For the next few months, Sound Transit is installing new sound walls in Tukwila around Central Link. The impact on riders is that from April 1st through the end of July, on weeknights trains will drop to 20 minute frequencies after 9pm. Usually it runs every 10 minutes until 10pm and every 15 minutes after that.
I asked ST spokesman Bruce Gray a couple of questions about this:
Are you making any exceptions for game nights?
We’ll be able to have the same number of trains/seats online to clear out games as we’ve ever had. We’re able to clear those post-game crowds pretty quick by having consists ready in the Stadium pocket and ready to roll out of the base. Post-game headways will be more like peak headways because of the extra trains on the line.
We expect big things from the Ms this year and we’re going to make sure their fans have a good experience getting to and from the games on Link.
Why not use the turnaround track at Rainier Beach to maintain headways for most of the line? Between 9 and 10, for instance, it’s pretty straightforward to turn around every other train at RB, maintaining 10 minute headways for most of the line and 20 minutes on the Tukwila segment. Unfortunately, after 10pm the math doesn’t work out so neatly.
Our opps folks call it “operationally inefficient.” It also provides more opportunities for things to go wrong and throw the entire line off schedule… And keep in mind we’re really only talking about an extra 10 min headway between 9-10. After that it’s an extra 5 from the usual schedule.
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[comment policy complaining]
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One question you should have asked: will they be running two-car consists?
Especially between 9 and 10, 20-minute headways with one-car consists will result in some very crowded trains. Also, it’s routine to have several bicycles on board at that time of night, further worsening congestion on board.
I’ve rarely seen anything less than 2 car consists these days. I think once in the last 4 months.
Even at night? I rarely ride Link anymore at night since I moved to the north end in December, but until then, all trains leaving downtown after 7:40 p.m. on any non-game night were single-car consists.
They did not double up during the last period of reduced frequency due to maintenance, which led to the only times I’ve been on truly crush-loaded Link trains.
I’ve only seen it late at night.
Yes, even at night. And I regularly take late evening or late night trains.
Have they run 3 car trains yet? I think the Pine street stub can support them. Might be a better way to move people during game nights.
The tracks between the Pine Street stub and Capitol Hill Station will be installed starting later in April and finished in July. After that, the lines still have to be electrified and other safety systems installed. I think 3- and 4-car trains are still aways away, if before U Link opens.
But then, will UW Station, with space allocated to receive the North Link TBMs, be able to handle four-car trains?
UW Station’s crossover is south of the station, so as a terminus it should operate similarly to Seatac/Airport Station. The station is long enough to berth 4-car trains so I see no reason they couldn’t operate those. The TBM extraction shaft is north of the station. Its presence means they can’t really have tail tracks so station entry speeds will be low (for braking distance/overrun reasons) but otherwise shouldn’t impact operations.
The entire system is being built for four car trains. ST is operating two car trains for now to save maintenence money.
Do us a favor, Bruce. Please have someone from operations write in and explain exactly why the use of the track described is “operationally inefficient”.
Many thanks.
Mark Dublin
Yes, given that there are a whole host of reasons to use them. If you don’t anticipate turn backs at some stations during peak periods, you’re going to have trains that people won’t be able to get on because they arrive completely full. And with the opening of ULink, the problem will escalate because it will be people going beyond downtown. E.g. coming from South King County and going to UW may create full cars. Leaving people say at Beacon Hill with no way to get on board.
They can always just add more cars to each train. Once U-Link opens there is no reason to stick with 2-car trains.
I’d assume it has to do with the reality of short-turning a line: to maintain headways on the ‘normal’ part of the line, you have to make the vehicles turning back sit and wait at Rainier Beach for the amount of time they would have spent serving the Tukwilla/Sea-Tac segments of the line. Otherwise vehicles get out of order and the headways get all messed up. Obviously, sitting at the station doing nothing could be called ‘inefficient,’ but one can argue that maintaining the service riders expect is never inefficient.
An alternative would be to operate the two lines separately, and force a transfer at Rainier Beach station. That stinks for anyone traveling to Tukwilla or Sea-Tac, but the majority of riders aren’t doing that, especially in the evening and late at night.
On a related note, the announcement the VMS system is playing really needs to be checked by a copywriter. “Link is running ever 20 minutes from 9PM to 1AM each weeknight” is horribly worded, easily misinterpreted, and lacking in information that riders would find useful. Why is it only running every 20 minutes? Is this a permanent change, or temporary? A better phrase would be, “Monday through Friday, from 9PM until 1AM, Link will be operating every 20 minutes due to trackside maintenance.” Rider Alerts should be posted by schedules at stations, as well.
I’d suggest the following modification of your (very good) rewording to aid in on-the-fly comprehension:
1) Reason first. It lets people set expectations and start processing the message before they hear the specifics.
2) Details second. By the time they hear these, they will have processed the fact that there is trackside maintenance and will be listening for details of how it will affect them.
So:
“Due to trackside maintenance, Link will be operating at reduced intervals between 9PM and 1AM, Monday through Friday.”
They don’t need to know that the intervals are twenty minutes. In fact, they probably don’t even know how frequently they run now. This information can be put on reader-boards, or if you’re hell-bent on putting it in the audio announcement, append this to the end: “During this time, trains will run at twenty minute intervals.”
This is (from my recollection) how the London Underground phrases their announcements, and I consider them the golden standard for efficient, comprehensible messaging.
Just to be clear, this response above was not by the Charles that Will knows…
Very true. You were the first Charles, and I will gladly take this name to differentiate myself.
Single track operation between RBS and South 133 street cross-over uses the Rainier Pocket track which would conflict with using it as a layover. It would be possible – but would increase the likely hood of delaying train movement. This could disrupt the re-written schedule and introduce a cascade of delays elsewhere.
Thinking out loud:
I can’t remember (or find a PDF of the Central Link EIS) if there is a crossover track between Rainier Beach and Othello – is there? If so, would it be possible to have trains doing a short turn-back crossover before arriving at Rainier Beach, and hold at the platform before moving northbound again? The operation would, in practice, be similar to how Sea-Tac station works, except that only trains not continuing south would make the switch. Since effective headways would be maintained, such a case shouldn’t cause undue delay. Even if it did, as long as those delays are <10 minutes, you're still coming out ahead for riders.
Will Green – there is an interlocking immediately north of Othello. The movement you suggest would encroach on the headway of Northbound trains: it takes three minutes to travel between RBS and Othello. It would’ve necessary to allow five minutes to load and unload at RBS. This would occupy the circuit too long. It would likely delay the northbound train from Sea-Tac.
I doubt that SCADA would permit a single track routing northbound from 133rd to RBS and a simultaneous Southbound routing on the northbound track between Othello and RBS.
It’s a shame the track geometry and signaling make it difficult to maintain shorter headways during maintenance on some sections, but so it goes. Thanks for humoring my curiosity!
Hey, ST.
Just publish a schedule for the four relevant months. Post it temporarily in all stations. Appease those of us who think you don’t care.
No excuses. Just do it.
Just get the next train info up and running. Schedules are sooo….1950’s bus tech.
I’d be happy with just pushing out accurate data to OBA.
Schedules tell you when to arrive at the train station in order to get to your destination at the desired time.
“Next train info” only gives you ONE train’s arrival time at ONE station, so it can’t be used for planning.
Schedules are the basis of Google Transit information.
Schedules are useful for low-frequency service. Thinking that you need a schedule is low frequency “bus think”.
If a train is coming every 7 to 10 mins, I don’t really care about the schedule — I just go to the station and get on a train.
20 minutes is a low-frequency service. Period.
Here’s spokesman Bruce Gray’s quote: “After that it’s an extra 5 from the usual schedule.”
Give us the damn schedule. Every 20 minutes is not something where I want to show up and see that the next train is in 18 minutes.
20 mins is just the temporary headway while they work on the line. It would be a waste of tax dollars to develop schedules for a short term, temporary situation.
This isn’t 1955.
Lazarus, that cost argument is ridiculous. Unless train drivers just pull out of the station when they feel like it, there already is a schedule. All that’s being requested is for Sound Transit to print a few copies, tape them to the wall in the stations, put it on their website, and call it a day. Sure there’s a non-zero cost involved in doing so, but it’s really not significant in any way.
A waste is still a waste.
Silly part is Lazarus, Sound Transit more than likely has already created new schedules and paddles for the change in schedule, so why not publish the information? Of course why not publish the actual link schedule to begin with?
Pissing people off, and convincing them the agency is ignorant of its “core service you can rely on” mission, is a far greater waste.
Seattle: Penny wise and pound foolish 4eva.
I heard a station annoucement about this a week ago, but I couldn’t hear enough of the announcement to tell whether it was really a Link schedule change. Later I heard another annoucement and saw a sign on a train confirming it. I thought it was more of that copper replacement work, so it’s nice to know they’ve finished that and are on to other work.
Why does everyone here overreact when LINK has to temporarily reduce their night service? It’s only for a few months, and it’s only after 9 PM. And the reduced frequency will still be better than 99% of the bus routes out at that time of night. For example, the route 255 is 30 minute frequency from 9 PM to 10 PM, then 1 hour frequency from 10 PM to 12 PM. Quit complaining.
Service reductions for maintenance are inevitable. The issue is how much this erodes Link’s promise of frequent service. People have moved to Rainier Valley because of Link, and are cutting down on cars because of Link’s frequent service. If it’s suddenly not frequent anymore, it changes the situation from “reliable transit, finally” to “unreliable transit, as usual”. That affects people’s choices even after full service is restored. It’s not going to destroy Link’s potential, but it is one dampening effect which needs to be recognized and minimized as much as possible. Kirklanders should have more than an hourly evening bus. But Kirklanders know they can’t travel without timing it to the hourly schedule. Rainier Valleyites have come to expect that they can go anywhere, anytime on transit without a long wait. If you take that away, they’ll just turn back to cars as Kirklanders have done.
Don’t feed the trolls… :)
The C, D, 2/13, 3/4, 7, 36, and 71-73 all have fifteen-minute headway 9-10 pm, outbound from the CBD, 7 days a week.
You’re welcome.
This might be one of the few times that I’d agree with Sam. I remember when they were rebuilding Philly’s El section from 46th all the way to the terminus. Every night, they’d cut service, operate on one side of the track for weeks at a time, give a brief reprieve, and start it all over again. This will have little to no effect on Link’s promise on providing service. They’re advertising it to everyone who is a frequent rider and it’s most certainly after peak hour service.
We cannot expect a system that has to undergo maintenance to provide this service at 100%. Geez, even online banking has worse up-time than the Link and people still bank regularly.
This is a schedule for Philly’s Market-Frankford Line: http://www.septa.org/schedules/transit/pdf/mfl.pdf
Dollars to doughnuts that SEPTA published an amended schedule for any extended period of work.
SEPTA isn’t even a particularly good example of organizational efficiency, but there, in front of your face, is a schedule.
It’s not that anyone is unaware of the need for maintenance, nor that we deny that major work must be done on other cities’ systems that may be cause a similar or greater level of interruption.
But your example of a total rebuild of 80-year-old Philadelphia infrastructure is telling.
Our line is three years old, and the modifications being made are relatively slight. I think it bothers people that Sound Transit is so ill-prepared as to prevent us from even enjoying the primary benefit of new infrastructure: that it shouldn’t yet be at the point where it breaks down.
If the newness of the thing is why we have inadequate stop spacing, overbuilt stations, poorly located connections, and the world’s slowest portal-entry guidelines, then the least we can do is to enjoy all of those things uninterrupted.
The additional insult is the lack of a schedule when service drops to clearly-needs-a-schedule levels. Sound Transit comes across as ignorant of or unserious about its mission to provide Seattle’s first service that you can use all the time, without having to overthink it. That includes at night.
This repeated error does not bode well for the agency’s future ability to satisfy that urban-service mission.
dp – the schedule was meaningless during the construction phase. Yes, there was a schedule for regular operating hours during non-maintenance periods of time, but during the rebuild, there was no updated schedule. Just headway information.
Look – I wish we had a way better system (2 minute notifications of a train’s arrival? Why are we reinventing the wheel with arrival notifications when other systems have had this feature for years/decades?), better tunnel operations for both bus and link (just pay at the top of the platform, flat fee.), one generic transportation organization instead of 6, the list could go on and on, but yet here we are complaining about a minor minor problem in the grand scheme of things. This is **off-peak** maintenance. It will inconvenience some people, however, with proper planning, most of the inconvenience can be avoided.
“(2 minute notifications of a train’s arrival? Why are we reinventing the wheel with arrival notifications when other systems have had this feature for years/decades?)”
It comes down to money. It cost less to implement the minimal 2-minute announcement than “SeaTac/Airport — 6 minutes”. So they bought the electronic signs and a minimal timer and that was it. This is one of those little things we could ask for in ST3, like a Graham station. A package of minor improvements to the existing line would cost only a mile or two of a new extension. But every time I’ve brought up the idea of pushing for a Graham station in ST3, nobody has been interested or said “Let’s do it”.
“better tunnel operations for both bus and link (just pay at the top of the platform, flat fee.)”
This makes the most sense. Why can’t Metro just accept Link tickets? It should cost little to add a bus option to the TVMs.
“one generic transportation organization instead of 6”
There’s tradeoffs with that. It works in Germany and Vancouver where the regional agency has both the authority and the will to put transit where it’s needed, with appropriate levels in the city and suburbs. But it’s unclear whether it would be better or worse in Pugetopolis’ fractured political environment. What if the uber-agency sells out to suburban interests, especially with twenty suburban mayors to answer to vs one city mayor. If there’s only one transit agency, there’s nowhere else to go. ST is preserving weekend regional service in Snohomish and Pierce Counties even when the local agencies have been devastated by cuts. That at least gives people a minimal amount of mobility, on the distances they can least walk/bike. But what would we do if there were only one transit agency, and a tax-cutting initiative forced it to eliminate weekend service? Then there would be no transit anywhere.
“here we are complaining about a minor minor problem in the grand scheme of things”
Yes, of course it’s minor. The complaint level probably remains constant both when larger problems are present and when they’re not. Most of our complaints are longer-term issues, not whether maintenance occurs these three months or those three months. My comment about Link’s frequent reputation being harmed was more of a cumulative issue: late evening service has been reduced on and off several times in the past year for various maintenance projects. This issue of installing a sound wall sounds like just another sign that the Tukwila segment was done too cheaply; e.g., we still have the problem of shimmying trains on the curves, and the ongoing need for track lubrication.
“Only a 10 minute change in frequency”
Imagine if, for three months, the speed limit on I-5, at all hours, was 30 mph. “It’s only a 25 mph change in the speed limit”…
Imagine if SR-520 were to close for entire weekends! Yes sir, car drivers would never be asked to put up with such a debilitating cut in their right to service.
Or just imagine if they ever had to replace the joints on a section of I-5, and reduced the lanes over a summer. Or if they ever closed most of the Alaskan Way Viaduct for a few months. They would never do that to precious car drivers, but they do it all the time to light rail. It’s unfair!
Isn’t it 60 right now?
Having just one or two ORCA boarding assistants at ID Station after events could make a world of difference in clearing out the crowds. If this is deemed to be part of the Operator job description (and too technical for Fare Inspectors), then Operations Supervisors should also be qualified to do it. If there is a supervisor standing around at ID Station to see that the crowds get cleared smoothely, put an ORCA reader in her/his hands.
So if the Mariner look like they’ll have another finish 60-102, we can expect 20 minute headways by July?
If they stink that bad the only thing that stops a Stadium Station is an old fish wagon!
Will trains run at full speed through the affected segment? When they were replacing the copper wire I knew that headways were reduced, but they didn’t announce the slow order, and I almost missed a flight due to 20(?)mph operation between Rainier Beach and TIBS. Only frantically begging the gate agent to reopen to the door got me on my flight to Kalispell.
If 5 extra minutes between Rainier Beach and TIBS caused you to come that close to missing your flight, the problem wasn’t with Link.
If it was on 20-minute headways, with no published schedule, at a time of night when connecting buses are infrequent and unreliable… and then ran five minutes slower than usual… those five minutes could easily become the final straw.
You can make up the time by taking Car2Go downtown, rather than relying on an unreliable connecting bus.
It’s one thing to talk about unreliable buses during peak service, but d.p. and asdf, you both are claiming that bus service is unreliable after 9 PM, which is a flat out lie.
5-10 minute fluctuations are a depressingly commonplace occurrence on all of my core routes, even after 9 PM. A wheelchair here, a bike loader there, a couple of post-work inebriates paying cash, a particularly lethargic driver, any major event anywhere…
The systemic flaw of dropping pretty much every route to low frequencies by mid-evening is that you have no routes that are immune to demand spikes.
Only the emptiest buses — like, say, those to Magnolia — can be said to become fully reliable as the night wears on.
Magnolia buses are -never- particularly reliable. They frequently drop whole runs. At one point I accidentally got the late night service that had been cut because the bus was 20+ minutes late and showed up on onebusaway. (And then it missed the bridge. No, really.)
The most recent service report thingie had the actual service hours number needed to get the 24 actually running reliably. It was very large.
DJR, 134 Sounder North trips have been cancelled in the last five months due to mudslides. That’s the epitome of unreliability.
Honest question: Why can’t the work be done between 1am and 5am when the trains aren’t running at all?
I had thought the reason Link doesn’t have late night/early morning service was that ST wanted/needed those hours for maintenance.
I’m guessing the soundwall installation requires a fairly long window of time. As in, they’ll be working from 9 PM to 5 AM.
I can’t comprehend how it’s going to take this many months of that, but it’s possible.
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The other option is to run buses from RBS to the last two south. In nyc, they do that all the times. Just close the section completely and finish the work unobstructed. Should take way less time to finish, have buses meet each train to reduce transfer wait….
That would upset the 1-seat riders. Heaven forbid we have to make a transfer somewhere…
NYC is a lot larger system. Hundreds of people are going to stations both above and below the split all evening. I was in New York one evening when a line was truncated in lower Manhattan, and I was going to a club beyond it. I transferred to a shuttle bus that went further south, and asked people where to get off for X street. I did have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for the bus, and it was full, and it only went a mile or so, but I didn’t know the area or how long it would take to walk and I was afraid it would be farther than it looked, so I took the bus.
Another time, I arrived at JFK on a Saturday when the A-Express was local due to maintance. It took an hour to get to Manhattan’s west side. Then I had to go back to the airport the following day — on the local again — to follow up on a bag that arrived late.