The Link reduction starts Saturday and runs three weeks (January 13-February 4).
- Weekdays end-to-end Northgate-Angle Lake trains will run every 26 minutes; this will be the only downtown service. Additional short runs will offer combined 13-minute service (instead of 8-10) Northgate-UW and SODO-Angle Lake.
- Weekends the downtown tunnel will be closed. A bus shuttle will replace it every 10-15 minutes between Capitol Hill and SODO. North of Capitol Hill and south of SODO trains will run every 15 minutes (instead of 10).
A full Link reduction schedule is here. ST has a page of bus alternatives for various trip pairs, and tips for navigating the disruption. The reduction is for several maintenance projects, including track maintenance.
In our experience with past reductions, the frequency may change after the first couple days, and it may return to normal a few days or a week early.
Other transit news and open thread below the fold.
Goran Sparrman has been named interim CEO of Sound Transit. ($) We covered his candidacy a few days ago. It looks like his first job will be managing the reduction. Here’s a suggestion: in the last reduction in August, Julie Timm went personally to Pioneer Square Station to observe how well the transfer was working and to talk with passengers. Sparrman should do the equivalent.
Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday. Metro, ST Express, Sounder, Pierce Transit will run as normal (Weekday). Link will be on the Weekend Reduction schedule. The T Line will be on Saturday schedule. Community Transit and Everett Transit don’t say on their website so they’re probably Weekday (?). Everett Transit has a reroute on routes 3 North, 6, and 29 due to an MLK parade, and warns that real-time arrival information may be inaccurate then.
In case of snow, Metro has a Winter Guide. In the past it had a map with colors showing each subarea’s status: all routes normal (green), some snow routes (yellow), all snow routes (red), or the Emergency Snow Network (blue). Hopefully it will bring that back if needed. If snow is predicted, check your agency’s home page or sign up for alerts. Sound Transit says this about snow.
This article is brought to you by Erich Kästner. Chapter 3 of Emil and the Detectives is titled “Die Reise nach Berlin kann losgehen”. The translation is “The Trip to Berlin Can Start” (May Massee, 1929). The German wording is normal; the English wording is not. The novel has a train trip from a provincial town, a streetcar, a horsecar (horse-powered streetcar = Pferdebahn), a boy who’s fascinated by automobiles but rides transit, and a girl who’s proud of her bicycle.
This is an open thread.
The Metro Rider Dashboard is a fantastic tool but, while it appears to have an option to look at weekend ridership, none of the routes I’ve tried that with have any data. Does anyone know of a source of per-route data for weekend ridership? It would be especially useful if it had data before COVID as well.
Here? Look under route performance or ridership. Lot’s of info, including weekend. Not sure if it’s what you are looking for, though.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/about/data-and-reports/performance-reports
Thanks, Sam, I think that’s probably good enough. Unfortunately the 2020 report doesn’t break off-peak and weekend apart and the units are in platform-hours or -miles but should be good enough. Somehow wasn’t able to find the service evaluation reports with the re-designed website…
Checking the bus alternatives https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/when-1-line-disruptions-happen-what-other-transit-options-are-out-there
Some highlights:
In general it’s harder for people going from north heading south to transfer to a bus. So it seems they’ve added extra bus trips
* From U District Station, Metro will add trips to Route 70 to provide additional service to downtown via Eastlake.
* From Capitol Hill to downtown Seattle, If your destination is Westlake, waiting for the next train may still be your best option. But Metro will be adding trips to Route 49 during this reduced service period, alongside other options such as Metro Route 10.
For the other direction going north from south, it seems most can transfer at sodo station. There is a bit of a unique thing with mt baker and getting off early there:
* Heading to a weekend Kraken Game? For folks coming from the south end on the 1 Line, get off at Mount Baker Station, you could choose to transfer at Mount Baker Transit Center to either Route 14 (which becomes Route 1) or Route 8, both of which serve Climate Pledge Arena directly.
Lastly it is a bit tricky with the weekday vs weekend as on weekends the link train only travels as far north as Sodo, while on weekdays the train travels as far as Stadium station.
@Mike
> Weekdays end-to-end Northgate-Angle Lake trains will run every 26 minutes; this will be the only downtown service. Additional short runs will offer combined 13-minute service (instead of 8-10) Northgate-Capitol Hill and SODO-Angle Lake.
This should say Stadium-Angle Lake.
Ironic it was 4 years ago we had connect 2020 in January to connect the tunnel to the 3aat line of course we all know how the east line turned out. 4 years later and here we are single tracking in the tunnel again.another stellar job by sound transit. Or rather several stellar jobs in the ensuing periodm
Unfortunately, the description of reduced weekday service in the article isn’t consistent with the description on the Sound Transit website:
“Additional weekday trains will run between Northgate–University of Washington, and between Stadium–Angle Lake, for combined service every 13 minutes in these areas. ”
It doesn’t look like it will be any easier to get to Capitol Hill than downtown weekdays.
Confusingly, on weekends the limited service does go to Capitol Hill.
Fixed.
This means my commute will be as bad as I initially thought. I thought there was no way to get from Capitol Hill to Roosevelt taking less than forty minutes. Then when I assembled the article I must have thought, “The train will go to Capitol Hill; it alwas does when there’s downtown problems, so I can take it both ways from there”, and I overlooked that it’s terminating at U-District. So my original concern was correct. The 322 runs the other direction but that doesn’t help me.
But here’s something interesting for those who are offended that the 322 runs parallel with Link to downtown: southbound all 7 runs do. But northbound only 5 go downtown and 3 start at Roosevelt. And looking at the frequency, the downtown runs are half-hourly 4:00 to 4:30, and hourly after that.
@Mike Orr.
Huh?
None of the trains will terminate at U-Dist.
Weekdays you will still be able to catch a train both directions at CHS, just at significantly reduced frequency. Should still be substantially faster than taking the bus though. Just plan ahead.
Weekends you can still catch a train at CHS, but just northbound only. 15 min frequency.
Isn’t that correct?
Grr, I was wrong again, but this time I didn’t make the mistake in the article. And the reason for the mistake was twofold. One, the similarity of the names U-District and UW. Two, the uselessness of UW Station for getting to Capitol Hill. Even though it’s closer, there’s no bus between them except the part-time 43. Otherwise you take the 48 and walk (which I sometimes do to stop at Trader Joe’s on 17th). Or transfer to the 8, 11, or 2. But those transfers aren’t exactly great because the bus stops are a couple blocks from the 48, the frequency is 15 minutes, they’re often late, and the east-west distance is short enough that you can spend as much time waiting as riding. So if I have to go that way, I find an excuse to stop at Trader Joe’s, so that I don’t have to deal with the mediocre transfers or walk forty-five minutes up and down hills in one go.
RapidRide G is partly predicated on improving transfers with the 48, thus improving the grid. You can’t do that with the 12 now because there’s a gap between 19th and 23rd. I’d like to think the grid will be wonderful, but if the G station is as far and steep from the 48 as the 11 is, then it won’t be. I’m not sure where the G’s 23rd station will be. There will be some improvement with the G being more frequent. But for transfers to work well, both routes have to be very frequent. The 11 in its current path will go away, so the transfer will be to the 8. The 8 isn’t getting a frequency increase. But the rerouted 11 will stop at the same stop as the 8, so that will de facto increase combined frequency.
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/RapidRide/Madison/2021_DennyTo24th.pdf
The west bound rapidride G stop is in the same spot next to 23rd. The eastbound one got moved farther away. More annoyingly is just that the 48 bus stops aren’t close to Madison st
@Mike Orr,
I think it speaks volumes to the how critical Light Rail has become to local transportation that even the smallest interruptions in service are met with claims that the sky is falling and the world is about to end. Ya, this is a bigger interruption than most, but if this was just a bus route problem nobody would be talking about it.
But what I don’t get is how ST can suddenly run two simultaneous turnback (overlay) lines during this service interruption, but somehow they claim they can’t run a single overlay during standalone Lynnwood Link operation.
An overlay NGS to IDS is the best way to alleviate overcrowding during standalone Lynnwood Link operation while simultaneously reducing total LRV storage demands. Why that can’t be done in the future, but can be done twice simultaneously right now, seems a bit odd to me.
As per the usefulness of UWS to get to CHS, I disagree. When Link is operating normally Link is by far the best way to get between those two stations. And when Link isn’t operating you can always intercept Link at some other northern station.
And, I wish to point out that under the old bus system there was never a good way to get between those two locations using a bus anyhow. In the old days you would be better off taking a donkey. But that isn’t on Link
“But what I don’t get is how ST can suddenly run two simultaneous turnback (overlay) lines during this service interruption, but somehow they claim they can’t run a single overlay during standalone Lynnwood Link operation.”
The Lynnwood problem is not enough trains or places to store them. The pattern here is less service than usual, so it doesn’t need all the regular trains.
@Mike Orr,
“ The Lynnwood problem is not enough trains or places to store them.”
That was exactly the point of the overlay concept. Because blindly cranking up frequency to alleviate crowding makes the storage and total LRV’s problem intractable, but reducing frequency to solve the storage and availability problem makes crowding worse.
So the idea of the overlay was to use the overlay to alleviate crowding only where required, but not to flood the tails of the system with underutilized LRV’s that then need to be stored gawd knows where.
ST studied the concept and it does work, but Ops thought it was too complex to implement. Yet here we are with Ops suddenly running two simultaneous overlays and supposedly they can handle it just fine.
So what gives?
@Lazarus
The problem seems to be sound transit has not trained/put insufficient infrastructure at the turn back station locations for moderate frequency scenarios. I remember reading a document somewhere that it takes them like 12/16? Minutes to turn around a train in the normal scenario. Whereas for the northgate turnback scenario they need to turn them around in say 6/8 minutes.
Now I’m not quite sure why it takes them that long. I did try asking sound transit if there’s a difference between the “turn back” stations like mariner versus the existing turnback track at northgate but they haven’t responded yet
Sorry to explain a bit more how it normally works at the ends of the route stations there’s two spots the trains can wait at if the frequency is high. Aka at angle lake the trains can turnover at the left and right bay. For turning around at a middle station the train needs to go to a pocket track to let the other train pass and for some reason sound transit really really hasn’t prepared/planned for middle train turnback much.
@WL,
“Whereas for the northgate turnback scenario they need to turn them around in say 6/8 minutes.”
The sweet spot for the turnback scenario appears to be a base frequency of either 10 or 12 minutes. Meaning the turns would have to be accomplished in exactly that – 10 or 12 minutes.
That seems totally doable.
WL: the turn around track on the 2 line between Judkins Park and ID-C stations look like it’s well over 1000 feet. I think that the track could hold two four-car trains if needed. It looks quite useful in the future.
I’m still not sure why ST did not work with getting the track replaced west of Judkins Park first when East Link got delayed. It would have solved all the hysteria about adding trains for Lynnwood Link. It seemed like a simple, strategic action to me — but there may be good reasons why ST didn’t explore it.
@Al.S,
The issue with the turnback concept is phasing.
You might have 12 mins to turn the turnback, but if your southbound train arrives shortly before your northbound train needs to depart, then you have a really quick turn, and that can be a problem. Particularly with single track pocket tracks.
That said, Ops seems to have found a way to do it with the longer base frequency. So it must be doable, because they are doing it.
But the other thing about the standalone Lynnwood Link turnback concept is that the turnback trains only need to be 1 LRV long to satisfy the overage in demand. That means that every singe track pocket track could hold up to 4 turnback trains.
So the problem isn’t the quick turn phasing issue with LRV’s as much as it is an operator swap issue. It that seems like a very tractable problem.
About the turnback time. The train needs to sit at the intermediate terminal a bit longer than usual for boarding / deboarding, to let slow people off. Perhaps that takes a minute. Then the train has to pull forward, slowly, to the end of the pocket where the operator shuts the train down, gets out of the cab and locks it. That takes perhaps two-and-a-half to three minutes. Then the op exits from the front door and walks to the rear car of the train. Since that’s more than a hundred yards, it takes close to a minute. The op then unlocks the door and enters the cab. “Booting up” takes a bit longer than shutting down, but once it’s done the operator can enter the “request” to leave the pocket, and when the signal comes, move forward to the platform.
While it normally can be accomplished in a bit less than ten minutes, as Lazarus points out, late trains in either direction can foul things up.
The real way to make it work is to “double seat”. That is, when a train to be reversed pulls into the station, a drive coming off “break” enters the rear car and promptly moves to the rear-facing operator cab. They unlock it and enter, make sure everything is in place, and wait for the train to move into the pocket.
When the train enters the pocket and comes to a halt, the operator at the front end “passes control” to the operator at the rear-facing end and shuts down their cab. They get out and when the train re-enters the station on the reverse track, exit for their break.
This of course means that there have to be operators at the station to meet the inbounds, and that’s not nothing budget-wise. But operators have breaks and this can be a good way to cycle them through.
As Lazarus pointed out, multiple shorter trains can fit in a pocket track, so having a second operator makes it possible to work the turnback in a different “first in, first out” manner, by motoring past the pocket, stopping, transferring control and then backing into the pocket “behind” any train(s) waiting to go the other direction.
Obviously, this is not desirable, especially given the shortage of operators, but it does work.
Would it be effective to take Route 48 rather than the shuttle to get between Link in Rainier Valley and Link at UW?
For the weekend, probably not if you are using it to bridge the gap (aka going northgate to say seatac) as the 48 has 15 minute frequency and it’s a longer gap than the capitol hill to sodo section.
On the other hand for the weekdays, if you are already at U district or UW and want to travel south of downtown, it probably makes sense to use 48 to reach mt baker station and travel there. (well assuming the next southbound train is more than like 10/15 minutes away) I guess it works on the weekends too.
Basically the main rule of thumb is if your start/end destination in seattle can be reached by a different bus route, skipping the shuttle might be better.
I made a special point today to ride Link over the stretch of track that is beingreplaced. The northbound track through that curve has been bothering me for some time now. Glad to see it is being replaced.
I’ll ride it again in February just to see the improvement.
And hopefully replacing all the bond boxes that were damaged by Metro buses will improve reliability down the road.
The other upgrades that ST is implementing during this closure? I’m not so sure about those, so I guess it is wait and see.
I’m hoping all downtown stations will receive the new PIMS screens that are now installed at Columbia City/Othello/Rainier Beach. Those will be much needed when a second line starts running.
@Liam,
There are a series of additional projects that ST hopes to accomplish during this system closure. Originally an upgrade to the tunnel PIMS was one of those additional projects, but I don’t know if it is still on the list.
I do think it is important though to upgrade the tunnel PIMS to the same tech level as the rest of the system. Maintaining two systems and two tech levels has been cumbersome for ST and has degraded the customer experience.
They also are going to be doing some catenary testing that can only be done while the power is off. The effect of that testing won’t be immediately obvious to the riding public, but should help reduce service disruptions in the future.
This will be a year of progress for Link. We will see everything from O&M improvements to complete new lines coming into service. By this time next year transit in Seattle will be completely transformed.
@Liam,
Follow up on the potential PIMS upgrade.
I visited the DT stations today to see how things are going. All seems well.
I asked an ST lady at IDS who seemed in charge about the PIMS upgrade and she said she didn’t think so, but that she really didn’t know because she was in charge of upgrading the anti-bird spikes. Didn’t know they were doing that too…
But when I went down to the platform level there was a crew on the closed NB platform removing the old displays. I don’t know what they plan on doing next, but it appeared that they were not going to reinstall the same antiquated hardware.
So that at least is good news. Stay tuned.
Seattle MLK parade reroutes Monday: routes 3, 4: 12:30-1:30pm. Routes 101, 102, 113, 150, 162, 167, 545, 550, 554: 1-4pm.
Someone in Sound Transit needs to teach everyone there the Rules Of The Seven Ps.
Proper
Previous
Planning
Prevents
Pathetically
Poor
Performance
Can we add “Passenger” in there somewhere? Maybe “Proper Previous Passenger Planning…”.
What do we say to the Red God?
To whom?
Ah, here’s someone who did not watch Game of Thrones.
It is an old Navy thing. The old Chiefs used to tell me that. It is a general lesson everyone needs. (The pathetically is my twist. I replaced a profanity because I am religious. )
I still have no idea what you’re talking about. Is the red god Matthew, me, or Passenger? Is it good or bad? My initial instinct was to delete Brent’s comment as ad hom, but I didn’t because I didn’t know if it was an insult to Matthew, a joke, or something else. No, I didn’t watch Game of Thrones or any other recent series except Counterpart and Dark.
I believe Brent is misremembering the popular quote “What do we say to the God of Death? ‘Not Today.’” Likely inspired by the similarity of the “the Seven P’s” and the Seven Gods of a major (fictional) religion described in the Game of Thrones series.
A good joke, but relies on an audience versed in that franchise.
A visitor’s impression of our light rail. “Riding LINK Light Rail in Seattle for the First Time.” YT channel name Trains Are Awesome.
https://youtu.be/1qk_qbY8l3c?si=5zxI-Zk9dickgdP9
Comment from Germany: “I’ve taken the Link once from the airport back in 2012, so it apparently would have been quite new at the time. It felt like a decent system and the street running sections were on par with similar systems here in Germany. But those usually feed multiple street running lines into expensive grade separated sections to make good use of the infrastructure. Basically what Seattle did in the beginning with busses. But building 90% of a metro system from scratch and then dumping the trains on tram infrastructure in the middle of the route is quite strange. I also don’t really get why they want to extend this single line even further out instead of building a few branches to increase the reach of the system closer to the city, especially in the southern, street running part where branches could be built rather cheaply.”
Did you explain to the commenter that the city is indeed building a 2nd branch (east Link) before extending further south, and did that mollify them?
I do agree the fact the region has never considered branching the two lines somewhere in Snohomish a very odd oversight.
No, I thought he was talking about branches spreading out from MLK. I quoted it because of these important parts:
* “But those usually feed multiple street running lines into expensive grade separated sections to make good use of the infrastructure.” RMTransit has emphasized this too: that if you have something like a downtown tunnel or BRT lane, you should maximize use of it by having ultra-frequent trains/buses to get the most out of the infrastructure investment. That’s what we don’t do when we don’t have trains every 2.5 minutes in the DSTT, and some cities have BRT lanes with a bus every half hour. We should be making strategic infrastructure investments and maximizing service, not shirk from building high-quality infrastructure or leave them underused. It’s interesting that two people from Europe or with a European transit mindset should think this way and see Link this way.
* “But building 90% of a metro system from scratch and then dumping the trains on tram infrastructure in the middle of the route is quite strange.” It is strange. The MLK and SODO segments make travel time from further south longer. Surface segments should be at the ends of lines, where they don’t impact anybody except those at the end.
@AJ,
I didn’t take that as a real comment from someone in Germany. It reads more like a local critic saying, “Oh, I saw this comment from a guy in Germany, and he says ‘blah blah blah’”, and then listing all the local anti-Link talking points.
Germans are smart people. They know that a “new” system isn’t going to have full coverage on day one. All the world’s great system were built in steps, and Link is being built in steps too. That is what is happening now.
As for Link being on the surface in the RV, at the time it was either that or nothing. Link wasn’t going to get built if the first segment was tunneled, and aerial was a non-starter. Hopefully we can make incremental improvements in the future (just like they have done in Germany under similar circumstances BTW).
I also don’t really get why they want to extend this single line even further out instead of building a few branches to increase the reach of the system closer to the city
Because this is America! Heaven forbid he has a medical problem, then there will be a real culture shock.
Yeah, the U. S. does some things differently. Which is to say, not as well. We don’t even use the Metric system. We use the imperial system, developed by the British, even tough the UK no longer uses it! Anyway. Yes, Link would be shocking in Europe. Everyone would wonder what the hell we are doing. In this country, it is unfortunately fairly common.
Also consider the ST3 plans in the city. We could tell them that yes, we are building a second tunnel through downtown. Except that it won’t maximize coverage downtown. Again, this is really shocking for anyone who has experience with mass transit systems. This makes perfect sense. This just seems bizarre. The two transfers stations seem reasonable, but the one Midtown station is weird. Why so close to the existing station? No reason. Oh, and those transfer stations — turns out the transfers will be really bad.
But mostly it is fixation on going farther and farther out, despite very little coverage in the city itself. It is backwards. We probably should have started with the UW to Downtown, and then branched the line there. One branch up to Northgate, the other branch to Ballard. Then maybe go south to Rainier Valley. Add a Metro 8-ish type line, or a line through First Hill (or both). At that point you start thinking of leaving the city. East first, then farther south (and north). That is the standard way to build a subway — quite consistent with density and travel patterns — but we preferred a uniquely American approach. The subway-next-to-the-freeway-for-many-miles method. It doesn’t work, but there will be many ribbons to cut.
It is depressing to have no good answers for why our system is so weird (by international standards). We start rambling on about the state, subarea equity, the board. But the problems are more systemic. The U. S. has a lot of people living in areas that are best served by buses. We have top notch freeways. But the freeways get clogged. A lot of the folks that live in those low-density areas see how nice the subways are, and think that is the answer. It isn’t. The solution is to build subways where they should be built (in dense, urban areas) and have buses in areas where they shouldn’t. Run rail to the suburbs and other cities — using existing tracks. But if you don’t have them, you run buses. Then create really good interfaces between the subway system and the buses Such a subway system would look quite familiar to someone in Europe.
All the world’s great system were built in steps, and Link is being built in steps too.
Except we aren’t making progress on the most important areas. We are building it out of order (and building things that are unnecessary) while leaving key elements of the city without anything. First Hill, Belltown, Central Area — nothing. But the Tacoma Dome gets a brand new, very expensive extension. It isn’t just the stops themselves, it is the network. Extending Link to the Tacoma Dome does very little for the transit network, despite being huge. In contrast, Ballard to UW rail would transform transit for a huge portion of the city.
What we are building is simply bizarre by international standards. We are leaving out key elements, while adding in things that very few people will use. It is like the Long Island Railroad without the New York Subway. Definitely an improvement, but if you were starting from scratch right now, it is not what you would build first, if at all.
“All the world’s great system were built in steps, and Link is being built in steps too. ”
The point is to articulate what works well there, and how we can apply it here., and avoid things that work less well. Because our total transit network and most American cities function much worse than many German or Swiss/Dutch/Spanish/Scandinavian cities. It’s not just that a lot of it is still unbuilt or is using coverage-level buses when more is needed. We’re also building the wrong things in the wrong places. That then becomes inefficient infrastructure we have to work around potentially long-term.
> instead of building a few branches to increase the reach of the system closer to the city, especially in the southern, street running part where branches could be built rather cheaply.”
If Renton had a lot more population they probably could have branched off to there via Renton Ave or freeway alignment aka forward thrust. Though I guess that’s not quite what you’re talking about branching in the mlk area.
> As for Link being on the surface in the RV, at the time it was either that or nothing. Link wasn’t going to get built if the first segment was tunneled, and aerial was a non-starter.
Agreed. Reading some of the older newspaper articles they were so low on funds they were even considering just running at-grade on Dearborn down Rainier limiting the Link to two-train cars.
“If Renton had a lot more population they probably could have branched off to there”
With Renton’s current population it could have a branch, and probably would in other countries. Cities with a lot lower populations than ours have trams with downtown tunnels. We wildly overestimate the population/density needed for low-cost trains. And our construction costs are unusually high due to federal and local regulations and issues.
“Though I guess that’s not quite what you’re talking about branching in the mlk area.”
That is what I’m talking about, because where else can you branch from MLK? The visitor may not realize how narrow and hilly the environment is. But in principle we could have trams down Beacon Avenue, in SODO, on Aurora, etc. That’s what he’s talking about: put trams in the larger-volume and wider arterials. (Many of which originally had streetcars!)
However, MLK has frequency constraints. It’s designed like a branch rather than a trunk. So you can’t add a Renton line off it while keeping the south frequency, without eliminating the level crossings with overpasses/underpasses or raising/lowering the track. And Federal Way/Tacoma will need all the south frequency if not more.
> However, MLK has frequency constraints. It’s designed like a branch rather than a trunk. So you can’t add a Renton line off it while keeping the south frequency, without eliminating the level crossings with overpasses/underpasses or raising/lowering the track. And Federal Way/Tacoma will need all the south frequency if not more.
That’s what I meant by it isn’t what you’re talking about for branching. I guess if link fits on rainier Ave one could branch off at mt baker station and then head down Renton Ave, but idk if it could actually fit.
@WL,
You are correct. Interlining along any stretch of MLK is not an option because the street grid can’t handle the combined frequency.
Branching off at Rainier Ave would solve that problem, but it is far from clear that such a line would be financially justifiable or possible technically.
If it true that interlining along MLK isn’t possible under the current scheme of maximizing auto throughput.
The German commenter on the video that was wondering about the lack of branching is from a place where 20,000 people per day on a light rail line are given the same signal consideration they would be given if they were 20,000 people in highway vehicles.
In short, with a philosophical change, the capacity is there. It won’t happen within any of our lifetimes, but it is possible.
I thought of branching from Mt Baker to Rainier Avenue and Renton. Even I would feel that’s excessively close together north of Rainier Beach. And ST originally wanted Link on Rainier, but switched to MLK because it thought Rainier was too narrow and congested for surface trains, had too many other competing uses, and construction would be too disruptive to the neighborhood. So I can’t see it adding service on Rainier Avenue now.
@Mike Orr,
Ya, this discussion of “branching” is just plain silly. I would suggest that anyone making such a comment hasn’t looked at a map long enough to realize that Seattle is hourglass shaped. So blame Mother Nature.
And the other problem with branching off to gawd knows where in the RV is that what branches off on the southend has to go somewhere on the northend too. DSLRT1 is already at capacity. So what do you do? Stick this new “branch” line in DSLRT2? Or do you build DSLRT3 through DT Seattle?
Na, if the goal for whatever reason is to serve Renton, a far more rational plan would be to just build a separate E-W line from Burien to Renton with a tie-in to Central Link at TIBS. It could even have the holy grail of southend transit goals – a LR station at Southcenter Mall!
But it’s all just plain silliness (I’m trying to use my “polite” words).
“Seattle is hourglass shaped.”
That has little to do with it. The point is that Seattle has a lot of long, narrow, flat ridges and valleys that are isolated from each other by hill and water barriers. These lead to linear neighborhoods, and hinder interaction between one and its neighbors. That makes a perfect case for tram branches along MLK, Beacon, the Industrial District, Delridge, Faultleroy, 15th NW, Aurora, Roosevelt. All of them head toward the center of the hourglass (downtown) even if some don’t go all the way there. This is the branches I think he’s talking about and that European cities have more of. The barriers between the corridors actually argue for more parallel ones, not fewer. In a flat city you could just take Rainier and walk/bus sideways to Beacon, or take Delridge and go sideways to 35th or California, but that’s difficult with our topography. It’s difficult not just for walking, but also for buses and roads. North Seattle has a more complete and well-used grid (the 31/32, 44, 45, 62, and 40) because it’s flatter east-west, while the south end has cliffs and waterways between them.
How’s the first day of the shuttle going?
One of the things that will be fixed is signalling between bond boxes. Does anyone know if Sound Transit has ever identified which of its many signal incidents were tied to problems with the bond boxes? I’d be very interested to see quantitative measures of increased reliability after Link is back to normal in February.
Second day of disruption and to day we had some dingle tracking from Mt. Baker to beacon hill. Not quite ready for prime time as usual…
There was a “blockage on the track” last night and a “signal issue” today. Other announcements last week said frequency was reduced to 20-25 minutes multiple times. So this big reduction is not so different from how it’s been the past two weeks on and off. But the blockage sounds like something due to the surface alignment, and wouldn’t have happened if it had been grade separated.
For reasons known only to itself, TriMet has decided to replace the MAX real time arrival screens. These do the scrolling thing that Link displays do, so 2/3 of the time they are showing pointless information such as the station name (which is already on old-fashioned bin-electronic signs) and the time and date).
Proof positive that King County Metro’s 194 express bus to/from downtown and Sea-Tac should have never been deleted. While it was somewhat embarrassing to Sound Transit that in tests it made the trip in less time than Link, only the most savvy people, like those who read this blog, would know that fact. There should always be a backup. Instead, ST apparently cajoled the other transit agencies – or the other agencies “went cheap” – and deleted the competition to Link.
Not too dissimilarly, after a Seahawks preseason game, the horde I was in waited at 11 pm at night for over 1/2 hour for a northbound train because of Link’s delays. ST didn’t have the sense to add a 512 bus or two to take the passengers north with half of the walk from the stadium. Instead, once passengers arrived at Northgate Station, people had to scurry down to the surface in hopes of catching the next northbound bus without waiting for another spell at the midnight hour, fortunately, the last bus is at 12:48 a.m.
The Seattle region deserves better high-capacity transit than this.
We have a driver shortage. If the 194 were kept, something else would have had to be cut. Which route would you cut to pay for it, and how you justify running a bus that duplicates Link all time just in case Link decides someday to have a temporary service reduction?
Actually the route 124 makes night time runs to SeaTac (it normally travels from Seattle downtown to tukwila international boulevard via Georgetown)
https://seattletransitmap.com/version/night-owl/SEA_Msys_NightOwl.pdf
Sound transit could have funded for example temporary extensions of the 124 to SeaTac all day.
The 194 wouldn’t have run at 11pm; it ended at 9:30.
Even with the reduction, Link is still a higher-frequency and -capacity service than the 194 ever was, as it only ran every half-hour for ~15 hours a day IIRC, compared to 26 minute headways for the full 1 Line. Outside of that window, there was the 174 which is basically the 124 of today, also half-hourly but slow as molasses.
I’d be curious to hear how well the shuttle buses are timed, though.
The 194 was the best. Soooo much better airport access than link. Just another bus line rhat fell victim to the pretend mass transit of light rail.
As someone who has actually used bus transit to the airport. I will take link over a bus because the ride is actually smooth, comfortable, fully accessible for people with disabilities, etc. Try taking the 574 with luggage and you’ll start to actually appreciate the benefits of link more. People on here love to piss and whine about the walk to the link airport station and tbh its like no different in terms of distance from other walks I’ve taken at other airports. ORD has a
much longer walk, MXP has a decent walk, CDG is a decent walk, as is CPH, LHR, FRA, BER, HEL, etc. Do I wish it was an enclosed walkway with travelators, yes. But the Port is just stubborn and slow to change. They’ve only finally gotten around to doing full modernization of the aging airport terminal in the 2010s/2020s. And only just considering a people mover to address overcrowding on their buses to the Consolidated Airport Rental Car Facility and plan for the second terminal north of the current one.
“ The 194 was the best ”
Nobody who actually used the 194 would say that.
30 min frequency, limited hours of operation, and absolutely never on time. Absolutely never. And if you actually used it with luggage it was a nightmare of steps and limited storage space.
And it should be noted that even with this service interruption Link is more frequent, more reliable, easier to use with luggage, and serves more destinations with a one seat ride.
Nobody truly misses the 194.
“absolutely never on time”
I wouldn’t say that about the 194. I never found it chronically late like the 131, 132, 62, and now 10 and 11.
With the 194 you had to worry about freeway traffic making you miss your flight. The 194 was around 30 minutes to the airport vs Link’s 37. That was its only advantage. Its disadvantages were 15 minutes daytime, 30 minutes early evening, no service late evening. And didn’t Sunday have a shorter span or no service? I usually came back from a trip after 9:30pm so the 194 wasn’t running. I remember taking the 174 in the evening and it stopped at every single stop along the way: so many people were getting on and off everywhere that it took twice as long as it might have.
When Link started, the 174 was split at TIB and the 124 was created. Later the A replaced the 174. But the late evening transfer to the 124 was uncoordinated, so after an evening flight I waited 20+ minutes at TIB to transfer. There was a forest of complaints to Metro, and that eventually led to extending the 124 to the airport when Link isn’t running. But the route map is ambiguous: where does it stop in SeaTac? I tried to figure that out for my friend who was working nights in Kent and considering the 181+124 home, but I couldn’t confirm where the 124 stops were so I said he’d just have to go and see what it does and hope it would work. He ended up finding a better way, 181+120 transferring in Burien, which I’d never thought of.
The 194 stopped running on Sundays as early as 5 PM – bad news for anyone returning home from a weekend plane trip.
Also, it was chronically full, didn’t run as often as Link, got stuck in airport pick up and drop-off traffic, in addition to I-5, and took a long time to load and unload passengers with so many getting on and off the bus with luggage. Also, the one seat ride through downtown saves a lot of time for anybody living north of downtown.
I do think there is a good case for temporarily reinstating the 194 during construction periods when Link is unable to serve downtown, but it would be a waste of resources to run that route all day every day, even when Link is running normally.
“I do think there is a good case for temporarily reinstating the 194 during construction periods when Link is unable to serve downtown”
Or just have a Link express shuttle as well as the regular shuttle. There are arguments for a Westlake-SeaTac express, and maybe Westlake-UDistrict. And ST could re-extend the 512 to downtown while still serving Northgate. It’s not a few days of extra service hours that cost bug bucks, it’s every day forever.
I’ve complained to Metro before about the lack of information about the 124 SeaTac extension to no avail. In any case, it stops on the baggage claim level at the same place as the 560 and 574, also the same place the 174 and 194 used to stop.
It’s odd that people say the 194 was better when almost nobody lived within walking distance of it, and I bet none of the advocates did. The 10-minute shorter travel time was negated by having to transfer from a bus downtown, and the time it took the other bus to get to the transfer stop. While some people still have to transfer at Westlake, others get a much faster trip from Rainier Valley, North Seattle, or Capitol Hill.
I wonder how many take transit to the airport for a flight, and how many take it because they work there. I could see a very different opinion of the system based on that. Link is much easier with luggage. Of course if you have to transfer, then Link doesn’t get you that much. You are still dealing with luggage on a bus. Link has a fair number of stops, but only a small portion of the population lives within walking distance (especially walking-with-luggage distance). My guess is the occasional traveler that has a car (or is willing to pay for a cab to the nearest station) loves it. Get dropped off miles away from the airport. I know lots of people who have done this. It isn’t necessarily fast, but it is simple and comfortable.
If you work there, then it is a different perspective. Maybe you can park and ride, but those fill up, if there is one. Paying for a cab every day would be silly, and good luck getting someone to drop you off by the station every day. For the vast majority of riders, that means taking a bus first. The 194 was not especially frequent, but back then, few buses were. My guess is it would be running every 15 minutes right now (if we hadn’t build Link). Link does serve places along the way (e. g. Rainier Valley). I have no idea what the options were before Link (probably not that good).
My guess is that without Link, there would be far fewer travelers taking transit to the airport, but depending on the bus network, about as many workers. This gets back to my original question.
When I wait at SeaTac station, it has notable numbers of airport workers, flight attendants and flyers. My unscientific guess is that about half have luggage and half don’t. I do see more riders without luggage heading to Angle Lake.
I’ve never seen a surveyor from ST on the SeaTac platform asking for info about riders. However I am only going to SeaTac when I’m flying so that’s not many days in a year.
Here’s one more reason for Metro to raise its regular fare to $3, effective with the opening of Lynnwood Link, to match Link’s new $3 flat regular fare:
Some businesses provide monthly passes to some of their employees, and cover just the pass amount to ride Metro.
To ride many other services, including Link Light Rail, the employees would still have to dig into e-purse, so long as Metro’s fare is still $2.75.
Once Metro’s fare goes to $3, and affected employers raise their employees’ pass values, the upcharge for ST Express would be cut in half for them, reduced for the other more expensive services by 25 cents, and eliminated on Link.
I have no idea how many riders fall in this category, but I’m pretty sure they would welcome their improved transit benefits.
Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the regional transit committee meeting on November 15 has some great material on Metro’s performance in 2023.
Highlights:
– Route-level ridership recovery (page 13)
– 2023 System Evaluation (page 40)
– Route-level service growth scoring/priority (page 145)
Click the November 15 meeting packet: https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/council/committees/regional_transit
Page 31: “The System Evaluation identified 56 routes needing Reliability investments: Routes 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 20, 21, 24, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 40, 43, 44, 45, 49, 60, 62, 67, 75, 106, 113, 124, 125, 128, 131, 132, 181, 193, 208, 250, 271, B, D, E, and H (previously Route 120), which had previously been identified; and Routes 9, 14, 65, 111, 153, 162, 168, 177, 181, 182, 183, 190, 212, 216, 226, 240, 245, 268, 302, and 348, which are new to the list. ”
Page 27: “Metro Connects, Metro’s long-range plan, envisions the transit network at two points in the future, an Interim Network4 (late-2030s) and a 2050 Network”
Page 31: “the System Evaluation identifies a need for 100,000 to 120,000 service hours each year over the next 14 to 16 years to achieve the Interim Network [and restore currently suspended service hours]”
Page 32: RapidRide K’s current counterparts are the 255 and 271. I would have said 255 or 250. I don’t see how it overlaps with the 271.
“The System Evaluation also summarizes key criteria from the Service Guidelines for the candidate corridors for Interim Network RapidRide lines. Metro will use this information to develop a RapidRide Prioritization Plan, which is due to be transmitted in June 2024 to organize RapidRide candidate lines into tiers by their priority and potential timeframe for implementation.”
Page 52: Routes needing the most reliability hours (red): 7, 62.
Page 53: Metro Connects Interim growth target: create 13 routes, add service on 97 routes.
Page 64: “The RapidRide Prioritization Plan will be finalized by June 2024.” List of 6 potential new corridors, the K and R, and splitting the B. The new corridors are comparable to the 36/49 (Broadway north-south line), 40, 44, 150, 165, and 181. The 165 is the KDM-Kent line (Burien, Des Moines, KDM, Kent, 240th (James St), 132nd, GRCC). The 181 is the 320th line (Federal Way, GRCC).
Page 69: Metro Flex highest expansion priorities: Issaquah, Federal Way (especially southwest part), southeast Auburn (especially a southeast piece: is that Lakeland Heights?).
Page 169: Per-route list of investment needs for reliability and restoration/expansion.
Page 173: East Link restructure status: Finished phase 3 planning, now preparing final network proposal to county council.
Lynnwood Link restructure status: In phase 3. Final proposal to council expected February 2024 (next month!). It will be revenue-neutral.
South Link, Stride 1 and 2 restructures: Not started.
Page 175: Proposes to start a new restructure in Central Seattle, North Seattle, West Seattle, and Vashon Island.
“RapidRide K’s current counterparts are the 255 and 271. I would have said 255 or 250. I don’t see how it overlaps with the 271”
The K line is proposed to extend past Bellevue Transit Center to Eastgate, following the path of today’s route 271 for the Bellevue->Eastgate segment.
@John
Thanks this is pretty useful.
@Mike
> Page 64: “The RapidRide Prioritization Plan will be finalized by June 2024.” List of 6 potential new corridors, the K and R, and splitting the B. The new corridors are comparable to the 36/49 (Broadway north-south line), 40, 44, 150, 165, and 181. The 165 is the KDM-Kent line (Burien, Des Moines, KDM, Kent, 240th (James St), 132nd, GRCC). The 181 is the 320th line (Federal Way, GRCC).
# rapidrides
Pretty interesting to see the new rapidride routes being prioritized, compared it to the older plan*. Some of course aren’t too surprising:
* Unchanged priority: rapidride R (route 7), rapidride K, 40, 44, B line (north/south), 165, 181
* Upgraded in priority: 36/49, B line + 271 combo, 150
* Lowered in priority: 240/245, 48, richmond beach to uw (kinda new route 348 in lynnwood link), and 372
https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/about/planning/metro-connects/appendices-011717.pdf#page=80 (PDF on page 80 lists older 2025 and 2040 proposed rapidride candidates.)
I guess I’ll start off with explaining the unchanged priority rapidrides 181 is exactly the same federal way to auburn (green river college). The 165 is a bit different where from Green River college (auburn) it’ll probably end at Highline college instead of Burien transit center. 40 and 44 ya’ll know well so I’ll skip the description. The B line (north/south) is the new 223 route from redmond to eastgate, though also an extension to from eastgate over to south bellevue station.
Next the increased priority lines, most notably they are all are split or combined variants of existing lines. 36/49 being a broadway north/south line from u district to othello. The B line + 271 is the east/west route splitting the B and going from UW to Crossroads mall. 150 is kinda interesting, currently it travels from Kent to Seattle via Southcenter. The proposed candidate ID 1049 lists the description as Kent to Rainier Beach (station) via Tukwila. However, is it really worth it to enter i-5 and then exit to Rainier beach? It seems if one wants to reach a link station TIBs would be faster, or if you get on i-5 might as well just head to Seattle.
Lastly lowered in priority routes:
* 240/245 (1030) going from Overlake to Newcastle, probably much lowered ridership projections
* 48, originally this rapidride was going to be rainier beach to uw. I guess when it was split they only wanted to focus on the route 7 rainier ave part. But still kinda of surprising the 48 is so low in priority
* 372 uw to bothell, originally supposed to be a rapidride but mainly dropped after stride 3 planning.
Actually I do notice quite a pattern that king county metro really doesn’t plan that well with the sound transit brt projects. Considering that the heaviest changes with rapidride 372 for stride 3, rapidride k rerouting to connect with stride 2 and the dropping of 240/245 is next to the i-405 brt from renton to bellevue of stride 1. I guess alternatively one could say these are all suburban routes thats why they are had larger changes.
# Reliability
One notable page is the invested hours page about reliability on page 169 https://aqua.kingcounty.gov/council/agendas/RTC/20231115-RTC-packet.pdf#page=169
Where some of the bus-hours being spent is not for frequency, but just to make it more reliable by running more busses (aka busses are stuck in traffic). Most notable outliers are
* route 8 with 2,250
* route 62 with 2,150
For comparison route 7 also a frequent route is only being added 500, and rapidride A and C do not have hours allocated for reliability (they still have other hours added for growth added frequency) and other smaller bus routes are just being added 250.
# Page 67: Metro Flex productivity.
Very surprisingly to me at least, Metro flex costs more during am peak than during midday or night time.
For example Kent: am peak $36 dollars per ride, midday $31 dollars, but the night time it’s $12 dollars.
Rainier beach has it a lot less variance of am peak $17 dollars, midday $15 dollars and night time $14 dollars
But still I never expected the cost to be inverted of when there’s the most ridership. Or perhaps the vans are stuck in traffic so that’s why it’s cheaper?
“Kent: am peak $36 dollars per ride, midday $31 dollars, but the night time it’s $12 dollars.”
What would account for that difference? Fuel and maintenance costs are the same regardless of time. Kent is not congested that I’ve seen if you stay off the freeways as these short trips would, although KK Road may be unavoidable. Is it easier to find drivers at night because there’s less competition from other jobs? But that contradicts the trend that people don’t want to work nights and demand an extra wage supplement for it. So I have no idea.
RapidRide prioritizations:
Both the 48, 62, and 372 were kicked off the list in the 2020s, so this isn’t new. The 40 and 44 were kicked off but are now back on. I think this is a combination of budget constraints, overestimation, post-covid ridership, and unique corridor issues.
Metro Connects anticipated a countywide referendum to fund it, but that referendum never happened. The county dragged its feet and was finally going to put it on the November 2020 ballot, but then the covid emergency demanded all their attention in the first half of the year, and in the second half they decided to put the Harborview expansion alone on the ballot to give it the best chance of passage. They said they’d reschedule the Metro one for around now, but that didn’t happen either.
The 48 seems to be due to faulty assumptions. It was a high-ridership route, and they assumed that was because of the 23rd corridor and the emerging UW Station transfers. But when the route was split, the 45’s ridership went up and the 48’s went down. I think it was ambiguous on the single route becaause much of the ridership was in the shared segment in the U-District, and it was unclear which way it would go in a split. A similar thing happened when the 10 was moved from Pine to John. It was assumed that ridership would increase, but actually many 10 riders switched to the 11 to remain near Pine Street.
The 62 has geographical issues. It serves four overlapping transit markets: downtown-SLU-Fremont, SLU-Fremont-Greenlake, Fremont-Roosevelt, Roosevelt-Sand Point, and longer trips to Fremont or Ballard. It can’t be split without breaking many trips. The dogleg to Greenlake adds travel time but serves a multifamily area, and Tangletown also has some businesses. The dowtown-Sand Point travel time is annoyingly long: 55 minutes. Metro wanted to move it to Latona and that would be the RapidRide route, but Latona would need street reinforcement for that. There’s also some neighborhood controversy about removing it from Tangletown and Greenlake. So all that on top of the post-covid budget constraints is probably why it was removed from the RapidRide list.
The 372 could be because of budget constraints and lackluster post-covid ridership.
The 240 I would guess is budget and ridership. I was surprised it was even considered for RapidRide at all. When I’ve ridden it there were few riders, it took an annoying hour to get from Bellevue to Renton, and hardly anybody seemed to get on in Newport Hills in the middle. There have also been controversies about where it should go in the Factoria/Eastgate area. In the end Metro can probably only afford 1-3 RapidRides, and it wants to put that into the K and the B/245/271 split, so the 240 got bumped off.
“The B line (north/south) is the new 223 route from redmond to eastgate”
Would the RapidRide really zigzag that much? The 223 is proposed to on 148th between NE 24th and 8th, 156th between 8th and Lake Hills Blvd, and 148th again south of there. I’d think it would be better to stay on 156th like the 245does. 156th is the center of Crossroads. 148th has Fred Meyer, two one-story buildings at 8th, and that’s about it.
All of the proposed 226, 223, and 245 zigzag, but you’d think a RapidRide line would try to be straight if it can, and serve of one of its main transit markets (Crossroads).
The 223 zigzags to avoid duplication with the rapidride B on 156. I imagine when the new north/south rapidride is created it’ll take over the northern segment of the 223, then 156th Ave as you noted and then follow the 223 route to eastgate again.
But yeah it’ll create a pretty easy way to get to crossroads mall/area.
@John D,
Wow, Metro is still running routes that have around 20% of their pre-COVID-19 ridership? Why?
There has to be a better way.
As far as I can tell, anything with under 60% or so ridership recovery has already been suspended or is running with reduced service hours
@John D,
Yes, reduced service hours is part of the picture for the abysmally poor ridership on some of these routes. And in such cases Metro has at least attempted to reduce service hours to meet demand, which at least isn’t wasteful of operator hours.
But the core question remains; “If a route is truly only generating 20% of pre-pandemic ridership, why keep it at all?”
Seems like another round of route consolidation might be in order.
@Lazarus
Route reduction rationale is laid out near the bottom of the packet (page 168).
Ridership is a goal but not the only goal of Metro. If Metro only wanted to maximize ridership you’d see a huge number of downtown busses and very sparse coverage outside of that
Also it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. Routes with poor service perform poorly. The 255 for instance has had poor, intermittent service since 2019: it’s been truncated at UW, service has been cut, and the 520/Montlake construction has heavily impacted operations
That’s not to say I fully disagree, lower ridership routes should generally be prioritized lower than higher ridership routes, but I think Metro should be focusing on recovering their service hours rather than cutting them even further
Which routes are you concerned about? The per-route performance tables are in the System Evaluation report. If there are unjustified routes that aren’t suspended/reduced, it’s probably because there’s a year-long process with public hearings to delete or restructure a route. So the restructure may happen a few years after the weakness is identified. Two, it may provide important coverage in an area without other bus routes. Three, it may not be as weak as it appears. People often see buses 20% full and think they’re unjustified, but in fact they had passengers who got on/off in other parts of the route that you didn’t see, or the daily average of the route is better than that run appears. We can only evaluate specific routes and their contexts, not abstractions.
“I think Metro should be focusing on recovering their service hours rather than cutting them even further”
It’s doing both. The in-progress Eastside and G restructures are an attempt to use service hours more efficiently, and the brand-new proposal for a Central/North/West Seattle restructure is an attempt to take that further. The latter includes the 10 and 11, which are both modified in the G restructure, and RossB lamented that it didn’t go further, so the new restructure may be to take that further.
I wonder if it might also lead to a Broadway north-south route (36/49) even before the RapidRide, and perhaps the 8-Madison Park route. That would trigger changes to 49, 2, and 11 which were expected in the G restructure but didn’t happen. So maybe they’ll happen then.
@Lazarus,
Are you suggesting Sounder service should be suspended?
Or does Sounder get a carve-out simply because it is a train?
I can’t help but wonder if bus access to the DSTT should have been maintained. Getting g rid of it feels very short sighted. I realize that this closure runs further — between Stadium and UW — but I could see how a bus could have run through the DSTT and exit onto I-5 to get to UW Station had access not been severed..
Is it completely impossible to restore bus access east of Westlake Station at this point?
Yes, “it is completely impossible to restore bus access east of Westlake Station at this point”. The Convention Center expansion (“Annex?”) covers the CPS’s footprint. It’s foundation goes deeper than the old bus station crater.
The convention center construction was the perfect time to add a branch to the existing tunnel for the Ballard/SLU line, rather than an entirely separate tunnel. Unfortunately, that window has passed, and adding a branch to the tunnel now would be vastly more expensive.
Nope. Buses will never be going back into the DSLRT, and thank gawd for that.
Without buses in the tunnel Link is able to operate much more reliably, and reliability matters.
And part of the reason for this shutdown is to repair damage caused by bus operation. Once that damage is to repaired Link should have fewer service interruptions.
And it wouldn’t matter anyhow. Weekdays during this service interruption ST is single tracking in the tunnel. Adding buses to that mix is a non-starter and wouldn’t provide any usable relief anyhow.
And weekends both directions of the tunnel are closed, and closed means closed. No LRV’s, no buses, no nothing. Just plain closed, in totality.
It’s such a shame that each full closure is done for incremental changes. The DSTT stations are over 30 years old and need a “refresh”. I would start with more escalators and maybe elevators.
I was appalled at how ST3 was packaged to spend tens if billions of dollars without a dime to explicitly refresh the DSTT stations.
@Al.S,
ST is actually trying to cram a lot of needed maintenance and upgrades into this short period of service interruptions. Hopefully they get it all done.
And this service interruption is technically only a “full closure” on weekends. During the week the tunnel is still open, although operating single lined at 26 min frequency.
As per the tunnel design, ya, it is old. And it is a Metro design. If ST had built the tunnel they would have gone with all center platforms and full up/down escalators. Metro could have done that too, but they decided to go with a center breakdown lane instead.
As per major upgrades like new up escalators, I think Rogoff prioritized expansion and new service in ST3 over upgrading existing infrastructure. It’s an old story that you see in deferred maintanence across all modes.
And I agree with you on adding new escalators. The easiest way to do that would be to add center platforms with new escalators and go to all-door boarding. It would be great, but I don’t expect it to happen.
But hey, at least the buses are out of the tunnel. Progress. Progress.
@ Lazarus:
“If ST had built the tunnel they would have gone with all center platforms and full up/down escalators.”
Speculative but potentially false. See MLK, SODO and TIBS stations (side platforms) and Lynnwood Link stations (with down escalators administratively removed just before construction).
“As per major upgrades like new up escalators, I think Rogoff prioritized expansion and new service in ST3 …”
This seemingly cannot be pinned solely on Rogoff. He started in January 2016 and ST3 content was well in motion by then. He also was an outsider and not a station designer. It was well-known before then that ID-C should have down escalators as part of ST2 East Link. It instead appears to me to be a deficiency well-known before Rogoff.
@Al.S,
ST would have gone with center platforms because the DSLRT is tunneled. TBM’s don’t like to run immediately adjacent to each other for reasons of soil stability, particularly where they breakout into excavated areas (station boxes).
This is partly why Metro went with a center breakdown lane – because the TVM’s they were using were naturally entering the station box 10 to 15 ft apart. Metro is used to LH running, so they didn’t recognize the opportunity to swap sides and save money by going with center platforms. And, of course, buses don’t have doors on both sides, so that wasn’t an option either.
ST does have doors on both sides, and they are used to using either center platforms or side platforms wherever they make the most sense. They surely make sense in the DSLRT. ST would have recognized this and gone with center platforms.
@myself.
Sorry, I meant TBM and “RH running”. (Driver on LHS).
Note to self. Don’t multitask.
@ Lazarus:
Adding down escalators does not require converting to center platforms. They are related, but they are two independent station design choices.
The main limitations are whether the platforms are wide enough for them and whether there is funding to add them. Center platforms are definitely preferred, but down escalators can be installed into a side platform station with room and money.
In the case of ID-C, there is much more room to add down escalators. The east platform has recessed stairwells already — so a new stairwell that has a switchback and converting an existing stairwell to a down escalator looks very doable (with funding). The west platform is not only similar, the there also is a gap of a few yards between the station wall and the Union Station structure to work with. Heck, Union Station could itself be renovated with an internal down escalator and a walkway connected to the Link platform.
Well, did the old bus tunnel work? Did it add value to the transit system in general?
Think of all the places Sound Transit wants to build light rail… West Seattle, Ballard, the Eastside…. could those places have been served by electric buses via the bus tunnel? Could the bus tunnel been upgraded to handle even more traffic?
Did the bus tunnel stop Seattle from building a subway from scratch?…. connecting Columbia City to Roosevelt? Leaving the old bus tunnel intact to handle all those far flung express buses? (coming from places ST what to build light rail to currently?) Could have we had a “grand central station” downtown where all of this transit comes together?
I’m sure the dudes on this blog can “mansplain” all of this post away with some goofy reason the old bus tunnel had to die. But remember kids… light rail is an addiction, not a one-size-fits-all transit solution.
How about a new bus tunnel? and have Sound Transit scrap all that silly light rail out to the hinterlands? Let Mayor Bruce tear out all those junky City and County building downtown he needs to get rid of?
With electric buses, I’m not so sure the answer wouldn’t be something like shutting town 3rd Ave downtown, cut and cover for buses and build thousands of units of housing on top of that… turning the whole street into housing and a pedestrian thoroughfare. Go big or go home I say.
Thevtnlunnel worked great as a bus tunnel. Much more useful than being forced to use linkbfor everything. This piece of infrastructure was essentially tossed away in the name of the light rail God. St has proven it can’t run the tunnel well to save its life. Thank God we might escape having a second tunnel thrust
on us. And when the tunnel was nus only, the ride free area still existed so you could ride from one end to the other with no fare and it was speedy. I used to go to rhe Airport a lot for work and given the choice I would have always picked the 194 but i never had the choice because they killed it in the name of a crappy and slow light rail with a ton of stops. The slow decimation of metro bus service to force use of ST link is a sad chapter in seattle transit history.
Another twist on day 3 the Link reduction: “Real-time transit information data for the 1 Line may be inaccurate at this time due to technical issues encountered during the 1 Line disruption.”
And another twist: “1 Line trains through Downtown Seattle Tunnel Stations are still encountering a 15-minute delay until further notice due to mechanical issue.”
26+15 minutes = 42 minutes?
13 minutes later: “… are delayed about 10 minutes until further notice”
Well, at least it’s getting better.
How is the shuttle this weekend and 13/26-minute service today working? Nobody has commented on the on-the-ground experience. Does that mean you’re all avoiding Link during this period? I have so far.
We’ve been avoiding Link but Sound Transit had its standard daily barrage of emails about Link delays, this time for an undisclosed “mechanical issue”. Delays were apparently 10-15 minutes but only for the full line through downtown, so would have meant back-to-back trains outside downtown with 27ish minute headways. That’s about what I figured would happen, and I guess sort of vindicates Sound Transit’s decision not to even bother with a timetable.
It did publish a timetable a few days before it started; the link is in the second paragraph in the article. Before that there were mixed comments on whether a timetable would be useful or accurate. Some commentators were adamant that a timetable is necessary to make trips possible with infrequent service. ST seems to have heard that and published a full schedule. I’m assuming the schedule might be revised after a couple days, as happened in the last reduction in August.
It’s hard to tell from the barrage of emails but it looks like they might be beating their 26 minute frequencies in the tunnel. If this is true Jr’s great news…
This afternoon I have received a couple of texts from ST concerning delays with Light Rail
The first one at 4:50 was that trains were delayed about 10 minutes because of crowding and the 2nd text about 40 minutes later that trains were arriving every 25-30 minutes due to crowding.
Should not be a surprise when service during the rush hour is cut about half from the normal service and more so for trains that are running the full route. This is also the first regular workday since the service interruption with Monday being a holiday for some people.
What’s the difference between every train being on time, and every train being 30 minutes late?
Ah, 30 minutes?
the drivers, probably
A Norwegian friend of mine once told me about the Oslo bus strike.
It was actually a work slow-down. The operators intentionally ran every route a half hour late. And nobody noticed.
I think the story is apocryphal.
@Brent White,
“ I think the story is apocryphal.”
It depends on what frequency the buses are running at. If they are running relatively frequently and are using cyclic scheduling then nobody would notice.
Any buses running at 20 min or 60 min frequencies would show up as “late”, but with no reduction in delivered capacity. But most in-city bus agencies don’t run at such low frequencies.
It’s called “scheduling”.
Incidentally, ST should move to cyclic scheduling. 7.5 min headways vs 8 min headways delivers a much better user experience while also delivering 6.7% more delivered capacity.
@Sam I’ve complained about this ambiguous language before. 30 minutes late could mean each train is starting 30 minutes after expected and running at normal speed. Or starting at Northgate nornal time and arriving at Angle Lake 30 minutes after expected due to congestion. The former basically is not relevant to riders, the latter is a major problem.
I see ST staff is taking measures to plan for extreme peak overcrowding on Link once the extension to Lynnwood opens (and the 2 Line does not cross Lake Washington yet).
It appears peak headway will increase from 8 minutes to 10 minutes.
ST Express 510 would continue running from Everett Station to Downtown Seattle for the time being, presumably only in the peak direction.
A new temporary route — ST Express 515 — would run between Lynnwood and downtown Seattle every 10 minutes. The proposal is ambiguous on whether the 515 would be peak direction only, two-way peak, all day, or seven days a week.
Running six double-talls per hour — each with capacity of 100 passengers — does not even make up for the loss of one train (800 passengers crushload) caused by the increased peak headway.
The plan does not mention whether running all four N Line trips during the peak-of-peak hour would be feasible. But if it is, that ought to be enough peak-of-peak capacity between Everett and downtown Seattle. The buses will likely be needed elsewhere. But getting passengers to take the train might require temporarily dropping the fare to $3.25. If that results in filling up the Sounder trains and getting more fare revenue, that might be instructive for future Sounder fares.
The need for ST Express 515 during peak is likely to be more than what is being proposed. The proposed service level merely makes up for one of the two lost peak 1-Line trains. Making room for the 400-series ridership would take a lot more 515 double-talks. If ST could deploy one or two more peak-of-peak trains between downtown and Lynnwood, that would be much more cost-effective.
Running express buses from LTC to DT Seattle to alleviate overcrowding on Link is a really dumb idea and won’t work.
Think of it. You’re at LTC in the morning heading south to DT Seattle. So you have a choice: Link, which is faster, more frequent, more reliable, and more comfortable? Or the bus, which takes longer, is less comfortable, and is less reliable?
Neither the bus nor Link is crowded yet, so which do you choose? The obvious answer is you choose Link. And everyone along the line will choose Link until Link gets crowded to the point that they can’t get on and the bus becomes a viable alternative.
But Link will become crowded somewhere between Northgate and West Lake Station, so that is really where you want to offer a bus alternative. Wherever Link becomes too crowded to board, that is where the bus alternative should be.
But offering a bus alternative from LTC? No rational person would use it. And that is exactly why it won’t solve the problem.
>Think of it. You’re at LTC in the morning heading south to DT Seattle. So you have a choice: Link, which is faster, more frequent, more reliable, and more comfortable? Or the bus, which takes longer, is less comfortable, and is less reliable? Neither the bus nor Link is crowded yet, so which do you choose?
You’re forgetting that people will (hopefully) ride multiple times, and have the capacity to remember past experiences when making the similar decisions in the future.
Some folks will have a bad time on Link and give the bus a shot. Some folks will have a bad time on the bus and give Link a shot. Most likely, folks will make the decision based on a personal tradeoff between personal comfort and travel time.
What is the expected travel time between LTC and Westlake for Link versus bus?
“Running express buses from LTC to DT Seattle to alleviate overcrowding on Link is a really dumb idea and won’t work”
It’s either that or people get left behind and drive. What’s your alternative suggestion? Add more trains? That’s what ST doesn’t have.
Some people prefer express buses (ask RossB). Some don’t care either way. Some are willing to use express buses for a 1-year gap until Line 2 starts. It will be a bigger issue northbound, when everyone going to Snohomish, North Seattle, and Capitol Hill is getting on at once. You won’t have the luxury of getting on when there’s plenty of seats. If even some Snohomish riders take the bus, enough to make the buses half full or completely full, that frees up space for others on Link.
@Nathan D,
Exactly. People will compare the two modes and their ride experiences on each and choose accordingly. And that is exactly why express buses to/from LTC won’t work.
Besides the comfort issue, and the unreliability of the buses stuck in I-5 traffic, there is a major speed advantage to Link. Taking the 402 as an example, the evening return trip currently is budgeted at 46 mins to LCT. Link will be about 30 mins (original estimate 28 mins, but I suspect ST has adjusted that a bit).
So, despite everything else, do you really think people will voluntarily choose to increase their commute time by an extra 50% just because it is a bus?
I sincerely doubt it. People will choose the faster and better mode.
And don’t forget reliability and “revive I-5”. When WSDOT starts resurfacing I-5 north of Northgate it is going to be a mess, and those buses going to/from LTC will be stuck in it. Meaning highly variable commute times with low probability of meeting current trip times.
Buses won’t cut it. Not once Link is available.
@ Mike Orr,
“ Some people prefer express buses”
The point of that is the “why?”, because I can guarantee you that essentially nobody picks the bus simply because it is a “bus”.
Currently Express buses from places like LTC to DT Seattle are often the preferred mode, but that is because, of the limited options available TODAY, it’s about the fastest and most comfortable. But that all changes once LLE opens.
Once LLE opens the fastest, most reliable, and most comfortable commute mode to/from LTC will be Link. And people will vote with their feet.
This isn’t rocket science. People aren’t dumb. They will take the best service available to them. Today that might be express buses to/from LTC, but once LLE opens it will be Link. Hands down it will be the better and faster service, and people will use it up until the point where they can’t force themselves on.
People really don’t care about the mode, they care about the service. They care about speed and reliability.
I’ve put a question to ST to ask what “8-10 minutes” means: (A) continue current service level (the train-storage problem has been solved), (B) leave wiggle room for peak service to be 8 or 10 minutes, (C) increased midday service (8 minutes instead of 10). I haven’t heard back yet.
I read the announcement as:
* The 510 will continue as is.
* The new 515 will run every 10 minutes peak hours. It says peak-only. I assume that’s unidirectional. The ridership model said overcrowding is only likely peak hours peak direction.
* The 512 and 513 may be truncated at Lynnwood, and the 511 deleted, but that’s not certain yet. It depends on “future operational capacity, project readiness, and testing.”
“Making room for the 400-series ridership would take a lot more 515 double-talks.”
The 4xx and 510 seem to be less than half full when I see them downtown in the afternoon, so I’m not sure there needs to be a 600 seat per hour replacement.
Many of the Link riders can’t take the expresses because they don’t stop in North Seattle. So if even half the people in Lynnwood, Everett, and Mountlake Terrace take an express bus and the buses are full, that frees up 200 spaces for people further south. That may not eliminate crushloading but it would make it better. A couple more bus runs are easy to add if necessary: ST and Metro do it routinely, and reserve some service hours in a restructure for such needs.
Overcrowding may be a good problem to have in some ways. It would silence critics who say the Lynnwood extension isn’t worthwhile or that we don’t need Line 2’s frequency.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/sounder-south-strategic-plan-update-community-engagement-executive
Sound transit Sounder South Strategic Plan Survey Results.
Ninety percent of survey respondents prefer new trips over longer trains. This preference level was consistent across all demographic categories, but was slightly lower among frequent riders1, with 79% preferring new trips.
•
Adding weekend service was favored by 81.6% of respondents, while adding new weekday service was supported by 57%.
•
A strong majority of respondents (75.3%) would support reducing frequency during peak periods to add trips at
other times of day or week (contingent on BNSF approval).
An additional data point I can add is a Reddit thread (that I can’t find now) that lamented SRO on Sounder South during morning trains. I suspect that those living in Tacoma and working in Seattle are more likely to not have the WFH options at the high percentage that those living in more highly educated Seattle area have.
I’m sure standing or sitting on the floor for the full hour is not particularly comfortable, with fewer hand holds and such that something like LINK or a bus has.
@Cam,
I don’t get to see Sounder NB in the morning very often, but the last two times I did see it the Sounder was definitely SRO. So my observation might back up your Reddit post.
Actual data would be better, but it appears that some sort of expansion of the service might be warranted.
If it is standing room only, it is likely only that way for a brief period (e. g. between Kent and Seattle). A northbound train would not be standing-room only leaving Tacoma; otherwise people at the other stations would be left at the platform. Likewise, a southbound train would have to be crush loaded to be standing-room only by the time it reaches Puyallup.
Interestingly enough, with old reports (from 2019) Sound Transit only lists the number of seats occupied for Sounder. In contrast, for buses and Link, they list the number of seats and the overall capacity (seats + standing room). In other words, if you have to stand on a Sounder Train — even for a brief period — it is a failure. Prior to the pandemic, Sounder didn’t fail too often. A few of the train cars were full, but never all of them (see page 91 of this: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-sip-final_compressed.pdf).
It has been a while since ST released a report like that. But with the data tracker, you could look at overall ridership. They allow you to look at particular train runs (like the 1521, which I believe has the most riders). Yet it is nowhere near what it was back in 2019. So unless they are just running really tiny train sets, I don’t see how it can be standing-room only.
It’s probably only one or two trips that are SRO.
It doesn’t cost *that* much to add a car or two to the train. The platform in Tacoma should be able to take an 18 car train (Coast Starlight). I don’t know if Seattle can, though.
Anyway, add some cars to the train(s) that are crowded, and make those be dedicated Tacoma and Seattle only, where the platform is long enough to take those cars. Yes, it means adding a bit of complexity as the doors would need to be disabled on those cars for most of the trip, then reactivated. I’m fairly certain each car has a switch for this, as I think Metra and Long Island Rail Road are also operating trains longer than some platforms.
@Cam
Thanks for the update. I’m pleasantly surprised so many prefer all-day trips over just adding more peak trips. I looked around and also found the larger pdf survey (warning 200+ pages) https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/sounder-south-strategic-engagement-report.pdf
Most of it isn’t too surprising like Tacoma wanting northbound trips during the morning and Seattle people wanting southbound trips in the evenings. or that afternoon had around even desire for southbound/northbound.
For weekday why to use trips:
* fun 78%, special events 71%, work 65%, shopping 41%, health 22%
For weekends the breakdown is a bit interesting:
* fun 91%, special events 84%, shopping 49%, work 37%, health 17% (one could choose more than one)
Some very interesting items with the interview and presentation section (page 36)
Weekday:
* Expectation that mid-week commuting will remain much more popular than Mondays and Fridays, and to adjust the Sounder schedule accordingly. There was one
suggestion to reduce Monday/Friday service in order to run trains midday during Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
* Health care workers often work shifts ending or starting at 7pm; service in the evening (both directions)
* Interest in both “after-dinner” and “late” trains, mostly from Seattle southbound.
Thanks, WL. Good stuff in there.
I’m sure there is bias associated with who responds to these things, but in this case, I would guess it would be biased towards current users and transit advocates, who are more likely to understand the costs and/or prefer the status quo. An random sample would likely have shown even stronger preference for all-day and weekend service.
I don’t like how they worded the most used station question. I would have liked to see where folks actually live. I could have easily responded King Street, even though I live in Pierce.
Link delays and platform crowding hit the news. ($)
Mike Lindblom Is absolutely correct on three points:
1). It’s much better to do this work now, before LLE opens. Doing it after would be nearly impossible due to the much larger passenger volumes.
2). A second DSLRT would surely add more resiliency to the system and make disruptions like this less severe. This is what most mature systems do.
3). Crowding will probably get better as people get used to the new system. The worst crowding is probably already behind us.
But a new set of crossovers at USS? Not in the cards. Nobody is going to open up 3rd Ave with a new 600 ft cut-and-cover excavation. And the improvement would only be minor anyhow.
That was supposed to nest to Mike Orr’s comment.
I would move it, but I can’t. I with editors had that power, since it happens every so often, and I’m not convinced it is user error. I think it is a glitch in the software.
1) The only time I expect significantly larger traffic volumes with Lynnwood Link is during rush hour. People who now take the bus will be forced to take the train. Outside of peak, it will simply spread people out. Instead of people taking the bus (or driving) to Northgate, they will take a bus (or drive) to another station. For midday travel you will likely see an overall increase, along with an increase in people passing through Northgate, but not a huge jump. Not like U-Link or Northgate Link. Ridership doubled with U-Link. The numbers for Northgate Link were made more confusing because the pandemic caused ridership for existing trips to go down. But from what I can figure, it increased ridership about a third to a half over what it would have been. I don’t think we will get anywhere near that kind of increase with Lynnwood Link.
I think the strongest argument for doing it now is that people have a fairly low expectation of the system (and ridership tends to down in the winter). There have been a fair number of shut downs. Better to cluster these together than spread them out. Furthermore, once East Link gets connected to the system, frequency on the northern section (where we have the bulk of the riders) will be twice as good. It would be a bigger step down at that point.
2) Yes, more lines add more resiliency. But the tunnel is so tiny that it adds very little. That is one of the fundamental problems with the tunnel — it adds so little. It adds next to nothing when it comes to coverage, and adds only a tiny bit of resiliency. In contrast, consider the idea sketched out the other day: https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/First-Hill-line.png. If the track is out anywhere between Mount Baker and Westlake, riders have an alternative. Even if you are trying to get to Capitol Hill, it would be a fairly short bus ride (or walk — depending on your destination) from First Hill. In contrast, with the current system the problem has to be within a fairly short section for there to be a benefit to the new tunnel.
3) Agreed. People will start using alternatives to Link, which should help with the crowding.
Sound transit had some meetings/ 4 documents released out today.
# ST Express suspensions
* 590 Tacoma – Seattle Suspend downtown Tacoma segment.
* 590 Suspend ~1/2 weekday trips Tacoma – Seattle, Coordinate schedule with Sounder S Line and Route 595 between Tacoma Dome and downtown Seattle to provide alternatives
* 577 Federal Way suspend midday trips
* 578 Puyallup suspend evening trips
* 594 Lakewood suspend some weekday trips
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20ST%20Express%20Service%20Levels%201-18-24.pdf
# Rider and Operations committee, year agenda
interesting tidbits:
* q1 Presentation on At Grade Crossings (maybe some improvements?)
* q1 Consider Stride permanent station names
* q1 Presentation on Faregate Assessment
* q1 Consider 2024 ST Express service plan
* q3 Presentation on 2025 Draft Service Plan (probably outline what the frequency will be like)
* q3 Presentation on fare capping (so it seems they are really moving forward with fare capping)
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Draft%202024%20Rider%20Experience%20and%20Operations%20Committee%20Work%20Plan.pdf
# Stride Operating structure contract bid
Sound Transit owns the facilities and busses but wants to contract out the operators. I assume this is just similar to the ST express contracts where it’s king county/other transit agencies bus drivers and maintenance teams? Or it seems a bit different?
Sound Transit to provide:
* Facilities – Under construction and upcoming procurements
* Fleet (all electric) – Awarded Q4 2023
* Bus Operating Technology systems – Award in Q1 2024
Contracted Service Provider with Sound Transit oversight:
* Operators
* Maintenance/Mechanics
* Start-Up Support (systems and fleet testing, hiring/training, scheduling, standard operating procedures)
* Release Request for Proposals in Q1 2024
One interesting note is the line “Allow for future expansion to accommodate ST Express services”. I’m a bit confused if it means they want to expand the Stride operating model to ST express or if it means allow ST express to use the Stride facilities (freeway bus stations).
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20Contract%20Service%20Provider%20Procurement%201-18-24.pdf
The cuts to bus service are brutal. They will truncate the 590 at Tacoma Dome station, which means a two-seat ride from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle, at least during rush hour. It gets worse. For the 590, they will cut about half the trips, while they “Coordinate [the] schedule with Sounder S Line and Route 595 between Tacoma Dome and downtown Seattle to provide alternatives.” I get why they would try and funnel people to Sounder, but it adds up to some tough times for riders.
There are other cuts as well. The 577 goes away, which means riders from Federal Way have the 578 only. That means service to and from Federal Way will be a lot less frequent. Even the 578 will lose some of its trips.
And yet the 586 remains unchanged. Just for perspective, the 586 peaked at under 300 riders, back in May. It makes 14 trips total, which means that it carries roughly 20 riders per bus. The subsidy per rider is enormous, and they are ignoring the very good service that exists between downtown and the U-District, something they themselves provide. I get that they don’t make that many runs of the 586, but they are extremely long, and likely require a fair amount of coordination (or worse yet, involve dead-heading back). That would be the first thing I would cut, yet is seems like it will be the last.
Yeah, I’m especially concerned with the cuts to the 594. It’s not just some weekday trips that are up for suspension, but “many
Sunday trips with low ridership”. One of the great things about transit in the Puget Sound is that STEX is a relatively robust intercity bus system, compared to other metro areas, especially on weekends. This chips away at that benefit.
Does anyone know what the ridership on the 594 is between Lakewood and Tacoma? I wonder if ST has considered truncating some runs in Tacoma as an alternative to outright suspension. Even if the route only ran between downtown Seattle and Tacoma Dome it probably would be better than hourly service to Lakewood for a lot of people.
One of the great things about transit in the Puget Sound is that STEX is a relatively robust intercity bus system, compared to other metro areas, especially on weekends. This chips away at that benefit.
I agree. It is one of the few aspects of our system that is much better than average. Things will be getting worse.
Does anyone know what the ridership on the 594 is between Lakewood and Tacoma?
Prior to the pandemic, it was not very high*. At most about 50. That is how many riders got off a northbound bus at the various Tacoma stops (it is possible that a few were riding to the Tacoma Dome from somewhere else in Tacoma). That is on average, for the entire day. I don’t know current ridership, but it is unlikely it is much higher. Overall ridership is down, although not down as much as the peak-only routes.
I think you could make a much stronger case for an off-hour 594 than the 586. The 586 is an express that doesn’t carry very many people. The riders will be pushed onto other buses — that probably aren’t that crowded — and Sounder (which certainly isn’t). In contrast, Sunday/nighttime 594 buses can be loss-leaders. Not many people ride them, but they take transit in the first place, knowing they have a way back that is pretty good. A bus running every hour is not.
* See page 206 on this PDF: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-sip-final_compressed.pdf
Oh, and as bad as the 590 cut are, I see it as setting a precedent that is actually good, or at least necessary for a reasonably efficient system. After Federal Way Link, I would do the following:
1) Run the 590 peak only, from Downtown Tacoma to Federal Way.
2) Run the 592 peak only, from Dupont to Federal Way.
3) Add a Federal Way stop for the the 594; otherwise it will be the same. Run it every 15 minutes, and only when the 590/592 is not running.
4) Eliminate the 574, 577 and 586.
5) Truncate the 578 at Federal Way and run it every fifteen minutes.
6) Truncate the 595 in Federal Way.
This means:
* Riders who can take the 590 or 594 don’t have to check the schedule. If one is running, the other one isn’t. This is similar to the old 510/512 system.
* During peak, Tacoma riders headed to Seattle either take Sounder or Link.
* During peak, Federal Way riders take Link to Seattle. Outside of peak, they can take Link or the 594 express.
* Puyallup/Sumner/Auburn riders can take Sounder when running. Otherwise they transfer to Link or the 594.
The savings are rather large, even though you are still running express buses from Dupont to Seattle. In terms of speed, some riders are worse off. It may be faster to take the bus from Federal Way to Seattle, even during rush hour. But the time penalty is probably not that big. Outside of rush hour, the express is a lot faster. Midday Puyallup/Sumner/Auburn riders have to transfer, but overall frequency is likely better.
Metro Connects 2016-2020 envisioned Metro taking over the 577 and replacing the 578 with a Seattle-Kent-Auburn express. That would get them off ST’s budget.
594 reductions is a hard pill to swallow, with no Link for a decade and no Sounder on weekends.
Federal Way Link should help. I also don’t think the driver shortage is permanent. If it is, we are just going to have to pay more money for a decent system (or wait for self-driving buses). Link saves some money, but compared to the overall system, not that much.
I’m interested in seeing the following stats for KC Metro for 2019 vs 2023. Total service hours. Total ridership. Total number of bus driver employees. Any or all of those stats would be appreciated.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/depts/transportation/metro/about/accountability-center/strategic-plan-dashboard.aspx
Hamburger menu (top left) > Metro Connects > filter Ridership “Metro Bus”
September 2023 Total Boardings 6,099,724
September 2019 Total Boardings 9,829,995
Alternatively can view ridership here https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tFUsbWmfk3A6MdQjuxWg3JUYs7vqbSt62JRQY1V3fKI/pubhtml?gid=1914679577&single=true
Same concept just average weekday transit boardings
September:
* 2023 232k,
* 2021 182k,
* 2019 405k
* 2017 401k
> Total service hours.
* 2017 3,971,582
* 2019 4,294,118
* 2021 3,762,747
* 2022 3,294,900
Can’t find numbers for 2023, might not be released yet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vYrcrQqfJJBM7hkdZdtN8NA0nObODaEr3NZVe7gBYuQ/pubhtml?gid=1&single=true (Vehicle hours The hours shown are on Metro’s motor bus, trolley bus, DART, and the South Lake Union Streetcar.)
Can find cost per vehicle hour and boarding though.
Year / Cost Per Hour / Cost per Boarding
* 2017 / $151.33 / $4.92
* 2019 / $161.87 / $5.67
* 2021 / $409.92 / $13.47
* 2022 / $232.03 / $11.89
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sNzVcEAmAx7lzGG–Js3eCx3U9tGizPATqy3D4QT10Y/pubhtml?gid=2&single=true (cost per vehicle hour)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sNzVcEAmAx7lzGG–Js3eCx3U9tGizPATqy3D4QT10Y/pubhtml?gid=3&single=true (cost per boarding)
(Boardings and operating costs are on Metro’s motor bus and trolley bus (including DART service).
Cannot directly use with the service hours since that one has the streetcar numbers, but honestly probably doesn’t change calculation too much if you want to mix it.
Thanks, WL! And what I found out is that in 2019, total part-time and full-time drivers was around 3100, and in 2023 it was around 2500. So, percentage-wise, from 2019 to 2022/23:
Boardings are down 38%
Service hours are down 17%
Drivers are down 19%