT as being a transfer point to Link or the Monorail, but that is very true. To get there, I think being pedestrian friendly is necessary. Furthermore, they may want to make the trains more frequent, if it is expected to be an acceptable transfer to link. SLUT headways are either 15 or 20 minutes, I forget which. That is competitive with a bus, not a train.
They’re every 15 minutes, which I think isn’t a problem, as even link is just every 15 minutes at some times of day. Not that I would mind it going more often. I think quite a few people on every run of the streetcar get off and cross to Westlake to go down into the tunnel.
It limits the usefulness of the streetcar. I’m glad ST has committed to 10-minute headways for the First Hill streetcar; it shows they realize frequency matters.
And I forgot to further point out that while lowering headways does not make sense on a route with low ridership, it also can be a tool to increase ridership. So I would be curious about what analysis has been done with that.
They did a 10 minute headway test day last year. If it went well I assume it’ll happen when Amazon’s larger buildings are finished.
Does anyone know what ever became of the test-pilot SLUT did for the increased streetcar headways?
They said if it was successful they would implement the 12.5 minute headways in 2010, but were never more specific.
With 3 streetcars, can it operate 10 minute headways? That would make it way more useful than 12.5 headways. With 10 min headways you can just know it always comes on the 6’s or similar. With 12.5 it is impossible to remember a schedule.
It can, but the city has said that current ridership doesn’t justify the operating costs. Of course, however many thousands of employees Amazon is dumping in the neighborhood could change that.
Alternatively, with some signal prioritization, could we shave enough off the trip length to get down to 10 minute headways?
I think it already has some form of prioritization, just not preemption. I could be wrong, though.
As the system exists, it can only provide enough electricity to power two streetcars at a time. Another substation would have to be installed to run three streetcars.
Actually that is not true–they run three streetcars on 4th of July, Opening day, etc with fully loaded cars, so they have demonstrated the power system can handle 3 car operations.
Speaking of headways, if/when University and/or Fremont-Ballard extensions get added what kinda capacity will the SLUT portion be able to handle?
I think there are way to many unknowns but I’m sure it will be able to meet any capacity needed.
If you think about how crowded 3rd Ave is with buses at rush hour, I think that the portion of the SLUT that both of those lines would use could probably handle trains at just one or two minute headways, although that probably won’t be needed.
They could probably turn the streetcar lanes on Westlake into “BAT” lanes during the peak hours, to increase speed, reliability, capacity if the line was extended to Fremont, Ballard
I meant to comment on the previous article about increased LINK ridership.
You said there that you “couldn’t tell” whether this increase was due to a decrease in bus usage (174).
It would seem to me that this correlation would be easily done given all the transit data.
If we can’t show that, or how many rides would have alternatively been done by car, then we can’t say very much…can we?
What do you mean by “we”? I’m sure that Metro and Sound Transit will have an idea of where the riders came from after a year or so of collecting data, in fact, I’m sure that Sound Transit is required to report it to the FTA.
Good news, but let’s extend it. It’s great that it serves Fred Hutchinson, but right now half the walkshed at its northern terminus is in Lake Union and the other half is obliterated by I-5 (and the veritable cliff that is the western side of Capitol Hill there). And at 15 minutes and 1.3 miles (for the longest trip) there are too many times it makes as much sense to walk as to wait.
Obviously, there is much to be said for connecting the U-District and, depending on the routing, southbound Link passengers to Eastlake, Amazon, SLU, and northern downtown. But it would also be a significant financial, logistical, and political undertaking, thanks to the bridge and routing difficulties in the U-District.
However, just serving the heart of Eastlake would make a great little line. And to be really fast and cheap, even extending the 2,000 or 2,500 feet from Aloha to the Eastlake/Fairview intersection would drop you off at the gateway to the Eastlake neighborhood, and it wouldn’t even require any rechanneling. Every stop north you extend from there only increases the line’s utility.
I agree totally. This is good news, and the system certainly needs to be expanded to leverage its success.
The most obvious extension for this line is to extend it up Eastlake to a tie in with Link LR at Brooklyn Station and a terminus near 50th. The other obvious extension is to extend it southward along 4th/5th to a terminus near King Street Station and a tie in with Link and the First Hill SC.
Maybe the Seattle City Council will show some leadership on this and start the expansion ball rolling.
Absolutely, but unfortunately it’s a big capital investment and Eastlake landowners were lukewarm to a LID.
If the line is extended North it should go all of the way to the University District not just Eastlake.
The big technical challenge isn’t the University Bridge but the Fairview bridge at Zymogenetics which would have to be rebuilt. Politically accommodating the streetcar, cars, parking, bikes, and pedestrians along Eastlake could be problematic. Similarly the N/S routing in the University District could be a problem.
I think University District is everybody’s first preference, but the larger goal to me is increasing the line’s utility one way or another, and sooner rather than later. If getting to/through the U-District is going to set back the extension by numerous years, I’d rather get to the heart of Eastlake now, or—since I admittedly completely forgot about the Fairview bridge rebuild—head south to the ID station now.
In terms of preserving the political capital needed to secure future streetcar funding, I just think transit advocates really can’t overestimate the importance of bulletproofing the initial line. We need shining examples to advance the argument.
An Eastlake extension would also open the line up to more reverse commuters, in the sense that it’s currently more heavily loaded taking people from downtown to jobs in SLU than from SLU to jobs downtown.
In that case, how about the Westlake to Fremont extension which would serve a similar purpose.
That would make me happy.
The thing with going to the university is, it would be one more downtown & university improvement while the rest of the city gets nothing. Eastlake already has disproportionately good bus service for its population level. We could do an Eastlake streetcar and something else, but not just an Eastlake streetcar alone.
It does seem like a no brainer to extend the line from Fred Hutchinson to the Eastlake corridor. As someone pointed out, right now, the line is NOT serving any residences north of Denny Way, so there is no inbound commuting patronage in the morning. One issue blocking the extension–among others–is that the Fairview Bridge near Zymogenetics will have to be strengthened before cars can pass over, and that is not in anyone’s budget. Until that issue is dealt with, there will no extension north.
Strengthened or rebuilt? The former is obviously far cheaper.
There’s plans to extend the SLUT to Pike Place Market to hook up with the Central Streetcar, but since that’s not going to happen for at least a few years, any chance they could spend, what, $10 or $20m? to extend it down there now? That would greatly increase its visibility and ridership.
Yes, they should do the Market extension and extend to Eastlake. For, what, $50 M, it would go from a 1.3 mile line connection SLU to the retail core to a 2.5 mile line with the Market, retail core, SLU and Eastlake. Much better.
Ridership is up there because the 17 was cut way back. It used to be every half hour, but now it’s hourly. Probably because it costs half as much.
The 17 still runs every 30 minutes through the day (7 days a week). Only in the evenings after 7 does in run hourly.
when does the janette sadik khan style plaza open?
Firstly, more people are riding it than indicated, because many people don’t bother paying 2.25(?) for a 5 minute 6 block ride. What perplexes me is why couldn’t they have brought the SLUT right to the Westlake light rail stop? It’s silly to go from the light rail and then have to walk a block and half, only to see the trolley leaving without you and you’re stuck in the rain waiting 15 minutes for the next car.