The Link 1 Line reduction continues through February 4th. The 13-to-26 minute headways continue to stretch to 30 or 45 minutes at times, and platforms and trains continue to be crowded. Sound Transit has a list of bus alternatives. Metro routes 49 and 70 have extra service during the reduction. Nine more days to go.
A ped-bike bridge at Overlake Village Station ($) over Highway 520 has opened. It has a green tile pattern reminiscent of a forest, Pong, or the Crocodile Cafe. It’s not to be confused with the ped bridge at Redmond Tech Station, or the one at Shoreline South/148th station.
Adjacent homeowners won a court case over the ownership of shoreline land along the East Sammamish Lake Trail ($) in Sammamish. There’s now a continuous series of trails from Golden Gardens in Seattle to the Issquah-Preston Trail. Although what’s that gap in Woodinville where it goes to a residential street for a few blocks?
Why to get buses out of traffic. (Not Just Bikes video)
A ride on the Empire Builder train between Spokane and Chicago. (Noel Philips video)
If the Link reduction has gotten you down, never fear, there’s still time to stop a douchebag. Protecting Moscow sidewalks from car intrusions. It’s unbelievable how many cars drive on the sidewalk there. When I was there in the 90s that wasn’t an issue because few people had cars. (StopXam video, “Twice is a Coincidence”)
This is an open thread.
A correction: there isn’t a continuous series of trails from Golden Gardens to Issaquah-Preston… there’s still a gap between the Locks and the Ballard Bridge. The “gap” in Woodinville is the kind of practical connection that occurs along good bike paths all over the world. The gap in Ballard, the much worse gap that is all of SODO and Georgetown, and the general lack of practical routes in many neighborhoods, especially the Rainier Valley… those are the gaps that tell the story…
There is a pedestrian/bike path on the west side of E Marginal Way now from Georgetown to South Park, next to an infrequently-used train track.
… and then the crossing of 16th Ave S with no crosswalk. I guess everyone is supposed to know to use that ziggy-zaggy tunnel under 16th about a minute’s walk to the southwest. It does to multi-modal safety there what the pedestrian bridge just south of Mt Baker Station does to the Rainier / MLK intersection.
The former saddest bus stop in the country has been spruced up a bit with signaling lights and a connecting sidewalk spur. It’s sadder friend to the north remains a post where riders can choose to hang back on the asphalt path and cross the track if they can see the bus coming, or just wait on the curb.
This probably isn’t totally clear from how I phrased it, but when I say a gap of “all SODO and Georgetown” I mean that if you’re standing astride your bike on the 1st Ave S Bridge or the South Park Bridge and you want to go downtown your options are to detour way off to the west via the Duwamish Trail or to ride on 5-or-more-lane roads most of the way through SODO and Georgetown. Nothing that’s been built (and nothing with a construction date attached to it) along East Marginal makes a dent in that. The Downtown-Georgetown project currently being designed has something to say about it, but Airport Way stands in the way of further connections.
This is related to that statement I always hear about our regional trail network, that we have trails all the way from Ballard to Issaquah (or some other distant eastern endpoint). From the start of the continuous trails near the Ballard Bridge to Issaquah’s Old Town it’s about 18 miles as the crow flies, 23 miles to drive, and 40 miles along the continuous trails. Along a more practical route that’s about the same distance as driving the conditions aren’t consistently safe and pleasant. They could be but they aren’t. I think that’s closer to the typical story. There are a few trails. They go somewhere. Is it where you need to go? Maybe… eventually…
@brent and Al
It’s one of the major proposed projects for the next levy
https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/23-9032-Report-9-2.pdf
To rebuild the east marginal way south of Spokane street.
I hadn’t quite finished reading this and other related documents to mention in a top level comment but might as well mention it if you’re curious
Al — It seems me to that the key section of East Marginal Way is south of 1st. You would want to improve the existing bike lanes. What they have now looks better than nothing, but not a lot better (https://maps.app.goo.gl/k6dYdbBZ6cdaFmCR6). Once you extend a decent bike lane to First, then First should become the main bike path (https://maps.app.goo.gl/GuSLnqV7HixZBhU88). Side note: Interestingly enough, Google Maps calls that part of 1st a “bicycle friendly road”. Not in my book: https://maps.app.goo.gl/r6QB8hscwh4HVrDg8. I guess it beats the alternatives (in the land of the blind…).
Anyway, fixing First would definitely add a lot of needed mobility to the area. 1st Avenue South is mentioned (along with Marginal Way) in the draft project list but they don’t seem focused on bike improvements. Even though the heading is “multimodal” it doesn’t have a bullet point item for adding bike lanes.
Of the various roads that go over the railroad tracks, it seems like 1st has the most potential. Everything else seems like more work, and/or not as good. Marginal Way eventually becomes a freeway, and is west of everything. Fourth could work, but the merge with Airport Way seems complicated and messy. Airport Way has the same issue in reverse. First seems like the easiest way to dramatically improve bike mobility in the area. I would go all the way to downtown, but I would also make a connection over to the East Marginal Way bike path (maybe on Horton?). That would allow you to safely to this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Wg9xwAbmcfGmceiz9. Even if you did the section north of Horton later (but added the connection to the other bike path) it would still be a huge improvement for that area.
I would probably do it in this order:
1) First Avenue South between Horton and East Marginal Way.
2) Horton Connector.
3) East Marginal Way from 1st to 16th.
4) First from Horton to downtown.
5) East Marginal Way south of 16.
There are probably other projects that would be done before the last one.
I agree with your larger point. Just because you can get to Woodinville on a bike from Fremont doesn’t mean we have extensive bike network. There are huge gaps in the system.
Since I had some extra time today. Skimmed through the board of directors meeting Jan 25. https://livestream.com/accounts/11627253/stboardmeetings/videos/239634766
Nothing too surprising but the ceo does talk about actually actually implementing the tag recommendations (12 minute mark)
More problems with the TIBs stride station (18 minute mark)
WSDOT notified Sound Transit last year: Problem is the existing culvert must be replaced with a fish passable culvert before the inline bus station can be built, however WSDOT is not planning on replacing the culvert right now.
Identified interim solution for now to use the existing loop. Adds 6 minutes of travel time. I’m guessing it means using the freeway exits and entering the bus loop and then reenter the freeway entrance immediately?
(40 minute mark) discusses culvert issue again how originally it wasn’t that damaged but on further inspection it is at the end of it’s life and replacing it would trigger fish passage improvement.
(43 minute mark) secretary miller (acting as wsdot) clarifies, WSDOT will eventually replace the culvert with it’s money but will wait until it’s end of life. Sound Transit can expedite it, but then it’s their money
(50 minute mark) Dave Upthegrove discusses the burke gilman trail construction around the lake forest park trying to talk about taking less property. though I am a bit confused as mainly seems to be empty land between the sidewalk and road not actually demolishing any building. Specifically about the Sheridan Beach community center.
Sound Transit staffer talks about how limiting property takings to very very specific geographic drawn zones will mean having to redesign and come back to board meetings for more approvals if anything needs to be changed which will increase cost and increase delivery time.
Regarding property takings, it would behoove ST to learn how to construct and manage projects within a limited footprint instead of taking properties needlessly for multiple staging areas that ultimately turn into surplus parcels.
I see two types of takings — for tracks and for stations.
For tracks, you make a very good point. However that’s how we end up with so many future Link lines on freeways. So it’s not not a universally good idea.
For stations, there should ideally be a unified station site plan and station district plan before property gets taken. It’s tricky because eminent domain requires a direct justification to build the station. Plus there is the chicken-egg challenge of getting property at a lower cost but wanting eventual higher density zoning which raises the acquisition cost if upzoning is done too early.
So it’s a noble plea that can have unintended negative consequences.
Good: ST leases staging areas, rather than purchase, to reduce cash out the door
Better: ST works with local jurisdiction to upzone parcels after purchased so that the value of the up-zone accrues to the public. If purchased, the private owners are still compensated full market value for the pre-station zoning.
Best: ST works with local jurisdictions & local property owners to trade up-zones directly for leases, purchases, and easements, using the value created by up-zones to directly “purchase” the required staging & operating footprint without cash.
Best-est: ST is given the authority by the state to ignore local zoning and put excess property takings to maximum use. This is now allowed in California and is best practice around the world.
Ideally the stations would be under/over the street ROW and not need any takes. For optimal pedestrian access and bus transfers that’s where they want to be to accsss from all corners of the intersection… see DSTT and even better example of Market Street subway with access via the sidewalk stairs and elevators. Adjacent private development can tie into the stations and provide additional access to the station which is a building amenity and they get zoning bonuses for providing.
secretary miller (acting as wsdot) clarifies, WSDOT will eventually replace the culvert with it’s money but will wait until it’s end of life. Sound Transit can expedite it, but then it’s their money
If ST does nothing, WSDOT has to pay for the whole thing. If ST does it now, they pay for the whole thing (if I understand the statement correctly). It seems like there should be some middle ground there. ST should pay *some* to have it down now, but not the complete cost.
Six minutes extra travel time is a lot. It is bad for rides, and ultimately impacts the systems as a whole. Buses run less often, and carry few riders. It seems like the two agencies should work something out instead of basically playing “chicken” with each other.
Yes, this all very dumb. The station should be built now. ST can either pay for a share, or if WSDOT insists on timing, ST could pay for the project now and then WSDOT pays ST “back” the amount in full* at whatever point in the future WSDOT deems they would have replaced the culvert.
But it is essentially a moot point. This culvert is a public asset that needs to be replaced, and it really doesn’t matter which state authorized agency pays for it because the amount is immaterial to either agency’s strategic constraints.
It’s an interesting problem. I’ve never had a good opinion about the Stride TIBS stop (freeway noise; vertical challenges; worse path compared to RapidRide F when combining the ride and the walking transfer effort at TIBS) — and this just highlights one more problem.
Freeway stops are usually noisy and feel dangerous. I wonder whether ST has looked at options. It seems it would be fairly easy for east/west travel to use a bay next to TIBS on the north side of the freeway. Buses may have to detour S 154th exit but could reenter immediately. Yes, that means a delay, but not by much.
For west/east travel it gets more difficult. I wonder whether it would be worth adding a bus-only exit to SR-518 which would meet Intl Blvd from the west where the SR-518 onramp goes east. That way buses could exit SR-518, cross Intl Blvd, stop to let riders get off, and then reenter SR-518. Riders may then be able to take the existing bridge or a pedestrian bridge would need to be added.
The problem is priorities again. The state should make it an all-government priority to have good BRT and the most effective stations, not treat it as an extra that Sound Transit transit riders want. The freeway and car capacity fish habitat are seen as an essential state priority, but transit is treated as an unimportant extra that the ST district and riders should solely pay for, and any external infrastructure they need for it is their problem. This is why we don’t have a world-class transit network and we de facto undervalue non-drivers’ time and the benefits of having a more transit-oriented environment and population.
Yet another example of asinine feel-good “environmental” laws causing more harm to the environment by severely impeding transit use and incentivizing SOV travel.
This is a great illustration of why BRT never ends up being “light rail on wheels.” If it were a light rail project, the culvert gets done. I don’t know who eventually pays for it, but it gets done. But because it is a bus, the bus *can* use the roundabout path on the existing roads, which means, the bus probably *will* use the roundabout path on the existing roads.
News from Portland:
Trimet reducing overnight Max Service.
System fall 2023 ridership is now posted by ST.
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
The summary lists through November and Link and Sounder tabs through December.
Demand is no longer growing in either Link or Sounder in those months. That’s especially true for weekdays. Weekend data is of course affected by the number of home football games each month for the Huskies and Seahawks. Overall, Sounder South still appears about half of 2019, and Link appears about even as a system to 2019 (lost riders since 2019 cancelled out by added riders further to Northgate).
Does anyone else see any interesting trends?
I am expecting the eventual January and February data to show steep Link declines due to this excessive service reduction going on now.
Given that Metro is running at about 2/3 of their pre-pandemic ridership, I’d say Link at a bit higher than pre-pandemic is a noteworthy achievement even with the caveat that it’s with a lot more stations and track miles.
That Sounder South is at even half its pre-pandemic ridership is also noteworthy, given its headway constraints and extreme commute orientation. Just as noteworthy is the fact that Sounder North needs to be canceled ASAP, given that it’s at barely more than 1/5 its pre-pandemic ridership, and will become even more obsolete as more riders shift to the more frequent and convenient Link. Maybe Sound Transit should make a deal with Amtrak to offer subsidized Cascades fare if you’re just traveling between Everett and Seattle? Metrolink in the LA area has a similar deal with the Surfliner.
North Sounder doesn’t need to be canceled but sure as heck could actually use better service, more stations in Seattle (Belltown, Lower Queen Anne, Interbay, Sunset Hill), and extend up to Smokey Point via Marysville. Like Sounder North isnt a bad idea as people make it out to be on here as it does make sense as a regional train that has multiple stops at major points or towns that aren’t served by I-5 busses. It also serves ferries like Kingston and Clinton, in another country those modal connections would have better frequency and timed connections with each other or short modal interchange waits. The problem is that it has never been funded properly like it should be or never actually been given the opportunity to truly work.
The expectation I see on Sounder North fron some is that it should be doing tight rope act with its legs and hands binded behind its back while blindfolded. Whole lot of complaining that it’s not doing better but never advocacy to actually improve it and be worthwhile.
Zach, that is a good point that Sounder North has some unmet potential, though even with all of those improvements, most of the stations would still be out-of-the-way with half of their walksheds in Puget Sound, and even if the daily ridership increased by an order of magnitude, it would still be on par with a mediocre bus route in Seattle, and still less than the parallel ST512.
Given the amount of money that those improvements would take, it would probably be more effective to fund better bus connections from the ferry terminals and stations to Link, especially since these could actually be all-day connections rather than just a few trips.
It’s also worth pointing out that when Everett Link is finally built, the projected travel time to downtown is exactly the same as with Sounder, even with the Paine Field Detour, even serving many more stops along the way.
We don’t need two trains connecting the same station pairs with the same travel time.
The main problem with North Sounder is that we don’t own the lines. I get the argument that “ridership sucks because service sucks”, but it is really the other way around. It is common for express buses and commuter rail to run a few times during the day, and still attract riders. If you double frequency you never double ridership. Ridership definitely would go up, but the trains would be even more empty, while the cost of running the trains more than doubles (because of how BNSF charges). It is hard to see how it would be worth the money, given the subsidy per rider was extremely high (before the pandemic).
Ridership on South Sounder is spread out over several stations. Prior to the pandemic, every station north of Lakewood had more than 1,000 riders each direction. In contrast, not a single station (outside Seattle) on North Sounder had more than 500. Everett had about 300, Mukilteo 200 and Edmonds 400. Hard to say why. It is worth noting that Tacoma does not dominate South Sounder ridership. Quite the contrary. A lot of people prefer taking the express buses, despite service at a steady 20 minute clip during rush hour. This may be because of the pathway of Sounder. From Tacoma the train actually goes south and then east of Seattle before it starts heading back north and west. In contrast, the freeway pathway (which the buses take) is shorter. For the other stations (that have higher ridership) the advantage often goes to the train.
In the case of North Sounder, it is similar, which may explain why Everett lags the other two stations. Edmonds is really the only station that has a clear advantage. With Everett the freeway route is straighter, while Mukilteo is a tiny city. Timing the ferry makes sense, but is difficult. In the morning, you would never delay the train because the ferry is running late. In contrast, a bus can just sit there until riders get off the ferry.
Then there are the transit alternatives. Buses both complement and compete with commuter rail. If the only way home in the middle of the day is a 3-hour combination of buses (or a cab ride) then you lose people. In the case of North Sounder, Everett has outstanding options all day. The 510 runs express to downtown. It gets more riders from Everett than Sounder. Outside of rush hour, there is the 512, which connects to Northgate, and will soon connect to Lynnwood. While I can definitely see how someone commuting from Everett to Downtown Seattle would find Sounder appealing, it is hard to make the case, given the alternatives (that many riders find more attractive). Current service to Mukilteo is a mixed bag. It has a fairly straightforward peak-only connection to downtown. I have no idea the ridership (Community Transit doesn’t make that information easy to find). But given the low ridership on the train, it wouldn’t surprise me if it is considerably higher. Outside of peak, however, things are a mess. Riders have to endure at least one transfer and a time consuming bus ride. When Link gets to Northgate though, things will improve greatly for Mukilteo. A bus will run as often as the ferry, timed with the ferry. I could see the potential for traffic delays northbound (with the bus just missing the ferry) but southbound it will be more than adequate.
Which leaves Edmonds. I feel like Edmonds is underserved now, and with the future restructure. But it is hard to justify spending *more* money to serve basically one and a half good stops. Not with *pre-pandemic* ridership low enough that you can easily fit the riders on a bus. I would kill off North Sounder and put the money into better bus service to Edmonds.
Yes, you could expand it, but don’t see the stations being better. Marysville is bound to have fewer riders than Everett, and Everett doesn’t have that many. Adding stations in Seattle wouldn’t really help. That isn’t the problem. If we add a station like Belltown, then it should be part of South Sounder (and would add significant value for riders). Unfortunately, other potential stations in Seattle manage to skirt the big neighborhoods. Without frequent service it won’t get many Seattle-only riders, and even then it is a bit wanting.
If we owned the rails than maybe it could work, but the numbers were really low *before* the pandemic. Simply put, if hardly anyone rides it during peak, then hardly anyone will ride it even if you add a bunch more trips.
I put this in the same category as the 85th NE bus station project in Kirkland. It a good idea. It is easy to see the value. If it was cheap, it would be a worthy project. But it isn’t. It would just cost way too much money for every rider that uses it. There are much better ways to spend our money.
“it would still be on par with a mediocre bus route in Seattle, and still less than the parallel ST512.”
This is part of the problem with transit advocacy in Seattle in my opinion. We make continuous excuses time and time again as to why we shouldn’t do something to improve transit because “it isnt good enough” yet all we’re all surprised when stuff is still crappy. I think a lot of people in Seattle transit discourse need to not let perfection be the enemy to good sometimes when it comes to projects or ideas people put forth. I honestly see a lot of armchair complaining and unhealthy cynicism about x project isn’t A+ good and yet I’m like “we’re still doing something to improve transit and Rome wasn’t built in a day yet we want it to be that way.”
That’s not to say we shouldn’t advocate for better. But Seattle transit advocacy suffers from a very bad feedback loop onto itself as to how things should be rather than accepting that change is slow and sometimes there’s solutions that could help transit even if they’re more modest successes.
Alongside framing everything through the present lens rather than a more broader future lens. We think about projects in the here and now and how they’ll help current riders rather than think about future riders and where population, housing, density, etc may be at a future point in time.
“Maybe Sound Transit should make a deal with Amtrak to offer subsidized Cascades fare if you’re just traveling between Everett and Seattle?”
This already exists. If you have a monthly pass large enough for the entire Sounder fare, you can put your ORCA card in a ticket machine at a station and get a paper Amtrak ticket for the trip.
How about we table the Sounder North discussion about a year when Lynnwood Link opens? If it loses a chunk of ridership to Lynnwood Link it will foretell abandoning the device.
I do find it noteworthy that Sounder North never ended up as a solution topic to ease the PM overcrowding concern for Lynnwood Link. Rather than run an express bus from Seattle, why not run that reliever bus so it can pick up riders from Sounder North in Edmonds instead, and run express to Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood and South Everet?
It’s like ST is daring the Board to cancel Sounder North.
> “it would still be on par with a mediocre bus route in Seattle, and still less than the parallel ST512.”
> This is part of the problem with transit advocacy in Seattle in my opinion. We make continuous excuses time and time again as to why we shouldn’t do something to improve transit because “it isnt good enough” yet all we’re all surprised when stuff is still crappy. I think a lot of people in Seattle transit discourse need to not let perfection be the enemy to good sometimes when it comes to projects or ideas people put forth
@Zach B
There’s a danger in supporting really cost ineffective transit modes as well. There’s plenty of us cities with expensive commuter peak only rail lines costing billions to make while avoiding improving their bus lines. These improvements to Sounder North are not cheap.
I mean look at the bay area, blindly supporting transit expansion is not the answer either. BART extensions out to the far flung suburbs while ignoring sf or increasing frequency in the core with ignoring the turnback improvements. the T line subway extension costing a $1.9 billion with less than 2,000 riders a day somehow less than the first hill streetcar.
> I honestly see a lot of armchair complaining and unhealthy cynicism about x project isn’t A+ good
We should be critical of projects that cost a couple billion.
> Sounder North isnt a bad idea as people make it out to be on here as it does make sense as a regional train that has multiple stops at major points or towns that aren’t served by I-5 busses.
Like I’m not sure exactly what you want to propose though. Sound Transit doesn’t own the tracks, we’d have to spend a couple billion to third track or negotiate with BNSF.
It’d be like me saying express busses on i-5 through downtown seattle without traffic would be good idea — sure it is, but the hard part is how exactly is wsdot going to build the bi-direction express lanes and where are the exit ramps/ bus stations going to be is the real question.
If Sound Transit paid CT to run the 130 every 10 minutes, it would both be better transit since it would connect with both Stride and Link at high frequency, but still almost certainly be cheaper. IIRC, pre-COVID Sounder North has a cost per boarding of almost $30, and ST projected $50 per boarding once Link pulls away ~40% of its ridership.
Should also note that the all day bus service to Edmonds is currently a mess. There are actually three separate bus routes that connect downtown Edmonds to the 512 (and soon, Link) – the 130, 116, 196. But, as of the last time I attempted the trip, all three routes not only ran only once per hour, but they all left the Edmonds ferry within a couple minutes of each other. So, you get the service value of one bus per hour at the service costs of three buses per hour.
Meanwhile, CT’s planned Orange Line bus won’t even go to downtown Edmonds, but end at Edmonds Community College.
It almost feels as though CT is treating downtown Edmonds and the ferry terminal as afterthoughts, and that they’re more interested in lifeline coverage to single family neighborhoods on the way between Lynnwood and downtown Edmonds than downtown Edmonds itself.
@ WL:
“ BART extensions out to the far flung suburbs while ignoring sf …”
Those BART extensions were significantly funded through voted levies by the counties where they were built and not SF. California is structured to levy transportation sales taxes and vehicle fees at the county level.
SF could vote to pay for the switching tracks that are needed but never has SF offered its residents to vote for the project.
Until Covid, BART also had a much higher farebox recovery than Link does or did, and Link’s is expected to drop further as relatively less productive extensions open.
@Al S.
>Those BART extensions were significantly funded through voted levies by the counties where they were built and not SF. California is structured to levy transportation sales taxes and vehicle fees at the county level.
I think that’s rather the point however. Our RTA is structured to create similar incentives as the Bay Area did to build low value expensive transit solutions. 400,000 riders a day prepandemic over 130 miles of track, most of which built at standard American subway prices at the time of construction, is terrible ridership per mile for a subway with subway construction costs. But the Bay Area has a less formal equivalent of “subarea equity” that made it a reality
In our region everything up to ST3 has to be viewed through a political lens, not only of subarea equity, but also of region wide tax rates. Seattle has made it very clear since probably U link and the end of the monorail program that they support light rail extension. They support tax increases to fund light rail expansions. They support paying higher taxes than other subareas to support higher transit service proportional to said subareas.
But up until post ST3 this was impossible. So sound transit planners were evidently regionally minded. Every single transit line was built in the context that it can, it will, it shall be extended to other subareas even if that doesn’t quite make sense
From a practical standpoint a combination of express buses and Sounder make far more sense for region wide transportation than extending link any further does. That seems evident. Link will experience serious limitations if extended north of Lynnwood or south of Federal Way. It already will experience limitations when ST2 opens. It should not be extended any further
I think Sounder service improvements, at least Sounder south, are inevitable. They will either happen for political reasons if some drastic leadership change occurs to acknowledge that tacomadome link is not going to work, or they will happen in conjunction with Amtrak cascades service development plan improvements (sharing infrastructure investments). The platform extensions and parking garages should be canceled
Sometimes the simple solution of just “use what already exists” can be useful in areas that will not garner that high of ridership. It can be far cheaper too. Running DMU’s on the publicly owned/abandoned dinner train to serve Renton and possibly even factoria, Bellevue, Kirkland, Totem Lake, and Woodenville would have likely satisfied East king ST3 voters support. Not to say would garner that many riders. But for a little under $1B dollars to rehabilitate the route from Renton to Snohomish it would have been a far cheaper method to buy votes than the similarly low ridership but brand new infrastructure and right of way $2.3B Stride BRT and $3.3B Issaquah Kirkland link that subsequently replaced it
@ John:
I actually prefer the California system of local funding as opposed to the ST3 version. I feel like transit capital funding should be operator neutral, the project cost estimates should be reviewed before getting plopped into a referendum , and the major project descriptions in the referendum should be vague enough to allow the planning to objectively adjust the mode and station/ line locations. Plus, the legislative game that ST had to play in Olympia in 2016 wouldn’t have been needed.
Imagine what a Pierce County-only transit referendum would look like! It likely wouldn’t specify parking garage sizes. It likely would propose funding a countywide system that would have more miles of frequent transit that is cheaper to build than Link will be, and run at a faster speed too! On the other hand, I’m not sure if any Pierce-only transit referendum would pass — at least with the levies that ST3 has.
“I feel like transit capital funding should be operator neutral, the project cost estimates should be reviewed before getting plopped into a referendum”
How does California achieve this?
“Imagine what a Pierce County-only transit referendum would look like! It likely wouldn’t specify parking garage sizes.”
You don’t know Pierce County I think. The same dynamic that led to voters saying, “I won’t vote for anything that doesn’t have large garages, because otherwise how can anybody get to the train?”, would come up with a Pierce-only regional-bus measure. It’s the same reason CT spent such a large percent of its budget on peak expresses to Seattle. In the 2008 crash CT had to cut service. It presented two alternatives: protect the peak expresses, or restructure it into more frequent local service. Most of the feedback was to protect the peak expresses, because that’s the only time people can imagine using it, and they think it’s the best use of their tax money. The 2024 CT restructure is only happening because Link will replace the downtown expresses; it wouldn’t happen without it.
Many people in suburban King County and even Seattle have a similar mindset, it’s just less so. When Link went in in Rainier Valley, one of the complaints was that there should be a P&R on MLK so that people could get to the train. It didn’t happen because Seattle prohibits new P&Rs. (Northgate was a replacement, not new.) Other cities don’t have that prohibition because they want P&Rs more.
Northgate was also the only neighborhood that turned down a larger P&R ST offered: 3/4 of the feedback said they wanted better bus/bike/ped access to the station instead. They said the only reason they drove to the P&R was the lack of alternatives. You try to suggest that to Shoreline or Tukwila or Redmond or Lynnwood and they won’t hear of it.
Can we all just say “STOP!”? Stop at Federal Way. Midway would have been better operationally but they’ve already thrown a half billion bucks away on grading and bridgework south of there and it is a better place for the MF. Stop at Redmond. Stop at Lynnwood. Don’t even start at Alaska Junction. Don’t even start at Issaquah or “South Kirkland”. Give Seattle a bit more taxing authority and let SDOT contract for a surface line to Ballard via Fremont that is designed entirely by the City, instead of feckless, Seattle-hostile suburbanites. Enough with the overreach of “Regionalism”.
The state can fund the STRide BRT improvements itself. They’re all really highway expenses anyway.
And, “Yes. I understand that there are regional needs for transit, and North King probably owed South King and Pierce a bundle.” All that would have to be worked out, and proper interest paid on the taxes raised and spent on the central part of the system. But the quality of what is proposed will provide poor transit while at the same time being extravagant in its engineering.
One thing I’ve thought about is letting subareas vote on the tax levels they’re ok with. “Are you ok with *opting out* of ST3 tax rates in exchange for your project being canceled”. My assumption is this would work in Pierce county but not work in Snohomish county
I do feel bad for Pierce county, or more specifically Tacoma, though. Ideally this transit money shouldn’t just be removed from the table entirely in Pierce county. Technically it would solve the problem of spending it on bad value light rail extensions. But Tacoma could benefit from that tax revenue! Pierce transit operates in a county largely hostile to tax increases to fund bus service and local service in Tacoma has suffered as a result.
So it isn’t that transit dollars shouldn’t be spent in Tacoma but that they should be spent differently than how sound transit wants to spend them now. Understand the limitations of link, understand the importance’s of bus service, understand high ridership and low ridership services, and spend accordingly
I certainly agree with that, John, but if the majority of folks in Pierce County don’t want to pay for bus service — or Link service either apparently — they shouldn’t be dragooned into doing so. I personally think they’re dumb not to want a functional transit system, but unlike Leke Wobegon, half the children are below average.
Stupid people have the same voting power that geniuses do, though they certainly don’t have the same overall political power.
If the Legislature can be convinced to give PTBA’s and RTA’s other than ST greater taxing power and relax the rigid “all subareas must have the same tax rate” rule that you rightly blame for these follies in the ‘burbs, things might get much better.
Instead of having a remote “regional” agency with no direct relationship to the voters, it might be much better to have the county agencies form joint task forces to link themselves by transit. Maybe that’s TOO decentralized, but the current remote ona mountain model isn’t giving good results.
It was Pierce County officials who got Tacoma Dome and the T-Line and Sounder into ST1/2/3 in the first place. ST didn’t force them onto Pierce; Pierce forced them onto ST. If the Pierce boardmembers, city mayors, and county council had asked for other things instead, they would have gotten them. But they insisted strongly for years and years that these projects were the highest priority and the most urgent. And Pierce voters are less willing to approve PT levies than King and Snohomish voters are, because they’re more car-oriented and anti-tax on average. So Pierce County has really dug its own hole.
There’s a basic geographic limitation that Tacoma Dome and downtown Tacoma are in the northern corner of the county, while Lynnwood is in the center of southwest Snohomish County. That limits what a service terminating at Tacoma Dome can do. Still, it’s up to Pierce to work around that limitation, and build something that most people in Tacoma and the other cities can use without driving to Tacoma Dome P&R. That’s what they’ve failed to do so far, and what they need to do.
PT also had a tax-hostile southeast that kept bringing down levies. Their arguments ranged from, “95% of people drive, so who needs transit taxes?” to “An hour-long milk run from Buckley to downtown Tacoma doesn’t meet our transit needs, so we don’t want it.” PT contracted its service area to exclude Buckley, Bonney Lake, Sumner, etc, that had the highest no votes. Tacoma and Lakewood are supposedly willing to fund more local transit. But even though PT jettisoned the high-no areas in order to get a constituency that would vote yes, it hasn’t held a levy since, so it’s throwing away that potential. PT has a good long-range plan (in my outsider’s opinion), but nobody in government will step up to fund it or hold a levy for it, so it just languishes.
Tacoma may not be the geographic center of Pierce County, but it is the economic and cultural center of the county, and the destination of most of its workers. It is surrounded by neighborhoods with the highest population densities in the county. Transit travel flows toward Tacoma’s city center, as this map shows. Its location, therefore, is not a limitation. It is a natural terminus or point of transfer for most trips.
Tacoma Dome Station on the city’s industrial margins, on the other hand, is indeed a limitation, but one that principally impacts heavy rail service. That’s what happens when you build an interstate through your platforms in the late 1980s. Oops! Furthermore, it is not uncommon to transfer to access your city’s heavy rail station for outbound trips.
For buses and light rail, however, there is no need to terminate at the Dome, nor was Tacoma Dome Station planned or designed to be a terminus for any mode of regional travel. Just integrate Tacoma Link and, voila, you intercept Pierce Transit Rts 1, 2, 3 and many others, as way previously the plan. How easy we forget!
To change the rail transfer from beyond Downtown Tacoma only changes the point of regional interception with the local buses—if it intercepts them at all. It does so at huge expense for marginal benefit, and it does not change the dominant transit travel dynamic of the subarea.
“Are you ok with *opting out* of ST3 tax rates in exchange for your project being canceled”. My assumption is this would work in Pierce county but not work in Snohomish county.
It would not surprise me if that would work in Snohomish County as well. I know that Snohomish County voted for ST3, but not by a wide margin, and that was before Lynnwood Link. Sound Transit tried very hard — without actually stating it — that without ST3 there would be no Lynnwood Link. It was also before the various plans for Everett Link, which simply don’t look good.
I could also see a different vote. Replace the ST plans with money for the local transit agency. It is hard to see people in Pierce County being too thrilled with ST, given the way they botched the BRT plans on Pacific (and the rarely ridden streetcar). Sounder remains popular, but a lot of the plans seem woefully out of date. The cost of the park and ride expansions are gigantic, and don’t seem necessary anymore. Likewise, expanding each station (to handle bigger trains) was always a bad idea — it makes even less sense now. There would be nothing stopping Pierce Transit from putting money into Sounder, Link or express bus service (whether run by ST or their own agency). But they just might focus on the areas that are more in need, and have more riders.
Same goes with Community Transit. If they had ST money, they could build out their Swift program very quickly, and add additional transit where it is needed.
Ross has the right approach – differentiating tax rates would be difficult without dissolving the RTD, which in turn is difficult since there are 30 year bonds specifically backed by RTD tax revenues. Instead the move would be to direct ST’s revenues (net of existing subarea debt) to the county agency’s capital and O&M … which is mostly a move back to the ST1 framework, where the RTD was seen primarily as a financing body of sufficient scale to tackle large projects.
But since Pierce Transit looked at the Pacific Avenue bus project and concluded, “sorry, too hard” but Tacoma and Pierce leaders are still full steam ahead on TDLE, I don’t think rerouting Pierce’s transit money from ST to PT would have much of a change in the projects funded. Remember, Sound Transit is run by the 3 county executives that run the county agencies.
“it might be much better to have the county agencies form joint task forces to link themselves by transit. ” – that would result in no change to Link, STX, or Sounder, since none of those modes are operated by Sound Transit.
This is where we’d need clarity on whether it’s possible to split the tax district for future bonds without creating subarea-specific boards and agencies. If the new bonds can pay off part of the existing ST3 bonds, then it may be possible to extricate Pierce or Snohomish if they want to exit. Then Pierce and Snohomish could pay off their existing commitments with their new bonds (or existing ST3 bonds), and the three King subareas could continue their ST3 plans under the existing ST3 or add things in new bonds. Or the new bonds could completely pay off and replace the existing bonds. One issue would be whether ST has front-loaded bonds for Pierce and Snohomish projects that won’t start construction for years. Then, could that money get reassigned to King projects to get it off Pierce and Snohomish projects that would be cancelled?
Can we acknowledge that every ST package contained stuff you wanted and stuff you didn’t particularly care for?
I, for one, am very much looking forward to Link reaching Tacoma Dome Station. I would take the 124 down to TIBS, and then ride it from there. It will be pretty swift from there.
Northenders might not see the use in that line, but not every project is about you.
Some in Everett are asking Can we just get Link built to Everett and say Stop? Not waste money on that goofy line to Ballard?
Can we acknowledge that every ST package contained stuff you wanted and stuff you didn’t particularly care for?
I suppose, but the difference between ST2 and ST3 was dramatic. With ST2, there was very little I didn’t care for. At most it was “right idea, but I wouldn’t go that far”. For example, it is essential that the south end of Link connect to the buses going along the freeway (from the south). Maybe that happens at Highline Community College. Going farther (to Federal Way, which already has the bus infrastructure) is not that big of a deal.
In contrast, there was very little in ST3 that I liked. Ballard Link is really the only good project. Even then it wouldn’t be as good as Ballard to UW. The other projects are all bad idea, and they all fail for the same reason. Existing riders will be forced to transfer right at the point where there trip is about to be quick. They will be asked to transfer, and get little for it. Throw in a poorly planned second downtown tunnel and it just a huge waste of money. It makes the Maggie Fimia’s of the world look like geniuses. Take all that money you are going to spend on ST3 and just spend it on the buses. Some bus infrastructure, and a lot more frequent buses. When very urban areas of the city — or even the most urban part of the entire region (the greater Central Area) — is suffering from infrequent, indirect buses, it is hard to justify multi-billion dollar rail to Fife.
Of course things have gotten worse. Ballard farther away from the heart of things. Really bad transfers downtown. Huge cost overruns despite things apparently getting a lot worse. ST3 is full of bad projects that have gotten worse — to the point where even the good projects aren’t that good.
I’m not a “northender”.
You can fanboi ST all you want, but building a low-floor light rail line of 45 miles length along miles and miles of freeway rights of way is stupidity factorial. Every time — except the original Rainier Valley line and the stretch through the Spring District — that ST could have chosen a parallel route through built up areas that could thereby have been served directly, instead they chose freeway rights of way, like BART. The tunnel through North Seattle was unavoidable if the University was to be served. They made the right choices there, but the West Side line is NOT a trunk with a bunch of long-distance folks riding it. It does not need to be a twenty billion dollar subway at least, not at its ends.
West Seattle would be a good neighborhood for a surface line like Judah Street in San Francisco. It could turn south on California and create a nice strip of view mid-rises along the street. But, No! ST insists that a seventy foot deep station is necessary since eight people will get their panties in a twist if — heaven forfend! — a tram went down Alaska and California as they once did. Either (1) rip the zoning maxima off a six-block circle around The Junction to justify that billion dollar station and another half-circle around Avalon, (2) build a surface line with several small stations or (3) cut bait. Same thing in Ballard.
Can we all just say “STOP!”? Stop at Federal Way.
Sounds good to me. Basically just finish what we’ve started when it comes to rail, and end there. Any major project would have to start over — if we even wanted it.
Give Seattle a bit more taxing authority and let SDOT contract for a surface line to Ballard via Fremont that is designed entirely by the City, instead of feckless, Seattle-hostile suburbanites.
Exactly. Give Seattle the right to tax itself (at the same rate ST is taxing it) and they could build something much better. Not only for the north end, but for places like West Seattle as well. It really is bizarre that someone thought the best solution for West Seattle was rail, given that they have a very fast expressway that connects them to downtown (that can’t be leveraged by rail). Do the opposite. Leverage it. Improve on that, and improve things in West Seattle itself, and you have something that is better for all existing riders. You can’t say that about the current plans. Quite the opposite.
Some of the bus projects have merit, but ST has a bad record with urban BRT, while freeway-based BRT should be done by the state (as you mentioned). The SR 522 plan (Stride 3) is wasting a ton of money in Lake Forest Park because they want to widen the road, instead of narrowing the street a little bit. The same sort of thing happened in Pierce County. In this case I’m not even talking about “taking a lane”, just dropping the speed limit a tiny bit and making the road a bit more narrow. Hand the project over to the county, or let the three cities work on it together. Better yet, pull in Seattle (since it is way more eager to spend money on transit) and send that bus to 130th Station (and beyond) or down to Roosevelt (where it goes now). Either would solve the awkward problem we have along Lake City Way between 145th and 125th.
Sound Transit would die — it would just switch from focusing on construction to operations. The express buses add value. We still need it to run Link. We need it to run Sounder. But we don’t need major expansions of any of those. What improvements we do need come largely in the form of operations anyway. Add gates in Rainier Valley to make the trains safer. Add a few more runs of Sounder, Link or a bus. More security — that sort of thing.
Yes, this approach would be much better than what we have planned. How to make it happen is the tough part.
I think it would be pretty dumb to not extend Link to SFW and build OMF-S, unless you are good with ST2’s frequency forever. I also think a short extension in Snohomish is easy to justify.
“ST has a bad record with urban BRT” – what is urban BRT? Arterial BRT? It seems like your favorite STX route is the current 522 routing.
” Hand the project over to the county” – all of the Arterial BRT projects are run by the county or city? And I fail to see how delegating Stride 522 to KCM would have resulted in the exact same set of politicians decide to not widen in Lake Forest Park. Change the staff level bureaucrats doesn’t change the decision makers.
“Add a few more runs of Sounder” – that’s a >$1B capital project, not “largely … operations”
“freeway-based BRT should be done by the state”
If you wait for the state to be willing to fund freeway BRT construction and operations, it may never happen. We need transit now, not no transit because of an abstract principle.
Mike, “freeway-based BRT” sucks. It has exactly the same problems that freeway-base LRT does: the walkshed is noisy, smelly (maybe not for too much longer, TG, but still..), and occupied by motor vehicles and their infrastructure.
Express buses in HOV lanes are just fine. If you have a genuine activity center, like Factoria or Totem Lake, build an HOV exit and have the bus pull off and stop in it. Like the station at MLT. Even if it isn’t boxed in like that one it’s still a quieter than down at the highway level and two or three of such stops between Bellevue and Lynnwood might add two minutes to the travel time. The secret is to put them at an bridge that doesn’t have other ramps, like they did at Totem Lake. You can build several of those for the four hundred million they’re going to drop at 85th.
AJ, sure, since so much has been spent getting to 320th. go ahead and build a stub to the Maintenance Facility and if a station can be sited there cheaply!!!, build it too.
But I still assert it would have been better to stop at Midway. That horse has left the barn though, and is now marooned in a deep canyon just over the horizon.
Tom, “freeway-based BRT” avoids the number one problem of a freeway-base LRT: billions of dollars of expense to create the ROW between stations.
Therefore, Tom is exactly right that the best way to get the value of freeway BRT is cheap station. ST did not do this with the station at 44th & 85th, but otherwise they are following this approach with Stride 405. WSDOT is paying for the new interchanges at Canyon Park & 405/522 (the later is necessary for the Bothell TC), ST is building two new inline stations at TIBS and Brickyard, and is otherwise leveraging existing assets. Overspending on 2 out of 9 stations isn’t bad.
Canyon Park is perhaps a good example – it’s a regular interchange, but WSDOT is able to drop in a bus/HOV access ramp without impacting the existing interchange.
” “freeway-based BRT” sucks. It has exactly the same problems that freeway-base LRT does: the walkshed is noisy, smelly (maybe not for too much longer, TG, but still..), and occupied by motor vehicles and their infrastructure. Express buses in HOV lanes are just fine”
What’s the difference between express buses and BRT? Frequency. What we need is buses every 10-15 minutes so that people can ride them. I don’t care whether they’re called express or BRT, just that they exist. As for the alignment on 405, that’s forced by the Eastside’s geography. How else can you get from Bellevue to Renton quickly? You’d have to build a new right of way, and that’s what they’re avoiding due to cost.
“The state can fund the STRide BRT improvements itself.” It did, spending several billion on the 2-lane HOT network from Lynnwood to Renton. ST’s few hundred million on two new interchanges and a few other stations is a small fraction of the 167-405 transit master plan that the state has been working on for decades. This is why I mostly shrug at spending East King’s money on the two interchange rebuild – WSDOT has spent billions more to create the ROW for center running BRT from Lynnwood to Renton.
““The state can fund the STRide BRT improvements itself.” It did, spending several billion on the 2-lane HOT network from Lynnwood to Renton.”
That’s a road-expansion project for HOT lanes for cars. The specific bus features are incidental, like required sidewalks for arterials or a required parallel pedestrian path for I-90 and 520. WSDOT wants to be “with it” and accommodate in-line BRT stations in highway widenings that are happening anyway, but ST is paying for the BRT-specific features.
No, they are not incidental. A sidewalk is not “incidental” to a street because a complete street is for more than just moving vehicles. Same with a freeway – a well designed freeway network incorporates transit. For example, the Montlake lid (with left-hand HOV exits) and Evergreen Point lid (with inline bus station) are essentials part of the SR520 project.
This would likely doom regional transit in the Puget Sound region for a generation. For better or worse, people in those regions have been paying the taxes for many years,and have likely paid more per household than Seattle itself. And if they get *nothing*, they would not likely approve another transit tax for the rest of their lives.
That sounds… basically fine: we have built plenty of regional transit already. What we really need, for the next generation, is serious attention to *urban* transit instead.
I doubt this can be done under the ST aegis.
You need to offer an alternative.
In Pierce, I’m happy to give up TDLE, parking garages and longer Sounder platforms, which adds up to around 5 billion dollars. But you have to replace it with something for regional service. I would prefer that something be Sounder with improved frequency and vastly expanded service hours into nights and weekends I would assume 5 billion can provide that, and maybe a few local Stream lines to connect to Sounder with a cherry on top.
But I’d even be happy with 15 minute frequency express buses coupled with BAT 3.
But you can’t just provide nothing.
And, if you really want some fun with Community Transit’s bus system, try going from Mukilteo to Everett when Sounder isn’t running. By Google, it’s 14 minutes by car, 1 hour 19 minutes by transit. Not quite as bad as Woodinville to Monroe when the 424 isn’t running, but up there.
Everett Transit route 18 does it in 35 minutes, but currently doesn’t run very often. It seems like this used to be a different ET route that was hourly.
Certainly not the several minutes of Sounder.
ET 18 is weekday only. There’s nothing on Saturday or Sunday.
My roommate and I sometimes went to the Mukilteo ferry on Saturday to have lunch with his father, who came from Whidbey Island, and we ate at Duke’s near the ferry terminal. Once, after the 2008 CT cuts, we took the 512 to Lynnwood and went to the Mukilteo bus bay, but the route we’d previously taken wasn’t there. We asked a CT driver, “Where’s the Mukilteo route?” He said it terminates at Ash Way now. The 512 had already left, so I asked, “How can we get to Ash Way?” He said he’s going there, so we took his 201 or 202. At Ash Way we waited 45 minutes for the 113. We discovered the excellent Viennese cafe with cake at the P&R. The 113 seemed to be timed for a westbound ferry trip but not an eastbound one. So after lunch we saw his father off, but then had a 50 minute wait for the bus. The stop had an ET route to Everett, but only weekdays. We wandered around the lighthouse park and then took the 113 back.
The 113 is back at Lynnwood TC again, not Ash Way.
Mukilteo to Everett got wiped out because of the work they are doing on Mukilteo Boulevard. The Everett Transit 18 still connects the two places, but takes an indirect route, and runs infrequently. They now think the bridge will be fixed in Summer 2024. With the old route it took about 20 minutes. With the new route it takes about 35. Either way, it is infrequent.
When Link gets to Lynnwood, the trip from the south to Mukilteo will get a lot better. The future 117 will take a fairly direct path between the Mukilteo Ferry and Lynnwood TC (https://www.communitytransit.org/images/default-source/transit-changes-2024-beyond/map117_t2024.png?sfvrsn=b9670942_2). It will be timed with the ferry. Only a handful of ferry runs every day will not coincide with a bus. This will likely be a lot better than the 18. Here is the future schedule of the 117:
Weekdays
5 a.m. – 7 p.m. 30 minutes
7 p.m. – 11 p.m. 60 minutes
Saturday
6 a.m. – 7 p.m. 30 minutes
7 p.m. – 10 p.m. 60 minutes
Sunday
7 a.m. – 9 p.m. 30 minutes
Much of the problem stems from the fact that Everett Transit is not funded as well as Community Transit (basically the opposite of Seattle and the rest of King County). If the agencies merged, they could offer much better service: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/03/16/everett-transit-mulling-merger/.
Oh, and very few people used Sounder to get from Mukilteo to Everett. Prior to the pandemic, there would be about 18 riders in the morning, and 28 in the evening. (No, I didn’t forget extra zeros — it was literally less than fifty a day, round trip). See page 217 of https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2019-sip-final_compressed.pdf (or 226 of the PDF reader).
Should we blame Community Transit, Everett Transit, Sound Transit, Washington State Ferries, Island Transit, or the Village of Mukilteo’s land uses for the dearth of direct transit between Mukilteo and Everett?
The land use. It’s just not very dense. And it’s 5 miles away from Everett. Which by road is almost 7 miles
The state government for not setting a reasonable baseline of transit and ensuring it’s fully funded. Even the current land use deserves better transit than it has.
As for the atrocious land use, we’d have to unravel exactly what roles the state, county, and city had in creating it. It’s probably a combination of intentional sprawl, the unintended consequences of seemingly-unrelated regulations, and a failure to block developers from building car-dependent plans.
For instance, road widths are in the transportation regulations, and are usually designed for maximum car thoroughput regardless of everything else. “Complete streets” emerged after Mukilteo was built up, even though most of the construction was as recent as the 2000s. In some cities local arterials have inappropriate highway requirements. In some cities local streets are required to be wide enough for two fire trucks to turn left simultaneously. All that pushes everything apart and makes things unwalkable.
The ultra-deep setbacks are probably a combination of setback requirements, open-space requirements, and the conventions developers have become accustomed to. Single-use land use comes from zoning requirements. And on and on.
Urbanist talks about the transportation levy’s poll survey, there were two levy’s proposed a 1.2 billion and a 1.7 billion one. https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/27/seattle-voters-on-board-with-big-transportation-levy/
## Overview and thoughts
The 4 main ‘large’ projects seem to be:
1) fixing the ballard and (aurora) ship canal bridges https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bridges-stairs-and-other-structures/bridges#projects
2) making 3rd avenue transit corridor safer and more comfortable
3) build next phase of the east marginal way project (south of spokane street). For more details read about it here: https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/freight-program/east-marginal-way-corridor-improvement-project
4) (rapidride?) connect eastlake and rainier beach, through capitol hill and beacon hill.*
*I’m most confused here. I’ve never heard of such a project before.
If it goes through capital hill and beacon hill, I know about the 36 + 49 rapidride idea (beacon avenue and 10th avenue from othello to uw), but it doesn’t go to eastlake nor rainier beach..
I mean I guess maybe the 36 is extended down beacon avenue to reach rainier beach like the 107 https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/107#route-map and does 10th avenue count as eastlake? Honestly I don’t know how a bus gets from eastlake avenue to capitol hill.
Alternatively maybe it’s a weird rerouting of the 60 that uses 15th avenue and on the north segment goes down denny way and travels up eastlake, while for the south end skips georgetown and eventually heads down beacon avenue then reaches rainier beach?
(If anyone understands how the routing works plz tell)
There are some interesting slightly confounding findings from the survey at first glance. Transit riders and walkers are most likely to support spending more money on the levy. But the highest rated projects are all about fixing bridges and potholes. Second minor perplexing one is the high rating of safe routes to school, but then the lowest rating of improve safety by slowing driver speeds.
Anyways most of it is explained that the transit riders/walkers group is 30% of the survey while drivers/carpool are 70%. Though also I guess drivers want the streets to be safer, but not necessarily drive slower lol, though given the survey asked about major streets perhaps they are more okay about neighborhood greenways.
I’d guess they will move forward with a smaller 1.2 billion levy, as it seems the support for the 1.7 billion levy kind of wavers and possibly could end up failing.
## Detailed list of the survey:
They asked them to rate 22 items (people rated from 1 to 7 importance)
Top tier (11) items from the survey:
* 5.8 proactively maintain seattle’s bridges
* 5.7 repave 200 major street miles
* 5.4 fix potholes within 72 hours
* 5.3 (1.7 billion only) conduct major rehabilitation on ship canal bridges
* 5.3 reduce air pollution in neighborhoodds by maintaining existing tree canopy
* 5.3 invest in safe routes; invest in sidewalks and curb ramps
* 5.2 make it easier to get around your neighborhood without a car
* 5.1 reduce collision related injuries and fatalities to zero
* 5.0 (1.7 billion only) create walk, bike , bus routes to light rail and neighborhoods
* 5.0 (1.7 billion only) make 3rd avenue transit corridor safer
Second tier (11) items from the survey:
* 4.9 update traffic signal equipment
* 4.9 identify and invest in local communities projects in under-served neighborhoods
* 4.7 improve public transit reliability
* 4.6 (1.7 billion only) connect eastlake and rainier beach via capitol hill and beacon hill
* 4.5 (1.7 billion only) invest in helping people get to their neighborhood parks
* 4.4 invest in truck routes
* 4.3 (1.7 billion only) create new permanent car free shopping ares
* 4.2 (1.7 billion only) build next phase of east marginal way
* 4.1 (1.7 billion only) improve public ev charging options
* 4.0 improve connections between neighborhoods
* 3.7 improve safety by slowing driver speeds on major streets.
Survey detailed: https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/23-9032-Report-9-2.pdf
Thanks for the summary!
I often wonder what “safer” means in the context of Third Avenue. Is the concern more about getting hit by a bus or car, or getting robbed or hassled, or merely some perceived environmental change that bears only tangential relevance to actual data? Each of these three things would create very different projects and programs.
I guess I feel like the term is used because it is so sufficiently vague to encompass what a wide variety of voters interpretations. Sounding good to as many people as possible may be the political objective. However, it still rubs me a bit that we are asked to spend transportation resources for things that I would consider more appropriately called “security” or “beautification” that also have safety benefits rather than something that is primarily “safety”.
Im a bit confused here as well what exactly it means. All the other major projects have a pretty obvious government (sdot or king county metro) document outlining what they want to implement.
This downtown one though is it the “3rd avenue vision” by the merchants? It seems a bit odd to reference
My guess is it is this: https://cdn.downtownseattle.org/files/advocacy/dsa-third-avenue-vision-booklet.pdf. The Downtown Seattle Association put together a bunch of ideas for 3rd Avenue. It probably wasn’t billed as a “safety” initiative until recently. The only proposal that would retain the same throughput is a couplet. Personally I think a couplet would work well, especially if the buses ran opposite one lane of traffic (i. e. contraflow). Doing so means that delivery vehicles, taxicabs and potentially even regular cars have full access to the street, it is just that they run in the opposite direction of the buses. They have exclusive use of the street 24 hours a day. No complicated signage (when exactly can I turn on this street?). For everyone not driving a bus it is one-way. Since there would be two bus lanes (on each street) you avoid the problems of one-lane contraflow routes (e. g. buses can easily pass buses). To the extent that you have traffic lights timed, they would be timed for the buses.
Other than that, the solutions seem worse than the problem. It is great that we want to widen the sidewalk, but we don’t want to make transit worse in the process.
” (rapidride?) connect eastlake and rainier beach, through capitol hill and beacon hill… I’m most confused here”
I was confused too. It’s unclear what they’re talking about, and it seems to contradict recent proposals.
Most likely it’s a 49-9-36-107 line. So it would start at U-District Station like the 49 to Pine Street (Eastlake-10th-Broadway), then like the 9 to Jackson Street (Broadway-Boren-12th), like the 36 to Myrtle Street (12th-14th-Beacon), and like the 107 to the south end of Beacon Avenue and Rainier Beach Station (Beacon-Carkeek-Henderson). That was in Metro Connects 2016-2020 south to Othello Station.
Ever since the 1 was split there have been different routes on north and south Beacon. The 1 used to be a trolleybus to Dawson street (south of the VA hospital). A daytime diesel overlay continued further to the south end of Beacon Avenue and Rainier Beach. This would restore that full-Beacon routing. It’s surprising because Metro/SDOT seemed to be committed to RapidRide south to Othello Station. Now it wants to throw in south Beacon, which is all single-family houses. But it’s only a short distance further, so maybe SDOT just wants to do the whole thing and be done with it. It would also help people get from Rainier Beach to Cleveland High School.
Another possibility is a simple 36/J merger, so it would go downtown to 3rd Avenue and then north to the U-District. That’s what RapidRide C and D did before they were split. The C/D merger was problematic because it skipped lower downtown and Pioneer Square, but a 36/J merger wouldn’t have that problem.
Another possibility is going north on Boren to SLU, Eastlake and the U-District. Metro was thinking of rerouting the 106 (Renton-MLK-Rainer) to it, but a Beacon Hill route could do it too. (But perhaps not serve southeast Seattle as well, since more people live/shop in Rainier Valley than on Beacon Hill, and they’re the majority that would want to go to Boren and SLU.)
SDOT should have clarified it by saying Broadway, Boren, or downtown. “Eastlake” doesn’t tell us much because all streets merge into Eastlake so it’s the only choice.
The Seattle Transportation Plan Draft Project List has a “Eastlake to Rainier Beach | Multimodal Improvements” project which is described as:
“In partnership with King County Metro, support the new RapidRide connection from Eastlake to Rainier Beach with improvements on Beacon Ave S, Broadway, and 10th Ave E. This could include:
‐ Repaving some portions of the road
‐ Redesigning the street to better support RapidRide service
‐ Repairing sidewalks and adding bicycle facilities for people of all ages and abilities
‐ Making it safer to cross the street
‐ Enhancing access to destinations like shops, restaurants, and cultural centers in the area”
Sounds like that’s one that they’ve shortlisted for the final levy.
I think if you propose two budgets, then most people will pick the smaller. That doesn’t mean that a particular number is going to more popular. The vast majority of people don’t look at the projects in that kind of detail. The council should propose a third budget that is much bigger, than settle on the middle one. Spend, baby, spend.
Honestly I don’t know how a bus gets from eastlake avenue to capitol hill.
Maybe they mean the 49. South of Capitol Hill Station it could just keep going on Broadway until Beacon Hill (replacing that part of the 60). To get to Rainier Beach it would take over that part of the 107. Seems a bit long, but I’ve long argued for sending the 49 to Beacon Hill (I remember it being in a previous Long Range Plan). I guess the 107 would end at Rainier Beach Station (if there is layover space) or Othello (if there isn’t). You could end at Rainier Beach proper, but that means no connection to Link. I guess the current 60 would end at Beacon Hill, or merge with the existing 36. It seems like you are overlapping a bit too much on South Beacon Hill.
Another alternative is to take over the 49, continue on Broadway until Beacon Hill, and then take over the southern tail of the 36 (to Othello). At that point, if it really needs to go to Rainier Beach, it just overlaps the 106 or 50/7. The 60 is then redirected to downtown, and the 36 is terminated. Both work, but both seem like a bit much. Any bus that goes over the ship canal should avoid becoming too long, simply because delays are inevitable. A 49 that continues straight on Broadway to Beacon Hill (Station) adds tremendous value. Extending it seems like overkill. Rainier Beach to Capitol or First Hill can be a two seat ride (involving Link).
“Broadway until Beacon Hill (replacing that part of the 60)”
Remember that the 60 detours to 9th between Madison and Yesler. This wouldn’t detour, so it would be like the 9. Metro is already leaning toward eliminating the detour in the Metro Connects 2010-2020 concepts.
“I guess the 107 would end at Rainier Beach Station (if there is layover space)”
It did layover there before it was extended to Beacon Hill Station.
Reminder: The input period on the ST Express bus service plan for the Lynnwood Link opening service change closes Wednesday.
Key points:
1. The proposed peak direction ST Express 515 between Lynnwood Station and downtown Seattle is unlikely to provide much mitigation for the projected spike of PM peak direction ridership that will exceed train capacity.
The morning southbound buses will provide a slower alternative for unimpacted Lynnwood riders who will get dibs on train seats. If any riders are impacted, it would be those trying to get on southbound at Roosevelt, and possibly Northgate, during the times the trains are fullest.
The evening 515s would provide a slower alternative for barely-impacted downtown riders going to Lynnwood.
2. Based on the cascading filling up of northbound trains, Capitol Hill riders would be somewhat impacted, UW riders would be significantly impacted by having to wait an indeterminant amount of time before they can fill up the small amounts of space left on trains, and U-District riders would face a really long wait for the stations to the south to clear their backlogs before U-District can start clearing its backlog.
If the goal is to provide alternative bus service for those most impacted by the limited capacity, then the best alternatives are (1) an ST Express peak direction route 516 from UW and U-District to Lynnwood, and (2) more peak frequency on Metro route 67 and other local routes for riders trying to get home to neighborhoods near Roosevelt and Northgate Stations.
3. The best mitigation for inadequate train capacity is more train capacity. It scales much better than buses, especially with a sub-optimal operator force.
Given the limited storage space for the 1 Line’s only base, that means being more clever with the deployment of capacity. If 3-car trains can provide sufficient capacity for off-peak service, that would free up ca, 16 LRVs that could be used for runs from SODO to Lynnwood during PM peak, interspersed with the all-day trains for a period of 5-minute headway.
But even with the best train scheduling plan, the need for some ST express 516 service might still exist. We won’t know how much alternative bus service is needed until the first week of train service to Lynnwood is under way.
It makes sense to me.
Two other possible solutions:
1. Promote using Sounder North at peak times through guaranteed connecting buses from Edmonds to elsewhere in Snohomish County.
2. Promote express service to core destinations not near Link stations, such as SLU and/or First Hill hospitals. These services should connect with Link at a North Seattle Sration. These services may be best provided by KCM.
Generally, I have yet to see ST adjust anything unless the feedback is organized through a group with clout. Individual comments seem to be quickly discarded by staff — apparantly never to even be shared with elected officials.
The 510’s continuation downtown is largely at the behest of an ST Board member from Everett.
The double-beep on tap-off took over a decade to get, but it happened without any organization’s endorsement, other than ST.
I just hope the CEO and staff have the authority to quickly alter both the bus and train plan based on the data that won’t be available until Lynnwood Link goes live.
1. That could work, and you might not have to do much. Just to back up here, Sounder North has four stations: Seattle, Edmonds, Mukilteo and Everett. Everett is basically covered with the continuation of the 510. Mukilteo has very little surrounding it. That leaves Edmonds, which also has the most ridership (of North Sounder). The 102 and 130 will both run along Main to connect to the ferry and train. From what I can tell, they will run every 15 minutes (combined). The 166 will also connect to the train, but it only runs every half hour. They could run some (or all) of these a bit more to coincide with Sounder, especially since Sounder only runs twice a day (each direction). Amtrak also runs trains, but outside of peak.
2. Metro already does that. Some of the buses have been suspended for lack of ridership. I think essentially doing the opposite makes sense. Run buses that bypass Link and provide and express to downtown.
Brent: another advantage of three-car trains, is that the two planned gap trains need only be that long, so two LRV could be saved.
I previously promoted extra frequency on the 49 specifically. That remains a useful tactic to avoid riding Link for short trips. But if people use it to bypass the bottleneck and get on Link at U-District, they will find the real bottleneck there, with fire marshalls blocking the phalanxes waiting to enter the station as too few riders are able to get on the northbound trains. Riders going southbound won’t be able to enter the station, either.
I’m not sure why staff didn’t give more pushback to Plan 515, or all-day 4-car trains. Some of them must see this will be an utter failure.
> The morning southbound buses will provide a slower alternative for unimpacted Lynnwood riders who will get dibs on train seats. If any riders are impacted, it would be those trying to get on southbound at Roosevelt, and possibly Northgate, during the times the trains are fullest.
southbound doesn’t have capacity problems.
> Based on the cascading filling up of northbound trains, Capitol Hill riders would be somewhat impacted, UW riders would be significantly impacted by having to wait an indeterminant amount of time before they can fill up the small amounts of space left on trains, and U-District riders would face a really long wait for the stations to the south to clear their backlogs before U-District can start clearing its backlog. If the goal is to provide alternative bus service for those most impacted by the limited capacity, then the best alternatives are (1) an ST Express peak direction route 516 from UW and U-District to Lynnwood, and (2) more peak frequency on Metro route 67 and other local routes for riders trying to get home to neighborhoods near Roosevelt and Northgate Stations.
This wouldn’t work for 2 reasons.
1) The capacity wouldn’t be alleviated as much. You need the busses starting further south segment. For an alternative bus from seattle to lynnwood for each passenger you are replacing a passenger on the train for all 3 segments of westlake – capitol hill – uw – u district -> onwards. While if you have the busses at u district they don’t remove any passengers from westlake to u district.
2) Only stewart st and pike/pine have northbound entrances and exits to the reversible express lane system. If you have an express bus at u district going north bound it’s going to be stuck in general lanes all the way until northgate. Same thing going southbound, it won’t be able to use the express lane system wand will need to exit early to general lanes from northgate to u district.
The 516 would not be fast, but it would still be faster than waiting a half hour to an hour for space on the train.
The best solution, of course, is to provide enough train capacity through the zone and period of maximum constraint to not need alternative bus service, with a standard that nobody should have to wait 15 minutes to get on a train.
My math says ST could just manage to run 3-car trains all day with 17 trains, and 2-car trains running a continuous SODO-Lynnwood loop for the peak periods, with 10 trains doing a live loop at the O&MF.
If it were possible to switch to 4-car trains on the shorter loop from the peak-of-peak spike to a few trains later when peak demand subsides and the platforms all clear, then we shouldn’t need the alternative buses except in emergencies (which seem to be more common than regular service these days).
If 7 LRVs every 10 minutes in the peak direction aren’t enough, then 8 LRVs every 10 minutes when the 2 Line arrives won’t be enough either.
> The 516 would not be fast, but it would still be faster than waiting a half hour to an hour for space on the train.
Lol, I understand there might be link at capacity, but you won’t need to wait that long. At most you’d just skip one train or maybe two at most. The link train isn’t going to get that busy.
If it only takes one or two trains to get on at U-District when the spike works its way upstream, then nobody is having a problem getting on at Capitol Hill. And so, UW Station would be the appropriate place to start a peak relief shuttle to Lynnwood.
Your two arguments basically contradict each other.
“…but it would still be faster than waiting a half hour to an hour for space on the train.”
I’ve ridden hundreds of days on an overcrowded rail system. Have you? My lived experience is that this isn’t how overcrowding works. As I’ve mentioned before, this is what I experienced:
1. Crowded trains throw off regularly scheduled arrival times. As the leading train gets bogged down at each successive station because it takes longer to let passengers get off and on , the next train will gradually get closer and closer as it picks up proportionally fewer and fewer riders — until it reaches where leftover passengers are.
2. Any leftover passengers stand in a line or along the edge to get first dibs to get on the next train. If you get left over, you will get first dibs on the next train. You will rarely have to wait more than one train.
3. Although it may not be many passengers, there are passengers that get off at every station. That’s especially true for destinations like Capitol Hill and U-District and UW, which serve activity centers rather than merely residences.
4. Because the anticipated heaviest loads are northbound in the afternoon, the place where it will be hardest to board a train will be at University Street and Westlake. It will naturally encourage short distance riders to simply quit using the train; they’ll board a local bus instead.
5. A day to day ridership variation does occur. In particular, Mondays and Fridays have lower demand. Since there are a certain percentage of commuters who have partial work from home options, the typical commuter will adjust to avoid the worst times. They’ll leave work early by a few hours, or have dinner near their work site after work or work a bit later. UW students will make the same kinds of adjustments. Unlike express buses which pretty much end at 6 PM, Link will have frequent trains until 10 or 11 PM so there is much less rush to get home
ST still hasn’t diagrammed how overcrowding works, and that leaves us all to speculate and misinterpret what the graph demonstrates. They just keep pushing out these average crowding condition graphs. It’s very naive and amateurish on the part of the staff.
PS. A few extra reliever trains are really all that’s needed. It takes fewer drivers. One can simply follow on the breaks of an overcrowded train after being idle and ready to go into service at the OMF in SODO. It may be that only 0 to 5 reliever trains a day would be needed depending on anticipated loads — and the exact number would occur with realtime service monitoring and feedback given to the dispatcher.
As I keep saying, this is not a planning exercise where adding a bus route and many more bus drivers is the only solution. It is an operations exercise to react to realtime conditions.
On the highway side, we do this all the time — realtime message signs, ramp meters, variable speed limits, etc. If there is too much demand by a modest amount on trains, the better strategy is to manage the situation in realtime like we do in our freeways. That’s especially true when the overcrowding will go away when the East OMF becomes reachable a few months later (months earlier than the full 2 Line opening next year).
@Al S,
You are correct, peak crowding will be PM peak NB and occur between WLS and UDS.
Public facing data that ST has presented so far is for unconstrained demand, and I think it is really just intended for policy makers to understand the extent of the problem. That data isn’t really intended to inform various remediation approaches.
I suspect ST will deploy gap trains when overcrowding occurs. They have them already, they are included in the LRV storage calculations, so why not use them?
I’m not a big fan of the gap train approach. I would rather see a short overlay with scheduled service, but if gap trains can solve the problem without bus shuttles, then so be it. It’s only temporary anyhow.
But it will be a brave new world by late this summer. Crowding or not, this is going to be a big year for transit regionally.
>> If it only takes one or two trains to get on at U-District when the spike works its way upstream, then nobody is having a problem getting on at Capitol Hill. And so, UW Station would be the appropriate place to start a peak relief shuttle to Lynnwood.
> Your two arguments basically contradict each other.
One or two trains as in time. If it is overcrowded at 5:10 pm, probably the 5:20 pm train will have space or at least the 5:30pm train will have space.
Secondly my argument was about “The capacity wouldn’t be alleviated as much since replacing a passenger on the train for all 3 segments of westlake – capitol hill – uw – u district”. A UW station express shuttle would offer less time savings and be less attractive. Even worse you’d need to run even more busses to relieve the same number of passengers on the train.
Third, you do realize the overcrowding portion starts from Westlake and Capitol Hill even before the train reaches UW right?
@WL,
You are correct, The overcrowding problem is PM peak NB, starting at WLS, and will be at its worst between CHS and UWS.
And you are also right about the shuttles, riders will get a much faster commute if they just wait a couple of trains as opposed to switching to a shuttle. The shuttles will be slower for just about every conceivable station pair. Even compared to a long wait for Link. There is basically no incentive to switch to a bus.
The best solution is to add rail capacity in the urban core using either an overlay line or by using gap trains. I suspect ST will go the gap train route, but we will see.
But either way, adding rail capacity on the actual rail line is the best way to alleviate a rail capacity problem. Adding buses won’t work.
But hey, it’s a short term problem. ELSL goes live this spring, LLE goes live late this summer, Redmond Link goes live probably early next year, and the full ELE goes live late next year.
We’re becoming a real city around here! Finally.
Oh, and maybe somewhere in there we can squeeze in a Federal Way Link starter line.
“riders will get a much faster commute if they just wait a couple of trains as opposed to switching to a shuttle. ”
Exactly! It takes time to get down to a platform only to discover that it’s crowded. Unless the entire platform is incredibly jammed, no one will go back upstairs. Why walk back upstairs requiring 3-5 minutes only to wait for a bus that also may be crowded?
And the most likely people to go back upstairs are those who are going just a short distance. They will go hop on a Metro bus that’s going the same place!
The least likely people to go back upstairs are Snohomish County bound riders.
Why doesn’t ST staff get this? It’s like they don’t understand how normal rider logic works.
@Al S,
“ Why doesn’t ST staff get this?”
Actually, I think “ST staff” does get this.
This shuttle bus idea is just a little CYA for the board and other political leaders. They need to appear to be doing something about the issue, and adding buses creates the appearance that they did “something”.
And when the idea fails they will just shrug their shifters and say, “Wow. People really do prefer rail over buses. Lesson learned.”
The other thing about the shuttle bus concept is inertia. This region has spent almost all of the last 70 years as a fully bus dependent region. People are just plain used to the concept of adding buses to increase capacity. It’s what this region has done for decades. It’s a simplistic approach, and if all you have for transit is buses, then adding another bus actually does work.
But this region isn’t solely dependent on buses anymore, and very few people are going to be willing to expend extra effort and time to access a slower, less reliable bus when they can just stand on the rail platform for 8 more minutes and catch the next train.
I suspect ST will just deploy gap trains and the buses will run empty. Then ST will kill the buses at the first opportunity.
“This shuttle bus idea is just a little CYA for the board and other political leaders.”
Aha! This is but another reason why the current Board structure doesn’t work! They’re meddling in ways that are unproductive. Then they hire upper staff that isn’t seasoned enough with operations to privately push back with legitimacy.
“Exactly! It takes time to get down to a platform only to discover that it’s crowded. Unless the entire platform is incredibly jammed, no one will go back upstairs”
People aren’t doing it only once. They’re potentially traveling several times a week. If they have a bad overcrowded experience the first day or the first few times, on subsequent days they may go straight to the bus.
As someone who lived carless in a real city and commuted via train daily for years, crowded trains are just something that happens.
If you don’t get on the first one, you are first in line for the next one, and even if it is jam-packed, you nearly always can squeeze in just a few more. It’s not very pleasant, but that’s what real city dwellers do. You don’t wait an hour until you get an uncrowded train. That’s absurd.
If it happens daily, it motivates you to start organizing happy hours and hitting the train at 6 or 7.
@Mike Orr,
“ People aren’t doing it only once. They’re potentially traveling several times a week.”
Exactly. And that is sort of implicit in what Al S is saying. Because people who travel daily, or even just often, will know the system in excruciating detail and won’t take the bus.
A shuttle bus to Lynnwood will be at least 20 minutes slower each direction, and won’t be nearly as reliable or frequent. It’s far more advantageous for a traveler just to wait for the next train. Or better yet, just adjust your arrival/departure times by 30 minutes each way to save yourself 40 minutes of wasted time on the bus. I did this for decades on my commute to avoid traffic, and it works like a charm.
The other “trick” of knowledgeable commuters is to just do something for half an hour after work. Go have a bite or a drink with your coworkers. Team build, solve some problems, and maybe just relax a bit while the peak crush subsides. It works.
@Cam,
“ If it happens daily, it motivates you to start organizing happy hours and hitting the train at 6 or 7.”
Exactly. People are far more likely to adjust their arrival/departure times than they are to voluntarily waste an extra 20 to 40 minutes (or more) of their day just commuting.
From a bus perspective, I see two aspects to this:
1) You want to attract riders to the bus, by giving them something the train doesn’t offer. This comes largely in the form of avoiding a transfer.
2) You want to get as many riders per service hour as possible.
It isn’t clear how to do this. One assumption that ST seems to be making is that the express service needs to be from Snohomish County. Even worse, the 515 they propose fails miserably when it comes to that first point. Every stop combination that can be done with the bus can be done with the train. That is the opposite of what you want.
Here are the two options that seem the most promising to me:
1) Run the 522 to downtown (during peak) instead of Roosevelt. You would probably have a different number (e. g. 524). You would never run these buses at the same time (when the 524 is running, the 522 is not, and vice versa). This would be similar to the old 510/512 combination that existed back in the day. During peak, riders would take the 510, which made few stops before downtown Seattle. Outside of peak, they took the 512, which stopped at Ash Way, Lynnwood, etc.
2) Run an express similar to the 510, but for Lynnwood. Following the pathway of the Community Transit 413 seems like the best bet. Right now it makes a lot more trips than other express buses, suggesting it is popular. It runs from Swamp Creek to Ash Way to Downtown Seattle. Right now it stops at Mountlake Terrace Transit Center, but I would skip that stop.
Notice that in both of these cases the bus does not connect to Link (north of downtown). That is the point. You are not providing a normal bus, but an alternative to Link. It is the opposite of what you normally want to achieve. Normally you want as many people getting on and off the bus at every stop as possible. So much so that stopping at the Mountlake Terrace Freeway Station is a very small price to pay*. In this case though, you only want to reduce the load on the trains. It is worth noting that in both cases, riders can get to Link destinations. Riders on the 522 can transfer to the 372 to get to the UW. Riders at Swamp Creek or Ash Way can take different buses to Lynnwood.
Another way to make these buses more appealing is to charge less. Community Transit charges $4.25 for the 413 (and other express buses). ST Express is $3.25. Link will be $3 for all trips starting with Lynnwood Link. These buses (operated by Sound Transit) should be $3 at most, although I would charge $2, simply to attract riders. This is all temporary, of course, but the goal is to reduce crowding until East Link opens, and there are enough trains to handle the crowding.
*It is quite possible that a lot of riders would prefer the express to Mountlake Terrace, but we have no way of knowing. In contrast, we can look at existing ridership of the 410 and 413 and have a very good idea of what future ridership will be at Swamp Creek and Mariner. Some may prefer a two-seat ride to Link, but those riders probably take a two-seat ride to Link right now (via the 512, 810, 860 or 880). In contrast, the Mountlake Terrace stop will have competition from Link. Not only that, but waiting for the train will be a lot more pleasant than waiting for the bus (which is closer to the freeway). There will be a reduction in frequency as well. Riders who take the bus may not mind the really noisy freeway station simply because the wait is so short. However, with only one bus serving it, Link will be similar if not better.
There is another aspect of this though. Consider the 522. The combination of the 522 and 312 used to run every three minutes at peak. It would routinely be so crowded that the bus would pass up riders at the last stop (20th). Now, the 312 is gone, and the 522 is the only bus serving that corridor. It only runs every 15 minutes. Maybe it is really crowded, and ST just hasn’t kept up. Or maybe it just doesn’t have nearly as many riders as it used to.
My guess is, the same thing is true for Lynnwood express buses. Peak ridership is way down across the board. This suggests that crowding that would have been a major issue five years ago will simply not be a problem now.
The 515 might pull more people off the train if it directly served places that the train does not, e.g., it has stops in SLU or First Hill. Otherwise, the train stop is closer to the parking than the busses, and if you have the transfer anyway, you probably want the train.
> If you wait for the state to be willing to fund freeway BRT construction and operations, it may never happen. We need transit now, not no transit because of an abstract principle.
Fyi they did finish the SR-167 planning. I think we talked about the drafts last year and of course still a freeway expansion project but if y’all are curious about what they finally ended up selecting for transit.
## Transit overview
Direct Access Ramps at Kent (W James St), Auburn (W Main St) and Sumner (W Valley Hwy). Locations are guesses based on where they showed it on the map, they haven’t quite selected the spot yet but its inferable.
Complete Street: East Valley Highway, West Valley Highway, Meridian Avenue
New bus routes:
* SR 167 Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) New SR 167 BRT service between Puyallup and Renton with possible extension to Link light rail
* New express route between Seattle and Auburn via SR 167 — not sure how possible this will be when the 578 exists and also just going to federal way transit center instead, but definitely the fastest way to get between the two cities when sounder isn’t running.
* Pierce Transit Meridian HCT High-capacity transit along Meridian SR 161 (similar to Route 402) between Puyallup and Federal Way
* Meridian Business Access and Transit (BAT Lanes) – Add BAT Lanes to Meridian Avenue between Spencer Street and 24th Avenue E; a new
bridge across railroad tracks and repurposing existing NB climbing lane north of Dechaux Road — it’s a bit odd, they are adding BAT lanes to the side north of 167 that doesn’t have traffic rather than the south of 167 into Puyallup that needs it.
There’s other kc county bus lines listed, but I didn’t actually see any improvements so I didn’t bother talking about them.
## Thoughts
Kent:
The direct access ramp (assuming at W James St), it’s pretty good location considering there’s existing east-west busses. Also not far from Kent Station / downtown so one could walk there.
Auburn:
Some problems kinda highlighted in other documents, the major east-west bus lines might not traverse through the hov direct access ramp areas. For example in Auburn, bus 181 is on 15th St SW, while most likely the direct access ramps would be at W Main St. Either the SR 167 BRT would have to exit the freeway far to say Auburn train station slowing it down. Or it could continue on but then passengers would have to basically walk a mile to Auburn Station or The outlet collection.
Sumner:
The freeway exit wouldn’t be as far as Auburn’s around 1500 feet, but one would have to walk uphill and it’s on the other side of both the river and train tracks.
Puyallup:
It’s the terminal for the suggested transit projects so all the busses can exit from the freeway. It’ll be in a situation most similar to bothell:
* with a local avenue brt to a link light rail station aka the 402 on Meridian between puyallup and federal way similar to Stride 3 between bothell and shoreline
* express freeway brt aka the sr 167 brt between puyallup and renton (possibly extended to south boeing access/tibs?) similar to Stride 2 between bothell and bellevue
https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2023-07/SR167-MasterPlan-PELStudy-AttachmentD.pdf (Final Study Recommendations — it’s just 18 pages so not that large if you want to browse)
Note: even final plan selection doesn’t quite necessarily means it’ll be funded and built, though generally it’s a very high chance (for example the i-405 brt proposal became Stride 1 and Stride 2)
“New express route between Seattle and Auburn via SR 167 — not sure how possible this will be when the 578 exists and also just going to federal way transit center instead, but definitely the fastest way to get between the two cities when sounder isn’t running.”
Your last sentence explains why. The Seattle-Kent-Auburn route was in Metro Connects 2016-2020, and is the long-missing Kent express. Kent has nothing when Sounder isn’t running: the 150 takes over an hour midday, transferring to Link at SeaTac isn’t any faster and may have a long transfer, and the proposed RapidRide to future KDM Station won’t be any faster either. Sounder takes 20 minutes. A good bus target would be 30-40 minutes. Most of Kent’s population lives a mile or more east of Kent Station, so the 65-minute 150 is only part of their trips.
For Auburn, Sounder takes 30 minutes, and the 578 takes 45. A Seattle-Kent-Auburn express may be able to do better than that. And there won’t be any reason for a 578 going via Federal Way after Federal Way Link starts, so Auburn will need something else. This proposal makes up for the twenty years Kent didn’t have an all-day express, so the first several years of the cost is mitigation for that.
Pages 16-17 have a bunch of proposed Metro routes. It’s frustrating that the agencies still have access to the non-RapidRide route proposals, while the public doesn’t since they were taken offline in 2020.
Route 2042 is the Seattle-Kent-Auburn express I mentioned.
“on-demand transit connections between transit hubs and employers in [Manufacturing/Industrial Centers]” sounds interesting. That’s what Silicon Valley has where employer shuttles go from the Caltrain stations. That would increase ridership if it were expanded here so that it was commonplace from every station to every surrounding employer, so that people could take Link or Sounder to a station and then have a way to get to work from there.
“Allow medium-duty trucks (10,000-20,000 pounds)” in Express Toll Lanes. Are these all working trucks or would it include nonessential SUVs?
I just want to make sure that I understand how Link is operating today taking into account Westlake’s ventilation issues.
Southbound:
Half of Link trains are running Northgate-UW. Passengers at UW need to either way for the next train, or catch a Metro bus southbound.
Half of Link trains are running Northgate-Capitol Hill. Passengers at Capitol Hill need to catch a ST or Metro shuttle bus southbound.
Half of Link trains are running University Street-Angle Lake
Half of Link trains are running Stadium-Angle Lake.
Now granted, ST wasn’t expecting a Westlake issue on top of their planned maintenance. But it feels like ST has NOT chosen an effective way to handle these 2 overlapping disruptions. I feel genuinely bad for anyone who is trying to commute to or through downtown Seattle today.
That sounds right southbound. The announcement this morning implied northbound isn’t affected, and it didn’t say ventilation or give another reason.
There’s no Metro bus at UW to downtown or Capitol Hill anymore except the part-time 43 (mostly in the AM peak). So your best bet is to get off at U-District and take the 70 (downtown) or the 49 (Capitol Hill, downtown), both of which have extra service during the reduction. If you’re at UW Station, you’d take any of the Pacific Street buses to U-District Station and transfer to the 49 or 70. Otherwise you can take the 48 southbound, but that only helps if you’re going to Mt Baker or southeast Seattle. You can transfer from the 48 to a westbound 8, 11, 2, or 12, but the routes aren’t that frequent and the transfer can be a block or more away. It’s better to just take the 49.
A disruption on top of a reduction is what happened January 20th and January 23 and at other times. They’ve all been a cluster.
https://deptofcommerce.app.box.com/s/2l4yetpanyztkjbpumdfdadghh2rfag7
Department of Commerce Tier 1 and 2 (25K+) Missing Middle Model Ordinances.
The model ordinance would take effect if a municipality failed to write their own ordinance that complies with the RCW.
For cities greater that 75K:
Tier 1 Cities
A. The permitted unit density on all lots zoned predominantly for residential use is:
1. Four units per lot, unless zoning permitting higher densities or intensities applies.
2. Six units per lot on all lots within one-quarter mile walking distance of a major transit stop, unless
zoning permitting higher densities or intensities applies.
3. Six units per lot if at least two units on the lot are affordable housing meeting the requirements of
subsections (C) through (H) below, unless zoning permitting higher densities or intensities applies.
B. The standards of subsection (A) do not apply to lots after subdivision below 1,000 square feet unless the
city has enacted an allowable lot size below 1,000 square feet in the zone.
This document is completely worthless… From the PDF.
Section 2 – General Provisions
A. Nothing in this ordinance prohibits the city from permitting detached single-family residences.
B. Nothing in this ordinance prohibits the city from requiring any development, including middle housing development, to provide affordable housing, either on-site or through an in-lieu payment, nor limit the city’s ability to expand or modify the requirements of an existing affordable housing program enacted under RCW 36.70A.540.C.
C. Nothing in this ordinance requires the issuance of a building permit if other federal, state, and local requirements for a building permit are not met.
D. Nothing in this ordinance affects or modifies the responsibilities of the city to plan for or provide “urban governmental services” as defined in RCW 36.70A.030.
E. The city shall not approve a building permit for middle housing without compliance with the adequate water supply requirements of RCW 19.27.097.
F. The city shall not require through development regulations any standards for middle housing that are more restrictive than those required for detached single-family residences, but may apply any objective
development regulations that are required for detached single-family residences, including, but not limited to, set-back, lot coverage, stormwater, clearing, and tree canopy and retention requirements to ensure compliance with existing ordinances intended to protect critical areas and public health and safety.
G. The same development permit and environmental review processes shall apply to middle housing that apply to detached single-family residences, unless otherwise required by state law including, but not limited to, shoreline regulations under chapter 90.58 RCW, building codes under chapter 19.27 RCW,
energy codes under chapter 19.27A RCW, or electrical codes under chapter 19.28 RCW.
H. Conflicts. In the event of a conflict between this ordinance and other development regulations applicable to
middle housing, the standards of this ordinance control.
==========================================
Part F. makes the whole document worthless. I think many posters on this blog really don’t understand how housing got so expensive and why it’s proved close to impossible to fix. Here’s a great video on how Liberals poison everyplace they control…. starting with housing.
tacomee… are you just now realizing that self-identified “Liberals” tend to be NIMBYs?
The folks who want to liberalize the regulations around housing are by their very nature liberals, whether they call themselves that or not. Likewise, those who want to keep the regulations like they are now are conservatives. Those that want to make the rules even more restrictive — i. e. reverse things — would be reactionaries.
The issue does not follow the traditional left-right divide, since it isn’t a taxing issue. Nor is it a social issue, like gay rights or abortion. By the way, those social issues don’t follow a traditional left-right divide either. Generally speaking, leftists want more regulation. In the case of gay marriage, they want less. People fought to liberalize the marriage code, allowing men to marry men, and women to marry women. Of course it is the right wing that favors more restrictive rules on abortion.
Drug laws are another interesting issue. Traditionally, it was the right wing — the law and order party — that wanted the most draconian anti-drug laws. This has continued to this day. Despite all this talk about “liberty” by Republicans, they seem to have no problem locking up people for smoking a joint. There is a very strong correspondence between left-wing/Democratic states and legalization.
As for zoning, the issue is largely independent of the traditional political spectrum. It is a bigger problem in left-wing areas simply because the left-wing areas have more of a problem. It isn’t that towns and cities in Oklahoma have less restrictive zoning, it is that those restrictions hardly matter. No one comes close to reaching those limits. It is like limiting Yakima to “only” 20-story building. Yeah, OK. Whatever. It is in the big cities where restrictive zoning is a big problem. It is also in those big cities that the left dominates. This is not cause and effect. Like drug laws, from a political perspective, most of the movement is coming from the left (with a very tiny group of allies on the libertarian end of things). National push-back is coming from the right — specifically Trump. Trump and his backers have accused those backing zoning reform of wanting to “destroy the beautiful suburbs,” saying they would, “eliminate single‐family zoning, bringing who knows into your suburbs, so your communities will be unsafe and your housing values will go down.” Nixon would be proud.
The movement to liberalize zoning is coming from the left, not the right, just as in the past. There were plenty of (racist) Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act(s), which ended redlining. But it was liberals who were at the forefront of the movement.
It’s the first pass of opening up single family home zoning. It’s modeled after Californias law.
Regarding part F, they probably have to start out with this. Later on California passed further changes lowering the parking restrictions and other zoning rules but we have to start from somewhere
“This document is completely worthless”
It loosens zoning in single-family areas, allowing up to 4-6 units where previously only one was allowed. That’s a big deal. Many cities and towns have an even larger percent of single-family only areas than Seattle/Pugetopolis has. In some city the only construction allowed by default in the entire city is single-family houses. Everything else requires an individual variance. That costs time and money, is often rejected, and acceptance rates go up and down depending on who’s in office or on commissions at the time and how they feel that day.
“Here’s a great video on how Liberals poison everyplace they control…. starting with housing.”
That video is 14 minutes; too long to listen to all the faulty arguments one by one. If “liberals poison everything”, that means everything was perfect before liberals took over. But liberals “took over” California in the 1980s and Washington in the 2010s, while overly restrictive zoning started a century earlier with private covenants in the 1880s and citywide zoning in the 1920s. In Seattle zoning was restricted further in the 1950s and 1970, when shoulder areas (middle housing and corner stores) were downgraded to single-family only, and microapartments (SRO hotels) were outlawed. Zoning was and is largely bipartisan. Only some Democrats/liberals favor expanding apartment and middle-housing areas. Those who do are often hypocritical as you say. But some Republicans/conservatives/libertarians favor expanding apartment and middle-housing areas too. If Democrats on average favor apartments/middle-housing but don’t allow them, Republicans don’t favor them in the first place — so they’re the biggest problem. Idaho has a housing-price crisis for the locals too, even if it looks cheap to people coming from California.
In Seattle, housing prices started rising substantially faster than incomes starting in 2003. It wasn’t because of liberals or urban villages: it’s because we didn’t build enough housing to keep up with demand, so owners were able to price-gouge. It went into overdrive in 2012 for the same reason.
Seattle lost population in the late 1960s and didn’t return to its previous peak until the 2000s. So housing was cheap in between those two. Minimum-wage workers could find or share one of the surplus units. In 2012 the final slack was squeezed out of the market, like a supermarket checkout line that reaches three people. After that the line can expand exponentially quickly or with the slightest disruption. That’s what happened to our housing market. There wasn’t enough supply to keep up with demand, the residual slack had all been squeezed out, rentals were filled in 1-3 weeks instead of 6, houses were sold in 3-6 weeks instead of 6 months, and that gave owners the power to raise prices and make them stick.
Mike Orr,
Watch the video… it’s from The NY Times and it deals with the Left Coast housing shortage directly. It also goes into how Washington State has one of the most regressive tax systems in the US. These are my opinions, or some internet crackpot. This is from The NY Times.
From the PDF posted above.
========================================================
F. The city shall not require through development regulations any standards for middle housing that are more restrictive than those required for detached single-family residences, but may apply any objective
development regulations that are required for detached single-family residences, including, but not limited to, set-back, lot coverage, stormwater, clearing, and tree canopy and retention requirements to ensure compliance with existing ordinances intended to protect critical areas and public health and safety.
==============================================
Doesn’t this say that 4 plexes are now covered by the exact zoning regulations that singe family homes are? That still means that any tree that’s 12 inches in diameter can kill off any project, right? And four plexes have the same rules on set backs, right? Seattle building lots are often under 7500 square feet…. it’s physically hard to fit 4 apartments on that footprint with the proper setbacks. How about stormwater runoff? How much of a building lot can be roof and how much needs to be land to deal with storm water? And no, it’s illegal to hook your gutter system into the sewer system in Seattle (and a bad idea as well). How about local parking regulations? It would be difficult to squeeze 4 units and 4 parking places on a small city lot and violate storm water rules.
” retention requirements to ensure compliance with existing ordinances intended to protect critical areas and public health and safety.”
What does that even mean? I think it translates into “not in my backyard”. I think this law, like the one in California, are just window dressing. These are feel good measures passed so it looks like politicians are doing something. In reality nothing changes. And even if it did change, it’s not going to change for working class people. Who on earth thinks that they can tear down a million dollar house and build 4 apartments that rent for $1500 a month?
“Watch the video”
I watched it through the first item. I don’t know if I’ll watch the rest. You can tell us if there’s anything particularly important we should be aware of. This is a text forum. People shouldn’t have to go to another article, much less watch a video, to know what another commentator’s argument is.
“It also goes into how Washington State has one of the most regressive tax systems in the US.”
We know that and have been saying it for years. The “liberals” have tried to address it with an income tax, capital gains tax, and restructuring the existing taxes. The new Son of Eyman Brent Heywood, has six initiatives this November ($) to block them and the new climate law.
“Doesn’t this say that 4 plexes are now covered by the exact zoning regulations that singe family homes are? That still means that any tree that’s 12 inches in diameter can kill off any project, right?”
I’m concerned that some of these may be too easily sidestepped. I’m also concerned that it seems to be per any lot size rather than per X square feet. Some cities and neighborhoods have larger lots than others, and we shouldn’t let larger lots be an excuse for lower density. But those are secondary issues. I’m also somewhat skeptical a national policy has a chance of being enacted, and I have questions about whether a single universal policy is right for everywhere in the country. But the point is that the federal government is at least starting to think about the right things. It may end up not exactly like this, but it’s good that they’re at least going in the general direction.
This is a state regulation that has already passed. Is there a national policy in the works?
““Administrative design review” means a development permit process whereby an application is reviewed,
approved, or denied by the planning director or the planning director’s designee based solely on objective
design and development standards without a public predecision hearing, unless such review is otherwise
required by state or federal law, or the structure is a designated landmark or historic district established
under a local preservation ordinance. A city may utilize public meetings, hearings, or voluntary review boards
to consider, recommend, or approve requests for variances from locally established design review standards”
I think this is trying to get away from objections based on neighborhood “character” and such. So a single review, with objective standards. That will still sometimes be slow, but that’s really a staffing thing. Don’t lay off 40% of your planners if you want folks there to review your designs in a timely fashion.
Another concern is the extremely tight FAR. A max FAR of 1.0 for 3 units seems way too low. How does that even work, except for studios?
> Another concern is the extremely tight FAR. A max FAR of 1.0 for 3 units seems way too low. How does that even work, except for studios?
The legislation is referring to the “minimum” max FAR ratio that can be applied. Aka for 3 units a cities’ max FAR ratio cannot be below 1.0.
It’s not horribly low, I think people forget single family homes themselves’ usually have like FAR ratio’s of 0.5 and one can fit a ~2000 sq ft house (depending on the lot). Napkin math you can still build like 1300 sq ft per townhouse if one can build 4000 sq ft, and honestly usually more than that.
Of course it’d be better if the FAR ratio was higher, I can already hear the nextdoor/seattletimes complaints about how the smaller townhouses aren’t good for families but then try to increase the far ratio and those same people would complain about the larger buildings.
“Is there a national policy in the works?”
He said Department of Commerce.
My bad. WA State Dept of Commerce.
Washington State has one of the most regressive tax systems in the US.
Yes, because way back when they passed an amendment preventing an income tax. Yet the liberal state legislature, and the liberal governor passed a capital gains tax. As a result, our taxes aren’t as regressive as before. Of course now Republicans/Libertarians are trying to repeal the law, and make our taxes more regressive.
This is true all over the West. Do you really think California has always been liberal? Where do you think Reagan came from? Or Nixon. West Coast states were often very conservative. It is only fairly recently that there has been a move to the left. In California, a lot of it was due to the anti-immigration laws passed by Republicans. The Republican Party pretty much shot themselves in the foot with that one. But California is still left with the vestiges of “tough on crime” policies championed by Republicans. That, and Proposition 13 (also championed by Republicans). The idea that California will suddenly become Norway after gaining control is ridiculous.
Doesn’t this say that 4 plexes are now covered by the exact zoning regulations that singe family homes are?
No! It means that they *may* apply the same restrictions. They don’t have to.
Look, argue all you want that this doesn’t go far enough. But it still much farther than it went before. That is the point.
Another concern is the extremely tight FAR. A max FAR of 1.0 for 3 units seems way too low.
I agree, although it depends on the lot. With a big lot it would be fine. But that itself is a problem. We want to encourage small lots. You can’t build a three story townhouse with a FAR of 1.0, unless you have a lot of extra land, which defeats the purpose.
This is just one of the many details that the city needs to work out this year, when they debate the Comprehensive Plan Update. The devil is in the details, as they say. The state has mandated we reach a certain level, but we should do more. At the very least we should do what Spokane did. They don’t have a FAR, but limit the development coverage area. Here is a good summary: https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/11/30/spokanes-permanent-middle-housing-rules-should-set-a-statewide-standard/. The bonus would be fairly easy in much of Seattle, depending on what “major transit stop” means. That means 80% coverage of a lot (and 40 feet high) for the most restrictive zone.
My only issue with Spokane’s rules is the setbacks. You need room for a sidewalk (whether their now or not) and everything else should be negotiable. Set a default limit (3 feet on each side) but neighbors should have the right to allow adjacent neighbors to build right up to the property line. This would allow row houses. The biggest impact would be subdivisions, but I could imagine selling development rights to my neighbors, for example. My house is not close to the property line — I really don’t care how close they get. Offer me some money and you can build right up to the line.
Nothing in this ordinance prohibits the city from permitting detached single-family residences.
Are you saying it should? I’m trying to wrap my head around what you are saying. Are you suggesting that they ban single family development? I get why folks (like me) want to ban single-family zoning in the city. That is another way of saying we shouldn’t only have single family development in the city. But you are saying the bill should go farther, and *ban* single family development (in some areas)? Sorry, but that seems completely unnecessary. If someone wants to build a house downtown, go for it. But believe me, way more people want to build apartments. The problem isn’t that people *want* to build houses on very large lots instead of apartments, it is that the law *requires* houses and big lots! It won’t let developers build apartments, row houses, or even houses on small lots.
This happens throughout Seattle. Just blocks from my house there is this giant lot that used to contain a church (and a big parking lot). It is in between Lake City and Bitter Lake, along a corridor with frequent bus service, and about a mile from a future light rail station. They bulldozed everything, and put up about a dozen houses. Each lot is over 7,200 square feet. Meanwhile, just down the street you can find townhouses on 1,000 square-foot lots, and six-story apartments. Why then, didn’t they build the same sort of thing where the old church is? Because they can’t! It is illegal. The reason I know that each lot is over 7,200 square feet is because that is the *minimum* lot size for that area.
There was nothing stopping anyone from building a bunch of houses in Lake City, instead of the six-story building. They didn’t, because doing so would not make the developers as much money. Likewise, they could have easily built big houses instead of the townhouses, but again, it is better for the developer to build more housing, not less.
I want to make clear that it isn’t just the restrictions that push up costs. There are other regulations. For example, if you want to build a bunch of new houses, the paperwork is fairly easy. If you want to build a new apartment, it can be hell. It can often be tied up in “review”. All of this makes it more difficult to build new places for people to live, which in turn add to the cost of housing for everyone.
A contrast to the US’s mutually-exclusive zones is Japan’s additive zones. All buildable lots allow the lowest density: single-family houses. There’s a half-dozen tiers above that that allow larger buildings and eventually industrial, but every level allows everything below it. The zoning covers the entire country: it’s not a city-by-city basis.
All clear! Apparently the fan issue has been fixed, and Link is going back to the current service plan. Good job ST!
Also, I stopped at IDS today and they have replaced 3 of the 4 PIMS displays. The new displays are still high aspect ratio affairs, but they look good and are much clearer than the old displays.
Now let’s see how many they can replace before Monday. Because I sincerely doubt they can replace these displays while the tunnel is in service.
[Ed: Corrected abbreviation.]
Hey dt no problem. Who needs westlake open for rhe Monday morning commute? 4 hours closed is no big deal for this agency I suppose.
I wasn’t previously aware that Metro added trips to the 49 or 70 for the Link disruption – are these reflected in OBA? I don’t see them in the timetables on Metro’s web site, and just eyeballing OBA right now for the 49 shows just the standard 12-20 minute head ways, and for the 70 the standard 10-15 minute headways.
It’s in the “bus alternatives” link in the article, and has been since the reduction started. But it isn’t widely known. My friend in north Lynnwood didn’t know about it until I told her. It doesn’t say when or how much the additions are, and I don’t know whether One Bus Away knows about them.
Community Transit is kinda soft-launching its bus restructure. In March, the Orange Line will start service and replace/change and will directly affect 3 of its popular routes. Plus, another route will change to serve Amazon-Arlington.
https://www.communitytransit.org/transitchanges?q=transit%20changes
The 115/116 (Edmonds College to Mill Creek via Lynnwood TC with differing terminus’) will quasi splinter/morph/mesh into 3 routes (102, 114 & 166). Big losers: EdCC users now have to walk 4 blocks to campus as two of the new routes will no longer serve the campus. Also, some riders who used to have a one-seat ride will now have to transfer at LTC. The only route that goes through the LTC is the 166 (currently the 196).
The 120 will strangely not make any stops between EdCC and LTC because of the new Orange Line. This doesn’t make sense because the two routes operate on different streets. It’s akin to saying Metro’s 21 won’t serve 35th Ave because the H-line has begun service. With this change, residents will lose frequency along 200th St.
And the smallest change with the biggest impact: route 202 in Marysville will serve Amazon-Arlington. It’s a minor, zero-cost tweak that will bring workers to their job. If you ever get a chance to drive out to the suburbs, head north. Not only for its beauty but to capture the shear awe and size of the Amazon fulfillment centers. Despite a popular distaste for Amazon, they are bringing jobs to rural(?) areas like Marysville/Arlington where normally, blue collar workers would have to take 2-3 buses into the city to find work.
Yeah, it is interesting how the changes will come in waves.
Despite a popular distaste for Amazon, they are bringing jobs to rural(?) areas like Marysville/Arlington where normally, blue collar workers would have to take 2-3 buses into the city to find work.
So instead blue collar workers will have to take 3 or 4 buses to get to their jobs in more distant areas. Ha, I’m kidding. They will drive.
Sorry, but this is a sore spot for me. I get that distribution centers are going to be away from the city. But history has shown that one of the worst things you can do is spread the jobs out everywhere. The idea that they only hire locals is simply not true. One of the attractions is the easy “reverse commute”. Except, of course, when it becomes as bad as the regular one. People try to run buses (or trains) but it becomes far more difficult, with all the jobs spread out everywhere. This is the case in areas with infamous traffic, like L. A. and the Bay Area. If the jobs were more centralized, then transit could easily respond, and provide a much better system for the same amount of money. In Seattle we’ve seen the same thing. Jobs went to the East Side and initially traffic that direction was pretty light. Then it reached a tipping point, and the “reverse commute” was as bad as the traditional one. Metro Transit was spread too thin. In contrast, a city like Calgary has one of the most successful light rail systems not because they are dense. Far from it. They sprawl like crazy. But what they do have is very centralized employment. A very high percentage of the jobs are right downtown, where the trains are sent.
In this case, maybe it won’t matter. Maybe Amazon won’t offer the kind of jobs that attract workers from other areas. Not for their blue collar jobs (not as long as they keep fighting against a union). It is definitely good that there will at least be some transit to the center, and I’m sorry for jumping all over your statement (I hope you don’t take offense).
Oh, and I totally agree with you about Snohomish County. I would say the best overall views in the state are there. I think the best views of the Olympics are a bit farther south (in Seattle) but the views of the Cascades (other than Rainier) are much better as you get farther north. Pilchuck, Three Fingers, Whitehorse — absolutely stunning. I have fond memories of Marysville (it was a great place to hitchhike north to Bellingham) and Arlington has a charming downtown.
I understand the philosophy of centralizing employment. But the reality is the opposite. Transit has to adapt, as much as it’s able, to the current reality. And in the case of Marysville, CT’s small adjustment to route 202 brings all day 30 minute service to a massive plant that employs low-middle income workers. Instead of having to take 2 buses to reach Everett or more to commute to Seattle, CT has provide a front-door option all day, every day.
Transit has to adapt, as much as it’s able, to the current reality.
I agree. I just think it is too bad that it has to. I think it is funny that on the one hand, folks are arguing for changes in zoning in major cities so that they can keep up with the sky-high demand for housing in those areas, and on the other hand, we build employment centers a long ways away from where most people live. I get that this will be a lot more convenient for people who live north of Everett. But part of the reason that more buses don’t funnel into Everett is that jobs aren’t more centralized in Everett.
I agree, the 202 should definitely help. Ideally it would run more than every half hour, or somehow be oriented towards the work shift (like at Boeing) but that may not be possible (the shifts may be a lot more spread out). Amazon could also run shuttles. Even just a shuttle from the Smokey Point Transit Center would help. That would connect to about a half dozen buses that otherwise would require a 20 minute walk (according to Google).
Instead of having to take 2 buses to reach Everett or more to commute to Seattle
Yeah, even after the restructures, people are looking at a lot of transfers in that neck of the woods if they are headed south. North of Everett, few buses go to Everett, let alone Seattle. There is the 201/202, which at least goes to Everett and Lynnwood. That will connect to Link. But unless you live along that corridor, you are going to transfer. There are a few buses from the east that go to Everett, and then there is the 109. It goes along Highway 9 from Lake Stevens to Snohomish, and then eventually cuts over, ending at Ash Way. I don’t understand why it doesn’t just end in Lynnwood. That seems like an extra unnecessary transfer if you are headed to Seattle (although at least there is frequent service between Ash Way and Lynnwood).
In general there seem to be a lot of hubs, where some of the northern buses end (like at Lake Stevens and Smokey Point). From what I can tell, these aren’t major employment or community hubs, and are meant purely as transit centers (i. e. places to transfer). Do you know if they try to time the buses at all?
Marysville/Arlington definitely is not rural. Both cities are within the UGA (albeit outside of the ST taxing district) and very much a part of the Tacoma/Seattle/Everett conurbation. Both cities aspire to have more local jobs so their residents don’t have to all commute into King County.
The Marysville/Arlington is one of the region’s designated MICs (Mfg & Industrial Center); you might see it branded as the Cascade Industrial Center. Like most MICs, they are difficult to serve by transit but nonetheless are an essential part of the region’s economy and job network and therefore need transit service. As Ross notes both Marysville and Arlington have actual downtowns, which are handy as anchors for a transit network.
https://www.snohomishcountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/61754/PAC-CIC-Marysville-CC-PPT-10-RN?
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/arlington-marysville-buried-the-hatchet-in-the-90s-now-its-paying-off/
So basically the area sprawled north, and then to compensate, we will put jobs to the north. This will result in even more sprawl to the north. Eventually it will reach Bellingham I guess (or maybe the border).
Both cities [Maryville and Arlington] aspire to have more local jobs so their residents don’t have to all commute into King County.
Yeah, it is shame there isn’t some big city closer to those places, with an old town, and a very large industrial center. Oh wait, there is.
Sigh. We do things like this, and then wonder why we have so much traffic, or why we have crumbling infrastructure, or why transit sucks. It all goes together, and it has a lot to do with the government (in all its various forms) encouraging sprawl (in all its various forms).
I would actually argue that in the case of Marysville, the Tulalip Casino/Outlets is a more suitable as a transit anchor.
1) It is much more of a destination on to itself. Really not much there in downtown Marysville.
2) Roads in downtown Marysville are not very easy to cross to make transfers.
3) More space for bus layover in Tulalip.
4) It is on the same side of the rail tracks as the freeway ramps (traffic can get really bad in Marysville when the train gates come down!)
Specifically, the traffic calmed street beside the Tulalip amphitheater might make a good hub. Short walks along well designed and pleasant walkways to the casino and the outlets. You would want additional stops to serve the retail further south. Of course, you’d need the buy in from the tribe to do this.
Even outlying industrial areas can be built in a walkable way like they were before the rise of cars. They can be clustered together rather than large spaces between each one. They could be like a medieval village with a retail core at the center for workers, and the farms (warehouses) around it like a pie. Instead it can be a half mile between buildings, and no retail within miles so lunch trucks have to come in. Factories can also be multistory, or multiple companies in one building. That shrinks their footprint. An airplane factory needs a large one-story space for the planes, but that doesn’t mean all industrial buildings have to be one-story.
Yes, and this is common in Europe. The car has a lot to do with it, but government policies are responsible as well. Germany was essentially leveled after the war. They could have rebuilt their country with the factories sprawling throughout the countryside, connected by major freeways running by acres and acres of houses, each with their own big lawn. But they didn’t. They remained fairly compact.
The reasons for this are complicated: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-europes-cities-better/. So much of it is government policy. Not only in what we spend the money on, but how we tax as well. Just about all of the reasons in that article apply here, although some it may seem inappropriate. A lot of the land that is being converted to sprawl is not traditional farmland. It is forest. But it was working forest before it became a subdivision — a tree farm. It is easy to imagine the state subsidizing farmers for protecting their land (and keeping it farmland) only to have Weyerhaeuser scoop in and say they want part of the action as well. If only. So instead of growing and cutting trees in a land well suited for it, we cut down old-growth trees in foreign lands (or sometimes our own). Oops.
The Marysville/Arlington industrial center and Smokey Point and Arlington town’s growth is very new, so it could have learned from the mistakes other cities made in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
In college in the late 80s, a friend had an ultralight plane stored at the Arlington airport. We went out to it one weekend, and I-5 north of Everett was miles of empty forest until we came to an obscure exit, Smokey Point.
In the 2000s we went to Arlington a few times for MMA tournaments. Those are mostly in the suburbs and exurbs, in non-transit-accessible places (or at least not on a Saturday evening). We drove to the exit north of Smokey Point and went east, and it was five miles of just farmland to the small town of Arlington. Maybe it still is. In the town center we found an excellent family Chinese restaurant, and then went to the indoor soccer center at the south end for the event. It would have been a thirty-minute walk from the town center, so that shows the size of built-up Arlington. But it would not have been safe to walk because Highway 9 was 50 mph with no sidewalks and insufficient shoulders or streetlights.
In the 2010s I took the 201/202 to Smokey Point to see what “the fastest-growing part of Snohomish County” was becoming. I found big-box stores and large surface parking lots. Marysville seemed underbuilt and under-invested in, although it was fast-growing so it might have filled in more of its potential now. I haven’t seen it since the industrial center started getting promotion.
From the map it looks like the industrial center is at the airport. It looks like it’s a few blocks southeast of the Smokey Point Transit Center. Is the industrial center and the airport the same thing? Is the airport still active? Are there still ultralight planes and hobbyists there?
@Jordon,
Swift Orange line will open March 30th with a dedication ceremony at LTC. Supposedly the backdrop for the event will include a Link LRV parked at LTC Station. Should make for an impressive sight.
However, the dignitaries in attendance at the event better be ready for the “When?” question. Because a lot of people are going to be asking about that big, shiny thing in the background.
And vague answers like “Late summer” probably aren’t going to cut it.
But congrats to CT on Swift Orange. Now if we can just get LLE open.
The Westlake ventilation closure has been resolved. ($) We now return you to your 26-minute reduction service.
“Seattle fire codes require Sound Transit to close underground stations while fans are inoperable.”
“Electricians traced the outage to a circuit breaker and found it was unrelated to rail construction”
I am excited to see new pedestrian bridges being built. I wish they were 20 ft wide instead of 16 feet wide. The original Northgate bridge was supposed to he 20 ft wide. I am ok with them not being covered. I am still happy that they are being built.
Yep. I concur. These ped bridges definitely improve things. I’d support building more of them, and not just in areas around Link Stations, although that seems to be the focus now.
I do wish that they hadn’t changed the lighting style on the Northgate Ped Bridge mid-span thouh. The distributed LED lights in the handrail look really good at night and accentuate the curve of the bridge. The entire bridge should have been done that way.
I’ll probably make a point to check out the East Link ped bridges once ELSL opens. The one they just opened looks really impressive.
Just a couple more months and we get our first major transportation upgrade of the year! Excellent.
I also like improvements to existing overpasses. I do not consider the Holgate I-5 overpass a pedestrian bridge. But the recent improvements with a ramp and sidewalks all the way up to Beacon Hill are nice.
@Jimmy James,
I have not walked that route on Holgate before and I did not realize they were making pedestrian improvements. Maybe I’ll give it a try next week.
I’ll probably head down to that general area next week after Link goes back to normal operations to check out all the tunnel changes.
Other than fixing the escalators, this is the first set of major improvements that ST has made to the tunnel since taking over ownership from Metro. I expect some noticeable improvements.
Thanks
Sound Transit must be doing an excellent job of ecological restoration of their construction sites, because now there is a beaver living in the wetlands directly across 1st Ave NE from the Northgate Station. And it is a busy little beaver at that, chomping away at twigs all day long.
Anyone know if having a beaver at NGS is something ST planned on? And, if so, how many beavers can live at NGS before they start getting run over by the buses? There must be a spec somewhere.
But good job ST – even beavers like the Northgate Station.
I wonder if he walked from the beaver pond down the hill on 105th to Sandpoint and the 75, or if he transferred from the 67,
Ha. I think there have been beavers in the area for a while — this map shows the pond, and I don’t think it is new: https://thorntoncreekalliance.info/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Thornton-Creek-Watershed-Poster-Low-Res.png. They may have worked their way upstream a bit. There are beavers at Meadowbrook as well (downstream). They did a lot of work on the creek a while back: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/thornton-creek-gets-a-makeover-from-the-ground-up/. Here is some more info: https://thorntoncreekalliance.info/, as well as history: https://wedgwoodinseattlehistory.com/2013/02/23/the-thornton-creek-confluence-at-meadowbrook-pond/
My understanding is that beavers are active at dusk. I only know this because my wife went to Meadowbrook and saw them yesterday (she heard the splash of a tail). Neither one of had seen them before, but we had always visited in the middle of the day. The woman she was walking with mentioned it.
routes 65 and 67 are through routed; that provides a direct trip between the Meadowbrook pond and Northgate station. more likely, it just walked across 5th Avenue NE from Thornton Creek.
in the fall, there was a new beaver dam on Piper Creek in Carkeek Park.
Sound Transit has posted an update on their Platform Blog regarding the work in the Downtown Seattle Light Rail Tunnel is progressing. And there are pictures:
https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/fresh-pics-1-line-maintenance-project-makes-progress
It sounds like major progress is being made on all 5 of their major projects. They don’t state it outright, but it sounds like they are on schedule to.
I can also attest to the fact that they have been doing a deep clean on some of the stations because the floors of the stations I visited Monday morning were clean, shiny, and slippery. So be careful out there.
Is public discourse over the viability of a second downtown tunnel doomed to meet a dead end?
Whenever I’ve seen the topic come up about the cost, timeline, or rider convenience issues related to the downtown tunnel I’ve tried to bring up that sound transit should try to increase the capacity of the infrastructure (tunnels) it already has in my case arguing that every 4 minutes hardly seems like “max capacity” and the tunnel money could go toward fixing capacity limitation on other parts of the existing line like the rainier valley
But people use very problematic situations such as the past week very disruptive tunnel shutdown to argue that a second tunnel is needed for redundancy. I don’t feel like other cities with one downtown tunnel have these same maintenance interval issues?
It even got to the point where someone who claimed they knew an ST engineer told me that increasing beyond 4 minute frequencies was impossible, that the forward thrust proposed frequencies were unrealistic, and that Ballard link should contingent on a second tunnel, that being if a second downtown tunnel isn’t built then light rail to Ballard should be canned because the system will “forever become unreliable and prone to shutdowns”
So…do people even want to re-examine whether parts of ST3 are a good idea? Or is this always going to be met with hostility?
I think we’re doomed. People on the blog are definitely fighting the good fight, but they are in the minority. One of the big problems is that the message is subtle, and this is not the era of subtle. There are three groups, summarized like so:
1) ST3 isn’t perfect, but is still pretty good.
2) Don’t spend any more money on transit.
3) ST3 is bad, we should shift money to other transit.
The vast majority of people are in the first or second group. A lot of these people haven’t looked at the projects in much detail and/or know very little about transit. They just assume that the projects are good or bad depending on their general viewpoint. It would not surprise me in the least if the vast majority of people — including those who support ST3 — have no idea about the new downtown tunnel, or the reasoning behind it.
I think you could have proposed anything for ST3 and it would have resulted in pretty much the exact same level of support. Keep in mind, the Seattle Times editorial board opposed it, but they opposed mass transit from downtown to the UW! I forget the exact definition, but prior to that project, it was the “busiest” corridor without mass transit. It was something that every transit expert in the country agreed should be built. But the Seattle Times put that worthy project in the same category as the line from Issaquah to South Kirkland Park and Ride. The opposite is true of well. No one at the Stranger has dared wade into the details behind the massive mass transit plans in the city. They are far more comfortable fighting (and losing) battles over cops and the visibly homeless. There is no nuance. No one is trying to asking whether this is really the best thing to build.
Of course there is a chance that we come to our senses. Like the stupid streetcar proposal, folks will be shocked to see yet another extremely high price tag for something that really isn’t very good. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Plenty of (American) have cities have gone down this road, and they all seem to end up the same way: bloated budgets with low-ridership subways, and buses doing the bulk of the work, but suffering from lack of funds.
John, I think elected officials view ST3 as a modern-day equivalent of building a new highway. They are excited about the visual optics of driving by a shiny new station. Plus, station siting issues create powerful lobbying by property owners and developers behind the scenes to the point that a project gets locked into place unless it’s unaffordable. It’s a “build it and they will come” attitude, with a mere shrug dismissing potentially weak new ridership after spending tens of billions.
Sadly, the difficulty of using a badly designed station or an expensive and slow moving technology are just not important to anyone but an actual rider. Most ST Board members aren’t regular riders.
I had a professor opine that things have to get bad before progress happens. That may be the case here. It may take the added riders from the upcoming Link extensions to ride it frequently enough to where the public and eventually the elected officials see Link less as a builder and more as an operator.
We had a harbinger of the problem with the escalator debacle of 2017. (The debacle is repeating itself at some newer stations but it’s not much talked out.) The big revelation will be when the full 2 Line is operating. ST will have to show that they can run what they’ve built.
What I read from many posters here is that they mainly want the investment to be a good value. There are some others out there who think that questioning ST3 is being generally anti-transit but nothing is further from the truth.
I had a professor opine that things have to get bad before progress happens. That may be the case here.
I’m afraid it won’t, simply because so many of the short term projects have merit, while the long term projects don’t. I suppose it is possible that once Link gets to Lynnwood, Federal Way and Redmond, those outside Seattle will say “enough”. No point in going farther.
I’m dubious simply because that requires a higher level of sophistication with regards to transit than the vast majority of people have. It is not at all obvious what the drawbacks are to the expansion, and why there are diminishing returns. If you double the miles, it must be twice as good, right? Maybe more (I seem to remember reading about something called a network effect). It is only when you dig into the details (exactly how long will it take me to get from here to there, or why there is minimal network effect with the expansion) that it becomes less appealing. To top it all off, you have people who have absolutely no interest in ever taking the train, but hope that lots of other people will take it, making their commute much easier. Unfortunately it really doesn’t become obvious that we are going too far until it is too late.
Then there is Seattle. West Seattle Link is the next step. But it won’t go downtown. It will end at SoDo, which means that it is quite possible that Metro simply ignores it. Yes, ridership will be really bad, but people will defend it, and say “wait until it gets downtown”. Either way, the damage is done. It would be ironic if we built West Seattle Link — only to SoDo no less — but abandoned Ballard Link, the one decent big project in ST3.
I’m not saying it won’t happen, but I would say that it is quite possible that instead of things getting bad before they get better, things just get bad. Like so many cities, we just muddle along knowing we spent money on the wrong thing. The buses continue to do the heavy lifting — often stuck in traffic — but we just don’t have any money left for anything else.
> Is public discourse over the viability of a second downtown tunnel doomed to meet a dead end?
> So…do people even want to re-examine whether parts of ST3 are a good idea? Or is this always going to be met with hostility?
The hardest problem is that it is hard to think of good alternatives for the transit money to go towards.
I mean look at South Sounder, the board easily pivoted from longer trains and stations to trying to run more frequent trains. It’s an easy change (even though this is different from what the ST3 stated).
For issaquah link, the easiest alternative is just freeway st express busses. kirkland didn’t even want the rail line and wanted a brt corridor. Same with west seattle a brt would work better than this change twice.
Ballard link, it’s just really really really expensive to deep mine tunnel. The alternatives aren’t very obvious though. At-grade street rail is decried for being too slow. There’s the stub idea but that isn’t quite loved by all either. Elevated would work but that would block views. I’m not even sure if cut-and-cover would work considering the two existing tunnels of sr-99 and the existing transit tunnel. etc…
I mean if we a transit blog can’t consolidate over what is best alternative, it’s even harder for the public to know what is the alternative if the tunnel isn’t built.
The hardest problem is that it is hard to think of good alternatives for the transit money to go towards.
Ha, not at all! To be clear, people will argue about what should be a priority, but a lot of the options are pretty obvious. For example:
Everett Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
Tacoma Dome Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
Issaquah Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
OK, that part was easy. To be clear, I’m talking about after Link gets to Lynnwood, Federal Way and Redmond. But at that point, none of those areas need more rail. In contrast, all of those places have really bad bus service. They lack the money for good bus service. They could use some bus infrastructure, but most of that can be (or has been) provided by WSDOT. Mostly they just need to run the buses more often. Not on the specific corridors served by rail, but in the particular regions (Snohomish County, Pierce County, South King County, East Side).
With Seattle it gets more complicated. No question. But how about this:
1) Ballard to UW Rail.
2) The WSTT.
3) Move Seattle type projects.
4) Run the buses more often.
You don’t have to do this in that order, either. ST3 is so bad that if you simply ran the buses more often, you would improve things more — even in Seattle! But if folks insist on rail then do things in this order. First Ballard to UW (the best rail value by far). Then the WSTT — setting the stage for future rail, but dramatically improving things as soon as you build the tunnel. Just as a busway it is better for West Seattle riders than what we are building (no transfer required). Those who think we really need to build rail can find solace that it sets the stage for future rail, while building things in order.
It really isn’t hard to find alternatives to ST3 that are much better for riders.
> Everett Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
> Tacoma Dome Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
> Issaquah Link — Spend the money on buses instead.
I mean in that no one has concretely outlined an alternative proposal for the regional express busses and what capital improvements to make. Or if someone has done that, feel free to link it.
For example with Issaquah link replaced with express busses, it can go from mercer island to eastgate easily and to issaquah. But like it can’t reach factoria perhaps some median station above factoria boulevard.
with everett link, obviously build the ashway direct ramps that currently only face south. probably with the freeway route here is that it can’t reach alderwood. I guess another direct access ramp could be built there? 112th already has ramps so that’s easy to add, but it is kinda far from everett mall, probably a pedestrian bridge could be built. The on to everett which has hov ramps to broadway.
Mhmm I might check if wsdot ever had a plan here actually.
Cut and cover works if the crossing of SR 99 is at Mercer instead of Republican or John. Cut and cover also works if the route is through Fremont; in fact cut and cover alongside Westlake would be pretty cheap. Sure, it would disrupt the parking lots two or three at at time for a couple of years each, but for a few million more the trench could be decked after six months or so.
West of Fremont the line could just be on the surface, one track next to the BGT and one down the middle of Leary.
“I mean in that no one has concretely outlined an alternative proposal for the regional express busses and what capital improvements to make.”
I think the editors are realizing we need to do more of that, to identify areas where we have a general vision in our heads, and have summarized part of it in a comment or article, but then parts get spread out across multiple comments in multiple articles, and the articles get old, and there’s never an overarching article that integrates it all together and articulates it fully. That’s why I asked Martin to write an article integrating and articulating our Ballard Link ideas. I’m gradually becoming aware of more areas we need to do this. I’m working on an article about Pierce County transit, but it will be more on corridor routes rather than express routes.
The basic idea with express routes is to run them every 15 minutes full time, so that people can get from downtown Everett or Mukilteo or Edmonds or Canyon Park to a Link station quickly, and crosstown between cities that don’t have Link. The routes and stops already have precedents in current ST Express service, the post-ST2 scenarios in 2016 (before ST3), the pending restructures, and we can extrapolate from there and fill in the gaps. I’m not sure it’s that necessary to draw up specific routes, because it’s just “from every city or regional growth center to Link, or between them where Link isn’t feasible”. The agencies already do a reasonable job of knowing where the routes should go; it’s just the frequency that lags. It lags because the agencies don’t prioritize it enough, or they don’t have enough funding to implement it. So the governments need to pivot to addressing the attitude (frequency is necessary) and funding (get the funding).
“For example with Issaquah link replaced with express busses, it can go from mercer island to eastgate easily and to issaquah. But like it can’t reach factoria perhaps some median station above factoria boulevard.”
An Issaquah Link replacement would largely have the stops Link has. Eastgate vs Factoria is a dilemma we can’t easily solve, and I don’t know if we can come up with an idea more brilliant than the agencies can. It may be a fundamental geographical limitation (two routes would have to make a diamond shape), or it may be solely bad land use design (why aren’t Factoria, Eastlake, and Bellevue College arranged to all be on the way of a mostly-straight line?).
So I’d imagine an Issaquah Link replacement going to Bellevue College and Bellevue Downtown along the closest to the Link corridor it can. I’d delete the South Kirkland tail, and instead start another project to address Bellevue-Kirkland’s transit needs better.
That still leaves south Bellevue Way and Mercer Island. Those aren’t part of the Issaquah Link corridor. Still, if we’re looking to improve them, the proposed 554 restructure looks promising (Issaquah, south Bellevue Way, Bellevue Downtown). And the 208 restructure has a half-hourly express between Mercer Island and the Issaquah Highlands (with every third bus continuing to North Bend). So those are starting points. I’m skeptical the 554-South Bellevue route will still be necessary after Issaquah Link or a bus replacement, because it would take longer to get from Issaquah to downtown Bellevue. Something is needed on south Bellevue Way, but maybe it doesn’t need to go to Issaquah. So all of these are uncertainties. I think we should just see how the 554-South Bellevue route performs, and the 208-Mercer Island route, and whether people think the 554 has reasonable travel time and gets people to where they want to go. That will give more information on where the next restructure/expansion routes after that should go.
@Mike Orr,
The reason this region has been so far behind on transit is that we have historically over invested in buses and underinvested in rail. It’s what got us into the (pre-ST) mess that we were in.
ST was specifically created to rectify this situation and move the region forward with fast, reliable, high capacity rail transit.
ST has pretty much done this. Link is currently still a relatively short line, and it is only one line. Yet it carries roughly 90,000 passengers per day and is set to explode in ridership over the next two years.
We can all nitpick this or that little decision by ST, but the future path forward is clear — more rail, less long distance express buses.
LLE will open towards the end of this summer. It will represent the end of the long distance, Lynnwood to DT Seattle express buses. Those buses will go away both because they are incredibly expensive to operate, and because they represent an inferior product. They simply won’t attract the ridership, and the transit agencies won’t be able to continue to fund them.
The same thing will happen on other corridors — when Link gets built there. The future is more rail, fewer long distance express buses, and more local feeder buses.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that only has to wait until the end of summer when LLE opens. It will become pretty darn obvious at that point.
I look forward to it.
> ST has pretty much done this. Link is currently still a relatively short line, and it is only one line. Yet it carries roughly 90,000 passengers per day and is set to explode in ridership over the next two years.
> The same thing will happen on other corridors — when Link gets built there. The future is more rail, fewer long distance express buses, and more local feeder buses.
Generally everyone agrees the ST2 light rail ones will succeed. It’s the ST3 ones that are failing in potential.
I mean the issaquah light rail alignment means people heading to seattle will probably still want to use an express bus rather than being routed to bellevue. rapidride C users will probably want their bus to continue to seattle rather than changing at alaskan junction.
> The reason this region has been so far behind on transit is that we have historically over invested in buses and underinvested in rail. It’s what got us into the (pre-ST) mess that we were in.
I’d argue part of the mess with ST3 was changing it out to too long of a time frame. going from 10 to 15 and then a 25 year time frame meant both the transit planners and advocates really weren’t considering how much these plans would cost.
@Mike
(sad my other comment disappeared so rewriting it, though shorter)
> I’m not sure it’s that necessary to draw up specific routes, because it’s just “from every city or regional growth center to Link, or between them where Link isn’t feasible”.
I’d wager it’s pretty important to draw it out and highlight the differences. Plus also where to put capital improvements, otherwise with the normal express busses a lot of the times they are stuck in the middle of the freeway, or have to exit and get stuck in traffic for the outer ramps.
> An Issaquah Link replacement would largely have the stops Link has. Eastgate vs Factoria is a dilemma we can’t easily solve, and I don’t know if we can come up with an idea more brilliant than the agencies can.
I was thinking for factoria adding a inline freeway station to richards road / i90 similar to the old rainier freeway station. Also that’s why I suggested having the bus go to mercer island rather than heading to south bellevue station as it’d have to change many lanes to reach the outer exits.
> I’m working on an article about Pierce County transit, but it will be more on corridor routes rather than express routes.
That’s exciting and interesting, I’m looking forward to it. Yeah in general I do feel that sound transit 3 has kind of put a lot of attention and focus on the freeway corridors kinda leading both the transit agencies and us to neglect the other avenue/non-freeway corridors
“The reason this region has been so far behind on transit is that we have historically over invested in buses and underinvested in rail”
We haven’t overinvested in buses when arterial corridors are still running every 30 minutes or less part or all of the week, as are the all-day ST Express corridors.
“I was thinking for factoria adding a inline freeway station to richards road / i90 similar to the old rainier freeway station. Also that’s why I suggested having the bus go to mercer island rather than heading to south bellevue station as it’d have to change many lanes to reach the outer exits. ”
It sounds like you could write a better article than I can.
I mean in that no one has concretely outlined an alternative proposal for the regional express busses and what capital improvements to make.
Yeah, and my point is, who cares? ST actually does a good job with regional express buses, and as Link expands to Lynnwood/Federal Way/Redmond, they are needed less and less. The 512 is a good bus — probably the best bus that Sound Transit operates. When Link gets to Lynnwood, it will look like a poor substitute for the 201/202 (operated by Community Transit). The 513 only gets a few riders every day — the type of bus that Metro would cancel for lack of ridership. Will ST expand their service farther out, to provide more regional service? I doubt it. The 201/202 goes to Smokey Point (the outskirts of Arlington). Other buses go to Darrington and Gold Bar. That is pretty damn regional (at least for Snohomish County). There isn’t much left for ST to do in Snohomish County once Link gets to Lynnwood. You’re either running poor substitutes for Community Transit buses, or running the type of thing that the state should run (Seattle to Bellingham with stops along the way). At this point ST should hand Community Transit a check. CT would take it and say “Thanks, we can handle it now”. By the way, CT actually has a fairly extensive long-term set of capital plans (an expansion of their Swift system). So they would use some of that money to speed up those projects. But their biggest need (by far) is just more service.
Meanwhile, the East Side is entirely within King County, and it doesn’t need major capital projects. Of course there are things we can dream up. For example, it would be great if you had HOV lanes connecting Issaquah to Downtown Bellevue. They already have them along most of the route, but not the connection between 405 and I-90. So yes, this would be useful. More useful than running buses more often? Hell no. Not even close. Give ST some credit. On the East Side they built the only thing that needs to be built. They don’t need to spend capital on a major transit project once that is done (and again, any spending should be done by WSDOT). Speaking of which, a very similar project to the one I mentioned was done a while ago, connecting 167 with 405. As a result, riders going from Kent and Auburn have a much faster trip to Bellevue. The buses that take advantage of this fantastic improvement carry … wait for it … 500 riders a day. This is both ways. Thus about 250 bus riders benefit from this investment. Now it is quite possible that plenty of carpool folks benefit as well. But this just isn’t that many people, and neither are that many that would benefit from Issaquah to Bellevue. Just because it is a better investment than the light rail doesn’t mean it is a great investment. In contrast, there are thousands of people on the East Side who have really crappy transit, simply because the don’t run the buses often enough, or don’t run expresses.
Pierce County is one of the few places where express buses (run by ST) are still needed. The answer here is fairly simple: just keep running them. Run these express buses, since once Link gets to Federal Way, you don’t need any major capital improvement. What Pierce County needs — more than anything — is better service *within* Pierce County. If you think buses on the East Side or Snohomish County are wanting, get a lot of Pierce County! Holy Cow, their bus system is crap. I don’t blame the planners one bit. They have so little money to work with, and a large, sprawling low-density metropolis. There is only so much they can do. But again, they don’t need massive capital spending. They need to run the buses more often. If you want to build BRT (or more BRT-light) projects like Community Transit, go ahead. Of course every little bit helps. But like most of the region, what is needed — more than anything — is just service.
Seattle itself is really the only place where major capital spending makes sense. Of course you want to get the low hanging fruit in other areas (and Swift improvements are an example of this). But billion dollar projects? Those should only happen in Seattle.
> Yeah, and my point is, who cares?
If you want to ask people to not have a rail line you do have to provide and explain the alternative.
Secondly even for these express busses they’ve been getting stuck in worse and worse traffic every year. Ill try finding which document I read it from but basically some of the Seattle area freeway busses are like up to slower 20% (same route) than they were 10 years ago
The pandemic lessened freeway traffic a bit but it’s coming back.
Good research, Ross.
I will point out that Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Baltimore and Los Angeles have branding, fares and common stations that you present as two systems (one per mode) when most riders interpret them as one. Of course, BART and Muni Metro share five stations (4 on Matket St and Balboa Park) and now BART and VTA light rail cross at the same station. Finally New Jersey transit is in a league of its own for many modes tying it to Bew York and Philadelphia since it’s a state run agency, and Maryland as a state run agency is building a light rail line that will soon crosse at four DC Metro stations.
I actually believe that the problem originates from ST not building the DSTT and ST not hiring its own drivers from the beginning. It worked fine when ST was more of an afterthought to transit.
By not being responsible for these things from the onset, ST staff have an arms length approach to making Link be effective. Simply put, they don’t want to put the work in to learn from any past mistakes — and won’t take part of the blame either.
Consider that higher DSTT frequency is possible with automation and platform doors or gates. Transit operations around the world know that automation is coming. ST still thinks it’s 2005.
It’s like telling someone who only thinks that animals can power transit vehicles that motors exist. This engineer you mention designs for the modern equivalent of horses as the power source.
@Al S,
“ ST staff have an arms length approach to making Link be effective.”
I think it is a bit hard to argue that. Link is a relatively new system, yet it has the 4th highest ridership of any system in the US and has the highest number of boardings per track mile. It’s pretty hard to argue that performance like that isn’t being “effective”.
It goes without saying that not every decision ST has made we all agree with, but the system is actually pretty darn effective. And Link has revolutionized transit in the greater Seattle region.
And in 2 years it will be even better. Heck, by the end of summer it will completely different.
ST apoarantly lost about 10,000 average weekday riders during the service reductions last summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if that show up in January 2024 data. Escalators in Northgate Link stations are routinely failing in less than three years. ST staff recently admittedly underestimated the number of light rail vehicles/ trains needed to be in service in 2027. These suggest that management isn’t working very effectively.
Link should have high light rail ridership. Seattle has some of the highest daily parking rates in the US. UW is one of the largest campuses in the US. There are no Downtowns with light rail only bigger than Seattle; other US cities with bigger downtowns have different urban rail technologies. If Link wasn’t l wdjngvthe way, something would be seriously wrong with Link as a concept.
“Link is a relatively new system, yet it has the 4th highest ridership of any system in the US and has the highest number of boardings per track mile.”
That may be for light rails, but Link is a unique light rail system. Most light rails are 95+ surface and have twice or more stations per mile. The extensive tunneling and elevated segments and wide stop spacing makes travel times shorter, which tend to increase ridership. But the tunneled/elevated segments also raise the cost dramatically, to the level of heavy rail. So we’ve got a system that’s good for light rail, at the cost of heavy rail, but without all the capacity and speed benefits that heavy rail would provide.
Link is nowhere near systems that have the equivalent of the entire population of Seattle every day.
Link’s freeway parallel miles through nothingness haven’t been built yet. Ridership will probably still be decent on Link, but on MAX, the highway parallel lines have very few riders compared to the segments that go where there are actual places people want to go.
@Al S,
I don’t worry about small things.
The early escalator issues are a known phenomena, but now that they are past their burn-in period they are working well. I haven’t personally seen an escalator problem for months now at either NGS or Roosevelt Station. It’s called “the bathtub curve”. Look it up.
The total LRV issue is driven mainly by spares and gaps, and I think that is a result of Rogoff’s management style. And by the fact that ST’s O&M personnel are mainly bus people. There is still time to correct this, but it will take proper management focus.
I do think at some point ST needs to bring all their O&M personnel in house and make them dedicated ST emps and not Metro emps. The current situation is a horrible management model and leads to issues.
As far as ST succeeding in spite of themselves, who cares? This region was ripe for rail, and I’m just glad we finally have it.
And I’d like to point out that Metro operated for almost 50 years in this exact same county, with these exact same population centers, and with these exact same activity centers, and Metro barely broke top 10 nationally for bus systems. And that was with the bus tunnel (which was unique) and all the HOV lanes and Blue Streak this and that.
Rail works. The fact that ST is finally getting it done is a good thing. I’m not looking back to the “bad old days” of bus only transit.
@Glenn in that other city,
“ Link’s freeway parallel miles through nothingness haven’t been built yet. Ridership will probably still be decent on Link, but on MAX, the highway parallel lines have very few rider”
I’m sure Link boardings per track mile will decline with the suburban extensions, but both LLE and the full ELE are predicted to generate really astounding ridership. Link will probably become the highest ridership LR system in the nation, which is astounding when you consider that it is also one of the youngest.
Portland and Seattle are nearly the same population, but Portland has half the roughly density. That is even more true of the areas surrounding Portland – much less dense than Seattle’s surrounding communities. Link will do well, even in the burbs.
@Mike Orr,
“ That may be for light rails, but Link is a unique light rail system. Most light rails are 95+ surface and have twice or more stations per mile”
“Unique” isn’t a four letter word. In this case it is called “hitting the sweet spot”.
Light Metro works great in this region. And will work even better when all the extensions come on-line. I’m sort of glad we ended up with the system characteristics we did, and I look forward to all the extensions going live.
Transit in this region will be completely transformed this year with the opening LLE, and again next year (hopefully) with the opening of the full ELE.
There is no looking back now.
“ Metro barely broke top 10 nationally for bus systems.”
Not only is KC Metro serving only about 65-70 percent of the ST taxing district, but if you combine urban rail ridership in the US (heavy rail + light rail), ST would not crack the top 10 when looking at average weekday ridership. It appears that ST would be #11.
That’s hardly an indictment of Metro.
“So we’ve got a system that’s good for light rail”
Link is more akin to somewhere between a light metro and stadtbahn, as Link shares elements of both system types.
Honestly if I was ST, I’d be making the second tunnel more in line with something like the Milan’s M4/M5 & Copenhagen Metro in terms of station layout and design.
Platform screen doors, highly automated system, reasonably sized stations and station depth.
And before people scream that “automated trains take away jobs”, the French, Italians, British, Danish, and Greeks all have automated metros in their countries. Have high unionization and yet have high quality automated systems because someone still has to monitor the trains and also because there are many other tasks automated frees up employees to do.
“Honestly if I was ST, I’d be making the second tunnel more in line with something like the Milan’s M4/M5 & Copenhagen Metro in terms of station layout and design.
“Platform screen doors, highly automated system, reasonably sized stations and station depth.”
Zach, that’s pretty much what many who post here ask for. And to be clear, it’s pretty consistent with ST3 too.
I would summarize the consensus view as follows:
1. Change from driver technology to automated technology (with driver control available when needed). That improves train frequency as well as reduces the size of the giant holes needed to add the deep stations that are proposed no matter where they go.
2. Build Ballard to Westlake as an automated line with the ST3 funds at hand first, and consider extending the line later further southeastward depending on available funds or future funding measures.
From there, opinions vary a bit. They especially vary on what to do with West Seattle Link (although many say run West Seattle Link as a third line into the DSTT and upgrade the DSTT with more automation to allow for reliable 2 or 2.5 minute frequencies). Opinions also differ on what to do for an OMF or “base” for such a line, with some suggesting a connecting track to access the current OMF and others suggesting a new OMF in Interbay.
The obstacle seems to be with ST’s stonewall refusal to even study this. They are silent about how to plan for automation in general. They appear too busy trying to combine Link subway stations with appeasing the wishes of different property owners or developers (“don’t build on this block; do tear down and build on that block” game) to revisit the larger topic of modern and popular automated urban rail technology being installed for many if not most new urban rail lines opening around the world in this decade.
I actually think that this automated scenario would be MORE consistent with ST3 than the currently adopted preferred alternative sprung on the public in 2023. That’s because this would still allow for a station for all Seattle lines but Ballard at the CID, which would connect Sounder, FHSC and Amtrak. It would also make it easier to transfer between lines, as the ST3 map and descriptions assume easy transfers by having all the lines meet at one station/ point.
Link is a relatively new system, yet it has the 4th highest ridership of any system in the US and has the highest number of boardings per track mile.
Complete nonsense. Here is a list of some U. S. rail systems by weekday ridership:
NYC Subway — 6.2 million
Washington Metro — 475,000
Chicago ‘L’ — 388,000
MTBA Subway (Boston) — 384,000
Metro Rail (L.A)* — 188,000
PATH (NY, NJ) — 183,000
BART — 158,000
SEPTA (Philadelphia) — 146,000
San Diego Trolley — 119,000
Metro Rail light rail: 115,000
MTBA Light Rail (Boston) — 101,000
MARTA — 98,000
Link — 84,000
Muni — 77,000
Metro Rail (L. A.) Heavy Rail — 73,000
The numbers are as of first quarter this year. In terms of ridership per mile, we are 6th (which is not bad, really).
In any event, it is silly to look at such numbers out of context. You want to consider what you spent, and how much value you add. Imagine we spend billions replacing our entire bus system with trains. Ridership remains about the same, but everyone is riding trains instead of buses. Ridership would be quite good compared to other U. S. systems. Would it be better for riders (let alone worth the money)? Of course not.
There are a number of ways you can look at it though. You can look at ridership changes. Is overall transit ridership increasing? What about modal share? You can look at existing rider time saved (although that requires more work). As far as the first two categories, unfortunately, we really haven’t changed, despite the big investment in rail. Worse yet, further investment is unlikely to move the needle. We’ve already covered the main area (Northgate to the UW). Other areas will help, but they won’t be huge. The buses will continue to do the heavy lifting, which is why improvement (or deterioration) in the buses will largely determine how successful transit is in the area.
Link will probably become the highest ridership LR system in the nation
Right, and it will be by far the most expensive. People have mocked our choice of light rail for this very reason. We are basically paying for heavy rail, but using light rail instead.
Personally, I don’t care. Of course it isn’t ideal. We could have higher speeds and more riders on the train (for no more money) if it was a light metro instead. But that is a relatively minor problem. We are in the process of spending a massive amount of money for a gigantic expansion, and yet our subway system will manage to provide very little for the areas that should have a metro/subway. Instead the trains will go really far into the suburbs and small, distant cities. Not on existing rails (like they do in Europe). This is no S-Bahn. No, this is brand new, very expensive rail that will run right next to the freeway (the absolute worse choice). It will connect to cities with small, but worthy urban cores — but those can be connected better with express buses. It suggests a mythical city. One sprawling along the freeway for miles, with major destinations next to the freeway every mile or so. It is, in short, ridiculous.
I actually believe that the problem originates from ST not building the DSTT and ST not hiring its own drivers from the beginning.
Interesting thought, but I don’t buy it. There is no question that if ST built the DSTT it would be worse. ST might have two stations instead of four. But then what? People would reject what ST actually built? Sorry, no. At every step of the way an ignorant public cheered. A train almost to the airport. Hurray! To the airport. You did it, congratulations, now I can just imagine myself taking the train there. U-Link. Holy cow, it is like a real subway! Northgate Link. This has changed my world.
But few have actually questioned the various decisions that many take for granted. Why did the line start by going south, since most of the ridership is to the north? Why is there only one station between downtown and the UW, given it is the most urban part of the state? Why are there only two stations at the UW? Why is stop spacing not like a normal metro — even inside the city — and more like a regional rail system? Why isn’t it automated since our nearest neighbor has an automated rail system. And then the kicker: Why are we building a regional rail system, when we already have a robust freeway network, and almost all of the density is within the city itself?
I think the problem is that most of the public doesn’t know much about transit. I find myself — on this very blog — explaining the basics to people who have been on this blog before. By no means is this stuff obvious. I was a big “Spine” fan, back in the day. If you don’t know any better — if you don’t listen to people who know a lot about the subject and figure out what works and what doesn’t — you just assume that we are doing the right thing. Unfortunately, as is if often the case in this country of ours, we aren’t.
The second tunnel may have just as many outages as the current system has. Some of the outages and signal issues are at UW, U-District, and Roosevelt Stations, which opened in 2016 and 2022.
DSTT1 can currently accommodate 3-minute trains reliably (20/hour) according to ST. An ST3 candidate project would have done capital improvements to get that up to 1.5 minutes (40/hour). ST deselected that project when it selected the second tunnel.
The current crowding is because ST can’t maintain its normal service level (8 min peak, 7.5/hour; 10 min off-peak, 6/hour) during its maintenance, and at times it can only reach 30 minutes (2/hour) or 45 minutes (1/hour).
With Lines 1 and 2 in operation, that will be combined 4 minutes peak (15/hour), 5 minutes off-peak (12/hour). If ST raises each line to 6-minute peaks like Link was 2012-2016, that would be combined 3 minutes (20/hour), right at ST’s limit.
With no DSTT2 and three lines in the tunnel (West Seattle, Tacoma Dome, Eastside) each at the current 8 minute peak, that’s combined 2.5 minutes (24/hour). That would need the capital improvements, but it would still fit in the 1.5 minute enhanced limit. The capital improvements would surely cost only a tiny fraction of a second tunnel.
Ballard would then terminate at Westlake, so everyone would transfer. It doesn’t seem very feasible to merge it in underground, now that the Convention Place branch entrance is filled in. We’ve suggested it could terminate at Westlake with an optional extension southeast to First Hill, Little Saigon, and Mt Baker.
Where do the Tacoma trains terminate, do you think? Northgate?
Probably. ST might think Tacoma to Lynnwood is two long. And with two lines (West Seattle and Redmond) serving Lynnwood and 128th/Mariner at 4-5 minute frequency, I doubt we need more there.
A 2012 study had the service pattern of Tacoma to northgate
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/projects/OMSF/OMSF_Task_2.3B_Core_Light_Rail_System_Plan_Review.pdf
Well specifically it had:
* Everett to Seatac 12 minute frequency
* Northgate to Tacoma 12 minute frequency
* Lynnwood to Overlake TC 12 minute frequency
* Northgate to Redmond 12 minute frequency
I guess one could modify it to be like Everett to West Seattle 8 minutes; Lynnwood to Redmond 8 minutes; and Northgate to Tacoma 8 minuts
When we asked ST in March 2023 at the System Expansion Committee and board meetings to reevaluate the assumptions on a second tunnel, the capacity of the first tunnel, and post-covid ridership changes, they said they wouldn’t reconsider decisions they made in 2016, and wouldn’t even study the issue. So that’s where we still are.
“the board easily pivoted from longer trains and stations to trying to run more frequent trains. It’s an easy change (even though this is different from what the ST3 stated).”
More frequent trains is in ST3. ST has been negotiating with BNSF for more timeslots. It started before ST3 and continued after it. ST was coy about how many runs it could add because it didn’t want to tip its cards to BNSF during negotiations: if BNSF knew the maximum ST could pay, then it would charge ST that amount.
The negotiations have apparently come to some agreement, because ST is now talking more specifically about concepts for new runs (peak, midday, evening, and/or weekend). It also seems that BNSF is willing to trade peak timeslots for off-peak if ST wishes.
The issues about lengthening trains seems to be separate: it would just be canceling those projects, not modifying them into something else. The P&Rs are all back-loaded to the end of ST3 in the post-covid schedule. I don’t know if ST is any more willing to cancel them than it was before (i.e., not at all). Note that some P&Rs are in ST2, so they’re in a different situation than ST3: ST wants to show ST2 results soon.
There was a Sounder South survey last year that offered three alternatives: lengthening trains, more peak-hour runs, or shifting some peak runs to off-peak and adding off-peak runs (midday, evening, and/or weekend). The majority of feedback was for reducing peak service and adding off-peak service. ST may be leaning that direction too, since post-covid peak ridership has plummeted, moreso than on Link or ST Express. And the current peak service is every 20 minutes, which is more than when it was 30 minutes.
> More frequent trains is in ST3.
Is that actually in ST3? When I check it just says “Stations lengthened to accommodate 10-car trains, a 40 percent boost in capacity, along with signal improvements and better access for buses, pedestrians and bicyclists” and says nothing about frequency.
Or
> Sound Transit 3 includes funding to extend Sounder commuter rail service during peak hours from Lakewood to new stations at Tillicum and DuPont, increasing access near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Parking will be provided at both of these stations.
> The Sounder south line capital improvement program will help meet growing demand for service by increasing system capacity and enhancing service. This program will include additional parking and accessibility elements and expanded platforms to accommodate trains up to 10 cars in length, allowing Sound Transit to run longer trains and carry more riders. In addition, track and signal upgrades and other related infrastructure will provide additional capacity. Sound Transit 3 also includes funding for additional parking and accessibility elements for the Sounder north line.
from https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/st3-system-plan-2016-appendix-c.pdf
I mean to be clear I’m for increasing midday trips it makes the most sense, but I don’t see anywhere in sound transit 3 plan that actually asked for it. It only talks about increasing existing capacity of the trains
It was certainly discussed in the board meetings leading up to ST3; that’s what I was referring to. It might be the “40% increase in capacity.” Or it might be part of ST being coy and not wanting to promise it in the marketing brochure because it was still in negotiations with BNSF, so it wasn’t sure if it could come to an agreement that would allow it.
“For issaquah link, the easiest alternative is just freeway st express busses. kirkland didn’t even want the rail line and wanted a brt corridor. Same with west seattle a brt would work better than this change twice.”
We’ve suggested those too but the board hasn’t been interested. Maybe in the future they’ll be more open to it. Issaquah won’t start construction until the 2030s, so there’s time to reconsider by then.
“Ballard link, it’s just really really really expensive to deep mine tunnel.”
It would be less expensive with automated trains, smaller stations, and smaller trains. Automated trains can run every 2-5 minutes like the Vancouver Skytrain, so the stations and trains can be smaller. That means the tunnel can be smaller and less expensive. It’s mainstream technology in the rest of the world now. Martin found recently-opened or under-construction examples in Honolulu, Montreal, Paris, and Lima. But ST is challenged in pursuing state-of-the-art trains, like Seattle and Portland with streetcars.
“I’m not even sure if cut-and-cover would work”
Cut-and-cover is politically off the table. The agencies and neighborhoods are too sensitive about short-term construction impacts, and point to the Pine Street segment of the DSTT as something they never want to go through again.
I thank everyone for offering their viewpoints on what will happen in weekday peak-direction service on the 1 Line when Lynnwood Link opens.
It appears we don’t agree on solutions because we don’t agree on what the problems are.
There is nothing for that but data.
If ST has data showing average weekday boardings and alightings at each station northbound during the peak-of-peak hour, I would love to see it. Projections too. But projections are no substitute for data, and subject to human prejudices and politics.
Yes it’s hard to make objective recommendations without data, Brent. Even so, I personally think that keeping express buses to Everett is a futile solution ( but at least it’s a very short-term one of just a few months since the crowding should go away when the tracks to the East OMF vehicles open months before the full 2 Line opening). ST can simply put the full 2 Line test trains into revenue service between Lynnwood and ID-C (as well as South Bellevue to Redmond) during the testing period. The budget impact or running express buses for a few months over the long haul is very small.
I realize that data sources are different and easier, but BART produces wonderful ridership tables for entries and exits. ST should report something similar for use in service planning and general public knowledge:
http://64.111.127.166/ridership/
If staff have not even looked at the granular station data, I fear the plan for clearing the platform at U-District will resemble the county’s plan to end homelessness.
Does anyone have any scoop on the below??
1) There’s a trolley that’s lodged into the side of a building at 14th & Jackson. The accident happened last week but the bus was kept in place to maintain structural integrity.
2) For a couple months, there has been an Orion bus at Ryerson Base with its windows blown out and obvious damage on its side. It’s situated along the fence bordering the E3 busway.
3) Last Thursday, I saw an Orion bus alone at the end of the runway of Boeing Field (King Co Airport). No people, no airport vehicles around it – nothing.
Just curious…
Is it the bus stuck in the skate park (SLAG)?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1ad7jwt/oh_no_not_another_one/
Woops. Wrong crash.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1ab94es/metro_bus_crashed_into_an_indoor_skatepark_in_the/
Apparently, it happens so frequently now, it doesn’t rate a story in the times unless there is a fatality.
Anybody know what link crashed into today?
Not yet. ST’s 1:15 pm announcement just said a “collision” has delayed Link, and at 1:58 it said regular service has resumed. I don’t see anything in the Seattle Times about it yet.
Unless I did it wrong, could it be that it’s actually impossible to reach a live person on Sound Transit’s customer service phone line? That their customer service line consists entirely of prerecorded answers to common questions?
Was there an option to leave a voicemail? Almost every large-agency phone line I call ends up at a voicemail inbox, likely to filter out the callers trying to leave whatever Tsimerman-esque rant they want without having to subject a live person to it. Many of the really public-facing phone lines just refer to an email inbox (or 911 if it’s a health/safety issue) and don’t even bother with the voicemail inbox.