This article is brought you by the 1 Line, ST Express, Sounder, and the SLU streetcar.
The Link 1 Line reduction is ongoing through February 4th. Weekdays downtown service is 26 minutes; north of UW and south of SODO is 13-minutes. However, actual service has had some gaps that are 10 minutes longer than that, and have lead to crowded platforms. ST suggests traveling outside peak hours if you can; the busiest times are between 4 and 6pm. Weekends the downtown tunnel is closed, and a shuttle bus runs between Capitol Hill and SODO. See the link for the full (nominal) schedule and bus alternatives. STB commentators have seen workers replacing the next-arrival displays downtown, and single-tracking, while ST does track refurbishment and other maintenance in preparation for Lynnwood Link and Line 2.
The SLU Streetcar will be closed this weekend. Use buses C, 40, or 70 instead.
Sound Transit is proposing an interim ST Express restructure for Lynnwood Link this fall. It wants to continue route 510 between Everett and downtown Seattle peak hours, and add a new route 515 between Lynnwood and downtown Seattle every 10 minutes peak hours. This is to alleviate potential overcrowding on Link until Line 2 opens in 2025. Link will be “8-10 minutes”. It’s unclear whether that’s still less than current service (8 minutes peak, 10 minutes off-peak, not counting the reduction above), or if they’ve solved the train-storage issue. The 512 and 513 may be truncated at Lynnwood, and the 511 deleted, but that’s not certain yet. ST is taking email comments about this proposal until January 30th at servicechanges@soundtransit.org.
The results of the Sounder South expansion survey are out. It currently runs between Tacoma and Seattle peak hours, every 20 minutes in the peak direction, and 3-4 runs reverse-peak. In the survey, 90% of respondents prefer additional trips over longer trains. 81.6% want weekend service; 57% want more weekday service. 75.3% support reducing peak-hour service to shift runs to other times (“contingent on BNSF approval”). That’s a strong majority for the changes STB authors want to see.
Tokyo’s urban-renewal mistake was a 1972 tower of detachable capsule apartments ($). It looks like a beehive of front-loading washing machines. “Erected on the edge of the upscale Ginza district, Kurokawa’s capsule tower reimagined minimal modern living. Each capsule was just large enough for a bed, closet, workstation, bathroom and a porthole window. Deluxe versions came with a built-in Sony stereo, [reel-to-reel] tape deck, color TV and digital clock.” It was intended that each capsule could move with its owner to another location as needed, and capsules could be replaced every 25 without modifying the tower. Now the tower is demolished, and 23 of the tiny apartments have been refurbished and distributed as museum exhibits, airBnB’s, or work/art spaces. The airBnBs are $1,400 a night, so start saving for the 4-capsule cluster or the future 5-capsule village, both outside Tokyo.
This is an open thread.
Who had a reel-to-reel tape deck? My parents had a 1960s one, with a Ray Charles reel and a couple other prerecorded ones, but mostly blank reels I recorded my voice on.
We also had probably the last tube receiver in Bellevue. It was FM only. It had a phono equalization switch for “RIAA” (current) or “NAB” (before my time); an input “Extra” instead of “AUX”; an output knob with “Monophonic Records”, “Stereo”, “Stereo Reverse”, and four others; a volume knob labeled “Loudness”, and a loudness switch labeled “Loudness Contour”. When a tube went out we took it to Radio Shack, put it in the tube tester, and bought a new tube.
My parents had an AM clock radio in their room, AM car radios, and I eventually got an AM clock radio. So we had to go to different rooms for AM and FM. On my clock radio I listened to KJR top 40 and Doctor Demento. My mom listened to KVI news on AM, and KEZX easy listening on FM. My dad listened to classical and opera records, but not very often.
In high school radio class, we had reel-to-reel tape decks again to edit shows on. I made a radio drama, with actors and background music. The on-air new wave songs were on “carts“, something similar to an 8-track tape, but just one song in a loop, and it automatically stopped when it reached the start. There was a degaussing device to erase carts and tapes; we called it a “cart nuker”. On Saturday mornings I got a shift and played my own records.
“In the survey, 90% of respondents prefer additional trips over longer trains.”
This should hardly be a shocker. Longer trains offers no benefits to riders unless the existing trains are completely full. Additional trips benefits riders, whether full or not.
Really, the sole reason to prefer longer trains over more trips is that the “long trains” option costs Sound Transit less money to operate.
The problem is that anytime you conduct a survey and ask riders whether they’d like option A or option B in a vacuum, the preferred choice almost always ends up being the more expensive one, but when that happens everywhere, you can’t give the most expensive option to everyone without running out of money. For example, on my route in the King County Metro world, I’d rather have shorter buses that run more often than longer buses that run less often, and so would everyone. But, that costs too much to do everywhere, so longer buses running less often is usually what we get.
Actually, running longer trains means about a billion dollars in capital costs to lengthen platforms, iirc. But I get your larger meaning.
I would really, really like some hard numbers, beyond “lots”, on how much it costs to add more trips, particularly on evenings and weekends.
Timm was championing this and holding discussions with BNSF. Hopefully her departure doesn’t derail those discussions.
@asdf2,
One of the key reasons to go with longer trains is that you don’t need to negotiate with BNSF for more train slots.
And contrary to some comments on this blog, if Sounder is commonly running SRO out of Kent or Auburn, then it is commonly running at or above capacity.
Something needs to be done.
Would it cost a billion to double-track UP from Black River to East Tacoma? Certainly the trackway costs would not be near that, but signaling improvements and overpasses of important east-west arterials might bring the total cost that high. It’s likely that the bridge over the Puyallup River would require replacement, too.
I would assert that using the money that way would provide opportunities for the things that riders want: a larger span of service and, eventually, shorter headways at the peaks if necessary.
And looking back at the pre-pandemic surveys, these responses were a significant change. Riders were calling for longer trains back then.
> Really, the sole reason to prefer longer trains over more trips is that the “long trains” option costs Sound Transit less money to operate.
It’s kinda a U shaped economies of scale as the length of trains increases. It starts out being really efficient since one doesn’t need to hire more drivers, but Sound Transit is definitely on the increasing inefficiency side now that they have to length the station platforms
Technically, I think you could run longer trains while limiting platform lengthening to only King St. Station. You just arrange it so each car’s doors open at only every other station and stagger which doors open where to balance the loads. For example, maybe cars 1-6 open at Tukwila/Auburn/Puyallup, while cars 3-8 open at Kent/Sumner/Tacoma, with all cars opening at King St. Station. People riding Sounder for oddball trips like Tacoma->Kent could simply board one of the middle cars whose doors open at all stations, and there are not enough such people for this to meaningfully impact train loads.
But, again, this idea kind of sucks for passengers because it offers no benefit it except to increase capacity, which means no benefit at all if the existing capacity is not full. More trains offers benefits to riders, whether the trains are full or not, but costs a lot more to provide.
(I should also qualify my prior post that, when I was referring to higher operating costs of more trains, I meant for “higher operating costs” to refer to both the cost of physically running the trains and having to pay more money to BNSF for the right to run the trains; it doesn’t change the fundamentals though, it just impacts the numbers).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tacoma/comments/192ych6/formal_complaint_regarding_overcrowded_sound/
Found the reddit thread complaining of overcrowding.
And looking back at the pre-pandemic surveys, these responses were a significant change. Riders were calling for longer trains back then.
Because some of the trains were crowded back then. Checkout page 91 of this PDF (or if you were to print it out, page 82). It shows which trains and which train cars on those trains are most crowded. That is southbound. Northbound, shown on the previous page, has less crowding. Note that this shows seating capacity, not total capacity (seating plus standing) like Link or the buses. This is also average, so obviously there are days when it gets a lot more. I would imagine a sold-out show at the Tacoma Dome on a Friday night would lead to a lot more crowding (unless ST added additional runs). In any event, the most crowded trains (with the most crowded cars) are the southbound (odd numbered) trains in the evening (1515 to 1521). It isn’t clear how many seats there are in each car, but it is clearly over 125, so I’ll use that as a starting point. Each 7-car train has room to carry up to 875 people quite comfortably. They were often carrying more back in 2019.
What about now? Sound Transit has a ridership tracker. You can specify Sounder, S Line and the particular train. As before the most popular train is 1521, which leaves King Street Station at 5:20 PM. But it is a shadow of its former self. Since the pandemic, the highest average was in August, when it hit 440 riders. That is one of the few times that the average (for any train) was over 400. If they are running seven car trains, that works out to about 60 people per train car, or well less than half the total seating capacity. Keep in mind, this is total ridership. Back in 2019, there was a considerable number of riders who would board a southbound train after Seattle. In Tukwila, almost as many people get on a southbound train as get off. Thus there are people getting on and off, which means the total ridership per train is probably substantially higher than the total ridership. Yet even if everyone boarded at King Street, and everyone got off the train in Tacoma, it would be nowhere near full.
Note that you can see what things were like back in 2019. That same train had several months over 1,000 (well more than twice as many riders as the highest month now). It has a month of over 1,200 — roughly three times what it carries now. It was crowded then. It is not crowded now.
Open seats on public transit are a human right!
@Cam,
Wow. That sounds bad.
Commuter rail is not subway or LR. People should not be standing for the duration of their trip.
And they certainly shouldn’t be sitting on the steps between levels. T house stairs represent emergency egress routes and shouldn’t be clogged. If they are, then that is a safety problem.
Clearly some sort of capacity increase is probably warranted.
Thanks for finding actual documentation on this issue.
Actually, running longer trains means about a billion dollars in capital costs to lengthen platforms, iirc.
Only if you don’t have open gangways. With open gangways, you just keep walking back until you find a seat. If you have ridden Amtrak on the East Coast, you are familiar with the idea. Even with luggage, you just keep walking back until you find a seat. This means that at worst you spend a little extra time walking towards the back after boarding, and a little extra time walking toward the front when you leave. That also assumes that neither station is long enough. If King Street Station was long enough to handle longer trains, then riders wouldn’t have to do anything special in Seattle.
At that point, the key is letting people know that there are additional cars in the back and which stations those back cars serve. Once folks know that, it is fairly easy. Regular commuters would get the hang of it almost immediately. The folks who aren’t familiar with the system might struggle, but my guess is the vast majority of inexperienced riders are going from end to end (Seattle to the Tacoma Dome). Even if Tacoma has a short platform, they can’t miss their stop, since it is the last one.
Where it gets expensive is we want every station to have platforms that big, which is a ridiculous level of overkill.
By the way, a simple search for “train stations with short platforms” lead to a long list of train stations that have platforms longer than the trains themselves: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-stations-where-a-calling-service-is-longer-than-the-platform.140369/. Oddly enough, there is no official list, so you have to know, although “In my experience guards and/or automated systems are usually pretty good at announcing short platforms.”. In contrast, another person said “it’s about 50/50 when we get to Norwood Junction on a 12 car service whether there is an announcement or not. Cue mad rushes forwards for those who might be un-aware!”. That is the London Overground — a system massively more complex than Sounder. You can basically paint “This car does not have doors that open” or “This car only opens in Seattle, exit via the front” (along with the usual messages). That is, if we ever get to the point where we need extra cars.
I would really, really like some hard numbers, beyond “lots”, on how much it costs to add more trips, particularly on evenings and weekends.
Part of the problem is that it is a negotiation, so you don’t really know the number. ST has to be able to walk away from the table if the number is too high. It reminds me of when my older brother was selling his motorcycle. He was busy, so my older sister met with a guy who was interested in buying it. She said “My brother told me not to go under $500”. The other guy offered 500 bucks, and that was that. Oops.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tacoma/comments/192ych6/formal_complaint_regarding_overcrowded_sound/
I couldn’t find anything special going on January 9th, 2024 (but maybe there was something). It is also possible that ST has been running smaller trains for a while now, given the relatively low ridership (since the pandemic). As ridership has picked up, maybe they haven’t added enough of them. Otherwise, given all the data, I see no reason why the train would be crowded. But again, maybe there is an event, or some other reason everyone wanted to run the train that day.
> I would really, really like some hard numbers, beyond “lots”, on how much it costs to add more trips, particularly on evenings and weekends.
Note it’s more than just money. BNSF still needs some time for their freight trains as well. Part of the potential deal for midday and evening trips is exchanging for less peak time trains. Aka people traveling north in the mornings and south in peak evening time will probably need to stand a lot more.
> The $185 million purchase agreement with Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway enables the regional transit agency to incrementally expand its popular commuter rail service from nine to thirteen round trips a day, with the first new round trip starting as soon as 2012. The expanded service will add four peak direction, peak hour trains to the Seattle-to-Tacoma Sounder schedule, with flexibility to run reverse commute and midday service based on ridership demand.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/news-events/news-releases/sound-transit-expands-sounder-south-service
Last time it cost 46 million per round trip. I doubt it will get any cheaper per trip bought. Though I’m not sure exactly how negotiations work when pared with say third tracking projects.
UP ROW should be a freight priority corridor and BNSF ROW should be a passenger priority corridor between Seattle and Tacoma
That would likely require assistance from the state. I don’t think this would be a full sound transit investment. But something like 2TPHPD or more preferably 4TPHPD or better all day service on the Sounder south corridor supplemented by hourly higher stop spacing cascades service seems reasonable. Making it more frequent also makes it more reasonable to add infill stations in areas like Boeing Access Road and Georgetown as well as maybe even branches like on serving downtown Tacoma.
There may be a few Seattle proper infill opportunities on Sounder north but given how unlikely increased service on that segment feels to be it seems unlikely to happen unless service on the line was “chopped up” into higher performing segments
I think it could be done with existing South King/Pierce county ST3 funds if there were a significant realignment based on a change in CEO and board priorities
> 4TPHPD or better all day service on the Sounder south corridor supplemented by hourly higher stop spacing cascades service seems reasonable.
I think you’re a bit too optimistic. If you want to run commuter trains that frequently you’d basically need to build a new rail line that is separate from freight trains completely.
WL,
Maybe too optimistic but I don’t think it’s unheard of for plans in the United States to run such a service
Metrolinks $10B SCORE program in Los Angeles is planning for 4-8TPHPD on some corridors throughout LA via double tracking segments. These are freight corridors for the most part
@WL,
I think “lots” was just a made up number with no basis in reality. For example, adding a car to the existing trains (if possible) is basically free. A car can be added for basically the cost of daily cleaning and periodic inspections.
As per another time slot, that is a negotiation with BNSF, and who knows where that leads. But even the original agreement with BNSF was relatively cheap.
That said, short term really only one additional time slot (RT) is required. But given the ridership growth in this corridor, it would probably be better to forge an agreement with multiple additional time slots and prepare for the future.
Because ridership is definitely growing.
I’m calling BS on this whole Sounder South trains jam-packed with standing room only riders. I’m going to need more proof than a link to a Reddit comment. I know most commenters here don’t even regularly use public transit, but would one of you go down and fact-check this doubtful claim?
@Sam,
I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
The biggest problem Sounder has is trains that are too empty, not too full. Given the actual data, the only reason there would be crowding is a special event, or they aren’t running seven-car trains. The solution to the latter is simple: run seven-car trains. For the former, it may be possible to anticipate the load, and run special trains (much as they do for weekend sporting events).
The problem is not crowding, but very low ridership on many of the routes. You can see the ridership per train on the data tracker. These are the ridership per day for these runs:
1501 — Leave Seattle 6:05 AM — 97 riders a day
1503 — Leave Seattle 6:35 AM — 84
1505 — Leave Seattle 7:55 AM — 94
1520 — Leave Tacoma 4:06 PM — 100
1522 — Leave Tacoma 4:30 PM — 68
1524 — Leave Tacoma 5:15 PM — 79
These are for the best months. There are plenty of months were average ridership is much lower. Basically the reverse commuter ridership is enough for a bus to handle. A train is fairly expensive to operate, even when you own the tracks. Now it may be that there is essentially some “dead-heading”. We don’t have unlimited space to put the train cars either. But when it comes to expanding service, this very low ridership is an issue.
The pathway of Sounder is unique, and not easily replicated with one bus. It is quite understandable for people to want that service, even in times when ridership is low. If we owned the tracks, it might be worth considering DMUs, or electrification (and small train sets). Since we don’t, it is hard to see when service would be worth it.
Here are some times and ridership for the “edge” cases (first and last peak-direction runs):
1500 — Leaves Tacoma 4:50 AM — 421
1518 — Leaves Tacoma 10:25 AM — 145
1507 — Leaves Seattle 2:35 PM — 342
1525 — Leaves Seattle 6:30 PM — 240
This means that there are a lot more “early birds” than I expected. The very first run of the day arrives in Seattle before 6:00 AM, and it one of the most popular trains. In contrast, by late morning, very few people are headed that way. Some of those that arrive obviously leave early as well. I’m surprised that very few leave late.
In general this means there really isn’t much to do on the weekday. You could maybe squeeze in another early afternoon southbound run (leaving Seattle at 2:55 pm and/or 2:15 pm) but that is about it. The early northbound run is popular, but it is hard to imagine there are that many riders who want to get up even earlier than that. Reverse-peak ridership is not very good, nor are later peak runs.
Which basically leaves the weekend. I could definitely see adding weekend service. From what I can tell, the Saturday ridership of the 594 is about the same as a typical weekday, while the Sunday ridership is only a bit below that.
The other thing to wonder about is whether 20 minute headways (the standard peak service) is good enough. Twenty minute headways would be terrible for a bus or Link, but might be OK for the train. The trips aren’t likely to be spontaneous and the longer the distance, the less important the headway. But for many commuters, it is still an issue. If your shift starts at 8:00 AM sharp, you can’t show up at 8:05. That means you show up at 7:45, and wait around. Then there is the bus. If someone just misses the train, they might catch the bus (if it serves the area) instead of waiting for the next train. Ideally the period when the train is running is when the buses aren’t running. This greatly simplifies operations, as well as user experience. To do that, you want the trains to be frequent enough so that people prefer them over the bus. At least, if we can afford it.
I have no idea what is cheaper (which gets back to Cam’s earlier point — we really don’t know what BNSF is going to charge). It may be that they essentially block out these periods anyway. Maybe BNSF doesn’t try to do any work on the northbound trains between 6:00 and 7:20 AM, when Sounder is running trains every 20 minutes. Or it may be that running trains twice as often (every ten minutes) costs way too much, and they prefer we spread them out. I have no idea, but I think the best option in terms of improving Sounder would be to add some weekend service, along with better headways in the peak direction.
For example, adding a car to the existing trains (if possible) is basically free. A car can be added for basically the cost of daily cleaning and periodic inspections.
Yes, exactly. My guess is ST stopped running seven-car trains during the pandemic, and was slowly ramping up, only to find some crowding. I have yet to see a full report on service, only the ridership tracker, which shows numbers that can very easily handled by a seven-car train.
That said, short term really only one additional time slot (RT) is required. But given the ridership growth in this corridor, it would probably be better to forge an agreement with multiple additional time slots and prepare for the future.
I’m not sure what time slot that is, or what you mean by need. There is no need from a capacity standpoint — not based on the data. As long as you run seven-car trains, there should be plenty of room.
Because ridership is definitely growing.
Yes, but it is nowhere near what it was back in 2019 (when ridership peaked). The best month last year was September, when ridership was 55% lower than the same month in 2019. At best we are still less than half of what we were back then.
It may never reach the levels it did back then. Ultimately, Sounder is commuter rail, and commuter rail has been hit harder than any other type of transit by the move towards working-from-home. You don’t go to the grocery store via Sounder. You go to work. The farther you are from work, the more likely you are to work from home, and Sounder is a long-distance rail line. Of course that is an oversimplification — people may ride Sounder for all sorts of reasons. But the ridership definitely looks like a standard commuter train, and my guess is a high percentage of riders were heading to work, and now a lot of those people work from home.
But even the original agreement with BNSF was relatively cheap.
Was it? The subsidy per boarding was $7.61 before the pandemic (according to https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-sip-final_compressed.pdf). That is pretty high. It is probably more than double that now. That probably include North Everett, but still.
The most expensive project in ST3 per rider was the extension to Dupont, at over $30 per rider. As ridership has gone done, I would expect that price to go up (to maybe $50 per rider). That is a different beast, but still.
My guess the price goes up for each run. We are dealing with a finite resource (the time we allow trains on the tracks). It would not surprise me if the cost of additional runs is quite expensive. Since each additional run will likely have fewer riders, the price per ride could be very high.
Ross, commuter railcars have gangways. They aren’t the same as what you’ve proposed for increasing the capacity of LR vehicles, semi-permanently coupled cars with no door between them, but people can walk between cars.
It’s kind of an up and downhill thing, because the gangways are midway between levels, but that’s pretty minor.
And John, I hope you didn’t think I meant running Sounder on the UP when you said UP should be dedicated to freight. Of course it should and I had no intention of implying anything else. It has long been advocated here by four or five of us to upgrade UP to two-main-track with five or six major arterials that are currently grade-crossings upgraded to overpasses. A few properties in Pacific might need to be bought out because the new track would be pretty close to their houses, though still on the existing railroad right-of-way.
If ST or WSDOT owned the new track it could offer free wheelage to both BNSF and UP over “its direction” (probably the predominantly northbound track because the bike trail gets pretty close in some places on the west side and most, but not all, of UP’s switch leads are on that side). That wheelage for UP trains would be to compensate UP for giving BNSF southbounds “free” passage over its its track in the southbound direction and for BNSF trains to compensate for additional passenger runs on its own tracks.
A two-main-track line with only a three sets of cross-overs should be sufficient to handle the existing UP traffic, which is no more than a train every couple of hours and many if not all “through” BNSF trains. It’s only about 25 miles end to end, so even if there’s a UP intermodal hotshot trailing a unit oil train, it won’t be for very far. There are currently only two signal-controlled passing sidings the whole way between Black River and UP’s Tacoma yard now.
So, many BNSF trains headed to Tacoma not doing local switch work, or those headed for Stampede or Auburn yard should be able to mix with UP’s.
The last sentence above is confusing. I meant to say “AND those not headed to Stampede or Auburn Yard” but it came out garbled.
Thanks for the dashboard link, Ross!
Sounder South ridership was up 82% from Sept 2020 to 2021.
Sounder South ridership was up 33% from Sept 2021 to 2022.
Sounder South ridership was up 52% from Sept 2022 to 2023.
Perhaps we’ve seen another serious bump, following the trends, in the last few months. Not implausible, given the anecdotal evidence.
@Cam,
Thanks for condensing those numbers into a clear and concise format.
It’s also important to note that those numbers compound on each other. Meaning the actual ridership has increased 268% from the pandemic days, based on your numbers.
That is huge, and I see no indication that these documented ridership trends will slow down.
ST needs to start delivering more capacity on South Sounder starting immediately (actually, probably more like “yesterday”).
Thanks, good, concise post.
“And they certainly shouldn’t be sitting on the steps between levels. T house stairs represent emergency egress routes and shouldn’t be clogged.”
Be careful what you wish for. If people can’t sit on the steps, ST might just have guards preventing them from boarding or kicking them off because “safety regulations”.
“train stations that have platforms longer than the trains themselves”
RMTransit recommended that in new lines, so that capacity could be added later. In cities with a high-quality rail network, new lines routinely reach capacity in a few years and need more serve. We should focus on high-quality design that’s competitive with driving, and then leverage the tunnel/station investment by running a lot of service on it, enough to reach the sweet spot of ridership (where you start to get diminishing returns). Seattle’s/Pugetopolis’s/the US’s overall problem is stopping far short of that sweet spot.
> Metrolinks $10B SCORE program in Los Angeles is planning for 4-8TPHPD on some corridors throughout LA via double tracking segments. These are freight corridors for the most part
Uhh… it’s not actually. The reason why LA metrolink can run it much more frequently is because it does actually own the tracks… well not completely but for at least most of it.
Map of the score program
https://la.urbanize.city/post/metrolink-score-antelope-valley-ventura-county-rail
* Antelope Valley Line, it’s publicly owned from LAUS (la union station) to Lancaster
* Ventura publicly owned from LAUS to Moor park
* San berndardino line same it’s owned from LAUS to claremont. Only the short section from claremont to san bernardino is owned by BNFS
* orange county line also from LAUS to fullerton owned publicly.
Most of these corridors are mainly publicly owned.
Do you notice that one line that says “to be determined frequency” that’s because that is the metrolink riverside line that is solely freight controlled so they can’t really increase frequency.
“If you want to run commuter trains that frequently you’d basically need to build a new rail line”
That’s what we are suggesting. Build the third or third-and-fourth track in the BNSF corridor that have been in WSDOT’s long-term Cascades plan for thirty years, and then you could have hourly Cascades, 30-minute Sounder, and free up space for more freight on the existing tracks. You might even be able to have 15-minute Sounder if Cascades can still get through without train bunching.
“I know most commenters here don’t even regularly use public transit”
Unlikely.
Perhaps we’ve seen another serious bump, following the trends, in the last few months. Not implausible, given the anecdotal evidence.
Yes, it is quite possible, but it is still very likely that it is nowhere near what it used to be. The big percentage increases since 2020 were because it was extremely low. Nowhere to go but up. That is why I think it is best to look at absolute number. As of the last report, we are still well below *half* of what ridership was in 2019 (when it peaked). Put it another way, look at September, year to year (the last month we have data for):
2019 — 15,412
2020 — 1,766
2021 — 3,215
2022 — 4,286
2023 — 6,861
There was a big upward trend during the year, but it has leveled off at around six to seven thousand per day. We didn’t reach 7,000 this year. Since April, no month has dipped below 6,000. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got to 7 or even 8 thousand by now (even though things seemed to have leveled off).
But to go from less than 7,000 to 15,000 would be a gigantic jump — much bigger than anything we’ve experienced by far. It is possible ridership jumped that high, but I really doubt it. That would be an increase of 2,000 riders each and every month! I’m pretty sure ridership has never increased a thousand in a month, let alone twice that, and consistently over a four month period.
My guess is that ST is just running smaller train sets, or people are clustering to one train car (the latter contributed to some crowding issues in the past).
@WL, the 91-Perris Valley line is parallel to the Riverside line and has far more destinations, so has sapped quite a bit of ridership from the slightly-more-direct Riverside line. Even if the freight company (I think UP for that line?) were willing to raise frequency, I doubt Metrolink or its riders would find it valuable.
“Which basically leaves the weekend. ”
No. It doesn’t just leave the weekend.
Right now it is a commuter rail. It doesn’t serve the broader weekday or evening rider. You can’t discount a service that doesn’t exist.
If you provided weekday evening service, we have no idea how much ridership will develop. I, for one, would use it extensively if I were able to go up for dinner, show, game and have a nice train ride back to Tacoma. I would guess the towns in the Kent Valley would be even more likely to do so.
My experience with the LIRR makes me think there is a fairly large untapped market here. It was routine for those living in Queens or Long Island to hop on the train to spend the evening in The City. They did it because they could count on the train to be there to get them home.
That behavior simply doesn’t exist in the Puget Sound area right now. I know people in Kent who haven’t been to Seattle in 20 years, because of the hassle of driving and parking. All that could change with fast, comfortable, and above all reliable service.
@Cam,
You are absolutely correct. The current schedule for Sounder is really geared only to commuters in/out of the DT Seattle job market. We really don’t know how much more ridership would be generated with a more robust schedule.
I, for one, am one of those people. When I use Sounder it is usually the reverse direction to Tacoma in the morning. And just to enjoy Tacoma. But the lack of a mid-day return trip to Seattle makes it somewhat difficult to use. I would certainly use it more often if it had a more robust schedule.
Ancillary question:
If they did make Sounder South usable to more than just the commuter, is there a possibility of them improving the transfer to Link in the ID?
I could see a direct connection being made if they rebuilt 4th avenue for the 2nd tunnel.
Run more trains. All day, hourly. Work up from there.
Run smaller trains off-peak, as needed.
Use lighter, modern equipment. Improve speed performance as much as possible.
Through-run some services to Everett.
Reconsider the Ballard area and Broad Street Stations (or, if it could be made to fit—as it does in my dreams—a platform of useful length adjacent to Pike Place Market).
If you provided weekday evening service, we have no idea how much ridership will develop.
Yes we do. You can look at the numbers yourself. You seem to have missed the data and logic that lead up that sentence. I’m simply exploring all the ways in which we could improve Sounder. There are several options:
1) Run more reverse commute. Would probably benefit very few riders, given that ridership is really poor for the reverse-commute trains.
2) Run earlier in the morning northbound. The numbers are good, but the train is so early, I would imagine it is about as early as you can go.
3) Run earlier in the afternoon southbound. Looks promising based on the numbers. They could run the first afternoon train twenty minutes earlier, or squeeze in a train between the 1507 (2:35 PM) and 1509 (3:15 PM).
4) Run later in the evening southbound. Does not look promising, based on the low ridership of the train that leaves Seattle at 6:30 PM. Again, the most that train has ever averaged is 250 a day. That is tiny.
5) Run later in the morning northbound. Again, ridership is really low.
6) Run during the weekend. A mystery, since we don’t run weekends. But given the relatively high ridership of the 574 on the weekends (especially Saturday) it shows promise.
7) Run more often during peak. Could be a significant improvement simply because that is when almost everyone takes the train. You can run the train every two minutes throughout the day, and hardly anyone will take the train, other than the peak period (peak-direction).During that period, running more often is a benefit, even if ridership doesn’t increase much.
The current schedule for Sounder is really geared only to commuters in/out of the DT Seattle job market. We really don’t know how much more ridership would be generated with a more robust schedule.
Bullshit. Look at the data. There is a reverse-peak set of Sounder runs, and hardly anyone rides them. As for “getting back”, the obvious answer is a bus. Give Sound Transit some credit. They have done a good job in providing an alternative to taking the train when the train isn’t running.
That is the problem that folks are ignoring here. Run the trains every hour, and chances are, you get somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 riders per train. Is it worth it? Of course not. Running trains is really expensive, even when you own the tracks. We don’t.
@Troy — Yes, that is exactly what we would do, if we owned the tracks. And if our towns were more centralized, instead of being a sprawling mess. And if there wasn’t a freeway that takes a very direct path towards Seattle, while the train follows the path that is the result of the lava flow, all those many years ago. And if the Tacoma station was actually downtown, like it used to be.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. The only way I see that happening is if it is part of a bigger high speed rail system (that should have happened years ago, and is being currently ignored while folks dream about super-high speed rail) and we owned the tracks (or double tracked, so that running trains were cheap). Oh, and we would need to electrify the line as well. It could happen, but I won’t hold my breath.
“There is a reverse-peak set of Sounder runs”
There is now, but it has appeared and disappeared over the years. So people can’t make long-term decisions on where to live and work expecting that reverse-peak Sounder will always be there. Sometimes I’ve wanted to take Sounder to Tacoma in the morning. Sometimes I could; sometimes I couldn’t. I could rarely, if ever, take Sounder both ways for a half-day trip or a day trip; I’d have to take Sounder one way and the 594 back. The times it works best is when I can take Sounder to Tacoma or Kent in the PM peak, but then I have to take a bus back.
Ross, pre-ST, the Burlington Northern Railway plan for passenger operations was hourly headways from EVR-TAC, from 5a to 11p, with 30 minute peak headways. That was with the rail infrastructure of the early 1990s, which has since been substantially improved.
You’re not wrong about the weakness of off-peak heavy rail today. Certainly, BNSF traffic has changed since 1990, too. But the S Line can perform better for the region with more regular frequencies, all day and every day, and with lighter equipment. Every minute saved also means a more competitive (and far more reliably scheduled) trip relative to the 590 buses. It also renders the Tacoma Mall Link Extension worthless, an added bonus.
It’ll take work, though, no doubt about it.
“Does not look promising, based on the low ridership of the train that leaves Seattle at 6:30 PM”
The last trip of the day is always going to have lower ridership, simply because it’s the last trip of the day, and people would rather go for an earlier one rather than take a chance on missing it. If there existed a 7:30 train, the 7:30 train might not have great ridership, but its presence would increase ridership on the 6:30 train.
“Longer trains offers no benefits to riders unless the existing trains are completely full.”
This is important. For two equal costs, one may give far more benefit to passengers than the other, so we should do that one. A longer train just means you have more empty seats to choose from. It’s mitigating a bad thing (overcrowding), not providing a good thing. But if you double the frequency, then people only have to wait half as long; they can show up anytime more easily; if a run doesn’t come or they miss it it’s not as devastating; and these add up over a month or year so they have more time to work or do other things.
So ST and other agencies should heavily favor increasing frequency over other strategies. Then compare the costs to see if it’s feasible. If it’s flat-out infeasible because of high BNSF timeslot costs, expensive train procurement, or not enough drivers, than say so. But at least study the feasibility and try hard to make it happen. And listen to passengers when 70% of them say they want this.
The Chicago El decided to increase capacity on the Brown and other lines by lengthening platforms. That struck me as the wrong thing to do, because again frequency gives passengers significantly more benefits than length does. And the El is not particularly frequent, not like New York or Vancouver or London. All that waiting ten or twenty minutes adds up. At the same time, Chicago has a constraint that five lines share the Loop track downtown, so each one can’t have 2-5 minute frequency. So maybe it had to go with this platform lengthening because of that. But I see a different problem: the shared Loop track is the bottleneck, so ideally you should move some of the lines to new downtown track segments. That’s obviously very expensive and perhaps unachievable. But the agency should put a high priority on solutions like that, and try to do it as much as they can. And if they can’t, tell the public exactly what the insurmountable limitations and cost are that prohibit. Because maybe politicians and the public can raise the money to do it after all, or further engineering studies would show there is a way to do it less expensively or less disruptively. Whereas if you just lengthen the patforms and don’t look at better alternatives or prematurely dismiss them, then you end up with a worse network, one that won’t reach it’s maximum ridership and usefulness.
It’s actually fairly easy to move certain trains onto or off the loop. There’s some connections between the lines that allow this flexibility.
So, eg, during tunnel construction some years back, red line trains got moved to the loop because there are connections between the tunnel and loop on both ends.
The blue line is mostly separate, but even it has a connection to the pink line, which operates on the loop. So, if it absolutely needed to, the pink line trains could run in the blue line tunnel and then out to the northwest end.
So, there is actually a little extra capacity on the loop, because sometimes the red line goes to the loop.
This is also the sort of flexibility that isn’t being planned for DSTT2, which would make it an actual backup for DSTT 1.
Any “Rail Roundup” to start the year should definitely include the Herald Net article on the upcoming opening of LLE. I had linked to it earlier in the comments, but it certainly deserves more prominent visibility:
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/as-calendar-turns-lynnwood-light-rail-is-no-longer-next-year/
The big improvements in regional transit over the next several decades will be in rail. We shouldn’t ignore the progress that is being made with that mode. It is where the bulk of the progress is being made.
The big improvements in regional transit over the next several decades will be in rail.
Do you mean transit for the region, or regional transit? The former is mix of local and long-distance transit. Regional transit is long-distance transit. I’ll address both.
Overall, I see two phases when it comes to rail. The next phase is basically Lynnwood Link, East Link and Federal Way Link. There are substantial improvements in each case.
Regional transit (i. e. long-distance transit) is a small subset of most transit. For a lot of trips — especially regional trips — rail can’t compete with buses. Most of the time, the fastest way to get from Tacoma to Seattle, or Everett to Seattle is by bus. It does look like the buses will be getting worse, not better. They could add more express buses, but instead it is likely they will cut them.
After the first phase of rail improvements, things go downhill. Getting from say, Everett to Ash Way, or Federal Way to Fife will be a lot easier, but few make those trips. The bulk of the regional trips (typically involving Seattle) won’t change much. For many outside the city, it just changes where they transfer. The Tacoma Dome instead of Federal Way. Mariner instead of Lynnwood. For regional trips involving Seattle, things won’t be getting a lot better. Link still won’t serve First Hill, even though that was promised decades ago (better to serve Fife first). Of course there is Issaquah Link, which won’t help when getting to Seattle. It will largely be irrelevant. Or it will be substantially worse. Metro (or ST) could abandon the express buses to Mercer Island, while asking riders from Issaquah to make two transfers to get to Seattle. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. The rail will make it easier to get to Downtown Bellevue for some. For others, it will be worse.
It will be decades before a significant improvement is made in rail-based transit inside Seattle (where most of the ridership occurs). Even there, there will be trade-offs. Riders from the south will have worse downtown stations, and will lose their one-seat ride to the UW. Riders from the north will have to transfer to get to SeaTac, or Rainier Valley. It is unlikely the transfer will be good, either. Riders will have the ability to make the transfer to get to places like the Seattle Center, although it isn’t clear whether this will be better than the existing monorail. For destinations close to existing stations (which is much of the new tunnel) it makes more sense to walk, or ride the bus, rather than transfer to the other line. This actually leaves very little in the way of improvement, especially given the relatively poor expected headways on the Ballard-Tacoma line.
Meanwhile, who knows what the future holds in terms of bus improvements — both local and regional. At some point, WSDOT will likely change the HOV-2 lanes of I-5 to HOT-3. This should greatly improve the speed for regional buses, especially during peak. That is, if they continue to operate. It is quite possible that while the buses from Everett to Lynnwood become more reliable and faster, ST will be building a parallel rail line that is slower. But again, riders will be able to get from Ash Way to Evergreen Station faster than ever (Yay!).
It is also likely that substantial bus improvements will be made inside Seattle. The city is slowly making progress. It is aggravating how slow the progress is, but bit by bit, things are getting better. Meanwhile, it will take a very long time before there is a substantial improvement to rail inside Seattle. The streetcar is largely meaningless. West Seattle Link doesn’t really work until it goes past SoDo. That leaves Ballard Link, which will likely take a very long time to build (if it even gets built). Thus by the time Seattle makes a substantial improvement to rail (which is full of trade-offs) a lot of the buses will run a lot faster. If they run faster, they should run more often. Since the rail system will cover a very tiny portion of the city, even regional trips will be highly dependent on the Seattle bus system (just as BART is highly dependent on Muni). Speeding up the 8 or 44 will likely have a substantial impact on regional transportation (seeing as neither will be replaced by Link). Regional trips to First Hill may be as simple as getting off at Capitol Hill and taking a frequent bus along Broadway (instead of the infrequent streetcar). Riders from the south will likely take the frequent RapidRide G, whether they arrive by bus or Link.
Whether we are talking regional transit, or transit in general for the region, the future holds two phases. First, Link finishes the things that are overdue (Lynnwood, Federal Way, Redmond). Then, most of the improvement will occur for the buses. Of course some areas (like Pierce County) may not see much in the way of any sort of improvement during that period. They may lack funding for local service, while ST cuts express service. Time will tell.
Las Vegas just criminalized picture-taking on its pedestrian bridges. Reason: overcrowding. I wonder they’re overcrowded…
https://apnews.com/article/las-vegas-strip-bridges-photos-no-stopping-f8eae91475a978413b68cf168bac0f64
I think the photo-op worry is overblown. I see it more as a way to prevent buskers on the overpasses. A patrol officer is more likely to approach a known repeat busker than an occasional tourist taking a selfie or photo.
I agree that the 515s are unlikely to fill up. The plan should focus on providing bus alternatives between downtown and Roosevelt, or shorter. This would require a lot of help from Metro, such as:
* Have a peak version of the old 255 going downtown.
* Keep and bring back the SLU and First Hill Expresses from Roosevelt and Northgate for now.
* Bring back some of 71-74 temporarily.
I was looking forward to Metro $3 fares, but now it seems incentivizing Metro buses over the 1 Line might make the wait for the 2 Line to cross Lake Washington go a little bit smoother.
As for the train schedule, if the south end has enough peak capacity at 10-minute headway, stick with that all day, and use the extra trains for peak-direction peak-of-peak short runs (downtown to Lynnwood).
The 510 express between Everett and downtown would be superfluous if the N Line were temporarily reduced to a $3.25 flat fare. Losing a little fare revenue would be a lot cheaper than continuing to run those super-expresses.
Bringing back some neighborhood 1-seat expresses will be far more effective than trying to draw some riders already at Lynnwood Station to spend an extra 25 cents for a ride that will take longer.
Rather than focus on serving rider overcrowding at the “home end”, I would suggest exploring supplemental express bus service at the “work end”.
The two “work end” areas that I see, South Lake Union and First Hill, could be served by a targeted peak hour shuttle from Northgate or Roosevelt assuming trains got too crowded.
By keeping round trips as short as possible to provide more frequent service, and by promoting direct express services clearly (“Connect here for South Lake Union express buses”), I think it could pull riders off of Link better than merely sending buses to run seemingly parallel to Link between Lynnwood and Downtown.
Finally, the extra service cost should be applied to ST, especially to the East Link project. It’s not Lynnwood Link or general operations that created the OMF East connection timing problem. It’s instead bad ST oversight of East Link.
That’s a good idea, Al, especially if the diversion point is Northgate with it’s direct access to the reversible lanes from the station area. Roosevelt has lost its.
I don’t know, though, if the construction in the reversibles has closed the connection to Mercer or will at some time in the near future. That would embargo the shuttles to SLU. First Hill should continue to work well via Cherry Street, though.
@Brent White,
Correct. Parallel express buses from LTC to DT Seattle are unlikely to draw any ridership. There just isn’t any compelling reason for a rider to take the slower, less reliable bus from LTC when Link is right there and isn’t anywhere near full yet.
As per bringing back some ghosts of Metro past, also probably not a productive idea. Passengers are going to try to force themselves onto Link up until the point they can’t get on anymore. At that point the passengers left on the platform are not necessarily well served by old Metro routes that don’t follow Link.
I.e., they were planning on traveling along the Link route, and that is where they will want to go. A subset might be served by a shuttle down Eastlake, but there will still be a lot of people left on the platform that wanted to go to CHS (for example).
@Al.S,
I agree that short shuttles that start where the crowding begins are the way to go, but I’m not sure that targeting particular riders that are going off the main Link route will solve the problem. Once Link gets crowded to the point that people can’t get on, only a subset of those riders will be in any given targeted population (say U Dist to SLU for example).
Meaning specific shuttles like you suggest will still leave people waiting on the platform who want to go somewhere else. Once these riders start to accumulate it will cause platform crowding issues for all riders.
I don’t disagree with you about this, Lazarus. While I do think targeting destinations away from Downtown Link stations could be more useful than mere express bus route duplication, I agree that riders would prefer trying to see if they can squeeze onto a train instead.
I’ve actually lived through trying to commute on jam-packed trains for 20 years if my life! I generally found that riders left on the platform will line up next to the platform forming a wall that later arriving riders will stand behind. The time it takes to exit a station and get to an express bus going the same way is often the time just to wait to see if one can get on the next train. I also found that during a crowded hour, each train will have different loads so not getting on one doesn’t enough panic to find another way.
Consider that when a train gets crowded, it has to stay longer at the platform to let people in and out. It gets behind schedule. So the next train gets closer and closer to the first train — and because it arrives more quickly (the trains can’t stay at exact intervals because of this) the following train often has more room and boards any leftover riders from the platform. Then the pattern repeats itself. If it gets even more crowded, the first two trains then get bogged down and the third train picks up remaining riders on the platforms.
Another technique: I was once on an overcrowded train between Downtown Chicago and O’Hare. The operator announced that after the next stop, the train would skip four more stations before stopping again. He also said that the next train was right behind that one with plenty of room. The train lost a third of its riders at the next stop.
I’m still hopeful that ST will figure out how to provide a few short turning train sets at Northgate on reserve when overcrowding happens. However, I don’t know how nimble ST can be to operate that way. It’s what crowded Metros around the world do, but that doesn’t mean that ST will do that.
It is just one big reason why I want ST to hire an operations lead with years of experience on a nimble, crowded system like Boston, Chicago or New York. (Not Norfolk!)
@Al.S,
I generally agree, but I find that once people commit to a certain course of action they often stick to that course of action, even when a change might be beneficial.
Meaning, a passenger that planned on taking the train, but suddenly finds themselves left on the platform by overcrowding, will be most likely to remain on the platform and wait for the next train. It’s unlikely that said passenger will suddenly have an epiphany that they should try something new and unfamiliar to them. They will stick it out and the problem will snowball.
As per ST Ops, Rogoff was a government bureaucrat and Timm had experience in bus operations. I don’t think either one of them was necessarily the right person to deal with these operational issues that ST finds themselves in now regarding rail transit.
“As per ST Ops, Rogoff was a government bureaucrat and Timm had experience in bus operations. I don’t think either one of them was necessarily the right person to deal with these operational issues that ST finds themselves in now regarding rail transit.”
That’s the crux of the ST management problem. Why did the Board hire these people when there were likely lots more candidates familiar with both rail operations and construction?
The best answer I can come up with is that the Board seems to want a CEO that they can control and won’t push back based on professional experience. I am left wondering if the next level of staff are bending the ears of board members to avoid a fresh look CEO, too! I think too many Board members see ST as an economic development agency or a PR agency or (worsely) an agency with cash that can dole out favors as opposed to an operator and property manager that provides an essential daily service for riders.
“a passenger that planned on taking the train, but suddenly finds themselves left on the platform by overcrowding, will be most likely to remain on the platform and wait for the next train. It’s unlikely that said passenger will suddenly have an epiphany that they should try something new and unfamiliar to them.”
It all depends on what the alternative service is, and whether they’re aware of it. I need to go from Roosevelt to Capitol Hill. Link takes 10 minutes. The 67+49 takes 40 minutes or more. There’s no express bus alternative. So if the next train is coming in 10 minutes, it’s better to wait for it. But if I’m especially unwilling to just stand there and wait, and I’m not in a hurry, then I’ll sometimes take the slower bus anyway, because I can sit on a bench and see outdoor scenery. Then there are times when there’s an outage and you don’t know whether the next train will come in 10 minutes or 60, or the next train might be full too. I weigh the probabilities, and sometimes wait for the train, or sometimes take the bus. There are also outages where you don’t know if a shuttle replacement has started, or if it has ended. So you have to go up to the surface and look. If it’s there, you can take either the shuttle or the 67. If it’s not there, you have to take the 67 and maybe miss the next train you could have taken.
Likewise, from Northgate to downtown there’s no express bus anymore. My friend in North Lynnwood was coming to Capitol Hill on a weekend game day. She took the 512 to Northgate, and the platform was so crowded she decided not to try to squeeze onto Link. (I might have done so.) There was no 41 so she took the 20 to the U-District and did a stopover there. She found the 20 unexpectedly satisfying, because she found the Latona neighborhood was beautiful and she hadn’t been there much. So there’s that. But most people would be annoyed at a 12-minute Link trip turning into an hour-long bus trip.
At other times I’ve been at UW Station during an outage. I know the 48 goes south from there, and that you can transfer to the 8/11/2/12 to Capitol Hill or downtown, but most people on the platform probably don’t. And with all the recent restructures, I forgot that the 49 and 70 still existed, so I didn’t think of taking a Pacific Street bus to those. I imagined I’d have to go further to the 62. So if even long-time transit fans can’t remember all the alternatives from every station, imagine what it’s like for most people who don’t know about the bus routes.
“The best answer I can come up with is that the Board seems to want a CEO that they can control”
ST chose Rogoff because he came from the FTA and would presumably be more successful in making our grant applications more competitive. That’s what ST was focusing on at the time.
After Rogoff started, he turned out to be abrasive to staff and causing internal divisions. So the next pick was the opposite: Timm was chosen because she had good staff relations. And I assume she fulfilled it, and also brought an emphasis on passenger experience. So the next question is what factor ST will focus on this time. Sparrman is notable for having engineering experience: ST hasn’t had one of those in a CEO, and we think the agency has been lacking because of it. Sparrman is only interim, so we don’t know whether he’ll be the final or whether ST will focus on an engineer this time. But that may be the way it’s turning.
@Al.S,
“ Why did the Board hire these people when there were likely lots more candidates familiar with both rail operations and construction?”
Ah, that is easy:
They hired Rogoff because he was an FTA guy and would supposedly help ST with both the regulatory environment and the federal funding stream.
They hired Timm because she supposedly understood operations more and had better working relations than Rogoff.
All that is fine and good, but the problem is that nobody on the board has any lived experience with large scale infrastructure development in mass transit. Or with rail. Essentially none.
Think of it, the only large transit project that got done in Seattle after the streetcar era and before ST was the Metro bus tunnel, and that was far from a success (both in construction and operation).
Yet ST’s main focus is large scale infrastructure development. Yes, ST needs to transition to ops, and that was part of the rational for the Timm hire, but infrastructure comes first. And bus ops aren’t rail ops.
So I think the board has made some bad hires, but I don’t assign the nefarious intent that some people on this blog do to their actions. There just isn’t a lot of experience with rail amongst the local political class, and the false idea that if you understand buses then you also understand rail is still prevalent.
I think this region will get better at both the transit infrastructure development and the rail ops side of the equation, but it will take time.
But hey, one way or another there will be a lot of progress made this year. I just hope it keeps on coming.
“now it seems incentivizing Metro buses over the 1 Line might make the wait for the 2 Line to cross Lake Washington go a little bit smoother”
Not when the 271 drops to hourly evenings and weekends, and there’s no off-peak Metro route on I-90.
In the East Link Connections P3 network, Metro staff proposed 15-minute peak period headway on conceptual Route 270; current Route 271 provides 10-minute peak period headway. In addition, ELC would delete Route 556.
“The 510 express between Everett and downtown would be superfluous…”
I’m skeptical the 510 has many riders in the first place. Keeping it for Northgate Link or this bottleneck has always seemed dubious. The same money could probably get more riders if you put it into more 515 runs, an Everett-Lynnwood nonstop (for 510 riders), a Mountlake Terrace-downtown route (to replace the 510 stop there), more east-west express routes from Edmonds or Mukilteo to Lynnwood, and filling in any east-west transit holes east of I-5.
I got curious about the opening dates for new extensions/ stations. ST published its most recent progress report here (dated November 2023 but released January 2024):
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/Agency-progress-report-capital-program-Nov-2023%20Final.pdf
Here is what I found about things upcoming.
Eastside Starter Line. Pre-revenue service testing November 1, 2023. Revenue service March 23, 2024.
Downtown Redmond Extension.
Pre-revenue service testing August 24, 2024. Revenue service December 31, 2024.
Full East Link. Pre-revenue service testing June 27, 2025. Revenue service September 25, 2025.
Lynnwood Link. Pre-revenue service testing February 24, 2024. Revenue service July 17, 2024.
Federal Way Link. Pre-revenue service testing November 21, 2025. Revenue service April 9, 2026. (Note MS 3 – 2,000 feet of “early storage” track December 20, 2023 — presumably for Lynnwood Link needed train sets.)
130th Station. Pre-revenue service testing March 27, 2026. Revenue service June 24, 2026.
I realize that the construction schedules are maintained independently but clearly there are many opening dates closer than six months apart. Many opening dates are listed very soon although I’ve not seen a huge press release officially promoting any of the opening dates.
The Lynnwood Link vehicle storage squeeze period (no East OMF access) appears to be July 2024 to June 2025 (11 months) but I thought Lynnwood was opening later and the full East Link line is supposed to be activated by March 29, 2025.
It’s really a terrible time to not have a seasoned CEO controlling these timing of these several things. I don’t envy how Goran Sparrman is going to have to coordinate these dates.
And I think how these openings go will dictate the agency’s reputation in general, as I don’t see any other Link opening until December 31, 2032 (and I think that is unrealistic for West Seattle) so more likely around 2034 or 2035.
Finally, I’ll mention that the two-year East Link delay got listed in the progress report by surprise. The more surprises in these opening dates, the worse ST will look. They better nail down the upcoming opening dates right away and stick to them.
@Al.S,
Yep, those are exactly the dates I saw earlier. Hopefully ST can stick to them.
That said, Rogoff/Timm were sandbagging a bit when they said 6 months between openings.
Technically there is approx 6 months of total testing required to bring an extension on line, but that testing consists of two very distinct and different phases.
The first phase is verification testing and lasts about 2 months. During this phase ST technical staff basically verify fit and function. They insure that the LRV’s fit both statically and dynamically, and they insure that all the systems work as designed and there are no technical problems.
The second phase is simulated service and lasts 4 months. During this ST will verify that their operational staff is capable of operating the system safely and without interruption.
The key is that the staffs required for the two phases are distinct. Staff involved in verifying the fit and function of the system are not heavily involved with operational simulation. So once they finish with verifying one extension they can start on verifying the next extension.
The long pole ends up being the 4 months of simulated service. But effectively this means that sequential extensions can be opened on 4 month intervals instead of on 6.
And I think that is what you see when you look at the ST report. Basically they are saying that they can open LLE extension approx 4 months after opening ELSL.
All verification testing should be done on ELSL by now, and it would appear that ST is now working on verifying both part of FWLE and starting on LLE. FWLE has already had some dynamic envelope testing performed, and they have already done a dead tow test on LLE.
So progress is being made. By this time next year transit will be completely different. It will be a brave new world. Finally.
Simulated service has not begun on the East Link starter line. So if it needs to last 4 months, the March 23 date is not happening.
They were testing before, but then paused, so if they start back up, maybe they will add the previous testing month to the next two testing months to equal four? In any case, I will be shocked if it opens in two months. It seems like the stations need more than just two months worth of work. I could be mistaken. Maybe all the unreadiness I’m seeing is just all cosmetic, and all they need to do is take down some fencing, sweep up, and the stations are ready to go.
@Sam,
The very early stages of simulated service are often like that, with seemingly short periods of operation and low frequencies. I’m not sure how all that fits into the regulatory framework, but I’ve noticed it before.
And I’d be surprised if what you are seeing at the stations is anything more than cosmetic. When I road the press run the day before the very first Link segment opened, I was shocked at what I thought were unfinished stations. I was told that what I was seeing was cosmetic and that it wouldn’t affect the opening, and sure enough, they were right.
Thanks for finding the dates.
The various problems have lead to two awkward periods in what would otherwise be fairly steady progress:
1) July 2024 to September 2025. Lynnwood Link operational, but with less frequency and less peak capacity than originally planned.
2) July 2024 to June 24, 2026. Lynnwood Link operational, but without 130th Station. This alters the bus restructure. Basically they have to make a half-ass restructure that lasts almost two years before they get a decent network.
The first was a problem in construction, the latter was a problem in planning. A mistake made in constructing East Link delayed it quite a while. With proper planning, 130th Station would open with the rest of Lynnwood Link.
Would this work get done any faster if they just completely shut down link service entirely through the DSTT? I’m not familiar with the cross track situation so I don’t know if Capitol Hill could retain northbound service and if stadium station could retain southbound service
Also as I understand it this is so disruptive because the rails are imbedded in the roadway unlike newer segments such as UW station for example. Is ST planning on changing this so that maintenance can be maintained on a more coherent interval or are we keeping the ghost busway I’m embedded rail situation in DSTT
What I hate about this is your going to get people coming out of the woodwork arguing this proves DSTT2 is necessary for “needed redundancy”. No, many cities function just fine with a core tunnel. We can too if we make the correct investments for long term reliability
Part of the problem is that they are lacking crossover tracks in the tunnel. So when they want to fix anything in the tunnel they have to single track a very long segment from CID to Westlake every time.
> Would this work get done any faster if they just completely shut down link service entirely through the DSTT? I’m not familiar with the cross track situation so I don’t know if Capitol Hill could retain northbound service and if stadium station could retain southbound service
I don’t think the construction would go any faster.
“What I hate about this is you’re going to get people coming out of the woodwork arguing this proves DSTT2 is necessary for “needed redundancy”.
It should be pointed out that adjacent track interchangeability in SODO is not being planned. Plus, each SODO track is adjacent to tracks only running in the other direction — so even if the trains were to keep going in the same direction, they would have to switch over two tracks if they had switching enabled.
Instead, passengers will have to do the switching rather than trains. The passengers will have go up and back down to reach any train going in the other tunnel. If a train goes out of service at SODO that could be as many as 800 passengers at once.
It’s one of many reasons that I keep mentioning that the SODO track layout needs to be rethought. — with or without DSTT2.
“I don’t know if Capitol Hill could retain northbound service”
It can and does, and did last weekend and whenever the downtown tunnel closes. There’s crossovers between Capitol Hill and UW. So it can depart Capitol Hill from the “wrong” side of the platform and switch to the right side for the next station.
I’ve also experienced the opposite of that. On game days ST sometimes has northbound trains every 1.5 minutes. Southbound trains go in between whenever they can, so there may be a 10-15 minute period with two or three northbound trains before one southbound. I was at Roosevelt and three northbound trains came within two minutes of each other — the first train was still boarding when the “next train in 2 minutes” announcement played. The first two trains were crushloaded. The third train was half full. It teminated at Roosevelt, kicked everybody off, did a siesta on the track, and then an announcement said it would be going southbound. I got on it, not knowing if it would go just to Capitol Hill or all the way to Angle Lake. The display just said “Sound Transit”. It stopped on the wrong side at U-District and UW. Around UW the display changed to “Angle Lake”. At Capitol Hill I got off. I thought it was still on the wrong side so I walked toward the wrong exit (northern), because both ends of the station look almost identical. Then I realized it had switched sides after UW and was now on the right side, so I turned around toward the right exit (southern). On the escalator up the other platform had a northbound train and was crushloaded and had a crowd on the platform. A “next train in 2 minutes” announcement came while that train was still unloading.
SDOT released streetcar costs.
> The Delivery Assessment found that design would take about 18 months and about seven years total would be needed for the project to be operational. The cost estimate for a connected streetcar network increased 43% from $286 million in 2019 to $410 million in 2023.
https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2024/01/19/seattle-streetcar-culture-connector-delivery-assessment/
> At this time, there is no change to the status of the project… We will continue to engage with stakeholders and the traveling public on the results of the Delivery Assessment as we plan a path forward together.
As expected the cost has increased again, though idk how we are almost reaching half a billion for a 1 mile streetcar segment. This is reaching cut-and-cover subway costs in other countries.
Anyways I hope the project is generally just scrapped and replaced with some semi-frequent tourist trolley bus if people really want some transit on 1st/waterfront
I don’t think it was ever about “want[ing] some transit on 1st/waterfront”, but about connecting the existing streetcars through the urban core, thereby creating a single system more useful than the sum of its parts.
> I don’t think it was ever about “want[ing] some transit on 1st/waterfront”, but about connecting the existing streetcars through the urban core, thereby creating a single system more useful than the sum of its parts.
Just use the existing 40 or rapidride C. I really don’t see any real benefit to this segment.
It really offers two things:
1) Connects the two ends. This does offer some benefit, but it really isn’t a “missing link” situation. Imagine if Link light rail was closed from Capitol Hill to downtown. What a pain. A lot of very common trips (e. g. UW to downtown) just wouldn’t work. The thing is, Link is fairly straight — the streetcar isn’t. The Capitol Hill Streetcar would be doubling up with itself. For various trips (e. g. First Hill to downtown) there are much better options. Thus connecting the streetcar doesn’t offer that much benefit. It would benefit those coming from South Lake Union. That part of the route would be fairly linear. But the C and 40 follow almost the exact same route, just a couple blocks over. You aren’t adding that much value.
2) Serves First Avenue. A lot of the 1st Avenue Streetcar discussion came after the demise of the waterfront streetcars. So in that sense, it really was about “want[ing] some transit on 1st/waterfront”. It really is a shame that we didn’t manage to keep those, since they make way more sense than this project. They went on the waterfront, taking advantage of existing tracks. They were a great fit for the waterfront as they were heritage streetcars (great for tourists).
In any event, whether we need service on First Avenue is questionable. Adding *new* service is silly. Having precious service hours dedicated to a route along a downtown Avenue when there is more than enough service on Third is a bad idea. Never mind the mode — it makes no sense even as a bus route. What would you cut to enable this extra service? If we really want service on First Avenue, we should simply shift a few buses there.
The operational plan is not one unified line, but two lines overlapping between Westlake and Intl Dist. The “fast center transit-exclusive lanes” will only be for a 1-mile portion of the entire trip. Mayor Durkin envisioned tourists going from Pike Place Market to MOHAI (Lake Union Park), and from Pike Place Market to Jackson Street and Little Saigon. Some people may also envision Pike Place Market to First Hill, but in that case I don’t think they’ve realized how much RapidRide G will be a game-changer.
That’s unfortunate. I’d love to see the streetcar get built but $400 million is absurd. I’m not sure how it can cost that much? For comparison, RapidRide J cost $120 million, with half that paid for by a federal grant.
https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grant-programs/capital-investments/current-capital-investment-grant-cig-projects
I think it should be a 1st Ave center-median transitway… have tracks for streetcars but also route some key bus lines on this transitway. Seems like a waste to be just for one transit line.
The busses would need left-side doors to use the center boarding station.
There were some minor ideas back in the original transit master plan about utilizing them for the route 7, so it can use the Jackson St streetcar boarding islands. (And so that the center lanes can be made transit only).
@WL,
All this alphabet soup of BRT-Lite systems is getting sort of hard to keep up with. RapidRide, Swift (with fender skirts no less!), Stride, etc, etc, etc.
It sort of reminds me of the mid to late 1930’s. Back then the railroads were all encasing their passenger steam locomotives in fancy (often art deco) streamlined cases. The idea was to make them look more modern and maybe compete a bit better with the emerging higher speed airplanes which were getting all the press.
It didn’t work for the railroads. Eventually all those streamlined steam locomotives disappeared, and the bulk of passenger travel with them.
Now we have BRT-Lite. It looks like rail transit, is supposed to sort of act like rail transit, but the truth is they aren’t rail transit.
Na, no amount of fender skirts or LH doors on regular buses will convert a bus into a train.
At the end of the day, if you want something to act and perform like rail, build rail.
It looks like rail transit, is supposed to sort of act like rail transit, but the truth is they aren’t rail transit.
Then we have the streetcar, which looks like rail, but acts like a really bad bus (stuck in traffic). The fundamental advantage of rail is capacity. Things like frequency, speed and routing are independent of that.
Yes, there are two options which I described way back when: https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/09/03/mobility-alternatives-to-the-ccc/. One would be center-running platforms, with special buses. The other is just regular buses and BAT lanes. There is a third option, that Ryan Packer suggested in a recent article. If you pedestrianize the street (i. e. get rid of the cars) then the street is a lot more pleasant, and they can use regular buses (without worrying about traffic). It is possible that won’t work (because of deliveries, etc.).
Median running buses has other advantages. The 7, 14, and 36 are all trolleys, and all would be appropriate for conversion to buses with doors on both sides. This would allow center running on Jackson as well — one of the Move Seattle projects that looked very promising* but got cut. If we added buses like that to our fleet, it would allow us to electrify the RapidRide G. Even though the G will be frequent, there won’t be that many buses. This is due to the route being fairly short and fast. As a result of being such a small order, the company would not sell us electric trolleys with doors on both sides. If we ordered them for the 7, 14 and 36 there would be more than enough. Having them in our fleet allows for future improvements beyond Jackson and First. The RapidRide G buses could just be shifted to another route. You don’t have to take advantage of doors on both sides.
The streetcar itself is silly. We should just shift bus service from Third to First. My first choice would be to pedestrianize the street. Either way I would have center running buses (and the streetcar) in the median of Jackson. If we can’t pedestrianize First, then adding center running buses there is the obvious choice (might as well).
* This is described in Corridor 3 of this post. The report that Frank referenced has been removed, buy you can find a copy on the Wayback machine. Speeding up the existing Capitol Hill Streetcar (along with buses that carry a lot of riders) on Jackson should be higher priority than any service on First.
I will add that right now is a great time to invest in this type of infrastructure. The buses are slow in various places, and this is not only bad for riders, but operations as well. The buses run slower, which means you need more drivers. Since we have a driver-shortage, we can’t just throw money at increasing frequency (even if it is the biggest weakness in our system). Any improvement in bus speed helps in several ways and this is the time to spend money on it.
Coincidentally, Reese Martin refers to how streetcars are not good rail transit investments in his video released this morning. He even faults Paris about this in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlrYsr7KvFU&t=320s
I tend to agree with Ross that the First Avenue Streetcar segment is designed to function as a very slow bus, even if it has exclusive lanes. If you want to see what it means, go ride slow streetcars it light rail through in Portland or ride between Capitol Hill and CID. It’s fine to have a few slow blocks, but adding over a mile of slow streetcar to existing slow streetcar lines with low ridership parallel to one existing and one more proposed transit tunnel provides very little benefit — regardless of cost. To be blunt, if Metro wouldn’t design a bus route on this path, a streetcar on the same path likely won’t add benefit.
I would much rather see the connector money go to add entrances, escalators and elevators to DSTT stations. I would much rather see the DSTT upgraded to 2 minute or 2.5 minute service with more advanced automation and platform screen doors. The DSTT is a huge asset that is now over 30 years old and should be enhanced to meet its new function as a high performing light rail corridor.
As far as First Avenue goes, it appears to be little effort to extend RapidRide G from First and Madison to Belltown. It already will have doors on both sides. It’s going to add better wheelchair accessible (in a word “level”) stops in Downtown. It could even be considered a mere technology change to possibly keep the FTA grant definition. Just turn RaodRide G northward to Seattle Center and purchase more buses with doors on both sides. Opening date could come pretty quickly too.
Of course, these two ideas — DSTT access, safety and capacity upgrades, and a RapidRide G extension to Seattle Center — never get put on the table even for initial analysis and discussion. It certainly frustrates me to see how our region can goof off about building the CCC for what seems like almost a decade now primarily due to its obviously bad cost estimates and terrible value (facts that don’t change) just to tie the lines together — and save face for having built these slow lines in the first place.
“We should just shift bus service from Third to First.”
The center of pedestrian trips and transfers is 3rd. 1st is near the western edge. Moving a few routes from 3rd to 1st, sounds like harming those passengers and the neighborhoods those routes come from.
> The center of pedestrian trips and transfers is 3rd. 1st is near the western edge. Moving a few routes from 3rd to 1st, sounds like harming those passengers and the neighborhoods those routes come from.
I think if we choose a route coming from northwest they could probably still transfer at lenora, or even choosing one from slu they could still transfer at 3rd and pine area then for the south portion they could transfer at jackon street area.
Of course the transfer/time penalty is again why the center city streetcar plan is a folly.
“All this alphabet soup of BRT-Lite systems is getting sort of hard to keep up with. RapidRide, Swift (with fender skirts no less!), Stride”
It’s not that confusing. RapidRide, Swift, and Stream are in different counties. There’s no reason people need to think of them as “the same” or “all BRT”. Most people travel within part one county, so they don’t even need to know about the other two. If somebody who spends all their time in Metro-land makes an occasional trip to Snohomish County, they can learn about “Swift” just as easily as “Community Transit”. They probably won’t even be looking for “the BRT lines”, just the fastest way to get the one or two locations they go to.
In any case, Swift and Stride are different from RapidRide and Stream. Swift and Stride are limited-stop, while RapidRide and Stream are full-stop. People shouldn’t imagine RapidRide and Swift are the same, otherwise the bus will skip their stop or they’ll find the travel time too long.
“I think if we choose a route coming from northwest they could probably still transfer at lenora”
I’m assuming they’d remain on 1st all the way north to Seattle Center like the 15 and 18 did. If they go to 3rd in Belltown and switch to 1st on Stewart Street, then there would be more transfer opportunities (although they’d be north of many riders), but the bus would also lose time zig-zagging. We’d have to make sure that the transitions between 1st and 3rd have transit priority and no long wait at turns.
> All this alphabet soup of BRT-Lite systems is getting sort of hard to keep up with. RapidRide, Swift (with fender skirts no less!), Stride”
> It’s not that confusing. RapidRide, Swift, and Stream are in different counties. There’s no reason people need to think of them as “the same” or “all BRT”. Most people travel within part one county, so they don’t even need to know about the other two
To be fair it is pretty confusing to keep track of if not paying attention. The practice of naming by agency makes it pretty inconsistent.
We have “Avenue BRT”: Rapidride C, Rapidride D, Stream
Rapidride E is kinda limited stop as well
“Limited stop (avenue) brt”: Swift bus lines, Stride 3
“Freeway brt”: Stride 1, 2 and I think arguably some of the st express lines.
“Streetcars”: slu, first hill streetcar, and then Tacoma Link
“Light rail”: Central Link (renamed to 1 line)
I guess to be fair sound transit is the worst offender with naming Stride 3 and Tacoma Link, at least the other agencies are consistent within their own routes.
As it turns out NACTO recommends that “BRT” projects be “branded”. This may actually influence funding. In other words, if you take the 70 and make it much faster and add off-board payment, you might not get as much money as if you do exactly the same thing, but call the bus “RapidRide J”.
I think branding is BS. I don’t think anyone really cares. Riders figure out what works and what doesn’t and they don’t really care about the labels. RapidRide B and F have all the same fancy livery as the popular RapidRide buses (like the A and E). Yet they carry way fewer riders than the boring-looking 7. In my opinion, branding is pointless, and merely makes things confusing.
If you guys want to view the full pdf here at https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/Streetcar/C3_Delivery_Assessment_10312023.pdf (100 pages)
There are some ‘fun’ concepts like pedestrianizing 1st avenue.
But honestly all this time and effort SDOT is spending on this 1 mile segment is just solidifying that the longer we consider the streetcar the more resources this is eating up of just time and energy. Just imagine if even a fraction of this planning went into planning some center median brt on aurora avenue or say lake city way
“Center median BRT” on Aurora!!!!! WL, you are going to get people killed! I used to live at 43rd and Phinney and worked at UW. I walked most days because I could get there quicker than the 43, and my office was right on the BGT.
But I had to cross Aurora. There’s a pedestrian overpass at 41st and that was even in the “right” direction. Still, I often crossed the roadway including hopping the Jersey barrier. Of course, that was forty years ago, and traffic is much worse today. So how are you going to get people to the stops?
Yeah, I get it works north of Winona; there are plenty of cross-walks. But south of there you have to have an existing grade separation or build one, and folks do not like to go down and up or up and down to catch a bus.
Hehe this is what happens when I don’t write my long comments.
I meant center median brt north of the freeway section (green lake) or if they convert more of aurora to a standard avenue then that as well
For the portion south of that one can have the bus continue to use the right lane stations for now. I and (Ross? Or was it someone else) described that going from outer to inner lanes works pretty easily due to how the current setup with the under pass at 63rd and the left turn.
The only complicated part is just right turning from the center lane going south to west bound winona ave but that’s just one special transit signal. Maybe I’ll draw a picture to make it clearer
@WL,
Aurora (north of Winona) is one of the few places in Seattle where I support an elevated LR line.
A LR line going through the DSLRT2 as the second line in the second tunnel, and then progressing up Aurora and replacing RR-E, would work very well.
If light rail went up Aurora, they would eliminate bus service up Aurora.
Correction. If light rail went up Aurora, they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) eliminate bus service up Aurora.
If we did have center running on the freeway part of Aurora, it would (of course) have to come with appropriate overpasses. Riders catching the bus on 520 don’t have to run across the freeway — folks on that part of Aurora shouldn’t either.
The alternative (as mentioned) would be convert the freeway part to a regular street. This would be a major change. It would transform the various neighborhoods. It would be similar to when they got rid of the viaduct. Suddenly you could just walk across the street instead of being forced into these really long detours: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WmXbF8s7HrjQ3c3X7. I would still limit the number of streets where cars can cross (similar to how they handled South Lake Union, when that opened up). That means some crossings would be pedestrian/bike only, and others with transit. A route that went east along Roy from Uptown to Westlake or Fairview could be quite handy.
Center running buses from that part of Aurora would also completely clean up the mess around the ramps. The on-ramps and off-ramps to Aurora from downtown are on the left-hand side. This means that buses can’t serve stops close to downtown (Roy, Valley, Aloha). It would also speed up this congested area for buses.
But that is a much more long-term project. I would start with the section WL mentioned, north of Winona (73rd). This is after the point where the northbound bus does the little diversion to Linden (which becomes Winona). So a northbound bus would run in the right lane like it does now, from Aurora to Linden/Winona. When it takes a left — reentering Aurora — it would then be in the bus-only median (smooth). Going southbound would involve the bus leaving the median to then work its way to the right side of the street (not so smooth). But there tends to be less congestion there (as the street transitions from having traffic lights to not having them). The last southbound median stop would be 76th, and the bus would have to move over into the right lane to serve the stop at 65th. That is a pretty big gap which means the transition would not be difficult (two lane changes in about a half mile, at 30/40 MPH). The second lane change is into a BAT lane (which is especially easy). I think it would work out really well.
Center running lanes for BRT or LRT can work — but only with good design. In particular, crossing lanes of high speed traffic to get to a stop is not only inhospitable, it’s downright dangerous. We have fatalities and injuries on MLK with this exact design concept today. I often read comments about the problems with it in posts here. Let’s not repeat the mistake.
The wider the arterial street, the worse it is to cross. The more difficult it is to transfer to perpendicular bus lines. These issues should be the first ones addressed with any street redesign. It blows me away at how much energy goes into proposing expensive freeway lids to simply make crossing the road more pleasant (why not just add a wall with plants?) but how little energy is put into proposing ways to get pedestrians to bus stops or across arterials with traffic only slightly slower.
Al is right, but even with right hand running folks have to cross Aurora one way or the other on a round trip. The problem is the “stroadness” of the highway. It will always be fairly dangerous for pedestrians unless the speed limit is lowered to 25 or below, and I doubt WSDOT want to push more cars into I-5.
> Aurora (north of Winona) is one of the few places in Seattle where I support an elevated LR line.
> A LR line going through the DSLRT2 as the second line in the second tunnel, and then progressing up Aurora and replacing RR-E, would work very well.
I mean originally there were plans to build the light rail lynnwood link extension along aurora elevated.
“If light rail went up Aurora, they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) eliminate bus service up Aurora.”
Correct. Link would be limited-stop, so the E would still be needed for the in-between stops.
“If light rail went up Aurora, they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) eliminate bus service up Aurora.”
Correct. Link would be limited-stop, so the E would still be needed for the in-between stops.
Which is why it is a silly concept. Assume for a second that you built a train that served half the stops. It is quite likely it would have less ridership than the E. For perspective, here are the boardings for a southbound bus: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KA0htVeFtB0Y6pRWrgiMTn8pWL8vp5KU/view?usp=sharing. That doesn’t list all of the stops (just a range). Notice that ridership is spread out over each stop. If you look at alightings, it is the same thing. For sake of discussion, assume that we number all of the stops. Now consider some of the trips people make:
1) Odd to odd (e. g. stop 5 to stop 11).
2) Even to even.
3) Odd to even.
4) Even to odd.
Now assume that we build light rail on Aurora, and only serve the even stops. I think it is pretty clear that a very high portion of the ridership would be worse off. Assume for a second though, that it isn’t the even stops, but the stops that have higher ridership. It is the same basic idea. Even if you pick and choose, you are going to leave out a very high portion of the ridership. That is because ridership on the E is quite evenly spread out. There are no huge peaks and valleys in ridership. If you try and pick out the really good stops, you will lose a huge portion of the ridership.
It is highly likely this will continue in the future. Areas close to Aurora are zoned for six story buildings in both Seattle and Shoreline. As it builds out, you will see a fairly uniform development patter. Ridership will be similar.
It is one of the many reasons why light rail on Aurora is a very bad idea:
1) It acts as express for north end riders. From Green Lake to the north end of downtown, there are very few stops, and very few traffic lights. Light rail would not be substantially faster.
2) North of Green Lake, there is urban stop spacing, with uniform ridership.
3) Riders at major cross streets will switch to transferring to Link to reach some of the non-downtown major destinations. For example, right now a trip from Bitter Lake to the UW involves the E, followed by the 44. Instead it will involve a bus on 130th, and then Link.
4) Many riders who currently transfer from Swift to the E will transfer to Link instead. Ridership at Aurora Village (not shown on that chart) is higher than those stops (before the pandemic, it got around 350 riders a day). Many of those riders probably transferred from Swift — they will now transfer to Link.
5) It is very long and very fast. Ridership per mile is not as impressive as buses that are much slower.
6) It would be extremely expensive to retrofit the Aurora Bridge to handle a train.
It is easy to look at the overall high ridership and think the E makes sense for rail. It doesn’t.
I’m curious about what the plan and justification was during forward thrust to have the subway route onto the interuban in future plans north of crown hill. What were they planning?
But the context back then was completely different of course. The subway would have gone from UW to Roosevelt and then up to lake city. Freeway running rail transit back then seemed oxymoronic because metro systems back then were being proposed in response and opposition to urban freeways
Furthermore they explicitly described it as bringing service back so I think there was a recency bias in that, the interurban had only closed 30 years prior. Planners likely remembered the interurban, as dilapidated as it was. I imagine the justification was much the same in Vancouver when they built the expo line using the interurban right of way, service of which had ended just 30 years prior as well
The context now is that, well, planners love freeway running rail transit, whatever the reason that may be. And because the downtown – UW line instead of running to lake city will run up I-5 to Lynwood of course swift riders will transfer to link if they’re trying to venter deeper into Seattle, especially east of I-5. Which is why extending Swift east from aurora village to the link station seems understandable
In a way I’m not a fan of how freeway running link is. However I don’t honestly have a better proposition in what link could be so I won’t complain. I do get disappointed though when the state proposes TOD bills that only apply to light rail as opposed to light rail and buses, or just update zoning everywhere, because it by default means shuffling most housing next to freeways. But link will still serve its purpose as an express service of sorts if people can connect to it by bus anywhere between lynwood and downtown, or federal way and downtown. So rapid ride may act more complimentary rather than supplementary
> I’m curious about what the plan and justification was during forward thrust to have the subway route onto the interuban in future plans north of crown hill. What were they planning?
I think that section from interbay to Ballard to crown hill probably would have been elevated. North of crown hill if I remember correctly was actually a bus line to reach aurora.
Though ive never actually read the detailed proposal of forward thrust transit before only from Wikipedia and the urbanist summaries.
> But the context back then was completely different of course. The subway would have gone from UW to Roosevelt and then up to lake city. Freeway running rail transit back then seemed oxymoronic because metro systems back then were being proposed in response and opposition to urban freeways
The forward thrust was meant to copy say nyc subway or say Paris metro not a regional rail system. If you trace it out it’s like evenly 10 miles out from downtown Seattle. Also when they were planning it i5 was actively under construction.
Also it would have built with a lot more cut and cover that’s how those sections in center district are possible. (If you look at Berkeley you can see the parks on top of the bart lines where they cut and cover)
An extra tidbit sections of i5 from Everett to lynnwood/shoreline? Is actually built partially on top of the Everett Seattle interurban right of way.
I’m curious about what the plan and justification was during forward thrust to have the subway route onto the interuban in future plans north of crown hill. What were they planning?
Great question. So much of Forward Thrust was understandable, even if we wouldn’t necessarily do it that way now. For example, the various stops on the way to Renton.
It is important to remember this was a county proposal, and they wanted to get votes from the suburbs in the county, but could care less about other suburbs. That may explain why they veered towards Lake City. I think it is also worth consider that MARTA (what got built instead of Forward Thrust) is designed to leverage the buses. Again, going to Lake City sounds pretty good. The express buses from the northern suburbs (which largely serve areas outside the county) could connect to Roosevelt or the UW, while riders from the northeastern suburbs would take buses to Lake City.
Back to your original question, I think it was vague enough that it could have gone anywhere. Ultimately, this was a political document, and suggesting to someone in that neck of the woods that they would have a subway not far from their house is likely to get a few votes. I think the implication though, is that if nothing else, you will eventually have a station at Holman Road & Greenwood. At that point you either head easterly (towards Aurora) or northerly (up Greenwood). Both would be quite reasonable, then or now. I would probably head to the freeway at some point, but only one stop, which gets to your other point.
Here is my opinion on freeway-running trains: Most U. S. mass transit systems should have good freeway intercepts. But they should not continue along the freeway. There is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that freeway stations get poor ridership from the surrounding neighborhoods. But they could get great ridership from buses. Unfortunately, planners often draw the wrong conclusion because of that.
Consider a hypothetical example. Imagine if the UW is very far from the freeway, at Sand Point. The initial path of Link would be similar, but continue to one of the easternmost parts of the city. Then it would continue, towards Lake City. At that point, it might as well drift west. It connects to 145th and the freeway and ends there. WSDOT responds by connecting the BAT lanes to the station. There is an easy place for buses to layover, or turn around. Zoning around the station stays the same. Ridership would be extremely high at this station, despite only a handful of people walking to it. It would have more ridership than almost any other station — it might have the most.
At this point, planners would applaud their decision to go by the freeway, and head north. Station after station would be added. But in terms of ridership, things would not be that good. Overall ridership would go up, but not by that much. People are basically just changing where they make the transfer. The planners drew the wrong conclusion.
We can already see this phenomenon in our system. Ridership at SeaTac actually went down as Link was extended to Angle Lake. This is striking. SeaTac is an actual destination. It does not contain a free parking garage. If any suburban station was immune to the terminus-effect, it would be this one. Yet riders were basically just switching their transfer point. Instead of getting on the train at SeaTac, they got on at Angle Lake. It’s not that you don’t add ridership when you do this, but you often end up with diminishing returns. One of the fundamental principles of high quality transit is that it builds on itself. There is a network effect. We saw that with Link. The addition of U-Link created dozens of new trip-pairs that were suddenly a lot more convenient with Link. The addition of Northgate Link has done the same thing — making up for what would otherwise be a substantial downturn in ridership. Capitol Hill was the only station to see an increase in ridership — it is a bigger part of the network now.
The problem is, freeway-running rail doesn’t add much in the way of the network. There is very little travel between the various suburban freeway stations. Look at the ridership of the 512. Prior to the pandemic, a northbound bus got a very respectable 4,000 riders. Of those, less than 200 boarded the bus north of the UW. Remember, this bus goes to Everett! Everett is a real destination. The number of people going from Ash Way to Mountlake Terrace probably is probably in the single digits. There is no network effect.
Most subway additions throughout the world improve the ridership per mile. U-Link did. Northgate Link did. But projects like Tacoma Dome Link will not. Never mind the insanely high cost — simply operating the mass transit system will be more expensive per rider as we make these extensions. It is just a bad way to build a mass transit system, but is all too common in the USA.
Ross, the Ballard line didn’t “veer toward Lake City”. Lake City was the terminus of the University/Central District/First Hill line. The Ballard line was supposed to terminate near Blue Ridge, but there was a dashed line that went right up to the Interurban ROW with a slight bend to the north. That’s what the question was about. It would have to have been elevated, because FT was heavy rail, but it would have positioned the line to be the backbone of North King County development through Shoreline, which SR99 has become.
Instead, the train hugs the freeway, out of walking distance of where people want to go.
Route 48 electrification was what, $14.5M? Roughly $7M per mile?
If the city has an itch they can scratch for some form of capital expenditure then why not strategically building and extending some trolleybus segments? Rather than like a mile and a half of streetcar you could have possibly 50 miles of new trolleybus wire segments sprinkled across the city maybe along streets where many bus routes intersect in a way that enables bus routes to go further than they have been able to before branching off to serve neighborhoods off wire
I just don’t see the value proposition of the streetcar. It doesn’t feel like a transit route to me. Why have local urbanists invested so much political capital into this “cultural connector” when we already have a system that could be improved?
It was ridiculous to rip up the waterfront trolley, I get it. Really no reason to do it. It already existed chugging along as the little tourist attraction is was always meant to be. But it wasn’t transit! It wasn’t fast, wasn’t always that convenient, it only went some amount of blocks. Jarrett walker wrote about it years ago. It was never really a transit line
I agree. I think there is support for the CCC for several reasons:
1) There are some folks who will support any transit project.
2) Some see it as a way to revitalize downtown. There may be merit in this, but it seems highly unlikely it would be worth the money.
3) Some really want service on First Avenue. The answer there is to move some of the buses. It would cost nothing in terms of service, and a lot less in terms of capital.
Ross, about #3. The problem is, as it has been for decades, the unruly crowds at First and Pike. Buses simply get swallowed in the chaos. That’s why the folks in West Seattle and Ballard begged for years that the 15 and 18 be moved to Third. And, actually, things are worse now than they were before the re-route, because the crowds are not limited to the First and Pike intersection. First in Belltown is a happenin’ place most days and nights, and the street is clogged as a result.
Now of course, that interference at Pike might be true for the streetcar, too, except that it seems more imposing, because of the tracks. Everyone knows it can’t turn! and most think it can’t stop quickly, though it can. Streetcars with “track brakes” can put everyone standing in the car on the floor in a half second if necessary.
The point is, the general public think that they’ll slide for half a block if the operator big holes it, so they stay out of their way.
Now that is a thin reed and certainly no justification for spending $400 million on the CCC. But is is a reason not to put “regular service” buses on First Avenue. By “regular service” I mean ones which travel outside the CBD region.
Sure, you could put an SDOT-funded First Avenue shuttle from LQA to Starbucks there, knowing full well that it will never be able to keep any rational schedule except at 8:15 AM on Sunday morning. It would certainly be useful transit, because there are a lot of people and a lot of destinations along the route. And $400 million would fund it until the heat death of the universe (/snark). But please don’t throw folks from Ballard and / or West Seattle “under the [dead stopped] bus” to accomplish it.
Just buy a couple tourist trolleys (rubber tired) and run a route if they want some tourist route
People may be more willing to get out of the way of the streetcar, but I don’t think it has lead to especially fast speeds in places like Capitol Hill. As annoying as pedestrians can be, what tends to slow down transit is auto traffic. BAT lanes would be a huge improvement, but depending on how many people turn, might not work out that well. I’m guessing they would be the most likely to have problems as you describe, as people “spill out” from the curb.
In contrast, center running buses would probably be fairly close to center running trains. Likewise, if we pedestrianize the street (https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/image-29.png) my guess is it would be a wash. You could still have people walking in front of a bus (or streetcar) at the intersection, but they would have to hop a gate to jaywalk (in which case they will likely keep moving, very quickly). I just don’t see someone running in front of a bus thinking “It’s OK, they have rubber tires”.
The way I see it it’s a tourist route with moderate usefulness as actual transit (like the monorail). At a lower price point it might make sense, or if it gets a lot of federal/corporate money
WL: “semi-frequent tourist trolley bus if people really want some transit on 1st/waterfront”. No thanks; that would require new service subsidy. Just shift a set of already funded bus routes to 1st Avenue from 3rd Avenue.
I mean I’m saying this in context of spending 400 million on the streetcar 1 mile segment (not including operational cost), even spinning up a new route is peanuts compared to that.
How much would it cost to double the size of the barns and fleet, and run the current streetcars twice as frequently?
Another great rail related article that got missed in the “Rail Roundup”, this time from the Federal Way Mirror.
The title is a little misleading because LR construction didn’t technically stop during the holidays, but ST is now resuming those construction activities that require road closures:
https://www.federalwaymirror.com/news/light-rail-construction-returns-after-holiday-break/
Key take always are that there is 6 acres of land near the FWTC that is to be released for redevelopment, and that ST is going to start doing some activities in support of TDLE.
Additionally, and maybe of more interest to people on this blog given its bus focus, it sounds like FWTC bus loop is being relocated. Probably sometime this year. I did not know about that, but it makes sense.
The station is south of the anti-transit center. The big question for pedestrian access is whether the south exit from the station is on the south side of I-320th.
The station as being built does not cross 320th. See Page 4 here:
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/federal-way-link-extension-open-house-displays-20191106.pdf
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Federal Way is looking to cross 320th at 21st Ave S instead. They are planning a split surface crossing (one direction at a time) as shown in these plans:
https://www.cityoffederalway.com/sites/default/files/bids/RFB%2023-015%20-%2036225%2021st%20at%20320th%20Final%20Plans.pdf
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Federal Way has also been considering putting in a “dip” for 320th in the long term to create an undercrossing for traffic at 21st Ave S, and focus on 21st Ave S as a longer pedestrian-friendly corridor, shown here:
https://docs.cityoffederalway.com/WebLink/edoc/896889/05-17-2022%20The%20Dip.pdf?dbid=0&repo=CityofFederalWay
It’s a nice idea but heaven knows what’s going on with the utilities under that 320th that would allow for the project. It would mean that a pedestrian would have to walk due west from the station several hundred feet (2-3 blocks) to get to the crossing.
******
Meanwhile, trying to go southeast from the station as a pedestrian looks scary and difficult.
Note that there is a second park and ride lot at 25th Ave S and 322nd St just west of I-5 in addition to the Federal Way Transit Center garage. I can’t uncover much about its utilization, or its future when Link opens. Does anyone know what its fate is planned to be?
The plan is to build a bridge over i-5, extending 324th. That will likely eat up at least some of that PnR wasteland. The bridge will have a sidewalk and bike lane. So plenty of opportunity to walk from nowhere to not quite to a train.
> Additionally, and maybe of more interest to people on this blog given its bus focus, it sounds like FWTC bus loop is being relocated. Probably sometime this year. I did not know about that, but it makes sense.
Honestly I’m a bit confused, the original 2017 plans did relocate the bus station https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Screen-Shot-2017-10-30-at-16.40.49.png to configuration more like Kirklands transit center with 6 smaller parcels.
However they then updated it to leave the transit center at the same location just expanding the staging area and having 4 large parcels instead. (2019)
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/federal-way-link-extension-open-house-displays-20191106.pdf#page=4
I’m honestly confused as to what exactly they ended up choosing.
@WL,
Ya, that was mentioned in that Federal Way Mirror article I linked previously. It sounds like Metro will move to the “new bus loop” sometime this year, but I’m not sure of the timing.
But it must be an improvement or I’m sure Metro wouldn’t be in such a hurry to move.
Regarding amtrak cascades (and implicitly sounder), does anyone know exactly why WSDOT is so resistant to implement the “master agreement amtrak cascades”? Are they just holding out for high speed rail or just waiting on state funding?
Link delays and platform crowding hit the news. ($)
This is the same link I posted yesterday in the last open thread. But it was at the top of the website this morning.
King 5 (and other new outlets) ran a story last night about the station closure due to protests.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/sound-transit-closes-light-rail-station-pro-palestine-demonstration/281-2be776e3-718c-4c33-8d61-691f7d21257d
Some protesters interpreted the station closure as unwarranted. They suggested it was a way to keep the crowd size down by making it more difficult to get to and from the protest. Note that the station closed at 5 but the rally didn’t begin to 6 — so the closure was not a “response” but was a “precaution”.
I do have to wonder if ST would close a station for a pro-choice or a campaign rally or some recent pro-trans rallies in Capitol Hill. It easily could be interpreted as a political or racist decision — although other recent rallies about Gaza have blocked streets and freeway ramps.
Some clashes between protesters and counter protesters in other cities have turned deadly, though I haven’t heard of more than one killed at any individual clash. There was no expressed intent on either side to have anyone hurt, but it happened.
Anti-war protesters announced they intended to make portions of Grand Central unusable during protests there. And they succeeded.
FWIW, If I were calling the shots at Siemens, I would’t be touching any contracts that involve sending employees into the Holy Land with a proverbial 10-foot pole. Even if Siemens mgmt finds their employees to be expendable, the risk to future contract procurement ought to dissuade any further involvement in the project the activists were complaining about.
I could see closing a station during a rally, but closing a station a full hour before the start of the rally and keeping it closed until well after the rally has ended doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when ST doesn’t do this when other protests or rallies happen. It seems unfair and even bigoted.
Has there been specific vandalism attacks on Siemens equipment here? If not, the concern seems way overblown and a red herring.
I’ve seen very rowdy soccer fans supporting a Sounders opponent on Link — but I don’t see ST closing Stadium Station an hour early in anticipation of it.
> I could see closing a station during a rally, but closing a station a full hour before the start of the rally and keeping it closed until well after the rally has ended doesn’t make sense to me. Especially when ST doesn’t do this when other protests or rallies happen. It seems unfair and even bigoted.
> I’ve seen very rowdy soccer fans supporting a Sounders opponent on Link — but I don’t see ST closing Stadium Station an hour early in anticipation of it.
I’m not sure how ya’ll so naive. They explicitly labeled the protest as ‘shut it down’ and had already shown they were willing to block the i-5 roadway. It was their every intention to get on the rail tracks to block the link trains.
If Sound Transit didn’t close the station and the protesters got in and blocked the trains then I’m sure we’d then be writing “why didn’t sound transit close the train station when the protesters posted online they were going to block the trains”
Anyways since I’ve review other cities Transit Master plans why not review Seattle’s too (2014, last update 2016) after all it’s been 8 years and there will probably be a new levy. I gave percentage (just kinda eyeballing it from google maps, I’m not actually calculating the mileage percentage achieved) and a separate “letter” grade kinda being generous if the implemented bus lanes were at the important sections. In general, I think the transit master plan actually achieved a lot more than I expected. And while they did run out of money to turn the rest into rapidrides, it made them still strive to implement the rest with BAT lanes as transit priority plus. Largest losers, unsurprisingly route 48 and rapidride J. And we’ll see if transit plus 40 and 7 improvements are implemented before the end of 2024.
* Madison BRT / Rapidride Corridor 1 – A 100%
* Yes: Basically all of the bus lanes on Madison ave planned are going to be added.
* Yes assuming TSP will be added
* Rapidride H / Rapidride Corridor 2 – A 80%
* Existed: West Seattle bridge east-bound bus lanes were added
* No: West bound west seattle bridge lanes ones were never added
* Yes: BAT lanes were added on Delridge Way up to Genesse (I know they considered BAT lanes south of it in the rapidride H but it’s not in this plan so not counting against it)
* Yes TSP added
* Rapidride R / Rapidride Corridor 3 + 4 (south) – B 70%
* No: Streetcar on S Jackson St. Still stuck in traffic
* No/Considered: For S Jackson St. interestingly wanted to consider median bus lanes, but would also need five/left-door busses.
* Yes: i-90 section has partial bus lanes and also extension from Walden to Grand Ave
* Yes+: Rainier Ave S from Walden St to Rainier Beach station achieved BAT lanes that weren’t originally planned there
* No TSP added (as of 2019)
* Route 48 / Rapidride Corridor 4 (north) back then route 48 went south of mt baker on the route 7 south section – F 10%
* Yes: 15th ave S (south direction) bus lanes and NE pacific street
* No: 23rd Ave S (north of Madison Park) planned BAT lanes but never implemented
* Unchanged: 23rd Ave S from Madison Park to S Jackson wasn’t planned to have BAT lanes
* No: 23rd Ave S south of Jackson St. planned BAT lanes not implemented
* Very minor: two blocks southbound from Grand to Massachusetts being added for transit plus 48
* No TSP added (as of 2019)
* Route 44 / Rapidride Corridor 5 – C 40%
* No: Market Street east of Aurora Ave, supposed to have west bound BAT lanes but none were implemented besides some left turn restrictions. Also I don’t think there are any plans here.
* Partially TSP was added on Market Street
* No: Market Street Aurora Ave to i-5, supposed to have peak BAT lanes but none were implemented
* Yes: Market Street west of i-5: BAT lanes were added in the east bound direction
* Route 40 / Rapidride Corridor 6 – A 80%
* No: BAT lanes on Holman weren’t added nor planned
* Partially: Ballard NW Market street getting BAT lanes, but not on Leary Ave N
* Yes: Fremont is getting southbound BAT lanes
* Yes: Westlake Ave along lake implementing northbound and southbound FAB lanes (importantly near the intersections)
* Yes: Westlake Ave in SLU lanes were converted to transit only lanes
* No TSP added
* Rapidride J / Rapidride Corridor 7 – F 20%
* No: BAT lanes on 11th/12th Ave northbound were not implemented (Nor was the route 70 extended)
* Unplanned: BAT lanes in the southbound direction were not planned.
* No: Plans for BAT lanes on Eastlake and Fairview were converted to protected bike lanes
* Yes: Fairview in SLU might still get northbound BAT lanes.
* Yes TSP added
* City Center (3rd ave): – A 100%
* Yes: 3rd Ave bus lanes were added
* Yes?: Pine/pike adding transit lanes with waterfront
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/TMP2016CH3.pdf
I used the PSRC map to double check if transit signal priority was installed.
Good analysis. I didn’t realize we needed this until this comment.
For S Jackson St. interestingly wanted to consider median bus lanes, but would also need five/left-door busses.
Which is why I would do the following:
Kill of the CCC, but build the center median transit lanes on First Avenue. Send the 7, 14 and 36 to First Avenue. Build center lanes on Jackson for the 7, 14, 36 and streetcar. Send the 106 up to First Hill. Don’t worry about the 554 (it will be gone with East Link). All transit on Jackson would run in the middle of the street, saving around 33% of travel time (according to the old report). Riders of the CHS streetcar would actually be better off than if we implemented the $400 plan (since the plan defers the work on Jackson). Riders in general would be way better off. Capital costs would likely be less, while service costs would likely be way less.
It would require a new set of buses, but they would actually be similar to the old trolley buses. You can easily mix and match. We could buy an excess number of trolleys with doors and both sides and use them for routes that don’t require it. Oh, and then you run wire for the RapidRide J. In contrast, the streetcars are very specialized — we can’t use them for anything else.
Mhmm I kinda like this idea.
Maybe we could slap on the label “streetcar” ready for the far flung future just to get political/public backing to support getting those center lanes. (Aka like van ness brt)
They are all trolleys, which should help in that regard. Less noise or smoke from the diesel (although diesel engines aren’t nearly as smoky/noisy as they used to be).
You can still do center-running buses with floating bus stops allowing right-side doors/normal buses… Van Ness BRT is one example, also Church St in SF where shared with buses and Muni Metro. Wish they had done this on Jackson St and should do IMO on 1st for CCC.
I suppose so, in the context of what they had planned. The J will be built, even if it doesn’t go as far as was expected (or as fast). From what I can tell there should be significant improvements in speed, even without a lot of bus lanes. They have a good deal of skip-to-the-front infrastructure, as well as limitations on the flow of traffic onto Eastlake, which should speed up the buses.
The lack of work on the 48 is definitely damning, but I would say that improving the 8 is far more important. If anything, even looking at it by route is the wrong approach. I would look at it by section. Which block (or blocks) are responsible for the worst delays? I would focus on hours of bus service, which leads to another way of looking at it: What fixes would save Metro the most amount of time? If the bus is running faster, than riders benefit in two ways. The individual riders benefit, but riders as a whole benefit because you can run buses more often. You could probably calculate the rider-time savings, but chances are, there is a very strong correspondence with service hour savings.
I can understand why Metro looks at particular routes (like the 40 and 70) and either turns them into RapidRide, or makes similar improvements. But often these improvements help other buses as well. Improving shared sections (e. g. around the bridges) could very well be the most cost effective fixes to make. Although I think Denny (for the 8) is probably still the most need of a fix.
The transit master plan is probably the most detailed. It does get into almost each intersection.
> What fixes would save Metro the most amount of time?
It’s kinda inaccurate to calculate it like that because a change at one intersection affects both the one before and after especially for short block sizes. There is the transit spot improvement plan that kinda does what you’re talking about
> Which block (or blocks) are responsible for the worst delays?
It already does that, or do you mean something else?
> but I would say that improving the 8 is far more important.
It’s actually described in this transit master plan. I don’t have any happy news though, even in this transit plan there are not BAT lanes for Denny way just ITS signalling improvements and “plan to somehow manage i5 ramp traffic”
What fixes would save Metro the most amount of time?
It’s kinda inaccurate to calculate it like that because a change at one intersection affects both the one before and after especially for short block sizes.
I’m not sure what you mean. My concept of a “fix” would include that.
Just to back up here, the first thing to do is focus on the problem. There is a baseline that comes from everything running smoothly — i. e. if there was no congestion at all. Then you calculate how often the buses are delayed, and by how much. You can get into float time, but I don’t think it has to be that detailed. If the buses are running in regular traffic you could use traffic data. Then multiply by the number of buses that pass through that section. For example, take Jackson from Third Avenue to Rainier Avenue. Assume that buses get delayed 2 minutes in the middle of the day, and 5 minutes during rush hour. Multiply the number of buses running through that section and it works out to 85 minutes of delay each day, for that section.
Then you work on a fix. This may change the nature of other streets, but that should be included in the fix. For example, if the fix ends up causing a traffic backup on westbound Jackson before Rainier, and the 14 is sitting in that backup, this should be included. This alters the math. It also leads to bigger fixes (e. g. making sure the 14 doesn’t get stuck in traffic east of Rainier). It may be that the bigger fix is the better value. That may depend on when the fix is made.
Then there is the cost of the fix. In the case of Jackson, it wouldn’t be that cheap. It isn’t “just some paint” but requires a fleet of buses. I think it is worth it (especially when you look at the big picture) but there may be fixes that are better values.
Some fixes are tricky from a political standpoint. Politicians are afraid to take lanes (or even take parking). When it comes to figuring out a solution though, they need to set a baseline (e. g allow one lane of general purpose traffic) and work back from there. Ignore whether it is politically possible when doing the initial analysis. That comes later. I could see different levels of fixes. For example, BAT lanes versus running buses in the median.
There is the transit spot improvement plan that kinda does what you’re talking about. I don’t have any happy news though, even in this transit plan there are not BAT lanes for Denny way just ITS signalling improvements and “plan to somehow manage i5 ramp traffic”
Which suggests it isn’t as comprehensive as it should be. I’ll admit I have only skimmed the document. I didn’t look at the “spot fixes”. I started reading and immediately got frustrated by their emphasis on corridors, especially since they ignored some of the most important ones.
There is really two parts to this — the problems and the fixes. The problem areas should be analyzed and updated regularly. It is worth noting that Metro has data on delays to buses which they release monthly. I assume SDOT has lots of traffic data. It shouldn’t be too hard to recognize that Denny is a major problem right now.
Then there are the fixes. The fixes tend to more static. Since Denny is becoming more of a problem, folks should be able to dust off the various solutions. Denny is basically four lanes wide, and doesn’t have parking. That leaves a handful of solutions:
1) Add a BAT lane one direction.
2) Add two BAT lanes.
3) Have center running buses by widening the street at various spots.
4) Have center running buses by making Denny one way, with one lane that direction.
5) One of the above options, but make the street wider to enable the same general purpose traffic flow.
6) Build a tunnel.
I think 5 and 6 are highly unlikely, just because of the cost. For that matter, 3 is probably really expensive as well. Option 4 is intriguing, but too much. Option 1 doesn’t give you much, which leaves option 2. That particular fix — the most likely one — really doesn’t need to be updated that often. A traffic analysis does — to see if it has negative effects on other buses — but that can happen as you get close to implementation.
The problems ebb and flow, while the solutions wait to become a priority. On a regular basis (yearly if not quarterly) we should look at the biggest problems, compare the costs, and prioritize the upcoming work. This is largely independent of routes or corridors that someone would prioritize. The approach is backwards. For example, the fix to Jackson might occur because it was tacked onto the conversion of the 7 to RapidRide. Or it might occur as part of the CCC project for the streetcar. Neither should be the case. It should happen because it saves a lot of buses (and the streetcar) a lot of time, is not that expensive to implement, and has few negative side effects.
> Assume that buses get delayed 2 minutes in the middle of the day, and 5 minutes during rush hour. Multiply the number of buses running through that section and it works out to 85 minutes of delay each day, for that section.
They already do that for this report and for other spot improvements? Most of them talk about bus service hours saved and rider minutes saved.
> I’m not sure what you mean. My concept of a “fix” would include that.
When the traffic backs up till the the next intersection it can defeat a lot of these measures. It’s why a continuous bat lane works a lot better than smaller segments of traffic is heavy.
Or like for a specific example like the Denny way where they look at routing car traffic onto an entirely separate street for that freeway entrance. Or for a smaller example even the route 36 near beacon hill station they are looking at retiming the lights and changing the bus station for those set of blocks not just one intersection
> Which suggests it isn’t as comprehensive as it should be. I’ll admit I have only skimmed the document.
It’s pretty detailed for the corridors they analyzed outlining specific intersections to fix and where to add bat lanes and if there’s enough space to build it
When the traffic backs up till the the next intersection it can defeat a lot of these measures. It’s why a continuous bat lane works a lot better than smaller segments of traffic is heavy.
I get that. But what I’m saying is, that is an analysis of a fix, not the problem itself. If Denny is a problem, it is a problem. You can analyze it piece by piece, or as a very long section. Either way it is a problem. If a fix on part of it just moves the problem around, then it isn’t much of a fix.
What I’m suggesting is something a lot more fluid than this plan. Rather than trying to predict what corridors will be important in the future, just analyze all of them — or at least all of those that have problems. Make a list of the worst spots. Of course this could lead to “The top ten problems” being listed on a chart, year after year, with no fix in sight (since the possible solutions take too much effort). But I think it would still be useful to consider the biggest areas of concern, instead of choosing a bunch of seemingly arbitrary corridors along with a handful of potential fixes.
To me, a transit master plan that comes out every decade or so should be fairly vague. If it gets specific, it should be about system-wide things (e. g. modal share). General plans — such as increasing off-board payment — are quite good as well. But trying to specify a bunch of corridors many years before you actually do something about them is bound to fail, simply because things change. Routes change. The 48 is currently the only bus on the very congested 85th. Soon the 61 will provide a one-seat ride from 85th to Northgate and Lake City, which will be the fastest connection to Link for a lot of riders. A section that got little attention as part of a secondary corridor (“Conduct study of routing options through Greenlake [sic] east of Aurora Avenue”) should get a lot more. Since it would surely “bubble up” as a priority, the fix (which is fairly obvious — add BAT lanes from 15th to Wallingford Avenue) should then be applied.
> What I’m suggesting is something a lot more fluid than this plan. Rather than trying to predict what corridors will be important in the future, just analyze all of them — or at least all of those that have problems. Make a list of the worst spots…
> Of course this could lead to “The top ten problems” being listed on a chart, year after year, with no fix in sight (since the possible solutions take too much effort).
I’m not sure if that is a successful strategy. Or at least a lot of the other transit master plans like bellevue’s, kirklands, shoreline used what you described and didn’t end up implementing many of them.
> To me, a transit master plan that comes out every decade or so should be fairly vague. If it gets specific, it should be about system-wide things (
Secondly highlighting the specific corridors is why we have the transit plus right now still trying to fix them. I’d wager if it was a scattered list of improvements there wouldn’t be the political will to implement them.’
The specificity also allows us to call it out what happened when the plans changed. If they had just said “23rd ave” is multi-modal it’s unclear if bat lanes could have been implemented.
> But trying to specify a bunch of corridors many years before you actually do something about them is bound to fail, simply because things change.
Uhhh… I mean do you prefer the vagueness of current 2024 seattle transportation plan? It does not concretely list anywhere where the bus lanes will actually be implemented on. Besides say 15th ave w it usually handwaves saying “bus improvements” will be implemented.
The only way to get somewhere is to have a concrete idea of what you need and want, that the public can debate and confirm and have a stake in. Then you’ll know what kind of mobility you could have, and see how far short you are, and what it would take to get there. And how those big projects can be split into smaller achievable projects, that would each add some value to peoples’ mobility options. So you need the plan to know where you’re going.
Second, you need to fulfill the plan. Seattle has taken steps to make capital improvements and increase operations itself. RapidRide G and J are largely built with Seattle money, and maybe the H too. The 7’s bus lanes and in-planning 40 improvements are Seattle’s. Seattle’s TBD is funding evening, Sunday, and midday frequency on 2-3 dozen routes, and is fully funding the Seattle night owls. The city government stepped in with city money to save the night owls and J when Metro said it could no longer afford them. So Seattle is fulfilling its transit master plan to some extent, and addressing its residents’ unmet operational needs (frequency, coverage).
What are other cities doing? Bellevue has a good transit master plan, Renton has a probably good one, other cities may have them, but they’re all waiting for somebody else to fulfill them. “If we get a countwide Metro Connects levy, that will fulfill them.” But it just goes on for years and years, and approaching a decade, while their residents suffer with 30-60 minute service and unreasonably long multi-seat trip times for years on end, and the cities apparently think “No problem” to wait indefinitely for somebody else to solve it, because that’s what they’re doing. Burien is contributing to the H, so I want to give it that. But otherwise the only thing I see the cities doing are a few improvements near Link station openings, like Eastrail for Wilburton Station and planning an east-west downtown bike corridor and launching a downtown taxi shuttle. What’s it doing in east Bellevue, anything? What about that 271 that drops to hourly evenings/weekends? What about the 226 running hourly on weekends? What is Kirkland doing, or Renton, or Kent, or Auburn? Anything?
It’s not hard to see where the overall transit corridors need to be. They don’t change much from year to year or decade to decade. The 40 corridor, 15th Ave NW, Greenwood, Aurora, 45th, 85th, 105th, Delridge, 35th SW, etc. Ballard’s role and relative size in Seattle doesn’t change much, so the need for high-quality transit on Leary, 15th, 45th, and 85th doesn’t change much, and are in all the city and Metro plans for the past decade since they started making plans again. Likewise, Crossroads/Overlake has been a major secondary shopping/apartment/job cluster since I was a kindergartener fifty years ago. You don’t need a study to tell you Bellevue needs high-quality transit on NE 8th Street and 156th Ave NE/SE: it’s been obvious for fifty years. So just put the obvious in the plans, and fulfill them, and don’t take until 2050 or 2100 to do it.
One crazy idea to fix the 8 is re-routing it in Capitol Hill off Olive Wy/John St and shift it one block south to back-street Denny between Olive Way and 15th.
Then optimize this stretch for the bus service and put in diverters to get autos out of the way. Would directly serve Capitol Hill station literally running/stopping above it.
Would need to string new wire for the 10 and rip out some traffic circles, eliminate street parking to have adequate width for both directions and maybe demo the 7 Eleven at 15th/Denny to make the sharp turn where theres a weird misaligned street grid.
But this is one of, if not THE, most congested portion(s) on the 8.
Oh and I forgot the 10 is going back to its former route on 15th, so one less obstacle… no need to restring wire on Denny. I recall the diesel 11 will be serving Capitol Hill station soon so that could be shifted to East Denny with the new route 8 segment as mentioned above.
I guess the infrequent 43 could stay on John St where the wire is (although I would like to see this line revamped using its current route on Broadway and going to First Hill instead of Downtown) creates a nice crosstown line from Montlake, 15th, Capitol Hill Station, Broadway/Pike, First Hill hospitals.
“One crazy idea to fix the 8 is re-routing it in Capitol Hill off Olive Wy/John St and shift it one block south to back-street Denny between Olive Way and 15th…. But this is one of, if not THE, most congested portion(s) on the 8.”
What??? The most congested part is between 5th and I-5. East Olive Way is minor by comparison; I don’t think it needs anything. It’s been going faster ever since Metro implemented a stop diet there.
What a Link Saturday.
* Shuttle Capitol Hill-SODO due to scheduled maintenance.
* U-District station closed due to a protest.
* Shuttle bus Roosevelt-UW.
Does somebody going from Northgate to downtown have to take Link one stop to Roosevelt, a shuttle bus two stops to UW, Link one stop to Capitol Hill, and another shuttle bus to downtown?
What’s the protest? Gaza? What did they do to the station?
It was a Gaza protest.
ST closed U District station one hour before the demonstration was scheduled to start and announced that the trains would run but skip the station. Then the announcement of the shuttle buses.
Why? The gates at the station were closed and no one was going to be able to get in.
So if you were trying to ride Light Rail from south of Stadium to Northgate it was an utter joke and it would be nice to hear a reason why they didn’t just run the trains like they first announced the station closure. The only reason I can think of was that the police didn’t want the trains to run just in case demonstrators broke down the gates and got in.
I don’t know if protesters in Grand Central and Chicago blocked tracks (and aren’t they electrified there?), but occupying the passenger entrance/egress areas has become a regular thing. It’s safer than blocking freeway traffic, I suppose, as long as you don’t play chicken with a large moving object that will kill you instantly if it doesn’t have time to stop.
I’m afraid the cause of the protests will be long-term, and so likely will be the protests, typically on Friday afternoon rush hours, based on the NY/Chicago protests.
A larger upshot for transit is that Biden probably no longer has a path to re-election. And the people surrounding him seem in denial of the reality of the polls. Cancelling primaries as a strategy to get past Democratic base anger is a bizarre strategy, when one is campaigning on the notion of saving democracy.
It seems fitting that the Democratic National Convention will be in Chicago. It will likely be a brokered nomination, with scenes outside resembling 1968.
“Biden probably no longer has a path to re-election.”
Peter Zeihen thinks the opposite, that Trump has no path to re-election. If Trump gets back in and manipulates the government to destroy free and fair elections, then we lose everything, because we can no longer choose our leaders and thus influence policy; we’ll be subject to whatever the dictator’s whims and corruption happen to be, and the arbitrariness will cause instability. I’m still hopeful that in the end enough Americans will choose to preserve their freedoms and whatever stability they have, and won’t let misinformation fool them into voting that away. And there’s still a chance it will until all the votes are counted and the results known. Unless certain state legislatures falsify the results when they certify them. That’s the biggest thing I’m worrying about, and the media and pundits don’t seem to have caught on to that loophole yet.
It doesn’t matter if Biden is relented or not. The House is held by Republicans and they refused to vote to accept the electoral college votes in 2021. I see no way the House accepts the election results if Biden wins. They’ve been working really hard at anti-election propaganda for 5 years now.
So, no matter who wins the election, we should be prepared for Trump to be installed.
The new House and Senate are sworn in on January 3, and they jointly accept the elector ballots on January 6. So it’s the new Congress that could create these problems rather than the existing one.
It’s basically a tie for now. It’s pretty close
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
https://www.270towin.com/maps/consensus-2024-presidential-election-forecast
I believe Biden does have a pathway to victory, and if he does secure a majority in the electoral college, I don’t think the Republican house would be able to stop it. (It’s also the new congress that does the counting, so it might be a Democratic House, for all we know).
In any case, as this is a transit blog, I think the focus of this discussion should be what effect, if any, a Biden win or Trump win would have on the quality of Seattle transit. If Trump wins, his plans to deport all 20 million illegal immigrants is going to create a massive labor shortage in an already tight labor market, which will inevitably make the bus driver shortage worse and the cost per service hour higher. His plans to impose a universal tariff on all imported goods would also have a similar, but lesser effect. For us transit riders, higher operating costs and fewer drivers for the agency means looming service cuts.
I find it very ironic that Trump likes to pretend that inflation is Biden’s fault and that the country needs Trump to fix it, when his own loud promises, if enacted, would send inflation soaring again.
Biden would be more of the same. Or if the House turns Democratic and there’s no Senate fillibuster torpedoes, then we can start addressing the infastructure/economomic/environmental problems that Congress has long ignored.
With Trump, the commonality in all your concerns is stability. It’s not just policy extremes, it’s not knowing what they will be until the day they’re enacted, and having them change again six months later. It’s having to check the news twice a day to see if the president has destroyed something or gone off in a different direction.
It’s most useful to look at what he’s consistent about and keeps trying to do again and again (a kind of “stability”), vs temporary policies he only cares about in the moment. In the persistent category I’d put revenge against individuals, immigration slashing, harming non-WASPS and broad opposition categories (currently “blue states”), funneling money to himself and his company, and staying out of jail. Much of that has little affect on transit or Washington state either way. The biggest impact would be on the two million non-WASPS, depending on what he does. Some of those are transit drivers or passengers. I’m assuming “blue-state” targeting would be just one or two token things, like sanctuary cities and putting down protests. The federal government doesn’t have enough manpower to occupy an entire state, much less twenty-five blue states.
In the temporary category I’d put tariffs, China, most economic issues, covid, some social issues, and maybe oil/climate and transit. He’s pro Xi Jinpeng one day, anti-Xi Jinping the next. He was for the public-health lockdown/masks/vaccines until one or two people on Fox News came out against them and that changed his mind. He likes oil companies but I don’t know how deep that goes or why.
There’s also Congressional Republicans. They’re more zealous about zeroing out all transit grants. That would be the end of ST3. RapidRide financing would have to go back to the drawing board. The ongoing fixed-guideway operational subsidy (which both rail and trolleybuses get) is more likely to survive because they’d have to look deep in the budget to even realize it’s there. But if they go for across-the-board 10% or 50% cuts to the entire budget, then a lot of things would go away. The state would then have to decide what to backfill on its own, with the limited resources it has.
If all 13 million undocumenteds are suddenly deported, first is that even possible, and second it would have far larger ramifications than bus drivers. Covid killed 1.1 million Americans. This would be twelve times more people suddenly subtracted from the population. Many covid victims were elderly, so they were just getting care. Many of the undocumenteds are essential workers who harvest our produce, pack our meat, drive our freight trucks, care for our elderly, do many other things to keep our society and economy running, and give us exposure to other cultures and languages and trade links. The ramifications would be not enough food, infrastructure breakdowns, and potentially widespread unemployment as businesses fail. It could take us back to things we haven’t faced since the 1930s or 1800s. And once the economy or infrastructure stop working, it may be very difficult to get it back. We’d have to repeat everything we did between 1945 and 1975, in a political environment that’s more hostile and know-nothing, and with climate and resource limitations they didn’t have. I think if we really started this wholesale deportation, the damage to the economy and necessities would be so obvious that it would be stopped before it got anywhere near all 13 million, and the government would be forced to set up a large-scale guest-worker program to keep immigration up.
Full 10% tariffs on all imports I don’t see as likely. The number is arbitrary, so it could be 10% one year, 5% another, and 15% another. And the people who propose these things don’t have a clue what all is imported, or how much, or how car parts make several trips both ways across the border and come from dozens of countries before they get into one final car. The proponents would find that their dearly-beloved imports are subject to the tariff. Other countries would not take to it kindly, and would impose retaliatory tarrifs. The net result might be an education in what all the imports really are, and that would lead to exceptions for some sectors, and lowering the tariff for others.
The Times on the protest ($).
“In addition to demands for a cease-fire and ending all U.S. aid to Israel, the protest called on Sound Transit to sever ties with German energy technology company Siemens, which, according to the flyer, is a contractor for a project to connect the electricity grids between Europe and Israel.”
Siemens is the new series of Link trains that came for the Northgate extension and will be rolled out for the Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way extensions. Those are already bought, so would this apply only to new orders, or would we throw away the existing trains? Siemens gets an ongoing maintenance fee on existing trains. Of course, ST couldn’t afford to buy all new trains, it would take years for them to arrive, and yanking a large percent of existing trains would cause more overcrowding than this Lynnwood Link blip. And I can’t see how one order in a country that doesn’t buy many trains anyway would cause the Europe-Israel electric project to be abandoned.
““[Sound Transit] shut down the station an hour before we arrived,” Hossam Nasr, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement, shouted to a crowd of about 200 people. “They made their action even more disruptive than we planned.””
“Taylor Young, an organizer with ANSWER, said protesters never intended to go on the tracks and block trains. Their plan was to ride the escalators and point out to passengers the connection between Seattle’s transit and Siemens.”
I don’t know whether ST overreacted. For future protests, part of the issue is whether you can trust the organizers’ promise of restraint. And even if the leaders are committed to it, will the followers do something more anyway?
I also don’t understand why the protestors here are going on for so long and doing so many widespread closings over this issue, when they haven’t for any other issue in the past few years, and for something the US is not directly involved in.
> I don’t know whether ST overreacted. For future protests, part of the issue is whether you can trust the organizers’ promise of restraint. And even if the leaders are committed to it, will the followers do something more anyway?
Shrug, I think it was an “alright” move on their part. I mean not to be cynical but it’s not like the protesters are going to say “we were going to commit xyz crimes but they foiled us”. Like I don’t really believe
“protesters never intended to go on the tracks and block trains. Their plan was to ride the escalators” this was their plan considering they blocked the freeways.
To clarify should say
“alright” move on Sound Transit’s part. and
Like I don’t really believe … this was the protestors plan considering the protesters blocked the freeways.
Realized I used too many third person pronouns so it’d be confusing to read.
Notice for last night’s protest.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2Ks2wJgRaS/?img_index=1
While debating military conflicts is not a welcome topic on this blog, I have to reassure y’all that the protests are not going away any time soon. (1) Israel’s PM has said the war will continue for the rest of this year; (2) the US gives $3B or more worth of military equipment to Israel every year, and Congress is debating sending a lot more; (3) hundreds of people are dying of preventable causes as a direct result of the war every day, if you believe the UN’s figures (and the IDF has not offered any contrasting figures); and (4) the US vetoes most UN Security Council resolutions involving Israel.
Who is right and wrong in wars can be debated on other social media. I’m just saying the protests are not going to fizzle and go away, and will likely continue to involve disruptions of mass transit.
“ It’s not as difficult to add extra 5xx runs or restore 4xx runs as you all seem to think.”
It’s not that the effort is difficult. It’s diverting riders away from the rail platform that is difficult.
I’ve commuted between Downtown Oakland and Downtown San Francisco. Both the origin and destination stations were near BART and AC Transit Route NL.
The Route NL was often barren across the Bay Bridge. Even if BART had announced service delays of over 30 minutes Route NL was barren!
Of course, BART never advised riders to use Route NL. That was a major factor in this.
However, it underscores the effort required to get riders out of a train and into a bus at the surface.
I’m I’m boarding at Lynnwood or Montlake Terrace, I’m almost guaranteed not only to get on Link but even to find a seat in the mornings. Why switch if I have a seat and my personal space? I just don’t think it’s a good strategy to target Snohomish riders to switch for morning commutes. It’s one reason why I think ST should look to supplementing service inside Seattle instead.
Returning in the afternoons may be more enticing for a Snohomish rail rider to use a bus. The decision point is when a rider can get down to the mezzanine and assess how crowded the platform is. At that point a rider may return to the surface. However, if a rider doesn’t make the choice right then, they won’t go back upstairs to the bus stop. They will instead just keep going on down to the platform.
I’ll also mention that it depends on what Downtown station gets used in the afternoon. It’s more likely go get Link riders to switch if it’s more northerly.
Finally, there is another phenomenon that occurs with some crowded trains: backtracking. It’s mostly done by some riders when there is a center platform. Those backtracking riders ride a stop or two in the other direction to get a seat. If Roosevelt or U District gets too crowded, some riders may choose that option instead. The time it takes to backtrack is the time it takes to return to the surface and wait for a bus.
> The Route NL was often barren across the Bay Bridge. Even if BART had announced service delays of over 30 minutes Route NL was barren!
The ACTransit Transbay (express ones mainly to Salesforce Transit Center) busses aren’t a secret for those living in Oakland/east bay. There’s like 16 routes
https://www.actransit.org/actransit-map#transbay
> Of course, BART never advised riders to use Route NL. That was a major factor in this.
They’re suburban commuters, I’d imagine most of them are going much farther. Anyone who lives in downtown oakland / macarthur corridor and regularly transit commutes would know about the NL.
For those (oakland city commuters) going to closer destinations they wouldn’t use the NL as an alternative and transfer but could directly use the express busses. For instance say Berkeley there’s a different express bus using the J or F bus. Or for say Rockridge station they’d use the E bus. Same for those going to Lake Merritt or south, they’d use the OX or O bus.
Just wanted to note something
> If I’m boarding at Lynnwood or Montlake Terrace, I’m almost guaranteed not only to get on Link but even to find a seat in the mornings. Why switch if I have a seat and my personal space? I just don’t think it’s a good strategy to target Snohomish riders to switch for morning commutes. It’s one reason why I think ST should look to supplementing service inside Seattle instead.
The crowding situation calculated is not about the morning nor southbound. It’s specifically about Northbound PM peak period.
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2023/Presentation%20-%20ST2%20Light%20Rail%20Service%20and%20Passenger%20Experience%2009-07-23.pdf#page=10
[Ed: Fixed link. It wasn’t just the page number, but “$” instead of “#” or “?”.]
“I’m boarding at Lynnwood or Montlake Terrace, I’m almost guaranteed not only to get on Link but even to find a seat in the mornings.”
I’m not sure AM express buses are really even needed; the biggest bottleneck is in the PM peak. In the afternoon they’re find their downtown Link platform is already full, and they’re competing with North Seattle and Capitol Hill riders to get a space.
“The ACTransit Transbay (express ones mainly to Salesforce Transit Center) busses aren’t a secret for those living in Oakland/east bay. There’s like 16 routes”
Let’s talk about transbay crowding. Why are there transbay express buses when BART exists?
Also, it’s a different situation since BART has been running since before most of those commuters were born. In our case, these new expresses will start at the same time Link does. So there won’t be any time when they’ve gotten used to Link but now have to switch to a bus. Even for those taking Link now, Link only goes halfway, so they have to transfer to a bus for a substantial part of the trip. And for those going to Everett, current Link goes only a quarter of the way.
“ The ACTransit Transbay (express ones mainly to Salesforce Transit Center) busses aren’t a secret for those living in Oakland/east bay. There’s like 16 routes.”
If the AC Transbay service is well known, then why don’t riders use it instead of BART when BART has delays?
Although I chide BART for saying nothing, WL proves my bigger point: adding parallel buses does not guarantee that riders will switch. The effort to get to the light rail platform is significant enough to discoursge mode switching by returning upstairs and over to a bus stop.
And yes most AC Transit routes serve areas not near a BART Ststion in the East Bay, although many do pass by a BART station somewhere on their journey.
I call out Route NL because it ran every 15 minutes in both directions for many years. Most other routes are not as frequent.
One issue I have with assuming peak surges are that many express routes quit running after 6 or 6:30. These bus riders know that they have to ride home before service de lines or disappears — or risk very long waits or maybe risk not even getting home on transit. That contributes a bigger surge in the afternoon that is borne out in these charts.
Link will offer frequent service to Lynnwood until 10 pm. Thus, a rider can more likely leave when he/ she/ they want. It’s kind of a shame that retail in Downtown Seattle has shrunk so markedly in the past decade because there is a whole after-work market created by easing this rush to get home on transit. I’m thinking that restaurants and retail Downtown will see more customers between 5-7 once Lynnwood Link opens and especially when East Link opens too.
The PM surge is so big because 9-5 commuters are going home at the same time other people are coming back from daytime appointments, going to evening activities, going to evening shift jobs, or are tourists. In the AM peak those people are still asleep or just getting up.
> If the AC Transbay service is well known, then why don’t riders use it instead of BART when BART has delays?
If you’re heading to Orinda, Layafette or further on the Yellow line it doesn’t make any sense to use the transbay busses. Even if you make it across the bay you’d then just be waiting for the train at downtown oakland.
> The Route NL was often barren across the Bay Bridge.
For the other routes they probably did (assuming this was pm peak) they just weren’t on the NL bus.
Lastly, if you’re on a BART train coming from further south heading east, it also doesn’t make much sense to exit.
> Although I chide BART for saying nothing, WL proves my bigger point: adding parallel buses does not guarantee that riders will switch. The effort to get to the light rail platform is significant enough to discoursge mode switching by returning upstairs and over to a bus stop.
It is definitely kind of interesting that the transbay busses have relatively high ridership. They even cost more than BART in some cases.
Part of it is “failings” of the original suburban design of BART that has 2 mile wide station spacing. But another part is that east bay is just really large. From San Pablo to San Leandro is 20 miles, it’s a lot of area to cover. But also it kinda works well in SF because that area is so dense with many jobs/housing in that area.
> I call out Route NL because it ran every 15 minutes in both directions for many years. Most other routes are not as frequent.
That’s fair, only the NL to oakland is that frequent. The O (to alameda) and F (to berkeley) are the only other two that run all day.
“The PM surge is so big because 9-5 commuters are going home at the same time other people are coming back from daytime appointments, going to evening activities, ”…
There’d be less crowding problems if they scheduled 3 car trains to be at Rainier Beach and south, or Northgate and north, during that surge, so that all 4 car trains were passing through the most crowded segment during this surge. It’d require careful planning though.
In the Days of Olde, TriMet used to switch from two car trains to single car trains at Ruby Junction. Rush hours saw two car trains, and mid-day and evening saw one car trains. During the split, a train would pull into Ruby Junction, everyone on the second car would be asked to move to the first car, the single car train would leave, and an operator waiting on the platform would move the second car into the Ruby Junction carbarn. They’d then walk back to the platform and await the next train.
In the evening, this was reversed, with passengers experiencing a slightly longer wait at Ruby Junction, and perhaps a slight bump, as the waiting second car was coupled to the first.
I don’t think slitting and combing trains like this buys much for Lynnwood Link. The ridership is too high everywhere except between SeaTac Angle Lake for a reduced length train to make sense.
Seems to me the best solution would be to just short turn half the trains at SoDo by running them into the Central OMF.
The posters literally said SHUT IT DOWN. The protesters are always tagging Capitol Hill station escalators and other surfaces with their anti-semetism. They were also directing their ire at Siemens so the LRVs would likely have been targeted with vandalism. Sound Transit made the right call to close the station, service was already a mess that day with the downtown closures and numerous other service alerts on Saturday,
Do we have a date yet for when the East Link starter line opens in Bellevue? Spring 2024 is getting awfully close.
As I posted above, there were the dates in the latest progress report:
Eastside Starter Line. Pre-revenue service testing November 1, 2023. Revenue service March 23, 2024.
With this date about 62 days away, I would expect some press release about the actual opening day in the next two weeks. I would not be surprised if it gets pushed back since ST has been pretty quiet talking about it for the last several weeks.
Last I saw the opening date for the ELSL was still listed as March 23, 2024.
The last date I saw for Lynnwood Link opening was July 17, 2024, although that date includes roughly one month of float. So technically it could open earlier.
Interestingly enough, supposedly LLE enters simulated service testing while the ELSL is still in its simulated service testing phase. But the pool of operators that ST can pull out of Metro is pretty big compared to ST’s need, so that probably isn’t an issue.
And supposedly Redmond Link opens on December 31st, 2024, but I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.
But regardless of the exact dates, by this time next year it will be an entirely different transportation world around here.
Yes, turning every evening commute on the 1 Line into something resembling Super Bowl Parade Day will be exciting. For the first few days, until riders give up.
ST will be throwing a lot of money, bus fleet, and operators away on peak-shoulder 510s and 515s when they really need to be concentrating the 515s in the peak-of-peak hour, if they are serious about avoiding a situation in which riders can’t get on multiple consecutive crushloaded northbound trains at U-District, UW, and Capitol Hill Stations. The 515 needs to be more frequent — not less — than the train, more convenient, and more comfortable, and not have buses fill all the way up (as in all seats taken, lest the train beat the bus on comfort). The 515 should also not charge more than the train, and maybe even become free.
Or, better yet, keep 10-minute headway during PM peak for the whole of the 1 Line, assuming that is enough to handle PM peak southbound ridership, and use the ca. four freed-up trains to intersperse short runs from SODO to Lynnwood.
Those four trains, interspersed, could provide 40 minutes of peak-of-peak 5-minute headway northbound, and then 40 minutes of pre-game 5-minute headway southbound ca. 35 minutes later. Hopefully the 515s will end up not being needed and quickly get cancelled.
I fear that if the short runs only go to Northgate, then passengers forced off the train there would be stuck watching subsequent Lynnwood-bound trains not have room for them to get on. And then the next Northgate-only train would just balloon the overcrowding on the platform. Clearly, Lynnwood will be the largest destination by far north of U-District, perhaps even the majority of such riders.
@Brent White,
“Yes, turning every evening commute on the 1 Line into something resembling Super Bowl Parade Day will be exciting. For the first few days, until riders give up.”
What you are saying is equivalent to, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded. “. Except now it is, “Nobody rides Link anymore, it’s too crowded.”
This region would be lucky to have such a problem. Because I can’t remember this region ever having a transit service so crowded that people couldn’t board on a regular basis.
As far as the 500 series buses from LTC, nobody will take them. They will vote with their feet and take the faster, more reliable, more comfortable Link service. People aren’t dumb.
Any backup shuttle service needs to be provided where the crowding occurs. Namely WLS to UDS. Because outside of that zone there is exactly zero reason to let a Link train pass by and board a bus instead.
The train frequencies will be the primary factor in whether Link in North Seattle is overcrowded in the first month. I think it’s safe to say that without stating it as my opinion.
That said, I think it’s easy to forget that Link’s North Seattle ridership will be dampened until Link crosses Lake Washington. That’s largely because Lynnwood Link – Bellevue trips as well as Eastside – UW trips won’t want to use Link until it crosses Lake Washington. Those markets may be 5-10 percent of expected North Seattle Link peak direction ridership but that may be all that is needed.
An experienced rail operation like Chicago or New York deals with overcrowding challenges routinely. That’s because something gets delayed somewhere in the busy system at least one day in most weeks. It’s normal.
Minor overcrowding, particularly when it’s an operational condition of only several months max, is not a horrific problem. Unboarded riders just simply wait for the next train, and the extra time it takes to get riders off and on a very crowded train will result in uneven arrival times — resulting in uneven train loads so that unboarded riders can more easily board.
ST could have a spare train on the siding north of Northgate ready to put into service at the time when it may be warranted.
And there will be a number of riders who will prefer to wait for a less crowded train — even if it doesn’t go all the way to the station that they want. Some riders hate crush load trains! That’s been my lived experience of riding an overcrowded subway line for 20 years.
The big question to me is whether ST has anticipated what the overcrowding can b, and whether or not the operations staff making judgment calls has been trained to diagnose and quickly ease the problem.
Just hysterically running around saying “we may have a problem” without having developed a “toolbox” of proven solutions used elsewhere within their reach would be the height of naïveté, incompetence and laziness. With Lynnwood Link Extendion expected to open later this year, that toolbox should be being developed RIGHT NOW.
The timing on the 515 seems fine. To a certain extent, you have to commit to one or the other. This is especially true northbound (they aren’t running buses in the tunnel anymore) which means that shoulder buses have value in the regard. For example, assume for a second that ridership peaks at 6:00 PM, but then goes down quickly after that. Now imagine the last 515 leaves Seattle at 6:30 PM. That may no longer be “peak of peak” but folks leaving their office at 6:05 PM know they don’t have to worry about catching the last bus. They won’t head to the tunnel for fear of missing the express bus.
What I’m not sure about is how Community Transit is going to handle the change. The issue I see are the destinations in Snohomish County with the ST expresses. ST plans on keeping the 510 for a while, which is good. For folks going from Downtown Everett or (the South Everett Park and Ride) to Downtown Seattle, this avoids a transfer. The 515 will only serve Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace in Snohomish County. That means the only one-seat bus rides are from the stations of Everett, South Everett, Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace. That is only four stops, and the last compete with Link. Thus only the Everett and South Everett stations have the advantage of avoiding a transfer. If the goal is to get people to use the bus as much as possible, this is misguided. Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace have plenty of ridership, but prior to the pandemic, so did Ash Way Park and Ride.
Which brings me back to Community Transit. I have no idea what the ridership is on the various bus routes. But the 410 serves Mariner Park and Ride, Ash Way itself and Ash Way Park and Ride. Other expresses serve various park and rides as well as a combination of stops that are bound to be popular. For example, the 416 goes from the ferry in Edmonds to Downtown Edmonds and then makes a fairly direct pathway to downtown. The only real diversion is to connect to SR 99, but it may pick up as many riders as it drops off. This would offer a clear advantage for riders over taking the 909 (or 130) to Mountlake Terrace (and then Link).
If Community Transit continues to run the expresses, keeping the 510 and running the 515 is more than enough to avoid crowding on Link. If they don’t, then it seems inadequate simply because they are not covering enough areas. Riders will be forced to take a bus to Lynnwood Transit Center, and then flip a coin as to whether to take Link or an express bus. In contrast, with an express bus from say, Ash Way the choice is easy. At a minimum I would serve Ash Way and Mariner, especially since they are so easy to serve together and are a painless extension to a bus serving Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood TC.
“I can’t remember this region ever having a transit service so crowded that people couldn’t board on a regular basis.”
the 71/72/73 in 2012-2016. Other routes I’m not as familiar with.
> This region would be lucky to have such a problem. Because I can’t remember this region ever having a transit service so crowded that people couldn’t board on a regular basis. …. the 71/72/73 in 2012-2016. Other routes I’m not as familiar with.
I think Lazarus is talking about the train not busses? And not sure if by “regular basis” Lazarus meant “off-peak” but anyways the 40 and 8 used to get crowded during peak times. The 7 and rapidride E as well and actually for a longer range than just peak times.
“Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace have plenty of ridership, but prior to the pandemic, so did Ash Way Park and Ride. ”
Swift Orange will start at the same time as Link, connecting Ash Way and Lynnwood Station. Its other stations may also get other riders who are currently using the 5xx or 4xx from another stop.
Is Lynnwood or Mountlake Terrace P&R full? Drivers can simply go to one P&R instead of another to get a one-seat ride. And on an hour-long trip such as from Everett or South Everett, one transfer at Lynnwood is a smaller part of the total trip than if the total trip were shorter. I can’t shed crocodile tears if somebody has to grudgingly transfer for that. Especially when Lynnwood TC has direct bus-only exit ramps from I-5. Federal Way wishes it could have that.
Bus riders will have several options to get to Lynnwood Station, and the overall change will probably be better for 30% and worse for 30% depending on their individual location. CT local service will be twice as frequent, more or less, so some people who can’t feasibly take it now will be able to when Link opens.
Back when the 44 was half-hourly off-peak and only quarter-hourly at peak, I remember being passed up frequently in the middle of the route. During COVID, we saw people being passed up at stops when Metro inexplicably decided that the 44 only needed 40′ coaches on weekends, something that was only rectified in late 2023. There was a similar problem with the 271 on weekend mornings, where Metro continued to run 40′ coaches despite the route being only hourly. Fortunately Metro decided to start running some 60′ coaches in late summer 2020 — I would hope that it was after analyzing their own data but suspiciously it was shortly after I submitted a complaint…
Pre-COVID I remember the 26X being at capacity sometimes when it got to Wallingford northbound in the afternoon peak. It was so unreliable that at least sometimes it was from being 30+ minutes late but sometimes it was on-time and turning away passengers.
The E has also been frequently at capacity, both pre-COVID and during COVID due to capacity restrictions. Fortunately, with the service reductions, it’s much better now that Metro can focus on productive routes.
And yes, the 71/72/73/74 were all frequently at capacity by the time they got to Westlake downtown going northbound, and Campus Parkway southbound. I remember sometimes planning a trip downtown around the 25 since it was at least mostly empty despite being slow, and also with an excellent view.
“I think Lazarus is talking about the train not busses? And not sure if by “regular basis” Lazarus meant “off-peak””
He said “transit service” so I assume that means all transit. And by “regular basis” I assumed “every day or almost every day for months on end”. That’s what happened with the 71/72/73. Every morning on the reverse commute I had to go to Convention Place Station ten minutes early, because I didn’t know whether I’d be able to get on the first, second, or third bus, or when they would arrive. I was going to a transfer to a half-hourly bus, so it made a big difference whether I could make the transfer or not. Coming back in the afternoon at Campus Parkway wasn’t as bad: I don’t remember a pass-up, and there were alternatives like the 43, 49, and 70. The biggest issue was that you never knew when the bus would come, or whether it would get stuck half an hour trying to get through the traffic to Convention Place Station.
I think there was some regular crowding on the E or maybe some Eastside expresses, but I don’t ride them regularly so I don’t remember.
The 8 and 11 were notorious for crowding.
“Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace have plenty of ridership, but prior to the pandemic, so did Ash Way Park and Ride. ”
Swift Orange will start at the same time as Link, connecting Ash Way and Lynnwood Station.
Right, but Swift Orange won’t go downtown. The whole point of the 515 (and retaining the 510) is to relieve pressure on Link. The more attractive these express buses are, the better. Thus the more destinations they serve, the better.
For example, imagine I live along Ash Way, and take the 410 every day. It often gets congested along the freeway, but it still works. It is nice to have a one-seat ride and kick and back and relax along the way. Now I’ll take the 201 or 202 and transfer at Lynnwood Link. To what though? The bus might be faster, although at that time of day, maybe not. The train won’t be crowded as it leaves the station. You’ll see plenty of people getting on and off, squeezing their way onto the train (sucks to be them) but you have a seat. Maybe the transfer to the bus is better, maybe it isn’t. But my point is the 410 is way better. It avoids a transfer. The 410 offers something that the 515 doesn’t — a one-seat ride to places that aren’t served by Link.
I realize it is a different situation than we are used to. For a very long time we’ve seen very popular buses (like the 41) truncated at Link stations. This pushes up Link ridership. Now we want to see Link ridership go down — at least during peak. To do that, it is best if we offer a good alternative. A bus that only serves a subset of the exact same stops is not a particularly good one.
Yes, crowding was very common prior to the pandemic. It was a factor in analyzing the routes. They often added buses as a result. In some cases, they reduced crowding by running expresses. The expresses were a more cost effective way of reducing crowding, while giving those riders a faster way to their destinations. For example, the 301 from Shoreline to downtown as an alternative to take the E. Buses like the 301 were then analyzed to see how much of an impact they had on crowding of the main bus, as well as whether they were crowded themselves.
So yeah, crowding has been an issue for a long time.
I think it’s easy to forget that Link’s North Seattle ridership will be dampened until Link crosses Lake Washington.
Yes, but I’m not how much, or even what you mean by “North Seattle”. If you mean existing stops to the East Side, then sure. I can see folks going from Northgate, Roosevelt, U-District and Capitol Hill to the East Side. With the ongoing problems on 520, I could see people switching to Link for trips from the UW, even if it will eventually be much faster by bus.
But from Lynnwood, you are probably better off with the 535. Between Lynnwood and Northgate, I don’t expect that many people headed to Bellevue. A few, just not large numbers.
We should be able to view some of the numbers, even given ST’s limited amount of data. We will be able to see how much ridership is within the East Side. We will also see what stations increase (and decrease) with Lynnwood Link. When we connect it altogether we’ll see an increase both because of more one-seat trips, but also because the trains will run more frequently north of downtown. If you are patient and do the math, you should be able to figure out the influence of each aspect.
“but Swift Orange won’t go downtown. The whole point of the 515 (and retaining the 510) is to relieve pressure on Link.”
My point is that Swift Orange may be better enough or good enough for some people to take it to the 515. It may go closer to their house than the current 5xx or 4xx do, or be more frequent, and will certainly have more than just one or two trips a day.
My friend in North Lynnwood takes the 415 from Ash Way when she can, or the 512+Link otherwise. From Ash Way it’s a 40-minute walk to her house, or she can take an hourly bus halfway and walk 20 minutes from there. That route is not expected to increase in the restructure. Swift Orange goes northeast from Ash Way, while her house is northwest, so it won’t get her any closer than Ash Way P&R. So while she’d ideally like the 416 one-seat ride from Ash Way, taking Swift Orange to Lynnwood and transferring to Link will be better than getting to Lynnwood now or taking the 512. And all of this is insignificant compared to the problem of getting from Ash Way P&R to her house, so who cares if it’s the 415 or Orange or the 512?
Community Transit’s plan gets rid of all but one of the it’s commuter routes (424, Snohomish to Monroe to I-405 to downtown). If ST asked CT to keep its highest-ridership commuter routes for the time being, perhaps CT ‘s board would agree, especially if the ask came with money.
I agree that keeping these commuter routes would be far more effective at keeping some riders off the peak 1 Line than the 515.
At any rate, I expect the plan will change as data comes in the first couple weeks after opening.
@Brent White,
“ If ST asked CT to keep its highest-ridership commuter routes for the time being, perhaps CT ‘s board would agree,”
LOL. Yes, you could have the bus agencies all participate in sort of an inverse bus restructure.
Instead of restructuring to connect to LR and produce a better, more efficient, more integrated multi-modal transportation system, the bus agencies could instead inverse restructure in an attempt to keep riders away from LR. Basically use the bus system to keep bus riders off LR and instead drive these captive riders to secondary service routes that don’t give them the option of transferring to Link.
But what you are creating with such an inverse restructure is a worse and less efficient transportation system, and one where bus riders bear the brunt of the degraded transit experience.
I don’t think delivering a worse bus transit experience does anything to encourage bus ridership, or transit ridership in general. And delivering a worse bus transit experience as a way of improving the LR transit experience doesn’t seem like anything the bus agencies would want to participate in, even if they were paid.
I doubt very much that CT would go along with such a diabolical scheme. They are pushing hard to restructure their service delivery, and I doubt very much that they would want to participate in a plan to make their service worse rather than better.
So, Lazarus, is it your hope that all the measures ST is taking to have sufficient demand on the 1 Line when Lynnwood Link opens results in some passengers stuck at stations unable to get on multiple trains heading the direction they want to go, and having a large crowd ballooning at such stations push the fire department’s limits for how large the crowd can get on those platforms?
The Sweet Orange Line will open with CT’s March 24 route restructure.
Swift Orange Line
Darn auto-incorrect
Lazarus, knowing how you feel about Link and Metro, what I’m about to say hopefully triggers and enrages you, similar to how Daniel used to anger Ross, but you do realize that King County, from a public transit perspective, could function without Link, but couldn’t function without bus service?
I can’t help but ask this:
Who here has lived commuting at peak hours on an overcrowded rail system? If you don’t, you havent experienced how high frequency, crowded rail works. It’s somewhat different than trying to board a crowded bus.
I realize how giddy it can be to talk about overcrowding. I’m glad the topic is out there. I’m glad to see that some of you also think of the effect and how it impacts station platforms — although I don’t the enough discussion goes into the escalator capacity issues that have already been demonstrated on Link at some times.
But my 20 years of commuting on an overcrowded rail system has taught me several things:
1. Exact schedule adherence is impossible. Train doors must stay open longer at each stop where there is overcrowding on the train. People need more time to squeeze on and off. People need more time to run to a door further away on a train that may offer room. Trains every 7.5 minutes typically gives way to trains spaced at as little as 5 minutes or as much as 10 minutes, even with exclusive track.
2. Demand comes in pronounced waves, rather than rises and falls gradually. That’s because many people — shift workers, students, people needing to make appointments, etc — have very specific times that they need to arrive or leave places. Enough people have to be somewhere at 8:00 or 9:00 am, or leave somewhere at 4:30 or 5:00 pm to create a momentary surge. However that may just be one or two trains. Riders quickly figure out that if they delay going home by 10 or 15 minutes they will have a less crowded train. Or maybe they try for a train 15 minutes earlier to give them more time to sip coffee before they get to their destination. Add to that the effect of the first point — resulting in uneven train arrivals and departures with uneven numbers of riders on the platform, and no one will have to wait “several trains”. They just won’t.
3. Lynnwood opening will not generate full demand in only 8-10 months. The published forecasts are what’s expected in a few years, not in the next year. The missing rail connections across Lake Washington and to Downtown Redmond in particular will divert some demand. It’s how ridership grew between 2011 and 2013, or between 2017 and 2019 in Link’s history.
4. ST service planning/ operations should be looking at every single bus and train run to estimate the demand later this year, and determining the level of expected overcrowding based on that. Lynnwood Link will attract new riders, but it will also attract riders that get on at Northgate today so they won’t all be additive. Even though we posters do not know what the percentage is, the service planning staff should have a pretty good clue — and should be able to say which trains are more likely to be overcrowded. If they aren’t doing this, they deserve to be fired. And if operations cannot anticipate real-time adjustments like reliever trains on demand, they are not doing their jobs.
In the capacity discussions that I’ve seen ST staff present, the bigger concern is not having enough train cars between 2026 and the next big opening sometime between 2032-2035. This is more concerning to me, as it apparently requires more train cars to operate even at the 7.5 minute promised frequencies if both 1 and 2 lines, and the problem will last for several years. It could create overcrowding but their internal calculation error is also demonstrating failure to offer the promised frequencies. Still, even then, ST could do the politically unpopular things like short-turn some trains or drop the fourth car on some trains to address the issue.
It’s not as difficult to add extra 5xx runs or restore 4xx runs as you all seem to think. Sound Transit and Community Transit have known about the possibility of crowding for months and have been preparing for it. This is just their estimate of how much extra express service will be needed to keep Link usable. They fully expect to possibly add more runs if there’s more crowding than predicted.
The only blocker is if they flat-out can’t afford to. But agencies always reserve some hours in restructures for contingencies like this. It’s how the 45’s 10-to-15 minute reduction didn’t happen when the county council took hours to restore the 71, and how the 73 launched with a limited span but was able to add evenings and weekends, because no more-urgent contingency occurred.
So ST can probably add a few more runs, or that Ash Way-downtown route RossB wants. And CT could probably reinstate a few 4xx runs without taking hours from the promised local service. What color the buses should be is really immaterial: ST could have a route with the same stops a previous CT route had. It would all be the same contractor and operators anyway. And ST might reimburse CT for 4xx routes since CT would be “helping” ST and running service it wouldn’t otherwise run. And ST has a huge ton of budget capacity if it just postpones Everett Link a little bit more.
Probably less than six months, since Link construction costs much more than bus operations.
The driver shortage is of course a ceiling. But let’s let the agencies figure out whether it would actually block adding a few express runs before assuming it would.
“Exact schedule adherence is impossible. Train doors must stay open longer at each stop where there is overcrowding on the train. People need more time to squeeze on and off”
That’s exactly what happened on Metro.
“Riders quickly figure out that if they delay going home by 10 or 15 minutes they will have a less crowded train.”
They’ve known that since childhood because it’s always been like that. In the 90s when my dad had an afternoon meeting downtown, afterward he’d go to the Elliott Bay Cafe and wait till 6:30pm before driving to Bellevue or Poulsbo.
In the mid 80s my first job was at an office near Seattle Center my dad knew people at. We had a task that needed a DOS programmer. My dad called his programmer in Redmond and asked if he’d be interested. The prices will sound dated, but this is what this programmer said: “Tell them my rate is $20 per hour, or $40 if I have to cross the damn bridge.”
“Lynnwood opening will not generate full demand in only 8-10 months. The published forecasts are what’s expected in a few years, not in the next year. The missing rail connections across Lake Washington and to Downtown Redmond in particular will divert some demand.”
This is the special projection for the gap year, not the general 2040 target. ST published the charts earlier this year. The tiers were something like “Seats available, Seats full, Some maybe standing more than 20 minutes, some maybe unable to board.” Out of all Link directions and times, the one that got into the last category was Westlake-Lynnwood in the PM peak for a couple hours.
But what you are creating with such an inverse restructure is a worse and less efficient transportation system
Yes, absolutely. So what? There seems to be some confusion here. This is the situation:
Lynnwood Link will open, but won’t have enough trains to handle expected peak travel. This is a temporary problem, caused by the construction problems on East Link. Once East Link opens, this problem goes away.
Again, this problem is temporary. In the long run, we want to funnel people onto the trains (the primary advantage of trains is that they can handle lots of people). But unfortunately, for a brief period, we want to do the opposite. We want to encourage people to take buses, so that the trains don’t get so crowded. Sound Transit is already working on this. It is known as the “2024 Service Plan – Phase Two” here. Brent’s comments were entirely about that period, and that plan. My comments were based on Brent’s comments.
Your comments include straw men. No one is suggesting we prevent buses from using the stations. That is absurd. We are suggesting we give riders an alternative to Link, since that is the whole point of 2024 Service Plan – Phase Two. We are simply trying to improve upon Sound Transit’s plans.
The fear is that they just don’t use the buses. They don’t add enough value. The 510 is fine. It is the 515 we worry about.
The buses will serve the exact same stops as the train. I find it odd that you of all people think people will choose the bus every time. Even it costs more — you assume that people will prefer riding the bus for trips downtown. I could see that happening when there is no traffic, but during peak, when WSDOT refuses to do anything about the clogged HOV-2 lanes? That seems risky. It is possible that people will choose the train, completely defeating the work that Sound Transit is putting into this project. What we are suggesting is some fairly simple, straightforward ways of improving the plan. The cheapest and easiest is probably just to offer a substantial discount on the buses. Or charge more to ride the train from Lynnwood to Downtown Seattle during peak (oops, too late for that). But serving additional stops — stops not covered by Link — is another alternative.
For example, I suggested extending the 515 to Mariner, via Ash Way. This would be quite similar to the current 410, and essentially an extension of the old 511. Since it would serve Lynnwood, riders could take it from Ash Way to Lynnwood and then transfer to Link (just like they could take the future 201/202). The difference is that if they boarded north of Lynnwood, they could also just stay on the bus until they get to downtown Seattle. No transfer. This one-stop option might very well be quite popular, which in turn would reduce crowding on Link — the whole point of the 515.
Same goes for running *some* of the old CT express buses. CT Community Transit would run only the routes that have high ridership. This wouldn’t necessarily require cutting back service elsewhere (a lot depends on the driver shortage). Sound Transit would subsidize Community Transit. At worst Community Transit would reduce service a relatively small amount (during peak) on some of the other routes. Again, this all temporary. Once there are enough train cars, the problem goes away.
One of the many things that is interesting about the situation is how so much of the peak-ridership has just collapsed. Back in the day, the express buses along Lake City (522, 312?) used to arrive every three minutes during peak. They would sometimes be full, and pass up stops (inbound). Given that, I was going to suggest having a version of the 522 (e. g. 524) that skipped Roosevelt and went downtown. This would be quite a bit cheaper than sending buses from Lynnwood to downtown, since the bus would not spend much time on the freeway. Likewise, you could dust off the old 41, that got a fair number of riders before it reached the transit center. Like the other riders, a lot of those folks would prefer a one-seat ride to downtown.
The problem is, in both cases, it just doesn’t have the peak ridership anymore. The 522 only run every 15 minutes. At most! Likewise, the 75 runs every 15 minutes peak direction. Even these long corridors that used to have a lot of riders don’t carry that many during peak — otherwise they would have to run more buses.
crush loads in recent history included: Route 271 in peaks; Route 44 in peaks; E Line in peak; routes 71-72-73 in peaks; routes 3-4 on James Street in both peaks; routes 212-216-218-219 at Eastgate in peaks; Route 41 in peaks. intending riders were left at the curb. Route 70 in summer with interns.
@Brent White,
“ is it your hope that all the measures ST is taking…………results in some passengers stuck at stations”
No, it is my hope that ST gets this right and delivers sufficient capacity to avoid overcrowding.
But I am also saying that adding, retaining, or modifying bus service between LTC and DT Seattle is not a viable solution to overcrowding on Light Rail that will occur between Westlake and UW. It just isn’t a workable solution.
ST needs a more workable solution to this overcrowding problem.
Al S’s comment says March 23.
March 23, South Bellevue-Redmond Tech.
July 17: Lynnwood extension.
December 31: Redmond extension.
September 25, 2025: Full Line 2.
April 9, 2026: Federal Way extension.
June 24, 2026: 130th Station (Seattle).
These are probably just goals since ST hasn’t announced them. But if the starter line is opening in two months, then ST must already be training and assigning drivers and preparing opening day.
@Mike Orr,
I wouldn’t be surprised if ST didn’t open a Federal Way Link Starter Line either slightly before or slightly after the September 25, 2025 date for the full East Link extension.
The reasons for this are obvious. FWLE to KDM station will be ready to go well before that date, and storage access for the required LRV’s will be available at OMF-E before the September 25th, 2025 date for ELE start of service. In fact, I’d expect ST to stop their distributed storage program in support of LLE as soon as access to OMF-E is assured, probably in late spring or early summer of 2025.
Additionally a FWLSL to KDM Station won’t require a lot of additional resources or any unusual operating procedures. There are a set of double crossovers just north of the station, so an extension to KDM Station would function exactly like today’s Northgate Station. Pretty simple stuff really.
And opening early to KDM Service would provide a much needed improvement in transportation over the current buses while simultaneously smoothing out the Federal Way Link hiring wave.
It would be a win-win-win for all parties involved.
After the disappointment of opening the mere 2 starter line, the disappointment of having to divert riders to buses for Lynnwood, the disappointment of opening Marymoor Park Station mostly just for eastsiders, the deflated party for the 2 Line crossing Lake Washington, and the eventual afterthought party for opening 130th years after Lynnwood, ST needs the sort of full-throated celebration that the opening of Federal Way Link could be.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if ST didn’t open a Federal Way Link Starter Line”
I agree a phase to KDM is possible and would benefit passengers the most. And ST has been thinking about it because it sometimes mentions it. But I won’t count on it until it’s announced. For the same reason that I take the realigned ST3 dates even though I have doubts they can be achieved. Because I don’t have evidence that any other particular dates are more likely.
South King could also argue on equity principles that it, the poorest subarea, should get the advantage of a starter line like East King did, both to improve transfers and mobility in the area, and to improve higher education opportunities (Highline CC access to the region).
ST has also mused about a Snohomish interim phase to 128th/Mariner.
“the disappointment of opening Marymoor Park Station mostly just for eastsiders”
It’s in the East King subarea. Who else should it mostly be for?
P.S. It’s still a bit hard to grok or remember new abbreviations like ELE and LLE.
Brent, Marymoor Park is huge and frequently has concerts and other events, but is almost a mile from the closest 542 stop. Even ignoring all of the other destinations around it (and there are quite a few), just serving the park better should generate some off-peak trips from Seattle and elsewhere.
@Brent White,
“ After the disappointment of opening the mere 2 starter line, the disappointment of having …….”
Ah, no. What transit and infrastructure development is all about is slow, steady, and incremental progress. Ya, I’m sure we would all like everything instantly and at zero cost, but that isn’t the way the world works.
Slow, steady, and consistent progress is what gets the job done. This time next year transit in this region will be completely different. And thankfully so.
Ya, I appreciate when Joni Earl had the big party to celebrate Husky Link opening. That was nice, and I appreciate a good party – and nobody knows how to party like a Coug.
But I’d still take slow, steady, incremental, and significant progress over a big celebration party any day.
Is Marymoor having a separate opening? I thought all of Redmond Tech to Redmond Downtown would open simultaneously. Redmond Downtown will get more people from more places than Marymoor will, so if you’re disappointed at Marymoor’s opening, just head to Redmond Downtown. And when you get off the train, take advantage of the extensive trail network north, east, and south. That should wipe away any disappointment.
My understanding is like Mike’s In that both stations (Marymoor and Downtown Redmond) should open the same day.
The stations are so close that I almost think of them as functioning as two parts of the same travel market — with one for parking riders on one for walking/ bus riders.
I’m even a little surprised at ST didn’t add “Sammamish” onto the Marymoor station name for PR reasons. It’s like how BART has Martinez and Pleasant Hill station names that aren’t located inside their city limits.
The urbanist has hit the nail on the head. St is resorting to asking people to switch to bus during the disruption but so many buses have been scaled back that it’s a comical suggestion. I’m looking at you 43, 41, 25, 47 among others.if so many darn people weren’t trying to use link as advertised it would be fine st would have us believe. Classic bureaucracy. They came up with a decent but not great plan and then can’t even execute tobthat plan. It’s like lucy with the football with these folks. Is there any word yet on if the work will actually be done on Feb. 4? I’m not holding my breath.
An example if it is happening right now with the Link reduction. 26-minute service south of U-District is equivalent to pass-ups and almost equivalent to zero service. So people are having to dust off their pre-Link stategies for UDistrict-downtown, Roosevelt-downtown, and Northgate-downtown. They’ll quickly find the 41, 64, 71, 72, 73, and 74 don’t exist any more. The only alternatives are the local 49, 62, 67, and 70. And those require transferring across the 45th boundary, except the 62, but it has detours that negate most of the advantage of a one-seat ride.
“Is there any word yet on if the work will actually be done on Feb. 4?”
No, but there’s a chance it might get done a few days early. ST and Metro have learned it’s better to underpromise than overpromise with maintenance periods, so there’s probably a few extra days built into the schedule, just so that it can pleasantly surprise us. That’s what happened in the last one or two extended maintenance periods.
Minor update, I was wondering about the N. 8th Street hov interchange (nearby the landing in renton) if the Stride 1 BRT would stop there after it is built. I emailed Sound Transit and apparently there are no plans to stop there even after the “I-405/North 8th Street Direct Access Ramp” are built.
From the email “we currently have no plans to add an inline bus station at 8th street”
> In north Renton, an HOV-only interchange is proposed at I-405 and N. 8th St, connecting only to the west of I-405. These will be “direct access” ramps providing connections to/from the HOV lanes on I-405.
It seems pretty odd, does any know if these hov ramps are normal enter/exit ones only and not like the ones in totem lake/bellevue?
That was a controversy when Stride 1 was designed: it would skip The Landing/Boeing but serve 44th. What is at 44th besides houses?
I mean originally if the hov n 8 street direct access ramps aren’t built I understand it’s not possible to stop there. But if wsdot is still building them then why not use them?
https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/major-projects/i-405sr-167-corridor-program
I-405/North 8th Street Direct Access Ramp Project
“The current law transportation budget provides funding for preliminary engineering for the project beginning in 2025, for construction beginning in 2027, and for anticipated project opening in 2029.”
What is at 44th besides houses? The Seahawks training facility and the opportunity to reimagine the bus network for Newcastle and the Renton Highlands (111, 205)
Yes, something like Totem Lake or Eastgate would be ideal, but if it is 405W only, it might look more like 108th & SR520? If so, it won’t be able to integrate with Stride, which would be a missed opportunity.
It probably falls to Renton city officials to advocate for this to WSDOT.
> Yes, something like Totem Lake or Eastgate would be ideal, but if it is 405W only, it might look more like 108th & SR520? If so, it won’t be able to integrate with Stride, which would be a missed opportunity.
” I-405 and N. 8th St, connecting only to the west of I-405″
I don’t think it means it only connects 405 west bound (well also they would say 405 south bound technically speaking) but more that the hov ramps will only connect to the west of the freeway to N 8th St rather than to the east (sunset boulevard).
However, I can’t find any documentation that clarifies if it is more like bellevue 6th street hov ramps where can continue on, or like mercer street to i-5 hov/express ramps where it’s exit only.
Ah yes, I think you are right, I can’t find online but I do recall seeing a master plan labeling as only access on the west side of 405, like downtown Bellevue or Canyon Park.
So again we make major transit improvements that aren’t really major transit improvements.
Is Renton going to redeem the new Renton transit center walkshed with TOD or will it remain a sprawl wasteland? Sam, you’re our TOD spotter, what do you see?
Allow me to offer one more alternative to Plan 515 or keeping various other peak express buses: HYPERFREQUENT LOCAL BUSES!
I’m referring specifically to Metro 49, which would provide a short-wait back-up option for Westlake to Capitol Hill, Westlake to U-District, and Capitol Hill to U-District; and Metro 67, which would provide a short-wait back-up option for U-District to Roosevelt, U-District to Northgate, and Roosevelt to Northgate.
I’m on the 49. It was 15 minutes before Seattle’s TBD. Then it was 12 minutes. (Which I took to mean Metro wanted 10 minutes but couldn’t afford it.) The 49 was positioned as the primary Capitol Hill route until U-District Station opened. In the pandemic it was reduced to 15 minutes, and still is. So I’d like to see 10-minute or 7-minute service on it — both now during the Link reduction and during the Lynnwood Link gap — but I don’t see it happening.
The G restructure will happen about the same time as Lynnwood Link, so that would give an opportunity to modify the 49’s frequency. It’s not on the list of routes to be restructured.
Oh, the 49 does have extra service during the reduction, along with the 70.
https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/when-1-line-disruptions-happen-what-other-transit-options-are-out-there
There is a difference between offering operators overtime to drive extra trips on routes 10, 49, and 70 for three weeks, and putting these extra trips in The Pick. I think it is a worthy investment to put them (and more trips on route 67) in The Pick for the first 6 months of Lynnwood Link, even if they get funded solely by the North Subareas. Certainly this long-term extra local service will be much more value added than the half-baked Plan 515 crapshoot that even Lazarus admits ST is way wrong to think it will work.
Another email reply from sound transit (I guess they’re responding to all the emails today), I asked about where pocket tracks (the extra third track) and turnback tracks (extending beyond terminus) are planned.
For east link there’s only judkins park with pocket tracks, redmond tech center won’t have any, and downtown redmond has the elongated ends for turnback operations as it’s the terminus. Did say the spring district or more accurately wilburton? can kinda turnback as well since there’s extra tracks with the East OMF.
For lynnwood link, there’s the existing ones at northgate and lynnwood. Beyond that to Everett, while Mariner station will have elongated end turnback tracks, it actually is currently not planned to have pocket tracks when actually extended out to Everett.
(I didn’t ask about south to federal way link or tacoma dome link)
Even on a surface line ST is skipping the relatively inexpensive trackway enhancements which would give them operational flexibility forever. They should all take curated rides on Tri-Met to see how its done by a genuine rail operator.
It’s also kind of strange that ST has fixated on tail tracks for reversing at temporary end of track stations. A set of scissors cross-overs just before terminating trains can shuffle the reversals perfectly adequately. It’s what they did at Huskey Statdium before North Link was opened.
The tails are great for storage but they suck for reversing because they require the operator to walk the train when there’s no rest station at the other end, just another operating seat.
I’m curious if there are any instances of people using the E-line as a Link alternative. The two corridors are kind of far apart, but absent Link, the E-line does the best at going north/south in a manner that is straight and fast. For example, somebody that lives in between the E and Link corridor might choose to walk west to catch the E rather than east to catch Link.
Rapidride E has always been the north/south route, but anyways I don’t think the rapidride E is that good of a Link alternative in the case of disruptions problem is that it is just too far and you’d either have to walk pretty far or take a east/west bus but those are infrequent. More importantly, there’s typically an alternative bus.
For instance for green lake, if you’re on the west side you’d obviously use rapidride E to reach downtown. For the east side, if link is down rather than walking a mile to rapidride E, you could just take the route 62. Similar with Northgate, sure it’s only 0.75 mile walk to aurora, but also you could just take route 40 instead.
Probably in the future, when the swift blue is heading to 185th station in lynnwood to transfer to link. One might just get off at aurora transit center if link has trouble/too crowded and use the rapidride to reach seattle.
Northgate is the only place where the E and Link are really that close, and in that instance you’ve got the 345 and 346 on Meridian.
The last time I attempted to come south when there were Link stoppages, Google Maps said the best option from Lynnwood was 512 to Northgate, the 40 over to the D, and walk to King Street Station from some 5 blocks north of the station. This took several hours, and while the E is really slow, it’s probably better than this solution.
From Northgate the straightest way is to take the 66 to Campus Parkway, walk across the street and west a block, and take the 70 to downtown. The 70 has extra service during the reduction.
You can take the 40 to the E, which would be faster than the D.
I had a friend who used to live at 192nd and Aurora . He seemed to prefer to take a bus to Northgate and take transit from there rather than ride RapidRide E to get Downtown, but his connecting bus often wasn’t frequent enough to rely on it.
I think that one of the tragedies of RapidRide E is that it won’t stop at Link when Link opens. I also believe that Swift Blue is forbidden from offering trips that stay wholly in King County at least 1/2 mile from the County line.
I think the main factor often comes down to the worse connecting bus frequency as the “weakest link”. Even when Link runs at 4 minutes sometime in 2025, bus connections will be important to offer frequently – and if they aren’t it won’t entice riders.
Of course, Lynnwood Station adds 800 parking spaces along with 500 each at Shoreline North and Shoreline South Stations for 1,800 in total. If the bus isn’t frequent, a number of people could instead drive.
@Al.S,
“ I think that one of the tragedies of RapidRide E is that it won’t stop at Link when Link opens.”
I concur, particularly for the northern section of the E.
Once Link opens to Lynnwood it will be so much faster and more convenient for anyone North of about Bitter Lake to simply skip the E and transfer to Link instead. Even with the 2-seat ride it will be much faster.
Metro definitely needs to provide better E-W connections from Aurora to Link when LLE opens. So far I haven’t been too impressed with their proposals.
Lazarus: CT Swift blue line should connect the Aurora P&R and the North Shoreline Link station via Aurora and N/NE 185th Stree; CT has decided to use a Meridian Avenue North pathway with more turns and without the BAT lanes of Aurora Avenue North.
@eddiew
I’ve kinda wondered for around shoreline if they should choose one major station to be the bus transfer point
https://www.shorelinewa.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/55153/637860395922330000
If you look at shoreline transit map there’s the Rapidride E and swift blue on aurora ave with the latter heading to 185 station (the map should be corrected to use meridian) But then there’s stride 3 brt and it reaches 145 station.
But that means to go between the brts you’ll have to either take another bus or take the link for one stop. However it is kinda hard to think of any reasonable plan
Diverting rapidride e to 145th is a pretty long, and ending it there makes no sense as it breaks the connection to swift blue. I guess one could also extend rapidride e to duplicate that section along 185th.
The other maybe slightly more reasonable idea is extend stride 3 along 145th to reach aurora ave.
But yeah if yall have any ideas. (Or if it’s unnecessary) it’d be interesting to hear
I don’t think you want to move buses serving major corridors away from those corridors. Eg: diverting the E to serve 145th.
Stride should extend to Aurora is the problem. It’s the busiest bus route in Washington.
Maybe the most logical terminus would be Shoreline CC?
“ The other maybe slightly more reasonable idea is extend stride 3 along 145th to reach aurora ave.”
That’s been suggested many times on this blog. ST however hasn’t presented any interest in it. The Shoreline Station at 148th is unfortunately not laid out great for through trips. There’s lots of circling required for a bus and through riders.
My Stride extension would do more than merely reach Aurora. It would run north on Aurora and then on SR 104 and end in Downtown Mulkiteo. (It could stop shorter at Aurora Village if appropriate.) That would provide an amazing regional east-west service that would connect with many modes.
With that, very North Shoreline could be served by Stride 3 rather than RaoidRide E. Both routes would overlap (same direction stops) on Aurora between 185th and 145th or 155th — And RapidRide E could end directly at Shoreline North Link. That would give much of Shoreline very frequent double service on Aurora.
It appears pretty excruciating to ride from very north Shoreline to Downtown Seattle on RapidRide E — especially with Link so close after the extension to Lynnwood opens.
@Al.S,
The problem with extending a bus like Stride past a LR station is the transfers. Basically buses can’t hold a reliable schedule, so timed transfers become a mess.
Transferring from bus to LR isn’t the problem. Link will be operating at 4 min headways (interlined), so no matter how late your bus is you still get a really good transfer.
But LR to bus? If the bus route starts at the LR station then no problem. The bus is just starting so it isn’t late yet. Everything works well.
But with a pass-through route like you suggest the bus will most likely be late. And since it really isn’t all that frequent, the transfer from rail to bus becomes an issue. The user basically can’t time the transfer, and that leads to a lot of angst.
Of course if the bus is as frequent as the train the problem goes away, but it won’t be. And high frequency bus routes tend to experience much more bus bunching, so schedule reliability often goes down.
“ It appears pretty excruciating to ride from very north Shoreline to Downtown Seattle on RapidRide E — especially with Link so close after the extension to Lynnwood opens.”
That is absolutely correct. It’s a painful trip now, but when Link opens it will be really annoying. People will quickly start demanding better east-west connections to the faster, more frequent Link.
Hopefully Metro gets a bit more creative, because running the E like it is today is pretty much a non-starter.
I think that one of the tragedies of RapidRide E is that it won’t stop at Link when Link opens
I could see the E connecting to Link, but I don’t see it adding much value. After the bus reaches Aurora Village, it would head east and terminate at Mountlake Terrace. That maybe gets you a few riders from Snohomish County, but not a lot. It doesn’t really work for connecting Seattle riders, either. If you are going to the UW, for example, it seems like an awkward way to get anywhere on Aurora (since you would be doing so much backtracking). There is not that much in between Aurora Village and Mountlake Terrace, and not that much at either place, either. It seems like it would just water down the E. Ridership per service hour would go down — where would the money come from? Worse headways?
The geography is all wrong. There is only so much “reverse commuting” (for want of a better word). There are more people from Snohomish County headed to Seattle destinations (especially Link destinations) than there are Seattle riders headed to Snohomish County destinations (especially Link destinations). In contrast, the geography of the Swift Blue is good. Not only does it follow the traditional pattern (sending people to Seattle destinations) but it covers bigger Snohomish County destinations. Swift covers Edmonds Community College and the nearby medical complex. Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood Transit Centers are smaller destinations. Swift, of course, has a lot more stops as well.
Swift has the right idea, but the devil is in the details. The pattern is solid, but the routing and stops are not. Swift should stay on Aurora until 185th, to improve the transfer. Metro should subsidize stops along the way. The farther north you are, the more valuable the connection to Link is. If you are at 85th and Aurora, you would be downtown before you get to Link. But if you are way up in Shoreline, a connection to Link might save you some time (even if you are headed downtown). Obviously there are destinations besides downtown, but the same idea applies. If you are going from 200th & Aurora to the UW you are looking at a two-seat ride anyway. Connecting to Link will save you some time. In contrast, at 85th or 45th the crossing bus gets you right to the UW.
So Swift should cover 200th, 192nd and 185th (and Aurora). That would make all the key connections, and every E stop north of 180th. By using Aurora, it gets to ride in the HOV lane longer. A more frequent bus should replace the 330 east of 5th (connecting it to the 145th Station). This does a nice dogleg serving two stops on Aurora (155th and 160th) while also connecting to Shoreline Community College. It would not surprise me if that little section has the most riders per hour anywhere north of Seattle (if they do it right). I’ve warmed to the tail of the proposed 77. From the 130th station the bus would head west on 130th, then go up Greenwood, then loop around to serve Linden. In effect it covers both 130th and 145th as well as a high proportion of the people in between (Linden has more people than Aurora itself there).
That still leaves some gaps. Specifically 180th, 175th, 170th, 165th, 125th, 115th, 100th and everything south of there. But that isn’t as bad as it sounds, as some stops (e. g. 180th) is not that far from a crossing bus (on 185th).
Of course it would be great if we had a series of “L” shaped buses along Aurora, but it would be difficult to pull it off. As you go further south of 130th it becomes more difficult to go east-west. 130th could work, but then you have to another bus route to the south (or you ignore those riders). That leaves 45th. That would directly serve the UW. I could see it, but you would probably want to serve Greenwood as well. Pretty soon you are watering down everything, and I just don’t see it working.
This is one of the big drawbacks with going so far north, but not west. Our street grid is fairly good for north-south travel. The buses go quickly, and have pretty good spacing. In contrast, east-west travel is slow, and there are big gaps in the east-west grid. Green Lake and various big hills are in the way. If Link branched at the UW (with one line going to Ballard) then everything is easy. The north-south buses just keep going north-south (something they do really well). Each one would easily connect to a Link Station. Riders headed to the UW (or other Link destinations) would transfer, and be there very quickly. Riders who just want to go downtown would stay on the (fast) and direct bus. Alas, we didn’t build that kind of system.
Lazarus, the other day you said if an elevated Link ran up Aurora, the E Line could be eliminated. Not true. Now you are saying when Lynwood Link opens, running the E Line like its run today is a non-starter. Again, not true. Yes, of course there needs to be more east-west routes that serve Link stations, but that doesn’t mean the E Line needs to change. There’s always going to be a need for bus service running the length of Aurora, just like there’s always going to be the need for bus service running the length of Rainier Ave. Btw, I once suggested that the route 7 should be truncated at Mt. Baker Station, and the comment section said that’s the dumbest idea they’ve ever heard.
WL, that Shoreline map is outdated; it’s dated 2022. The Swift Blue extension is a simple extension from Aurora Village to Meridian, 185th, and Shoreline North/185th Station, with no stations in between. Here’s the project webpage.
So for somebody continuing north or south and transferring E+Swift or Swift+E, they’ll turn right at 200th, get off at Aurora Village, walk to the other Aurora Village bus bay, backtrack on 200th, and continue on their way.
I don’t know whether the Swift stop at Aurora Village will remain inside the bus loop or be moved to 200th. I assume it will remain as is. They may have to add a second one for the other direction.
Ideally Swift would abandon Aurora Village and continue south on Aurora, with a station at 192nd, and then continue on 185th to the Link station. That would allow people continuing north or south to transfer at the same bus stop without backtracking. We tried to convince Community Transit to do that, but some lower-income people in Snohomish County said they shop at Aurora Village and abandoning it would be a hardship.
The E SHOULD be extended to the Link station. The E is the primary bus route in North Seattle, so it should serve a Link station at the north end. Saying that everybody can take an east-west bus may be too reductionistic and leave people out. Even if they can, they should be able to take RapidRide and transfer to Link at the north end. That’s transit best practices. So it’s the E that should be extended on Meridian, not Swift. Or let them bot do it. It’s only a short overlap; it’s very important to serve the Link station; and it would give double-frequency between Aurora Village and the Link station. That’s kind of important when each route runs only every 10-20 minutes.
We should see whether this prohibition against Swift taking passengers between two King County stations is real or a myth. If it’s real, it’s outdated and wrong-headed and should be repealed. Swift and the extension clearly benefit CT taxpayers even if a few intra-King trips occur. Those trips add fare revenue without increasing operating costs. I hardly think Swift will be packed so full it would displace Snohomish riders. I’ve never seen Swift full.
Once Link opens to Lynnwood it will be so much faster and more convenient for anyone North of about Bitter Lake to simply skip the E and transfer to Link instead.
True, but only if they are going to a Link destination. This brings up another option I didn’t explore. Instead of extra “L” routes, replace the northern section of Link with an “L” route. There are several issues with this approach.
1) First you have to find a layover for the southern part of the E. I suppose Shoreline Community College would work. That would provide a bit of overlap, making same direction travel easier.
2) It would still cost more. You are both overlapping along Aurora (albeit for a short distance) as well as to Shoreline CC, and along 130th. These are all good spots for redundant service, but they are still redundant.
3) A lot of riders aren’t heading downtown. Nor do they appear to be heading to the UW, either. A lot of riders just go along Aurora for some reason. This is what I was getting at the other day, but maybe didn’t explain very well. Boarding and alighting is quite spread out. It is easy to assume that everyone rides the E downtown, or transfer at 45th (to get to the UW) but it is actually the opposite. Lots of people board and alight before the bus gets downtown. A bunch of “L” buses would cost a lot, benefit a few, and inconvenience plenty of others. Would it be worth it? Probably not.
The E southound is regularly like this: At Aurora Village, less than 5 people get on. So fewer than that are Swift transferees. All along the route, 1-2 people get on or off at every stop. By the middle a lot of riders have accumulated. But there’s no large crowd at any particular stop.
Except at 46th peak hours, where half the bus gets on/off, using it as a quasi-express between the 45th corridor and downtown.
> Hopefully Metro gets a bit more creative, because running the E like it is today is pretty much a non-starter.
> The E SHOULD be extended to the Link station. The E is the primary bus route in North Seattle, so it should serve a Link station at the north end.
I was kinda talking about something slightly different, but anyways just to clarify for everyone here, they (city of Seattle, king county) are actively investigating extending the rapidride E. Though the latest documents I saw were talking about extending it to Mountlake Terrace station.
October 2023 aurora avenue safety study document: https://www.psrc.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/fta2023-app-seattleauroraavenuensafety.pdf
“The study will also evaluate the potential extension of the E line from the
Aurora Village Transit Center to connect to new link stations in either Mountlake Terrace or Shoreline”
“N 145th St to Mountlake Terrace (E Line assessment only) “
The E SHOULD be extended to the Link station.
How?
Assume for a second that it ran as an express to Mountlake Terrace. That means riders from Mountlake Terrace get a one-seat ride to Aurora. Folks from Lynnwood could take the train one stop, and then get to Aurora. That doesn’t seem like that many riders.
Keep in mind the various options for getting to Aurora locations. It isn’t clear what the eventual plan will be, but there should be at least one crossing bus from every station (often two).
I don’t think an extension would get that many riders. Not enough to justify the extra cost. The E is quite long right now. That is one of the big reasons it gets so many riders. It would be difficult to justify an extension that would probably get fewer riders per service hour than the current route.
It is worth noting that while Metro didn’t propose an extension, they proposed something quite similar. The previous “P2” plan had the 333 going from Mountlake Terrace to Aurora Village and then traveling south on Aurora until 175th. The bus would run every 15 minutes midday weekdays. This would connect the north end of Aurora with Mountlake Terrace. I personally wasn’t sold on the idea. It was replaced in the P3 plans. It would be easy to say that Metro did more analysis and found that the route didn’t warrant the effort, but P3 plans are not very good in my opinion. In any event, the current plan is to continue to make that connection, but with the 331. The bus will be less frequent and cover less of Aurora.
I really don’t think that the RapidRide E or the 5 needs to cut over to Link. It is more a matter of adjusting the other routes so that they make connections to Aurora and Greenwood Avenue. The big mistakes we are making is not doing the easy stuff. I don’t know if a bus every 15 minutes from Mountlake Terrace is justified. Those types of trips aren’t cheap. But having Swift serve 200th, 192nd and 185th on Aurora wouldn’t cost much of anything. It is likely Swift would make up for the cost in fare revenue alone. If not, Metro could pay them back — since again, this would be very cheap. Likewise, the previous plans for the 333 had the bus go north from 148th until 155th, then cross the freeway, take a right on Aurora, and a left on 160th (following much of the 330 path). That way it serves two stops on Aurora. Instead, the current plans have the bus serve 145th, remarkably close to where the 77 will have a bus stop.
It is decisions like these that are the problem, not the fact that the E doesn’t connect to Link.
“The study will also evaluate the potential extension of the E line from the
Aurora Village Transit Center to connect to new link stations in either Mountlake Terrace or Shoreline”
I think that is crazy given how CT has treated intercounty travel. Just moving the Swift stop from Aurora Village to 200th & Aurora would save riders who transfer a significant amount of time, while probably making the bus faster. Adding stops along Aurora would make the Aurora to Link connection much better than a RapidRide extension to Mountlake Terrace. There are two main patterns here:
1) North end of SR 99 to Link.
2) North end of Link to Aurora.
The first one is bound to attract way more people. It connects to dozens of locations in Snohomish County (via Swift). It connects to the major destinations in the region (UW and Downtown Seattle in particular) on Link.
In contrast, the second one connects to Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood Transit Center in Snohomish County. That’s it. No major hospitals, no colleges — mostly parking lots and a handful of apartment buildings. It connects those two stations with various places along Aurora. With the exception of Downtown Seattle, these are fairly low-level destinations. Of course it wouldn’t make sense to ride the bus over to Aurora if you were headed to downtown, so you are basically connecting low-level destinations with low-level destinations.
Which doesn’t mean it wouldn’t get some riders. The main reason the E does so well is because it works for many different trips. Roughly speaking, about 50% of the riders use it to get from an Aurora location to downtown. Another 10% ride it within downtown. That means about 40% of the riders board and alight on Aurora itself. In the grand scheme of things though, 40% of RapidRide E ridership is nothing special. Not given the very fast and frequent service for these trips.
An extension would certainly get some riders, but I doubt it would be worth it. You are only adding one more stop, and Mountlake Terrace is not that big of a stop. You would connect to Link, but it would only make sense coming from the north, which means you are only connecting to riders from Lynnwood Transit Center, which again is not that big of a stop.
It is far more important that we improve Swift Blue by adding stops along Aurora. The problem isn’t the E, it is Swift. (That, and some of the proposed routes in the latest Metro restructure.)
The E southound is regularly like this: At Aurora Village, less than 5 people get on. So fewer than that are Swift transferees.
Prior to the pandemic there were more. Average load leaving Aurora Village was 6 to 9 riders, depending on the time of day. Most of the day it was 9. Aurora Village was the biggest stop north of downtown. It had about 1/8 the boardings. It is highly likely that Swift contributed substantially to ridership there.
Otherwise, your assessment matches the pre-pandemic data. The bus does not have big ups and downs. At every stop there are people getting on and off. For a southbound bus more people are getting on than off, but not to a huge extent, like some buses.
For example, the 512 used to run from Everett to Downtown Seattle. A southbound bus would pick up lots of people throughout Snohomish County. But hardly anyone would get off the bus until Seattle, where things reversed. Plenty of people got off at 45th, and not that many got on. Lots of people got off downtown, with only a handful riding the bus within downtown. Almost all of the riders were using it as a way to get from Snohomish County to Seattle (instead of within Snohomish County or Seattle).
Buses like the E can have very high ridership, despite not being especially crowded. The old 512 was the opposite.
This discussion reminds me a lot of the Capitol Hill bus restructure that followed U-Link. The plans were pretty good, but you still had the same sort of arguments:
“The buses need to bend more to serve Link”
“No, it is too much of a detour — not everyone wants to transfer to Link.”
“OK, then add some buses that connect better to Link.”
“That is too expensive. The buses will run less often.”
I’m not saying there is a simple answer, but the root of the problem is that Link doesn’t connect very well with the buses, not that the buses don’t connect well with Link. With even one more station in the greater Central Area a restructure on Capitol Hill would have been much easier. With just one station on Aurora (north of the ship canal) the problem is solved. Personally I would have a branch from the UW headed to Ballard, but it could be achieved any number of ways (e. g. having the train head northwest after Roosevelt).
If you look at a map of transit in Vancouver BC, you’ll see that the trains were designed to work with the buses. The buses don’t make a bunch of turns to connect to the trains — it is a remarkably straight grid. In contrast, Sound Transit seemed largely disinterested in bus-rail integration (it took a huge amount of effort just to get them to add the station at 130th).
I forget the exact quote, but it was something like: The worst thing you can do is have the train people tell the bus people to build their network after the railway is built. Unfortunately, that is what ST has done.
My wife thought about taking a two seat ride utilizing RR E to get downtown during the reduction, but it wasn’t very satisfactory. And her company “suggested” she not utilize the E in the evenings due to safety concerns.
Instead she got permission to increase her WFH ratio to 4 days per week during the reduction. On the one day she does work in the office I drive her in the morning and she takes Link home.
It seems to be working fine, although traffic on I-5 seems to be heavier now.
Streetcar is probably not much more than the price of one of those
ST3 deep stations that will only serve a few thousand riders a day.
Some interesting ridership numbers for the CC:
Total Streetcar System Trips (South Lake Union to Capitol Hill)
2019 2045
11,440 Trips 27,690 Trips +142%
RapidRide Average Ridership (A, B, C, D, E and F Lines)
10,700 Trips 13,900 Trips +27%
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/Streetcar/CC_Streetcar_Ridership_and_Special_Markets_Memo_20231106.pdf
Side question: If Metro leaves its fare at $2.75, what will the streetcar fare be on the day Lynnwood Link opens?
@SeattleStreetCar,
You are correct. Streetcar ridership was actually one of the success stories of pre pandemic transit ridership Particilarly for the FHSC. Ridership on the FHSC was increasing faster than on any other route or mode in the region – including increasing faster even than ridership on Light Rail.
Also, the last estimate I saw indicated that the completed SLU-CCC-FHSC system was projected to carry about as many riders as the 2 highest RabidRide routes COMBINED. That is a lot of ridership for such a short system.
> Also, the last estimate I saw indicated that the completed SLU-CCC-FHSC system was projected to carry about as many riders as the 2 highest RapidRide routes COMBINED. That is a lot of ridership for such a short system.
Unfortunately most of the supposed ridership is calculating coming from existing bus riders. I also find the high ridership calculations pretty suspect considering when the RapidRide C was extended to SLU the opposite happened and the SLU streetcar ridership dropped heavily with people preferring the bus over the streetcar.
… the completed SLU-CCC-FHSC system was projected to carry about as many riders as the 2 highest RabidRide routes COMBINED. That is a lot of ridership for such a short system.
The plans for the streetcar have always been overly optimistic. They’ve never come close to their original estimate. Prior to the pandemic, they had 6,000 riders, combined. Without any additional work, they expect 14,000. I suppose that could happen, but if it does, ridership on the RapidRide routes would go up by a similar amount. The C, D and E all got over 12,000 riders (as did the 40). A similar increase would put them well above 25,000. The CCC is supposed to double ridership on the streetcars, which is consistent with their unfounded optimism. Even so, this would put them in the range of several of the RapidRide routes (assuming similar growth).
Ridership per mile, as well as ridership per hour of service is high compared to the buses. Mainly this is due to it being such a short, urban route. Third Avenue buses carry roughly 50,000 people, on an even shorter path. But the ridership per mile for the streetcars is not that great. There are various segments that outperform it. If the 8 were truncated at MLK & Madison it would have way more riders per mile.
The challenge with the streetcar is that the system is fluid. The streetcars are not independent. It both competes and complements the other transit. For much of the route, there is competition. Even if it was extended to First Avenue, there would be nearby competition. In contrast, a bus like the 44 has both unique coverage, as well as a lot of unique one-seat rides.
The streetcar has very little in the way of unique one-seat rides. The SLU Streetcar competes with the 40 and C. Along Broadway, some its strength lies in the bad routing choices taken decades ago. Instead of taking a straight path up Broadway, the 60 takes five turns in about a mile! The 9 takes a straight path, but only runs a handful of times each day. If the 60 were sent straight up Broadway, ridership on the streetcar would plummet, while overall ridership along the corridor would increase. It would make a mockery of the planning predictions, but not really be the fault of the planners.
The only truly unique one-seat ride is from Broadway to the south end of downtown (Jackson). The other buses don’t do that. Most buses head towards the water and either stop, or go north. The 60 heads to Beacon Hill. For a trip from Broadway & Pike to 5th & Jackson, the streetcar is the best option: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FAhxToaFoL3n8u7D8. But the route is not particularly fast, nor straightforward. The streetcar has little competition not because it is a great route, but because so many of the routes in the area are just as flawed.
Surface transit should form a grid, whenever possible. Of course it is nice when you can take one bus (or streetcar) right to your destination. But doing so is inefficient. It waters down the system. It means that your trip — as well as many others — requires way too much waiting. Similarly, consolidating pathways increases effective headways. Imagine the following:
The 60 takes a straightforward path from Beacon Hill to the north end of Broadway. It runs every twelve minutes opposite the streetcar for a combined six minute headways along Broadway.
For trips along Broadway, either vehicle would do. Only a handful would watch a 60 go by, and decide to wait another six minutes for the streetcar. Those on Broadway headed to the south end of Downtown would also take the first vehicle that arrives. If it is the 60, they will be forced to transfer, but the transfer options are outstanding. There are six buses that serve that stop (https://maps.app.goo.gl/6Ub6djKsc3pG7jNU8). You’ll definitely get to your destination faster than if you waited for the streetcar (especially since the streetcar makes the infamous button hook to get to Jackson).
As a result, riders would be way better off. This includes riders who currently take the streetcar. Ridership for many of the trips now taken by the streetcar would go up, and yet ridership on the streetcar itself would go down.
When it comes to central Seattle, it is more about the network than it an individual route. The G will be outstanding (6 minute all-day headways on a fast route). But it doesn’t mean much if the rest of the network is poor and outdated. You need good route spacing, and straightforward routing. Bus stops need to make transfers as easy as possible. Various buses should combine to form “spines”. Other routes should be very frequent (more frequent than the streetcar). We have a lot of work to do.
Unfortunately, the streetcar route is not good, and the CCC would not make it much better. It would help with the trips from South Lake Union, but lack of consolidation becomes a problem. Riders would have to choose between going up to First or down to Third, with Third being the only hope for good headways. The SLU streetcar only runs every ten minutes, while the combination of buses will have better headways. The streetcar will have some unique routing (on a small portion of Westlake) but not much.
The area needs a major restructure, and part of it will include the streetcar. But the streetcar has a poor route (with or without the CCC). Investing money in it is a mistake.
> For a trip from Broadway & Pike to 5th & Jackson, the streetcar is the best option
Funny – I take that very ride every day. Perhaps that’s part of the reason my opinion of the streetcar is more positive than many of those expressed in these comments. (I am certain that I read complaints about the streetcar getting “stuck” more frequently on this blog than it ever happens in practice.)
@Mars
I think the congestion is way worse on the SLU line (which probably contributes to the lower ridership). I think RapidRide J is fixing parts of it
@Mars,
“ (I am certain that I read complaints about the streetcar getting “stuck” more frequently on this blog than it ever happens in practice.)”
You have. There are those on this blog who are still not happy about the arrival of rail and are still fighting the Mode Wars.
That is why I always try to stick to the data, and the data definitely supports building the CCC.
Al.S had a great summary of the upcoming opening dates for the various Link extensions. His post indicated that the current target date for opening Lynnwood Link is July 17th 2024.
Oddly enough, the very first section of Link to open opened on July 18th, 2009 — almost exactly 15 years before. Since then Link has been extended 4 times and has gone on to completely transform local transportation.
I was lucky enough to be able to ride the presser for the grand opening of Link along with Patty Murray and Greg Nickels (Seattle’s last great mayor). If I remember correctly (and I might not), the press event for the grand opening was held the day before the public opening. Meaning on July 17th 2009.
So if Lynnwood Link does open on July 17th 2024, it will represent the 6th extension of Link in just 15 years, and it will be exactly the 15th anniversary of my first ride on Link.
I think I will celebrate by taking two rides on Link. Just the original WLS to TIBS route, and then the full LTC to Angle Lake route. And hopefully ST will have free fares on that day!
I’ll support the free-fare day if you can guarantee adequate capacity to let everyone on the train at all stations. It’s only a party if everyone gets to ride. I’d even support short runs between Sodo and Lynnwood on Opening Day to maximize the number of trains serving the new stations.
But I am actually more interested in whether Community Transit will join Sound Transit and Metro in honoring the Subsidized Annual Pass and dropping its reduced fares to $1. CT is the last bus system in the ORCA Pod still charging more than $1 in reduced fares. And Everett Transit is honoring the SAP already.
CT still has a decision to make regarding the fares on its new “Express” route category. If Opening Day really is this summer, CT needs to get a move on to make any fare changes in time.
But something tells me Opening Day won’t be July 17th or 18th. Look at the calendar.
The original Link opening had a sometimes hour-long wait to get onto a train, with people lined up in queues outside the station entrance or on the mezzanine. That’s fine for the original opening, and may be tolerable for one day on a weekend. But now that Link has major everyday usage, it would hinder that.
However, the U-Link crowds weren’t as large and the line took only twenty minutes. With Northgate Link I went across the bridge and listened to the speeches at the college, and when I came back I was able to go right to the platform and I don’t think I couldn’t get on the first train. Most of the crowd was still listening to the second half of the speeches. So Lynnwood may be similar. Link is no longer something brand-new in the region. Train tourists can wait a few days or weeks to avoid the opening-day crowd, and that shrinks the crowd.
@Mike Orr,
“ The original Link opening had a sometimes hour-long wait to get onto a train,”
I didn’t ride Link on the original opening day because I had already ridden it the day before. But if I remember right, Link didn’t start with 4-car trains operating at 8-min frequency, and I think that contributed substantially to the wait time to board.
But ST was caught a bit off guard by the excitement surrounding the opening of Link. And I think they were a bit underprepared. They have done a better job since then, and I do think people are more used to the system now.
I remember one of the press outlets expressing shock at the approx 45,000 passengers Link carried on the first day. Now Link carries 90,000 passengers on a typical weekday and nobody thinks twice about it.
That is how far we have come in 14 years. Unbelievable progress.
For Husky Link and NG Link openings I believe I was working in England at the time, so I can’t comment. I didn’t attend.
There was some mismanagement of the queues. They were trying to avoid having too many riders stand on the train. I ended up standing in the queue for an hour. And then I had to stand on the train anyway, but it was nowhere near crushloaded.
52k rides were recorded, but I think it was closer to 60k who at least stood in the queue, before a bunch of would-be riders gave up waiting.
I expect the first couple of weeks on Lynnwood Link to have growing pains, but at least better than that.
I also notice even Lazarus has more enthusiasm for the Lynnwood Link opening than for the 2 starter Line opening which will likely happen in March.
Poncho’s mis-threaded comment about “antisemetic” graffiti at stations got me thinking about ST’s anti-harassment policy.
Would it be fair to say that a station blockade, for whatever reason (not counting station maintenance or nighttime security closures) makes passengers feel unwelcome at the station, and is a clear violation of ST policy?
Same question for tagging (regardless of the messaging).
But I am also curious if anyone else has witnessed graffiti directed at religious or ethnic groups, or any other groups of people (as opposed to criticism of a governing body such as ST, a corporation, or a nation’s government).
It seems that some of that cost will be accrued anyway.
Aren’t they gonna need new trams in another decade or
so anyway? And might some of that street work already be
required?
I saw somewhere that initiating service with a transfer for the short term would go a long ways in saving some cash as well.
I can see the need for 3 separate fed grants being necessary
and spread out over a longer period. Last I heard
the feds were pretty high on this project.
Streetcars last something like 40-50 years, they won’t need to be replaced for a while. From my understanding the street work isn’t required without the streetcar
From the delivery assessment: “The 2018 Project design had assumed that structural retrofit of the areaways was a long-term issue for the City to address over time and independently of the Project, but SDOT began revisiting this assumption in 2018”
“Federal Transit Administration guidelines set a streetcar’s typical lifespan at 31 years. “
Ah, I thought they lasted longer than that. Does the delivery estimate include replacement streetcars?
@SeattleStreetCar,
Guidelines are just that – guidelines. And “typical” has no impact on how long a given streetcar vehicle can actually stay in use.
Actual streetcar longevity has a lot to do with the operational and maintenance environment that a particular SCV has been operating in. If everything is done correctly, then a given SCV can remain in operation much longer than 31 years. And can provide significant savings to the operator.
That said, after 30 or 40 years a given design becomes dated, and there can be a significant push for replacement just based “newness”.
Think of it this way, an old couch might be working just fine, but at the end of the day it is still an old couch and your spouse might start nagging you about it being “old”. At some point it is just better for everyone involved to upgrade.
But even 30 to 40 years is spectacular compared to bus transit.
I think that streetcar longevity looking forward is shorter than looking backwards. The big changes in the past 30 years have been the engineering of wheelchair accessibility. There have been other enhancements like regenerative breaking but these things don’t seem to move the needle towards streetcars very much.
Looking to the next 30 years, I think that streetcar technology is poised to become much more automated.
An advantage that automated streetcars will have is that they aren’t expected to travel at freeway speeds. The slower the top speed, the easier it is to automate. If the top speed is kept under 30 mph — and especially if it’s below 20 mph, it can come to a safe stop in just a matter of a few yards. Accident risk drops dramatically. I expect automated streetcars before automated local buses, in fact.
Will this popularize adding new streetcar lines in 5-10 years? Perhaps. I could see our streetcar lines running with automated vehicles when time comes to replace them after about 2030 and especially after 2035 or 2040.
Should streetcar lines connect? It depends on a number of factors. The slower speeds to me suggest that transit trips on a streetcar become unattractive over 2 miles if a faster transit mode is available. Certainly having connecting tracks enables more centralized maintenance and more flexible vehicle allocation. However, longer and slower-moving runs can make the schedule adherence more unreliable and result in worse streetcar bunching.
Will there even be new streetcar proposals because of automation? Maybe. System planners could start to introduce streetcars more like automated horizontal elevators and less as longer bus transit line emulators.
@Al.S,
I agree with you, we are much more likely to see automated Streetcars and Light Rail Vehicles way before we ever see automated buses. But the reason for that is not related to speed, it’s related to the fact that rail vehicles travel on….rails!
Basically a rail vehicle that knows where it is and how fast it is going will know exactly where it will be in the future. It will follow the rails, and that makes the self operating problem really simple. You know where you are, you know how fast you are going, and you know the rail layout. Therefore you know exactly where you will be in the near future within a fraction of an inch.
With buses it is a lot more complicated. They have to steer, and their position in the near future isn’t well known. Their location actually becomes a function of the algorithm and not of rather simple physics. That makes the self operating problem much, much harder.
The other problem with self operating buses is cost. For example, if the self operating system costs $75,000 per vehicle, then the bus can transport something like 60 people for that $75,000 investment.
But Link? Technically you would only be required to install the self operating hardware on the lead cab of a 4-car train, and with that investment of $75,000 you could transport 800 people.
So the cost to implement self driving tech with rail vehicles is much lower than buses for a variety of reasons.
@SeattleStreetCar,
You are correct. A lot of the supposed “cost” of the streetcar is actually in other things that aren’t directly related to the streetcar per say.
Basically everyone with a pet project has attempted to hitch their wagon to the streetcar funding stream. We now have infrastructure upgrades, street rebuilds, sidewalk improvements, protected bike lanes, etc, etc, etc. All in the name of the supposed streetcar.
We would be a lot better off is someone took control of this situation and did a proper accounting of the true costs. Right now it is a bit out of control, and a false narrative is being developed.
On this I completely agree with you, Lazarus. I think the issue of using transit capital money for other things is a growing regional problem , and is increasingly ingrained in how our transit projects now happen, and this greatly adds to the cost.
Consider how the first RapidRide dollars went mainly for stops, signs, signal priority and purchase of new vehicles. Compare that to how Delridge project had many blocks of street or sidewalk replacement included, and Madison was torn up and rebuilt from scratch for most of the route with transit dollars. In the same vein, the whole County building replacement strategy is likely looking at ST as the catalyst and probably helping to justify and help fund the building project. Or how much less of direct transit service was provided with the FHSC project (resulting in slower transit trips) than with the South Lake Union streetcar project.
I get how transit projects can be effective when rolled into replacement or upgrading efforts. My beef here is more of an accounting one where scarce transit capital dollars go towards doing lots of other things.
We need to push back when some elected official asks “Can we leverage transit capital money to also pay for these other needed things?”
> I get how transit projects can be effective when rolled into replacement or upgrading efforts. My beef here is more of an accounting one where scarce transit capital dollars go towards doing lots of other things.
I hate how rapidride money is used for other items as well.
But unfortunately this is not the case of sidewalk improvements being included to increase the streetcar project cost and we can easily cut it out. It is the other way around with the pedestrianization of the street proposed to lower costs as I explained in another comment.
> Basically everyone with a pet project has attempted to hitch their wagon to the streetcar funding stream. We now have infrastructure upgrades, street rebuilds, sidewalk improvements, protected bike lanes, etc, etc, etc. All in the name of the supposed streetcar.
You’ve got the causality mixed up, the street rebuild and pedestrianization idea is to make it cheaper by letting the streetcar run in the middle and having less car vehicles so one doesn’t have to reinforce the street. The idea with pedestrianization is that there is no center island and the streetcar can be even closer to the center with safer weight limits. Then one just boards from the right rather than the left, but that only works if to your right as a pedestrianized street and not a car lane.
From the document “If Jackson to Yesler is pedestrianized, there is a potential
reduction in the extent of areaway retrofit. (Opportunity)” around 17 million
> It seems that some of that cost will be accrued anyway. Aren’t they gonna need new trams in another decade or so anyway? And might some of that street work already be required?
The problem with the streetcar was from the beginning. The First Hill and SLU streetcars didn’t coordinate well meaning we’ll have to buy a new streetcar to replace them so it’s interoperable. Or only run the SLU one’s to chinatown and turnback. Then the first hill streetcar has the short battery segment because of the mess between the bus trolley wires and the streetcar wires, meaning one needs a complicated streetcar with both battery and pantograph. The heavy weight of the batteries means that now we need to strength the bridges.
There is another suggestion “SDOT could propose to construct the C3/Culture Connector project, and initially operate an MOS with service from South Lake Union to Pioneer Square and transfers to existing First Hill Streetcar service. If the MOS were defined in this way, SDOT could pursue deck replacement or other improvements to the Jackson Street Structures as an independent project”
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/Streetcar/C3_Delivery_Assessment_10312023.pdf
Anyways the streetcar should have just used the bus trolley wires from the beginning rather than streetcar pantograph then it would have avoided a lot of this mess.
What are the active operational scenarios? The last I heard was that the two lines would overlap between Intl Dist and Westlake.
Page 10 (figure 2.1.3) has First Hill extended to Thomas; i.e., it would extend the double-frequency to the Denny Triangle and the south half of SLU. That would certainly make the streetcars better. Right now it’s faster to walk two stations from Westlake to Denny if you don’t see a streetcar, than wait for it.
Where is WL’s scenario? If I understand it, First Hill would not be extended, so the lines would meet at Intl Dist and not overlap. That’s OK if it saves money. It wouldn’t give Jackson what it was promised (a one-seat ride to Pike Place Market), but it wouldn’t make service worse than it is.
The First Hill line has always had more ridership than SLU. That’s why SLU has been suspended at times since 2020 but First Hill hasn’t. I think it’s because SLU high-tech offices have only 9-5 commuters, a high work-from-home rate, apartment dwellers may have moved to the suburbs (have they?), and there’s lots of frequent bus service on the C, 40, and 70. If you’re going beyond the end of the streetcar (to Fremont, south downtown, or West Seattle) you have to take a bus. If you’re going within the streetcar area, you can also take a bus, and the streetcar is not materially better unless you’re a foamer.
The First Hill streetcar in contrast, has a lot of lively goings-on and all-day trips in the CID and Little Saigon, the Pill Hill medical establishments, the Broadway shopping district, Yesler Terrace, an elementary school, and a Sounder transfer.
East Link operational testing has started. Expect trains every 10-15 minutes, including at level crossings in Bel-Red and south Redmond. Sam, get your camera and reporter’s notebook out.
I’m at the Bellevue TC regularly, and from there have a view of the highway 405-spanning light rail “bridge” connecting Bellevue Station with Wilburton Station, and can say I haven’t seen Link testing in weeks.
It started yesterday, “dependent on weather and safety testing completion”.
The post-Lynnwood-opening projected ridership chart for southbound trains during PM peak shows ample capacity even with 3-car trains running only every 10 minutes, all day including peak, except during a few minutes at the busiest spike.
Would 3-car trains running every 10 minutes suffice for the whole line, except for PM peak from downtown north?
With a loop of at least 144 minutes plus layover time on each end, that requires at least 16 trains.
If you pull one LRV from each train, that’s enough to have 8 2-car trains available for short runs to Northgate.
That would enable 85 minutes of 5-minute headway. Or scale up from 2-car to 4–car back down to 2-car short runs, and that still covers most of the peak-of-peak hour.
> If you pull one LRV from each train, that’s enough to have 8 2-car trains available for short runs to Northgate.
I mean after they do one short run you still need them to go back down to go up. Also I’m not sure where you’re going to place 8 2-car trains hiding along the track there’s only a couple pocket tracks.
But anyways I get what you’re trying to do. Basically in order to increase frequency on somewhere on the line, you have to decrease it elsewhere. The second problem is that to do turnbacks you need relatively high frequency as the baseline. Otherwise you’re cutting it down from like 10 minutes to 20 minutes.
If Sound Transit had a lot of drivers they could probably do something like all 3-car trains and then have some overlay of lynnwood to sodo? and northgate to seatac. But I don’t think they have enough drivers to do such a pattern
It takes more drivers to drive several extra buses than to drive one extra train.
I’m assuming each extra train would pull out of SODO O&MF heading north 5 minutes after each full-run northbound train, timed based on when the data says it is needed, and then run in service south, kicking the remaining passengers off at SODO Station.
Brent, like you I personally think that ST should look to supplemental service between south of Downtown and Lynnwood (or Northgate) when Lynnwood Link opens. I would even brand it as the 2 Line so that riders clearly understand that it’s not the 1 Line. It uses fewer drivers than running several parallel express buses would. Building on your observation, it would even take fewer drivers than express buses if ST had drivers at peak times sitting at both ends of these peak period only trains with one of those drivers idle half of the time. Driver breaks on this short line only needs to be at Lynnwood.
As segments of the East Link become “live” several months before the full 2 Line opening date, ST doesn’t have to wait. In fact, the full 2 Line will have to run simulated service 90 days before the day riders go across Lake Washington. ST does the testing by running an in-service train to the segment being tested and kicks the riders off of the train anyway.
Of course, ST operations staff seem to prefer to obsess about problems rather than solve them — in ways that are obvious to anyone who has ridden rail in other cities.
I assume the Eastside starter line will be number 2. You don’t need another number for short 1 Line runs. Anyone who unintentionally ends up on a train terminating at Stadium has 5 minutes or less to wait for a continuing train.
It certainly could be called the 1 Line, Mike. I just suggested calling it the 2 Line from the outset because several months after it operates the same trains will need to run the full 2 Line service simulation to the East side.
@Al.S,
You are correct. If ST was to alleviate both their storage problem and their peak crowding problem using an urban overlay, it would essentially be a starter segment of the 2-Line. Might as well reduce confusion by calling it that from the outset. And people need some way of distinguishing the two services anyhow.
That said, ST doesn’t need to wait for the full ELE line to open across I-90 to solve the capacity issue. Once access to OMF-E is assured the storage problem goes away and ST can just do the brute force approach and increase frequency to match demand. ELE doesn’t have to be in revenue service for this to happen.
And once ELE goes into simulated service testing passengers should be able to use those trains while they are running on LLE. Meaning interlining north of IDS should start sometime before the full ELE opens for revenue service.
Something to look forward to.
I think calling it Line 2 would be more confusing for most riders. For a rider boarding in Seattle, what is most distinctive about Line 2 is it goes to Judkins and the east side, which an urban overlay does not do.
Northbound Line 1 and the overlay are identical, there is no need to distinguish between then for riders. Southbound, I would just say, “Line 1 to SoDo [or wherever]” and “Line 1 to Angle Lake” to distinguish between the short and full run.
The East Link starter line is “Line 2” from day 1. As a starter line, for a westbound riders in Bellevue/Redmond it is “Line 2 to South Bellevue” to start and then becomes “Line 2 to Lynnwood” when it is able to run across the lake. For an eastbound rider, it is “Line 2 to Redmond”
@AJ,
It’s usually good policy to give a passenger every opportunity to get things right before they make a decision. Most riders in Seattle won’t be used to the concept of interlining, so every clue you can give them about which train they are boarding will help.
ST should call it the “2-Line to IDS”, show it as blue on the system maps, and designate the trains with a blue square and “2-Line” on the train destination displays. Otherwise people are likely to tune-out as soon as they here the erroneous words “1-Line”
And eventually it will be called the “2-Line” anyhow. Might as we’ll start getting people used to the concept.
And for most people in Seattle the distinguishing characteristic of the 2-Line will be that they have to get off in Seattle so they don’t end up in Bellevue and feel underdressed. Again, best to start getting people used to the concept.
Plus, there is nothing wrong with just being honest with the passengers. It might just be an overlay today, but it functions just like the 2-Line, actually is a bit of the 2-Line, and will become the 2-Line and be called the 2-Line in about a year. Might as well be honest about it.
My proposal would start picking up passengers going north at SODO, and kick passengers off the short-run trains going south at SODO, so definitely not a second “2 Line”.
I also need to reiterate the necessity of having these short-run trains go all the way to Lynnwood. There are six neighborhood stations north of U-District, with Northgate merely the second of them. Nor is it clear that Northgate will be a net drop-off station given its proximity to lots of business centers and North Seattle College. I would be very surprised if the number of passengers alighting at Lynnwood is less than half the number of passengers on board the train when it heads north from U-District. Dumping passengers off at Northgate from every other train will create a growing bubble of passengers on the Northgate platform unable to get back on a train going to Lynnwood. The fire department should pre-ban such a plan.
@ Brent:
I would agree that going to Lynnwood is optimal. That’s for two reasons:
1. As an end station, it’s easier operationally to reverse train directions. It’s more risky to squeeze in a reversed train at Northgate.
2. Within several months of opening, both 1 and 2 Lines will turn around there permanently anyway when 2 Line test service begins.
As far as platform capacity goes, that’s a whole different topic. ST should have strategies in place if an entire train has to be emptied of its riders for each and every station. Train service is disrupted somewhere on the system at least about once a month and it can be more. Surely the fire marshals plan for this. Further, the remedy for a fire marshal deficiency is going to be to add vertical conveyance capacity.
I want to point out that my short-runs proposal does not take any frequency away on the south end that ST wasn’t already planning to take away. They are planning for 10-minute all-day headway, with no peak frequency bump.
Rather, my plan scavenges off-peak weekday capacity, by making the all-day trains three cars, and turning the extra LRVs into up to 8 peak-of-peak short run 2- or 3-car trains.
The 3-car train plan also helps with maintenance. If ST runs the whole fleet all day long, when do the LRVs get cleaned and have maintenance done?
@ Brent
> Rather, my plan scavenges off-peak weekday capacity, by making the all-day trains three cars, and turning the extra LRVs into up to 8 peak-of-peak short run 2- or 3-car trains.
I understand that but basically once you’re at 8 “short run” trains have to start from sodo and then once reaching lynnwood they have to turn around so it’s practically speaking an overlay pattern of lynnwood to sodo and lynnwood to SeaTac.
It’s all tradeoffs and just deciding how they overlay pattern will work. Whether turning around at northgate, sodo, rainier beach etc,., and then one can adjust the frequency based on capacity but there’s no magic solution
I checked peak ridership pm southbound it can probably just about handle it with only 3 cars so your solution might work.
Seattle city council decided to appoint Tammy woo. Honestly doesnt change much considering the “moderates” already had a majority.
More importantly hopefully this means they can actually move forward with releasing the next set of documents aka one Seattle plan (zoning) and Seattle transportation plan
two paths for this oops-all-rookies council:
1) they don’t pay attention the One Seattle Plan and so they allow the relatively progressive leadership and staff at OPCD to release a draft that manages to sneak in some actually impactful zoning changes; or
2) they take input from the Businesses Lobby(tm) that bought their seats uncritically, producing a plan that ostensibly meets GMA requirements and maybe the new state housing laws but is ultimately homeopathic as they adopt rules to severely limit the feasibility of actually building new multi-plex housing in SFH (sorry, “NR”) zones across the city.
Optimistic speculation is that OPCD is delaying the draft because they’re trying to figure out how to make the obvious preferred alternative (Alt. 5) palatable to conservative city leadership.
Pessimistic speculation is that the conservative city leadership is forcing OPCD to figure out how to meet state law in writing but have little-to-no real impact on the wealthy parts of the city. We see this already happening at the state level with recommendations for quadplexes having a minimum lot size of 55×110 feet, when the most common lot size in Seattle is 50×100.
Density is gradually becoming more acceptable to all sectors of Society, even if there are still loud individuals who still try to stop it. A large number of single-family homeowners have been voting for policymakers with sensible housing and transit plans. The fact that the city has gotten this far in its draft options is an example of that, and the action at the state level. Both of those were unimaginable ten or twenty years ago. So I think the “conservative bigwigs” may try to tame it somewhat, but the era of total opposition even among business leaders is over.
Since when have our electric trolleybuses had ORCA readers at the rear doors? Lately I’ve ridden the 44 and 70 and passengers already seemed used to entering and scanning at the back door. How extensive is this? I’ve not seen it on other Metro routes I ride like the 45.
I’ve seen rear-door ORCA readers on a few routes; I don’t remember whether they were trolleybuses. The new bus series has a mount for a reader. I used a rear-door ORCA reader on RapidRide B today.
All of the RR coaches (6000-62xx) have rear-door readers, along with all of the trolley busses (4300-45xx). Very recently, at least some of the Gilligs have them as well (7300-74xx), though these are mainly used in East and South King County so don’t show up often in Seattle.