This was taken on January 3rd. It’s nice to see the architecture of these freeway stations progress in some way.
77 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Mountlake Terrace”
Comments are closed.
Sunday Open Thread: Mountlake Terrace
This was taken on January 3rd. It’s nice to see the architecture of these freeway stations progress in some way.
Comments are closed.
What a dysfunctional KlusterFuk this is.
Bus stops on the street require 2-3 city block walk to the end of the HOV platform.
The parking garage is closer – about 1-1/2 blocks.
Add North Link to the west side of the Freeway, and you’re back over two blocks, and then it’s cul-de-sac and golf course friendly territory all around.
How much is this behemoth costing per rider?
At least it’s not as bad as Canon Park P&R. All that for 7 buses per hour during rush hour.
It’s interesting to me how consistently inconsistent people on this blog are. When it’s a project that you like, 2-3 blocks is an acceptably short walk, but when it’s a project that you dislike, the same distance is too far.
A 2-3 block walk along the side of a freeway is vastly different than a 2-3 block walk through a quiet neighborhood. I walk 3/4 of a mile through South Bellevue to catch the 550, and hopefully some day East Link, into Seattle or Bellevue but I’m not inclined to walk .7 miles from Bellevue Transit Center to Whole Foods in Bellevue.
“A 2-3 block walk along the side of a freeway is vastly different than a 2-3 block walk through a quiet neighborhood.”
True. And usually a 2-3 block walk through active urban space is better than both.
But a 2-3 block walk from your starting point to your transit stop is also very different from a 2-3 block walk that is supposed to be a “direct” transfer. (The added trepidation about “just missing” your connection is inversely proportional to the frequency.)
Quite some time ago I thought I had read on the ST and/or WSDOT that the freeway station was designed so that it could be converted to a light rail station in the future and that it was those future design constraints that required it to be situated so far north of the 236th St SW overpass instead of directly next to the overpass and the transit center parking garage as one would have expected.
As for ridership access, I informed ST at one of their North Corridor Transit workshops that connecting bus access to this station is extremely limited, especially from areas to the south because there is no good direct access from SR 104. There is excellent access in the reverse direction to SR 104 from the TC because of the freeway on-ramp is connected to the off-ramp but there is no similar connection in the northbound direction. This, of course, also limits SOV access to the park & ride.
I don’t see anything wrong with this one – it looks kinda nice!
I am still bothered by the airport Link Station if only because the great distance between the station and the south end of the terminal is very long when you have luggage and/or elderly parents in tow – even with my carrying most of their luggage.
I could swear I remember reading somewhere that they were planning on moving the terminal at Seatac at some point in the future, so that it’d wind up right next to the Link station. If I remember correctly the idea was to avoid having to move the Link station later on when the terminal got redone. Does anyone know if that’s right, or am I imagining all that?
To the other Tim: I think you’re aware, but one of ST’s alternative for the airport station was a station directly over the airport drive. It was shot down for a few reasons: the Feds didn’t like trains coming that close to the airport, SeaTac wanted a station that served their city, not just the airport, the curves were really tight making it hard for the trains to both go fast and easily extend further south, and most importantly, it would have cost way too much.
To Brian: The Port is planning on expanding the terminal–although it looks more like the D gates than the main terminal. I haven’t looked into it much, but here’s a map showing the proposed expansion (Note: very large PDF!)
@Tim,
I would love for Sea-Tac to expand the main terminal. When the airlines/check-in area is crowded, there’s no room for people to walk past to get to other airlines. The main terminal should be twice as wide, although that would make a drop-off area impossible. I’m sure there must be a way to design a terminal that is wide enough yet still have a drop-off area that is easy to get to.
@Cinesea go look at what Alaska/Horizon did. They took out the counters and offices and made the whole area between full of kiosks. Looks nice too, but it’s been forever since I’ve had to check a bag.
Tim,
That’s true…If more of the terminal was like the Alaska/Horizon area, then it wouldn’t be as bad. I was thinking of last week when I(due to parking constraints)got into the terminal around the Delta desks and had to walk to United, through massive throngs of people.
Indeed! Alaska’s “Airport of the Future” is great, and other carriers have adopted similar arrangements in other airports. Delta has done the same thing in Atlanta and also on a smaller scale in other airports like Salt Lake. In Delta’s configuration, agents still have to move bags off the scale and onto a belt behind them, while Alaska’s agents simply weigh the bag, press a button to print a tag, tag the bag and hit a button to advance the bag onto the system. All without having to stand up in most cases.
I think United is probably the worst… There are a few individual kiosks but United also has kiosks built into the ticket counter itself so a customer is taking up a kiosk even if they are working with an agent and vice versa. Anyhow, this is getting a little off-topic, but it’s nice to see that Alaska has put some thought into their system — it would be great if there were as many ORCA readers and TVMs in major stations as Alaska has in their check-in area.
They should simply expand the main terminal right over the road and connect to the parking structure directly. That way, loaders/unloaders are out of the rain, and you don’t have to walk across the bridges to get to train or parking.
Anyone know what the status of the Tukwila Sounder station is? They keep saying more money is coming in from the Feds, yet the temporary platforms are 10 years old now and the wooden shelters have corrugated roofs. STB-friendly Tukwila seems to be ignored as second-class while it accommodates a high percentage of non-SOV users (low parking, big nearby employer, decent commuter-route bus connections) as well as a curiously-placed Amtrak stop (Kent would probably have been smarter for a number of reasons), all while getting the station-placement shaft: the middle of a field between another set of train tracks and a largely-forested corporate campus.
I don’t know Mike, this doesn’t look that bad. True, it is disappointing if indeed the parking garage is closer to the stop than the stop for local buses – if anything, we should make it easier to ride the bus to a bus stop than to park a car there!
That said, constraints are constraints and I’m not going to play Monday morning engineer. Looks like a lot of the walk as well as the stop itself is covered, which is quite nice when it is wet. As far as freeway bus stops go, this looks pretty nice, and buses will be able to fly through it (so to speak). Much more efficient than many other freeway bus stops.
Brett,
I don’t ride freeway bus routes very often, but I sure can feel that route 550 is sure slowed down by getting off on Mercer Island and then having to make a few turns to get to the transit center. Having a situation like Mountlake Terrace should make the bus ride quicker for everyone in general, although it will make GETTING to the bus stop a bit more difficult for those specific riders.
Cinesea is right, but still… Why aren’t the bus transfers directly on 236th Street, and the platforms directly below it?
To me, the LINK and Sounder prove that what people really want are essentially parking lot shuttles.
They want to drive to a station, park, walk a bit the train, light rail, express bus … get on, go right to their destination for business, entertainment and so on, and then reverse in the evening.
This type of asymmetric architecture — which used to be the essence of “commuting” before the explosion in the suburbs — is still, as I see it, the most successfully type here in Puget Sound.
So, this is an asymmetry based on wanting to living in a low density area, but work or be entertained, in a high density area A(especially if it brings in more money).
Actually, Portland, OR pretty much proves that this theory only holds up WHEN planning has been suburban oriented for so long (like a lot of Seattle’s Infrastructure). Get some organized zoning like Cap Hill, Fremont, Downtown, etc out in those nasty suburban areas and you’ll have trips going every direction all the time. Anyway, just pointing out that it doesn’t always hold true once good design/usability is put into place.
“Suburban oriented for so long”
What a joke! How long have you lived here? There weren’t even suburbs 30 years ago. And since they although they are majority growth areas, they’ve been given the short shrift by the density advocates of Seattle!
If, in fact, there had been rational planning that recognized the growth corridors even 20 or 10 years ago, we would have had efficient express service between all the exurbs (all day long) that ran the traditional corridors (highways). We would have also built more highways (from what I can see, even with a population growth of 2 million people, most of it centered around Puget Sound, there has been zero new highways added. NONE! And yet, we are spending 1.6 billion per mile for a light rail system in the one area that has ZERO GROWTH!
No, this is not planning according to the demands of the citizens!
How long have you lived here? I commuted in to the UW my junior and senior years (1979-80) from Redmond. It was a suburb and the 520 bridge was crowded way back then. The big difference now is that it’s just as crowded, or more so, on the “reverse” commute. The UW had initially funded service from Redmond P&R (the one that was just replace by a multi story garage that is used less than the old parking lot that was out in the middle of nowhere back in ’80). Budget problems cut that service so I was damn glad for the Montlake Flyer stop. Irritating thing back then was that the HOV lanes on 520 were 3+ (which is fine) but it was NOT “Motorcycles OK” so even with two of us on the Honda 450 we couldn’t use the carpool lanes. That sucked!
Bailo lives in a parallel universe where Seattle is “depopulating” and everybody wants to live in a semi-rural homestead and take high-speed commuter rail to towns both large and small. Statistics show Seattle’s nadir was approx 420,000 in the 1980s and is now over 500,000 and climbing, yet he insists this imaginary “depopulation” is occurring.
There are a lot of people who want to live in a dense-ish neighborhood within walking distance of a train station. There are also a lot of people who want to live in semi-rural homesteads. But the wishes of the former have been ignored for fifty years and we have to crowd into the few places that have frequent bus service (Capitol Hill and Wallingford, etc). That is changing with Link, which offers frequent walkable service over a much wider area, but the investment in pedestrian-oriented infrastructure is only starting to catch up to the investment in auto-oriented infrastructure, and it has a long way to go.
Re highway construction, there was a freeway revolt here in the 1970s like there was in most of the US, and that’s why no new freeways have been built. All construction since then has been upgrades of existing highways (I-90, Bantz Blvd in Tacoma, Hwy 18, etc). Maybe 512 was new? The DBT and the potential Cross-Base Highway are the only “new” construction. I-605 (through Sammamish or eastern Washington) is still a dream.
As for suburbs vs exurbs, it’s unclear what those terms mean. The suburban ring in the 1970s ended at Renton, Kent, and Federal Way. Auburn and Puyallup didn’t get a sizeable number of commuters until the 1990s, and I think Covington was just a few scattered houses. I’d call Covington an exurb but not Kent, and Auburn and Puyallup are debatable. (I’d call Puyallup a suburb of Tacoma and a maybe an exurb of Seattle, given how it functions.)
On the positive side, it makes widening I-5 a real b!t¢h in the future!
Surprise! Surprise! Seahawks is still in the playoffs.
And the light rail trains were PACKED yesterday as I was on many of them.
Nice to have such a great parking lot shuttle.
It’s nice that Link can serve that purpose, but it’s also nice that I can ride Link to Columbia City and walk to a pub, barbecue joint, and cinema.
When do they expect to have this project completed this year?
it was supposed to be done for the Feb. service change, but is now supposed to be March sometime.
I’m going to toss out a question I’ve wondered about for years: Why, exactly, do Metro buses change route numbers mid-route?
Let’s say I’m walking around Capitol Hill. I get a call from a friend who wants to meet me for coffee in Ballard. I see a 43 coming up the street. Having not read the schedule ahead of time, I have no way of knowing if this bus will change into a 44 and continue to Ballard, or will turn around in the U District, unless I stop the bus and ask the driver.
This is only one example. But, in this case, why not just sign the bus as a 44 To Ballard all the way from Downtown to Ballard?
When a 43 is going to turn into a 44, it’s *supposed* to be signed as “43–Ballard via U District” until it gets to the U-district, at which point it’s officially a 44. However, it is not that bad to get on a 43 (or a 49) on Capitol Hill and transfer to a 44 in the U-district.
That said I agree that it is frustrating how routes are inconsistently designated as one route or different routes, and sometimes continue and sometimes don’t.
For example: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus/schedules/s015_0_.html . I don’t ride the 15, but it seems pretty hard to know where the route will actually go at any given time, i.e. where you’d be going if you stayed on through downtown. (I assume relatively few people stay on past downtown?)
That’s what happens when you have humans in charge of changing the signs. We have specific locations for changing signs that are designed to make the signage consistent. That said, I’m human and get preoccupied with driving, not hitting pedestrians, and other non-signage related duties.
I’ll be happy when (if?) the new radio/GPS system will change signs for us but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen or not.
Well is is stupid to have the drivers change those anyway. The fare & routing is just messed up with Metro. They seriously need to clean up those things so that the drivers can focus on driving and not what stupid signs or nonsense displays are showing up.
…and I write nonsense displays because a through route, changing numbers from say 26 to 124 (or whatever they do) is a total pain in the ass. One more reason it is extremely difficult for people form out of town, or even people living in the city, to keep up with what route is what – ESPECIALLY if you want to go THROUGH downtown.
There are cities that examples can be derived from, and Metro needs to step up and get that straightened out. What is in place is costing ridership – plain and simple.
LINK is not immune to this sort of problem.
Rode one a few weeks ago that had the audio announcements running backwards – I was supposedly on a “Train to Westlake, now entering Tukwila Intl Blvd Station”, when in truth I was on a train to the airport entering the ID/Chinatown station.
Chuckled all the way.
I saw that one that announced “This is the train to Westlake Station” at Westlake Station toward the airport. Woah, that’s some pretty intense TOD at Rainier Beach Station. Ha ha.
I’ve found that the 43/44 drivers do a pretty good job of having the correct signage – so (as Becky mentioned) you can count on seeing “43- Ballard” or “44 – Downtown” (or “44 – Capitol Hill” for buses that end at Broadway). For folks who haven’t lived here that long it used to be one route – the 43 – that took forever to go from Downtown to Ballard via Capitol HIll, Montlake, the U District, and Wallingford. They split it to improve reliability, much like they did then they made the northern half of the 7 the 49.
Most of Metro’s buses through Downtown don’t seem to hit routes that are particularly related or that may have a lot of folks going through to the new route. I think the 43/44 is fairly unique in this regard.
But my point was – if I can stay on one bus to get from one stop to another, why isn’t that considered one bus route? Why does a 7 turn into a 49? Why does a 27 turn into a 17? and so on…
How many other transit agencies do this?
I think it makes a lot more sense Downtown – my 26 from East Green Lake turns into a 124 to the Tukwila Link Station. There’s no direct correlation between the routes except that they have a similar service frequency. I think it makes sense for Metro to do this to limit turnarounds Downtown and (hopefully) use their resources as efficiently as possible. They could describe them as 26 – East Green Lake and 26 – Tukwila Link or something like that but I think it could make it more confusing. I know in Philly the commuter rail uses similar route numbers for the pairs with the destination (R5-Paoli and R5-Doylestown, etc.) but I don’t know if folks find it all that helpful.
I believe the reason for the different numbers is that there are a lot of 44s that don’t become 43s and vice versa and the same is true with the 7/49. They seem to have made the call that it’s less confusing to have some buses switch route numbers midway than to have multiple destinations on one route number.
Also, Metro doesn’t have to pay an operator to take a break at the end of one route before beginning the next.
It’s especially helpful downtown, where there are few spaces for them to park the coach to take a break.
Furthermore, if you’re trying to get from Downtown to 23rd & John, you know you can take the 43 to get there. The fact that some 43s turn into 44s doesn’t matter to you. If, instead, we had, say a route 40 that was the same thing as a 43 plus a 44, you’d have to not only look at the schedule for the 43, but also the 40. Your 43 would appear to come less often, and the 40 wouldn’t come very often at all.
The 43/44 is kind of unique as they are both trolley routes–using overhead wires to power the bus. There is no way to access the 44 wire without driving up the 43 route. So the solution is to run the 43s so they turn into 44s. The 43 could layover in the U-District, but the end of roue 43 is most of the way through 44’s route through the U-District, so it’s through-routed.
Paul: For most of these pairs, the number of through-riders is probably close to 0. Keeping the routes separate gives Metro the flexibility to change the through-routing if necessary. Otherwise, you’d have to change the numbers of existing buses whenever you wanted to change which bus was linked to which, and that would just suck.
Kevin: I think you’re absolutely right, but it’s always seemed weird to me that Metro seems to practice this so inconsistently. For example, it’s clear from looking at the 7 that there are quite a few route variations just within a single number. Even something as simple as the 46 has three different route variations (out of 11 trips per day…)
For something like the 43/44, which is essentially one route with three different service patterns, I do wonder if it wouldn’t be more consistent to just use one number for both, and use the destination sign (possibly including a suffix letter, as with express buses) to indicate the terminus.
You should see the 10/12. I pity the visitor who doesn’t realize the “12” is actually the 10 and doesn’t get on it.
It used to be quite different from the way it is now. Once upon a time there used to be quite a variety of “7” buses. To the southend you might take the 7 Rainier/Graham, 7 Rainier/Rose or 7 Rainier/Prentice. Northbound the 7 could be signed 7 15th Ave NE/145th St, 7 15th Ave NE/85th St, 7 15th Ave NE/50th St, 7 View Ridge/85th St, 7 View Ridge/145th St, 7 Lake City/145th St. Plus there also were several Express and Blue Streak routings that added to the confusion.
It would be nice, in this era of digital signage (as opposed to rollsigns) to have the fact that the bus will continue on to another route number (and not every run does, I know) is announced on the “cycle” of destination information so that the boarding rider can learn about this as the bus approaches.
Far better than wasting a “frame” on “Go Seahawks!” or “Merry Christmas” or some other unnecessary information.
I think that station looks kind of cool. Every time I go past it reminds me more and more of a Benihana.
Just don’t be going there to toss around cooking knives, OK?
Danny Westneat has an interesting column in today’s Seattle Times about our obsession with discussion of matters big and small:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2013884881_danny09.html
At some point, someone has to make decisions and be a decider and be consistent and build acceptance around agreement. Our state and local leaders have deliberated, discussed and made a decision (I am referring to the tunnel) but they have yet to build acceptance around the agreement which is partly the fault of our penchant here to endlessly second guess everyone else. At times, this is very healthy, but not so, when the economy is really suffering, the needs are great, the advantages there to be seized of weaker commodity prices and the end result hopefully a civic engineering wonder to the eyes of future engineers. OK, that last point may be fanciful but you get the gist of what I am saying. Any initiative to block the tunnel or further opposition from Mayor McGinn threatens the integrity of the voter-elected representative compact – namely that the latter have the devolved power to decide and we the retained power to remove at election time. Any other arrangement is politically unstable and inefficient. Sure McGinn got elected but he muddied his path to power on the tunnel issue and can hardly be said to have a mandate as far as this is concerned.
That’s the nice thing about democracies as opposed to authoritarian rule, folks can have input throughout the process. It’s when out elected leaders forget this, that the fun begins.
And when we forget that we elected them, chaos reigns….
Of course it also happens when decision making processes are stretched out so long that the underlying constituency changes and thus the demands are different…
Given yet another thread hijacking this week, a suggestion for the site: suspensions or permanent bans after X number of moderated comments. Not entirely enforceable of course.
I’m looking forward to seeing this station in action. The walks are longer than I’d like, but they will apparently be enclosed and no longer than the walkways ferry riders use. They’re a *lot* shorter than the walks we’ll require of UW students to campus or airport customers to their terminals. The bigger advantage of this type of station is that Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace riders can share the same bus routes, resulting in higher frequencies and shorter headways for both without requiring buses to wander around on city streets. I hope it’s successful; if it is, someone should look at bringing a similar level of passenger separation to the similar stop at Eastgate.
I’m not familiar with how the bus-to-bus transfers will work at Mountlake Terrace Station. However, there is a difference between having a four-block walk from one’s house to a bus stop, and a train stop to a bus stop. The long distrance for transit-to-transit transfers (and that includes the airport) means *a lot* more people are affected, and so a lot more people opt out. For daily transit-to-transit rides, that means a lot of people are inconvenienced daily, get tired of it, and opt back into driving as their preferred mode.
It is impossible to give everyone a short walk from their house to a bus stop, but it is usually a simple matter to make transit-to-transit transfers short and easy. That said, I’d have to give Mount Baker a “C” on transfer ease and the plan for UW Station a “D”. There is still time to do UW Station transfers right. Doing it right is a political decision that comes down from the County Executive. Executive Constantine, do the right thing. Let the buses serve UW Station directly. UW Students will love you for intervening on their behalf.
The problem with the UW station transfer is not that the bus stop is in the wrong place. The ridership projections back up Metro’s decision to put the stop closer to the UW Medical center than the light rail station.
It’s the Link station that’s in the wrong place. And that’s far harder to move.
The station may be in the wrong place, but that’s where UW allowed it to be.
If the ridership projections show that most of the riders are going to UW, then why make it so hard to get from the eastside to UW? The extra minute to serve UW Station, and then the medical center, would mean a lot more people would have a much easier time getting to the medical center (as well as other destinations around campus, some of them a rather long walk).
I’m sorry, LT, but denying UW students easy bus access to UW Station is *not* a service to UW students.
Idea for a service change:
Route 41
Trips that DO NOT use the I-5 Express Lanes should serve the I-5 & NE 45th St Freeway Station.
They used to do this and it never made any sense to me. From Downtown to the U-District, there are much faster options and from the U-District to Northgate, there are certainly more direct ones. The 16 in Wallingford and the 66,67 on 11th would be closer options than taking a 44 to the freeway stop.
But I have not seen the other sides of arguments many times. This might be another one.
Well, the 510 and 511 stop there in all but peak hours, so it must make some sense.
If you’re at 45th and 11th, the walk to the freeway station is short and the ride is much faster. Furthermore, you can actually ride past the TC without transferring again.
When I was living in the U-District, sometimes I’d take the 510/511 just because the non-express 70s felt infuriating slow.
It would be faster than the 71/72/73X on Eastlake. There used to be a bus that came up I-5 to 45th and then to UW, but less often than the 73X. I always took it because was faster. Of course, the speed advantage disappears whenever I-5 is congested. I think the reason most of the freeway routes don’t stop at 45th is that people would use it. Half the bus gets off at 45th when an express stops there, and that slows down the ride for the people in the north end who have no choice, to give a super-express for those going to the U-district who already have many choices.
PS. You can still see the speed difference if you take the 71/72/73X northbound between 9am and noon (or whenever they reverse the express lanes). The bus goes on the I-5 regular lane, gets off at 45th and goes down Roosevelt to Campus Parkway. It’s faster than Eastlake but not as fast as the express lanes.
I believe the predecessor to Route 41, the 307, stopped at 45th. Somewhere in my garage I still have the ridership numbers from 1998 at that stop.
I recall that it wasn’t that great, and that the ridership on 510/511 definately exceeds what the 307 ever did. Lot’s of folks from both Everett and Lynnwood use the 45th Street stops, and there are many boardings from there to downtown as well.
Folks who live around I-5/45th have figured out that the 510/511 is THE way to get to/from downtown during off-peak hours. It’s so much faster than the 16, 26, or 70’s (eastlake config).
I think the 307’s ridership pattern showed conclusively enough that there wasn’t a large Northgate to I-5/45th market.
I use the SeaTac station a lot, often weekly for business filights, starting from Mt Baker. I agree that with elderly parents, or a pile of kids, or a lot of checked bags, Link is too far away.
But, sorry, that’s what taxis are for, and indeed when I have a huge workshop suitcase, plus my personal bags — I drive myself, get a ride, or call a cab.
I appreciate the 1100′ or whatever of walking I have to do. I could always use the exercise.
FWIW, the walk is worse at MSP to get to the Hiawatha line to downtown Minneapolis, especially from the Humphrey terminal.
Really they need have the in-terminal assistance electric carts on call to the station too. I basically had to “steal” one of the complimentary wheelchairs in the terminal when my elderly father visited. I just left it at the station, but there was no designated area to drop it off that I could see. I also don’t remember seeing a SmartCart dispencer/return spot there – though I admit I wasn’t looking for it.
The 1100′ is actually to the first set of airline counters, if you have to hit IcelandAir, that’s another story
Yes, but then the same issue was in place when you had to walk from “Door 00” (or whatever it was called) to the United Counters back in the 194/174 days.
You kids have it pretty good, I reckon.
Now get off of my lawn!
Are moving sidewalks on the Port’s wishlist?
I have heard that only the 510 and 511 will use new MLT flyer stop. It seems like a big expense for only 2 routes. No CT UW routes will stop there, and i don’t think any of their downtown routes either.
I have a post up on Build the City about trolley trucks – movement of goods using trolley-pole powered electric trucks. If anyone here has any experience with this type of equipment, or the wireless smart meter than would be required for it to work, please comment. Thanks.
The first key decision with capital projects such as the MT freeway stop is design for short transfer walks and adequate bus capacity. Then the transit agencies must see fit to make them sing with service frequency. how many CT and ST routes will serve the MT freeway stops? to date, the MT stop will have limited service; if more routes served it, waits would be shorter and additional transfer connections would be provided.
Skehan asks about north Link. Why should north Link be on I-5 at all? It makes much more sense for both land use and ridership for it to be in the SR-99 all the way north to Lynnwood. the I-5 envelope is a poor place for stations: it has low density, single family zoning, its interchanges will be congested and a poor place for local buses connecting with Link, and SR-99 station areas have much more current and potential zoning capacity. transit on I-5 can already go fast. Its speed and reliabiltiy will be enhanced by tolling. transit speed on SR-99 would be enhanced by Link.
The SR-520 project need to retain the functionality of the Montlake freeways stops. the current designed if under funded by $2 billion and does not have this transfer function. the transit agencies do not have funds to mitigate its loss with service frequency, given the east Link decision.
The capital side of such projects need facilities for service in both directions. at Eastgate, there are no local bus stops on 142nd Place SE.
Agreed, Hwy99 is far superior to this kind of NTOD (Not Transit Oriented Develop-able).
The 55 mil. they’re spending on this is shameful.
Fortunately the North Corridor EIS is taking both the I-5 and 99 alternatives seriously, and is recognizing 99’s urban-village advantages. It will be interesting to see the cost-speed-TOD results.
99 may be better long-term, but we’ll have to sell it to commuters who want I-5, and also address what would happen to the TC if 99 is selected. Either the express buses will run in addition to Link or they won’t. ST/CT will probably not curtail the buses unless Link’s travel time is almost the same. If the buses are running, they’ll compete with Link and it’s another expense. If the buses don’t run, the TC will be empty and residents will be angry their taxes were spent on it. (And their anger may extend to transit in general.)
I have a couple questions about the 520 bridge replacement project. First, when will the 520 bridge be closed down for construction of the new approaches and when will it reopen once it’s complete? Secondly, has any official final decision been made about retaining the Montlake Flyer stop for the new Montlake interchange?
No date’s been set for the west-side approach, and it’s still unfunded. The current timeline has the bridge being built from the east-side out, 2012-2014, and being attached to the current 4-lane west-side approach until the 6-lane rebuild is completed.
And the final decision about the Montlake Flyer stops is no. Although since there’s no funding for the interchange yet, and nothing’s gone out to bid, anything can still happen. The HOV ramp stations will still provide a connection to Redmond via the new 542, but that route is currently peak-only, and there’s no replacement for the 255 connection.
In the long term, eastside-bound 48 & 43 riders will switch to East link via easy transfers at the I-90/Rainier station or the Capitol hill station. route 25 riders are left in the lurch, unless the 542 gets all-day service. People headed to Kirkland and points north are stuck with an extra transfer at Bellevue TC, or a downtown transfer (with all the associated delays).
It’s possible for buses headed across 520 to hit the proposed HOV ramp stations. Westbound it’s a pretty smooth stop that wouldn’t take much more time than the Flyer station, but Eastbound we’re looking at least a couple minute delay to make the Left-right zigzag in a congested interchange. Who knows if ST would even consider the routing (and an all-day 542 eliminates the need). Metro might be willing to do it for the 255 though, as it’s not an “Express” and Metro tends to value local connections more than ST.
I haven’t seen numbers AT ALL for transfers at the montlake stop to/from neighborhoods south of the cut. I don’t know if it’s even been studied. The whole project has been looked at from a UW-centric point of view, while connections to the MASSIVE Seattle neighborhoods south of montlake have been seemingly ignored. This is a key transfer point for Metro’s 1st and 11th most ridden routes, but they’ve been operating under the assumption that all 48 & 43 riders care about is getting to the UW, and not making any attempt to verify it statistically.
STB logo change. I just noticed that the STB logo changed, any particular reason?
No pants light rail ride! I had a surprise appendectomy so I wasn’t able to partake myself :(
Ah, that makes sense. :)