69 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: 2nd Avenue Subway”

  1. I’ve wondered whether Seattle will eventually have a Second Ave subway to provide additional N-S capacity and perhaps a line that would eventually serve Seattle Center and continue to Ballard.

    Also whether the engineering for the replacement Alaska Way tunnel has taken into account the need to be able to build such a N-S route so that there is room for it.

    I still question the dollars to be invested into the Alaskan Way “deep bore tunnel” with no downtown exits on a route that isn’t really a connected through route. Doesn’t the majority of existing Alaskan Way viaduct traffic originate or terminate in downtown Seattle (Western/Elliott, Seneca/Colubia, First Ave)?

    Could our Second Ave subway be built as cut-and-cover?

    1. I think that Seattle will eventually need a second tunnel through the city, if we are to add more N/S lines. I just hope that it’s built in a way that it’s easy to connect between the two – think underground pedestrian connections at each station, combined stations shown as one on a map, etc. In other words, add the second tunnel, but as part of an integrated, user-friendly system.

      1. I agree. Many connections are a pain in Chicago, not well integrated.

        I would think that a stop near Benaroya Hall might be an easy connection between the 3rd Ave tunnel and a 2nd Ave tunnel. One of the exits leads to 2nd Ave already.

      2. I wonder if we actually need a second tunnel though. The existing transit tunnel is really nice, I questions tha we’d be able to get something that nice all over again a block away. If capacity is an issue I’d personally prefer to see us expand the existing facilities givn how well integrated they are in the city. Plus we don’t even know if capacity will be an issue.

        What I’d like to see is the addition of a west seattle line that goes through the tunnel. Combined with the seatac and Redmond lines that 3 lines, and if you have a min of 2 minute headways that’s 6 minute headways for each of the 3 lines which is more than reasonable. However, if it turns out that this isn’t enough capacity then expand the stations to fit 6 car trains. Many other cities have trains longer than our current max of 4 cars. I’m not saying it’d be easy to expand the existing stations but at least you wouldn’t have to build whole new tunnels.

      3. Well expanding length of trains would increase capacity, but we’d likely have to reduce frequency to the lines currently in operation and in the pipeline. In other words, convenience would be lost by doing so, but capacity would remain what it is now or possibly increase slightly. We could tunnel below and share some stations, which is common in many places that use subways. Alternatively, the platforms in the tunnel could have services on the outer sides if the tunnel were expanded, although I’m not sure if that is feasible given the depth of the tunnels. I guess it’s a discussion we’ll have to come across in the coming years when things become clearer.

      4. The thing is that they want to have really close headways from Downtown to the U District and Northgate, so it won’t work to have a line split off Downtown towards Ballard. Also, they may need space for an Issaquah East Link branch in the tunnel continuing up to North Seattle in the future as well.

      5. As someone who grew up on Boston’s Green Line, I know a thing or two about over-capacity light rail tunnels.

        But frankly, it only happens when the headways are less than 90 seconds. And it’s exacerbated by a completely antiquated signaling system, which shouldn’t be a problem for Link.

        So unless you expect each of those hypothetical 3 lines in the current tunnel to be running at less-than-4.5-minute headways, you’re really not going to hit capacity.

        (That said, it still might be smarter to build a new tunnel than to try to dig a NW-bound spur off the current one.)

      7. Even if the above is true, it wouldn’t be a problem unless they started running all 3 lines at frequencies of less than 6-7.5 minutes.

        But I’m multiply incredulous of that claim:

        – Under the current arrangement, buses and trains run closer together than “2 or 2.5” minutes. When buses are evicted from the tunnel, removing one layer of signaling redundancy, why would the minimum headway increase?

        – Boston’s archaic signaling system includes lights that are always red, requiring a of full stop of each and every train, where turns in the tunnel occur. And 90-second headways are achieved with no problem. (In fact, even closer headways are commonplace, but cause backups.) So why shouldn’t Seattle’s signaling, which automates away that particular headache, allow at least the same headways?

        – The time-consuming check at Westlake Station to make sure the train is clear of passengers will disappear when Westlake is no longer the terminus. Also gone will be the problem of stub-tunnel capacity.

        – Frequency of grade crossings in SoDo would be a weak rationale, as 1/3 of the trains (the Eastside line) diverge before reaching any grade crossings.

        I looked up the numbers to bolster my previous comparison:

        Boston’s Green Line carries 237,000 passengers on an average weekday (let’s compensate for the minority of trips that don’t enter the central subway by rounding down to 200,000).

        On an average weekday, there are just under 400,000 boardings on the entirety of King County Metro’s system.

        So imagine if exactly half of the trips taken on Metro, at any time and anywhere in the county, made use of the transit tunnel. THAT’S how many people we’d have to squeeze down there to truly put the tunnel over capacity.

      8. Well, I don’t know about Boston, but many ST documents have said something between 2 and 2.5 minutes (I think I saw 2.4 in a couple places) is the lowest possible. And Boston’s subway is far more extensive. There’s no way that our short subway could handle 237,000 per weekday.

      9. Actually, that 237,000 weekday ridership is only for Boston’s light rail line (four branches merged into a single, very old tunnel). The three heavy-rail lines have integrated transfers but ridership is measured separately (481,300 is the number I just found). Although, as I said, the light rail is terribly overloaded at that high of a ridership level.

      10. The limiting factor is always going to be the stations. Boston among other things allows double-berthing trains, where two trains are stopped in the station at the same time, which lets them overlap dwell time, thus allowing for shorter headways.

      11. That’s a good point, anonymouse.

        But Link dwell times, even though I find them a bit languid, never really surpass 35-45 seconds. Total time from entering the station to clearing it completely never surpasses 90 seconds and should never really be more than a minute.

        And we currently have buses running much closer to the trains 2.4 minutes.

        So where are they getting that number from?

    2. Yeah I’m sure that we will need a new subway downtown for a West Seattle-Ballard line, although that’s a big point of contention in Seattle, with Mayor McGinn implying that he wants the West Seattle-Ballard Line to be almost entirely on the surface like MAX in Portland. It could easily have connections to the Third Ave subway at Pioneer Square, University Street, and Westlake. I think at the south end of Downtown it should stop at King Street Station, and they could build a connection from King Street to International District/Chinatown Station as part of that.
      I’m guessing they couldn’t do the whole thing cut-and-cover because that would just be too disruptive. It would probably be cut-and-cover stations with bored tunnels between them like with the Second Avenue Subway, and with all the underground light rail projects in Seattle.

    3. One problem is, it’s hard to argue against an expensive bored tunnel while in the same breath advocating for a different tunnel.

  2. http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Rider-Alerts.xml

    Central Link light rail will not operate between Westlake and SODO stations all day Saturday and Sunday, June 12-13, due to engineering work in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.

    ST did not give the reason why the tunnel is closed (other than “engineering work”), but there have sure been a lot of disruptions to light rail service in its first year of operation. You have to wonder if it wouldn’t have been possible to consolidate some of these disruptions (it was not that long ago that Light Rails was closed north of SODO for a weekend due to WSDOT construction on the ramps near Royal Brougham, and then there were the weekends of irregular operations due to installing switch heaters.)

    ST should place far greater priority on maintaining ordinary operations on light rail and either push construction work into the night window, or coordinate all construction work to be done in a 3 month period into one closure – and not let each different project close Link to fits its particular schedule.

    1. Yeah I have been wondering what the mysterious “engineering work” is. What more needs to be done for the DSTT?

      1. I don’t know anything for sure, but i would wager probably a full fire suppression or electrical upgrade, things that are not friendly to people being present when they’re being done.

      2. I would think that would have been done while the tunnel was closed to prepare it for light rail. But hey, maybe they didn’t think of it. (if not, they need better thinkers) :-)

      3. Actually, given the frequency with which Federal codes relating to such things change (literally every year, as they’re often attached to omnibus spending bills as riders), what they could be complying with might not have been present during the closure.

        Or, possibly, you’re dead right. One or the other, and i don’t really know which as it was conjecture to start with. :)

    2. The tunnel is closing for a Fire/Life/Safety system upgrade and test. This is to install software and test the automatic and managed responses to emergencies in the DSTT.

      Yes, it will take all weekend, and the entire system must be checked before it can be used by the public after the upgrade. By my basic count, that is about 50-60 scenarios to be run. I am bringing my earplugs. The alarm horn gets annoying.

      This is an overdue upgrade.

  3. Regarding the same rider alert that Carl posted, the next line reads as follows:

    Sound Transit will run a free bus shuttle between SODO Station and Westlake all weekend.

    WHY??? Really, why does Sound Transit need to run a free shuttle when there are many many other buses that go downtown and further from SODO station? Similarly, last summer Tacoma Link was closed and there was a free shuttle provided whereas there have to be at least 5 or 6 bus routes that go to the Tacoma Dome. ST should save some money and just inform customers about alternate bus routes to get where the rail line is closed.

  4. Ugg, I’m reposting due to my formatting error. Again, can STB get a comment preview option here?

    Regarding the same rider alert that Carl posted, the next line reads as follows:

    Sound Transit will run a free bus shuttle between SODO Station and Westlake all weekend.

    WHY??? Really, why does Sound Transit need to run a free shuttle when there are many many other buses that go downtown and further from SODO station? Similarly, last summer Tacoma Link was closed and there was a free shuttle provided whereas there have to be at least 5 or 6 bus routes that go to the Tacoma Dome. ST should save some money and just inform customers about alternate bus routes to get where the rail line is closed.

    1. A possible reason I can think of is for Link riders who pay in cash. If there were no shuttle, they would have to pay again to get downtown on Metro. With the shuttle, the customers aren’t hit twice.

    2. The regular service can only handle about 80 passengers per coach. Each train can seat twice that many, and can carry up to 400. There aren’t enough seats on the shuttles, let alone the regular service.

  5. Given that Manhattan and Brooklyn (like downtown Seattle) are rapidly depopulating (vacancies exceeding 20 percent), building more infrastructure seems like a really, really bad idea.

    In both places.

    People don’t want to live in smelly crowded downtowns. That’s just fact. We need high speed rail to carry us cross-state, not cross-town.

    1. I don’t think Seattle or Brooklyn are depopulating. Where’d you get that?

      High speed rail Vancouver-Seattle-Portland-Eugene would be nice, and even moderate speed rail twice a day Seattle-Spokane would be great.

      3. John Bailo is a noted [ad-hominem]. Extenuating circumstances do not burden him.

      4. There’s really no evidence for that statement except in this instance I will say that your lack of Latin prevents you from using the term correctly, “ad hominem” being “against the man” or arguer.

        My arguments are entirely against the idea.

      5. John,

        Please read our comment policy. Your Latin comment shows that you don’t understand what that editing mark means.

      6. Residential or commercial vacancies? The former can be explained by overbuilding in the housing boom, and the latter can be explained by the recession.

      7. That statistic is definitely for commercial vacancies.

        Manhattan and Brooklyn haven’t had any residential supply in excess of demand in decades.

        People do want to live near centers of activity. At least everywhere in the world where they haven’t been indoctrinated into thinking they don’t. Thus the urban-majority population on the planet.

      8. Manhattan Empty Condos May Be Rentals as Leases Reign (Update1)
        June 04, 2010, 2:58 PM EDT

        “Bailes and his family had plenty of places to choose from. About 8,700 new condos sit empty in Manhattan, with 75 percent not even listed for sale yet, said appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Priced at levels the market no longer supports, they’re selling so slowly it would take as long as seven years to find buyers for them all, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel.”

        http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-04/manhattan-empty-condos-may-be-rentals-as-leases-reign-update1-.html

      9. Just because people aren’t buying those condos doesn’t mean people don’t want to live there. The economy was shot to hell and people can’t afford the ridiculous prices.

        Additionally, 8,700 new units in a city that is home to 8+ million people. Hardly a dent and hardly a call for alarm.

      10. What Mike said, John. Your “evidence” is so harebrained that it leaves me speechless.

        Those are new units. Never-populated units that therefore can’t be depopulated. And expensive units. And units that will, probably, still rent once they’re offered for rent a still-expensive-but-competative-for-Manhattan price.

        There are about as many empty new units in Ballard alone.* The ones here are neither selling nor renting. And no one would consider Ballard “depopulating” either.

        *Note: In case you were wondering, Ballard is not an island with a population of 1,000,000.

    2. You were already proven wrong last time you claimed Seattle was depopulating. Please
      stop lying.

      2. From Seattle.gov and the U.S. Census:

        Seattle 1990 pop: 516,259
        Seattle 2000 pop: 563,374
        Seattle 2009 pop (est):602,000

        Seattle has added about a thousand people per square mile over the last 20 years so, yeah, please stop lying.

      4. It’s the best we have, John. What else would you have us use as a reference point? Traffic levels and commercial space occupancy rates? Those have more to do with the economy than population changes. You are the one suggesting a change to the status quo, the burden is on you to demonstrate some valid reason for believing there is a reversal in the trend.

      5. I get that John’s comments aren’t really…factual, but the fact that Seattle’s OVERALL population has grown is NOT proof against his statement that downtown is depopulating. People may not be fleeing to the suburbs, but people might live in, say, Ballard, not downtown.

      6. Downtown grew from 12,302 people in 1990 to 21,358 people in 2000, even though the 2000 data defines “downtown” as a slightly smaller area. John hasn’t provided a single valid reason for anyone to assume that growth didn’t continue from 2000-2010, and it would require a shocking and inexplicable turnaround for downtown to suddenly experience a “rapid depopulation,” although overbuilding prior to the great recession has probably led to a temporary increase in vacancy rates.

        Anyhow, it’s pretty fun to poke around the city’s demographic data and reports if you have the time.

    3. What a Bailoism. “Depopulating.” Detroit is depopulated. Cleveland and Cincinnati may have depopulated somewhat. Seattle’s population has grown. It’s above 500,000 due to the spate of condos and townhouses built in the last 20 years.

      The people who put down deposits on Belltown condos and then walked away probably did not do that because they suddenly decided they prefer the exurbs. Their financing fell through, or they decided the price was too high (which it was). The people who never showed up to buy empty units… I doubt they moved to the suburbs either. They didn’t exist: they were just phantom speculators looking to flip units, not potential residents.

      Please tell me where I can get an apartment in Brooklyn for $700 a month. They surely must have come down to that if the borough is really depopulated. Well, actually, I can probably get a whole building in Brooklyn for $50,000, don’t you think?

      I’ve never spent time in Clevland (just passed through on the Greyhound), but its new stadium construction looks nice from the bus, and I expect the population has stabilized or even increased a bit, as it has in almost every city in the US since 1990.

      1. Well I grew up in Cleveland and follow its fortunes still. Unfortunately, no its population has definitely fallen since 1990 by around 80-90k. This actually is the pattern for most of the rust belt city propers (not regions necc.) i.e. Buffallo, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Cleveland even since the 1990. The coast is growing, the midwest not so much.

        Ben

      2. Buffalo lost its reason to exist when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened.

        It needs to be bulldozed.

    4. High speed rail across the state is needed too. Well, not “high” speed. 110 mph would be a nice compromise. Urban rail and intercity rail aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s like saying, “Do you want a road to 145th Street, or on the other side of it?” The answer is both.

      1. Considering that the Japanese and Chinese are building maglevs that are exceeding 350 mph, why not us?

        Spokane to Seattle in 45 minutes is not unthinkable.

        I just went camping in Wenatchee this weekend. The train tracks currently follow route 2…I don’t see why we couldn’t just build a maglev along there and head out to yakima, richland, spokane…

      2. Would you care to pay for it? The good taxpayers of Washington may prefer to have ten medium-speed rail lines for the price of one maglev line.

    5. That’s a ridiculous statement to say they’re depopulating. The percentage of office and residential spaces taken up is going down because the market got way over-saturated during the housing boom. Their raw population is still growing, just not as fast as all of the recent condo projects opened.

    6. Manhattan and Brooklyn are certainly not depopulating. In fact, in the four years I’ve lived here the population has noticeably increased in certain neighborhoods. The fact that is a lot of folks like to live in places where they can quickly and easily get around without a car. It’s really quite nice.

      Change in Population NYC this past decade:

      2000 2009 delta percent change
      New York City 8,008,278 8,391,881 383,603 4.8
      Brooklyn 2,465,326 2,567,098 101,772 4.1
      Manhattan 1,537,195 1,629,054 91,859 6.0

      source: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/census/popcur.shtml

  6. Not under 1st Ave? Wouldn’t that be better for reaching the waterfront once the viaduct is removed? And for the developments on the Pier just west of the stadium (if the economy/that project ever recovers)?

    1. The thing is, it would be very hard to make connections between a First Ave subway and the current DSTT. Having a direct, easy connection between the two lines is vital. I don’t think that many people are going to access the Waterfront from First Ave, whether from a light rail line or the Central Streetcar. Regarding the Pier 46 development, that will be awesome if it ever happens, but it’s not happening for at least 20 or 30 years. A Second Ave subway, though, would probably jog over to First south of Pioneer Square in order to get around the stadiums and would probably stay on First all the way to the West Seattle Bridge, and could have a station at Edgar Martinez Drive or so, reasonably close to the Pier.

    2. Initially I thought 1st Ave was ideal, but now I support 2nd Ave due to construction impacts.

      I’m old enough to vaguely remember the transit tunnel construction in the 1980s, when 3rd Av was completely torn up for over 2 years. 3rd Av hasn’t recovered yet. At the time, 1st Av was known for peep shows and pawn shops. In the last 20 years 1st has gentrified into the most diverse/vibrant downtown avenue, which a multi-year tunneling project could ruin. Let’s be honest, right now 2nd Av has about zero to lose in an extended construction period.

  7. Just finished my tour of Pac Hwy from Tukwila Link to Fed Way TC, so I could see what this BRT system looks like.
    It’s an engineering marvel to behold. Even Rachel Maddow would have to be impressed with all the bright shiney new station stops, shelters, boarding platforms, lighting, TVM’s, Orca Readers, and dazzeling information kiosks, to include real time bus arrival information. Combined with new branded buses and much more frequent service (starting in a few months), the ridership should really skyrocket.
    Actually, NOTHING is changed on Hwy 99 except a little concrete being poured at Redondo P&R.
    It looks like RapidRide is going to amount to a bus with an extra door and a paint job, and the loss of 1/3 of the stops. Maybe that will make it rapid over the 174
    I’m really disappointed that’s the best we could do after all the hipe over the years.

    2. Wouldn’t that be amazing if RapidRide gets real-time arrival information before Link does.

    3. Yeah does anyone know when/if any construction will happen for RapidRide? I remember Swift construction taking at least several months.

    4. I like how “frequent service” continues to include periods of half-hourliness or less.

      2. RapidRide was supposed to be not just about improving individual corridors. It was about creating a network of high-volume trunk lines to replace the milk routes in the public’s transit consciousness and usage habits. 30-minute headways simply won’t do that. I’m not convinced that 15-minute headways, unless the reliability is more impeccable than Metro seems capable of implementing, would even do that.

        So I would argue that half-assing RapidRide means not going in the right direction at all.

      3. If you don’t accept incremental improvements, you’ll end up with nothing. The DSTT and SODO busway built the momentum for Link, and also made its capital cost lower. The creation of the 8, 75, and 30 (meaning the part west of the U-district) proved that crosstown service is high ridership. The 550 now has 15-minute service six days a week. Would you say no to all of that because it’s not 5-minute grade-separated rail running 24 hours a day?

        Metro and ST have proven over the past decade that they “get it”. Metro’s wishlist includes 15-minute service on all core routes, and a hub-and-spoke network between neighborhood centers. The problem is a lack of money to realize that vision, so it’s implemented piecemeal as funds are available. The other problem is backward-thinking neighborhood activists that sabotage improvements, like the east-west circulator in Rainier Valley (#39) — the reinstatement of the 42 took service hours that were planned for it.

      4. Mike, I don’t entirely disagree with you. Much of the inertia/intransigence, as you say, comes from dealing with parochial attitudes. And expressing an interest in frequent, core service rather than infrequent, politically-compromised tendril-routing is a first step in the right direction.

        But does Metro really “get it?” 15-minute headways on existing routes would help alleviate the problem of long and laborious transfers and reduce some overcrowding/reliability issues, but it might be the least efficient way to do so. Streamlining the routings and, where geographically feasible, consolidating routes or redrawing the map from scratch could achieve far more dramatic gains to the usefulness — and general trustworthiness — of the system. RapidRide was intended to be a gateway to that.

        So why is RapidRide such a disappointment. For starters, many routes (West Seattle, for example), will see near-identical frequencies as the routes they replace. Stop spacing may be increased, although in some places the proposed increases are negligible (Aurura) and in others they are excessive (West Seattle). Add in Metro’s backpedaling on off-board payment and the minimal changes to internal bus design and bike/wheelchair loading, and you may see no gains whatsoever.

        But the real opportunity missed with RapidRide that isn’t that rapid, advertised as “so frequent you won’t need a schedule” when it clearly is not, is that it does nothing to alter the transit habits of those not already on the line itself. A rider living along the 56 corridor in West Seattle has no reason to go out of her way to take RapidRide: it’s just not frequent enough, or fast enough, to justify the extra walk or the (currently non-existent) feeder/transfer. So she’ll have to remain stuck on the 56, crawling down 1st Ave S and over the Spokane low bridges. Not only does the RapidRide not serve her, she may feel embittered by its existence and by the hype surrounding something that hasn’t improved her transportation in the slightest.

        The newish rapid-bus network in Los Angeles was partly funded by new money (as RapidRide was supposed to be before the downturn). But its frequencies were bolstered by the agency diverting service from the prior fractured local route-structure to the new services, which it did forthrightly and unapologetically, explaining its rationale to sway the skeptical public.

        Metro could do the same thing — truncating the 21/22/56/etc. to a streamlined-for-easy-transfer point somewhere (no more dumb transit centers where the bus has to make a 270-degree turn to let you off and you miss your connection in the meantime) — and using all of the bus-hours saved to double frequencies on all of the above, improve north-south connections within West Seattle/White Center, and pump up RapidRide to 5-7 minutes to make the transfer worth everyone’s time. But they won’t do this. And RapidRide will remain useless to most. And that’s not “getting it.”

        I’m also a bit sad that you used the 75 as an example of services that prove cross-town transit as a functional necessity. The 75 is one of my go-to examples for Metro not getting it:
        http://metro.kingcounty.gov/cftemplates/show_map.cfm?BUS_ROUTE=075&DAY_NAV=WSU

        Ballard to the U-District via half the streets in North Seattle. A detour through the Community College and Northgate Transit Center that takes 3x longer than walking the gap it creates on Northgate Way. Counterintuitive like a fox!

        The 75 has ridership only because there is no better alternative. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense to have a more frequent route running the east-west segment (Crown Hill to Lake City, without the detour), and to have equally functional north-south through-connections (there is currently no through-service on Meridian Ave/College Way or 5th Ave NE)?

        To be honest, I was furious when Metro used our TransitNow dollars, at the behest of Children’s Hospital, to increase service on the 75 and the equally labyrinthine 25. To the detriment of 15-minute service on the core routes that were supposed to be on Metro’s “wish list.”

  8. The Seattle Times had a tiny blurb about how Metro will have automated bus stop announcments within a year…. They’re starting this Fall on a line near Seatac/Tukwila and will upgrade the rest of the fleet later.

  9. Zero Emissions Fuel Cell Hybrid Taxi Unveiled at London’s City Hall
    Black Cabs Go Green; vehicles being readied for 2012

    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/zero-emissions-fuel-cell-hybrid-taxi-unveiled-at-londons-city-hall-2010-06-07?reflink=MW_news_stmp

    “While the taxi looks and drives like an iconic London black cab, the Fuel Cell Black Cab is powered by an Intelligent Energy hydrogen fuel cell system hybridised with lithium polymer batteries; allowing the vehicle to operate for a full day without the need for refuelling. Capable of achieving a top speed of over 80 mph, it has a range of more than 250 miles on a full tank of hydrogen, refuels in about 5 minutes and produces no emissions other than water vapour.”

  10. Don’t forget there’s already a sewer under 2nd Ave, (and a train tunnel under part of 4th Ave)

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