Month: June 2018

The West Seattle Link extension was promised to voters as three stations (Delridge, Avalon, and Alaska Junction) running on an elevated guideway. Some West Seattle residents are advocating for the removal of Avalon station to pay for a tunnel under the Junction.

Sound Transit has pushed back on this idea, arguing that removing a station is inconsistent with the voter approved plan, and that routing the train through the golf course would be frowned upon by the FTA, which doesn’t like infrastructure projects befouling local parkland. But what there were a way to keep all three stations and afford a tunnel under the Junction.  Could West Seattle have its cake and eat it, too?

Continue reading “Could West Seattle Have a Tunnel – and Housing, Too?”

To put Hong Kong in perspective, imagine the entire population of the state of Washington in a territory slightly larger than King County’s urban area of which less than 25% is developed.

While work Northgate Link moves past construction and into cleanup and testing, developers have been busy drawing up plans for new housing near its stations. Opening day is only three years away, so projects that have started early design review should be able to finish up around the same time that light rail service begins running, though some sites are further behind than others. Using the Seattle in Progress map (which is slightly outdated due to changes at SDCI), it’s clear just how popular Roosevelt and U District stations are, while Northgate is seemingly lagging behind in terms of active proposals.

Continue reading “New Housing Coming Near Northgate Link Stations”

SODO Station and the SODO busway: Future home of West Seattle – southside train transfers
Photo by Joe Kunzler / flickr

When ST3 is built out, it will have two major downtown transfer hubs, at already-very-busy Westlake Station and International District / Chinatown Station. In all likelihood, transfers at these stations will not be fast, and transfer volume may be one of the factors setting minimum headway on the busiest line.

There will also be transfers going on that don’t have to happen at those two stations, and some that will certainly be happening at SODO Station. For this post, I will be focusing on the transfers that can and should happen in the SODO.

The suggestions below are probably not in alignment with the Level 1 options going forward, but there is still time to give some attention to SODO station-area details.

Continue reading “Minimizing Downtown Transfer Pain in ST3”

• Class action lawsuit filed against Sound Transit on car tab fees
• One step closer to free transit for high school students
• Metro kicks off Eastside mobility survey
• the death of America’s small apartments
• Lynnwood link online survey
• California going big on EV charging
• Meanwhile, plenty of hypocrisy to go around with BART and housing
• What is the correct percentage of single family zoning in Seattle?
• Using Trailhead direct with kids
• NYC making space for Zipcars
• Northgate mall in the 1950s
• New Metro fare starts July 1
• Which neighborhoods have been untouched by Seattle’s housing boom
• Development moratoria (?) are all the rage in some Puget Sound cities
• It’s possible to double monorail capacity
• An aerial tram from Kirkland to the 405 BRT station? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• Another landslide suspends Amtrak Cascades service
• Capitol Hill station TOD finally getting underway

This is an open thread.

Streetcar at Yesler Terrace by SounderBruce in the STB Flickr Pool

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly a year since Seattle became the first American city to have a large dockless bike share presence.

With the initial permits set to be reviewed this summer, SDOT’s Joel Miller reported to the committee last week on the system, which now includes 10,000 bikes provided by 3 companies (presentation slides and video).  Thanks to a unique deal the city crafted with the companies, anonymized user data is provided to UW which is then analyzed and passed to SDOT, which is how we’re able to get such accurate data (only through December of last year – this year’s data will come soon).

Overall, the results were positive.  The number of rides per day seems to get lower as the weather gets lower, but not catastrophically so.  The city conducted a professional survey of residents and found that 74% had a favorable impression of bike share.  Miller contrasted that with the unsolicited comments the city received via phone and email, which were 85% negative. That’s not surprising, but it’s helpful to contextualize how residents really feel about these things. Most relevant for our purposes, 75% used bike share to access transit at least once while 30-40% used it to access transit often.

Continue reading “Dockless Bike Share is Popular, Now Infrastructure Needs to Catch Up”

This week, crews started demolition work along the 9th Avenue wall that runs along the edge of Convention Place Station and its bus layover lot. The demolition work will be conducted primarily on weekends from now until October and is being done to prepare for the eventual turnover of Convention Place to the convention center for its $1.6 billion expansion approved last month.

Once the dust settles, the former retaining wall along 9th Avenue will be replaced with a temporary ramp that allows buses to access the transit tunnel without using the two existing entrances along Olive Way (which feed into the platforms at Convention Place). 9th Avenue will be reconfigured as a two-way transit street, with new stops to replace Convention Place Station. Northbound riders will see an average of 3 to 5 minutes of travel time added to every trip because of traffic signals and on-street congestion, especially affecing Route 255 in trying to reach Olive Way with a four-turn maneuver. The ramp will only be in use for a few months before convention center construction requires full use of the block, which is tentatively scheduled for March 2019.

Continue reading “Beginning of the End for Convention Place Station”

Last week, Sound Transit kicked off a summer of public events centered around SR 522 BRT. “Project Refinement” will be done in early 2019, the board selects a final project for preliminary engineering in January 2020, and the line should actually open in 2024. This phase collects input on station locations, parking location and type, road and sidewalk changes, access, branding, and connections to other transit.

Daytime headways will be 10 minutes between Bothell and Shoreline; only every other bus will continue to Woodinville. Service would be 19 hours a day, except for 17 on Sundays.

Moving West to East, the level of priority treatments will vary. On N 145th St, there is currently no bus lane, but the project will add these around stations.

As the bus turns North onto SR522, there will be a new northbound Business Access and Transit (BAT) lane to compliment the existing Southbound one. Through Kenmore, there are already BAT lanes both ways. Through Bothell, there is currently nothing but BAT implementation will be only partial.

All of these improvements are a significant step forward. Yet they serve as a reminder that there is no free lunch in the real world of North American transit planning. When agencies make the decision to economize down from light rail, whether to BRT or some other cheaper measure, the most expensive piece of that investment — right-of-way — has to give way.

On the other hand, At the moment, ST is assuming light-rail like off-board payment along the line — meaning there would be a ticket machine at each stop, and no means of paying on board. It’s still quite early in the process, so these preliminary ideas are subject change. Nevertheless, 100% off-board payment is relatively low-hanging fruit and it’s good that wasn’t value-engineered away.

ST Spokeswoman Rachelle Cunningham says ST is working on a distinct brand for I-405 and SR522 BRT to separate it from both ST Express, Metro, and Community Transit services. This would add a seventh bus brand to King and Snohomish County.