Bay D before 2012 bus restructure / photo by Oran
I used my rare afternoon off Wednesday to check out the state of Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel joint operations, now that Link Light Rail trains are running every six minutes each direction during peak, and six bus routes have been moved upstairs.
A pair of tunnel security personnel kept the dwell time for trains in Westlake Station just under a minute, while the operator stayed close to the cab.
One long bus platoon featured back-to-back 41s, followed by a 71, a 150, and a 255. All only stopped once in Westlake Station. So, rumors that Bay A buses (41, 71, 72, 73, and 74) would be allowed to stop two bus lengths away from the bay marker, and not have to stop again, proved to be true. That 255 was only one length away from Bay B, behind a deboarding 150, and also stopped only once. Nor did that 150 have to stop a second time in the fully forward position along the platform.
One benefit of routes 216, 218, and 219 moving upstairs is that ST Express 550 is the only Bay D bus left, allowing ORCA Boarding Assistants to leave their readers set to ST Express single county, with no peak differential. Having routes 77 and 316 go upstairs (along with route 76) allows the assistants at Bay A to leave their readers on 1-zone peak Metro.
But the proof of how much more quickly buses are moving in the tunnel during peak is in my time trials: A northbound train trip just before the peak hour took me 8 minutes and 30 seconds from Stadium Station to Westlake Station. A southbound train trip from Westlake Station to Stadium Station during the peak hour took me 9 minutes and 45 seconds. The difference was entirely due to train boarding time. A subsequent northbound train trip during the latter half of peak hour took 10 minutes and 10 seconds, with at least a minute of that spent stopped in the tube approaching Westlake Station “due to traffic ahead”. This is substantially better than the last time I timed train trips through the tunnel over a year ago, featuring an eleven-minute trip from Westlake to Stadium Station, and a 16-minute trip from Stadium Station to Westlake.
It appears Metro and Sound Transit are taking smooth joint operations in the tunnel seriously! I owe Mark Dublin lunch at the Beacon Hill taco truck.
Isn’t Mark the one who kept insisting that vague “improvements” could be made to joint ops that didn’t require kicking any buses out?
And yet, we’ve kicked some buses out and, lo and behold, things are moving more smoothly. Imagine how smooth ops will be when we kick the buses out for good!
The trade off of kicking the buses out to save a few more minutes for Link riders has always been the time penalties imposed upon the bus riders knowing their trip just got worse each day by about 10 more minutes. Those remaining 5 buses probably had as many riders combined as the Link trains they ran between.
Except I’ve been riding the 76/316 pair now that it’s running on Union St and the length of my commute time has actually _improved_ between Downwtown and Green Lake park and ride by an average of 5-10 minutes.
My bus trip on the 216/218/219 trio is now 5 minutes longer, but being on the street saves me 5 minutes getting to the platform. Net result, I leave the office at the same time, and get home at the same time.
Inbound, I haven’t noticed much difference at all. I’m happy with the changes.
I think Greg and Mark just made the case for ‘Fire Poles’ that drop you directly from street level to platforms below. The walk up each morning on broken escalators is probably good for you.
My wife takes the 316 and she says things are actually better and more reliable now.
And I doubt the combined ridership on those 6 routes exceed the 40k daily riders on Link (and soon to be a lot more).
By the rules of paleontology, since our original Tunnel fleet were definitely giant sloths, an accurate memory is a lot to expect from somebody who drove one when it still had poles on the roof. But even with an abacus beaded with prehistoric acacia beans, calculation is still the same.
71-series passengers will have same trip-time from their neighborhoods to the south end of the University District. But from there in, barely time to put their laptops away. Regardless of weather, traffic, or Democratic Presidents. Republicans ones don’t see any reason to be in Seattle at all.
Anybody who really misses a ride down Eastlake has still got the 70 and the 66. Maybe because I never got to drive it, I think the 70 is cool. Espresso in South Lake Union, streetcar to the Tunnel. Whatever my thoughts about a Republican President, I can still wave to them as EastLINK goes by their Ramada Inn.
Mark
There is another piece of the equation, and that is the effect of the new buses on the surface on the lines that were already on the surface.
Any bus entering the tunnel at north portal faces a good 10 minute time penalty over surface running, at least in afternoon. If I’m going from Montlake to downtown at 5:30pm, I’ll wait 15 minutes to take a 545 (surface) instead of a 255 (tunnel).
The delay is caused by the car queues on Olive blocking the entrance to Convention Place for buses going in. Last month I pretty much lost it with frustration at spending 25 minutes (on an ultimately 50 minute ride) from U District to University St. Station just waiting on 9th Ave and Stewart in a nearly stationary line of buses unable to get into the tunnel. Only Seattle could be so incompetent as to build a tunnel that’s slower than surface running in downtown at rush hour, with an entrance only usable at the whim of SOVs.
Hopefully the NE restructure goes through and the 71/2/3 all drop off at UW Link, but if not, I look forward to them being twice as fast to downtown once they’re kicked out of that god-awful tunnel.
Surface running would be even more efficient if cops spent 1/100th as much effort enforcing the bus-only 3rd Ave as they do on the I-405 HOT lanes. Getting a bus-only lane on 5th Ave would be a good start too.
Concur. Things could be even better with more tunnel bus routes surfaced.
And when all of them are surfaced ST will be able to do some more creative things with tunnel ops.
Like, add center platforms, and employ the Spanish solution? Oh, please, please, please…
A center platform Spanish solution would be pretty cool. Maybe if we are lucky that will allow down escalators too…
Kyle. my main point has always been that the chief efficiency problem for joint operations has been less the number of buses, but the lack of effort to keep DSTT operations under the signaling and communication control designed and installed into the system, but never used.
I’ve also thought that it was a mistake to give Tunnel slots to peak-hour-only service. And as LINK opens the first of the sectors that were always expected to deliver the heaviest ridership, I think that DSTT bus routes should favor routes that do what LINK will.
But at this stage, these decisions are adjustable according to factors like tunneling and bridge-adjustment progress.
Sorry, Oran. It’ll have to be espresso at the Station Cafe- where Luis still has the ATU Local 587 emblem on the wall. I only hope the food truck got away before they poured the foundation for all that transit-oriented density. But seriously, the more accurate your report, the bigger mocha I owe you.
Whatever happens next, any amount of positive control for the DSTT is a water-quality-shed. If Metro’s one underground utility with wheels is being brought into line with its brothers carrying water and sewage, it’ll be good to have all three pumping instead of having one leaking and dribbling until Veolia takes it over.
Truth: whatever the possibilities I saw and advocated, I never thought you’d have material for a single posting like this.
Mark
Once the buses are completely out of the tunnel, will light rail trains be allowed to ramp up to full speed in between stations or will there still be an abnormally low speed limit of 30mph or whatever it is now?
I’m in DC right now and riding the Metro pretty often. The rapid acceleration out of a station is always a nice feeling compared to the slow Link trains in the DSTT.
The speed limit is indeed due to joint ops.
Then I can’t wait for 2017/18 when Joint Ops ends.
Thee are way too many operational compromises required to make Joint Ops work.
Summer 2009, if it hadn’t been such a great sight it would have ruined my day to watch a test train operator stop, hit the bell twice, and take ‘er out of Westlake with the rear coupler clearing the platform at 30 or more.
Miserable, crawling DSTT departures starting 9/15/1990 could and should have been same speed and authority. Tell me the trolley hardware world doesn’t have a trail-in switch that can be crossed at 30. Hybrids? I think previously-mentioned DSTT control and attendant mentality worse problem than hardware.
But whether by numbers of buses or dispatch and signaling as designed but never done, every route’s passengers should depart station as if “We’ll Get You There” wasn’t a geological measurement.
Mark Dublin
Probably be able to touch 55 between pioneer square and westlake
I’d doubt it. The rail lines leaving each station downtown are not straight, University station has good examples. If you look closely there is a little jig-jog as the rails enter or depart most downtown tunnel stations. You won’t be able to go over that to fast. Maybe one day those will be cleaned up a bit.
Except for that pesky :) University Street station in the way.
Rumor has it scheduled for closure, as it’s way to close to other stations (1/3 mi), therefore redundant. Plus, it slows down the spine to Everett and Tacoma.
New promo coming soon:
[Urban Cowboy] ” I’d rather walk a mile for a Link”
It could be moved a bit further south to Madison.
Adding center platforms in the downtown stations, and making use of all the doors on the trains, would probably reduce travel time through the tunnel more than mothballing a station. However, closing down each station for a short time during renovation while the center platform, escalators, elevators, and stairs are built is something riders could learn to put up with for a short time, IMHO.
Problem, Brian, is that even without University Street station in between, whole ride would be a hard acceleration and a harder deceleration, with little if any time at any steady speed. My closest experience would be my ride 40 years ago on the Norristown line out of Philadelphia.
The original cars built in the ’30’s designed with the help of a wind tunnel and looked like double-ended PCC streetcars, drawing current from third rail instead of catenary They’ve since been replaced with more conventional looking Portuguese cars, but operations are the same- relatively close station spacing compensated by heavy acceleration and braking.
At the wheel of a Breda tunnel bus, my sense was that good DSTT speed would be forty, and was always ticked that the overhead was simply standard Ohio Brass. Even so, I still think passengers would have felt both acceleration and braking.
Though as both a driver and a passenger, I’ve also found a smooth and fast pullaway preferable to a slow rough one. Especially with electric vehicles, bus and train, by instinct fast and smooth means a competent foot on the pedal or hand on the controller.
Fifty-five will be fine for future single Seattle CBD station of a Vancouver BC to Portland high speed regional line. Reachable from DSTT by long fast elevator, preferably from different firm than current ones. Forty with zero stops between stations just seems better fit for the DSTT.
Mark Dublin
What are the chances that WSTT being on ST3 helped by this smooth operation?
-1 trillion percent chance. It’s not going to happen.
It’s more that it’s not hurt. The likelyhood is around 11%, up from 10%. ST is likely to build a tunnel; the question is just whether it can accommodate buses. If ST builds Link to both Ballard and West Seattle, that diminishes although it doesn’t eliminate the usefulness of a dual-mode tunnel. But on the other hand, a dual-mode tunnel means a center breakdown lane so no center platforms. That’s a significant negative there.
ST already said it’s not gonna happen. The only way a WSTT would happen is if the county builds one again.
ST views Joint Ops as a hindrance to effective HCT and not a help.
They won’t build another bus tunnel, regardless of what happens with Joint Ops. You just don’t build you most capital intensive piece of infrastructure and then put your lowest volume, least reliable mode into it.
WSTT aint going to happen.
ST can change their mind. They’ve done it before (a lot). Bus as I said below, the prospect of joint operations really doesn’t add much to the value of the WSTT. The great value of the WSTT is that it can operate really well as a bus tunnel, then be converted to a train tunnel. We did the same thing with our tunnel. Joint operations (especially since they are temporary) are the result of very poor planning. The poor planning was the result of the failed vote — if the first Sound Transit proposal had passed, there would be no joint operations). If the light rail line went from Northgate to Rainier Valley there would probably be enough service to warrant kicking out the buses. But because it is being built in pieces, we have to suffer through joint operations.
We shouldn’t let joint operations (which are a mess) distract us from the big picture here. The bus tunnel (built way back when) is a huge success. It has saved an enormous amount of time for bus riders. It allowed buses to run really fast back in the day. Today, not so much. But pretty soon it will serve as the foundation of our light rail line. It is pretty easy to make the case that it is the best part of our light rail line.
Does anyone want to dispute that last point? Is there anyone out there that thinks that the bus tunnel was a bad idea? Not only was it a great idea, but it has the best set of stops. From Convention Place to the International District (and SoDo, which was really part of the same process) you have very good stop spacing and really popular stations.
I see no reason why building the WSTT can’t follow the same recipe for success. it seems silly to complain about what is obviously the most successful piece of transit infrastructure ever built in the area.
The ability to someday run jointly is just one of the benefits of a bus tunnel. Consider the three possibilities:
1) It never gets converted to a train tunnel. As of right now, this (https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2015/08/28/seattle-projects-for-st3/) is the most cost effective means of improving transit in Seattle. The only other major piece of infrastructure needed after that would be a Metro 8 subway (to serve South Lake Union and the Central Area — two areas being completely ignored right now). Basically, if it never handles trains then it still is better than most of the ideas being considered (such as light rail to West Seattle).
2) It gets converted all to rail in one step. Again, this would probably happen after the Metro 8 subway is built. Kick all the buses out, put the rail in, and now you have what people say you need now. The difference is that we have more essential pieces (like Ballard to UW light rail and the Metro 8 subway) built first. One of the big reasons we have joint operations now is because the light rail doesn’t handle that much of the demand for the bus service. The buses come from all over the place (north downtown, Kirkland, etc.) and the train (as of now) doesn’t serve them at all. When it gets to the U-District, it doesn’t do that much better. Kicking out the 41, for example (and forcing riders to take a bus to Husky Stadium) would be ridiculous. I think that sort of build out (one that would make joint operations appealing) seems unlikely. If a new rail line is built, then it would obviously go into the heart of Ballard so those buses would obviously be kicked out with no harm. Meanwhile, if they forced a transfer for all West Seattle buses at SoDo, it is not much different than what is being proposed now (a transfer at the West Seattle junction). It is obviously a lot better for a handful of people in one small part of West Seattle, but not much different for the vast majority of riders. It would probably be a lot better overall, because between the two rail lines (both serving highly populated areas to the north) it is reasonable to assume high frequency service to SoDo. You can’t say that about West Seattle light rail — in fact Sound Transit has said the opposite (very infrequent service). This leaves the Aurora buses. They might simply be out of luck. But the spur tunnel (connecting Aurora with the main tunnel) could still be used. You could create a bus turnback station (at Belltown) which means that at least the Aurora buses have stops at the edge of South Lake Union and the heart of Belltown. That isn’t that different than some of the buses now (which turn around at Belltown). Transfers, of course, would be better. In short, I believe that if the WSTT is converted to rail operations, it will be done in one big operation, and all the buses will be kicked out.
3) But of course, they could go with joint operations anyway. I think this would only happen if they decided to just build the Ballard line. If they added a line to West Seattle, then there is no way they would try joint operations, since you would gain so little. A lot of the problems with current joint operations could be solved if the buses had off board payment. In all likelihood, the buses operating in the WSTT would have off board payment and level boarding. You still have issues with headways (you don’t want a fast train barreling down on a stopped bus) but the buses would operate more smoothly as a platoon, as Brent mentioned. I have no doubt that Brent’s experience was a good one, but it is also possible that he just got lucky. All it takes is people fumbling with their change or a wheelchair to screw it up big time. A series of buses, queued up at the Aurora or SoDo entrance, could operate as a platoon, a virtual train if you will. Not that I’m saying that is a great system. Obviously it is better with one or the other, but it could still work, and might be the best thing for the area (depending on what else is built).
In short, it is unlikely that the WSTT would have joint operations, and the ability to operate jointly is a very weak argument for its creation. The best argument is that it could serve a dispersed area (especially from West Seattle) quite cheaply. The money saved can go into other projects (like Ballard to UW light rail) that don’t have affordable options like that (i. e. there is no Ballard to UW freeway to leverage).
Joint-ops or rail-only, the really important, and really hard thing will be to connect the stations of the two underground systems so passengers don’t have to go outdoors to transfer between them.
Lot of complicated things in the way down there. Any architects and engineers reading this might want to weigh in on utility and building-foundation considerations on this one. Because, worst of all, considering likely time-frame, Dori Monson will dig his way out of his grave into the KIRO studios if he’s got two separate unconnected subways a block from each other to ridicule.
On the positive side though, after tracking down the mad blood-injection-from-young-girl-stealing Civil War doctor in the Pioneer Square Underground, Darren McGavin might really dig a Night Stalker episode where the Seattle Times won’t admit a worse menace.
“B-b-b-b-Chief! There’s a (whatever Dori is) down there!” Times editor can play himself.
Mark
Ha, funny. Maybe the vampires from Forks will make their way over here, and hang out in underground Seattle. With a few extra tunnels, they can have plenty of fun. Beware the werewolf though*, who came down from the Mountains to Sound Greenway!
Seriously, though, it really isn’t that expensive to build tunnels like that. It isn’t trivial, but compared to light rail systems, it is peanuts. Several million, maybe a few dozen, but not hundreds of millions, let alone billions. Whether it was light rail or a bus tunnel, the connecting tubes are a must, and built into the estimates.
* That is about all I know about the Twilight series. It has vampires and werewolfs, and a lot of it takes place in Forks (and I only know that because the last time I was in Forks they seemed to make a big deal out of it).
Which agency will ‘own’ the tunnel after the buses are fully kicked out? Will it be Metro or Sound Transit? This is important to figure out which agency to lobby to get longer tunnel hours for light rail service.
Sound Transit. I think the county has already sold the part from Westlake south. If not, it’s in the middle of a multi-year handover.
At the STB meetup with Metro planners, I asked who had the authority to decide to keep the tunnel open later if ST wanted to run late-night U-Link trains. They said ST could decide on its own anytime to keep the tunnel open. But it would have to pay the security costs. I’d like to see U-Link run at least an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays. That’s only appropriate for the largest nightlife areas on the line.
Some days ago I saw bunched 41s in the tunnel and was frustrated thinking that 41s had been massively delayed despite having express lanes.
Your article combined with recent experience changed my opinion though.
Just the other day I tried to ride the 41 during peak for the first time in several months and had to wait as three very full buses passed at Northgate before I could get on one. Fortuneately each bus was only three (!!) minutes apart.
With as much ridership demand as the 41 has now, its little wonder metro wants to bunch them together in the tunnel. There is no way you could fit a 41 cycle every three minutes at peak.
If these numbers hold, the combined ridership boost from Northgate link might surpass ULink as the single largest increase on opening day. (I already am fairly certain ULink will make the first day of Central Link look like small potatoes)
When Link gets to Northgate, it will also mean it gets to the U-District and Roosevelt. As others have pointed out, the U-District station will be huge. The 41 is huge, but it is only one bus. Several buses serve the U-District, and it a much better stop for bus to rail interaction. So, yeah, it is possible that Northgate Link will be a bigger jump than U-Link, but I think if U-Link included the U-District station, I don’t think that would be the case.
I was including all three stations on my statement, just pointing out how incredibly full 41s are becoming.
I don’t require them being quite this full in the past.
Too bad its going to be another 5 years until we can find out for sure.
Yeah, I don’t remember the 41 being quite that crowded before. It always has been a very popular bus – just not that popular. But the region is growing steadily. Not just Northgate, but Lake City. Lake City has more people, and just when you think that Northgate might catch up, you notice a new building (or two or three) going in there as well.
“A pair of tunnel security personnel kept the dwell time for trains in Westlake Station just under a minute, while the operator stayed close to the cab.”
I never see the conductor of a Link train leave the driving compartment (at least in the DSTT), so they leave the stick and mill around the platform sometimes? I don’t ride the train at crush hour, so maybe that’s a thing then?
Usually the driver walks through the train to make sure everybody has gotten off. We’ve long asked them to have security guards do that so that the trains don’t hold up the tunnel for so long. If they’re finally doing that, hallelujah.
From more than one recent incident re: passenger resistance to northbound transfer at Westlake, that’s:
“Hosanna unto the Highest, Let Every Trumpet (except Donald) Sound, and the Heavens Ring!!!!”
With the world’s best John Belushi imitator tumbling all the way from Husky Stadium to the Mariners’ one, illuminated by the Interurban light above the windshield of a LINK special train with a standing load of a Gospel choir.
Train bells and horns cranked up loud enough to shatter the ear-plugs of the densest texter on the tracks.
The cloud of doves will take care of itself if we paint the pigeons white, and other Scriptural beasts if somebody can figure out how to get an alley cat to put up with a unicorn horn taped to its nose.
Followed by the crowning miracle of every single communications hand-set suddenly breaking off its emergency-measure rubber bands and and permitting DSTT transit and security personnel to deliver Warnings and Good News as Creation intended!
Just no vuvuzelas.
Mark
While I’m glad to hear that tunnel operations have been improved, and think that the time probably was ripe for kicking the buses upstairs, I’m disappointed that Metro/ST never seemed to want to even try to make joint ops work after the elimination of the Ride Free Zone.
I’m also curious how reliability is for the 21x buses getting to and through the bottleneck on Fifth Avenue through the International District, and what the scrums at the bus stops along second are like. I no longer work in downtown Seattle, but when I did these were the real pain points of riding the 212 [for me, the walk to the stop was about the same for the 212 and the 550, so the 5 minute savings for not being underground wouldn’t have helped].
5th through the ID is indeed slower than it could be. It’s where the bulk of the 5 minutes is spent, and that area is crying out for some SDOT love. There’s a lot of competing uses there (Bolt Bus, Shuttles, parking?!?) that is sub-optimal.
At best though it’s only a couple of minutes delay. As more buses move to the surface, I imagine they’ll be some changes.
As an occasional Boltbus rider (and I doubt there are many frequent Boltbus riders), I agree that Boltbus doesn’t belong on 5th. Reduce the loading zone time limit to 2-3 minutes, and Boltbus will have to find a more appropriate loading zone.
The other really bad stretch was just getting up to fifth from second.
>> I’m disappointed that Metro/ST never seemed to want to even try to make joint ops work after the elimination of the Ride Free Zone.
I agree. I think the folks in charge just figured people would put up with it. It is a temporary problem, after all. Still, it is disappointing to have to put up with a half-ass system for a fairly long time (several years).
“Decades” would be more accurate than “years”, Ross. About three of them. A good long-term focus is important.
But I think that over the DSTT’s lifetime to date, the system’s political leadership developed a really destructive habit of using the trains of the future as excuses for persistent lack of action in the present.
One of the things I liked best about our stage-by-stage approach to the beginning of our regional transit system was that we would make actual passenger operations an important part of a design process that generally spends most of its life on the drawing boards. and now their digital counterparts.
For me, the smell of sweat around this approach was its main appeal. Just as, unfortunately, chief failing of an official world otherwise unusually intelligent, honest, and un-alcoholic has always been its tendency to find its own perspiration to be, like the ’50’s roll-on commercials used to say, offensive.
Mark Dublin
Mark dubin
I rode the 76 from Roosevelt HS to downtown Monday morning. It was odd not being in the tunnel and I had an uphill walk to the office but I would say it was three to four minutes faster than the tunnel.
I returned in the evening and that seemed a bit slower but not by much. New 76 stop is right across from my building so less walking now.
I have biked in the rest of this week and 3rd seems more congested in the morning, and definitely more people on the sidewalks AM and PM downtown, which is great I think.
Part of the problem with the current tunnel operations (if not the biggest problem) is that it is so inconsistent. It is funny because back in the day, that was the best part about the tunnel. Once the bus got into the tunnel, you knew it would get to the other side very quickly.. Of course, like any part of the run, you could be delayed by a wheel chair rider, but the odds of that were pretty low. If it wasn’t your bus, you passed it. Now, of course, you can be delayed by folks fumbling with change, other buses being delayed and the whole nine yards. Brent had a good day, but I’m not convinced that a day like that is going to happen all the time. With on board payment, non-level access, a train with big headways, and buses that aren’t allowed to pass, it really is the worst of all worlds;
Honestly, Ross, for King County’s decision to go to farebox collection in the DSTT tips the balance of proof that change in DSTT ownership can’t come soon enough.
Even if every passenger had only an ORCA card to tap, converting a 60′ bus with two boarding doors, which should have been three, into a 60′ bus with one, at pm rush holds a vehicle in place at the time it most needs to move.
With cash, the inevitable fumble for change is even worse. But crowning and absolutely unforgivable delay comes from questions, information requests, and arguments between passengers and drivers. Blocking the last remaining door, and distracting the driver to the point where passengers have to yell with real fury to deboard by the rear.
With the bus standing still the whole time, along with every bus and train behind it.
“How much is it for the two of us, our three children, one in high school, one third grade, and one pre-kindergarten, and both of our parents, two of them sixty, one fifty-nine, and his new wife twenty-one?” Measured by cost of one minute’s operating delay, enough expense to the system to make free ride cheaper.
Definitely enough to pay for the inspected Proof of Payment system the Tunnel was designed for- and which works just fine on the trains that are routinely stopped in the tubes while multiple families find their money. Cost would also cover re-purposing a large number of uniformed security to pre-boarding passenger information and wheelchair assistance.
In a nutshell, the Tunnel fareboxes clinch my insistence that operating procedures and policies have always counted more than numbers of buses. And triple with earlaps for the mentality behind this camel-paraplegicizing last straw.
Mark Dublin
When pining for the days of the Board Free And Ride Free As Far As You Want Area, we forget how miserably slow most buses were outside of the RFA. Pay-after-you-shove-to-the-front was the worst of all possible bus rides.
Concentrating boarding assistants in the Central Business District, so that buses could run like they do elsewhere outside of downtown, was a welcome trade-off, but the union insisted (rightly or wrongly) that boarding assistance is an operator’s job. So, deploying the optimal number of boarding assistants became cost-prohibitive. And, every boarding assistant we had helping with the PM rush was one less driver available to drive a PM rush route. I’m not sure Metro could have foreseen that outcome.
What struck me immediately as silly, though, is that the boarding assistants in the tunnel weren’t helping to clear the trains at Westlake, while an employee of a subcontractor was checking the back car and a union operator was checking the front car.
Here’s an idea for maximizing the use of those two station security personnel assigned to clear the trains at Westlake, and the two boarding assistants at Bay A: Have the security personnel check the back train (matching past practice), and the two boarding assistants check the front train. Cut the clearing time in half, using existing deployed personnel in the same manner as before this last service change, except that the union operator driving the train stays at the cab, while two other union operators take over the assignment (already part of their job description) of clearing the front train.
Not to mention confusion from visitors and occasional riders. “What do you mean pay when you leave. Buses are always pay as you enter. How do you prevent people from boarding without money?” Then the fact that the back door wasn’t available for exiting, and people forget that it’s the time of day to pay as you leave, so they stand at the back door when the bus stops and the driver makes them come to the front. The RFA couldn’t end soon enough.
Oh, I agree. While the ride free area was great for the tunnel, it sucked everywhere else. I wouldn’t want to go back.
But I think Mark is right. Once they went away from it, they didn’t really worry about making the situation better. Then the train got there, and buses couldn’t pass buses. Since the train was there, and was eventually going to replace the buses, there was no interest in solving the problem. The problem was eventually going to go away, so no one wanted to spend the money to solve it.
The obvious answer was to either go with proof of payment for tunnel based buses, or add turnstiles. Proof of payment might be able to work with a bus like the 41 or 71 (just have someone occasionally check for fare as the bus goes on the freeway). But that wouldn’t work well for buses that make a stop soon after they leave the station.
But turnstiles would have worked fine. The stations are designed for that. It would be kind of weird for train riders. You tap your card and it opens the turnstile in one station (e. g. Westlake) but you simply tap the bar at another station (e. g. Mount Baker). Meanwhile, even though you passed a turnstile, some guy checks your payment. But it would work and be really obvious what it is you are supposed to do. Meanwhile, it would be perfectly obvious and make a lot of sense for bus riders. All in all, a lot simpler than the ride free zone. Rather intuitive, actually. The only reason they didn’t do that is money. There is a bit of infrastructure cost, but not a huge one. Given the number of buses that go through there, I think the changes could pay for itself just in service hours saved. Given the number of people who ride those buses, it certainly would have been worth it.
You have to add a bit of security for folks that might jump over the gate. But so what? We aren’t talking about that many security guards, and besides, the more security the better (the same security guard making sure people don’t cheat can respond to a problem in a different part of the station).
Apparently, we now have a “big league” subway line — Hooray! 40,000 (apparently a magic number). The bulk of those trips start or end (or both) inside the tunnel. Buses still serve most of the trips in the tunnel. Given all that, I find it difficult to see why we don’t treat the most important, busiest stations in that line the way that other cities (like New York) treat all of their stations. Add turnstiles at all the stations, add occasional security to check for jumpers, and everyone comes out ahead.
The only counter argument is that the situation is temporary. But that doesn’t excuse the decisions that have been made. That is simply a political excuse. There is very little political enthusiasm for doing something like this. Spending money on a temporary problem — a problem that is a “death of a thousand cuts” type of problem — requires political courage as well as an understanding of the situation and the alternatives. I’m afraid we really don’t have a lot of that in this town (I’m sad to say).
“But turnstiles would have worked fine. The stations are designed for that.”
No they aren’t. The only place to put turnstyles is at the top of the platform escalators, where they’d look more tacked on than built in. But the elevators are located on another wall, so you could bypass the turnstyles by taking the elevator unless you put another turnstyle in front of each of them, which would be twice as expensive. And for somebody arriving on the platform and going up the elevator, they wouldn’t know the turnstyles where there until they already bypassed them. Perhaps somebody anticipated turnstyles when the stations were designed, but if so it’s like how they designed the rails: not practical because they weren’t thinking concretely they were thinking vaguely of a far-off future when who knows what the concrete needs would be.
Come on Mike, the mezzanine sections are huge. They would work quite well for turnstiles. There is a ton of room to put them in.
>> Perhaps somebody anticipated turnstyles when the stations were designed, but if so it’s like how they designed the rails: not practical because they weren’t thinking concretely they were thinking vaguely of a far-off future when who knows what the concrete needs would be.
The rail wasn’t practical, but somehow we built it. Do you know how contradictory that statement is?
Look, we got it. The actual rail they put in originally was not right (I forget the details). They had to pull it out and do that work all over again. But the stations sure as hell were designed for rail — the entire tunnel was designed for rail — and if not, we probably wouldn’t have rail! Imagine if we had to build a brand new tunnel because the grade was too steep for a train, but just fine for buses. Imagine if the stations were tiny (big enough for buses, but not a four car train). They didn’t build them that way, because the tunnel was designed from the beginning to work for rail.
Not as well as estimated — not as smooth a transition as hoped, but still not a huge amount of money compared to the rest of the system. If turnstiles cost “twice as much” as you think they should, it still isn’t that much money.
Show me a study that says that building turnstiles would be really expensive and I would be surprised, but admit I’m wrong. But there was no study. There was no study because there was no political interest in studying them. The folks in charge thought we could muddle along for a few years.
It isn’t like we haven’t been down that road before. If not for last second political pressure we would go another ten years without even studying ORCA use on the monorail. The folks in charge didn’t say “ORCA card support just can’t work”, they were simply oblivious to the issue. The folks on this blog were oblivious to the monorail administration (and how it functioned with the city). If not for a lucky set of circumstances, we would be screwed and not have a study, just like we didn’t have a study on the turnstiles.
By the way, not to change the subject, but where are the study results? I think they should be coming out by now.
I don’t have a direct quote but during the design of the DSTT, turnstiles and barriers were considered in the planning phase in 1985 but dropped (Fare structure/collection study for Metro Downtown Seattle Transit Project).
How much would turnstiles cost? Consider the recent gating of stations in LA. It cost $46 million dollars for 192 turnstiles at 42 stations, plus $1.2 million a year in maintenance. That’s a bit over a million dollars per station. Yonah Freemark crunches the numbers on when they breakeven.
Since these were for rail systems, this only considers recovery of lost revenue, not time savings from off-board fare collection. Note that although LA has locked and gated many of its stations, it’s still a proof-of-payment system and they often site fare inspectors before or after the gates.
The alternative to turnstiles would be extending proof of payment to buses. For the cost of gating all five DSTT stations, you could instead outfit the entire Metro bus fleet with rear door ORCA readers. That’ll speed up boarding everywhere.
Have they painted on the door positions on the concrete yet or does on still have to guess?