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This is an open thread.

98 Replies to “News Roundup: YIMBY”

    1. ST put three more trains into service for peak periods during the viaduct closure, as Josh at Publicola reported this morning.

      Last Friday’s 83,000+ riders buried the record of 72,000 from M’s Opening Day / Comic-Con. I don’t know how much of that was King Felix’s Court, and how much was peak commuters giving up on driving or their bus, at least for Day 1 of Viadoom. I don’t expect that mark to be hit again for at least a few months, but I also wouldn’t have guessed just adding three more trains would have been enough, given how already crowded the trains were.

      2. Are those 3 additional peak-hour trains (during viaduct closure), are they all 3-car trains? Before the closure, ST was operating just two 3-car trains, each rush-hour trippers.

  3. I love this photograph!

    I second Lloyd’s comment – more 3-car Link trains!

      1. Hey there Joe.

        Are you planning to do a “transit day” type post about your recent visit to the hinterlands down here? You said you were visiting in late April so I assume you are back home now.

        People on this blog have heard of MAX but I’ve never had the need to try Yamhill Transit 33 or whatever you wound up using for your trip.

    1. ST plans to retire their rolling stock for the Tacoma Community College extension in ST3. So, maybe they should also do the voltage switch at the same time and combine Tacoma Link and Central Link into one line. Putting downtown on the main line would be a key benefit to this. But, Tacoma Mall would have to be served some other way (spur off South Sounder, maybe)

      1. You’re expecting ST to put downtown Tacoma on the main line in one month when ST3 must be finalized, when the segment hasn’t been studied, the city of Tacoma hasn’t been informed, the city has never asked for it, the public hasn’t commented on it, and it might require redesigning the Tacoma Link line which is still planned?

      2. I wonder how difficult it would be to get people to understand splitting trains somewhere around Fife?

        Maybe build a six car platform there so that the four car trains can turn around and two single car trains at the south end of the platform will go one to downtown Tacoma and the other to Tacoma Mall?

      3. Mike, no, I expect that any potential switch would be in 2041 (hopefully earlier), when the line to TCC starts running, not next month, which is crazy.

      4. I’m no engineer, but I’d like to hear what an engineer who is familiar with Tacoma has to say about a Sounder spur to the Mall. For reasons that are obvious to anyone who has ever been to Tacoma, it sounds like a really bad idea, unless you tunnel it, which would be ridiculously expensive.

      5. Consider my previous post along the lines of thinking out loud. A Tacoma Mall station would either be located where the current rails are, which is next to a car dealership and not really next to the core of the neighborhood. Otherwise, it would be a tunnel probably, because of the hills. However, by using the rails already there and already owned by ST, the length would be much shorter, so probably less expensive than extending link.

      6. ST design engineers planned for a later voltage increase when Tacoma Link was designed, back in the early years of the last decade.

      7. Yes they should have the main line go to Downtown Tacoma and not the fu**ing mall that killed downtown if it has to be one or the other. Convert the tracks to accommodate Central Link. Why would you ever bypass your downtown in order to serve a suburban mall especially with rapid transit?

        If you are going to serve both, have Central Link swing through the industrial area to the east (where the railyards already run in a NW-SE direction) in order to then run east-west through the heart of downtown Tacoma (north of the convention center) then tunnel under Hilltop (mainly because of grade). Make Downtown “on the way”. Tacoma Link then becomes a surface feeder that ties in at multiple stations to Central Link, not all that dissimilar from the Portland Streetcar to MAX. Then again I’d rather that money spent on Metro 8 or UW-Ballard, but hey its their money and at least this.would be most useful

      8. My thought is that after the East Tacoma station, it swings slightly north thru the port (as you stated), stops near the Museum of Glass downtown, and then heads south to Tacoma Dome as the last stop. Future extensions could run south along Pacific.

        As far as service the mall, ST owns the nearby rail lines, so I say they should turn it into a light-rail type of line. The small number of freight trains and amtraks wouldn’t interfere much with that, and even though it’s at-grade, it’s at grade with crossing gates instead of traffic signals.

  5. Does the city of seattle have the legal ability to toll SOVs entering or exiting I-5 downtown?

    1. What, because Seattle needs to become more of a rich people’s playground?

      1. No, because people who clog up city streets, especially during commute times, should pay for the delays everyone else experiences because of them. They don’t just affect other SOV drivers: transit slows to the point of being totally ineffective, and biking becomes more dangerous.

        Obviously, robust, transit in its own right of way is necessary to be able to replace SOV trips for this to be effective and somewhat equitable.

      2. If you care about successful transit, which is very much not a benefit limited to or primarily for the rich, you should support congestion pricing (which has been very successful in London, Gothenberg, Stockholm, etc).

        http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/03/15/congestion_pricing_and_mass_transit_two_great_tastes_that_taste_great_together.html

        Wasting road-space downtown with an SOV during peak times is an anti-social thing to do, with real social costs–people should pay something for it. Does charging for street parking turn neighborhoods into “playgrounds of the rich”?

      3. Tolls are a worse-than-regressive form of taxation; they hit the poor especially hard, while having no impact on the rich whatsoever. Rich people already have plenty of advantages; why would we willingly create a new system for giving them even more advantages, by imposing flat, income-blind user fees onto formerly public amenities, especially amenities so utterly fundamental as our streets?

        I am certainly interested in effective public transit, or I wouldn’t be here, and I do understand why tolls make sense from a transit engineer’s point of view: but effective public transit is not my *only* priority in life, and I simply don’t care how effective tolls are – they are not acceptable because they work to worsen rather than improve our already-terrible degree of financial inequality.

      4. Make the tolls progressive then by charging rich people more and poor people less, like Finland does with speeding tickets.

      5. Hmmm, I have never heard that proposed before, but that might be a form of tolling I could be comfortable with. Interesting. I still miss the MVET…

      6. Mars Saxman,

        Poor people don’t drive downtown during peak hours. (Neither do smart not poor people.). The only people who do are rich narcissists and clueless tourists.

      7. I’m sure that’d be an argument used to get the first toll passed, but I’m more concerned about the acceptability of tolling at all, because once you get the infrastructure in place it’s like planting blackberries on purpose – those vines will start spreading and strangling whether you like it or not. So we’d better be damn sure we’re willing to live with the consequences of a widespread extension of the initial idea, no matter how pragmatic and focused that initial proposal might seem.

      1. London seems to have congestion tolling down to a fine art. Lets imitate what they’re doing.

    4. It could adopt “curtain tolling” similar to London’s. Seattle owns the arterials and ordinary streets within the city limits. As noted above, I-5 and SR 99 can’t be tolled (by the City), but you could put curtains around each of the on- and off-ramps.

  6. DC Metro released a major maintenance catch-up plan today involving lots of single-tracking operations and longer-term shutdowns of track segments.

    Most notably, IMO, is that the system will be shutting down at midnight indefinitely beginning at the end of the month. No 3am Friday/Saturday service, no special event late nights. The extra time gained will provide 2 more hours of overnight work on all lines.

    People are not happy about the late night cuts. Taking away something that exists currently is politically very difficult. I’m reluctant to see late night or 24/7 Link service for this exact reason. Some argue that ST should add late night service now, and then it can cut back in the future when it maintenance is needed. However, that was the same attitude that helped get DC into the mess it is in: political pressure to expand/maintain service rather than perform maintenance.

    1. People don’t want to skimp on maintenance. Part of ST’s public-support capital is that it mostly functions well. The issue is people are skeptical that ST really needs 4-5 hours of downtime seven days a week. Is it really impossible to fit all its maintenance into five days a week? Or can’t it just schedule limited-service periods rather than having no owl service ever?

  7. “Preserving community character”

    I think this is why Fife is all-in with transit oriented development – they have no community characted to preserve.

    1. When I think of Fife community character, flashing electronic billboards come to mind.

  8. I think the ‘rule’ to remember that the less you carry on transit, the easier you will find it.
    And that transit is mass transit is PUBLIC transit. You are out in public even if public.

    My issue was backpacks at glasses level in the aisle and now its carry on wheely luggage to merely go the office. This morning the ‘cork’ (person who stood and blocked the aisle) du jour had what looked like an overnight bag on wheels and a messenger bag. I asked where he was flying out to and got a ‘next week’. Then he plunked his wheely bag on top of the stairs. Two of us tried to explain it to him but it was ‘you adorable little old ladies’. Sigh..

    2. People have to be able to carry weekly groceries and laundry and purchases and items they’re transporting on trains and buses. Otherwise it’s not really an alternative to having a car and driving. But conversely, people who are carrying multiple bags can try to do it off-peak if they can.

      1. I recently saw a guy with a long cargo bike waiting at the CH platform during rush hour. He didn’t even try to get on the crowded train that I squeezed onto. People with large “stuff” will learn soon enough to avoid crowded trains, except when they have to (plane to catch…)

    3. What if someone has a 10AM flight? They’ll be carrying suitcases at peak. What if someone leaves work at 4, takes the bus to Safeway to do their weekly shopping, then takes the bus home bag-laden at 5pm, still during peak. Should those people have to stay at work late or make a special bus trip just for shopping? What about picking up children from daycare with strollers and diaper bags and such.

      This is public transportation. Not transportation for single people who don’t have to carry stuff.

      1. What did someone do 7 years ago when they had a 10AM flight and they didn’t have a car? They made other plans and they had to take the 194 they especially Part of car-free is carefully thinking about your trips and your routine.

        I carry a bag in my bag and I shop European style and shop every day as a routine of my commute. I commute everyday, I commute past the Safeway everyday, I stop off at the Safeway everyday. If seven bags of groceries is your weekly trip, remember that you can shop one bag each day and get same result. Remember that the weekly grocery trip might be a holdover of when you made that trip by car weekly.

        This is public transportation where you will be around people and crowds. You carry the backseat of your car on a transit trip and you will have a crappy experience. Even if no one is unpleasant to you. ST is not in the business providing you with a backseat for your stuff, they are in the business of providing a ticket for YOU. The ‘single people who don’t have to carry stuff’ don’t have to especially pleasant to people who think they are in the backseat of a car, and think so over and over. DONT BE A SEAT HOG.

      2. and if they had to take the 194 they packed light because they knew it was going to be horrible.

      3. It doesn’t have to be all that much thought, really. If people have to carefully plot out their day just to use transit they won’t do it!

        Carrying a few shopping bags onto the train? Fine! Pushing on a whole cart during rush-hour? Not so great!

        Taking your bike on the train occasionally, or when it’s not that busy? Great! Find yourself taking your bike on the train through peak crowds daily? Lock it up somewhere!

        Backpack in the aisle, by your feet? Great! Backpack swinging around up high? That’s kind of rude and not space-efficient!

        Suitcases for the occasional flight? Sure! Stashing them in the wheelchair section or blocking the aisles? Nope!

        I think we’ll all figure this out soon enough. People are infinitely adaptable. A lot of people here just haven’t adjusted to what it’s really like to use busy transit.

      5. There’s a difference between people just going about their daily business and people who seem to proposly get their stuff in everyone else’s way. Carrying around a big bag or some groceries in peak is fine, as long as you make an effort not to inconvenience other passengers. Storing your suitcase in the stairs is not okay.

      6. In general inclined to support pushing transit etiquette but I just have not seen it THAT crowded on Link yet. When folks are being left on the platform because people won’t move all the way into the train cars, then I’ll start getting angry. As it is, I feel like people are just getting some extra bag hauling utility out of our currently not-so-crowded new transit system, and that’s not so bad.

    4. I like the ST bus/train etiquette posters. They are humorous, not sanctimonious.

      1. +1. Love the seat hog.

        And yes, I take the train to the airport frequently–I pack light and try to avoid rush hour but sometimes there’s no choice (and I will still put my bag on my lap). It’s still less annoying than cyclists who board when the bike area is already full and block the through aisles with their bikes, since then people can’t fully move in to the cars.

  9. What do people think about a creating pedestrian/bicycle bridge over I-5 between Denny and Lakeview Blvd E? It could help connect Capitol Hill and South Lake Union.

    1. Quick! Send a request to Multnomah County for their surplus bridge trusses from the Sellwood Bridge.

    2. You know what the grade would be like to get over I-5? I mean, really, there’s a reason Lakeview is shaped like it is (not that differently from its pre-I-5 shape)! Harrison and Republican were steps! As always, the old Baist Map is an interesting look — see upper parts of frame 7 and lower-right parts of frame 10.

      1. Even if it would steep, so what? Even if you have to walk up 100 feet of stairs from the west side, it’s still a lot faster than detouring to Denny.

        I think the right way to do it would be a staircase down to Eastlake, combined with a gentle ramp than would cross over Fairview and surface somewhere in South Lake Union.

      2. A “gentle ramp” all the way to across Fairview?

        At least that’s realistic — you’d have to take it out past Fairview to have a gentle slope! Compare the Marion Street bridge from the ferry terminal, which lands on a street sloped up as you go east… even just west of Fairview ground level is sloped down heading west.

        I think I’d rather save all the aerial space that bridge would occupy for the gondola line.

      3. One of those corkscrew shaped ramps used at some pedestrian bridges, maybe?

      4. No – a gentle ramp extending past Fairview would be much more useful from a mobliity perspective. That way, you’re at least moving east/west as you go up/down, rather than just go around in circles, as well as bypass the stoplights at Eastlake and Fairview. If the ultimate destination is Eastlake, you can use the stairs and get a more direct route. People with bikes could backtrack from Fairview or ride over to Denny.

        But before any of this happens, we should first get a sidewalk added to the north side of the existing Denny bridge over I-5, as well as a bike lane, at least in the uphill direction. It is ridiculous to have a roadway so close to the city center with a sidewalk on only one side of the street. Perhaps SDOT could even do the unthinkable and sacrifice one of the car lanes to make room for it. Giving up a single car lane would provide enough space for a decently-side sidewalk, plus a bike lane.

    5. This is a great idea, but the problem is that the required envelope above I-5 would make the route even steeper than the original road network. It would really have to have some loops or switchbacks to make it doable. Because of this I have wondered whether it might make sense to dig a level bike and ped tunnel from SLU to Capitol Hill with elevator access. Harrison from Minor to Broadway with an intermediate elevator at Summit or Bellevue is one option. A bit fancier would be Thomas and Yale to John and Broadway with an intermediate elevator at Thomas and Bellevue, the park being a convenient place to dig an elevator shaft. Such a tunnel and elevator would be continuously video monitored with the entrance at either end displaying the monitors to take advantage of the eyes on the street that already exist. Such a facility would, I suspect, be much cheaper than a gondola and also potentially quite a bit faster for those on bikes.

    6. A pedestrian bridge across I-5 connecting Capitol Hill and South Lake Union should have been built years ago, when Seattle designated SLU as an Urban Center. We don’t need another ramp; what we need is an elevator and a bridge that makes this connection and communicates to the 250,000 or so passers by each day that Seattle is a place that values pedestrians. This could be integrated into new development along Eastlake.

      The west slope of Capitol Hill among the densest neighborhoods in the Pacific Northwest, and SLU is the fastest growing employment hub, with a lot of growth left. This is the biggest missing link in the city. The Denny Way toboggan run is slog and would remain so with a real sidewalk on the north (which should also be built.)

      One potential quick and cheap solution that may not be ideal but doesn’t require a new span of I-5 is to construct an elevator from Eastlake Ave. up to the NW corner of the Lakeview ramp, and potentially another elevator on the west side of Eastlake on the Fred Hutchinson campus where it’s a pretty flat walk to Lake Union and the streetcar.

      Here’s a HistoryLink piece on the former Republican hill climb, an elegant stairway that was mostly removed to build I-5 in the early 60’s: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3261.

    1. 83,000! Awesome!

      The ST3 survey results are interesting, too – but not too meaningful, given that it is an online survey (major selection bias) rather than a poll. But 60%+ support!

    3. The 83,000 figure came from ST CEO Peter Rogoff. That should be enough confirmation.

  12. If you were my high school teacher, and gave me a Preserving the Character of a Community writing assignment, and I turned in a paper that, in summary, said: “It’s dumb to oppose change cuz change always happens no matter what, and besides, when you oppose change, that probably makes you a racist and ignorant and stuff. And also, people who live in small towns are dumb hicks, but people who live in big cities are smart, so they know what’s best for people who live in small towns.” What grade would you give me on that paper?

    1. That’s not what the Vox article says. In summary, it actually says, “No community can isolate itself from the global economy, so people will be reacting to pressures from beyond the community, causing significant change. Therefore, whether you’re in a big city neighborhood or a small town – and people in each of them are fighting the same battle against change, whether they sound educated or “dumb hicks” – it’s futile to try to preserve your community’s character.”

      1. All the community said was we don’t want a chicken rendering plant in our small town. The author twisted that into something more.

    2. No, the author used evidence from other things as well to make a point in that article at Vox.

  13. Proposed rezones in Lake City.

    Speaking of proposed rezones, anybody know what happened to the rezoning along 23rd Ave? There were meetings and open houses and websites…and then it all just kind of stopped. Last I heard it was supposed to go before the council this time last year yet now the web site says that DPD (or their new name) “will be moving the legislation forward in 2016.” Kinda wondering what happened.

  14. Padmapper used to have a really interesting tool. You could put a pin somewhere on the map – maybe where you work – and then have it draw a boundary that is however many minutes out you specify on the mode you specify. E.g. if you got around by bicycle, you could say “20 min” and choose “bicycle” and you’d get an outline of everything ~20 mins away from that spot by bicycle. Fantastically useful.

    The tool has been removed now, and I miss it. Does anyone know of something else like it?

  15. Looks like TBM #2 was taken out of and TBM #1 (Brenda) is being rebuilt in the U-Dist site.

  16. Etiquette: from the channel 13 web article “they’ve been encouraging riders to enter at the front and exit at the rear door”. Sorry to yell but:

    – – – NO! NO THEY HAVE NOT!!! – – –

    Did I make my point? I really wish they would. There is really no etiquette training efforts that I can see, and I ride the 2 from First Hill to Belltown round trip 3 – 5 times a week.

    1. Have your payment ready to go
    2. Take your back-pack off BEFORE getting on the bus, or flip it to be a front-pack
    3. Have your payment ready to go
    4. Keep the noise and smells to a minimum
    5. Have your payment ready to go
    6. If capable, exit to the rear
    7. Have your payment ready to go
    8. And finally, exit to the rear

    Oh, on a side note, HAVE YOUR PAYMENT READY TO GO!

    Thanks for letting me rant.

    2. They really haven’t been encouraging faster payment on a large-scale basis. The ongoing tabling is appreciated, but there is no substitute for a strong incentive.

      1. Eliminate paper transfers.
      2. Provide free monthly passes on ORCA to those genuinely unable to pay even a reduced fare, to replace the human service agencies ticket lottery.
      3. Eliminate paper transfers.
      4. Have a cash surcharge.
      5. Eliminate paper transfers.
      6. Take smart phone payment (coming next decade).
      7. Eliminate paper transfers.
      8. Make the ORCA card free, or at least much less than $5.
      9. Eliminate paper transfers.

      Metro, help us help you.

      1. I don’t know that the card fee is much of a deterrent. It has to be something else. Translink now has 94% of its transactions done by smart card. It has only been out for less than a year, and skytrain fare gates were only closed last month, so it has been a fast uptake. You can still buy cash tickets at skytrain stations and on buses, but apparently people just aren’t.

      2. Maybe that missing something is that ST does not yet take smart phone payment.

        There is still the problem to solve of the un-smartphoned (like me). But if only the unsmart-phoned are treating ORCA cards as disposable, then ST/Metro may not see a reason to charge $3 more for the card than what the vendor is charging them.

      3. We have to be careful, though. If fare media is stored on smartphones people might start to think of smartphones as disposable! Then we’d have an e-waste problem on our hands!

      4. Cultural issues are also a factor. The main reasons people pay cash are (A) they’re occasional riders or first-time riders, (B) they think they can’t afford an ORCA or to prepay an e-purse, or (C) there’s no TVM near them or they don’t know that stores have it or there’s no store that does in their area. For the first case, Canadians are ore willing to see transit as a normal civilized prority and get with the program, while Americans have a 1950s vision of driving to their single-family house and paying cash for the bus and reality must absolutely conform to that vision. So Vancouver has an Expo line, a Millenium line, and a Canada line, while Washington recently lifted evening/weekend tolls on 405 and won’t make lanes HOV-3 to facilitate BRT. Or more generally, the western Canadian symbol is the mountie while the western American symbol is the cowboy.

        For the second case, Vancouver probably has better welfare systems, and definitely has much cheaper insurance and medical expenses, so fewer people are in the position of agonizing over whether to put money on their e-purse or buy other essentials or save for future needs.

        For the third case, in cities with ubiquidous subways like Chicago and New York, there’s always a TVM nearby somewhere. That may not be as true in Vancouver, but still a higher percentage of the population is probably close to a Skytrain station than our people are to a Link or Sounder station.

      5. TransLink allows its ticket balance to go negative, so you wind up with a C$6 emergency credit.

        Lots more useful than the flat ORCA fee.

    3. Agreed, absolutely. I was waiting for a 20-minute-late 26X at 6th & Denny last night, and actually got asked if I was OK by a passing 5 driver. I had already seen a 28, and 3 5s and Es go by, and the last set was blocking the 26 from approaching. The last 5 had a half-dozen people fumbling for change and transfers, and I guess I looked pissed off enough for the driver to ask.

      Whatever, we got back at them by passing both the 5 and the E on Aurora.

  17. And one more rant. WHY did SDOT not eliminate street parking on First Ave South north of Spokane St during the Bertha closure?

    1. It’s the same situation on our highways. But rail can handle much more people- NYC’s problem is not putting the needed money toward maintaining subways and building more lines. Sound Transit has built in maintenance money. And crime is a problem from other areas spilling over into the transit system- it’s not the transit system’s fault.

  20. Last day of normal MAX operation for the two week track replacement project. The graphic shown about 1/4 of the way down this page illustrates what happens Monday morning in both graphical trains gone images and by numbers:
    http://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/index.ssf/2016/05/trimet_max_disruption_guide.html

    By the numbers:

    Morning peak of 21 trains per hour through downtown on all lines will become 10.

    From Beaverton to Portland, 11 trains an hour become 6.
    Afternoon peak headed east 14 trains per hour become 4 per hour out of the downtown core plus 3 more out of Rose Quarter.

    Still think it’s a bad idea for Seattle to have two side by side tunnels under downtown? Remember those rails in the tunnel will need replacing some day too.

    1. Do we spend hundreds of millions a mile for redundancy? I don’t think the math pencils out. Only if there are real capacity issues does it make sense. Steel Bridge, Transbay Tube, and the Rosslyn Tunnel are chokepoints, but Seattle is nowhere near that point yet, once the buses are kicked out of the tunnel.

      1. The picture may look quite different in 2041, which will be about the time the rails need a similar replacement.

  21. Viadoom survey

    Impact: How often were you untypically slowed down by congestion last week? (Never, once or twice, several times).

    Likelyhood: How often did travel in expected congestion streets? Defined as: Aurora, I-5 between 85th and Spokane Street, all Ship Canal bridges, Denny Way area, or anywhere in SODO including south 99.

    Link: Would it have been worse for you if University Link hadn’t opened yet?

    Mode: Did you experience these slowdowns in a bus, train, or car? Was it caused by a known accident or bus/train breakdown?

    Unexpected consequences: Did you experience unusual slowdowns outside the expected area? (E.g,., 520, 522, 167, 405.)

    Strategies: How did you minimize potential impacts? (E.g,, travel a different way or at a different time.)

    My answers:::
    Impact: never.
    Likelynood: no,
    Link: Yes because I would have had to travel on I-5 or the University Bridge otherwise.
    Mode: N/A.
    Unexpected consequences: no. I heard about them on the radio (a 167/405 impact) so I wanted to confirm.
    Strategies: Avoided the 75 between 4-7pm in case of unusual Montlake congestrion; took 372 instead.

    1. I have yet to be actually delayed by the viaduct being closed. I already get to work early and leave early (6-3 usually), and bike or walk at least half the time.

      I was on the 44 on Friday during one of its infamous meltdowns. According to Metro, it was delayed by up to 75 minutes, which I believe is longer than a typical roundtrip between Ballard and UW:

      https://metrocommute.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/metros-friday-pm-commute-route-44-is-experiencing-delays-in-service-of-up-to-75-minutes-due-to-traffic-congestion/

      I ended up walking from somewhere around Corliss (bus driver just let everyone off), and discovered the problem was at 45th & 5th. Normally the right turn lane onto the I-5 onramp backs up, but savvy 44 drivers know to get into the straight-through lane and avoid it. Unfortunately, car drivers kept blocking the intersection and prevented anyone from making progress — immediately west of the intersection 45th was completely vehicle-free!

      So much for SPD actually being useful. I thought they promised to be out ticketing the box blockers?

      Also, maybe Sound Transit can take note and look at Ballard-UW subway again?

      I don’t really count this as a delay, though, since I made it to my next bus (it was late due to I-5 being a mess) but I’m sure there were lots of people impacted.

      1. I was on the 44 Thursday, pretty heavily backed up through Wallingford. Also stayed crushloaded pretty far off UW campus.

        Later on, I wound up waiting 25 minutes for a 62 at Meridian and 45th with pretty bad traffic. Got to do some car-watching. A couple of 44s had to wait 3 light cycles to cross the intersection. And to get through the intersection, I saw 1 car drive on the sidewalk and several cars drive against oncoming traffic. Makes me glad I don’t own a car.

      2. The commute from West Seattle is about 1/3 longer than usual for me, ranging a low of 35 minutes on a 56 express to 1:10 on a 55 Express. Mostly just under an hour on either 50/LINK or Water Taxi/shuttle.

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