65 Replies to “Sunday Open Thread: Seattle’s Dynamic Parking Pricing”
Question for route 545 PM peak westbound riders. How many times a year is traffic so bad that it takes 45+ minutes to get from the Roanoke street exit on 520 to downtown?
I’ll take the silence as meaning none have you have ever had that happen. Then why, in a King 5 online story, did a guy say this?
“I take the 545 every day. As soon as it hits Capitol Hill it can take 45 minutes to get downtown. Now I can just switch off, get on the train and be there in 6 minutes.”
Need to run now – but it’s taken half an hour for me, multiple times. Maybe the guy in question was thinking of the time to the International District? (In which case, true, 6 minutes on Link wouldn’t be an exact comparison.)
Depends on which part of downtown you’re talking about. When traffic is bad, Montake to Westlake can easily be over 30 minutes and Montlake to 5th/Jackson can easily be over 45.
Yesterday I was riding on a PCC, today I will ride U-Link. I’m really looking forward to it.
Flew in last night about sunset and could see the 3 LRV trains running in the RV. Looked great from the air. Looked like real transit.
Thinking ahead a generation or two, is Link making a mistake by limiting itself to 4 car trains? Do you think that the cute, 4 car trains will someday be insufficient to accommodate ridership demands? Frequency could be increased, but that would cause problems (traffic congestion in RV, tunnel congestion, etc.). I would imagine that East Link would be the first to outgrow the 4 car trains; but who knows, future generations may someday be cursing us for not having the foresight to allow for longer trains.
Car lengths will be the least of ST’s worries decades from now. All one has to do to see into our future is look at what’s currently happening at older systems.
Sorry Sam, but your link is behind a paywall. I guess your point is that ST is so busy expanding its system that it won’t be able to properly maintain its core infrastructure and eventually the whole system will fall apart — like what we’re seeing with our asphalt and concrete transportation network. Certainly we’ll need to upgrade or replace the current signal system in XX years, the rolling stock will be due for replacement in about 20-25 years and, who knows, maybe the whole system will become obsolete because it’s just too damn small (those dinky 4 car trains!).
Is Link upgradeable to heavy rail someday? Or did we bake in LRT forever?
I was looking at the rail yesterday; they look to be 115# which would be good for heavy passenger rail, but not coal trains or heavy freight cars.
I doubt it. Rainier Valley is one of the few places where this could be an issue, because headways are very limited. Rather than run bigger train sets, you could build underpasses, which would allow for more frequency, and thus much better service. That would be expensive, but worth it if we ever get to that point (and we are nowhere near that point).
@Guy.
I’m not sure if 4-car trains will be enough in perpetuity, but the length of the train sets is set by the platform length in the DSTT – and that was a Metro decision that predates ST. Yes, they were thinking is rail “someday”, but I really don’t know what went into their choice of 400 feet.
That said, for seattle and probably for KC 4-car trains with proper expansion and low headways should last a good long time.
Personally I’d take coverage and frequency over peak capacity any day. Chasing peak capacity is really for the burbs, and I don’t think our system should be designed around what is best for the burbs. We need to be smarter than that.
If Link ever gets to the point it needs longer trains, then it is time to build another line that serves somewhere else.
Or, make better use of full scale railroad trains as regional transportation.
@Glen,
Concur 100%. And that was part of the idea behind Sounder. At some point it might make sense to need up Sounder along a Regional Centers model.
This link to the Chronicle story worked for me (courtesy of the BART Reddit page).
These trains currently waste a ton of space with the duplicated control cabs and equipment. I think as the current set ages and the ridership rises we will probably go to 4 car customs trains and we will slowly rebuild the rainier valley section to support increased frequency. Culminating in total automation of the system.
Four car Link trains are not “cute”. They hold about as many people as a six-recent-car New York Subway train because one Link “car” (95 feet) is actually two units each of which is about 2/3 as long as a R160 (60.2 feet).
Four car trains are all that will fit in the DSTT stations, so wishing for longer trains is pointless.
Husky,
Well, if the RV section, the bit along 112th SE and the at grade stretches in the Spring District were elevated or tunneled, certainly, the system could be converted to heavy rail, with one caveat. That is that the platforms are designed for low-floor cars and HRT systems are universally high-platform.
That gives them a tremendous advantage in stability. Low-floor cars have at least the articulation idlers running without an axle; they’re “independely suspended” like an automobile. That is never as stable as a fixed axle in a rail context and corners much less well because it doesn’t give rise to “inner-wheel rise”. Thus low-floor LRT vehicles are limited to lower speeds than HRT trains.
How could increased frequency cause tunnel congestion? Other cities run at headways of 2 minutes or even less (SkyTrain for example) without any tunnel congestion problems.
The UMTA era was sort of a false dawn for public transportation.
Ross:
It’s really hard for me to see Link being that limited along ML King. Along Holladay Street MAX runs every 3.5 minutes or so at peak period, and it crosses highway 99 at grade through there, and a few other non-vacant streets. Some reworking of the traffic lights could probably make huge strides towards being able to increase frequency.
Undercutting costs money, but it might not be as expensive as you think. There are several places where Portland did this:
1. Highway 26 goes under the Union Pacific (nee Southern Pacific) main line at SE 17th Avenue. Mile long freight trains moving into the freight yard had a nasty habit of blocking traffic, even in the 1950s.
2. When the Morrison Bridge was rebuilt as essentially a branch extension of Interstate 5, there wasn’t much space for the bridge to rise while having the requisite cloverleaf interchange into downtown Portland streets. Thus, SW 1st Avenue got dropped about 7 feet or so. MAX now uses this to cross under Morrison.
3. There is a similar issue with a 1950 era cloverleaf addition to the 1912 era Steel Bridge. The new ramp crosses Front Avenue / Natio Parkway in a spot that is a bit tight for vertical clearances, so they dropped the street currently known as Natio Parkway partly into a pit.
Obviously, doing this relatively cheaply will depend on what’s under the road there, but if there are major water or sewer lines there chances are they were moved when Link was put in.
Glenn,
If there is ever enough ridership to warrant grade separating the through streets crossing MLK, it will make sense to build the bypass. MLK itself won’t need four-car trains every four minutes (say) by itself; there will have to be heavy ridership from the south as well. And if there’s heavy ridership from the south it makes economic and service equity sense to give the riders a quicker trip to the CBD.
@Anandakos — I really doubt that a bypass will ever be justified. It would essentially be commuter rail at light rail prices. While adding underpasses to MLK would be expensive, it would be a lot cheaper than adding a new line.
Seattle is growing much faster than its suburbs, and unlike most of Seattle, the city government will encourage growth in the Rainier Valley (it already has). A bypass, meanwhile, would resemble BART. While BART has much bigger trains, they also travel a lot less frequently. We are talking 15-20 minutes. So even if the southern suburbs had enormous growth and looked like the Bay Area suburbs, you would run these trains every ten minutes at most. When you consider that SeaTac is the main destination past Rainier Valley, you won’t have that much ridership (miss a train and you miss your flight). You end up with a system that is simply a lot worse. While a few thousand might prefer the express, many more (in Rainier Valley) will miss out on the increased headways. If capacity really becomes an issue with South Link, the way to solve it is increased frequency.
But, as folks have said, that isn’t likely to be a problem for a very long time (if ever).
South King and Pierce can pay for a Georgetown bypass if they want it, but they have never mentioned it as a priority. Meanwhile, underpasses are the least that should be done in Rainier Valley. And why not put the whole segment in a trench if it’s cheaper than tunneling. They lowered Montlake Place and Aurora; they can lower the Link track.
By now you’ve already noticed, Lazarus, that you rode on the first real transit system Seattle has ever had. Best thing about is that both transit supporters and opponents can now, with a single ride, know what they’re talking about.
Also, we now have a powerful tool for pro-transit politics. Ride U-LINK round trip for a whole day, adding up the number of little boys about four years old, and then start making calculations for the 2030 election. Should be a hundred percent correlation.
Based on discussions I’ve overheard, girls same age will be priceless for reporting necessary improvements, correcting boys for their misconceptions about transit and everything else.
And giving correct passenger information in terms their little brothers and the rest of the world can understand and obey.
Also, get with schools, and also the Seattle Art Museum and similar, to encourage school field trips. Parents have told me that for ball games and movies, their kids like the train ride better than whatever they’re going to.
Which could also force their dads to get off the couch drinking beer and eating potato chips, and take them for train rides. And give their moms something else to do besides being trapped in a stadium getting deafened by green plastic “vuvuzelas”
Also beneficial is that 18-month old babies will start pointing and demanding every time they pass a tunnel station stairway and hear a bell. Which will, for the first time, enable their parents to find a DSTT entrance in spite of the wretched signage.
From personal experience, a single ride on any Interurban including the Electroliner- go to wikipedia to see “root causes”- has historically induce many little guys to endure six decades in a transit-less country until they can help do CPR by driving a Breda.
And most transit positive: Even after girls cease to be “yucky”, online dating profile reading either “Go ride LINK!” or “Long walks in the country and seeing Sunsets” is a perfect compatibility metric for the kind of boys who always know worldwide interurban colors and 1932 schedules by heart.
Women have always known what “Y” on the male chromosome stands for lifelong, with no cure in sight. But as at least one heartbreaking movie will soon note, plot will be complicated by the fact that on every LINK line, walks part depend on how late the Route 8 is, and sunsets upon which side of IDS your U-Link ride is.
Mark
My son still remembers fondly a field trip his nursery school took when BART first started service way way back when.
Nice video. It’s ironic to post this on the same day Seattle times argues that transit must have free parking for commuters because many need cars.
It’s only a short step to argue that I must have free parking provided by my employer because (my own personal lifestyle choices mean that) I have to drive every day.
The Seattle times should recamp to be the Suburban Seattle Times.
Marta – FWIW, I don’t think the Times article ever said the parking had to be “Free” – I personally don’t have any issue with parking at the outlying stations, especially if it’s designed to be a placeholder for future TOD, but I absolutely don’t think it should be free, at least not in structured parking.
Is there another expensive consumer good they would advocate to increase for free to user via taxes on all of us? Remember the position they took on our recent transit votes and move Seattle? They are hypocrites stuck in the 1950s.
In a world where electricity was provided free and everyone used it constantly would they advocate for household meters or building new dams and reactors?
You can’t complain about provision in a world where allocation has failed. I don’t expect anything much from the brain dead times, but this was particularly an outdated position.
I’m in agreement, there is a place for parking at station particularly in auto-oriented suburban communities and/or station locations in the immediate fume zone of a freeway where no one would ever want to live (like say, South Everett Freeway Station).
But for the Suburban Times to criticize the new line and its stations for not having parking in Capitol Hill and UW is laughable. Sound Transit is so far doing a pretty good job of knowing which stations to have parking at and which not to.
City policy is against P&Rs where they don’t already exist, so it’s not like ST had a choice. Although ever since Link opened in Rainier Valley there have been people asking for P&Rs there so they don’t have to park on side streets. There are some private pay lots but those cost money so they’re not as popular.
Even if this weren’t city policy, it would make exactly zero sense at these two stations. They are intended as (a) destinations; (b) walkable stations for nearby residents; and (c) drop off points for transit. No one should ever think of parking near either station just to take the train. It would of course have been better if ST, SDOT and Metro had combined to make some really first-class bus dropoffs available at both stations, but why start now, right?
It already isThe Suburban Times
If you can make a decent case for adding parking in many different light rail stations, chances are, you are building it wrong. Without a doubt there is a case for having a big park and ride in a suburban station (usually the terminus of a line). Areas like that are sprawling, without the density or attractions to enable enough people to walk to the station. But for the same reason, light rail probably doesn’t belong there. If it is part of a regional transit network — with buses connecting to it — then maybe the station makes sense. But chances are you only need one of those stations (not dozens of them) in a sprawling low density area. If the stations are in the city and it makes sense to drive to the station, then they obviously designed it wrong.
Link provides a good example of this. North of Northgate, you need a station that can connect to the buses. Adding in a park and ride as well is fine. It really isn’t that expensive. For example, Mountlake Terrace would work great for that. It has great connections for the buses, and a huge parking garage can be built there. But spending billions sending the line farther north with the same dynamic (bus feeders and park and rides) is just a waste of money. Since the line is right on the freeway, the trip isn’t much faster (an express to Mountlake Terrace is similar to a trip to Lynnwood, then a train). You just aren’t going to get huge numbers of riders (enough to justify billions spend on light rail) by adding a park and ride. If you have a cheap commuter rail line (or cheap bus service) then by all means a park and ride makes sense. But spending billions for a station with a few thousand park and ride users is really a waste.
As for Seattle itself, you see a variation of the problem. How does someone from the C. D. connect to Link. Take a bus to the UW or Capitol Hill? Maybe, but that will take a while. In most cases, driving will save a considerable amount of time. But that is because there aren’t enough stations. You have to choose between those two stations, or, in many cases, just go downtown. If there were stations on First Hill and 23rd and Madison the dynamic changes considerably. You have fast buses connecting all over the place. In many cases, taking a bus is faster than being dropped off (e. g. on Madison in a few years).
The Seattle Times editorial board is looking at the system and thinks that the only thing that is missing is a few big park and ride lots. They miss the fact that is extends too far into the suburbs, has too few stations in the city, and few of the stations work really well with the buses.
Will times, costs, and places be posted online? Or in newspapers, for those of us who don’t have “smart-phones”? Or via phone-call? Because I really hate not being able to budget, and being forced to make a decision on price until I get there, and have no choice?
Very much like toll lanes subject to change while my car is in motion. Or am I wrong about that? Only way I’ll put a tire on tolled road is on a bus. So, question: does “dynamic” mean I’ll find out when I get there, or specific rates for specific times?
Set me straight on facts here. Because same feeling as always about anything with word “dynamic” in it, except for brakes. Also “markets”. Payer is always animal hanging on the hook. And Ayn Rand was a dangerous nut case.
Mark Dublin
I am betting you could start by looking at the website referenced in the video….
Thanks, Marta. But suggestion, Sam. Just scratch out “BART”, and fill in “The United States of America.” Which has always been willing to sacrifice order and reverence for flashy irrelevancies like the Bill of Rights.
So now that our sewer systems are also having problems with deferred maintenance, got a business suggestion for you. Help revive respected old enterprises like digging gravity-powered outhouses.
Or selling residential coin slots for everybody’s toilet. With prices marketizing by the minute. Idea of you ripping your sofa to pieces to find the change has made my whole morning!
Mark
Mark,
Do you budget your time? Does it make a difference to you how long you have to search for parking, or walk from the spot you find to your destination? Those are certainly unpredictable, and instead of planning on the possibility of spending $5 more for parking, with fixed pricing we have to plan on the possibility of an extra 15 minutes if parking is particularly congested.
That’s not Ayn Rand nuttiness, it’s the way the world works. You apparently prefer to budget money very closely at the expense of wasted time; not everyone has that preference and it’s a perfectly legitimate policy question how to manage that tradeoff. And in addition, managing parking congestion ALSO reduces road congestion, for both cars and transit.
Thanks for this topic, Jim. It’s important. I always argue that operating delays caused by bus fareboxes in the DSTT cost the system far more than the boxes gain in any way. So to me, wasted time definitely is wasted money.
What gets to me, for both transit revenue and personal spending habits, is complication and uncertainty. Especially when, like most transit passengers, even when I’ve got the money, being forced into a sudden decision always feels like a hustle.
“If you act now ….!” always translates to “Stick ’em up!!!” Inbound from Bellevue years ago, I remember how a time-losing discussion over fare complications sent six intending transit passengers back to add their Mercury to a ball-game traffic. jam.
I always buy a monthly pass when I’ll never use half its price. I doubt Ebeneezer Scrooge would have bought a yearly parchment scroll for coach fare rather than fumble cackling in a velvet bag for gold guineas.
It’s also why, in addition to my pass, I always by a paper day pass at a TVM before my first LINK ride. Don’t have to miss a train remembering if I’ve “tapped” or not. Or my time wasted by a lecture from a fare inspector and having my ID photographed.
Which also wastes both his time and the taxpayers’. A “Lose to the tenth power Lose” situation, over precise revenue distribution between agencies who long ago promised us a seamless fare system.
First stop anytime I land or, like in Portland, get off a train is a ticket machine to buy a day pass. Which to me, at any farebox should always also be issued in place of a transfer.
In practice, I personally handle variable expenses by simply budgeting for the highest cost I can possibly be assessed. Putting the remainder in my savings account. But for transit policy, passenger good will is deeply time-sensitive-and literally priceless.
Ayn Rand’s take on the way the world works, including a brilliant girl’s problematic reaction to the hundred -percent- every -war worst of it.
Mark
Mark
“In practice, I personally handle variable expenses by simply budgeting for the highest cost I can possibly be assessed. ”
This works unless the highest cost you can be assessed is unaffordable. Then, traditionally, you buy insurance.
If the insurance is ALSO unaffordable, there’s a problem. This is the situation with “health” (medical) insurance for a lot of people in the US. It’s often best to budget nothing at all when that happens.
Interesting piece, primarily an argument for fiscal stimulus, but also arguing that restrictive building codes in places like San Francisco (and I suppose Seattle) also prevent job growth. I think this summary by the Economist may be a bit hyperbolic, but and interesting aspect none the less.
“Regulation may also be a problem. Messrs Guzman and Stern find that entrepreneurial potential in some places, such as San Francisco and its hinterland, is far larger than in others, such as Detroit. Yet restrictions on construction constrain the movement of people from stagnant places to dynamic ones. A paper published in 2015 by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that if it were easier to build in and around San Francisco, and thus cheaper to live there, employment in the area would rise by more than 500%, while many cities in the Rust Belt would all but vanish.”
Not to be a wet blanket on yesterday’s festivities, but what’s the deal with the way ST deals with service disruptions? Especially on the notification side of things.
Friday, a train lost power blocking the tracks somewhere between ID and Stadium. For 20 min. my wife and kid sat on a not moving train (while they waited for the disabled one to be moved, and I waited for another Southbound train at Westlake. Service was clearly disrupted more than ten minutes before any announcement was made in the station. And of course it was just the electronic voice saying service was disrupted and additional info would be made available shortly. This announcement continued every 2 minutes or so for about 15 minutes. At that point announcement was made that service was suspended in the DSTT and passengers should take various buses to Stadium station in order to connect to a train. About 30 seconds after that announcement, a train pulled in to Westlake and we were on our way.
25 minutes to clear a disabled train doesn’t seem so bad, but why ST can’t use the myriad of ways available to better inform travelers as to what is going on and when they expect the trains should be running again is a mystery to me. The email and station notifications are completely worthless, other than knowing when I get an email, about a service disruption (or reinstatement), it is most likely inaccurate and I’m probably better off catching a 7 or 36 bus. If service is not running they should have the reader boards in the station constantly scrolling that its not running. The notifications that the elevator was not working at Mt. Baker was running more often than the notice that the trains weren’t running.
This is not the first time this has happened. It was nice this time to have wifi in the tunnel so I could communicate with my wife and also see when the ST emails arrived relative to station announcements and actual activity. Anyone know if they have plans to make this better? Will those fancy new displays at the new stations do this and will they be installed anytime soon at the older stations?
Dan, more than once I’ve been glad I could fly out of both airports, San Francisco and Oakland. And I really think that considering difference in magnitudes, the Oakland shuttle really isn’t that relevant.
But for future development, I would bet that if the line to Bay Point had not been built, the economic development that part of the Bay Area desperately needs. Both Pittsburgh and Antioch (the California ones) are weirdly stagnant, considering how nice the towns are. anmd how beautiful the area.
From what I was told, there used to be a thriving cannery there- which my informants also told me were so pollutionary that there wasn’t a live duck in sight. But I can’t believe that a place like that isn’t going to attract development that will more than justify BART.
For a system that can use the diesel line too. And electrify it as well. Though I’d really like to know from any Bay Point local reading this what’s with Snow White’s gorgeously evil nemesis that helps her keep this region asleep?
But more important, what’s current repair condition of California’s freeway network? Or are they maintenance free because they don’t have to deal with moving traffic? My own “read” is that our entire country is falling apart from deferred maintenance.
Of course, I also think that reason we’re rusting to pieces has to do with things like the “Sequester”- where Congress effectively wrecked not only the President’s terms in office, as planned, but also withheld already-appropriated money, which has wrecked our whole nation.
I’m putting my own elected reps on notice that I don’t give either a dime or a vote to anybody who uses the word “stimulus.” Millions of skilled tradespeople out of work, millions of dollars worth of repairs. In the world or real accounting, “deferred maintenance (read pieces falling off) counts as red ink (sort of rusty, really), not black.
There is a chance, though, that we should have made the Mississippi River our permanent western border. A lot of previous landowners would definitely like to see that unwise decision reversed.
BART’s problem is not that too much got built. It’s that somebody didn’t have the guts to ask taxpayers to cover maintenance too. Or maybe, given what Californians did to their once fine school system (wonder if Howard Jarvis is either related to Tim Eyman or is really the same person) maybe the whole state is an overreach.
Poison Oak as a natural ground cover. Brush fires established so long ago in the ecosystem that the bristle-cone pine tree can’t even germinate ’til the cones are burned. I think nature may have been warning mankind about the maintenance since long before Statehood.
Mark
BART’s problems run deeper than that. I’ve discussed this before. It was designed by aircraft engineers who thought that they should ignore everything which anyone had ever learned about railroads.
The result… is exceptionally expensive to build, operate, and maintain compared to any other system in the world.
This isn’t a new problem. I won’t link my Brill helicopter again unless I get immunity, but that chief mechanic on the Boston “T” in 1979 mentioned vents placed where cool air will also bring talcum powder made of copper and carbon to ventilate the motors with.
But I really wonder how how impossible it is either for rail mechanics to get aircraft training or vice versa. These trains have been on the rails for decades. Who’s been maintaining them up to now?
As I’ve said before, PCC streetcars look suspiciously like the aircraft of the day. Would somebody with either or both kinds of mechanical experience give us some perspective on this problem?
Mark
Right, but it is also a case of not building what needed to be built. There are miles and miles of track, with very few people riding on them (and thus very poor farebox recovery). it is the opposite of SkyTrain (where farebox recovery pays for its operations). The result is a system that was bound to cost way more to operate and maintain that people expected, even if it had been built properly.
Imagine if instead of sending trains to far flung suburban cited, they had simply concentrated on Oakland, Berkeley and San Fransisco. Add a bunch more stations, along with an extra line on the East Bay (paralleling the existing one). You would have a lot fewer miles of track, but a lot higher ridership. You would still have the problems you have, but they wouldn’t be as severe.
In a way, the Cross Kirkland Corridor greenbelt is like Pandora in the movie Avatar. There are people who want to preserve it, like myself, and people who want to exploit it. The people who want to turn the greenbelt into a transit corridor remind me of the Colonel and the Giovanni Ribisi character.
Oh yeah, I forgot all of that was private property.
Thanks for straightening me out.
The people who jog on it or want to preserve it for their views are also exploiting it.
By the “Cross Kirkland Corridor Greenbelt”, of course, you refer to the Woodinville Subdivision railroad, a federally listed railroad line which must not be removed from railroad use without approval from the Surface Transportation Board?
No fair, Sam! I’m always telling people to look things up, but every time I try to go to Google, the idea of you running along the trail with a periscope, flippers, and a snorkel I can’t even hit the keys to find out what the other guy’s rank was.
Though on the positive side, some diver with PTSD might mistake you for okay, an angler fish (look it up!) and reach for his harpoon. Or use you for bait, thereby violating the shoreline management act. You’re safe.
I used U-Link for the first time today. I live in Wedgewood, biked to the U-District for coffee, then biked to UW Station, took the train to University Street, ran some errands, took another train to the International District and did some shopping at Uwajimaya, then caught a train back to UW station, and biked home.
A few initial impressions:
I was amazed at how deep the station was. I’m not sure if it’s actually deeper than Beacon Hill Station, or if it just felt that way because I was using the escalator/stairs instead of an elevator.
I was surprised that I didn’t get WiFI at UW station- since it’s been on in the DSTT recently. Oddly, my phone said I had T-Mobile reception in Capitol Hill Station.
The arrival boards are great- I hope they deploy them at all the stations.
I hope ST and Metro put up easily visible and clearly written signs directing people to/from buses when the restructure goes live on Saturday. Since I regularly transfer to/from the 65, 43, and 48 in that area, I have some idea where to go, but off the top of my head, I don’t remember where all the buses involved in the restructure will be stopping, and if I wasn’t already used to transferring in that area, I’d be completely lost.
Biking is a pretty good way to get to UW station- I won’t be surprised if the bike racks fill up completely everyday.
If they put a Pronto station right outside US station, and spaced around the Burke-Gilman trail, and a few more places around campus and the U-District, and hooked it into Orca, or at least the Husky Card, I think it would be popular.
Going from the ID to UW in less than 15 minutes was awesome.
Phillip, I wish you’d take that impressive camera down to Westlake Station from Saturday on, and especially rush hour the next Friday, and put some pics on flickr. Anybody know if flickr can do video? Maybe better just to bring your photography skill and a lot smaller and cheaper camera.
Because unless Metro has a lot police officers for security, and a lot of security guards repurposed for passenger assistance, BART’s purchase mistakes won’t even rate column space, let alone headlines.
I think the legal term is “State’s Evidence.” But seriously, I think a lot of photography flickr’d onto these pages will give the system itself some valuable insights into what it needs to do next, and what will happen to it if it doesn’t.
From what bus drivers are telling me that they haven’t been trained about, I think a lot of serious consequences will need some accurate information to deal with.
Mark Dublin
wiki says Beacon Hill station is 160 feet down and UW station is 100 feet down.
UW and Capitol Hill stations need to be moved from the “under construction” table to the open stations table. But it’s bedtime now for me…
The dumb question of the day – I’m on my PC and I want to find a list of every stop Route 271 makes. How do I do display that list? I can’t seem to find a full route schedule on the Metro site… what button am I not seeing?
Just checking for alternatives for the next month as Evergreen Point closes… I could walk to the 271 somewhere in Medina/Clyde Hill and get to U-Link on it, right? I’m trying to avoid the EVP-to-Yarrow circulator bus, thinking that’ll add a bunch of time, and Yarrow Point is too far to walk.
– EastsideRider
Yes, the 271 does exactly what you want. If you usually use Evergreen Point, you’ll probably want the stops on 84th Ave NE; OneBusAway has a complete map and list
Thanks – that’s exactly what I needed!
Now if any westbound in the AM 271 riders are here – will there be room on the 271 in the 7:30 to 8 AM timeframe in Medina to squeeze on? 520 busses are often crush loaded and bypass the EVP stop at that time in the morning, but there are enough of them that it doesn’t matter, another will come along in a few minutes. The 271 is it, however, on 84th.
New bus queue jump signals on Pike Street in downtown! There’s one at 6th, bus gets about a 5 second head start of general traffic if it needs to change lanes
A $200 million project to improve bus service and change zoning through Southeast Portland and Gresham is in limbo after project managers realized that it wouldn’t actually make it faster to ride the bus.
Future project phases of the Rest of the West are planned to include:
A new, second bascule bridge across the Montlake Cut.
Ah, I must have missed it. When did a second bridge across the Montlake Cut get approved/funded?
Sorry, source of this information was “SR 520 News of the Week” email I receive from WSDOT.
Google said its computers have reviewed the incident and engineers changed the software that governs the cars to understand that buses may not be as inclined to yield as other vehicles.
According to the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, a big cause of pedestrian death is bad bus design. According to the ATU, a pedestrian is killed every 10 days by a city bus because of blind spots in poorly designed buses.
Question for route 545 PM peak westbound riders. How many times a year is traffic so bad that it takes 45+ minutes to get from the Roanoke street exit on 520 to downtown?
I’ll take the silence as meaning none have you have ever had that happen. Then why, in a King 5 online story, did a guy say this?
“I take the 545 every day. As soon as it hits Capitol Hill it can take 45 minutes to get downtown. Now I can just switch off, get on the train and be there in 6 minutes.”
http://www.king5.com/story/news/traffic/2016/03/19/university-link-light-rail-opening-6-months-early-200-million-under-budget/82000408/
Need to run now – but it’s taken half an hour for me, multiple times. Maybe the guy in question was thinking of the time to the International District? (In which case, true, 6 minutes on Link wouldn’t be an exact comparison.)
Depends on which part of downtown you’re talking about. When traffic is bad, Montake to Westlake can easily be over 30 minutes and Montlake to 5th/Jackson can easily be over 45.
Yesterday I was riding on a PCC, today I will ride U-Link. I’m really looking forward to it.
Flew in last night about sunset and could see the 3 LRV trains running in the RV. Looked great from the air. Looked like real transit.
Thinking ahead a generation or two, is Link making a mistake by limiting itself to 4 car trains? Do you think that the cute, 4 car trains will someday be insufficient to accommodate ridership demands? Frequency could be increased, but that would cause problems (traffic congestion in RV, tunnel congestion, etc.). I would imagine that East Link would be the first to outgrow the 4 car trains; but who knows, future generations may someday be cursing us for not having the foresight to allow for longer trains.
Car lengths will be the least of ST’s worries decades from now. All one has to do to see into our future is look at what’s currently happening at older systems.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-went-for-the-glamour-forgot-the-nitty-gritty-6924061.php
Sorry Sam, but your link is behind a paywall. I guess your point is that ST is so busy expanding its system that it won’t be able to properly maintain its core infrastructure and eventually the whole system will fall apart — like what we’re seeing with our asphalt and concrete transportation network. Certainly we’ll need to upgrade or replace the current signal system in XX years, the rolling stock will be due for replacement in about 20-25 years and, who knows, maybe the whole system will become obsolete because it’s just too damn small (those dinky 4 car trains!).
Is Link upgradeable to heavy rail someday? Or did we bake in LRT forever?
I was looking at the rail yesterday; they look to be 115# which would be good for heavy passenger rail, but not coal trains or heavy freight cars.
I doubt it. Rainier Valley is one of the few places where this could be an issue, because headways are very limited. Rather than run bigger train sets, you could build underpasses, which would allow for more frequency, and thus much better service. That would be expensive, but worth it if we ever get to that point (and we are nowhere near that point).
@Guy.
I’m not sure if 4-car trains will be enough in perpetuity, but the length of the train sets is set by the platform length in the DSTT – and that was a Metro decision that predates ST. Yes, they were thinking is rail “someday”, but I really don’t know what went into their choice of 400 feet.
That said, for seattle and probably for KC 4-car trains with proper expansion and low headways should last a good long time.
Personally I’d take coverage and frequency over peak capacity any day. Chasing peak capacity is really for the burbs, and I don’t think our system should be designed around what is best for the burbs. We need to be smarter than that.
If Link ever gets to the point it needs longer trains, then it is time to build another line that serves somewhere else.
Or, make better use of full scale railroad trains as regional transportation.
@Glen,
Concur 100%. And that was part of the idea behind Sounder. At some point it might make sense to need up Sounder along a Regional Centers model.
This link to the Chronicle story worked for me (courtesy of the BART Reddit page).
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/BART-went-for-the-glamour-forgot-the-nitty-gritty-6924061.php?t=2d9eb5b9fbf294ee0d&cmpid=twitter-premium
Two words; Open. Gangways.
These trains currently waste a ton of space with the duplicated control cabs and equipment. I think as the current set ages and the ridership rises we will probably go to 4 car customs trains and we will slowly rebuild the rainier valley section to support increased frequency. Culminating in total automation of the system.
Four car Link trains are not “cute”. They hold about as many people as a six-recent-car New York Subway train because one Link “car” (95 feet) is actually two units each of which is about 2/3 as long as a R160 (60.2 feet).
Four car trains are all that will fit in the DSTT stations, so wishing for longer trains is pointless.
Husky,
Well, if the RV section, the bit along 112th SE and the at grade stretches in the Spring District were elevated or tunneled, certainly, the system could be converted to heavy rail, with one caveat. That is that the platforms are designed for low-floor cars and HRT systems are universally high-platform.
That gives them a tremendous advantage in stability. Low-floor cars have at least the articulation idlers running without an axle; they’re “independely suspended” like an automobile. That is never as stable as a fixed axle in a rail context and corners much less well because it doesn’t give rise to “inner-wheel rise”. Thus low-floor LRT vehicles are limited to lower speeds than HRT trains.
How could increased frequency cause tunnel congestion? Other cities run at headways of 2 minutes or even less (SkyTrain for example) without any tunnel congestion problems.
I put the BART problems in context earlier:
https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2016/03/19/light-rail-a-long-and-winding-road/#comment-703242
The UMTA era was sort of a false dawn for public transportation.
Ross:
It’s really hard for me to see Link being that limited along ML King. Along Holladay Street MAX runs every 3.5 minutes or so at peak period, and it crosses highway 99 at grade through there, and a few other non-vacant streets. Some reworking of the traffic lights could probably make huge strides towards being able to increase frequency.
Undercutting costs money, but it might not be as expensive as you think. There are several places where Portland did this:
1. Highway 26 goes under the Union Pacific (nee Southern Pacific) main line at SE 17th Avenue. Mile long freight trains moving into the freight yard had a nasty habit of blocking traffic, even in the 1950s.
2. When the Morrison Bridge was rebuilt as essentially a branch extension of Interstate 5, there wasn’t much space for the bridge to rise while having the requisite cloverleaf interchange into downtown Portland streets. Thus, SW 1st Avenue got dropped about 7 feet or so. MAX now uses this to cross under Morrison.
3. There is a similar issue with a 1950 era cloverleaf addition to the 1912 era Steel Bridge. The new ramp crosses Front Avenue / Natio Parkway in a spot that is a bit tight for vertical clearances, so they dropped the street currently known as Natio Parkway partly into a pit.
Obviously, doing this relatively cheaply will depend on what’s under the road there, but if there are major water or sewer lines there chances are they were moved when Link was put in.
Glenn,
If there is ever enough ridership to warrant grade separating the through streets crossing MLK, it will make sense to build the bypass. MLK itself won’t need four-car trains every four minutes (say) by itself; there will have to be heavy ridership from the south as well. And if there’s heavy ridership from the south it makes economic and service equity sense to give the riders a quicker trip to the CBD.
@Anandakos — I really doubt that a bypass will ever be justified. It would essentially be commuter rail at light rail prices. While adding underpasses to MLK would be expensive, it would be a lot cheaper than adding a new line.
Seattle is growing much faster than its suburbs, and unlike most of Seattle, the city government will encourage growth in the Rainier Valley (it already has). A bypass, meanwhile, would resemble BART. While BART has much bigger trains, they also travel a lot less frequently. We are talking 15-20 minutes. So even if the southern suburbs had enormous growth and looked like the Bay Area suburbs, you would run these trains every ten minutes at most. When you consider that SeaTac is the main destination past Rainier Valley, you won’t have that much ridership (miss a train and you miss your flight). You end up with a system that is simply a lot worse. While a few thousand might prefer the express, many more (in Rainier Valley) will miss out on the increased headways. If capacity really becomes an issue with South Link, the way to solve it is increased frequency.
But, as folks have said, that isn’t likely to be a problem for a very long time (if ever).
South King and Pierce can pay for a Georgetown bypass if they want it, but they have never mentioned it as a priority. Meanwhile, underpasses are the least that should be done in Rainier Valley. And why not put the whole segment in a trench if it’s cheaper than tunneling. They lowered Montlake Place and Aurora; they can lower the Link track.
By now you’ve already noticed, Lazarus, that you rode on the first real transit system Seattle has ever had. Best thing about is that both transit supporters and opponents can now, with a single ride, know what they’re talking about.
Also, we now have a powerful tool for pro-transit politics. Ride U-LINK round trip for a whole day, adding up the number of little boys about four years old, and then start making calculations for the 2030 election. Should be a hundred percent correlation.
Based on discussions I’ve overheard, girls same age will be priceless for reporting necessary improvements, correcting boys for their misconceptions about transit and everything else.
And giving correct passenger information in terms their little brothers and the rest of the world can understand and obey.
Also, get with schools, and also the Seattle Art Museum and similar, to encourage school field trips. Parents have told me that for ball games and movies, their kids like the train ride better than whatever they’re going to.
Which could also force their dads to get off the couch drinking beer and eating potato chips, and take them for train rides. And give their moms something else to do besides being trapped in a stadium getting deafened by green plastic “vuvuzelas”
Also beneficial is that 18-month old babies will start pointing and demanding every time they pass a tunnel station stairway and hear a bell. Which will, for the first time, enable their parents to find a DSTT entrance in spite of the wretched signage.
From personal experience, a single ride on any Interurban including the Electroliner- go to wikipedia to see “root causes”- has historically induce many little guys to endure six decades in a transit-less country until they can help do CPR by driving a Breda.
And most transit positive: Even after girls cease to be “yucky”, online dating profile reading either “Go ride LINK!” or “Long walks in the country and seeing Sunsets” is a perfect compatibility metric for the kind of boys who always know worldwide interurban colors and 1932 schedules by heart.
Women have always known what “Y” on the male chromosome stands for lifelong, with no cure in sight. But as at least one heartbreaking movie will soon note, plot will be complicated by the fact that on every LINK line, walks part depend on how late the Route 8 is, and sunsets upon which side of IDS your U-Link ride is.
Mark
My son still remembers fondly a field trip his nursery school took when BART first started service way way back when.
Nice video. It’s ironic to post this on the same day Seattle times argues that transit must have free parking for commuters because many need cars.
It’s only a short step to argue that I must have free parking provided by my employer because (my own personal lifestyle choices mean that) I have to drive every day.
The Seattle times should recamp to be the Suburban Seattle Times.
http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/sound-transit-3-cars-are-still-a-reality-in-a-mass-transit-future/
Marta – FWIW, I don’t think the Times article ever said the parking had to be “Free” – I personally don’t have any issue with parking at the outlying stations, especially if it’s designed to be a placeholder for future TOD, but I absolutely don’t think it should be free, at least not in structured parking.
Is there another expensive consumer good they would advocate to increase for free to user via taxes on all of us? Remember the position they took on our recent transit votes and move Seattle? They are hypocrites stuck in the 1950s.
In a world where electricity was provided free and everyone used it constantly would they advocate for household meters or building new dams and reactors?
You can’t complain about provision in a world where allocation has failed. I don’t expect anything much from the brain dead times, but this was particularly an outdated position.
I’m in agreement, there is a place for parking at station particularly in auto-oriented suburban communities and/or station locations in the immediate fume zone of a freeway where no one would ever want to live (like say, South Everett Freeway Station).
But for the Suburban Times to criticize the new line and its stations for not having parking in Capitol Hill and UW is laughable. Sound Transit is so far doing a pretty good job of knowing which stations to have parking at and which not to.
City policy is against P&Rs where they don’t already exist, so it’s not like ST had a choice. Although ever since Link opened in Rainier Valley there have been people asking for P&Rs there so they don’t have to park on side streets. There are some private pay lots but those cost money so they’re not as popular.
Even if this weren’t city policy, it would make exactly zero sense at these two stations. They are intended as (a) destinations; (b) walkable stations for nearby residents; and (c) drop off points for transit. No one should ever think of parking near either station just to take the train. It would of course have been better if ST, SDOT and Metro had combined to make some really first-class bus dropoffs available at both stations, but why start now, right?
It already is The Suburban Times
If you can make a decent case for adding parking in many different light rail stations, chances are, you are building it wrong. Without a doubt there is a case for having a big park and ride in a suburban station (usually the terminus of a line). Areas like that are sprawling, without the density or attractions to enable enough people to walk to the station. But for the same reason, light rail probably doesn’t belong there. If it is part of a regional transit network — with buses connecting to it — then maybe the station makes sense. But chances are you only need one of those stations (not dozens of them) in a sprawling low density area. If the stations are in the city and it makes sense to drive to the station, then they obviously designed it wrong.
Link provides a good example of this. North of Northgate, you need a station that can connect to the buses. Adding in a park and ride as well is fine. It really isn’t that expensive. For example, Mountlake Terrace would work great for that. It has great connections for the buses, and a huge parking garage can be built there. But spending billions sending the line farther north with the same dynamic (bus feeders and park and rides) is just a waste of money. Since the line is right on the freeway, the trip isn’t much faster (an express to Mountlake Terrace is similar to a trip to Lynnwood, then a train). You just aren’t going to get huge numbers of riders (enough to justify billions spend on light rail) by adding a park and ride. If you have a cheap commuter rail line (or cheap bus service) then by all means a park and ride makes sense. But spending billions for a station with a few thousand park and ride users is really a waste.
As for Seattle itself, you see a variation of the problem. How does someone from the C. D. connect to Link. Take a bus to the UW or Capitol Hill? Maybe, but that will take a while. In most cases, driving will save a considerable amount of time. But that is because there aren’t enough stations. You have to choose between those two stations, or, in many cases, just go downtown. If there were stations on First Hill and 23rd and Madison the dynamic changes considerably. You have fast buses connecting all over the place. In many cases, taking a bus is faster than being dropped off (e. g. on Madison in a few years).
The Seattle Times editorial board is looking at the system and thinks that the only thing that is missing is a few big park and ride lots. They miss the fact that is extends too far into the suburbs, has too few stations in the city, and few of the stations work really well with the buses.
Will times, costs, and places be posted online? Or in newspapers, for those of us who don’t have “smart-phones”? Or via phone-call? Because I really hate not being able to budget, and being forced to make a decision on price until I get there, and have no choice?
Very much like toll lanes subject to change while my car is in motion. Or am I wrong about that? Only way I’ll put a tire on tolled road is on a bus. So, question: does “dynamic” mean I’ll find out when I get there, or specific rates for specific times?
Set me straight on facts here. Because same feeling as always about anything with word “dynamic” in it, except for brakes. Also “markets”. Payer is always animal hanging on the hook. And Ayn Rand was a dangerous nut case.
Mark Dublin
I am betting you could start by looking at the website referenced in the video….
Thanks, Marta. But suggestion, Sam. Just scratch out “BART”, and fill in “The United States of America.” Which has always been willing to sacrifice order and reverence for flashy irrelevancies like the Bill of Rights.
So now that our sewer systems are also having problems with deferred maintenance, got a business suggestion for you. Help revive respected old enterprises like digging gravity-powered outhouses.
Or selling residential coin slots for everybody’s toilet. With prices marketizing by the minute. Idea of you ripping your sofa to pieces to find the change has made my whole morning!
Mark
Mark,
Do you budget your time? Does it make a difference to you how long you have to search for parking, or walk from the spot you find to your destination? Those are certainly unpredictable, and instead of planning on the possibility of spending $5 more for parking, with fixed pricing we have to plan on the possibility of an extra 15 minutes if parking is particularly congested.
That’s not Ayn Rand nuttiness, it’s the way the world works. You apparently prefer to budget money very closely at the expense of wasted time; not everyone has that preference and it’s a perfectly legitimate policy question how to manage that tradeoff. And in addition, managing parking congestion ALSO reduces road congestion, for both cars and transit.
Thanks for this topic, Jim. It’s important. I always argue that operating delays caused by bus fareboxes in the DSTT cost the system far more than the boxes gain in any way. So to me, wasted time definitely is wasted money.
What gets to me, for both transit revenue and personal spending habits, is complication and uncertainty. Especially when, like most transit passengers, even when I’ve got the money, being forced into a sudden decision always feels like a hustle.
“If you act now ….!” always translates to “Stick ’em up!!!” Inbound from Bellevue years ago, I remember how a time-losing discussion over fare complications sent six intending transit passengers back to add their Mercury to a ball-game traffic. jam.
I always buy a monthly pass when I’ll never use half its price. I doubt Ebeneezer Scrooge would have bought a yearly parchment scroll for coach fare rather than fumble cackling in a velvet bag for gold guineas.
It’s also why, in addition to my pass, I always by a paper day pass at a TVM before my first LINK ride. Don’t have to miss a train remembering if I’ve “tapped” or not. Or my time wasted by a lecture from a fare inspector and having my ID photographed.
Which also wastes both his time and the taxpayers’. A “Lose to the tenth power Lose” situation, over precise revenue distribution between agencies who long ago promised us a seamless fare system.
First stop anytime I land or, like in Portland, get off a train is a ticket machine to buy a day pass. Which to me, at any farebox should always also be issued in place of a transfer.
In practice, I personally handle variable expenses by simply budgeting for the highest cost I can possibly be assessed. Putting the remainder in my savings account. But for transit policy, passenger good will is deeply time-sensitive-and literally priceless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_the_Living
Ayn Rand’s take on the way the world works, including a brilliant girl’s problematic reaction to the hundred -percent- every -war worst of it.
Mark
Mark
“In practice, I personally handle variable expenses by simply budgeting for the highest cost I can possibly be assessed. ”
This works unless the highest cost you can be assessed is unaffordable. Then, traditionally, you buy insurance.
If the insurance is ALSO unaffordable, there’s a problem. This is the situation with “health” (medical) insurance for a lot of people in the US. It’s often best to budget nothing at all when that happens.
Seattle’s website on parking rates: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/paidparkingrates.htm
Interesting piece, primarily an argument for fiscal stimulus, but also arguing that restrictive building codes in places like San Francisco (and I suppose Seattle) also prevent job growth. I think this summary by the Economist may be a bit hyperbolic, but and interesting aspect none the less.
“Regulation may also be a problem. Messrs Guzman and Stern find that entrepreneurial potential in some places, such as San Francisco and its hinterland, is far larger than in others, such as Detroit. Yet restrictions on construction constrain the movement of people from stagnant places to dynamic ones. A paper published in 2015 by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago and Enrico Moretti of the University of California, Berkeley, suggested that if it were easier to build in and around San Francisco, and thus cheaper to live there, employment in the area would rise by more than 500%, while many cities in the Rust Belt would all but vanish.”
http://www.economist.com/node/21695071
Photo link to yesterday’s STB Meet-Up: https://www.flickr.com/photos/avgeekjoe/sets/72157666007161421
Not to be a wet blanket on yesterday’s festivities, but what’s the deal with the way ST deals with service disruptions? Especially on the notification side of things.
Friday, a train lost power blocking the tracks somewhere between ID and Stadium. For 20 min. my wife and kid sat on a not moving train (while they waited for the disabled one to be moved, and I waited for another Southbound train at Westlake. Service was clearly disrupted more than ten minutes before any announcement was made in the station. And of course it was just the electronic voice saying service was disrupted and additional info would be made available shortly. This announcement continued every 2 minutes or so for about 15 minutes. At that point announcement was made that service was suspended in the DSTT and passengers should take various buses to Stadium station in order to connect to a train. About 30 seconds after that announcement, a train pulled in to Westlake and we were on our way.
25 minutes to clear a disabled train doesn’t seem so bad, but why ST can’t use the myriad of ways available to better inform travelers as to what is going on and when they expect the trains should be running again is a mystery to me. The email and station notifications are completely worthless, other than knowing when I get an email, about a service disruption (or reinstatement), it is most likely inaccurate and I’m probably better off catching a 7 or 36 bus. If service is not running they should have the reader boards in the station constantly scrolling that its not running. The notifications that the elevator was not working at Mt. Baker was running more often than the notice that the trains weren’t running.
This is not the first time this has happened. It was nice this time to have wifi in the tunnel so I could communicate with my wife and also see when the ST emails arrived relative to station announcements and actual activity. Anyone know if they have plans to make this better? Will those fancy new displays at the new stations do this and will they be installed anytime soon at the older stations?
Dan, more than once I’ve been glad I could fly out of both airports, San Francisco and Oakland. And I really think that considering difference in magnitudes, the Oakland shuttle really isn’t that relevant.
But for future development, I would bet that if the line to Bay Point had not been built, the economic development that part of the Bay Area desperately needs. Both Pittsburgh and Antioch (the California ones) are weirdly stagnant, considering how nice the towns are. anmd how beautiful the area.
From what I was told, there used to be a thriving cannery there- which my informants also told me were so pollutionary that there wasn’t a live duck in sight. But I can’t believe that a place like that isn’t going to attract development that will more than justify BART.
For a system that can use the diesel line too. And electrify it as well. Though I’d really like to know from any Bay Point local reading this what’s with Snow White’s gorgeously evil nemesis that helps her keep this region asleep?
But more important, what’s current repair condition of California’s freeway network? Or are they maintenance free because they don’t have to deal with moving traffic? My own “read” is that our entire country is falling apart from deferred maintenance.
Of course, I also think that reason we’re rusting to pieces has to do with things like the “Sequester”- where Congress effectively wrecked not only the President’s terms in office, as planned, but also withheld already-appropriated money, which has wrecked our whole nation.
I’m putting my own elected reps on notice that I don’t give either a dime or a vote to anybody who uses the word “stimulus.” Millions of skilled tradespeople out of work, millions of dollars worth of repairs. In the world or real accounting, “deferred maintenance (read pieces falling off) counts as red ink (sort of rusty, really), not black.
There is a chance, though, that we should have made the Mississippi River our permanent western border. A lot of previous landowners would definitely like to see that unwise decision reversed.
BART’s problem is not that too much got built. It’s that somebody didn’t have the guts to ask taxpayers to cover maintenance too. Or maybe, given what Californians did to their once fine school system (wonder if Howard Jarvis is either related to Tim Eyman or is really the same person) maybe the whole state is an overreach.
Poison Oak as a natural ground cover. Brush fires established so long ago in the ecosystem that the bristle-cone pine tree can’t even germinate ’til the cones are burned. I think nature may have been warning mankind about the maintenance since long before Statehood.
Mark
BART’s problems run deeper than that. I’ve discussed this before. It was designed by aircraft engineers who thought that they should ignore everything which anyone had ever learned about railroads.
The result… is exceptionally expensive to build, operate, and maintain compared to any other system in the world.
This isn’t a new problem. I won’t link my Brill helicopter again unless I get immunity, but that chief mechanic on the Boston “T” in 1979 mentioned vents placed where cool air will also bring talcum powder made of copper and carbon to ventilate the motors with.
But I really wonder how how impossible it is either for rail mechanics to get aircraft training or vice versa. These trains have been on the rails for decades. Who’s been maintaining them up to now?
As I’ve said before, PCC streetcars look suspiciously like the aircraft of the day. Would somebody with either or both kinds of mechanical experience give us some perspective on this problem?
Mark
Right, but it is also a case of not building what needed to be built. There are miles and miles of track, with very few people riding on them (and thus very poor farebox recovery). it is the opposite of SkyTrain (where farebox recovery pays for its operations). The result is a system that was bound to cost way more to operate and maintain that people expected, even if it had been built properly.
Imagine if instead of sending trains to far flung suburban cited, they had simply concentrated on Oakland, Berkeley and San Fransisco. Add a bunch more stations, along with an extra line on the East Bay (paralleling the existing one). You would have a lot fewer miles of track, but a lot higher ridership. You would still have the problems you have, but they wouldn’t be as severe.
In a way, the Cross Kirkland Corridor greenbelt is like Pandora in the movie Avatar. There are people who want to preserve it, like myself, and people who want to exploit it. The people who want to turn the greenbelt into a transit corridor remind me of the Colonel and the Giovanni Ribisi character.
Oh yeah, I forgot all of that was private property.
Thanks for straightening me out.
The people who jog on it or want to preserve it for their views are also exploiting it.
By the “Cross Kirkland Corridor Greenbelt”, of course, you refer to the Woodinville Subdivision railroad, a federally listed railroad line which must not be removed from railroad use without approval from the Surface Transportation Board?
No fair, Sam! I’m always telling people to look things up, but every time I try to go to Google, the idea of you running along the trail with a periscope, flippers, and a snorkel I can’t even hit the keys to find out what the other guy’s rank was.
Though on the positive side, some diver with PTSD might mistake you for okay, an angler fish (look it up!) and reach for his harpoon. Or use you for bait, thereby violating the shoreline management act. You’re safe.
Mark
This one’s for you, Mark:
http://bikeportland.org/2010/12/06/riders-get-a-glimpse-of-holiday-express-steam-train-on-springwater-trail-44034
I used U-Link for the first time today. I live in Wedgewood, biked to the U-District for coffee, then biked to UW Station, took the train to University Street, ran some errands, took another train to the International District and did some shopping at Uwajimaya, then caught a train back to UW station, and biked home.
A few initial impressions:
I was amazed at how deep the station was. I’m not sure if it’s actually deeper than Beacon Hill Station, or if it just felt that way because I was using the escalator/stairs instead of an elevator.
I was surprised that I didn’t get WiFI at UW station- since it’s been on in the DSTT recently. Oddly, my phone said I had T-Mobile reception in Capitol Hill Station.
The arrival boards are great- I hope they deploy them at all the stations.
I hope ST and Metro put up easily visible and clearly written signs directing people to/from buses when the restructure goes live on Saturday. Since I regularly transfer to/from the 65, 43, and 48 in that area, I have some idea where to go, but off the top of my head, I don’t remember where all the buses involved in the restructure will be stopping, and if I wasn’t already used to transferring in that area, I’d be completely lost.
Biking is a pretty good way to get to UW station- I won’t be surprised if the bike racks fill up completely everyday.
If they put a Pronto station right outside US station, and spaced around the Burke-Gilman trail, and a few more places around campus and the U-District, and hooked it into Orca, or at least the Husky Card, I think it would be popular.
Going from the ID to UW in less than 15 minutes was awesome.
Phillip, I wish you’d take that impressive camera down to Westlake Station from Saturday on, and especially rush hour the next Friday, and put some pics on flickr. Anybody know if flickr can do video? Maybe better just to bring your photography skill and a lot smaller and cheaper camera.
Because unless Metro has a lot police officers for security, and a lot of security guards repurposed for passenger assistance, BART’s purchase mistakes won’t even rate column space, let alone headlines.
I think the legal term is “State’s Evidence.” But seriously, I think a lot of photography flickr’d onto these pages will give the system itself some valuable insights into what it needs to do next, and what will happen to it if it doesn’t.
From what bus drivers are telling me that they haven’t been trained about, I think a lot of serious consequences will need some accurate information to deal with.
Mark Dublin
wiki says Beacon Hill station is 160 feet down and UW station is 100 feet down.
speaking of which, anyone here want to update this wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Link_Light_Rail_stations ?
UW and Capitol Hill stations need to be moved from the “under construction” table to the open stations table. But it’s bedtime now for me…
The dumb question of the day – I’m on my PC and I want to find a list of every stop Route 271 makes. How do I do display that list? I can’t seem to find a full route schedule on the Metro site… what button am I not seeing?
Just checking for alternatives for the next month as Evergreen Point closes… I could walk to the 271 somewhere in Medina/Clyde Hill and get to U-Link on it, right? I’m trying to avoid the EVP-to-Yarrow circulator bus, thinking that’ll add a bunch of time, and Yarrow Point is too far to walk.
– EastsideRider
Yes, the 271 does exactly what you want. If you usually use Evergreen Point, you’ll probably want the stops on 84th Ave NE; OneBusAway has a complete map and list
Thanks – that’s exactly what I needed!
Now if any westbound in the AM 271 riders are here – will there be room on the 271 in the 7:30 to 8 AM timeframe in Medina to squeeze on? 520 busses are often crush loaded and bypass the EVP stop at that time in the morning, but there are enough of them that it doesn’t matter, another will come along in a few minutes. The 271 is it, however, on 84th.
New bus queue jump signals on Pike Street in downtown! There’s one at 6th, bus gets about a 5 second head start of general traffic if it needs to change lanes
Better now to see BRT Creep than after built:
PORTLAND: ‘Rapid’ bus plan on Powell-Division stalls after it turns out not to be rapid
http://bikeportland.org/2016/03/18/rapid-bus-plan-on-powell-division-stalls-after-it-turns-out-not-to-be-rapid-178130
A $200 million project to improve bus service and change zoning through Southeast Portland and Gresham is in limbo after project managers realized that it wouldn’t actually make it faster to ride the bus.
Ah, I must have missed it. When did a second bridge across the Montlake Cut get approved/funded?
Sorry, source of this information was “SR 520 News of the Week” email I receive from WSDOT.
Don’t throw me under the bus, I’m just the messenger:
Google Self-Driving Car Strikes Public Bus
Guns Don’t Kill People; Buses Kill People