Lizz Giordano, South Seattle Emerald:

The CID is preparing for a messy buildout for the West Seattle-Ballard Light Rail Extension that will run a second set of tracks through the neighborhood. After weighing options studied in a newly released planning document, many in the CID say the choice is clear: lay tracks under 4th Avenue to avoid taking land from the Chinatown Historic District.

The existing light rail line, with its 19 stations including the existing one in the CID, began operating in 2009 and now runs from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Northgate. For the new extensions, Sound Transit is considering building the CID station below 4th or 5th Avenues, just south of Jackson Street not far from the existing light rail station. Only the route along 4th Avenue bypasses the neighborhood, preserving buildings in the CID. 

Sound Transit sill has fourth options for Chinatown / International District (CID). 4th or 5th Avenues, deep or shallow stations. None of them are great. Deep stations have crappy transfers to the existing CID station. Shallow stations are very disruptive, as the article suggests. 4th Avenue adds half a billion in costs (roughly the cost of a West Seattle tunnel). could displace Metro’s Ryerson Base, and would make Stadium Station permanently inaccessible for riders coming North from Tacoma / Ranier Valley. Here are the gory details from the Draft EIS:

Chinatown residents have a strong case that 5th Avenue would be devastating to the neighborhood, and the result would only be marginally beneficial for a neighborhood that already has excellent transit access. While shallow stations are disruptive, deep stations completely fail to offer acceptable transfer options between the 1 Line and the 3 Line. If I were Mayor Harrell, newly installed on the Sound Transit board, I’d be prodding city and ST staff for more creative options here.

106 Replies to “No good options in CID”

    1. Ah, the Sound Transit Board could care less what anybody from the Seattle Transit Blog thinks. I’m pro transit but I’ve never thought Sound Transit was a good idea from day one. First of all, it’s board is group of political hacks from around the region who know little about mass transit. Second, it’s impossible to plan a transportation system 30 to 40 years in future. Nobody can see what future holds.

      I’m sure I’ll get blasted with negative comments defending ST, and I’m OK with that. In my defense, go back and read article after article on this blog and the Urbanist by transit gurus who want to change what Sound Transit has planned, or worse yet, already built. It’s crazy to support Sound Transit and yet want Sound Transit to tear out and fix that clunky mess named The Tacoma Link. It’s also crazy to think ST is not going to build subway stations 200 feet underground because of politics.

      1. ” Second, it’s impossible to plan a transportation system 30 to 40 years in future. Nobody can see what future holds.”

        That’s why we build more freeway lanes and wider arterials.
        Traffic Congestion is “Solved” (after the fact), rather than anticipated.

        Everyone thinks it’s cheaper that way.

      2. What did the hundreds of cities around the world do that have good transit networks? Get lucky? And somehow it’s only American (and Australian) cities that got unlucky?

      3. YOU BET car dependence was well planned/engineered for 30-40 years into the future–indeed, well beyond that–when the streetcar lines were being torn out and neighborhoods demolished to make place for highways and parking in American cities.

        Historically, development has followed transportation, going back to ports and shallow vs deep rivers, westward expansion of the railways, and streetcars/subways.

      4. I think you are largely right, tacomee, but I quibble with the idea that you can’t build a mass transportation system for 30 to 40 years from now. It isn’t that hard to predict what Seattle will look like, just as it wasn’t that hard to predict what it looks like now. If you couldn’t see South Lake Union becoming big, then you flunked geography. It sits midway between the UW and downtown Seattle — obviously it was going to be big, given the chance.

        Seattle will go one of two ways. Either it continues to grow, or it shatters, and falls apart. Every city in the world follows one pattern or the other. If it is the latter, then mass transit becomes meaningless (ask Detroit). Yeah, sure, it would be nice to have a good rail system in Motor City (or Buffalo, Cleveland, Saint Louis…) but those cities have bigger things to worry about. It would be nuts for them to spend billions on rail infrastructure, when they can’t even afford to have decent bus service.

        If it is the former, and Seattle grows, then it will grow from the center out. Of course there will be sprawl, but from a transit standpoint, this sprawl becomes meaningless. What matters is what is happening within the city itself, and to a lesser extent, its inner suburbs. Travel *within* that core is far more important than getting from say, Fife to Seattle. Can you get from Fremont to First Hill, or Ballard to Belltown. If travel *within* the city doesn’t work, then travel to the city (on transit) is bound to struggle. This is true for inner suburbs, like Kirkland, for example.

        Consider a trip from Kirkland to First Hill. Like all trips that sustain a mass transit system, this one occurs any time of day. It is a three-seat ride, with the toughest part being the most urban one — from Link to First Hill. This is, by some measure, a trip within downtown. This is the type of trip that most agencies throughout the world would prioritize, given its important within the region. A faster connection to First Hill would help everyone, not just riders in Kirkland.

        But it isn’t what ST3 will be building. Instead, Kirkland riders will have a two seat ride to downtown Bellevue, something the existing bus does fairly well, and an express bus would do faster than the train.

        The point being that fifty years ago, someone would have considered ST3 stupid, just as they will fifty years from now. It goes against lessons learned throughout the world. It is an S-Bahn without a U-Bahn; an RER without the Paris Metro. Except it is worse than that, as those regional rail systems not only leverage the existing mass transit system, but have more stops in the city. Not only that, but they largely used existing rail lines, to minimize costs. What we are building is a uniquely American system, which itself is not a good thing, given that we sit at the bottom when it comes to transit. This type of system has a record of failure (ranging from abject to moderate). Simply put, we are spending way too much on way too little.

        It wouldn’t be that hard to build a system that works quite well for the city, and thus the region. You can simply look at our nearest neighbor, Vancouver, for such an example. We could have built a system like that, but the folks in charge never considered it.

      5. Nit: Potsdam to central Berlin is 17 miles, and really the outer limits of what they do with S-bahn type service.

        ST3 is more akin to building a Regiobahn that operates at Sbahn speeds, at least for Everett to Tacoma service. Redmond isn’t quite so far flung.

      6. The city and the transit system evolve together. If you build highways, you get sprawl and parking garages. If you build trains and upzone around the stations, you get what is happening in Roosevelt and the U-District.

      7. @Glenn — Good point. It is regional rail without the metro, at a very high cost (way more than cities typically pay for regional rail). It is a uniquely American pattern, and not a good one.

      8. If you build trains and upzone around the stations, you get what is happening in Roosevelt and the U-District.

        The trains have little to do with it. Every place in the city where they have upzoned has seen growth. The biggest laggard is probably next to the Rainier Beach station, while the area around the high school has seen more growth. Places like Ballard, Greenwood, Central Area and Fremont have boomed. Just the other day the Urbanist ran another article about growth on Stone Way (https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/03/29/stone-way-development-boom-continues-at-edge-of-fremont-and-wallingford/). As long as they allow growth in the city it will grow. We aren’t alone. San Fransisco has the slowest public transportation system in North America, and it added 70,000 people last decade (on very little land). Imagine how many people they would add with a rezone.

        Unlike sprawl, urban growth is less dependent on transportation infrastructure. When push comes to shove, people in the city will walk, ride a bike, or take a bus stuck in traffic. They just shouldn’t have to.

      9. Ross makes an important point, but I’ll highlight the opposite side of the coin because that gets lost frequently – while transit is unneeded to induce midrise construction within Seattle’s urban core, across most of the rest of the region, good transit is essential to inducing midrise development.

        I’d argue that Bellevue’s current boom would never have happened without East Link (Amazon’s execs have been very clear they look at transit access when placing employment centers), in which case I’d say almost none of the midrise or high-rise construction occurring outside of Seattle would exist without robust transit investment, because otherwise the rents simply wouldn’t justify it. Tacoma has a robust but small midrise pipeline in its urban core, mirroring urban Seattle but at a smaller scale, and Bellevue (and Msft in Redmond) is probably now a large enough employment center to induce midrise construction in some of the adjacent neighborhoods … for example, Factoria is starting to yield midrise redevelopment despite a mediocre bus connection to Seattle/Bellevue.

        For the rest of the region, however, it remains true that ST’s investment are an essential part of the recipe to transform dozens of suburban neighborhood into midrise, transit oriented, vibrant urban neighborhoods. This redevelopment of suburban neighborhoods (most, but not all, of which are outside of Seattle) is an essential part of ensuring greater Seattle* evolves into a more sustainable region: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/04/08/growth-and-environmentalism/

        *and not essential for a Cleveland, as both Ross and Alon note as an example.

      10. “as those regional rail systems not only leverage the existing mass transit system” like how ST continues to leverage the DSTT as it builds out the Spine?

        “have more stops in the city” like how ST is trying to build all those Seattle stations with WSBLE, and not like your suggestions to just build a bus tunnel to provide high quality but not high capacity transit?

        “Not only that, but they largely used existing rail lines, to minimize costs.”

        I’m thankful your caricature of ST doesn’t actually exist!

        If anything, ST has overutilized existing railroad ROWs, sustaining Sounder North while it has struggling to yield robust ridership and choosing rail over buses on the ERC to serve Kirkland. Elsewhere, Stride through Renton make sense because the 405 HOT lane are paid for by WSDOT, and TDLE over all-day Sounder in ST3 make sense when Link from Seattle to Federal Way is a sunk cost. The only existing rail corridor that makes sense to invest in is Sounder South, which ST has consistently invested in each ST plan.

      11. “as those regional rail systems not only leverage the existing mass transit system” like how ST continues to leverage the DSTT as it builds out the Spine?

        No. I don’t think you get it. People sometimes defend Link by comparing it to systems like the RER and the S-Bahn. There are several important differences:

        1) Those other systems leverage existing, high quality metros. These metros (like the Paris Metro, or the U-Bahn) have stops throughout the urban core, allowing riders to get anywhere within the city. We aren’t building that. There are no plans to build that. Places like First Hill or Belltown won’t have rail service, let alone places like the Central Area or Fremont.

        2) These regional systems *still* have more stops within the urban core than ours will — not counting the old, existing Metro.

        3) Those other systems don’t go out as far as ours will (as Glenn pointed out).

        4) Those other systems leveraged the existing rail lines. This keeps costs low. Ours don’t. We will spend a fortune on these extensions. The only cost saving measure is to follow the envelope of the freeway, a pattern studies have shown leads to low ridership.

        The “Spine” is like building an S-Bahn without the U-Bahn, if the S-Bahn was a lot more expensive, had much worse stops and tried to act like regional rail as well. No one outside of the United States builds anything like this. Similar systems in the U. S. perform poorly — even by U. S. standards. There is no reason to believe we are doing the right thing — quite the opposite.

      12. “Ross makes an important point…”

        Ross has made this point for a long time. Current ridership determines mode, because of the exorbitant cost of rail, and it its route is fixed. You can change a bad bus route, or a changing demographic, but not a bad rail route. Transit follows ridership, it does not create it.

        “I’d argue that Bellevue’s current boom would never have happened without East Link (Amazon’s execs have been very clear they look at transit access when placing employment centers), in which case I’d say almost none of the midrise or high-rise construction occurring outside of Seattle would exist without robust transit investment, because otherwise the rents simply wouldn’t justify it.”

        This is the fundamental error ST made. Bellevue’s development boom (and Micrsoft) has almost nothing to do with East Link, which is why Microsoft is building a 3 million sf underground garage, Amazon has massive parking under its leased buildings, and East Link runs along 112th.

        I know several of the developers working in downtown Bellevue right now, and none of this development is directed toward the transit rider. Every residential unit will have at least one parking spot, and travel between The Spring Dist. and Bellevue Way — the “vibrant” part of Bellevue — will be by Uber, because East Link does not serve Bellevue Way, and eastsiders don’t pay for parking and don’t take transit during off-peak hours if they can afford not to.

        People choose where to work and where to live for many different reasons, with transit being way down the list for most. The problem when someone is passionate about something like light rail is they tend to see everything through a prism of what they are passionate about, and an agency that got drunk on the money and power. Transit advocates just have a very hard time understanding that most people don’t like riding transit, and prefer driving for all the usual reasons: time, safety, convenience (weather), ability to carry things, not being around crazy or sick people, and so on. When they got the chance to stop riding transit, especially to work, they jumped on it.

        What the pandemic has taught us is how quickly the decisions where to work and where to live and where to travel can change. King Co. actually lost residents last year, and despite the fact unemployment is at an historic low the transit rider and office worker have not returned. In fact, Axios just released a report highlighting the beginning cracks in the commercial office bond market. https://www.axios.com/signs-of-stress-deepen-in-the-office-real-estate-market-9534255b-d57a-40e7-a825-2c259b524d33.html

        [Of course this is the same Axios that claimed in May 2021 the death of the office market was “greatly exaggerated”, which just shows how wrong the experts can get it. https://www.axios.com/commercial-office-space-tenants-work-11404715-3f1a-4aec-9a1d-5101f24c5d8d.html when they speak too soon].

        “For the rest of the region, however, it remains true that ST’s investment are an essential part of the recipe to transform dozens of suburban neighborhood into midrise, transit oriented, vibrant urban neighborhoods. This redevelopment of suburban neighborhoods (most, but not all, of which are outside of Seattle) is an essential part of ensuring greater Seattle* evolves into a more sustainable region: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/04/08/growth-and-environmentalism” No one voted to spend $130 billion for this urbanist vision, at least not on the eastside.

        This is your vision, but not the vision of most Americans, and most who live in this area. That is why ST and urbanists work so hard to force upzoning on these same suburban neighborhoods.

        “Vibrant urban neighborhoods” existed before light rail. That is why neighborhoods like Bellevue Way, Ballard, the International District and West Seattle value their neighborhood character more than they do switching transit modes to light rail. No one really wants to live in a TOD if they don’t ride transit, or have to, and light rail will never — on its own — create “vibrant urban neighborhoods”. After all, look at downtown Seattle with all its transit, and arguably the one place the exorbitant cost of subways is/was justified. East Link has almost nothing to do with the growth and development in downtown Bellevue, and Link has almost nothing to do with the decline in downtown Seattle.

        You BEGIN with safe, vibrant urban neighborhoods, which based on the geographic size and lack of population density in the ST taxing dist. is a very tiny area, you upzone those areas, and then you see if the retail density follows, and jobs, and THEN you look at whether to spend the billions and billions on subways and light rail, but not to Everett and Tacoma or Redmond.

        If this were 1993, based on the current data and transit ridership and low unemployment rate but lack of commuting to urban areas for work three years into the pandemic, my advice would be to skip light rail altogether, except maybe downtown Seattle because I never would have assumed successive city councils and mayors would kill downtown Seattle, although the population growth estimates to support ST have always been inflated.

        I don’t know if the current data is the future, but that is usually the beginning point in estimating the future, and we all know how dishonest ST has been in its revenue, ridership and project cost estimates that weren’t even close to being in good faith, and that was pre-pandemic.

        The good news is there isn’t the money for WSBLE, DSTT2, a West Seattle stub, or even a gondola, and ST always knew that. Otherwise it wouldn’t have not underestimated the cost of DSTT2 in 2016 — that is not affected by the inflation for ROW — by 50% when eastside groups like ETA were calling bullshit on the $2.2 billion estimate in 2016. The bad news is there is no way ST can meet its operation budgets with a 40% farebox recovery for rail that runs from Everett to Tacoma to Redmond, and a region has moved on from Link.

      13. The only existing rail corridor that makes sense to invest in is Sounder South, which ST has consistently invested in each ST plan.

        Agreed, but again I think you are missing the point. If the RER or the S-Bahn did not have the existing rail lines to leverage, they would be a lot smaller. Many of the lines wouldn’t exist — there would be bus service to those areas instead. (Folks often neglect to mention the outstanding regional bus network that exists throughout Europe, from big cities to small towns.)

        Sounder and the regional bus system are the only parts of Sound Transit that look European. Sounder because they leveraged the existing rail service, and the express bus service because they couldn’t. In Europe the trains would run more often, but I’m guessing they own the tracks. Our situation is a bit unusual (even in the U. S.) in that the more we run the trains, the more expensive it is (per train). That’s why we don’t follow the pattern so common in other cities, where the trains run relatively frequently during peak (every 10 to 15 minutes) and hourly the rest of the day.

        I really have no problem with Sounder South or the express buses, and share your displeasure with Sounder North. The big problem though, is spending on Link ST3 projects, which will be huge, and provide very little when all is done. We could have done much, much better, if we simply followed standard practices around the world, and built a real metro, from the inside out.

        Someone from Europe (or Asia) coming to the Northwest will look at the SkyTrain system and not be surprised at all with what they built (or are building). There will be aspects of it that they admire, like the really good bus integration, or the automated trains and frequent service. It will be like an American watching the Anadolu Efes basketball team (“Hey, these guys are really good — I think they could maybe beat an NBA team or two”).

        In contrast, they will wonder what the hell we are thinking with Link. They will inevitably ask if it works, and we will be forced to answer “Probably not, but it is what people wanted”. Followed by mentions of subarea equity, institutional incompetence, etc.

      14. Weren’t the S-Bahn networks generally built prior to U-Bahn? If you want to argue WSBLE should be built as a U-Bahn, I think that’s a good position and consistent with the German approach to rapid transit. There are many German cities with S-Bahn systems; only the largest cities also have U-Bahn, and those tended to open after S -Bahn (though the S-Bahn branding didn’t emerge until later)

        But I think it’s pretty obvious that the existing ST2 network, plus the ST3 spine expansions, are a textbook example of an S-Bahn system.

      15. “The only existing rail corridor that makes sense to invest in is the Eastside Rail Corridor”

        There, fixed it for you.

      16. Skytrain is small, frequent, autonomous trains traveling from the urban core all the way to the suburban edge. Is there any system like that in Europe? Europeans will recognized Vancouver’s TOD, but not their trains outside of the urban core.

      17. Ha! I knew Jim would come in with his ERC take; I tried to hedge against that by pointing to Stride with WSDOT’s OPM, but I didn’t think that would be sufficient.

      18. “Current ridership determines mode, because of the exorbitant cost of rail, and it its route is fixed. You can change a bad bus route, or a changing demographic, but not a bad rail route. Transit follows ridership, it does not create it.”

        And I thought I was done with people puking up this Eastside Transportation Association garbage when we finished with the FEIS for the I-405 corridor 20 years ago.
        Never mind that they actually won the battle, except maybe they didn’t get their 6 lane wet dream for I-405 in the plan.

        If you really want to know what people want, all you have to do is put a Roads Only plan on the ballot. Show the public what the costs vs. the benefits are.
        In fact, Kemper and the ETA have their plan, which was presented to us at that time as “Reduce Congestion Now”.

        Why don’t you and the boys dust off that copy, and ‘run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it’?
        I don’t think any in that group have the balls to do it.

        What will happen is that people will see who really pays for ‘reducing congestion’, because it sure isn’t the people causing it.

      19. Happy to oblige AJ ;-)

        Like I’ve said, someone will have to assassinate me to get me to shut up about the fact that rail on the ERC was cheaper than Stride with the same ridership numbers. (approx. $100m cheaper at that time)

      21. “What will happen is that people will see who really pays for ‘reducing congestion’, because it sure isn’t the people causing it.”

        The beautiful answer to this comment is a pandemic reduced congestion, since we had built our transit systems to meet peak capacity. And it didn’t cost us anything, just WFH. Fewer drivers on the road, way fewer peak commuters, fewer riders on buses and trains, more time to spend with the family. Anyone can basically choose their mode today, based on what best serves them. There is very little traffic congestion.

        The other answer is the folks using transit don’t pay for it. Metro is 80% subsidized, ST 60% (not including the general fund taxes for capital projects), and ferries I think 35%. Whom do you think really pays for transit? I do.

        Jim, if you are proposing each transportation mode pay 100% of its capital and operations costs — including a share of roads and bridges — I could support that. I would like to start by putting an honest ST 3 on the ballot. Maybe see if the eastside would rather spend $4.5 billion on fixing the westbound exit from I-90 onto 405 N and S rather than a rail line from Issaquah to S. Kirkland you imagine will “reduce congestion”. Give me a break.

        Maybe a ranked choice ballot for each subarea allocating the funding: 1. roads and bridges; 2. light rail; and 3. buses.

        You seem to have some animosity towards the ETA, which is a non-government voluntary organization. I have no affiliation with the ETA, except I didn’t believe them in 2016 when they questioned the project cost estimates in ST 3. Do you support the $4.5 billion Issaquah to S. Kirkland rail line which they opposed, or do you still believe DSTT2 will cost $2.2 billion? Or are you aggrieved that a bunch of former transportation engineers from WSDOT think car mobility is the more important funding issue on the eastside? About 95% of eastsiders think that.

        “Why don’t you and the boys dust off that copy, and ‘run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it’

        The legislature just passed a $17 billion transportation infrastructure bill that is very heavy on roads and bridges, in R and D districts. Why? Because their constituents like driving, and like roads and bridges. Or do buses fly?

        Do you really think Link creates new ridership, other than from buses that were cancelled or truncated to serve rail? I am sorry, but I agree with Ross that you run transit, and determine mode, BASED on ridership, not where you think ridership might be in the future like along some TOD on I-5 in Federal Way, or where you WANT ridership, as though eastsiders are going to voluntarily change their zoning for a light rail system they shunted to 112th and never wanted in the first place. In just three years of a pandemic every assumption — including necessary peak road capacity — went out the window, yet ST continues on with its dishonest pre-pandemic assumptions. Fortunately the money has run out, except for the Issaquah to S. Kirkland line, that beacon of wise transportation planning.

      22. “largely used existing rail lines, to minimize costs”

        We don’t have existing rail lines in the right places. MAX’s Banfield and Beaverton segments are in existing railroad ROW, and I-205 to Clackamas was built with space for future high-capacity transit. Skytrain’s eastern Vancouver segment is in an existing rail corridor. BART’s Fremont segment is in an existing rail corridors. Many of London’s recent underground, Overground, and Crossrail segments are in existing rail corridors.

        We have a north-south corridor that goes south to Puyallup, then backtracks to Tacoma. North of downtown it runs almost uselessly along the Sound. The Burke-Gilman Trail corridor is useful from Ballard to UW, then it goes along the shore to smallish Kenmore, and misses the current and potential population centers in Wallingford, 15th Ave NE, 25th, 35th, Northgate, and Lake City. The Eastside rail corridor required going from Seattle to Renton and then backtracking to Bellevue, and it was single-track so it couldn’t support much frequency. The Interurban along Westlake/Linden was ripped out in the early 1930s. After WWII we started building and expanding cities where there were no existing railroads. I don’t know if a railroad ever went through Federal Way, yet it’s now considered the most important city between Seattle and Tacoma and has a major P&R and TC and is consideded must-serve by Link. If all that growth had occurred in Auburn and Kent instead, it would be on an existing rail line like other cities have.

        There were plans to build Forward Thrust in the Eastside in the 1960s so it would be ahead of growth, but it couldn’t get a supermajority. That was shortsighted. Now we have to retrofit those areas and Seattle neighborhoods, and that means creating new rights-of-way in already-built areas. Otherwise we’ll be like most American cities with barely-useable transit, and that’s not a sound or resilient way to go into the future.

        “I’d argue that Bellevue’s current boom would never have happened without East Link”

        Downtown Bellevue’s highrises and initial urban villages were built in the 1990s when they didn’t know when or if Link would ever reach the Eastside. Ballard had the promise of a monorail but when it was canceled, construction continued anyway. Totem Lake and Issaquah job centers grew because the cities had to channel growth somewhere and they chose those locations. Microsoft expanded without Link, and Overlake grew along with it. The Spring District would have eventually been built up and Overlake Village densified.

        If post-1970s growth never reached Eastgate or Factoria, who cares? They’re not in good locations on the existing transit network, and there’s no guarantee that would be improved. The towers in the park were built in the 1990s and still don’t have good transit to them, so additional development might have been the same.

        Ultimately, growth occurred in Ballard, Totem Lake, and the Spring District because demand exceeds supply, especially demand in close-in walkable neighborhoods like Ballard and near downtown Kirkland and its waterfront.

        But. we can have growth with good transit access or growth without it, and we should prefer good transit access between all growth areas and between existing neighborhoods.

      23. Woe be to them who complain to me about transportation, for they shall receive said earfuls they deserve. I’m a real laugh at parties. I actually warn people that if they continue discussing what the real problems are, they’ll be tied up for at least an hour. (Yes, it’s happened)

        With that in mind, I shall now answer in hopefully modest enough sized responses:

      24. All this is very entertaining, Daniel, and maybe these arguments are good enough to confuse and sway a jury.

        But when you actually have to build something, it’s the data that shows what the better choices are.
        The politics is what determines the flavor.

        ‘What will happen is that people will see who really pays for ‘reducing congestion’, because it sure isn’t the people causing it.’

        “The beautiful answer to this comment is a pandemic reduced congestion, since we had built our transit systems to meet peak capacity.”

        So we agree on one thing, Daniel. That the $4billion in the latest transportation package that goes towards highway expansion is a waste of money.

        [Simply because ….] There is very little traffic congestion.

      25. “The other answer is the folks using transit don’t pay for it”

        The drivers that cause traffic congestion don’t pay for the congestion relief they are being provided (unless of course they are paying a toll). When the gas tax is raised, and apparently soon-to-be increases in the registration fees are added, there is no ‘sub-area equity’.
        I’ve already laid out the numbers ad nauseum for who contributes what to the actual road they’re driving on, but here it is again.

        Any given vehicle burns approximately 3¢ worth of the gas tax every mile (actually, when this calculation was suggested in a comparison of various transportation costs, it was during a Washington Association of Rail Passengers meeting a long time ago by our guest speaker Aubrey Davis. He used the figure of 2.5¢ per mile)

        Example using I-405:

        We’ll go with 4 new lanes are being added for the length of the corridor (31 miles)

        How many people would be able to fill up those 4 lanes? I use the number that was thrown out to the public as the reason for rebuilding the (previously 4 lane) Evergreen Point Bridge at 120,000 cars per day (Horribly, HORRIBLY congested). Why is that number important? Because for 99.99% of the time, everyone drives from one end of the bridge to the other, no on/off ramps to muddy the numbers).

        120,000 cars x
        3¢ (per mile/per car) =
        $3,600 (per day) x
        31 (miles) =
        $111,600 (one day’s gas tax contribution from all the cars for the whole length) x
        Of course, this assume the new lanes are packed from the get-go.
        365 (days in a year) =
        $40,730,000 (yearly contribution) x
        30 (years that the mega-projects are normally amortized for) =
        $1,222,020,000

        Who pays the rest of the project’s congestion relief (assuming the original new lanes portion I dealt at $6,000,000,000 in the FEIS)?

        I do.

        “Metro is 80% subsidized, ST 60% (not including the general fund taxes for capital projects), and ferries I think 35%. Whom do you think really pays for transit? I do.”

        I rest my case.

        I suppose the only good subsidy is one that highway users get.

      26. “Jim, if you are proposing each transportation mode pay 100% of its capital and operations costs — including a share of roads and bridges — I could support that. I would like to start by putting an honest ST 3 on the ballot. Maybe see if the eastside would rather spend $4.5 billion on fixing the westbound exit from I-90 onto 405 N and S rather than a rail line from Issaquah to S. Kirkland you imagine will “reduce congestion”. Give me a break.
        I’ve never made the Issaquah to So. Kirkland argument for light rail.
        My argument has always been that a commuter rail line, with a modest frequency running the length of the Woodinville Subdivision (and even up to Hartford), as the most effective solution. This includes actual congestion relief in the I-405 corridor by intercepting SOVers from Hwy9 / SR522 (Snohomish and Monroe) and some potentially from the SR527 corridor before they add to the vehicle counts that the I-405 Corridor Program FEIS shows in their screenline data.

      27. “Maybe a ranked choice ballot for each subarea allocating the funding: 1. roads and bridges; 2. light rail; and 3. buses.”

        Light Rail and buses are already out there and have to be voted on to be funded. I’m saying that there needs to be a “Roads Only” measure, to provide a comparison. I want to see that ballot measure being sold and defended by those who so strongly feel that “their constituents like driving, and like roads and bridges”.

      28. “You seem to have some animosity towards the ETA, which is a non-government voluntary organization. I have no affiliation with the ETA, except I didn’t believe them in 2016 when they questioned the project cost estimates in ST 3. Do you support the $4.5 billion Issaquah to S. Kirkland rail line which they opposed, or do you still believe DSTT2 will cost $2.2 billion? Or are you aggrieved that a bunch of former transportation engineers from WSDOT think car mobility is the more important funding issue on the eastside? About 95% of eastsiders think that.”

        Daniel, the ETA isn’t my focus, it’s
        yours , since you treat them as an unassailable authority, and mention them often enough.

        I applaud the generosity of the members of the ETA, seeing as I spent 2 1/2 years volunteering my time on the I-405 Citizens Committee, including attending as many of the Program’s Open Houses as I could. Everyone is aware that all of our meetings were open to the public, not just the Open Houses, and they could even speak at the beginning of the meetings if they chose to (some did). The reason I attended Open Houses was to verify that what the public was seeing was what we were seeing. I even made it to the SR520 Open Houses.
        One thing that was required from (no doubt salaried) WSDOT employees was they had to ‘serve time’ at the open houses explaining things. I found this very useful, since I was able to chat with the various employees who were behind the numbers that were being presented in our meetings, and I was very impressed at the presentations because they described things very well, along with most all of the WSDOT people.

        You’re suggestion that I carry animosity towards individuals doing work for the ETA is a non-sequitur. I only express my disinterest in hearing the same old erroneous arguments parroted again and again.

        When you, and others here deride the staff of ST (or WSDOT) as if they’re ‘working the numbers’ (my quote), I find that particularly distasteful.

        One of the consultants working with the Program Manager presenting material to us was Ron Anderson (who I was told was a former WSDOT employee) and was the Consummate Roads Guy. He was enthusiastic about promoting that point of view. During one meeting, where the preliminary results of the ERC Commuter Rail analysis were going to presented, it was he who was tasked with that job. I knew what the numbers were already, so I wanted to see what light they were presented in. I still have the image in my head when he got to the actual numbers, which were coming in positive… he wrinkled his nose, but he gave it straight. They always did, all of them. They’re engineers, they love the minutiae.

        I came to respect the integrity and the hard work of staff tasked with the analysis, and the bundling of information to present to us common folk.

      29. ‘Why don’t you and the boys dust off that copy, and ‘run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it’

        “The legislature just passed a $17 billion transportation infrastructure bill that is very heavy on roads and bridges, in R and D districts. Why? Because their constituents like driving, and like roads and bridges.”

        Then the ballot measure should pass with flying colors!

    2. Unfortunately, I think the ST Board is an inert planning body unless some interest heavily lobbies the Board members. They will merely let the staff barge ahead.

      If Harrell and the entire City Council would take an interest (and they should because this affects every district because of the terrible transfers) there could be impetus to add alternatives.

      Because the DSTT2 price is paid by all the subareas, even suburban members have an interest in this boondoggle of an alternative. However, they will defer to Seattle leadership,

      What I think is needed is a visible champion for adding more alternatives. Lizz is right to put this on Harrell first, but any Council member or ideally a team of a few council members could make a pretty good splash.

      1. In my experience, the ST non-Seattle board members rarely defer to Seattle leadership; witness the long process to get 130th station open earlier despite a consistent full court press from Seattle politicians on and off the ST Board.

        But I do agree that deviations from representative projects are best advocated when they start from an official position from a city or county within ST, so if SDOT or Seattle Council can take an official position on how the DSTT2 should (or should not) proceed, that can carry strong weight with both ST staff and ST board.

      2. ST boardmembers focus on their own subareas. The Snohomish boardmembers focus on Everett and Paine Field. They support anything that expedites that, oppose anything that hinders it, and are willing to go along with whatever Seattle wants as long as it doesn’t delay or jeapordize the Lynnwood and Everett extensions. Likewise, East King focuses on Redmond, Stride, and the misguided Issaquah line. South King and Pierce focus on Tacoma Dome and Sounder. What their constituents demand is an alternative to their freeway congestion, not something in another subarea or a multi-station walkable village like Rainier Valley or the proposed 45th corridor. So that’s what their ST representatives advocate and vote for.

        130th Station is a more complex side issue. It’s not a line segment; it’s a station. It’s not in some people’s vision of a north Spine. I don’t think the opposition is travel time: that argument has lost clout over the years, the dwell time is only 20 seconds, and they never raised that as a reason to reject the station. There’s also a deferred station at 220th in Mountlake Terrace, which would have the same impact, but it’s still in the long-range plan.

        ST3 was ultimately a compromise between Snohomish wanting Everett and Paine, East King wanting Redmond and Issaquah, South King and Pierce wanting Tacoma Dome and Sounder expansion, and North King wanting WSBLE. They all agreed to support each other’s projects to get the votes for their own.

        That’s also why they didn’t cut anything in the realignment; they just delayed everything even if it takes 10+ years. Because cutting things would create winners and losers, and some subareas would be impacted more than others. They can’t back down on their own subarea’s projects or their constituents would get mad. They don’t want to force other boardmembers/subareas to take more hits than they do. So they avoid that by extending everything and not reevaluating the projects in ST3. They also don’t want to throw away the long-fought-for voter approval to Everett Station, Tacoma Dome, and WSBLE. They put it all into ST3 so they wouldn’t have to come back for another vote later, as they did in ST 1 and 2.

      3. I agree with both of you, which is why the key is getting Seattle leadership behind the idea of interlining. If the mayor wants a study, there will be a study.

        Ultimately this could lead to some negotiation with other subareas, as that means they don’t pay for a tunnel. But it would be similar (being able to run the trains more often benefits everyone). It would likely be a lot cheaper, which means that while it might not be ideal from their perspective (e. g. Snohomish County might prefer a second tunnel) the cost difference could more than make up for that. If they have to chip in less, then they can build what they want sooner. South King and Snohomish would prefer better transfers to the UW, let alone the possibility of one-seat rides there. I doubt there would be much opposition outside the city — at most there would be an attempt to squeeze Seattle a bit, since we would be forced to renegotiate.

        This is different than the 130th Station. The only formal opposition I heard was from Kenmore, if I remember right. They were concerned that it might cause the 522 BRT project to be delayed.

    1. To be fair, there is a cross platform transfer proposed at SODO but it’s for trips from RV to West Seattle — so it’s not very useful.

      Wikipedia lists 65 metro areas across the world with cross-platforms in their multi-line rail systems. It’s not a novel idea. It’s used in probably more than half of the multi-line systems around the world. For ST to not consider it is a combination of stubbornness and stupidity.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform_interchange

    2. Has any transit agency the world over spent more than ST per rider mile AJ? If you want someone to blame for crummy local transit, you need to first blame ST that will end up spending more than $130 billion for around 2/3 of what it promised, and second blame the geography of the region that makes off-peak transit very expensive and very difficult logistically. I guess you could also blame past Seattle City Councils for ruining the one place a subway system makes sense: downtown Seattle. I am not sure who else you could blame if you are disappointed with our transit system. Certainly not the voters or tax payers, who are naturally disillusioned after Move Seattle and ST 1, 2 and 3, and the realignment.

      2. “The Second Avenue Subway (internally referred to as the IND Second Avenue Line by the MTA and abbreviated to SAS) is a New York City Subway line that runs under Second Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan. The first phase of this new line, with three new stations on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, opened on January 1, 2017. The full Second Avenue Line, if and when it is funded, will be built in three more phases to eventually connect Harlem–125th Street in Harlem to Hanover Square in Lower Manhattan. The proposed full line would be 8.5 miles (13.7 km) and 16 stations long, serve a projected 560,000 daily riders, and cost more than $17 billion.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway

        $17 billion to carry 560,000 riders/day seems like a bargain compared to ST to me, although the distances may be shorter, although I would argue subways are for high ridership short urban distances. Even WSBLE will cost around $17 billion if based on the preferred alternative.

        In 2018, pre-pandemic and pre-Northgate, light rail carried a total of 48 million riders/year, or 131,506 daily, for around three times the capital cost as the 2nd Ave. Subway. WSBLE’s ridership will be a fraction of 131,506 daily riders, let alone the daily ridership on 2nd Ave. of 560,000 riders/day.

        I think ST takes the cake as the most expensive transit system in the world when ridership and ridership/mile are compared to total cost. It isn’t too late for WSBLE though: cancel it, and switch to buses.

      3. I think ST takes the cake as the most expensive transit system in the world when ridership and ridership/mile are compared to total cost.

        I think that is quite possible. Another metric is rider time saved per dollar spent. You add up all the riders, and how much time they saved (in total) and then divide the cost. Another is modal share (i. e. how many now use transit that drove before). It probably makes sense to look at all these metrics in combination when evaluating a project. In New York, for example, you might not change the modal share at all, but you might save existing riders a lot of time. In another area you only improve things for 2% of the population, but that 2% didn’t bother with transit before (a dramatic change in modal share).

        In any event, no matter what metric is considered, it is quite likely that this is the worst project in the world from a cost/benefit perspective. The United States is known for bad projects, and very expensive projects, so it should be no surprise that it is happening in this country. We’ve had some really bad projects — much worse than ST3 — but they are usually relatively cheap. We’ve had some really expensive projects (Second Avenue Subway is way more costly than what you would see in Europe or Asia) but they carry huge numbers of riders. But since this will be very expensive, and not very good, it may very well be the worst value by any metric you want to use.

    3. The best thing at SoDo is to share one central platform. Then all transfers — in-direction and out-of-direction — are trivial.

      Now obviously that’s not easy to establish, because the southbound track is in the way. However, with a shoo-fly built in the northbound busway lane (and the buses sharing the southbound busway lane for a few weeks while the southbound track and platform are swapped), it could be engineered. It would require closing the southbound platform temporarily but plenty of buses run between Stadium and SoDo a few yards away.

      It is possible for the northbound track from West Seattle to step down from the elevated in the two blocks south of Forest Street by taking the third track out from the Franz Bakery building. If the bakery needs three spur tracks one could be added in the .

      The spur at the south end of the property would be moved over also and the high voltage line might need to jog east a few yards between the place that the descent begins and the south end of the Franz property.

      The descending northbound track would take the SoDo trail for the block between Forest and Lander, but the thing ends at Forest anyway.

      The southbound track to West Seattle would just launch directly from the existing curve into Forest Street; it would simply go straight.

      Ross rightly points out that this means a merge southbound somewhere around Stadium, and a divergence northbound there as well. Clearly Lander would have to overpass the tracks, because there would be a trailing point merge immediately south of the platform. So would Holgate to maintain traffic flow.

      But we all know that West Seattle will never need headways shorter than ten minutes, even at the peak, nor will the Everett end of the line. The RV line can’t go below six minutes unless a bunch of streets are overpassed above it and the pedestrian crossings are eliminated, and let’s be honest; that’s not likely. Nobody wants a virtual wall through the community.

      So, there is plenty of capacity in the existing single pair of tracks if the cross-streets overpass them. Should there be a “bypass” to deep south King County/Pierce County needed someday, at that time a second set of tracks could be built for it and West Seattle. But it is NOT needed now, especially with WFH eating into transit ridership.

  3. If CID leaders want to invite us over to conceptualisé new options, I’m willing to meet. The great ideas that many of us have never get traction and the CID interests seem to have more sway. Let’s work together!

    I’m waiting for the CID leaders to also realize that getting to SE Seattle destinations near MLK will mean a new platforms deeper underground and longer to reach from CID. Not only is construction disruptive, but the resulting project makes getting to MLK worse!

  4. A shallow 4th avenue station is the good option for CID. The viaduct needs to be replaced, and it connects the existing CID station, Amtrak, and Sounder. This isn’t just a second CID station; it’s serving a regional transit hub, and yet connections to Sounder and Amtrak seem like a complete afterthought. This could be Seattle’s Grand Central, or better. I’m disappointed by the myopic discussion and lack of vision about this station so far.

  5. Forget downtown for the second tunnel. It is duplicative after all. Use Dearborn to get the train east of I-5 (because ST is terrified of going under I-5 again), and serve capitol hill.

  6. I would push back on the idea that the ID can’t take street disruption for a shallow tunnel. A shallow tunnel is much more useful for riders, which will bring more people into the district for cultural or business reasons. 4th Avenue is an obvious solution albeit a more expensive one.

    The real problem is, historically, the city has been pretty awful to the ID when it comes to breaking transit promises. There will be some political capital to be spent for a shallow tunnel, I fear the city is unwilling to commit. Some of the neighborhood priorities that must be address include:

    1. Complete the CCC
    2. Complete a detailed study of a 4th Avenue alignment
    3. Commit to long term, sustainable solutions for public safety in Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon

    1. That’s the right framing – the ID will benefit from a shallow station simply because it is a better station for riders, therefore benefiting residents and visitors to the ID. Any relevant stakeholder either lives in or is a visitor to the ID, or has ID residents/visitors as customers/employees.

    2. Yes, a shallow 5th Avenue South alignment seems much better for transfers: Link-Link, Link-bus, Link-FHSC, and Link-Sounder. ST could mitigate the neighborhood and transit impacts.

      The 4th Avenue South viaduct may have to be replaced anyway. It has awkward timing similar to the Magnolia and Ballard bridges where ST3 is attempting the Ballard Link extension. The current flows on both 4th and 5th avenues are important and have to mitigated.

      re One: completing the CCC Streetcar would be very costly and likely make transit service worse. The ID has routes 7, 14, 36, and 106 providing 20 trips per hour per direction at curbside stops. The streetcar was planned to provide only 12 trips per hour per direction and is not funded. It is sad that the McGinn SDOT bungled the streetcar and made unfunded promises. If we want that circulation pattern, kill the CCC and shift routes 7, 14, and 36 to 1st Avenue and speed them with red paint and signage. Consider what else could be done with the CCC ROW, capital funds, and service subsidy.

      1. The CCC isn’t a bad idea on paper, but the city of Seattle needs to go back to the drawing board on fixing the Streetcar network into being a proper tram like line instead of a toy train that not many people use. Which means investing in longer platforms and longer trains, and building on trunk routes that would benefit from a train upgrade.

      2. Zach, exactly, including closing Westlake to general traffic south of Denny Way. That way the complex light timing at the two six-way intersections can be eased greatly and just let the transit vehicles have some priority.

      3. The trouble here isn’t the capabilities of the CCC, although that’s always a factor. I would argue the feds wouldn’t have scored the line so highly if it was as ineffective as you allude to, and you didn’t mention how Durkan gutted the line and then lied about it, but that’s for another thread.

        The trouble is the city affirmed to business stakeholders and the ID community that if they accepted the FHSC the network would be connected through downtown to the SLUt since the Nickels Administration in 2009. That would be bad enough, but the city also added a maintenance facility in the neighborhood without community engagement. They also promised that parking impacts during stadium events wouldn’t be a big deal. I’m sure you can find even more examples, I found these with 5 minutes of google searching.

        This neighborhood is burnt out. If we’re going to put another transit tunnel through downtown it has to check all of the boxes: accessible, shallow, good transfers, and minimal permanent displacements.

      4. the city of Seattle needs to go back to the drawing board on fixing the Streetcar network into being a proper tram like line instead of a toy train that not many people use. Which means investing in longer platforms and longer trains, and building on trunk routes that would benefit from a train upgrade.

        Which basically means abandoning the existing streetcar line, and starting over. We can then invest in trunk routes that would benefit from a train upgrade, like … um, nothing in this city. Not a single line runs often enough to benefit from transitioning to a train. The 7 and 70 — two of our busiest corridors — have buses that run 8 minutes at most, not the 3 minutes considered the standard for transitioning to rail. That is because they are never that crowded — any increase in frequency is a subsidy to benefit riders (going from 15 to 10 is very nice) not an increase due to crowding.

        Streetcars have their place, but ultimately they are a niche. They make sense when you can’t invest in something bigger (like light rail or light metro) but need the capacity over buses. We have no need for this niche, just like most cities our size.

      5. My post really wasn’t about the streetcar, it was about broken promises. If what you say is true, then for the city to keep its promises it has to rip out the entire network and start over. This wont happen. The only way for everyone to get a little of bit of what they want is to keep building.

      6. Why would “everyone to get a little of bit of what they want” be the goal? There’s a need for compromise within the relevant political structures, but that’s rather different than ensuring every squeaky wheel gets oiled. Building Public Works requires telling some factions* “no” because resources are no infinite.

        *or “specials interests” for a negative connotation or “stakeholders” for a positive connation; they all mean the same thing.

      7. “The 7 and 70 — two of our busiest corridors — have buses that run 8 minutes at most, not the 3 minutes considered the standard for transitioning to rail. That is because they are never that crowded”

        You need to ride the 7 in the daytime. The reason it runs every 8 minutes is because it’s crowded. It’s not packed 125 people/bus like in pre-covid days because people want to social distance, but it’s busy enough to justify at least 8-minute service.

        As for the 70, it was packed before covid. It may not be now because many offices are still closed. And it was filling in the gap between when the 71/72/73X stopped going downtown and U-District Station opened. But it’s busy enough to be upgraded to RapidRide, which is under construction now.

        Saying that subways aren’t justified until buses get to 3-minute frequency sounds like US-centric thinking. Cities outside the US have a lot lower threshold for adding rail lines. And the 71/72/73X were bunching at 7 minutes: there’s no way they could have gone down to 3 minutes. A European city would have converted routes like the 7, 70, E, and C to trams years ago, about when Seattle was first considering streetcars in 2000. (And they wouldn’t have been tiny infrequent streetcars with little lane priority; they would have been more like Link on MLK.) Because it’s more effective transit circulation, and having that is worthwhile in itself, and it gives a backbone for buses to fill in around.

      8. “Streetcars have their place, but ultimately they are a niche. They make sense when you can’t invest in something bigger (like light rail or light metro) but need the capacity over buses. We have no need for this niche, just like most cities our size.”

        Not all streetcars are the same. Most cities build streetcars with dedicated lanes like Link on MLK and robust signal priority, and they resort to shared-traffic lanes only for very short unavaoidable segments, like going between historic buildings or through a complicated intersection. They aren’t like the First Hill Streetcar on Jackson Street or Broadway with all mixed traffic, or the SLU streetcar south of Denny stopping every block at a traffic light (which the 40 and 70 manage not to do and are faster). Other streetcars are larger and have more capacity than a bus, but our streetcars don’t. Seattle/Portland-style streetcars don’t belong anywhere.

        When Seattle first started thinking about its next generation of transit in 2000, I attended an open house in Roosevelt where the city asked, “Should our next-generation transit network focus on light rail, streetcars, or buses?” I said, “Light rail or buses but not streetcars.” Exclusive-lane/grade-separated rail running every 5-10 minutes is superior transportation that allows people to do more things in a day and is more competitive with driving. Buses are inexpensive so they can serve more areas. Streetcars are the worst of both worlds: more expensive than buses but not better mobility or capacity.

        When the SLU streetcar went in, it cost Metro more to operate than a bus would, which cut into the total amount of transit service Metro could provide. Likewise, the First Hill Streetcar shold have been a trolleybus. It’s not doing anything a trolleybus couldn’t do, and the overhead wire is already there.

      9. “The CCC isn’t a bad idea on paper”

        Who wants to go from Jackson Street to the Denny Triangle by detouring around to 1st Avenue? Who wants to go from Broadway to 1st Avenue by detouring around to Jackson Street? The bulk of downtown’s destinations are between 2nd and 5th Avenues, so 1st Avenue is on the periphery. Jenny Durkan said we need the CCC because “My vision is somebody [a tourist] will be able to take it from Pike Place Market to MOHAI or Little Saigon.” Yes, id would be convenient for that. But that’s only a small percentage of total trips. Most trips are served better by having north-south transit on 3rd Avenue, and that’s only a 2-block walk from Pike Place Market. So get on with converting the remaining half-dozen 3rd Avenue routes to RapidRide, or turning it into a transit mall or, gasp, put the CCC there. Give 1st Avenue a secondary bus route. Don’t go spending a lot of money to create an egg-dropper-shaped streetcar route on 1st.

        The two main advantages of the CCC that have been cited are, (1) the city has agreed to allow center transit lanes on 1st and is reluctant to do so elsewhere or for non-streetcars, and (2) that money isn’t available for other city transit because the city council wouldn’t approve it, voters wouldn’t vote for it, and the federal grant wouldn’t be available. Those are all political problems: the answer is to fix our politics, not to build an egg-dropper-shaped streetcar line because that’s the most politically feasible.

        The CCC plan will have center transit lanes from Olive to Yesler, so one short mile will be out of traffic. Then it will crowd into the congestion between Yesler and Jackson because that’s too narrow for transit lanes. And anyone wanting to from Yesler to Belltown or Jackson to Belltown or Pike Place to SODO will find that the train turns after one mile and they have to get off and walk the rest of the way or transfer to a bus.

        Likewise, the First Hill Streetcar (with or without the CCC) can’t replace the 7, 9, 14, 36, or 60 because it turns in the middle of their routes, and it terminates at Denny. There have been attempts to extend it north to Aloha but the surrounding businesses refused to pay for it and said it wouldn’t be sufficiently useful. So it’s stuck terminating at Denny, and anyone going to the main Broadway shopping district has to get off and way, just like their counterparts on lower 1st Avenue going to Belltown.

      10. “subways aren’t justified until buses get to 3-minute frequency sounds like US-centric thinking” No, it’s *trains” aren’t justified until there is a capacity need, or if there is a forced transfer to be avoided. Good ROW separation is an independent decision and can be done w/ buses or trains. Paris and Germany build trams, not streetcars, with a focus on greater capacity per vehicle than buses.

        There used to be many good reasons to prefer a train over a bus – smooth ride, fare collection, electrification – but bus technology has advanced such that there is no longer a gap. A good time as always to read: https://humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html

        Building trains and then running them like a local bus (mixed traffic, low frequency, small vehicles) is a decidedly American (really, Obama era FTA grant making) phenomenon.

        I generally agree there is not a bus route within Seattle where the goals of a ‘streetcar’ cannot be achieved with some trolley wire and bus-only lanes. I’m keen to see what happens with the 7; ridership will certainly increase with the opening of Judkins station, but will trip patterns be such that peak crowding does not get worse, as the induced demand will be for Link transfers, while peak crowding at the 7 is within the ID, correct?

      11. Saying that subways aren’t justified until buses get to 3-minute frequency sounds like US-centric thinking.

        I didn’t say subways weren’t justified, I said trams weren’t justified. Big difference. A subway is faster than a bus — a tram isn’t. Thus a subway could easily see increases in ridership due to faster speeds. The increased speed could more easily justify transfers, again increasing ridership. Thus the capacity is needed not to replace the existing ridership (on the buses) but the new, much higher ridership of a subway.

        With a bus to streetcar conversion, you have none of that. The streetcar isn’t any faster, so you won’t get any more riders. That is the point of this essay: https://humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html. Walker cites the three minute guideline: This capacity advantage can be relevant in high-volume situations, particularly when frequencies get down to the three-minute range. This is just a guideline, but it is a common one throughout the world. Given that Walker is an international consultant, who is well aware of American biases (on stop spacing for example) I think it is highly unlikely that this is “US-Centric” thinking. It is just sensible planning.

        The key advantage of a streetcar is that you run it less often. Let that sink in for a second. It isn’t often that you want your bus to come less often. But if the buses are running every 3 minutes (or more often) you might as well have a bigger bus (running on rails). That isn’t the case if the train is running every 8 minutes, and it certainly isn’t the case if it is running every 10.

        A European city would have converted routes like the 7, 70, E, and C to trams years ago

        Nonsense. Not for a city the size of Seattle, with the ridership we have. Look at the frequencies of these routes: https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2020/09/01/two-axes-to-swing-for-metro-in-september/. Keep in mind, this is the highest these have ever been. Remember, the key advantage of a streetcar is that you can run it less often. So go through the routes, and consider where it makes sense to run less often:

        C — 4 minutes peak, 10 minutes middle of the day
        E — 4 minutes peak, 10 minutes middle of the day
        7 — 8 minutes peak, 10 minutes middle of the day
        70 — 10 minutes peak and midday

        The C and E are the only candidates, and only during peak. In both cases, because of the peak nature of their crowding (and travel patterns) it makes sense to have peak express overlays. In both cases it would be very expensive to build trams (given the bridges) negating one of the key advantages of trams (they are relatively cheap). In the case of the E, it is highly likely that crowding will be reduced as the parallel subway extends outward, especially since the subway connects to other, bigger destinations (like the UW). In every case, running the vehicles less often only makes sense for a short period of time, and even then, it could be considered a degradation. Metro would save a tiny bit of money running trains every 6 minutes instead of 4 — but that sounds worse to me. Given the cost of building tramways, it is quite possible you would never save money.

        Trams are a niche market. They make sense for when you can’t afford a subway (yet) but need the capacity, because the corridor is densely populated, and building (or maintaining) a tram is a cost effective option. There is nothing like that in Seattle — we aren’t Toronto.

      12. “Good ROW separation is an independent decision and can be done w/ buses or trains.”

        Theoretically yes, but in the Seattle political environment no. It’s easier to get a light rail tunnel approved than to convert GP or parking lanes to transit-priority lanes. And there’s no room to widen the streets as some other cities would do. We did approve Link three times, but we couldn’t get transit-prority lanes on Aurora for the E, even though Shoreline and South King County have full BAT lanes for their part of the E and A. RapidRide+ promised some substantial transit-priority segments on 45th, Eastlake, and 23rd, but all those were watered down to almost nothing or given to bikes instead.

      13. “the key advantage of a streetcar is that you can run it less often.”

        What? If you run it less often, it’s less frequent, and that’s worse transit service. 5-10 minutes is the minimum that should be running on Seattle’s arterial corridors. Hardly any of Seattle’s corridors meet this, so we shouldn’t even think of making a streetcar less frequent than a bus. It should be at least as frequent as the bus, if not more frequent. That Canadian transit guy has a saying that city service should be at least every 10 minutes, and 15 minutes is the bare minimum for outer corridors. Jarrett Walker says similar, that even lower-volume corridors should run every 15 minutes at least to make transit viable to use. The expansion to 10 minutes on the 45, 48, 65, and 67 during the first TBD until the covid recession wasn’t just burning money, it was addressing what Metro considered underservice but couldn’t afford to operate under existing funds. Likewise, you can’t assume the current level of service on the C, E, 7, and 70 is the ideal level; it’s just the level Metro can afford in its existing budget. If you run out of salt you don’t say, “I don’t need any more salt for the rest of my life”, you buy some more salt.

        The point of building a tram is to improve transit mobility in a major corridor. A city should have a list of such corridors and know why each one is major. Then you upgrade it, for the same reason we upgraded the 358 to the E. Not because the 358 was melting down with overcrowding, although sometimes that happens like the 71/72/73X or San Francisco’s Stoctkon route. But because you want to make it easy for people to do most of their errands on transit like most cities around the world have long known.

    3. “The 4th Avenue South viaduct may have to be replaced anyway.”

      Why should we spend our limited high-capacity transit dollars on a mostly-car viaduct? It’s one thing if Seattle just wants to coordinate the timing, but usually these things are to tap ST’s large tax authority. That squeezes out transit investments and makes transit projects less transformative than they could have been and were expected to. It’s like how Access is funded out of Metro’s budget rather than a separate social-services tax, so it cuts significantly into the frequency and coverage Metro could otherwise offer and that we need.

      1. If it results in a more cost efficient project than tackling sub-projects separately with the ‘appropriate’ buckets of money, I generally support Public Works monies tackling the larger scope to drive more coherent improvements. If ST is going to tear up & then rebuild 4th or 5th Ave, then all else equal* I’d rather have ST tackle 4th ave. Whether the 4th Ave viaduct replacement is funded by ST sales taxes or SDOT property tax levies strikes me as a secondary concern, below figuring out how to achieve both goals (new Link station, new viaduct) in a cost effective manner. Same logic applies to ST & SDOT being smart around sequencing projects in Interbay & Ballard.

        *all-else-equal is doing a lot of work here, admittedly.

      2. That’s like replacing the Ballard Bridge or Magnolia Bridge. If Seattle wants to make it happen, it needs to have at least the beginning of a shovel-ready plan and financing ahead of time that ST can just integrate. It doesn’t have anything at all, and it would take years to design a joint plan and find the non-transit funding part, and we don’t know what the costs would be because there have been no preliminary studies, much less a study of a joint car+rail bridge that may have different requirements. It the city wants to pursue this it needs to draw up a plan right now, or preferably a decade ago.

  7. “the result would only be marginally beneficial for a neighborhood that already has excellent transit access.” That’s a very elegant phrasing of the rather generic nimby statement, “I have mine, so why would I care if others benefit?”

    “”Chinatown residents have a strong case that 5th Avenue would be devastating to the neighborhood.” Do they? Cut-and-cover stations are generally regarded as best practice, and Chinatown isn’t unique in having a street with shops and businesses.
    https://pedestrianobservations.com/2021/02/25/cut-and-cover-is-underrated/

    1. And there aren’t even many businesses facing 5th itself, and only a handful of parking spots on 5th, and it’s not a major thru route for cars. I could understand more if it were 6th or Maynard.

    2. Chinatown businesses are focusing on a few years of disruption and ignoring the hundred years where a shallow 5th station would be an asset to the neighborhood and bring more customers to the businesses.

  8. Is using the existing station not being considered??? Even if you’re hesitant to put multiple lines through the entire downtown transit tunnel (because, Reasons…), it should be possible to coordinate three lines at just one central transfer station, right? It just seems silly to spend the equivalent of a West Seattle tunnel on a subway station one block away from an existing station. At least Midtown station has the merit of being up a steep hill from University Street Station.

  9. How much of the higher cost of the 4th Ave shallow is due to the need to replacement the viaduct? That’s incremental cost for ST, but that’s not really incremental cost for Seattle, as SDOT will need to replace the viaduct within roughly the same time frame.

    1. Let’s quit calling the options “shallow” and “deep”. The options are really “deep” and “very deep”.

      It needs to also be noted that the drawings in 2019 had shallower profiles for the new DSTT2 station. This is a recent change.

      The diagrams here show that the shallow stations are still 3 times deeper (like 120+ stair steps total) than the current one. https://wsblink.participate.online/stations/id-chinatown

      The depth is needed to bore under buildings north of Jackson or S Main St. Perhaps we should be instead talk about taking the wrong block in the CID. Perhaps the block north of Jacksonnusnt touched because the owner isn’t part of the CID community.

  10. Note the second row of the ES-5 table on ridership. Per an earlier post by Martin, the ST ridership modeling does not seem sensitive enough to reflect the longer access times. Minutes will matter. Transit cannot be seamless; seams are of time (waiting) distance (walking or rolling), or information (complex fare structures or networks). This flaw is reflected in the station designs that ask for long transfer walks sometimes across busy arterials.

  12. It is worth noting that every single option is worse for riders than the existing station. We shouldn’t lose sight of that fact. Some are much worse than others, just like some are more disruptive to the neighborhood than others. But they are all significantly worse for riders than what exists right now.

    The obvious solution is to simply interline the trains. This is the “out of the box” idea that Tlsgwm mentioned in the opening comment. This would likely save Sound Transit a huge amount of money, and give riders a much better experience. It is rare that we get both, but this is one of those times. This is because:

    1) The new stations are worse than the old ones. It isn’t just CID. This is true of Westlake as well. The new station at “Midtown” is not as good as having two stations (like on the other line).

    2) By interlining, you make transfers trivial. You simply get off the train, and back on later. South Lake Union to downtown Bellevue. UW to SeaTac. West Seattle to Ballard. All of those trips will require a transfer (and many more). All of those transfers are much worse with these planned stations.

    Interlining wouldn’t be trivial, but then building this isn’t either. Interlining will require investments in rail infrastructure, as well as connecting the lines in a different way. But it is unlikely that would cost as much, nor be as disruptive to the community as what has been proposed. Ultimately it would result in a much better experience for riders as well. At the very least it should be studied.

    2. Is there an explainer somewhere on how interlining would work and/or what the technical challenges are to making it happen? The solution almost seems too obvious assuming that 90 second headways can happen.

      1. I think there are a couple key aspects:

        1) Running trains more often. As Martin pointed out above, ST believes this can be done. It would take an investment in system infrastructure. Eventually you probably want to invest in CBTC, for smoother operations. None of this is likely to be as expensive, nor as disruptive as building new stations. It is relatively cheap and straightforward.

        2) Connecting the lines. To the south end it is relatively trivial. In the north end it could get tricky. Some believe it would be very disruptive, or expensive. Most believe that there would be relatively little disruption (similar to what happened with CID) and that it would cost a lot less than building the new stations. We won’t really know until they do a formal study.

        From a user standpoint, there is a possibility that it would “work”, but that there would be delays. I believe this would still be better for users than the current plans. Yes, delays suck, but in this case it would be only occasionally, and not nearly as bad as long walks to the platform, or very inconvenient transfers. Again, there is no reason to assume that delays are inevitable. There are systems throughout the world where many more trains run through a shared corridor, and they are never delayed. In contrast, the failings of the new stations — from a rider perspective — would be inevitable.

      2. The solution almost seems too obvious assuming that 90 second headways can happen.

        Right. A couple things to keep in mind. You only need 2 minute headways to match the proposed throughput. You would have thirty trains an hour through downtown, whether they run through two downtown tunnels or one. 90 second headways means that a train can be thirty seconds late, and yet still not delay the next one.

        As to your main point, it does seem “too obvious”, but keep in mind how this process works. Early on, when there was very little planning, they made the decision to go with two tunnels. They could have easily committed to a shared tunnel. But they didn’t, in part because there was a fear of delays. There was also the assumption that the new tunnel wouldn’t be that bad, or that disruptive. It is human nature to assume the best with a new project. You will be hard pressed to find any critique of ST3 which included phrases like “bad transfers from the old line to the new” or “much longer trips to the surface”, let alone “community opposition due to the number of businesses destroyed”. Yet that is what the engineers now say will happen with the new tunnel.

        In short, we committed to a plan without knowing what it would entail. Folks had no idea it would be this disruptive to the community, or this bad for riders. If they did, they would have pursued the other option a long time ago.

      3. Good summary from Ross, aside from implying his preference has majority support, but is there anyone who believes a junction at (or north of) Westlake will be simillar to the tie-in of East Link? The CID junction already existed, it simply needed to be converted from a bus junction to a rail junction. All ST had to do way add a rail switch, some signals, and strength the ramps. The CID station itself was never touched.

        A Westlake junction is an entirely different project. It way very well be that the disruption/expense is totally worth it, particularly compared to the cost, disruption, and performance of a standalone tunnel. But to compare it to the ST2 CID work is dishonest.

        As for Ross’s 2nd post:
        The opposition to the CID shallow tunnel was predictable and anticipated. https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2018/09/05/chinatown-leader-hopes-for-4th-avenue-alignment-of-west-seattle-line/

        Looking back, staff actually pitched the 2nd tunnel as better for transfers, but STB comments were skeptical:
        https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2015/12/05/ballard-to-tacoma-sound-transit-looks-to-split-the-spine/

        IMO, the only new information from the EIS process is station depth, and perhaps larger station footprints in West Seattle (though I still feel that can be engineered away if there is political will). Everything else – cost escalation risks, poor transfers, generic objections to construction impacts – was all baked into my support for ST3. It’s only with the station depth issues (driven by the 99 tunnel, from what I understand) am I now conceding that ST may need to pivot to either interline Ballard Link or operate it as a stub.

      4. Good question!

        The word can mean different concepts but the main point is that it seems possible to put three lines in the DSTT and two in SODO on the existing tracks.

        I interpret one variation on interlining as a mix-match scenario like Copenhagen or Stockholm. In other words having not only 1 and 3 lines (all in DSTT) but also a new 5 Line from West Seattle to Ballard and a new 6 Line from SeaTac to Northgate. Each line would have half the frequency. With transfers projected to take as long as 5 minutes with multiple conveyance rides inside stations, a rider could choose to just wait several minutes longer at the initial platform for the next train and get a one-seat ride. It’s not an ideal but ST should build in operational flexibility as needed for all sorts of reasons. Of course, ST never discusses having flexibility in operations with Link in developing these alternatives. I don’t think that’s what RossB means but I could be wrong and can’t speak for him.

      5. A PS. The mix-match multiple line option makes much less sense without DSTT2. It really is most useful if transfers are awful — like what ST is currently proposing.

      6. If I recall, future expandability beyond ST3 was one of the main arguments cited for DSTT2. If the current tunnel can handle all 3 lines, then I don’t see why the second tunnel is needed in the next 30 years. It’s not like Sound Transit has done anything to plan or prepare for a hypothetical 4th line.

        Since they aren’t breaking ground on anything except the West Seattle spur in the next 6-7+ years, is there anything about the planned West Seattle connection at SODO that needs to be changed in order to accommodate a single downtown tunnel? If I understand this correctly, the south connection will be ‘done’ in 2032 since the trains for the West Seattle spur will be supplied from one of the existing OMFs (I’m guessing they only need 2 trains for the West Seattle spur anyway, maybe 4 at peak?). So they can just keep that setup after the Ballard extension opens instead of changing it again to parallel tracks.

        The main challenge then is to figure out where to dig around Westlake, which is a problem since the tracks are 90 degrees offset from where they need to be. Maybe the split would have to be at 3rd and Pine, but perhaps that would be better since University Street/Symphony has more excess capacity than Westlake, which is already crowded. Fun to think about…

        Anyway, it will be interesting to see the results of the ‘cost savings’ analysis that is due in April. Hopefully a single downtown tunnel will emerge as one of the possibilities, but I suspect other commonly-floated ideas such as dropping the Avalon Station will be the main conclusion.

      7. The DEIS early on declares that DSTT2 is needed. It’s in the Purpose and Need section and the No-Build say that the southbound segment between Pioneer Square and CID will be overcrowded (Level of Service F).

        However, the sources explaining that aren’t clear and the No Build assumed 3 minute headways. Going to 2 minute headways would be 50 percent more train capacity!

        The macro recommendation is to add at least two Build alternatives to the DEIS as you propose — one with a line through to/from Ballard and another with a Ballard-Downtown stub. For the first, different ways to branch the tracks could result in a few options. For the second, a different short automated and frequent train or perhaps a different transfer station Downtown could be studied.

        It takes teams of engineering specialists paid several million dollars in total to develop and assess new alternatives. We know enough to see that it may likely be possible to save $4-5B, create less construction disruption and make transfers between lines and overall Link access less problematic Downtown — but we aren’t paid professional specialists and ST would need to study it.

      8. Good summary from Ross, aside from implying his preference has majority support

        I didn’t write that. What I wrote is that a majority of people believe that connecting the Ballard line to the main line will be cheaper than building the second tunnel, and not especially disruptive. I believe there is only one person who thinks it will be a major undertaking, and require the Westlake Station to be disabled for months. I’ve talked to someone who has a very popular transit blog, and has studied transit systems throughout the world, and he believes this would be relatively straightforward. As he put it “by no means do I think this needs a long term station closure, a lot of similar and frankly much more complex works happen in Tokyo when they create new tunnels – the method is usually to tunnel right up to the critical merge point, and then complete the very last part in a fast blitz, sometimes in as little as a single night. This type of thing is absolutely possible … “. I would mention him, but I don’t want to drag him into our little argument.

        My main point is to have the engineers study it. If they can’t do it without a long term closure, then we can debate the trade-offs.

      9. The opposition to the CID shallow tunnel was predictable and anticipated. https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2018/09/05/chinatown-leader-hopes-for-4th-avenue-alignment-of-west-seattle-line/

        That came out in 2018, two years after voters approved ST3. My point was that few people, if any, were raising the issue before the vote.

        Looking back, staff actually pitched the 2nd tunnel as better for transfers, but STB comments were skeptical:
        https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2015/12/05/ballard-to-tacoma-sound-transit-looks-to-split-the-spine/

        That is a very interesting post. It describes almost exactly what they want to build, based on the diagram — https://stb-wp.s3.amazonaws.com//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/04135851/ST3-Draft-Map-01.png. I think the only difference is Stadium. There is a more important difference, though:

        Transfers would be world class at both Westlake and IDS, both contained within their respective stations.

        This is definitely not the case. Every single proposed transfer is terrible. They are bad for same direction transfers and reverse direction transfers. They are bad if you just want to get to the surface.

        This changes everything. The plan sounds quite reasonable if you have good transfers and good stations. These don’t. The experience for riders would be much worse than if they interlined.

        To be clear, I’m just suggesting a simple interlining. Northbound, the trains from Tacoma will interline with the trains from West Seattle at SoDo. Then those trains will continue to interline with the trains from Redmond at CID. The train from Tacoma* would then split off from the main line after Westlake. It is basically the same plan, but giving riders much better stations and much better transfers (especially same direction transfers).

        * I am assuming the same pairing as proposed. I’m not thrilled with it, but I can live with it.

      10. If I recall, future expandability beyond ST3 was one of the main arguments cited for DSTT2. If the current tunnel can handle all 3 lines, then I don’t see why the second tunnel is needed in the next 30 years. It’s not like Sound Transit has done anything to plan or prepare for a hypothetical 4th line.

        Right. The issue of future capacity comes up. Here are the counter arguments:

        1) YAGNI. It is quite possible that we will never need additional capacity.

        2) There are other ways to increase capacity.

        3) The tunnel is so bad and so expensive, that we we gain nothing by building it now. We might as well wait, and hope that in the future they will build a better tunnel. The platforms are a long distance from the surface. The transfers are terrible. The MidTown station is the worst of both worlds — worse than being on the main line, yet not worth transferring to (in part because the transfer is terrible, but also because it is too close). In contrast, it is easy to imagine “world class” transfers (Ric Ilgenfritz did). It is easy to imagine a station on a new line actually increasing coverage downtown (by going east to First Hill). For that matter, it is easy to imagine a new line staying east, or going some other direction, and not just providing an additional line through downtown.

        It doesn’t make sense to build a bad, expensive tunnel, when we aren’t sure if we will ever need it, and if we do, can imagine better places for it to go.

      11. I suppose that’s as close to an appeal to authority we can get on a transit blog’s comment thread. If I’m completely wrong and building a junction is straightforward, great!

        FWIW, I think Al agrees with me on disruptiveness. So that’s 2 people!

      12. Joe, don’t let Ross sing his Siren Song of an “easy northbound split” without reading the post four ago “Are ST’s Stations Too Deep”. We all agree that a southbound merge can be made reasonably easily at the curve from Pine to Third or at the Convention Center. But splitting northbound to SLU will be devilishly hard, unless a level crossing of the northbound SLU track and the southbound track from Capitol Hill is allowed.

        Without a “pocket” in which to hold SLU trains out of the northbound traffic flow while they wait for southbound trains to clear the crossing, it is unlikely to be allowed.

        I agree strongly with everyone else that no second tunnel is needed for plausible future capacity and that transfers would be vastly better in one tunnel.

        Everett trains can reverse at Northgate. There is a farside tail track there. So all the operational “requirements” for a second tunnel can be dismissed rather easily.

        Ballard-SLU can be connected southbound as a “dogbone loop” by merging at the Convention Center and diverging at the Pine to Third curve. Ross has suggested a creative “Tri-corn Hat” routing that might make the dogbone pretty useful. Folks from the Eastside and Northgate-Lynnwood would get one direction of a trip to SLU in one seat. They’d have to transfer the other direction. A center platform where the bus bypass lane is now would make those transfers trivial.

        But there is nowhere that a vault by which to diverge a northbound SLU track can be easily dug.

        So, by far the most likely alternative to a second tunnel that ST would really consider is an SLU-Ballard stub terminating at a relatively shallow depth under Fifth Avenue just north of Pine. It would be connected to the existing tunnel at the Pine to Third curve for nonrevenue movements only.

        We can hope ST. would consider the dogbone, but it moves the Denny Way Station several blocks east, so that might be a big lift.

  13. I think that an alternative for a three-line DSTT (no DSTT2) has many political advantages.

    1. No CID construction disruption. (Win for CID!)

    2. No interim West Seattle stub (WS riders could have a single ride to CID or Westlake by 2032). (Win for WS!)

    3. No messy closures south of Pike St. (Win for Downtown and through traffic!)

    4. No deep transfers. (Win for transit riders — especially for riders between north and south parts of Seattle as well as the region!)

    5. Huge cost savings of billions. (Win for cost effectiveness hawks!)

    The only “losers” would appear to be egos at ST and those who would lose out from construction contracts, increased property values near Midtown and of course ST staff egos.

    Am I missing any other winners and losers?

    1. Great summary, Al, I totally agree!
      Now one more variation: We could do the Duwamish bypass to increase capacity instead of spending billions to climbing up the Junction and serve WS by gondola and save some more money we could use to serve White Center and Renton.
      We could even do gondola lines from Belltown up CapHill which would reduce the CH to Westlake bottleneck and Pioneer Sq to Harborview which would probably add more ridership than a Midtown station.

    2. You’d have to make sure the lines are feasible. Where would West Seattle terminate? Are the Northgate and Stadium turnbacks large enough for all-day use? Can you avoid an Everett-Tacoma Dome line, which ST says is too long for drivers?

      1. I don’t think any of these options use Stafium as a turnback, Mike. Interestingly, there is a third track west of Judkins Park soon to be available too.

        It could be that a longer third track for reversing would be needed at Northgate. However, the current third track will be lightly used once Lynnwood Link opens. Plus, the track is next to I-5. The major effort in avoiding construction disruption and buying more property seem less of a cost and effort than would normally occur.

      2. There is no reason why interlining wouldn’t have exactly the same pairing. Tacoma to Ballard, West Seattle to Everett, Redmond to Everett (or was it Lynnwood). The trains would simply run in the old tunnel, not the new one.

        This does bring up another advantage though:

        7. Easier to modify the pairings in the future. At some point we may want to send the Ballard train to the East Side, and have the Tacoma train go north. This would be trivial if they interlined, but require a lot of work if they went with the current plan.

      3. I agree with Ross – with a junction at Westlake, the base operating pattern would remain unchanged, but could be easily tweaked in the future.

    3. One possibility would be:
      – Ballard to Westlake
      – Mariner to Redmond
      – Everett to Renton
      – Tacoma to Northgate (via South Park)

    4. 6. Better trips to downtown (from the south end to Ballard) as the old tunnel platforms are better than the new ones. The one station at MidTown is not as good as the other two stations it skips — mainly because two is better than one. The station platform at CID is farther from the surface, as is the one at Westlake (even with the best option).

    5. I’ll agree that #6 is there too Ross.

      7. Other subareas partly on the hook to pay for DSTT2.

  15. I used to live in Chinatown, on 7th. A cut-and-cover line on 5th is the obvious thing to do. To my mind, the benefits would far outweigh the costs, especially if you live there. I don’t really understand how transit advocates can take the objections to this very seriously.

    Of course, when has Sound Transit ever picked the obvious, best routing? Never. So I’m not getting my hopes up.

  16. As everyone knows, I’m in the three lines in the existing tunnel with a Ballard stub camp. But if ST refuses to countenance that and insists on a new tunnel, here’s a possible amelioration to the seeming need for a deep station if the Fourth Avenue option is chosen.

    The reason that even the “Shallow Fourth Avenue Alternative” is actually rather deep is the need for the line to underrun the approach to the existing tunnel. That is clearly true if the Fourth Avenue platform is connected to a Fifth or Sixth Avenue bore.

    But what if the platforms are swapped?

    That is, is it possible for tracks straddling a platform under Fourth Avenue at BNSF track level as the existing platforms are to be connected to the existing tunnel leads before the “real portal”? I expect that The Icon Apartment building would have to be demolished, but once the track connection was made, it could be rebuilt.

    The existing tracks which are now alongside Fifth would jog into a slightly descending trench dug under Fifth South for a couple of blocks until it’s deep enough for a TBM to connect.

    Now where to remove the TBM’s is certainly a problem, but it would make a Fourth Avenue station much more desirable for it to be at “ground level”.

    ST has already investigated connecting Fourth Avenue to the busway corridor, so that part is certainly doable.

    1. In that case, I do think that the designers should be sent back with a simple marching order: If any new platform at CID is no deeper than 45 feet, what would it take? ST has already contracted tens of millions to design this thing and it’s up to the designers to work their magic to more appropriate criteria.

      However, no matter what happens at CID, there are still four more wildly deep stations needed to get below building pilings in Downtown and SLU and the tunnels for DSTT1 and 99. Plus there is the steep hill in the middle of Downtown. So add to that requirement to make at least 2 or maybe 3 of these other 4 stations less than 45 feet deep and see what gets designed.

      Back to CID, I think there could be value to first shift Fourth Ave and its traffic slightly westward to be on top of the tracks, leaving the existing right-of-way open for subsequent cut and cover construction south of Washington Street. It prevents a long-term Fourth Ave closure, and possibly sets up platforms for transfers at the same elevation as the current station platforms.

      The source problem is that while the ST3 plan had lines on a map, the map was two dimensional. There was never a requirement on the all-important elevation aspect of this project.

      As I’ve said many times before, i think another strategy is to deemphasize CID for transfers between Lines 1 and 3. Rebuild SODO station at a much cheaper cost for same direction cross-platform transfers.

      1. Again, Al, WHY won’t you sign onto the idea of having ONE platform at SoDo for both lines? Since West Seattle will be a nothingburger so far as ridership, there is plenty of capacity on the existing trackway if Lander and Holgate overpass the tracks. There is no way with four tracks — with two, three or even four platforms — to have “efficient” transfers in both directions. Even with two center platforms, any transfer other than a reversal on the same line involves crossing two tracks or changing elevation twice. There’s no need for a second pair of tracks.

        This is especially since it’s the evolving sense of the group — including you, I believe — that the second tunnel is not needed. So running four tracks down the busway simply defers the “merge” of the West Seattle and RV lines to a single pair of tracks in the tunnel (with East Link) to somewhere around Stadium. WHY?

      2. I would agree that a single platform at SODO would work as an option, Tom!

        My hesitancy is with the need for possible timed cross platform transfers. In particular, the West Seattle branch has such low ridership that even ten minute trains may be too much for evenings and weekends. At those times, getting two trains simultaneously at the opposite sides of a center platform could be quite useful. It’s also useful if there is a service disruption along one of the lines.

        I’ll even add that perhaps the cross-platform transfer capability could occur at Stadium if both lines stop there rather than just one as proposed. The Royal Brougham street crossing however makes it a bit messy. Are we going to address that if DSTT2 isn’t built?

        Regardless, I really bristle at the current ST SODO options. They are all making things worse! The Lander overpass in particular is awful! People walking or bicycling there today have a level path to the platform. ST is proposing in the surface option that they walk or ride up a viaduct and the come back down. Then they propose two escalator or elevator rides to change between any line in any direction except West Seattle to Rainier Valley (a very low volumes transfer). Plus there are three platforms to serve with elevators and escalators so redundancy is weak on those current platforms.

        That reminds me that the Lander overcrowding would be needed if both lines were open. There would be many trains added to that crossing.

        The final unspoken topic is the frequency of West Seattle trains. Six minute service isn’t needed even though it’s planned in ST3. Rogoff has flagged a fare revenue shortage already, and dropping relatively empty frequent trains is always at the top of a cost savings agenda. It’s entirely possible that trains from West Seattle end up at 15 or even 20 minutes in practice. Of course, an automated line to West Seattle wouldn’t need to worry much about that.

  17. I agree with much of what Ross B wrote. What’s at the bottom of this is a flawed decision-making “system” where the Chief Executives of each county cherry-pick members of the ST Board with the mandatory criteria being that they agree with them. In addition, many cities didn’t and don’t have representation, e.g. Renton, population over 100,000, yet much smaller cities like Issaquah did. No surprise, Renton and its decades-long congested S curves isn’t getting rail, but Issaquah-which had a former Vice Chair-is. Lastly, there have been virtually if no riders on every transit board, especially any who regularly experience a two-seat or three-seat ride, which is unfortunately the common denominator in this region. That’s why we’re blowing an extra $1 billion and 5 more years of construction to dogleg out to Boeing/Everett without stopping at Paine Field (under current plans). Note that a BRT bus loop for this could have already been operating by now, half or the loop has been. Every rider north of there will be spending about 2 weeks of extra time on a train and higher fares due to that daily dogleg to Boeing, whose workforce have been light transit users for decades even though paying fares from 1/4-1/2 of what commuters to the U District and downtown Seattle have been paying. When politicians are making the decisions, they make them for their own re-elections, which tends to depart from what actual, daily transit riders could and would use. Now, with transit patterns and demand likely changed forever, these agencies are demonstrating an inability to depart from their plans, which is a further loss for all of us who are footing the bill.

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