It’s a Link kind of week.
ST has new West Seattle Link station area concepts, reviewed by The Urbanist and the West Seattle Blog.
The Link reduction January 12-February 4 is still on.
Othello Station will get “variable information signs” installed starting December 15th. There have been announcements about these at other stations. I assume they’re like the TV monitors installed at Westlake this year? The Westlake ones have messages about ballgame dates, tourist attractions, and pop trivia. Has anyone seen new displays at other stations in the past couple months?
The cost of car dependency. (CityNerd video)
Tracing a 1904 Stockholm streetcar map. (ASMRctica video)
This is an open thread.
I noticed that new screens have been installed at Columbia City, but they weren’t on. About time we have some modern information signs.
I saw those today and were turned on. It looks like it runs on Windows 10, by the looks of the networking page that was displayed.
Is there a turnback/switch pocket at just north of Westlake station? I recall trains sitting there pre-2015 when Link didn’t serve north of Westlake. If so, couldn’t trains end at Westlake rather than the UW during the service disruption next month? This would quicken shuttle travel times and spare a lot of riders from having to get on the shuttle in the first place.
The Pine Street stub was short.
In the Urbanist piece on West Seattle stations, ST shows the Avalon Station straddling 35th Avenue SW. This is a great improvement. Riders will not be asked to cross the busy arterial at grade.
Note the station diagrams. Why does ST so often fail to place north at the top of its maps?
Note SODO station. Why not connect the West Seattle line into the DSTT right away? Why is the shuttle operation necessary until the DSTT 2 is added?
ST thinks DSTT1 can’t support more than 3-minute frequency without capital upgrades. There was an ST3 candidate project to make those upgrades, but it was deselected when ST chose DSTT2 instead. 3-minute frequency is 20 trains per hour. At peak hours with all lines running every 8 minutes, that’s 24 trains per hour, or 4 over. West Seattle could fit at half-frequency (every 16 minutes), but I’m sure the people pushing for West Seattle Link wouldn’t want 16-minute frequency.
The problem is, Sound Transit has never justified why DSTT2 over whatever capital upgrades are needed to achieve the needed capacity in DSTT1. Given that DSTT2 costs billions, making sure you really need it before deciding to do it is just basic fiscal responsibility.
It’s like they intentionally dismissed the cheaper option in order to promote the more expensive option.
Yes, but that’s not related to why ST won’t run West Seattle in the tunnel in the interim.
Maybe somebody needs to tell Dow that voters would be happier with West Seattle-Northgate trains at half-frequency than a stub.
Why should “the people pushing for West Seattle Link” determine the future of the entire region-wide system? The stub will attract almost no riders, except those traveling south or beyond downtown to Link destinations. That’s not nobody, but it’s not many “somebodies”.
Let’s say that both the RV and East Link branches are running at eight minute headways. That’s seven and a half trains per hour on each line (the first hour there wouldn’t be an eighth train; it would run during the second hour of a pair). That means trains are going through the tunnel every four minutes if the starting times for the two-hour cycle of either East or Central Link is offset by four minutes. That is, assume that East Link starts the 8 AM to 9:59 AM cycle of eight then seven trains on the hour leaving Northgate. Central Link would then start its two-hour cycle of seven then eight trains at four after the hour. [Note: these are an example]
Here’s the schedule for Line 2: 8:00, 8:08, 8:16, 8:24, 8:32, 8:40, 8:48, 8:56, 9:04, 9:12, 9:20, 9:28, 9:36, 9:44, 9:52, 10:00…
Here it is for Line 1: 8:04, 8:12, 8:20, 8:28, 8:36, 8:44, 8:52, 9:00, 9:08, 9:16, 9:24, 9:32, 9:40, 9:48, 9:56, 10:04..,
That makes for even headways in the shared section. Obviously there will be deviations from the scheduled ideal, but overall trains will come evenly.
But if, instead, the Line 1 trains follow the Line 2 trains out of Nortgate only three minutes later. Since Line 1 will have to turn back at Northgate as soon as FW Link opens, it will be very reliable in its departure from Northgate, though the turnback would need to be double-seated to reverse within eight minutes. But, once reversed and at the platform, there would be nobody getting off, and relatively fewer new arrivals to board. This leaves a five-minute gap between that Line 1 departure and the next Line 2 trains which gives a minute of slack time for the Line 3 that would be scheduled to leave Northgate two minutes after the Line 1 departs. Yes, this would make the schedule on Link between Northgate and Lynnwood not perfectly consistent. Trains would be scheduled 5-3-5-3-5-3…. That’s not the end of the world.
Since more people would be choosing to ride Line 2 beyond downtown Seattle, having the leading Line 3 be close to it would accommodate a marginally larger number of arrivals at each station.
This might require installing platform doors on North Link stations in order to ensure that there are no door holders,
Yeah, and then complicating things is Ballard Link. But as folks have mentioned, they really don’t need to improve things that much. We don’t need to run trains every two minutes all day through downtown. Not even close. There are basically two options:
1) Ballard Stub. This would mean that all the trains run past Capitol Hill. It is unlikely all three trains go to Lynnwood. One of the trains (most likely the one from SeaTac/Tacoma) turns back at Northgate.
Now consider the timing. In the middle of the day, each line runs every 10 minutes. Between downtown and Northgate, it would be trains every 3 minutes, 20 seconds. North of Northgate, there would be a mixed pattern, with a train every 6 minutes, 40 seconds, then every 3 minutes 20 seconds. (The trains would not be that exactly timed, but that would be official schedule, even if it isn’t published.) This mixed pattern is less than ideal, but much better than any part of the line right now.
During peak, you might run the trains every 7.5 minutes. Here is where you would need to make the station improvements. But you are only running trains every 2 minutes 30 seconds (an improvement of only 30 seconds). North of Northgate, you again have that mixed pattern, but with smaller gaps. You have a lot of trains going to Lynnwood. That is more trains than if you ran trains every 4 minutes to Lynnwood (which is probably more than we need). But if for some reason we needed more trains going to the north (e. g. after a big celebration) we could simply send them all to Lynnwood.
2) Ballard branch. In this case, two trains go north (to Lynnwood) and one goes to Ballard. This is similar, you just shift things around a bit. Through downtown, you have trains every 2.5 minutes during rush hour. North of Westlake, trains run that mixed 2.5/5 minute pattern (during peak).
In the first case, you would essentially be done with West Seattle Link as soon as it reaches Ballard. In the second case, you could potentially take the first approach initially (all trains go to Northgate) or you could wait until Ballard Link is done, and one set of the trains gets sent there. Or you could have a mix, if you found a place to put the trains (between SoDo and CID). During peak, riders would be asked to transfer. Outside of peak, they wouldn’t.
Which brings up a crucial element of this. It is only during peak that you are running trains less than every three minutes. That only happens a few hours each day. It is quite possible that you could take this approach right now, and very rarely encounter any bunching. It is worth noting that bunching is really not the worst thing in the world. Yes, it is irritating when you have to wait a few seconds for your train, but there are a lot worse things (like really bad stations, really bad transfers — the type of things we are planning on building).
There are trade-offs with each approach. The first option requires that a bigger section be able to have better headways (2 minutes 30 seconds) but it also means better overall headways. That is the dirty little secret about the second tunnel — it doesn’t increase headways where they are needed. If we get crowding, it won’t be downtown, it will be between downtown and the UW. Current plans do nothing about that. Doing the work to support 2.5 minute headways from downtown to Northgate would.
Personally, I think the best option for Ballard Link is to have a stub. It is awkward for riders — they have fewer one seat rides — but the trade-offs are substantial. Sending all three lines (or just two, if we don’t build West Seattle Link) up to Northgate eliminates any potential crowding we would have. If we do build West Seattle Link, it is ready the day it reaches SoDo — we don’t have to wait years for Ballard Link. Riders from downtown get good downtown stations, and direct connections to the UW and Northgate. If the train ever makes it to Tacoma, that would be the one that is turned back at Northgate. That means riders from SeaTac to Lynnwood would have to transfer. However, the transfer would be trivial — get off the train, then catch the next one that appears.
At worst the Ballard Line ends at Westlake. Thirty years ago, this was the north end of downtown. Now it is much closer to the middle. It would be crucial that the trains run frequently, which is why it makes sense to have smaller, automated trains. This in turns means smaller stations (which increases flexibility and saves money). With the train not connecting with the main line (at least not in-service) it could be extended, towards First Hill. This would be quite similar to what Frank proposed a while back, but the pink line (labeled 3) would go from Ballard to Mount Baker, and end there. All the other lines would go to Northgate.
One of the more interesting things is that it up quite a bit of flexibility. If you don’t build West Seattle Link, then the Ballard stub gets built, and everything else is very similar to what will occur in a few years here (trains from Federal Way and Redmond to Lynnwood). If we do build West Seattle Link, we could improve the system to allow all three lines to run through downtown (and up north) during peak. Or we could delay that part, and ask riders from West Seattle to transfer (as long as we have some place for the West Seattle trains to veer off to and stop). Again, the transfer would be trivial (get off the train — get back on the next one). This wouldn’t be fun, but it would only occur during peak. This would be much better than what they are planning for that period now, while the long term solution (improving headways) would likely be way cheaper and better than a second tunnel.
Very well said and comprehensive, Ross. I can take exception only to the mooted junction of Ballard with the main tunnel. You know I believe that actually connecting Ballard to the main tunnel other than for non-revenue “service” runs would be a hell of a construction project so I won’t belabor it, and I don’t want to take away from your excellent exposition of the “Three In The Tunnel and a Ballard Stub” solution. It’s by far the best from a rider perspective and it costs a bundle less to achieve; you outlined it clearly. It might actually be within North King’s financial capacity.
DSTT2 is not, and even Sound Transit can occasionally be heard muttering things like, “Damn! Those mouthy punks over at STB are right: we can’t afford this!” under it’s breath.
“Why should “the people pushing for West Seattle Link” determine the future of the entire region-wide system?”
Why should West Seattle Link exist? It’s a political reality. Average ST voters; i.e., suburban single-family homeowners, see West Seattlites as like them, so doing anything against West Seattle is like doing something against them, or they may be next. Politicians pander to that so that they can keep getting reelected.
In the case of West Seattle, I feel like the region should require that better station area land use is needed to at least bring the forecasts back up to what was promised in 2016. As currently planned, it’s down 30-40 percent from 2016. I think that the Board generally needs to set some guidance metrics based on ridership, and if a station area can’t meet them then the project gets shelved. That way we don’t spend billions to benefit only a handful of riders.
If West Seattle wants Link, they should accompany that want with much more dense development planning that includes regional destinations. Things like:
1. Moving the West Seattle Golf Course, and replacing it with a dense urban village and active community park.
2. Proposing a new regional destination like a major college or new pro sports and event arena with commitments to build it.
3. Enlarging the station area upzonings two or three blocks outward in every direction (or no single family blocks within 1/3 of a mile from a station entrance).
Bluntly put, West Seattle — even with the limited area upzoning near the Junction — doesn’t currently have the land used that make it a better destination than many other areas within Seattle.
Oh, I forgot to say that the “place for the West Seattle trains to veer off to and stop” already exists: the pocket just south of Stadium. Trains from West Seattle could be scheduled to arrive at SoDo two minutes before a train from the Rainier Valley and duck into the pocket with time to spare for the RV train to continue. Since they will presumably be running every eight minutes, the turnout at the pocket should then be lined for them easily before arrival. West Seattle trains should be very punctual since they’ll stop only twice after leaving The Junction before arriving at SoDo.
The train will wait in the pocket for the next southbound RV train, and then pull out immediately behind it, wait for the RV train to clear the SoDo platform, and then load passengers.
No, it won’t work perfectly every time; occasionally the WS train will have to wait for the next southbound RV train to pass which will occupy the pocket too long, meaning that the following northbound WS train will have to cool its heels south of SoDo so that it doesn’t foul the track at the pocket, waiting for it to clear. That means riders would wait at SoDo for six or seven minutes instead of two, and they would have burned three or four during the wait.
That shouldn’t happen often, though, because the line to the north of Stadium is all grade-separated.
“… your excellent exposition of the “Three In The Tunnel and a Ballard Stub” solution. It’s by far the best from a rider perspective and it costs a bundle less to achieve; you outlined it clearly. It might actually be within North King’s financial capacity.“
Agreed 1000 percent! DSTT with 3 lines plus Ballard stub is also probably more “consistent with ST3” than the current preferred alternative is anyway! Plus it appears doable with available ST3 funds!
I would suggest adding “automated” when discussing a Ballard stub. The platforms and subway station vaults in SLU would be up to 50 percent smaller. Note too that automated trains can include a manual control override if needed to reach an OMF, although I would prefer a new small OMF in Interbay.
That said, there are many advantages:
1. No CID disruption.
2. Better same direction transfers.
3. Cost savings of several billions of dollars to perhaps fit into ST3 funding.
4. West Seattle riders get direct trains through DSTT on day one (no need for the West Seattle stub period).
5. Less SLU construction disruption.
6. Trains through Downtown on both lines every 3-4 minutes.
7. No major system shutdowns needed during construction once the West Seattle branch is built.
8. Possible shallower stations in SLU due to reduced vault sizes.
9. Potential extensions of the stub to Capitol Hill, First Hill or both beyond ST3.
10. Opportunities to build a branch north of Northgate for the new third line (like to Lake City or Aurora) beyond ST3.
It just makes so much sense to me as a rider and taxpayer both. As someone who lives near Columbia City Station, it offers to me a faster trip across the region — as opposed to the DSTT2 system that will add 5-10 minutes anywhere in or through Downtown because the proposed stations are so deep that getting in and out of them will be a major hassle, especially with someone like me who finds using stairs often painful.
One unknown would be how the Westlake transfer would work for us riders. That would need considerable new study. Should it stop at Olive with a level walkway to the current platform? Would the geometry work better if the transfer was at University Street or Capitol Hill? Could the track be cut and cover and run on the mezzanine level? Could the track turn 90 degrees and the new platform be parallel to the existing ones? Once a Ballard stub alternative is chosen there are many new design constraints and opportunities to face. However these appear an order of magnitude easier to build than the current monstrous Westlake Station layout.
Al S, there had been previous discussions on how to connect the Ballard stub at Westlake.
If all you’re doing is a stub, then Olive cut&cover with a connection to the mezzanine makes the most sense.
As Ross mentioned I think we should leave an option to continue to First Hill and ultimately Mt Baker. Somebody had proposed to run the line along 6th Ave under the existing line and place escalators on the east end of both of the current Westlake platforms connecting with a center platform on the new line. That way a transfer in any direction is possible.
I agree that an underground connection to DSTT1 would be expensive. If you continue the line to Mt Baker, you could add a single line connection for far less. In the meantime you could build a small OMF at Interbay. I strongly recommend automated trains. Such trains could be parked automatically in the tunnel at night.
Al, sure there must be some sort of cleaning and inspection facility in Interbay. Since it makes sense to have the line be automated, maybe that’s the place to have an “automation electronics” MF, but it makes sense to have the mechanical stuff in one or two places. I can see each MF “specializing” in one or another aspect of maintenance: interiors and control, running gear and traction power.
Martin, I with I weren’t just a “somebody”, but I guess that’s the way it is for folks not in the “in crowd”.
“wish” not “with”
And, “No, an underground connection to DSTT1” would not be very expensive. It would be only four blocks long if it followed Third north to Stewart, then Stewart to Westlake, and then Westlake to Sixth. A trailing point cross-over just north of the curve from Westlake into Sixth would put trains returning from heavy maintenance on the northbound track. The intersections between Stewart and both Third and Westlake are at “obtuse” angles, making the change in direction less tight. The line could run along the north curb of Stewart west of Fourth and swing across the street to get an easier bend into Westlake east of Fourth.
The connection would be just a one track and would connect to the southbound Spine track at the Third and Pine curve. This would require closing the Spine tunnel long enough to demise the wall, clean up the mess, and cut in the turnout. A “siding” within the body of University Street Station with one of a pair of facing-point turnouts at each end would put those same trains returning from heavy maintenance temporarily on the northbound Spine track between the station and the curve. It’s only three blocks, so the relatively minor delay to southbounds would be in the form of a longer stop at Westlake. Since an automated Ballard line would most likely be composed of shorter trains, parking three shorter cars on the siding while a southbound clears would minimize the wait for the following train at Westlake. The siding would be cut in at the same time that the operation at the Pine Street curve took place, though the mid-station trackway could be built at night in the weeks previous.
MOST moves using this non-revenue trackage would be made in the wee hours of the morning with hardly a ripple of disturbance. It would only be an emergency that would demand running against traffic during normal operations.
“1. No CID disruption.
2. Better same direction transfers.
3. Cost savings of several billions of dollars to perhaps fit into ST3 funding.
4. West Seattle riders get direct trains through DSTT on day one (no need for the West Seattle stub period).
5. Less SLU construction disruption.”
It’s kind of amazing how some of our recommendations end up doing what the “No CID2 Station” activists want, what the West Seattle Link advocates want, what the less-disruption people want, and what the tax-cutters want, even though we have different reasons for them or don’t necessarily think the objections are reasonable.
Sorry, Tom, I didn’t remember what you had proposed vs others. I just remember that it was a good idea… Thanks for the clarification on the non-revenue track.
Thank you, Martin. I appreciate your willingness to tackle the big questions and think outside the box. It has made a real difference for me; I can say specifically that I now see that “ropeways” have a real place for certain applications.
I get that the City doesn’t want the streets opened up, but there is really nowhere near Westlake Center (other than the street rights-of-way) that a station can be built without major demolition. Other cities have done it; yeah, it’s a fuster-cluck for a few months while the hole gets deep enough to add decking, but then things get a lot better and in the end, building on public land is cheaper, even if the impacts are temporarily more difficult.
Figured some levity was needed in light of the last few posts. Here’s some funny Almost Live! skits that feel relatable to getting around in the sound.
Ballard Driving Academy
https://youtu.be/KBgIvH0tu6Y?si=JaMC7WNy_Ne7vnnE
Pike or Pine
https://youtu.be/DJsOYV-XXes?si=8wPWgjhDkEdqvUlY
Eastside Tourism Promo
https://youtu.be/idqtQxas14s?si=hnf-T3_9MVCT0W41
The old REI was on the west side of 11th Avenue East south of Pine Street. It was not on 12th Avenue East. It became a Value Village.
The other amusing one is like Neighbours on Broadway, it’s technically on neither Pike or Pine.
Wow…REI was on Cap Hill?
Yep. I remember that place fondly. Still have a bunch of misc. gear (hiking, camping, biking) purchased from there back in those days.
Yes, it was at 11th & Pine in the 70s and 80s. A old rambling building with sprawling rooms and ramps in random directions, and a big freight elevator in the window. When REI built its flagship store on Eastlake with the climbing wall, Value Village took over part of the old building. I don’t remember what’s in the building now.
The Vogue (goth/industrial club) was at 1st & Virginia but it moved to 11th across the street from Value Village, until it closed around 2000 when it got a 3X rent increase. And the Elliott Bay Bookstore was in Pioneer Square at 1st & Main but it moved to 10th on the next street, and is still there.
The Vogue moved up from Belltown in 2000, but the 11th Ave location didn’t close till late 2006. I have many fond (if hazy) memories of nights spent dancing there, often concluding with a 2 AM pilgrimage to the Mercury (may it remain forever undead).
To include a modicum of ostensibly transit-related content, I will observe that one reason I left Belltown and moved up to Capitol Hill was a desire to reduce the amount of money I was spending on cab fare getting home from these outings. The only other transit option back then was the Night Owl bus service, not something one would willingly rely on. Had the light rail service from Capitol Hill to Westlake existed back then, I might still be enjoying sunset views of Elliott Bay and buying groceries at Pike Place to this day!
My sense of time must be warped, or I went to the Vogue longer than I thought. I remember going to the Virginia location in the early 90s, and then after several years, going to the 11th location. There was one wonderful year, I think 1999-2000, where I met a bunch of friends who went to the Vogue or worked there. Then with the dotcom crash some of them moved away and in a couple years they were all gone or no longer social, and I thought the Vogue closed soon after that. But that latter period of dwindling must have extended for more years than I thought, or I’m conflating two periods into one. (There’s that word “conflating” again.) I’ve never been to the Mercury much; I’ll have to see if it’s still around.
“one reason I left Belltown and moved up to Capitol Hill was a desire to reduce the amount of money I was spending on cab fare getting home from these outings.”
And the reason the Vogue moved from Belltown was that some of its non-straight clients didn’t feel safe on 1st Avenue. In the 70s and 80s First Avenue had a couple hundred prostitutes each night, and being gay wasn’t as acknowledged or accepted.
I lived in the northern U-District when I went to the Vogue in the early 2000s on Fridays and sometimes Saturday or Sunday. (And we tried to have a ska night on Monday or Tuesday but it got less than fifty people and lasted six weeks.) Luckily the U-District had the closest to 24-hour frequent buses, so I walked to Fairview & Denny to take the last 73 home at 1:45am. Or if I’d miss it, I took the 2:15 night owl 83 at 4th & Union.
The REI on 10th, later Value Village, is now a bar with virtual golf. I went in to ask if it really has golf or the bags of clubs are just decorations. The guy said it’s virtual golf. I asked, what’s virtual golf? He said you have a real club and ball and strike the ball at a screen.
Capitol Hill, first with axe throwing, now with virtual golf.
Looking at the Avalon Station diagrams, it appears that a mezzanine will be needed. It looks quite deep in order to bore under buildings for the tail track. The arrows mask this extra level.
Generally, I also dont see any explanation about the heights or depths of these stations. Station depths matter because each foot requires more station vault digging.. The drawings appear to be PR eyewash as opposed to revealing to me. Heck, we can’t tell how many escalators and elevators will be in a station!
> Looking at the Avalon Station diagrams, it appears that a mezzanine will be needed. It looks quite deep in order to bore under buildings for the tail track. The arrows mask this extra level.
There’s no mezzanine. Well to clarify I’m assuming you’re looking at the urbanist one which specifies the “retained cut” option. I guess it is a bit messy since they’ve adjusted them all but the currently chosen are:
* Medium Tunnel 41st Avenue Station Alternative in the West Seattle Junction segment, incorporating refinement to West Entrance that shifts station entrance to 42nd Avenue Southwest.
* The Andover Street Station Lower Height Alternative in the Delridge segment, incorporating refinement that shifts the alignment south towards Southwest Yancy Street.
* The South Crossing Alternative in the Duwamish segment.
* The At-grade Alternative Staggered Station Configuration in the SODO segment, incorporating refinement that enhances access from the platform to South Lander Street.
> Generally, I also dont see any explanation about the heights or depths of these stations. Station depths matter because each foot requires more station vault digging
Avalon station is 30 feet deep. This option was a retained cut, it’s most similar to CID station.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/west-seattle-and-ballard-link-extensions-station-planning-progress-report-avalon.pdf#page=16
Delridge station is 60/35 (platform) feet high instead of 110/ 85 (platform) ft high. At the cost of more tunneling making it more expensive
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/west-seattle-and-ballard-link-extensions-station-planning-progress-report-delridge.pdf#page=11
Alaska Junction Station, I can’t quite tell as this is the modified variant. But they chose the deeper one not the shallow station so somewhere around 70/80 feet (not the short tunnel 55 feet deep one) There’s going to be 3 underground levels (2 underground mezzanines/levels) then finally the station platform
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/west-seattle-and-ballard-link-extensions-station-planning-progress-report-alaska-junction.pdf#page=17
Oops!. My mistake!
I meant the Alaska Junction station! Avalon does not need a mezzanine as you say.
Kirkland loses transit service to/from Seattle Jan 12-Jan 4 evenings and weekends. Sucks to be Kirkland. Redmond, Issaquah get better treatment.
255 got truncated to UW with promise for good evening frequencies instead. That promise is broken. 255 frequencies dropped to 30 minutes evenings after 7pm due to driver shortage. Maybe Metro would staff those runs? Nope, multiple days this week cancelled runs during 30 minute headway service. Someone going to combine that with 26 minute Link headways or weekend shuttle buses? Unusable.
Metro ridership is still down significantly from the Before Times.
I rarely have to sit next to anyone. (Well then, I just stand.). I suspect Metro’s standards for when service can be reduced due to excess space has not caught up with the new normal.
I still see passengers masking up at a much higher rate than I see people masking up at sportsball events.
Seattle is still protecting its routes with funding.
Zoom is still a thing.
I hope Metro is communicating its continued operator shortage to ST, but it doesn’t sound like it from yesterday’s resolution. I hope CT is also communicating. But ST’s funding of its routes may be keeping Metro and CT treating STX service as cuts of last resort.
I realize the easily-restructurable routes 560 and 566 are PT-operated. That ought to make it easier to invoke those restructures, in line with the resolution.
Fully staffing March’s Orange Swift Line route restructure ought to take priority over STX 510 bypassing Northgate for a few more months.
I hope Metro makes some effort to time the 255 to Link’s latest maintenance-slowdown schedule, and ST works with Metro on said timing.
And I hope COVID fizzles out some time soon.
Peace on Earth y’all! May Santa’s sleigh not be down for maintenance!
“But ST’s funding of its routes may be keeping Metro and CT treating STX service as cuts of last resort.”
ST Express has a tiny number of routes compared to Metro, so it’s not taking many drivers from it.
Kirkland residents have become accustomed to facing challenges in cross-lake transit, particularly since the ill-conceived truncation of the 255 at UW Station. Traveling to Capitol Hill or downtown has become a source of frustration, especially when the Montlake entrance/exits or 520 are closed (which happens about half of the weekends and most mid-evenings to the end of service). This renders the service unpredictably useless, leading to significant detours.
For many, it is more predictable to take a bus to Woodinville or Kenmore and then transfer to the 522 to reach Roosevelt Station for downtown Seattle. Alternatively, one can opt for a bus (or two) to downtown Bellevue and then catch the 550 to Seattle. The issue intensifies in January, compelling individuals to either drive or abstain from travel altogether.
The inconvenience is particularly evident for those on the 255 route seeking destinations south of 520 (such as Capitol Hill or downtown). The added transfer to light rail becomes a less appealing option, especially given the frequent disruptions caused by 520 construction or light rail issues. As someone who is a 100% discretionary transit rider, the overall experience has been deliberately made uninviting for quite some time.
Was just reviewing the Sound Transit Progress Report for October 2023 for the agency’s capital program to check on the progress of the plinth rebuilds for the East Link project.
First a reminder….
“Project Float East Link was baselined with 273 days of program float and is currently forecast to finish 785 days behind the target Revenue Service Date of June 30, 2023. As the E130 contractor is starting to meet its anticipated production rates for plinth reconstruction. Although the forecast completion date may continue to slide to some extent, it is still within the expected range for completion based on internal estimates. As presented to the Sound Transit Board in December 2022, timing and sequencing for multiple project openings has been revised following the program-wide risk assessment, with a new target for East Link opening set for Spring 2025. As part of this assessment, it was determined that the pre-revenue period should be increased from 3 to 6 months.”
The latest report has this little nugget in the “Risk Management” discussion:
“Late Discovery of Contractor Quality Issues: Non-conforming DF plinth reconstruction, and nylon insert replacement on E130 is the most significant schedule and cost impact on the project schedule. The contractor has significantly increased production and is estimating completion of the nylon insert replacement before end of year 2023. DF plinth build back continues to slip, and we are entering the winter work window, which could delay further. Late emergent issues are highly problematic during this late stage of the project due to the lack of time to recover and adhere to the planned schedule.”
Hmmm. Would a capital program “czar” as envisioned by the TAG being in place by now have changed where things are currently at with this project at all? Other thoughts?
Thanks for monitoring this!
I am not involved in the rail construction history so I can’t speak to the details. As an armchair observer, I do not understand why merely laying rails is proving so time consuming. (I have a similar observation about platform tiles.)
I do notice construction lights and crews every night if I drive the corridor. I think the contractors are trying.
We are forecasted to have a drier winter than normal and that should help the schedule.
I remain amazed that ST executive staff did not prioritize getting one track fully finished so that vehicles from East OMF sooner. I’m also amazed that a one station extension to KDM was not prioritized when the landslide south of there happened. I’m also amazed that what seems as almost routine replacement or work requires such drastic service cutbacks for so many weeks.
Even if the new CEO only stays a little while, I hope and pray that the Board hires a CEO that is first and foremost laser focused at getting East Link open ASAP. It should already be open!
You want ST to fix only half the plinth issue, bring that track into service, and then continue working on the immediately adjacent plinths? Not sure that makes any sense
It’s not just “laying rails”. It’s laying rails on a hollow concrete box without disrupting the “concrete girders” that support the old reversible roadway. Trains are a hell of a lot heavier than passenger cars, which is what the reversible lanes were built to accommodate, so the structure is probably stressed into the Orange zone just having a train sit on it. The additional stresses from dynamic forces — there are two fairly sharp curves in the old reversible section — only makes things worse.
So they have these little concrete pads to spread the weight from the rails into the girder structure, and they had better be tough, because they’re going to be squeezed and jiggled every eight minutes for at least thirty years.
He Who Shall Not Be Named was worried about this, and I have to agree. I’m confident that the engineers have done good calculations of the stresses, but do they really understand how concrete in a constantly wet environment will stand up to those periodic compression stresses? I hope they do, because it would be a catastrophe of the first order for a significant crack to open in one of the pontoons.
Apologies, the plinths don’t have anything to do with the pontoons. Ignore the last paragraph, though it is true for the floating part of the bridge. The plinths are on the old reversible roadway where it’s on structure above land.
Exactly, Tom. The problem plinths are not on the floating bridge. It’s laying rail track inland, like what has been done since the mid 1800’s.
I’m sure the requirements today are much different than the Transcontinental Railroad requirements were. However, those tracks were intended for heavy locomotives as opposed to electric catenaries and they also built many bridges and tunnels stretching over 1000 miles. Nite too that the problem plinths appear to just be for only a few miles of East Link rather than the whole line.
I must further observe that if tracks are being replaced these past 2 years rather than built anew. It would seem to me to take less time to do. Seeing tracks still being replaced this past month also has me wondering about the East Link opening date.
Had this be a single incidence of delay it would be different. But ST seems to accept taking longer to do things these days than they did prior to Covid — from platform tiles to Hilltop to this. It leaves me wondering if the current executive staff ever pushes back on the schedules that staff or contractors propose. An experienced CEO would. Every day that service is disrupted or hasn’t started affects thousands of riders. It’s not a vanity project to riders like it is to certain elected officials.
This is a key reason why I want ST to hire a CEO that foremost knows how to get things built and operating. Not an FTA executive. Not a figurehead who got to run a new smaller rail system that was just built. Not a local political consensus builder who is known by local officials for presenting plans. There are many light rail systems operating today in the US where someone could have already proven their skill on this.
I’ve even wondered if ST staff and Board ever want the system to begin operations. Once open, riders will quickly see the “warts” like the escalator problems at UW station or the huge transfer hassle proposed with DSTT2. It’s easier and more appealing to show planning diagrams of stations and alignments than to operate a fully working system each and every day..
Al, laying track on graded earth is a far cry from attaching it to an aging concrete girder, which is what the roadway structure on the reversible roadway is. Worse, it’s often elevated, even if only a few feet.
But your wider point is very well made: project oversight has been almost absent, and that’s a potentially deadly omission.
Any word what day in March 2024 that the Eastside Starter Line is to open or when they’ll announce it? Seems to always be a Saturday.
North Carolina is implementing two brt’s soon, been exciting seeing other American cities implement brt’s. In general its been quite surprising seeing these medium/smaller cities move relatively quickly into building brt’s while other larger cities like los angeles and chicago have struggled.
A major factor that makes these BRT’s more buildable than the past proposals are much larger use of curbside transit lanes (like seattle’s bat lanes), though Chapel Hill still proposed center transit lanes for the downtown portion (similar to richmond’s brt). I guess on a bit more sobering note is they realize they will probably won’t qualify for streetcar/tram funds so there’s not much debating on what mode.
More details:
Raleigh is implementing Wake BRT in a n/w/s/e fashion and starting with the east corridor (New Bern Avenue). It’ll start construction 2024 and finish summer 2025
> Approximately 3.3 miles of the 5.1-mile corridor will use dedicated transit lanes between the GoRaleigh Station, in downtown Raleigh, and Sunnybrook Road. BRT will share the general traffic lanes for the remainder of the corridor between Sunnybrook Road and New Hope Road
https://cityofraleigh0drupal.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/drupal-prod/COR28/brt-new-bern-fall-23-handout.pdf
Chapel Hill nearby is also planning on implementing a BRT though they are not starting construction till 2026.
> The proposed project includes 5.7 miles of exclusive bus lanes (out of 8)
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2023-03/NC-chapel-hill-north-south-bus-rapid-transit-project-profile-FY22.pdf
Since we talked about Seatac connections for rapidride H/Stride 1/route 560, I was wondering what everyone thinks about the future second terminal Seatac and elevated bus way proposed between them (for an intra airport bus).
I actually wonder how well the integration will be with king county busses.
Do you have a link to a diagram?
The terminal will be built to the north of the existing one. The elevated bus way will be built just west of the cemetery
https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/230814_SAMP_NTP_Map.pdf
Is the bus on a fixed loop? If so, might it be cheaper to put it on tracks?
Either way, will it be powered by catenary?
“be cheaper to put it on tracks” – not with modern driverless technology. The tracks aren’t needed to ‘guide’ the bus.
Tracks are more energy efficient: the train just follows the track preserving momentum. With a bus, even an automated one, the wheels have to change direction and only have contact at the bottom edge.
I think the new Stride 1 route will be an improvement over the 560, in spite of the extra connection, largely due to increased frequency and having a more reliable bus that does not get stuck in airport traffic.
The current 560 is borderline unusable when it drops to hourly, a period which includes all day weekends, plus weekdays after around 9 PM, a period which includes huge numbers of arriving flights. I just hope that Sound Transit doesn’t cheap out on frequency, and is able to maintain its 15 minute frequency 7 days/week and deep into the evening.
I agree. It is worth pointing out that SeaTac did not dominate ridership. For an eastbound bus, about 25% of the riders boarded there, and 12% got off the bus. Some existing riders will have to transfer, but they will have good transfer options. The increase in frequency will more than make up for that (in my opinion).
It looks like the elevated busway is only for buses connecting the terminals and the car rental lot, so this looks like it will make general bus traffic slower due to the increased length of congestion.
The proportion of the 560’s ridership that comes from SeaTac probably varies a lot depending on the time of day. The bus that I was on left SeaTac at around 10:30 PM on a Wednesday night, and airport travelers were indeed the bus’s entire ridership. I’m sure during rush hour (particularly peak direction), the situation would be reversed, and office commuters would dominate the ridership.
Of course, a lot more people would be willing to ride the bus from the airport if the bus ran more often and didn’t get stuck in traffic.
The elevated bus way stop at the rental car is actually pretty close to the tibs statiion. I wonder if they could just add a small sidewalk to the north of the rental car facility to reach it. I guess if stride 1 builds the center bus station (and the south passenger bridge) it actually not be a bad transfer to use that bus
That would be a long walk from the Stride station to the far side of the rental car facility. If this SeaTac bus is extended all the way to the Stride station – transferring from Link to the airport might be better at TIBS than from the SeaTac station itself, given the long walk at SeaTac.
“cheaping out on frequency” has been the ST pattern.
Occasionally I’ll rent cars from the airport since they are cheaper and more available. I always exit through a non descript exit with an exit only turnstile and walk to Tukwila station instead of riding the bus back to the airport and walking to the airport light rail station… saves quite a bit of time.
I’m even more excited about the people mover connecting the two terminals and the rental car facility but it should be extended to also serve the international terminal and Link. I suggested: https://twitter.com/mixio17/status/1597798385830236160/photo/1
It might even be possible to extend the line a bit further north and add a station towards TIBS which would connect with Stride 1. At that point it would be great to extend RR-H to TIBS.
The People Mover can’t mix post-security-check stations with no-security-check stations.
Also, riders still need to pick up their checked luggage before heading to the rental car facility. Having people rent cars then drive back to the terminal would add to the traffic mess.
Why are they building both an elevated busway for airport buses only AND a people mover to the rental car facility?
The elevated people mover/bus way was always going to be for pre security passengers. Connecting terminal 1, terminal 2 and the rental garage
If I’m reading the documents correctly it seems the people mover was dropped. They planned for it to be an elevated people mover generally following the same alignment I discussed (along the west side of the cemetery) but the current plan shows an elevated busway
Older plan: https://www.theurbanist.org/2017/01/30/sea-tac-airport-sustainable-airport-master-plan-update/
I had not looked at the latest plans… you’re right, WL, it looks like they dropped the people mover idea in favor of an elevated busway which would stop quite a ways from the terminal while a people mover could use a smaller guideway and could be fully automated, very disappointing.
https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/230814_SAMP_NTP_Map.pdf
but it seems the timeline for the extension has slipped, draft NEPA isn’t scheduled until late next year: https://www.portseattle.org/plans/sustainable-airport-master-plan-samp
The nepa is a bit confusing they have like multiple of them for each project. The international arrivals facility is a good example it’s already been implemented/finished
Generally these projects that aren’t outside the existing land will get auto approved since the faa has more power to overrule local objections.
But anyways I do kinda wonder if they’ll let king county busses use the busway or if they want to keep it only for the intra airport bus shuttle
I don’t know the airport well enough to understand the diagram. Where is the Link station? Which way is north? Is the black dashed line at the bottom the busway? Where are its stops at? I’d expect the airport to be longer north-south, but I can’t map the apparent freeways to 518, I-5, or the airport freeway.
> Where is the Link station? Which way is north?
There’s a newly created 2nd terminal in the plan which might be throwing you off if you’re viewing it on google maps. North is facing ‘right’ on that pdf. (https://www.portseattle.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/230814_SAMP_NTP_Map.pdf)
> Is the black dashed line at the bottom the busway? Where are its stops at?
For a clearer plan the original APM one is pretty straight forward, just replaced with the elevated bus way. There’s 3 stops, one at the original “first” terminal (exactly north of the parking garage and west of the link station). Second station at the second terminal, then last station at the rental car facility
https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-27-at-07.42.37.png
Will be good to get the rental car bus out of the Airport Expressway traffic … but I wonder if a better option for Port of Seattle is simply to toll the expressway sufficiently high such that traffic flows and the rental car bus doesn’t sit in traffic. Will also help the off-airport parking shuttles move quicker, and leave the main garage only for the most price-insensitive riders.
As Link extends north and south, it becomes for palatable to push people to pick/drop off passengers away from the airport.
I’ve imagined the idea of Tukwila and Angle Lake station being used as secondary pickup and dropoff points for the airport alleviating congestion.
Some obstacles that would need to be overcome:
– TIBS and Angle Lake don’t have enough vehicular pickup and dropoff capacity to be used for this purpose at scale.
– Link fares would have to be free or people would balk (e.g. $12 for a family of 4 to ride the train one stop is excessive).
– 15 minute frequency after 10 PM is not good enough, considering that lots of flights arrive during the 10 PM-midnight period everyday.
I also think Angle Lake’s parking garage is going to quickly become a white elephant once Link extends further south and the terminus effect is gone. Allowing overnight airport parking in the garage for a reasonable fee would be one way to keep it well utilized. But, of course Sound Transit will not do that because it would compete with private parking operators, and possibly violate some legal fine print. So, the garage will end up just sitting there, empty.
The real motivation for it is to connect terminal 1 and terminal 2 (pre security) passengers. Originally as Martin noted the plans were for an elevated people mover but that’s been downscaled to an elevated busway.
I doubt they’d want to bet on keeping the expressway free enough (even with tolls) for a terminal to terminal shuttle so I’m sure an elevated busway will be built. The connection to the rental car is of course a strong motivation as well to build it but they’re not build it just for that .
I don’t think Sound Transit cares about the private parking operators, legally or politically. SeaTac local government would like to see most of those private surface lots redeveloped into something that generates more taxes.
Instead, the tradeoff is serving overnight SeaTac vs daily commuters, and which of those constituencies has more sway with the board. Once ST has parking management (aka paid daily parking) more broadly deployed, it would be good to figure out a way to facilitate for occasional overnight parking – airport trips is a good example, but also someone parking in the suburbs and taking Link to King Station for an overnight Amtrak trip, or simply someone taking Link for a night out and not getting their car until the next day.
For secondary pick-up/drop-off, slightly further afield would be even more useful, to spread out the kiss-and-ride volume. What would be really nifty is if a plane ticket could be presented as valid fare for that day, much like how a Mariners or Kraken ticket (sometimes) is valid fare. The execution details would be tricky, but high level the Port of Seattle simply needs to sign an agreement with ORCA.
Cost of car dependency: The models of cars offered are driven by buyers of NEW cars, not used cars, very disproportionately wealthier Americans who want and can afford lots of features. We’re in the market for a new car, for the first time in 8 years. It seems that every car on the market today, base models included, include countless electronic features that are unnecessary and prone to failure before I even sell the car. (We are replacing a 2 decade old economy car that we also bought new, base model. We keep up on maintenance and drive them into the ground.) This is likely inflating the price of my choice of vehicles by at least $5,000 to $10,000, based on what the options packages for these features cost 8 years ago. This cost gets passed down to less affluent used car buyers as well, because they do reap the benefits of some of the features, and the seller expects to get some ROI (if very poor) on his car when selling it after a few years, even if his population of buyers isn’t interested in the features he chose and paid for. It’s quite frustrating. Even the Kias and Hyundais are expensive these days and loaded with features. Imagine, purchasing a Hyundai with leather seats and a full package of features, for a few percentages cheaper than a reliable Toyota or Honda!
Aside from some safety features (which will keep down the insurance cost of your new car), I doubt the various electric gizmos (review camera, etc.) cost more than a few bucks for the OEM, otherwise they wouldn’t be in your base model. Those innovations start at the luxury segment when they are higher cost and migrate down to the economy models once the cost is sufficiently deflated.
I do remember when I bought my first Honda, the cheapest model came without air conditions or power windows. I think today they don’t even bother with that level of car because it’s probably more expensive to design a car without A/C and manage the additional SKUs in the factory.
We are in the market for a new 3-row SUV for a family. But I don’t need or want most of the gadgets currently required by the manufacturers and dealerships. And I don’t want used, because I don’t want to deal with the excess wear and tear put on a vehicle by a previous owner who had EVERY intent of selling after 3 or 4 years or when engine lights started turning on, whichever occurs first (how much revving, hard braking, hard steering, offroading, etc was done to the detriment of the engine, alignment, frame, and transmission!?!?). Unfortunately, all that these excess features creates is something else to fail. Take, for example, the “Tire Pressure Sensor” in our current 15-year-old economy car. Back in the early 2000s, these excess and unnecessary engine and component sensors were being introduced as the new best thing. No need to check tire pressure. But, here’s the thing… if I get my oil change every 4 to 6 months, annual tire rotation, etc. I will catch any low tire pressure before it becomes an issue. And a leak will result in a pretty obvious flat in no time. And if I stay up on replacing tires when the treads wear down, I’ll most likely never have a tire pressure problem anyways. Now, I have a light on my dashboard that either needs to stay there permanently, or costs about $500 to $800 to diagnose and repair, hardly a worthwhile cost on a 15 year old car. So it will go with a full-scale infotainment system. We also own a 7-year old car with a scaled back infotainment system. The display has started occasionally “glitching out” and giving weird displays and being unable to change features. (Yes, please switch BACK to the FM radio from the “introduction” screen, for the last time! ALWAYS default to FM! For the love of God!) We usually just use the FM radio, and occasionally the phone/bluetooth… we don’t want or need Serius XM, a touch screen, navigation (we have smartphones with Google Maps already), and whatever else is built into it (frankly, I don’t know, nor care). But it is starting to go bad and is going to result in me asking a dealership to remove the infotainment system completely so I can just drop in a simple and cheap aftermarket FM radio/CD player… probably a labor cost too expensive to justify… and will result in me no longer having a radio in my car. Had they just kept the old school radio/CD with dials and manual buttons with a longevity of 25 to 30 years, I’d be good until I sold the car. Instead, I have a $h!++y infotainment system that I never wanted with a longevity of right around 7 years. And God-knows-how-much to troubleshoot and repair whatever glitch is happening in the very unnecessary computer. I intend to keep the car for at least 8 or 9 years longer. This was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist for about 60% of the population. Most of us were perfectly happy with our radios and CDs until somebody showed us something fancy and new.
My first car was an early 80s Pontiac. It had cruise control and air conditioning that didn’t work. The manual windows were fully operational though.
Designing a car without components should actually not be that difficult. It’s a component that no longer takes up space in the engine (or other) compartment and just results in dead air space, and lower weight.
Someday, I will want a pickup truck. But I won’t want what is sold in the US. I will want something that is lightweight and utilitarian. 1980s – 90s Dakota, Ranger, or Chevy S-10. I learned to drive on a manual transmission Dakota. Great truck. I think Dad got 250,000 miles and about 25 years out of that before retiring it. That was with hauling LOTS of tools and lumber, as a professional carpenter. And a few family camping trips with lots of gear. Maybe I can import something from China or Mexico or Europe…….
Most new American cars available are SUVs and trucks because they have a high profit margin. The same with non-required gizmos. And granite countertops in kitchens.
Neil Postman talked about this in the 1990s.
One of his lectures have even been put to music. (Faustian Bargain by the Sold Doctor.)
“Technologies do not always increase people’s options. sometimes they decreases people’s options. One may not want a car with that sort of equipment, but one has no choice.” (Postman was speaking when automated window openers were replacing crank windows. He went to a car dealership and said he didn’t want automated windows but that was the only choice. He asked what problem automatic windows solve. The dealer gestured reaching over and cranking. Postman said he could use the exercise.)
“Next point is that technology does not always solve important problems… but rather trivial ones, and yet we proceed anyway, in spite of the fact that in solving the trivial problems we may be creating greater problems than the problems we solve. For example, we now have in America the issue of whether or not we should spend billions of dollars for something called a super information highway.” (A reversal of Al Gore’s phrase, maybe a pun.) Well, if we ask our authorities on this the same question I put to the car salesman, we get some curious answers. ‘What is the problem to which this super information highway will be the solution?’ One answer one gets is that well, we now have available only sixty television channels. With the super information highway we will have five hundred, maybe even a thousand. Is this a problem that really needs a solution? We have to begin to ask this question and several others about technological change, because technological change is almost always what I call a faustian bargain: it giveth and it taketh away.”
Postman also talks about whose problem we’re solving. Some tech changes in products benefit the company instead of the consumer, and may give consumers less choice.
In the past twenty years I’ve seen that with touch screens with kindergarten-style buttons (now not just on smartphones but also on my ATM and TVM and some websites), smartphones, no-cash stores, everyone wants you to let them make automated monthly withdrawls from your bank rather than you paying a bill, printer ink cartridges with chips so that you can use only the manufacturer’s refills, One Bus Away cited as a reason not to have real-time arrival displays, and app-taxi transit that requires a smartphone to use.
These are all important question, but nobody has filled the gap since Postman died. I try to do it in my own life, but we really need a philosopher who can address the big picture adequately. In the absence of that, we’re just careening into technology, often because companies are pushing us for their own benefit or they’re singularity fanatics. And now AI is emerging and a lot of society is jumping on the bandwagon rather than looking at it critically.
And it’s totally ironic that Postman’s lecture about the super information highway is now primarily distributed via YouTube.
Mike Orr, you hit the nail on the head.
My all time favorite models of vehicles are the mid-1990s Honda Civics and Ford Rangers. Honda and Ford managed to NAIL utility and reliability. Pretty bare bones, but they get the job done economically.
When I was little in the 70s, Seattle had 6 broadcast TV channels( 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13). We had cable so we got 11 channels (2 and 6 from Canada, 12 from Bellingham, 10 from Portland’s 12, 3 with cable text. We didn’t get 8 from Canada, which I was bummed about.) Then cable went up to 25 channels, then 50, then 200. But my friend in the 2000s noted, “We’ve got 200 channels but all of them are crap; there’s nothing to watch.” We stopped getting cable in 1983 so I missed most of that. But when I tried getting cable again in 2005, it had 50 channels, yes, but I found the only thing I watched regularly was Twilight Zone reruns at 10pm. That wasn’t enough to justify cable, so I canceled it again.
Growing up, we didn’t have cable. This was in the mid-80s. We had an antenna outside. We lived in a rural area between 3 different mid-sized cities with their own media markets. So we got 2 versions of CBS, 3 versions of NBC, 3 versions of ABC, a local station that eventually became a Fox affiliate, a college-operated PBS station, and a local religious TV station. It offered good variety. Among the favorites were Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, the Muppet Show, M*A*S*H, Taxi, Alf, Full House, and Cheers. And we could get local news and weather from 3 different nearby cities. Grandma lived a few miles away and could pick up an additional 4th city, depending on the weather, if she rotated the exterior antenna.
In central Washington the cable has Seattle, Spokane, and Tri-Cities TV stations, so you can get three copies of a network.
I think cable got an early start in Seattle because a lot of houses needed it. The hills basically blocked the broadcast. You might be able to get one or two stations, but not all of them. This was the beginning of cable — it was nothing more than your local broadcasts, but with better reception. Then Ted Turner (and company) blew the thing wide open. They started with cheap reruns (similar to the non-network stations) but then eventually added more and more. Everything from classic movies to a 24-hour shopping network. The good, the bad and the ugly.
It’s a problem. One area that I think epitomizes it the most is the market of electric pickup trucks.
My city (Kirkland) has a fleet of trucks in their parks department to go around emptying trash cans and hauling debris, such as branches or grass clippings. It would be nice if someday these trucks could be electrified, but as of today, there are zero electric trucks on the market that would meet their needs for a reasonable price. What electric trucks do exist are all marketed to rich truck/EV enthusiasts and come loaded with features like huge range, fast charging speeds, and leather seats that a city parks department truck, which will never, ever be driven on a road trip, just doesn’t need.
Somehow, people who design vehicles, especially commercial vehicles that are used for a specific purpose, need to get back to basics and focus on meeting the needs of the customer for the lowest possible price and resist the temptation to add a bunch of bells and whistles that customer doesn’t need, but makes the vehicle more expensive. This is especially true for electric vehicles, as carmakers relentlessly focus on how quickly can the thing charge when driving from Seattle to Miami, while ignoring the obvious fact that a vehicle used as a landscaping truck, a door to door delivery van, or a Microsoft shuttle, will never, ever actually drive from Seattle to Miami. Of course, big ranges and fast charging speeds should definitely be an option for people that want it and are willing to pay for it, but it shouldn’t be a mandatory thing, that everybody has to have in order to drive to the grocery store, whether you need it or not.
People have a tendency to focus on those once-in-a-blue-moon trips. They buy electric cars with a really long range, even though they make a trip like that once a year (if that). They buy SUVs with big clearance, even though they never go up to the mountains. They buy pickup trucks, even though they never go on bumpy roads, or hall anything. It is like the idea of renting is a sign of weakness.
It’s almost like people are making the rationale decision to buy a vehicle that can handle the occasional peak demand on capacity, power/towing, or distance, not a vehicle that is optimized for the median trip. You know, just like a good transit system: https://humantransit.org/2020/04/whats-wrong-with-an-empty-bus.html
Renting is a hassle. I don’t see anyone ashamed to rent a Uhaul truck – people are happy to rent a Uhaul for a once a year need. I have a friend with 6 kids and he borrows the 15-passenger van from church once or twice a year (otherwise he and his wife convoy in two cars when they whole family is on the move). I think Ross wildly underestimate how often people use their truck as a truck because he only sees them commuting and he doesn’t hang out a boat ramp or state park campsite. I drive a tiny car and I’m often asked by truck owners, “but wait, what do you do when you need a truck??” because they find themselves using their truck regularly. (I usually respond “well, I would ask to borrow your truck”).
Owning a truck is like owning a smartphone in 2010. It’s a luxury good, but if you have one you were like, “this is so useful!” But I had a flip phone and I was like, “smart phones are dumb. My phone is cheaper, smaller, and does everything I want a phone to do.”
Yes, there are many differences between a phone and a car. But the point is, just because you find a widget useless doesn’t mean all the people buying the widget are fools.
The 550 has some 8 cancellations today and yesterday. I’m glad I’m not on them. I will go to Bellevue tomorrow though.
Someone in ST Ops needs to tell someone in ST Planning that the operator shortage at Metro is still real. Yesterday’s resolution appears to have misled the Board.
On top of that there also seems to still be a bus shortage. The 372 used to use all articulated buses. Now roughly 1/3 of its runs are short buses which routinely leaves people behind southbound by U Village and northbound on half the campus stops.
Packing the peak Lake City buses beyond their limit was a thing back when I was regularly riding STX 522 two decades ago.
While the September 2023 total ST ridership is not yet posted, the data for Link is now available (click through to the Link only graph). It continues to show how average Saturday boardings are very close to average weekday boardings.
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
There was a service reduction during part of this time period if I remember correctly. There were also three Saturday Husky games in a five Saturday month.
This all raises a general question in my mind about how big is the downtown office worker market compared to the UW market throughout the day. How much flatter are the crowds on the afternoon peak trains? Are the morning peak trains now the most crowded? Is the Saturday ridership on other systems matching weekdays like what is happening on Link, or is this because of Husky football games?
The biggest month was July. It was also a month where Saturday ridership exceeded weekday ridership. Sports were probably a contributing factor — in this case, the Mariners had a few home games. But I think it is fair to assume that it is just a lot of people, out and about. OK, it was also the month Taylor Swift played (and one of those days was on a Saturday) but that is they type of thing that goes in the summer. A lot of concerts, fairs, performances in clubs, you name it.
The big takeaway is that Saturday is quite close to weekdays for much of the year. I too would like the details you mentioned, but it is clear that ridership is a lot “flatter” then it used to be. The peak is not that peaky anymore.
The Ms tend to play as many Sunday as Saturday games, but with an assist from Sounder on Sundays, offset by lower Metro frequency on some routes.
Taylor Swift Sunday set a 136k ridership record on the 1 Line beating out the 129k record set the day before. I don’t recall if Sounder ran Sunday night, but its service for the Bluejays finale was cancelled due to lack of staff availability after serving Bluejays game 2 Saturday afternoon and then TS concert #1.
July also featured All-Star a week.
Then someone almost jackhammered through the roof of Westlake Station, messing up a week or two of August.
I predict the Taylor Swift Sunday record will stand as the 1 Line’s single-day record at least until Lynnwood Link opens, unless the Huskies have to play a weeknight football game for teevee, which is the direction in which college gridiron is trending.
I think transit agencies across the puget sound need to plan for better consistent frequency throughout the day because the return to work likely will not retain the same state it was, even with people returning to work it may be at less consistent times throughout the day.
To be honest it never really helped given our regions job sprawl. We’re not the most job sprawled region in the country but we certainly aren’t centralized. People do reverse commute to the eastside, to Everett, to Renton, etc. And then there are also minor nodes such as people commuting from marysville, Smokey point, Arlington, Snohomish, Monroe to Everett, usually the plant but those are difficult trips to plan bus service around because of the early hours of day and spread out population. This all means that in a National context the puget sound is considered pretty sprawled (in job/activity centers)
The operator shortage is a problem but I believe if agencies are careful with their planning some of this could be mitigated. If agencies place tactical bus lanes, queue jumps, and signal priority for bus line (not just rapid ride) with the stated goal of shortening trip times by keeping buses out of congestion we may be able to uphold frequency or increase frequency without needing as many operators (than if the travel times were much longer)
John, maybe so, but those prescriptions will fall on deaf ears everywhere except in Seattle. The Drivers’ Team is in control, and they want their lanes, period, end of story.
You can view it by the station filter and year filter. (I’m mainly comparing 2023 to 2019$
Westlake dropped from 13/14k down to 10/11k (20% drop) . University street had a 30% drop as well while pioneer square has dropped quite heavily from 4k down to 2k. For comparison mt baker also has around 2k people daily.
U Washington station has dropped a lot from 10k to 5k but probably a lot have shifted over to u district. If one adds it together it’s around 11.5k so a slight gain
> downtown office worker market compared to the UW market
From my cursory research it’s almost the same size now. Though more to do with heavy drops in office worker ridership.
August was an outlier compared to year-over-year increases most other months.
It can be attributed almost entirely to fixing the damage from clockgate.
University Street is a good proxy for office worker ridership.
Westlake gets office riders too but also lots of tourists, shoppers, and nightlife riders while University St is basically just offices with a few hotels and Benaroya.
U District interestingly has some decent construction worker ridership with so many high rise apartments being built near the station currently. Still mostly students, bus transfers, and the occasional local non student resident like me.
All of the downtown stations have lost riders. Pioneer Square and CID have lost the most, followed by University Street and Westlake (which has lost the least). Overall, with those four stations, ridership is down about 25 to 30 percent, to around 20,000 per weekday. Weekend ridership for those stations is about the same as it used to be.
The UW/U-District Stations are still quite a bit less. During the weekday, the two stations are similar. During Saturday though, there is a big difference. The U-District Station has about as many riders on Saturday as it has the rest of the week. With the UW Station, there is a huge drop-off. I think there are a number of things going on. The U-District is a cultural center. Not only that, but if you are headed towards campus for an event (at say, Meany Theater) then U-District is just more attractive (especially if you eat dinner before and/or have a drink after). But there are also a lot of students who leave the area on the weekends I’m guessing.
“U Washington station has dropped a lot from 10k to 5k but probably a lot have shifted over to u district. If one adds it together it’s around 11.5k so a slight gain”
If you’re comparing before and after Northgate Link, there’s also Roosevelt. I used to take a bus all the way to UW Station until Roosevelt Station opened.
Yeah, that’s a good point. Metro truncated most of the north-end buses at the UW Station with U-Link. Here is what it looked like before Northgate Link. For much of northeast Seattle, the best way to get to Capitol Hill or downtown was via UW Station. Folks on NE 65th Street or Sand Point had peak-only buses to downtown, but that was it. Now they take buses towards Roosevelt Station instead.
There may be a better name for it, but I call this the “terminus effect”. The same thing happened at SeaTac, which was even more surprising (to me, anyway). As Link extended south, SeaTac ridership went down. People being dropped off or taking buses to SeaTac (to head north) now use the Angle Lake Station instead. I’m sure the same thing will happen with Northgate Station.
Interestingly enough, there is a phenomenon that works in the opposite direction. Stations at the end (anchors) can only have travel one direction. UW Station loses riders because people have switched to other stations (for their trip and from the south) but it has gained riders because people can now take the train north (to the U-District, Roosevelt and Northgate).
It is worth noting that there has been an overall loss of transit ridership in Seattle since the pandemic. It is quite possible that UW Station ridership might very well had balanced out, if not for that. It is tough to measure, since ST hasn’t released directional data, let alone trip data. What we do know is that the pandemic still hammers Link ridership. For example, downtown ridership is still down, despite being connected to more north-end stations. Just the cancellation of the 41 alone should have resulted in a big increase in ridership downtown (and would have, if not for the pandemic). Thus we are left guessing. I don’t see enough data to make any sort of conclusion. In other words, it seems quite possible that we would be looking at increased ridership with UW Station if not for the pandemic.
“ Interestingly enough, there is a phenomenon that works in the opposite direction. Stations at the end (anchors) can only have travel one direction. ”
I believe that the former quarterly ridership reports would at least say average weekday and total quarterly ridership by direction. This new info system does not.
ST could and probably should publish things like direction and time of day Link ridership. They obviously have the data as they present analysis about train loads elsewhere — like recently when they presented their vehicle shortage presentation on October 26, 2023.
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2023/Presentation%20-%20ST2%20Light%20Rail%20Service%20and%20Passenger%20Experience%2010-26-23.pdf
So ST can produce more detailed data if they want or need. They just don’t.
I guess I could email them and ask if they’ll give it
Likely more representative of UW stations potential. It’s just kind of in a weird spot. Not exactly the easiest to get onto buses over SR520 from the station. Not very close to campus either. It’s quite good for getting to games, I’ll give it that, but that’s not an everyday occurrence
I remember me and a friend were coming back from downtown from Westlake station and needed to get to U Village. Link was still the fastest option however the best option to get off was UW station which is very south of…just about everything. We hopped on one of those lime scooters but I soon realized they’re capped at what felt like 5 mph
Next time I’ll probably bring my own bike
The e-scooters are capped at like 5/7 mph the first then you use it in trial mode. The second time and onwards it goes back to normal like 12mph I think
Sound Transit used to release “Service Implementation Plans” or “SIP”. For example, this one from 2019: The format would vary each time, but it was fairly detailed. They would have directional data for Sounder, Link and ST Express buses. So, for example, you could see how many people took Link south from SeaTac, or the 512 bus north from Mountlake Terrace. For buses and trains, they would also list overall ridership, as well as the amount of crowding for each run. This means you could see how much of a “peak” there was during rush hour.
They seemed to have stopped producing these. Here, they clearly mention Service Implementation Plans, as well as the abbreviation (SIP). But the link to the page (http://www.soundtransit.org/sip) redirects to a different page (https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/planning-future-service/serviceplan) which has “Service Plans”. These are very different documents. They don’t detail ridership for that year, but focus on future plans. Most of the document covers survey results.
Then there is this page here: https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/service-planning-ridership. It does contain Service Implementation Plans. You can even filter by that. However, when you do, things get weird. First, there is simply nothing since 2021. They include some “Service Plans” from 2021, but the last actual “Service Implementation Plan” is from 2020.
It is really bizarre. They stopped making a particular type of documents, and then confuse the issue by implying that a different type of document is the same. But even then, on the documents page they list nothing of that type being produced since 2021.
Meanwhile, they have the ridership tracker. This is great in that it shows monthly data. But it lacks a lot of the data found in the old Service Implementation Plans. The old SIPs had stop data, directional stop data and ridership per trip for every mode. The new one has no directional stop data for any mode. Only Sounder has ridership per trip. This means that if you want to know how the ridership curve for Link (i. e. how much it goes up during rush-hour) you are out of luck. You can find that for Sounder, but not the buses or Link. There is no stop data at all for the buses or Sounder. You do have stop data for Link, but again, not directional stop data. It is a nice compliment to the old reports, but it is no substitute.
The UW Station is definitely awkward. It connects to the hospital as well as the south end of campus, but in both cases isn’t especially good. For much of the campus, you are better off with the U-District Station even if you are coming from the south (https://maps.app.goo.gl/f144zQdmjE8QdzAg6). The connection to the hospital is not ideal, but at least it is closer. That is it for destinations, really, which is pretty bad, given the area.
It does work as a feeder though. I mentioned northeast Seattle, but good point about Kirkland. For a lot of riders, this is how they get downtown. Unfortunately, the problems with the 520 and Metro cutbacks have really hammered the 255, and with it UW Station. That is another factor contributing to smaller ridership there. It wouldn’t surprise me if ridership at that station picks up once the 520 work is done and they run the 255 more often.
“They include some “Service Plans” from 2021, but the last actual “Service Implementation Plan” is from 2020. ”
There may not have been one in 2021; it was the height of the pandemic. ST was in a special operating mode with 25% max capacity and “essential trips only”. The operating plans for that may be with the pandemic response stuff. If it did make one in 2021 expecting offices to reopen, it would have to throw that out the window when they didn’t.
“They include some “Service Plans” from 2021, but the last actual “Service Implementation Plan” is from 2020. ”
There may not have been one in 2021; it was the height of the pandemic.
Yes, I get that. I actually expected that was the case. But there has been plenty of time to publish a new one, and it just hasn’t happened. They typically come out in November, but there wasn’t one this year or last year. Meanwhile, they have this fancy ridership tracker (which I appreciate) but it doesn’t contain all of the data of the previous report.
In contrast, Metro did publish a system evaluation report in February of this year (https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/accountability/reports/2022/system-evaluation). It is quite similar to previous reports. You can see productivity on each route, like ridership per platform hour (peak and non-peak).
Neither agency does a great job in releasing data. For example, Metro doesn’t publicly release stop data. Sound Transit has never released trip data (i. e. how many people ride from point A to point B) on Link, let alone a bus route. But it bothers me that Sound Transit seems to be going backwards when it comes to releasing data, especially at a time when there are all sorts of controversial topics (like fares, extensions, frequency).
The SIP is an annual process. The draft 2024 plan was published in October.
https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/planning-future-service/serviceplan
Fyi the sidewalk bill passed in Seattle city council 2 days ago.
https://www.king5.com/amp/article/news/local/seattle-council-passes-sidewalk-improvement-bill/281-782ffc90-6ed0-41db-948a-56692c2b37dc
For major projects more than a million sdot must repair sidewalk or add at least on one side if missing.
Generally I don’t think this will affect the rapidride projects that much considering they already spend around 10/15% of the budget repairing sidewalks. Though it might impact the general maintenance paving budget?
Exact wording:
> On major paving projects of more than $1 million, usually on city arterials, crews must build a sidewalk on at least one side of the road if there is none already. If a sidewalk does exist and it’s found to be out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, crews must update it. The city performs just over 17 miles of major road maintenance paving each year, according to SDOT.
> On paving projects of less than $1 million, generally on residential streets, the department must “prioritize” repair and installation when a missing or broken sidewalk “substantially” impedes passage, is on a route to schools, parks or transit stops or is in a high-density area.
Yeah, I’ve wondered about that. As I see it, there are two basic categories of major pavement projects: The first is when the road is just worn down. This could include making the street harder for buses (and that could include RapidRide routes). In general these already have sidewalks. So maybe they fix them, but this probably isn’t that expensive.
The second is water/sewer related work. This happens frequently in areas that don’t have sidewalks. So I could definitely see additional sidewalks in areas that don’t have them, simply because they needed to tear up the street anyway (to deal with drainage issues). This has been going on a while though. It is quite common to see sidewalks and water/sewer projects built together just because they go together. The most expensive part of building a sidewalk is not adding the pavement but figuring out the impact on the sewer system. Make a willy-nilly change and water flows into someone’s house and you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands. Worse yet, houses slide (e. g. the recent house in Bellevue).
I was a little concerned with this proposal because I felt it would shift sidewalk money (which is scarce) into the wrong projects. It makes sense to prioritize sidewalks on common pedestrian areas, to provide a good network. This might end up shifting money to other places. However, that sort of thing has been going on for a while — again, because of the sewer system. My guess is this won’t change much. It is essentially a nudge towards new sidewalks or repairs that might be cheaper to do at that point. I assume they talked with SDOT about this, and there was no big complaints.
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/pedestrian-program/sidewalk-development-program
Dark purple shows the arterials with missing sidewalks. Mainly in north seattle aurora, meridan, 1st ave ne and sand pointe way
Interesting. Here is another sidewalk map (showing the current status) if you really want to dig into the nitty gritty: https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=e2de3bcaf1a6461fb49984d195be2e49.
For the “Planned Sidewalk” map, the dark purple includes areas that have sidewalks on one side, but not the other. The light purple only shows a subset of the residential streets without sidewalks. It makes sense to focus on the arterials, although in some cases they aren’t terrible. For example, there is no sidewalk here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/9k952kTX5E3nBXucA, but pedestrians can walk along the side of the road fairly easily. Sidewalks would still be an improvement, and since the area that would become sidewalks is already paved, they could probably spend less time worrying about hydrology. Speaking of which, I’ve noticed places like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/L1gBqHxwgcvw8ZJk9. This is a low budget example. Newer ones almost always have posts. But the idea is the same — you are just taking part of the street, and turning it into a sidewalk simply with stripes and posts (it isn’t raised). This is much cheaper, and quite effective.
Sand Point Way sidewalks north of 74th were built in 2021 or 2022 when the street was rebuilt and the intersections modified. I’m not sure if the new sidewalks extend all the way to 95th or 125th.
What a relief that Julie timm still gets paid after she leaves. I’m not sure she earned her pay while she was allegedly on the jib. She’s leaving us a transit agency in shambles for many reasons, granted.
$3 flat Link fare starts fall 2024 ($) when Lynnwood Link opens.
“Fares now range from $2.25 to $3.50, with the majority of riders spending $2.75 or lower.”
Wait, what? Most of the ridership is short-distance trips? And that’s what ST is penalizing?
But as I said, $3 doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. It was really the possibility of $3.25 that seemed so harsh. Especially when ST is just assuming Metro will raise its fare but Metro hasn’t said so or when.
Look at the data from the Rider Experience presentation. Very few riders will see a lower fare.
Indeed, one could have predicted that chart, roughly, just by counting the number of trip pairings charging each level.
The opening of the 2 line across Lake Washington will likewise create a lot more short trip pairings, while adding a smaller number of long trip pairings.
I stand by my unpopular assertion that the flat fare may yield a higher amount of fare revenue. And then, once Metro raises its fare to $3, staff’s prediction of lost ridership will turn out to be way too high.
Very few riders will see a lower fare.
Yes, which is another way of saying “most people will pay more, so we can subsidize those who take long distance trips”. That has been the approach of ST from the very beginning. They seem shocked that someone would actually ride a subway system within the city instead of using it to commute in from the suburbs. I wonder how long it will be before Sounder starts charging a flat fare as well. Might as well have Kent riders pay more so Lakewood riders get a discount.
Your fare doesn’t come close to paying for the operating cost of your trip, much less subsidize anyone else’s.
Riders are subsidizing the cost of operations — they just aren’t fully subsidizing it. Short distance riders are paying more so that long-distance riders pay less. That too is a subsidy (a different type).
Before we get into a semantic argument, I suggest you look up the word subsidy (there are a few meanings).
OK. So every rider who pays a fare subsidizes every other rider.
If more people ride from Northgate to SeaTac Airport (which hasn’t been a thing so far), that benefits riders traveling from Capitol Hill to Pioneer Square.
So every rider who pays a fare subsidizes every other rider.
No, that is ridiculous. Here is what will happen:
1) Short distance riders will pay a lot more.
2) Long distance riders will pay a lot less.
3) Yet revenue will be about the same, since there are a lot more short distance riders.
Clearly that means short distance riders are paying more, so that long distance riders can pay less. That is a subsidy! If we applied it to other markets, it would be ridiculous. Imagine Amtrak charging the same price for every trip. Clearly that would be a major subsidy for long distance trips. What it the state mandated that every cab company had to pay the same per trip, regardless of length. Immediately people would take trip from Seattle to Bellingham, and people taking normal cab trips (of a mile or two) would be subsidizing those trips.
Short distance riders are getting ripped off, while long-distance riders get a discount. This wouldn’t be that bad, except for the fact that it is a continuation of a policy that has existed from the very beginning. We have short-changed urban rail, while building what will be an extremely expensive commuter rail system. Then we want to ignore the fact that it is a commuter rail system, and charge everyone the same!
Ross Bleakney,
How about a “tunnel tax” on any fare that goes underground? ($1 added for below ground rides) Because no matter how long or short the ride is… the tunnels cost big bucks to build and maintain. So charging more for underground rides is honest pricing, right?
I get tired of the constant dishonesty about the “true costs” of transit on this blog. I think going underground between Capitol Hill and the U-distirct was the right choice, but acting like that ride isn’t very expensive because it’s a shot hop is a lie. That segment costs a whole lot of money.
But all those long-distance riders are paying taxes that go to pay for a tunnel they rarely if ever will use. So long-distance riders and subsidizing short-distance riders on capital budgets and visa versa on ops.
Since moving to Tacoma 3 years ago, I probably average a trip into Seattle about once a week, maybe half on transit, (and I am probably in the 1 percent of non-commuters who visit that often), yet I can count on literally 1 hand the number of times I’ve used the current transit tunnel. And the 2nd tunnel will be substantially less useful. I probably won’t be using it at all. But I’m paying for it.
“the tunnels cost big bucks to build and maintain. So charging more for underground rides is honest pricing, right?”
That’s what general taxes are for. Transit is a public benefit, so the public pays for it. You benefit if a tunnel-riding customer comes to your business, or fixes your toothache, or gets a higher-paying job so they pay more taxes, or if your car breaks down and you need to take a tunnel bus home, or if there’s a huge traffic jam so you take a tunnel bus to avoid it, or other people take a tunnel bus and aren’t making the traffic jam bigger. We build the tunnel because it’s more efficient: trains/buses move faster and use less fuel. Ideally we’d have enough tunnels for every downtown route, but we have to be selective and only put the most strategic routes in the one tunnel we have. That’s a corollary of mass transit: only some routes can fit in the tunnel, and only some corridors have bus service.
“I get tired of the constant dishonesty about the “true costs” of transit on this blog.”
The transit subsidies are an order of magnitude lower than driving subsidies. Who pays for your roads and maintenance and traffic police? Who pays for the parking lots at supermarkets and malls that you park for free in? Who suffers the air pollution and water pollution your car gives off? Who gets hit by cars? Who has to walk further or can’t walk at all because your parking minimums and six lanes push everything apart? Who gets ill and dies during climate-change heat waves? Everyone does, and it’s most inequitable for non-drivers. If both car drivers and transit riders had to pay the full cost of their traveling, there would be a lot less car driving.
If you mean a surcharge only on DSTT2, then that penalizes riders for ST’s arbitrary routing decisions they have no control over. It would mean that Ballard/Rainier/Tacoma riders would pay a surcharge because they’re in the second tunnel, while Eastside and West Seattle riders wouldn’t because ST put them in the first tunnel (and it may have done so because they’re more privileged). If ST later reassigns the lines and puts Ballard in DSTT1 and the Eastside in DSTT2, does that mean the surcharge should switch from Ballard riders to Eastside riders? How is that fair?
I think going underground between Capitol Hill and the U-District was the right choice, but acting like that ride isn’t very expensive because it’s a shot hop is a lie. That segment costs a whole lot of money.
No, actually, it is extremely cheap *per user*. It carries way more users per service hour than any other segment. Sure, it cost more to build, but that is more than made up for the fact that it carries a ton of riders. If they had the good sense to add more stations, then it would be an even better value.
In contrast, the line to SeaTac is quite expensive. Yes, the part in Rainier Valley is fairly cheap, but they didn’t end there. Instead they went literally miles before adding another stop. As a result, running trains is expensive, and it wasn’t that cheap to add the thing in the first place. You might have a case if the trains ended at Rainier Beach, but they didn’t.
So sure, if Link was a real light rail line to the south, basically following the route of the 7, then yeah, you could make the case for such a system. But that isn’t what we built.
Mike Orr and Ross Bleakney,
You two understand most people look at transit as a social justice issue? So if poor folks have to take longer rides because they can’t afford housing closer to the city center…. why should they pay more?
Look, your crummy 3 dollar ride doesn’t pay 40% of operations costs.
Bitching about a $3 transit fare? Afraid that somebody living outside Seattle is going to get a better deal than you? Of all the things to get your undies in bunch over. Oh no! the poor transit riding bastards in Federal Way are cheating the system!
Well I’m out. But thank you two for giving such a fine example of White Privilege to the folks reading this blog. Pure entitlement here.
Sigh it’s fine. A couple years down the line they’ll start increasing the base fares and then we’ll be discussing introducing a smaller fare for shorter distances with all the same arguments just flipped.
Bitching about a $3 transit fare?
Pure entitlement here.
You have it completely backwards. You are basically saying “What is the big deal — so what if they have to pay more”, which is a very entitled attitude. Plenty of middle income people will be hurt by this (they are poor enough so that this stings, but not poor enough to qualify for the discounted fair) not to mention the fact many really poor people haven’t gone through the paperwork yet and have to pay extra. Yes, I am bitching about that, because I think it is wrong.
Sigh it’s fine. A couple years down the line they’ll start increasing the base fares and then we’ll be discussing introducing a smaller fare for shorter distances with all the same arguments just flipped.
Maybe, or they just increase the fares across the board because they don’t want to change the system again.
Ross Bleakney,
Woah! Let’s back up here. Middle class people can afford $3 transit fare, LOL. What you want is poor people living in the outer zones to pay more than 3 bucks because they can’t afford to live on Capitol Hill or Queen Anne and yet, still need transit.
Just riding transit to and from SeaTac is hard. Paying $6.50 each way because some spoiled White guy writing for the Urbanist thinks it fair is just bullshit. The Lefty White privilege in Seattle just amazes me. I’d guess you and Mr. Orr also support bulldozing houses in Wallingford so people making $80,000 a year can live alone in rent controlled apartments? The whole Urbanist/I-135 free lunch ideas need to just die.
The “one ride, one fare” policy happened because of the political makeup of the Sound Transit board. It needs to stay around for social justice reasons. One system, one fare. I’m not screwing over families because they couldn’t find an affordable place to live that’s in Seattle City limits.
@tacomee
Sound transit did an equity analysis, I can dig up the pdf if you want to read it. Sure it benefits the outer suburbs disadvantaged but also hurts the disadvantaged in rainier valley. Which I notice you kinda conveniently left out.
The analysis was a bit complicated to compare though as it depends if one counts in people tapping off correctly or not.
“What you want is poor people living in the outer zones to pay more than 3 bucks”
That has become an excuse that suburbs have latched onto. Only a fraction of suburbanites are poorer than Seattlites. The “suburbanization of poverty” advocates make it sound like the entire population of suburbia is poorer than Rainier Valley residents, and that only they will take Link. But in fact many suburban residents are comparable to Seattle residents, and they’ll be taking Link too, and and many of them can afford a car or will drive to a P&R, or are already paying $4.25 on Community Transit express routes. The low-income portion of Seattle and Bellevue are both around 20%, and other suburbs are more or less similar. Not 75% or 100%.
I’ll add one more prediction for 2024 fare changes:
The monorail, which saw its ridership more than double to 1.6M in 2022, will likely put forth a proposal to drop its reduced fares from $1.75 to $1, once CT’s board votes to drop its reduced fares to $1. The monorail would be the last non-maritime service in the Puget Pass family to drop its reduced fare to $1 or less. (Kitsap local ferries also charge $1 for their reduced fares.)
I’m all for it.
Now let’s get ST Express buses at $3 and wait for Metro to increase their fares. And for the first time ever (?), the two largest and overlapping transit agencies in Seattle will finally have the same fare.
How about reducing the fare on local STX routes to $3 and raising the fare on long-distance STX routes (577, 578, 586, 590, 592, 594, and 595) to $4 once Federal Way Link opens?
@Brent…but your suggestion simply puts us back to the old days of zonal fares and defeats the purpose of simplicity in the customer experience.
The old system was zonal so you paid a two-zone fare if you crossed the Pierce County border. Brent is suggesting having higher fares on certain routes instead. So if you take the 574 you get the lower fare. If you take the 577 or 594 you get the higher fare. That’s less confusing than zones because the route just has one quoted far and that’s it. If you only take short-distance routes like the 512, 522, 550, or 574, then you only see one fare. The fact that other more-express routes to further places have higher fare doesn’t matter to you, any more than it matters to 511/512 riders what the 4xx fares are (which are higher).
If it wasn’t obvious, the routes for which I suggested a $4 fare have a long express segment from Federal Way or further south to Seattle, which will be redundant with the 1 Line, but in most cases faster, even when longer wait times are involved. The idea is to charge more for the routes with a higher marginal cost per rider and higher carbon footprint.
I would suggest the premium fare not start until Federal Way Station opens for service in 2026.
By then, the rest of the STX routes will consist of 510 or 512 starting at Lynnwood, 513 starting at Lynnwood, 522 starting at 148th in Shoreline, 532, 535, 542, 544(proposed), 554 to Downtown Bellevue, 556 between UW and Downtown Bellevue, 560, 566, 574, and 596.
Some of these are also arguably redundant with the 2 Line, but don’t involve an express segment of over 9 miles. The 556 is arguably inferior to Metro 271 on all metrics. The 532/535 will become a STride line, at great expense, with HOsomething lanes in which bus speeds will be at the mercy of the State Legislature. I expect STride to have its own fares that might or might not align with ST Express’s.
” The 532/535 will become a STride line, at great expense, ”
It’s in lieu of Link in that corridor, which would have been much more expensive. A metropolitan area with 3 million people does need to facilitate trips between Bellevue, Bothell, and Lynnwood. If it pretends they don’t exist, or that 2-hour travel time or hourly service or traffic jams are acceptable, then the whole region’s economy and well-being suffers and people are incentived to drive more miles.
” The 532/535 will become a STride line, at great expense, ”
The problem is the work being done on 85th NE. Take away that boondoggle, and the project is quite reasonable (for regional transit).
Speaking about fares where’s the mobile phone tap to pay?
Where’s your concern about credit-card companies taking a several-percent cut of the fare revenue?
Do they not do that already when we reload our ORCA cards? Does the ORCA vendor provide its services for free?
> Where’s your concern about credit-card companies taking a several-percent cut of the fare revenue?
I mean I currently assume it’s “orca card” nfc to the reader. I am doubting we can get direct credit card to transit reader, though that would be nice too
WL, many transit system allow direct nfc base mobile phone or credit card based payments. Some (eg Bay area) allow you to load a virtual card on your phone. I understand with Orca2 they were planning the latter. It seems that project is running behind though.
If the MTA can figure out not only mobile payments but automatic rolling 7-day fare capping, our much younger transit system has no excuse not to do the same.
“Do they not do that already when we reload our ORCA cards? Does the ORCA vendor provide its services for free?”
That’s one transaction for $10, $50, or $100. That eats up much less than individual transactions of $2.75 each. There’s a minimum fee per transaction plus a percent of the amount. It’s why some retailers are charging 50 cents extra for transactions under $10. Debit cars charge much less than credit cards. With cash the cost is borne by the government when the money is printed (seignorage). While there is a cost for companies to transport cash to the bank, the credit card companies are making a killing with the current arrangement. That’s why they offer points or cash back to incentivize more of it — costs ultimately paid by the retailer and by customers who don’t use credit cards. (Like free parking, paid by everybody except the user.) I’m pretty sure mobile phone payments are charged at the credit card rate, especially if it’s not the agency’s own app and wallet.
I was looking into the eastside bus restructures and while googling found https://www.psrc.org/media/5938 the Puget Sound Regional Council planning document last year (2022).
It’s actually quite convenient it lists all the major road widenings, proposed bus projects (better detail than the king metro connects), bike trail extensions and unsurprisingly lots of money for parking lots in one document throughout the sound area. There’s also a handy prioritization score so you can see how serious the projects are. We’ve already talked about some of these, but might as well describe them. Some random tidbits:
Lots of ferry proposals. Ballard to Pier 50 Seattle Passenger Only Ferry Route (low priority 45/100). Kirkland to uw. A fast ferry new terminal idea. Didn’t realize kitsap was planning on building a new fast ferry terminal in downtown Seattle. Pretty soon actually it’s in final EIS.
https://www.kitsaptransit.com/seattle-fast-ferry-terminal-project
Anyways back on eastside, what do you guys think about the proposal to split up the B line (this is like in 2030/2035). They want to build two lines
* One north south line Redmond-Overlake-South Bellevue: Create a new RapidRide line by modifying the existing B Line and extending it south through Bellevue. (Most like the new 223 https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/223.pdf)
* One east west line Crossroads-Bellevue-U District: Create a new RapidRide line by modifying the existing B Line and extending it west to the University of Washington.
Either way in general crossroads mall seems to be getting a lot better connections.
The B split was in one of the middle East Link restructure proposals but it wasn’t in the last one, so Metro may have soured on it or is waiting until later.
In the last round the 271 is replaced by the 270, which would move to Bellevue Way. That would prefigure part of the east-west RapidRide (Crossroads, 8th, BTC, north Bellevue Way, U-District).
The north-south RapidRide is similar to the 245, which is already 15-minute frequent weekdays. The 223 zigzags like a coverage route, and misses the retail center on 156th between NE 24th and NE 8th. 148th in that area is distinctly low density. Not single-family, but one-story “stubs in the park”.
My trips will match the 245 or north-south RapidRide there. I used to go to 124th & 8th but I’m now going to 164th & Main. So I’ll take Line 2 or the Starter Line to Overlake Village (or Redmond Tech), and a southbound 245 or 223 or north-south line to 156th & Main. Or ideally a 226-like route to 164th & Main.
Currently the bus situation is poor. The closest the B gets is 156th & 10th, which is a 40-minute walk away, and uphill, and I can’t walk far anymore. No ST Express route reaches Overlake Village, so I can’t take the 245 from there. The other alternative is the 226 from Bellevue TC, which takes 40 minutes to meander to 164th & 8th, and runs half-hourly weekdays, hourly weekends and evenings. So it takes two hours to get from central Seattle to the adult family home. I’ve settled into a pattern of going only weekdays, and taking the 226 eastbound and working around its schedule, because it’s only a 11-block flat walk to the home. Coming back I walk 20 minutes to 156th & Main, take the 245 or 226 north eight blocks to 8th Street, the B to BTC, and the 550 or 271 home. It will be easier and faster with the Starter Line, and much easier with Line 2. And I’d be able to use the north-south RapidRide.
On a related note, in the East Link restructure Metro proposed deleting all bus service east of 156th or 164th (I’m not sure which) and replacing it with Metro Flex (app shuttle). I grew up east of 164th, and I’m glad it wasn’t like that in the 70s and 80s. My bus was hourly, but at least I could to to the bus stop at the scheduled time, rather than having to use a smartphone and summon a taxi every day, and having it come at random maybe half an hour later or not at all. So I hope there will be a coverage route from 164th & Main to Overlake Village Station (successor to the 226), but there may not be. Interlake High School would also be interested, because it’s at 164th & NE 24th Street, and I see students taking it in the afternoon.
One hidden feature of the upcoming Eastside service restructure that is easy to overlook is a shift from Sammamish Road to Newport Way on the other side of I-90 for the local bus coming into Issaquah.
The 271’s existing route was set up back in an era where Newport Way has nothing there but trees, so they routed the bus down Sammamish Rd. because a small number of single family houses was better than nothing at all. Today, if you drive down Newport Way, you can see that there’s actually some fairly dense housing there, including quite a few townhomes and even multi-storey apartment buildings.
Not expecting ridership to be huge, but shifting service to there is definitely the right call, and is something that can easily be overlooked.
When are we going to see Lynwood Link test trains? It is less than 10 months to their latest late estiimated date.
I saw this post on LinkedIn (though I didn’t find any Reddit/news sites talking about, though don’t see why they’d lie)
> Mass Electric Construction Systems Integration Testing team has begun testing on Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link Extension. This is the first light rail vehicle to come onto the Lynnwood extension and marks a major milestone in the project. This test, LRV Dead Car Tow is performed to check and verify proper clearance of the LRV’s dynamic envelope with regards to systems and civil wayside installation. The next step in systems testing will be OCS Live Wire utilizing a 4 car LRV setup. > Congratulations to all who have made this milestone occur, I am proud to be leading the MEC Systems Integration Testing team on the Lynnwood Link Extension.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matthew-tannahill-p-e-70a14712a_pretty-awesome-to-see-a-train-on-lynnwood-activity-7125860273801895936-4Pre
Cool. Thank you. They did the same tow test for East Link a while ago. I guess the tunnel was not divided correctly and other issues. This was determined before the bridge plinth issues. I hope Lynwood link has less unanticipated problems. A lot less.
Getting back to the austerity cuts in the March 2024 service change:
I have no problem eliminating the last of the few remaining 580 runs. The number of impacted riders can probably be counted on one hand, with the impact being driving to Puyallup Station or catching the next PT bus and Sounder run. With my luck, though, the impacted rider will chime in here and claim there are other riders on the bus beside themselves, and that they are transit-dependent.
As to the apparent staff hint to terminate STX 590 at Tacoma Dome Station, I would encourage mgmt to spare the two AM counterpeak runs that are probably taking some riders to their jobs in downtown Tacoma. The inverse PM peak runs would also be nice to spare.
At any rate, I still hope truncating route 566 at Downtown Bellevue Station happens, in spite of that route not having been part of 2 Line restructure proposals, and that it is first priority over the staff-hinted-at (and probably not temporary) austerity cuts.
Shuttle service like the 580 doesn’t pick up many riders, but it doesn’t cost that much either. Prior to the pandemic, the 580 was in the third quartile (although just barely). It may have been hit disproportionately hard because of the pandemic, but I doubt it. Most of the Pierce County ST runs are similar.
The first change I would make is get rid of the 586. It had the highest subsidy per boarding before the pandemic, and forcing people to take Link is a small price to pay. It is bizarre, really, that folks from Kenmore are asked to transfer to Link to get downtown, but a handful of riders from Tacoma get express buses to the UW.
Truncating the 566 at Downtown Bellevue is a “no brainer”. They should definitely do that as well.
After that, it is largely a “pick your poison” type situation. Prior to the pandemic, the buses that served Dupont/Lakewood did poorly. So did the 566/567. My guess is they just hack away at those — run them less often. With the 566 being truncated it might perform a bit better, so maybe it gets spared.
I have little to disagree on, but I don’t see 566 runs being reduced, since they are matched to Sounder runs.
Further shortening or eliminating some day, perhaps, but not run reduction.
Are they austerity cuts or “we can’t get enough drivers” cuts?
Somebody said driver shortage. Pretty much all the cuts in the past two years have been because of that. The Northgate Link restructure yielded less feeder service than planned, the RapidRide G restructure is expected to do the same, Metro had a significant reduction in September, and ST cancelled a planned increase in ST Express frequency. In Metro’s case it’s not just drivers but also maintenance workers, and supply-chain pipelines for bus parts are also slow. Metro has an inordinate number of buses out of service waiting for parts. I don’t know if PT, CT, and ET have those problems in particular, but the driver shortage is national.
We-can’t-pay-drivers-and-mechanics-enough is austerity.
Oh, and furloughing drivers, instead of letting as many wanted to to go on leave do so, predictably dug the hole we are in. That’s the karma of austerity.
I would say there is a subtle difference. The City of Seattle decided to spend *less* money on transit service. That is clearly a cut. In contrast, there was a sudden decrease in available drivers. No one is quite sure how long the shortage will last. Of course if you spend more money, you can fill that gap, but that means an increase in money just to have the same level of service. Failing to dramatically increase funding is quite a bit different than actually cutting funding.
The Northgate Link restructure yielded less feeder service than planned, the RapidRide G restructure is expected to do the same,
Right, and in both cases it was due to designing a bad network. Same with the Lynnwood Link restructure. That is really a third category. That leaves three reasons why many of our buses are not as frequent as they should be:
1) Cuts by the city council (approved by the mayor).
2) An unforeseen driver shortage. (We don’t know how long it will last.)
3) Bad bus restructures.
Why is anyone surprised at the operator shortage when a big chunk of them were furloughed in 2020, and then another chunk were let go over the vaccination requirement in 2021? Many of them found more stable jobs elsewhere.
Granted, that’s Metro, and Pierce Transit is the agency admitting to Sound Transit that it has a driver shortage (and they all let employees go over the vaccination requirement).
But ST’s left hand reporting all the cancelled ST Express runs is hopefully letting its right hand in Planning know that lots of run cancellations are the current normal.
Publicola summarizing rumored City Council Committee leadership assignments:
https://publicola.com/2023/12/18/harrell-hosts-friendly-press-conference-with-council-he-helped-elect/
Glad to see Morales aiming for Land Use, which will be critical for the Comprehensive Plan. Not sure why Strauss is taking Budget instead of Transportation, since I’ve also seen rumors that it’s likely he’ll get on the Sound Transit Board.
At this point in the ST3 cycle, “Budget” does seem to be more relevant for a Board member, as the big decisions for Seattle are about station placement and 3rd party funding, not spot improvements for buses.
The transportation committee is important for Seattle but mostly irrelevant for ST, which underscores the time scale of ST3
Who do we want on the ST board? Strauss and …? What about in the suburbs, anybody promising?
I’d wager budget committee is probably the most powerful one. Even for transit/transportation as it’s what chooses what gets funded
Per the urnamist federal way omf headed way over budget…
And yet the board just rubber stamped the agency’s updated financial plan during it’s end-of-year budgeting cycle.
I read the urbanist piece that you’ve mentioned and then checked out the board presentation that inspired said piece. The situation is actually worse than it appears at first glance, but of course ST has to put their inevitable spin on this anyway. The last bullet point on slide #9 in the agency’s presentation should be the bold print headline here:
“•It is not affordable to pursue an OMFS project in this cost range within the current finance plan.We need to attempt to manage the project back to the Finance plan value of $1.9B.”
For a fuller picture of this latest cost estimation debacle one needs to consider the ACTUAL size of this planning miss. ST pulled the same stunt back in 2017 when they delayed baselining the Lynnwood Link extention project due to a huge cost estimation miss, i.e. understating the magnitude of said variance. So here we go again….
From Friday’s presentation:
Finance Plan* (M 2023$) – $1,924
Opinion of Probable Cost Range** (M 2023$, Oct) – $2,516 to $2,990
Variance to Finance Plan – $592M to $1,066M
From the recently adopted Financial Plan included with the 2024 Budget (pg 54):
Projects in Planning – Cost Estimates Included in the Financial Plan
All costs 2023$ in thousands
LINK O&M FACILITY SOUTH
Voter Approved – $798,705
Spring 2023 – $1,468,388
Fall 2023 – $1,771,757
These figures are all cited in constant year (2023) dollars. So, as you can see, the discrepancy is even larger than ST would like us to believe. No amount of value engineering is going to close this gap.
I really wish there was a better breakdown of what the costs actually are.
I agree WL.
I think I remember reading a while back that some of the costs of the rail for the extension to Tacoma was shifted to the OMF-S project.
Does that ring a bell with any other readers?
What I’m more concerned about is the first suggested way to reduce cost is to simply build a smaller OMF … and therefore have less trains to provide good frequency. Sounds penny smart and pound foolish.
I couldn’t agree more. That would be an unfixable legacy.
Like replacing down escalators with stairs at Lynnwood.
I disagree Mike. Frequency and reliability are the primary indicators of good transit service. Escalators are nice but are nowhere near as important as good frequency.
https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2016/05/10/frequent-service-not-escalator-access-is-what-attracts-transit-users/
It’s not just switching out an escalator for stairs, Mike. It’s also designing stations that are constrained to the point that they can’t be easily added in the future.
And I do believe that escalators are way more important than say building an additional 50 pages in the adjacent garage. 1/2 of all seniors and 1/4 of all adult women have arthritis, and going down steps can be painful. And of course, for this segment if the ridership, it can take an extra 2-5 minutes to use a busy elevator (waiting in a queue) so its travel time impact is as bad a reducing train frequency similarly.
Escalators also increase the flow capacity of a busy station. Even now, Westlake escalators can get lines of people having to wait to use one.
I still think eliminating escalators rather than eliminating some garage parking spaces was a bad Lynnwood Link decision. Unfortunately, able-bodied people sometimes don’t get it.
I commented on the idea of escalators, but started a new thread for it: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/12/14/open-thread-29/#comment-922577
Pardon for the ignorance, but is the OMF entirely for Tacoma Link? In other words, if Link never goes farther south than Federal Way, do we need any of it?
No the OMF isn’t only for Tacoma link, it kinda depends on how one is allocating it. The central and east omf provide around 200 space and the south and north ones provide another 250ish.
But the west Seattle and Ballard link neither of them have an omf there so it wouldn’t be correct to say without Tacoma dome link the omf wouldn’t be needed.
On the other hand it is for the Everett and Tacoma segments that they are planning on running that many trains during peak times more for capacity concerns. For the Ballard and west Seattle segments one could just run smaller trains etc…(i know that’s not how the operational pattern is)
It’s needed for West Seattle and probably also Redmond Link extensions. OMF-N (slightly larger) covers Everett and Ballard Link extensions. The OMF-N will also be more expensive, as it will be built later, so unless your posture is “never expand Link ever,” OMF-S is a good project in a good location. Even if the ST3 projects generally get bogged down and truncated, a 3rd OMF plus ST’s 3-series vehicle purchases will allow ST to provide better frequency across the network. If WSBLE project evolves into a different mode (i.e. smaller automated cars with a standalone OMF), the OMF-S will be used fully and ST would simply build a much smaller OMF-N (probably comparable to OMF-E)
The original ST3 plan was OMFS 108 vehicles and OMFN 152 vehicles. The ST3 documents allocate those vehicles to each expansion segment and therefore into the subarea budgets, but I cannot find that detail right now.
It’s needed for West Seattle and probably also Redmond Link extensions.
Won’t Redmond Link be open long before this is built?
In a few years, East Link will be completely done, and trains will go as far north as Lynnwood, and as far south as Federal Way. Then it will be a while add any more track. During that period, I assume that we will have enough trains (and enough places to put them) to run the trains as expected. Is that not the case?
After that point, things get complicated. The plans are to expand north and south, but also in Seattle, and in Issaquah. Is there a breakdown as to how many trains they need for each segment, and where they expect to put them?
Speaking about regional stuff there’s some more fun stuff from the PSRC (puget sound regional council)
They have a very helpful arcgis map https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a587d27d1c444a6e891fe1b58508622d/page/Future-Conditions/
Combining almost all important traffic and transit stuff across the entire Seattle area.
@John
It also includes a map of all the different kinds of traffic signaling. Surprisingly there’s a lot less transit signal priority than I thought after spending so much money. In Seattle it’s mainly only at aurora and 15th Ave (rapidride d)
Theres future plans to make all of i5 hov lanes to hot (hov and toll lanes). Ironically if none of the commuter train plans pan out maybe the state/region could fund a intercity bus since with toll lanes from Tacoma to Seattle to Everett it’d actually be a decent time through most of it.
Sorry didn’t mean to post yet but meant to clarify like a Portland to Seattle to Vancouver intercity bus. Maybe we could copy like the jr commuter busses
There’s future plans to make all of i5 hov lanes to hot (hov and toll lanes).
Wow. That could make a huge difference. I’ve long argued that we could solve a lot of our commuter-transit problems by changing the HOV-2 lanes to HOV-3. HOT could work just as well. Personally I prefer HOV-3, but I can understand the HOT argument as well. The main thing it does is allow the buses to go fast, which in turn makes the argument for Link extensions even weaker than it is already.
Yeah its WSDOT’s next plan after finishing the 405/sr 167 toll lanes.
Current state: https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/roads-bridges/hov-lanes/hov-system-map
They used to have a better graphic of the future tolls lanes but i can’t seem to find it. only saved on here lol: https://stop405tollsdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/07/psrc-tolling-everything.jpg?w=605
The specific projects are:
* I-5 Managed Lanes: I-405 (tukwila) to US 2 (everett) $356,928,335
* I-5 Managed Lanes: Pierce/ King County Line to I-405 (tukwila) $255,112,240
* I-5 Managed Lanes: SR 16 (tacoma) to Pierce/ King County Line $32,032,030
* I-90 / Seattle to Issaquah – Managed Lanes $48,048,045
* SR 520 / Seattle to Redmond – Managed Lanes $45,760,043
All of these have high priority ratings (70ish out of 100, for context most are rated at 40/50) and completion date of 2030.
i-405 and i-90 interchange also has some crazy plans
* i-405 Corridor: I-405 @ I-90 Interchange: HOV Direct Connector Ramps – Phase 1: Construct HOV direct connector ramps from SB I-405 to EB I-90, WB I-90 to NB I-405, NB I-405 to EB I-90, WB I-90 to SB I-405
* i-405 Corridor: I-405 @ I-90 Interchange: HOV Direct Connector Ramps – Phase 2: Construct HOV direct connector ramps from SB I-405 to WB I-90, EB I-90 to NB I-405, NB I-405 to WB I-90, EB I-90 to SB I-405
Of course this project is kinda costly building a 5/6-level stack interchange so quite a bit less likely
Ross, unless WSDOT changed the HOV to HOV 3+, adding HOT drivers will just add more cars to the lanes. When they say “High Occupancy Vehicles may continue to use the lane”, are they meaning what it sounds like or will they up the requirement to three?
And is anybody going to enforce the requirement for three persons should they change the language?
Ross, unless WSDOT changed the HOV to HOV 3+, adding HOT drivers will just add more cars to the lanes.
Yes, no shit. I said that in literally every one of my comments. OK, not the first one, because I thought it was so freakin’ obvious that I didn’t mention it.
Give WSDOT some credit — they aren’t stupid. Look at what they wrote about the 167/405 plan:
Per the legislative requirement authorizing tolls, express toll lanes must keep traffic moving at least 45 miles per hour 90 percent of the time and generate enough revenue to pay for operating costs. Keeping the carpool definition at 2+ would not allow WSDOT to meet this performance or revenue metric.
I-5 is no different.
One aspect of HOT that has always bothered me is that it’s “marketed” as the only option with all the fixed and variable signage on the freeway placed where it is.
In contrast, I don’t see parallel Link lines “marketed” at all on the freeways.
For example, there should be info signs headed into Seattle placed beginning a few miles outward from the last Link station about Link. It should include the estimated available spaces in real-time for each of the upcoming parking garages near the freeway corridor. Maybe it could list the Link time to Downtown Seattle and the fare too. These should be southbound on I-5 between Everett and Shoreline in at least 3-4 places (when Lynnwood Link Extension opens), and northbound on I-5 between Fife and SeaTac in at least 3-4 places (when Federal Way Link Extension opens).
I realize the importance of brevity when messaging to a driver moving at 60 mph, but to not encourage using Link with lots of freeway signs is pretty foolish. If successful, it reduces greenhouse gas emissions as well as improves ST’s finances.
I suspect the problem comes partly down to an organizational one. WSDOT wants revenue from HOT lanes but has little interest in suggesting that a driver park and ride into Seattle instead. ST similarly doesn’t seem to be pushing for installing and maintaining freeway information signs, perhaps because they have little interest in persuing the relatively low-cost effort or perhaps WSDOT discourages adding more signs not directly related to driving.
(Side musing: Shouldn’t WSDOT be paying for at least a part of all Link and Sounder garages, since it relieves the freeway system?)
If garages start filling up, the role of these signs becomes even more important. No one likes driving to a garage to find no spaces available. They may not try again.
OK, I see that you did say you prefer HOV-3.
Tacoma to Seattle and Seattle to Everett will happen as light rail lines. They are voter-approved.
The added value of HOT lanes would really be between Everett and Surrey, and between Tacoma and Portland.
Building more lanes (which has been historically all WSDoT knows how to do) through Seattle would be an unwelcome mess.
Still, I’d prefer a train that came at least hourly, doesn’t require a long pre-check-in, and serves major stops along the way without pulling off a freeway and taking half-hour breaks at every stop. Think extending Sounder to Portland with a joint funding agreement between the states, and no need to wait for an extra light rail bridge.
> Tacoma to Seattle and Seattle to Everett will happen as light rail lines. They are voter-approved.
Yes I know?
> Building more lanes (which has been historically all WSDoT knows how to do) through Seattle would be an unwelcome mess.
They’re not building more lanes (for this i5 segment proposed) just converting existing hov to hov/toll lanes.
> Still, I’d prefer a train that came at least hourly, doesn’t require a long pre-check-in, and serves major stops along the way without pulling off a freeway and taking half-hour breaks at every stop.
They (greyhound) exit the freeway to grab more passengers and because they don’t have direct access hov ramps to exit/enter so it takes so long. intercity bus being good or bad doesn’t really depend on if it’s on a rail or tires but what infrastructure is put in place.
Like if the portland to seattle to vancouver greyhound/flixbus was instead a state funded route. I’m sure we’d be discussing having direct access hov ramps at say federal way/lynnwood. Or making the seatac detour better.
> Tacoma to Seattle and Seattle to Everett will happen as light rail lines. They are voter-approved.
Sorry to clarify, I mean one can have the intercity busses to reach Portland and Vancouver. Though granted given we chose all freeway alignments I guess it could have replaced the lynnwood to everett and the federal way to tacoma segments but let’s focus on the reaching portland/vancouver part here.
I don’t get how changing the HOV lanes to “HOT” is going to improve anything. They’re already full at the peaks, only slightly faster than the GP lanes. And now they’ll be adding SOV’s for a toll? Where are they going to fit?
Now, if the “HOV” became “HOV 3+” [and was enforced!] that might make a difference.
Or HOT 3+.
More significant changes to improve I-5 in north Seattle in the reverse peak direction; it has no HOV lane to convert to HOT three plus.
RossB pointed out that the Seattle TBD bus service purchases are lower in 2020 than in 2014. The Council had a tough choice; the Eyman initiative on VLF was in the courts. The Council could have gone for two tenths of sales tax and not had the reductions, but some members were wary of its regressivity. Council president Gonzalez led them to a compromise at 1.5 tenths. Of course, transit reductions are also regressive.
I assume they mean HOT 3+, otherwise there is no point. HOT 2+ would just be more congested than it is now (and it is plenty congested).
Tacoma to Seattle and Seattle to Everett will happen as light rail lines. They are voter-approved.
So what? That doesn’t mean they are a good idea, or even that voters preferred that. An alternative with express buses (running in HOT-3 lanes) wasn’t on the ballot. To say Link to Tacoma and Everett is inevitable is like saying a First Hill Station is inevitable (we voted for that, and that actually is a good idea).
More significant changes to improve I-5 in north Seattle in the reverse peak direction; it has no HOV lane to convert to HOT three plus.
If you mean the I-5 express lanes, that is largely irrelevant now, and will be irrelevant once Lynnwood Link gets here. I guess they could run reverse-peak direction buses through Seattle, but why would they? Maybe for events, or intercity buses, but very few people ride either. The key is the interface between Link and the HOV/HOT lanes, and Lynnwood Station will do that quite well.
They would probably make it similar to i405 either restricting it based on time or lowering the discount for hov 2
> Carpools with three or more people will be exempt from paying a toll at all times, and carpools with two people will be exempt, except during weekday peak hours (5 – 9 a.m. and 3 – 7 p.m.). Motorcycles, transit vehicles, and vanpools will also be exempt.
https://wstc.wa.gov/programs/tolling/i405-sr167-express-toll-lanes/
For the reversible express lanes I did find some plans to add a contraflow south lane in the early 2010s but I haven’t seen any recent studies for the past 15 years
https://managedlanes.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/3_potential-dynamic-lane-assessment-on-i-5-seattle.pdf
They would probably make it similar to i405 either restricting it based on time or lowering the discount for hov 2
That makes sense. The page you linked to had a “read more here” page which had this interesting bit:
WSDOT studied several carpool occupancy options, including:
2+ Carpool Free
Carpool Discount (including $1.00 and $0.50)
2+ Carpool Free Off-Peak/3+ Carpool Free Peak
3+ Carpool Free
(End quote)
It seems like the first option is out of the question. The second might work, and is pretty easy to understand, although it isn’t much different than single person HOT users. Since the toll varies, some days you pay a lot to avoid traffic, some days very little. The third might work, but it seems contradictory. Traffic is light enough off-peak that the addition of two-person HOV isn’t going to muck up the HOT lanes. But traffic is heavy enough that it makes sense to use the special lanes in the first place. The fourth would be my preference.
RossB is correct, after Lynnwood Link, I-5 may not carry much transit. But WSDOT may want to improve other HOV travel and freight. Without capital change, I-5 south of Northgate does not work well in the reverse peak direction. Every afternoon, southbound traffic diverts to SR-99 via North 80th and 85th streets; that fills up SR-99 and slows the E Line and Route 5. Traffic also spills over to Roosevelt Way NE.
WSDOT looked at the whole network in the 90s, but could not get a project funded.
> Without capital change, I-5 south of Northgate does not work well in the reverse peak direction. Every afternoon, southbound traffic diverts to SR-99 via North 80th and 85th streets; that fills up SR-99 and slows the E Line and Route 5. Traffic also spills over to Roosevelt Way NE.
There was a slight proposal for:
> One lane on the reversible roadway would be separated from the others and would operate southbound at all times from NE 65th Street to downtown to relieve congestion southbound at the I-5 Ship Canal Bridge, addressing a significant problem that occurs 7 days a week. (The feasibility of this concept is being assessed).
https://app.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Home/GetPDF?fileName=I-5_ExpressLanesReport_063011_web_6b0cc9e9-ed6e-4d31-8947-c401ebd1fa17.pdf#page=42
I don’t see how they’d pull it off without removing the northbound Howell St and northbound Pine/Pike entrance into the express lanes.
I’d rather have the state spend more directly on transit than on mega projects that have a tiny tangential benefit for transit.
The only mega projects I see making a difference for the climate are electrified rail, charging infrastructure, and fleet replacement (buses and ferries).
If WSF is considered part of the highway system, then please spend gas tax money to expedite electrifying the fleet.
> I’d rather have the state spend more directly on transit than on mega projects that have a tiny tangential benefit for transit.
Hot conversion of existing hov lanes is generally pretty cheap
> The only mega projects I see making a difference for the climate are electrified rail, charging infrastructure, and fleet replacement (buses and ferries).
Benefit transit != benefit environment. And vice versa
Electrifying busses honestly is a horrendous waste of transit funds for passengers. One can provide a lot more frequency/ improvements for the capital money being spent.
While I understand your intentions, this is partly why public transit sometimes really has a hard time improving when transit dollars are spent for as a jobs program (buy America rules), environment (buy electrified), etc
It’s fine to keep the current trolley busses but I am very against trying to expand it more besides where there’s an actual need to go up hills/ into tunnels. And then the battery versions currently have very low capacity.
It is even more dangerous since wasting transit dollars on electrification is politically easy while taking away car lanes is hard. I mean look at Los Angeles they swapped out all of their busses from diesel to natural gas a decade ago did that really help passengers?
“I mean look at Los Angeles they swapped out all of their busses from diesel to natural gas a decade ago did that really help passengers?”
Yes. Every little bit of relief to LA smog helps the passengers and everyone else there. Diesel is notorious for emitting particulates. Smog air is oppressive and LA’s valleys are geographically problematic (native Americans even calling it “the valley of the smokes”). There is a core reason why California historically pursues environmental air quality initiatives; it’s bad there.
@Al
That’s fine but look at what it hides. Actually getting bus lanes for the busses and leaving everyone else to understandably continue driving.
I mean there’s a reason why the FTA changed the brt/brt lite requirements to actually double check it actually helps passenger travel time rather than cities just spending federal dollars only on fancy bus stations/alternative fuel busses
I’d rather have the state spend more directly on transit than on mega projects that have a tiny tangential benefit for transit.
I feel the same way about Sound Transit. Alas, there is only so much we can do.
Anyway, the thread was about HOT lanes on I-5. Assuming these improve travel times substantially (which they are legally required to do) this will make a huge difference. Trips from Everett to Lynnwood will be much faster. This means trips from Everett to Seattle will be much faster, even if riders are asked to transfer to Link. Same goes from Tacoma to Federal Way. It is quite likely that the benefit for riders dwarfs that of Tacoma Link or Everett Link, despite costing a lot less.
Without capital change, I-5 south of Northgate does not work well in the reverse peak direction. Every afternoon, southbound traffic diverts to SR-99 via North 80th and 85th streets; that fills up SR-99 and slows the E Line and Route 5. Traffic also spills over to Roosevelt Way NE.
Yeah, I hear you. Reverse peak-direction is often worse than peak direction. Both directions can be really bad on the side streets. I don’t think you can fix the problem by investing in extra capacity though. It will just fill up. The things you can do are:
1) Improve transit and give people a good alternative by making the buses faster (by adding bus lanes*) and increasing frequency.
2) Adjust signal timing and other aspects of the system. This can only do so much, but it can result in more winners than losers.
3) Congestion pricing. This definitely works, but it is politically challenging and complicated.
The important thing to know is that two things happen when they make a street slower:
1) People take alternative driving routes.
2) People stop driving.
The latter is very important, and there is a lot of evidence to support this idea. Furthermore, the better transit is, the more likely they are to stop driving. That is the thing about just “taking a lane” (like they are proposing). You not only get people to switch to transit (because transit is now considerably faster) but people stop driving because driving is worse.
* By “bus lanes” I mean BAT lanes, bus-lanes, HOT lanes — anything that makes buses faster than general traffic.
Cool map, WL.
It may need an update, however. I know for a fact that the choo-choo in Tacoma has signal priority along division, but it isn’t marked.
The Congestion Roadways in the existing conditions is a load of horseshit.
Pacific Ave in Tacoma isn’t congested nearly ever. And it’s labeled as “severe.”
Ditto for 509 through the tideflats, Puyallup Ave, and just about everything in Tacoma, honestly. We don’t have congestion almost anywhere that I have witnessed, other than I-5 and sometimes 16, and 38th near the mall.
The old 509 crossing the 11th Ave bridge, where they have knocked down one bridge and closed another is listed as moderately congested. That’s laughable.
Their metrics need some “adjustment.”
I have said it before and I will say it again.
The words Customer Service and Sound Transit do not belong in the same sentence because it is obvious that the two have never met. We have all known that Customer Service is foreign to Sound Transit and I got another example today.
I wrote an email to them about 10 days ago asking if they were going to publish a schedule for the Light Rail during the January disruption and today I received a response and they did not answer the question. Instead I got a detailed explanation on the disruption something I already knew.
The response also suggested that I might want to leave 30 minutes to make sure that I get to where I am going on time. No, I should not have to do that if Sound Transit will publish a schedule so that the passengers will know what trains will run the full route and plan accordingly. But in their response the customer service representative could not even answer that simple question.
And yes I responded back and in my response I asked 3 times and that is will Sound Transit publish a schedule. Not a difficult question.
And with so many with Sound Transit making 6 figure salaries you would think that publishing a schedule as a convenience for their passengers would be something they would think off and then telling their customer service department. But apparently not.
If Sound Transit wonders why so many people have such a low opinion of them it is the lack of common sense that runs through that agency. They announced a major disruption to their service on their Light Rail but a thing like a published schedule is not something that comes to their mind. And don’t get me started on their customer service or the lack of one because this is not the first time I have asked a simple question of them and seemingly they can’t even respond to simple questions.
You think a real person responds to email at Sound Transit? Or just some AI chatbot spewing garbage?
The problem with public transit around Puget Sound is agencies failure to hire (and pay for) qualified employees.
You won’t much about that here on this blog however.
When I wrote to Metro commending the operator who stopped to let the police show up and detain the thug who had just beat up a homeless man right before jumping on the bus, I eventually got a response thanking me for submitting my complaint, and stating that the driver was told his behavior was unacceptable.
Sigh.
This does not surprise me.
Your request deserves a frank answer from them. The one I would give if I was ST is something like “we are uncertain about whether or not our operation will be able to follow any published schedule, so we don’t want to mislead the public until we begin our modified operations by publishing one.”
Instead it sounds like ST is unable to admit this situation because they are too arrogant to admit that they don’t know. Chances are they would even try to make you feel stupid for merely asking, phrased in a passive aggressive way.
Stepping back, I think that ST needs a segment-by-segment track disruption contingency plan for each segment of the system. While every disruption likely has unique, there are some basic elements like what operations can work and what signage and announcements would be needed that can be pre-determined. Each plan should include what should be the possible general train schedule if only one track is open, for example.
What I think is also missing is any guidance on how to manage common track maintenance disruptions with an eye to moving them away from disrupting weeks of service, especially during crowded train times or days. For example, recent tile replacement projects should not require two week shutdowns. Tiles are replaced in almost every rail system in the world on a routine basis without closing a track for two continuous weeks (like doing half or a third over a weekend with more worker shifts). Of course, ST also seems to overestimate the time needed by 50-100 percent and usually resumes normal operations way before the published resumption date (and trying to spin it as if they are somehow working harder than expected rather than admit that the original disruption was overstated in the first place).
To ST staff: Riders are not stupid, and depend on reliable Link operations. Many see what you’re doing, and you disrupt their lives each and every day you disrupt normal service. Overly excessive disruptions — even when announced weeks beforehand — hurt your agency’s credibility and desirability.
I received a response to my 2nd email and they said that they will not publish a schedule as the operations teams will try to keep the trains on a every 26 minute schedule for trains that run the full route and they will do so as they go. So basically ST is saying good luck in trying to figure when a train that will run the full route will come.
And in the note they say take the next train from Northgate to Capitol Hill and wait there for the next through train which makes absolutely no sense.
I then wrote back that if the operations team can’t figure out a schedule ahead of time for an interruption that they have known about for a long time the operations team is incompetent.
But this exchange of emails shows again that customer service and Sound Transit do not belong in the same sentence because ST has no customer service.
“The problem with public transit around Puget Sound is agencies failure to hire (and pay for) qualified employees.”
It’s not so much that than more of having strong guiding leadership and upper management. People have said that Joni Earl was a great leader for Sound Transit when she ran it and that the culture within Sound Transit changed when she left. Same with King County Metro and Kevin Desmond. Leaders who show strong leadership and guideance help with internal morale and are able to temper bad ideas from festering and raise good ideas up.
Zach B,
Let’s start at the very beginning here. The bus driver shortage, and the “back end” staff that keep the buses clean and running. This is not a leadership issue, it’s spending money on expansion over operations.
Moving on to light rail…. Sound Transit can’t even figure out how to maintain the lines it’s currently running. Tile issues, escalator issues, scheduling issues. There’s a huge malfunction in lower management and a huge pool of workers missing. Sound Transit can’t even seem to answer emails in a timely matter.
Now let’s stir in these ridiculous mega-rail projects. Of course Sound Transit builds them all at the same time! Without enough staff to do maybe one or two. There’s not near enough focus on any one thing at Sound Transit, so the agency fails at everything.
Timm knew enough about operations to handle that side of things without dealing with a mega-projects. I highly doubt Sound Transit will find a leader in the next, what? 6 months? 9? how about a year? And when they do, it won’t make much of a difference because the problems are so bad nobody on earth can fix them.
For transit to thrive in Puget Sound….. Sound Transit must die.
Does ST have a real customer service department, as in a group of people whose job is to respond to emails and phone calls from the general public (while press enquiries go to a smaller team of spokespeople) or was that contracted to Metro?
Brent White,
I have no idea if ST has a real customer service department…. but in the end, what does it matter? As far as day-to-day transit questions, does ST have any hard, uniform answers? Like when is the F______ train coming?
Customer service for ST would be a really crappy job with a lot of turnover. That turnover only pours gas on the fire.
They don’t want to publish a schedule because potential delays would make the schedule wrong. ST knows what normal service will be like because it’s been doing it for years. It doesn’t know how well this modified schedule will work because it’s never been done before. It may change the pattern after a few days, like it has during other maintenance periods.
The biggest thing ST needs to do is try harder to avoid 20- or 30-minute service. We’ve made several suggestions. The simplest would be to just close the tunnel and run buses every 10-15 minutes. If can run them in groups of two or three if necessary for capacity.
They are going to publish a schedule and if adjustments need to be made they can update the schedule.
A published schedule is better than having passengers not knowing when the next full route train will arrive and standing on the platforms for possible close to 30 minutes. A published schedule also allows passengers to plan ahead on when they need to be at the stations.
Consider what it would look like to raise regular fares on the King County Water Taxis 25 cents.
For the West Seattle Water Taxi, that would raise the electronic fare from $5 to $5.25, and the cash fare from $5.75 to an even $6.
For the Vashon Water Taxi, that would raise the electronic fare from $5.75 to $6, and the cash fare from $6.75 to an even $7.
Consider next what could be done with the low-income fares. King County Water Taxis are the only remaining service in the Puget Pass family that has low-income fares that are both higher than its RRFP fares and higher than $1. (Everett Transit has a $1 low-income fare and a 50-cent RRFP fare. Also, the water taxis honor youth fare freedom and the Subsidized Annual Pass for free rides for very-low-income riders.)
The West Seattle Water Taxi’s low-income fare is $3.75. Its RRFP fare is $2.50.
The Vashon low-income fare is $4.50. Its RRFP fare is $3.
My guess is that a 25-cent regular fare increase would easily cover dropping the low-income fares to the same level as the RRFP fares.
The nominal decrease would be 50% on both routes. But if you subtract out the $1 transferable fare from the connecting buses, the low-income upcharge on the water taxis would be dropped from $3.50 to $2 for Vashon, and from $2.75 to $1.50 for West Seattle.
One could argue correctly that reduced-fare riders have ample $1 / zero-upcharge buses between downtown and West Seattle that are more useful than the water taxi. The same argument can’t be made for Vashon.
But consider how much extra it would cost to drop reduced fares for the Vashon Water Taxi from $3 to $2.50 to match West Seattle’s … probably not much.
Metro may as well crunch the numbers on what would likely happen if the water taxi reduced fares were to be dropped to $1. For those riders, they’d be able to say “good riddance” to the $1.50-$3.50 upcharge/toll for getting off the island and getting back on, while other riders in those fare groups ride about the region for just $1.
The water taxi is very costly. See the most recent operating cost data from the FTA NTD. It was $1,522 per revenue hour.
Are you suggesting the water taxi fares should not be raised?
Anyways since we talked about busses and trains and freeways why not a bit about zoning.
1) wonder if next year the one Seattle plan will finally come out
2) will be interesting to see how lynnwood zoning goes
3) kinda interesting seeing that only a few areas for the rest of the link stations are regional centers https://www.psrc.org/media/2650
3b) really surprised not a single section in shoreline was a regional center
4) there’s a map of transit supportive densities that can be toggled https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/a587d27d1c444a6e891fe1b58508622d/page/Future-Conditions/
(hope I’m not spamming too much)
The transit-supportive densities map really brings home the fact that running Lynnwood Link along I-5 instead of Aurora/99 was a huge mistake.
Highly agree sad that can’t be fixed.
But hopefully the aurora avenue improvements goes well and future rapidride e improvement are well.
I guess the next step Id say is advocating for a lot more upzoning near these freeway link stations
Actually …..
If there are three rail lines created between Downtown and Northgate, it could be possible to put the third line on a branch above SR 99. I can’t speak to the best place to branch — but I am pointing out that it seems possible.
Of course it’s unfunded and seemingly decades off.
@Al S.
Aurora is considered on the STP. But yes, unfunded and likely decades out at best.
https://seattletransportationplan.infocommunity.org/
Draft Seattle Transportation Plan: Transit Element | T-41
Figure 8: Potential Link Light Rail and Sounder Commuter Rail Expansion Opportunities
Yes, that was an ST mistake. Mayor Nickels was a leader in that decision. ST staff did study an option on SR-99 but it jogged back to I-5 at Mountlake Terrace, so it seemed an option designed to fail. My adage: a freeway is to pedestrians as a dam is to fish. Note that ST3 repeats the mistake in south King County. But note that ST2 Link will still improve the network significantly.
145th actually seems to be having relatively nice cluster of apartments coming along
185th sadly doesn’t have many apartments being built, though it does have the zoning for it I wonder why this one is failing
WL, it’s the horrid street grid up there and the almost impossibility to go east. It’s pretty much the boonies, served by a station directly out of the LA Metra engineering guide. There are no services anywhere near; somebody who lives there will have great commuting transportation to Northgate, the U District, Capitol Hill, Downtown Seattle and even the airport.
But to get a loaf of bread they’ll have to drive a couple of miles. Nothing is within walking distance.
Rainier Beach Station area remains desolate. Of course., building it with only one exit did not help the walkshed. It is no wonder ridership there is distant last.
I used to live right by that 185th St. station. I regularly walked to North City, which has substantial services. It’s not adjacent, but it’s close. And it is seeing substantial density.
To the Northeast, though, it gets really steep, with little chance of dense development.
The Fred Meyer on Aurora is only a mile away. Be great if there were E service on 185th.
@Cam
I know that North City neighborhood pretty well also as a relative of mine used to live right near that station area as well. He raised his family there in a fairly new home that ultimately was torn down when his parcel was condemned for yet another staging area. The area’s zoning has been significantly changed on both sides of I-5 so I’m not sure what commenter WL is referencing.
What’s the toggle for transit supportive densities? I don’t see anything with that name on the link?
My take is opposite – I look at Shoreline and the steady development along Aurora plus two large station area upzones and conclude that Link is going to create more density (along I5) than it would along Aurora. Aurora’s density is a narrow linear corridor – like a Phinney Ridge or Stone Way – that is best serve by multiple bus stops not a single rail stop. The Link station areas need to be more of a circle of density – U District and Northgate are two good station area example – and I think it’s plausible to argue that the two blank-slate rezones along I5 was more impactful than the counterfactual of how Shoreline would have upzoned Aurora (if at all). Similarly Montlake Terrace is upzoning for a station area, whereas a station at 220th & 99 would have been suffocated by Edmond’s aversion to any midrise growth along 99. (The same issue happened along 99 south of Highline – the Hwy 99 option was better only if one assumed that Des Moines would participate in any upzoning of the station area)
Rainier Beach Station area remains desolate.
All the Rainier Valley stations are poor, and for the same reason: they are too far to the west. This hurts for a couple reasons. First, they are next to greenbelts (although Othello isn’t too bad). Second, they manage to skip the cultural centers. The Rainer Beach and Columbia City neighborhoods are to the east (on Rainier Avenue). Mount Baker is close to where it should be, but manages to get the details all wrong. Othello is again the exception. It is not that Othello is particularly good, it is just unlike the other stations, in isn’t particularly bad. There wasn’t much at Othello & MLK, but there wasn’t much at Othello & Rainier, either.
The stations to the north of Northgate are all fairly similar. Some are seeing development faster than others, but that is just luck (except for 130th, where the city still hasn’t decided how they are going to change the zoning). Some places just build faster than others. You can see that in Lake City. Some places sit vacant for years, while others get replaced right away. A lot of it has to do with who owns it, as a lot of people have no interest in selling. I expect all of the places close to the station to eventually grow. I don’t expect any of them to have a huge amount of walk-up ridership, simply because they are close to the freeway. They will get a fair amount of bus-to-train ridership, though. Unlike Rainier Valley, the buses will be very focused on feeding the trains, instead of being a good substitute for it.
The transit-supportive densities map really brings home the fact that running Lynnwood Link along I-5 instead of Aurora/99 was a huge mistake.
I’m not sure if there was any option that was great. The problem is that there are only a few significant destinations north of Green Lake. You’ve got various neighborhoods for retail and medical (Lake City, Northgate, Bitter Lake, Edmonds, Lynnwood, etc.). There is North Seattle, Shoreline and Edmonds Community College. Clearly the various destinations are quite spread out. I don’t think you can possibly serve them all with rail unless you spend way more money than you should. The key is to have good connections to the major corridors (SR 99, SR 522 and I-5) and let the buses do the work. Any destinations or dense neighborhoods you serve with rail in the process is basically a bonus.
The nice thing is that Roosevelt works well for SR 522. To get to Aurora (SR 99) you have to go under the freeway. I could see the train going under, and serving the other side of the campus (close to College Way). With a station there, all you need to so is make your way over to Aurora. You really don’t need to keep going up Aurora, although I do see value in serving Bitter Lake (130th). You would design it so that you could keep going, but it wouldn’t be essential that you do. The main thing you need is a good bus interface. Speaking of which, you would have to do some work on I-5 so that buses have the same sort of connection to the North Seattle College station as they will at Lynnwood (and Federal Way). The college makes a good anchor for the I-5 buses (you want a place that is both a connection and a destination in itself).
At that point the key is to work on the bus network, as well as serve the urban areas with more rail (e. g. Ballard to UW, First Hill, etc.). The buses serving the stations would tend to be very north-south oriented in the north end (which is good, since that is fast). East-west buses would simply be a way to improve the overall transit network. (Although again, a station in Bitter Lake would do both.)
The bus ramifications are interesting. Suddenly the 40 looks fantastic. Yeah, it has a little button hook at the end, but it would connect to the station much sooner (and end in the campus). The only bus going on 92nd over the freeway would be the 61. East of I-5, the buses head towards Roosevelt and the UW. Fewer turns, fewer transfers; basically just better. The E gets more riders, and with that, more frequency (six minute all-day headways anyone?). Riders from the northern suburbs lose their fast Lynnwood-to-Mountlake-Terrace type connection (Oh, No!) but gain faster trips to the heart of Seattle. Of course the region needs more money for buses, but with less money spent on the trains, they would have it. I’m not saying that is necessarily the best possible setup, but it would be a lot better than what we are building.
The seattletimes has a pretty good article describing the issues facing Rainier Beach station area
> Before they can break ground, affordable-housing developers must line up financing that will enable construction without relying on rents to pay back debt. That often means public money of some kind.To secure subsidies, affordable-housing developers partner with various funders as well as community groups to incorporate their ideas and demonstrate that local needs are being met. It can be a complex, slow process.
> For residential real estate broker Jonathan Nicoli, the prerequisite of community buy-in is not a huge hurdle. Market realities make private development in Rainier Beach pretty well impossible at the moment, he said, and subsidized affordable housing was his best option. The cost of construction is the same in Rainier Beach or, say, trendier Capitol Hill. But on Capitol Hill, property owners can charge a lot for rent. In Rainier Beach, they can’t. While Nicoli’s deal with the non-profit penciled out, the group would still need to raise about $6 million to break ground and build the units. There is no timeline for that.
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/rainier-beach-at-a-crossroads-its-past-time-the-seattle-neighborhood-gets-the-fair-housing-and-economic-development-promised-by-light-rail/
There is this story as well: https://publicola.com/2017/09/07/why-are-there-so-many-vacant-properties-near-rainier-beach-light-rail-station/
All good points. Sound Transit made some mistakes in terms of chopping up the property. But the fundamentals are just very weak. Again, the main part of Rainier Beach (which has seen plenty of development) is to the east. To the west it is the opposite. Not only is there very little there, but it abuts a big greenbelt. There has been some development (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ARGSB3ZAyvG5ddMm9) but there is only so much that can happen there.
Brent’s comment: “ Rainier Beach Station area remains desolate. Of course, building it with only one exit did not help the walkshed. It is no wonder ridership there is distant last.”
It’s not completely desolate. There are new townhomes north of Trenton St.
The station is located just south of the high voltage lines, and those lines require more width than MLK itself does, and they run diagonally so that adjacent parcels have odd shapes. That eats up lots of opportunity.
Then the hillside itself restricts access.
Then the area is already in a place with small lots and existing homes. Even with upzoning, it’s hard to assemble land for a TOD.
Then the only station exit is within a very busy and complex intersection with long delays for pedestrians to get across lanes of traffic.
One solution that I’ve toy d with is how to create a south station entrance there. I see two ways:
1. Putting a small “hump” overpass for MLK traffic south of the platform so that the station users can simply walk at grade underneath the lanes.
2. Create a skybridge connecting the hills on either side with elevators and a stairway wrap-around down to the platform. That skybridge could even be a public building like a library or a community center or an urban park.
Both options may have fatal flaws and there aren’t funds to even build these things.
A third option, a pedestrian only crossing at the south end of the platform seems easier to do, but it wouldn’t connect to anything at this time.
*****
Importantly, Brent’s point is well taken. By designing only one way in, the walkshed is way more restricted than Othello and Columbia City are. It’s an example of why I complain about ST only presenting platform locations in planning future station locations. The ways that riders access the station can save or add several minutes of walking time. Add to that the hassle and additional delay created when someone is forced to cross a busy arterial at a stop light that may only be green once every 2 minutes. I’ve heard the term “barbell” when discussing optimum station layouts.
Example: Judkins Park is amazing in that it adds a 23rd Ave entrance to the former freeway station, which is like building a new station at a fraction of the cost. Of course, ST is opening a few other new stations with only one entrance or with scary nearby crossings of fast arterials in the near future. It will be interesting to see which ones do well and which ones do not, and I’m expecting to hear about more pedestrian fatalities near some of these new stations.
“Rainier Beach Station area remains desolate.”
“All the Rainier Valley stations are poor, and for the same reason: they are too far to the west. ”
They are too far west, but at the same time, development decreases the further south you go, and Rainier Beach is the furthest south. This seems to be because it’s the furthest away from downtown, job centers, and the more desirable neighborhoods north of the valley. Developers and tenants prefer to be further north around Mt Baker or Columbia City if they can.
Also, the city has slowed down upzoning Rainier Beach, to give the lower-income community more time to adapt to growth, minimize displacement, and get more working-class businesses/trade schools/food independence/services in there before the 7-story buildings take over.
Tuesday morning – shuttle bus running between Northgate and Roosevelt
Tueaday afternoon – shuttle bus running between Northgate and UW
2 disruptions in 1 day? What’s going on with ST lately?
Well isn’t that nice of them to offer replacement service!
Seriously though, I think the early decision to use KCM drivers for Link set the stage for the agency to care more about building rather than maintaining and operating a system. Minimizing disruptions is not ingrained into their culture as strongly as I think it should be..
It’s always more fun to be wined and dined by engineering companies, construction companies and developers than to have to clean up spills.
I wonder at what point it will make sense for ST to bring operations in-house. I think it made sense to subcontract to KCM in early days, and maybe at this point there isn’t a practical difference between having Link operations under ST’s payroll vs KCM’s, but at some point it ought to be more efficient to have all those folks working within ST instead as subcontractors.
On the other hand, it’s not like ST is a paragon of operational efficiency…
Nathan D.
Oh, Sound Transit could take over all operator training (bus and light rail) for the entire Puget Sound, have excellent standardized training for all PT, Metro, CT and ST drivers and support people…. starting by paying more to get more (and better) new hires into the system.
Although good training isn’t at all cheap…. I’d guess it would turn out cost effective in the long run. I know from friends that Pierce Transit has lots of drivers about to retire and nobody to replace them with…. I’d guess Metro is under the same pressure.
“We don’t have enough drivers” is just something any transit director should ever say. There are no excuses for this.
If Sound Transit existed in the real world… pumping out quality operators and other first line employees would be job #1.
“ I wonder at what point it will make sense for ST to bring operations in-house. ”
I would point to the Link opening as when the change should probably have occurred.
ST Express and even Sounder operated on facilities as “overlay” services. Link on the other hand involves mostly exclusively-maintained track and more recently large subway and aerial stations with adjacent parking garages (and staff and expenses to maintain them). That’s on top of specialized rail OMFs that have mechanics and staff with training and tasks that are not often interchangeable like bus maintenance is.
Then there is the result of the large scale expansion expected to carry a large proportion of transit trips. When Link carried far less than 10 percent of King County transit trips a decade ago, the staffing needs were not as consequential as it will be when ST is carrying something like a third of all King County transit trips.
The structural result is that ST is not focused on operations as its primary mission, and the time has come where it should be. Just look at what discussed at an ST board meeting! It’s mostly about hiring contractors and coordinating building projects. It’s rarely about managing the operations most effectively, or how to attract more riders.
Once Federal Way Link opens in hopefully about two years, there won’t be another major expansion opening officially until 2032 (and I think 2035 is more likely). Even the next two bigger Link projects — West Seattle and Tacoma Done — won’t add more than 10-15 percent more riders than the system will have by 2026. Looking backwards, ST will have something like 600 to 800 percent more riders in 2026 than in 2015. Similarly, ST in 2015 had only three aerial and one subway station to maintain; by 2026 that becomes something like 26 not sitting on the ground (with only 8 more with 130th, West Seattle and Tacoma Dome projects). Now ST has parking garages to maintain as opposed to lots, with literally thousands of spaces coming on line in these new structures while in 2015 I believe that there weren’t any.
We are seeing a huge change in the daily functioning of ST in this current 2015-2026 period. The pre-2015 approach to operations as well as agency culture and focus seems like the wrong approach after 2026 in a structural sense. It’s time that the ST Board comes to terms with that!
Organizational experts are full of case studies where companies “grew too fast” and did not shift their culture and structure accordingly resulting in failure. I think this “grow too fast” setting is at the structural core of ST’s problems.
tacomee, again, I don’t know why you think the lack of discussion of operator pay in the comments here equate to a lack of support for increased driver pay. I’d bet that pretty much everyone who routinely comments here would support increased driver pay, even if it meant less planned service, if it meant more reliable service. It’s simply not something that advocates can significantly influence unless the ATU asks for outside help.
Al, I agree that the opening of ST2’s projects are likely to be a good pivot point for ST to bring operations in-house, but that assumes someone’s doing the math on the cost/benefit of contracting service from KCM versus managing it internally. Unfortunately, ST seems to be structurally incapable of efficient management of the things riders care about. As a multi-county agency, ST is probably “too big to fail,” (as they used to say), so I struggle to imagine a scenario in which ST is forced to restructure in a significant way such that it can offer better operational efficiency than KCM at any scale.
Nathan D
No, I got to disagree with you here. Most posters here could care less about transit operators– the idea of self driving buses and trains is constantly brought up as a “solution” to the driver shortage. I’ve never heard of an article in any Left leaning Seattle publication that stated out with “Pay the bus drivers more now!” If you have link, post it. I’d love to read it.
Driver pay is the #1 issue in transit in Puget Sound. There’s so “pass go and collect $200” until labor issues are solved systemwide.
Labor issues are really Seattle’s number issue across the board. The city is short thousands of social workers to deal with a huge homeless/drug addict problem. There’s not enough qualified people to staff treatment centers that don’t exist and no staff of supported housing units that don’t exist….. and not enough construction workers to build any of this.
Sound Transit has no will to build from the bottom up…. customer service seems below the agency… and transit IS customer service. That’s why at the end of the day…. Sound Transit is going to be a big fail.
Posters on this board are constantly bring up how great transit is Germany or Japan…. and I can tell you, bus driver or transit police are actual respected occupations in Germany. What’s the Sound Transit solution to fare evasion? Rent-a-cops. Bus diver training? Leave it underfunded Pierce Transit. Do they even have trained customer service reps? Show me a posting to hire customer service people.
Go ahead and email Sound Transit yourself….. they do not care about your transit experience in the slightest. I would never defend a public utility that is above answering email in a professional manner.
“I’ve never heard of an article in any Left leaning Seattle publication that stated out with “Pay the bus drivers more now!””
It’s only worth writing articles on things that have a chance of getting through the political process. Raising drivers pay requires raising taxes, so it runs into political and public opposition, state restrictions, and initiatives to reverse it. Otherwise it’s like Kshama Sawant whining and complaining, and wasting effort on things that have little chance of approval. And since we have inadequate frequency, raising taxes for salaries conflicts with raising taxes for frequency, because it’s the same money. We need somehow do both, both raise salaries and raise frequency, but so far there isn’t an opening to get even one of them through the political process in full, much less both of them. We can only hope that politicians’ and public attitudes change over time, and then we’ll have an opening where we can get it through.
“Labor issues are really Seattle’s number issue across the board.”
It’s a national issue. Peter Zeihan estimates the US is down 500,000 workers due to boomer retirements.
“not enough construction workers to build any of this.”
We can do more by restructuring. The workers are busy building not-very-walkable buildings, infrastructure for cars, and single-family houses. If the government revised its priorities, the same worker capacity could go to improving transit infrastructure and fully walkable buldings and neighborhoods. Those could be both publicly-owned and privately-owned projects. The city, county, and state governments just need to reprioritize their priorities, values, resources, and regulations better. But that’s another political problem. There’s insufficient will to do it. We can imagine that Dow Constantine would accept West Seattle BRT, an automated Ballard-Westlake line, and Bruce Harrell would champion bus-priority lanes on all strategic arterials, and the county council would get more excited about doubling frequency before free/reduced fares or converting the existing diesel fleet to battery buses, but there’s no sign of that yet.
“Posters on this board are constantly bring up how great transit is Germany or Japan…. and I can tell you, bus driver or transit police are actual respected occupations in Germany.”
A lot of things are different there, including prioritization of transit, support for transit, deprioritizing cars, a social safety net that keeps people out of destitution and sleeping on sidewalks, more goodwill and trust in government because of that social safety net, and a lack of extreme individualism and racial polarization like the US has. All these are why Germany, Japan, Canada, and Mexico have better transit than we do. Of these, the easiest ones for our current government to tackle, and the most appropriate ones for transit activists to push for, are prioritizing transit and walkability and deprioritizing cars. The others are larger societal issues, which we can work on, but ultimately they require a larger societal solution.
There have been a lot of “signal problems” with Link recently, and I got caught in the Northgate-UW one yesterday afternoon. Sam, I assign you to investigate why there are so many signal-related outages and what the problem is.
Northgate had “police activity” earlier in the day, so the station was closed for that.
Through another source other than ST customer service I have found out that they will publish a schedule for Light Rail during the interruption.
It is a miracle.
The Ballard Extension is looking at a new SLU location: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/12/20/sound-transit-oks-study-of-vulcans-new-south-lake-union-station-alternative/
Is this new news?
I’m not a SLU techie but this proposed new location, essentially the Seattle Center, seems fine to me. This means a one-seat ride for some people as they can access the Center without using the Monorail or transferring to a bus. For SLU techies, they can still use Westlake & Denny and walk OR transfer.
It was introduced a few weeks ago, so there’s some coverage in the archive or previous open threads. I think reaction to it is mixed.
Some comments:
1. ST is not talking much about station depths.
2. ST is not talking much about station entrances. Until better station layouts are presented it’s hard to tell what to do.
3. Transfers to Route 8 and RapidRide E should be primary considerations. It’s not a focus currently. It should be!
4. I don’t see how this could delay the opening date. Ballard Link is still wildly underfunded. The EIS has to be republished anyway. This will require a giant and deep underground vault excavation bigger than Capitol Hill was, and the prior plan to be under Westlake will probably be lengthy and messier than this would be.. The least important issue I see is the delay.
5. If this is important to Vulcan, what incentive would they propose? Underground connections for pedestrians? Renovating Denny Park? Other things?
That’s on top of the continued tacit denial that shorter automated trains should be considered that comes along with this vote.
Good points Al. I agree with all of them, especially the first three. Not much to add, really, other than importance of those details for these particular stations. Some stations can do well, despite all the flaws. For example, the UW Station is poor, but it still manages to be the best option to the hospital and much of campus, while also connecting to the 520 buses. In contrast for a lot of the trips, these stations will be competing with other bus service. Given the fact that we are slowly but surely adding right-of-way for the buses, it is quite possible that the bus alternative turn out to be better.
I can see the location across from MoPOP being good if they’re also replacing the surface lots in the area with TOD that integrates with the station, like Capitol Hill or U District. Otherwise what you have, the substation, the Gates Foundation garage, the 99 tunnel ramps? MoPOP and the Space Needle themselves are already very well served by the monorail, which might be preferable to the hassle of getting out a deep station, a longer walk with a crosswalk signal, and uphill if you’re going to the Needle.
MUTCD 11th edition released. Notably adds a lot more pedestrian, biking and transit items (accepting the red/green lanes) as well as removing the 85th percentile speed suggestion in urban areas. Not much change honestly to seattle which already implemented a lot of these items, but it’ll speed up implementation of bike/transit lanes for many other cities (lynnwood, bellevue, etc…) that originally were a lot harder to get “legally accepted”.
> Incorporation of provisional traffic control devices currently under Interim Approval, including pedestrian-actuated rectangular rapid-flashing beacons at uncontrolled marked crosswalks, green-colored pavement for bicycle lanes, red-colored pavement for transit lanes, and a new traffic signal warrant based on crash experience;
> Improvements to safety and accessibility for pedestrians, including the location of pushbuttons at signalized crosswalks, crosswalk marking patterns, and accommodations in work zones; Expanded traffic control devices to improve safety and operation for bicyclists, including intersection bicycle boxes, two-stage turn boxes, bicycle traffic signal faces, and a new design for the U.S. Bicycle Route sign;
> Additional signing options for direction to electric vehicle charging services; Considerations for agencies to prepare roadways for automated vehicle technologies and to support the safe deployment of automated driving systems;
> Clarifications on patented and proprietary traffic control devices to foster and promote innovation; and Safety and operational improvements, including revised procedures for the posting of speed limits, new criteria for warning signs for horizontal alignment changes, and new application of traffic control devices for part-time travel on shoulders to manage congestion.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/19/2023-27178/national-standards-for-traffic-control-devices-the-manual-on-uniform-traffic-control-devices-for#p-24
top part is summary of changes, scroll down to read details
I’m moving the thread about escalators and stairs here. First off, I get AJ’s point. Escalators generally don’t matter in terms of ridership. As long as you provide an alternative (such as elevators) you are OK. You have to, since otherwise you aren’t ADA compliant.
But the devil is in the details. You have to have enough elevators or escalators and keep at least one operating at all times. Otherwise, you are screwed. Al is right in that escalators can help people exit an area significantly faster, especially if they walk up them. For those that have trouble walking, it complements the elevators (less waiting). There is plenty of benefit although it can cost a lot of money. But a lot of that goes back to the station depth. With really deep stations (or really high ones) escalators save a lot of time and effort (the whole point of having mass transit).
There are some stations that are overbuilt though. Take NE 130th Station in Seattle. On the one hand, it is a fairly simple station and fairly close to the ground. There is no unnecessary mezzanine. It has side platforms, which means no reversing direction, but I don’t think that will ever matter. And yet even with all of this simplicity, they manage to overbuild it. The station will sit just north of 130th. Just about everyone will arrive from the south. There is a freeway that prevents coming in from the northwest, and a golf course to the northeast. I know people have dreams of housing replacing the park, but it is highly likely that will ever happen*. I think it is far more likely that the park simply changes uses (from a golf course to a more general-purpose park). With all that in mind, you don’t need two sets of escalators, elevators and stairs on each side. Maybe you have stairs at the north end (on both sides) but that is about it. I get that the station would look lopsided, but that is the nature of it — ridership will be lopsided. If it straddled 130th it would be different (and a lot better) but that isn’t where sits.
* Yes, it is theoretically possible that Jackson Park will have housing some day, but to begin with, that would be illegal. The city would have to change the law that prevents park land from being converted to housing. But more than anything, it just seems highly unlikely, since people really like parks. I don’t know of any case where they have done that. I know that when the military abandons land it has gone into a combination of housing and park land (mostly the latter) but I don’t think we’ve ever converted park land to housing.
Construction of the affordable housing complex at Northgate Station looks to start soon. Eco blocks are in place blocking off the north part of the park and ride lot (one lane left open for egress of cars currently parked there). Sign says it closes tomorrow, notices were being placed on the cars currently parked there. It looks like, for now, the walkway between the old transit center and Thornton Place will remain open, although today it was partially blocked by a truck, likely the one that brought in the eco blocks.
Maybe it is a thing that some riders illegally park there for several days to take the train to SeaTac Airport.
So we built a billion dollar light rail system with one of the busiest stations being Northgate where right now if you come after 7:30/8:00 there is no parking available and now you take away about 1/3 of the parking spots to built housing. Not smart.
And no not everybody who parks at Northgate has a direct bus to get there or they don’t want to bike. I know some of you don’t like the idea of park and ride lots but they do work as they do at Northgate. The people who park there are not driving their cars to their final destination but using public transit which is what most of you want. Now with less parking some will drive their cars to work.
And go there on the evenings and weekends when there are games at either T-Mobile, Lumen or Husky Stadium. People park at Northgate and ride the light rail. Now with less parking available some of them are going to say forget it and drive to the stadiums.
I know some of you say we need more housing and probable true but why built a light rail system costing billions and make it harder for people who want to use it.
It’s the opposite problem. We are building a multi billion dollar light rail and building parking garages on the most valuable land next to the light rail stations rather than apartments.
The stations next to 145th/185th/Lynnwood are already building massive parking garages.
Not to say park and rides are bad per se but it’s not really a scalable solution to keep building ever larger amounts of parking. I means there’s already four areas of park and ride A, B, C, D.
When Northgate Station was being designed Sound Transit asked the community whether it wanted a larger P&R or better bus feeders, sidewalks, and bike paths to the station. Contrary to all the other P&R stations, the majority of respondents wanted the latter. Metro did a survey of the existing P&R and found that most of the cars were not coming from north of it but from east and west. Many respondents said the only reason they drove to the station was because there were so few bus feeders, the only I-5 pedestrian crossings were so far away, and there were no safe walking or biking routes. They asked for those instead of a larger P&R. That’s what led to the I-5 pedestrian bridge, plans for a Metro restructure (which the driver shortage swallowed), and sidewalk and bike-path projects.
When Lynnwood Link opens next year, some of the passengers and cars will shift to those stations, so that will free up some space at Northgate for others.
There is way too much parking at the cross-section of Trantor built west of the former mall.
It’s just more expensive than some care to pay.
“Now with less parking available some of them are going to say forget it and drive to the stadiums. ”
Going through much more traffic and parking a mile away from the stadiums and paying tens of dollars for it? Those are people who will drive no matter what.
Having enough parking spaces for every rider would require quadrupling the P&Rs. Most riders don’t come via car, or if they do they’re dropped off. Drivers typically fill a the P&R space from 7am to 6pm, so only one person per day can use it. Each space costs between $40K to 130K to build — on the high end if it’s a garage in the city rather than a surface lot in Fife. That money could go to a lot more useful amenities that would serve more riders, or go to feeders, or be left in taxpayers’ pockets.
On the East Coast there’s a tradition of transit agencies paying for just the station, and cities paying for an adjacent P&R if they want it. That would be a better model.
“On the East Coast there’s a tradition of transit agencies paying for just the station, and cities paying for an adjacent P&R if they want it. That would be a better model.”
I agree.
While not entirely true (like DC Metro in Virginia), it is what often happens there. When I lived in Boston, most cities beyond the city limits had parking responsibilities near stations. It was often a money maker for each city. Many sold parking permits that were free or cheaper for local residents.
I prefer this model. It’s not only a cost savings for the transit operator, it puts each city on the hook to justify the number of spaces and the cost.
What do we do? We promise for ST to build it all and specify the number of spaces without study. We let each city first put an arbitrary number of spaces into a referendum then each city not only gets a free garage, they get mitigation money and surrounding street improvements at no cost to them! That’s how we get these parking garages here.