A whole lot of asphalt. But it will revolutionize the Snohomish County transit situation.

90 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Lynnwood Link Animation”

  1. Is there any hope someone will step forward to fund the remaining portion of the Northgate Station pedestrian/bike bridge to the west side of I-5?

    1. I would vote money for a Proposition Two if it were solely to promote the accelerated building of LINK to points N-W-E-S

  2. Why Surrey has more land for golf courses than for homes – Guardian

    A study by the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE suggests soaring house prices are not caused by an influx of foreign buyers but are down to restrictive planning policies that have ensured the country’s green belt is a form of “discriminatory zoning, keeping the urban unwashed out of the home counties”.
    …
    “We have a longstanding and endemic crisis of housing supply and it is caused primarily by policies that intentionally constrain the supply of housing land,” Cheshire claims.
    …
    Once inflation is discounted, house prices have gone up fivefold since 1955. But the price of the land for houses has increased in real terms by 15-fold over the same period.

    As a result, houses are becoming like investment assets, creating incentives to hold on to them in expectation of future price rises.

    Cheshire lays into “supporters of urban containment policies who argue that Britain is a small island that we are in danger of concreting over”, claiming it is a myth because green belts cover one and a half times as much land as all of England’s towns and cities put together. “Moreover, there is little or no public access to green belt land except where there are viable rights of way,” Cheshire says. “Green belts are a handsome subsidy to “horseyculture” and golf. Since our planning system prevents housing competing, land for golf courses stays very cheap. More of Surrey is now under golf courses – about 2.65% – than has houses on it.”

    1. The ultimate problem is there’s too much investable money right now; i.e., available savings that people want to get a good return on, but there aren’t many good investments. In the late 20th century stocks had the highest return, then in the noughts real estate did because of excessively low interest rates. The problem is that housing is a necessity while stocks aren’t. So treating housing as high-return investments harms ordinary people.

      The other two factors are a social safety net and walkability/transit. If we had more social housing like Europe, it wouldn’t matter as much if market-rate housing were going through the roof. If we had an unconditional basic income, minimum-wage earners wouldn’t be in such dire straits. If we had universal walkability/transit like a hundred years ago (most houses in streetcar suburbs around transit stop), people could live anywhere without being stuck in their houses if they don’t have a car.

      1. That is similar to the situation in Singapore. While all housing is expensive there, the government-built housing is much less expensive than the private construction. Sure, it doesn’t look as flashy as the private-built housing, but not everyone wants or can afford it. The government-built housing is solid, has everything that is needed and is close to the MRT or bus lines for the people to use. The private-built housing will generally be flashier, have more amenities, and generally is farther from the MRT or bus lines. But, many times, those large private condos will join with other nearby private homes to have a shuttle to the nearest MRT station.

    2. The only real news here is that “soaring house prices are not caused by an influx of foreign buyers but are down to restrictive planning policies”. It’s been pretty well known for quite a while that the Green Belt is a significant contributing factor to London’s stratospheric housing prices. What’s new has been the recent scapegoating of foreign buyers. No doubt they are part of the problem, but it’s good to see a reminder that the high order bit remains planning policies.

  3. As Mobilitor’s quote alluded to, let’s talk about Jackson Park Golf Course.

    1) In a city that’s growing and trying to prevent a colossal housing crisis of SF, I think it’s in the city’s interest to convert the golf course to a smaller park and parcel off the parts of it closest to Link for housing development. I can hear the Seattle NIMBYs already clamoring to save “open space,” but can you really imagine the justice-minded SF tech protestors fighting for a golf course?

    2) I believe it’s owned by Seattle, managed by Premier Golf Centers, LLC. So, would there be much red tape to make the change?

    3) Nearby courses are available: Seattle Golf Club (9min drive). Nile Shrine Golf Center (11min). City of Lynwood Municipal Golf Course (16min).

    4) Seattle may re-designate the area around 130th as an Urban Village, according to the “Seattle 2035” comprehensive plan update. I don’t think a huge golf course really fits with the Urban Village definition.

    5) Do people golf in the rain?

    6) Could be an opportunity for modular, cross-laminated timber buildings, as they might fit nicely with the adjacent park.

    1. I think we should call the 130th and 145th stations “Jackson Park South” and “Jackson Park North”.

      I don’t think you’ll see tekkies protest. Seattle is twice as large as San Francisco with a slightly smaller population (for now). The Mission district they’re protesting over is as close as Capitol Hill. Jackson Park would be like Daly City, except the urban tekkies would be less excited about living there.

      Converting Jackson Park would be very difficult, and Seattle may have agreed to preserve it when it annexed the area. However, we could push for a row of transit-oriented uses along the north and south sides of the park. That would be fair given that the stations make it a much more potentially pedestrian area than when the golf course was built. However, look to see north Seattlites strongly resisting losing one inch of their park.

      Another option would be to shrink the golf course and put other park uses like Jefferson Park has. That would make it more accessible to a wider cross-section of the community. But I don’t know enough about golf to say how much you can shrink it and still keep it viable for golfing.

      1. As to question #5– yes, people golf in the rain. Of all the municipal golf courses in Seattle, Jackson Park has the best reputation as being the best draining/driest in the wintertime (and thus gets a fair amount of play).

      2. There is essentially only one, small, crime-ridden park with poor access in the entire region between 110th, I-5, 145th and the lake (now that Cedar Park is being taken back and turned into a school).

        There is absolutely no excuse to continue to use this vast acreage in such a low-use “sport” as golf.

        Zone up the 6 stories for 3 quarters of it, and make it into a park that a broader swathe of our populous would actually use. Playground. Outdoor heated pool. Skate park. Community Center. Something that the huge number of poor immigrant kids in Littlebrook desperately need. Anything other than what is clearly worst-use.

    2. No.

      Continue to upzone all the land in north seattle first. Also, did you know that there is a walking trail that circles the course?

    3. “Seattle may re-designate the area around 130th as an Urban Village”

      Do you mean 130th & Aurora or 130th & I-5?

    4. George Carlin was right, Jefferson park and Jackson park should both be turned into homeless housing,
      With the golf course in Broadmoor eminient domained third. With a bike path through…

  4. The animation shows a relatively free flowing Interstate 5, with Link moving quite a bit faster than traffic.

    Is it at all realistic that Link might one day have cars that can move at a decent clip? Houston and Dallas ordered their S-70 Siemens cars with a 66 mph upper limit, and the Stadler GTW maximum speed in most configurations is 73 mph. The Link line has really gradual curves through the entire segment shown, and if it were a regular railroad could probably be rated for at least 90 mph through most of that distance.

    1. Sound Transit policies limit speeds to 55 mph. I also wish it could be much faster, something around 70-80 mph. That way we can convince I-5 and I-90 (East Link) people that the train is faster, even when there’s no traffic (assuming they don’t speed).

    2. Those are just placeholder tokens meaning “cars here”, not the expected traffic or speed. Just like the guideway and stations are solid gray to show how much space they’ll take, not what they’ll look like, which hasn’t been designed yet.

      I thought the trains could only go 55 mph.

    3. I know this is kind of stupid, and I understand the nature of the video as a representation of the route only. But I cringed hard when the train in the video never even slowed down for the Terrace TC. Just a reflex, I guess…..

      1. The East Link animations did stop at stations. Maybe it’s something they only do in later design phases.

      2. The East Link animation stopped at the stations in order to give bullet points about the stations themselves. The Lynnwood stations have not even got to 30% design yet, so there’s nothing known about the station specifics yet.

  5. SoCal Hyundai Dealerships Prepping for Fuel Cell Vehicles

    “The first four Hyundai dealers to offer the Tucson Fuel Cell to Southern California customers are Hardin Hyundai in Anaheim, Win Hyundai in Carson, Keyes Hyundai in Van Nuys and Tustin Hyundai, with additional Hyundai dealers to follow.

    Availability of the Tucson Fuel Cell will expand to other regions of the country consistent with the accelerating deployment of hydrogen refueling stations, the automaker said in a statement.”

    http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/index.php/uncategorized/socal-hyundai-dealerships-prepping-for-fuel-cell-vehicles/#sthash.rc6OhOG5.dpuf

  6. Update on the new 15th and Market stop going southbound (near Bartells as opposed to Walgreens). It now has a solar-compactor garbage can (lots of trash used to be there before) and the fare-tapper has now been installed on the kiosk. It is not operational, but baby steps…

      1. Great, now it’ll be even more efficient for it to pull out just in time for the red light!

  7. Were the outside bike/ped lanes on the universty bridge a retrofit? If so, could the same be done for the fremont bridge?

      1. I believe I saw it on the Seattle Bike Blog, there was idea to take an express lane on the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge and turn it into a bike lane. It would’ve shaved off 30 minutes or so of a trip from Green Lake to downtown. If instead of taking an entire lane, I wonder if it’s feasible to retrofit the bridge to add a bike lane to the outside of the bridge as shown in your photo.

    2. The separated bike lanes were there in the early 90s when I used to bike a lot, and they looked as old as the rest of the bridge.

  8. Okay. last week I didn’t have a question (I couldn’t think of one), so I’ll make it up with two:

    1. With Proposition 1 failing, the service cuts are going to take effect whether we like it or not. But how long will it be before service is restored to pre-2014-15 levels? According to this chart, I am estimating at least 5-10 years. What do you guys think?

    2. With the proposed service cuts, several miles of trolley coach overhead are simply being abandoned (2N, 3 loop, 4, 12 on 19th Ave, 47, etc.). Knowing Metro, they’ll simply leave the abandoned overhead in place (though I think they should cut the power to these sections to save money), but what if the intended future use never comes? (*coughWaterfrontStreetcarcough*)

    1. You can estimate the future from past trends, but we really have no idea whether the economy will be better or worse in 5 or 10 years. It depends on what happens between now and then. Wars, oil, control of Congress, the environment holding up, etc.

    2. I don’t like Bruce’s charts for a couple of reasons. He has two Y-axes that are related to each other but in a non-obvious way. He also changes scale between the first chart and the second chart. In the first chart, it looks like the revenue collected meets the cost of the service hours; in the second chart, it looks like there is a revenue shortfall. In reality, you need to scale the service hours by the cost per service hour in order to compare the three variables.

      I have one reason for hope that things will get better in the future. If sales tax revenues continue to recover and the need to reduce service hours impels Metro to build a more efficient network, we may get more actual service (meaning more people moved to where they want to go) for the service hours that we can afford.

    3. I thought that a segment of trolley wire didn’t use power if no bus is running on it. (Well, insofar as a wire doesn’t “use” power outside of having resistance.)

      1. It’s a bit like having a modern computer turned off but still plugged in. The power supply itself still uses a very little bit of power in order to keep the power turned on to the on/off button. Just how much power is wasted just providing power to the overhead depends on the design of the power conversion equipment.

        The problem with turning the power off to the trolley lines is that people steal the overhead wire if it isn’t energized. Ask the guys at the Yakima Trolley about how they feel about having the power turned off to trolley lines….(someone stole a significant chunk of their overhead wire while power was turned off for a construction project near the line).

      2. A brief public service announcement. Surge protectors with a mechanical on/off switch are a good way to prevent zombie power drain when computers and audio/video systems are not in use.

  10. This animation shows to me why I think we shouldn’t build any of the stations between Lynnwood and Northgate yet : there is nothing there yet. A ton of SFH not particularly close to the station. Lots of freeway and parkland. But to substantive density.

    I suggest that if the communities would like light rail then they need to meet some sort of development minimums within walking distance of the station. They have a choice to up zone or not get light rail. We could even let them vote on it.

    However, it seems really unfair to add a large cumulative delay to riders who actually live in an area that is willing to up zone (as anemic as Lynnwood’s up zone is, it’s a step in the right direction).

    1. I partially agree, but politically Shoreline needed something. GIven that most of the users will most likely not be the people that live near the station, I would like to see ST charge for parking at any of these parking garages that get built.

    2. Don’t forget, us little folk here in Shoreline pay for Sound Transit, but so far we get practically nothing for it. Not even all the ST routes from Everett/Lynnwood stop at 145th. I know there’s a lot of us waiting impatiently for LINK to show up at 145th and 185th. And we would love for there NOT to be parking garages there and rather have that money spent on improving bus routes to/from Bothell and Woodinville. We are having meetings each month to discuss the impacts of 145th and 18th stations and construction, and we’re coming up with good ideas. Hopefully Sound Transit will listen to us, as WE are the ones that live in the neighborhoods that will be affected.

      1. A frequent Metro shuttle bus between Shoreline and Lake City along 145th would really facilitate connection with Everett-bound and Woodinville-bound ST routes.

      3. The Jackson Park Freeway Station is a poor excuse for a bus stop. It’s a horrible location. N(E) 145th Street on either side of I-5 has paltry ped facilities negating the opportunity for the station’s optimal use. Regardless of the ownership of SR 523, the facility is in desperate need of an upgrade.

        I’ve made the argument on here about ST funding from Shoreline and necessity of better transit connections to downtown Seattle. I about got ripped a new one from the urbanistas of Seattle.

    3. It’s not like this has to do with some great virtue of Lynnwood. Shoreline’s commercial areas are in different places, because of how and when those areas developed. Lynnwood has a big ugly off-ramp commercial area near I-5 and they’re willing to upzone it because it’s so ugly nobody bothers to insist the government preserve what’s there by force of law.

      That’s actually too bad, because what really matters at Lynnwood isn’t so much how high they build, but what they do at ground level. There’s a pretty tall building just across I-5 from Lynnwood TC. But it’s surrounded by freeway ramps, big arterials, and parking lots, and thus has less effective density than most smaller buildings elsewhere. It’s an extreme example of what we also see in Bellevue, and in “edge cities” all over the country.

      What happens in Shoreline is more complicated. Its main commercial areas are along older roads. It would be nice for the little area around 175th/15th to be a better place to walk and bike to (15th loses its bike lane right where it needs it) but it won’t really get a bump from Link.

    4. Some people will still walk to the stations, even if it’s a long walk, and others will come by feeder buses. If you don’t build the stations you’re denying them rapid transit, even though they didn’t cause the low density and they may in fact be trying to get Shoreline to raise the densities. And Shoreline has promised something at 145th, although it’s vague what it would be. Has Shoreline even finished the review it was doing of the station areas?

      One interesting factor is that Shoreline only begins at the north edge of the north sidewalk. It’s negotiating with Seattle and the state to buy both sides of the street so that it can develop it.

    5. The ultimate issue is that Link should have been on Aurora. But a Link on I-5 with Shoreline stations is better than no Link at all.

      1. It still has that “putting lipstick on a pig” feel.

        Although the important thing is to not repeat the design mistakes of TIBS.

        The Mountlake Terrace Transit Center at least buffers the freeway noise and something like it could be made inviting at least to the residential development side opposite the freeway side.

      2. The Mountlake Terrace Transit Center is also a less than 10 minute walk through the woodsy park to the Mountlake Terrace library and proposed civic center. It’s not density but at least it’s some kind of focus around the station.

    6. By the way, the delay of four stations between Northgate and Lynnwood is 80 seconds. Double that if you’re pessimistic, but it’s still insignificant compared to the ridership and utility of those stations, especially the fact that they enable feeder bus routes to both the western neighborhoods and eastern neighborhoods.

      1. Would love to have a feeder route that starts every 5-10 minutes from 145th to Sears/Aurora Avenue then back again. This is what I hope Metro puts money into when revenues start to go back up.

  11. 2023, here we come! Maybe with a little luck, they’ll have the funds to include Alderwood Mall in Lynwood Link. That’ll change everything…partly because of the mall, partly because it’s that much further north, and partly because that’s the juncture of 5 and 405. That would be huge.

    1. If its not in the plan, its not going to happen. Left over funds would more likely be used to build the “potential” stations that are not funded along the line.

      A station at Alderwood mall would have to come in a future lightrail expansion (ST3)

      1. To expand on that, if Alderwood were not included in the Alternatives Analysis and DEIS, it ain’t going to happen in ST2. By contrast, Redmond was included in those phases of East Link. If there are large unexpected savings when building East Link, it’s conceivable that an extension could be included in ST2. That seems unlikely though, considering the amount of money wasted in PE by the Bellevue City Council.

      2. I would hope that after the Lynnwood extension is built that either Sound Transit or Community Transit will have the common sense to provide quick trips from the transit center to the mall.

      6. The 115/116 runs by the mall every 15 minutes connecting LTC & AW with an Edmonds – Mill Creek corridor. It’s proposed to shift from W to E side of mall, making trips faster. The 113 is also proposed to provide a connection LTC-W.Ald.Mall-Swift-Mukilteo. The 201/202 is currently 20m most of the day, but proposed for 15m, with a shift to I-5 AW-LTC, and faster travel times from Smokey Point-Marysville-Everett to Lynnwood. It would be the same as the 512 for that AW-LTC section, but the 512 is an off peak service. At peak there is no ST service from Everett to Lynnwood. The 510 doesn’t serve LTC, while the 511 starts at AW. In addition, the 510 and 512 serve the South Everett Freeway Station and do not serve Mariner P&R (It is impossible to do both without running local streets because of the # of I-5 lanes to cross from 112th center station to 128th ramps). The 201/202 skip the SEFS and go to Mariner, then serve Ash Way. Could terminate at AW but wouldn’t it be odd to bring someone from North SnoCo and dump them off before reaching LTC – which is the main hub of transit in South SnoCo?  The routes won’t duplicate, because they don’t share the same stop pattern serving the same places. They’ll overlap, one route at the end of its’ trips, one at the beginning, at a point of high demand. 
        A benefit of serving both AW and LTC is if the transfer from one 15 min service (201/202) to another (115/116) is long at one hub, there is a good chance it will be a better connection at the other hub. That could be important, especially if your travel is specific to one of the route sections that is not on the common corridor. Schedules can morph geography relative to where you are and want to get. Sometimes you backtrack to find a quicker connection, avoid a long one, stay warm and dry, etc… Moving to an efficient system will require giving up some one-seat routing for frequency and speed.

    2. Terminating Link at Alderwood Mall rather than Lynnwood TC was suggested repeatedly during the initial scoping. There’s no reason ST wouldn’t have except its impact on the ST2 tax rate. The rate is a balance between what all the subareas want and their tolerance for voting for it.

      If ST has Snohomish money left over when the Lynnwood Extension is built, it can apply it to anything in its long-range plan, which goes all the way to Everett. However, an Alderwood Mall extension would still require an EIS, and presumably the leftover money would not stretch that far. But it could fund part of the planning.

      1. Mike, do you think Alderwood was left out for political reasons? ie, to build support for the downtown Everett phase?

  12. With Prop 1 being voted down, is the low-income fare program still happening?

    If I understand correctly, the King County Council approved a $1.50 low-income fare going into effect in March 2015, independent of whatever happened with Prop 1, with the fare being further reduced to $1.25 if Prop 1 had been approved, but it’s also my impression that the council has to vote a second time on some kind of implementation plan for the low-income fare.

    1. That’s as much as I know, but keep an eye on whether some will lobbyi to axe the program in order to preserve more service. My rough math says the 550,000-hour cut plan factors in the cost of going forward with the program.

  13. I hope these projects do well because the current state of transit in Seattle is near abhorrent. Having lived in Miami, San Francisco, and Philadelphia, Seattle transit is near impossible to rely on as a primary form of transportation. I used to rely on public transport when living in these other cities as a primary method, but here in Seattle I do not. I live in south lake union and reverse commute to lynwood daily. Used to take the bus, 511/512 , up there, but now happily carpool. Due to inevitable traffic, these buses are seldom on time, and I would need to transfer at the transit center onto a second local bus, which at best comes once every half hour. Not reliable. On weekends, I use Lyft and uber, as primary form of transit. The reason why I’m ranting is to let you guys know that the public will not provide additional funding to keep the poor service we already have in place. Seattle should look at Philly and SF for inspiration on how to build and manage world class systems. 15 minute bus service is not frequent, three minute bus service is on the other hand. In SF, many buses run every three to six minutes during the daytime, making waiting for a second bus less painful.

    1. The 512 is absolutely reliable in the reverse for the morning, it’s the afternoon where it’s atrociously unreliable from 45th and south, and slightly unreliable from Northgate to 45th. You can blame WSDOT for not doing the responsible thing: HOV3+ from Northgate to I-90 in both directions in the mainlines. In any case, Lynnwood is still 9 years away…Everett, who knows.

    2. @Jim – if your carpool ever falls through and are looking for a solution to avoid driving all that way yourself, here’s a trick – buy a cheap bike, leave it locked up at Lynnwood Transit Center overnight and ride it the couple miles, or whatever it is between the transit center and the office. No need to depend on an unreliable bus connection (or unreliable bike rack space on the 512).

      The trick to making this work is to lock the bike up well with a heavy lock, better yet multiple locks, make sure both wheels and the seatpost have some level of protection, and get a cheap enough bike so that even if it does get stolen, you haven’t lost that much money. You can leave the locks at the transit center at all times, so no need to lug them back and forth. You can also leave a cheap helmet locked up with the bike, so no need to lug that back and forth either.

      1. I read a book about bicycling in Amsterdam, and it said everyone uses three locks there: both wheels and the frame. It’s actually illegal to leave a bike unlocked, because that’s seen as enabling the ubiquidous bike thieves.

      2. I know nothing about Florida’s transit, just that the state is full of megablocks and cul-de-sacs. How is the transit in Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, etc? Is it frequent? Does it run late in the evening?

    4. Do reverse commute buses from San Francisco to San Rafael run every 3-6 minutes? Because that’s about how far Lynnwood is from SLU.

  14. I sure hope the speed of that light rail segment is faster than I-5. Like say have the trains go at 85 MPH to account for stops along the way. Otherwise we’ll see many folks stay in their cars to pass expensive light rail.

    I know BRT is mostly used to deflect from light rail efforts but with Sounder North being an epic failure in this corridor, wouldn’t it be better to build and enhance the express bus net running from Everett to Seattle? Just a thought.

    Finally, and to tie these concerns together, one of the lessons I came away with from the defeat of Prop 1 is we better prove [insert transit agency] is being run effectively and a tax increase is not just a life preserver for [insert transit agency]. Let’s make sure we’re effective financially and in lessening the load on our roads.

    1. See above. That isn’t happening. For most people, LRT would be a faster commute for them with greater frequency to boot.

      Your conclusion is fallacious. This came down to urban/suburban, not the efficiency of said agency.

      1. Two thoughts:
        a) Faster commute better be faster.
        b) One thing I didn’t say was that any tax increase for transit better mean more transit. Danny Westneat is right.

      2. I think a fee/tax increase would definitely be an easier sell to the burbs if it meant additional service. But giving the funding options that the state gave (or didn’t give), that would have been even more expensive in terms of fee increases. That would have been an even tougher sell. I’m not sure what Danny’s point is in that light. This thing passed by a massive margin to the target audience: Seattle and the urban portions of King County. It failed to garner the level of consideration it should have had in the rural and exurban parts of the county. The exact audience that Danny’s own paper targeted with lies. The Seattle Times can spin away and speculate all it wants, but the fact is that they made shit up and now are whining about it.

      3. Made s–t up? That’s a loaded allegation.

        That said, part of the problem was lackluster turnout for a negative (either vote YES or lose your bus) versus negative (vote NO to higher taxes + controversial Metro) campaign framed that way.

    2. Every decision is made ten years before the segment opens. The public’s expectations evolve over that time. When both ST1 and ST2 were approved, there was no light rail functioning yet. So people have semi-realistic imaginings of what it would be like. Only the elderly remember the streetcars and interurbans. People who haven’t been to subway cities imagine them as like the highways. People who moved here from subway cities sometimes don’t comprehend how it would apply to our topology and trip patterns. Only when it actually started running could people go down and see it, and see how it would function in other areas. That happened too late for Central Link and University Link — their routes and stations were already set. It was borderline too late for North Link (all the Roosevelt Station issues). But East Link and Lynnwood Link are only being solidified now, so their routing is based on actual public experience with the earlier segments. And Ballard Link is just being scoped and priced now — so that if for instance there aren’t enough stations on University Link and Central Link as some complain — there’s a chance to avoid that problem on Ballard-south Link and Ballard-east Link.

    1. How does it really matter from Metro’s perspective? They currently get paid for the cost of running the service, but if ST could financially benefit from running it themselves or contracting with another operator. wouldn’t that be better in the overall scheme of things?

    2. Let me answer that question with another question: Why was a Pierce Transit supervisor car parked by the entrance of SODO Station where six ST police and fare enforcement officers were having a discussion? Does ST contract the FOEs directly, or via Metro or PT?

  16. With the bus cuts coming over the next three years, I sure hope that as revenues increase and the ability for Metro to expand, that they do it with common sense. Don’t replace routes that duplicate service along LINK, instead use the money to bring people to LINK so that useage expands and people see that it actually is being used.

    2. +1 I hope they ignore the whiners for the greater efficiency of the system. 1 seat rides are costly when we could have a superior network that is cheaper, faster, and more frequent.

      2. If you want a system with more transfers, they better be well-timed transfers. I sure don’t want to wait 20-30 minutes in the rain each way for a connecting bus, especially if I could drive in 30 minutes to wherever I’m going to anyway.

        That’s why people here have transferphobia and keep clamoring for one-seat rides; existing transfers for most routes typically suck on Metro, let alone between agencies.

    3. I would agree with that. Metro Vancouver has done that since 1986.
      TransLink and BC Transit, between 1986 to 1999, have always made the bus routes connect to the SkyTrain which makes the system a lot cheaper because little routes follow the SkyTrain into Downtown Vancouver or to other places. This helped us save costs and allowed us to increase frequency on many routes.

    4. Metro is not going to add duplicative service. All the duplication controversies are about legacy routes.

  17. It’s too bad that LINK will just run parallel to I-5. It means riders will rarely walk or bicycle to a station from the West side (with I-5 blocking access) and instead will just mean full parking garages as everyone drives to a station, which means on the East side of the station the traffic will be heavy again discourging any sort of residential development.

    1. My hope is that when Metro eventually increases service that it will add feeder buses from surrounding neighborhoods to LINK stops. And Sound Transit can modify routes to end at LINK stops.

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