The Link 1 Line reduction continues through February 4th. At times the 13-to-26 minute headways continue to stretch 10 minutes longer, with crowded platforms and trains. There have been additional outages and single-tracking in Rainier Valley every couple days, sometimes making the 13-minute segments run at 30 minutes. Click the link for the weekday and weekend operational plan. There’s also a list of bus alternatives. Sound Transit suggests traveling off-peak or taking an alternative if you can. We suggest taking an alternative. If your trip is long like to Snohomish County or the airport and the alternatives are too time-consuming, good luck with Link. The busiest times are 4-6 pm. Metro bus 70 has extra service between downtown and the U-District. Bus 49 has extra service and serves both those places and Capitol Hill.
The East Link Starter Line began operational testing on the 22nd. Expect trains every 10-15 minutes, including at level crossings in Bel-Red and south Redmond. Passenger service is expected to start in March.
Upcoming Link opening dates 2024-2026, as compiled by Al S from a capital progress report. These haven’t been announced, so I’d view them as goals rather than certainties.
Costs soar again ($) for the City Center Connector streetcar segment.
The state is considering two bills to loosen zoning for housing, HB 2160 and SB 6024.
Malls are back. ($) Generation Z, who had a smartphone in grade school, prefers to shop in-person.
10 suburbs that have become more city-like in the past fourteen years. (CityNerd video)
This article is brought to you by the numbers 49 and 70. This is an open thread.
Roosevelt Station, 6:34 pm, southbound: The display said “Angle Lake & Airport: 2 min” for 25 minutes until a train came. At the 20 minute mark I checked Sound Transit’s alert webpage; it said trains are running every 25-30 minutes due to a mechanical issue. At that moment the display changed to “2 min, 15 min”. A minute later it changed back to “2 min”. Four minutes later a train came. Fortunately it was to Angle Lake. I don’t know if the display can show special short termini like U-District, or if they would appear as “Angle Lake”.
Thirty people got on the train at Roosevelt. At U-District it became standing room only. I got off at Capitol Hill. The display there said the next southbound train would be in 30 minutes.
My friend in north Lynnwood says she found Link packed at Northgate even at 6:30 am, and she could barely squeeze on the train. She’s ridden Link many times during the reduction, and has had lots of experiences with late and crowded trains and platforms.
I can’t believe how terrible Link service is during this service disruption, this is unacceptable… 26 min headways at rush hour on the main transit line in the entire region. It’s practically unusable, good luck trying to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time by transit. Then factor in connecting buses stuck in auto traffic and also with real time arrival providing inaccurate times. Plus these disruptions have occurred at a fairly regular frequency in the past few years.
I guess the answer is to buy a car and congest the streets with a large pile of scrap metal, while the government does everything to accommodate its speed and convenience.
Perhaps this just got updated, but today I noticed that the South bound signage in the district station said University Stadium and the northbound train timing was essentially correct
Trains continue to run every 30 minutes this evening. First for the mechanical issue in my previous comment. Then for police activity, and a medical incident.
If it helps, OneBusAway claims to be showing real time positions of Link trains (yes, the app works for trains too, not just buses).
I have not ridden Link during this disruption (and don’t plan to), but the delays up to an hour the app is reporting is about what I’d expect, which suggests the app may be believable. It also seems smart enough to show no upcoming arrivals at the downtown stations that have no Link service.
The catch is that real time status of a train is only accurate once the train has left its terminal, so it’s useless to someone heading south from Roosevelt until the train is nearly there. But, for somebody boarding a northbound train at Roosevelt, it may come in handy.
I have ridden the train 4 or so times since the reduction began and haven’t had any real problems. Longest wait for the train I needed was 15 mins, which was 2 mins longer than the reported time on the PIMS. But I guess some people are just lucky.
I haven’t taken the shuttle bus on weekends though, and I won’t. Would rather walk, or maybe take the streetcar. Or just stay home. Or even drive.
Took the train to Beacon Hill Station one day just for fun, but decided to walk back to Northgate instead of taking the train. Wasn’t bad. Took just two breaks. One to talk Federal regulatory issues with a former coworker who is temporarily back from DC, and a break for lunch in the U Dist.
My wife is dealing with the reduction by increasing her WFH ratio to 4 days per week at home. On the day she works downtown I drive her to work in the morning and she catches the train back in the evening.
She is using OBA to minimize her wait for a train and apparently it is working well. Her waits have been minimal.
She reports crowded trains NB in the evening, with SRO type conditions at Westlake. She also says that it appears that more people are catching the train NB at University to avoid the crowding at Westlake.
The Pantograph app has come in handy to me going north from UW or U District (Nowadays I’m using U District more because many people seem to get off at UW and U District so it thins out). I’ve been able to skip the first crowded train (presumably the one that runs through downtown) and gauge that there is a train a few minutes behind it that is likely less crowded. It doesn’t help for going south from NG though, I don’t know the situation there until I get up to the platform. Fortunately I’ve been able to go in later in the morning when it’s not as crowded. (Peak travel hours is definitely still a thing even if it’s not as dominant as before).
Ah, this is a bit of a disappointment.
The City of Shoreline has begun construction on the new pedestrian bridge across I-5 at 148th St. This is good news! And I can attest that it is actually true as I have seen construction underway near the Link guideway.
However…. Apparently they don’t plan to actually place the bridge until the summer of 2025. So very disappointing.
https://www.shorelinewa.gov/government/projects-initiatives/148th-street-pedestrian-bicycle-bridge
And for the record, this is a City of Shoreline project, not an ST project. You can’t blame ST for this one.
But it is another milestone coming in the next two years.
From the site:
18 months for this work and (I’m assuming) the landing on the west side of I-5 seems about right. I’m not sure why you thought ST would be blamed for this bridge opening a year after the station opens – it’s obviously Shoreline’s project.
If anything, ST could be rightfully blamed for putting the station next to I-5 in the first place, but that ship sailed long ago.
How much would it cost to make the sidewalk usable between the station and 15th Ave NE?
At least the bridge is happening! A slight delay will be forgotten as the bridge will connect the station for many decades.
I do think that ST could be blamed slightly for the delay. It’s a judgment call what the station “boundaries” are. It’s worth pointing out that adjacent parking garages are always presented as ST projects while pedestrian bridges actually closer to the platform are usually not. It’s one of those structural value biases that pervades our region.
It will be curious if the walkway will result in informal drop-off/ pickup zone west of I-5. I could see that happening, as getting to and using the station loading loop and going through extra signals looks lots more inconvenient.
@Al S,
I concur, I’m just happy this project is progressing. And I’m glad Shoreline and ST were able to work together to at least get the east landing completed during the station construction phase. I’d much rather see the agencies plan ahead and work together, as opposed to doing their own thing and then ripping it out later.
For example, at some point in the future WSDOT is going to daylight Thornton Creek through the station area and through the west landing area for this pedestrian bridge. Same at McAleer Creek. Too bad that work couldn’t have been done now.
As for the west landing being used as a passenger drop off area, I can certainly see that. It will be much more convenient to drop people off there than to cross the freeway and then recross back. And doing so will help alleviate road congestion near the station.
All good news (except for the finish date, which I beleive is on Shoreline).
I am sure the City of Shoreline lobbied for the I-5 alignment and the NE 145th (now 148th) Street station, so they asked for lemons; the pedestrian bridge is needed mitigation or sugar for the lemonade. A freeway is to pedestrians as a dam is to fish. The main purpose of transit is is extend the range of pedestrians; HCT alignments and stations should focus on pedestrians; there are very few in freeway envelopes. So, Shoreline helped ST make a poor alignment choice. SR-99 north to Lynnwood would have been better. ST only studied an alignment bending back to Mountlake Terrace, making it slower. Once I-5 was selected, NE 145th Street was a poor station choice as it has a full interchange and much traffic. The combination of NE 130th and 155th streets would have been better. But is all traffic under the bridge; the Link die is cast.
I hope I transcribed the dates correctly! They are from the ST November progress report here:
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/Agency-progress-report-capital-program-Nov-2023%20Final.pdf
It appears that the next report gets posted to the ST “Documents and Reports/ Agency Progress Reports” folder next week.
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/agency-progress-reports
Where in the report? I looked through it and didn’t see a chart of dates. Is it in each individual project page?
I scrolled through the report to retrieve the listed dates from each project section..
Looks like they started testing trains on the Lynnwood Link Extension earlier this week (not sure if under its own power though): https://www.heraldnet.com/news/sound-transit-starts-testing-light-rail-on-track-bound-for-lynnwood/
Always exciting to see trains rolling on new track. We’ll have the December capital progress report in a couple weeks, and hopefully that will have updates on their testing schedule.
@Nathan,
Concur 100%.
Does anyone know if the current testing is towed? Or is it self-powered? The article didn’t say.
I saw a dead tow test before Christmas. So that would imply that ST has made significant progress in the verification phase of testing.
Article just references a January 22 tweet from Robert Cruikshank saying he saw trains on new track north of Northgate while he was driving. If they were doing dead-tows over the holidays, it’s possible they’ve moved on to self-powered.
I assume the main schedule driver (heh) for LLE is staff capacity to train new drivers and test operational scenarios.
I will feel lots more confident of the ST2 system when I learn of a light rail vehicle being tested on the Lake Washington Bridge. I’m hoping that a dead tow test comes as soon as possible!
@Al S,
I don’t think ST will do a tow test across the bridge until such time as they can tow it all the way into Seattle. There just isn’t much to gain by breaking the test up into segments. They’d just have to go back and finish the test latter anyhow.
And last I saw they still didn’t have the rail down on the East Channel bridge anyhow.
But they will get there.
@TN,
Yep. I saw a LRV being towed just south of 148th St Station before Christmas. Looked like static envelope testing.
But holy cow, 47,000 to 55,000 passengers pretty much immediately? That is really impressive, and speaks to the power of LLE.
It should also be noted they ST has plenty of time now to get this testing completed in time to support the currently published start date of July 17th, 2024.
Big things are happening!
A decent chunk of those riders are already getting on Link at Northgate, Lazarus.
Northgate Station got 10,400 boardings in September. Doubling that for exiting riders would be 20,800.
I would venture to guess that 60-70 percent of these Northgate riders will shift to a station on the Lynnwood extension. Remember that Northgate station parking is not plentiful and ST will enable 1,800 more parking spaces north of Northgate when Lynnwood Link opens.
Keep in mind also that until the 2 Line trains are operational, frequencies will not be at the level presented in the forecast.
Add to that the 47-55K forecast was developed before the work-from-home trend took hold especially during the Covid period.
I’m personally expecting the segment demand to be somewhere between 25-40K, of which 10-15K of the ridership are already on Link.
No, Al, that’s not it at all. Look up (and by that, I mean North). The CT network is changing dramatically in September:
All the 400s and 800s are being retired. All of them. They are being replaced by a new series of 900s serving Lynnwood Station.
The Blue Line is being extended to 185th.
There are new direct connections from the Edmonds and Mukilteo ferries to light rail.
CT is serving Lynnwood with microtransit and KCM is serving MTL & Shoreline with microtransit.
And there will be several thou\sand free parking spaces among the four new stations.
https://www.communitytransit.org/transitchanges?q=2024%20beyond
All the 400s and 800s are being retired. All of them.
Right, but the 800s have already changed. Instead of serving the UW, they now go to Northgate. So sending them to Lynnwood isn’t much of a change. It still means riders take Link to get to the UW. Likewise, the 512 is truncated at Northgate now (it no longer goes downtown). So again, the only big change is the transfer point. (A few riders will lose their one-seat bus ride to Northgate, but my guess is only a handful.) The 510 is the only ST bus that goes downtown, and it will continue to do so initially (to avoid crowding).
Truncating the 400 buses will definitely have an impact, but how much? I haven’t seen any numbers, but my guess is they don’t carry that many riders. Commuter buses got hammered during the pandemic, and most haven’t come close to recovering. I’m sure it will have an impact, but since it is peak-only, it is hard to see it being huge.
Al’s point is that what we’ll mostly see is people switching transfer point. For many this will be more convenient, so that will lead to an increase in ridership. But like Al, I don’t expect a huge increase from that, or the truncation of the 400s. I guess time will tell.
@ another engineer:
What’s “not it”? I’m presenting several numbers here. Your response is vague.
Consider that CT only carried 24K average weekday riders in 2022. That’s all trips — both local and into King County. More Link riders may come from North King County but those buses already mostly go to Northgate. The only ST Route not going to somewhere in North Seattle is Route 510 at 1K riders on an average weekday.
So how can 44-57K riders be realistic? And how many are just changing the station that they are using as opposed to being completely new riders?
@Al S,
Only the 800 series are truncated at NGS currently, and they don’t carry anywhere near the roughly 50,000 riders expected on LLE. In fact, last I saw CT total ridership was less about 30k across all routes and all destinations.
So I think it is hard to make the case that the bulk of LLE ridership won’t be new ridership. And that is the history of rail. New rail service always attracts much more ridership than the buses they replace.
And my understanding is that the current baseline for LLE service is 4@8, and that they still expect issues with crowding. Sometimes success is hard.
It’s not an optimum situation, but theoretically it only lasts about a year. I bet we survive just fine and the sky doesn’t fall.
The ST forecast is built using a model that incorporates the local transit networks serving stations. That has been the case since the beginning. The ST forecast has been wrong almost every time — understating actual ridership and/or overestimating how much time it would take ridership to build up to meet the forecast.
Both KCM and CT are changing their networks to feed all four stations. In most cases those changes include higher frequency local routes. We all know frequency is king, perhaps the single most important factor in stimulating ridership growth.
We also know the light rail attracts NEW transit users faster and in higher numbers than new bus service. It’s a key criterion in federal grant competitions.
It is simply fanciful to suggest half or more of the LLE ridership is already on the system. Focusing solely on 1 Line extension to Lynnwood obscures so many other major changes in the overall network happening at the same time — changes based on time-tested strategies (quality & frequency) that attract more users to the system.
I predict ST will meet the forecast sooner than many expect, and will be juggling to handle capacity constraints until the 2 Line opens.
> The ST forecast is built using a model that incorporates the local transit networks serving stations. That has been the case since the beginning. The ST forecast has been wrong almost every time — understating actual ridership and/or overestimating how much time it would take ridership to build up to meet the forecast.
Uh… while I certainly like Link and it has been successful, it is definitely overly rosy in it’s ridership projections, especially for *federal funding*. The only one where it undercounted was the UW/U district one. Unsurprisingly of course, they’d inflate the numbers as one gets more federal funding depending on ridership, but it can definitely be a problem if one starts believing the inflated numbers too much (cough west seattle)
https://www.bettertransport.info/pitf/Seattle_Central_Link_Initial_Segment_Before-After_Study_2013_04_01.pdf
> in 2011 Central Link carried 7.8 million passengers compared to the FFGA prediction of 11.5 million, about 32% lower than predicted.
> The average weekday ridership for all of 2015 reached 35,573, still below the goal once hoped to be met four years before that.
Part of why it exceeded the UW and U district goal is just by setting it lower as well. I can’t find the pdf of the FTA agreement, I’ll try finding it, but if I remember correctly that goal was higher as well. Sound Transit just exceeded their ‘internal goal’.
Not to be overly negative, but I would be very surprised if the ridership to lynnwood extension is higher than the federal ridership projections
Checking the lynnwood final EIS:
They estimated there would be 63,000 to 74,000 transit trips (transit as in bus and link) compared to only 34,000 bus trips between Seattle and Lynnwood by 2035
It estimated 17,000 daily boardings at Lynnwood station by 2035. (lol more than northgate, uw or westlake?)
Mountlake station would have 5,100 daily boardings
NE 145th + NE 185th would have combined 12,000 daily boardings
These were pretty high/unrealistic numbers even before the pandemic.
@another engineer,
You are correct, ST does seem to underestimate ridership on new extensions. And also overestimate how long it will take ridership to build. At least outside of the pandemic period (which I don’t think anyone can blame ST for not predicting).
I think initially local riders were a bit slow to adopt LR. Probably because few people in this area had any lived experience with day-to-day rail use and were a bit skeptical of it, and probably also because the first segment to open was in the RV and there might have been some language and cultural issues in the community.
But all that is ancient history. Each Link extension since has been met with faster adoption and higher ridership, and I would expect that trend to continue.
I appreciate that CT and Metro are both adjusting their routes to serve the new LR stations, but they are only doing that because LR offers a significant travel advantage to the traveling public. And that travel advantage will directly translate to many new riders using the system.
Those projected 50,000 riders for LLE are not all existing bus riders. Not even close. Doesn’t pass the smell test.
I think it’s useful to mention that both U-Link and Northgate Extensions served UW. College students are more adaptable to switch modes because they haven’t been making that commute for several years. Freshmennever have regularly made that journey before! Plus, bus routes changed in major ways to force riders to Link. No wonder their ridership was strong from the outset!
So I think it is hard to make the case that the bulk of LLE ridership won’t be new ridership. And that is the history of rail. New rail service always attracts much more ridership than the buses they replace.
Nonsense. Ridership has been remarkably steady. People have just switched modes. The increase in frequency (when Seattle paid extra into the system) probably had a larger impact on overall ridership than Link expansion.
This gets into the ridership estimates. In general ST has been way too optimistic. One exceptions was UW Link. When they made the estimates, it wasn’t clear what Metro was going to do. There were many — including hardcore transit advocates — suggesting that Metro keep the 71/72/73 expresses to downtown until Link got to the U-District. Instead, Metro went whole hog. They truncated the heck out of the buses. They also poured the service hours into buses that served Link. All of this lead to a much larger increase in ridership than expected. A lot of riders who might have preferred the bus were asked took the train instead.
I don’t blame ST. It is very difficult to make the estimates without knowing what the agency will do. I am not sure if it is true, but years ago someone told me that ST expected Metro to truncate some of the buses from the south at Mount Baker Station. If that happened with the 7, it would have got a lot more riders. Even if they did that with the 106, you would have seen a huge increase (at Rainier Beach especially). By keeping the buses headed downtown, a lot of people basically ignored Link.
That won’t happen as the system goes further north. The only reason ST is keeping the 510 going downtown is because of crowding. Same goes for the 515. Once those buses go away, very few buses will go over the ship canal (maybe none). Even now there aren’t that many. You’ve got a handful of Metro buses (headed to First Hill) the 510 and the CT buses. Prior to the pandemic (and Northgate Link) there were a ton of buses going across the ship canal all (41, 312, 400s, 510, 511, 512, 522, 800s, etc.). This will be a much smaller change.
I think initially local riders were a bit slow to adopt LR. Probably because few people in this area had any lived experience with day-to-day rail use and were a bit skeptical of it, and probably also because the first segment to open was in the RV and there might have been some language and cultural issues in the community.
But all that is ancient history. Each Link extension since has been met with faster adoption and higher ridership, and I would expect that trend to continue.
Nice theory, but you have it all wrong. Every transit expert in the world said that UW to downtown would get you the most riders per mile. When things collapsed and they had to make a Link “starter line” there were people on the board pushing to run the trains from the UW to Mount Baker, since it would get way more riders than anything else. There were concerns about the complexity of the project, and they wanted to make it clear to the suburbs that they would get rail too, so they instead built things out of order. Then, when they finally got to the UW, ridership doubled. Even without a First Hill Station, and even with one (poorly placed) station at the UW, ridership doubled. The fundamentals were that strong. As mentioned, a lot of it was that Metro got rid of the fast express buses from the U-District and increased the frequency to buses that fed the trains. But even without that, it would have done well.
Same sort of thing is true with Northgate Link. For years we basically had a suburban-commuter oriented system. It served Rainier Valley, but not especially well. It didn’t serve the corridor (Rainier Avenue) with the most people or attractions. There were very few stops. A lot of riders just ignored Link, and took the 7, or even the 106. There were trips out to the airport, and commuters from the south would park and ride to get into the city, but it wasn’t much of an urban subway (it was not the the type of thing that gets a lot of riders).
Until they headed north. First U-Link and then Northgate-Link. This was no longer commuter rail (with a handful of urban stops) this was a real metro! Trips that used to take forever (Northgate to Capitol Hill, Roosevelt to Capitol Hill) took only a few minutes. This made the inevitable transfers much more tolerable. It isn’t Vancouver — there are too many flaws — but at least this little bit of it has many of the characteristics that make TransLink the best transit system on the West Coast. The trains serve a host of urban destinations, and aren’t just commuter oriented. The buses feed every stop, to extend the reach of the system. It is the type of thing that everyone who knows anything about transit would predict would get you good ridership.
The main reason ridership has increased so much is because we simply built things out of order.
> I am not sure if it is true, but years ago someone told me that ST expected Metro to truncate some of the buses from the south at Mount Baker Station.
I was a bit curious about that since I’ve heard it mentioned by others and checked the king county metro planning documents and seattle transit master plan in the 2010s. It’s kinda interesting there’s two separate ideas.
King County Metro: wanted to have route 7 south portion merge with route 48 going up 23rd ave up to u district(did it used to be there?) creating a u district to central district, mt baker then down rainier ave lien. And then have a separate route 7 north portion merge with route 70 creating a u district to slu to mt baker line.
Seattle Transit Master Plan (2012, 2016): Same idea about route 7 south portion with route 48 up 23rd. However for the route 7 north portion just had it go to downtown or SLU and just turned around there.
https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/about/planning/metro-connects/appendices-011717.pdf
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/document-library/citywide-plans/modal-plans/transit-master-plan
I predict ST will meet the forecast sooner than many expect, and will be juggling to handle capacity constraints until the 2 Line opens.
Those are two different things. Lynnwood Link is a suburban extension. Suburban ridership tends to be more peak oriented. This explains why Community Transit only runs buses to Seattle during peak. As these express buses are truncated, it is quite possible that peak demand will be very high. ST thinks it has things under control (with the 515) but several people (including me) seem dubious, especially given the current crowding problem that they failed to handle.
But that is quite different than overall ridership. Peak is only one (and an increasingly small) part of overall ridership. It is worth noting that Capitol Hill Station (CHS) is the only station that has seen an increase in ridership since the pandemic. Despite buses like the 41 being eliminated — and riders from Northgate taking Link to downtown instead — ridership for each downtown station is down. Obviously CHS has benefited from better connections to the north, but so have the downtown stations. It comes down to the fact that CHS is an all-day destination. Same with the UW. Ridership at the UW Station is down, but only because a lot of riders switched to the other station. Overall ridership (at the two stations) is much higher (imagine if we had three stations — sorry, I digress). Lynnwood Link will benefit in the same way, but not to the same degree.
It is quite possible that overall ridership will not very high with Lynnwood Link, but because of the train shortage and the peak-oriented nature of the extension, there will be crowding during rush hour for a while.
This brings up something else I didn’t mention. It is common for local agencies to have very high expectations for suburban growth, and low expectations for growth in Seattle. With this latest boom, it was the opposite. Growth in Seattle exceeded the suburbs. This too played a part in the overly optimistic numbers for the suburbs.
I agree with you in terms of the bus restructure. So much of our system is dependent on it. What the various transit agencies do influences overall transit ridership as well as Link ridership. For example, consider the plans for the 348. They plan on sending it to Northgate and running it every 15 minutes. To get to the UW (or Roosevelt) riders will need to transfer to Link. If the bus went to the UW, there would be a lot fewer people using Link (since the UW is a major destination). Subtle changes like that can alter transit ridership for Link.
But does it pass Occam’s Razor? And the short, blunt answer is “No. Not by a long shot.” Just ask yourself “Where are 50,000 people per day leaving Snohomish County going to go?” Go on. Name some places. “UW and the District”? Yep. Maybe 5000. Remember that the U has an enrollment of 46,000, but the vast majority live in Seattle, and of those who don’t easily more than half live on the East Side or in the Rainier Valley. “Downtown Seattle”? Sure, but they already “Go By Bus” and leave the driving to ….. “Russ”? “First Hill”? Sure, but it makes them sick and tired every time they go (climbing that damn hill!).
You guys are way over your skis. Eventually, when SnoHoCo is built out fully the train will likely carry 50K folks per day in, out and around Snohomish County. But not this year.
@WL — Interesting. The Move Seattle projects* had something like that. The south end of the 7 would become RapidRide (even better RapidRide+) and the north end of the 7 would just end at Mount Baker Station. Somewhere along the way they shot down the idea. It may be that the awkward nature of the transfer to Link played a part. On paper it looks like a lot of riders would switch to Link. But if the north end of the 7 is fast and frequent, a lot of riders would just transfer to it instead. If that was the case, there isn’t much point in splitting it up that way.
The split may have also been designed to reduce crowding. With a long bus like the 7 that goes downtown, you sometimes have lots of people all headed to downtown, and thus a lot of crowding. This routing would split demand into two pieces. The north 7 is not long enough to be that crowded, with the south 7/48 would have more dispersed ridership. The UW would be the only major destination on that route, and ridership to the UW is a bit more spread out. A lot of riders would also transfer to Link (since it is a lot farther from Mount Baker/Judkins Park to the UW than it is to downtown). Not a bad idea, but I think folks just didn’t like it. First priority is just to improve the corridor (as the 7). If it ever gets too crowded again, they could do the split. They might to it anyway. There is a lot to be said for it (e. g. you directly connect Garfield, Franklin and Rainier Beach). I also think 23rd is probably the easiest, most-pleasant way to get to Link (instead of the mess that is MBS, or standing at Rainier under the freeway waiting for the bus).
*Here is Frank’s write-up on RapidRide+. Unfortunately, a lot of the maps are no longer available (I can’t find them on the Wayback machine either). Some of the old original documents (from SDOT) are on the Wayback machine though: https://web.archive.org/web/20151231114602/http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/docs/TMP/SEATTLETMPSupplmtALL1116PMFINAL.pdf
“So I think it is hard to make the case that the bulk of LLE ridership won’t be new ridership. And that is the history of rail. New rail service always attracts much more ridership than the buses they replace.”
This depends quite a lot on what gets built.
It’s difficult to imagine West Seattle really generating that much additional ridership until/unless some pretty significant construction and zoning changes take place.
There’s not a huge amount at each of the Lynnwood Link stations. Unlike the U District station, I-5 serves as a blockade at many of the new stations. There’s definitely some development happening at the Lynnwood extension, but it’s not like a suburban SkyTrain station with 20+ floor buildings surrounding it (at least not yet). Back in May I had a couple hour layover at Lynnwood, and walked around a bit. It definitely has decent potential, but the walking environment right now is quite a bit more hostile than ideal. Nothing that a bit of redevelopment won’t change, but I’m not sure how much that will chance once the line is operational.
It took 10 years or the MAX station by me to see significant redevelopment around it, and that’s with the help of an urban renewal district.
Seattle’s 2012 Transit Master Plan recommended splitting the 7. North of Mt Baker would be converted to a streetcar or RapidRide. The rest would be attached to the 48, down to Rainier Beach Station. The Prentice tail would be deleted. That got into Metro Connects 2016-2020. There was a big debate on STB and in Metro Connects feedback whether the 48/7 route was a good idea. Maybe somebody who has better luck searching the archives can find it; I think Martin H Duke wrote an article about it.
I was skeptical because South Rainer, North Rainer, and Jackson are a single transit market with a lot of overlapping trips. All that area is similar culturally, economically, and with family ties. Since the late 1990s it has extended to Skyway and Renton as lower-income people have been displaced further south. So if you split the 7, then people in south Rainier would be shunted to 23rd, where they don’t want to go and has little except residential. They’d have to transfer to get where they do want to go, North Rainier and Jackson and downtown. It would facilitate South Rainier-UDistrict trips but there’s that large swath of nothingness in the middle. We shouldn’t break one of the most successful transit markets in Pugetopolis; it’s nationally renowned as one of the most integrated and diverse neighborhoods (1/3 white, 1/3 black, 1/3 Asian before the 2000s gentrification).
Outside the 48/7 concept, the 7 was never going to be removed from downtown: there was no proposal to replace the 7 with the 9. The 9 is a supplemental route. The 106 didn’t go to Jackson then; it terminated at Rainier Beach or went across to Georgetown. It was later extended to Jackson because of a certain nonprofit in North Rainer and other equity activists who wanted something like the old 42. Where you’re seeing a route possibly not go downtown anymore is on Beacon Hill, the 36/Broadway/49 and 60/49 concepts, and earlier 36/70.
There’s also a proposal to reroute the 106 to Boren and SLU. It was in Metro Connects and many people here support it. But it’s not in the RapidRide G restructure so we don’t know when it might be implemented. Metro is now talking about a vague North Seattle/Central Seattle/West Seattle restructure after RapidRide G, so maybe it would be part of that.
@Glenn in Portland,
The ridership forecast for LLE is a short term forecast that does not include redevelopment effects, but does include the effects of some feeder buses. Yet, even with such a narrow focus, the estimate is still around 50,000 riders, which is a very large number.
And, as others have pointed out on this blog many times, ST ridership forecasts tend to underestimate actual ridership. Hopefully this one is a little more accurate given its shorter term focus, but if the ridership comes in anywhere near 50,000, then ST is going to have a problem with crowding.
ST is basically drowning in its own success. It’s an unfortunate problem to have, but it sure beats having the opposite problem.
2024 is going to be a very interesting year. With one new, but temporarily isolated line (ELSL), and one massive extension (LLE), the transit landscape regionally is going to change significantly.
In terms of the number of new stations, ST has never seen extensions this large before. The resulting increase in mobility, and the number of new destination pairs available to the traveling public, is unprecedented.
As the old curse supposedly goes, “May you live in interesting times.” And we certainly do.
Full speed ahead.
It may be a “short-term forecast”, but it’s still short-term bullpuckey. You haven’t answered the question, “Where are 25,000 people per day headed that they will be taking Link out of Snohomish County in 2025?”
And the next paragraph is simply an outright lie. When has ANY “ST ridership forecast” made at the opening or extension of a line — heck, ANY ST facility — “exceeded the forecast”? Especially when the forecast is from pre-pandemic and pre-“WFH”.
Don’t get me wrong. I think LLE and maybe ELE will be “good lines”. But there are not 25,000 people who want to ride transit from Snohomish County to King County every day, and won’t be for ten years at a minimum.
“Where are 25,000 people per day headed that they will be taking Link out of Snohomish County in 2025?”
To thousands of different destinations all over Seattle and the Eastside and South King County. I’ve worked at offices in Ballard, Licton Springs, and northeast Seattle and had colleagues from Lynnwood and South Everett. When I had a summer job at UW, the department director took a CT bus to Mariner. 25,000 is not that many compared to the population of southeast Snohomish County. Lynnwood to North Seattle will be a sleeper hit because there’s so much to come for. People haven’t been taking transit in that corridor because it’s been so unreasonably time-consuming and cumbersome. It has gotten better with the 512 and then Northgate Link, but I still can’t recommend it to people for a lot of trips, because they wouldn’t put up with 2 hour total travel times. With Lynnwood Link, Swift expansion, and CT reorienting to the missing local service, it becomes more feasible to leave the car at home.
With a good bus restructure, 50,000 is certainly possible, but from what I’ve seen on the E and 512, there’s a lot more off-peak ridership than most people might think.
Are there enough trains to short turn half at SoDo during peak, using OMF Central?
@Mike Orr,
I concur, 25,000 out of SnoCo is very plausible, as is the top line estimate of approx 50,000 total. These are very good numbers and bode well for the extension.
“ People haven’t been taking transit in that corridor because it’s been so unreasonably time-consuming and cumbersome.”
That is exactly true, particularly for discretionary trips. There just isn’t good, all-day transit on the corridor, and even the peak buses can be cumbersome to use, in addition to still being predominately directional.
LINK will change all that. It will be faster, more reliable serve more stops, and actually be cheaper. It will unlock a lot of untapped ridership on this corridor.
I’m excited for the improvement in transit that LLE represents.
Am I “Kelce in the press box” excited? Not quite, but I am excited none the less
The UW case was in the late 80s, when it was rare to meet anybody from beyond Bothell, Kent, or Redmond. I saw him at a UW bus stop and asked where he was going, and he said “Mariner”. I never heard of Mariner, but since it was a CT bus I assumed it was somewhere beyond Lynnwood. Now Everett Link will have a station at Mariner/128th, and ST has been discussing a “starter line” extension to there before Everett/Paine Field is finished.
The Licton Springs/South Everett case was in the mid 90s. The Ballard/South Everett case was was in the early 2000s. The Northeast Seattle/Ash Way case started in the 2010s and is still ongoing. This isn’t my friend in north Lynnwood but another person who lives there She has ridden transit in the past and said she’d consider it again if it wasn’t a 2-hour trip.
So these trips from Snohomish County to North Seattle have been happening for a long time, and increasing. But they’re mostly by car because transit is so inconvenient and time-consuming. If transit were easier and more frequent, some people would switch. Lynnwood Link and the CT restructure promise to make it more convenient.
My friend in north Lynnwood actually shops for groceries in Seattle. She comes anyway once a week to clean a house, and at other times for other things, so she shops along the way. She can walk 40 minutes to one supermarket in Lynnwood, or walk 40 minutes to Ash Way P&R (or take an hourly bus halfway), and then every Seattle station has multiple choices within walking distance.
WL: yes, the first MC network from planners had Route 70 paired with Route 7 extended only to Mt. Baker; Route 48 extended to Rainier Beach. Before adoption, MC was amended to show the seven SDOT RR lines, even Route 44 extended to Children’s. Other through routes could be used; they are efficient if short enough; Link is through routed. But RR branding may get in the way.
OK, I did some research. Perhaps someone can find the exact ridership figures for CT and ST buses that will be truncated by LLE, but I do know how many buses currently cross the King / Snohomish County Line each weekday, and that’s what we’re trying to generate 25,000 rides from.
Remember that STRide 3 won’t be open for at least two years after LLE opens, so there really won’t be that many folks transferring at Shoreline South. One Thirtieth won’t be open for a couple of years either, and it doesn’t have ANY bus service now. Shoreline North has horrid access from the east, so any transfer ridership is going to come from mostly from CT and ST expresses from the west. The 302, 303 and 348 will also feed at Shoreline North.
I made a simple simulation spreadsheet. I sort of arbitrarily declare that any bus leaving its origin terminal between 0600 and 0859 or 1500 and 1859 is “Peak” and all others are “Off-Peak” to get some flexibility with load percentages. I then went to CT’s and MT’s current schedule pages and filled in the number of “Peak” and “Non-Peak” buses. Then, to allow assumptions to be changed easily, the sheet has two user enterable fields, one for “passengers transferred per peak bus” and one for “passengers transferred per non-peak bus”.
I’ve been playing with it. I find that to get to 25,000 passengers boarding LLE north of Northgate headed south, you have to assume an 80% occupancy of the garages by 0900, half as many walk-ups as park, and eighty passengers per bus from each of the peak hour truncated and crossing buses and forty per hour average from the non-peaks.
You simply CAN NOT get to 25,000 without that ridiculous forty per hour average transferring, because you can’t go higher than eighty people transferring per peak bus. They won’t fit. What great Washington Cannabis are you smoking, ST Fanbois, to think that 40 people per bus will transfer from each non-peak bus? Not to mention the necessity to have eighty transfer from — wait for it….. — one from Mukilteo. Maybe Tim will be on it?
I was hoping I could upload it to Facebook so you guys could download it to play (and check my spreadsheet programming), but FB won’t allow me to upload anything except pictures. So, I have put it on my FB “interest page” at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094556210035
If you want me to try any other set of parameters please just enter them in a reply: Transfer Per Bus Off-Peak / Transfers Per Bus Peak / Percentage of Garage Occupied / Percentage of Garage Usage Walks Up
I’ll run the “simulation” and post the picture of the results.
Tom, are you including Swift Blue in your transfer calculations? The Swift extension to Shoreline 185th should both bring new transfer to Link and induce ridership because that’s a good 2-seat connection to Seattle that did not exist before.
Just a minor correction regarding CT’s route transition: plan:
Route 424 (Snohomish – Monroe – Kirkland via I-405 – downtown Seattle) will remain until the 2 Line crosses Lake Washington. It would then be converted to a 900-series express going to Downtown Bellevue Station.
At that point, the plan is to raise it up from its current two trips each way back up to four.
“What great Washington Cannabis are you smoking, ST Fanbois, to think that 40 people per bus will transfer from each non-peak bus?”
Sound Transit is only warning about crowding peak hours. The relief routes are peak only (510 and 515 to downtown). ST’s charts predict pass-ups only in the PM peak in the Westlake-Lynnwood direction. Off-peak service will presumably be just the regular 512 to Lynnwood, and CT’s revised all-day routes.
Tom, you make a good point.
I would caution that the forecasting models do a lousy job estimating the drop-off/ pickup segment. BART has many outer stations where that’s now generating 20 to 30 percent of total boardings. It’s a way to get to and from transit that was very low before cell phones, texting and ride apps took hold in our culture.
https://www.bart.gov/about/reports/profile
Unfortunately, ST doesn’t provide station access profiles like BART does and that leaves us guessing. I do also note that even the BART research was nine years ago. I’m not sure how the pandemic changed things.
I would imagine that Southern Snohomish residents don’t like dropping off or picking up someone at Northgate but would if the train was much closer to their home. I think it’s a type of rider that will add to Lynnwood Link use — but it doesn’t get surveyed or analyzed to better get how significant it can be.
*****
To me, it’s amusing at one level and disturbing at another for ST staff to cry out “we will have a big overcrowding problem” without presenting how they came to that conclusion. It leaves us observers to try to make sense of it all.
The way that overcrowding is presented in such a finite way in the presentation is flawed. If ST is saying that total ridership on Lynnwood Link will vary by more than 20 percent, how can they then present a graph downplays the existence of ranges in their own forecasts? Even the graph ST presents shows that a “low” demand won’t cause full overcrowding. Plus, the lack of realtime awareness that demand and schedule adherence affect individual loads shows in their work. They look like they are approaching an operational problem with a planning level analysis.
Plus, it is bothersome to some (but not most) of us that the solution of running extra trains for the most crowded parts — a solution common around the world AND an application for a system that is supposed to operate with two lines from Day 1 anyway (and the delayed second line will need to be in simulation a few months after the current planned Lynnwood opening day) — is summarily ignored in favor of running express buses that take lots more drivers when there is a driver shortage AND may do a terrible job enticing riders off of Link anyway (especially in the morning where the loads are low enough to give everyone boarding at Lynnwood a seat). To me, it’s crazy making on ST’s part.
“the solution of running extra trains for the most crowded parts … is summarily ignored”
There aren’t enough trains, and we don’t know that the train-storage issue is solved. We’re just speculating what “8-10” minutes means. Even if the storage issue is solved for 8-minute service, that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s room for trains beyond that.
“There aren’t enough trains, and we don’t know that the train-storage issue is solved. ”
That’s why short-turning trains in SODO is so obvious to some of us, reducing the total train cars in service. That’s why merely having a few short turning trains/ drivers available on demand rather than running at a fixed schedule at the e tire length is so obvious to some of us. That’s why activating tracks like south of Angle Lake or at some of the track sidings — even if overnight guards are required for a few months — are so obvious to some of us. That’s why some new vehicles should be sent to the Central OMF rather than the East OMF (replacing any inoperable vehicles at the Central OMF that can be disassembled and moved by truck to the East OMF). That’s why driver strategies like peak period seat slides or reserve drivers ready to hop on the train at the other end to reverse its direction can reduce the time a train sits at an end station providing more runs per hour.
This is an operational challenge. It requires focusing on operational solutions. This is a situation that will vary for each train and each station. Making planning level charts based on averages to inform decisions is literally bad operations management. Until the rails have trains running on the heels of a prior train or the ratio of actual demand to capacity is at 1.5 or higher, it’s not a planning problem.
Look at how a grocery store operates. If a shelf is empty, you keep extra stock nearby to restock the item in real time. If you don’t have items moving, you reduce how much room you give them in the shelf. If your checkout line is too long, you temporarily open up an extra line to get through the checkout surge. We see management solve realtime supply issues routinely in other settings all the time! They don’t go running to their Board of Directors in crisis until they have exhausted possible solutions in realtime first.
@ Mike Orr,
“ There aren’t enough trains, “
ST has more than enough trains, the only question is where to store them
“and we don’t know that the train-storage issue is solved. We’re just speculating what “8-10” minutes means.”
“8 mins” means 4 car trains at 8 min frequency. And I’m sure ST wouldn’t say they were going to run 4@8 unless they had the storage problem solved to support 4@8.
As per crowding, looks like it is “gap trains to the rescue!” An overlay would be more elegant and less operationally complex, but if ST Ops wants to do it the hard way, then who am I to argue?
So no need for shuttles or LCT to Seattle expresses. Cancel them all.
@Al S,
I think some of this is obvious to ST too.
I think it is why they started dynamic envelope testing on the first 2000 ft of Federal Way Link a month or so ago. Because they intend to use those tracks for distributed storage.
I’m guessing they will do the same thing at LTC with those tail tracks. And they will probably use all the pocket tracks and a maybe some on-line overnight storage too.
It’s sort of brute force, but I’m not in charge.
AJ, Yes. Swife Blue is the top line of the spreadsheet. Also, I found an error. The lower orange line (Everett-Seattle 510) should be zero. I added the Metro rows and as a result had to “fill down” the formula column and just continued to the bottom, but then didn’t overtype it with a zero (the bus isn’t being truncated).
That reduces the total to a bit more than 24,000. To get to 25,000 I have to up the people per non-peak to 47, which is even more absurd.
Brent, 424 is not in the spreadsheet. I know that it is not an “I-5 Corridor” route.
Mike, you aren’t getting the point. I’m not writing about the problem of overcrowding, but rather calling “Bullshit!” on the “50,000 trips per day” estimate that ST is basing their planning on. To get to 25,000 riders per day boarding southbound Link trains north of Northgate, you have to have 40 passengers transferring per bus from each and every one of the buses that DO run during the middle of the day and in the evening, because you can’t have more than an average of the 80 transferring per peak bus — packed, packed, packed on a double tall or 40 footer — which gets you in shooting range of the goal. That is absurd.
Al, you do make an excellent point about drop-offs. I made no estimation of that except possibly to include them in “Walk-ups”. However, I would point out that the drop-off facilities are pretty wretched to almost non-existent at all four stations, most of which are surrounded by blocks of “No Parking!” streets. Drop-off may prove to be a surprisingly beneficial “last mile” success for LLE, but that isn’t clear yet.
I agree with all of your beating ST about the head re turnbacks below the dotted line. Very well and comprehensively presented. They are such newbies!
Here’s my forecast for Opening Week: On Monday “everyone” will want to try Link. The re-routed buses will be packed and there will be a five block line-up at every drop-off loop. Folks will be packed onto the platform and have to wait three or four trains. It will be shades of opening night at The Kingdome, where the buses couldn’t move in the sea of people wanting to get on them. I-5 will be a breeze that morning, without even a hint of yellow all the way to Downtown Seattle.
Tuesday will be like the week before.
@Tom Terrific
> OK, I did some research. Perhaps someone can find the exact ridership figures for CT and ST buses that will be truncated by LLE, but I do know how many buses currently cross the King / Snohomish County Line each weekday, and that’s what we’re trying to generate 25,000 rides from
There’s the lynnwood link final EIS extras Technical Reports: Transportation technical report (warning 400+ pages)
On page 58 it has the bus ridership counts. This is all 2011. I guess not quite the king/snohomish county line, but it’s actually quite indictive of where the bus ridership/ future light rail ridership.
> Table 4-9 shows the daily bus ridership for regional bus routes on I-5 north of Northgate, in comparison with various locations on other key transit corridors in the region. Ridership on I-5 at the Ship Canal Bridge includes riders from north of Northgate, in addition to those boarding farther south between Northgate and the Ship Canal. This information shows that the project corridor currently carries the highest bus ridership volumes in the region, and provides a point of comparison with future year (2035) alternatives.
I-5, North of Northgate Way 19,400
I-5, Ship Canal 33,400
I-5, South of West Seattle Bridge 16,400
I-5, South of I-405 9,200
SR 520, Midspan 16,000
I-90, between Seattle and Mercer Island 11,600
I-90, East of 148th/150th Avenue SE Interchange 4,000
I-405, North of SR 520 4,400
I-405, South of SR 520 4,000
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/projects/north_hct/lynnwoodeis/transportationtr.pdf#page=58
WL, thanks. Nineteen thousand four hundred is thirty-eight point eight percent of 50,000 and WEIRDLY similar to the figure that I swagged for buses only, with no new garages or walk-ups, 20,900. What is your opinion of the definition of “daily bus ridership”? I expect it’s boardings, NOT “riders”, but I may be wrong. I essentially presented “riders”, not “boardings” by limiting the buses to only southbound runs.
If ST used riders then ridership swelled until 2018 and then, probably because of the tunnel closure, declined then tanked during Covid. I have to believe that in 2016 they were counting boardings when they predicted 50,000 in 2016. Ridership could absolutely, positively not have increased by 150% in five years.
I deliberately split the boast of 50,000 in half and just used southbound buses to get to 25,000 riders per day. Maybe it’s a few less; some people do ride the same route more than one round trip per day. But the stats you provided say “ridership” which usually means one-way trips.
Anyway, LLE isn’t going to be carrying 50,000 daily rides north of Northgate any time soon.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing to have. It just means that it will take a while — fortunately, since it can’t open at full capacity — to rise to its full utility.
WL, OK, I looked at LLE_FEIS_TransTR.docx and found that “Ridership” is defined as “boardings”. So 19 thousand-some boardings in 2011 are expected to grow to 50,000 boardings soon after LLE opens? Let the ROTFL’s commence!
Ray @ CityNerd identifies the best 56 theoretical potential high speed rail city pairs in the new video released today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4&t=929s
Cascadia doesn’t show up! It’s pointed out at the end if the video.
Sure the Cascadia cities have strong transit distribution systems and good transit utilization. However the cities don’t seem ripe for true high speed rail — probably because the distances are not far enough and the larger metros aren’t populous enough when compared to elsewhere. Add to that limited right of way and difficult terrain that we have. The better outcome appears to be to incrementally enhance speeds and frequencies on the current Cascadia corridor.
PS. The analysis demonstrates why the Northeast corridor and California are the best places to invest in high speed rail, with Texas, Florida and the Chicago hub as the next tier down.
Yeah, I agree. Our cities aren’t that big and the terrain is very challenging. We really should stop deluding ourselves and get to work building rail that is fairly fast (e. g. 90 MPH) instead of dreaming about bullet trains.
The distance also works quite well for trains of that nature. It just about the right distance for rail from Seattle to Portland or Seattle to Vancouver. It is a bit too far to drive, and a bit too short to fly. In contrast, San Fransisco to L. A. is quite a ways, which means the trains have to move very fast to compete with flying (even when you account for all the hassles with flying). This just makes so much sense, and would be done right now if we had followed the suggested timetable.
I’ve never thought the northwest need 150 or 200 mph trains. We just need to get the service up to 90 mph and then 110 mph. That would be almost twice as fast as driving. Current Portland-Seattle travel time is 3.5 hours. Medium-speed rail could bring that down to 2.5 hours. That’s good enough for a meeting or event once a month or once or twice a week. We don’t need to get it down to 30 minutes so that people can commute daily from Portland like it’s Lynnwood.
If we were going to have high-speed rail to California it would be a bigger deal to get to Portland in 30 minutes, as the current driving time to Oakland is 15 hours and the Coast Starlight takes 23 hours. But there’s no proposal to fill the sparsely-populated gap between Eugene and Sacramento. Without that, there’s no point in having high-speed rail in the Northwest. 110 mph medium-speed rail would do fine between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC, and east to Spokane.
The terminology can be confusing because some people have inflated it. Traditionally, 110 mph is medium speed and 125+ mph is high speed. Some sources this year are defining 110 as high speed and 125+ as ultra-high speed. There’s also confusion comparing to Europe/Asia, where speeds are quoted in kilometers/hour so the numbers are higher for the same speed.
Travel time King Street Station to Portland Union Station with no traffic and at the speeds that most people actually drive is 2.5 hours. Ya, there usually is some traffic somewhere, but I’ve been able to beat 2.5 hours before, so that is what I usually assume.
So I’ve always thought that WSDOT should target an average speed over the line, including dwell time) of 80 mph. That should get the trip time down to around 2.25, which would be more than fast enough to get most people to consider rail.
Of course an average speed of 80 mph will require peak speeds much higher than that, and I don’t think WSDOT or the FRA has much interest in such speeds.
Additionally, them Horizon cars that the FRA is forcing on the Cascades will actually increase the trip time. So in reality we are going backwards, not forwards.
@Lazarus Those Horizon cars are definetly not great but at least they will be phased out in 2 years as Cascades route is going to be one of the first to get the new Amtrak Airo transets (Siemens Venture + ALC-42 Charger). Hopefully these new trains and some track improvements can get the travel time down to compete with driving.
The new fleet will be quite heavy, and will not be able to add any sort of speed improvement. Talgo makes the only product approved for the US market that is light enough, and even those were never allowed to operate as fast as they could due to the heavy locomotives used.
@Glenn,
Yep. Airo trainsets are just warmed over Venture trainsets, and the Venture hardware didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Heavy, and no tilting technology.
Airo is being marketed based on things like a USB port in every seat, larger windows, new cafe car, and an updated paint scheme. Basically passenger experience stuff. Whenever you hear that it should be “buyer beware”.
What nobody has ever said about the Horizons or the Airo is that they will be as fast or faster than the Talgos. All they will commit to is “similar”. Translation – “not quite as fast on this route”.
It’s the old European sports car vs American muscle car debate. An American muscle car will have faster straight line speed, but a European sports car will out corner and out handle the muscle car. Meaning the European car will always be faster on anything but the straightest of roads, and this road ain’t straight.
So Cascades passengers will spend a little more time on the train between Seattle and Portland, but they will be able to keep their phone charged and watch a few more YouTube videos. Yeah! Progress! (Not).
Would DMUs be feasible for Cascades’ long length? Would the FRA allow them if they’re meet the weight minimum? Would they still be lighter than a locomotive-driven train? Could that help improve travel time?
Light weight locomotives exist, that mean you wouldn’t need to have DMU.
Witness the DMUs used on Sonoma-Marin. They’re only about 80 tons and meet FRA standards.. Light weight Diesel engines engines exist that could turn them into the equivalent of a British HST125 locomotive (and that was designed back in the 1970s when Diesel engines were heavier per horsepower than now).
Amtrak’s demonstration train in the early 1970s showed with the right equipment you can get below 3 hours on the existing line (and that train had to use the curvy point defiance line).
At issue here is what’s called cant deficiency. The lighter the train, the faster it can go around existing curves without significant damage to track or structures. The Talgos were really light, but the locomotive used were as heavy as freight locomotives. Thus, they were never able to use the full tilting ability the Talgos allowed, unlike the light weight power car demonstration Amtrak had in the early 1970s.
I think our cascades corridor would have been in a much better place if the state legislatures made the financial commitments estimated to get the long range plan done by 2020
Not only would that plan have cut an hour of travel time between Seattle and Portland or Seattle and Vancouver, making it faster than driving, especially CBD to CBD
It would have also been much more frequent than today calling for 13 RT trains between Seattle and Portland per day. This is the fundamental improvement that builds ridership bases
But most importantly, it was a comprehensive plan. It wasn’t study after study after study about “should this be a high speed maglev or a high speed train?” and various other questions that lead to nowhere. It was a plan that set goals on how to cooperate and negotiate with BNSF and UP on bottlenecks that would need to be cleared, bypasses that would need to be made, passing track that would need to be constructed, potential affordable greenfield alignments, etc
But neither the legislature nor past governors commit themselves to this plan. They didn’t put together all the money necessary that would have seen better use than various, much more expensive when added up, highway projects they earmarked for (SR520 bridge replacement, SR-99 tunnel, etc)
And because of this, because we didn’t actively invest into the cascades corridor, it isn’t simply that trains aren’t as frequent or fast as they could have been, but we’ve actually seen service degrade over time. On time arrival has become terrible in recent years compared to the 2010s.
The lack of political or financial capital given to this corridor by the state has meant that the quality of this corridor has actually declined. That is why long term, financially feasible, outcome based plans such as the Amtrak cascades long range plan are so important to follow through on
Yes, the state commissioned the Cascades plan, but it hasn’t prioritized fulfilling it. Work is on-again, off-again. It’s the general problem of neglecting transit in Pugetopolis, Washington state, and the US. We do a few things like like Sound Transit and RapidRide, but it’s never enough, never designed for maximum effectiveness, and the projects get watered down for non-transit reasons.
I’m just one person but I have prearranged my appointments and schedule several times solely to avoid attempting to use link in this period. I’ll be relieved when Feb. 4 arrives if they actually finish then. I’m not betting on it.
Recently, the time estimated for repair closures by ST have been overly cautious (pessimistic) by several days. (That’s different than opening new extensions.) I think that it would be surprising if the reduction lasts longer than February 4.
@Al S,
You are correct, ST has been overly conservative lately in how long it takes to finish some of these projects. Let’s hope that continues.
I stopped in at IDS the other day though, and they only had 2 of their PIMS displays removed and no sign of what they are replacing them with. That seems way too slow to upgrade the full tunnel by Feb 4th.
I don’t see why they can’t install a TV monitor later if necessary. Just rope off the area under it, or at worst close the platform for an hour. If next-arrival information isn’t available temporarily, it’s no worse than when the information was turned off or inaccurate for years.
You aren’t alone. I know other people who have done the same thing. My guess is, that is basically what ST had in mind when they said “it would work itself out”. Folks will stop using Link, and for many people, that means they will stop using transit. The transit network was redesigned to send people to Link (e. g. no 41). Even with this shutdown there are no plans for resurrecting those buses, which means riders have the worst of both worlds. (To be fair, it would be difficult given the driver shortage.)
How is this different than a major freeway shutdown? When the viaduct was closed for a few weeks, most of that traffic “disappeared” because people postponed/cancelled travel or found alternative routes, but then it mostly re-emerged when it reopened. Same for when I5 or 405 has weekend lane closures.
Particularly with remote work, I think it’s reasonable many people are simply not commuting during this period but will return to transit once Link returns to regular frequency.
It isn’t that different. The major differences are that people often switch *to* transit when a road is blocked off, while in this case, they are switching *from* transit. My guess is we’ve seen an uptick in driving during this period. That isn’t good for a lot of reasons.
It’s almost like Sound Transit is a political slush fund to launder federal tax dollars through Washington state and not a competent, practical operation that can manage construction, operations and maintenance of a major transportation system.
Indianapolis is installing their purple line an east-west brt opening in 2024.
But more interesting to me (personally) is their map showing the BRT
https://www.indygo.net/wp-content/uploads/detailed-plans/purple-line-10-15/googlemaps.html
You can zoom around and check where the bus lanes will be built on google maps, much easier to view than browsing through like 50 pdfs
That is a really cool way to display the plans. When I look at slides I’m often going back and forth with a different map (while I try and get oriented).
For the Pierce County subarea, I wrote a little piece that features Census data for various potential T Line corridors. Of course, 6th Avenue shines.
At this point, and particularly for Pierce County, I think it would be wise for Sound Transit to once again engage with long-range planning. The 2014 plan needs an update.
I really want to support the alignment as it does look like a better route, but I’m pretty hesitant about splitting the route, it’s pretty unclear how such a service pattern would work to split so soon. Well without severe cuts of frequency on one branch or very awkward transfers.
Tangentially related: As a sad side note, Pierce Transit is the only transit agency I emailed that doesn’t even work. I’ve attempted emailing a couple of the listed ones at piercetransit.org and I just have office 365 reject on their end.
This is a future proposal. We could add a line without reducing frequency on the other line. We need more overall transit service than we have, especially in Pierce County where few lines run more than every 30-60 minutes. The T Line itself runs every 20 minutes. That’s not enough for maximum ridership and spontaneous trips, and is too low for the core of Tacoma. So two 20-minute lines with an overlap of 10 minutes would be better. Even better would be two 10-minute lines with an overlap of 5 minutes. That’s what a normal downtown and streetcar suburb would have.
How to fund it? Future ST and PT measures could be anything. PT is ten years overdue for a levy to implement its long-range plan, one that would make it more attractive to choice riders like Metro is, and more useful for non-choice riders.
One issue would be the maximum number of trips the right of way can accommodate without hindering cross traffic too much. Seattle’s MLK has been set at 6 minutes, and there’s some indication that MLK might be willing to go down to 5 minutes (some ST Ballard scenarios). Tacoma is a different environment with narrower streets. But the only way to find out what its maximum is is to ask, and to make sure the engineers and policies assess it realistically without anti-rail bias.
I’m not keen on extending the streetcar at all. PT already has a good 5-line BRT network design that covers the corridors Troy is reviewing. None of those corridors have the high ridership or existing rail ROW that justifies streetcar capital investment.
But the existing streetcar line exists and with the recent ST2 extension is long enough to be a plausible line, so rather than adding a branch, why not just add a few vehicles to boost frequency?
The ST3 project scope includes expanding the OMF & adding vehicles, so the ST Board could defer the line extension but retain funding to grow the fleet & increase frequency. A good outcome without needing a new vote would be for the ST Board to increase the budget for the Route 1 BRT project (+$100MM or so), funded by deferring most of the Streetcar Phase III project (therefore removing that project expense from the current Finance Plan), but retain sufficient ST3 Streetcar capital budget to expand the OMF and add a few vehicles in the 2030s.
The Route 1 “Stream” project really needs to be prioritized, which means ST stepping up with more funding. Get that project completed and then PT’s leadership & Pierce’s voters can judge if that’s the right approach to invest in with a new levy to build out the 5-line Stream plan, or if they should pivot to something different.
I share the concern about a lack-of-need. It pains me to consider the bus improvements that could have been funded with the same amount of money spent on expanding the T Line. However, the project to TCC is moving forward. Unless a significant realignment cancels it, the railway will be built.
So we then have to focus on maximizing our investment here in Tacoma and Pierce County. I have been arguing that the representative 19th Street alignment of the ST3 ballot does not cut it for a variety of reasons. Two of those include its negative impact on the Pierce Transit bus network, and how it also impedes ongoing plans for certain rapid transit improvements to the Route 2, one of our best performing and most promising lines. Instead, 6th Avenue is the logical alignment, and that corridor happens to be the original Sound Transit preference for this project (which was overruled by the Tacoma City Council of 2013, which sent the railway to Hilltop for reasons largely unrelated to transit).
Beyond Pacific Avenue in Downtown Tacoma, 6th Avenue is Pierce County’s dominant local transit route. You’d think major transit upgrades would be slated for it, but both the Sound Transit and Pierce Transit plans now avoid it. The suspended BRT project would have severed 6th Avenue’s historic transit connection to the full length of Pacific Avenue. By using 6th for the TCC railway, a major deficiency in the area’s long range plans are nicely resolved, resulting in genuine transit improvements in Tacoma and Pierce County.
The three-point railway would raise operating expenses versus the single line. As was mentioned earlier, they would function as at least two separate, overlapping tram lines, preserving quality headways. With 6th Avenue being a street railway, the Pierce Transit BRT plan is unimpacted and functionally improved, with Sound Transit taking over service on the busy 6th Ave.
You will also notice that I have proposed a T Line extension south, which involves long-term plans that may never come to fruition. It is in response to the Sound Transit long-range plan requirements to extend Central Link to the autocentric Tacoma Mall. This incredibly expensive project would serve few risers and do little to improve local transit. It frankly should be dismissed. However, if Pierce County is going to be forced into approving more projects as part of the RTA program (as King County carries us), it is wise to improve bad projects than to have nothing worthwhile to build. So, to satisfy the rail requirements of the long-range plan and to improve local transit, I suggest expanding the T Line toward the Tacoma Mall instead, via the Lincoln District neighborhood. Because T Line construction is far more affordable than the metro construction of the Link Spine, it likely could be expanded to as far as Lakewood Transit Center for the same cost. This would mean Sound Transit serves the current Route 3 bus corridor—which is slated for BRT—allowing for more Pierce Transit operating revenues to be diverted to other services. Some of busiest routes of the historic Tacoma area streetcar system would be revived.
That’s the thinking here: how can we properly respond to railway projects that are coming our way, despite a local voter rejection of them. It’s tough.
One clarification: the 2014 Sound Transit LRP stipulates that the terminus of the Link Spine is the Tacoma Mall—at least for now (as it could be extended further south, God help us).
Whether the Spine is completed using Central Link or the T Line is up to the Sound Transit Board. And as I am a big advocate for either a partial or full integration of the railways, as was the original intent, that distinction could matter less in the future anyway.
“A good outcome without needing a new vote would be for the ST Board to increase the budget for the Route 1 BRT project (+$100MM or so), funded by deferring most of the Streetcar Phase III project (therefore removing that project expense from the current Finance Plan)”
Excellent! +1. Care to write an article about it?
“the project to TCC is moving forward. ”
It won’t start construction for a decade. That gives ST plenty of opportunity to modify the plan before then.
Troy, if AJ or somebody champions a BRT-network article, would you be willing to collaborate on it? That wouldn’t preclude your light rail expansion concept or prevent an article on that too. A BRT article would give something for readers and politicians to consider. Both a BRT article and a Tacoma Link 6th Ave/STW article would allow them to compare two alternative futures.
“the 2014 Sound Transit LRP stipulates that the terminus of the Link Spine is the Tacoma Mall—at least for now (as it could be extended further south, God help us).”
At the board meetings preparing the update, Pierce and Snohomish boardmembers characterized Tacoma Mall and Everett College as the final termini of the Spine; there would be no extensions beyond them.
> “the 2014 Sound Transit LRP stipulates that the terminus of the Link Spine is the Tacoma Mall—at least for now (as it could be extended further south, God help us).”
> At the board meetings preparing the update, Pierce and Snohomish boardmembers characterized Tacoma Mall and Everett College as the final termini of the Spine; there would be no extensions beyond them.
Was a bit curious and I checked the 2014 plan. Those were definitely the selected termini as Mike noted.
But there were some “fanciful ideas” about extending it to “DuPont to downtown Tacoma via Lakewood, Tacoma Mall” as light rail lol.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/lrpupdate_finalseis_04_chapter2.pdf#page=26
For tacoma brt I’ve seen some planning done at https://www.piercetransit.org/file_viewer.php?id=6689
Either a bridgeport way or tacoma mall route. I think they should just attempt brt first on a road that isn’t a state controlled one (pacific ave)
Link Spine policy is “settled” until it isn’t.
What I would do:
1) Cancel any further work on the streetcar (I agree with AJ). If we have to build more streetcar rail, then I would extend 19th. To be clear, it would have been much better to go on 6th, rather than work your way over to 19th. But having a split would be awkward. Right now the streetcar is largely redundant. It can be ignored, and treated like a tourist ride. An extension on 6th would replace part of the 1, which means you can transfer service from a bus to the train. But that would still leave the other branch. There would be a mismatch in demand. We might want to run the 6th Avenue streetcar frequently, and the Hilltop Branch less often. Except you can’t do that. In contrast, if you extend the streetcar along 19th, this would essentially replace part of the 2. The other part of the 2 (from Lakewood to the college) could be extended to take over 1. The combination of 1 (from downtown to the college) and 2 (from the college to Lakewood) would eventually be BRT, complementing the streetcar. (Here is a nice map of some of the streetcar segments — T. C. C. stands for Tacoma Community College.)
2) Change the nature of the BRT projects. Whenever possible, take a lane. In many cases, this is actually more popular with locals, since it means they don’t have to take property to widen the street. It is definitely much cheaper. The only drawback is that you might make traffic worse. Ultimately though, it shouldn’t matter (Downs–Thomson Paradox). Better to do it now, when traffic is relatively light, then wait twenty years, when it is more difficult to do from a political standpoint.
“However, the project to TCC is moving forward” – no, it is not? It’s approved and funded, but there is no work being done. Neither the T-Link Phase III nor the Kirkland-Issaquah project have started preliminary planning. It sits there as an assumption for other planning work, but the project itself is not moving, simply because it is far enough back in the ST3 timeline that there is no need to work at it at this time.
“Right now the streetcar is largely redundant. It can be ignored, and treated like a tourist ride. ” Ross, as a high-information transit rider I think you are undervaluing a “tourist ride.” Like the monorail or Benson streetcars, the historic trolleys in SF, New Orleans, Tampa, etc., and other “tourist” services, there is still real value. Visitors like streetcars not because they are racists who hate buses but because streetcars are fundamentally better at wayfinding – there is permanent station and a clearly intelligible pathway. For someone from out of town or not a regular transit user, this is immensely valuable. Streetcars are also easier to board and a smoother ride, which is important to some people.
Could a really well designed bus route & stations achieved nearly all of the outcomes of the existing T-Link. Almost certainly yes: https://humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html
But that quality of bus route – investment in low floor rolling stock, dedicated ROW, standalone stations – requires real investment. Is it worth $100MMs of spend? Probably not. But that’s a sunk cost.
We should be able to celebrate the existing T-Link and leverage it as a useful part of both Pierce’s transportation network and Tacoma’s placemaking, while also opposing further extension of the streetcar as a poor use of scarce transportation dollars.
Well, as far as we can tell, nothing is being cancelled.
If the T Line to Hilltop can be its own line today—and for decades more—it can certainly be so with a 6th Avenue extension. You rightly point out that a bus restructure can occur around a 19th Street railway—you identify the logical alternative—but it isn’t as sensible and helpful as preserving today’s popular, direct, hillside slope-defeating Route 2. To have Pierce Transit BRT takeover the southerly portion of Route 1, and Sound Transit the northerly portion, nicely upgrades the core Tacoma transit routes. Otherwise, no transit investments at all to 6th are programmed by any agency. Pierce Transit has infrequently mentioned a “BRT-lite” for 6th, but there are no concrete plans behind it. It would also terminate at Commerce St, far from Union Station or Tacoma Dome where regional Link trains will end. We are still grappling with the consequences of light rail now ending at Tacoma Dome and no farther—one of our original transit planning sins.
To serve 6th Avenue by light rail would free upwards of 47,000 annual operating hours that would be reinvested into Pierce Transit’s other routes.
I am convinced that 6th would be the better alternative, though you would need to get some champions in the 6th business community to sell it. I could see significant pushback. It would serve the most vibrant, walkable retail corridor in the city (Sorry, Lincoln. If only you didn’t have a stroad ripped through your heart), University of Puget Sound and TCC, and surrounding (admittedly car-oriented) businesses around TCC.
As for the BRT, I have reason to believe WSDOT would be more amenable to giving up general-purpose lanes on at least part of Pac Ave now than when the previous design was developed. They seem to be taking seriously the recently passed Complete Streets initiative.
.
https://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=47.04.035
If that is the case, the project potentially becomes substantially cheaper that previous version with the ~300 takings.
In addition, the city of Tacoma is also making a big push to improve safety on Pac Ave with their Picture Pac Ave initiative and their collaboration with the health department on a Health Impact Assessment for the stroad. There have been some high-profile deaths, including a kid in a crosswalk.
Pierce Transit really needs a win to be able to show people what a future with fast, frequent transit service in a high ridership area actually looks like, and they could then use that to springboard into expanding their taxing authority and bringing down frequencies across the county, BRT or no.
I also completely agree with not screwing with Route 2. Why would you want to mess with a direct connection between UW-T and TCC?
Cam, I agree. Construction impacts and equity concerns are the principal issues confronting a 6th Avenue selection.
That results in a curious dilemma. To deny 6th Avenue a street railway on equity grounds means subjecting residents along 19th Street to the objectionable construction impacts. This would squarely burden a corridor that has the perception of being over-burdened and under-resourced (although Census data shows that 6th and 19th are only marginally different from one another, proportionally speaking, when you remove neighborhoods already served by the T Line—especially when compared with the entire city).
If 6th Avenue is, in fact, so wealthy and resilient to deny it the railway, it presumably has the resources to bear the brunt of a temporary construction spell in the late 2030s or whenever.
“Census data shows that 6th and 19th are only marginally different from one another”
Census data can be misleading because it only shows population levels and demographics. Even if it knows the types of businesses, it doesn’t know which ones have a special quality that draws people from miles around. It doesn’t dig down into which ones have the most well-rounded variety of businesses that consistently draw people decade after decade.
6th Avenue and 19th Street may have the same-shaped buildings, but what goes on inside may be different. I haven’t been to either street in years, but the last time I went to 6th Avenue was for a band that wasn’t playing in Seattle. The neighborhood looked like it had the potential for a pedestrian-oriented retail/cultural district like the Ave or California Avenue in West Seattle, even though it wasn’t using much of its potential yet. I can’t imagine that bar or district on 19th Street. 19th reminded me of too much residential-only, low-density Fircrest in the middle, and probably resistant to densifying.
@Mike Orr,
I concur. Looking only at census data to plan a major transit investment is pretty much guaranteed to be misleading.
Census data only tells you where people live. It doesn’t tell you where they are going, where they are spending their time, or which of their destinations they are most likely to use transit to access. A more complete understanding of travel patterns is required, and that is what the professionals actually do.
This is probably why Tacoma recommended 19th over 6th. Because 19th is a better fit for a major transit investment than 6th. And because adding service on 19th would also imply adding service on MLK, and therefore serving the hospitals and the Hilltop.
Which brings up an interesting point about census data – it does show that the people along 6th tend to be wealthier (and I assume whiter) than the people in the Hilltop and along 19th.
Wealthier people tend to be less transit dependent than lower income people, so it is odd to see a big push to serve the wealthiest people first. Both equity considerations and ridership considerations would seem to indicate that the lower income neighborhoods should be the first to get service.
Which of course brings up the Lincoln District. Lower income, less white, more transit dependent, yet not even in the conversation? We should be better than this.
Lazarus, you seem to have missed all the work leading up to this Census post. That’s okay. As everything is connected, here you go (and please note that major changes or discoveries have since occured that render some concepts and suggestions outdated).
The first article covers transit development issues in Tacoma. See here.
The next two articles cover buses. See here and here.
As rail planning dictates bus planning here—which is the tail wagging the dog—I then began to focus on long range rail planning.
Fourth Article. This covers T Line expansion history, corridor facts, planning and equity considerations, and offers suggestions for moving forward. I argue that the more viable and equitable option to TCC is 6th for a variety of reasons.
Fifth article. Talks about T Line service to the Tacoma Mall and Lakewood, via Lincoln District. Here, I oppose wasteful spending and advocate for dramatically improved local transportation options, as opposed to a multi-billion dollar Central Link expansion to the Tacoma Mall parking lot.
Sixth article. Corridor specific Census data provided, to include Lincoln District, with more discussion on topics that some in my community have raised about the TCC project, including construction impacts and equity.
Proportionally, 6th Avenue is modestly wealthier and whiter than 19th, but in total numbers the corridor serves a far larger population of people of all socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. It’s noted in the article. So, as opposed to a broad request to “do better”, anything specific you think should be covered that isn’t covered within these pieces?
I’ve said a lot about getting riders past insufficient PM peak capacity from Westlake to U-District after Lynnwood opens.
But ST predicts there may be a capacity problem as far north as 148th. I suppose this makes sense given 148th’s proximity to a private school that has several specialty Metro routes serving the school, and the lack of pick-up service by STX 522 there.
But then, a similar argument could be made at 185th, where nearby offices might push more northbound commuters onto the train than those getting off to finish their homeward-bound commute.
This makes right-sizing train service on the south end and maximizing train capacity north of SODO even more essential.
When capacity maxes out, 148th or 185th will be the first place where riders run out of room to board. So, they need the longest span of additional bus service to get to stations further north.
Getting from 185th to Lynnwood will be Swift Blue to Orange, which will still take much longer than the 8 minutes the train will take.
Riders who can’t board at 145th face much more painful detour options.
Northgate has the 348 at least.
Given the likelihood that Lynnwood is the destination for a supermajority of the riders, I would suggest having Lynnwood shuttles standing by at each of these stations, as well as U-District.
Once the shuttle riders get to Lynnwood, they can ride the train back south to their less-popular destination station.
Let’s be serious here. We have talked about this multiple times.
People will prefer the rail alternative and will vote with their feet. Most people will let several trains go by without even thinking about transferring to a bus. These shuttle don’t work.
And you analysis is flawed anyhow. The PM Peak ridership data you are looking at is for unconstrained demand, but in reality capacity is the ultimate constraint. Since actual capacity will be reached between WLS and UWS, as the train travels north excess capacity will become available..
Essentially you can only put so much water in a bottle before it is full. But after that, pour even a little bit out and it is no longer full. It has excess capacity.
I’m guessing Sound Transit kills the golden goose of mass transit goodwill in greater Puget Sound in the next 10 years. It’s impossible to go to voters for more money when the transit system they just spent decades paying for ends up being a bust.
Here’s why Sound Transit and ST3 are a complete failure. First, there are light rail lines planned to areas that can’t even fill city buses. I mean there’s posts on this board about running light rail on 6th Ave in Tacoma! Why on earth would Tacoma need light rail to Cloverleaf Pizza? 6th Ave is a collection of bars and single story retail backed by single family homes. No density whatsoever. Buses work just fine for all of Tacoma, if there was enough buses (there is not) . Tacoma is already stuck with a lower ridership rail line on Hilltop that goes nowhere. Poor Troy really believes that 25% of the population of Tacoma needs billions and billions of investment for light rail while the rest of the City doesn’t even have proper bus service. Funny how the that 25% percent is the Whitest and richest 25% in the City.
Then there’s the Big Eastside rail boondoggle. Even if Sound Transit does manage to get the light rail to roll over the bridge, (don’t count on that) ridership numbers are going to be low. Why send millions on something that nobody is going to ride?
But what will really kill off Sound Transit is the success of line North out of Seattle. If there’s so many people trying to ride the train, it’s over crowded and folks miss trains, it’s just as publicly bad for Sound Transit as empty trains. And no! you can’t add more trains. Sound Transit is busy building lines nobody is going to ride for next decade.
Little boys and their toy trains was the problem from the very beginning. It’s like some sales team drew up this crazy diagram of trains running everywhere. Too good to believe? The sales pitch is never going to meet reality, is it?
The posts of the user Tacomee are at least amusing, even if they tend to be irrelevant or inaccurate.
Publicly available Census and transit data can speak for themselves. They are provided in the links, along with an analysis of how these (mandatory) rail investments can better serve Pierce County.
Tacomee, regarding your eastside rail comment, ridership will be low, but only in its first few years. But even you have to admit, over time, ridership will greatly increase. The neighborhoods East Link will serve are going transform and grow, and light rail will contribute to that growth. You need to force yourself to see beyond the end of your nose. Yes, ridership will be anemic the first few years, maybe even the first decade plus. That doesn’t matter. Decades from now, no eastsider is going to call it a boondoggle. They’ll be very glad it was built.
Troy,
There’s absolutely no need for light rail anywhere in Tacoma. None. It’s not my personal belief, it’s simply looking at the population density of Tacoma (it’s low) and the level of transit ridership (even lower). Whatever numbers you’re using, they are just wrong.
Tacoma is po’dunk 2 horse town of less than 220,000 people without a working public bus system. Any rail project is just a bad idea. Sound Transit doesn’t not need to “take over transit service on 6th Ave”. Sound Transit should write a fat check to Pierce Transit for better bus service and hit the road.
After Sound Transit jacked up the light rail build in Hilltop, I doubt the small businesses on 6th Ave or Lincoln District will support a light rail build. Listen to the people. There’s no public support of light rail left in the City. Believe it. Zero support after Hilltop. Try to get any elected official to agree with an expanded light rail plan. It wouldn’t happen. Sound Transit is poison now.
Tacomee, respectfully, you’ve either bumped your head or mistaken me for someone else.
I am no fan of ST3 or its rail projects, and I was a loud voice in the anti-ST3 movement because of its failure to deliver beneficial projects (especially in Pierce County). Just type “Troy Serad” and “ST3 into Google search, it’s that easy. In fact, my opposition to the measure subjected me and others to some pretty ridiculous accusations of being anti-transit or unprogressive. I stopped visiting this blog for years because of its ST3 slant, despite the obvious flaws of the plan that are now a big source of content for many of its articles. It was all predictable and, indeed, predicted. Today, all I want to do with major local transit projects is maximize their benefit and serve the most people. That means T Line runs over 6th Avenue and, potentially, through the Lincoln District toward Lakewood (under a hypothetical ST4). Your rants about Pierce County bus service, whatever their merit, are unproductive because rail projects are already approved and more are likely to come our way. Go right ahead and protest alone at Union Station while others do difficult work to refine scopes and plans and policies for the better.
Finally, to accuse another of being a proponent of wasteful rail projects when you have advocated for extending Central Link to the Tacoma Mall is striking hypocrisy. You appear to not have a cohesive concept for transit development in Pierce County. That is unfortunate, because I actually think you have a refreshing and cutting perspective on transit here that must be heard.
“I’m guessing Sound Transit kills the golden goose of mass transit goodwill in greater Puget Sound in the next 10 years. It’s impossible to go to voters for more money when the transit system they just spent decades paying for ends up being a bust.”
Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way will counteract that for a while. People in three subareas will see a major return for their transit taxes. The lag between when they were promised them and when they’re getting them is 3-5 years. That’s bad but it’s not nearly as bad as the 8-14 year gap for UW and U-District Stations.
Sam, I meant to commend you for your transparency in your last troll an article or so ago, where you practically said “I’m trolling”.
“ridership will be anemic the first few years, maybe even the first decade plus. That doesn’t matter. Decades from now, no eastsider is going to call it a boondoggle. They’ll be very glad it was built.”
Yes, that’s what happens in areas like Seattle or the Eastside or Lynnwood. More people make a wider variety of trips to more places than the critics realize. The population continues to increase, and things that don’t seem likely now will be likely in ten or twenty years. Look at how Seattle was in 2003 compared to now. Or even how Bellevue and Redmond were, or Kirkland or Renton or Bothell. There’s a lot more acceptance and demand for transit now then there was then. I predict in the next 10-30 years there will be a notable increase in public demand for carbon-reduction strategies, transit mobility, decreasing car and P&R use, and reversing the negative impacts of car/parking infrastructure on cities. This infrastructure is what we’ll need at that point, and people will be glad a previous generation built it.
Everett and Pierce County won’t have as much of it. Every rail/bus line has a sweet spot of ridership/length, because long low-speed lines become less competitive with alternatives, and wide intermediate station gaps lose potential riders. With Link and its speed and stop spacing, the sweet spot is Lynnwood and KDM/Federal Way. Beyond that it’s diminishing returns. Pierce County is also structurally screwed because it doesn’t have intra-county transit to get 90% of residents to its one station at Tacoma Dome in a reasonable way, and they can barely get from one Pierce city or Tacoma neighborhood to another. Pierce should focus on that because it’s its most urgent transit need.
“There’s absolutely no need for light rail anywhere in Tacoma”
I agree we don’t need the T Line. Tacoma/Pierce has an urgent need for BRT to all its cities and neighborhood activity centers. Three bus lines is more urgent than one streetcar line for the same price. Especially when the streetcar’s alignment brings only minimal benefits to downtown Tacoma and the Hilltop.
A Pacific Ave/downtown Tacoma streetcar would make more sense than the Commerce-MLK line, because it would go a longer distance at higher speed and connect more neighborhoods together. Its potential ridership (the population of its walkshed) would be much higher. It would solve a bigger problem for riders, namely traveling several miles. A two-mile U-shaped line has a walking alternative, while a 3-5 mile straight trip doesn’t.
So what Pierce/ST/CT should do is figure out a way to finish the original Stream spec, and upgrade it to center transit lanes like Seattle’s Madison Street. Then extend it north on 6th Avenue like the existing Route 1. Then do the same thing with routes 2, 3, 4, and 200. Line 3 BRT would address Tacoma Mall access, South Tacoma Way, and Lakewood. Then look to see what the next tier of needs would be. I’d like to get something to North Tacoma, route 500, East Tacoma (Portland Ave), Puyallup, and Puyallup-South Hill.
Once we’ve got those done and people can travel on them, then we can discuss whether to expand the streetcar network. Including whether to build the 19th Street extension (ST3). That won’t start construction until the mid 1930s, so there’s plenty of time in the meantime to defer it.
“Try to get any elected official to agree with an expanded light rail plan. It wouldn’t happen.”
Then you’re lucky; Pierce officials may finally turn their attention to addressing Pierce County’s real transit needs.
“Today, all I want to do with major local transit projects is maximize their benefit and serve the most people”
Troy Serad for Tacoma mayor or a strategic Pierce County position.
“to accuse another of being a proponent of wasteful rail projects when you have advocated for extending Central Link to the Tacoma Mall is striking hypocrisy.”
tacomee supported the Tacoma Mall extension? That sounds uncharacteristic. He’s always been against the Tacoma Dome extension for as long as I remember.
Mike Orr,
You of all people! Do I really have to explain transit planning here? I guess I do.
Let’s start with the stupid dog and pony show Sound Transit started with for ST3. It’s a regional map with lots of pretty colored lines on it. Light rail for everyone! Hooray!!! The problem is that’s a sales pitch, not transit planning.
What Sound transit has now is a successful intercity train in Seattle. Works great for getting the U-District to Capitol Hill. Good job Sound Transit. But extending that line North just makes the system overcrowded. There are absolutely no turn outs are ways to add more trains in the middle of the system. Bad transit planning, right?
On the other extreme are the Sound Transit lines in East King County. Bus ridership out in these areas never approached the level that pointed toward a light rail upgrade. More bad transit planning, right?
If you don’t think King 5 News isn’t smart enough to put a reporter at 85th street station where riders can’t got on a train because it’s over crowded and another reporter out in Redmond where the train is almost empty, I don’t know what to tell you. But you know damn well this going to happen. All those pretty colored lines the Sound Transit sales pitch map aren’t real… transit doesn’t work that way.
Yes, my friend Tacomee is on record saying that if Tacoma ever gets light rail, it should go to the Mall. He opposes wasteful billions on bad rail projects, and then goes on to advocate for one. That makes no sense.
I, alternatively, believe that trains should stop at Tacoma Dome, and that (at least) Tacoma Link should be integrated to support (at least) 2-car regional trains. I have even shown how 4-car upgrades are feasible. This integration was the original Board-approved, City and County-approved, and voter-endorsed strategy for area light rail. So, if we are going to pay all this money for rail, at least let us run trains from TCC to Sea-Tac, or Downtown Tacoma to Sea-Tac, or Lakewood to Sea-Tac. The needless difference in tram tech prohibits that. They should at least have the same loading gauge, and either convert the T Line to 15kV or run dual voltage trams as needed.
There are many ways this could be achieved. They should be studied, which hasn’t been done since 2005. It would cost millions, not billions, and make so many local transit problems disappear.
“But extending that line North just makes the system overcrowded.”
No, not opening Line 2 on time makes the system overcrowded.
“There are absolutely no turn outs are ways to add more trains in the middle of the system. Bad transit planning, right?”
Yes, there’s a lot of bad transit planning. An I-5 alignment. Not having open gangways to increase capacity. Lack of turnouts, although we’d have to specify which ones are missing. Lack of a University Street crossover that could give flexibility during maintenance periods.
“On the other extreme are the Sound Transit lines in East King County. Bus ridership out in these areas never approached the level that pointed toward a light rail upgrade.”
The comparison is with European cities that have a similar population level and distance and job/activity centers. They would have a rail line “of course”, and it would be busy, and it would likely reach capacity in a couple decades and have to be expanded. The current bus service is too skeletal to say what ridership with a robust metro would be like.
For a recap of current bus service:
– The 550 runs every 15 minutes weekday/Saturday, every 30 minutes Sunday/evenings. It takes 30 minutes on a good midday, or 45 minutes peak hours or when there’s midday congestion. Link will run every 10 minutes full time and take 20-ish minutes to Bellevue Downtown.
– The 545 runs every 10-30 minutes to Redmond Tech and Redmond Downtown. Westlake-Redmond at noon takes 33 minutes; at 5pm 39 minutes; plus major I-5/520 congestion a few times a week.
– The area between downtown Bellevue and Redmond Tech has no express-level service.
– Downtown Bellevue to downtown Redmond has no off-peak express-level service. The B takes 38 minutes at noon.
Compare that to Link:
– Link will run every 10 minutes full time.
– Travel time to downtown Bellevue will be 20-25 minutes (compared to 30-45), immune to congestion.
– Travel time to downtown Redmond will be 35-50 minutes (about the same as the 545), immune to congestion.
– Travel time from UW to downtown Bellevue will be 26-31 minutes.
– Eastern Bellevue, middle Bellevue, and Overlake Village (Redmond) will have all-day express-level service for the first time.
– Downtown Bellevue to Redmond will have all-day express-level service for the first time.
All that makes transit trips feasible that aren’t currently feasible. That would increase ridership. More and more TOD is being built around stations. Eastsiders will have their P&Rs if they can’t or don’t want to take a feeder bus to Link. All that would tend to increase ridership too.
The Eastside needs Link for the same reason Oakland/Berkeley needs BART, Silver Spring and Arlington need the DC Metro, and Jersey City needs PATH. Metro rail was planned in Forward Thrust in the 1960s; it made sense even then, given how the Eastside would develop and did develop. So it certainly makes sense now.
I’m an Eastsider who is very much anticipating the completion of East Link. This will help quite a bit when I attend sporting or cultural events in Seattle, as I would get to avoid highway traffic (either driving or riding in it), save money on parking and gas, and feel free to enjoy an extra adult beverage without worrying about DWI. If I had to commute daily to Seattle for work, I’d definitely take it too, like the way I took Metro to Seattle University in the 1980s.
I can also see Eastsiders finding East Link very useful for Seahawks and Mariners games ($100+ for parking?!) and for Sea-Tac (far cheaper than a cab/Lyft fare). Let’s see what happens when the trains start rolling.
This whole discussion about past forecasts being too low led me back to actual FTA records about ridership forecasts and first year reality.
In the effort, I ran across this FTA report about University Link ridership. It’s this opening that many apparantly assume was under-forecasted.
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2021-11/University-Link-bna-study-2021.pdf
The document clearly states how in the first year, ST greatly over-forecasted ridership here. It states in page 7 that the opening year (2017) grant ridership projection by ST was 42 percent too high for the reality of 2017.
Since there seems to be this opinion that ST had instead under-predicted Link ridership in the past, I thought it was important to point out the actual truth about University Link ridership.
Agreed, I’ve never seen Sound Transit exceed their projected ridership goals sent to the FTA for funding.
Those exceeded goals are just internal ones modified downwards and published widely for media, but nothing to do with actual federal funding.
Interesting articles from urbanist. Namely the transit board one
> House Bill 2191, sponsored by Representative Joe Timmons (D-42, Bellingham), would allow — not require — around two-thirds of the transit agencies in Washington State to appoint two designated rider representatives to their boards, which are currently made up almost entirely of elected officials from inside their service areas. One of those representatives is required to be someone who directly relies on public transit as their primary mode of mobility, and the other to represent an organization that serves transit-dependent individuals.
(Note it only applies to state PTBAs not RTAs, aka applies to Pierce Transit and say Community Transit but not Sound Transit, King County Metro nor Everett Transit)
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/25/rider-reps-could-be-coming-to-transit-boards/
There’s the article about the express bus routes for Lynnwood with express bus 515, I think we’ve already talked about it last week since it was in a pdf presentation earlier? But anyways just repeating it here for many others who might have missed it:
> Route 510 will temporarily continue to operate, traveling southbound from Everett in the morning peak period and northbound from Seattle in the afternoon as frequently as every 15 minutes.
> Route 512 will be shortened to Lynnwood City Center Station (Lynnwood Transit Center) and operate as often as every 15 minutes throughout the day in both directions on weekdays and weekends.
> Route 513 will be shortened to Lynnwood City Center Station (Lynnwood Transit Center) and continue to operate every 30 minutes during peak periods, traveling southbound from Seaway Transit Center in the morning and northbound from Lynnwood in the afternoon.
> A new temporary Route 515 will supplement Link capacity by connecting Lynnwood to downtown Seattle, traveling southbound from Lynnwood in the morning peak period and northbound from Seattle in the afternoon as frequently as every 10 minutes.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/25/sound-transit-outlines-changes-to-snohomish-county-express-bus-service/
Terrible idea! Who picks these two “designated rider representatives”?
Reading the bill it says:
> In addition to the maximum of nine elected official voting members of the governing body of a single county public transportation benefit area or 15 elected official voting members of the governing body, in the case of a multicounty area, there may by two transit-using voting members appointed to each governing body by the elected official voting members.
It’s encouraging to see that some legislator realizes that riders are often not at the table when transit decisions get made! Yay!
The issue that I see is in implementation. Will leaders appoint a rep who promises to be quiet at meetings? Worse yet, would they appoint someone who is deliberately absent at Board meetings? It could be a token gesture.
On the other hand, every rider will know who to contact with their concerns. That rep will get tons of complaints. If that chosen person chooses to then blow off rider concerns, there would be a pretty ugly public outcry.
“Route 512 …. [and] Route 513 will be shortened to Lynnwood City Center Station”
That’s a change from the original announcement I put in the last open thread. That one said the 512 and 513 might be truncated at Lynnwood but it was still uncertain and would depend on operational/logistical/demand issues. The revision makes more sense and gives more certainty. Then ST can focus on adding additional supplemental service somewhere if it’s needed, and not on what to do with the 512 and 513.
@Mike Orr,
That is good news. All those long, thin routes that run parallel to Link should be eliminated. Once Link opens they won’t garner much ridership anyhow, and their economics are already highly problematic for the transit agencies.
Making their economics even worse is a non-starter for the transit agencies. And I don’t think the bus transit agencies really like the optics of having their premier service be seen nearly empty and stuck in traffic while Link whizzes by overhead with full passenger loads. Much better to do something else.
Supposedly one of the good things about buses is that their routes are not permanent. Essentially that frees up the rail agencies to pick the best route for rail and then let the bus routes adapt to the rail route. This is the way it is done all over the world.
I have my doubts about some of the details of the KCM restructure proposal. But the good thing is that Metro can always change later. Hopefully they get it right eventually. Hopefully.
“All those long, thin routes that run parallel to Link should be eliminated. Once Link opens they won’t garner much ridership anyhow,”
Did you know that the 510, 590, and 592 have run parallel with Sounder since Sounder started, and aren’t nearly empty? Before covid the 590/592 had to run every five minutes to keep up with demand. The 162 (Kent, Lake Meridian, KDM P&R, downtown) is probably similar, although I’ve never seen it.
So they are truncating the 512 and 513, while also adding a brand new route — the 515. The other routes will no longer go from Lynnwood to downtown. The 515 will only go from Lynnwood to downtown. WTF?
Seriously, that makes no sense. The whole point of the 515 is to relieve crowding, and they truncate the other buses to increase crowding.
It is pretty easy to see what the alternative would be:
1) During peak, have the 512 run to downtown. Call it a different number if you are afraid of confusion.
2) Have the 513 go to downtown.
3) Add a few 515 buses as necessary.
Since the 512 and 513 would stop at Lynnwood (on their way downtown) some people would transfer to Link at that point. Others would just stay on the bus, giving them a one-seat ride to downtown.
In contrast, current plans have a lot of people transferring at Lynnwood, while Sound Transit just crosses their fingers, and hopes that people choose the bus instead of the train. This is why they want transit users on the board. The folks who came up with this idea have never actually taken transit. They have completely ignored the concept of a transfer.
All those long, thin routes that run parallel to Link should be eliminated. Once Link opens they won’t garner much ridership anyhow, and their economics are already highly problematic for the transit agencies.
They why have the 515?!! If no one wants to take a bus, then what is the point of a bus that only serves Link stations? How can it possibly reduce crowding if it offers the riders nothing but the exact same trip pairs?
The 515 should be canceled too. It serves no real purpose and won’t solve the crowding problem. It’s just a little CYA for the board so they can say, “Gee, we offered the riders an alternative, but I guess they really do prefer rail”.
But supposedly ST has solved the storage problem and now thinks they can run gap trains too to solve crowding. If that is true, then there is no need for the 515 anyhow. Cancel it and redeploy the resources.
Hopefully ST is right on this one.
“So they are truncating the 512 and 513, while also adding a brand new route — the 515. The other routes will no longer go from Lynnwood to downtown. The 515 will only go from Lynnwood to downtown. WTF?”
The 512 and 513 no longer go downtown; they terminate at Northgate. Only the 510 still goes to downtown, and that’s the one ST wants to keep. The ultimate result is moving the 512/513 transfer from Northgate to Lynnwood (shortening the bus ride and lengthening the Link ride), and reinstating a “short 511” for Lynnwood-downtown. For 512 and 513 riders, it will still be one transfer like it is now, unless their trip ends at Northgate. Having a Lynnwood split (512/512 to 515) preserves operational flexibility (it’s easy to add a run to one of those), avoids a traffic jam in one segment throwing off the other segment), and raise temporary hopes of a one-seat ride from Seaway or Ash Way to downtown that will later be dashed. Lynnwood is a major destination and central transfer point; so that’s where it makes the most sense for a one-seat ride to downtown. Especially when one segment is 15 miles and the other may be 5-15 miles. It would be different if both segments were 2-3 miles and a transfer would just seem pedantic.
“supposedly ST has solved the storage problem and now thinks they can run gap trains too to solve crowding.”
Where’s that? The announcement only says Link will run every 8-10 minutes. It’s ambiguous whether that means current frequency (8 min peak, 10 min off-peak), less frequency (10 min peak if 8 minutes isn’t feasible), or more frequency (8 min midday). It doesn’t say anything about ST being able to increase peak frequency beyond 8 minutes, such as to 6 minutes.
@Mike Orr,
ST wouldn’t announce that they can support 8 min frequency if they haven’t solved the storage problem well enough to support 8 min frequencies.
And ST Ops maintains just about the highest ratio of spares and gap trains in the industry. It simple enough to use them once in awhile.
“ST wouldn’t announce that they can support 8 min frequency if they haven’t solved the storage problem well enough to support 8 min frequencies. ”
Then why doesn’t ST just say frequency will be 8 minutes peak, 10 minutes off-peak, as it is currently? (Currently = not counting the maintenance reduction.)
> So they are truncating the 512 and 513, while also adding a brand new route — the 515. The other routes will no longer go from Lynnwood to downtown. The 515 will only go from Lynnwood to downtown. WTF
I’m semi-guessing here but most likely the 513 will through-run (become) with the 515 heading southbound as you noted. Since the 513 is a peak-only bus every 30 minutes while the 515 is every 10/15 minutes peak time. Once it reaches Lynnwood, it’d just continue on. Or another way to word it, every other or third 515 leaving from lynnwood, is probably a 513 coming from Seaway Transit Center.
Essentially that frees up the rail agencies to pick the best route for rail and then let the bus routes adapt to the rail route. This is the way it is done all over the world.
Wrong. Absolutely wrong. First of all, that is not how it is done “all over the world”. You have it backwards. Quite often, the exact same agency builds the bus and train line. If not, the agencies work together, to form a network that works very well for both. This is just a standard “best practice”. Because while bus routes are flexible, putting stations in the wrong place leads to major network problems. Or, to put it in a more positive way — good station placement makes bus restructures easy.
Consider Vancouver. I would argue that Vancouver has the best transit on the West Coast. Ridership and modal share is very high given their overall size and density. The combination of buses and trains are the key. Unlike a lot of European cities and New York, a lot more people ride the bus than the train. But the numbers on both are very good (about half a million on the train, about 3/4 of a million on the buses). The agency that built SkyTrain is the same agency that runs the buses (TransLink). Thus they didn’t need to setup a meeting with some other agency (or in the case of Sound Transit, agencies). They were just down the hall. This explains why the buses and trains work together so well. It is what Jarrett Walker called an almost perfect grid.
But imagine if the SkyTrain planners simply ignored the potential bus network. For example, take the Oakride-41st Station. When it was built, there was very little around it. Even now, you can see that single-family homes dominate the area. It is about half a mile from the Langara-49th station. Given the stop spacing, it is easy to imagine Sound Transit skipping Oakride-41st, the same way they wanted to skip 130th Station.
But doing so would blow a huge hole in the grid. The current bus that runs along 41st — the R4 — carries about 25,000 riders a day (as of 2022.) It would either skip the connection with SkyTrain, or make a detour and then somehow get back to 41st. This would delay through-riders. It would cost the transit agency a lot of money, which in turn would mean frequency would be worse. In short, it would destroy the very thing that makes Vancouver a world model for transit — its near perfect grid.
You don’t really have to go that far to find similar examples. Folks have been suggesting a dozen different ideas for how to connect Aurora with Link. If Link actually served Aurora, there would be no discussion. The E would serve Aurora, and riders would take Link to get to other destinations (like the UW).
Or look at the example I mentioned: 130th. Remember, ST did not want that station. They completely ignored the value of that station as a bus intercept, despite numerous calls for it. A station at 130th makes getting to Link a lot faster for a lot of people. But not everyone is headed to Link. Like all great transit, a crossing route works for a variety or riders. Consider a trip from Lake City to Bitter Lake. This is from one urban area to another. From bus stop to bus stop — not counting the initial wait time — it takes forty minutes. It takes less than ten to drive. Transit take an extra half hour! That is assuming you time it just right.
Thankfully, the board finally listened to the transit community, and will (eventually) build the station. For that one little section we will have a bit of what Vancouver takes for granted: a good transit grid.
Or another way to word it, every other or third 515 leaving from lynnwood, is probably a 513 coming from Seaway Transit Center.
That would be the sensible approach. I’m just not sure that will happen. According to Sound Transit’s initial plan, it won’t.
> Essentially that frees up the rail agencies to pick the best route for rail and then let the bus routes adapt to the rail route. This is the way it is done all over the world.
> Wrong. Absolutely wrong. First of all, that is not how it is done “all over the world”. You have it backwards. Quite often, the exact same agency builds the bus and train line. If not, the agencies work together, to form a network that works very well for both.
The splitting of agencies is not solely about the technology but often more about the type of service offered. For instance, JR (Japan Railway) is in charge of the intercity rail trains sure, but also runs the JR intercity busses. While for urban service, WMATA runs both the subway and the bus lines. So does MTA run both the subway and bus lines in new york. The commuter rail lines are separate agencies though with nj transit and Lirr. BART on the other hand as regional train is completely separate.
Sound Transit on the other hand is just constantly unsure of it’s goal. Sometimes it heavily focuses on express stuff like the spine, but then also implements local transit like the first hill streetcar and Tacoma link or even arguably the Stride 3. kinda reminds me about the discussion of why the “bus branding” seems so inconsistent.
>> Or another way to word it, every other or third 515 leaving from lynnwood, is probably a 513 coming from Seaway Transit Center.
> That would be the sensible approach. I’m just not sure that will happen. According to Sound Transit’s initial plan, it won’t.
I mean once the 513 bus travels from seaway TC to lynnwood, besides the earliest set of runs there probably isn’t enough time to head back up to make another run down. I’d be kind of surprised if they didn’t use some of these busses to head further down to seattle downtown as the 515.
“Sound Transit on the other hand is just constantly unsure of it’s goal. Sometimes it heavily focuses on express stuff like the spine, but then also implements local transit like the first hill streetcar and Tacoma link or even arguably the Stride 3.”
Stride 3 and Stream are regional transit. Stride 3 connects the regional growth centers of Bothell and Kenmore to Link, and thus indirectly to Seattle. Stream connects the regional growth center of Parkland to downtown Tacoma. The First Hill Streetcar is mitigation for the lack of a First Hill Link station; it connects Sounder to First Hill and First Hill to Capitol Hill Station. First Hill has enough regional hospitals and growth to count as a regional growth center on its own, but it’s subsumed in the downtown one so it’s not always recognized as such. A South Tacoma Way extension or BRT would connect the regional growth centers of Lakewood and Tacoma Mall to downtown Tacoma.
> Stride 3 and Stream are regional transit. Stride 3 connects the regional growth centers of Bothell and Kenmore to Link, and thus indirectly to Seattle
Sure but like why doesn’t sound transit investigate say improving rapidride E or say swift blue. It’s not as if those routes are any shorter than stride 3. Or just in general other rapid rides they aren’t shorter than stride3. But sound transit sees it as outside of its mandate to improve and leaves it solely to king county metro
It’s not that it’s outside its mandate, it’s that the politicians want something else and don’t consider it. Swift is a “poor man’s light rail” suitable for lower-density areas. It’s a good match for Snohomish County. It does the same thing: provide faster-than-local service between only the major stops. Stride is essentially the same thing under a different name. Instead of extending Link to Paine Field and Everett, ST could build all the remaining Swift lines quickly, and still have money for other things the Swift plan doesn’t address. Like downtown Edmonds and Mukilteo.
> It’s not that it’s outside its mandate, it’s that the politicians want something else and don’t consider it.
Sorry probably shouldn’t have used the word mandate as that implied a legal term, I guess like “focus”. But either way that is exactly what Sound Transit mainly does and so it has a weird mismatch.
> ST could build all the remaining Swift lines quickly
I mean when I talked about redirecting the pierce commuter rail or even at least the express busses money to other brt projects in pierce to others on here sure some said ‘it wasn’t allowed” because of the sound transit 3 terms. But honestly I think this goes beyond what was written into st3 and what politicians think, it seems more also the general public and sound transit itself see the (avenue ones) BRT’s to fall under the local county transit agencies role to improve rather than Sound Transit’s role to improve
Swift is more regional because it’s limited-stop. With full-stop routes like Stream and RapidRide it becomes less certain it adequately connects the regional centers because of the longer travel time.
@WL.
“ You have it backwards. Quite often, the exact same agency builds the bus and train line.”
You miss the point. Rail is a 100 year investment. Bus is here today, gone tomorrow. That is supposedly one of the advantages of buses – changeability.
So no matter how many agencies are involved, rail is always placed in the best corridor for long term ridership, and the bus route is always adapted to rail.
Nobody routes their billion dollar rail system around their temporary bus routes. They just don’t.
> Nobody routes their billion dollar rail system around their temporary bus routes. They just don’t.
Uhhh have you read the Ballard and west Seattle documents. They are literally talking about routing the stations for the bus connectivity. And even before that the station sites selection one primary pros and cons was checking ease of bus connections. Even the ridership for federal funding is heavily calculated from the bus routes
I mean I get what you are saying one can reroute busses a bit but overall the corridor itself doesn’t actually move and both sound transit and transit agencies world wide heavily take into account how well bus routes will work together
> Swift is more regional because it’s limited-stop. With full-stop routes like Stream and RapidRide it becomes less certain it adequately connects the regional centers because of the longer travel time.
Yes sure, but what exactly is the blocker for Sound Transit to fund/improve these projects? Like if I was to talk about say Sound Transit building rail on 520 or say extension to renton someone would of course bring up funding concerns and how east link already covers it — sure fine.
But if I was to talk about Sound Transit building “avenue” brts, funding the rapidrides or improving the existing ones, suddenly people bring up how it isn’t Sound Transit’s job to build or how it goes against what was in ST3 — this is not brought up for discussions about rail extensions. Like beyond what politicians think, it seems there is this assumption that Sound Transit must do the express routes only.
If I was to say talk about a streetcar line replacing the 7 down to renton, we’d just be talking about say cost and feasibility. If I was to say the same about a brt line, people would then be talking about how this is outside the scope of sound transit.
Even Swift Blue, it’s like 10 miles long connects shoreline, lynnwood and everett in the future there’ll be an extension to a link light rail station as well. Why is that suddenly different in priority from Stride 3 that’s 7 miles long connecting to lake forest park, kenmore and bothell?
@WL,
“ Even the ridership for federal funding is heavily calculated from the bus routes”
Wrong. Just plain wrong.
Usually the scoring system for federal funding specifically EXCLUDES the consider of bus reroutes and transfers on ridership.
The reasons for this are obvious. It’s simply too easy for an agency to crank their score up by claiming huge ridership via new bus connections, and then simply not build those bus connections after the rail system is built. By excluding the consideration of new bus routes the Feds are attempting to prevent agencies from “gaming” the system.
There are of course exceptions in certain, specific situations.
As for good multimodal connections at rail stations, of course this is considered. But the rail route comes first. No agency will route their rail system off corridor to intercept a bus route. Instead they pick a good location for the rail station and reroute the bus to intercept it.
Basically good rail routings are the priority. Bus routes are secondary.
> Usually the scoring system for federal funding specifically EXCLUDES the consider of bus reroutes and transfers on ridership.
Perhaps I could have worded that better, but my main point is that they definitely do take into account bus transfers and the connection of whether this will increase overall ridership.
> As for good multimodal connections at rail stations, of course this is considered. But the rail route comes first. No agency will route their rail system off corridor to intercept a bus route. Instead they pick a good location for the rail station and reroute the bus to intercept it.
the slu station is discussions literally revolve around it being a connection point between rapidride E versus skipping the station or moving it elsewhere. Also it isn’t quite an accident that most of the station locations chosen are existing major transit stops.
> Basically good rail routings are the priority. Bus routes are secondary.
I understand what you are getting at that the train costs a lot more to build and that busses can be rerouted, but I don’t think you really realize how much priority is given to the train stations bus transfers. Sound Transit routings literally spend hundreds of millions or probably at least a billion if we’re adding it up for route/station deviations for better bus locations.
For specific examples, like the lynnwood downtown deviation or the kent/des moins. Of course it is partially all entangled together as the best destinations are typically the best bus route locations as well. I guess for an isolated example look at the mountlake terrace station, they spent a 100~200 million more to place the station on the outside rather than a freeway train station.
@Mike
Strides 1 and 2 might be regional BRT, but Stride 3 is a local bus. In Metro’s latest plan, they won’t be serving the 522 corridor north of Seattle. So the S3 line won’t just be a regional Northshore Link feeder, it will be the only route connecting Bothell – Kenmore – LFP. Trying to combine BRT stop spacing with local transit access seems awkward at best.
The only reasons to run ST Express 515 from Lynwood to downtown in the morning are to establish a service pattern to get people to ride it back in the evening, and to stash the buses in the SODO during the day in preparation for the evening runs.
The reason for the evening runs is to reduce overcrowding that ST knows is going to happen on the 1 Line during PM peak when Lynnwood Link opens.
The 515 is unlikely to draw many riders because the train will be noticeably faster, riders coming from Lynnwood will easily find space on the train, and riders going north from downtown will find space on the train except for the very peak of peak, if that.
However, northbound runs to Ash Way and Seaway might do a little better, since they remove the transfer penalty at Lynnwood.
STX 510 going all the way downtown mostly just keeps the N Line from filling up more, or could be based on lack of cooperation from BNSF to allow all four runs to be condensed into peak of peak. But then, wouldn’t the back-up solution be to just run two trains that are twice as long?
I can see why ST planners might have focused on the proverbial forest. Westlake and Northgate are the two highest-ridership stations. When Lynnwood Link opens, Westlake and Lynnwood will probably be the two highest-ridership stations. So why not focus on relief for the most popular trip pairing?
The second-order analysis should have looked at which passengers will be most impacted. Those riding between Westlake and somewhere further north on the line, including Lynnwood, aren’t it.
Capitol Hill will probably see an increase in northbound peak boarders, without much increase in northbound alighters to balance it out. Will those who can’t fit when capacity is used up be able to get on the next train? I don’t think we’ll know the answer until a couple weeks of careful observation and data collection are done.
UW and U-District will definitely be heavy net boarding stations northbound during PM peak, so long as there is room to board. I’m guessing that there will be a prolonged period during peak of peak when only a fraction of those trying to board will be able to do so. This problem would then extend to stations to the north, where those able to board are outnumbered by those having to wait.
The problem could be exacerbated if large numbers of riders realize that to go north, you must first go south. And then the southbound trains get overwhelmed, as we saw happen on Super Bowl Parade Day, just in opposite directions.
For all those trying to board the train going north from UW, how might ST offer the most useful alternatives?
That requires figuring out where the riders want to go, and where ST could offer a service that riders would actually use, in the greatest number.
Riders going from UW to Roosevelt already have Metro 45 and 67. Once word gets out that there may be a really long wait to get on the train during and after peak of peak, these are awesome options that are much easier to get to than the stations.
67 to Northgate is more circuitous, but still an attractive option if it is very frequent.
UW to 148th, 185th, and Mountlake Terrace will each have small enough ridership that point-to-point shuttles are not going to be much use.
But UW to Lynnwood is expected to have huge ridership, and a strong likelihood of a long wait to get on the train. I would suggest that, instead of the proposed STX 515, ST deploy an STX 516 that serves the inner campus loop, picks up by U-District Station, and then jumps on I-5 to Lynnwood.
“what exactly is the blocker for Sound Transit to fund/improve these projects?”
Pierce County, the city of Tacoma, and the other subarea boardmembers wanted Tacoma Dome Station and the T Line. That used up the money, and they didn’t even look at the possibility of upgrading the other one-digit routes or new Swift-like routes in an ST phase. The same kind of thing happens in Snohomish and King Counties.
“But if I was to talk about Sound Transit building “avenue” brts, funding the rapidrides or improving the existing ones, suddenly people bring up how it isn’t Sound Transit’s job to build or how it goes against what was in ST3”
These people aren’t lawyers, and I’m not either. It depends on the precise threshold of “regional transit”. ST’s mandate is to connect the regional growth centers. With Link or Stride or ST Express it’s obvious. I’m arguing that Stream is functionally equivalent to Stride, so it should be OK too. ST would need to confirm that. But it won’t confirm it because it’s not interested in it or hasn’t thought of the possibility. RapidRide G and the First Hill Streetcar are the most “local” but ST is contributing to them, so that shows it can fund at least the capital costs of all-stop enhanced arterial service. ST’s long-range plan has a project for “Aurora BRT”, whatever that might be. ST2’s long-range plan had a (now deleted) project for “Madison Street Link” separate from RapidRide G.
As to whether ST can fund operations on RapidRide/Stream-type routes or is just choosing not to; it’s an open question. Both the G and Stream were pre-existing projects when ST got involved, and Metro and PT were already planning to fund operations. As to whether ST can fund streetcar operations, that depends on whether there’s any real difference between the First Hill Streetcar and the T Line. Not that we can tell.
I think what’s clear is that ST gets to call whatever they want as what they call “their mission”. The fact that the T Line is run by ST but not the First Hill Streetcar is kind of the poster child of an arbitrary mission. Or Stride 3 versus RapidRide. Or funding RapidRide G but not other RapidRides. Or funding Sounder trains but not the Cascades trains.
@Mike / Al
> These people aren’t lawyers, and I’m not either. It depends on the precise threshold of “regional transit”. ST’s mandate is to connect the regional growth centers.
I mean beyond just legalese. After if even people on a transit blog don’t think/consider about Sound Transit improving or creating these brt’s why would a politician even consider it?
> I think what’s clear is that ST gets to call whatever they want as what they call “their mission”. The fact that the T Line is run by ST but not the First Hill Streetcar is kind of the poster child of an arbitrary mission. Or Stride 3 versus RapidRide. Or funding RapidRide G but not other RapidRides. Or funding Sounder trains but not the Cascades trains.
Agreed. The first time I brought Sound Transit funding these brt’s up, many others on here talked about how it wasn’t Sound Transit’s job to do so and is king county/community transit’s. I first thought it made some sense on the surface, but when I thought about it some more it was never that consistent.
If we talk about building a rail line on Aurora, sure Sound Transit can do it, building/improving brt on that same corridor suddenly it’s not allowed. I mean even swift blue, sound transit itself studied a brt on evergreen way. Why do people here keep thinking sound transit can’t build or improve these brt’s?
That is supposedly one of the advantages of buses – changeability.
So no matter how many agencies are involved, rail is always placed in the best corridor for long term ridership, and the bus route is always adapted to rail.
You completely missed the point. In many cases, the “long term ridership” is dependent on the buses. Yes, buses can adapt, but there is only so much they can do. You are confusing the particulars of a bus route (which can easily change) with the fundamentals of station placement. A bus can’t serve a station that doesn’t exist. Allow me to try and summarize the issue as simply as possible:
Station placement can make it easy for buses to connect to the trains, or they can make it difficult.
I listed several examples, did you not look at them? Do you need help understanding what I wrote?
Or take West Seattle Link (please). Imagine they didn’t add a station on Delridge. Now what? Metro would have two choices:
1) Just keep running the RapidRide H downtown.
2) Have the H turn west (at Genesee?) and then connect to Link that way.
The first is OK for riders, but it means that Metro gets little benefit from this multi-billion dollar project. They are still running buses downtown from West Seattle, as if Link never made it there. Ridership on West Seattle Link would be poor, and I suppose folks like you would blame Metro.
The second is horrible for riders. Not only do they have a transfer, but they would be forced to see their bus make a huge detour just as it was tantalizingly close to getting on an expressway to downtown. It would be a huge delay for riders trying to get from the peninsula to anywhere else in the city. Ridership on that bus would go down. Ridership overall would go down.
Despite everything else that has gone wrong with the West Seattle project, no one has suggested it skip Delridge, even though no one expects very many people to walk to the station. There is no park and ride. Almost all of the ridership will come from buses. The Delridge Station is there not because of what is there, but what is along the corridor, served by a bus.
I think what’s clear is that ST gets to call whatever they want as what they call “their mission”.
Agreed. Partly it is the makeup of the agency. There are two key elements:
1) They have a massive amount of funding.
2) They serve a very large area.
Throw in another key element:
3) The city of Seattle did not have a subway/metro before they came along. We had the monorail, but it literally had only two stops. Still does.
This created a very bizarre, muddled set of goals for the agency:
1) Build a metro for a city that really should have a metro.
2) Create a good regional transit system.
3) Do things for the various agencies that they would do themselves, if they had the money.
This explains what it is we have funded. A massive subway system that manages to both skip key elements of the city, and extend deeper outside the core than the Paris Metro, the New York City Subway, or the London Underground (or Overground!). It is a huge, very expensive metro with terrible urban stop spacing that never leverages existing rail despite dreams of becoming the U-Bahn. Sorry, but a fancy haircut doesn’t make me look like Rock Hudson.
To their credit, they have built a pretty good regional bus system. Like most systems of this nature it doesn’t carry that many riders, and the per rider cost is fairly high, but it is an important element in every well functioning transit system.
Which brings us to the last item. Sound Transit — again to its credit — recognizes that compared to other agencies, it is loaded. So spending money on things like RapidRide C and D improvements is a very sensible thing to do. Unfortunately, they have also strayed into building things that are inappropriate (a streetcar in Tacoma) or poorly designed (the BRT in Tacoma).
I wanted to pass this video posted in the past day about MAGA protesters wrestling with fare gates in New York City.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GPMi55HBhEQ
First, they don’t understand that the gates down open until you remove a fare card — even though someone is telling them what to do.
Then they decide to break the law and enter without paying.
@Al S,
That video is hilarious. As is the commentary. I’ve already disseminated the video widely. Thanks.
The commentary is also interesting regarding fare evasion. I think some on the policy side in Seattle think that fare gates will solve the fare evasion problem, and in particular will solve the supposed racial inequity in fare enforcement. Fare gates are machines and are racially indifferent, right?
But as anyone who has actually ridden the mass transit system in NYC will tell you, fare evasion still occurs and is actually very common. And if 3 out of 4 people arrested for fare evasion in NYC are black or Latino, then does the installation of fare gates really solve the racial inequality problem in fare evasion?
The answer is that fare gates don’t eliminate fare evasion, and that fare gates also don’t eliminate racial inequality in fare enforcement.
What’s a good liberal board member to do?
Those aren’t REAL “fare gates”. They can be hopped over and jammed open easily as you saw with thecstrwam of Goibers in the background doing. REAL fare gates can’t be defeated because they go floor to ceiling with lots of bars keeping people out.
Once ST goes to a flat fare, they would work fine, because exiting will be free.
LOL. You obviously hadn’t spent much time in New York. Even floor to ceiling, prison style, bars of steel easily get defeated in NYC. Often through the ADA gates, but sometimes just through triggering the release sensors. Or just going through the emergency exits and letting the alarm blare.
But hey, when is Metro going to put fare gates on RapidRide?
What is the stopping distance of an unladen RapidRide bus?
Sorry, that’s for a different sub thread,
I looked for a less slanted video of the incident but couldn’t find it.
But yeah it’s a good video to watch from a number of perspectives — and funny in a keystone cops kind of situation.
Eastlink video of trains being tested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1abmr8m/eastlink_light_rail_testing_in_bellevue_this/
Also notably there’s actually crossing guards being used. Lol I’m still wondering what exactly is the excuse to not install them on mlk way?
Awesome! Great to see some real transit progress happening.
I’d support crossing guards in certain parts of the RV, particularly if their installation could be used to safely increase train speeds.
Sorry, but crossing guards won’t reduce the stopping distance trains need to avoid clobbering a blockage on the track.
However, they will hopefully reduce the frequency of bringing the system to a halt due to a collision and ensuing investigation. In other words, it should improve reliability.
I’d say more about lawsuits by those who get hurt after not seeing the signs, but fear of a defamation suit will shut me up on that topic.
@Brent White
The largest problems are with cars doing improper left turns when trains are coming. While crossing guards definitely aren’t magic it should cut down on these collisions
> The most common types involved drivers in left-turn lanes of MLK Way who ran red-light arrows, crash reports show
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/the-worst-spots-for-light-rail-crashes-in-seattle-and-how-to-fix-them/
I think it is interesting how Sound Transit refuses to invest in proper safety equipment that they know will reduce collisions in Rainier Valley, while they simultaneously want to spend money on fare gates. The message is clear: some lives matter more than others. Someone dies in a preventable death in Rainier Valley? Another idiot in the ‘hood. Someone sneaks on Link without paying? OMG — they might hurt me!
Red arrows seem to often be confusing to drivers. Either through ignorance, impatience or ambivalence, I see drivers taking both left and right turns (usually rights) through them more often than not. Just put a real sold red with a giant “No Turn on Red” sign, and you may at least do away with the ignorance.
@Cam,
It is completely legal to turn either left or right on a solid red arrow unless specifically marked otherwise. Just stop first and follow ROW rules.
Left turns on red/red arrow are only allowed if oncoming traffic has a solid red and the cross street is a one-way in the direction of the turn. Basically you can’t turn across any traffic that has a solid green.
@Ross I thought it was SDOT, not ST, that has refused to install crossing bars on Rainier.
> Red arrows seem to often be confusing to drivers. Either through ignorance, impatience or ambivalence, I see drivers taking both left and right turns (usually rights) through them more often than not. Just put a real sold red with a giant “No Turn on Red” sign, and you may at least do away with the ignorance.
right turn on red for ‘red right turn arrow signs’ is legal in the state of washington.
https://app.leg.wa.gov/wac/default.aspx?cite=468-95-250
The law is different in other states though and is inconsistent. In other states it is not allowed.
@Ross I thought it was SDOT, not ST, that has refused to install crossing bars on Rainier.
Are you saying that ST wanted to install crossing bars and SDOT told them they couldn’t? That would be very surprising. I think it is simply a case of ST not wanting to spend the money.
From a 2022 Seattle Times article called Seattle’s most dangerous light rail stretch – and how to make it safer, by Mike Lindblom:
“Sound Transit eschewed gates on MLK Way while designing the line in the ’00s, to save on cost and land.”
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/the-worst-spots-for-light-rail-crashes-in-seattle-and-how-to-fix-them/
“right turn on red for ‘red right turn arrow signs’ is legal in the state of washington.
Wow. Thanks for the education.
And. That’s insane. They negates the reason they exist at all. Just make it a regular red then.
@Cam,
“ Just make it a regular red then.”
Ah, no, because that wouldn’t be safe.
If a vehicle is in a lane that is only allowed to turn, then the signal presented to that lane should only be a turn arrow. Regardless of whether it is green, yellow, or red.
Because presenting a solid color to a person in a turn only lane might suggest to that person that they should go straight. And if they go straight from a turn only lane then only bad things can happen.
“Sound Transit eschewed gates on MLK Way while designing the line in the ’00s, to save on cost and land.”
I suspect it’s also because the neighbors didn’t want loud bells like SODO. That would make the neighborhood feel less residential and more industrial.
Great article in todays Seattle Times on the impact of Light Rail on the Redmond community and the opening of the new ped bridge:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/new-walk-bike-bridge-debugs-access-to-microsoft-and-light-rail/
“ or catch a meandering bus”
Good use of words! Paints a real descriptive image of the current state of bus travel in the area. The ped bridge is a huge improvement.
“ the cities of Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle will have the best connections in the country between their high-tech districts, after light rail crosses Lake Washington in 2025”
This is an absolutely true statement. Once Light Rail opens across the bridge all our main tech districts will be connected with fast, efficient transit. This is something most other regions don’t have, and something even we don’t have currently.
It’s also interesting to hear how much new housing is being built in the area, and how much more is expected. Light Rail is very good at unlocking TOD near stations.
However, Mike draws a direct, and very negative, comparison with the situation around the 130th St Station:
“ Unlike some trackside communities, notably Seattle around the future Northeast 130th Street Station, Redmond cobbled together the zoning and political will to put more people next to Sound Transit’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure early on.”
Pretty much correct. Nothing is happening near the 130th St Station, and not much is likely to ever happen. But don’t put 100% of the blame on zoning. 130th St is just a horrible place to put a station.
With a golf course (park) to the NE, a ravine and wetlands to the E, and another giant park to the SW, there just isn’t much developable land – even if the zoning was changed.
But the 130th St Station was estimated to attract zero (0) net new riders to the system anyhow, so maybe it doesn’t really matter. A big fat zero is still a zero. Or is that 250 million zeros?
The article also indicates that the other ped bridge will open closer to the opening of ELSL. Which is also something to look forward to.
So more good news! I suspect we will see a lot more stories like this as the opening dates for ELSL and LLE approach.
130th St is just a horrible place to put a station.
You have written several comments about the importance of connecting buses to the trains. Now you are ignoring the value of a station that does exactly that.
Which is it?
Holy shit, I specifically mentioned 130th in response to something you wrote on this very post. You wrote:
let the bus routes adapt to the rail route.
And I wrote — in great detail — about how important station placement was, and that you can’t just “have the bus routes adapt”. I mentioned two examples, and the second one was 130th. It really isn’t that complicated:
The 130th Station is for buses.
Do you understand now or should I break out the puppets?
Other station placement issues:
The entrance to 148th Station is at 5th NE & 148th. The east-west arterial is at 145th, three blocks away. If the station straddled 145th with entrances on both sides, then a Lake City-Bitter Lake bus could stop at the entrances in the middle of the route without detouring. ST could extend Stride 3 one mile to Aurora and kill two transit birds with one stone. Did I mention that Aurora BRT is in ST’s long-range plan? But it didn’t, so buses have to detour three blocks north to get to the station. That effectively precludes an east-west route with the station in the middle, so all Metro scenarios from the west and east turn north on 5th to the station, and may continue north.
Tukwila International Boulevard Station has the same problem. The bus bays are inside the P&R, so RapidRide F has to detour into the P&R to reach them. It’s not as big a detour as 148th is. The F goes east-west on 154th/Southcenter Blvd. It would be most efficient to stop on the street and then continue. Non-Link riders would welcome that. Link riders or bus transferees would have a less than 30 second walk to the Link entrance or the other bus bays. ST could have helped by integrating the station entrance and bus bays closer to the street. Metro/Tukwila also have a part, because they decide where to put RapidRide F’s stops at.
While responding to Tom’s bus ridership question I actually did find out why Sound Transit thought placing it on 148th was fine:
Also actually on page 178 there’s an interesting tidbit about the 145th/148th station
> King County Metro’s conceptual service plan focuses east-west bus service on NE 155th Street to avoid the slow travel speeds on NE 145th Street. Buses that serve the NE 145th Street station would travel from NE 155th Street to the NE 145th Street station via 5th Avenue NE. At the NE 145th Street station buses would enter the station to drop off and pick up riders adjacent to the station plaza. Buses would then use the station transit facility to turn around and travel northbound along 5th Avenue NE back to NE 155th Street. Bus platforms and shelters are provided on 5th Avenue NE, one in each direction south of the intersection of 5th Avenue NE at the station egress/I-5 northbound ramps to provide for a potential local route that remains on 5th Avenue NE. Bus stops are provided on NE 145th Street, one in each direction west of NE 145th Street to provide for a potential future bus route on NE 145th Street. In addition to east-west bus service centered on NE 155th Street, King County Metro may also provide service to the station that travels along 5th Avenue NE between NE 145th Street and NE 155th Street. These routes could serve the station either by using the internal station bus bays or by stopping at the bus stops on 5th Avenue adjacent to the station.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/projects/north_hct/lynnwoodeis/transportationtr.pdf#page=178
Apparently they thought King County County busses would travel along NE 155th and then head south along 5th so it would just stop on the side of the road against the station and then turn east on NE 145th. So they did kind of plan for bus routes, but not didn’t really think it through that king county metro wouldn’t continue to route it up to 155th if the link station is there and would instead opt to just go straight on 145th.
I hate to mention this, but part of the purpose of a bus transfer facility at a Link station is not only to enable bus-rail transfers but also local bus-bus transfers. With larger transit hubs at Northgate and Shoreline South, the bus hub isn’t really needed at 130th. It’s especially not needed at Avalon.
In a different scenario, it wouldn’t be important to have a transit stop loop at any of these stations. Both Northgate and 145th would be straddled by a Link station and the buses would stop right in front. That’s what has been built at Judkins Park and Wilburton and planned at Alaska Junction.
There really does seem to be confusion in planning Link stations about which setup is better. Loop or no loop for buses? Bus loops do add time to use. They however give buses layover space and a place to turn around (although the Downtown Bellevue TC lacks a turn around for buses).
Maybe it comes down to whether the station is considered part of the urban streetscape or a depot set in the distance.
It just seems to me that there is a lack of clarity about what’s supposed to be a good bus transfer setup. No doubt that several Link stations would look quite different today if there was better clarity.
It’s too late to force changes at any ST1 or ST2 station. However, all of the new ST3 stations need deliberate clarity on the best setup for buses. It matters a great deal when laying out any urban or suburban Link station.
> Loop or no loop for buses? Bus loops do add time to use. They however give buses layover space and a place to turn around (although the Downtown Bellevue TC lacks a turn around for buses).
Bellevue TC doesn’t need a turn around because the busses just use the street grid as the turn around. For example with the 250.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/250#route-map
Or perhaps a better example rapidride B, it just heads south on 108th and heads north on 112th.
But anyways the larger ‘problem’ is probably with the large layover spaces as you noted for the busses if it’s the end destination that is hard to find at some intersections.
@Al S,
“ I hate to mention this, but part of the purpose of a bus transfer facility at a Link station is not only to enable bus-rail transfers but also local bus-bus transfers. With larger transit hubs at Northgate and Shoreline South, the bus hub isn’t really needed at 130th”
Yep. You are correct. Good rail stations should support rail oriented users first, but they also become larger transit hubs supporting a variety of different transit users. But the design and location of 130th St just don’t support that.
There will be essentially no bus infrastructure at 130th. There will be no bus loop, no bus layover space, and the only bus stop directly connected to the station will be paratransit only. And, last I saw, there were only two bus bays of any sort. As bus infrastructure goes, it is pretty anemic and pathetic.
Early on there were plans to rebuild and slightly realign the 130th St bridge over I-5 to provide better integration, but those plans got scrapped long ago. Now I believe all they are planning to do is restripe the 130th St Bridge in a “take a lane” scenario so at least the buses don’t have to stop in traffic. That is a pretty minor thing, but I guess it counts as progress at 130th.
But the major criticism of 130th St Station in the article was leveled by Lindblom and not me, and his criticism centered on the total lack of zoning change and TOD around the station. That is plain for all to see, but my comment was that there just isn’t that much developable land around the station anyhow. Too many parks and a big ravine with sensitive wetlands.
The city could rezone the “carp” out of the station area and still not get any significant TOD. Which is why I think it hasn’t been proposed. Rezones are often contentious, and I just don’t see much will on the part of the political class to enter a rezone fight in an area with restricted development potential. I think if the political class is going to spend political capital in a rezone fight, their attitude is that it would be better to do that in an area where the rezone will actually work.
But hey, the article was focused on all the positive things that are happening in Redmond around the coming of Light Rail. That is a good and positive thing. The failures of 130th St don’t detract from the successes in Redmond.
Congrats to Redmond on a job well done.
“his criticism centered on the total lack of zoning change and TOD around the station”
He’s ignoring the rezone that’s in the works. Yes, it should be a faster process, and yes, it should already be done. But the same thing happened with Roosevelt and Mt Baker, so it’s not unique to 130th. They eventually go their upzones. The biggest problem is the rezones weren’t as tall or wide as they could have been, but they did increase height and area somewhat.
If you treat these stations as bus hubs, then the potential to interrupt travel patterns also exists, making the bus routes more time consuming than they need to be.
TriMet route 10 is one example of how you might allow a bus route to serve a significant station (terminating at Foster Road MAX) while not breaking up the main corridor.
https://trimet.org/home/route/10
The crochet hook in the east end isn’t something most people will ride the whole way. People out on 130th can go either south or north to go west. If they go south they wind up at the MAX station. If they go north, the bus takes them on the Harold Street corridor, which is the route prior to MAX.
This way, the old Harold Street route doesn’t become longer or areas lose service due to the diversion to the MAX station, but it actually adds an additional service (130th to MAX and route 14) that didn’t exist before.
I hate to mention this, but part of the purpose of a bus transfer facility at a Link station is not only to enable bus-rail transfers but also local bus-bus transfers. With larger transit hubs at Northgate and Shoreline South, the bus hub isn’t really needed at 130th. It’s especially not needed at Avalon.
You are right to consider the value of bus to bus transfers, but you have it backwards. What you are proposing is a variation on a hub-and-spoke network. Hub-and-spoke networks are terrible for transfers. A network of that nature really only makes sense if you have largely given up on transfers, and assume that everyone is heading to one place (the hub). Otherwise, a grid is much better. Grids are more cost efficient, and minimize both the travel distance as well as the wait time for trips — especially those involving transfers.
As I wrote up above, Vancouver has “an almost perfect grid” in part because the stations are placed upon the grid. It is a grid in all its glory. Just look at the frequent transit map and imagine trying to get from one place to another. Great right? Anywhere on that network to anywhere on the network is fast and straightforward. No big detours. There is a reason why transit is so successful in Vancouver. Grids work.
In contrast, take a look at our system. It is a hybrid of sorts. There are various places where it resembles a grid, and other places where it is more hub and spoke. Between the UW and Roosevelt, it is more of a grid, despite the UW being a major destination (and worthy of “hub” status). Notice the 62. It goes straight across along 65th. Those riders are given a straight shot to Link. But the bus does not go to the UW. The 62 is very successful. If you are along 65th, the transfer options are great. Not only do you have an excellent connection to Link, but to buses as well. Look at this trip up to Maple Leaf: https://maps.app.goo.gl/PqL5aPH8mCADPscEA. Notice how straightforward it is. Now imagine if there was no grid, but all the buses went south to the UW. That trip would then require going to the UW first. This little bit of a grid saved those riders (and many others) a lot of time. All the while saving service hours as well.
Or back to your example: Northgate. Northgate does not enhance the grid, and as a result, the network is worse off. Buses have to go way out of their way to connect riders to Link. Doing so is expensive, which means buses run less often. Who suffers most? Bitter Lake. Bitter Lake does have a bus that runs to the Northgate Transit Center. It takes a very long time to get there, and runs every half hour. Transfers are terrible. At noon it takes almost an hour to get to Lake City (https://maps.app.goo.gl/CFkKVzuaFqKXM3GZ6). It is actually faster to walk, even though it takes 52 minutes. Or how about the other direction. What about a trip from Lake City to some place on Aurora. You might be thinking “Easy — just take a bus that goes across and hop on the fast and frequent E”. That would be the case — if we had a grid. But we don’t, so you end up with trips like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZuwPMrBRpdEbepxM7. There are several different options, but none of them are direct. All of them require a big detour. All of them are extremely time consuming, for what should be a fairly simple trip, involving the most frequent bus in our system.
Even with Lynnwood Link, the network will struggle. It isn’t until 130th Station is added that Bitter Lake is properly connected to the system. Here is a map of Metro’s plans for after Lynnwood Link. Now imagine it without the 77. That is what it will be like before 130th. Without the 77, getting from Bitter Lake to Link is basically like it is now (terrible). Your only direct connection to Link is a bus that takes a very long time to get to Northgate, and runs every half hour. This is what it is like if you are trying to get to the U-District at noon on a weekday: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZuwPMrBRpdEbepxM7. Notice something? It ignores Link! Despite going right to the U-District Station, you are better off going south on the E, and east on the (infamously slow) 44. Basically you have to time the 345 just right to make it worth your while. Leave at 12:15, and you will get there a little after 1:00 PM (https://maps.app.goo.gl/nAWuZ8iVTCAzAYn27). You timed it just right and it still took longer than 45 minutes! This is a trip *right to the station*. The connection to Link is horrible, and transfers are horrible. This is *after* Lynnwood Link, but before 130th Station.
Once 130th Station goes in, suddenly they get at least something that resembles a grid, and transit in that area gets much, much better. Trips to Link are much faster. Trips involving one bus get better (Lake City to Bitter Lake, Bitter Lake to Pinehurst). Trips involving two buses get a lot better (Lake City to anywhere on Greenwood or Aurora: Bitter Lake to anywhere on Lake City Way, 35th NE or Sand Point Way).
There is a reason why Jarrett Walker writes so often about the value of grids. Stations should be placed in such a way as to enable a better network. They should make building a grid easy, not discourage it.
There will be essentially no bus infrastructure at 130th
Simply not true. Look, Lazarus, there is no reason to lie. It is bad enough that you constantly make contrarian statements while attacking particular projects you aren’t fond of:
“Rail is a 100 year investment.”
“Nothing is happening near the 130th St Station”
So rail is a 100 year investment, but we should be freaking out over the fact that there is no development two years before they open the station?
“the 130th St Station was estimated to attract zero (0) net new riders to the system”
“ST does seem to underestimate ridership on new extensions.”
“Usually the scoring system for federal funding specifically EXCLUDES the consider of bus reroutes and transfers on ridership.”
On the one hand, you claim that ST underestimates ridership, on the other hand, you seem distraught about ST’s low estimate. Yet that contrarian statement is nothing like the next one. You readily admit that they don’t look at bus reroutes — including a station that is specifically designed as a bus intercept! What nonsense. If you don’t count the folks arriving by bus, then 130th won’t have that many riders. Yeah, no sh**. Same with half a dozen stations. So what? If you don’t count the money that Bill Gates made from Microsoft, he isn’t very wealthy. Whatever. The dude is loaded. 130th Station will get plenty of riders — who transfer by bus.
All of that is bad enough, but now you are writing nonsense about the situation on 130th. No bus infrastructure? Complete bullshit. Of course there will bus stops there. All of the restructure plans included service along 130th. There are at least initial plans for some additional bus lanes (hopefully they will add more as the project progresses). To write that they would add a station specifically designed as a bus intercept and then not run buses there is not only absurd, it is a lie.
Rezones are often contentious, and I just don’t see much will on the part of the political class to enter a rezone fight in an area with restricted development potential.
Yet Shoreline redeveloped around a very similar station. This is what happens when you build next to the freeway — you have very limited development potential. But you have the politics backwards. When they moved the Roosevelt Station east (away from the freeway) the development potential increased. Yet the rezone was very difficult. It took a tremendous amount of effort to even get what they got (which wasn’t as much as they should have had).
In contrast, thus far there have been no organized opposition around the rezone proposals in the area. None of the candidates in the district was a NIMBY — quite the opposite. It has been caught in political limbo mainly because of the various changes (new mayor, new city council members). It is officially part of a much bigger change — the Draft One Seattle Comprehensive Plan. This too has been delayed. But now that things have settled down, I expect the city to make progress on both this year. I think they have to — if they drag their feet too long the state will come after them (for violating the new state law on zoning).
But hey, the article was focused on all the positive things that are happening in Redmond around the coming of Light Rail.
Yet you couldn’t resist the opportunity to attack the 130th Station with a host of lies and misleading statements.
Ross, I’m not proposing anything. I’m merely observing that there are two general ways to approach bus transfers (on-street stop; bus loop) at Link stations and that each has a service objective as well as advantages and disadvantages .
I agree with you that high frequency buses and on-street stops are generally optimum. Much of Link in Seattle does function this way. The big exceptions inside Seattle are Northgate and Mt Baker Link currently. Even at Mt Baker, the busiest bus stops are for Routes 7 and 106, which are in the street.
The idea of a grid however relies on “the weakest link” or the frequency of the bus service. Take how Route 50 is barely used. It is laid out to be a high frequency route with quick stops at Link without looping at a station. However, it’s 30 minute frequency most of the day make it hostile for double transfers. Luckily for that route, there are plenty of bus routes parallel to Link so that double transfers are not typically needed — and riders choose these routes over Route 50 partly or perhaps largely because the frequency is so poor.
Add to that the messy transfer at Columbia City or Othello where two streets must be crossed with high volumes of traffic requiring lots of signal phases where a transferring rider must wait. Imagine getting off a bus to transfer, but missing the train connection because you can’t cross the street against traffic — or conversely missing the bus for the same reason. I’ve missed many a train or a bus for this reason in several cities. Apply this situation (infrequent buses and awkward transfer paths across busy highways) to places like those in Snohomish or Pierce County and it becomes obvious where an in-line station fails.
The biggest drawback to a grid system is the dreaded double transfer. Even in a high frequency scenario, making two transfers (bus-rail-bus) to go 2 or 3 miles is not optimal. Its hassle is particularly noticeable if the buses aren’t frequent. It’s also a function of the quality of the transfer experience where crossing one or two 5-7 lane highways or scaling 50 stair steps are horrible for a rider. It may look tidy on a map, but it can be awful for a rider. That transfer path can be easier in a bus loop that doesn’t require crossing a street (like Shoreline South). Note that having a bus loop that also requires crossing a wide, busy street is probably the worst possible setup (with a nod to Mt Baker and Downtown Bellevue)!
Much of ST3 is being built outside of Seattle — in places without frequent bus service. These will be opportunities to lay out a station site with less constraints. I’m rarely a fan of building a literal “bus cul-de-sac” even in these areas. To me, the more in-line to the bus route the better. Honestly, cul-de-sac bus loops can make my stomach queasy and it’s made worse if I’m forced to stand in a bus!
Some like bus loops because the bus can layover at the station and reverse direction. The problem comes in when bus drivers are taking breaks so their doors are closed for boarding. So the benefit of the loop becomes more of a visual reassurance than a practical advantage.
If anything, I am mostly advocating for a thorough discussion about the bus transfer experience before the site planners lay a Link station out. That includes both bus routing as well as the walking path to the Link platform. What I’m asking for here is simply “clarity” on what the site planners are laying out and I’m not declaring what’s best in every circumstance.
“But the 130th St Station was estimated to attract zero (0) net new riders to the system anyhow, so maybe it doesn’t really matter.
At the time of the study, there was no bus on 130th, so ST had to assume no Link riders from bus transfers. In reality, there will be a bus on 130th, but since the study did not know that, it’s predictions are not valid.
“At the time of the study, there was no bus on 130th”
Metro makes a list of representative routes for every Link project; it’s part of the EIS. That’s part of the reason it published Metro Connects in 2016, to show a representative bus network for all ST3 stations.
Maybe. But, for purposes of grant money, are the feds even allowed to consider Metro’s plans? Or are they required to assume that any future bus restructure is merely speculative when operated by a different agency? It would not surprise me in the least if Sound Transit was forced to assume no bus on 130th when they submitted their grant applications.
I don’t know the technical threshold, but what’s the point of having bus feeders in the EIS if that’s the only environmental aspect that doesn’t count? I think ST’s (and Lazarus’s) argument is not that there’s no existing bus on 130th so there never will be, but that the number of people gained by 130th bus feeders is equal to the number of people lost at Northgate and 148th. In other words, people move to a different station, but no riders beyond that come.
The distinction is not what already exists, but what has government support. ST can’t say 130th and all along Aurora might have 13-story apartments someday because the city has given no indication of that in approved or preliminary zoning. But it can point to likely preliminary zoning proposals. The bus feeders are evidenced in the EIS, have been in Metro Connects since 2016, and are in the Lynnwood Link restructure that’s going to the county council for approval this spring.
I’ve lost track of why we’re debating this. “No net new riders” is an argument against 130th Station. But 130th Station is already approved by ST and the voters and the Lynnwood Link federal grants. ST made sure the station would not derail the grants or Lynnwood Link. So what are we worried about? Just that a small amount of money went to an elevated station? That’s peanuts compared to the underground stations in Ballard Link. The only issue left is implementing the bus routes. Our assumption is that the restructure will be the same as in the last proposal, because we haven’t heard anything definitive otherwise. The final proposal will come out in a month or two, so we’ll see if Metro has changed anything based on the last feedback or current circumstances.
> “ Unlike some trackside communities, notably Seattle around the future Northeast 130th Street Station, Redmond cobbled together the zoning and political will to put more people next to Sound Transit’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure early on.”
> Pretty much correct. Nothing is happening near the 130th St Station, and not much is likely to ever happen. But don’t put 100% of the blame on zoning.
Definitely do have to agree, there’s too little progress on the upzoning side with Seattle. The zoned area is just pretty small compared to the expense of the station
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/OPCD/OngoingInitiatives/NE130thAnd145thStationAreaPlanning/130_145_Alternatives__2022_1202.pdf
Zoning in Seattle has hit a standstill. It isn’t just this area. It is clear that the “Urban Village” concept was a big failure. The state has passed legislation requiring multiplexes. Spokane has created what some have called a statewide standard. Yet Seattle keeps postponing the “One Seattle Plan Comprehensive Plan”. It is frustrating.
But for the area close to the station, it really doesn’t matter. Unlike the rest of the city, no one is building anything. Developers aren’t stupid. They know that it is only a matter of time before the area gets upzoned, and most likely to six story buildings. In contrast, it is the other areas — including areas that would most likely feed the station — where the existing zoning rules hamper development. For example, this lot here: https://blue.kingcounty.com/Assessor/eRealProperty/Dashboard.aspx?ParcelNbr=2126049228, just got sold and subdivided. But because the lot sizes are huge, they just built a bunch of houses (on big lots). It is not that far from Lake City, and not that far from the station. The houses are huge (no one builds tiny houses on big lots in Seattle anymore). Since they are huge, they will likely stay houses for a very long time.
In contrast, the area around the station will probably get redeveloped soon after they change the zoning. I find it bizarre the same person who writes that “Rail is a 100 year investment” seems to be freaking out over the fact that the area around a station hasn’t been rezoned a full two years before they add the station. Patience. It will eventually get rezoned. Density will increase.
But like *most* of the stations north of Lynnwood, most of the riders will not walk to the station. They will arrive by bus.
“Zoning in Seattle has hit a standstill.”
Seattle’s comprehensive plan is being updated right now. The five potential scenarios were published for feedback, and now we’re waiting to hear what the city favors. There’s a good chance it will at least expand the villages out, and a reasonable chance it might allow more uses and density outside the villages. 130th is being held up partly to let the comprehensive plan get further along. But the politicians know about 130th (a former city concilmember was a catalyst in getting ST to include it), and have made noises that they will upzone. So that will get into the comprehensive plan, and eventually the city will circle back and implement the 130th station area. Hopefully it will be done by the time the station opens, but even if it’s slightly later, it’s not the end of the world.
“But the 130th St Station was estimated to attract zero (0) net new riders to the system”
Bla bla bla. Even if it merely diverts riders from Northgate and 148th Stations, it’s still worthwhile because it makes it easier to get from two urban villages (Lake City and Bitter Lake) to Link. In other words, it serves the villages in a way that the previous design didn’t. That will attract more riders to Link no matter what ST’s predictions say. It will make more of people’s trips feasible, and they’ll have a higher satisfaction with the total transit network. Seattle will undoubtedly upzone the lots east of the station, even though we expect it to be modest (more like Beacon Hill than Ballard). The city has already started deliberating what level to upzone to. The era of “no growth” is gone. Other Link upzones have gone through, so there’s no reason to believe this is the one exception. We don’t expect it to touch Jackson Park, but even a few apartments to the east will allow more people to live within walking distance of Link. There are already some apartments; it’s not just houses. The Lynnwood Link restructure has frequent bus routes from both Lake City and Bitter Lake. Those will go in when 130th Station opens. Metro has already put it into Metro Connects and the Lynnwood restructure, so it’s not going to suddenly say “Never mind.” Unless it has trouble with the driver shortage.
The fact that 130th Station and east-west bus feeders will exist, means that people will consider Lake City and Bitter Lake more transit-accessible than they do now, so they will choose to live there in a way they don’t now. Whereas people who don’t take transit won’t have that additional incentive to move there, so they’ll somewhere else where they can get a better view and a bigger yard.