This article is brought to you by the letters A and E, and the number 36. Specifically, Metro is planning improvements to these routes as noted by commentator WL. Metro’s RapidRide status mentions the A and E, and also has the projected opening years for the upcoming RapidRide lines:
- 2024: G (Madison), J (Eastlake).
- 2026: I (Renton-Kent-Auburn).
- 2030: K (Totem Lake-Kirkland-Bellevue-Eastgate), R (Rainier).
For the A, Metro is still assessing the corridor’s needs. For the E, Metro appears to be waiting for SDOT’s Aurora complete street study to be finished. WL also discusses potential speed improvements for the 36 and bike lanes on 15th-Beacon Avenue.
There’s growing support for incremental upgrades to finish Amtrak Cascades‘s long-range plan instead of high-speed rail.
- Current: 79 mph, Portland-Seattle travel time 3:25 with 4 round trips daily.
- Next incremental step: 90-110 mph, Portland-Seattle 3:05, 8-16 round trips.
- Full long-range plan: 110 mph, Portland-Seattle 2:30, 13 round trips.
- High-speed rail: 240 mph, Portland-Seattle under an hour.
There are also improvements to Seattle-Vancouver BC service. Stephen Fesler at the Urbanist has written about these options. (Note: Some people are now calling 90-110 mph “high speed” instead of “medium speed”, and 240 mph “ultra-high speed” instead of “high speed”. This is just terminology inflation like BRT creep.) The full long-range plan was adopted in 2006 and was estimated to be finished this year, but the state has implemented only a little bit of it. High-speed rail would cost much more, take decades longer to complete, serve fewer cities, and require an entirely new right of way.
I think 110 mph is enough, and so does Troy Serad at Transportation Matters. And now two members of the Sierra Club ($) have written a commentary in the Seattle Times supporting it. They write, “We must choose wisely in 2024. Tell your legislators how you and your children want to use our precious green land. We need Amtrak Cascades upgrades by 2030, not ultra high-speed rail in 2050, for our health and climate.”
For more Sesame Street, there’s the subway song.
This is an open thread.
Now that I live in Portland walking distance from the train station I’d love a good reason to use Amtrak Cascades but so far every time I’ve looked it’s never worked for my travel. We can definitely do better.
I make the trip often. These two new additional trips will help, my complaint was the lack of an early morning train and a late evening train, luckily that’s what they added. I still welcome additional trains being added to the schedule.
Cascades’ schedule has always seemed to optimize day trips from Seattle to Portland or Vancouver BC. My first Cascades trip to Vancouver was a day trip (net free time 1:30pm to 6pm), which is probably common for people who are visiting Seattle and want to add Vancouver. I’ve done at least one day trip to Portland (net free time 11am to 5pm) to visit a band who had played in Seattle the previous night and and were setting up for a show in Portland that night. But most of my trips are one or two nights.
It’s not the rail system I wish we had, but 13 round trips per day at 2.5 hours travel time would sure as heck make taking the trail down there more viable. Currently, it’s roughly the same price for a single person to drive to Portland and back in a ~30mpg car vs. take the train (if you buy the cheapest available tickets), but the timing of can be quite annoying. So long as the cost doesn’t go up very much, that makes it an extremely viable car trip replacment.
For the “driving my car costs nothing” crowd, using the average per-mile incremental cost of .30, the one way trip to Portland being 174 miles (per Google maps), the breakpoint for a coach ticket would be $50.
Then there’s the argument of how long it really takes to drive between the two cities, given traffic conditions.
The only reason Amtrak can beat air travel is where the train station is located. It’s possible to go on a business trip from Tacoma to Portland and skip the whole car rental mess needed from the airport. From a tourist’s perspective, it’s much the same way.
But if two employees are going to Portland, it’s cheaper and easier to rent a car and make the the drive, even with paying for hotel parking.
My Mrs. has made so many business trips to Rip City and has done the travel every way possible. Amtrak is generally the winner, but not by much. Adding trips would certainly help a great deal.
The first step to upgrading Amtrak is to kill off the idea that an airport is going to built in Pierce County, or that commercial air traffic is possible at McCord or even worse… JBLM can somehow be relocated to Eastern Washington. As long as the new airport idea is alive…… Amtrak is on the back burner.
Driving also means you have to drive, or sit in a car, and potentially get stuck in traffic, and then you have to park the car somewhere in Portland.
@tacomee Looking at the numbers, travel to Portland and Vancouver BC appears to only account for ~2.5% of SeaTac’s passengers. Improving Amtrak is an important project, but even if it diverted 100% of air travel to PDX and YVR, it would have only a marginal impact on the region’s growing air travel demand.
Alex, “the region’s growing air travel demand” is going to weaken and then become static or even fall as the cost to fly gets ever higher because of unmet demand. With long interest rates nearing seven percent an airliner costs twice as much in interest over thirty years as its purchase price. And, “No, leasing won’t solve the problem”. Leases cost somebody interest to provide so the costs will be rising too.
So expect a recession in the airliner construction and maintenance businesses. People will be leaving money on the table for lack of competitive financing options.
I couldn’t quite figure out the exact numbers, but a much larger percentage of flights out of the big 3 airports than I would have guessed were private/corporate jets. Iike more thsn half.
According to a recent article those are getting pretty close to a free ride compared to the commercial carriers. Start demanding fair compensation for use of our runways, and perhaps the problem magically disappears.
The plans for a new airport are remarkably similar to plans for new freeway lanes. No one is considering alternatives, or whether demand will level off on its own. Folks have already mentioned of the ideas. For example:
1) Reducing private jet travel.
2) Reducing air freight.
3) Better ground level transportation.
4) Less flying simply because it gets more expensive.
All of these add up. There are various ways you can accomplish these goals (simply by charging more). The assumption is that this is somehow worse than building a new airport. We need a new airport, the thinking goes. Nonsense. We don’t. We just need to figure out how to reduce the long term demand for flying out of SeaTac.
@Ross B.. I don’t want to turn this into an airport debate but Seattle NEEDS either 1) a massive expansion of the current terminal that would mean demolishing International Blvd, hotels and possibly homes for a 1.5 mile stretch or 2) a new airport.
Im in favor of a new airport but north of Seattle.
Improved rail will not reduce demand for air travel and is incapable of competing with trips to LAX, Vegas, the Bay Area – the most in-demand destinations from SeaTac. Additionally, there will always be flights to/from Bellingham, Vancouver and Portland because of connections – just like transit routes connect from smaller communities to larger transit centers.
I hope we have rail service that beats driving to PDX or Vancouver. But there’s no doubt SeaTac is woefully maxed out and needs an alternative.
I doubt.
I don’t want to turn this into an airport debate but Seattle NEEDS either 1) a massive expansion of the current terminal that would mean demolishing International Blvd, hotels and possibly homes for a 1.5 mile stretch or 2) a new airport.
And that is exactly the type of argument that I hear. There is no in-depth analysis of the alternatives. There is just this assumption that we need more terminals or a new airport. This sort of thing happens all the time with freeways, and other roads. Then they find out that their assumptions were wrong. Same with the airport.
Just look at how much air freight there is. Some of this is based on things that really need to be shipped quickly. Most of it is not. What is the alternative? Not flying the goods! Send it by truck or train. It is very easy to solve this problem, too: just charge more to fly the goods.
Same goes for private flights. I’m sure the port makes good money off of the private flights. The more the better. But we can also charge more, and next thing you know, there are fewer private flights.
There is an implicit assumption that the more flights we have, the better off we are. Just for a second take the worst case scenario. We don’t built a new airport, and we see increasing demand for flights. So what? It costs more to fly. There are fewer small flights, and more big flights. Goods flown in cost more. That isn’t a need. Not even close.
The reason Amtrak upgrades is better idea than a new airport has to do mostly with roads. Tacoma to Portland by train means no drive to Seatac. All the rail hubs between Portland and Vancouver have train access to “the cities”. Otherwise there’s congestion at the airport AND the roads leading to the airport. A rail upgrade is way cheaper than a new airport AND and an upgraded system of roads needed to support the new airport.
Of course Washington could have built a high speed rail link to Yakama with a world class airport and built a couple of new cities from the ground up… but we’re not Germany. Shoehorning a subway into some of the highest priced real estate is the American way. The Sound Transit boondoggle! How many of us believe that Amtrak upgrades would be a better investment than light rail from Everett to T-Town?
If poor Biden had any idea of what he was doing, he’s be planning to release BLM land in West for housing. New land is the only way the housing shortage (and the water shortage and transportation problems) will ever be solved.
Totally agree with RossB on every point. It is not the end of the world if flights cost a bit more and binge travelers fly a little bit less.
Building a new airport would also be terrible for the environment and also carbon emissions.
“ I don’t want to turn this into an airport debate but Seattle NEEDS either 1) a massive expansion of the current terminal that would mean demolishing International Blvd, hotels and possibly homes for a 1.5 mile stretch or 2) a new airport.
“Im in favor of a new airport but north of Seattle”
I have to wonder if the solution lies going east instead of north. It could be the catalyst needed for a high speed passenger rail tunnel through the Cascades to near Ellensburg or Yakima to connect with this new airport. A high speed rail connection would eliminate the problem of closed passes due to winter snows. There are many more sunny days east of the Cascades even in the winter.
I’m with Ross, too. Let the demand for air travel jam up against some limitation of the ability to provide it and the price will rise. When the price rises, demand will fall and eventually a (relatively) “steady state” will arrive. People will either not take so many trips or air shipping will be replaced by ground shipping andmore local Amazon warehouses.
And, tacomee, Germany has not built “new cities” hundreds of miles from anywhere else. They have turned small cities near large ones into large ones. Relatively few people or businesses willingly leave the beautiful region around Puget Sound to move to the hot desolation of Yakima or the Tri-Cities.
And, actually, “poor Biden” can’t force African-Americans in the Puget Sound region to sell their properties to the evil developers. Or did you mean “JBLM”?
Tom,
I hate to break it to you, but much of the housing in Germany was build after WW2. Of course Allied bombing certainly helped with this… but honestly, any housing left after the war was mostly left alone and new housing built. Historic housing (like Wallingford) isn’t ripped out for density, because it’s historic. Hamburg even has an Art Deco quarter left. That’s not going to be tore down. Much of the population of Germany is centered in Berlin and Greater Frankfurt…. that’s a colossal pile of cities and suburbs connected by rail and freeways.. it’s really the heart of Germany and much of it isn’t that old.
First off, Yakima isn’t a “hot desolation”. It’s not even that far from Seattle. Germans would have expanded light rail East in Washington because Puget Sound is just out of room. This isn’t that hard.
In the German way of doing things, Microsoft would be located in Yakima. Though tax breaks and allowing development, the government would never let industry “bottleneck” like the USA. Most the posts on this board are just brainstorming (or downright bitching) about the “new reality” Big Tech brought to the City starting in the 90s. Big Tech made housing in greater Seattle unaffordable. So housing growth has got to go somewhere else.
At some point, the Federal government is going to get involved big time in housing again, because they have to. The only way forward is new housing on undeveloped land. How environmentally sound that development is? Well, that’s the real question here. It’s not “if” development spills over the Cascades… it’s “how”. There’s not retrofitting Seattle.
I’m guessing it will be McManions with huge yards out East… because that’s easy and makes good profit. Progressives have dug foxholes in a baker’s dozen US cities and absolutely refuse to see the reality of growth. Seattle is played out for young people. Done. I’m talking to Tom here either. If you’re young and reading this, wake up. Seattle isn’t for you unless you’re making 6 figures.
Of course maybe Seattle progressives realize the Eastern side of the Mountains are the place they should colonize next and do it some more environmentally and socially equitable way… there’s opportunity there. Honestly I don’t think they come out of their Seattle foxhole.
Over time, I think the GOP will be the only party offering a pathway to home ownership for young people…. and they’ll control everything except the few Liberal places like Seattle. The Dems and Liberals need to adapt… or die.
“ Over time, I think the GOP will be the only party offering a pathway to home ownership for young people”
I think there is over forty years of Republican activism to directly contradict this.
1. Reagan eliminated tax exemptions for college tuition waivers and fellowships.
2. Republicans embraced punitive attempt loan programs that are effectively modern versions of indentured slavery and to this day oppose easing the structural reality that is our student loan industry. Paying student loans is probably the biggest deterrent to younger adults owning homes.
3. Republicans have recently supported actions to reduce tax breaks for home ownership. That includes getting ceilings on local property tax deductions and mortgage interest deductions. They want to do more.
4. The most restrictive zoning policies to provide affordable housing have come from suburbs that typically vote much more Republican. That increases housing costs for everyone.
When it comes to home ownership, the Republican Party talks the talk but their actions over the last several decades make things harder for home ownership — especially for anyone under 40.
“Germans would have expanded light rail East in Washington because Puget Sound is just out of room.”
Ha ha ha. Germans would say Puget Sound has oodles of room for infill development. Especially in underpopulated Pierce and Snohomish Counties. What they wouldn’t do is build sprawlvilles with undense car-oriented centers, or sprawl out forever with unwalkable neighborhoods. They’d build streetcar suburbs. The main thing in the center would be a train station, not a shopping mall or big-box power center.
One unusual thing about Germany and most of Europe is they don’t build huge cities. New York-sized London is at the western edge, and New York-sized Moscow at the eastern edge, but only smaller cities are in between. Still, those smaller cities aren’t tiny: they range from 400,000 to 3 million. They plant new cities as necessary, normally on an existing village or small town. But those are more pedestrian-friendly than American suburbs, and are tied into robust regional and national transit.
Martin Pagel and I were discussing this during our Longfellow Creek walk. He’s from Germany. Many Seattle multifamily areas are one block wide along an arterial, like 45th or California or Aurora. You go one or two blocks on either side and it’s all detached houses. Delridge Way is a lower-density, more-residential area than California Avenue, so when the trail took us to a residential street a block west of Delridge, we expected only houses, but were surprised to find recent four-story multifamily buildings one after another, whole blocks of them. That’s a promising upzone, and typical of German and European suburban neighborhoods and new cities. The Netherlands is building all new neighborhoods this way: middle-level housing and offices.
We also discussed Skagit County and Mt Vernon vs rural areas in Germany. Mt Vernon has a town but the isolated farmhouses rural-density houses begin quickly a mile from the center. In Germany rural people typically live in villages rather than isolated lots, and go out to their farms rather than living in a farmhouse. These villages are tied together by an hourly train or bus to the neighboring towns and the nearest city, so people don’t have to have a car to go anywhere in the country.
My partner’s brother lives in Granada, Spain, and when he visited us I asked him what it’s like. He came to Washington for an internship on regenerative farming in Central Washington, to go back and apply it to some land his community (a Muslim religious group) has. The farms are outside the city but they live in villages or the city. The city of Granada is entirely walkable: mile upon mile of walkable neighborhoods. There’s a light rail going to the satellite towns. So I asked him what transit frequency was like to the suburban towns and villages. I said, “Half hourly?” He said, “No, more often than that.”
I’ve successfully taken Amtrak Tacoma->Vancouver, WA, spent the day walking around and visiting with my sister, and returning same-day. But the times were not ideal. More options would make these day trips viable.
That said, I almost never go to Portland via Amtrak with my whole family, because round-trip can be a couple hundred dollars. Also, the big draw for them was the beautiful view of the Sound, which is no longer. To save barely 10 minutes.
Carpooling is always the cheapest, that’s a given. Each SOV isn’t carrying nearly the capacity it could, and since the trip is already a ‘sunk cost’ for one, adding more passengers hardly affects the cost (miniscule weight penalty for gas mileage).
They didn’t move to the Point Defiance Bypass to primarily save time. The bottleneck was the Nelson-Bennett tunnels at Point Defiance.
The move was made so they could schedule more trains, which is what they are finally doing.
Actually, that should read tunnel singular,
That being the reason for the congestion through the area.
It would be great if some of these new options would get extended to Vancouver, BC. The new schedule actually makes travel to BC more challenging as the first train arrives later and the last train leaves earlier.
Regarding Amtrak Cascades via the existing BNSF corridor north of Seattle vs. Cascadia High Speed Rail on a new alignment, given the long-term vulnerability of the BNSF tracks along Puget Sound to tidal flooding from rising sea levels and landslides from adjacent bluffs (particularly between Golden Gardens and Everett, but also in Whatcom County), we shouldn’t close the door on the eventual need for a new north-south rail corridor. Certain coastal-adjacent stretches of the Pacific Surfliner in Southern California are facing challenges around their long-term viability due to erosion of the bluffs, and officials there are already looking at options to relocate sections of track to inland rights of way, including in San Clemente and Del Mar. We shouldn’t pretend our low-lying coastal transportation infrastructure is immune to future sea level rise here in Washington state.
Ideally, we’d be able to chew gum and walk at the same time to do the following: 1.) Work with BNSF to improve the existing rail corridor for additional passenger service in the near term, including more stretches of parallel tracks and other improvements for 110 mph service, especially in places where it’s easier to accommodate it, like the mostly straight shot across the Skagit Valley, 2.) Fortify vulnerable coastal-adjacent sections of track and build new quake-resilient rail bridges and viaducts, including across the Snohomish River delta near Everett where trains currently crawl, and 3.) Continue planning for an eventual future north-south rail corridor to accommodate passenger service at world-standards for high-speed trains.
“…and landslides from adjacent bluffs (particularly between Golden Gardens and Everett, …”
The Seattle to Everett segment hasn’t been a problem for the last few years because the railroads know how to deal with this, they do it all the time.
They didn’t care to pay for it, since it only affects freight operations in a minor way.
In 2 hours, they clean up the mess, and start running freight trains again.
It takes 2 days to get the lawyers out of the mud before they can run the passengers past that spot.
They’ve fixed that particular problem. It’s not insurmountable.
Landslides haven’t been a big problem between Seattle and Everett because of the landslide mitigation projects WSDOT and BNSF have been doing the past several years.
It’s a shame Link north of Seattle wasn’t built as heavy rail to railroad standards for an electrified inland route where Amtrak could have also used it. Then again it was always about tapping into the existing bus tunnel so that clearly ruled out any heavy rail operation from the start. I think we all agree Everett (and stops north of Northgate) and Tacoma (and stops south of the airport) would be better served by electric commuter rail than light rail designed for short distances.
Nope, we do not all agree.
Link north of Seattle has been intended to run at 3~4 minute frequency at peak. With two Link lines in service, it never was going to be able to accommodate an intercity line unless it was triple tracked. Link was never intended to have an express overlay (which is basically what running Sounder/Amtrak-ish service on Link ROW would be) because the high frequency at all Link stops is a feature, not a bug, of Link in Snohomish county.
The high frequency of Link is essential for a strong Link-Bus transfer environment. Looking north of Northgate, 147th (Stride), 185th (Swift Blue), Lynnwood TC, Ash Way (Swift Orange) and Mariner (Swift Green) are all major rail-bus transfer nodes. The clear case for Link only ends north of Mariner, at which point ST is planning on running only 1 Link line.
There is a strong case for an entirely new ROW to run all-day commuter rail between Seattle and Snohomish, but that case is distinct from and mostly independent of the case for Link. Link+CT bus network should do a good job providing high quality all-day transit within Snohomish county, and a slightly longer commute time into Seattle’s CBD is a good trade-off.
South of SeaTac, there is little case for a never heavy rail ROW because the existing Sounder/Amtrack alignment is sufficient (it needs capacity improvements to support all day operations, but nothing like creating a new ROW). Instead the problem to be solved is how to serve the I5 corridor between SeaTac and Tacoma (which would not be served by all-day Sounder). Since Link will operate at lower frequency and have longer stop spacing, there are good arguments to have picked a different mode, such as Stride (akin to 405N & S) or an “eLink” (akin to eBART), but neither of those I would describe as “electric commuter rail”
WSDOT/Amtrak officially announced the two additional trips (planned to start in “fall” of this year) are being added to the schedule on December 11: https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/news/2023/amtrak-cascades-adds-two-more-daily-roundtrips-starting-dec-11
Schedule here: https://www.amtrakcascades.com/sites/default/files/amtrak-cascades-schedule-12-11-23.pdf
Notably, this has other schedule impacts, including a shift in the timing of the two round-trips between Vancouver, BC, and Seattle.
Just noticed WL posted about this yesterday in the previous Open Thread. I think the other schedule effects are worth noting, though.
Incremental improvements isn’t as flashy as finishing a big project, but I think a stream of “small wins” tends to maintain much better PR than trying to knock out a single major project.
For a somewhat fantastical example: I think ST would have much better PR regarding its construction projects if they could open a new station every 6-9 months instead of opening entire lines after 12-16 years of (what appears to be) inaction. Lay track, open station, expanded service, huzzah! Obviously that’s completely incompatible with how we currently design or build new services, I think “normal” folks always kind of wonder where their tax dollars are going in the period before extensions open. When I chat with folks about how we’re almost done with all the projects approved in 2008, I’ve gotten the “oh that’s what that is??” response pretty often.
The opportunity to take Cascades to Portland for a daytrip is big, as 8 hours in Portland is much cheaper if you can do it without the expense of an overnight stay in a hotel.
My only concern is the lack of local transit running to get you to King St. Station in time for a 5:52 AM departure. Link runs early enough, but a lot of bus routes don’t. I guess if no other options are available, there’s always Uber.
I wish they’d get the stop at Blaine open. My wife and I travel to Birch Bay fairly regularly and it would be nice to do so by train once for the beautiful trip along the Sound.
There isn’t a plan for a Blaine stop.
There was a plan for several years. I did not know that it had been shelved; I thought it was delayed but not abandoned.
There was never a plan. There was a local push, but never an actual plan.
OK, thank you. There should be one, because the train has to slow down for the border crossing anyway and to pass through White Rock. The Cascades stop at Stanwood to serve about 25,500 people in the town proper and on Camano Island. Blaine, Lynden and Birch Bay together total 30,000 give or take. Grant that since Lynden is not that much closer to Blaine than it is to Bellingham, maybe you put the station at Custer or Birch Bay-Lynden road and add a bus between Birch Bay and Lynden to link it all together. That bus ought to run a few times a day anyway.
I understand that Blaine fancies itself a tourist destination because of Semiahmoo, and I do like to visit it. But a station at Birch Bay-Lynden would serve the whole northwest Whatcom County region very well.
The Stanwood and Tukwila stations are controversial. Is Stanwood really large enough for a station? Shouldn’t the Tukwila station be in Kent or Auburn for better spacing between Seattle and Tacoma?
There should be a stop for decent east-west transfers from Sounder and amtrak south of the city.
One argument I’ve heard for Tukwila Station is that it’s the closest station to SeaTac airport. Except, connections between Amtrak and airplanes don’t make a lot of sense in general, and if someone really wanted to do that, the local transit system encourages making the connection elsewhere. For example, taking Link from King St. Station or ST 574 from Tacoma Station.
December 11 is part of “Fall”. Winter doesn’t arrive until the Solstice on the 20th or 21st.
Pedantic yes, but why smear Amtrak when they are factually correct?
Fair enough.
For the record, RapidRide J is slated to begin construction next year (2024), and start running in 2027. The other RapidRide “future service” timelines are accurate, though.
Will the J line replace a trolleybus with a diesel/battery bus? I would be disappointed to see the 70 replaced with a non trolley bus since we already have the trolley cables up.
It’ll still be a trolleybus.
Though personally I kinda wish it wasn’t, since if it was diesel it probably could have reached Northgate rather than being truncated.
I can’t help but wonder if there needs to be better rail station amenities and development strategies for Cascades stations.
For example, SeaTac Airport has aggressively pursued facilitating local restaurants to be represented like Skillet, Dilettante and Salty’s. There are multiple coffee vendors there.
I get how many more thousands of passengers enable markets for these airport restaurants. Still, I regret that I can only visit these places when I have an airline ticket/ trip. The big advantage of Amtrak stations are that vendors can be accessed without the security checkpoint limitation. Even to-go food can be strategic because the food can be bought and consumed on board while still warm.
Because many stations are historic and notoriously small, should new station buildings be considered? What would a new ideal station have? What would it look like? Can we honor historic buildings yet construct new ones nearby? Can a public-private partnership that includes BNSF be viable so that we can have things like cafes above tracks so enjoy watching trains from? Should we look to better integrate hotels with these stations? Rental car counters? FedEx/ Kinko’s? How could integration with phone apps improve time and effort at destination rail stations?
I found an Amtrak web page detailing some station refurbishments. However they are all wrapped up in historic preservation:
https://www.amtrak.com/station-projects
In contrast, Europe and Asia often build new stations. Reece Martin’s new video highlights one:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d2Hi56Ymy0Q
This to me is relevant as the station experience can be as important as the speed is. I personally would be more inclined to ride the Cascades if the stations themselves had more choices on amenities as well as generally be more comfortable.
Good amenities become important when you’re stuck at the station for hours. I would rather have the trains more reliable so the station process is quick, eliminating the need for fancy amenities in the first place.
Remember, good amenities or not, an hour at the station plus another hour to get to the station, that’s enough time to drive 2/3rds of the way to Portland.
King Street Station has some retail and has a second floor. So it’s gradually getting there; the issue now is to get some more exciting things in. ST talks about activating Union Station someday. Restoration is actually important and a draw in itself, especially in the US because we’ve lost so much of our art deco and pre-WWII buildings, which was precisely the era these train stations were built. In small towns the station building may be too small for retail but it could be next to it.
In some German stations there’s an entire supermarket in the station.
Freighthouse Square in Tacoma badly needs a refurbishment from both the outside and inside, but the current owner has been notoriously stubborn to pay for fixes from what I remember in his own personal spat with Amtrak and Sound Transit over the station upgrades they did a few years back.
In my honest opinion I kinda wish the state would allow Sound Transit to just buy the property and let them reap the benefits from having the ability to do something with it. Alongside allowing the land acquisitions they have to do for construction to be used for something post construction other than being sold back to developers. Because like that is how some other Transit Groups like HKs MTR Corp make their money or adds diversity to their portfolio.
Amtrak owns Washington Union Station, so that doesn’t necessarily need SoundTransit.
I have enjoyed a yummy butrito and cervesa in Freighthouse waiting for a train, but it is pretty grim, I agree. It has potential, but surrounded by acres and acres of parking lots and structures, with little in the way of housing and businesses, greatly limits the foot traffic, and therefore the viability the businesses.
Maybe if sounder got usable with hourly or half hourly service, it would help.
But until you start building on all those empty parking lots, it will never be Pike Place south.
Tacoma Dome should aspire to be Wrigley Field, not the Meadowlands.
Yeah, it is a shame that Tacoma’s Union Station isn’t used anymore. It is basically everything you want. It is right in the center of things, is a great looking building with oodles of charm, you name it. Sounder could serve both it and the Tacoma Dome Station (Freighthouse Square). Folks could still park and ride (for their trip to Seattle) but others would get a ride right to the heart of Tacoma, with good local connections as well.
I could even see the bypass being only used by express trains. Riders going from Seattle to Portland could take the scenic route (through Tacoma and around Point Defiance) or the express (which gets you to Portland sooner).
Tacoma Dome should aspire to be Wrigley Field, not the Meadowlands.
I hear you (and great analogy). It is tough to manufacture after the fact. Look at Seattle’s baseball stadium. It has been there a long time, and the area around there is just not pleasant. The football stadium is a lot better, but they still have a giant parking lot between it and the city. It is also backwards, as baseball is played in better weather, and there are a lot more games. I’m sure if folks could to it over again, they would reverse the stadiums (although Sounder fans wouldn’t like that).
Anyway, my point is that even 25 years after the Mariners started playing there, the area around it is not pedestrian friendly. Areas that are largely industrial are difficult to rebuild. It happens, but very slowly (if at all).
Tacoma is planning an urban village in the Dome District someday. It’s as far along as Lynnwood’s downtown; i.e., invisible.
Hmm, Tacoma could have put the Hilltop growth in the Dome District and avoided the streetcar extension.
Freighthouse Square has a variety of restaurants that are refreshing before or after an express bus trip. The east end has variety shops that feel like the lower levels of Pike Place Market. So the square has a lot of potential to attract more people.
Agree with both of you.
I-5 and I-705 don’t help either. Looking at some old pictures from the 60s, and this was actually a neighborhood. Kinda reminds me of the destruction that happened to the Eastlake neighborhood in Seattle.
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=22994.0
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DpvpaSdU0AAtqwQ.jpg
I-705 simply has no reason for existence. It’s basically a way for the rich north-end to save a minute or 2 and bypass downtown. I’m on the south-edge of the north end near Stadium and it’s literally a coin flip whether I hop on I-705 or whether I go through downtown. Google logs it as a minute slower. So downtown doesn’t have traffic, but it also doesn’t have people frequenting the businesses.
The onramp at stadium has barely 10K cars a day.
https://ta.cosmices.com/24Hour/view/3fb4bbe6e08d7f4d519b3b88542c967d
Knock it down and reconnect the city to the waterfront, the tideflats and the area around the Dome and transit center..
Sorry. Meant to deeplink the photo of the neighborhood after I-5 bisected it, but before the Dome and I-705.
This wasn’t industrial, it was residential.
https://i.imgur.com/JSfceqX.jpg
Yeah, 705 was a bad idea. You can say the same thing about various freeways in Seattle. It makes sense to build freeways to cities, but not through them. Vancouver BC takes this approach. It is especially sad with Tacoma because 705 is relatively recent — it occurred after Seattle had rejected similar projects (although not before various parts of the city were thrashed in a similar way). It is hard to imagine it happening now, and it would be great if it was torn down.
Cam, it was a group of North Enders who put in the hard work to fight the highway and sue. The highway was ultimately built, in part, by dismissing the protestors as rich and out-of-touch North Enders. Funny how that is.
It’s all very sad in retrospect. Admirable citizens like John LaFond and William Oltman advocated for the Washington, D.C., approach of withdrawal & substitution to use interstate funds to build a light rail network instead. Just as others mentioned, even then it was already very easy to point at other urban highway failures and say, “Yeah, let’s not do that here”. Our zombie highway project from the 1950s was revived nonetheless, much to the delight of many local and State officials.
While they lost the war, these citizens won the battle to get the highway design dramatically overhauled through no less than six major revisions, resulting in a significantly shorter structure. Previous designs were going to send the road deck well above the Union Station roofline.
That’s interesting history, Troy. Thanks for that. Who were the major proponents? Misguided downtown businesses?
Cam Solomon,
Nobody in Tacoma politics has the stones to tear out I-705 and redevelop it. Urban development has to be “go big or go home” or there isn’t much use in doing it.
Everything is Tacoma is centered around catering to richer North End at the expense of every other neighborhood. It’s starting to change, but the goofy little waterfront freeway (I-705) and goofy light rail project have set the city back decades.
The biggest problem Tacoma has is out-of-town folks moving to the small, rich, White dominated area north of downtown and not realizing that most of the city is South of downtown. There’s always these self centered plans to spend even more public money on dreams like light rail down 6th Ave and even more money for Downtown. The crap plans for reworking light rail downtown instead of turning at the Tacoma Dome towards the Mall is a prefect example. Downtown got the T-Link. Shut up and be happy with it. Not everything in Tacoma is about downtown. All of this deeply classist and racist and spread by “progressives” who deep down inside don’t care much for general welfare of the City. Just their own little part of it.
Until Tacoma has healthy, working bus system for the entire city….. spending transit money on crap like light rail is pure racism. I get so tired of the endless “mansplaining” about the differences between Sound Transit, Pierce Transit, Metro and the like. Public transit is public transit and the racism and classism that infects transit cannot be explained away.
If there was ever a public vote to tear out I-705 and redevelop it, I’d guess the “yes” vote would win 55% to 45%. But the North enders of T-Town would never let that vote happen. It’s the same group controls the Democratic Party in town, the same group that had the light rail go to the Stadium district, and the same group fought the Lincoln District project tooth and nail because “downtown needed the money”
Oh give UP the class envy, tacomee. It’s bullshit.
Poor folks, whether they live in Tacoma or Tallahassee, come in three general categories. Many are minorities and face a huge headwind simply because of their origin. That’s not fair; they deserve a hand up. Others are mentally or physically disabled and can’t hold well-compensated jobs. They, too, deserve the help of society. Then there are the smart-asses who threw spitballs and snickered at the nerds in the front the class through junior high and high school. They didn’t learn enough to have one of those well-compensated jobs. So, now they are pissed off, resentful janitors, fast-food cooks or aging framers struggling with the physical demands of the only job they can do. They made their beds and, well, boo-hoo.
Nobody in Tacoma is seriously contemplating the removal of I-705 because it remains well within its service life. And for as awful as the highway is, it was largely constructed within impacted transportation rights-of-way and into a cliffside, mitigating some of its unsavory effects. I write this only to point out the context and to distinguish the Tacoma Spur from other highways that tore through neighborhood centers. I imagine that the northerly portion will be converted into a boulevard in the distant future, but the highway south from 509 to 5 would likely be rebuilt—but who knows. If ever the trams along Stadium Way become routinely blocked by traffic at the 705 ramps, which would be unacceptable, we could explore their removal as those ramps are owned and maintained by the City. The numerous ramps of 705 are its worst offense, in my opinion.
Separately, I am a major proponent of the 6th Avenue streetcar extension and believe it to be the obvious choice for Tacoma and its transit system. The money is coming, we know it is going to a railway whether we like it or not, and the charge is to get trains from Downtown to TCC in an intelligent manner. 6th Avenue it is, I argue. It would serve far more people more effectively than any other corridor in the city. As a Sound Transit project, it should be serving our region’s key corridors and centers, and using 6th Avenue to reach TCC achieves that objective while also making the existing T Line a better railway. Our city’s densest collection of jobs and people would all be served by rail. It is also much, much better than 19th or 12th for a bus network restructure.
I am also a proponent of integrating at least Tacoma Link into the regional railway, which is what the line was built to do and how it was sold to local voters in the 1990s. This would provide more rail service in the Downtown core, allow for cross-platform rail transfers in Downtown, and allow for regional travelers to access the city without a transfer. This is definitely a project where no one in Tacoma politics is doing anything to move it forward, but that’s fine. That has been the situation since 2008-2014, and inertia now prevents its review (along with a Puyallup Avenue alignment analysis for the TDLE EIS, while Seattle gets monumental additional EIS alternatives okayed). It is a great failure that a light rail line ostensibly for Tacoma will now not even reach Pacific Avenue. This might not matter greatly if planners accepted transfers to get to Tacoma Dome for outbound Link trips, but it seems the desire is to restructure the bus network around that park-and-ride. I am deeply skeptical of that approach.
I am totally opposed to a regional Link extension south toward Tacoma Mall and Lakewood. Especially if Sounder transitions into an all-day service, such a line would be even more preposterous and redundant. If anything, that project should be a T Line extension with some lane dedication, signal priority, or occasional exclusive right-of-way (and preferably using higher-capacity trams following integration). This is, in fact, what I propose for Pierce County. It would be significantly cheaper than using regional Link, and it would serve the Lincoln District and South Tacoma neighborhoods well. It would restore the most productive rail corridors of the historic streetcar network which never should have been removed (or, at the very least, should be operating trolleybuses under wire today).
Tacomee, to your point, Tacoma and Pierce County absolutely need a working bus system. We need to lean into our grid and evaluate a restructure to simplify many routes. Pierce Transit needs to finally go forward with its sales tax measure. Buses are essential to quality mobility here, there is no disagreement. However, the rail projects are coming and they need to be considered carefully, too.
Finally, if you’re interested, click on the link below to see my grand vision for a bus and rail network for Pierce County. Be sure to poke around through the layers. The street railway is radial, the bus network feeding it on a grid. Sounder provides through-service to distant centers. Regional Link ends in Downtown Tacoma, as is appropriate. The Pierce Transit service area is expanded to include urban unincorporated Pierce County.
https://troyserad.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=9a9bfba5f90c491396150972a25dcdca
This is the level of service I see for our future and it would cost billions.
Jeeze Tom, why don’t you really say what you think of me personally!
The main reasons I post here are, I love Tacoma (the whole Puget Sound area really) and the young people who might read this. Also there are other options for transit and housing that aren’t “politically correct” on this board, but yet should be discussed.
Once upon a time in America, they only let White, male land owners vote. Now I’m certainly glad that’s not the case anymore, but there’s still a spine of truth to old way. In America, “land owners” still control much of everything. That’s not going to change. I’ve been lucky enough to own (a least a little part) of real estate my whole adult life. I don’t discount my providence. Everybody deserves the chance to own their own home….. everybody say it with me now! Everybody deserves a chance to own their own home!
My brother and I own a triplex in the Triangle area of Tacoma. It’s an old building that needs a lot of love, but it’s dang near paid off now and it’s really cool in that funky old house way. I loved it the day we bought it… totally ruined. We’re renting to 3 younger couples… all who are making better money than I did. None of them seem to be able to buy a house. This is a crime… it’s wrong… it’s un-American. If a young couple can’t work toward home ownership, that town is dying.
You can ramble on against me all you like…. but I will never back down from what’s right. Black Lives Matter. blue collar people matter. Really. I expect housing and transit policies to reflect that.
If you’re young and reading this…. never be brainwashed into living in some micro-apartment crap hole for decades of your life. You deserve much, much more.
Cam, regarding the proponents of the I-705 Tacoma Spur, check out these articles:
Mediator Being Selected in Lawsuit Over Spur
Tacoma Spur Competing Perspectives
City Close to Starting Tacoma Spur
Downtown Access Committee’s Spur Advertisement #1
Downtown Access Committee’s Spur Advertisement #2
tacomee, then start your own “Seattle Drive Everywhere Blog” if you don’t like what’s written here. You simply do not understand economics. You’re renting to three couples “who make more than you did” but can’t buy a home. You are a kind-hearted guy who’d like them to succeed, so you counsel them to go to Yakima. And do what? Work in a packing shed?
I don’t want to pick on Yakima, but “east of the Cascades” implies Ellensburg, Yakima, Tri-Cities, Spokane or tiny rural places surrounded by a few highly mechanized farms and zero local employment. The four small cities do have economies untethered from agriculture, except for Yakima. Spokane is the regional banking and distribution hub for everything between the Columbia River and the Rockies in Montana. Tri-Cities has all that gubmint sciency stuff, and Ellensburg has a university. Everywhere in between is wheatfields and a few vineyards along the southern fringe.
Eastern Washington is emphatically not Germany!
The reason your three renters can’t find detached homes is that there’s no more cheap land anywhere between Olympia and Marysville. You guys with your nail guns have covered it over with McMansions for four because “that’s the only thing that makes money”.
That statement needs a modifier placed before “money”: “enough”. It doesn’t make “enough money” to satisfy the corporate developers that you were happy to rat-a-tat-tat for all those years while you were bitching about the injustice of it with your co-workers.
So, if the couples in your triplex want to seek a better life, they should not stop until they’re well past the eastern border of the Dakotas. The flinty-eyed types you swoon over living in between don’t want them anywhere nearby.
“My brother and I own a triplex in the Triangle area of Tacoma…. We’re renting to 3 younger couples.”
I’m glad it’s a triplex. That’s some density, and unusual for Tacoma. And even if it’s rentals, other triplexes are owned units.
I just get so frustrated that we can’t do sensible things like in Germany or The Netherlands or Spain, where the default mode of building is walkable and with transit (because isn’t convenient better than inconvenient?) — not in Seattle, not in Tacoma, not in Eastern Washington. Or even when we build a little of it, it’s still so little that only the top 10% can get it, not enough for the 33% who want it or the 66% who would be satisfied with it.
I’m not opposed to growing Eastern Washington cities: Yakima, Tri-Cities, Spokane, Ellensburg. But that needs to be decided in terms of what Eastern Washington needs. And based on sensible criteria, like walkable neighborhoods and villages, not destroying Eastern Washington with car-dependent sprawl like we’ve destroyed three-quarters of Pugetopolis. And I don’t know what Eastern Washington needs, because I don’t want to go to a city that has hardly any transit and have to walk or taxi around, especially weekends and evenings. One extreme is the Greyhound stop at Moses Lake, at a gas station beyond the very edge of town, with apparently no transit to get to town or get around. And the Greyhound only stops once or twice a day. As Jarrett Walker says, too-infrequent transit is disrespectful of people’s time.
@Tom Terrific
Then there are the smart-asses who threw spitballs and snickered at the nerds in the front the class through junior high and high school. They didn’t learn enough to have one of those well-compensated jobs. So, now they are pissed off, resentful janitors, fast-food cooks or aging framers struggling with the physical demands of the only job they can do. They made their beds and, well, boo-hoo.
What an elitist and frankly disgusting view of the working poor, just social Darwinism with a veneer of racial equity. I would urge you to consider your underlying premise that they “made their own beds.” Think of all the factors that determine whether or not a child succeeds in school: aptitude, parenting, exposure, inclination, compatibility with teaching modality, etc. Does a child choose these parameters?
@Ross Bleakney
The parking lot north of Lumen Field is not that large and several years ago housing was built on the north side of the lot removing about one third of the lot. For Seahawks games it is used to park charter buses from out of town and not that many cars are parked there. The lot also used for staging events in the Exhibition Hall which gets more use than the stadium itself.
The roof over T-Mobile Park is needed because without it too many Mariners games would be delayed or postponed. There is no roof over Lumen Field because Paul Allen didn’t want it. When he was growing up his dad took him to games at Husky Stadium and the open atmosphere so when he was part of the design of Lumen Field he wanted it like Husky Stadium. No roof and with the stands close to the field so that it would be loud for the visiting team like it is at Husky Stadium.
Alex, no, of course a child does not “choose those parameters”. But they choose to get the approbation of their peers by deliberately sneering at schoolwork, attendance and participation. By so doing they wreck their own future prospects AND help drag others down with themselves.
Kids who are not “gifted” themselves but who are fortunate enough to attend a well-run school can still apply themselves to the material and graduate with a sufficient mastery of it to become a “middle manager” or run their own businesses successfully.
What you call “Social Darwinism” is the “free market” and its differential distribution of rewards. Part of that differential distribution is actually geographic. The same educational attainment will open different doors in Lincoln, Nebraska, or Springfield, Ohio, than it will in the Puget Sound Region.
Face it, Puget Sound has been “discovered” by “Global Elites”. It’s no longer a place where folks of middle-quintile skills and achievement can own a home that they didn’t buy thirty years ago or inherit. If such people want to live in the region they will be living in much smaller accommodations than they would in Lincoln or Springfield and will probably be renting it. tacomee is right to counsel his renters to get out if they want to build “generational wealth”.
However, more and more people are foregoing children, and who among them cares about leaving an estate? If they would rather spend their fleeting “three-score and ten” [fortunately it’s a bit longer now] renting in a beautiful location, who’s to blame them?
Thanks, Troy. Interesting articles. So many broken promises (bike paths in Garfield gulch?), and confusion of purpose. I can only assume some regret after 35 years of waiting for gleaming towers and an economic renessance. Make it easy for the northerners to get downtown by building a glorified bypass? Just bizarre thinking.
Why they thought building an incredibly loud bypass of your downtown would achieve any of their stated goals is just a head-scratcher. I bet most of the businesses that supported it are now belly-up.
“Why they thought building an incredibly loud bypass of your downtown would achieve any of their stated goals”
People in the 50s and early 60s thought that even with the freeways people would continue to work downtown, local/regional/intercity trains and buses would continue running as much as they always have, retail would remain downtown and on main streets, etc. They didn’t anticipate jobs and companies would move to the suburbs, freeway exits would replace retail districts, or that funneling cars together would cause traffic congestion. They also didn’t think about the noise. And all this happened while desegregation and white flight emerged, bringing even more people to the suburbs.
Forward Thrust was going to be funnel-shaped from downtown to Lake City, Renton, and the Eastside (Redmond and Issaquah), and also Ballard and West Seattle. It didn’t reach Northgate, Southcenter, or Sea-Tac airport because those weren’t important then. Northgate was a recent minor concept. Southcenter was just under construction, and was originally going to be in Burien. I-5 and 405 were built in the late 60s, and Southcenter was built at their confluence, which turned out to be the start of a future trend. Kent was still farmland so South King County wasn’t seen as an expansion area. All that came after the freeways were built.
Mike, while that is a nice review of the history, I do want to note that Tacoma’s I-705 spur was constructed in the mid 1980s, not the era of black and white television. Final components of the facility were completed as late as the 1990s. This is well within the lifetimes of many of us contributing to this blog.
Tacoma knew better than to build the highway in 1985—or at least should have. This was decades after Jane Jacobs, the great freeway battles, after urban renewal, after the government-financed relocation of wealthier (white) residents out from city centers. Somehow, Tacoma didn’t get the message that this had miserable results everywhere else, or it was duped into thinking such projects would change its economic trajectory. It would also continue to level vast sections of Downtown and Pacific Avenue in the name of renewal:
https://www.tacomadailyindex.com/blog/downtowns-lost-block/1629557/
https://www.thestranger.com/visual-art/2009/09/30/2361512/continuation-of-an-era
For Tacoma, a place with a genuinely remarkable transit history and a once vital center, what wasn’t taken out by fire was torn down by the City (or was razed by developers with permits approved by the City). The population of the core area of the city, comprising the street grid from Orchard Street to the east and bounded by I-5 and the water, has less people residing in it than it did in 1950. Tacoma has since became thoroughly suburbanized.
“Tacoma’s I-705 spur was constructed in the mid 1980s”
It has an interstate number so it was probably planned earlier, a concession to Tacoma because I-5 didn’t reach downtown Tacoma. So it may be less of “Let’s build a freeway now” than inability to stop inertia.
I can’t read those newspaper pictures; they’re too small. What do they say?
@ Tom Terrific
You are conflating two concepts: the realities of our free market system and a moral justification for that system. A description of the existing social and economic conditions does not validate them in a moral sense, so I’m struggling to see the relevance of most of the points you raise. Yes, the “free market” largely controls income distribution. Yes, Seattle has become unaffordable to many. What does this have to do with the lives people “deserve” or how we cast blame? It implies you believe the economic system is morally justified on account of its mere existence: it is right because it is.
Back to the point, do you really believe that children who “choose to get the approbation of their peers by deliberately sneering at schoolwork, attendance and participation” are fundamentally to blame for their attitude towards school? This disposition results from the interaction of their innate traits and the environment in which they are taught, a collision of nature and nurture in which the child had no choice in either. It is parents and society which have failed these children, failed to give them the setting they need to thrive, and I get the sense that you seek place blame on them as a means to justify their economic punishment by society as adults.
Taking a broader view, even in a utopian school system which elicited every child to apply themselves to the best of their abilities, we still need people to be janitors, fast-food workers, and framers. On a societal level there is “differential distribution of rewards” regardless, making your position that those left behind “made their beds” theoretically untenable: economic deprivation is inherent to the system.
Alex, of course it’s inherent in the system. There’s a normal curve of distribution to just about any human skill. Most people have one or two aspects of “intelligence” or “skill” on which they lie fairly far out to the right side of the median; that can usually bring them sufficient income to avoid poverty if they are presentable and have some impulse control. Some people have a large number of such skills. And, unfortunately, a few seemingly have none or lack the impulse control to benefit from the skills they have.
So I don’t disagree that even in an optimally developed Utilitarian society there would still be unequal distribution of rewards absent a non-coercive “Socialist” economy, rare and short-lived though such economies have proven to be. And I do understand that the minds of people who live such difficult lives are indeed the result of some combination of poor-parenting, poor-nutrition, poverty or just bad genetics, so in a real sense “it’s not their fault”.
But they would violently dispute that assertion, wrapped as they are in the illusion of their own self-righteous “wisdom”. They demand to be “free of the coercion of government”, but if they are at least willing to allow the government to help those who recognize that they need it, then let them [the disputors] have their resentment. Sadly, they aren’t willing to take that disinterested but generous stance. Instead they demand that others be as miserable — or more — as/than they are.
And so far as asserting a “moral justification” of the system of unequal distribution of rewards, I do not care. We humans are what we are, which is cunning apes who emphasized social action when we came down out of the trees and had to deal with the lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyenas face to face. We had to get very mean, very quickly; we no longer had the luxury of hanging on outer branches that the big cats couldn’t navigate. In short, we became very efficient mass killers, but though through human history we have made some progress toward ameliorating that deep instinct, it still mars our ability to form genuine bonds outside our own tribes and family units.
Yes, individuals form deep and lasting bonds with humans of other races, cultures and social groups. But it takes an enormous effort to get people to take collective steps to right a deeply ingrained social or cultural wrong.
So, No, I don’t think that capitalism is a moral exemplar of an economic system. It’s just seemingly the only economic system that subsumes that deep inner desire to kill those who competite with us for resources sufficiently to make progress on the cultural front.
Seattle’s housing problem is not “global elites” or “elites” in general vacuuming up the housing. If “global elites” means billionaires like Bill Gates, there are only a dozen or two of them, and all their estates would fit into Medina if they’re not already there. Does “elites” in general mean people with a college degree? People in STEM fields? People who listen to NPR and MSNBC? Those are not enough to determine who should be able to live here. (Hint: Everybody who wants to live here deserves housing. Is that an “elite” viewpoint?)
The problem is that millions of non-billionaires moved here, mostly for work, and we didn’t build enough housing to accommodate them and our natural growth of children. We especially didn’t build enough walkable and transit-rich areas, because there’s a price premium per square foot to live there compared to ordinary single-family areas. (Not the very top areas with shoreline views; those aren’t ordinary areas.) That price difference wouldn’t exist if we’d built what everybody wanted in the proportion they want it. No, not everybody can live near the Space Needle or Bellevue Square, but we could build more neighborhoods like Ballard or Capitol Hill so that people don’t crowd into those but also go to the others.
San Bernardino is not known as being an attractive place for elites, but it also has high housing costs that became burdensome for locals in the 2010s. The problem first appeared in the coastal superstar cities but has now spread to most of the country, both large and small cities and rural areas.
Mike, high prices for housing haven’t spread “to most of the country”. They have spread to most of the cities that have knowledge industries. And yes, that’s what I mean by the “global elite”, knowledge workers.
I have to disagree strongly with your assertion that “Everybody who wants to live here deserves housing.” That is a Pollyannish point of view in a world of eight billion human beings if you mean that statement with the implicit word “here” appended. I would agree if instead you wrote “somewhere” rather than “here”.
Nobody chose to be born, so yes, adequate housing should be considered a human right. But not necessarily where a person chooses. We have a system that rewards “value added” (and sometimes bad behavior) and we don’t distribute rewards evenly. That just the way things work when human beings act together. We can work to ameliorate the most egregious abuses, but poor people aren’t going to be living on the west facing slope of Magnolia.
Oh, of course, that’s a silly counterfactual you might say. But the same thing is true between Oklahoma City and Seattle. People who can’t afford decent housing in Seattle ought in a rational world to choose Oklahoma City. But thousands would rather live on the streets and under a bush in the cold rainy northwest rather than in Oklahoma City. Because it’s beautiful here and not there.
People who can’t afford decent housing in Seattle ought in a rational world to choose Oklahoma City. But thousands would rather live on the streets and under a bush in the cold rainy northwest rather than in Oklahoma City. Because it’s beautiful here and not there.
They came here for the jobs, not because it is pretty. Otherwise there is no explanation for the sudden increase. It isn’t like Seattle suddenly got more beautiful. A lot of people endure the weather, and couldn’t give a rat’s behind about the mountains.
This wouldn’t be a problem if they simply allowed more housing. Instead we have a government operated cartel, that limits the amount of housing that can be built. Those that are rich, or already own property here (and are thus wealthy) are OK. Those that are new to the area, are young, or have been renting are screwed.
The good news there is a strong, but slow and somewhat silent movement to change the law. It is happening all over the country. It doesn’t fit the standard political spectrum. It isn’t a social issue, like gay marriage. It isn’t about spending more money. It involves regulation, but those on the left are supporting *less* regulation, which is the opposite of what normally happens. Many (outstanding) leftist policies are the result of *more* regulation (i. e. anti-trust, labor or environmental laws). This is the opposite. It didn’t start overnight either. You can find calls for liberalizing zoning regulations for at least a decade.
It is somewhat similar to the move to legalize cannabis. It is an unusual libertarian/leftist movement, although many don’t want to go as far as a libertarian would (it is moderate libertarian, if such a thing exists). It has taken place in city after city. Seattle has merely nibbled around the edges, even though it needs an overhaul way more than cities like Spokane (that has arguably the most liberal zoning in the country now). Eventually Seattle’s rules and regulations will change, and housing will be a lot more affordable.
Mike, long story short, local and State representatives revived the 1950s Tacoma Spur plan in the early 1980s, finally building it a few years later. The project was long conceded by some officials as being dead—for decades, really—and it was perpetually deferred due to a lack of funding (in both federal and State matching dollars).
Yet its iron was kept hot because of an absurd belief that Tacoma “probably has the poorest access of any city in the nation” to the interstate highway system, in the words of A. R. (Buzz) Morell, the district engineer for WSDOT at the time. The spur was “long sought by downtown business interests who see it as the key to revival of the stagnant commercial district”, as was reported by the News Tribune in July of 1980. Mayor Mike Peter responded to claims that there was insufficient funds by stating, “We don’t need to be told it can’t be built, we need to be told how to build it”.
At the same time, you had the Tacoma urbanists and visionaries like LaFond and Oltman articulating a better future for the city that moved us away from auto-dependency. Larry Faulk, a one-time State senator, also wanted to withdraw the Tacoma Spur and substitute other projects that would benefit the entire South Sound, including improved access to Downtown Tacoma, restoration of Union Station into a transportation center, improvement of Meridian Street to handle South Hill traffic, and other transportation infrastructure enhancements.
The damn spur got built instead.
Ross Bleakney,
The whole idea of changing the zoning to lower housing prices isn’t going to work. The big corporations that control much of the rental market aren’t in the affordable housing business, are they? Even if “the housing industry”… (the builders, banks, property management companies, REITs, the investor class) could build a sub $2000 a month crackerjack apartment…why on earth would they? I used to work for these assholes, remember? When houses get tore down for crappy apartment buildings go up, that’s not for the benefit of the working class.
Of course I don’t claim to know all the right answers here, but I chose to buy my own house, do most of own house repairs and upkeep, grow a lot of own food in the backyard garden and have riding bicycles be a major part in my household’s transportation… but that’s just my “hippie” lifestyle. I like being in control of as much of my life as possible… maybe that’s wrong?
If paying expensive rent to corporate interests for a tiny “apodment” in Seattle and having all your food (and everything you use) trucked in (smell that diesel burnin’!) by other corporations… that’s a lifestyle choice.
Everybody is completely free to make their choices. My only advice is never trust big corporate interests. Big Pharma and Big Housing don’t look out for the little fellow. And buy a damn house already! Move if you have to, just buy house and invite people to live with you. Have an adventure and quit obsessing if the government or corporations are going to take care of you, because I sorta doubt that’s going to work out.
…… and I quick word about transit.
You know I don’t have much joy in being right about apposing Sound Transit from day one. It sucks to be right.
How many of you here actually believe the current Sound Transit plans for expanding light rail are good? What do you think your chances of changing those bad plans are? It’s not that I don’t like (and use) transit. It’s corporate control I appose. There are thousands and thousands of negative posts about upcoming Sound Transit project… from Sound Transit cheerleaders. Because Sound Transit is too big, lasts waaaay to long and doesn’t listen the public. When you read negative Sound Transit posts on this board… posted by the self proclaimed transit nerds…. what does that tell you?
“Mike, high prices for housing haven’t spread “to most of the country”. They have spread to most of the cities that have knowledge industries.”
No, they’ve spread to non-knowledge-industry cities too, and suburbs and small towns and rural areas. If you don’t believe that, you haven’t been following the news reports around the country for the past decade. It’s not as expensive in areas it started later, but rising prices are becoming an increasing burden on the people who live there. You can move from a higher-priced area, but then you’re displacing a local. So it may work for you individually but it’s not a solution that can scale to everyone in the country.
“People who can’t afford decent housing in Seattle ought in a rational world to choose Oklahoma City.”
And Oklahoma City should have at least Western-average walkability and transit so that it wouldn’t be such a severe hardship to move there.
“When you read negative Sound Transit posts on this board… posted by the self proclaimed transit nerds…. what does that tell you?”
I’ve noticed that for a while. It’s absolutely amazing that a transit agency could screw up WSBLE so badly that half of its biggest supporters are now ambivalent or doubtful about it.
“Even if “the housing industry”… could build a sub $2000 a month crackerjack apartment…why on earth would they?”
Because some profit is better than no profit. If they don’t build, they don’t make any money.
Mike Orr,
Let’s start by being very clear who’s wearing the pants in the relationship between renters and housing industry. It’s not the renters. A big part of owner occupied housing is simply not to get screwed over by the housing industry.
In the 1990’s Seattle had a little over 500k in population? Now Seattle is at over 750K. That’s a lot of new housing. Did absolutely nothing for affordability , did it? The minute building new housing drops the price, the industry will scuttle off to the next boomtown. It’s already happening in Seattle somewhat.
As far a people who give a crap about what happens in Seattle…. home owners are #1. Mom and pop rental owners are #2. American investors are #3 and foreign investors would be the very last. Rich Chinese guys own plenty of apartment buildings in the NW and they’ve never been here. It’s only about money.
Nobody building housing has the same goals as you (or me).
I’m taken aback at how the Left has went from the 1960s “never trust the man” to the 2020’s “we need to let corporations control the housing market”.
It’s crazy to read posts here, as well as “The Urbanist”, “Publicola” “The Stranger” and outfits like The Transit Riders Union believe that letting big companies control more of the Seattle housing market is good thing, a solution even.
I don’t ever trust “The Man”
“The housing industry” is not monolithic. Some are Wall Street investors, some are local companies with ten or twenty buildings, some are homeowners who would like to densify their lots, etc. Restrictive zoning means only 30% of the land is available for multifamily. This puts all types of developers in competition with each other for a few lots, so the Wall Street investors win and others are shut out. But if you loosen zoning enough that the Wall Street market is saturated, then smaller developers with smaller buildings and lower prices can come in around them. At minimum we should relegalize the development that was allowed in the 1950s.
“The whole idea of changing the zoning to lower housing prices isn’t going to work.”
The point isn’t to lower prices but to slow down the increases. It’s hard to lower prices because no owner wants to take a loss. That’s why it’s critical to blunt them from rising faster than inflation in the first place. We should have done that in 2003 by relaxing zoning then. But it’s still worth doing in 2023 so we don’t become like San Francisco and San Jose and Hayward.
“The whole idea of changing the zoning to lower housing prices isn’t going to work.”
Just about every economist in the world would disagree. It really isn’t a controversial idea. Liberalize the zoning rules and housing prices go down. The only question is how (or how much).
Just to be clear. This is not just conventional “Economics 101” theory. Economists like to study things that many would consider rather obvious, given game theory. In this case, though, the studies are clear: liberalize the zoning, and prices go down.
Here is an old study, but nothing has refuted it: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/hier1948.pdf. It is quite clear what the conclusion is. Here is a more recent study confirming it: https://furmancenter.org/files/Supply_Skepticism_-_Final.pdf. It is important to not overstate the conclusion. Just because we have more liberal zoning doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to afford a place to live. In fact, they make it clear in that second study “But more new housing will not fully address affordability challenges; efforts to increase supply must be paired with subsidies and other tools to ensure that communities remain (or become) economically diverse as they grow.”.
In other words, we still need public housing. This was always true, even when housing was relatively cheap. The two go together. Liberal zoning reduces the cost of market-rate housing, while public subsidies allow low-income people to find housing. Our public housing dollars also go farther. It is like cheap food and food stamps. We still need food stamps, even when food is fairly cheap (but it is best to have both).
In the post-covid world rental prices have been inconsistent: up for six months, down for six months, up in one neighborhood, flat in another. The owned house market has been more consistently up, although high interest rates has added a wildcard. So it’s unclear how much increasing multifamily housing is as important as it was in the rapid-growth 2012-2018. But given how people keep predicting the end of high growth and rapid rent inflation, but then it shoots up again, I think we need to keep up the pressure for liberalization until it’s certain that we have plenty of units.
Owned houses may continue to rise because (A) there haven’t been many sellers since 2008, and (B) there’s not much land for new houses while demand is still strong. This reflects the same supply-and-demand structure: supply is low while demand is high, so prices rise rapidly (again, with the complication of rising interest rates). One solution would be to expand the urban growth boundary to allow a lot more single-family neighborhoods, but I and urbanists flatly oppose that. Another solution is more infill housing. To accommodate the single-family ideal, that may mean close-together houses, smaller houses, duplexes, or the dreaded multifamily condos. (The first two are single-family. The third is almost it. The fourth is giving up on single-family being a viable future. Chicago and New York gave up on single-family decades ago: most buildings are multifamily down to row houses. Seattle/Pugetopolis is still in denial about that.)
It’s crazy to read posts here, as well as “The Urbanist”, “Publicola” “The Stranger” and outfits like The Transit Riders Union believe that letting big companies control more of the Seattle housing market is good thing, a solution even.
I don’t think anyone prefers having big companies instead of smaller companies (or individuals) be the landlord. There is quite a bit of evidence that large landlords are worse (for tenants). If you have ten units, then you can’t afford to let one go vacant — that is 10% of your income. If you have a hundred units, it is not a big deal. Thus someone with a larger building is more likely to raise prices, even though it means some tenants will leave. We should definitely try and encourage small landlords (although it may be difficult).
I think what we are seeing is that many in the left have given up on the idea of a socialist utopia. Rent control has failed, miserably. Public housing (now renamed social housing) is helpful, but the Great Society isn’t coming back. We aren’t going to build new gigantic housing projects everywhere. We will have a few (like Yesler Terrace) but they won’t dominate the landscape. As I wrote in the other comment, the public housing advocates all agree that liberalizing the zoning code is the way to go. There is really no debate as to whether changing the code is a good idea or not — only how much good it will do. But again, the general consensus — based on standard economic theory and what other countries have done — is that it will prove to be very effective.
As I wrote up above, it does not fit in the usual left-right spectrum. In that regard, it is like legalizing drugs. There were plenty on the left you feared that “big business” would take over the weed market. In the 1980s, there were plenty on the left who felt like it was necessary to “crack down” on crack, during the 80s. What they didn’t realize is that by doing so, they actually incentivized a major, government-funded industry that is a bad as it comes. This isn’t quite the 180 that folks have with the drug war, but there are parallels. Sometimes the answer isn’t more regulation, but less. I’m not saying it is the same level of tyranny, but the fact that the government has rules strictly based on density (preventing people from renting out rooms) is definitely wrong.
Mike Orr,
For the last 30 years…. anybody who wanted a job building housing got a job building housing…. often with unlimited overtime. More liberal zoning wouldn’t have built more housing.
> I’m taken aback at how the Left has went from the 1960s “never trust the man” to the 2020’s “we need to let corporations control the housing market”.
> It’s crazy to read posts here, as well as “The Urbanist”, “Publicola” “The Stranger” and outfits like The Transit Riders Union believe that letting big companies control more of the Seattle housing market is good thing, a solution even.
Legalizing building more housing is somehow ‘letting corporations control the housing market’? Also you do realize many of those real estate companies buying so many single family homes are betting their high valuations on cities not legalizing more housing? Honestly I’m more surprised it took this long to finally start legalize housing versus every American blindly accepting that single family housing on large lots is the only thing acceptable to build/live in.
Like if it’s not upzoned do you think the swaths of single family housing built in farther suburbs or in other cities like texas/atlanta are not built by corporations?
> For the last 30 years…. anybody who wanted a job building housing got a job building housing…. often with unlimited overtime. More liberal zoning wouldn’t have built more housing.
Tacomme, if more liberal zoning won’t produce more housing than why are you afraid of it?
“letting big companies control more of the Seattle housing market”
This is the same kind of misconception we see with population size, transit usage, tech workers, etc. 750,000 people in Seattle don’t all do the same thing, have the same income, or have the same attitudes. The same for the hundreds of thousands of Eastsiders and transit riders. Not all developers are big companies. The restrictive zoning we have gives big companies an advantage because big companies and small companies are forced to compete against each other for the limited lots and housing types allowed. Loosening zoning over a larger area would saturate the market for large buildings, so large developers wouldn’t be interested in the remaining lots, and that would give small developers an opportunity to build something smaller on those lots at lower cost. That’s what they could do up to the 1970s but can’t now.
I’m not against upzoning for the record.
It might help a little, but there isn’t any historical data in the USA that makes it look like a game changer. On a personal level, I know most of the players… changing the zoning changes little in the Seattle housing market. Same builders, bankers, REITs…
I would go as far as putting upzoning in the same basket as passing I-135. As a “having beers with friends” subject it’s good. But would I bet my retirement on it? Of course not. If you can’t afford to live in Seattle, I wouldn’t hang around waiting for some government intervention to fix things.
Owning your own house is the American Dream. Let no one talk you out of it. any silly crap about social housing, or upzoning or the government “fixing” the housing market is just not going to happen.
Back at our triplex, I’m renting to couple who hoped to buy a house in a few years…. and they’ve been paying rent for nearly a decade. 25 becomes 35… 35 becomes 45. We’re talking about real life here. Choose wisely.
As a guy who’s been in Greater Seattle almost 40 years…. things aren’t getting better. People aren’t happier or more hopeful. At least people who make less than 6 figure incomes. Seattle seems to be just played out…
Your parents had cars and actual house….. and you’re settling for light rail and “apodment” . Wake Up!
Uhhh you do realize building apartments doesn’t ban single family homes right?
WL
Uhhhh, you do understand that by living in an apartment, you’re likely giving in to corporate control? Home ownership is traditionally the little person’s hedge against the Big Boys.
https://publicola.com/2023/12/06/audit-reveals-widespread-ethical-concerns-about-the-city-department-that-oversees-construction-permitting-and-landlord-tenant-law/
Liberalize zoning and you give these bastards even more power over Seattle (and over yourself).
I’m also pretty sure the construction bastards, who have big money and ties to city government and are are messing up the Seattle housing market, also are often tied up with “Big Transit” and the Sound Transit boondoggle.
If you want to sign over all of your power, all of your choices to the big corporate intrests that run more of Seattle everyday…. that’s your choice. But all this moaning and bitching about housing costs AND the ridiculous 2nd ST tunnel need to stop. Make you choice and live with it.
Much of the problem here is educated White privilege…. it’s people like Katie Wilson at the Transit Riders Union who believe her organization can stand up to the “construction mafia” or Sound Transit. I know better. The Big Boys just laugh at people like Katie and do whatever the “law” allows them to do.
@tacommee
When building a swath of single family homes are you imagining a bunch of artisan home builders?
Uhhhh, you do understand that by living in an apartment, you’re likely giving in to corporate control? Home ownership is traditionally the little person’s hedge against the Big Boys.
…
Liberalize zoning and you give these bastards even more power over Seattle (and over yourself).
Uh, you do realize that one has nothing to do with the other, right? You are basically arguing for home ownership. Great. Be my guest. Personally, I think renting versus owning has a lot more to do with a person’s own personal situation.
But that has nothing to do with zoning (unless you are suggesting rules against renting, which seems like a really bad idea). You can rent a house. You can own an apartment (they call it a condo). You own a little bit of land, or a lot of land. You can rent the land. You can share ownership of that land with your neighbors (as a co-op). Whatever. That is beside the point.
What matters is to build a lot more places for people to live. Imagine you really do want to own. Take it a step further, and imagine you want to own the property under your feet. What is better — minimum lot sizes of 1,000 square feet, or minimum lot sizes of 7,200 square feet (like in my neighborhood in Seattle)? Clearly smaller lot sizes are better.
Now zoom out a bit. You are still competing with other potential home owners. The more condos you build, the more likely someone is going to turn down that townhouse for a condo (that might be cheaper, have a view, be in a nicer neighborhood, etc.).
Zoom out even more. Not everyone wants to own. There are also plenty of people that could go either way. They want the security of ownership, but they only just moved to Seattle last year. They just aren’t sure about the place. Again, more places for people to rent, and those potential buyers just keep renting.
If you want to argue for policies that encourage more “mom and pop” landlords, be my guest. But the main thing we need is more places for people to live.
I’m not against upzoning for the record.
It might help a little, but there isn’t any historical data in the USA that makes it look like a game changer.
Bullshit. I cited the studies up above. You are making a radical assertion: zoning doesn’t effect housing prices. This runs contrary to general economic theory. Not only do you lack any evidence to support that claim, but there is plenty of evidence to refute it.
Ross Bleakney,
Let’s back up here and talk transit for a minute. According to Sound Transit supporters, ST3 was the ultimate “one and done” vote. All the voters needed to do was vote yes!, stand back the whole region would get the transit system of the future. Almost every poster on this blog believed that…. until it wasn’t true. Now Sound Transit is just a mess and there’s no way voters can step in and fix it. How many negative posts are there about stupid Sound Transit projects lately? A whole lot. I supported over 50% of the ST3 projects because they were good and made sense. A subway to Capitol Hill? Easy choice there. The back half, the crap Sound Transit is doing now…. total crap. Everybody knows that. But if you voted yes… you support the mess we have now.
So Seattle has a housing shortage. Unwinding a hundred years of zoning is worse than giving Sound Transit blank checks for 40 years. It may look good on paper, it might sound good now, but give it 25 years. You really believe the people who made Seattle’s zoning laws over the years were stupid? And that somehow the clowns writing for the Urbanist are smarter?
Go read the link I posted from Publicola. Seems that the big players, the members of the Master Builder’s Association have inside help at City Hall and the little guys get screwed. Let’s be clear about what the goals of the Master’s Building Associate are… to make as much money as possible. Manipulate the housing market to maximum gain. Affordable housing? They don’t care.
https://publicola.com/2023/12/06/audit-reveals-widespread-ethical-concerns-about-the-city-department-that-oversees-construction-permitting-and-landlord-tenant-law/
Read the link…. we don’t need to change zoning and let these bastards wreak Seattle.
I’m not aware of any ST3 supporter who considered it “one and done.” Everyone had their criticisms & hopes for how certain projects would evolve, and anyone remotely aware of how transit works understood that ST3 only made sense in the context of continued investment by the 3 county transit agencies in addition to the ST projects.
“You really believe the people who made Seattle’s zoning laws over the years were stupid?”
Not stupid, but catering to racist and single-family interests. Zoning in the US and in Seattle was created to keep minorities and lower-income people and apartments out of the more desirable neighborhoods. Otherwise the could have had just two zones: heavy industry, and everything else. In the 1950s they tightened multifamily and middle housing and density further, and in the 1970s even further. Since a house costs more than a condo or apartment, that restricts 70% of the land to upper-income people. And it caters to people who don’t want apartments on their block or other cars on their streets and are more likely to drive, and dismisses people who would like to have more choices where to live in middle housing with corner stores and can’t/don’t want to buy an entire lot and are more likely to take transit. That’s contrary to reasonable city design, especially when a city grows beyond a small town.
“Let’s be clear about what the goals of the Master’s Building Associate are… to make as much money as possible.”
The Master Building Association isn’t the only one affected by zoning or with an interest in it. There’s also all the residents, would-be residents, small developers outside the association, and businesses who may or may not be able to operate or be in a certain location depending on zoning. The Master Building Association is one factor among many. And public policy needs to be based on what’s best for residents, city functioning, and the environment as a whole, not on what the Master Building Association may want or not want. When there’s only two choices (yes or no), a lot of disparate people and groups find themselves together in one category or the other. Just because the Master Building Association is in one category doesn’t mean they’re the only or predominant factor in that category, and that that category helps only then and hurts everybody else.
Otherwise it’s like saying allowing or promoting gardens is a sellout to garden stores and hurts everybody else, when in fact a lot of people want gardens, and gardens have health and resiliency benefits. (If people have vegetable gardens, they’re not as dependent on grocery stores, or as impacted if snowbound passes block delivery trucks, or as impacted by questionable ingredients or procedures with supermarket/processed food. So the reason to have gardens is for the public good, not just to maximize profits for large garden-store corporations.)
“On a personal level, I know most of the players… changing the zoning changes little in the Seattle housing market. Same builders, bankers, REITs…
I would go as far as putting upzoning in the same basket as passing I-135. As a “having beers with friends” subject it’s good. But would I bet my retirement on it? Of course not. If you can’t afford to live in Seattle, I wouldn’t hang around waiting for some government intervention to fix things.”
Removing zoning and streamlining permitting and regs is actually the opposite. It’s taking the government out of the equation. Amd allowing new “players” you almost certainly don’t know into the game.
AJ
Are you sure connecting 3 counties with light rail is a good idea? Because right now light rail works in Seattle pretty well. Extending those lines North and South only slows things up. There’s been many, many posts on the blog about just that. Sure, there’s a possibility for turnouts and storing cars for more trains in the central core, but there’s no plans for this currently and no budget. Sound Transit is dead set on slowing down Seattle light rail for at least a decade? (maybe more because I don’t see those turn outs or rail car storage happening any sooner than 10 years… how about 15? More?)
Cam Solomon,
You need to read the article I linked to by Publicola about corruption in Seattle government surrounding building permits. Seattle has a corrupt government and there’s absolutely no plans to fix it. Tacoma is slightly better, but not by much. “New players” will absolutely no be let into the “game”. There’s a reason I never got a general contractor’s license all these years.
https://publicola.com/2023/12/06/audit-reveals-widespread-ethical-concerns-about-the-city-department-that-oversees-construction-permitting-and-landlord-tenant-law
Because of government corruption, I’m not at all sure changing the building code would actually do much of anything. Once again…. I’ve never said I was against changing the building code…. I’m just realistic about what that would bring about.
Seattle has no shortage of armchair urban planners…. but no realistic plans for actually changing the path the City is currently on.
The wide spread ethnical concerns happen precisely because of such a long time and complicated way to approve permits. It’s like a weaker version of chicagos alderman system where when the alderman can block development it encourages bribes. SF where it takes the longest to approve housing has the most corruption not the least
I did read the article. I actually have a friend (not mentioned in the article) high up in the org chart in SDCI that I consider beyond reproach, ethically. It does seem like there may be some good ‘ol boys playing fast and loose with the rules ethically, but corruption is a pretty serious accusation and one that I don’t see evidence of. Otherwise we would see legal action.
We do need to streamline the permitting process and queue jumping absolutely should not be allowed. But that’s what happens when you have a byzantine permitting process and it’s taking an unreasonable amount of time.
I understand your sentiment, Al S. I’m currently visiting family in DC and had to connect through their Union Station. It’s a beautiful facility with a plethora of restaurants and event retail store fronts. If King Street was a busy of a hub like Union Station, where not only O/D trips take place but people make connections and have to be there for +1 hours, then I’d advocate more for vendors. Until then, business would be slow.
DC’s Union Station is a good example. Those stores and restaurants target and are open to everyone — and not just Amtrak, MARC, VRE and Metro Red Line riders.
Of course it also is a historic renovation. Not only was I mentioning more active stations but also building new stations that are unencumbered by the objective of historic preservation. Having an active historic station is great — but so is an active station built from scratch or maybe a station that has a preserved historic facade or portion but has been substantially expanded with new architecture.
It’s amazing that DC’s transit and land use is so European, and congresscritters use it along with their families and staff, yet those same congresscritters say it’s infeasible for the rest of the US. It’s like how Wall Street financiers work in Lower Manhattan and ride the subway or walk to work, and then finance sprawl in the rest of the US and say we can’t have other cities like New York.
DC Union Station has the advantage of a lot more all-day trains, and the subway station is right there rather than on the other side of another train station that non-regular transit riders don’t know about.
Current Advanced Driver Assist Systems are already taking much of the stress out of driving. As these improve it will be eating into train trips and short distance air trips. Full self-driving will result in the no grade-crossings Interstate Freeways greatly increasing their capacity. RRs and Airliners beware!
The assumption that somehow self-driving will increase capacity has yet to be proven. Even the best self driving technology requires ½ second safe following distance. Most drivers already follow closer than this. It’s not safe, but we already know driving is the most dangerous way to travel.
“CADS” eh? Sounds about right.
It drives me CRAZY every time I see the I-Line in print. This shows how Metro (and most transit agencies) is inept at marketing and basic communication with its customers. On signage, schedules, online platforms, the header of the bus – everywhere – it’s going to look like the number “1”. People unfamiliar with the route (which customer info should be created for first-timers) or even regular riders will certainly misread it as the “one” bus or route “one”.
This is why NYC skips this letter when it labels their subway lines.
Agreed. They should skip “I”. The letters are arbitrary. There is no reason to go through them in order (which they aren’t doing anyway with “R”).
That being said, at least the “1” does not go anywhere near the “I”.
Yeah I think having a RapidRide I is an incredibly stupid branding. Not only is there a Metro Route 1, but there is a Link 1 Line in South King and a Stride 1 Line connecting both Link 1 Line and RapidRide I.
It should have been RapidRide K for Kent. Now Metro gave that to Kirkland instead.
I guess RapidRide N is available. N as in Noah. Noah as in the ARK (Auburn- Renton- Kent). Still that could get confused with Sounder N North Line.
Let’s hope that there won’t be a RapidRide O someday.
tbf, Denver has a route 0 for the Union Station – Englewood/Highlands Ranch. So precedent is there. But they’re also an outlier in this regard.
“It should have been RapidRide K for Kent. Now Metro gave that to Kirkland instead.”
There’s no way to accommodate every corridor. B could have been for Ballard, but it was given to Bellevue. And I’m not sure how much Bellevue was even deliberate. Lines A-I were assigned in order of anticipated construction. (G and J proved difficult to predict because their construction dates ended up slipping behind the H and I but the letters weren’t changed.)
I sometimes use this mnemonic:
A: pAcific highway
B: Bellevue
C: west C-attle
D: ballarD
E: Eurora or aurorE
F: F***ing low ridership and too many detours
G: maGison
H: deHlridge
I: kInt
But mostly I just picture the neighborhood with the letter, like I do with numbered routes.
200kph+ rail is more likely to have much higher fares, too. Indeed, current Amtrak fares are on the same order of magnitude as airline tickets, for infrequent service with a long requested boarding time wait. I expect that last bug to stick around, so you have a one-hour trip, but are expected to be at the station an hour ahead of time for security checks, etc.
I would love to just have frequent (at least hourly) buses, with no requirement to be there an hour ahead of time, but with off-board pre-payment, going between the future Lynnwood Station and King George Station, with several very short stops along the way that don’t involve 10-minute loop-de-loops. In order to have operator breaks, trips could be done as an operator relay, similarly to what Metro does on some trips. The buses should also have on-board facilities in the back, ADA-compliant, with redundancy. (ST should also have a relay plan for long light rail trips, instead of mass movements of passengers between trains. Eastside to Ballard ought to be a one-seat ride, while most one-seat rides between Eastside and UW will continue to be a bus.)
If the border crossing time remains unreliable, then have the bus at least get to WWU and downtown Bellingham. But don’t bother with the Whatcom anti-Transit Center in the middle of nowhere.
Similarly, a bus between the future Federal Way Station and Olympia, at least half hourly or more during session, would be a wise transit investment. I expect it would serve Tacoma Dome Station and SR 512 P&R, but definitely not Hawks Prarie.
I glossed right past the question of who would operate these services, as I would love to hear creative suggestions, hopefully some of them not out of Sam Field.
Private operators, such as MTR Western or SP+, would have to operate what you’re proposing… at least the northern half. Current (antiquated) transit union politics would make it too expensive. Basically, it’s a 3 hr block of driving each direction. That’s essentially one roundtrip per driver in an 8 hour day. If you squeeze more work out of the driver, then you’d have to ensure they end their shift on the US-side of the border.
The FDWY-OLY route can simply be an extension of Intercity’s route 620.
The state should pay for it. It is expensive, but so is building new roads (or improving Amtrak). For trips to Portland or Vancouver, the other places should chip in. But the state should expand the program that involves city-to-city transit. Most likely that would mean contracting with private companies or public agencies.
> I would love to just have frequent (at least hourly) buses, with no requirement to be there an hour ahead of time, but with off-board pre-payment, going between the future Lynnwood Station and King George Station, with several very short stops along the way that don’t involve 10-minute loop-de-loops.
There’s a lot of low hanging fruit improvements around intercity busses (Vancouver to Seattle to Portland) that’s never implemented. Part of the problem is that there’s no real policy advocating for it or real federal funding for new routes.
> For tens of millions of Americans, intercity bus companies like Greyhound, Megabus, and myriad smaller actors are an essential part of the nation’s transportation system. Pre-pandemic, the intercity bus industry carried more than double the passengers of Amtrak.
> There’s also the federal 5311(f) program, which is administered through the Federal Transit Administration and subsidizes losses in routes that connect rural areas to larger cities. The program has many caveats, however. The line has to lose money first, then companies are only subsidized for half the loss.
https://www.governing.com/now/intercity-bus-service-gets-no-respect-from-government
There’s “Travel Washington” (funded by the FTA from the 5311 program described above), but it’s mostly just for rural areas https://wsdot.wa.gov/business-wsdot/grants/public-transportation-grants/grant-programs-and-awards/travel-washington-intercity-bus
> I glossed right past the question of who would operate these services, as I would love to hear creative suggestions, hopefully some of them not out of Sam Field.
Could be amtrak they run busses, or could use a similar program as what Washington State with the travel washington program does to hire existing bus companies and run them.
Agree, you could improve the quality of Seattle to Vancouver transit a lot with just buses, without even needing trains. Truncated intercity buses that run only from Lynnwood to either Surrey or Bridgeport would also solve most of the “stuck in traffic” problems. Coming from Bellevue or Kirkland, being able to access this bus by riding Stride to Lynnwood, rather than going through downtown Seattle, would also save time. Seems unlikely to ever happen, though.
Stride 1 (south) and 2 (north) will have a quarterly update December 6 at 12-1:30pm. The link also says construction on the 85th interchange in Kirkland started last summer.
I work as a transit operator for Metro. My full time class instructor told me that the A line is going to get a technology which will prevent buses from bunching and thus leaving 20 minute gaps. This is supposed to roll out next spring. He actually thinks it will be hard to implement because this will affect operator’s breaks, and also having to tell customers “ oh now we’re gonna wait because the bus in front of us is having a delay”.
CT tried something similar with Swift. It failed miserably and they went back to human-dispatching for the Blue Line. Unfortunately, after working for 2 different transit agencies, it has been my experience that dispatch culture is woefully shortsighted and does not think outside the box when it comes to handling disruptions. Partly because dispatch centers aren’t designed by sections or areas. It’s often just a few people handling hundreds of operators rather than a few dozen people dispatcher.
For the A line, extra buses should be stationed in problematic areas and ready to be dispatched when delays occur. That ensures on-time performance for customers down the line.
Also, abolishing antiquated union rules would help improve on-time performance and prevent operators from sitting at their terminals while they should be filling in gaps of delayed service.
It’s not just transit agencies either.
Some years back, one of the consultants working on the Cascades improvements and who had worked in dispatch for the Northern Pacific since the 1960s, lamented about how difficult it had become to get better track utilization now. Something along the lines of “Moves we used to make with a local dispatch crew are now ruled impossible by a crew of 20 controlling 20,000 miles of track from Dallas.”
It’s an unfortunate condition of the push towards technology.
When RapidRide A-E first started, it had headway management in the 15-minute periods, and buses were held back to avoid a second bus passing a stop less than 15 minutes after the first one even if the first one was late. There was a huge public outcry that this made transfers infeasible, and that headway management is only appropriate during 10-minute-or-better periods, and demands for a full schedule. People would rather know when a bus is supposed to arrive even if it’s late, rather than having no idea when to go to the bus stop to avoid a long wait. Metro finally relented and published full schedules for the RapidRide lines. If what Emmanuel is alluding to is a revival of this, it will face heavy pushback again.
There’s a difference between correcting severe bunching on a case-by-case basis; e.g., canceling a run so that it won’t be empty immediately behind other buses and so that it can race to its terminal and be on time for the next run, vs turning an everyday 15-15-18-12-15 or 15-15-25-5-15 or 15-30-45-X-15 to 15-15-15-15-15; i.e., delaying all the following runs. The latter is the biggest problem.
Having buses hold mid-route because the bus in front of it is delayed is bad policy. At best, it helps people who will be getting on the bus later, but at the cost of screwing over people who are already on the bus.
I’m fine having buses leave their terminal late if the bus ahead of them did so, but once a bus begins a run, it needs to just drive.
It is counter-intuitive, but delaying the bus is actually better overall. It is worth noting how bus bunching occurs. Basically, a bus in front slows down. As a result, it picks up a few riders that would normally catch the next bus. Similarly, the bus behind it doesn’t pick up those riders. So one bus is stopping at every stop (and waiting a while) and the bus behind it is going really fast (much faster than usual). Next thing you know, they are bunched. If you were lucky and are on the fast bus, life is great. But most riders are on the slow bus. Slowing down that first bus (so that it can pick up more riders) will help some of those that would otherwise have to wait for the second bus.
Also consider the gap. Riding a slow bus is annoying. Sitting a bus stop an extra long time is worse. Imagine the buses are supposed to run every ten minutes. Instead, at various bus stops, there are buses back to back, followed by a twenty minute gap. This isn’t good.
There are a number of ways of reducing bus bunching, including:
1) Stop diets.
2) Off-board payment, to reduce dwell time.
3) Shorter routes.
4) Faster routes.
5) System monitors, so that the buses essentially run in tandem, going the same basic speed. That is the plan (I guess).
Here is a rundown of the same thing, but with a lot more math: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/08/18/the-dynamics-of-bus-bunching/
It’s alright up to a point as Ross said, though it does have diminishing returns at certain point where one has to use bus lanes or run more busses.
Notably new york busses were slightly notorious for slowing down, where I remember reading an article (can’t find it at the moment) some calculated the city might as well just get rid of a couple dispatchers and hire more bus drivers.
But anyways I think it’s fine as long as it doesn’t go too crazy and we recognize it’s not a panacea.
Often, by the time a bus does get bunched, it’s close enough to the end of the line that very few people will be getting on, so holding the bus has limited benefit.
There’s also a bigger issue here, whether you’re trying to optimize for people using OneBusAway to time when to arrive at the bus stop vs. people who just show up at the bus stop blindly, without checking anything. Holding the bus to even out the spacing may be better for people riding blind, but it’s worse for people riding with OneBusAway because you don’t know in advance when, where, or even if the bus will actually hold. So, you end up running to a stop because the bus is arriving in two minutes, only to sit there while the bus holds half a mile back and actually end up waiting 8 minutes.
If the buses simply go, you can use OneBusAway to pace yourself as you walk to the bus stop and have a reliably short wait time once you get there. If buses can simply hold anywhere, randomly, you can’t.
I mean to be clear the current way holds up the busses too, one just doesn’t quite notice it as it’s built into the schedule as lowered frequency while the busses wait at the start/end of the route. Aka if the bus takes from 35 to 45 minutes to run the route they make it run every 50 minutes and then just have it wait at the station until the next run.
For higher frequency routes/bunching it’s the same thing, if bunching occurs the old way to deal with it (if not doing skip stop or holding) is just lowering the frequency on the schedule/dropping bus trips.
> So, you end up running to a stop because the bus is arriving in two minutes, only to sit there while the bus holds half a mile back and actually end up waiting 8 minutes.
I’ve never heard of holding the bus for that long, typically it’s only like a minute or maybe two at a stop. Well unless you’re at some transit station but that is basically the old way of stopping until one reaches the scheduled time. I’ll also note, I’m a bit surprised they want to use anti-bus bunching for the bus during the 20 minute frequency period? Usually it’s for more frequent periods.
Pacific Highway (most of RapidRide A) has some huge intersections that move lots of cars in 8 phases that can require some pretty long signal waits at some places. Focusing the transit priority logic on the biggest and longest ones can probably really help keep the buses from bunching. I would think the primary logic is just to let a bus-friendly phase go early (through movements before left turns) if a bus is running late.
I mention this because signal technology to reduce bus bunching probably does not work well for less wide intersections or in places where there aren’t many extra signal phases. For example, it probably would not effective on Rainier as there isn’t as much side street traffic to manage.
The tougher challenge is probably getting drivers to prioritize the spacing idea. A driver may want to rush because the driver needs to take the next break. Or a driver may resume service from their break two or three minutes late and the effect cascades as the bus gets increasingly more crowded as it moves down the street needing more and more time to load the accumulated riders as each stop. Most drivers are pretty responsible to operate on time — but it just takes one driver to be lax on schedule compliance to throw off the timing of several other buses on a route as well.
I think that too many times the engineers or designers don’t talk enough with drivers. The drivers see the schedule problems every time they drive a route. They know where stops aren’t safe or where signals throw them off schedule (like the effect of being too close to another signal) or where traffic bogs them down (as opposed to needing extra time at a stop). I cringe when I see a bunch of engineers that don’t talk to drivers or even spend enough time observing in the field to see what’s really going on get funding to spend huge amounts of money for something ineffectual.
There’s a lot of talk about the “missing middle” in housing debates…. but just what does this “missing middle” housing look like? Here’s some in Texas.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/affordable-homes-going-viral-making-041604196.html
Looking at this from the construction industry…. this is the way froward in America.
You do realize they build them like that due to San Antonio’s setback and lot rules right? The missing middle is literally talking about fixing those rules that would have allowed a much larger house on that lot.
At most that’s small close-together houses. That’s the bottom limit of middle housing, if not below it. I would push the houses together to eliminate that unusable strip of dead space between them; and I’d put good soundproofing in the walls so that neighbor noise wouldn’t be an excuse not to. Then you could fit more houses in the row, and more people could live there.
Middle housing can be anything from duplexes, row houses, row townhouses, 2-story courtyard apartment buildings (like many scattered around Seattle), 4-story apartments or condos, etc.
If you want sizeable yards, move the houses to the front of the lots and make the lots deep, like in San Francisco.
“Looking at this from the construction industry…. this is the way froward in America.”
It’s been going in the opposite direction. Levittown was 750 square feet, not much larger than this. In the 1950s the average house size was 900-1100 square feet. Then it ballooned to 1500, 2000, 2500. That’s part of the problem for first-time homebuyers: most of the houses available are large and luxury, and the price reflects that. It’s house-size inflation.
There’s been quite a lot released on the sdot blog in the past two days.
https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/
Bus stuff:
Sdot trialing more bus lane treatment with rumble strips
More traffic enforcement cameras of bus lanes and block the box enforcement
Rainier Ave S bus lane extension from Walden to grand
Pedestrian stuff:
A lot of healthy streets sections turned permanent though many others still also just under study.
Most prominently the alki beach one, beacon hill, and central district
Bike stuff:
Georgetown/sodo bike lane moving forward slowly but still in design
Georgetown to South Park project will finish planning soon but lacks funding
I wonder if WSDOT, and any associated agencies and municipalities care to actually take care of this problem.
Obviously it’s the new housing development in Felida
Landslide cancels Amtrak service between Seattle and Portland
The government’s awarded hsr money to both the cahsr and the brightline west
> WASHINGTON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The U.S. Transportation Department is awarding $3 billion for a $12 billion Las Vegas to Southern California high-speed rail project and $3.07 billion to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Also notably the Raleigh to Richmond is adding a rai line (Virginia bought one of the two tracks of the S line from CSX a couple years a go). This will connect with the NEC so it’s nice to see this extension
> Separately, a new passenger rail route between Raleigh, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, is set to receive a $1 billion grant, Senator Thom Tillis said Tuesday, adding it will better connect North Carolina to Washington.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-award-3-billion-las-vegas-high-speed-rail-project-2023-12-05/
The race between CAHSR and Brightline West continues!
Though it’s nice seeing new service between North Carolina and DC, our focus in national rail expansion should be on frequent, shorter routes that connect multiple dense areas. Imagine what the $1bil would do if it were for service between Charlotte and Raleigh with stops in between. If the new Raleigh to DC line (with stops in the suburbs too) was faster than driving, I’d support it.
Is this the same Mike Orr that used to work at Microsoft in the late 70s? I have some old COBOL software and a letter from the COBOL Product Manager at the time that would be interesting. Let me know!
No, but I’ve talked with him a couple times. In the 90s I kept getting calls for “Mike Orr at Microsoft”, a collection agency for “Mike Orr with unpaid car bills” (I’ve never had a car), and “Mike Orr the insurance broker”. The last one was my father who had deceased. The first one was the one you’re talking about; he’d retired from Microsoft and was an independent Windows developer in West Seattle. The middle one I never figured out who that was. When I joined Facebook, I found two others in England. It was funny to get messages “from Mike Orr”. And the one with the biggest internet presence is a race-car driver in Ireland.
Anyone notice that Broadway & John finally has a left-turn arrow? It’s currently for east/west traffic along John St. I really hope another set is installed for north/south traffic along Broadway. The intersection is too busy with both cars and pedestrians to have motorists yield on left turns … and potentially strike people or run red lights.
But for some strange reason, motorists are prohibited from turning left WB. It’s only for buses, which doesn’t make sense because there’s not a consistent bus route that turns left from WB John onto Broadway (except for random trips on the infrequent 43). Motorists should definitely be allowed to turn left a dedicated arrow is already in place.
The plan is here if you want to read about it: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/neighborhood-street-fund/current-projects/broadway-and-john-street-signal
* Rebuild the traffic signals at the intersection of E Broadway and E Olive Way/E John St
* New left turn pockets and separated signal phase for eastbound on E Olive Way
* New transit-only left turn lane for westbound E John St — westbound left turns will be not be allowed for all other vehicles
* Remove some in-street bike parking to accommodate transit turning movements
> Installation of the new signal poles on the northwest and southeast corners is complete. The final striping is planned to be installed on Saturday, October 14 and Sunday, October 15. This work is weather dependant may need to be rescheduled to a later date. Stay tuned for any updated information.
>> I really hope another set is installed for north/south traffic along Broadway
Broadway already has left turns?
> But for some strange reason, motorists are prohibited from turning left WB. It’s only for buses, which doesn’t make sense because there’s not a consistent bus route that turns left from WB John onto Broadway (except for random trips on the infrequent 43). Motorists should definitely be allowed to turn left a dedicated arrow is already in place.
I’m not sure if they’re going to put time restrictions on the transit lane (like bus only from 3 to 5pm or something), but if not I’m effectively reading it as banning left turns west bound from John street. I’m guessing dedicated light cycles for all directions might take too long when combined with the pedestrians walking east-west at that intersection
The plans are confusing to me. The bus would go westbound on John, then take a left to go southbound on Broadway. I don’t think any bus does that right now. The 43 goes straight on John (which becomes Olive). The 60 and 9 go further north on Broadway before turning around. I don’t think there are future plans for turning there, so I’m not sure why they are adding it. Maybe just in case Metro wants to have a bus turn there in the future?
> I don’t think any bus does that right now
As Jordan mentioned there are some 43 busses that turn left I think just deadheading back to the bus base.
I generally only see two scenarios a) they’re going to time restrict the left turns, maybe no left turns peak times b) they’re just banning left turns but the bus 43 still needed to make some random left turns and I guess maybe there’s less pushback if its a transit lane??
Originally, I thought they’d use the general traffic light pattern of
1) north/south
2) north left turn/south left turn
3) east/west
4) east left turn/west left turn.
However, that west left turn bay is still pretty short (due to the widened bus stop) if sdot was to change to dedicated left turn signal it’d probably just get backed up by left turning cars blocking straight west cars or vice versa. So SDOT just ended up banning west bound left turns.
I think just deadheading back to the bus base.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that. I suppose a bus could be deadheading. It does seem like the 43 is the only one that would do that. That seems like a lot of work for a bus that is probably going away (and it only benefits when it is deadheading). A big curb bulb and “No Left Turn” sign (with signals that show a straight green arrow) seem like it would be better. We’ve banned left turns from much of Denny for as long as I can remember. People need to get over this idea that they can turn left wherever they want. This is a very urban area, with a lot of congestion, not some Boise suburb.
I also think there has never been a better time for making major changes to the roads. Back in the day, it would be very confusing. A rider would suddenly have no idea how they are supposed to get from one place to another. That is bound to happen to some degree, but a very high percentage of people use electronic navigation for their trip. As long as you coordinate the change with them, everything will work out. You still want to have the usual flags and public outreach, but you are bound to get a lot less confusion than you would a generation ago.
“The 43 goes straight on John”
The 43-Broadway runs go from John westbound to Broadway southbound to the base. This has always been the case since the 80s for evening return-to-base runs. Nowadays only peak-direction runs serve downtown; off-peak and reverse-peak runs don’t, and are only to get 44 trolleybuses to/from their base.
But all the runs are on the schedule so that passengers can predict the extra Broadway service.
So basically the route map is wrong: https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/043.html#route-map. So is the large Metro map (although admittedly it isn’t that detailed). So is the map shown for the various restructures based on RapidRide G (https://madisonstreetproject.com/). How bizarre. I always just assumed it went downtown via Olive/Bellevue/Pine (i. e. what is shown on the map).
There are no plans to get rid of the 43, although in my opinion, it becomes obsolete once RapidRide G arrives. It serves no unique area, and runs infrequently (a bad combination). It performed poorly prior to the pandemic (rare for that neighborhood). It has performed really poorly of late as well. It should be cancelled, and money should be put into running the other buses (like the 48) more often. That means a transfer for some riders to get downtown — so be it. We need to abandon this antiquated idea that it is OK to run buses infrequently, as long as they are going downtown (since that is the only reason they would ride transit). If the buses were full during peak, (and running every couple minutes) then sure, running an express is fine. But they are nowhere near that. At most the 43 runs every twenty minutes, while the 48 runs every fifteen. Cancel the 43 and run the 48 every ten, and folks are better off.
“the route map is wrong”
See the timetable and the footnotes at the bottom. Column “Boren Ave & East Yesler Way”. The special runs used to be denoted with footnotes, but now there’s a column for them. The current map doesn’t acknowledge them. Some revisions might have, with a dotted line and note or something. This is the only route like this, so Metro may not have given a lot of thought to the alternate runs.
Yeah I agree with Ross the map should be changed, I knew some of the 43 busses head down Broadway, I didn’t realize it’s basically most of them and it’s the other way around that only a few go downtown. I guess I’ll email king county and see if they’ll fix it.
Looking at this some more, I think the city has it backwards. Whenever possible, general traffic should be sent away from the buses. Denny/Olive is a major transit street, that doesn’t have bus or BAT lanes. Denny between Olive and Broadway is the opposite. Thus we want cars doing this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/h2YAVkQ93YZRhZFy5, not this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/GdTe7P9YhkaJN6mX8. The way to do that is to not allow the latter. Ban left turns from Olive to Broadway (while allowing them from Denny to Broadway). That also makes the light cycle simpler.
I would also look into banning left turns from Broadway, for the same general reason. Force drivers to make three rights, or use a different street (like 12th) which doesn’t have buses.
The problem with left turns on Broadway, just like in many other places in both Seattle and across the country, is that they’re not protected. Drivers often try to “race” or “beat” oncoming traffic at the risk of striking a pedestrian.
Thus, I agree with you to an extent.
Left turns from Broadway should be banned in most places – but not all. There should be a few designated intersections to turn left and with a green arrow only. The remaining unprotected intersections should prohibit left turns.
I agree that the first thing to look at is eliminating unprotected left turns. But protected left turns are bad for traffic throughput. We really shouldn’t encourage it for general purpose traffic — not on streets that have buses. Making three rights — or taking a street that doesn’t have buses — is much better. Broadway is definitely a transit street, and it just doesn’t make sense that we encourage cars to go on it, or slow down the various transit vehicles by adding in left-turn cycles. If I had to choose, I would definitely prefer protected over unprotected (which means more of a delay) but we shouldn’t have to.
It isn’t the only street like this. Consider the south end of Lake City Way. During afternoon rush-hour, lots of cars exit the freeway onto it. Many of the drivers try to turn left onto Roosevelt or 15th*. It became very difficult for drivers to turn left during rush hour, as many cars would head the other direction. So they added a traffic light with a left-turn arrow (https://maps.app.goo.gl/qzzDTsWjmNFy3XXW8 and https://maps.app.goo.gl/28arc6HXZTb2EvfF9). There are several problems with this. First, it is legal to turn left on a regular green. So the arrow doesn’t make it safer. Second, drivers still gum up the left lane during rush hours, as they wait for a break in traffic, or the arrow. Third, they completely screw up traffic going the other way. The worst traffic jam in the afternoon is not heading away from the freeway, but towards it. It is not because the freeway is backed up, either. It is because the light cycle is favoring cars going every other direction but towards the freeway (southbound) which also happens to be towards the Roosevelt Station. The 522 and 73 get bogged down in that traffic. All so that a relative handful can make a left.
There is a simple alternative. Just ban left turns. For Roosevelt, you take a different exit (https://maps.app.goo.gl/7Y2uNE6S3ALYV8gr5). It is a few more turns, but not that bad. For 15th, it is even simpler. Instead of three right turns, you just make two (https://maps.app.goo.gl/AhqLC9MBmMicimNm9). The time penalty is minimal. Traffic would move smoother for the buses (both directions) while drivers who turn have to spend a little more time getting to where they want to go.
Doing this would push traffic onto other streets (like 15th) but pretty soon, 15th won’t be a transit street. SDOT might have to adjust the light cycles of say, 15th & 80th, but since no buses go there, that isn’t a big deal.
*I’m actually one of those drivers on occasion. I like to go up to the mountains, and often end up coming back during rush hour. I take a left on 15th from Lake City Way. This would delay me (a little bit) while making everything else move more smoothly. It is a very small price to pay.
I agree with Doug Trumm of the Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/12/06/flat-fare-push-shows-sound-transit-is-embracing-a-self-defeating-suburban-identity/
The very idea that one-size-fits-all simplicity is more important than fairness to passengers or ridership is as wrong-headed as a spine-first light rail.
I’ve been wanting to write an editorial about this before ST’s board meeting this month, but I haven’t been able to come up with good wording, or anything to say beyond what’s already been said. Still, I think it’s a critical issue, and I’m glad Doug Trumm found the words to highlight it.
ST’s December meetings are in the right sidebar of this page.
My recommendation is to keep distance-based fares, or switch to a fair zone-based system. “Fair” meaning to charge the minimum fare for 1-2 zones, to avoid penalizing Shoreline North-Mountlake terrace trips (under the old zones) or Westlake-Rainier Beach and Northgate-Beacon Hill trips (if Seattle is split into multiple zones).
Second, ST shouldn’t raise fairs based on its guess that Metro might raise fares soon. We’d need certainty on when and how much Metro proposes to raise them. Otherwise we’ll end up with Link at $3.25 and Metro at $2.75 for possibly years.
There’s already inconsistencies in fares between Link, Metro, and ST Express. Getting from Roosevelt to U District by Link is cheaper than taking the 67 or 45. Along the highway 522 corridor, the 372 is cheaper than the 522.
I dislike zones because it’s always going to create perverse incentives when there is a significant jump in fares at a specific location. I live just across the Seattle border, so when Metro had zones my 15 block ride to the supermarket was surcharged. Maybe it’ll be at the county line or Seattle border or ship canal or whatever, but zones will mean winners and losers too.
Also, I’ll point out that Lift users and seniors have been paying a flat $1 Link fare for a while now.
“Getting from Roosevelt to U District by Link is cheaper than taking the 67 or 45.”
That makes sense because Link costs less per passenger to operate in the core area when it reaches a moderate ridership level. Link reached that level in the early 2010s. Link’s original fare scale was set to include a few years of future cost inflation, while Metro had to keep going up. One train line can do what would require several bus routes. Link also connects new trip pairs that never had direct bus service, and offers express-level speeds.
“Along the highway 522 corridor, the 372 is cheaper than the 522.”
In the old zone system, ST Express and Metro kept leapfrogging each other in fare increases, so sometimes ST Express 1 zone was the same as Metro 1 zone, sometimes 25 cents higher. When ST Express abolished zones, it set the fare in the middle, so now the 522 and 550 are 50 cents higher than comparable Metro routes. That’s exactly what ST is proposing to do with Link fares.
Metro also abolished 2-zone fares, and I think that’s when the base fare went up from $2.50 to $2.75 but I don’t fully remember.
I dislike zones because it’s always going to create perverse incentives when there is a significant jump in fares at a specific location.
The key to zones is to have a lot of them. Then charge the same amount to cross one zone as zero. The problem with Metro’s approach is that they didn’t do that. They only had two zones (city or outside the city) which created the problem you mentioned.
It is pretty easy to come up with a solution. You have a half dozen zones. One would be for north of Seattle; another for the north end of Seattle (ship canal to 145th); another for central Seattle. Cross one zone (e. g. Shoreline to Northgate, Northgate to downtown) it costs the same as staying within a zone (Capitol Hill to downtown). Cross two zones (Shoreline to downtown) and it costs more.
That would be a mess with buses (which is why they didn’t do it). Of course what they did was also a mess (which is why they abandoned it). But with trains, it is easy, and common around the world. Doug Trumm sketched out a plan that would be fine.
Personally, I don’t think we need it. Imagine you are taking a train from Seattle to San Fransisco. What do you do? Look at a big matrix listing all of the cities on it, and the various fares? Of course not. Look at what zone you are in, and what zone San Fransisco is in? No. You put in “Seattle”, and then “San Fransisco” and just like that, the computer tells you how much it costs. This whole notion that you need something that you can print out on a paper is silly. The vast majority of people will ignore that, just as the vast majority of people ignore the matrix right now. Either they just pay with their ORCA card, or they put in the start and end location at a kiosk (or the website). If they have zones, they will ignore it just like they ignore the matrix. They will figure out how much it costs to go from point A to point B, but not by looking at a map of zones.
I agree as well. Though I do miss having a stack of subway tokens, and knowing one would get me anywhere from Far Rockaway to Yankee Stadium.
I think of that as freedom, and I think that emotional feeling is what may be driving the flat fee desire. But we shouldn’t be making decisions based on emotions.
Mainly we just don’t have that kind of system. The NYC subway system is huge in terms of track mileage and stations. But it doesn’t extend that far. From Far Rockaway to Yankee Stadium is less than 20 miles (as the crow flies). Angle Lake to Northgate is more than 20. It will be over 30 miles from Lynnwood to Federal Way. Our system is a lot more like the Long Island Railroad than it is the NYC Subway. At best it is a hybrid system, like BART. Both the LIRR and BART charge by distance (as well they should).
Put it another way. Imagine we built a very urban system. To the north it ended at 145th. To the south it ends at TIBS. In both cases they would build special ramps for buses to the north and south (both become major feeder stations). To the east it would end as planned, at Redmond. Then add a second line, from Ballard to the UW, and maybe a Metro 8 subway as well. For that kind of system, a set fare definitely makes sense. It just isn’t worth bothering with anything else. But we didn’t build that kind of system.
Moving to a new thread as this appears unrelated to the zoning/permitting conversation:
“AJ
Are you sure connecting 3 counties with light rail is a good idea? Because right now light rail works in Seattle pretty well. Extending those lines North and South only slows things up. There’s been many, many posts on the blog about just that. Sure, there’s a possibility for turnouts and storing cars for more trains in the central core, but there’s no plans for this currently and no budget. Sound Transit is dead set on slowing down Seattle light rail for at least a decade? (maybe more because I don’t see those turn outs or rail car storage happening any sooner than 10 years… how about 15? More?)”
Tacomee, unless you think Seattle should just take the suburbs’ money and tell them to pound sand, I’m not really sure what you point here is? The WSBLE EIS process has been an ST priority since the passing of ST3; the work done to complete ST2 projects and early ST3 projects doesn’t impact WSBLE work because they are done by different departments within ST. OMF N & S are primarily funded by the non-Seattle subareas because that is where the incremental demand in platform hours are coming from.
Following AJ’s lead, and also moving a comment to a new thread:
Ross Bleakney,
Let’s back up here and talk transit for a minute. According to Sound Transit supporters, ST3 was the ultimate “one and done” vote. All the voters needed to do was vote yes!, stand back the whole region would get the transit system of the future. Almost every poster on this blog believed that…. until it wasn’t true.
I opposed ST3 (https://seattletransitblog.com/2016/05/09/st3-is-not-the-way-forward/) and wasn’t alone (https://seattletransitblog.com/2016/05/09/st3-is-not-the-way-forward/). There was plenty of opposition in the transit community to ST3. Even supporters were lukewarm, and used arguments like “if it fails, things will be worse” (although historically that hasn’t been the case). Many basically boiled down to “if it is transit, we support it”. Others felt like we could thread the needle — it might work, although it will require attention to detail, and maybe a bit of luck. So much for that.
This is in great contrast with ST2. While there are plenty of us that question whether trains need to go all the way up to Lynnwood or south to Federal Way, we can definitely see the advantages. Furthermore, any long term alternative has to connect well with express buses, and the infrastructure is already there with those stations. It is quite possible that an extension that came short of those stations (while still working well for the buses) wouldn’t save you much money.
In contrast, ST3 is largely crap. The one (major) part of it that is pretty good is Ballard Link, and that has becoming crappier. There were plenty of people who commented regularly on this blog who felt that way. As details have emerged, many more have questioned the value, or suggested that the board is somehow ruining the original vision. This misses the point. Only in our wildly optimistic dreams was ST3 going to be great, and now we’ve hit some sober realities:
1) Building downtown is expensive and very disruptive. Who knew? [sarcasm]
2) If you are going to build a second downtown tunnel, it should maximize coverage. Who knew? [um, every transit expert in the world]
3) Many of the stations on the Ballard Line have to be done “just right” or you end up with a bad system. ST doesn’t have a history of building stations that way.
4) Building a subway system aimed only at commuters is not a good idea. Now it is even worse.
5) The process by which we make various decisions is broken. It is like they are just drawing lines on a map, instead of doing the work and figuring out whether it will be a good value when it comes to helping riders. Yep. We’ve been saying that for a long time — the process is broken before ST3, and it is broken now.
The big difference is the margin of error. U-Link is full of flaws. Poor station placement, not enough stations, you name it. Yet it works. The route is so fundamentally strong that you really can’t screw it up. That simply isn’t the case for West Seattle Link, Issaquah/South Kirkland Line, Everett Link or Tacoma Link. Those lines are really the opposite. They require a miracle of sorts. No such luck.
The ST3 project I’m most familiar with is the Stride 3 line. It was meant to be an early win. As a transit rider, I’m really disappointed in it. It’s looking like bus service along the Bothell Way corridor will be significantly worse after the S3 line opens compared to today. Granted, some of this involves Metro service, but ST and Metro are so intertwined on the Bothell Way corridor that they can’t be treated separately.
Currently, Bothell way sees 8x buses/hour (4 372s and 4 522s). After S3, it will see 6x buses/hour (6 S3 and no Metro buses). Granted, this will be an improvement on weekends. But a 25% decrease on weekdays.
Metro will be asking WSDOT to allow them to make a left turn from NB Lake City Way to WB 145th Street. If WSDOT allows it, they will serve that intersection. If not, they won’t. That, and several other bus stops along Bothell Way (170th, 77th, 80th, 83rd, 96th, etc.) will close requiring many people to walk further to get to a bus stop.
With no Metro service along Bothell Way, riders between LFP/Kenmore/Bothell and Lake City / Wedgwood / U Village / central UW campus will need to make an awkward transfer somewhere along 145th Street. (for riders to central campus, transferring to the new 72 bus will still be faster than taking a bus to 147th Station –> Link –> walking from Husky Stadium)
A continuous bus lane will mean faster travel times, but that’s cold comfort if (like me) your local bus stop will be closed and it’s a 5-7 minute walk to the next bus stop.
S3 will mean I have longer walks, more transfers, and less frequent service. Why exactly should I support the S3 project?
Whoops, can’t edit post. 3rd paragraph should say “Metro will be asking WSDOT to allow them to make a left turn from the right bus lane to get from NB Lake City Way to WB 145th Street.”
Yep Ross pretty much said the truth here. I too was not a supporter of ST3 in 2016..
To be historical, most of ST3 are projects were the also-rans for ST2 — and the compromise in ST2 was that they would simply study those corridors. That put those corridors in the front seat for ST3 even though they weren’t great from the outset..
And let’s not forget that the DSTT2 between Westlake and SODO was not studied beforehand. It appeared out of the blue by ST staff in 2016. It’s that part of ST 3 that had the worst cost estimates and the least amount of study, cost estimating or community feedback. And because all of the subareas are paying for it, all subareas must deal with this core problem.
The federal government’s funded a hsr study for the portland to vancouver route. It’s just half a million in money so the amount isn’t really the big deal but more in being selected by the program and the future potential for actual funding by the federal government. A secondary one I really didn’t expect is recreating the North Coast Hiawatha (Chicago to Seattle).
Personally, I agree with the article last week favoring upgrading amtrak cascades using the existing route with third tracking rather than a full hsr. For the north coast hiawatha, I honestly don’t know much about how feasible it is (freight traffic, possible speed) it seems mainly for Montana, but either way it would help spokane to seattle frequencies I’d imagine.
> Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-created Corridor ID Program. The program establishes a new planning framework for future investments, and corridor selections announced today stand to upgrade 15 existing rail routes, establish 47 extensions to existing and new conventional corridor routes, and advance 7 new high-speed rail projects, creating a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects ready for future investment. Project selections include: …
Cascadia High-Speed Rail, a proposed new high-speed rail corridor linking Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver, with entirely new service;
> The proposed corridor would connect Vancouver, Canada to Portland, OR, via Seattle, WA, with
a potential future extension south to Eugene, OR. The proposed corridor would provide new
high-speed rail service on a new alignment. The corridor sponsor would enter Step 1 of the
program to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or
documenting its service development plan.
> North Coast Hiawatha (Up to $500,000) Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority
The proposed corridor would restore a connection between Chicago, IL, and Seattle, WA, or Portland, OR, through Milwaukee, WI; La Crosse, WI; Eau Claire, WI; St. Paul, MN; Fargo,ND; Bismarck, ND; Dickson, ND; Glendive, MT; Billings, MT; Bozeman, MT; Butte, MT; Helena, MT; Missoula, MT; St. Regis, MT; Sandpoint, ID; Spokane, WA; and Pasco, WA. The proposed corridor would provide new service (restoring a route that Amtrak discontinued in 1979) on an existing alignment. The corridor sponsor would enter Step 1 of the program to develop a scope, schedule, and cost estimate for preparing, completing, or documenting its service development plan.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/12/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-billions-to-deliver-world-class-high-speed-rail-and-launch-new-passenger-rail-corridors-across-the-country/
Full details here: https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2023-12/FY22%20CID%20Project%20Summaries-Map-r1.pdf#page=18. (Last page has a helpful map)
WL, the North Coast Limited can’t go through both Butte and Helena; the tortuous old GN line between the two cities was long ago (early BN) torn up because of its unsustainable costs to operate. To access Butte, BN goes west from Helena to Garrison and heads south on what was until recently all MRL trackage except the very end. As I understand it, BNSF kept the trackage from just west of Silver Bow into Butte so that UP couldn’t connect with MRL.
They (BN) also kept the trackage east of Butte over Homestake Pass, for the same reason. It is out of service and derelict, for about five miles east of the summit where it becomes a spur serving a mine to the north which is (for a brief while yet) owned by MRL.
I suppose if Amtrak wanted to spend a lot of money to run over a very steep and windy line, they could revamp Homestake, but Helena is just about half way between Great Falls and Butte, and it has the Montana government, which will never wither entirely, whereas Butte is on its butte from the loss of mining.
The NCL will run through Helena; there might Ambuses between Great Falls and Butte that connect at Helena, though.
I think Amtrak Cascades should look at what the Capitol Corridor is doing with their Vision Implementation Plan [https://www.capitolcorridor.org/vision-plan/]. The fact remains we need upgraded Cascades in 2030 (more likely 2035) instead of a bullet train in 2050. They should buy the tracks in the laces that freight trains don’t really go, and construct tracks parallel to existing ones in places that have heavy freight traffic. Depending on how straight the tracks are (as curves dramatically reduce speed), either passenger trains or freight trains can use them. Then grade seperate, electrify, and upgrade tracks to get a quality passenger rail line like those in Europe.
We need Amtrak Cascades upgraded in the near term and HSR in the long term. Given the time it takes to create a brand new transportation corridor, planning for HSR needs to start now in parallel with Amtrak Cascades planning.
It would be worth looking at opportunities where Cascades and HSR can share a new corridor, speeding up Cascades and making it more reliable by reducing conflicts with freight traffic. Those could be the first phases of HSR, providing immediate benefit and increasing the benefit of investing in a brand new corridor.