Month: June 2023

On Thursday northern Link at noon was standing room only with half the aisles filled. And I regularly see a dozen or more people getting on each train and another dozen getting off at Capitol Hill in the afternoons. This made me think Link has quietly reached a European level of ridership in the northern half in the daytime at least.

ST has been testing the next-train displays the past few weeks . They’ve been accurate for me except in two cases. In the PM peak at Roosevelt Wednesday and Thursday, it said the next southbound train was over 20 minutes away, at a time when they’re supposed to be running every 8 minutes. On Thursday I checked the display, then went to Whole Foods and came back, and the display again said the next train was in 22 minutes. Sometimes when this happens a train shows up in a few minutes anyway, and other times it doesn’t. I didn’t wait to see whether it would; I took a bus instead. So I don’t know whether the display has an afternoon fever or there’s really a gap in the trains.

The Westlake station platforms have two new video screens showing the weather, Husky sports ads, and the baseball tournament schedule.

Seattle Subway has a commentary in the Stranger arguing not to move or delete CID, Midtown, or SLU stations.

Future-proofing a transit system. (RMTransit video) The UW station stub is featured at 4:07.

This is an open thread.

The Sound Transit board on Thursday refined the Everett Link plan ($). Mike Lindblom in the Seattle Times reports that the main Everett Link station is moved to the downtown arena. This puts it right in the middle of Everett’s most walkable streets like Broadway, Hewitt Avenue, and Colby Avenue. The arena is where the Everett Silvertips hockey team plays, and is called the Angel of the Winds Arena or the Snohomish County Civic Center. Until now the station had been expected to be three blocks southeast of the arena, at a combined transit center/Amtrak station/P&R at the edge of downtown with a limited walkshed. I don’t know how they’ll reconcile having two “Everett Stations”, whether some bus routes will serve both stations, or how P&R drivers from the north would get to Link.

The board also prefers a western alternative for Alderwood station, now called West Alderwood, closer to buses and apartments. It wants the Southwest Everett Industrial Center station on on Highway 526 outside Boeing and Paine Field property, to avoid impacting industrial job capacity. It decided to wait on choosing an alternative for the Casino Road/Evergreen Way station location.

The opening date is now 2041. A first phase may open in 2037 to Mariner or the Paine Field area. (I assume it’s Mariner. The article says the Paine Field area but that may be an approximation.

Staff have started telling the board which locations they prefer rather than waiting for the politicians to tell them. This implements one of the recommendations made by an external technical advisory group.

There’s disagreement on whether to put Link stanchions in the middle of streets.

Update: ST announcement and links to documents.

This is an open thread.

A few more changes in the downtown Link tunnel.

At Westlake Station, the eastern escalator/stairs to the platforms are in alcoves. A few months ago ST moved the ticket machines (TVMs) from the back walls to the front of the alcoves. Now ST has added a yellow stripe on the floor in front of the alcoves, to make a psychological doorway. The ORCA readers stand on the stripe.So at each alcove, the TVMs are in the middle. The stripe goes left and right from the TVMs to the ORCA readers on the side walls. The elevator is on the left wall next to the reader. A “fare paid zone” sign is in front of the stripe. This makes the readers and fare-paid zone more visible, and is part of an upcoming fare-checking revival. The arrangement is especially prominent at the northeast alcove (southbound), because there’s a second elevator up to the monorail, and another yellow stripe and reader goes at right angles around it.

ST’s email update says University Street and Pioneer Square stations have been retrofitted too, and International District is in progress. When I was at Intl Dist, half the surface readers were gone, presumably for relocation. ST says to tap at the platform readers if the surface readers aren’t in place yet.

The train arrival announcements in the downtown tunnel have a new voice and wording. It sounds like the BART voice but female. Do we call it “Mrs Bart”?

The next-train displays are on. ST has them on temporarily to test how accurate they are and where the errors are coming from. They were accurate for four trains I took. The numbers in the downtown stations are nicely large. The northern stations have their own characteristic displays and the old voice.

This is an open thread.

In the video Reese argues that German U-Stadtbahn trams work well because they only have a short tunnel in the city center. Beyond that you should either have surface light rail or tunneled high-capacity metro, but not light rail with extensive tunnels. He mentions Link and a few other cities as what not to do.

Salt Lake City’s transit is surprisingly good. It’s a model for other medium-sized American cities. (RMTransit)

A London Overground overview. (RMTransit)

More below the fold….

Continue reading “Video Roundup”

Meetings

Sound Transit:

System Expansion Committee Meeting: Thursday June 8, 1:30pm – 5:00pm. details

Community Oversight Panel Meeting: Wednesday June 14, 5:30pm – 8:15pm details

Board of Directors Meeting: Thursday June 22: 1:30pm – 4:00pm details

King County Metro:

Transit Advisory Commission Meeting: Tuesday June 20, 6:00 – 8:00pm. details

Regional Transit Committee Meeting: Wednesday June 21, 3:00 PM. details

Community Transit:

None

Pierce Transit:

Board of Commissioners Meeting: Monday June 12: 4:00 PM. details

Everett Transit:

Transportation Advisory Committee: Thursday June 15: 8:00 AM. details

Continue reading “Transportation Events June 7 – July 5”

NE 130th construction update: “Current construction at NE 130^th St Infill Station is focused on the concrete platform and canopy structural steel. This work will be completed prior to electrification of the Lynnwood Link Extension overhead traction power, which allows operational testing prior to Lynnwood Link’s projected opening in July 2024…. The station finishes contract was issued for bid this spring and includes construction of station finishes and plaza and roadway improvements. This final station construction work is anticipated to begin in October 2023. The final station contract is pending Q2/Q3 board action from the Sound Transit Board…. Construction of station finishes, streetscape, and roadway improvements is anticipated to take approximately two years to complete, with the NE 130^th Infill Station opening in Q2 2026.” This is from a Sound Transit email announcement. More about the design.

The Urbanist worries that new Denny station alternatives could delay Ballard Link.

Everett Link is about to start environmental review. ST’s System Expansion Committee will meet June 8 to consider alternatives to study.

Aurora Avenue has rechannelization workshops through June 15. (Urbanist)

Phoenix halts housing construction due to water limits. ($) New subdivisions will require a 100-year water supply from a non-groundwater, non-well source. This is an Arizona state mandate on parts of Maricopa County. “The decision means cities and developers must look for alternative sources of water to support future development — for example, by trying to buy access to river water from farmers or Native American tribes, many of whom are facing their own shortages. That rush to buy water is likely to rattle the real estate market in Arizona, making homes more expensive and threatening the relatively low housing costs that had made the region a magnet for people from across the country.”

A journey on the Elizabeth Line ($) in London. A photo tour of four station areas along the line. The Elizabeth Line, aka Crossrail, opened a year ago.

What if the US never built the Intestate highway system? (Geography by Geoff podcast) This 1.5 hour podcast is mostly about the creation of the Interstate program. The last third gets into what if that hadn’t happened. Co-host Hunter Shobe is a geography professor at Portland State University, and the author of “Upper Left Cities: a cultural atlas of San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle”. (I haven’t read the book.)

This is an open thread. If you know of any projects looking for feedback now, leave them in the comments.