The Link 1 Line reduction continues through February 4th. Sound Transit has a progress report with photos of the maintenance work. There’s a list of bus alternatives. Metro routes 49 and 70 have extra service Four more days to go.
The Swift Orange Line starts in March connecting Lynnwood Station to Edmonds College, Alderwood Mall, Ash Way P&R, Mill Creek, and McCollum P&R. Scroll down to the “March 2024” section for cascading changes to other Community Transit routes, and further changes in August and in 2025/2026. The 202 will also be rerouted in March to serve an Amazon fulfillment center in the Marysville-Arlington industrial center. Thanks to commentator Jordan for this.
A West Seattle article profiles businesses that will be displaced by West Seattle Link, and deliberates what appropriate compensation should be. It contains a quote by STB’s Martin Pagel.
A Kenmore affordable-housing project was canceled ($) due to opposition from residents that it would serve homeless people. It would have contained 100 units. “Based on state projections, Kenmore needs to build 559 units of permanent supportive housing and 1,063 housing units for people earning between zero percent to 30% of the area median income in the next 20 years to meet the region’s rate of growth and fill its housing gaps.”
Westneat on downtown Bellevue’s free demand-response shuttle ($).
How many city departments does it take to install a public toilet ($) in San Francisco? Eight. One to install the toilet, and seven to approve it and be coordinated with. The toilet in Noe Valley is expected to open in April.
Why light rail isn’t the solution for New York. (RMTransit video) Riffs on Link at 0:44 and 14:41.
How to actually get the US to build transit. (RMTransit video) Riffs on Link at 7:00 and 11:17.
Route 40 improvements are being heavily campaigned against, especially by business owners. There’s a counter campaign by Ballard Fremont Greenways and the Seattle Transit Riders Union.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/31/last-minute-push-seeks-to-derail-route-40-improvements/
https://fixroute40.com/ (website against bus lanes)
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/fight-for-the-40 (website for bus lanes)
There’s an additional items with sdot needing to start construction to accept the 3 million dollar federal? grant. Currently they’ve just sent out the construction bid but haven’t accepted any yet.
## my thoughts
The opposition against the bus lanes have honestly started a bit late. This is already after final design and sending out the construction bid.
On the other hand, perhaps they see an opportunity with the new moderate city council to stop it. I guess this is a pretty good test of whether or not the city council will accept/support bus lanes. If they stop this project so late it’s unlikely many other bus lane projects will succeed either.
It is a test of the new council, but I don’t see them stopping an established project that already went through public input and tradeoffs. Are any of the councilmembers so extreme they’d take up this campaign and count only drivers’ desires and not everybody else’s needs or the city’s climate goals?
Sara Nelson, co-owner of Fremont Brewing with a large facility on Leary and a brewpub just east of the Fremont Bridge, has been vocally supportive of the wants and desires of the Fremont-area business community (but I’m not sure if that’s come to much fruition for them, yet). The new Chair of the Transportation Committee, Rob Saka, likened a hardened centerline in West Seattle to the southern border wall because it stopped him from making illegal left-hand turns into his child’s school. If there’s any Council willing to force Director Spotts to reopen the project, it’s this one.
That being said, I agree that the opposition to the Route 40 improvements is unlikely to have an effect because there’s a good base of vocal support in the transit/pedestrian advocacy community, and hopefully the current opposing campaigns prevent SDOT from reopening the project design. SDOT already made appropriate compromises between the opposing interests over 4 years of design and feedback, so it’s frustrating to see the turnover in Council emboldening these attempts to rehash long-fought transit projects.
Every business owner thinks that every customer coming in the door got there driving a car, like he (and it’s sooooooo often a “he”) did. So, start taking names and run a social media campaign against them. Have folks stand outside leafletting the neighbors who walk up, many of whom will be bus riders. When the jerks inside see the potential customers look surprised and then turn away, they’ll get the message.
I’ve talked to some businesses about the 40 improvement project. Many of them are privately supportive but are being bullied by their landlords. Go out to the Brewery District and you’ll see every parking spot taken with people circling the block – I think many of the brewery owners recognize this and the dangers of drunk driving, and see transit as a way to help their business even if it means losing a handful of parking spots. It’s really just a matter of making sure that the loud and well-connected voices of the few (many of them also opponents of the Missing Link, no surprise) don’t drown out the many who do see the huge, long-term benefits of better transit.
My son used to be the head brewer and co-owner of The Outlander, in Fremont. I agree. Like the brewery district in Ballard, parking is hard to come by. But most of the regulars just walk to the bar. Lots of people arrive by bus, bike or cab. Encouraging driving is a really bad idea. Oh, and they converted the parking in the back to outdoor seating, long before the pandemic. It is really nice.
I think people often exaggerate the importance of parking. I’m guessing this is from their own experience. If you are used to parking somewhere (like Ballard) it is really frustrating when you can’t. But back up here: Why can’t you? Why are all the parking spots taken? Because business is booming. Oh, and it isn’t really true that you can’t find parking — you can’t find free parking.
Ultimately it gets down to the same thing as driving in general: parking on the street doesn’t scale. You can’t possibly get a huge number of customers with a handful of parking spots — especially when you are competing with other businesses in the same area. We are really only talking about a small percentage of parking spots, really. It reminds of how people get upset when they see a handicap parking spot (the mirage of parking, as Seinfeld put it). Yes, if it was a regular parking spot, then it would be available. Chances are though, not for you. Someone else would have taken it by the time you arrived.
Bike Portland has a guest writer discussing The tale of TriMet’s #17 and how to lie with a bus schedule. The author posted links to the code (Python and R) they used to generate maps with which may be as interesting as wonky Portland transit talk.
When he zooms the map out to end-to-end and the tiny three or four block “wiggle” is seen as a miniscule portion of the route, the obvious solution is to tunnel that three or four blocks and go with high-floor subway-style cars. Since there so much of the line is at-grade, catenary power distribution may indeed be the only way safe enough to avoid liability disasters. So, as he says, go with high-floor LRV’s and automate them.
“go with high-floor…”
Fixed.
Thanks, Ross.
Great to see CT canceling all express service to Northgate and DT Seattle after Link opens. These are expensive routes to operate, and their ridership will be zero to none after LLE opens. CT obviously has better places to use these resources.
I think this sets the pattern for other agencies to also cancel their long distance expresses once Link opens with similar routings.
Also, the timing suggested in the CT document for LLE opening is exactly what I’ve been hearing elsewhere – late August or early September. But ST progress reports still show LLE as fully tested and ready to go in mid-July. I have no explanation for the discrepancy.
Not stated in the CT article regarding Swift Orange, apparently there will be a Link LRV in the background at the Orange ribbon cutting. I’m sure everyone will be asking the “When?” question. The staff present better be prepared with an answer.
If you are suggesting the 594 be canceled when link opens in Federal Way, that turns the trip from 40 minutes to around an hour and a half from Tacoma to Seattle.
Which means driving (or Sounder if you are lucky to have your trip fit into its sparse schedule) is really the only viable alternative.
The information I find from ST is that the travel time will be 45 minutes from Angle Lake (schedule) and 13 minutes further to Federal Way for a total of 58 minutes. STX 586 schedule says it’s 20 more minutes to Tacoma Dome from Federal Way. Add an average 4 minute wait and 2 minute time to get between bus and platform and it’s 84 minutes total! It really is approaching an hour and a half!
ST says it’s also 20 added minutes for 78 total minutes to Tacoma Dome when Link opens, by the way. Woohoo! No extra transfer time at Federal Way!
STX 590 does that in 39 minutes today.
That’s what happens when the trip goes from a non-stop freeway bus to a streetcar to make almost a 40 mile trip!
@Al S,
The 590 is currently scheduled at 65 minutes Tacoma Dome to 4th and Jackson (NB, 7ish departure). Return trip should be worse due to increased afternoon congestion.
And that is when it is on time, and we all know how that goes with buses stuck in freeway traffic. You might as well go to the casino and put your paycheck on 25 Red. It’s a better bet.
So Link actually will be at least competitive per the schedule, and it certainly will be much, much more reliable. In addition to being more frequent. And if any of the 590 riders are going north of IDS (and many are), then link will be faster still.
And that is just travel time. Economics matter too. And service like the 590 is very expensive to operate. If even a fraction of current riders switch to Link (and some certainly will), then the 590 economics get even worse.
So, yes, I’d kill the 590 after Link makes it to TDS (or maybe even before).
Note: This is just the 194 discussion all over again, and we all know this region is better off without the 194.
Clearly HOT 3+ lanes are the obvious solution. And come with a host of other benefits, including climate and budgetary.
@Cam,
Yes, more Lexus lanes might help the buses somewhat.
And I’m sure the people of South King and Pierce will be all in on the idea of $15 tolls each way. You know, to help keep the buses running on time.
This is a transit blog. We should be incentivizing transit. And an hour and the prospect of half on LINK pushes people into their cars. That is incredibly stupid.
If you want people to use trains, provide them with the type of train appropriate (*cough*Sounder*cough*) for the distance. Spoiler::LINK ain’t it.
@Cam,
The eventual existence of Link isn’t going to incentivize anybody to drive. It’s going to incentivize people to take Link.
The problem for the express buses is that Link will also incentivize some current bus users to switch to Link.
These buses already have horrible economics, and reductions in their ridership volume will make those economics even worse. These express bus routes quickly become unsustainable.
I have no problem with transit users using either Link or Sounder to get from TDS to Seattle. Both will attract a solid ridership base of users with specific transit needs.
This is as it should be, and modest investments in both services will only make them better.
Leaving politics out of it…. it may of been cheaper to build transit only bus lanes in 1-5 and skip the whole light rail mess. Could have had electric Goggle self driving buses humming along at 80 miles an hour from all points North and South of Seattle.
Of course this blog would have done everything in its power to block such a move before 6 months ago. Seattle Transit Blog used to be all rail all the time. (Seattle Subway still is). As we move towards the future, I think light rail might take the same path of land line telephones…..
@tacomee,
Real BRT with dedicated and fully separate lanes is actually incredibly expensive to build and operate.
LR is often cheaper to build, and it is almost always cheaper in the long run. In addition to being more higher capacity.
It’s one of the reasons we have no true BRT in this state, whereas we do (finally) have rail.
An hour a half is too long, and will lead to people just driving instead. Those who are too cheap to pay for downtown parking may still end up switching to transit somewhere like Mercer Island, but the bulk of the trip will still be car miles.
We don’t really need to quite guess here. They studied the i-5 brt option from federal way to tacoma section. (I guess to be fair it doesn’t study federal way to seattle, though wsdot has a separate document somewhere I think).
It’s generally the same alignment and same stops.
## i-5 brt plan
Projects needed to make it work
* Enchanted Parkway & i-5 (south Federal Way)
* Add flyer stops to enchanted parkway
* Alternative add 356th direct access ramps
* 54th Ave E. station & i-5 (Fife)
* Add flyer stop at 54th Ave E (Worse location compared Link’s 54th and pacific highway)
* Tacoma Dome
* E. J Street HOV/Transit Direct Access Interchange—From the center HOV lanes, the direct access ramps are configured beneath I‐5 and through a short tunnel at E. J Street to E. 25th Street and the Tacoma Dome Station.
It studied ending it at tacoma dome, but honestly with a BRT it’d be somewhat trivial to extend it to downtown. tacoma. (of course extending some BAT lanes would be nice)
The modeled travel time for the light rail is 18 to 19 minutes. For the BRT it’s a bit more complicated. It’s 16 minutes with “enhanced hov lane management” (aka if they convert HOV lanes to HOT with tolling) or up to 30 minutes of traffic is really bad.
## Costs
i-5 West link approach costs 1.7 billion to 1.9 billion (in 2013 dollars).
i-5 BRT costs 0.6 billion to 0.7 billion (in 2013) dollars.
Of course as Lazarus noted, this is leaving out the hov to toll conversion costs.
I checked with WSDOT these were the planned costs to convert hov to toll. Note one quirk is that these costs in 2022 dollars. In general the i-5 brt with tolls would probably cost like ~0.8 to 0.9 billion. There’s the whole cost inflation etc… but the i-5 brt with tolls would sit around half the cost of the link alternative.
I guess it depends if you count the tolls conversion cost as part of transit or if it’s wsdots money then the i-5 brt is definitely quite cheap.
I-5 Managed Lanes: Pierce/ King County Line to I-405 (tukwila) $255,112,240
I-5 Managed Lanes: SR 16 (tacoma) to Pierce/ King County Line $32,032,030
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/201407_federal_way_tacoma_hctcorridorstudy.pdf
## ridership study
50% At least half of the daily riders on the Federal Way to Tacoma HCT Corridor are likely to travel to and from downtown Seattle or Sea‐Tac Airport.
10~25% Ten to 25 percent of the Federal Way to Tacoma HCT daily riders are making “short trips” that begin and end between Tacoma and Federal Way.
8% About 8 percent of the daily riders travel to downtown Seattle, then transfer to reach destinations east of Lake Washington, such as Bellevue or Redmond.
17??%: The remaining riders are taking trips to areas such as south King County, Rainier Valley, SODO, Capitol Hill, University of Washington, or the north end.
“ So Link actually will be at least competitive per the schedule, and it certainly will be much, much more reliable.”
Yeah . Reliably 20 minutes longer to make the trip, even if an express bus is 65 minutes.
Of course an express bus is faster! It stops fewer times (0-2) than Link will (15). A express bus can move at a speed faster than Link can unless there is congestion. There are very basic truths about travel time and the technologies applied.
And let’s not forget about the other big elephant in the room: The remoteness of Tacoma Dome Station itself, even for feeder bus routes. It always struck me as odd that an agency would fund and build a 10 mile TDLE and not go the 1 more mile closer to actual destinations like Downtown, hospitals or UW Tacoma.
To be fair, the Pierce County ST advocates have stated that the intent of TDLE was more focused on getting to SeaTac. The speed at which it can do that is certainly less punitive as Link can skip the airport arterial street traffic.
The tradeoff question is whether or not the $2.5B for FWLE, the $3.0B for OMF-S and the $4.0B for TDLE is “worth it” (let’s say $9-10B total).
PS. Light rail isn’t the “only” rail technology — so this cost-effectiveness issue solely about bus versus rail.
This thread has two very interesting topics going on — South Sound truncations, as well as BRT in general. We have already reached maximum thread depth as well. I’ll copy the BRT discussion into a higher thread, so that this can focus on the South Sound issue.
Lazarus,
Let’s start with…. “Light rail. it’s a hella of a drug”
I get the romance of it. People love trains. But this technology is 100 years old and doesn’t fit our region’s needs.
So If there’s a bus only lane on 1-5 heading north out of Tacoma…. can a bus from Olympia drop in and use it? Why yes they can! So we have an express bus heading north from Olympia, another one Centralia and one from Tacoma. Maybe these buses stop at the airport? Maybe not. Because buses have flexibility.
Light rail from Olympia would be completely unworkable. The route would be gunked up with way too many stops. Light rail from Tacoma is even unworkable. The stupid train will waste time stopping too many times at every town along the way. And more stops at some horrid TOD housing projects along the way…. cracker box apartments nobody really wants to live in served by a light rail milk run nobody wants to ride.
WDOT is really good at building freeways. Sound Transit isn’t good at building anything. Really, every single rail project project they do is late and way over budget. So I really doubt the cost of bus only lanes is going to exceed rail projects.
Of course we could get fancy and build another bus tunnel under downtown Seattle for ALL the incoming express buses (South-North-West) instead of building light rail in 3 directions.
The kinds of electric vehicles Google and the like are working on are the future, not rail. The world is changing (remember work from home?) and transit needs to as well. COVID pretty much put the bullet in Puget Sound’s light rail plans. Live and learn I say.
Seattle and Washington State aren’t losing population, (yet) but California certainly is. There’s no way Seattle has nearly the population growth it had over the last 20 years (the construction industry can’t build that much housing again). And it’s very possible the population actually drops in Puget Sound over the next decade. The region doesn’t need to handcuffed to a bunch of light rail projects.
The Model T first rolled off the assembly line 116 years ago. The first “real” freeway (the Arroyo Seco Parkway in LA, now the 110) opened in 1940.
If you think freeways and the sprawl necessary to feed them “fit our region’s needs” then I’m not sure what you’re doing on a transit blog.
Sure, if the Cascadia Fault goes off in 2030, or geopolitics kicks off WWIII and Bremerton and Whidbey get knocked off in first-strikes, or maybe an AI Singularity deletes the tech industry and we’re left with a bunch of coders with nothing to code. All these things are theoretically possible, but to anyone in their right mind, highly improbable in the next decade. Well, Cascadia is the most-probable option of all these, and when Cascadia goes, we’ll be happy to have some way to move people around after all the I-5 colonnades collapse and oil pipelines break.
Lazarus, if the current busses have “horrible economics” the Light Rail trains will have catastrophic “economics”, because they are so much more expensive per vehicle to operate.
When multiple vehicles per five minute time frame are needed yo handle that’s the time to build a rail line.
Currently the 594’s are pretty empty most 15 minute cycles in the day. There’s very little “Build it and they will come!” in potential ridership between Tacoma and King County, because most trip pairs involve one end or the other in the boondocks. You can’t serve the boondocks with trains. Wouldn’t be prudent.
“Clearly HOT 3+ lanes are the obvious solution. And come with a host of other benefits, including climate and budgetary.”
We don’t have the power to do that; we have to wait until the state wants to. So we need a backup plan in case it doesn’t.
Cam: why stop at three plus HOT lanes? Apply variable tolls on all the limited access highway lanes between Marysville and Tumwater.
@Nathan,
I don’t understand why some people think this arguement about how old a technology is has any bearing in what we to today.
The wheel was invented about 6000 years ago. And we still use it.
The carriage was invented around 5000 years ago. It had either 2 or 4 wheels, a driver, and was pulled by a horse or ox.
What has changed with the carriage in 5000 years?
Well…we replaced the horse with an engine, but we still measure its output in “horses”, the driver still sits in front and drives, and the car/bus still has typically 4 wheels, although sometimes only 2 wheels.
Ya. Now we have climate control and music, but I don’t think that has much to do with transportation.
On the other hand, the train is generally considered to be about 200 years old. So a much newer technology.
But it is a pointless line of debate, Whatever works the best for the traveling public and the dollar spent is what we should build. In dense areas that is rail, in more suburban areas it will typically be buses feeding into rail.
It ain’t that hard. Just follow the data. Build what works.
Great to see CT canceling all express service to Northgate and DT Seattle after Link opens. These are expensive routes to operate, and their ridership will be zero to none after LLE opens.
That is not true. Existing riders who start their morning trip outside of a station would prefer the bus. Instead of making a transfer to the train, they just stay on the bus all the way downtown. For example, folks who used to take the 41 to commute downtown have a worse commute now. No question. But those who are headed to other Link destinations — especially those along the way — have a much better trip. This is a common misconception. It isn’t about making trip to downtown faster, it is about making trips *before* downtown faster.
It is worth noting that there are only two stations in Snohomish County. So Link covers a very tiny part of the county. This means that there are a lot of people who used to ride an express bus to downtown who will instead be forced to transfer. In exchange they (and other riders) will have faster rides to places along the way.
CT obviously has better places to use these resources.
Yes, and this why agencies truncate buses. Not because they would lack ridership, but because they lack funding. You can’t afford to run similar service, even if that service would be popular. If you are going to spend billions of dollars on rail, then you should funnel buses to it. Of course if the agency had billions of dollars to run buses, then expresses would be fine.
When it comes to value-added, a lot of it depends on the locations along the way, as well as what they’ve built so far. In the case of Snohomish County, I would have truncated already. The major stations have already been built. There are no major destinations north of Northgate to attract Snohomish County riders. There won’t be many riders who take a trip on Link and never get farther south than Northgate. Probably well less than a thousand. In contrast, there are tens of thousands of people who currently take Link north of downtown (between Northgate and Capitol Hill). Thus the extension is not really a “tipping point”. If you were going to terminate, you probably should have terminated already. The only drawback was the awkward nature of getting to and from Northgate Station from the north. The station has excellent access to the south (something that is basically not used right now) but from the north a bus has to leave the HOV lanes and work their way through local streets. In contrast, Lynnwood has HOV lanes connecting it from the north (making it an ideal terminus). Community Transit was a bit conservative when it came to the restructure, although this is understandable. In contrast, Metro was the opposite with U-Link and made an aggressive restructure even before Link got to the U-District. But again, I want to emphasize that they did it to save money, not because they felt like no one would ride the old express buses downtown.
The South Sound has its own issues, but since Cam started a sub-thread, I’ll write about it there.
In addition to Link being better than a freeway bus for access to the stuff “on the way” to downtown, the truncation also allows for resources to shift elsewhere … in theory if those resources are invested back into the routes that are now truncated, riders get improved frequency and/or span of service, which should offset the impact of the transfer penalty. It’s the tradeoff of a 4 runs/hour with transfer to Link vs 3 runs/hour with no transfer.
Since the thread under Cam rapidly expanded to broad topics, I’ll focus on the “improved access to stuff on the way” angle for South Sound. The point of replacing express buses with transfer to Link (at FW or TD or wherever) is that it unlocks more access to stuff on the way, notably the airport but also TIBS (with hopefully a strong transfer to STRIDE) and the Rainer Valley. There is of course a trade-off, and south of Seattle the time penalty is greater (longer distance, more stations, more surface running) and the new “on the way” destinations less desirable (SeaTac & RV vs UW), which is why the argument for express bus truncation is less compelling.
@AJ,
Exactly. The utility of a system that is still relatively fast, yet serves multiple users at multiple destinations, cannot be understated.
People tend to get trapped in the end-point fallacy as a way to justify these long, thin bus routes. But people will vote with their feet, and the transit agencies will need to get smarter about how to adapt to these shifting patterns and opportunities.
I think CT gets this on the north end. The only question is how long it takes for the rest of the region to wake up and smell the coffee.
the truncation also allows for resources to shift elsewhere
Yes, I specifically mentioned that. It is about cost. That is why agencies truncate. There are other ways to increase resources of course (like simply spending more money, making the buses faster, etc.).
The point of replacing express buses with transfer to Link (at FW or TD or wherever) is that it unlocks more access to stuff on the way, notably the airport but also TIBS (with hopefully a strong transfer to STRIDE) and the Rainer Valley.
Right, but the same thing can be achieved by simply stopping at one station along the way (Federal Way being the obvious choice). Then the bus could continue going downtown. I don’t think anyone expects the buses to ignore the Federal Way station. I think people just hope it will stop there and keep going.
I think CT gets this on the north end. The only question is how long it takes for the rest of the region to wake up and smell the coffee.
I really don’t know what you are talking about. Metro dramatically truncated their buses with U-Link. The buses hadn’t even reached the U-District and suddenly the express buses that a generation of riders considered the best part of our system was gone. You no longer could quickly get from the U-District to downtown. In its place was a slog down to the far end of campus, along with a very awkward transfer to a really, really deep station. Or riders simply took the other buses that connected the U-District with the downtown (all of which were much slower than the expresses). As far as “voting with their feet”, they did. Ridership on the 49 went up dramatically, even though it actually served the UW, Capitol Hill and downtown! For many riders the trip to the UW Station was too big a pain in the ass.
But I really don’t know what you mean when you criticize other agencies for “failing to smell the coffee”. Are you saying Sound Transit? Because basically that is about all that is left. Metro has truncated just about everything from the north end already (and would have truncated everything if Sound Transit had built the First Hill Station they promised). When East Link opens, Metro won’t run buses along I-90 across the lake. So where exactly are you talking about? Do you want Metro to send the 101 to Rainier Beach Station?
Or is your criticism leveled at Sound Transit itself? Do you think the buses from Tacoma should terminate at Angle Lake or SeaTac?
What “other agencies” are there, except ST itself? ET doesn’t run express buses to Seattle, nor does Pierce Transit or Kitsap. Intercity Transit runs expresses roughly once an hour to Lakewood from Olympia.
It looks like your “other agencies” is only your Beloved Skycastle Transit.
Metro 177 (Federal Way-downtown) and 193 (Federal Way-First Hill).
re coffee. Other candidate agencies: ST and KCM. ST is still using Route 545 to serve downtown Seattle past the UW Link station and through the congested lanes of I-5. ST did not include Route 566 in its East Link Connections process even through it will duplicate Link between BTC and RTS. KCM has not changed routes 252, 257, 268, and 311 (some are suspended due to a lack of operators); they duplicate Link between the UW and Westlake. KCM still has routes 102, 143, 157, and 162 atop South Sounder that is faster and more reliable than I-5 and still has 20-minute headway.
The 177 runs five times a day (and will certainly be truncated when the trains reach Federal Way). That leaves a bus that does not serve a Link destination (because ST screwed up) and runs eight times a day. That is very, very small potatoes.
Metro could send the 101 to Rainier Beach. The problem is, riders would hate it. They already have that connection (via the 106) and it make getting from Renton to downtown much, much slower.
That pretty much just leaves the Sound Transit buses. So is Lazarus suggesting that Sound Transit truncate the ST Express buses from Tacoma at SeaTac? That would definitely be bold, but I don’t think that would be welcome.
“The 177 runs five times a day (and will certainly be truncated when the trains reach Federal Way).”
Metro Connects 2016-2020 had a Federal Way-Seattle express route that would be the successor to the 577 or 177 (depending on whether it’s all-day or peak-only). It’s unclear whether Metro still supports it. Or even if it does, whether it would be a casualty of the driver shortage. There’s been a perennial debate among the public for years whether Link’s travel time to Federal Way and Tacoma Dome is acceptable enough to delete the express buses. That issue doesn’t arise for Lynnwood/Everett or Bellevue/Redmond because Link is in the midrange of ST Express (faster than peak hours, slower than Sunday morning). But it does arise for Federal Way and Tacoma Dome, or at least did historically. Some people are freaking out over Link’s estimated time of 55 minutes to Federal Way (vs 577 35 minutes), or 75 minutes to Tacoma Dome (vs 594 60 minutes) — almost an hour or more. But peak hours with current traffic, the 574 takes 50 minutes and 590 takes 74 minutes. So Link is now competitive peak hours, but that hasn’t percolated into people’s consciousness yet.
Ultimately it’s an ST decision whether to delete the 577 and 590/592/594, and a Metro decision whether to delete the 177. They may come to opposite conclusions. There’s no single answer to what the “right” travel time to Federal Way and Tacoma Dome should be, or how important the comfort of express buses is. Those are values issues. We have political structures (agencies and representatives) to make those value judgments and operational decisions. There will probably always be some activists to keep the express routes (the 194 still has supporters), and to delete them (Lazarus’s maximum rail/minimum bus viewpoint).
“So is Lazarus suggesting that Sound Transit truncate the ST Express buses from Tacoma at SeaTac? That would definitely be bold, but I don’t think that would be welcome.”
The post-ST2 planning scenarios in January 2016 all had all Pierce/Auburn routes truncated at KDM Station, the southern terminus of ST2. Except the 574, which would continue to run semi-express to SeaTac. There were no scenarios with any ST Express routes to downtown Seattle. ST never came to a conclusion on this because ST3 superceded it, and there have been on ST3 scenarios since then, so we don’t know what ST is thinking. But the 511, 512, 513, and 522 are already truncated. The 545 and 550 will be gone in the East Link restructure. The 577 and 59x are gone in Metro Connects. (Both the restructures and Metro Connects are based on ST’s expressed intentions.) It’s unclear whether the Federal Way and Tacoma Dome routes will remain after all, because the pressure to keep them is stronger, and different subareas are paying for them and making the decision.
the current (2022?) interim plan is to truncate both the 590 and 594 to federal way. Routes 574 and 578 would be truncated as well to federal way station
2025 interim map from Metro Connects planning. (it’s a fancy map you can select and highlight the routes, sound transit planned together so the st express busses are on this map as well)
https://platform.remix.com/project/7063754e?latlng=47.36236,-122.10389,10.647&sidebarCollapsed=true
In the longer range plan of 2050. there are no express busses from tacoma at all. Everyone from downtown tacoma will take a local bus/streetcar to tacoma dome and then take the light rail/sounder train to seattle.
In both versions they do keep the 177 bus from federal way to Seattle
2050 map from Metro Connects
metro connects https://platform.remix.com/project/ea35df7d?latlng=47.29821,-122.26358,10.677&layer=hifi&sidebarCollapsed=true
Of course st could potentially change course again but this is most likely their plan
@WL,
“the current (2022?) interim plan is to truncate both the 590 and 594 to federal way. Routes 574 and 578 would be truncated as well to federal way station 2025 “
“In the longer range plan of 2050. there are no express busses from tacoma at all”
Ah, thanks for a truly informative post. That is good news. And it implies that ST actually gets it, or at least understands the economics of these routes.
On to the future!
Thanks!
“it implies that ST actually gets it, or at least understands the economics of these routes.”
The truncations have been in ST’s and Metro’s plans since 2016, so they already understood the economics then. What we haven’t had is a commitment on whether these truncations would definitely happen.
Mike, I expect that the 177 will go “bye-bye” when Link reaches Federal Way. Maybe now, but why would Metro run that one bus parallel to the Link for twenty miles?
Everyone,
The Link alignment south of BAR is pretty close to “an express”. Between BAR (if built) and TDS there will be nine stations as planned when Link reaches the Dome. The rest of the time the train will be running at or close to fifty-five miles an hour, meaning that it will take 29.6 * (60/50) miles per hour or 35 minutes to make the trip, and it will be a reliable 35 minutes. Let’s say that the entire “west of I-5” strip booms big between now and 2045 and “working Downtown” experiences a renaissance such that demand for a rapid trip between Federal Way and downtown Seattle/UW mushrooms.
It’s only 4.3 miles from BAR station to the MF, and a “cut-off” can be mostly at-grade by taking one lane from Airport Way up to the airport and then going aerial through Georgetown to just north of the Airport Way crossing of BNSF/UP. It can link to Link at the Maintenance Facility; the flying junctions already exist.
Assuming that Georgetown would want a station, that would eliminate a net of five stops and three miles of twenty-five mile per hour running.
Although they may help save the planet from run-away GHG warming, EV’s will never solve the “congestion” problem. It takes separate rights-of-way to do that, and a rail right of way is a whole lot narrower for a given volume of users than equivalent capacity in highway lanes.
Bus speed advantage problem solved.
Don’t build what you don’t need. Allow for it to be built in the future, which is a lesson Skycastle has ignored in the past, but wait until the need is demonstrated.
@ Tom:
“there will be nine stations as planned when Link reaches the Dome.”
To be clear, that’s nine station stops before Tacoma Dome (the 10th).
Each stop not only requires some open door time, but it also adds time to slow down and speed up at each stop. I would guess that adds about a minute for each stop. ST holds doors open an extra minute at SeaTac now so that stop may add 2 minutes rather than 1.
So I think your calculation needs an additional 10 minutes if you haven’t added the station stopping time in addition to travel speeds into your calculation.
As far as the BAR station and I-5 “bypass” go, it’s not adequately funded and other projects are in the pipeline already that require ST to extend ST3 at least into the 2050’s if not later. I wouldn’t be surprised if it remains a station on paper only for quite awhile, and any bypass will be an even longer wait.
“Mike, I expect that the 177 will go “bye-bye” when Link reaches Federal Way. Maybe now, but why would Metro run that one bus parallel to the Link for twenty miles?”
Because Link’s hour-long travel time to Federal Way has created more pushback than in other express corridors. It all depends on whether Metro values economics or not angering riders and councilmembers when it makes the final decision, and it could go either way. The 577/578 may go away when Federal Way Link starts, so the 177 would be the only express route left. Metro Connects 2207 is essentially the 177 or 577, so that indicates Metro intends to keep it.
I would be shocked if Metro keeps the 177 after Link gets to Federal Way. Metro has always been very aggressive with their restructures. In contrast, Sound Transit hasn’t. Sound Transit is still running the 586. This runs from Tacoma to the U-District at the same time that both Sounder and the 590 run from Tacoma to Downtown Seattle. It is as if they didn’t get the memo: Link goes to the UW now. Eight years after Metro truncated express buses from the U-District (that carried way more riders, and cost a lot less money to run) Sound Transit is still running mostly-empty express buses so that a handful of people don’t have to transfer to Link downtown. I get that this saves people some time, but very few actually ride it. The cost per rider is high, and the time savings per per rider is enormous. Keep in mind, the bus *only* runs during peak. This is the most expensive time to run a bus, and the time when the buses are stuck in traffic trying to get through downtown (on their way to and from the U-District). Oh, and this is during a driver shortage!
Anyway, I understand that there will be push-back if Metro gets rid of the 177, but this bus is not like the 41, or the 7X buses that used to serve the U-District. This is not a truncation. Riders will not be forced to transfer. They will simply take the train instead of the bus. The same thing goes for the 577 — it will go away.
Where it gets tricky is with the other ST buses. In the middle of day (when traffic is light) the buses are very fast. There is also the transfer penalty. At the same time, running these buses isn’t cheap. Here is what I would do (I’ll use Tacoma as an example, but this works for other areas as well):
1) Truncate the 590 and 592 at Federal Way. These only run during peak, and pass by Sounder stations. Thus riders can transfer to Link or Sounder during rush hour.
2) Run the 594 to Downtown Seattle, but stop at Federal Way Transit Center along the way. Only run the bus outside of peak.
3) Charge more for the Federal Way segment. This is where it gets tricky. But not that tricky. The easiest way to do it would be to charge more for boarding in Seattle (southbound). This would be similar to how the ferries do it (charge more going one direction versus the other).
Community Transit charges $2.50 for a regular bus, and $4.25 for an express. That seems about right. Sound Transit charges $3.25 for the bus, and will soon charge a flat $3 for Link. Sounder charges $5.25 for a trip from Tacoma to Seattle. So somewhere around $4.50 to ride the bus from Seattle to Federal Way/Tacoma/Lakewood sounds about right.
If you really want to charge more for this section on a northbound bus, there are ways of accomplishing that. For example:
1) Charge more for those who board at Federal Way (going north).
2) For ORCA users, charge more for those that board a northbound bus headed to Federal Way, but allow them to “tap off” in Federal Way. Similarly, if they “tap on” Link (which will be required) they get the same discount.
3) Cash users would pay more.
I personally wouldn’t mess with all that. I would charge extra for going southbound, and call it a day. The problem largely solves itself. The people who would suffer the most from the truncation are those that board at Tacoma/Lakewood. They are already on the bus. If folks from Federal Way want to crowd on, so be it. Worse case scenario we have more people riding the bus northbound, while fewer ride the express bus southbound (since it costs more). I doubt there will be big wave of people abandoning Sounder and taking Link/bus just because it saves them a couple bucks each way.
I glossed over the other bus routes, but it is worth mentioning them. Just to back up here, this is what I would do for the South Sound ST buses:
574, 577, 586 — Eliminate.
580, 596 — Keep the same
590, 592, 595 — Truncate at Federal Way (peak-only buses)
594 — Continue to run to Seattle, but with a stop at Federal Way. Run it every 15 minutes. Maybe charge more.
That leaves the 578. The serves Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Federal Way and Seattle. It is not peak-oriented. It is designed to complement Sounder, giving riders who parked their cars (or are otherwise just used to using those stations) a way to get back when the train isn’t running. There are options, such as:
Just do the same thing as the 594 (as I described in my last comment). So basically just keep running it as is, but every 15 minutes. Maybe charge more (southbound) but that is it.
There are issues with that though. Prior to the pandemic, the 594 was reasonably full despite skipping Federal Way. In contrast, the 578 has a lot fewer riders, and most of them only use it between Federal Way and Seattle. Only about 400 riders use it south of Federal Way and about 100 of those use it just to get to Federal Way. In contrast, about 1,000 riders used the (midday) 594 from Tacoma/Lakewood to Seattle, and another 500 rode (midday) from Federal Way to Seattle. Based on ridership, the case for frequent service to Seattle is a lot weaker.
Which is why truncating the 578 at Federal Way may be the way to go. Keep in mind, all these numbers are from before the pandemic. Ridership is lower now. This would mean a two-seat ride from Puyallup, Sumner and Auburn to Seattle when Sounder isn’t running, but not a terrible one. You can always take that other bus if you don’t want to take Link. You could even try and time the southbound departure of the truncated 578 with the southbound arrival time of the 594.
You could also have some sort of combination. Keep the 578 going to Seattle. Have a new bus (call it the 588) truncated at Federal Way. Run the 578 every half hour, or maybe even every half hour (to save money). Run the 588 every fifteen minutes (when the 578 isn’t running).
Another option is to run a full fledged alternative to Sounder starting at Puyallup. This means serving the Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn, Kent, Tukwila and Seattle stations. Do this in addition to a truncated 578 (now running every 15 minutes). For folks from Auburn (Sumner and Puyallup) this means it would take a bit longer to get to Seattle. The detour to Kent and Tukwilla (combined) take a bit longer than the detour to Federal Way. But it is still faster than transferring to Link (even if you time it perfectly) and of course, is more convenient than any other option. This would substantially improve the midday trip from Kent and Tukwila, which means it could easily get decent ridership there (and thus justify the route itself). If people in Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup prefer going to Federal Way, they will vote with their feet, and ST could always truncate it (or run that section less often).
As expensive as this would be, it would still be a better value than what was planned. The Park and Ride lots are extremely expensive. It is completely unnecessary to expand the stations (just run longer trains and ask people to walk between the train cars). It would be nice to run the trains more often, but this tends to get fewer and fewer riders, and cost more and more. While a bus following the path of Sounder would not be as fast (and pointless during rush hour) it would be a lot cheaper.
I like the idea of a shadow as Ross described it. It replicates the service options that the train provides, though certainly less quickly. However, riding Link to Federal Way is going to be fairly slow anyway, so the total elapsed time may be similar. And it would really help out Auburn and Sumner riders as well.
The one trip it doesn’t backfill is the infrequent Puyallup to Tacoma and reverse trip, which can be made by PT.
Al, if South King mushrooms (I said it was a hypothetical) then South King will have the funding to pay the rather modest costs of “The Bypass” if built as I described it along Airport Way. I’m not suggesting the grand tunneled hoo-raw through South Park of which Seattle Subway dream. There’s at-grade right of way available for half the distance to the MF along Airport Way if it’s three-laned.
And, yes, I did mentally add nine minutes for the stations. You can’t count the “dwell time” at TDS because nobody is going beyond it, at least, not if ST has anything to say about it. I should have added up the elapsed times.
They would be: Westlake – SoDo 10 minutes. SoDo – BAR (1 stop Georgetown) 6 minutes. BAR-TIBS (interpolations) 3 minutes. TIBS – TDS 45 minutes as computed in the original post. The total, Westlake to TDS then is 64 minutes, which, yes is slower than the bus makes it during off-peak today. But in twenty years, when Link to TDS is finished and the Bypass might have been built, even during the off-peak the HOV lanes will be stuffed. Remember the hypothetical above.
EV’s help with Climate Change, but they don’t do a damn thing about congestion; if anything, they make it worse because their rapid acceleration allows jerks to exploit holes in adjacent lanes to jump ahead of other cars.
People already drive close together during congestion times, even at sixty. The claim is that RoboCars can be almost on one another’s bumpers, but that’s not actually possible. There will still be non-Robo’s in the mix for decades and the “neural network” of cars yakking with each other won’t include them. So the mooted “co-ordinated braking” won’t work, at least until the entire fleet deployed before whenever Robo’s make it to market is retired.
Will WSDOT be willing to upgrade the HOV-2+ to HOV-3+ in order to benefit buses when there is a train line that cost somewhere north of $10 billion to build literally yards away from the lanes for most of the distance? Unlikely.
The question is partly what to build, but really a separate question about what kind of services does Tacoma want:
1) express service to Seattle but fewer intermediate stops.
2) urban with other intermediate stops but slower
And then secondly does it want
a) large capacity during peak times,
b) smaller but more frequent transit.
1a) If it wants just large capacity peak express service then the answer is South Sounder. We can somewhat “easily” add longer trains and can maybe with a large pot of money get a couple more peak trips or a couple trips midday
1b) express frequent service to Seattle, then just implement the i-5 tolling and BRT with direct access ramps. compared to south sounder, it could easily have say 15 or at least 20 minute frequency straight to Seattle.
2a) large capacity urban service then the answer is the current sound transit link i-5 implementation
2b) urban frequent transit — idk extend rapidride A to tacoma or the SR-99 brt alternative
Tacoma has been saying what it wants for thirty years. Tacoma Dome Link and Sounder.
@Mike
If that was the case, why would Cam and tacomee be against the bus truncations to link? There is definitely a mismatch.
Perhaps what Tacoma and PC want has changed.
Or perhaps asking a part of the region with almost no experience with quality, useful transit isn’t the right approach at all.
Experts with experience should do a needs assessment and provide Pierce County what would be the most useful for them.
Don’t rely on some past county executive from the 90s who has never set foot in a bus to even comprehend what transit would be the most useful and appropriate for his residents. They didn’t have any idea, and they certainly still don’t.
1) express service to Seattle but fewer intermediate stops.
2) urban with other intermediate stops but slower
Both.
I very large portion of Pierce County residents work and play in Seattle. There simply are not a lot of living-wage jobs in Tacoma, and while there is some local cultural institutions and events here, there is a far greater diversity of them in Seattle. So there is a strong need to get to Seattle via transit in a way that is reasonably competitive with a car. You have to address that, or everyone will drive.
That is a disaster on many levels.
@Cam
> Both.
Sure, but there’s only so much capital investments. One can probably choose 1 or 2 combinations of them but not all 4.
“why would Cam and tacomee be against the bus truncations to link?”
Counties and cities elect representatives to express and implement their will. The ST plan went through consultation with government leaders, the public, and business leaders, and this is what the largest consensus was for. ST chose projects based mainly on what subarea representatives advocated, so the Pierce plan is essentially Pierce’s input, not King’s or Seattle’s.
Cam and Tacomee and Troy are three people. You can find three people in King County who want completely different things. You can even find three King County commentators in this article who want different things. If C, T & T represent a silent majority of Piercians, or if Piercians have changed their minds, then that’s an issue between them and their representatives or whom they vote/campaign for in the future.
The Pierce boardmembers could get ST to pause or modify the Pierce County projects by simply saying they’ve changed their mind or that the situation has changed. But they’ve never done that, not in thirty years, and not in the past two years. What they say is, they’re doubling down on it.
@Mike
I think saying people ‘want’ rail is different from what they will actually use.
SF chinatown thought they wanted a t line subway. But then just ended up using the busses since the transfer was bad.
> f C, T & T represent a silent majority of Piercians, or if Piercians have changed their minds
Well that is what we’re discussing…
“I think saying people ‘want’ rail is different from what they will actually use.”
That’s conflating vague wants with political choices and ridership. Since Pierce has “taxation with representation” at the county, city, and ST level, the Pierce public has a stake and responsibility for the Pierce plan. It was Pierce and Snohomish who insisted on being included in Sound Transit, and who insisted on subarea equity so that they could choose their own projects and not have their money go to Seattle projects, and who insisted on a single tax district so that Seattle/King’s yes votes would outnumber their no votes (that was implicit in the first two things). So they got what they wanted and dug their own hole. It is a disaster, as Cam said, because most of their transit needs still won’t be met, moreso than any other subarea.
“SF chinatown thought they wanted a t line subway. But then just ended up using the busses since the transfer was bad.”
I don’t know San Francisco well enough to know how the Central Subway was chosen, or whether there was opposition to the ultra-deep stations. But the political decision to build it is not the same as ridership. Ridership is individual choices; the decision to build it is a collective choice. They didn’t know what ridership would be until it opened, and ridership can change anytime, while a capital project has to be chosen years in advance, and can’t be easily changed once it’s built to reflect ridership changes.
@Mike
I think you’re overthinking my question somehow. I’m asking what exactly do Tacoma transit riders want.
And outlining that they want frequent express service; neither the south sounder nor link projects will accomplish that even in 2040/2050.
WL, we can certainly articulate potential alternative networks for consideration, and C, T & T can try to identify evidence that more Piercians want that than want ST’s plan, or try to start a Pierce public movement to convince the governments to do it. As I said, I’m working on a corridor network (Stream/RapidRide-like), and will only partly cover a complementary ST Express network, but somebody else can make a full ST Express/Stride-like network for consideration. Once we get the theoretical Stream routes, then the question will arise whether it’s fast enough travel time between the endpoint centers, or whether an express shadow will be needed there. That’s how the two networks can complement each other.
Counties and cities elect representatives to express and implement their will.
But we don’t elect the board in that manner. No one runs for “Sound Transit Board Member”. Each and every member has a more important job that they run for. Transit never comes up. Half the time we don’t even know who is going to serve!
The closest thing to a real democratic process is the levies, where voters can vote for or against the proposal. Pierce County voted against it! If this is really what they want, then why did they vote against it?
Sure, but there’s only so much capital investments. One can probably choose 1 or 2 combinations of them but not all 4.
Let me outline what I think a lot of people would do:
1) Continue Sounder as is. It runs every 20 minutes during peak, and that is fine. Ridership drops off dramatically outside of peak, and did so well before the pandemic. The trains are big enough. If they ever get really crowded, then just add train cars. Don’t expand the train stations — just ask people to walk between the train cars. King Street Station can handle a really long train which means that it really isn’t an issue.
2) When Link gets to Federal Way, have the 594 stop there on the way to downtown. Get rid of the 574 (saving money). Run the 594 every 15 minutes. It is worth noting that until the driver shortage, they planned on running the 574 every 15 minutes. Thus even before shifting money (or saving money from the elimination of the 574) they can afford it. Make similar changes (get rid of the 577, 586, etc.).
3) Take whatever money is left and run buses more often in Pierce County. This is arguably the biggest need.
So that basically means you lose out on Link stop combinations south of Federal Way. Big, freaking deal. Link won’t even include Downtown Tacoma! What is your big stop combination you are worried about: Portland Avenue to South Federal Way? Tacoma Dome to Fife? We are talking about only a handful of riders. Seriously, imagine we build Tacoma Dome Link and the train leaves the station heading north. People get on at every stop. How many get off before Federal Way? One, two? Seriously, I think you are talking about a few dozen riders a day, if that. If you look at the pre-pandemic riders of the Sound Transit Snohomish County buses (510, 511, 512, 513) it is striking how few people got on the bus at Mountlake Terrace heading north despite good frequency and a direct connection right into Downtown Everett.
That type of demand doesn’t need anything special. Keep in mind, Pierce Transit 500 is quite similar to the pathway Tacoma Dome Link will take. It ends at the future Federal Way Station, running right by the other potential stations. Prior to the pandemic it got 1,200 riders, even though it has a lot more stops and directly connects to Downtown Tacoma. There just aren’t that many riders taking trips between the future Tacoma Dome Link Stations. And for those riders, the 500 is more than adequate. Why should we spend so much money on so few riders when so many in Pierce County have transit that is really bad?
Tacoma Dome Link is a very misguided project. The solution isn’t very complicated or difficult.
“Prior to the pandemic it got 1,200 riders, even though it has a lot more stops and directly connects to Downtown Tacoma.”
It’s hourly. No wonder it gets few riders. The 574 and 594 are half-hourly. No wonder they get few riders. The current service level is not the sweet spot for ridership.
Yeah, I’ve only taken the 500 when desperate. And even then, more than half the time I give up waiting and Uber.
I can maybe get on board with Ross’s outline if:
– The on/off at Federal Way is streamlined. Right now it is a torturous slog that sometimes lasts 15 or 20 minutes.
– We continue to work on negotiating slots with BNSF and improving the track for the Sounder to increase frequency and duration. That should be a no-brainer medium to long-term goal for both intra-city and intra-state (Amtrak) travel.
It’s hourly. No wonder it gets few riders.
It gets few riders, no wonder it is hourly.
It runs every half hour during peak. At least it did before the pandemic (when I gathered those numbers). That is poor. Or consider the 574. It runs every half hour. About 200 people travel south of Federal Way. It just isn’t a popular corridor. Worth repeating: Link will not serve all of it. It will only have a handful of stops, which likely make up a small subset of the ridership found along there.
The reason it runs so infrequently is because there just isn’t the demand along the corridor. Even now, with Pierce Transit struggling for lack of money, they run a lot of their buses every half hour. The 1 runs every 15 minutes, while the 500 runs every hour. Why is that? Because the 1 gets a lot more riders! It always has. The 500 is a coverage bus, not a ridership bus. It is the type of bus that wouldn’t exist if the agency was just focused on ridership. They would run the buses that now run more frequently (like the 1, 2, 3, 4, 28, 41) more often.
Put it this way: If not for Link coming from Seattle, would anyone in their right mind propose a very expensive light rail line from the Tacoma Dome to SeaTac, with those stops? Of course not. It is ridiculous, and completely out of scale for a city that size. You can look at census data. You can look at development. You can look at existing transit ridership (like the numbers I cited). It all points to the same thing: There just aren’t that many people who will ride transit along that corridor, no matter what you build.
The on/off at Federal Way is streamlined. Right now it is a torturous slog that sometimes lasts 15 or 20 minutes.
When the work is done, I assume it will be smooth. It connects to the HOV lane (on the freeway) and it looks like there will be a fairly short loop to connect to the station and then back on the freeway (again in the HOV lane). This is vital for the success of the station — they need to make that work.
We continue to work on negotiating slots with BNSF and improving the track for the Sounder to increase frequency and duration. That should be a no-brainer medium to long-term goal for both intra-city and intra-state (Amtrak) travel.
I could see running more often (every 15 minutes) as well as stretching it a bit. But very few people take the train midday. It is also a time when the buses are faster than Sounder (from Tacoma). Sounder really should be very peak oriented, for that reason. Otherwise we end up paying BNSF a lot of money for a handful of riders.
Just to put some (up to date) numbers on things. Here are the trains that carry fewer than 100 riders (for the entire train trip):
1501 — 74 — Leaves Seattle at 6:05 AM
1503 — 93 — Leaves Seattle at 6:35 AM
1522 — 62 — Leaves Tacoma at 4:30 PM
1524 — 74 — Leaves Tacoma at 5:15 PM
The 1518 is the only train that runs midday. It leaves Tacoma at 10:25 AM and got less than 150 riders on its best month. You can make a good case that we have too many Sounder runs. It is worth noting that Sounder ridership is pretty well spread out. Tacoma doesn’t dominate (far from it). So a combination of buses (Lakewood/Tacoma along with Puyallup/Sumner/Auburn) outside of peak would handle the load quite easily.
Mike, and they [“Pierceans”] voted “No” both times. Because the Leg included them in the enabling legislation, they’re harnessed to the transit needs of King and Snohomish Counties. The technology chosen for Link — low-floor LR vehicles — is sub-optimal for the wide station spacing, long-distance commuter design of the system. It’s bad enough in King County, but is to some degree alleviated by the Rainier Valley segment which matches near-tram technology to a street-running system. But it is completely bonkers for the long, boring rides to and from Tacoma. If you’re going to build BART del Norte, at least use BART-like vehicles (with standard gauge wheelsets, of course) and grade-separate the whole thing.
When complete ST will be roughly 90% grade separated (you can be “grade-separated” on the ground if there’s a fence), and the remaining 10% will be “true LRT” with walk-up stations. ST isn’t even putting the terminal stations for its new lines at-grade where people can access them more easily. In Redmond there’s a two block concrete monstrosity looming over the east end of the Commons taking shape, for no good reason at all except “Sky Castles!”
1501 — 74 — Leaves Seattle at 6:05 AM
1503 — 93 — Leaves Seattle at 6:35 AM
1522 — 62 — Leaves Tacoma at 4:30 PM
1524 — 74 — Leaves Tacoma at 5:15 PM
You simply refuse to grt it, Ross. You can’t use ridership for a service that doesn’t exist. Very, very few riders are going to get on that 5:15 PM out of Tacoma. I do and I’ve paid for it with some remarkable 2 hour odyseys trying t get home. Not many will take a 1-way trip a day strand themselves 40 miles from
their bed. Yes, there is the 594, but it s infrequent and often really unreliable. I’ve found myself standing in the for an hour watching ghost bus after ghost vanish. Who is going to Subject a date or spouse to that?
So you are basically saying “why build a bridge? Almost nobody swims that river.”
Very, very few riders are going to get on that 5:15 PM out of Tacoma.
That is my point! There is no reverse commuting on Sounder. There is some reverse commuting on the buses, but surprisingly little. The 590/594 run all day long. They carry more riders from Tacoma than Sounder. What is the pattern like: Commuter Rail.
Consider a northbound bus. Ridership per bus on the 590 peaks with the bus leaving Tacoma at about 4:45 AM. It then starts slowly going down. By 8:30 AM, ridership is down to around 20 riders a bus. Reverse peak ridership (leaving Tacoma starting at 3:30 PM) starts slow, and then fizzles out altogether. Same with the 594. The busiest bus leaves Tacoma at 8:30 AM. There is a bit of a bump at 1:00 PM, but then it keeps going down.
Southbound is a little different. Very few reverse commute, but ridership coming back is a lot more spread out. The last bus from Seattle (leaving right before midnight) gets a respectable 20 riders (while the bus before that does better).
So people have no qualms with staying late, and catching the bus back. That isn’t an issue. It is just that there aren’t that many riders using the buses (or trains) for anything other than a standard commute into Seattle. This, despite the fact that the buses:
1) Compete with Sounder.
2) Are more likely to encounter traffic then.
Oh, and consider that the buses run through downtown Tacoma, whereas just about everyone who takes the bus or train from the Tacoma Dome drives there. Again, this should lead to a big “reserve commute” jump on the buses. Sure, the train is lovely. You get to stretch out and relax. But it would be much handier to take the bus right into your office in Downtown Tacoma. Yet very few are actually doing that.
Oh, and the Sounder train serves other places along the way, like Kent. Kent has a significant employment center. The train is actually faster than an express bus, even if there is no traffic. But unlike Tacoma, there is no reverse-commute express bus. So someone from Seattle trying to get to their job in Kent has every incentive to take the train, and yet even with those riders, the train carries very few people. To be fair, unlike Tacoma, the bus options from Downtown Kent are much, much slower than the train. But that again suggests an obvious solution: ST should run more express buses.
Running Sounder trains is extremely expensive. Even if we owned the tracks it would be expensive. But just imagine we did, and decided to run them all day long. Guess what? We wouldn’t get many new riders. We would get ridership very similar to what the buses provide, which is why it makes more sense to run the buses. Adding Sounder Trains that carry very few riders is just elite projection. It would be a huge waste of money, although lots of people can *imagine* using it. It sounds harmless, but the vast majority of riders in Pierce County — the folks that never leave the county — would be the ones being screwed. The agency would have less money to spend on the buses that they use, while a handful or riders get a nice, roomy, super-comfy ride to Seattle (instead of taking the bus).
Ross, I agree completely. All-day Sounder is a non-starter….right now. However, if as I fear, Climate Change gets so hideous that even MAGA’s understand that it’s really a thing, and it’s here to stay, the small cities of Kent, Auburn and Puyallup are going to mushroom. At that time, it makes sense to have an “eastside” rail trunk between Seattle and Tacoma.
Now, how can it be accommodated? The first and absolutely critical step, and one which won’t cost ST a dime at the present, is to ensure that the UP right of way between Black River Junction and East Tacoma is preserved and slowly upgraded with overpasses wide enough to accommodate a second track. Two-main-track railroads can actually handle more than double that of a CTC single-track line, because trains don’t have to slow to take sidings, fouling the main and sometimes forcing the “superior” train to slow.
The negotiations for this improvement, which the State and Port Authority should support and help fund, should be underway as we speak.
A two-main-track line on the UP ROW would allow a lot more passenger trains to use the BNSF trackage through the centers of the small cities.
Again, ONLY if the Pacific Northwest becomes a Climate Change refuge and the population between Renton and Tacoma grows enormously would the actual rebuilding take place. But it should be planned for now.
If ST is going to run or fund temporary express service to reduce the wait time for passengers to be able to get on the 1 Line northbound during PM peak, some of the more popular CT commuter routes would make more sense to prolong than the 515 makes sense to deploy.
At least with the current routes, we have a good idea what the demand is for them. With the 515, it is a guess. And most of us agree ST is guessing way too high on their likely demand.
Ideally, ST would come up with a plan to have enough LRVs running northbound from downtown during the peak-of-peak hour to not have anyone waiting more than 15 minutes to get on a train. That may take a few weeks of Lynnwood train service to get there.
Excellent point. In the morning the CT express routes can be truncated to become feeders, because their riders will be boarding an empty train. But in the afternoon, they should be continued as is; it’s only a year until full service is implemented and they can be permanently truncated at Lynnwood or Shoreline North.
That way CT saves some money by not running the buses all the way to downtown Seattle and back in the morning, but their riders would avoid the over-stuffed evening trains northbound. It wouldn’t help King County riders southbound in the morning, but hey, that’s not CT’s problem.
I don’t think King County riders will need any help in the morning. The trains won’t be quite full.
If they are at peak of AM peak, and some riders have to wait and get on the next train, they will still be able to get on.
AM peak is smaller than PM peak. The difference will be noticeable when, at the PM peak spike, only some of the riders at UW and U-District will be able to board, roughly equal to the much smaller number of people alighting at the two stations. If my observations are wrong about that, show me the data, please.
If ST is going to run or fund temporary express service to reduce the wait time for passengers to be able to get on the 1 Line northbound during PM peak, some of the more popular CT commuter routes would make more sense to prolong than the 515 makes sense to deploy.
Yes! I have been saying that for a while now. There are two reasons (and you mentioned one):
1) We have a very good idea of current ridership.
2) Many of the current expresses offer a true alternative to Link.
For example, consider the 413. It makes about a dozen round trips a day. So far as I can tell, this is more than any other Community Transit express bus, suggesting it is popular. It doesn’t go to Lynnwood TC, but instead serves Ash Way and 164th. Take away the stop at Mountlake Terrace, and it becomes an ever better express. At that point, riders could not use it as a shuttle to connect to Link. They would instead use it as a one-seat ride to downtown — something that Link doesn’t offer riders from Ash Way and 164th. Would riders switch to using Link? Probably not.
It reminds me of the 312 and 522 before the pandemic. Many were not looking forward to the truncation. If you commuted to downtown, this would be a big degradation. Instead of a one-seat express right to downtown, you have to transfer. It probably costs those riders a good ten minutes. But what if they said “Hey, don’t worry. We will run an express bus from Roosevelt to downtown. Happy now?”
No! It is still a transfer. You still watch as your bus comes tantalizingly close to getting on the express lanes and then heads to Roosevelt.
This is similar. I honestly don’t know what incentive there is for anyone to take the 515 *other* than crowding. Your express is gone. You have to take a bus to Lynnwood Transit Center no matter what. Why then, take the bus instead of the train? Because the bus is faster? In the middle of the day, definitely. But not during rush hour, the only time the bus runs. It is like ST is purposely making it bad, in case there is crowding. They don’t want to offer something that might be popular (and thus benefit all riders) but they want to run a bus that only desperate riders will use. This is their fallback if people complain about crowding.
It is just a bad decision.
Brent, I didn’t say anything about North King riders, so I guess you were replying to a different thread? You are certainly correct that the morning peak is (considerably, now) smaller than the afternoon one, which is augmented by non-commuters going home from non-work activities as well as the commuters.
Nobody said you weren’t right. I think everyone except Lazarus would agree that the problem is going to be for people whose northbound journey starts north of Westlake.
If the 590 and 592 were to get cancelled, it would be because of Sounder, not Link.
No one is saying we should cancel the 590 or 592. I’m suggesting we truncate them in Federal Way. That way they connect riders to both Sounder and Link. But yes, that strategy wouldn’t make as much sense without Sounder.
The more transit together initiative to merge Everett transit into the larger community transit service area chugs along:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/02/01/everett-transit-still-studying-merger-outlines-service-growth-strategy/
After seeing the community outreach surveys a few months ago where Everett transit seemed to be really mulling the idea of outright replacing some regular bus hours with micro transit, I think community transit playing a more prominent role in Everett into the future is the way forward for providing Everett residents a usable bus system
It’s still controversial because the mayor argues that Everett is too low income relative to the rest of the county for the property tax rates that community transit has relative to Everett transit (it is higher). However bus service pays societal dividends and I think the case can be made that having a usable bus system not under threat of being rolled back further will be very worth the cost
I am somewhat bullish on community transits future personally because they seem to be quite committed to increasing bus hours and priority and seem to be transforming themselves from a primarily commuter bus oriented system to one with more local bus route hours as well as all day scheduling by the time lynwood link opens
“Everett is too low income relative to the rest of the county”
That has been the argument against consolidation for the past decade and probably longer. But the corollary is, driving and car ownership is a larger burden on low-income people than it is on high-income people. The problem is that people don’t think about the issue clearly, and there’s been a century of propaganda and government policy saying driving is better or is the only possibility for a city smaller than New York. And the spread-out land uses make it hard for a limited number of transit routes to serve many job sites, activity sites, and residences. So a complete solution would require both more transit and land-use changes. But even without land-use changes, transit should have a good baseline, like many Canadian cities have. Everett should have a transit level appropriate to Everett, not to Ellensburg.
I am somewhat bullish on community transits future
Me too. I hope that Everett just joins Community Transit, and accepts the higher taxes. One of the ironies of the current setup is that Community Transit does provide some transit in Everett itself. Some of the most frequent service at that (Swift Blue, 201/202, even a bit of Swift Green). Things would be a lot worse if Everett had to rely on just Everett Transit. There is also inefficiency. The 7 runs along the same path as Swift Blue and the 201/202. I get that Swift Blue is a limited stop express, but it just seems like the area could do a lot better if it was run by one agency.
CT and ET are partners in Swift Blue and Green, and ET pays CT for the stops in Everett.
The 201/202 is limited-stop within Everett, serving the station, downtown, and community college, thereby providing a reasonably quick path for Marysville commuters. Its planned conversion to the Gold Swift Line makes a lot of sense.
Most of the ridership is from Everett Station north.
ET participates in the Subsidized Annual Pass program, so those who can’t afford to pay still get to ride, if they can find the places that distribute the card.
I’m expecting CT to take up joining that program as part of its transition from “commuter” fares to “express” fares.
CT still charges $1.25 ORCA LIFT fare for regular and Swift routes, and $2 for ORCA LIFT on commuter routes. I fully expect the ORCA LIFT fares to drop to $1 on all its routes, joining all the other land-based services (except the monorail) within the ORCA pod.
I’ve been expecting CT to align all its non-reduced fares, at anywhere from $2.50 to $3, based partially on the new “express” route between Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds Ferry Dock. But maybe they are planning to soak the north Kitsap County commuters with a higher fare. It won’t work, given the ample more-frequent options between Edmonds and Lynnwood Station.
So, I’m betting on CT setting its new consolidated fare at $3. Lynnwood Link could open with CT’s fares perfectly matching those of Link Light Rail, including all the reduced and free fares.
ET pays CT for the stops in Everett.
OK, that makes sense.
I’ve been expecting CT to align all its non-reduced fares, at anywhere from $2.50 to $3, based partially on the new “express” route between Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds Ferry Dock.
Huh? You mean the 909? What makes that special? It seems like the other 900-series buses. It does bring up an interesting question though: Will CT continue to charge a different rate for their express buses? I doubt it. It made sense when they went into Seattle. But a lot of these are fairly short. The only reason they are considered “express” is because they only operate during peak. For example, the 901 is basically the 412, truncated at Lynnwood TC. It is probably one of the shortest buses that Community Transit runs now. Hard to imagine they will charge extra.
I’m hopeful that Everett voters will vote to merge; CT operates a couple routes within Everett, but at the moment, there’s limited connectivity to the rest of the region because of jurisdictional boundaries.
That being said, it looks like they’ve been discussing this since 2018/19 and public consultation will continue for 2 more years, which seems like the earliest we’d see a ballot measure would be likely 2026. It’s a bit absurd that it takes this long to get the ball rolling on this.
There was a pandemic in between. King County was going to put the Metro Connects measure on the November 2020 ballot, but in March Covid took all the politicians’ attention, and in June it wanted the Harborview measure alone on the ballot so it would have the best chance of passing. That doesn’t explain why it hasn’t put it on since the partial recovery in 2002, but governments can be slow with their non-top priorities.
“It’s still controversial because the mayor argues that Everett is too low income relative to the rest of the county for the property tax rates that community transit has relative to Everett transit (it is higher).”
Huh? I don’t understand this argument at all. What do the property tax rates have to do with any of this?
Right, Tlsgwm. This isn’t Sound Transit with its expanded taxing authority. Both CT and ET have to live within the standard PTBA tax allowance. It just means higher sales taxes. Maybe Everett retailers think they get benefit from having a (very slightly) lower sales tax rate?
Doesn’t CT have a .3% extra transit sales tax that no other transit agency in the state has been allowed?
The Transportation Bill passed by the state legislature back in 2015, ESSB 5987, gave the SnoCo PTBA the authority to ask for an additional .3% sales tax, which it did with Prop 1 that subsequent Nov general election. The exact language to be added to the statute was as follows:
“(3) The legislative body of a public transportation benefit area located in a county with a population of seven hundred thousand or more that also contains a city with a population of seventy-five thousand or more operating a transit system pursuant to chapter 35.958 RCW may submit an authorizing proposition to the voters and, if approved by a majority of persons voting on the proposition, impose a sales and use tax in accordance with the terms of this chapter of one-tenth, two-tenths, or three-tenths of one percent of the selling price, in the case of a sales tax, or value of the article used, in the case of a use tax, in addition to the rate in subsection (1) of14 this section.”
Passage of Prop 1 brought the total (sales) taxing authority for the agency to 1.2%.
Addendum and fwiw….
Here’s a helpful link. This site does a decent job of summarizing the various transit agencies’ structure and taxing authority here in our state. Pierce Transit currently does not utilize the full taxing authority it has been granted by the state as it has not asked its electorate for the additional funding (.6% vs .9%). By my reading of the relevant statutes, this particular PTBA would also be eligible for the additional funding CT sought in 2015 and has since enacted. 2024 would be a good time for PT to get its act together and ask its electorate for an increase in funding.
https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/transportation/integrating-transportation-modes/public-transportation-systems
Anyways regarding what will Sound Transit do.
> If you are suggesting the 594 be canceled when link opens in Federal Way, that turns the trip from 40 minutes to around an hour and a half from Tacoma to Seattle.
I checked the documents, the current (2022?) plan is to truncate both the 590 and 594 to federal way. Routes 574 and 578 would be truncated as well to federal way station
2025 interim map from Metro Connects planning. (it’s a fancy map you can select and highlight the routes)
https://platform.remix.com/project/7063754e?latlng=47.36236,-122.10389,10.647&sidebarCollapsed=true
In the longer range plan of 2050. It seems there are no express busses from tacoma at all. Everyone from downtown tacoma will need take a local bus/streetcar to tacoma dome and then take the light rail/sounder train to seattle.
2050 map from Metro Connects
metro connects https://platform.remix.com/project/ea35df7d?latlng=47.29821,-122.26358,10.677&layer=hifi&sidebarCollapsed=true
“2025 interim map from Metro Connects planning…. 2050 map from Metro Connects”
They’re back? Hooray!!! Now if only Metro would publicize them so that people would know about them. And why are they on a non-Metro website?
Do you see anything that has changed since the 2020 version?
It will take time for me to go through them, but for the current discussion, in the Interim Network, concept 2207 is a Federal Way-Seattle express, a successor to the 577 or 177 (depending on whether it’s all-day or peak-only).
The express routes are all together with 2xxx numbers and a forest green color. So let’s look at the others:
2012: Mercer Island-North Bend. (In the East Link restructure, 30-minute frequency west of Issaquah Highlands, 90 minutes east of it.)
2022: Renton-Issaquah.
2204: Bothell-Duvall.
2206: Mercer Island-Issaquah-Sammamish-Redmond.
2207: Seattle-Federal Way. (Successor to 577 or 177.)
2402: Seattle-Kent-Auburn. (Successor to 578.) I can’t tell if whether would stop at the future Renton TC.
2515: Seattle-Lake City-Bothell. (Successor to 322.)
2516: Smith Cove-SLU-405-Totem Lake. 520 freeway station?
Some of these probably depend on the Metro Connects levy that still hasn’t happened.
> They’re back? Hooray!!! Now if only Metro would publicize them so that people would know about them. And why are they on a non-Metro website?
Remix is the original (transit) company they worked with to form the plan. I’m guessing metro tried hosting it but it got too complicated so they just handed it off to remix to host.
It’s on https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/about/policies
Scroll to What our policies support > click on ‘Metro connects’ > click the Metro Connects * Network link
“I’m guessing metro tried hosting it but it got too complicated so they just handed it off to remix to host.”
It was at kcmetrovision.org: the high-level vision and an interactive map of representative routes. That’s what I meant by “Metro Connects 2016-2020”. We had extensive debates and gave feedback to Metro on the representative routes. In 2020 the map stopped working but the rest of the site remained. METRO DIDN’T TELL THE PUBLIC THE MAP HAD MOVED. The only thing we had then was the RapidRide routes in the PDF report. It looked like Metro had stopped publishing the non-RapidRide routes or had abandoned them. We got occasional leaks of of some of the corridors in other agencies’ documents, so they were apparently still live and available to other government entities, but not to the public. It looked like Metro had stopped publishing them because it didn’t want any more public debates or badmouthing about route concepts it hadn’t committed to in a concrete restructure. That has some merit, but it leaves the public without an integrated countywide concept as a reference point for our deliberations and recommendations. That’s what has been missing since 2020.
@Mike I think they just fixed the link recently. I’ve definitely browsed around and clicked on that link before and it just brought me to the existing king county transit map rather than this remix link.
Yeah, they got rid of the maps, the Internet Archive didn’t have them. Part of the problem is that it is difficult to archive an interactive map. I don’t know if they have a PDF.
I want to discuss the map, and the difference from the previous version (as best I can remember) but I feel like that should go on a different thread.
> 2516: Smith Cove-SLU-405-Totem Lake. 520 freeway station?
It’s to convert the 255 to head to slu, after the reversible mercer to 520 ramp opens. Would combine the 255 and 540 together. Far future idea is that it connects with the SLU station on harrison or if not there then the seattle center station.
I guess I’ll outline other ‘interesting’ things I saw.
## extensions
* This is where I saw the mountlake terrace extension of rapidride E.
* route 40 extension to first hill via yesler
* rapidride A extension north past TIBS to rainier beach station (2050 farther plan).
## not extended
* surprisingly D line is not extended anywhere.
* also surprisingly J line is not extended north of U district even in 2050. instead it’s the separate line route 67
## truncations
* burien H line truncated at delridge
* west seattle c line truncated at avalon
* kent 150 is truncated to rainier beach (possibly boeing access road if built)
* 101 renton is not truncated and continues to seattle
## east-west lines
* route 8 + 11 merger shown as 1061 going from the uptown to slu to capitol hill then madison park
* rapidride b + 271 merger going from uw to bellevue then to crossroads mall. Kinda like this honestly.
Overall thoughts.
They definitely are centering around certain light rail stations as the core. Rainier beach becomes the transfer point for many more lines. Basically kinda like “northgate”. to reach kent or down seatac can use rapidrides there. Around SR 518 it seems they’re having a really hard time choosing which transit option to consolidate around. Whether Burien, TIBS, South Center or Renton. The best idea they still have is the F line to poorly stitch them together
Other notes
There’s also a fancy “Jane” mode. Unfortunately it seems transit isochrone doesn’t quite work. However you can still use it to calculate how much population or many other amenities are nearby a transit stop.
No more guess work and around census tracts. Just drag and drop. For instance federal way transit stop 3k people within 15 minute walk and 15k people within 30 minute walk. It can calculate jobs as well.
They also denote the rapidride candidates with RRIC
## not extended
* surprisingly D line is not extended anywhere.
* also surprisingly J line is not extended north of U district even in 2050. instead it’s the separate line route 67
Agreed. They basically just kept things the same, which is bad. If the D and 40 are both Rapid Ride, then the current routing is stupid. Have the D replace the northern tail of the 40. Have the D keep going straight on 85th and then go to Northgate and hopefully all the way to Lake City (replacing the future 61). If that is too long, split it and overlap in Ballard (not Northgate).
I also agree about the J and the 67. Interestingly enough they have a version of the 73, extended to Richmond Beach. That is the right idea, it should just go on Roosevelt instead. In general they have too many routes.
2050 network expresses. (Assuming Tacoma Dome Link.)
2003: Westwood Village, Fauntleroy, WSJ, 99 tunnel, SLU.
2012: Mercer Island-North Bend. (continuing from Interim plan.)
2016: Seattle-Burien.
2020: Auburn, Maple Valley, Snoqualmie. (Who would ride this? People working at Snoqualmie Casino?)
2021 N: Admiral District, Burien.
2021 S: Burien, SeaTac, Des Moines, Kent. (Note: Kent-KDM Link connector.)
2022: Renton, Issaquah. (continuing)
2028: Auburn, Enumclaw.
2203: Redmond, Duvall.
2204: Bothell, Duvall. (continuing)
2205: Redmond-North Bend. (Via Renton-Fall City Road, not served by 2206.)
2206: Mercer Island-Issaquah-Sammamish-Redmond. (continuing)
2207: Seattle-Federal Way. (continuing)
2402: Seattle-Kent-Auburn. (continuing)
2515: Seattle, Roosevelt, Lake City, Bothell, Woodinville. (continuing, plus extension east of Bothell)
2516: Smith Cove-SLU-405-Totem Lake. (continuing)
The last one is almost RossB’s UW-405-Woodinville route, although it doesn’t go to Woodinville. It has a red color for some reason. I’m not sure if that’s a color mistake or not an express. But it’s a strange corridor for a non-express.
2516: Smith Cove-SLU-405-Totem Lake. (continuing)
The last one is almost RossB’s UW-405-Woodinville route, although it doesn’t go to Woodinville.
Oh wow, you got my hopes up. Sorry no. I would run *express* from Totem Lake to the UW. Continuing to Woodinville is optional. By all means, I would continue somewhere (in Kirkland) but maybe the actual neighborhood of Totem Lake (where the people are) or better yet, that and the nearby college (LWIT).
The 2516 looks like a 255 sent to Uptown instead of the UW, which frankly does not sound like a very good idea.
How much are these Metro Connects maps worth? Because it seems like in some respects the 2025 map is already obsolete. In my neck of the woods proposed route 1009 is a Rapidride version of the 372 from UW Seattle to Bothell. Except in the Lynnwood Link restructure, Metro is planning to turn the 372 to 145th station. It hardly seems logical that Metro will soon abandon serving the SR522 corridor only to come back to it as a Rapidride route.
Other corridors have lost or are losing service, that would get it back many years later. North Bellevue Way, MLK between Madison and Yesler, Lakeview Blvd/Fuhrman Ave, etc. The final implementations include a reevaluation. Metro seems to be unsure about Bothell Way because it has been going back and forth. The full Interim and Final networks assume a funding level that doesn’t exist yet. That’s part of the reason the Northgate, Lynnwood, and East Link restructures don’t have all of it in their area. They have to be revenue-neutral until the Metro Connects network is fully funded, so that requires tradeoffs.
How much are these Metro Connects maps worth?
That and a dollar will get you a paper.
I view it mostly as a bunch of ideas. Some are great, some aren’t. Some of these are clearly dusted off from the last time. Others are new variations. Fun stuff — I like to see it — but my no means should it be viewed as a “We would like to build this” like a restructure.
> In my neck of the woods proposed route 1009 is a Rapidride version of the 372 from UW Seattle to Bothell.
Well, it’s more an example of poor planning. The map shows actually both the stride 522 and 1009 (372) on the map, but they were always unlikely to keep both and duplicate for such a long section.
> How much are these Metro Connects maps worth?
These routes are basically what were first proposed on east link restructure as well.
Or for instance the route 61 rerouting the 20 is basically the ID 1010 which heads to greenwood. Or the 1995 shows them trying to reroute 346/347 to link stations
> Because it seems like in some respects the 2025 map is already obsolete.
They’ll attempt these routes when restructuring and it’s especially important for resolving missing points. For instance one area it originally highlighted was the bad transfers between SR522 brt and the i405 brt. this was fixed with the SR 522/i-405 transit hub. If you view this map you can see the original horrendous detours the sr522 had to take around i405.
They’ll attempt these routes when restructuring and it’s especially important for resolving missing points.
Wanna bet? They never have in the past, and as folks pointed out, a lot of these ideas are already out of date. Other ideas are simply too timid. These are just ideas. They don’t have much relevance to what the planners actually propose.
@Ross
> They don’t have much relevance to what the planners actually propose
Aren’t these routes pretty similar what they proposed for the east link connections in the first phase?
checked the documents, the current (2022?) plan is to truncate both the 590 and 594 to federal way. Routes 574 and 578 would be truncated as well to federal way station
Which means anyone trying to get from Tacoma to Seattle is screwed. This is just as ST was on the verge of providing all-day 15 minute service between the two cities. Oh well. They will probably increase frequency to every 15 minutes. I guess there is that. By my calculation, not counting the transfer, it will take an extra 15 minutes to get from Tacoma to Downtown Seattle (or vice versa). This will erase the savings that comes from increasing frequency.
An increase in frequency will make up for the transfer to get to the airport (or Angle Lake, Tukwila, Rainier Valley, etc.). The ideal would be if they just increased frequency (to every fifteen minutes) and then sent every bus back on the freeway to downtown Seattle after stopping to connect to Link at Federal Way.
Unless Sounder is full, the 590 seems like Tacoma’s 515, and the 592 seems like Lakewood’s 515, except in those cases they are time-competitive with light rail. Off-peak, the 594 easily wins.
The 515 is a bizarre bus. It is only designed to minimize crowding on the train. It is temporary, and may not be very effective, because it mimics Link too much. It only serves places that Link serves.
The 590, in contrast, serves Downtown Tacoma. Thus it provides a one-seat ride from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle, something neither Sounder nor Link will ever provide.
The 592 is similar, but it only offers one additional stop beyond what Sounder offers. This stop (SR 512) picked up around 125 riders (before the pandemic). Since ridership on that bus is less than half of what it used to be, it is probably less than half that now.
Then there is the speed. Sounder is fast, but from Tacoma/Lakewood it takes a somewhat indirect path (avoiding hills in the way). Complicating matters is that traffic can slow down the bus, especially during rush hour. Without traffic, the bus is fastest, followed by a transfer to Sounder, followed by a transfer to Link. But there is traffic during rush hour. Despite that, lots of people ride buses like the 590 and 592, which only run during peak. Even from the Lakewood and Tacoma stations, the bus has a bit more ridership than Sounder, suggesting it isn’t (or wasn’t) that slow.
It is a judgment call. You could make the case for continuing the midday 512 after Lynnwood Link, because it will be a bit faster than transferring to Link, especially for the people asked to transfer. To me, Link from there is fast enough, and there aren’t enough riders north of Lynnwood. Same goes for the Lakewood/Tacoma and Sounder. I would truncate the express buses in Federal Way when Sounder is running. This despite the fact that the buses are often faster than Sounder (and generally popular) and despite the fact that this would inconvenience some riders that have a one-seat ride (from Downtown Tacoma or SR 512). In other words, there aren’t enough people losing time with the transfer to Sounder and Sounder is fast enough.
However, for midday riders (when Sounder is not running) the transfer to Link in Federal Way Link is not fast enough. Link is slower than Sounder which is slower than a bus. Unlike the 512, all of the existing riders would be asked to transfer. I think it is worth running the express buses in the middle of the day, but not during peak (when Sounder is running). Again, that is just a judgement call, but that is what I would do.
This seems to have flown under the radar here:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/20/sound-transit-unveils-pierce-county-express-bus-service-reductions/
Beginning with the March service change, route 590 trips will begin at Tacoma Dome Station, with the downtown Tacoma segment eliminated. This will penalize riders transferring from most downtown PT routes, which do not serve TDS. Apparently the 594 will continue to serve Downtown Tacoma in the off-peak.
T.K., we are definitely tracking this historic development here in Tacoma.
You wrote, “Apparently the 594 will continue to serve Downtown Tacoma in the off-peak.” How did you come to this understanding? It was not clear to me if the change would truncate all Tacoma services at the Dome.
ST’s documents are vague. Your guess is as good as mine.
I get the impression that they are trying to slip this by as quietly as possible to avoid arousing much opposition.
I could see them maintaining the 594 routing through downtown because it serves off-peak times when it particularly hard (or otherwise impossible) to get from TDS to Commerce. If not, how is someone supposed to connect from the 594 to the last Route 1 bus, which is an hour after the T Line stops running?
It will never happen, but PT should really route most of the local service through downtown to TDS and eliminate the duplicative Commerce transit mall. Unfortunately they need the staging capacity of both locations.
Well, they could run their new Tram past 10pm so people can transfer out of the Tacoma Dome. That’s absurdly early to shut down a new quarter billion dollar investment.
@TK
> You wrote, “Apparently the 594 will continue to serve Downtown Tacoma in the off-peak.” How did you come to this understanding? It was not clear to me if the change would truncate all Tacoma services at the Dome.
The 594 will continue to run to downtown tacoma when it runs — however they are dropping some midday runs.
> ST’s documents are vague. Your guess is as good as mine.
It’s on page 7 and 8 of the powerpoint.
major service changes
* 590 – Suspend downtown Tacoma segment. Tacoma Link provides alternative service between 10th & Commerce and Tacoma Dome Station
* 590 – suspend ~1/2 of all weekday trips between Tacoma and Seattle.
Note: Coordinate schedule with Sounder S Line and Route 595 between Tacoma Dome and downtown Seattle to provide alternatives
* 580 – Suspend service. Average of 3 riders per trip, parallel Pierce Transit route serves same stops
minor service changes:
* 577 – Federal Way, Suspend all midday trips and most Sunday trips, direct riders to Route 578
* 578 – Puyallup – Federal Way, Suspend some evening trips, preserve all-day service
* 594 – Lakewood, Suspend some weekday trips and many Sunday trips with low ridership
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2024/Presentation%20-%20ST%20Express%20Service%20Levels%201-18-24.pdf#page=8
Thank you for that, WL.
One has to presume that cuts to the 594’s city center segment might eventually be on the table for the same reason the 590’s are now. It’s not as if the T Line stops running right when the 590 does.
The cuts are a disaster. They are without precedent, they harm the functionality of our transit network, and they expose the impact that poor light rail planning has had on Pierce County. Had there been no Tacoma Link line, no one would ever dream of such cuts to a major regional center. Now that Tacoma Link is likely to be a separate rail system forever—with its once ST Board and LRP approved integration now all but forgotten—a Tacoma Dome transfer is the inevitable consequence. People today assume this was always the plan, and those affiliated with the project assert that the transfer constitutes some Tacoma equivalent of a Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. Please, the logistically-challenged mess that will be Tacoma Dome Station is nothing of the sort.
With the T Line not serving the regional purpose for which it was built, it is irrelevant to the core mission of Sound Transit. That’s why the ST Express buses have been operating into actual Tacoma since it opened in 2003. Suddenly, however, it is a duplicative parallel line that can be cancelled (without any public discussion of its value or a plan for its restoration). Make it make sense! Worse, the T-Line has less peak-hour headways than it did in 2003 and, with the non-transit dedicated design of the Hilltop Extension, it will lose the ability to adhere to its schedule. Tacoma Link is deliberately semi-exclusive ROW and is the ST prototype for Link in the Rainier Valley and Spring District. It is ready for the 1-Line integration that will now never come.
It is my working theory that Tacoma is on track to become one of the largest West Coast cities without regional transit to its city center. A silver lining is that, perhaps, we will evaluate our ability to stomach bad transit and poor connections before permanent cuts are enacted. Maybe we can course correct ahead of Tacoma Dome Link opening in 2035 or later.
To the commentator above who spoke of terminating buses to Tacoma Dome, respectfully no. The tail should not wag the dog. Sound Transit’s railways should be complimenting our local transit system, not completely upending it. Regional light rail transit should terminate in Downtown Tacoma. To force a resource starved agency like Pierce Transit to add route tails and deviations to pick up the lousy Tacoma-area light rail station is not good practice, especially when most people are not seeking to go there (or beyond it).
Just build the original ST vision for the subarea.
(P.S., there is plenty of blame to be shared for the light rail “situation” in Pierce County. This doesn’t rest exclusively on ST—not one bit).
ST is rightfully to blame for a lot of things, but the location of Tacoma Dome Station is not one of them. It was a Pierce Transit project whose planning predates ST and was constructed in the first year of ST’s existence.
Unfortunately in order to have a functional transit network in Tacoma it is necessary for doglegs into TDS. Everett Station is a similar situation. Prior to it being built, ET used Wetmore Avenue as a main transfer point much like PT uses Commerce. Those routes are now routed through downtown on their way to Everett Station.
I was wondering can they not just move Tacoma dome light rail station over 0.3 miles to the west at 25th and pacific?
Then the busses wouldn’t need to make a detour at least and could continue straight
“I was wondering can they not just move Tacoma dome light rail station over 0.3 miles to the west at 25th and pacific?”
I’ve long advocated doing this very thing, WL. I’ve also suggested putting the station under I-705 between A and C Streets — making Pacific Ave much closer but not being too far from the Sounder platform.
The big drawback is the positioning of the Tacoma Dome parking garage. It would put it further away. Plus, it still would not reach Downtown or UWT that well. It’s ok to make transferring riders walk a few more hundred feet or ride a few more minutes — as long as those parking get close!
It’s too bad that ST has decided that all future Link stations have to be expensive multi-level monuments – all to serve a literal streetcar technology. A simple transition to a surface running track with one more simple ground-level station (or perhaps more radically placing Link on the surface east of Tacoma Dome with two surface stations) is never put on the table.
There’s nothing like seeing leaders and engineers dreaming of that photo op on opening day — and ignoring the public’s need for several decades.
T.K.,
I don’t blame ST for the location of the Tacoma Dome park and ride. It is an excellent location for one, and Pierce Transit made a good choice to construct the giant facility. I am well aware of its history, general timelines, planning circumstances, etc.
What can be attributed to Sound Transit and area planning bodies is letting go of the thread—letting go of the regional transit planning vision to bring the light rail spine to Downtown Tacoma. This would have centralized transit connections there, where they have existed since the 1880s. This is one of the foundational charges of Sound Transit/RTA, and it is why the Tacoma Link starter line was built as a stranded investment under Sound Move. Light rail planning had no relationship with Tacoma Dome beyond the fact that the light rail would ultimately pass it by on its way to Tacoma. In the interim, the T Line (as the rail service became known) would feed riders to Sounder at the Dome for a rail-based trip to Seattle, and vice versa.
Route tails and doglegs to TDS are not needed as TDS alone is not an urgent destination to serve. Pierce Transit functions fine without it, as is the case today. Most riders are not going there, and those that do drive alone (about 8 in 10 people). Perhaps the Route 1 can be given a detour, but such a detour in the past was eliminated. The enhanced bus overlay will terminate there, so there’s that. The 574 could easily be made to serve Pacific/24th, picking up that major connection. It would be ludicrous to give detours and tails to the bus trunk routes 2 and 3, and Pierce Transit simply cannot afford to do so for their many other lines.
The proper response to this planning dilemma is to integrate the 1-Line with Tacoma Link for either 2 or 4-car trains. Sound Transit has the financial resources to do this. ST Express runs to Downtown until then. Otherwise, we should force a T Line transfer and avoid most local bus deviations, accepting that we have a needlessly illogical system at great expense.
Not sure what the situation in Everett is, but Everett Station seems much better situated to access its downtown than Tacoma Dome is to Tacoma. Will Everett Link go to the station or to downtown?
Tacoma Dome Link must be planned in a manner that allows for an extension to the Tacoma Mall, per the ST Long Range Plan. Try fitting a 4-car station under 705, but which also puts you over Pacific Avenue for an eventual uphill climb along South Tacoma Way toward the mall. Spoiler alert: you can’t.
Furthermore, the more west you go, the worse the connections are with buses and heavy rail, which defeats the purpose of the Dome station.
Of course, we could just ramp the trains down to Tacoma Link and exploit that existing investment, which is why it was built in the first place. For those who wonder what that integration would look like, a similar project to that is underway now in Sacramento, their “light rail modernization project”.
> Tacoma Dome Link must be planned in a manner that allows for an extension to the Tacoma Mall, per the ST Long Range Plan. Try fitting a 4-car station under 705, but which also puts you over Pacific Avenue for an eventual uphill climb along South Tacoma Way toward the mall. Spoiler alert: you can’t.
Just place it at grade on the ground. It’s the end of the line, there’s not much time savings from elevated here. There’s more than enough space under the 705 there. There’s extra parking lots south of e 25th st. Maybe worse case we have to demolish that pacific chevron.
For extending to pacific mall, I don’t quite understand why that is a blocker? there’s plenty of distance afterwards to build an elevated alignment. Or if you are building an elevated alignment over the 705 — then what is stopping one from building an elevated station at pacific ave?
“Tacoma Dome Link must be planned in a manner that allows for an extension to the Tacoma Mall, per the ST Long Range Plan. ”
Why can’t T Line go to Tacoma Mall rather than 1 Line, and the T-Line/ 1 Line transfer be closer to Downtown? The T Kine could run at the surface up Pacific Ave and over on 38th St to reach the Mall area.
I don’t see much demand between Tacoma Mall and any of the Pierce County Link stations anyway. A surface T Line to Tacoma Mall would likely generate more riders.
The Pierce ST Express reduction is because of the driver shortage I thought. The T Line and the Tacoma Dome extension are irrelevant to that, because the T Line has few drivers, and the Tacoma Dome extension isn’t operating yet. Metro downsized the schedule last September to match its driver availability. King/Snohomish ST Express deferred expansions on the 512, 522, 535, and 550. Pierce ST Express hadn’t done that, so it has to now.
The changes seem to mean everybody in downtown Tacoma will have to take the T Line or a local bus to Tacoma Dome to reach ST Express? Is this correct? The 20-minute frequency of the T Line will cause long transfer waits.
This doesn’t say anything about what ST Express will be like when Federal Way Link opens. That’s 2+ years away and the date is uncertain, and ST hasn’t said what ST Express will do then. It had some scenarios in January 2016 that had all routes truncated at KDM (except the 574), but that has been superceded and ST hasn’t said anything more. The driver shortage will hopefully be less severe by then.
I agree with longer-term ideas like extending Central Link to downtown Tacoma (Pacific Ave), or allowing the T Line to continue on Central Link tracks to SeaTac. Since everything south of CID will be maximum 8-10 minutes in ST’s planned schedule, that leaves a lot of time for T Line trains to slip in in between.
I disagree with any more work on the Tacoma Mall extension. That’s silly, and the current state of the Tacoma Mall area underwhelms and does not show resolve for a dense bustling future. Central Link should be redirected to downtown Tacoma in ST4. Since there’s no commitment to Tacoma Mall yet, that seems compatible with ST3.
The issue is taking the elevated railway (resting over either 25th St or the location that was once Freighthouse Square, as the likeliest options), crossing over the Sounder line, then going under 705 while on a bridge over the gulch, all while avoiding the interstate’s columns. There really isn’t an attractive option to place a 4-car Link station there, especially if ST toward the mall. The geometry of that is just not favorable to the concept.
And what do you get in return for that huge effort and expense? Not a lot, I argue.
Tacoma Dome Station is a decent station for what it is, but it shouldn’t be *the* Tacoma light rail station. This idea just makes it worse.
The point about the mall extension being a T Line service over Central Link is an excellent one, and one that I endorse. However, only a handful of people are even tracking that project (which would likely be done under an ST4 offering, although some planning is funded by ST3). Those that are tracking the project often assume it will be a Central Link extension as the Sound Transit long range plan says the Link Spine must now end at Tacoma Mall.
Still, as with a T Line TCC extension using 6th Ave, informing the public that other options are available is a big endeavor. This is another example where we have options to consider and we need to grapple with them.
Mike, yes, the “temporary” cancellation of ST services here is due to a driver shortage. The specific targeting of Downtown Tacoma 590 service is a consequence of light rail construction and planning over the decades. This truncation would never occur without it. The presumption now is that people will transfer to the T Line at the Dome, just as they would transfer from Central Link to the T Line after Tacoma Dome Link opens. If this transfer is objectionable today, then it is an indictment of long-range plans that ask us to do the same in 2035.
Per the Pierce Transit CEO, 590/594 will continue to operate to Seattle after FWLE opens. We will see if that holds true, and there is no telling what happens to buses after TDLE.
> The issue is taking the elevated railway (resting over either 25th St or the location that was once Freighthouse Square, as the likeliest options), crossing over the Sounder line, then going under 705 while on a bridge over the gulch, all while avoiding the interstate’s columns. There really isn’t an attractive option to place a 4-car Link station there, especially if ST toward the mall. The geometry of that is just not favorable to the concept.
I don’t really understand your confusion around the at-grade station near pacific avenue. I mean if we did the Tacoma link combination you suggest the 4-car link trains most likely it would run at-grade basically on the same route on 25th avenue.
“Why can’t T Line go to Tacoma Mall rather than 1 Line”
In the run-up to ST3, Pierce boardmembers wanted Central Link to be extended to Tacoma Mall and said that would be the final terminus. Snohomish boardmembers said the same thing about Everett College. (It would also serve downtown Everett in between.) The ST3 budget couldn’t stretch for these, so the boardmembers just declared it their desire for ST4.
The long-range plan revison adopted in 2014 says (PDF page 14 on map), “3. Added a potential light rail corridor from Downtown Tacoma to Tacoma Mall and DuPont, and defined the terminus of the light rail spine at Tacoma Mall”.
Potential means potential, not definite. The wording seems to allow the T Line to be extended to Tacoma Mall and DuPoint, since it says “downtown Tacoma” rather than “Tacoma Dome”. Of course, that depends on whether Tacoma Dome is in downtown Tacoma. That depends on how the City of Tacoma defines downtown Tacoma.
So ST may have to make the Tacoma Dome end compatible with a Tacoma Mall extension since it’s in the long-range plan, and it can’t spend money on a stub toward downtown Tacoma since it’s not in the long-range plan. But how much money would ST have to spend on either of these anyway. If it simply leaves the track end pointing west, wouldn’t that be compatible with either extension?
So what needs to happen is, ST needs to change the long-range plan to make Real Downtown Tacoma the final spine terminus. Then everything else can follow. I’m not holding my breath for the Pierce boardmembers or the entire board to do so. But that would be the way to improve the network. Then the board can deliberate whether it’s worth extending the T Line to Tacoma Mall and maybe Lakewood and DuPont, or whether upgrading Route 3 might be a more efficient use of resources.
Tacoma Mall is a regional growth center, so that’s why ST is thinking of extending Central Link there. It’s like how Kirkland redirected growth to Totem Lake, and Issaquah to northwest Issaquah. But it’s completely dumb to bypass downtown Tacoma. Tacoma Dome P&R Station is fine if it must have a P&R; at least it’s outside of pedestrians’ way in downtown Tacoma. Bellevue did it right with South Bellevue P&R. Lynnwood, Renton, and Burien did it wrong with the garage right downtown next to the transit center in pedestrians’ way.
“I don’t see much demand between Tacoma Mall and any of the Pierce County Link stations anyway. ”
Every city is hoping their regional growth centers will get a four-star hotel and high-paying corporate headquarters. If Tacoma Mall gets that, then supposedly out-of-state people will travel from SeaTac airport to it, and workers in South King County will commute to it.
> “Why can’t T Line go to Tacoma Mall rather than 1 Line”
Why not. The BRT expansion studies studied a route to Tacoma Mall via Tacoma Way and S Pine. (B route). It goes straight to the existing streetcar line, I don’t see why the T line couldn’t follow that route and reach the mall.
Or if a bus route is desired to the mall, then extend the T line south down pacific avenue instead.
https://www.piercetransit.org/brt-expansion-study/
Appendix B
WL, I think I just misunderstood your concept. There are many scenarios that could be explored that are just not.
I performed a feasibility study of a 4-car Tacoma Link conversion using Central Link design standards, based on the original ST integration analysis (which presumed 2-car trains, which is what Tacoma Link is already designed to be expanded to). I found that expanding the at-grade 25th Street station in a manner that avoids 705 and Sounder, while also allowing for minimum curve radiuses, is not possible in my judgement. I chose to eliminate the station outright in the 4-car option. It was more valuable to get to Downtown Tacoma, and this stop became an impediment to that (Puyallup Avenue would avoid this sacrifice, but ST isn’t even studying that route within the TDLE DEIS, which is an error).
We don’t necessarily need 4-car trains in Tacoma. It *could* occur, but so could 4-car trains going to the Dome at peak-hour, with 2-car trains going into Downtown at all other times. My analysis was done to remove a gap in our knowledge about feasiblility. No such evaluation of light rail to Downtown Tacoma had been performed since ST2, particularly in such detail.
If you wanted to terminate Central Link at 25/Pacific, I suspect that it could work. It would need analysis. It would also mandate a LRP review and an early resolution to the Mall dilemma. Otherwise, to build a station in this manner would violate the terms of the LRP, which stipulates Mall service. I don’t see a pathway from this hypothetical station to the Mall.
Also, is this option worth it for one additional station at 25th and Pacific, which is barely an improvement? (Although it is an improvement indeed, which speaks to how poor TDS is).
I am all for any ideas that improve our system. But there isn’t anyone in leadership asking for that here. I get it to some extent: once TDLE opens, then we will experience our version of the dog catching up with the car. The issue is that, even with delays, this moment is fast approaching and we aren’t preparing ourselves for it. While Seattle debates multi-million dollar studies for new stations along corridors already well served by light rail, Tacoma is hurtling toward major headaches, in my opinion.
“Every city is hoping their regional growth centers will get a four-star hotel and high-paying corporate headquarters. If Tacoma Mall gets that, then supposedly out-of-state people will travel from SeaTac airport to it, and workers in South King County will commute to it.”
Uh… wouldn’t that hotel/ corporate headquarters be better sited in Downtown Tacoma anyway? After all, it is much closer to the Dome, UWT, theaters and nightlife, intercity trains, museums and even hospitals. If I was from Chicago or New York and didn’t want to be stranded in a dull building, I’d want to be in Downtown Tacoma rather than the mall area. Plus, a taller building would have much better views Downtown.
“(Puyallup Avenue would avoid this sacrifice, but ST isn’t even studying that route within the TDLE DEIS, which is an error).”
Thanks for saying this! Given the hundreds of millions extra to build an aerial alignment rather than simply reconfigure Puyallup Ave is one of those ugly situations that happen when leaders want to build pretty structures rather than systems for riders to use.
If I was from Chicago or New York and didn’t want to be stranded in a dull building, I’d want to be in Downtown Tacoma rather than the mall area.
Exactly. Downtown Tacoma has charm. A surprising amount for a small city on the West Coast. The idea that a mall would be more attractive is just a silly 1970s mindset. I get that malls destroyed downtown areas across the country. I get that malls have more recently experienced a survival-of-the-fittest situation. The ones that reinvented themselves as a mix of shops, apartments and the like have done well. But they aren’t a regional, let alone national attraction. If someone visits Seattle from out of town do you take them to U-Village? Of course not. It is fine … as a mall. You take them to somewhere that has character like Pike Place, Pioneer Square, the UW campus, Queen Anne or the numerous parks that offer something special.
Tacoma Mall is a regional growth center, so that’s why ST is thinking of extending Central Link there. It’s like how Kirkland redirected growth to Totem Lake, and Issaquah to northwest Issaquah. But it’s completely dumb to bypass downtown Tacoma. Tacoma Dome P&R Station is fine if it must have a P&R; at least it’s outside of pedestrians’ way in downtown Tacoma. Bellevue did it right with South Bellevue P&R. Lynnwood, Renton, and Burien did it wrong with the garage right downtown next to the transit center in pedestrians’ way.
I agree. It really isn’t that complicated. The main destination in Tacoma is downtown. The Dome, on the other hand, has a big parking lot. The parking lot is fine, but it isn’t the destination. It makes sense to serve both, like Bellevue did.
The fact that Tacoma Dome Link will not serve the main destination in the area is a huge failure. It would be like East Link ending at South Bellevue. Handy for folks going into Seattle, but practically useless for those headed to Bellevue. Maybe Kemper Freeman would be happy with that, but the vast majority of businesses in Bellevue — as well as city hall — would not allow it.
We really don’t know what the future holds, but I think everyone who looks at the economies of cities would tell you this. If you have a downtown area with any charm (and Tacoma has a lot) then leverage it. Put all your chips there and roll the dice. Tacoma seems to be doing the opposite.
Now, ideally what would happen is that Sounder would extend right into Downtown Tacoma (using the old station). It would stop both places (Tacoma Dome and Downtown Tacoma). The trip from Tacoma to Seattle would be faster (it would be part of an overall effort to make travel between Seattle and Portland faster). The trains down to Portland would bypass Downtown Tacoma, but (at least some) of the Sounder trains would go right into the heart of downtown. Tacoma would be connected to SeaTac with 15 minutes buses (which would be the current situation if not for the driver shortage). Folks from various places along the way (like Fife) would have a bus right into downtown Tacoma as well (stopping at the dome along the way as well).
“ It would be like East Link ending at South Bellevue.”
An appropriate comparison! I would have compared it to ending Link from the south at either CID or Stadium Station.
CID at least gets you the ID/Pioneer Square walkshed and numerous key transit connections. The equivalent in Tacoma would be if Central Link reached as far as Union Station (which would be an outstanding improvement over current plans).
The Tacoma Dome Station equivalent in Bellevue is definitely South Bellevue. For Seattle, depending upon what you consider downtown, it is either Stadium or even Sodo.
What MetroConnects says about Federal Way truncations is a weak indication of what ST is planning.
Agreed.
Some comments about BRT:
Real BRT with dedicated and fully separate lanes is actually incredibly expensive to build and operate.
LR is often cheaper to build, and it is almost always cheaper in the long run. In addition to being more higher capacity.
It’s one of the reasons we have no true BRT in this state, whereas we do (finally) have rail.
The last sentence implies that we in the United States know what we are doing when it comes to transit. It is widely accepted that the U. S. is dead last when it comes to transit. Not outcomes (that could be blamed on our lack of density) but planning, costs, you name it. So the fact that our state doesn’t have anything you would call “true BRT” probably just means that we just aren’t good at transit.
The idea of obsessing over “true BRT” is pointless. You might as well talk about a “true metro”, or a “true subway”. Consider Link. It is not fully grade separated. It is not automated (one of the major advantages of rail). Everything else is a judgement call (just like BRT). Stop spacing is not very good — even within the most urban parts of the city. In that regard it is more like regional or commuter rail rather than a standard metro. Similarly, urban coverage is not very good. The future plans (although massive) will not dramatically increase urban coverage. Frequency is not terrible — there are worse systems (although my guess is they are all in the U. S.) but it isn’t that good either. System integration is not that good — modal share is poor.
But saying Link is “not a real metro” misses the point. Who cares? It does what it does. It has good things and bad things, just like every other rail system, and every bus line.
But in terms of cost, you are simply wrong. Brisbane built a good BRT system years ago. Jarrett Walker wrote about it. More recently, they considered replacing it with a metro. To quote the Wikipedia article: In March 2017, while keeping the same name, the project was redefined with the project shifting to operating high capacity bi-articulated buses on the existing busway, reducing the cost by one-third. [End Quote.] Thus the “Brisbane Metro” will actually not be a metro, but will have buses instead. How very confusing. Who would use a term like “metro” to refer to buses. Oh yeah. Anyway.
From a capital standpoint, a lot of it has to do with leveraging what you have. The same goes for rail. Brisbane also has rail. Almost all of it was built in the 19th century. There will be a major expansion of rail service with the Cross River Rail. This is similar to S-Bahn systems: Leverage the existing rail, and then add new stations in the center of town.
But existing roadways can be leveraged as well. The Metro Bus Tunnel did exactly that. Consider the 41. This could easily have been considered open BRT. During rush hour it traveled the city streets before it got to Northgate (this is the “open” part). Then it got on the freeway, and would not make a stop or encounter significant congestion before it got to Convention Place Station. From there until the other end of downtown it would again be free of congestion or traffic lights. Yet building this wasn’t that expensive, simply because they leveraged what was there already (I-5).
Same goes for West Seattle. It would be much cheaper to replace West Seattle Link with something similar, simply because you can leverage the existing infrastructure. To provide the same sort of separation and consistent speed as the future Link line would require some work, but it would be much cheaper than what they plan on building, simply because there is so much there already. An open BRT concept would work quite well, given that there no plans for improving travel speeds within West Seattle itself, unless you count the trips between the Junction, Avalon and the one station at Delridge. That can be done quite adequately with surface buses.
As far as capacity goes, you are correct. The primary advantage of rail is capacity. Specifically, one train can carry way more riders than one bus. This also feeds into lower operational cost. But even this gets complicated. If you don’t use the capacity, then you have saved nothing. Running a single bus is actually cheaper than running a single train. It’s just that with a train, you can run fewer. But running less often is actually worse for the rider. Thus trains really only make sense when you have enough ridership that you would otherwise have to run so many buses that riders no longer benefit (i. e. every few minutes).
Choosing between rail or buses is not that simple. It depends a lot on the trip patterns and existing infrastructure. This is a good general guide. I think every transit expert would agree with the guidelines mentioned in that report.
“But saying Link is “not a real metro” misses the point. Who cares? It does what it does.”
The point is what you said earlier: “the U. S. is dead last when it comes to transit.” It’s absolutely ridiculous that a city of 720,000 in a (Lynnwood-Redmond-KDM) metro of of some 1.3 million doesn’t have a real metro. I can imagine visitors thinking “WTF” when they hear Seattle has only “light rail” — both the name and the actual network, or that it only runs every 10 minutes midday instead of every 2-5 minutes. And that actual network makes people spend more dead time waiting, and slower trips, and not having direct access to more stations. That depresses peoples’ ability to contribute to the economy, gives them less non-car mobility options, and leaves them less satisfied, compared to a comprehensive metro rail + bus network like London has or Chicago, DC, and Vancouver sort of have.
@Mike Orr,
“ I can imagine visitors thinking “WTF” when they hear Seattle has only “light rail” ”
Got a good chuckle out of that one.
I used to have visitors come stay with me in the bad old days before LR and they would express shock at the traffic and then say something like, “What the heck? Seattle doesn’t have Light Rail? Look at all this traffic. Seattle needs Light Rail!”
Very few of my visitors ever said Seattle needed a subway, or “metro”.
But hey, now Seattle has a rather beefy Light Rail system that some people actually call “Light Metro”.
It doesn’t go everywhere (yet), and the frequency still caps out at 8 mins. But by this time next year the system will be substantially expanded and have two lines (disconnected). And by the end of next year we should have two connected lines and 4 min frequencies in the urban core, exactly what you say we need.
So be encouraged. All good things take time, and good things are coming.
Look at all this traffic. Seattle needs Light Rail!”
I’m afraid such sentiments are common, and at least partially explain why transit sucks in the United States. Folks fixate on the wrong thing (traffic).
It’s absolutely ridiculous that a city of 720,000 in a (Lynnwood-Redmond-KDM) metro of of some 1.3 million doesn’t have a real metro.
But that really doesn’t matter. Look, imagine it was heavy rail. Same stations, same frequency, but heavy rail. This would make only a tiny bit of difference. You would have a little bit more capacity. You would be able to go a little bit faster on the big straightaways. You would basically be like … BART. And that’s the problem. We are building the light rail version of BART. We aren’t alone. It is actually the one, quintessentially American style of building mass transit, and it fails, miserably. The one time we deviated from it, and built a more traditional subway system (in D. C.) it worked extremely well. Of course that struggles because of lack of maintenance (another American failing — we want to cut ribbons, not maintain what we have).
There are several key elements to a good mass transit system. Allow me to grade our system on these while listing them.
1) Good stop spacing in the urban core. You better have a damn good reason to have stops really far apart. BART doesn’t, and neither do we. Link Grade: D.
2) Good urban coverage. This is similar to the first one, but also a matter of priorities. Do you serve distant suburban towns before covering key urban centers. Link Grade: F
3) Good frequency. Automation helps, but is not required. Link Grade: C.
4) Bus integration. This is especially important if rail only covers a small subset of the region. For most American cities this is the case, simply because so many people live in areas not easy to serve by rail. Grade: D. (Our suburban transfer stations are very good, but within the city, our rail makes it difficult to build a good bus/train network).
Overall Grade: D. There are definitely worse systems in the United States. There may be worse systems outside the U. S., but probably only because they didn’t spend money on it. America is really the only country to spend so much money building the type of things we build (miles of brand new, very expensive rail lines next to the freeway often well before covering the urban core). Even the Canadians are better than us. Consider our nearest neighbor, Vancouver. Here is how I would grade them:
1) Good stop spacing in spacing the urban core. Grade A. Given their street grid, I don’t know if I would add more stops. Maybe here and there, but there are no obvious omissions.
2) Good urban coverage: Grade B. It should cover more of the West End of downtown, but that is a bit of a quibble. Broadway all the way to UBC should be rail before it extends to the more distant suburbs. That was the plan, but it got shot down, and now they are building things out of order. But they will cover the most important part of Broadway fairly soon.
3) Good frequency. Grade A. It resembles a European mass transit system. Automation definitely helps, but high ridership does as well. (You can have high frequency without automation.)
4) Bus integration: Grade A. Jarrett Walker said it best: Vancouver has an almost perfect grid. This is largely do to the design of SkyTrain.
Overall Grade: A- (or at the worst, B+).
“Look at all this traffic. Seattle needs Light Rail!””
I can’t believe a visitor would say that. They’d say, “Seattle needs a subway/metro.” The idea that light rail is adequate for a downtown Seattle’s size is just as strange as using the “light” prefix. Why would a visitor think light rail is more appropriate or effective than any other kind of rail? Maybe if they come from a light rail city and are used to the term. But even those people have probably heard of the word “subway” or “metro”, and would notice that downtown Seattle looks more like Manhattan than like downtown Dallas or San Jose.
Now, if we had a German-style high-quality tram network with a downtown tunnel, that could be appropriate for Seattle like it is for Dusseldorf. And the DSTT is similar to it. But we don’t have the multiple tram lines to several parts of the city; we just have SODO/MLK, and it is the S-Bahn to the suburbs with wide stop spacing, rather than being a city tram network alongside the S-Bahn. I don’t think people would use “light rail” to refer to those European-style networks, without all the other connotations American light rail has. (I.e., not having a downtown tunnel, being slow, running along freeways, or being watered down like useless American streetcars.)
Anyways regarding the open thread topics
> The Swift Orange Line starts in March connecting Lynnwood Station to Edmonds College, Alderwood Mall, Ash Way P&R, Mill Creek, and McCollum P&R.
Interesting it’s kind of a minor change from an “open” brt of route 115 and 116 to a “closed” brt from edmondds college to mill creek.
But either way seems to be a more frequent service for me to reach alderwood mall so that’s nice.
Honestly I’m a bit confused by the northern end point being “mccolum park and ride”. I guess they chose the 115 leg https://www.communitytransit.org/route/115/table as having more ridership than the silver firs one? But why not extend slightly to 128th St SW & 4th Ave W (future mariner station) where there’s a grocery store at least
I don’t understand McCollum. Why is there a P&R so near Mariner P&R? What’s the strategic advantage of McCollum’s location? Is there a concentration of retail and housing there like there is in Mill Creek? Should the Orange continue further to Mariner P&R? Earlier Swift Orange descriptions had the eastern terminus at Silver Firs. Is that the same location as McCollumn P&R, just a different name, or is it a different routing or extension?
I don’t understand McCollum.
Good question. Maybe McCollum came first, and then they added Mariner, because it was easier to serve. They are both really big, but I can imagine they would fill up if there weren’t a lot of other options. It is in a big play field, so they can’t sell it off for development (unlike some park and rides in King County where they are doing that). It is fairly common for bus routes to initially be very much oriented towards park and rides, and then become more traditional over time. The 41 was that way. They ended up getting rid of one of the park and ride lots and converting it to a park, as frequency on the long version increased. Basically they moved towards smaller satellite park and ride lots, more informal park and ride lots, and just people walking to the bus stop.
Should the Orange continue further to Mariner P&R?
Maybe, but that wouldn’t get you much. No one would ride it between Ash Way and Mariner. They would ride the 201/202 (or 109). For Mariner to SR 527 you would be duplicating the Green Line. I doubt that is justified. The other connection is a small part of 164th to an even smaller part of 128th (including Mariner). It also doesn’t make sense for a transfer (assuming the Green Line is adequate).
Earlier Swift Orange descriptions had the eastern terminus at Silver Firs. Is that the same location as McCollumn P&R, just a different name, or is it a different routing or extension?
From what I can tell, Silver Firs is further east. It is where the 412 and 416 terminate. That would mean the bus would turn east instead of west once it reached 128th. From a coverage standpoint, this makes more sense. I think the problem is that it is just very low density around there. I think it ends at McCollum not because it is a great spot, but because it is available. There may be some value in doubling up service along SR 527, but it is possible if there was a layover spot close to 164th & SR 527 the bus would just end there.
What might make more sense is to go to Silver Lake (not Silver Firs). You could end at the South Everett Freeway Station. That would mean continuing straight on SR 527. There is some density there. But that gets you into territory operated by Everett Transit. This is another example of why it would be ideal for the agencies to merge.
McCollum is a popular park situated on a busy road, 128th/132nd St. There’s no retail center and the nearest cluster of residents is .5 mi away. McCollum came after Mariner. You bring up a good question: why it exists??? Have no clue. However, the reality is that it’s popular with peak commuters and has solid ridership on the 412 and 860. These riders come as far as Hwy 9 (I used to work with CT and am familiar with ridership demographics of Snohomish County). Outside of the peak periods, McCollum has next to zero ridership.
Mariner P&R, however, is popular and has consistent ridership all day, every day. It’s situated in a retail core with dense housing .3 mi away. Connections between popular ET route 2 (serves Everett Mall Way) and several of CT’s busiest routes are made there.
Note: the 115 used to serve Mariner P&R and provided an easy albeit roundabout way of connection to the Alderwood Mall.
Why so many park & rides?
Surface parking is much cheaper than car garages if the land is cheap.
We can look forward to extensions on the Blue, Green, and Orange Swift Lines!
I hope the same can be true for RapidRide H Line some day. It would have been nice for the D Line to reach Northgate when Lynnwood opens,
I hope the same can be true for RapidRide H Line some day.
You mean extend the H to TIBS or SeaTac? I could see SeaTac. Otherwise you are just overlapping the F (our weakest RapidRide Line). Even with an express to SeaTac you probably won’t get that many riders. That part of the 560 got about 100. Granted, it only ran every half hour, but still. Buses like the 33 run every half hour and got thousands of riders.
It would have been nice for the D Line to reach Northgate when Lynnwood opens
Yes, absolutely, or before it opened. The end of the D has always seemed to arbitrary. I get that you don’t want to double up service with the 40, but there is an obvious solution: move the 40. Yes, that means doubling up on 85th, but that is service worth doubling. Send the 40 straight across on 85th to Wallingford Avenue and then north to Northgate (over 92nd). Send the D looping around, picking up all those riders along College Way that are worth deviating for. Ballard to Northgate becomes much faster (via the 40). Riders along the current northern tail of the 40 get off-board payment. Add BAT lanes on 85th. Then extend the 40 to Northgate, which means it completely takes over the proposed 61.
The only challenge is length. That comes down to speed and consistency, which comes down to right-of-way. Congestion, basically. Across the bridge, along 85th, etc. If you fix that, then the network can be a lot more efficient in many ways. Not only can the buses run more often (without spending more money) but they can be longer. You don’t need to split routes where you would otherwise split them (to avoid bus bunching, and just long delays for riders in general).
Bus lanes in Ballard will hurt the 40. Hear me out..
As a Ballard resident and frequent user of the 40, I sincerely believe a compromise between transit users and motorists is the most logical. The two biggest drawbacks to the improvement plan (in Ballard) is 1) the lane reduction on Leary and 2) the installment of bus lanes. Here’s why…
1) There are only 2 options of entering Ballard from the south: 15th Ave or Leary Way. 15th is notoriously crowded in the PM peak. Leary offers genuine relief for anyone headed west of 15th. Reducing a lane will only result in back-ups, possibly all the way to 15th on bad days. This not only affects motorists but will DEGRADE THE RELIABILITY OF THE 40 as well (the proposed bus lane won’t help because its only planned for a small section at 20th & Leary). This unintentional side effect can be seen in the 45th St improvements. It was reduced to one lane EB in favor of a bus lane. The result: the 44 gets stuck waiting for cars blocking the bus lane as they merge into the regular lane.
2) Bus lanes are for bypassing traffic. They work great in congested spots. The proposed location at 20th & Leary doesn’t make sense because the bus currently is able to freely move along Leary – even in the PM peak. Even with the lane reductions along Leary, a bus lane is needed from the bridge all the way to Market St. But lane reductions along Leary is detrimental to everyone so that argument is moot.
I would like to articulate a response but I’m a bit confused are you talking about the bus lanes on market street for your number 1 point?
Otherwise you end up saying both a) Leary way reducing a lane cannot handle the car traffic and b) Leary way doesn’t have that much traffic so doesn’t need a bus lane. Either make one argument or the other one, I’m not sure how you’re holding both simultaneously here.
I’m pretty sure Jordan is basically saying that going from 2 lanes to 1 lane (without a bus-lane) between 15th and 20th is a problem. Here is the document (focused on Ballard): https://route40.infocommunity.org/ballard-neighborhood/. Well before a westbound bus gets to the bus lane (just west of 20th) it gets squeezed into one lane. This causes it to be backed up. If they extended the bus lane to 15th (and beyond, perhaps all the way to Fremont) then it wouldn’t be a problem.
@WL … I believe both arguments can be held. The current state of Leary can handle today’s traffic volume. Taking away a lane, I believe, will lead to the inability to handle today’s traffic volume – mainly during the PM peak and weekends. This can be seen in the “improvements” along 45th St between the UW and I-5. The unintentional effect will be the 40 getting caught in the same traffic, leading to longer travel times. My preferred solution is retaining the lanes, axing the unnecessary bus lane and remove parking at certain sections to improve sightline for both motorists and pedestrians.
If the lane is taken away, then a bus lane is needed the entire length of NB Leary from the bridge. It will also be interesting to know where the lane reduction starts: east or west of the bridge.
@Jordan
> This unintentional side effect can be seen in the 45th St improvements. It was reduced to one lane EB in favor of a bus lane. The result: the 44 gets stuck waiting for cars blocking the bus lane as they merge into the regular lane.
The 45th street bat lanes are one of the most successful ones actually. The more traffic there is, the more useful the bat/transit lanes are.
* NE 45th St BAT lane: 13-14% reduction in transit travel time
* 15th Ave NE BAT lane: 4-9% reduction in transit travel time
* Rainier Ave BAT lane: 2-6% reduction in transit travel time
From sdot survey data, it’s also on https://route40.infocommunity.org/more-about-tpmc/
> Taking away a lane, I believe, will lead to the inability to handle today’s traffic volume – mainly during the PM peak and weekends.
I checked the traffic analysis SDOT did.
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/Route%2040%20TPMC/Appendix_B_Route_40_Transportation_Tech_Report.pdf
Largest decline is at Fremont and 36th st from 15 sec delay to 43 seconds.
There is no delay at Leary & 20th Ave NW. Actually ironically there’s less delay during peak pm hour going from 24 seconds to 12 seconds
The delay has been moved to Leary & Dock mostly. from 23 to 40 seconds. Main “problem” seems to be the inline bus stop from the bus bulbs.
Overall the traffic seems to be fine. Most drivers were just waiting at Leary to cross 15th Ave. Those channelization concepts from the 30% design were already removed so it’s the same estimated time. Once one crosses 15th Ave most drivers are already at their destination so there’s not that much more pass-through traffic.
It notes:
> At Leary Ave NW/NW Dock Pl, which operates at LOS E in the Build Option in the AM peak hour compared to LOS C in the No Build Option. This is because side street delay is reported for this two-way stop intersection. As the Leary Ave NW EB/WB approaches become one through lane in each direction in the Build Option, it is harder for stop controlled NW block Pl northbound/southbound vehicles to find a gap to proceed. However, when the Leary Ave NW approaches are also considered, the average delay for the entire intersection remains minimal (a change from 4 to 6 seconds in the AM peak hour, and 4 to 5 seconds in the PM peak hour)
Anyways if one did want to remove the Dock delay, it could be converted from a bus bulb to a northbound BAT lane — but that would require taking away parking so I don’t think it would garner any addition welcome
I understand your concerns, but we can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, it is strange to see Leary reduced to one lane each direction while we try and make it faster in other parts. This was clearly designed to improve safety (a laudable goal) but it may delay the buses. Then again, it might not.
First of all, traffic is very flexible. Close a street, and pretty soon people use a different street as an alternative. Consider again how people get to Leary (from the south). There are two main ways: Ballard Bridge or Fremont. The Ballard Bridge is where you suggest the backup could arise, and I could definitely see that. But people will also shift from Leary to other streets (like Shilshole) using the “three rights” method (https://maps.app.goo.gl/tKggNhD7ApifpgjU8). If your goal is somewhere northwest of Old Ballard, that is a better approach (in my opinion). Or they just slog it out on 15th, since Leary is no longer as good (they miss the old days). Then consider Fremont. 36th becomes Leary. Two lanes of traffic from Fremont heading straight towards Ballard. Now there will be one. Thus there will be less traffic heading there. I could see potential backups, but for the most part, the buses skirt right by them. It isn’t perfect, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.
This sort of thing is a lot like trying to fix a leaking dam. You keep plugging pieces here and there until it is fixed. It reminds me of the “fix” they applied on Denny. It was actually very clever, and worked — for a while. But then congestion kept building, and it was obviously inadequate. Did it make things worse? Absolutely not. It just didn’t go far enough.
Traffic is not a zero-sum game. People drive mainly because the alternative sucks. If driving sucks more than transit, they transition to transit. They drive less. As we make changes bit by bit, this is what will happen.
The main thing is, we shouldn’t try and change things at this late hour. If you want to argue with the traffic engineers and claim that this will actually make the bus slower, then the time to do that was a while ago. If you work for Metro and have been saying this for a while — and this is your last-second attempt at averting a disaster, then my apologies. But any delay now will be seen as a cowardly administration unwilling to even make the slightest improvement for the transit-riding public. This will only lead to more of the recent malaise found in the city. Just approve the changes, warts and all.
Leary Way at its busiest point west of 14th Ave still only carries 10K average daily vehicles. Rainier south of Graham carries 20K-26K vehicles and there are bus lanes there.
https://data.seattle.gov/Transportation/Traffic-Flow-Map-Volumes/38vd-gytv/data_preview
https://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/MaintenanceProgram/RainierAveS_BeforeAfter.pdf
When I visit that area, I hate walking across Leary, especially at 20th where the stop signs are. It feels very unsafe there. Except for maybe at the Leary/ Market St intersection, Leary doesn’t need that width just for traffic and parking. It’s like a river splitting Ballard in two.
Agreed on 20th & Leary. I’m often in that area and trying to navigate a wide, 5 way, multi-lane intersection with one of the streets hidden (Vernon Pl), both motorists and pedestrians often stop-stutter-go across the intersection. It’s only the slow speeds that prevent a disastrous collision.
Parking implementation, moving forward with flat fee of 2 to 4 dollar per day with reservations. No fee after 2pm or on weekends.
The other options were a flat 4 without reservations and a variable 2 to 10 dollar. Permit parking program will be SOV permits at market rates like 45~120 dollars per month. Parking facility will be add fees once they are at 70% utilization and then reserved parking once at 90% utilization
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20Parking%20Program%20Expansion%20Briefing%202-1-24.pdf
TAG recommendations ( I just glanced through powerpoint, didn’t watch meeting)
* finalize station designs standards
* must process within 30 days contractor contracts
* process within 60 days change orders
* (most importantly?) reform agency betterment process with adoption of “Scope Control Policy” aka don’t let cities keep asking for more stuff
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Report%20-%20TAG%20Implementation%20Action%20Plan%20Update%202-1-24.pdf
I want to see the people who pay $120/month for a P&R space and $250/month for a space at their apartment.
> I want to see the people who pay $120/month for a P&R space and $250/month for a space at their apartment.
The only ones at 90% utilization currently are :
* northgate
* tibs
* angle lake
* sumner
I’d imagine it’d probably be cheaper around 70 dollars for the southern parking stations. For northgate possibly more expensive, but also those are more likely to use other busses if coming from up north or already paying for office parking if driving in so the parking cost difference is around the same.
I wonder what utilization will be at Northgate after Lynnwood link opens later this summer.
Will Northgate and Angle Lake be above 90% once they are no longer termini?
Will Northgate and Angle Lake be above 90% once they are no longer termini?
I doubt it. Ridership at SeaTac went down after Angle Lake. Not the same thing, but the idea is the same — there is a strong terminus effect. Folks arrive from beyond the system, and then take the train.
Many arrive by bus — and that was obviously the case with SeaTac — but many arrive by car (as is the case with Northgate and Angle Lake). For many, the other parking garage will be easier. For others it becomes a matter of “drive until parking is easy”. They may start at Northgate, see that it is too crowded, consider paying but then drive farther north. I would imagine some of the folks who park at Northgate tried to park at Green Lake. Same thing probably happens with TIBS and Angle Lake. Parking will spread out.
There are also people that will switch to taking a connector bus. For example, consider someone from Richmond Beach trying to commute downtown. Here are their choices now:
1) Take the 302 and ride it downtown. It works, but only if you time it right. There are big gaps in service (well over a half hour in the evening). It also only serves the south end of downtown (and First Hill).
2) Take the 302 and transfer to Link at Northgate. This will get you to the other parts of downtown more easily, but it has the same problem with frequency.
3) Take the 348 and transfer to Link at Northgate. Runs all day, but not frequently. Also takes a while to get from 185th to Northgate.
Given all that, it would be quite understandable if they just drove to Northgate and took the train.
Once Link gets to 185th, they might do the following:
4) Take the 348 to the 185th Station. The bus runs every 15 minutes all day. It is competitive with the 302 in terms of speed, while being a lot more frequent.
Okay, what are the chances that the 1 Line will NOT begin normal operations on Monday? I think they are pretty good.
ST has actually wrapped up disruptions early. I think Link will return to normal as scheduled. If not, we’ll find on this weekend.
Regarding Seattle Streetcar (esp. article in The Urbanist, wow they need comments section), what would it take for Metro to take over the streetcar lines? They’ve killed a lot of Metro service in Capitol Hill despite it being the most optimal area for transit in the region outside Downtown, why don’t they use some of the service hours they’ve taken for operating the First Hill line? Kind of crazy for SDOT to be operating it but I know that’s the Portland model, but they should eventually pass it over to Metro.
I’m riding it as I write this and it left the Capitol Hill terminal on time and the train has a full load, both of which I hadn’t seen last time I rode months ago. The reliability was what had turned me off it, never leaving on time, I can track it for en route stops.
Personally have felt the SLU streetcar should go to Fremont and actually up to the zoo with a really good transfer station with the E-Aurora Rapid Ride. This would allow the streetcar to function as a local connector for the E (where the E goes kind of express into Downtown South of the zoo) directly serving Fremont, Westlake, SLU.
The “Portland Model” is the city owns the streetcar, who contracts out to a non-profit organization to operate it, who then contracts out to TriMet to do most of the work.
Which, as best as I can tell, has the benefit of adding quite a lot of cost above what contracting directly with TriMet would, for the benefit of being able to point at it and say “See! It’s not the government! It’s a non-profit organization!”
The article: the City Center Streetcar dream seems to be dying, and without it the two disconnected streetcar lines are likely to eventually die too. That’s what I’ve always expected, but so what? The SLU streetcar is redundant to the 40 and C, and the 70 and 62 also go nearby, and ridership is low.
The First Hill Streetcar provides more of a unique service and gets more ridership, but the need for that L-shaped corridor is not huge. It terminates short of the Broadway retail core and short of Beacon Hill, so it can’t be used for those trips. The detour at 14th because of the steepness of 12th, the elementary school, and the CD east of it (so that it can nominally “serve” the CD) makes it slower — especially the turns, where it waits a minute before turning.
“Kind of crazy for SDOT to be operating it”
I thought Metro operated the streetcars, and the operational costs come out of Metro’s bus budget. That was the controversy when the SLU streetcar started: that streetcars cost more in buses, so you’d lose more in bus service than you’d gain in streetcar service, and we really need all the bus service and more.
Many of us don’t believe the glowing 11,000 ridership projection.
In the article: “We need to significantly improve the experience of Third, to make it functional and welcoming rather than a place people avoid.”
Bla bla bla. The reason people avoid 3rd is the sketchy people near Westlake. Reconfiguring the street won’t make any difference in that.
I like the idea of pedestrianizing 1st. Can we do that? There’s a narrow 2-lane bottleneck in Pioneer Square that always gets congested, and the streetcar would have to go through that. Could we pedestrianize that and north to Pike Place Market without causing gridlock on the surrounding streets? There’s also local deliveries to supply the businesses and apartment buildings.
“Regular 1 Line service resumes on Monday, February 5”, says today’s ST announcement. So they got it all finished.
Was there ever any doubt?
But congrats to ST. This is the first big improvement of many this year.
Somebody doubted it. By the way, I’m wondering what you think Metro should do after ST2 Link fully opens. You talk a lot about what Metro shouldn’t do and how people will switch to light rail, but what should Metro do? What about the miles and miles of areas that won’t have Link and may never have it? And the areas in between stations?
@Mike Orr,
One good thing about bus routes is that they are impermanent. Get it wrong today and you can always change it tomorrow. So I don’t worry too much about this or that route or which block a bus should stop at in 2050. The important thing is to get the philosophy right.
Running express buses or shuttles between LTC and DT Seattle is the wrong philosophy. It will do near zero to relieve congestion between WLS and Roosevelt in the NB PM peak. All these long distance expresses that basically just shadow Link without offering similar service levels or economics should be cancelled.
CT gets this and will be cancelling all 400 and 800 series routes that shadow LLE. Metro and ST are mainly doing the same. This is as it should be.
But the details of the other minor bus routes? It’s just rearranging the deck chairs. Get it wrong today and you can always do something different tomorrow. I don’t worry too much about it. As long as the network continues to transform itself into more of a feeder service to Link, then everything should work out in the end.
And by the way, kudos to CT for their plan to extend the Swift Blue to 185th St Station. This will offer a major service upgrade to the current riders of Swift Blue, and will add a new service option to residents of North City. It’s a good addition.
So I guess Metro should do what it has done since U-Link. Truncate the express buses.
CT gets this
Huh? I see no difference. Metro dramatically truncated their buses after U-Link. Many said they shouldn’t. They didn’t truncate all of the them though (the 41 still ran). Once Link got to Northgate though, that was it.
CT took a similar approach. It waited until Link got to Northgate before truncating. But it didn’t truncate all of its buses. It could have. Many suggested they just truncate all the buses at Northgate. But they only truncated the buses that were headed to the UW. Now that Link has gotten further north, they are restructuring all of their buses (just like Metro). The two agencies have been quite similar, although Metro has been more aggressive when it comes to truncation (with U-Link).
If there is any agency that doesn’t “get it”, it is Sound Transit. They continue to run the 586 from Tacoma to the U-District, years after Link reached the U-District. The worst part is, they are doing it during a driver shortage. They keep cutting back service, while keeping this extremely wasteful express that duplicates Link. It seems very weird to me that you never seem to criticize ST for something they are most guilty of. Do you work for Sound Transit?
As long as the network continues to transform itself into more of a feeder service to Link, then everything should work out in the end.
OK. You don’t have to offer an opinion on anything (let alone something like bus restructures, which are full of trade-offs). But I do think it is important to note that Link will only cover a tiny portion of the city, even after ST3 is done. The buses can try and feed Link until it is stuffed to the gills, but it will only account for a tiny amount of ridership. The bus network is essential for transit.
Consider Vancouver. In the case of Vancouver, the train covers a much higher portion of the city than Link ever will. Yet the buses still carry a lot more people (750,000 versus 500,000). Even in Vancouver (which has excellent bus integration) there are a lot of people who just take the bus. Keep in mind, SkyTrain makes it easy for the buses to feed them — sitting there with mouths wide open. Link is more like a stubborn toddler, refusing to eat. Thus it is essential for Metro to build a network that not only works well with Link (or as well as possible) but also works well on its own (because it will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting on its own).
“But I do think it is important to note that Link will only cover a tiny portion of the city, even after ST3 is done. ”
To me, this reveals a deeper issue. There is an obvious lack of regional clarity on what role each operator should serve with buses or rubber tired transit vehicles. What’s the service delivery difference between Stride 3 versus RapidRide and Swift? What’s the service delivery difference between ST Express routes and Metro express routes?
It may take decades to implement clarity about this, but the end state is going to be a single regional transit agency or at least single long-range regional transit plan in one place. Vancouver has TransLink, and Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia have figured this out. Very few places have different agencies that have such blurry lines. Even traditionally rail-focused systems like BART have an emerging challenge in subsidy sources that threaten their very future role in transit for the Bay Area.
I don’t know where the roles will ultimately be drawn for each of the operators. However, trying to plan any transit “system” with operators having ambiguous and overlapping functionality looks pretty silly.
I think we ultimately need an operator-neutral transit plan for 2050 that should be developed as a unified region. That plan should be sponsored by either the State or PSRC. It should have full participation and buy-in by the planning staff of every operator. It’s actually tragic that Metro feels compelled to go at it alone here.
With the Renton Transit Center moving to the South Grady Way location in a (couple years?) does anyone know if there has been any transit plan of how all the renton routes would be changed?
I assume it will open with Stride 1. Renton was the one who asked for the transit center to be moved, and it has a transit master plan somewhere. It’s assumed in Metro Connects 2050 (see article), although I don’t see any visible effects in the map. RapidRide I from the south will stop at the new TC and then go to the old TC. The 101 from the west will go to the old TC and then the new TC. the 1075 (106+105) goes east at the old TC and doesn’t go down to the new; that may be because it would have to detour south. RapidRide F already stops a block from the new TC, and may stop at it if the TC extends west to Rainier. I assume these are all based on or in consultation with Renton’s TMP. Maybe the I restructure will have more visible integration with the new TC.
Anyone else presently having trouble retrieving Sound Transit board/committee meeting documents? I first noticed this yesterday and thought perhaps the agency was doing some housekeeping, so I thought I’d give it a day to be rectified. Generally I access their site via the mobile platform but jumping on a desktop resulted in the same outcome.
??
Looks like the site is working properly again.
WEST SEATTLE ALERT. There’s a Link open house within the hour at Alki Masonic Center, 4736 40th Ave SW, 5:30-7:30pm, presentation 6pm, Tuesday March 5.
I hung out at Capitol Hill Station for about a half hour today from 4:30 to 5:00, attempting to count northbound boardings and alightings.
My observations:
1) Ridership on the trains appeared under 0.5 load factor. A slow day could have been predicted with a late announcement of return to normal hours operations.
2) Counting boardings and alightings precisely was beyond my capability.
3) Nevertheless my guesstimates had boardings and alightings roughly equal. This happens to match my previous observations.
Checked the latest updates of the Pierce Transit “enhanced” bus service
https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Pierce-Transit-Enhanced-Bus-Service-Update.pdf#page=8
It actually does have a couple ‘BAT’ lanes though to be more accurate these all seem to be just changing the sign at right turns to say ‘let bus go straight’ at intersections rather than a long stretch of BAT lanes. I guess it’s better than nothing.
* something? at S 38th
* northbound at S 112th
* north and south at S military
* northbound at S 176th
I’ll give it a ride when it goes in service and report back on what they mean by BAT.