Seven Link disruptions in four days ($) last weekend. Five were from external causes (collision, blockage, shooting, two power outages), two from unknown causes. Five people were stabbed or struck by objects in 2023 on ST or Metro, while there have been seven unsolved shootings on King County freeways n the first seven weeks of 2024. (And more solved shootings?)
February 28: South Downtown Hub workshop (aka CID/N and S station area) and the Seattle Transit Advisory Board monthly meeting. Tell Sound Transit that good Link-to-Link transfers are critical for a downtown hub, and its downtown alignment needs to have them. March 5: West Seattle Link open house.
Somebody on Reddit posted that STB is anti-transit because we don’t unanimously support everything in ST3 without reservations, so we’re like the Koch brothers. The original message is deleted but the replies remain.
12 transit/bike/ped groups want the next Move Seattle to be bigger. (Move Seattle is the capital levy for non-car street improvements.)
Why buses get stuck in traffic. The Downs-Thompson paradox. (Not Just Bikes video)
This is an open thread.
Big bummer about link-related service disruptions. My party of 6 with two toddlers was trying to get to the lunar new year festivities from Roosevelt station Saturday morning. We were fortunate to have a one-seat ride on the 62, but there was no communication whatsoever at street-level about link issues at approx. 10:15AM. If we have “real-time arrival signs” why not update them to provide information about the lack of arrivals?
I predict that the operational performance of ST Link will be an increasingly important topic on STB and in the local press.
When Link was proposed, the thought was that it was a great idea. Conceptually, everyone assumed that its operation would be smooth.
As the initial system opened in 2009 and 2010, everyone saw the hope yet few actually used the system every day.
When U Link and Angle Lake opened in 2016, the major issue that emerged was the escalators; the PR blamed it in a bad vendor. When ST took over the tunnel, problems were attributed to the legacy issues of a 30-year old tunnel. When Northgate Link opened, the pandemic was raging and the daily pressures of a busy rail system still seemed remote.
With the first round of major maintenance at hand as well as about a doubling of stations by the end of 2025, ST has matured into a traditional, large scale rail operator. Sure there will be lots of hopeful talk about extensions, but the reality is that they will increasing be less important to the public than good daily operations will be.
After a year, a new car or new bus or new train feels merely like a train. That’s the fate of ST stations and tracks and vehicles. It’s the natural course of events.
How ST manages planned and unplanned service disruptions will primarily define the agency moving forward. The thrill of opening is waning, and the drudgery of running it well each day will continue to grow. No xlick rendering of a new station will overcome the bad vibe of disruptions in 2026 and later.. the Board must focus on this even now or risk looking really bad.
“When U Link and Angle Lake opened in 2016, the major issue that emerged was the escalators; the PR blamed it in a bad vendor.”
The problem was the kind of escalators ST ordered. They were the light-duty model, not the heavy duty needed for heavy use all day every day. It’s like buying a household blender for a restaurant; household blenders’s specs assume they’ll be idle 97% of the time so they go with lower-quality parts. ST at first acted like these breakdowns three times a week happen on all transit networks, then it finally admitted it had chosen the light-duty model and replaced the escalators. I don’t remember them blaming it on the vendor.
The details about the escalator saga are simply examples of how it’s not good enough to build a pretty station. It has to work reliably too.
And let’s not forget that there was lots of general finger pointing in 2017 for quite awhile before asT admitted that the asked for the wrong escalators in their specifications. Here is an article from the time — implying that the problem might be passenger abuse or “horseplay” , bad parts and unresponsive maintenance staff.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/escalators-fail-again-at-uw-light-rail-station-emergency-stairs-opened-for-riders/
Clearly this was a $20M mistake that was entirely ST’s negligence at its core.
That was the expected arc, Al, but it simply hasn’t happened. Skycastle Transit remains a spinner of gossamer dreams while performing as a first-semester Freshman rail operator.
It’s why the choice of the next CEO is so critical. ST needs someone who knows how to actually run a big system! Not an FTA buteaucrate or someone who led a small light rail for a short period of time.
The challenge is that the Board members are going to have to trust the new management and give up on behind-the-scenes control.
ST should mature into a traditional, large scale rail operator. It hasn’t realized that yet. Whenever there’s a disruption it’s quick to single-track and reduce frequency to 20 minutes, for excessively long periods of time. During the 3-week disruption it could have closed the tunnel weekdays and had replacement buses every 10-15 minutes so that people could get around without waiting 26-45 minutes for a train coming who knows when. An empty tunnel might have allowed the maintenance to finish faster and accomplish more things.
“ST needs someone who knows how to actually run a big system!”
+1
Rogoff was chosen because his FTA experience would help ST get grants. Timm was chosen because she didn’t have didn’t have the staff-relations problems that Rogoff had. Sparrman was chosen as interim because he was an insider, I guess. And he has engineering experience, which is another thing missing from past CEOs. But what ST needs now is somebody with operations experience. Like… Julie Timm, or somebody like her who’s spent more time at in a city with a larger rail network.
And as eddiew noted, ST should spend more money on operations, even if it delays the long-term extensions. We’re starting to get the high-capacity network we’ve long needed, and it really needs to be more frequent and reliable, and ST Express needs to fill in its frequency gaps. If it takes more money for driver recruitment and training and higher drivers’ salaries, that would be worthwhile. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We’ve finally got a bird in the hand, and we will more so by 2026, so let’s act like a real city with a real transit network.
I agree with both of you on your particular points. It is telling, though, that the extensions continue to be built without a pair of crossovers at each station. It costs SO LITTLE to include them during construction, that it is absolutely standard practice in all passenger rail networks. I certainly agree that “sacrificing” the possible center platform at University-Seneca is worth doing to provide a pair of crossings there. And I’d put one just east (“railway north”) of the platforms at Westlake Center. I think there’s a pair at the top of the hill just before the curve into the TBM vault, but putting a pair by the Westlake throat would increase flexibility in the cut and cover section.
Doing these things would mean that the USSS couldn’t be used in a shut-down scenario, but if trains have to single track only between USSS and Sixth Avenue, many more can run since only one platform has to be dedicated.
This is railroading 101.
“This is railroading 101.”
Exactly! The higher the train frequency, the more crossovers are needed too.
Yet ST Board keeps hiring people who never had the OJT. They seem to hire those that took future rendering with consensus building 101 instead. The art work is promoted big time and resiliency goes ignored. And anyone who points it out is deemed “anti transit”.
And let’s not even mention the awful planned transfer environments to merely change trains.
Al, yeah, those “elective credits” can be confusing, huh? Do I take “Rail Systems Integration and Operations 413” or “Billboard and Shop Talk Promotions 373”????? Decisions, decisions.
During Link disruptions, ST and its partner agencies face operator and bus constraints.
“(Move Seattle is the capital levy for non-car street improvements.)”
I don’t think I would characterize the levy in this way since a large chunk of the funding is designated for maintenance and repair of existing thoroughfares and bridges. In other words, it’s an admission that existing city tax sources have been insufficient for SDOT to do basic things.
Frankly, while this “gap-funding” levy has been modestly more successful than its predecessor , “Bridging the Gap”, it too has suffered from overpromised results. While SDOT seems to like to toot its own horn at times, the quarterly and annual reports as well as the online dashboard paint a less rosy picture. The department really needs to pick up the pace and stop the underspends (which are not due to cost savings):
“In 2023….YTD through Q3 we planned to spend $213.6M in the Levy portfotio, actual spending through Q3 came in at $156.9M. Weather related delays and impacts, supply chain issues, and third-party project delays have contributed to the underspend.”
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/about-us/funding/levy-to-move-seattle
There’s past years as well one can view in the budget
From the move levy
$300 million went to road maintenance, ~$300 million went to ‘multimodal’ aka bike, bus, pedestrian projects. (out of a ~900 million but I think the budget I’m viewing is only for 2016 to 2022 so it’s missing 2023 and 2024)
https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/All%20Years/capital/0/deptname/Seattle+Department+of+Transportation/1/bclname?vis=percentageChart
https://openbudget.seattle.gov/#!/year/All%20Years/capital/0/deptname/Seattle+Department+of+Transportation/0/bclname/Mobility-Capital/1/projecttitle?vis=percentageChart
Tisgwm is correct. The Bridging the Gap and Move Seattle levies have gone to help all modes, including general-purpose. Pavement management, bridge replacement and maintenance, and signal improvement help all modes. One could argue that pavement management is the most important; there is a huge deficit; many arterials seem to have issues. Potholes develop when pavement management was inadequate. Seattle is falling behind on maintenance partly due to the Legislature spending more of its gas tax increases on new limited access highways and passing on less revenue to the locals. The King County unincorporated road fund has been in crisis for several years. BTG was set in 2006 during the second Nickels term; McGinn had a pavement study done and found the deficit had grown.
Mike’s comment on the previous post started a sub-thread about STB’s content and the role of the Blog, which I’d like to continue here.
On September 30, 2020, Martin H Duke tweeted that the previous day was the first day STB had no new article since December 12, 2009. While the stream of new posts to the blog continued to be strong through 2021, the posting frequency declined significantly with Frank and Martin’s apparent departure in 2022. I sincerely thank Mike, Ross, Martin P., and Sherwin and the rest of the recent post authors for their work in keeping STB afloat.
I appreciate Mike’s note yesterday that the Editors are going to try to post their thoughts and ideas more often as posts rather than comments. However, I feel the expectation for high-quality posts, and the necessary level of effort required to maintain that quality, has the unfortunate side-effect of the current infrequency of posts.
I have to wonder if posting frequency could be increased by lowering the bar for effort per-post; for example, if Ryan Packer or Mike Lindblom put out an article about an issue of interest to STB, a relatively low-effort post could be a short summary/commentary paragraph with a link to the article, in accordance with Mike’s definition of a role of STB being a transit-supportive comment section for other outlet’s articles. Another kind of moderate-level post would be short callout for open houses or other public fora happening on the day that may be of interest to folks are aren’t signed up for every email distribution list in the region.
I pose this question to the Commentariat: do you think these sort of moderate-effort posts would improve the blog by offering fresh topics to comment about more often, or is it better to keep these sort of link-posts contained in the Open Threads in prevent the dilution of overall article quality?
On a personal note, I follow a lot of sources of news about transit and land use for Seattle, and often see things that seem like they would be good topics for STB but aren’t posted about until several days later (if at all). I’m no transit professional and I try to stay in my lane when it comes to transit routings outside my typical corridors, but if this kind of post is something that the blog could use, I would be happy to volunteer.
Sorry realized I didn’t answer your original question, yeah I think it’d be welcome.
I guess there are other moderate level topics one could talk about as well.
wsdot has a slew of studies that I haven’t seen say the urbanist post about.
All the seattle area cities have some form of a transit/transportation plan finalizing soon.
if Ryan Packer or Mike Lindblom put out an article about an issue of interest to STB, a relatively low-effort post could be a short summary/commentary paragraph with a link to the article,
That is basically what the Open Thread posts are about. We don’t do them daily simply because it is tedious. I’m also not sure if it needs to be daily (although I can see value in that).
if this kind of post is something that the blog could use, I would be happy to volunteer.
That would be great! I’ll talk to Mike about it.
Great ideas everyone, keep them coming. When I said ST has four roles, that wasn’t meant to be exhaustive, it’s just four things I think are important. For reference, they are:
“(A) To spread information about what the agencies are doing and public hearings. (B) To test and promote ideas on how to improve transit that the agencies aren’t doing. (C) As a transit-fan comment section for articles in the Urbanist/Times/Stranger who have resources to do the kinds of research STB used to do but can’t currently. (D) Because we like to talk about transit even if it’s something minor.”
Note that B is twofold so it could be two items. One, things we think the agencies should do. Two, things we think might be good, but they need more evaluation in the comments to confirm it. So, asserting concepts/policies but also testing them.
Lazarus: “I’d leave “opinions” and “ideas” as the realm of the commentators in the comment section and keep the actual blog posts to a higher standard — either pure factual reporting or informative posts by people who are actively involved in transit.”
The two aren’t as far apart as you seem to suggest. The frameworks in the Human Transit book are ideas. Metro’s restructure proposals are ideas. Martin P’s concept for an automated Ballard line is an idea. At times we apply transit best-practice principles to routes or restructures the agencies should do or consider but aren’t, and we need to point this out. Those are ideas.
For most of STB’s history until 2022 there were around four editors, six everyday authors, other occasional authors, and sometimes a paid reporter. That was enough to produce 1-2 articles a day. A typical week had five researched articles (like Martin Pagels’ recent ones) and two open threads.
I discovered STB a little after it started (maybe 2008), and I was a prolific commentator then as now, and occasionally wrote articles. Several times the editors asked me to be a regular author. The commitment was, “One researched article and one lighter article per week.” I always refused, because researching and finding sources and double-checking all the facts takes a lot of time, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it every week, not when there were so many other things I wanted to do but couldn’t. If I were in my 20s or 30s I probably would, because I used to write a lot more and could have channeled that into a transit blog. But now that I’m in my 50s I can’t do as much, and I don’t want to make commitments I’m not sure I can keep.
Martin H Duke and Frank Chiachiere and the other authors stopped actively writing and editing by 2022 due to family commitments and burnout. For a time there was less than one article a week. When an article gets that old, the comment section automatically closes. When the last comment section closes, nobody can communicate. Then people might stop checking for new articles, the community would collapse, and once it’s gone it would be hard to get back, because how can you contact people who have stopped reading? So I’d prod Frank to post an article to open a comment section to keep the blog alive. And I commented that the “Seattle Transit Fans” Facebook group is a place we could post where we’d gone if the blog goes away.
Frank asked Ross and me to pick up the open thread articles, and that was something I could do. The current incarnation of the blog came out of that. Frank is still in the background administering the website and and acting as a backup advisor for the editors.
Now we have essentially two editors, one semi-regular author, two occasional authors, and two lapsed authors I hope will come back when their other commitments allow. The current practice is an article every few days, whenever they’re ready or an author is inspired, and open threads once a week or so. I aim to do an open thread whenever the last one approaches 250 comments or is more than a couple articles back.
Martin Pagel has picked up the researched articles admirably, but I don’t want to put too much burden on one person to produce, e.g., an article per week and risk getting into the burnout cycle again. More authors would be helpful, especially those with a greater diversity of experiences and contacts. There’s also Page 2 if somebody wants to write an opposing opinion, additional alternative, or half-baked idea that might not meet the editorial profile or quality of Page 1, or to get started writing before moving on to Page 1. And there are potentially other ways to contribute (or to collaborate on future articles you’re interested in) by emailing contact at seattletransitblog com.
You can also send open thread items to the contact address. I used to do that. Or you can put the link in a comment yourself. I’m not sure it makes much difference whether it’s in the article or a comment. Being in the article makes it more prominent, but that’s only critical for a few urgent things. I also send an email around to collect topics for the next open thread; if you want to be on that, email the comment address.
I feel like STB’s vision and content has been evolving the past several months, in a synthesis between the editors and commentators. That has led me to realize more gaps in coverage that articles could and should fill.
“if Ryan Packer or Mike Lindblom put out an article about an issue of interest to STB, a relatively low-effort post could be a short summary/commentary paragraph with a link to the article,”
We can do that for a few critical articles, but I think it would be too much beyond that. I’ve expanded the open threads from being just one-liner links to having a short commentary paragraph on some of them. That’s basically the same thing as having them in articles. STB articles should mostly be something substantial and original, not one paragraph saying “The Times says this” or “The Urbanist says that”. But you can send us more open thread links, and Ross has told me you’ve volunteered for that, so I’ll reach out to you directly.
The role of blog has been undermined by a sea change in commenters, some of whom are explicitly against any action Sound Transit or Metro may make, and implicitly anti-transit.
I don’t read or comment here much any longer, because the commentors are so relentlessly negative about transit.
A few bans would make a world of difference in tone and atmosphere.
@PSF,
Often the comments on this blog read like the Seattle Times’ comment threads. Here the comments are usually directed at ST specifically or transit in general, but it isn’t good.
There also seems to be fewer commentators with either technical or policy experience. I think that hurts the discussion level too.
I’m not sure what the solution is.
First of all, the blog has never banned someone just because someone disagrees with something they say. That would be a terrible policy.
Second, I don’t think any one on here who comment regularly is anti-transit. We occasionally get people on here who suggest transit spending is a big waste of money but it is surprisingly rare. In contrast it happens all the time at the Seattle Times comment section.
People aren’t anti-transit, they are critical. As well they should be! It is important for agencies to get it right. If they don’t, transit doesn’t work. Consider what is probably my favorite blog post of all time: https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/19/your-bus-much-more-often-no-more-money-really/. It isn’t a comment, but it is the type of thing you would read in the comments (just without all of the research). This is implicitly very critical of Metro. It is basically saying that if Metro did a better job when it comes to their routes, their bus would come a lot more often — at no additional cost. As it turns out, Metro did many of those things! I can’t credit the blog, but it probably helped. It also seems that Metro planners are back sliding when it comes to taking that approach and it is important that we criticize the agency so that they can do better. While they didn’t do a great job (in my opinion) with the Lynnwood Link restructure, it is still much better than the first proposal, and the blog does deserve some credit for raising these issues (such as the lack of service on Lake City Way).
As far as Sound Transit is concerned, it is the same thing. People are critical because they want a better system. If we simply ignore the choices they made, it is quite likely they will build something that is terrible, and we will just have to live with it.
Often the comments on this blog read like the Seattle Times’ comment threads.
Like when? Seriously, when? A typical Seattle Times criticism of Sound Transit would be “Why are they spending all of this money on transit? They could just buy them cars for the money they are wasting.”
A typical comment here would be “Why is Sound Transit building a second tunnel, when it would be much better *for riders* to just reuse the existing tunnel. It would save them money, too. That money could go into making improvement in other areas, or just building things faster.”
Quite a difference, really. Actually, the only guy that I’ve seen regularly criticize an agency for no particular reason is well, you. Your criticism of Metro is often unwarranted and lacking in substance. You often criticize the agency for doing the exact same thing that Sound Transit does (while you let Sound Transit slide). But we’ve learned to live with this.
Oh, and what makes you assume that folks here don’t have technical or policy experience? I know for a fact that at least one regular commenter has a ton of technical transit experience. It would be silly to ask people what their experience is before commenting, and even if we did, a lot of people would rather remain anonymous. Is anyone asking what your experience is? Of course not. Nor are you volunteering. So what? That doesn’t make your ideas any more or less valid.
> I don’t read or comment here much any longer, because the commentors are so relentlessly negative about transit.
I mean I haven’t seen anywhere else where one can actually talk in depth about Seattle transit. And I mean beyond just saying ‘bus route XX’ should have more frequency or go xyz destination but actually talking about where the frequency would come from or discussing the tradeoffs
Besides that it’s not like we can constantly just repeat how great the u district extension is. Or say king county metro is adding orca readers to the rear doors, that’s great, but after mentioning it it’s not like we’re going to bring it up every week. It’s not too different from other interest forums. If you peek at other interest forums they basically talk about the same thing. Aka which airplane was made incorrectly and how it should fixed, freeway interchanges bad with weaving etc…
“commenters, some of whom are explicitly against any action Sound Transit or Metro may make, and implicitly anti-transit.”
I don’t understand this at all and strongly disagree. What would the blog have to say to be “pro-transit”? I listed the articles’ pro-transit and mixed positions in this comment. What do you disagree with?
The biggest anti-transit commentator was banned last year for overwhelming the comment sections with vouminous repetititve screeds and highjacking threads and constantly relitigating even the most basic transit moves that made it difficult to move beyond that. So I could see if you were complaining about that, but that ended several months ago.
There’s also a difference between the editors/authors’ positions reflected in the articles, and the commentators’ positions which cover a wider range. That’s to be expected in any niche activist blog. I learn from commentators with different viewpoints who bring up factors I hadn’t thought of.
But I think we should start with, what do you think Seattle’s/Pugetopolis’s transit should be like, and how do we get there?
@Lazarus
> There also seems to be fewer commentators with either technical or policy experience. I think that hurts the discussion level too.
I mean while that is somewhat true, I wouldn’t undercut ourselves either. Or at least I’ve talked to sound transit members and some topics they don’t know much either.
Like I brought up the delridge alignment for west seattle and one claimed it was never a possibility until I brought up the page of candidate projects. Or the stride 1 brt was talking to one of them and they didn’t know the airport was going to build an elevated busway almost reach TIBS.
Anyways even if we were more technical/knowledgeable how would the recent discussions be that much different? Like on Ross’ proposal for the express busses it’s not as if we can’t guesstimate the travel times ourselves/ bus operating hours cost. The only real advantage they might have is the traffic simulator software.
It sounds like PSF is confusing blogs with advocacy groups. The reality is there are different types of blog. There isn’t just one way to do it. There isn’t a right or wrong way. And for him to say he wants this blog to keep banning commenters until everyone is on the same page is scary.
@Lazarus
> There also seems to be fewer commentators with either technical or policy experience. I think that hurts the discussion level too.
This is total BS. What’s different is that transit has moved from the dreamy, heady days of making big plans to the realities of actually building and running systems. We are past the dating profile app stage and are coming into the cohabitation stage with expanded high capacity transit. Reality is replacing fantasy, and that’s always less rosy.
The primary “expertise” needed in the blog is simply user experiences. No technical nor policy treatise matters if it’s unpleasant for a transit rider. You don’t need a mechanical engineering degree to state that an escalator is broken or that ST didn’t put in enough of them, for example.
I actually see entries from posters who have pretty good technical understanding of transit. Lay people don’t discuss crossover tracks , overcrowding solutions, tunneling methods, funding methods and new technologies being used elsewhere.
Using an example that was mentioned this week, I posted months ago that ST could work with contractors to activate some of the FWLE tracks to store needed trains for Lynnwood Link until the East OMF could be reached — and ST is now implementing it. And that idea was not proposed when staff laid out the problem in its presentations last year. It’s only reasonable to deduce that I (and STB by association) influenced that.
So rather than complain that you feel that the discourse is failing, provide constructive examples about how to make our transit better for the riders.
“There also seems to be fewer commentators with either technical or policy experience. I think that hurts the discussion level too.”
“What’s different is that transit has moved from the dreamy, heady days of making big plans to the realities of actually building and running systems…. The primary “expertise” needed in the blog is simply user experiences.”
We have lost some expertise, people good at agency/politician relationships, and the number of writers. That makes it harder to do all the work we’ve done in the past or I’d like to see. But it is what it is. STB is both technical information and user experiences. My talent is 45 years of user experiences, so that’s what I do. Others may have other talents. STB is always evolving.
@Al S,
The idea of storing LRV’s on the tracks to Judkins or to KDM has been under discussion within ST for at least a year and a half now that I know of, probably actually a lot longer. In fact, I actually posted a video 3 or 4 months ago of a LRV being dead-towed on the KDM tracks during what looked like a dynamic envelope test.
The purpose of that test was to ready the tracks for storage in support LLE. But that post was pretty much ignored. Probably because the significance of the test was missed, or the post was deemed to reflect too positively on ST.
And the hard part of distributed storage isn’t finding slots to park LRV’s, it’s finding ways to service those LRV’s in all those different places. And each LRV needs to be serviced nightly. And often rotated through the OMF. And certainly secured and guarded. It’s not as easy as just parking it and walking away.
Per escalators, that seems to be everyone’s favorite cudgel on this blog to beat ST about the head with. Everyone wants to blame ST for the sorry state of repair of the conveyances in old bus tunnel, but when ST took over the tunnel it was already a mess. Escalator availability at PSS was 26%, which nobody actually seemed to complain about at the time. And of course there were no down escalators. But that was not ST’s fault, it was what ST inherited from Metro.
Things are now much better. The escalators and elevators in the old bus tunnel now mainly work (at great expense and effort), and the newer ST escalators are past their burn-in periods and also working fine. And ST designed stations actually have down escalators too. Bonus!
But hey, I can always tell when things are going well at ST because people start talking about escalators again. So at least that is good.
“And ST designed stations actually have down escalators too.”
ST axed down escalators for the soon-to-open Lynnwood Link stations at the last minute — after promising them through the FEIS.
And the lead item in this very post is how ST link had seven disruptions in four days! And the first post is a description about the disruption from an impacted user!
Spin that in your alternative reality!
@Al S,
And all those 7 incidents on Link were relatively minor, and out of ST’s control, except the shooting, which the ST PR spokesman was quoted as saying was the first on the system since it opened. I actually found that surprising, as in surprisingly good.
And I lied. When ST took over maintenance in the old bus tunnel the escalator availability at PSS wasn’t 26%. It wasn’t actually that good! It was 22%.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sound-transits-race-to-fix-dozens-of-broken-escalators-in-downtown-seattle/
The intersection thing is that the worst ST escalator was better than the best Metro escalator. That is hard to do.
And I would like to see a before-and-after version of that chart. Would be nice to see ST’s progress.
As per down escalators at LTC, I haven’t been there yet. But I’m sure there is a very good explanation.
In fact, I’ll just ask.
But I get it. This is Seattle, and after the “Seattle Process,” we are best known for the “Seattle Whine”. Personally I prefer beer.
“As per down escalators at LTC, I haven’t been there yet. But I’m sure there is a very good explanation. ”
It’s not open yet. The down escalator was removed from the plan to lower the station cost.
Yep, value engineered out. Along with a freeway other things. Seems like a mistake to me. Blame Rogoff.
But hey, for the cost of the 130th St Station we could have had down escalators and a whole lot more.
Not *freeway*. Rather *a few other things*
“for the cost of the 130th St Station we could have had down escalators”
You don’t trade off the minimum basics. You build it right the first time. Any city wanting a high-quality metro network would have both 130th station and full down escalators. To paraphrase RossB, Seattle does things in a half-ass way and then wonders why ridership is not as high as Vancouver or DC.
@Mike Orr,
One thing you learn when you actually do engineering is that cost often wins out.
Apparently Rogoff insisted on meeting the budget.
Absolutely true. I believe that they’ll need to cluster the storage in two places to get the most out of the cleaning crews. One will certainly be Lynnwood since it’s the farthest from Forest Street, getting some of the travel costs for the cleaning crews back in less deadhead miles. The other can be the viaduct between CID and I-5 or the tails at Angle Lake.
Whatever they do, it will have to happen on one track with trains parked nose-to-tail so that operations and cleaning staff can access them.
Someone, maybe Lazarus, suggested using a pantograph powered “donkey” to run along the other track. Sounds good to me.
Wrong, wrong, wrong for so many reasons, but mostly because of that old Bugaboo: “Sub-Area Equity”. Money saved in King County doesn’t magically become “free, free, free!”
More specifically, it doesn’t become Snohomish County’s money…..
> You don’t trade off the minimum basics. You build it right the first time. Any city wanting a high-quality metro network would have both 130th station and full down escalators. To paraphrase RossB, Seattle does things in a half-ass way and then wonders why ridership is not as high as Vancouver or DC.
I disagree, the half-way is the best way. The insistence on complete grade separation means ballooning costs for both ballard and west seattle segments. I’m pretty sure sound transit is going to end up just truncating at Smith Cove by 2040 if they do not seriously do some heavy cost cutting.
“One thing you learn when you actually do engineering is that cost often wins out.”
The top priority is to build the most effective network that maximizes the purpose of building it. That means having full down escalators and a station that brings two urban villages into the Link network. The board should have included these in the minimum specs. If it reaches a point that engineering can’t fit an escalator, then raise the budget or delay it a few months.
This is why I link to all those RMTransit videos, to show what building it right the first time is.
And ST wasn’t even choosing between a down escalator and 130th. Lynnwood Link is in ST2, 130th in ST3. Different phases, different budgets, different decision times.
“I disagree, the half-way is the best way. The insistence on complete grade separation means ballooning costs for both ballard and west seattle segments. I’m pretty sure sound transit is going to end up just truncating at Smith Cove by 2040 if they do not seriously do some heavy cost cutting.”
The Lynnwood escalator and 130th station aren’t about grade separation. If you don’t grade-separate, then it’s not as competitive with driving and you have collisions. Ballard threatens to not even fulfill half its purpose if the long transfers between Lines 1/2 and Line 3 discourage both new and current riders. If it can’t fulfill its purpose, what’s the point of building it? ST might defer the part north of Smith Cove, but that would mean spending money on the bad decisions and not taking the cost-saving measures we’ve suggested. Even just going back to the representative alignment in the ballot measure would save money AND improve the alignment.
To save money, ST could revive the 5th Avenue Shallow CID station, make the downtown stations less deep, run elevated or surface along Fauntleroy Way, go back to a moveable Ballard bridge instead of a tunnel, adopt the single-tunnel solution, and/or make Ballard automated with smaller trains and stations. All that would lower the cost while preserving or enhancing the convenience and usefulness of the lines.
> The Lynnwood escalator and 130th station aren’t about grade separation. If you don’t grade-separate, then it’s not as competitive with driving and you have collisions.
it’s all tied together. One of Joni Earl’s major achievement as sound transit ceo was cutting down all the other items that the board wanted and proposing a project that was actually financially achievable.
We could still have the tunnel but say the light rail could run at-grade on 15th ave and return to the drawbridge option.
I’m not sure what Sound Transit is currently entertaining all of these expensive alternatives when they are out of money before construction has started.
“ Yep, value engineered out. Along with a freeway other things.”
The cost savings was as much about the narrowing of the platforms as it was removing escalators. Rather than do what seems logical to me — to simply defer the escalators until later — ST chose to modify the station to NEVER be able to add them back if the funds ever became available. And of course that meant paying more money to architects and engineers to design narrower stations (as opposed to just not installing them yet).
Finally, ST did not go back to the local cities and ask them if they wanted to find the money. They just removed them!
As far as the original DSTT escalators go, ST took possession knowing that those escalators needed replacing and that the stations would be 50 years old in 2041 . Yet, ST3 did not specify one dime towards DSTT station modernization in their total build of $53B!
@Al S,
“ ST chose to modify the station to NEVER be able to add them back”
Yep. Ain’t going to happen. Rogoff took a page out of the Metro playbook and deleted down escalators to save money. But he was a government bureaucrat and cared more about hitting his budget than anything else. So we are stuck.
“As far as the original DSTT escalators go, ST took possession knowing that those escalators needed replacing”
What is ST going to do? Refuse to take possession of the tunnel and shut down Light Rail? Wasn’t going to happen. Metro had ST over a barrel and everyone knew it.
“Yet, ST3 did not specify one dime towards DSTT station modernization”
Ah, no, totally false. ST has fully budgeted complete replacement of all the vertical conveyances in the DSLRT. Replacement starts this year with the elevators at IDS and then progresses to escalators. Total program time to replace all the devices is approx 10 years and ends at WLS.
And let’s not forget, escalators are just the most visible indication of Metro’s lack of maintenance in the old bus tunnel. All the other systems are just as old and dilapidated as the escalators. And ST has a budgeted plan to upgrade these systems too.
It’s happening.
“Replacement starts this year with the elevators at IDS and then progresses to escalators. Total program time to replace all the devices is approx 10 years and ends at WLS.”
This is another problem: why 10 years instead of 1 year? It’s not a problem if passengers can’t use the escalators or elevators to get to stations? Passengers have been waiting I don’t even remember how long for reliable escalators, twenty years? And now they can just wait another 10 years?
@Mike Orr,
“ This is another problem: why 10 years instead of 1 year?”
LOL. Ten years IS the fast track plan. The original plan was actually much, much longer.
Originally ST thought they would need to reconstruct the escalator and elevator enclosures to accept the conveyances that are available today. That’s because the dimensions have changed and the control boxes have changed. That would involve a lot of demolition and reconstruction — and a lot of time.
But ST was able to work with the manufacturers to get new conveyances that have the same footprint, and they were able to find a way to get the new control boxes to fit in the current wells. There is still a lot of rewiring and custom work per conveyance, but at least there isn’t major concrete work involved anymore.
Additionally there are 58 conveyances in the tunnel. There is no way in heck that any contractor is going to be able to replace anything approaching that number in 1 year. Not even close.
“Passengers have been waiting I don’t even remember how long for reliable escalators, twenty years? And now they can just wait another 10 years?”
I’m glad you have confidence in ST’s ability to work miracles, but it will take time to repair the damage done by 30 years of neglect under Metro management.
And it is 10 years to get all the escalators replaced with new hardware. Nobody is suggesting that passengers wait 10 years for escalators that work.
ST has a two-pronged approach. 1). Increase maintenance and make targeted upgrades to existing hardware to increase their availability and extend their life, while 2) replacing all conveyances with upgraded and modern replacements more suited to the environment they operate in.
#1 above is already underway. ST has already greatly improved escalator availability in the tunnel and are now operating at close to 90%.
It’s a good thing. The tunnel needed it.
And don’t forget, escalators aren’t the only system that Metro didn’t maintain. ST has a lot of work to do, and it will take a lot of time.
> 12 transit/bike/ped groups want the next Move Seattle to be bigger. (Move Seattle is the capital levy for non-car street improvements.)
I’d probably edit the letter a bit to say ‘focused on transit/pedestrian/walking’ otherwise if one just makes the levy larger they’ll probably fund some road expansions/bridges.
Anyways looking at the transit items in the document out of 3 billion they listed:
II. Mobility – Make it easier to get where you need to go: $1,514 million:
1. New sidewalks: 331.6 miles for $696 million
2. Safe Crossings and Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS): $50 million
3. Reduce barriers to biking: $38 million
4. Bicycle parking: $20 million
5. Improve access to transit: $110 million
6. Transit improvements: $400 million
7. Center city streetcar: $200 million
There’s also a large section proposed for non-transportation items.
IV. Livability – Invest in our communities: $530.21 million
1. Land Acquisition to for Equitable Transit-Oriented Development: $300 million
2. People streets and public spaces: $96 million
3. Accessible public bathrooms: 40 public bathrooms for $57 million
4. Neighborhood grant programs: 25-35 neighborhood projects for $30 million
5. Benches and other amenities: $210,000
6. Street trees: 47 million
They also wanted to invest $200 million for bold safety redesigns on:
Aurora Ave N – 22 people killed in the last 5 years
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way S – 13 people killed in the last 5 years
4th Ave S – 11 people killed in the last 5 years
Rainier Ave S – 10 people killed in the last 5 years
Lake City Way – 5 people killed in the last 5 years
Starting out reading it I was a bit more hopeful but it is kinda lacking in major details for the actual projects. Also there’s quite a lot of ‘other’ items tacked onto this supposed transportation proposal. Individually one or two might be fine but it’s a lot of baggage.
For the bus routes it calls out ” This needs to include improvements to the 5 (expand upon Metro’s improvement plan), 21, 36, 40, and 48… Complete necessary upgrades to route 8, 44, 50, and the revised route 65″
Mayor Harrell promised “No New Taxes” in his recent State of the City address. A generous interpretation is that he is promising no new sources of revenue, which I guess means no new capital gains tax (or new progressive revenues of any sort). A pessimistic interpretation would mean that he will not endorse any attempts to increase revenues, would include any transportation levy (aka “Move Seattle 2024”) that increases taxes any more than a simple extension of the current levy.
However, do we think he was speaking to the voters, or to the business-owners? Voters and homeowners are clearly open to increased taxes, as they passed a tripling of the Housing Levy just a few months ago, and transportation spending is extremely popular, too. Polling suggests a $1.7B Move Seattle levy would easily sail through passage, and the project priority survey list for Move Seattle was similarly low-detail.
I am pretty sure he was referring to the city budget when he made the claim, which means that he wouldn’t ask the city council to raise taxes. Passing a levy is different. Levies tend to be very popular because they pick and choose the part of the budget that people like paying for. In the case of Seattle that is basically butter not guns. We will pay for housing, transit, schools and parks quite easily. But if you want to build a new jail or increase the money for the police department, forget about it. The city (the mayor and city council) have to deal with that problem, and that was what Harrell was basically referring to. I don’t see him trying to make this really small, given these are very popular projects.
Two follow-ups….
“Polling suggests a $1.7B Move Seattle levy would easily sail through passage.”
Source?
“Voters and homeowners…”
What’s your evidence that owners are supportive of such measures?
(I’m not trying to be cheeky or dismissive here as I’m asking these questions in full earnestness. Thanks in advance for your thoughtful reply.)
@Nathan D
I was mainly focusing on the transportation/transit items from the document.
> Polling suggests a $1.7B Move Seattle levy would easily sail through passage, and the project priority survey list for Move Seattle was similarly low-detail.
It wasn’t that low-detailed. Or at least from the survey I can tell more concretely what they are trying to build. Or there’s a related city study for their top priority projects. Aka the 36+49 rapidride has king county releasing studies for improving the 36 corridor and has the same East Marginal Way Corridor Improvement Project study.
I guess it might sound a bit nitpicking, but when one is proposing to spend 400 million on transit improvements handwaving it as transit spot improvements doesn’t sound too serious. And I notice a lot more detail on all the various non-transit items.
@Tlsgwm
It’s from the survey released last month
the 1.2 billion proposal had 64% support and 36% opposed
the 1.7 billion proposal had 56% support and 43% opposed
Though I’m not sure I’d call it “easily sail through passage”, tax increase measures usually have a bit less support at the ballot compared to surveys.. And increasing it up to 3 billion could have the measure failing instead.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/01/27/seattle-voters-on-board-with-big-transportation-levy/
WL – I guess if you have knowledge of the previous studies and proposals, you could parse detail from the survey. The draft Seattle Transportation Plan has a lot of proposed projects that didn’t make that prioritization survey list, which my assumption is that the advocacy is less focused on having a specific list (which only wonks are going to care about) and more focused on the idea that instead of incremental increases, the levy should aim as high as the ambitions of the STP.
It’s evident in the survey that fewer people supported the hypothetical $1.7B levy than the hypothetical $1.2B levy. If an $0.5B difference cost 8% of the vote, then a linear projection would indicate that a hypothetical levy fails to be passable at ~$2B. I think you’re right that it would probably be hard to pass a $3B levy in the current climate, but I also think it’s worth keeping up the pressure on city pols to get as much revenue as possible to make improvements as fast as possible.
Tslgwm – WL answered your first question, and my justification for believing voters are open to new taxes was the next phrase of the sentence. My justification for believing transit is popular in Seattle is based on the consistent passage of STBD funding.
If you poll people and present two numbers (in this case $1.7 billion and $1.2 billion) a certain percentage of people will always pick the smaller number. This is basically the moderate position. You want to spend money, but not that much money.
But it isn’t clear what difference it makes when it comes to the actual numbers. I really doubt that people have any idea what they get for the money (I don’t). Nor do people have a great idea of what it will actually cost them. They did mention that in the polling, but if you haven’t actually considered the measure, you would have to quickly do the math in your head to figure out how much it would actually cost you*. Hardly anyone is doing that. In other words, you could do a different poll with the same question but with $3.0 billion and $2.5 billion and get pretty much the exact same response. There is no magic number.
This is why I would take the big package people are proposing as a starting point and hack out little pieces here and there (in the name of “fiscal responsibility”). Let those on the left attack it, but eventually you get their grudging support. You look like a moderate, even though it is a much bigger proposal than some suggested was politically feasible. Regardless of the size, The Stranger editorial board would support it and The Seattle Times editorial board would oppose it. It being a general election year, it passes easily.
Again, I would take out the bit about the streetcar and you are pretty much ready to go. I really don’t think there is widespread support for the streetcar. The fact that it divides the *transit community* says a lot. What about folks who never take transit and always bike? What about folks who want the biggest bang for their buck? It is a very controversial project and should not be part of any proposal — it only loses you votes.
* The second part of the question was this:
It authorizes a regular property tax increase within legal limits, allowing maximum new collections of (SPLIT A: $135 million in 2025 and $1.2 billion SPLIT B: $200 million in 2025 and $1.7 billion) over eight years. The 2025 total regular tax limit would be (SPLIT A: $0.43/$1,000 SPLIT B: $0.64/$1,000) of assessed value, including approximately (SPLIT A: $0.08/$1,000 SPLIT B: $0.29/$1,000) of assessed value in additional taxes.
Who is going to hear that — especially during a phone poll — and be able to calculate how much it would actually cost them?
> which my assumption is that the advocacy is less focused on having a specific list (which only wonks are going to care about)
The advocacy list dives into details for all the other ones. Like specifically 6 million for 100 pedestrian street lights, 200k for implementing benches etc…
> The draft Seattle Transportation Plan has a lot of proposed projects that didn’t make that prioritization survey list,
Well, it wasn’t that clear of a survey, but it’s an internal survey they hosted. That wasn’t the actual proposal from them yet.
> I guess if you have knowledge of the previous studies and proposals, you could parse detail from the survey.
I guess if you’re curious the ‘capstone projects’ were:
* Rapidride udistrict to othello via capitol hill route 36+49 https://kingcountymetro.blog/2023/07/19/route-36-improvement-study-estudio-de-mejoras-en-la-route-36/
* invest in walking/biking https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/urban-design-program/street-design-concept-plans/thomas-street-redefined
* 3rd avenue transit corridor more pleasant https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/3rd-ave-improvements
* East Marginal Way rebuilt https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/freight-program/east-marginal-way-corridor-improvement-project
* rehabilitate ship canal bridges https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bridges-stairs-and-other-structures/bridges
> the levy should aim as high as the ambitions of the STP.
That’s exactly what I’m kinda confused by. Transit wise it has less ambition than the city’s STP. Sure it just said it’d give money but did not actually outline what it’d do. They’ve doubled the budget and somehow has less or at best the same to show for transit because they’ve allocated all the money to other projects.
The plans look good to me except for the streetcar. The streetcar was specifically left out of the previous levy because they know it is unpopular. Hard to imagine it is more popular now (since the cost has gone way up).
How do they know the streetcar is “unpopular”?
Are the costs going up, or are the estimates becoming more realistic, or are the standards being raised?
How do they know the streetcar is “unpopular”?
It has been controversial for a long time. Various council members (who are generally pro-transit) have opposed it over the years. Writers on this blog questioned the value from way back (https://seattletransitblog.com/2014/07/29/streetcars-a-momentary-lapse-of-reason/). In contrast, consider the RapidRide G project. It too is expensive and had cost overruns. There are weaknesses, and those who say it should take a different route. But has anyone actually tried to stop it? No. It has sailed through the city council, just as all bus spending has sailed through. The streetcar is the *only* transit project that city council members have tried to stop.
It is clear that Danny Westneat (like a lot of writers) doesn’t know much about transit. But he attacked the merits of the streetcar (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattles-south-lake-union-streetcar-is-an-empty-monument-to-money/). You just can’t find similar criticisms to bus projects. Of course that is all anecdotal, but it is telling. The streetcar is controversial — spending money on the buses is not.
The streetcar was removed from the last Move Seattle because the city was afraid it might sink the levy’s passage. The CCC has always been controversial the same as now. One side thinks it will have high ridership and greatly increase downtown’s mobility and tourism. The other side questions the route and speed and cost and thinks downtown doesn’t need another north-south corridor two blocks from the existing one when other urban villages don’t even have that. E.g., Lake City has tens of thousands of residents and visitors with no RapidRide, a long trip to a major transfer point, and missing east-west access to the Aurora area. The biggest transit needs is to get around throughout Seattle between all the villages, not layer a streetcar on top of downtown’s already soon-to-be 2 Link lines, a bus mall, a monorail, and north-south transit every 2-5 minutes.
This post seems to gloss over that a person in their 20a was shot dead on a moving link train in the tunnel rhis weekend… we really can’t have nice things here.
Seattle Times goes into more detail, here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/man-fatally-shot-on-light-rail-train-in-downtown-seattle/
I’m not sure what more there is to say, except to state the obvious that it’s tragic that a 26-year-old was shot to death when he was likely just trying to get somewhere he needed to go. The victim’s name isn’t public, the cause isn’t known, and the its possible only reason we know about it is because it interrupted the trains for a few hours.
I don’t know if this is the first homicide on the 1 Line, but I have noticed the trend that the assailants seem to get away.
I recall that when a kid executed a man sleeping on the H Line, one of the first things the operator did was pull over and open the doors.
Likewise, when a hammerer gashed a 1-Line rider in the head, the operator opened the doors upon reaching SODO Station, and the assailant ran off. As mentally-debilitated as I heard the hammerer to be, it was bizarre that he had enough wherewithal to elude capture. I was on the very next train that had to stop short of the station, wait awhile, and then switch tracks.
I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation how last night’s perp got away even though the train was in the inter-station tube. Of course, vehicles have to have emergency exits that anyone can open from the inside, but how did nobody notice him coming out of the tube?
At close to midnight, I don’t think anyone is really going to stop someone coming up from the station in a hurry. My bet is that the investigation is still ongoing, which at this point is getting surveillance footage from all the various sources along 3rd Ave and trying to trace where the guy went, which is why we don’t know anything else publicly.
If there was security at the station, they may not have seen the perp, or simply assumed they were a tagger of some sort. They probably yelled at them to get out of the tunnel and then the perp ran off.
> I recall that when a kid executed a man sleeping on the H Line, one of the first things the operator did was pull over and open the doors.
I mean the operator could refuse to open the bus doors, but it’s kind of a horrible idea to trap all the other passengers onboard. Same thing with Link light rail. They could block off all the station exits and catch the perpetrator, but then you’d be preventing everyone else from leaving.
The transit operator’s highest priority is passenger safety over trying to catch the criminal. Besides I’m sure they’ll catch them eventually. The hammer guy was caught
@WL,
Ya. Just lock the doors and turn a shooting incident into a shooting incident+hostage situation+active shooter situation. Exactly what you don’t want to do.
As long as the shooter is running away, let him run away. Let the cops track him down latter, and they will.
And you are right, the hammer guy was arrested. Last I heard he was still in jail and bail was set at $1Million.
Lazarus is right. You don’t trap an assailant in the vehicle (or building). Same with banks or 7-11s. You have cameras and try to catch the guy later, but the last thing you want to do is to trap him inside.
I have to say as much as I love investing in (effective) transit, protected bike lanes and other bike infrastructure seem to me to be enormously cost effective, and this is a new opportunity to make that investment. Bike lanes are so, so much cheaper than just about anything else*, they can be delivered quickly, and once built, the operational cost is about zero. E-bikes are way cheaper than cars and the electricity to run them is close to free. As an experiment I got an e-bike in the late 1990s, and quickly found that I got in much better shape and my car sat parked in the garage so much the battery kept going dead. With Link, I do fine without the electric bike, by taking Link to a high elevation stations like Capitol Hill, and boarding at a low elevation.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in Chicago recently, a flat place that likes to bike. Beyond the famous lakefront trail, the network of trails, protected bike lanes and greenways has been massively expanded since I grew up here in the 70’s and 80s. Bikes are allowed on buses and trains now; these two categories of investment are complementary. Other than the fact that Chicago the city is encircled by multiple counties of sprawl, it’s really pretty great.
Electric cars are better than ICE cars, but e-bikes, electrification of transit and other fleets as well as freight ought to be at the center of our de-carbonization strategy, rather than at the periphery.
* (bike lanes are way cheaper) not counting the legal defense fund e.g. missing link
When possible, the PBL and transit should be on different parallel streets. When bike infrastructure is place on transit streets, it would be best to place it on the left side away from the buses and stops. SDOT has violated this suggestion, found in its own ROW manual and NACTO literature on several corridors (e.g., Stewart Street, 7th Avenue, Roosevelt couplet, NE 43rd Street, NE 65th Street). Transit flow is degraded; safety declines. Consider the Pike Pine Renaissance; Seattle could have followed the Capitol Hill pattern with two one-way PBL on Pike Street and two-way transit on Pine Street; some of the funds could have added eastbound ETB overhead between 1st and 8th avenues. Westbound cyclists would not have had to transition on Melrose; riders transferring between Link and eastbound buses would have a 400-foot shorter walk. On NE 43rd Street, SDOT could have installed a two-way PBL on the south side of the street away from the westbound buses; instead, now there is a pocket hazard at 12th Avenue NE.
Usually the best transit streets are also the best bike streets because they are the most direct path from point A to point B. Where are you seeing the guidance from NACTO/SDOT?
Not sure what you mean about placing bike lanes on the left side; that’s only for one-way streets, as far as I know? Two way cycletracks can be okay but they require special treatment at intersections.
I agree. I also think that get more bike riders that way. Consider two scenarios:
1) Pretty good bike lanes on busy streets.
2) Pretty good bike lanes on quiet side streets.
In the first case riders get to ride on the bike lanes to their most popular destinations. In the second case they have a “last block” problem. But they also have a much safer and more pleasant trip. I think it is clear that people generally much prefer the latter. There are a lot of people who do most of their riding on the bike paths (e. g. Burke Gilman) despite it skirting just about everything. In fact, people really wanted to complete the Missing Link even though it would skirt Ballard the way that it skirts Fremont. People put up with the second rate “last block” problem because it just isn’t that big of a deal.
Portland is looking into this: https://bikeportland.org/2023/10/05/urban-trails-a-bold-plan-for-the-next-generation-of-portland-bikeways-380055
@Ross Bleakley
I don’t know if that’s a fair comparison. People strongly prefer to ride on fully grade-separated bikeways, but it’s not feasible to create new dedicated ROWs for bikes. And I’m not sure that Seattle has the ROWs necessary to create cycletracks on residential streets. In any case it’s incredibly expensive compared to reusing the existing asphalt
I do think that it’s better to put bike facilities on quieter streets, but often there are not really many options to choose from, or some alternatives are prohibitively expensive
Usually the best transit streets are also the best bike streets because they are the most direct path from point A to point B.
Not always. There is a different dynamic. Buses shouldn’t go on side streets. Buses also have to get close to the main destinations. The “last block” problem is not as severe with a bike. It just isn’t that big of a deal if the bike path skips the main part of a neighborhood by a block or two. For example, consider Ballard to Fremont. On a bike you take the Burke Gilman. It largely skips the main businesses in the area. But if you want to visit a business (or apartment) you leave the bike path and bike a couple blocks. At worst you bike the sidewalk. In contrast the 40 runs through the heart of Ballard. If it didn’t, riders would have a longer walk to their destination. The ideal route of the Missing Link — the one that bike advocates recommended for a long time — was to continue along the old train path, which leaves Shilshole and goes by 54th (essentially cutting the corner there). This means it basically avoids just about everything in Ballard. But the trade-off is that it is faster and safer. Doing something similar in a bus would be a bad idea. The 40 just got reworked and no one suggested moving it to Shilshole — you just lose too many riders that way.
It depends a bit on the street grid. Sometimes the main arterial is the flattest route and the only one that continues without zig-zagging. Even so, it may be preferable for the same reason that the Burke is preferable: safety. Imagine they build a pedestrian/bike bridge across I-5 at 47th. This would then skirt the heart of the businesses west of I-5. Riders would have to zig-zag just to go straight, and have to then cut down the side streets to access the businesses. Yet this would likely be about as good as you can possibly get. You avoid the huge mess that is 45th and 50th. It opens up the possibility of giving 45th more in the way of bus/BAT lanes. You then have a pretty straightforward set of streets: 45th for buses, 47th for bikes, 50th for cars. This is pretty much ideal.
I don’t know if that’s a fair comparison. People strongly prefer to ride on fully grade-separated bikeways, but it’s not feasible to create new dedicated ROWs for bikes.
I agree. But my point is that directness is not as important with a bike. You could add bike lanes to Leary and very few would use them, even though it cuts through the heart of businesses. Even if you put a bunch of stop signs and traffic lights on the Burke (making the travel times comparable) people would still prefer the Burke just because it is safer.
And I’m not sure that Seattle has the ROWs necessary to create cycletracks on residential streets. In any case it’s incredibly expensive compared to reusing the existing asphalt.
I’m not suggesting new asphalt. I’m suggesting we do the same thing we do on arterials — carve some space and add bike lanes. Ask people to park on one side of the street. Add bike lanes on the other side. Make the street one way (if that is even necessary). Keep in mind, a lot of streets have these type of restrictions even though they don’t have bike lanes in those areas:
Parking allowed on only one side of the street: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3pD9dCZMntYnKYEL6
Streets that don’t allow automobile through-traffic using signs: https://maps.app.goo.gl/dZxyZkKzAhZWoWx87
Streets that don’t allow automobile through-traffic by using a physical barrier: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1ZcYq33HU76sxFQx8
Midblock crossing of a busy street that allows bikes to go straight, but not cars: https://maps.app.goo.gl/LeHg4VrYLK8UosoLA
It is really mainly about putting it altogether. If anything, I think it would be much cheaper than trying to make a bike lane along a major arterial safer. Consider that crossing of Aurora again (at 92nd). That did involve a new traffic light. But that was about it. A little cement, but pretty cheap. If you wanted to make it part of a bike path, it would be pretty easy (some paint, posts and signs). Those plastic posts that everyone hates would probably be quite adequate on a side street. Same with someone who blocks the bike path. Of course you want them ticketed, but being forced into the middle of a quiet residential street is no different than an existing Greenway, and much better than being forced into a busy street.
Now imagine making 85th that safe. Start with Aurora and 85th. To make it as safe as the crossing of 92nd would require a lot of work. You would basically change the nature of the intersection. Something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_intersection#/media/File:Protected_intersection_features.png. I think this would require making the street wider if we wanted to have the same number of vehicle lanes. If we have one lane for cars and another lane for buses (in one direction) then we have to. There is only so much space. Thus to get the same level of safety requires massive infrastructure spending, and that is just that one intersection. We have to do it all over again at Greenwood Avenue (and 3rd, and 8th, and 15th …).
I really think the only approach that will work in this city is to run the bike paths on residential streets. We just don’t have the money to make anything else work. Not at the level that would lead to a significant increase in bike use.
> You then have a pretty straightforward set of streets: 45th for buses, 47th for bikes, 50th for cars. This is pretty much ideal.
A bridge over 47th would be ideal. As far as I can tell that’s prohibitively expensive, but yeah otherwise there’s no realistic way to create a bike path that crosses I-5 in that area. Freeway ramps are almost universally terrible for bikes (and pedestrians).
I think I should have said “Often the best transit streets […]” rather than “Usually”. I don’t mean we should add bike lanes to busy arterials or to all bus routes. What I meant is that there are often routes that conflict since both transit and bike routes have the same end goal (shortest path from A to B), and it’s sometimes impossible to separate them out onto separate streets. Eastlake being a prime example: there’s simply no alternative route.
On residential streets: I think I misunderstood, I thought you were suggesting Portland’s “urban trails” on residential streets. Not much traffic calming is needed on narrow residential streets. Removing parking for bike lanes might be less safe than just leaving narrow streets as-is. Throwing in a few traffic circles (if they aren’t already there) is probably good enough.
I think Seattle’s bike master plan outlines a fairly reasonable network (it includes a bridge at 47th):
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/About/DocumentLibrary/BicycleMasterPlan/Seattle%20BMP%20Master%20Map.pdf
I think I should have said “Often the best transit streets […]” rather than “Usually”. I don’t mean we should add bike lanes to busy arterials or to all bus routes. What I meant is that there are often routes that conflict since both transit and bike routes have the same end goal (shortest path from A to B), and it’s sometimes impossible to separate them out onto separate streets. Eastlake being a prime example: there’s simply no alternative route.
Yes, absolutely, and that is the example I often use. But eddie’s point is that quite often there is an alternative, and it is to use a parallel street.
I thought you were suggesting Portland’s “urban trails” on residential streets.
That is exactly what I was suggesting. Follow the Portland idea and build major bike infrastructure on residential streets.
Not much traffic calming is needed on narrow residential streets.
I disagree. What we have here is basically an alternative that is almost as bad. It is like two Level B choices: A bike lane on a busy street, or a “greenway” (with nothing but signs) on a residential street. I want a Level-A option: Bike lanes on a residential street (along with everything else).
Removing parking for bike lanes might be less safe than just leaving narrow streets as-is.
Most streets are not narrow. They have parking on both sides. That is what makes them narrow, and it is also what makes them slow. But when folks aren’t parked there they go fast. So fast that people have to put up little “Twenty is Plenty” signs, or little figures of green kids waving a flag. There are better ways of making those streets slow, like blocking them off at various points so that no one can use the street as a way to go a long distance. For bikes you would the same infrastructure as you have along busy streets (bike lanes with posts).
@Ross Bleakney
I do think that creating bike/pedestrian-only throughways on residential streets is a good idea (rerouting through traffic), but for the near/medium term I don’t think we should upgrade them into full on “urban trails”
The underlying issue is cost. I expect it would be significantly more expensive to reconfigure residential streets than to add PBLs to existing roadways. It’s also very politically difficult to take street parking away in residential neighborhoods. Maybe it makes sense in the very long term but I can’t see the value right now.
For example, upgrading the couplet on Roosevelt/11th or Fremont Ave N (south of Woodland Park Zoo) would be more useful and likely cost much less than upgrading the same length of neighboring residential street. And keep in mind that converting bike lanes to PBLs typically means tearing out a lane of parking, which by itself makes quite an impact on the speed/reliability and value of transit.
The 2 things you’ve left out of the equation regarding biking routes is
1) Hills
2) The number of stop lights and stop signs.
If the designated bike route, be it a dedicated path or residential street, adds substantial elevation compared to the arterial, then I am often going to take the arterial, even if it is less safe.
Similarly, if a residential street has a stop sign every 2 blocks, that is a non-starter for many folks on bikes. They would take the arterial.
The reason people like the Burke is safety, yes. But it is also flat and doesn’t have many stop signs. That’s the ideal. But even so, I would sometimes find myself on Leary going from Fremont to Ballard, because for a short trip like that, trying to wind your way onto the trail and then deal with all the weirdness around the RR tracks was just slight too high a barrier.
Yes, hills are an issue. But this goes again to the main point. Safety, avoiding hills — these are definite priorities when it comes to bike routes. But going along the main busy bus corridor should not be a priority — it should be the opposite. In some cases this is unavoidable (again, Eastlake) but in various neighborhoods the difference is minimal, and what is important is safety (and avoiding the buses).
I am often going to take the arterial, even if it is less safe.
Yes, and there will be no one stopping you. My point is that safety is by far the most important factor when it comes to whether people bike or not. Nothing else comes close. That is why the folks in Portland came up with the Urban Trails idea. Keep in mind, the people who organize such things bike on a regular basis. They aren’t like me. They aren’t chicken shits who are afraid of cars whizzing by. They are brave bikers who bike all the time, even under adverse conditions. But they recognize that things plateaued because even with all of the various improvements to make things “safe enough” for them, isn’t safe enough for us chicken-shits. There are bits and pieces here and there, but not enough.
Getting back to eddie’s original point, when there are alternatives that are just as good, the city should put bike lanes on the side streets. When there aren’t alternatives, you have to muddle along as best you can (like on Eastlake). For example, consider 130th, from the future station to Aurora. This should be a major bus corridor — that is the entire reason they are building the station. At the same time, it is not very good for bikes in there. At the crossing of the freeway, the two converge. But west of 1st, there are alternatives. You can add bike lanes to 128th and Roosevelt, avoiding the buses. These alternative are just as level, and much safer. Through in a crossing of 128th and 143rd and you have an excellent connection to the Interurban.
The point being that if they add bike lanes on 130th I won’t use them. Meanwhile, that pretty much guarantees that the bus will be slower than driving, and slower than it would be today. Thus you have not accomplished much. You have slowed down the buses and haven’t gain nearly as many bikers as you would if you separated the two.
Oh, and I forgot to mention stop light and stop signs. Residential streets generally don’t have stop lights until they reach an arterial. In contrast, there may be mid-block stop lights on an arterial. So in that respect using the residential streets would have fewer stop lights.
Stop signs are similar. They are rare on residential streets. The times I have seen them they favor the Greenway. In other words instead of an uncontrolled intersection there are a stop signs perpendicular to the Greenway. Thus someone biking doesn’t have to stop (or slow down) while a driver going across does. Unfortunately these can lead to drivers using the Greenway as a cut through (the exact opposite of what you want) which is why bike lanes and other improvements would help. I really like intersections that allow bikes to go through, but force drivers to turn (I don’t know what they are called). For those a biker has to slow down, but not stop (but then again, a bike doesn’t have to stop at a stop sign, either — they are basically Yield signs for bikers).
@Ross Bleakney
On Portland:
I’m not familiar with Portland’s bike network so I can’t really comment there. The author of Bike Portland has another article here that tries to explain the decline: https://bikeportland.org/2023/04/05/opinion-my-thoughts-on-the-cycling-decline-and-a-list-of-theories-to-explain-it-372259
Quote: At the same time, our bike infrastructure is not nearly as good as folks in the Portland Building and City Hall think it is. PBOT Bike Coordinator Roger Geller recently said “Our strategy of ‘build it and they will come’ is just not working anymore.” That’s only half true. If we actually built excellent and connected bikeways and safe, welcoming streets, people would come
On 130th:
You are assuming that 130th remains a busy arterial. The current (preliminary) plan for 130th is to add a fully separated mixed-use path along the north side. That would likely remove a lane of traffic and leave the road as a three-lane road, with some transit queue jumps to skip some congestion. The existing roadway is awful, with driveways spilling into a busy four-lane road.
https://www.seattle.gov/opcd/ongoing-initiatives/130th-and-145th-station-area-planning#projectdocuments
Under “Multimodal Mobility Study”, project 3
That’s only half true. If we actually built excellent and connected bikeways and safe, welcoming streets, people would come
Yes, and my point is that Portland, like most American cities can’t do that unless they spend way more money than they are willing to spend or start leveraging the residential streets. It is just a lot cheaper to run bike lanes on the residential streets than to try and rework each and every major intersection. Portland, like Seattle, does things in a half-ass way and then wonders why people don’t want to bike.
You are assuming that 130th remains a busy arterial. The current (preliminary) plan for 130th is to add a fully separated mixed-use path along the north side.
I am not assuming anything. I am quite familiar with the plans, and have been busy working with Greenway groups on improving them. So has eddie. But my point is that making 130th a three lane street (with bike lanes) is the wrong approach. It will be much worse for buses. It will still be dangerous for bikes. As a three lane arterial you still have people who make turns way too quickly, and are oblivious to people in the bike lanes. Again, I won’t ride it. Or how about 130th & Aurora? How will they fix that? With a protected intersection? In our dreams. Chances are they will do the same half-ass approach they took in 130th & Greenwood. A weave.
In contrast, 128th could be very similar to 92nd, in that cars would not be allowed to go straight across, while bikes could. I can’t emphasize this enough — the only places that has top notch, extremely safe intersections are the greenways. All they really need to do is add bike lanes and a few car blocks* (so that bikes and pedestrians can go through, but cars can’t). For the same level of safety that would be much cheaper.
I totally agree. If we want grandma, or little Jennie or Cautious-Ross to ride, and we definitely do, as it solves the last-mile problem without giant parking garages or super-frequent, yet somehow super-rare, connectors, than we need to make it safe.
Yes, bikes traveling an extra block or two from a bikeway to destinations isn’t a hardship. That’s what’s great about bikes. A block is just a few cranks and a few seconds. But that’s only if it is flat, you don’t have to navigate a big intersection full of cars and reasonably safe.
To give a relevant example, I could be convince of keeping off 130th, but in that case I would choose 133rd, not 128th, because 128th is the wrong side of major destinations, so you have created a huge barrier to folks trying to get to the high school and more interesting businesses, the park and the community center. You might have to negotiate passage with some of the businesses around Aurora, but it would be worth the effort.
East of the future 130th St station however, it’s a completely different ballgame. There is no better alternative to 125th/130th. The hills and crossing 115th are prohibitive because of the creek. The south side has not through streets, and you end up on the wrong side of a really unpleasant crossing to get to the station. You should definitely strongly consider upgrading the non-motorized facilitates directly on 125th 130th for all ages and abilities.
Crossing 15th Ave, not 115th.
> . Or how about 130th & Aurora? How will they fix that? With a protected intersection? In our dreams. Chances are they will do the same half-ass approach they took in 130th & Greenwood. A weave.
> In contrast, 128th could be very similar to 92nd, in that cars would not be allowed to go straight across, while bikes could. I can’t emphasize this enough — the only places that has top notch, extremely safe intersections are the greenways.
Uhh… while I partly understand your point; just to clarify currently 128th and Aurora does not have a traffic light. While a weave is worse, a completely unprotected intersection is even harder to cross.
If a multiuse trail is put in to the west of the station (which it absolutely should), the length of road between 1st and 5th is going to be 3 lanes. What would you suggest between Linden and 1st?
I don’t have anything against putting bike lanes on 128th. There are a lot of benefits to moving it there (obviously it’s much cheaper), but why rule out 130th? I don’t think it’s accurate to boil 130th down to “bike lane” vs “transit” when it’s a multiuse trail on the north side (across one of the few I-5 crossings that isn’t a full interchange) and a sidewalk widening on the south. Even if you don’t use them a lot of people will, and how much does removing a lane actually delay buses? Could reasonable bus improvements (queue jumps for instance) be made even while removing a lane? I mean those as serious questions, I honestly don’t know.
@john
Generally there’s around 45~46ish feet along the street N 130th St from Stone Way to 1st Avenue. After implementing bike lanes on both sides (5 feet) and a buffer (2 feet) each one is left with 32 feet. They used 11 feet each for the general lanes and left 10 feet for the center turning lane.
There’s more space closer to the freeway bridge around 50 feet.
For options to add in a transit lane are a bit hard.
1) remove the center turning lane for a bus lane (probably on right side)
2) turn the bike into a cycle track on one side of the road. There’s kinda enough space though might require widening the road by one feet. (there’s a lot of dead grass patches, but unsure if it requires redoing the drainage etc…)
3) nearby that southbound freeway ramp maybe could do a weird bus queue in the middle like denny way
4) “expand the road” or aka “expand the sidewalk” with road reconstruction. Noting the grass medians if removed completely, might be able to squeeze in bus, general lanes, and bike lanes. but it’d require a lot of money to rebuild.
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/safety-first/vision-zero/projects/n-130th-st-vision-zero-safety-corridor-
A lot of transit improvements are very similar to bike improvements. There really isn’t much difference between adding BAT lanes and adding bike lanes. If anything the bike lanes would be a bit more expensive, as you want something better than flimsy posts protecting riders. In both cases though, what is expensive is the research and studying. The surveys, the forums, the adjustments — all of that.
There are a few things that can make bus infrastructure more expensive. Are trolleys have wire, and moving it costs a bit. Another is to make the street harder so it that it can handle the buses.
The latter often this gets wrapped up in utility work though, artificially inflating the cost. The city basically says “Well, since we have to shut down the road anyway, let’s do the utility work as well” and suddenly a bike lane that should cost a few thousand costs a few hundred thousand. I’m not saying I would do anything different, but this explains really expensive bike (or bus) projects.
somewhat on topic I’m at the south downtown hub improvements meeting
Most of it is about adding potential bike lanes on Dearborn and extending the 2nd avenue ones south to Chinatown.
I guess if you have any questions I can maybe ask them for yall
Also basically assumed the south cid and second pioneer square stations
According to the Washington Post, buses in the United State have a higher per-passenger carbon footprint than cars do (https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/02/27/electric-scooters-climate-sustainability/).
Granted, this study was based on nationwide average occupancy and fuel efficiency numbers, so hopefully, Seattle’s buses do better than this. It is also possible that the study might not be considering that, in many cases, the alternative to buses is asking family members to make special trips to drive you around, which can mean lots of deadhead miles, in addition to the miles actually carrying the passenger.
But, this still emphasizes that the ultimate purpose of transit is mobility, not carbon reduction, and that, even if having a bus system ultimately results in more carbon emissions than not having one, the buses still need to run because people depend on them.
The problem is using emissions per passenger-mile as the metric for using less emissions. If you look at at average emissions per passenger transit users use the least. It’s a simpsons paradox. The unstated assumption with using emissions per passenger-mile is that on average all trips are the same distance.
Or to use an exaggerated example say if one drove to a coffee shop 2 miles away on local roads versus 30 miles away on the freeway; the latter would have lower emissions per passenger-mile even though that person actually emitted more. Using the freeway to travel very far distance will have low emissions per passenger-mile, but also one is traveling very far.
https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
For example they have the regular bus use 97 grams per passenger km (this is different measurements) and then the coach bus (intercity) only uses 27 grams per passenger km.
Of course this isn’t to say we shouldn’t reduce bus emissions, but the “emissions per passenger-mile” metric is a lot more misleading than it might seem.
The article is paywalled so I can’t read it. But a bus gets 3 miles a gallon while an SUV gets 20. So with 12 passengers you break even, and most buses get more than 12 per service hour when averaged over a day. Even lower-volume coverage routes like the 226, 906, or the Snoqualmie Valley Shuttle can get 10-20 in one hour. So that claim is really suspect.
Buses have many other public benefits beyond energy efficiency. A bus length can fit two cars. Most cars have one person in them. Vehicles must drive spaced apart so they don’t crash into each other. So the same road space can fit 2 drivers or 12, 30, 50, or 120 bus passengers. Every parking space needs a shadow space around it to get in and out of the space. For rows in a parking lot, two spaces can share one shadow space. In contrast, a bus needs about a bus’s worth of space around it.
American cities devote HALF their buildable land to streets, parking, and the no man’s land around freeways. Look at any house or one-story supermarket or fast-food joint. The garage is as large as the rest of the house. The parking lot is as large or larger than the building. All this pushes everything apart and makes it less walkable, so then you have to drive more or use powered transport more to get around, and you can’t just walk to the store whenever you feel like it. And the store has to buy twice as much land to accommodate the required parking. It’s amazing that land in Southcenter is so cheap it can be thrown away for parking lots for big-box stores. Even if the parking is in underground garages, the garage entrances and access traffic still push everything apart somewhat.
Then there’s air pollution, water pollution, and noise pollution from cars. The materials that go into it. The thousands of dollars per year to maintain a car, the tens of thousands to buy it, and for city dwellers the $3000 annual cost of an apartment parking space. (In contrast, a $3 ORCA transit pass is $1,404 per year.) The cost puts a significant burden on people, and prevents them from investing the money in more strategic things like education or family needs or retirement. People under 16 can’t legally drive, nor elderly people who can no longer see or react well, so they’re left out of the transportation network if the city doesn’t have good transit. Taxis avoid car ownership, but cost $10 for a 4-mile trip.
Most of the time the whole “carbon footprint” or environmental impact idea is politically driven and not really science. I’ll give you an example that’s used here all the time…
Knocking down a perfectly good 4 bedroom house in Seattle to build 4 one bedroom apartments (a fourplex)i on the same lot. Maybe we gain a couple of more people living on the same land? ( I wouldn’t count on it) They’ll be more cars parked outside, that’s for sure.
This is because there is a great deal of support for building 1 bedroom apartments in Seattle. People desperately want them and they don’t want to pay high rent. Not that one bedrooms are more environmentally sound than any other type of development, they’re not… a new 4 plex is certainly not worth knocking down a perfectly good house! The golden rule of environmentalism is don’t throw perfectly good things in the landfill for new shit…. starting with houses.
But you’ll hear all sorts of environmentally bogus ideas about density tossed around all the time. Don’t buy it. Somehow what’s good for the environment just happens to be everybody getting their own “affordable” apartment? That’s so convenient for many posters here!
Maybe actually living with other people is the real solution? Maybe that helps the environment and it certainly helps people’s mental health. Living alone a “apodment” for decades can’t be good for you.
You realize that four one-bedroom apartments is more than a four-bedroom house, right? A house has one living room, one kitchen, two bathrooms, flimsy locks on cardboard bedroom doors you can punch a hole through and don’t block noise, one “master bedroom”, and three small bedrooms.
In contrast, a fourplex has four living rooms, four kitchens, four bathrooms, and real doors. Each of the four units can house a couple and maybe a small child.
Not tearing down houses may be OK in some places, but not when the population is significantly increasing in a city, and all the land already has houses on it. Sprawling into exurbs 40 miles out is not a responsible solution.
When a house is replaced by a 12-unit apartment building, as is common when it’s allowed, gives a four times or more capacity increase on the same lot. Each of those units will use less energy and require less infrastructure than 12 houses would. And often the original house is not four bedrooms, but one or two bedrooms.
Households have a right to a reasonable amount of privacy and space. Shoehorning four of them into a house that was designed for a nuclear family (two parents and 1-3 of their own children) is unreasonable. It’s fine for some singles that are happy with a bedroom in a house. But it’s not right to force everyone into them. Get over the idea that single-family houses are compatible with most current households. They’re designed for mom+dad+2 kids. That hasn’t been the norm since the 1970s.
Mike Orr,
Right now 4000 square foot McMansions are going up in “greater Houston” and perfectly good houses are getting torn down in Seattle to build housing nobody reading this can afford. Neither is a good model for affordability and both are environmental disasters. There’s got to be a 3rd way, right??????
Nobody is building 12 units a single city lot in Seattle. That would be 5 stories high with 15 parking spaces! It’s hard to get s project like that to pencil out using empty land. The new zoning laws everybody is crowing about are for 4 and maybe 6 unit apartment buildings replacing houses that cost over a million to buy and dispose of. All it does is send perfectly good houses into the landfill and build housing that only high income people can afford.
And…
“Households have a right to a reasonable amount of privacy and space. Shoehorning four of them into a house that was designed for a nuclear family (two parents and 1-3 of their own children) is unreasonable. It’s fine for some singles that are happy with a bedroom in a house. But it’s not right to force everyone into them. Get over the idea that single-family houses are compatible with most current households. They’re designed for mom+dad+2 kids. That hasn’t been the norm since the 1970s.”
Ah, maybe you think living that way isn’t “the norm since the 1970s” but at least 90% of the world lives like that. Starting with me. Over the I’ve had roommates, my adult brothers, my wife, several kids (none of them were biologically mine) and my late father-in-law live with me. Currently it’s just the Mrs. and me., but I’m planning a basement remodel for an apartment (easy to do here in Utah… in Seattle… different story). We don’t really need the space and there’s a housing shortage. Plus we miss having people around. We’ll get some college kids to live in basement!
Here’s the crazy part. I could never live alone because I didn’t have enough money to do so. I always needed roommates or family living with me to “get by”. Now that I’m old, I have made a huge amount of money with real estate (only on paper mind you)! I’m planning on dying in this house because I’m sure somebody (family?) is going to take care of me…. maybe because they love me (I hope) or maybe because this is one Hell of a nice house and I’m not going to need it when I’m dead.
I look at Seattle and all those people living alone… paying every increasing rent… and I wonder…. What’s the end game? Honestly… the average homeless person in Seattle is like, over 50 years old. It’s a fucking mean town and old people living in tents proves it. Makes me unbelievably sad, Mike.
Keep in mind, I’m a Liberal. Black Lives Matter to me. I believe hearth and home are important to everyone. Generational wealth, educational opportunities, a pathway to happiness and general wellbeing… these are American values. It would be nice to find a more environmentally responsible way towards those goals, but we can’t give up those goals. Home ownership is the key. I will not let the generations after me settle for less.
Every poor bastard who immigrates to this country…. wants to buy a house for their family. I’ve worked construction with immigrants from all over the world and that’s the goal. Buy a house for their loved ones.
The task at hand is… “How do we make the American Dream affordable and environmentally sustainable?”
Two examples in Ballard currently working through permitting:
7034 15th Avenue NW (currently a dive bar operating out of an old double-wide prefab):
https://designreviewoutreach.seattle.gov/2023/05/7034-15th-ave-nw/
6743 15th Avenue NW (currently a house)
https://cosaccela.seattle.gov/portal/cap/CapDetail.aspx?type=1000&fromACA=Y&agencyCode=SEATTLE&Module=DPDPermits&capID1=19DPD&capID2=00000&capID3=24291
These projects do exist. I’m not sure why so you’re opposed to the idea that even though you personally never got involved in building this kind of housing, someone else might be doing it.
> The task at hand is… “How do we make the American Dream affordable and environmentally sustainable?”
Maybe stop dreaming about single family homes? and wake up to townhouses and apartments.
Ok, sure, they’re apartments and not condos or townhomes or whatever you think is the epitome of the American Dream(tm). But you have to be aware that there a bunch of reasons why developers tend to build apartments in Washington instead of condos, right?
Anyways, you’re probably right that it’s not common for a SFH in Seattle to turn into 12 purchasable housing units, but that’s mostly because we have dumb FAR limits for residential construction, and the majority of lots in Seattle are something like 50×100′. So if you want to build a dozen 1,200-sq-ft homes (small for modern families), you need a FAR of about 2.9, and that’s assuming you don’t run into height issues.
But, for an examples of one house being turned into more than four, look at the intersection of 9th Ave NW and NW 56th St where old Ballard SFH’s are being turned, lot-by-lot, into 7-9 townhomes each.
“perfectly good houses are getting torn down in Seattle to build housing nobody reading this can afford.”‘
They can’t afford the house either. The house stopped being affordable in 2012 if not earlier. The house is approaching a million dollars if it hasn’t reached it already. Every time the house sells, a richer family buys it. People talk about keeping houses so that “neighborhood character” remains the same, but even though the neighborhood looks the same, the people in the houses aren’t the same. An entire condo building may cost more than the house, but each unit costs less than the house. Even if only rich people can live in the new apartments. that’s five or ten more people that can live in a more walkable neighborhood and have better transit than they could otherwise. That might make them stronger advocates for those things. Eventually the high-end market will become saturated when there are no more rich people to rent things or they refuse to throw money on overpriced apartments, and then the next apartments won’t be that expensive. You’ll say the developers will stop developing then, but some will, because some profit is better than no profit.
Only 30% of the land is multifamily, so all the apartment and condo developers are squeezing into those lots and driving the prices up. Those are the only lots where houses turn into 12-unit buildings. Maybe some lots in more peripheral zones are turning into 4-unit or 6-unit buildings. That’s still a several times increase in the housing supply on those lots, and that adds up on a citywide basis.
If we relaxed the zoning to allow 8- or 12-unit buildings over a larger area — i.e., to return Seattle zoning to what it was in the 1950s — then some of the pent-up demand would be relieved. The demand for large luxury buildings may get saturated, and then there would be room for more modest buildings by smaller developers. Developers that get outbid for the few lots available under the current zoning. There would be more lots than developers, rather than more developers than lots, so the market would be saturated and some of the lots would remain unbuilt. There’s your remaining single-family houses, for those who want them and can afford them.
WL,
I would not say a bad word against single family homes…. some of it is that I actually live in one and some of it is its political suicide. Saying “down with single family homes!” means you’ll never win an election or hold the power to get anything done.
There’s room in America for owner occupied, multi-family homes the working class could actually buy and live in. It’s not something that’s happening in Seattle. In fact, “density” in Seattle often means ripping down family housing and replacing it with as many shitty one bedrooms and studios as possible. That’s not sustainable for a city.
Nathan D.
I’ve worked on all sorts of projects over the years…. but affordable family housing has completely gone away. Those projects you posted? Would you live there for 20 years of your life? Crappy pack and stack housing…. small cramped units with the rent getting jacked up every year? Those projects are on 15th so they actually belong there and not tucked away deep in some residential neighborhood…and. there is a need for this sort of housing for young people, but it’s got to backed up with more units suitable for families. Seattle is a town of 4000 sq ft mega mansions or 400 sq ft “apodments”…. so much shitty housing has been built in the last 25 years.
Mike Orr and rest of you.
Because I’ve bought a house and stabilized my living expenses decades ago…. I can actually retire. If I would have rented…. my Gawd! I’d be so poor right now! I honestly wouldn’t be homeless, but I certainly would be moving to Mississippi or some State with a lower cost of living. Renting in America has never added up. And like I already said…. a good number of the homeless folks in Seattle are local senior citizens who used to rent, but can’t afford to now. Personally, I’m happy not to be living under a blue trap somewhere.
Yes, it is very frustrating the suburban ponzi scheme (which included most of Seattle north of 85th street) is now over. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growth-ponzi-scheme-md2020
Meanwhile, in the real world of actual money and not Other People’s Money, affordable infill housing continues to be produced: https://www-djc-com.ezproxy.spl.org/news/re/12162387.html
Tacomme, do you perhaps yearn for Seattle to build owner occupied polikatoikia? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/the-design-history-of-athens-iconic-apartments
small cramped units with the rent getting jacked up every year?
Once again you are conflating ownership with apartments. They have these things called condominiums. They are like apartments, only you own them. Row houses are also owned. In that case you actually own the individual land under the house (instead of it being owned collectively by you and your neighbors).
As far as rent increases go, that is the product of a system that restricts supply. Basically you are pointing at a system that primarily benefits home owners and saying “That is what you should buy”. It is as if you are a sheik in Saudi Arabia in 1975 saying “Buy Oil”. Yeah, obviously, because you are wealthy and control the cartel. Not everyone is so lucky.
Tacomee, if I recall your houses are older and unusual, more like the missing middle housing we want to see. Can you remind me again of their size and shape? If you were able to fill them with relatives and friends, that’s great, and what we want to see more of. That’s like an extended family that really uses and needs all of a large house and its yard.
But 4-person families and multigenerational households have become uncommon. Many houses have just one or two adults. Many renters don’t know anybody with a house they could stay with. I wouldn’t mind having a room in a house with somebody I knew, and I used to know more people like that, but the only person now who fits the bill lives south of Rainier Beach on the half-hourly 107 with nothing to walk to. That would really not be good for me. So you’re taking about a group of strangers sharing a house, or a stranger living with a family. Only some people want that, and it’s hard to find somebody you’re compatible with, or that has an opening in the same time period, plus you have only a first impression of what the stranger will be like. So it’s not something we should force everybody into.
Older houses are sometimes more flexible and amenable to the arrangements you’re talking about. My U-District place from 1905 could only be described as an apartment building, but it had four 2-story 2.5 BR townhouse-style units, so it felt like living in a house. It also had a few 1 BR and studios tucked around in various corners. Every unit had an outside door. I’ve never seen a building like it since.
I’m mainly talking about the post-1950s houses build during the suburban after things became more standardized. Those were specifically designed for nuclear families like on Bewitched, and don’t work as well for non-families.
AJ,
Thanks for posting the Strong Towns link. Let’s take a deeper look at the guy who wrote that piece…. Charles Marohn. He’s a college educated White guy, owns a big house in Brainerd Minn. and doesn’t use public transit…. because there’s around 15,000 people in Brainerd and they’re like 96% White, most pretty well off to boot. I’ve been there a couple of times, it’s just farms, little towns and a lot of suburban sprawl. Mr. Marohn is a poster boy for White Privilege…. and yet he’s written so much crap about how other people (not him or his family) should live….
Is Charles Marohn an urban planner… or is he a charlatan?
I mean it’s pretty damn rich to write about “America’s Growth Ponzi Scheme” and how evil suburbia is…. while living in suburbia, right?
Tacomee,
You don’t see small-lot “affordable housing” because it’s not economical to build. The new, MFTE-supported or MHA-supported “affordable” (with rents pegged at 30% of your gross income, which ends up being close to half of your net income) housing is being built as large double-loaded apartment complexes, like Grand Street Commons, or the 30-acre Yesler development. A new block of ~80 permanent supportive housing units opened last year at 15th NW and NW 64th. It turns out that the MHA and JumpStart funds are actually being used, but only on large projects where the price-per-unit is minimized.
You’re right that if I had a choice, I probably wouldn’t choose to spend 20 years of my life living in a large apartment complex, but I’m also living a comfortable dual-income-no-kids and and scored cheap rent so we actually have a shot at buying a condo somewhere. But I think what confuses a lot of the commentators that refute you is the fact that you claim to want to build sustainably (which means densely), and have supported common-sense reforms to zoning laws to allow for more density, but when it’s done in practice, you deride it as cheap construction and too dense for any reasonable family. How do you square that circle?
@tacomee
> There’s room in America for owner occupied, multi-family homes the working class could actually buy and live in. It’s not something that’s happening in Seattle.
Why not build it in Seattle? You’re acting like it’s the second apocalypse to build townhouses/apartments
> In fact, “density” in Seattle often means ripping down family housing and replacing it with as many shitty one bedrooms and studios as possible. That’s not sustainable for a city.
Tacomee, literally hundreds if not thousands of cities build townhouses and apartments. I really don’t think Americans are so weak that society will collapse if townhouses and apartments are built.
Your examples are so conservative that they’re neither representative nor especially realistic. I live in a townhouse fourplex which replaced a single house; I’m not sure how many bedrooms the old house had, but now there are eight bedrooms on the same lot. (It’s no “apodment”, either; this townhouse has more space than the three-bedroom Craftsman I lived in before.) Down the street, there’s a construction project under way – eight skinny townhouses going in where one house used to be, two bedrooms apiece. It was a similar story a couple years ago, when a builder knocked down the run-down old five-bedroom place across the alley: now there are seven units in the same space, all of them having at least two bedrooms.
Replacing big, old, poorly-insulated, widely-spaced houses that have inefficient appliances with dense modern houses packed closer together saves energy for both heating and transportation, increases the viability of foot-traffic-driven local businesses, and improves the return on transit investment. It’s a good thing.
Mike Orr,
The house I sold in Tacoma was on the tax rolls at 850 square feet… but it had a finished attic and partially finished basement… so it was bigger. I bought it from a family who had 3 generations living together…. a mother and daughter, and two kids. I sold it a family who once again have 3 generations living there. None of these people were well off… or White BTW. The house itself was built in 1926… a Craftsman sort of cottage? It was never, even when it was new, a top of line house. Most of the houses in East Tacoma and the Lincoln District are pretty small…. often with a bunch of people living in them.
I still own (with my brother) a big house in the Triangle district of Tacoma (Stadium district). It’s maybe 2200 square feet? It’s been 3 apartments since the Great Depression I’d guess? Two of the units are bigger and really nice… with one smaller unit. We’ve gone back and forth and what to do with the building… sell it or move in once we retire… because of the walkable neighborhood and a grocery store and drug store that deliver, it would be ideal to retire to.
I once asked City Council if they couldn’t make the alley behind my house in the Lincoln District a city street and let the home owners spilt their lots in half so a second row of houses could be built in the backyards… the idea got zero traction at City Hall. At the time the City was all in, and I mean all in, on light rail and building apartments in downtown and Hilltop. That helped out developers, but did nothing for vast majority of people living in Tacoma.
The two things I spent decades working on getting the local government to focus on were…. building more housing without tearing what’s already there down (and displacing lower income people living there) and increasing bus service citywide. Tacoma, like Seattle, opted for big shiny projects that have done nothing but make it harder on lower income people already living there.
“Charles Marohn. He’s a college educated White guy, owns a big house in Brainerd Minn. and doesn’t use public transit…. because there’s around 15,000 people in Brainerd and they’re like 96% White, most pretty well off to boot.”
And everyone who advocates for higher density or minimum wage or rent control or unions is a limousine liberal living in Medina or Clyde Hill. I don’t know anything about Charles Marohn, but some academic advocates, if we can call him that, have lived in a variety of neighborhood and city types and economic levels, and if they’re in a low-density neighborhood at the moment, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re out of touch with things or being a pseudo-YIMBY NIMBY. CityNerd has lived in a variety of densities, and he spent time in a car-oriented suburb specifically to experience it. (He biked around.) I don’t know what other choices Charles Marohn has in his Minnesota county, or what constraints his family situation puts on where he lives.
A lot of people in North Seattle in single-family houses support the city’s migration to higher density and walkability. Including RossB, and those who voted for pro-urban candidates and policies. And Frank and MHD and some other STB authors, although they had houses in south Seattle, central Seattle, or the Eastside.
I looked up the Lincoln District in Tacoma since you never said where it is. Google Maps says it’s at S 38th & Yakima, seven blocks west of the Pacific Avenue Stream line, a bit south of where I-5 crosses, but three miles north of Parkland.
> “Charles Marohn. He’s a college educated White guy, owns a big house in Brainerd Minn. and doesn’t use public transit…. because there’s around 15,000 people in Brainerd and they’re like 96% White, most pretty well off to boot.”
Didn’t you last time lambast apartment advocates for being poor and dreaming outlandishly?
If they are rich and educated one calls them out of touch.
And if they are poor one calls them deluded.
Does someone have to have the goldilocks income and background to advocate for housing?
“I once asked City Council if they couldn’t make the alley behind my house in the Lincoln District a city street and let the home owners spilt their lots in half so a second row of houses could be built in the backyards… the idea got zero traction at City Hall.”
It sounds like you are a strong supporter of Home in Tacoma then. Because that is a key to my wanted to build my DADU over the garage in my alley. I could at some point split my lot, making what wouldn’t pencil this year, pencil next year, as it increases the value of the property substantially.
https://www.cityoftacoma.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_6/File/PDS/Topic-based%20Summaries_20240202%20Unit%20Lot%20Subdivisions%20Summary%20Sheet.pdf
“Overview
• Home In Tacoma Phase 1 and state law allow lot flexibility and separate ownership of individual units in new UR
(Urban Residential) zones to encourage and create new opportunities to create separate lots and promote more
homeownership.
• Creation of new lots is permitted, with a new minimum lot size of 2,500 sq/ft in UR Zones.
• Unit Lot Subdivisions are a way to divide property for separate ownership, potentially with shared access, utilities,
and infrastructure.
• Minimum site size for a Unit Lot Subdivision (or minimum “parent lot”) is in the District Standards table.
• Unit lots can be created from the parent lot, provided the overall lot area/density standards are met. The parent
lot must meet all standards but unit lots do not have to meet standards.”
We are just across Division from your triplex in “The Triangle” – if you really meant what I’ve heard referred to as “The Wedge”.
Marohn lives in a pre-WWII, dense walkable neighborhood. It is very much not suburbia, and Marohn spends a lot of time critiquing good vs bad urbanism in cities of all sizes.
What I like about Strong Towns is they are articulating a vision for vibrant, walkable neighborhoods for cities of all sizes, not just just the 10~15 metropolitan areas that have the scale to support frequent rail transit. Marohn is generally skeptical of megaprojects (Alon Levy does a good job engaging with Strong Towns directly on this topic, as Levy strongly supports megaprojects as transformational for large cities. Chuck would oppose ST3, while Levy would critique the project selection but support the overall thrust), but otherwise I find myself usually agreeing with him.
Tacomme’s concerns – how do we grow good neighborhoods organically, minimizing demolition and maximizing local ownership, with a focus on walkability and local transit and a skepticism towards megaprojects and Other People’s Money – is exactly the ethos of the Strong Towns movement, which is why I included the link. It is sad that a writer’s race and gender, let alone where they chose to live & raise their family, is relevant to any of this discussion.
Is like to know what they assumed for nationwide vehicle occupancy rate.
For years these types of studies used a long debunked number. The actual average during rush hour, according to the one study that actually did look at the types of trips where people take transit, is around 1.2. Eg: no long distance packed auto trips across the state to go to a sports event. Nobody takes a local transit bus for that. It was one of the universities in California that actually decided upon that number, but I don’t remember which one.
Private vehicle occupancy may have increased in recent years due to Uber, Lyft, etc due to having to have a driver for even one passenger, but that really shouldn’t count towards vehicle occupancy.
I can tell you that when I’m at a bus stop and counting, only about 1 in 15 cars has more than one occupant.
At the same time, I can also say there’s an awful lot of rural bus routes (Eg, Pacific Transit in Raymond) that don’t get a lot of passengers per bus.
Vehicle occupancy varies by type of trip. Work trips are by far the lowest. Here are some summary stats:
https://nhts.ornl.gov/tables09/fatcat/2009/avo_trptrans_whytrp1s.html
This national survey in 2009 listed here says 1.15 for work trips and 1.67 for all trips. That’s a huge difference!
And keep in mind that the shorter the trip, the lower the likelihood that it is a work trip — so that local street traffic will have higher occupancy than a freeway with exits every few miles.
And the occupancy can vary by time of day because work trips have higher peaks than other types of trips. So a survey at 8:30 am or 5:30 pm will have lower occupancy than 1 pm or 8 pm.
Well that’s the second problem with using emissions per passenger mile. It is swamped in the averages by those traveling farther.
Aka if one has 20 people driving 5 miles at 20 mpg (0.25 per person, 5 gallons total) and 1 person driving 100 miles at 50 mpg (2 gallons), when you combine the metrics it makes it look better miles per gallon wise on average even though the long distance commuter is actually using more gas than any of the short distance drivers.
It’s actually kinda related to how california switched from LOS to VMT actually.
Some of the Reddit comments are pretty harsh. Although there are many conflicting views here, I think they are necessary. Good ideas come from differing views. I have gotten caught up in dismissing other views in the past. I would like to think we, starting woth myself are better than that now. I would be more cautious in the future to comment regularly on a comment thread like the one I just read.
I liked many of the comments: they were a civil discussion of a variety of viewpoints, better than the original message. The original message said, paraphrasing, “STB is anti-transit like the Koch brothers.” How can anyone say that when we strongly support ST2 Link, helped get ST2 and 3 passed, support the good parts of Metro restructures, joined with the Transit Riders Union and others to lobby for preserving Metro’s service hours after the 2012 and 2020 recessions, and supported Move Seattle and the TBD.
They seem to think ST3 in its current form is the exact and only thing that’s needed, or they haven’t read or understood most of our articles. So I can’t take the OP’s message seriously. The replies pointed out that we have a more mixed viewpoint than that, supporting some things, opposing others, working for a better bus network because most people can’t take only Link, etc. Some of the replies were negative on STB or harsh, or were out-of-towners who don’t fully understand the transit situation here, but those were only some, not most of them, at least not when I read it a few days ago.
I’m not on Reddit so I don’t know what it’s usually like, just what I’ve heard about a lot of circular rabbit holes and extremism. I wouldn’t create an account just to reply, but if I were already on Reddit I might reply.
Sherwin was the one who originally saw the thread, and sent the link as “We got hate on reddit.” Amusing. I almost used that in the description. Sherwin set the OP a direct message explaining STB’s nuance on supporting some things and opposing others, and later the original message was deleted. That’s all I know.
It’s impossible to say what “Reddit” is usually like; there are thousands of different subreddits and with different people posting, and perhaps more importantly, different moderation policies.
But I can definitely say what r/seattle is usually like: it usually has pretty shallow discussions of public policy, with a very strong leftist slant. The leftist slant is partly just because young people in Seattle are inevitably going to be like that, partly because the conservatives go to r/seattlewa instead, and partly because the r/seattle moderators have decided to adopt a hair-trigger posture toward posts on the favorite conservative issues (i.e. crime and race).
So whenever transit comes up… there are a lot of comments about why we don’t have a good transit system like other cities, and why don’t we just spend more money on it to get one. You could call it the “lines on a map” attitude. Supposing, “if I live in A, and I need to get to B, wouldn’t it be great be a rail service going from A to B, and the only reason we don’t is because conservatives don’t want to spend the money on it,” not considering that resources are finite, and the feasibility of such a service depends on how many other people are going between A and B, and how easy it is to get there by other means.
Many of these people have probably visited other cities with better transit, but haven’t realized that the reason the transit was so convenient in, for example, Tokyo or Paris, was yes, because they spent more money on transit, but that was only possible because the cities are much, much denser, and they decided (consciously!) to make space for cars much, much scarcer. You can spend a ton of money on transit, but if you still spend an order of magnitude more on roads and parking, and keep developers from building near the transit, most people are going to drive.
This blog has pretty deep analysis of how the money should be spent, sometimes concluding that if it’s going to be spent a certain way, maybe it shouldn’t be spent. Which, as far as I am concerned, is as it should be. But I’m a middle-aged man, and I get that these concerns are not necessarily popular with the kids. C’est la vie.
There’s an effort afoot to require transit benefit districts to have rider representation. Apparently they need more support from state Senators :
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/urge-the-senate-to-vote-yes-on-hb-2191-for-inclusive-transit-representation
The seattle transportation plan was just released today https://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2024/02/28/seattle-transportation-plan-next-steps
I’ll probably look at it a bit later and comment below.
I might head over to the South Downtown Hub Workshop planning meeting today afternoon as well
Apparently this isn’t the final final implementation plan.
> Community input will be used to shape a potential levy renewal proposal for voters to have their say on the November 2024 ballot. Once our financial picture is clearer, we will develop our first STP Implementation Plan in 2025. Thereafter, we will commit to update the STP Implementation Plan approximately every 4 years.
Page 110 has a brief description of the projects and 120 has the prioritization
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/STP/Feb2024/STP_Part_I_MayorsRecommendedPlan_02_2024.pdf#page=110
Anyways back to reading tea leaves, anyways calling out the couple projects that actually say specifically “transit” it’s rate like:
Tier 1
* Eastlake to Rainier Beach | Transit + Multimodal Improvements (the 36 +49 rapidride)
* S Jackson St | Transit + Multimodal Improvements (1st Ave S to Rainier Ave S)
* Rainier Valley | Rapidride Coordination (king county metro is already moving forward with it, so I assume not much levy money needed)
I guess a center transit lane, but how would the busses use them to board passengers?? Or maybe it’s just for the streetcar?
Tier 2
* greenwood & phinney (route 5) “In partnership with King County Metro, upgrade this transit-rich corridor to improve bus reliability and accessibility”
* harrison st and mercer st. The harrison transitway proposal
* southwest to southeast Seattle ??? Very vague, unsure if this means route 50 or some other route through georgetown
* Ballard to U District | RapidRide Coordination, upgrading route 44 to rapidride
Tier 3
* N 85th st + NE 65th (route 45 and 62) mainly just pedestrian improvements
* SW Admiral Way, preparing rerouting rapidride H to Alki beach after west Seattle opens
* Lake City Way to Northgate “In collaboration with WSDOT, improve the connection between two busy neighborhoods for people walking, rolling, biking, and taking transit”.
* West Seattle to Rainier Valley, also very vague. also I don’t understand whats the difference between southwest seattle versus west seattle and southeast seattle versus rainier valley.
There’s other roads called out like denny way and say boren ave, but they are labeled as ‘multimodal’ not transit so it’s impossible to tell what exactly they’d implement
“Multimodal” usually means a wide bike/ped path like the Lander Street overpass or the Burke-Gilman segment on NW 54th Street.
The two southwest-southeast projects (projects 70 and 80) may be referring to the 50 and 60 corridors. Where is Appendix A? It’s supposed to have all the project maps. The Engagement Summary Phase 3 report has maps with the top 5 survey-voted corridors in each subarea (pp. 19-25), and The Urbanist has an article with a “STP Large Capital Projects Map”. They agree on a path that’s almost like the western part of route 50, from Alki to Admiral Way and the bridge (like the 56, not serving the Junction), around to the VA Hospital and MLK. It doesn’t address the east-west segments east of MLK.
For route 60, we see something resembling Westwood Village to South Park and Georgetown and up to Beacon Hill, where it connects to the Beacon-Broadway-UDistrict corridor. Since this is based on streets rather than bus routes, it doesn’t rule out a full 60 upgrade overlapping with the 36-Broadway-49 concept.
Confirmed. Lynnwood Link Light Rail testing continues, and Sound Transit has progressed to self powered testing now. Very good news.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1b0tas2/the_link_has_made_it_to_lynnwood/?rdt=42107
Ya, not a very good picture, but I’m not responsible.
2024 is going to be a very good year for transit locally. ELSL opens April 27th and Lynnwood Link opens end of summer. Those are two major milestones that will change the face of transit locally.
Very late 2024 or early 2025 should also see Redmond Link open too. And hopefully 2025 will see the full ELE open.
Greater Seattle is finally becoming a real city.
Interesting tidbit I was talking to one of the sound transit peeps and they said only 800 people daily would transfer southbound from east link (in context of 4th versus the north of cid station)
I’m kinda surprised it’s that low/if that’s correct
Speaking as a resident of the Eastside… when I go to Seattle, 95% of the time I’m going to either Downtown, Seattle Center, or the U District. What is there to go to south of Downtown? Not much. The city council has ensured that with their tepid upzoning.
Also, to get to SE Seattle, many will transfer at Judkins to the 7, so southbound at the ID will really be for Airport (or further south) riders, at which point Stride to TIBS is a competitive options (particularly as Link slows down with two new infill stations between ID and TIBS)
If the transfer at ID is mediocre, there will be other 2-seat routing that may be better: Bellevue downtown to SeaTac via Stride, Redmond to SeaTac via SR520, etc..
I don’t know how you define Downtown, but First Hill medical offices and Capitol Hill nightlife and restaurants are also possible attractions. Plus, there are ways to get away via ferry or Amtrak.
You could also say that the stadiums are south of Downtown.
I don’t know how you define Downtown, but First Hill medical offices and Capitol Hill nightlife and restaurants are also possible attractions. Plus, there are ways to get away via ferry or Amtrak.
Right, but none of those are south of Downtown.
You could also say that the stadiums are south of Downtown.
Yes, and that fits into the category of “not much”. Besides, a lot of people use the CID station to get to the games, so I think it is unlikely they transfer. There is SoDo and Beacon Hill. SoDo doesn’t have much and Beacon Hill is not a major destination. Then you have the Rainier Valley destinations, but the 7 covers those much better. Next up is TIBS which will have an express bus. It is probably easier to take the bus to TIBS and transfer to SeaTac (and places to the south) rather than take the train into Seattle.
There are very few places where Link is the obvious choice. On the other hand, there are several in which people might just prefer Link for various reasons. For example, from Spring District to SeaTac you can stay on the train and transfer at CID or get off the train, transfer to a bus and then get on a different train. The latter may be faster, but folks might prefer one transfer instead of two. 800 riders sounds reasonable to me.
If what some boardmembers concerns about eastside to southbound transfers suggests is correct, the biggest cohort of those transferring are going to SeaTac? I have a little bit of a hard time believing that but if that’s the case then it very well may just not be a significant amount of riders. South of downtown link also lacks travel time advantages. I don’t want to discount those who are traveling from south of downtown and transferring eastbound however
Easier said then done but that center platform at pioneer square station years ago would have been very nice as a Spanish solution had we had stairway access down to the platforms. Unfortunately eastside-southbound transfers just won’t be a seamless as a consequence
I don’t want to discount those who are traveling from south of downtown and transferring eastbound however
It is the same dynamic in reverse though. For example: Rainier Valley to the East Side: Take the 7 (or 106) and transfer to Link at Judkins Park. TIBS to Downtown Bellevue: Take Stride. South of TIBS to Downtown Bellevue: Take Link than Stride. That basically leaves: Beacon Hill to the East Side; southern suburbs to other East Side locations (one fewer transfer); folks who just prefer the train.
Good Link-to-Link transfers should be a minimum requirement for a multi-line network regardless of how many Eastsiders go to the airport. The opposite-direction transfer can’t be helped, but it could be made almost seamless with a center platform. The current ST3 plan will degrade that further by requiring an 8-10 minute walk from Line 2 to Line 3 when SeaTac/Ranier is switched from Line 1 to Line 3. A lot of the low ridership is due to the bad transfer. Even if SODO/Beacon/Rainier’s destinations don’t attract Eastsiders now, it’s likely that new destinations will arise over the next 20-40 years just like they have in the last 20-40 years, and some of those may attract Eastsiders more. (*) Claudia Balducci has raised this issue and proposed an alternative alignment that didn’t pass the board; I don’t remember what it was now.
For Bellevue Downtown to the airport, Lines 2+1 vs Swift 1 will probably be comparable timewise. The latter will require transferring to Link or the A at TIB, so it’s not a one-seat ride. So it may come down to how much you like trains vs express buses, and different people may differ on that. If you’re coming from eastern Bellevue or Redmond on Link, that may make staying on Link more attractive.
(*) In 1980 all of southeast Seattle was decaying from its 1950s buildup due to redlining and white flight. The 1950s buildup was naturally one-story and locally-oriented, as was the rest of Seattle outside downtown. MLK felt like there was hardly anything there. The Columbia City art/culture/lesbian revival started in the mid 1990s. The Vietnamese refugees started creating Little Saigon and adding restaurants and businesses along MLK in the late 1980s. North Rainier (Jackson to McClellan) was industrial, and had just manufacturers and fast-food joints. Rainier Beach and Hillman City (Othello) were forgotten by people outside the valley. SODO’s relevance to non-workers was the Kingdome. Sears was there but everyone had forgotten it. (It was said you could park a Winnebego in the Sears parking lot because it was so empty.) I even forgot about the Sears there for decades. West Seattle was West Seattle.
I think that it’s important to stress how awful the Stride stop at TIBS is planned be. Noise. Elevation changes. Minimal protection from the elements. Then the South Renton detour may end up adding lots of travel time.
I suspect that the quality of the transfer will be a big consideration for any two or three seat trip. When riders have luggage , they will choose the combo based partly on that if they have a choice.
Finally, the Stride-Link transfer in Downtown Bellevue is much better but not without the frustration of getting across 110th.
Some airport passengers don’t have luggage, just a backpack or so, and the airport workers don’t. SamTrans used to have two routes from San Francisco to SFO: an express route that prohibited luggage, and a local route that allowed it. Those are probably gone now that BART serves both purposes.
Al S. : the Stride and Link transfer in downtown Bellevue could be improved significantly through the addition of a bus stop pair on NE 6th Street just west of 112th Avenue NE. Add two bays to the BTC. That would minimize the walk distance between Stride and Link. Riders would not have to cross 110th Avenue NE. It has been suggested to the three agencies.
At stop pair on 77th Avenue SE at the south end of the MI Link station would be nice as well.
Is that 800 people with the new transfer scheme at Pioneer Square, or the old scheme with a CID transfer? The new scheme now preferred by ST Board seemingly adds about 10 extra minutes to the potential trip. And lots of extra walking and escalators (or stairs when broken). That discourages riders.
I could see why the transfers are estimated so low. Note that their comment appears to be only on one direction (“southbound”) so the estimated demand should be doubled (1600) to actually be illustrative. SeaTac is getting about 5400 boardings a day today (10800) so it still appears to be well over 10 percent of SeaTac travelers.
And let’s not forget that there are jobs in the Eastside that SE and West Seattle people hold. A good urban rail transit system should be optimized by having many reasons to ride (rather than merely to go to and from work), and it’s gravy for the agency to add riders in the non-peak direction or non-peak hours. There hasn’t yet been an organized effort to entice suburban areas to create more attractions near their Link stations (leaving it to the marketplace) but once open I could see that happening.
The failure to take TDLE just a little further to UWT and Downtown is just one textbook example of how the region has not yet fully understood how to use the investment effectively to create non-peak-direction attractions.
Some of it is destinations, some if it just geography and the nature of Link. Consider someone who takes Link from the East Side and then transfers to go south. They get to Jukdins Park and Franklin High School (less than a mile away). Then the train goes into a tunnel and they transfer. They wait for the other train (which could take up to ten minutes if it is a typical trip) then they take the train south and several stops later it pops out in Rainier Valley and they can see the school again. “Hey, weren’t we just here?”
Not really, but you were close. The end result is that it is much faster to take the 7. It will take about five minutes to get from Judkins Park to CID*. CID to Mount Baker is nine minutes. So not counting the transfer it is 14 minutes. It takes about 5 minutes to get between the stations by bus. It takes about 17 minutes (according to Google) to get from under the freeway to Rainier Beach. Using the two trains it takes 24 minutes (not counting the transfer). What about wait time? Well, prior to the driver shortage the 7 ran every 7.5 minutes. It is likely they return to that. Link runs every ten minutes midday, and it is unlikely they change. So right now they have the same frequency, and it is quite likely that the 7 will be more frequent in the future. It is also worth mentioning that the 7 covers Rainier Valley better than Link. The two high schools, Columbia City, Hilman City — the 7 covers everything better. There will be people who want to go the west, and for them Link would save them some walking. But so would taking the 106. It is a lot less frequent, but the time savings could easily make up for it. In any event, not that many people will take the two trains to get from the East Side to Rainier Valley.
The very next stop is TIBS, where there will be an express bus which once again will save riders a considerable amount of time. Everything south of there is the same dynamic (riders and take Stride and then transfer to get to SeaTac, Angle Lake, etc.). The only big time savings come for SoDo, Stadium and Beacon Hill and none of these are major stations.
They said it in context of 70,000 daily boardings and talked about it being 1% of the system, so I’m assuming the 800 already accounts for both way trips?
If Issaquah Link is ever built, I predict a gondola will be built a few decades later, connecting Central Issaquah Station with the Issaquah Highlands. I ran the numbers, and mid-day gondola ridership will average under 30 riders per hour in the year 2070. Is anyone else surprised by how low that number is?
I’m not sure how significant of an effect 4th ave station advocacy is having. 4th ave shallow now of course exists as an option however the preferred station alternative is still N/S of Chinatown
I do not like the competitiveness of the DSTT2. I still think Sound Transit should explore upgrading the signaling in DSTT regardless. But if they keep moving forward with this N/S option, are a broader share of the public going to start being open to alternatives like a single downtown tunnel?
I’m aware that advocacy has often been reactive in making the best of what has been built when it wasn’t the best for the city but even I fail to see how people will swallow this pill. It’s just hard for me to see people accepting N/S of Chinatown just so a second downtown tunnel can be built
“the people” aren’t paying attention and won’t really notice or care until the stations open in 2039*. Most people generally trust that new stations are being built in the best feasible location, and I think if you told folks in 2040 “yeah, these transfer walks suck, but the better option would have cost an extra billion dollars and we didn’t think it was worth it”, most would probably respond with “oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense” and move on to whatever more pressing personal issue they have.
Much like how we bemoan Forward Thrust’s failure to pass in the 70’s, transit nerds in 20 years will be like “we could have had a much better system if we were willing to pay for it instead of capitulating to commercial real estate interests”
I agree, except the frustrating part is that they could build a much better system while also saving money (just by reusing the existing tunnel). So transit nerds will say “we could have had a much better system if we only knew what we were doing”.
This. “The people aren’t paying attention.” They voted for a line on a map and are letting the “experts” decide how to build it, which makes sense.
The problem is, the “experts” aren’t. The Board has essentially no public transit oversight experience other than recovering from past mistakes they themselves or their predecessors made. The “consultants” are a bunch of young people most of whom have obviously never ridden a real subway system.
You won’t find “Rail Transit System Planning” as a “major” in any university on the planet, as far as I have been able to discern. The only way to get good at it is to study the existing ones extensively and draw conslusions from the successful — and the unsuccessful ones.
Instead of pointing out that Emperor ST3 has no clothes the consultants spend their days making 3D “visualizations” of the seven story underground Hamas Bunkers that they have decided are the only solution to that Line on the Map!
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate/taught-degrees/transport-and-city-planning-msc
Yes, transportation planning in the US is essentially how to build highways, and increase the efficiency of car throughput.
But I hear Europe actually has transportation planning programs that teach you about public transit.
At the South Downtown Hub workshop yesterday, three CID activists made speeches telling ST to choose the 4th & Jackson alternative (“4th Avenue Shallow”). One of them said the neighborhood won’t be steamrollered on this. (Not those exact words.) At least six people put up stickies saying that was their priority, far more than any other issue got. There were at least two STB members there who support 4th but didn’t speak up: we just watched in surprise as neighborhood activists defended it. So the neighborhood is split and there’s a loud rebellion. That may eventually force the board to reconsider, but so far there’s no sign of it. The display maps showed the preferred CID/N station (now called “Midtown”) and CID/S (now called “CID” but I’ll call it CID2) and the 4th Avenue Shallow (which is still being studied in the EIS).
I completely forgot about the single-tunnel alternative yesterday. But there was nobody in authority there who could really do anything about it, and the focus of the workshop wasn’t on the stations but on the station areas, which will all proceed regardless of which stations are built.
I have some questions. Will the Eastrail NE 8th Bridge, aka the Wilburton Station Pedestrian Bridge, be open in time for the opening of the East Link Starter Line on April 27th? Same thing for the RTS (Redmond Technology Station) Pedestrian Bridge. Is the RTS loop for northbound B Line and 245 routes permanent, or will it end once the construction near the old bus stop is complete, and those routes will back to the old way of staying out on 156th? On April 27th, will the Eastside-only 2 Line start showing up on Sound Transit’s trip planner? And, will the opening day be free for everyone?
Btw, I talked to a Link operator recently, and he said some operators are looking forward to making the jump from the 1 line to the Eastside-only 2 line because they feel Northgate to Angle Lake is too long. (Except, isn’t it less than an hour end to end?).
Yes, most runs are scheduled at 57 minutes, though a few are as long as an hour and two minutes. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern why, though.
If that operator is accurate this is a serious potential problem for Federal Way to Lynnwood (in 3 years?), which will close to an hour and thirty minutes.
Only the first opening weekend in 2009 was free, so probably not. However, this is the first time a disconnected segment has opened in an affluent area, where a free day might just be intriguing enough for people who drive to the Bellevue Collection to try it. (Not to go to Bellevue Square since it stops six blocks away, but to see what the line does.)
Went to the South downtown hub workshop yesterday.
They did touch on briefly about trying to reach the existing sounder entrance on S jackson street with narrowing the street and faster pedestrian signaling.
Most of the focus was unsurprisingly trying to fix the new south/north cid stations. It seems for the south of CID station they are trying to fix three issues
1) trying to reach CID when crossing dearborn
2) trying to reach sounder stations (both from north of cid and south of cid)
3) trying to reach the stadium (people coming from the airport would skip cid station)
For (1) the smaller and (mainly) uncontroversial items were extending the dearborn protected bike lanes two blocks west to reach 5th avenue
The larger proposal was build an entrance for the South of CID station at the Shell station and to pedestrianize the shell to Uwajimaya, aka disconnect Dearborn Street from Seattle Blvd S at that intersection. Apparently from their preliminary traffic models most of the cars exiting i-5/dearborn street are going southbound afterwards not northbound so they think it’ll be fine.
For (2) There was some smaller items about bike lanes on 2nd avenue (surprisingly not on 4th ave). Larger item was about pedestrianizing 2nd avenue to provide a walking path from north of cid to the S jackson street sounder entrance.
For (2) and (3) the main ‘cornerstone’ project they were advocating for was building new pedestrian bridge from the lumen field to Seattle boulevard S*. This would have an entrance to the sounder platforms on the southmost end. And combined with the South of CID station at the Shell would provide an okay walk to Sounder platforms. It seems Sound Transit quite loves this idea at least from what I can tell.
There was some extra ideas about capping the railroad, but it was high cost and didn’t actually making walking around anywhere faster so at least our table didn’t care about it much.
*The original bridge idea didn’t connect to the stadium.
https://southdowntownhub.participate.online/index.html#resources
(the link above doesn’t seem yet to have the latest proposals I saw)
“What is there to go to south of Downtown? Not much. The city council has ensured that with their tepid upzoning.”
It’s not really upzoning but several other factors. Central Seattle and north Seattle have a wider variety of destinations, jobs, and middle-class shops than south Seattle does. It has always been that way. The city started in Pioneer Square and spread northeast to First Hill, Belltown, and Fremont. Much of SODO and parts of West Seattle and Rainier Valley were underwater until the regrading and rechannelization of the rivers and the Ship Canal and the lowering of Lake Washington. Rainier Valley remained farmland until after Fremont and south Greenlake were built up. Fremont was built up when cars were just first appearing, while Rainier Valley and SODO were built up when cars were getting established, so highways and car-orientation were more of a thing and the streetcars were about to be removed. The south side was always the industrial side, starting with Yesler’s sawmill. So it mostly got lower-income industrial workers who couldn’t shop in the boutiques. so the boutiques didn’t go there.
The south end is also smaller, 100 blocks compared to central/North 150 blocks, so there’s less room for businesses and attractions. And it’s slashed by a river, cliffs, and hills so it couldn’t develop the 4-direction grid that central and north Seattle have. Instead it’s narrow north-south fingers oriented toward downtown: Seward Park, Rainier/MLK, Beacon, SODO, South Park, 16th, Delridge, 35th, California. Each of these was small and mostly residential, so they didn’t develop the large activity centers and institutions that central/north Seattle did.
Then redlining and white flight dried up the investment/maintenance money for thirty years.
The revival now is mostly small ethnically-oriented venues and a small arts community. Rainier and Beacon are also highly integrated: in the 80s Rainier was 1/3 black, 1/3 white, and 1/3 Asian — one of the most integrated neighborhoods in the country — so it attracted people who wanted that environment. Now it’s more white but still a wide mixture, and new waves of migrants too. But it doesn’t have the “complete” 15-minute city of destinations like east Seattle, the U-District, Ballard, or the Junction have. I used to say it was missing a bookstore, record shop, and movie theater. Now it has two of those. And its destinations are more complete if you take the 7 up and down the valley, or if what you need is what the Asian shops have.
It’s worth visiting if you like the small-business, historic ambience of Columbia City, the highly-integrated nature of the area, the goods at the Asian stores, or a scenic Link surface ride.
You can also take Link to the underground Beacon Hill station with interesting art, and ride the elevators (no escalator) up and see El Centro de la Raza, a prewar school that was occupied in the 70s by activists and turned into a community center/mixed use development/affordable housing/nonprofit space. Walking south on Beacon Avenue you’ll go through the small center, and see the flyers of many neighborhood events. Two blocks south is the library. A quarter-mile further south is Jefferson Park. The eastern half is a golf course; the western half is a grassy park. Look west and see a steep hillside and the container-shipping industry. At the southwest corner is a large food forest, a city/community supported garden with trees you can pick free fruit from. (At least theoretically if it’s in season.) Even if you don’t need free food, it’s still a nice social service, nice to look at, and an ecosystem-enhancer.
Yeah, I agree. There are only three stations that make sense for backtracking: Stadium, SoDo, and Beacon Hill. With every other station it makes sense to use the bus (for at least part of your journey) instead of transferring from train to train. SoDo and Stadium are largely industrial, but have the sporting events. But CID is actually as close to Lumen Field as Stadium Station. When I’ve attended soccer games, that is the station I’ve used. It is hard to imagine that many people transferring just to get a little closer. The other issue is that sporting events don’t happen that often. There is a huge rush at one particular time of day and then basically nothing. Most of the time, the stadium stands empty.
That basically leaves Beacon Hill. It is a good station with its own attractions. But it isn’t a major university or medical center. They could allowed really big buildings to be built there, but even then I don’t think it would change things that much.
Seattle has three levels of urban villages.
Urban centers: downtown, U-District, Northgate. Highrises, lots of jobs, lots of shopping.
Hub urban villages: A future office building or two, and/or an instituion, generally up to 85′ and going out a half-mile or so. West Seattle Junction, Westwood Village, Mt Baker, Roosevelt, Lake City, etc.
Residential urban village: A small village with locally-oriented retail. Beacon Hill, Othello, Wallingford, etc.
For the NE 8th (north renton near landing) direct access ramps, if they are built, do you guys think it makes sense to have an inline bus stop for the stride 1?
Originally I thought it would be a good idea, but when I actually look at the proposed picture it is quite high and the ramp is pretty long as well. I guess I didn’t quite realize there’d be such a severe elevation difference
Just to back up here, there are a coupe potential benefits to inline bus stops:
1) They serve the area. Typically this is a park and ride lot, but in some cases you can get to other destinations.
2) They connect to other buses. Sometimes that connection is for buses going the same direction (or reverse direction) on the freeway. Other times it means riders leave the freeway and connect to surface buses.
There is very little within walking distance (from what I can tell) so there isn’t much benefit there. As far as transfers go, it gets a bit more complicated. There will be a freeway stop at 44th, which will allow for some transfers. It looks like the ramps will connect to the west side of 405, not the east side. So the bus can go from the Target to the ramps, but it can’t go from Renton Technical College. It isn’t clear what Metro or ST has planned for those ramps. My guess is the 566 will be streamlined and get on the freeway there (instead of at Sunset Boulevard). Maybe the new 342 will use them. That is about it, and it isn’t a lot. This may be of more benefit to carpool and vanpool riders.
Under the current plans, I don’t see any reason to transfer there. Those buses (and Stride 1) go to the Renton Transit Center. Likewise, the 240 will cross the express buses as well. The only reason I could see adding a freeway stop is if ST planned on skipping Renton. This gets back to the overlapping buses on 405 idea. Imagine if the 566 and Stride 1 both skipped Renton, but stopped at the freeway stop. Renton had a different express — an all-day bus to Downtown Bellevue (or maybe better — Bellevue Community College). Riders from Burien or Auburn headed to Renton would have to transfer. But instead of transferring at 44th, they transfer at 8th (reducing the amount of backtracking). I could see it, but it might not ever happen, and if the buses ever bypassed Renton, riders could always transfer at 44th.
I don’t see it as adding that much value. If it is easy to add (or easy to enable it in the future) then by all means, do it. But otherwise it probably isn’t worth it.
Sorry to clarify a bit. WSDOT is planning on building the direct access ramps for hov cars using the i-405 toll money, regardless if Sound Transit uses them, finishing around 2028/2029. Sound Transit would just need to build the pedestrian overhangs and I guess a sidewalk.
The original plan was for the stride 1 bus to enter N 8th street and then travel down logan to the existing renton transit center. Now with the south renton transit center, and using the freeway ramps the only real way to use the direct access ramps would be an inline one.
> Those buses (and Stride 1) go to the Renton Transit Center. Likewise,
It’s about 2 miles from the south renton transit center to n 8th street. Originally I thought it’d be an easy way to reach the landing by walking if there was an inline station, but (on page 67) I found a picture of it, it’s quite high in the air so not sure how useful it actually would be.
(warning 200+ page pdf)
https://cdnsm5-hosted.civiclive.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_7922657/File/City%20Hall/Public%20Works/Transportation%20Systems/Planning%20and%20Programming/Transportation%20Improvement%20Program%20(TIP)%202018-2023/2024-2029%20Transportation%20Improvement%20Program%20(TIP)_Adopted.pdf#page=67
It’s about 2 miles from the south renton transit center to n 8th street.
Yes, but my point is if you thinking about making a transfer, it doesn’t make much difference. For example, I think the 566 is the only bus that will use that ramp. Maybe the 342, but that is so infrequent it doesn’t really matter. Either way the situation is similar. Imagine you are trying to get to the north end of Renton from Burien. If you want to transfer, your best option is at the South Renton Transit Center. There you can pick up the 566 or the 240. Even if there was a freeway stop I don’t see people using it. Maybe it saves you a bit of time on the bus, but you would end up waiting longer, and waiting next to the freeway.
Or assume that they get creative, and send the 566 to Bellevue Community College (in exchange for running it more often). People headed from Auburn to Downtown Bellevue have to transfer. But they simply transfer at 44th. In terms of transfers, I just don’t see the value in a stop there unless they decide to completely bypass Renton, which seems highly unlikely at this point.
Originally I thought it’d be an easy way to reach the landing by walking if there was an inline station, but (on page 67) I found a picture of it, it’s quite high in the air so not sure how useful it actually would be.
The Landing is about 3,000 feet away (https://maps.app.goo.gl/emhMNNBiBJencPn36). That is really the issue. There is nothing there unless you are willing to walk quite a ways. It is pretty much all industrial except for the Target (and similar stores). Even that is not that close. It is the land of big parking lots. That could change of course, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even if it did, it is still a pretty long walk to the surface.
Ironically there are some apartments in the area that are fairly close, but they will be on the other side. It would be nice to have a bike/pedestrian crossing there, but this project doesn’t get you that much. You still have to cross 405 itself, which isn’t cheap.
> Yes, but my point is if you thinking about making a transfer, it doesn’t make much difference. For example, I think the 566 is the only bus that will use that ramp. Maybe the 342, but that is so infrequent it doesn’t really matter. Either way the situation is similar. Imagine you are trying to get to the north end of Renton from Burien.
Currently from North Renton to Burien takes around an hour on the F line. The 560 can sometimes be faster (depending on airport traffic). If there was an inline bus station it’d cut down the time quite a lot with the Stride 1 from Burien to North Renton.
there is the walk as you noted, but the distance of 0.5 miles isn’t that bad. It’s really the height difference that seems quite bad, especially if one is walking up hill to use it.
The other major scenario I was thinking about was from Bellevue to North Renton. Currently the 560 exits right at the landing. With Stride 1, it’d skip the landing and go to south renton transit center. This means from bellevue you’d have to then backtrack on the F line to the landing.
Of course I wouldn’t really be considering this as a standalone project, but if it’s just adding in the pedestrian overhangs that’s not too expensive.
If there was an inline bus station it’d cut down the time quite a lot with the Stride 1 from Burien to North Renton.
What transfers would it help with? Again, if I am transferring to the 240, 560 (or F) I make that transfer at the transit center. The stop would basically be useless for transfers unless an express bus bypassed Renton and I just don’t see that for the foreseeable future.
Someone could use it to get to some place close to the freeway, except there is basically nothing there. A few employees at Target (or one of the other stores) and that is about it.
the distance of 0.5 miles isn’t that bad
It is more than half a mile though. The half mile was from the intersection to intersection. To get to the freeway is at least another 100 yards. For a typical trip we are talking about a 15 minute, quite unpleasant walk. For downtown Bellevue they may just wait for the 566. The handful of riders from Burien (or TIBS) will just transfer to the 566, 240 (or F). If they added the stop I think you would get ridership of a few dozen, if that.
It is worth noting that these buses are largely just express buses to Downtown Bellevue. I know they provide a lot more capability, but very few people use them for that. Consider the ridership for Renton:
560 (Westwood Village to Downtown Bellevue) — Eastbound: 185, Westbound: 80
566 (Auburn to Overlake) — Northbound: 250, Southbound: 100
Also worth noting: Renton ridership of the 566 is dominated by the transit center. Outside of the transit center, only about 70 people took the bus heading north and 30 took it heading south.
> Those buses (and Stride 1) go to the Renton Transit Center.
> Again, if I am transferring to the 240, 560 (or F) I make that transfer at the transit center.
Just to clarify Stride 1 will not go to the current Renton Transit Center; it’ll only go to the south Renton transit center near the sr167/i-405 interchange.
> It is worth noting that these buses are largely just express buses to Downtown Bellevue. I know they provide a lot more capability, but very few people use them for that. Consider the ridership for Renton
I agree, but honestly currently the Stride 1 stops all go nowhere right now. Even the south renton transit center is mostly parking lots and car dealerships right now.
> The handful of riders from Burien (or TIBS) will just transfer to the 566, 240 (or F
Hmm that’s definitely true if the destination is the logan ave side it does seem to be even on travel time when i checked google maps. it’s slightly in favor for park ave. I guess it just depends on on reliable the F line is then for that section
But thanks for the details, perhaps this inline station idea is a lot less useful than I gave it credit for.
Just to clarify Stride 1 will not go to the current Renton Transit Center; it’ll only go to the south Renton transit center near the sr167/i-405 interchange.
I assume the other buses will as well. Otherwise it isn’t much of a transit center. The 566 runs by it right now. The 240 would be extended a bit. The F isn’t that far from it now, so maybe they leave it alone (and ask people to walk — https://maps.app.goo.gl/RoYak2NuyzZ3XmbW8) or maybe they just divert the F a little bit. It would actually make the route straighter, but you would lose one stop (at 7th & Lind). You wouldn’t need to loop around the transit center, just add a bus stop closer to it. You would also need a mid-block crosswalk.
Good news, it sounds like Sound Transit is finishing up its deep cleaning of the old bus tunnel stations. Thirty years of accumulated Metro bus grime does not come off easy!
https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/deep-cleaning-downtown-stations
However, I’m not sure this first pass of cleaning is getting absolutely all the surfaces. I know they were still working on the bird spikes at IDS during the recent single tracking. That was a huge “mess”.
Also, be careful out there. I was in one of the stations after its floors were cleaned and they were really slippery.
Every time you criticize Metro, an angel gets its wings.
Lazarus, I like your comments, but the one thing I don’t understand is this imaginary battle in your head between Metro and ST, or maybe it’s between buses and trains. Even you would admit our region needs both modes, and one mode isn’t better than the other. Each mode has their role to play.
@Sam,
You don’t think that ST cleaning the DSLRT stations is a good thing? Or did you simply not notice the mess?
The bird poop at IDS was particularly bad.
Good news, have felt stations need to always have a deep clean and stepped up maintenance every decade. Capitol Hill Station needs it bad and it’s not even 10 years old, just gets beat to sh*t by all the deranged anarchists in that neighborhood tagging, vandalizing, stickering, throwing garbage on ledges. Capitol Hill station is in much worse shape than 35 year old University Street Station.
The pigeon poop at Capitol Hill station Denny entrance is so gross. ST really needs to not only clean, but also put in permanent bird roosting prevention items. One would think they could find budget for this… But it’s been like this since 2016… Sigh.
It seems to me that for Ballard-Westlake an early decision needs to be made about the technology to be used, and some “split-the-middle” hybrid choice will be a catastrophe.
There are essentially three ways to build the line:
1) build an all-grade separated line to current Link practice including tunneling beneath the Ship Canal;
2) build an all grade separated line with automated Light Metro line like SkyTrain again with a Ship Canal tunnel; or
3) build a genuine Light Rail line with everything beyond the Elliott tunnel portal at-grade with a drawbridge to cross the Ship Canal and a surface station just south of Market on one of the diagonal streets.
Option 1 Pros: grade-separated for rapid trips; same technology throughout makes for best fleet use. Cons: Most expensive; deep stations; worst construction impacts
Option 2 Pros: grade-separated; low personnel costs; higher frequency; smaller, less expensive and probably shallower stations because of the smaller diameter tubes; “modern” Cons: inefficient use of fleet; requires its own Maintenance Facility; less “surge capacity
Option 3 Pros: lower construction cost; efficient use of vehicles; at-grade stations for easy rider access. Cons: inherently slower, higher operating costs; less reliable
This decision needs to be addressed, because once construction commences, the techno.ogy can’t or in any case won’t be changed. Costs almost certainly will continue to rise uncontrollably as they have during the last five years.
I don’t claim to know the answer, but I do understand that BLE is sort of a “last chance” to get urban transit in Seattle.
To me Option 1 is that “split-the-middle” hybrid, because it uses pantograph-powered Light Rail Vehicles in what would be mostly a tunneled extension. So the tunnels must be four to six feet larger in diameter than those of a third-rail powered Skytrain-like Light Metro. Since the trains can come frequently because of low labor costs, they can be shorter, and the stations can be smaller.
It is possible for a Skytrain-like pair of tubes with a center platform to be placed above the Spine Tracks under Sixth Avenue, though Sixth would have to be narrowed to a single lane in the half-blocks to the north and south of Pine for a surface plaza for ingress and egress. A Skytrain would be more compatible with an extension into First Hill.
We must continuously point out that by choosing Option 1 ST will be wasting roughly 25% of its funds boring and excavating bigger holes while building a system providing poorer transit.
Basically, the choice between Options 2 and 3 comes down to whether or not the City, Agency and State ever will want that extension into First Hill.
I agree. What they are leaning towards is option 1, which is the worst possible combination. High capital costs, high operating costs, very expensive stations and the only benefit is that you reuse the same trains. That is greatly overrated. Plenty of systems our size have two (or more) fleet types. Vancouver does (but both are automated). Toronto is automating their new line (this was a last second change) and this means smaller (different) automated trains. We should follow Toronto’s lead.
Basically, the choice between Options 2 and 3 comes down to whether or not the City, Agency and State ever will want that extension into First Hill.
I think that should be obvious. It is the most urban area without a station (or planned station). There are skyscrapers there (and more on the way). It is every bit as important as South Lake Union, if not more so. To me the choice is really between 2 and 3. Either run on the surface (to save money) or run with new automated trains and smaller stations.
A few things:
1) If you are running underground than you should investigate going west. It may be of similar cost than 15th (or 14th) but provide a much bigger benefit to riders.
2) It seems possible that automated trains could go over a new drawbridge. A new drawbridge would be taller than existing bridge, which means it opens less often. The drawbridges don’t open during rush-hour. This means the bridge opens when the trains aren’t running as often. The bridges don’t usually open for that long, and it is the backup that is the problem (not the opening). Bridge operators time the opening based on traffic — they would time it based on whether a train is arriving or not. There is still the possibility that trains running every 5 minutes would occasionally be delayed, but that is still a much better situation than trains running every 10 minutes and not being delayed (which appears to be the default).
Were both corridor D and the current SLU – LQA – Interbay alignments planned with a second downtown tunnel in mind?
At least looking at a map of corridor D it seems to me that a junction constructed into DSTT given that the alignment follows 3rd ave assuming a station “nearby” westlake was what “back of the napkin” planning yielded. I think Queen Anne is fairly dense, has a larger walk shed, compared to interbay and you would have picked up Fremont and belltown (a neighborhood with historically dense fabric in similar vein to first hill in my opinion) on the way as well. Also the travel times for corridor D were possibly shorter?
My understanding is this route was not chosen despite its higher ridership because of high cost estimates. Evidently the option ST chose is high cost in its own right. Now I wonder what particularly made corridor D noticeably high cost according to ST. The stations? Downtown segment? Concerns of soil conditions? An underground ship canal crossing rather than an above ground one?
It just seems that Ballard link is consistently getting designs that are worse for riders and have less potential to serve dense neighborhoods and it might be worth reconsidering what the reasonings were that options like corridor D were axed, what cost issues cause this to happen
I think high costs are and will be a reality in our region. They can be lessened with sensible planning priorities but nonetheless I don’t believe we will ever see less than $600M per mile in our region. To me this indicates that with the funds we have available we need to build something with maximized usefulness to as many riders as is possible
It’s why I have my hesitations about maps like Seattle subway which I think in lots of ways are reactive and try to serve neighborhoods that light rail plans may bypass, but danger lying in that this backtracking requires many more miles of rail to be built than had you just built the initial alignment a certain way in the first place
Case in point. Rather than building a metro 8 light rail line, a Madison light rail line, and a U link light rail line as depicted in Seattle subway, it feels like most of these neighborhoods could have been served with just U-link had the decision been made to take a route that potentially goes to Capitol Hill, first hill, Madison, and Central district
I’m not saying we can necessarily go back and change what has been built but I’d like to not repeat the same decisions nonetheless
@John
> Now I wonder what particularly made corridor D noticeably high cost according to ST. The stations? Downtown segment? Concerns of soil conditions? An underground ship canal crossing rather than an above ground one?
Assuming by corridor D you mean the ‘Queen Anne’ tunnel proposal stub, there were a couple problems. First none of the stub ideas really solved the OMF problem.
“Complexity (Risk/Construction Challenges): rating based on a combination of risk and
construction challenges…. Corridor D received the lowest rating due to the fully-below grade
profile and deep tunnel station.”
> At least looking at a map of corridor D it seems to me that a junction constructed into DSTT given that the alignment follows 3rd ave assuming a station “nearby” westlake was what “back of the napkin” planning yielded.
Corridor D uses 2nd avenue not 3rd avenue.
> Were both corridor D and the current SLU – LQA – Interbay alignments planned with a second downtown tunnel in mind?
No the original corridor D did not assume a second downtown tunnel. The current ST3 representative alignment adding the second tunnel is more like Corridor B “15th Avenue/Elevated” actually. This was actually the original draft proposal
“This project would build light rail from downtown Seattle to Ballard’s Market St. area. It would include primarily elevated light rail on 15th Ave. N.W. and Elliott Ave. W. and a movable bridge. It could include tunnel options through Uptown, serving Seattle Center, and into downtown Seattle.”
C-01b
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/2015_0827_ST3_CandidateProjectsList_web.pdf (2015 august)
The project to add a second transit tunnel was separate candidate project C-04
This was later edited to add stops in SLU and then added the new downtown tunnel combining it. However it had some serious issues that were not actually studied carefully unlike the original stub idea. Most of the original corridor B stations could be easily built cut and cover, by switching it go under westlake it’d need to be a deep station and also increased the depth of all the other stations. The added midtown station was also poorly chosen location given the height of the hill there. In general Sound Transit added the second transit tunnel proposal hastily and without an actual preliminary study*; probably why there’s such a large mess now. (*if someone is able to find second transit tunnel study before 2015/2016 feel free to link it)
I’m not really following, because the “early decision” has already been made: they’re doing all the preliminary engineering and environmental impact report work for Option 1.
Option 3 was screened out back before we knew that the construction unit cost estimation sheet was bunk for urban construction.
Option 2 is extremely unlikely to even reach the table unless CEO Sparrman is extremely creative and motivated to rock the boat. If Sparrman is able to convince the board to give his former employer (HNTB) more conceptual engineering design work (doubtful), we’re back to the drawing board for alternatives analysis, screening, and will inevitably end up with the whole project delayed several more years. I’m okay with the idea of running an automated stub from Ballard to Westlake, but I’m convinced the Board would rather build new stations with long walking transfers to CID than delay the project much further.
The only open and impactful decisions for BLE right now are between N/S CID and 4th Ave Shallow/er, but we can all see how hard the Board is pushing for N/S CID, especially with the apparent rebrand of N-CID to “Midtown”.
> I’m not really following, because the “early decision” has already been made: they’re doing all the preliminary engineering and environmental impact report work for Option 1.
> Option 3 was screened out back before we knew that the construction unit cost estimation sheet was bunk for urban construction.
I mean it doesn’t matter how much report work they do if they can’t afford Option 1.
I’m honestly surprised sound transit hasn’t gone back to Option 3 yet. it’s what they should have done during the 2021 realignments.
> surface station just south of Market on one of the diagonal streets.
It’d probably be on 15th or 14th at grade
I mean even in west seattle, I have no clue why sound transit is even looking at any tunneled alternatives when they all cost more.
> The only open and impactful decisions for BLE right now are between N/S CID and 4th Ave Shallow/er, but we can all see how hard the Board is pushing for N/S CID, especially with the apparent rebrand of N-CID to “Midtown”.
They still also looking at more expensive alternatives at slu station and denny station (on westlake avenue).
> However, the Board directed staff to also carry forward the Denny Station on Terry (i.e., South Lake Union Mix and Match) alternative as part of ongoing environmental review and to further clarify the technical, financial, schedule and risk implications of both alternatives.
“ I’m convinced the Board would rather build new stations with long walking transfers to CID than delay the project much further.”
Uh…. The project is already delayed several years. The original combined DEIS (WSBLE) that was released last year was abandoned and pieces are being put together separately.
That means that BLE has to stand alone.
Add to that SAt has immense budget challenges. Realignment delayed BLE by up to four years already. That’s before the revised cost estimates of the new preferred alternative are provided, and that appears to be several billions more than what was even used in the realignment analysis. Add to that the missing performance data of the new BLE alternative and whether it can even qualify for enough benefits for New Starts federal funding. At the very least, the financial challenges will create additional delays — especially if we end up with an anti-transit President and Congress.
With the common usage of automated trains now operating in Honolulu, it may even be that the DEiS could be litigated as inadequate because an automated metro option was not studied. There has already been testimony that ST should study an automated metro for BLE so summarily dismissing it may no longer hold back such a lawsuit. Even FTA could demand that ST add an automated metro alternative.
So in my mind ignoring an automated metro alternative because of schedule looks increasingly irrelevant — and possibly even negligent.
Finally on what the major impacts would seem to be of such a design change:
1. Stations vaults would be smaller and be less impactful.
2. Tunneling would be potentially smaller and less impactful.
3. OMF would potentially be a greater impact, although the design may include ways to still access the central OMF.
4. The geometry may result in design changes, potentially as significant as eliminating deep stations.
5. There would likely be a cost savings as DSTT2 would be shorter.
None of these appear to require changing anything outside of what happens to Midtown or CID-N. So the design delay could be as short as well less than a year to add it to the DEiS.
I’m convinced the Board would rather build new stations with long walking transfers to CID than delay the project much further.
The project is not being delayed because of the planning. Quite the contrary. the project is being delayed because we can’t afford it. Thus plans that would decrease the cost (by building smaller stations or surface stations) would actually get the thing built faster.
This is one of the big misconceptions about ST projects that the folks in charge are all too happy to push: The delay is because of the planning. We are stuck with the “Seattle process” and can’t figure out what to build. Just build it already!
That is complete BS. The project is being delayed because it is way too expensive. Look at Federal Way. Nothing much has changed for a very long time. The planning was done a long time ago. But it costs more than they expected, so it will take longer.
Both planning and construction are delayed. The EIS has been extended to study the new CID/N and CID/S stations and new alignments in Denny and SLU. The draft EIS is expected late this year. The final EIS is expected in 2026. Then the board will select projects for construction, and then it will solicit contracts. That’s the point of no return, without modifying the contracts.
Construction is extended to remain under the debt ceiling, which it’s expected to scrape against from the late 2020s to the early 2030s, and to pay for all these additional options and rising expenses.
If Congress zeros out transit grants for 4+ years, that will create additional delays or force ST to defer or cancel segments or consider new alternatives (such as our cost-saving measures). Also, new people will be on the board then, and may have different attitudes.
Ross and Al:
BLE’s delivery date was always 5 years behind WSLE due to debt capacity (and, likely, subcontractor capacity), but WSLE’s FEIS is due this year, whereas BLE is expecting its new Draft EIS late this year (and likely delayed to next year). If they want to keep to the current schedule, they have maybe a year of “float” time left in excess planning and design time allocated before they have to stick golden shovels in the ground. The ST board has already designated a preferred alignment for the Draft EIS, and has started preliminary engineering for that design. They stated in November that if the Board changes the preferred alignment again, it will delay the draft EIS at least 6 months, which will then delay the FEIS at least the same amount of time.
I simply do not see see ST could go back to the drawing board for an automated train with mixed grade/at-grade operations and an OMF (likely in Interbay) and still deliver BLE in 2039. The current schedule gives ST 12 years to build the thing as currently planned. I think they’ll need it.
FWLE is delayed because they had to design and permit a bespoke long-span bridge in the middle of heavy construction. That doesn’t just take more money, but also simply takes time. Just because it takes one woman nine months to gestate a baby, doesn’t mean you can hire nine women to gestate a baby in one month.
> I simply do not see see ST could go back to the drawing board for an automated train with mixed grade/at-grade operations and an OMF (likely in Interbay) and still deliver BLE in 2039
The current alignment isn’t going to be built by 2039 either even if the approved it 4 years ago. They’ve adjusted from 7 billion to 12 billion by just using all the contingency money before bid/construction has started.
Whenever they actually send the bids out they’ll face reality and will have to either a) truncate it heavily or b) start actually actually exploring cheaper alternatives
BLE’s delivery date was always 5 years behind WSLE due to debt capacity
Bingo! That is the reason why these projects are taking so long. Let me throw out this hypothetical. Just to be clear, I am NOT recommending the board do this. But just suppose the board decided to give up on rail to Ballard. Instead they decided to go with a very paired down BRT proposal. Something in the neighborhood of a few hundred million dollars.
What then? Well, first you have to go through the entire EIS work all over again. That takes what? A year, maybe two. Assume it takes five — a ridiculously long time. OK, then. They start the work immediately after it is approved. Assume construction itself takes five years. Again, a ridiculously long time to build something like that. Yet the whole thing gets built seven years before Ballard Link is supposed to get here.
Right now they can’t even start work because they have too many other projects going on. They don’t plan on starting construction until 2027! That means they have three years to plan whatever they want. It makes no difference whether they get done in six months or 36 — what matters is the cost of the project.
Construction itself is slated to take 12 years. Twelve years! That is a crazy timeline for something that size. My guess is, it will take that long because they are spreading out the cost of the work. It is so expensive that they can’t afford to build it any faster. The money isn’t coming in fast enough. It is fairly simple: The planning is not the weak link. It is the debt capacity, which is based on spending. This means that if the planning takes longer — but you end up with a cheaper project — then the whole things gets built sooner.
Will the politicians do that? Probably not, but mainly because of the ignorance surrounding the project. It is our job, as citizens, to call bullshit on various ideas — like the idea that planning is the weak link. Or that a second tunnel is needed.
You are thinking like me about transfers, Mike.
The issue seems to be that those making decisions aren’t thinking about transfers. They think that “close enough” is “good enough”. The public sees a diagram of lines meeting and trust those in charge to get details right.
My first inkling of this local transfer blindness was early in the WSBLE process when ST summarily refused to consider redesigning SODO station for cross platform transfers. (ST still refuses to propose an alternative to do this even today. And reading about the low volume of expected east to south riders this past week really points to redesigning SODO station for same-direction cross platform transfers between Lines 1 and 3 as vital for the much higher number of people making this transfer if this new transfer scene remains preferred.)
Anyway, I still think most elected officials don’t get it. I don’t think those locally laying out stations get its importance either. They just want it built! They have no intention of even commuting in it themselvs — noting that it’s going to be at least 15 years away so most leaders will be either dead or retired.
The ones who seem to get it are those trying to keep a 4th and Jackson shallow station in the table. But even then, those advocates aren’t also pushing for a cost-efficient, three-line DSTT alternative — and have not strongly advocated for automation between Judkins Park/ Mt Baker/ Alaska Junction and Lynnwood to assure that the system can smoothly handle three lines with 2 to 2.5 minute frequencies. Instead they are willing to go along with making WSBLE even more unaffordable than it already is.
Maybe we need some sort of Facebook group entitled something like “Seattle Seamless Transfer advocates” and start getting those enlightened on the issue to join. That gets at the big limitation of STB; STB can’t point out when an idea is so popular that it gets 40,000 likes.
And when I read some posters here who interpret the criticism about lousy transfers as being “anti-transit” or “overly critical” it’s really rather offensive and beyond experiential logic. To me it’s gaslighting. Transfers around the world have been important to get right in most major world-class city multi-line rail system since the earliest subways.
I’m flummoxed at how to educate others to make it important.
P.S. Another great benefit of having a New Westlake at the level of the existing Mezzanine is that you are already high and can use cut-and-cover along Westlake. Westlake screws the grid seven ways from Saturday and needs to be closed to cars south of Ninth Avenue. Yes, make it a great pedestrian mall connecting SLU and “Downtown”, but get cars off it now and forever. Leave the streetcar, of course.
As a part of that renovation the tunnel could be cut-and-covered all the way to Denny Way station. Now maybe you don’t want to mess with Denny Way and the south stretch of the cut-and-cover has a grade down like the one under Pine which ends at a level bottom TBM vault at its north end adjacent to the Denny Way station box. It would be used to extract the TBM’s just before the street is covered over and opened as the Grand Promenade vista of Lake Union.
Having a cut-and-cover, even on a grade, allows you to include a trailing point cross-over about Lenora that would allow the Skytrains to divert into a one-way utility tunnel under Stewart over to Third connecting to the Spine Tunnel. Both the intersection at Third and Stewart and at Westlake and Stewart are obtuse, so the curvature of the trackway can be easier than a 90 degree bend.
The thing would just break through the north wall of the station box at Third and Pine and connect to the southbound track. That cross-over in the middle of USSS would be used to send trains back to The Stub.
Now there is a potential problem to which I have a (possibly) hare-brained idea. While most Light Metro cars have small fold-out operator stations to move them about the yard, that won’t get them electricity. They depend on the third rail or linear induction sheet. But ST could build (or let out a contract) for a “switcher” with a low enough body that it could pass through the smaller tunnels with the Pans locked down and then extend them in the utility tunnel. If the Light Metro system used traditional motors it would just have a control connection to them and they’d push or pull the tug along in the LM tunnels. But when it was in the Spine Tunnel it would pull or push the train itself.
It this stuff happened in the wee hours of the morning, the slow speed that the tug would be making through the Spine tunnel would not be a significant problem.
Yes, I know this is WAY outside the local box, but transit systems do things like this to move cars around.
Oh, Darn. I chose the wrong point to reply. The “P.S” above is supposed to go after my comment in the next block of the discussion.
“ ST is the one with the engineers and accountants. We’re just asking ST to study the concepts and confirm that they’re doable and would give more passenger satisfaction, or not. ST needs to focus on what would really work best rather its inertia and what transit-oblivious city officials demand.”
Yes this is exactly right!
This is why I keep suggesting that senior people from other transit operations need to be hired!
Local officials may visit other systems but few have actually lived their daily lives around an urban subways system. Similarly, ST seems to be allergic to people with extensive, multi-line rail operations annd construction, and subway station design and construction experience.
Political leaders change. Government entities change structure. But a subway tunnel with stations is a century-long investment that must be open every day. It’s why I think having political connections, affinity for certain officials and understanding the 2024 version of the “Seattle process” is much less important than understanding how things will operate every day for 100 years.
“Local officials may visit other systems but few have actually lived their daily lives around an urban subways system”
What’s missing is a passenger eye’s view. That’s what my and STB’s focus is trying to provide. We shouldn’t have to do the heavy lifting, but if the agencies and governments won’t do it, it’s either we or nobody.
Temple Grandin is an autistic environmental consultant. She gives talks explaining autism, and gives environmental consultation on, among other things, how to make ranches humane for animals. At a talk she gave several years ago at UW, she said her thinking is concrete, so that if you’re asked to imagine a steeple, most people will get a vague abstract generalized image, while she can only see specific steeples she has seen. She says that makes her experience similar to animals. So she was hired to analyze why livestock on a certain ranch wouldn’t go from one part of the ranch to a different part. She got down to the level of the cows’ eyes and walked through the gate, and found something in the environment design (the gate or walls) that humans didn’t notice or thought was trivial, but from a cow’s viewpoint it looks intimidating and scary. So she advised the rancher to redesign that infrastructure, and they did, and the cows’ reluctance disappeared.
So just as ranchers need to think like cows and see how things look from a cow’s perspective, ST needs to think about how its lines and transfers function from a passengers’ perspective. And it apparently doesn’t have enough experiences or advisors on that. The whole point of a subway network is for people to use it, so it has to work well for them. Otherwise they won’t use it, or they’ll be frustrated and angry all the time and less inclined to support future transit measures.
Is my explanation so bad that other people think, like WL, that I’m proposing stacking parallel trackways above the Westlake Station?
If so, I apologize, but I thought that specifying that plazas north and south of Pine in Sixth Avenue would provide access to the platform of a north-south line and that would clearly signify that the lines would CROSS. Talking about cut-and-cover under Westlake north of Stewart sound like they would cross as well. In any case, having them run parallel was not my aim.
Looking down from above everything would be schematically just the same as the ST Sixth Avenue alternative except that it would shallow enough that the entirety of the three lane wide station would be within the envelope of Sixth Avenue. No building — not ONE — would be demised.
Now I grant, this would be a pretty spare station, consisting of a platform, two tracks and elevators and escalators by which to access it. If the trackway were shallow enough to pass above the Spine tunnel it would HAVE to be Mezzanine-free. A rider would descend an escalator or an elevator directly from the headhouses in the Sixth Avenue plazas. The escalator would dump the passenger directly on the platform. No Mezzanine; end of story.
Now if there’s not sufficient vertical clearance, then, yes, there would be a Mezzanine below the street plazas which would probably be connected laterally to the existing Spine Mezzanine at its eastern end. Riders would then descend to the platform from there, probably using escalators which would pass through the vestibules created for the purpose at the east ends of the Spine platforms in order to avoid making people go up over and down.
I started a reply a bit ago and abandoned it on this topic, but I’m going to add that I realized that the bearing walls on either side of the trackway next to the existing Spine platform level are probably best left untouched. So how do we get people from the Spine platform to the vestibules?
Well, there is a “free” lane in the middle of the existing station. Were each track moved half a lane toward the center, there would be sufficient though narrow room for people to walk through the trackway opening in the east wall of the existing station box in a walkway with a safety barrier between them and the tracks. Is this ideal? No, but it’s better than making people go up over and down the fairly high distance of the platform level ceilings.
I wish I could show a “3D cutaway” of what I mean. I’ll try to draw one with the crude tools I have on my computer and attach a link to a Facebook page with the diagram.
DARN! Attached this reply to the wrong place, again! It should be at the bottom of the next thread. Arrgh! I’m sorry.
“ the shallow stub idea and the at grade options were studied by Seattle/sound transit already.”
Where has ST studied an automated stub line for a Ballard to Westlake route?
Where has ST studied different modes and profiles for DSTT2 south of Westlake prior to ST3 going the ballot?
Let’s see those studies, WL!
@Al
Sigh my point is that you guys are not taking it seriously at all hand waving away major defects and then expecting sound transit to take such a proposal seriously.
WL:
And my points are:
1. Almost anything can be built with enough time, effort and money. The discussion is not fatally flawed.
2. ST promised a project with a vague, under budgeted systems alternative in 2016 with DSTT2. With the subsequent need for billions none and years more, it’s reasonable to look at how to save billions. Further, ST did not make the public aware of the need to build for deep stations throughout SLU and Downtown in 2016.
3. By moving the transfer away from a station connected to CID, ST Board demonstrated that there is nothing sacred about ST3. ST believes that it’s free to change what was promised.
4. ST has not evaluated an automated stub line (plus three lines in the DSTT) as a cost saving action. The cost savings comes about with smaller station vaults and more flexibility on geometries — in addition to costing billions more and more, open years later and importantly making transfers more user unfriendly and adding several minutes to transit trip making . ST is literally spending billions to make transit transfers harder and by extension reduce ridership!
Finally, even if a shallow alternative is not feasible after study, that does not significantly affect the overall proposal of a three line DSTT plus a Ballard stub system — sure to be cheaper, more frequent and much better for tens if thousands of transferring riders. It’s simply looking at a vertical positioning of the line. It’s a natural “what if” that would arise with a study of an automated stub line anyway.
I get how some posting here are eager to better flush out an automated stub line. That’s great! Still, there remains no official interest to pursue ways to an automated stub line in the first place. The more critical question is how can the many transit advocates that see the awfulness of the current preferred alternative get the ST Board to evaluate other seemingly better options.
What’s the best way to push for 4th shallow now? I can’t believe this CID North and South is still the favored approach. Once again today’s “stakeholder’s” convenience during construction is prioritized by Sound Transit over the convenience of a century of their transit riders.
“What’s the best way to push for 4th shallow now?”
Seattle Subway is championing it. They’re better at organizing action than we are, and would be the best for advice on how to participate. There are also some CID neighborhood activists like Betty Lau who are on fire for it.
Isn’t the “split the spine” approach still the plan? (Ballard to Tacoma, West Seattle to Everett). If that’s the case, I assume option 2 is not feasible or possible.
Option 2 would change that approach. Ballard Link would be an independent line (from Ballard to Westlake). All the trains (from the other lines) would go through the same tunnel. Some would turn back prior to reaching Everett (or even Lynnwood). So Tacoma to Northgate; West Seattle to Everett; Redmond to Lynnwood. That sort of thing.
This would be much better for a lot of riders. A lot of people wouldn’t have to transfer. Those that do would have better transfers. Sometimes same stop transfers (e. g. Rainier Valley to Lynnwood, Shoreline to SeaTac). Sometimes reverse direction transfers (West Seattle to Rainier Valley). West Seattle to Bellevue). Trains would run through the core of our system (Downtown to Northgate*) much more often. If the other train was automated, riders would be making transfers between trains that are running frequently.
Ballard riders heading to the south end of downtown would have to transfer, but Westlake is closer to the center of downtown than it used to be. The high frequency of the trains would help make up for the transfer penalty. The transfer at Westlake would be very important, but that will be the case regardless of what we build (for transfers from the north to the west, e. g. UW to South Lake Union).
* Downtown to Northgate is really not the heart of our system (Downtown to U-District is) but since there is no turnback at the U-District, the trains would continue to Northgate. Northgate isn’t that much farther, and there are plenty of riders at Roosevelt and Northgate that would benefit from the increased frequency.
Guys, I know that Option 1 has a LOT of inertial force behind it. But that doesn’t change that it can’t really be afforded and gives the worst transit experience — inaccessible stations with infrequent trains — of the three.
Because we can’t agree among ourselves whether Option 2 or Option 3 is better, the Editors should simply adopt a policy that in any article published here concerning Link, the membership agrees that one or the other should replace the “Preferred Alternative”.
Be Henry V’s “Happy Band of Brothers” and fight for better transit.
> Option 2 would change that approach. All the trains would go through the same tunnel. Some would turn back prior to reaching Everett (or even Lynnwood). So Tacoma to Northgate; West Seattle to Everett; Redmond to Lynnwood. That sort of thing.
I was thinking option 2 meant a West Seattle to Ballard line that would be fully independent because it’s a different technology not compatible with existing 1 Line track and/or stations. Is the assumption that it could be partially integrated for routes such as West Seattle to Everett?
I certainly see the potential benefits, I’m trying to wrap my head around the logistic behind that.
“All trains” means except Ballard. An automated Ballard line would not share conventional Link tracks.
There are a few ways to do option 2.
2A. Terminate Ballard at Westlake.
2B. A Ballard-West Seattle line.
2C. A future option to continue from Westlake southeast to First Hill, Little Saigon, and Mt Baker.
Yeah, what Mike said. I’m sorry for the confusion. I will update my comment.
Guys, I know that Option 1 has a LOT of inertial force behind it. But that doesn’t change that it can’t really be afforded and gives the worst transit experience — inaccessible stations with infrequent trains — of the three.
Because we can’t agree among ourselves whether Option 2 or Option 3 is better, the Editors should simply adopt a policy that in any article published here concerning Link, the membership agrees that one or the other should replace the “Preferred Alternative”.
I think the problem is that we have simply created our own little echo chamber here. Option 2 is the consensus of the people who now write for the blog, and a high proportion of the people who regularly comment here. It has gained support here. It wasn’t what I originally supported, but I’ve think it is the best option at this point. I believe it would gain support outside of this group as well. Even the Seattle Subway crowd would see the benefits of automation, better stations and a future extension to First Hill. The same is true of the folks who write for (or follow) The Urbanist.
But instead those folks are just fighting a small battle (and losing) while they ignore the bigger war. They are obsessed with trying to get the stations right, when they ignore these simple facts: The best stations are already there. The best transfer is one you don’t need to make. The second best is a same stop transfer. If you have to reverse directions, the best possible option would be at CID, even if it is less than ideal (and will require going up and down).
While option 3 would certainly save money, it would still be extremely expensive. You are still building a second tunnel with very large, very deep stations downtown. You are building a very big bridge over the ship canal. It is basically the BRT plan, except without the advantages (the ability to send lots of other buses into the tunnel). It is unlikely that you would get a lot of people to support it, even if folks like us say it is much better than what they have planned (simply because it is a lot cheaper).
I think the only thing we can do is keep pushing Option 2, even though it will be difficult. The folks who don’t want a station in the heart of the CID have won — they won’t build it there. The folks who want good transfers have lose — they just don’t realize it yet. If we can reach them and convince them that this is the best option, maybe we can save this mess.
TOD, as Mike and Ross explained, under Option 2 Ballard-Westlake would not be in the existing tunnel. But nor would it go to West Seattle by a different path.
There is an enormous amount of money to be saved by not tunneling south of Pine. The only defensible reason to do so is to add a short extension to First Hill and possibly Harborview / Little Saigon. Given that the capacity issues projected for the existing tunnel pre-WFH are unlikely ever to materialize, digging even a station-free parallel tunnel between Westlake and Pioneer Square is folly. West Seattle trains can be accommodated in the existing tunnel. In fact they may be needed to meet in-Seattle demand north of Westlake, since the RV and Eastside lines can’t run often to provide emough trains alone because of capacity constraints south and east of CID.
While actual “demand” for ridership to and from West Seattle would never fill four four-car trains per hour on the line, the stub will still require more frequent “policy” headways because of bus truncations. Six trains per hour would make it a natural match for future Everett service, should that extension actually be built.
In a pinch the RV can run at six minute headways so ten tph, ST says the floating bridge can do eight minutes or 7.5 tph. Add West Seattle’s six tph and you get 23.5 tph, or combined two and a half minute headways as far as Northgate during peaks. Twenty three four-car trains is 92 cars per hour or a standing-load capacity of 18,400 pph in the peak direction.
The rest of the time the three lines would each run policy headways of 6 tph, or 18 combined. That works out to 3-3-4 headways.
Better frequency, much better transfers, less construction disruption and lower cost are the benefits of not digging south of Westlake. The “need” for a second tunnel evaporated with the shift to WFH, if it was ever there at all.
While the first two Options would be available for the West Seattle line, the cost/benefit calculation is skewed by the severe elevation changes required for the line. There is no actual way to have a “real” Light Rail line there, except for converting the two end stations to at-grade. Everything else would have to be heavy elevated construction anyway, so the added cost of a redundant Skytrain line through South Seattle makes Option 2 a poor choice for West Seattle. Since West Seattle appears to be up in arms about demanding tunnel stations, Option 1 it is for that end.
Ross, don’t you mean “Option 2” when you mention the “consensus” position here? I hope so.
The reason I said that we (“the Blog”) can’t agree between 2 and 3 is that WL is strong for a surface solution and has made a well-argued case for it several times. I would personally prefer Option 2 because of the First Hill extension possibility, but I always prefer LRT to have “terminal” stations at-grade unless they’re in a metropolitan CBD where tunneling is mandatory.
Downtown Everett, West Seattle and Ballard are all places where surface stations could be accommodated without snarling traffic or destroying rail reliability if sited wisely.
But pantograph-powered LRT cannot have a station with a platform above the Spine Tunnel on Sixth. It’s just too high, so an extension to First Hill starts at a minimum fifty feet deeper, and therefore requires much deeper stations on the hill too. That makes it less of a viable possibility.
2A. Terminate Ballard at Westlake.
2B. A Ballard-West Seattle line.
2C. A future option to continue from Westlake southeast to First Hill, Little Saigon, and Mt Baker.
Fyi, the costs differ a lot if you want to continue the stub south of Westlake. And I mean even even if just future proofed.
The stub’s major cost savings come from shallow stations. If you want to future proof it you’d need to build a similarly deep station at westlake and all the other stations to the north as well.
> There is an enormous amount of money to be saved by not tunneling south of Pine.
It’s not that much cheaper if one is still intending to build it to say first hill. It’s really only saving on the cid and midtown station. And then one would probably need to build an OMF in ballard/interbay
I understand the stub option looks alluring but you guys are conflating two different scenarios together. A permanent stub line has vastly different costs compared to a stub line that wants to extend south/east in the future.
Interesting Quote from Balducci:
Packer (Urbanist):
Balducci positively referenced the tunnel underneath downtown Bellevue as a decision that was made with regional interests in mind, even though it was the subject of intense debate within Bellevue. It was Balducci who brought up an issue that the board currently faces that does put regionalism front-and-center: a decision on where a second tunnel station in Seattle’s south Downtown, a transfer point for riders heading to and from the Eastside, should be located.
“Some of those decisions are harder. Recently we’re having a very difficult discussion about what to do in the CID [Chinatown International District], and the option that we’re talking about right now doesn’t work great regionally, I’ll just be honest with you.”
https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/03/01/sound-transit-board-pledges-stronger-commitment-to-regionalism/
Balducci continues to be the best advocate for actual transit riders on the Board.
Balducci also poked at the necessity of subarea equity:
Ross, don’t you mean “Option 2” when you mention the “consensus” position here? I hope so.
Yes. I got my numbers right with the first comment, but not the second. I’ll fix it.
2A. Terminate Ballard at Westlake.
2B. A Ballard-West Seattle line.
2C. A future option to continue from Westlake southeast to First Hill, Little Saigon, and Mt Baker.
Fyi, the costs differ a lot if you want to continue the stub south of Westlake. And I mean even even if just future proofed.
I disagree. You are basically just building a stub track after the (new) Westlake Station. That is a tiny project compared to adding even just one additional station.
The stub’s major cost savings come from shallow stations.
Not just shallower, but also shorter. Even the above ground stations are cheaper. Folks haven’t talked about this much, but the estimate for 130th station went up quite a bit. They basically didn’t measure the ground correctly. Turns out where they wanted to put the escalators was a lot lower than they expected. If the station was shorter it would have been quite a bit cheaper. Same sort of thing happens underground.
If you want to future proof it you’d need to build a similarly deep station at westlake and all the other stations to the north as well.
Why? The tracks should be heading to First Hill, which is higher.
> There is an enormous amount of money to be saved by not tunneling south of Pine.
It’s not that much cheaper if one is still intending to build it to say first hill.
But you don’t build to First Hill initially. You leave that until later. For now you just build from Ballard to Westlake.
It’s really only saving on the cid and midtown station.
That is still a huge amount of savings, and get this: It is better for riders!Even in the short term (before the train gets to First Hill).
And then one would probably need to build an OMF in ballard/interbay
You could have a non-service connection or connect to Interbay.
I understand the stub option looks alluring but you guys are conflating two different scenarios together. A permanent stub line has vastly different costs compared to a stub line that wants to extend south/east in the future.
Says who? It really isn’t expensive to future proof. It is expensive to build new stations.
> Why? The tracks should be heading to First Hill, which is higher.
You’re still need to go under the westlake station which would require one have deep stations for the rest of them. Sure it’d be shallower but not shallow each to use the cheaper construction methods that a stub line that doesn’t cross westlake could do.
Lastly, First Hill is still pretty high in elevation. I don’t think the costs have gotten any cheaper to dig such a deep station or cross i-5. It’d probably be some 300+ feet station.
You’re still need to go under the westlake station which would require one have deep stations for the rest of them.
Yes, but I really don’t think that is driving the cost (or the depth for that matter). There are areas quite a ways from Westlake where they plan to build very deep (and expensive) stations. The main thing is that shorter stations give you more flexibility, which in turn reduces cost. Of course we don’t know how much the savings will be, but simply not building two stations saves quite a bit (at worse). It is quite likely that other savings come from having shorter stations, even if it would be cheaper to just end at Westlake.
“ You’re still need to go under the westlake station which would require one have deep stations for the rest of them. ”
Not necessarily. To do it differently would however mean moving some other things.
I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet, but Fourth and Pine is no longer Seattle’s heart anymore. Macys closed. Other retailers have left. It’s certainly important, but no longer as primary.
With the current tunnel we have now created a line instead of a single point. We smartly created a “linear” heart with UW, Capitol Hill, Third Ave, City and County offices, Amtrak and Sounder, and the Stadiums.
This why I truly believe that it’s the quality of the transfer that matters more rather than where in Downtown to crossing should be. If trains are running every four minutes — and maybe more frequently if a third line was blended in — getting to the line is paramount.
Which gets at the central glowing hope of the ST3 concept map — and the failure of the resulting proposed station layouts. And the further it gets in the design process, the worse it looks for future train riders who will want and need to transfer..
In nature, a branch connected badly to a trunk is greatly more vulnerable to failure. A rail system has the same challenge. I think a good case could even be made to begin the design to have the best junction possible and lay out the rest of the line from that.
In other words , an easy transfer at any station is better than awful ones at Westlake and Pioneer Square.
PS. The Westlake new platform layout doesn’t just go underneath the current tracks; it’s so much deeper that there’s even room for a mezzanine below that!
That sounds the same as my “the most important thing in a multi-line system is good line-to-line transfers”. That doubles or triples your access in a 2- or 3-line network.
The original DSTT and the SODO busway created a linear center from Convention Place to SODO, all grade-separated or in transit-priority lanes, frequent all day and evening. So from any tunnel bus or Link origin you had access to all of it, and all transfers at all those stations.
ST2 Link (including short ST3 extensions) will extend that to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way. Transfers can be anywhere along it rather than downtown. The only flaw is opposite-direction transfers at CID (e.g., Bellevue-airport), where instead of walking across a center platform, you’ll have to go up an escalator, across to the other platform, and down stairs, or use the slow escalators. That will lose some ridership and dissatisfy the remaining riders, but it’s a relatively small flaw, comparable to the rest of the ST1/2 flaws.
In ST3 with ST’s preferred alignment, transfers between Lines 1/2 and Line 3 become several times worse, like the worst transfer stations in other multiline metros. It will break trips like Rainier to Capitol Hill or U-District, where people may go back to the 48 or (infrequent) 9 to avoid it. The promise of Link was that people would no longer have to take the 48 or 9 if they were close to a Link station, and now they don’t have to until 2039, but ST giveth and then taketh away.
Westlake Station isn’t just about Macy’s. It’s about Pike Place Market, and transferring to the 10 and 11. You can’t do that at any other station. It’s also about transferring to the E, 5, 40, 131, 132, and others. The north-south transfers can be at any of a few stations between Westlake and CID.
But how does moving the Link-to-Link transfer points guarantee the transfers will be better than ST’s preferred alignment? None of the downtown transfers are good, including the earlier 5th & Madison. What’s the chance a Capitol Hill transfer would be any better? ST refused to build a transfer stub into U-District station for a future 45th line, and now it’s doing the same at Ballard station. At Bellevue Downtown, Link manages to have a tunnel with no station next to the bus bays, and then has a station twice as far away across the street from the bus bays.
Faced with these awful transfers, and breaking the promise of Rainier-UW, Bellevue-airport, and Ballard-Capitol Hill trips and all the others involving a transfer between Lines 1/2 and Line 3, delaying seems like not so bad an option. If we can’t get a Ballard line that really fulfills its goals, what’s the point of building it? We had hoped for something better than the D and 40. But if we have ST2 Link, that covers the largest core of trips and riders. Having the D and 40 with ST2 Link is better than having the D and 40 without ST2 Link or ST1 Link. If BLE and WLE get delayed further due to planning squabbles or rising costs or evaporating grants, that gives more time for a future generation of ST boardmembers to fix the alignment problems before construction.
Ross, thank you for replying to WL so clearly. I’ll add a little “geophysical meat” here.
WL, you do NOT need a deep station at Westlake to serve First Hill. With third-rail (or LIM) powered Light Metro technology and the City agreeing to close Sixth between Stewart and Pike for a few years (and decking it), you can have the platform for BLE at the Mezzanine level of the existing station and clear the cut-and-cover tunnel just northeast (“railroad north”) of the existing platforms. Access to the Spine platforms below would be by folded escalators sticking out the ends of the center platform of New Westlake which would end at the same level as the Spine platforms. Passages would be cut in the station box at the east end of each platform in order to enter the vestibule between a Spine platform and the connecting escalator on that side.
Yes, it’s tricky; you’d have to build a frame around the existing tunnel to support the new tubes above it, and Sixth Avenue would have to be limited to a single easternmost lane so that access to the platform from the surface could occur. But it is completely possible to do if you don’t build an underground SkyCastle but just a center platform subway station.
Then you are sixty feet above the level of “New Westlake” as proposed by ST, and that puts you in a geniunely better place for serving First Hill.
The reason that New Westlake was designed to be so excruciatingly deep is that it’s sited to match Midtown, which was going to be at a point where the street is those same fifty feet higher, and ST (correctly) understood that it was going to be a bitch to get to so they wanted it to be only as deep as absolutely necessary to rise into the platform from the original Fourth Avenue Shallow tube. I don’t think they’ve really changed it much at all since then, though now there will be no Midtown, so the elevation rise from “Not Really Midtown” [AKA “CID North”] is not as fierce a grade.
But if the tunnel turns uphill it’s better that it be somewhat shallower than New Westlake as designed. Not too much shallower because it still has to underrun the freeway reversible lanes box which is a couple of stories below street level around Freeway Park. But fortunately the stretch around Seneca is that quite a bit higher part of First Hill, so just going straight, or maybe diving twenty feet under Sixth before the curve uphill should get the tube deep enough to underrun the freeway and still allow it to have a decent station around Boren and Madison.
I think Ross said it very well: the stub to the south and the station box needs to be only enough longer than the folded escalators to provide a TBM dismantling vestibule in the future. Reversing trains don’t have to use tail tracks. When University of Washington Station was the northern terminal trains sorted into the proper holding track using the crossovers to the south (e.g. “upstream” for an approaching train). Then the departing train used the same cross-overs to move to the southbound track if it departed from the northbound platform.
P.P.S The discussion about the utility tunnel is about the MF for the automated system. Yes, there would have to be a cleaning and light maintenance facility, probably in the area that is usually empty just north of the Magnolia Bridge. But with the “tug” and utility tunnel the heavy maintenance could occur at Forest Street.
@Ross
@Tom
Okay someone needs to clarify what exactly is the stub proposal then.
Because it is simultaneously cut-and-cover for construction and shorter but also deeper so it can continue past westlake station or tom describes it as going at the mezzanine.
I mean one doesn’t need to get into every single detail but at least cover some of the basics. Some idea of where’s the omf, are you going to just leave the boring machine underground if it’s a stub etc…
I have no idea how to argue/discuss about it when everytime it’s being changed and what each one of your stub proposals are vastly different in cost/feasibility.
ST is the one with the engineers and accountants. We’re just asking ST to study the concepts and confirm that they’re doable and would give more passenger satisfaction, or not. ST needs to focus on what would really work best rather its inertia and what transit-oblivious city officials demand. That’s what good agencies do, and why their high ridership and low car use break records compared to most US projects. That means ST needs to look at transit best practices and what works around the world and consider more alternatives that are closer to that. Some of the studies may pan out into something feasible, some not. You don’t know until you study. Prematurely dismissing them based on assumptions means good opportunities are lost.
The biggest thing the agencies/governments will resist is cut-and-cover. They don’t want to go through another Pine Street tunnel or CID1 station. It’s like how larger majorities vote against car tab taxes or income tax than vote against transit taxes. It’s a smaller lift to get ST to approve the 4th Avenue Shallow alternative. It’s a much bigger lift to get it to approve a single-tunnel alternative or automated line. It’s the biggest lift to get ST to approve cut-and-cover. So I wouldn’t bother pursuing that. A lot of the public is dead-set against cut-and-cover, no matter how irrational that is. I’m pursuing 4th Avenue Shallow and single-tunnel, and hoping we can at least get one of them.
We just have to get over the top of the hill and reach critical mass in transit service and usage. Then we’ll be like DC and Europe, where even former skeptics clamor for more transit and TOD because of the economic benefits and better mobility choices, not to mention the environment. Then you get into a positive spiral instead of stagnation or a negative spiral.
> ST is the one with the engineers and accountants. We’re just asking ST to study the concepts and confirm that they’re doable and would give more passenger satisfaction, or not
That doesn’t excuse saying a stub plan and then morphing it everytime discussing is brought up. It’s like the difference between an elevated freeway, at-grade freeway and tunneled freeway.
If you want a stub station that can be extended and need to a) build a new OMF and b) have a giant hole to bring up the tunnel boring machine, you’ve added an additional or two billion and might as well just tunnel to CID.
“ b) have a giant hole to bring up the tunnel boring machine, you’ve added an additional or two billion and might as well just tunnel to CID.”
Huh? It’s no big deal to disassemble a tunnel boring machine. Each station. Is going to need to have a vault anyway so extraction is not going to cost a few billion dollars.
You can read up on how ST removed a TBM for Northgate Link from UW station in 2016. The station was already effectively open for riders!
Finally, I note that one of the two TBMs for Northgate Link got damaged while tunneling. The other one was relocated to finish the job.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northgate_Link_tunnel
Finally, the most problematic part of the 99 boring was in soft soils with obstructions in the Pioneer Square/ Stadiums area. Did you forget about the Bertha damage and long delay? Boring more tunnels almost to Holgate appears to have big risks that wouldn’t be there if the boring went no further south than Downtown.
Your comment appears to be warrantless concern.
“That doesn’t excuse saying a stub plan and then morphing it everytime discussing is brought up.”
It’s not one single concept. It’s several alternatives and options. That gives ST flexibility to select some of them, rather than rejecting everything.
WL, I’m not an editor, so don’t blame The Blog that not everyone agrees with my out-of-the-box ideas. I give you respect for your well-thought and well-presented arguments for a primarily surface alignment. You’ve even a few times proposed going through downtown on the surface, I presume using the CCC tracks if built. I agree with you that this would probably be the least expensive solution, but the operating cost would be stupendous to get reasonable capacity. Downtown Seattle blocks are only 240 feet long, so with existing Link technology at roughly 100 feet per car, you could run only two-car trains.
Yes, given proper signal priority surface LR could provide the volume necessary, but it would not be able to serve all three of “South Lake Union”, “Lower Queen Anne” and “Smith Cove”. It would either have to continue north along Westlake through Fremont or skip SLU altogether while only serving Lower Queen Anne peripherally. I don’t think that region is ready to make that choice.
So, as I understand it “the Stub proposal” — by which I think you mean Option 2 — would be the following:
1) Ballard-Westlake would be built using what has been called “Light Metro” technology. That is, the vehicles would be non-articulated, sixty-foot lightweight high-floor cars with two-axle bogies throughout and open gangways between them. And example we often use is “Skytrain” in Vancouver, BC.
2) Such vehicles are usually a bit narrower than NYCTA-style subway cars. They collect their power from a third-rail rather than a pantograph so the tunnels in which they operate can be a couple of feet smaller in diameter than those for the pantograph-powered Siemens style Light Rail vehicles that Sound Transit now uses. A couple of feet over two miles of tunnel saves significant amounts of money.
3) The trains would be automated with only roaming security personnel on them; as is common, they would have a small fold-out stand-up operator’s station in each car for hostling moves in the yard.
4) Because the trains are fully automated they must be in a fenced or vertically separated right of way at all times.
5) Stations would be built for three- or four-car trains of these shorter cars, reducing the construction and operations cost per station by a significant amount, especially the underground ones. Instead of a more-than four-hundred foot platform, they would demand either two-hundred or two-hundred-and-fifty depending on the number of cars planned for a train.
6) Operation of more short trains costs no more in vehicle maintenance costs than does running fewer long trains of the same cars, but certainly costs more in operator costs for manually driven trains. Therefore automation will provide a better transit experience by running short trains more frequently while maintaining overall capacity at the same level as longer trains limited in frequency by the costs of running them.
7) It must be recognized, though, that since even automated trains have a minimum headway due to station dwell times, there is a somewhat lower theoretical maximum capacity for such a smaller automated system than a manually operated larger platform one.
8) The new passenger access to this Ballard Stub at Westlake Station would be via a center platform perpendicular to the existing Spine platforms and as close in elevation as construction constraints allow to the elevation of the current Spine platforms. The new station vault built around the Stub platform would extend south far enough that Tunnel Boring Machines drilling tubes from the south can demise the south wall, to enter the vault and be disassembled. That would probably entail opening Sixth Avenue for a few weeks when the new tunnels are bored, so the ceiling of the vault would need to be temporarily removable in some way.
9) It is my personal position that the trackway and center platform for the Stub whould be above the existing Spine trackway. I believe that it would be possible to build a “cage” of some sort to support the new station around the existing tunnel, the floor of which does not turn upward for a few yards “east” of the existing Spine platforms. That may be incorrect and if so the new platform and tracks would be as close below the existing Spine tunnel box as possible.
10) In either case the new center platform would be connected directly via folded escalator sets and a pair of small elevators to a pair of vestibules dug just east of the existing Westlake Center Spine platforms. The center platform would also have access to a pair of headhouses built in small plazas constructed in the western 2/3 of Sixth Avenue just to the north and south of Pine Street.
11) If it is determined that the Stub tracks must be below the Spine tracks, there would be a Mezzanine placed above the Spine tracks which would have access to the vestibules built to the east of the Spine platforms as well. Otherwise, if the high version is deemed feasible, the escalators from the headhouses would just go directly to the platform.
12) The new line will of course need a smallish Maintanance Facility since it won’t need to park so many trains overnight. It will probably run around the clock as does the Times Square Shuttle (which has been automated for decades now). That MF would be in Interbay, probably in the large area which is used for parking trailer frames just north of the Magnolia Bridge. Since the system will be “in the air” north of the Elliott portal, over-running the BNSF to access the MF should be no problem.
13) For heavy repairs cars would be forwarded through a utility tunnel built to connect the Stub to the Spine at Third and Pine to Forest Street. I have delineated the details of this connection many times, including, briefly, above. It’s a little hincky because of the mixed propulsion systems, but it can work.
I think that about covers it.
Martin and I have been arguing for well over a year — I don’t keep a list of every date and time but it’s true — that a shallower Ballard-Downtown stub can and should be built with whatever is needed to ensure that it can be extended to First Hill is included but nothing more initially. Ross caught the idea early as well and it has spread.
I do think that I’m the only person who believes that the tracks and platforms can be squeezed in between the existing tunnel and the street surface, and I admit in the proposal that it means that Sixth Avenue has to be opened up for a couple years to do it. It can be decked over of course — that’s standard OP for subway stations in Metro cores — but yes, it would be a BIG disruption to downtown Seattle for the time that it was under construction. The question is, is two or three years of disruption worth having a century of better transit access and transfers? I think it is, but I’m not God nor am I the Mayor.
@WL — The stub idea is not that complicated. Take what they have planned and just stop at Westlake (but allow for easy expansion in the future). That means that you would:
1) Have smaller stations.
2) Get rid of not one, but two downtown stations.
Is that cheaper? Of course it is. How much cheaper? Who knows?
The same goes for running on the surface. Of course it is cheaper. How much cheaper? Who knows?
It is worth pointing out that folks assumed that building a bridge with a station at 15th would be considerably cheaper than going underground. That is partly why they chose it. Yet now that they’ve dug into the details, the savings are minimal.
So yes, it possible that cancelling two downtown stations doesn’t save you much, or that making the stations smaller doesn’t save much either, but I would be very, very surprised if that is the case.
@Tom
Thanks for the information, I’ll definitely think about your points.
> It is my personal position that the trackway and center platform for the Stub whould be above the existing Spine trackway
That’s definitely a bit more complicated. At that point, might as well just reroute the 3rd avenue tunnel to continue straight to ballard and have the 4th/5th alignment turn north to northgate if one is going to rebuild the station so there is no complicated X crossing there.
@Al
> It is worth pointing out that folks assumed that building a bridge with a station at 15th would be considerably cheaper than going underground. That is partly why they chose it. Yet now that they’ve dug into the details, the savings are minimal.
That’s for the higher bridge; the drawbridge option is still much cheaper.
> Huh? It’s no big deal to disassemble a tunnel boring machine. Each station. Is going to need to have a vault anyway so extraction is not going to cost a few billion dollars.
> You can read up on how ST removed a TBM for Northgate Link from UW station in 2016. The station was already effectively open for riders!
Did you guys forget UW (stadium) station was chosen as the terminus because it was relatively easy to use as an interim location for north link. It was not magic taking the tbm out they had a retrieval shaft https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/video/12192534/northgate-link-extension-tbm-cutterhead-being-lifted-out-of-uw-retrieval-shaft and they had the benefit of that since there dug a giant pit earlier for the uw station. Both Roosevelt and U district had a large station pit as well.
The westlake station was proposed to be sequential excavated not cut-and-cover like how it was done for northgate/uw link. And then for the potential future connection the next tbm from somewhere south how is one going to take that one out when it gets to westlake?
@Ross
> So yes, it possible that cancelling two downtown stations doesn’t save you much, or that making the stations smaller doesn’t save much either, but I would be very, very surprised if that is the case.
You still need to buy the buildings to demolish and build the mined stations. And need to build a new OMF probably generously ~700 million but probably like 1.5+ billion.
I mean it’s honestly probably cheaper to have the tunnel still dug to the exit portal at i90 area and just not build the cid/midtown stations if you really wanted to do this (deep) stub plan
There’s a reply to WL at the end of the thread immediately above this one. I won’t copy and re-post it, but if you want to see it, just scroll up.
And I quote:
Granted, “in some way” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there [pun intended….]. I can’t imagine that it would be very difficult to make a “lid” for the TBM vault. Expensive perhaps, given the loads that it would need to bear. But if you read the proposal fully, in all it’s admittedly scattered parts, you’ll see that I propose that Sixth Avenue be narrowed to a single lane along the east curb to allow for the Headhouses to be placed above the center platform. Just extend the one lane section another block and have a plaza there with a lid on it. It lid only needs to be wide enough to remove one TBM, which is about twenty feet. Once it has been used it can become a parklet.
I mean it’s honestly probably cheaper to have the tunnel still dug to the exit portal at i90 area and just not build the cid/midtown stations if you really wanted to do this (deep) stub plan
Whatever. You are stilling missing the big picture here. Imagine the exact same proposal as what the voters approved, but without two large, underground stations in the heart of downtown. Will that save money? Yes!
Now take the exact same proposal and build smaller stations. Will that save money? Yes!
This is just common sense. Smaller stations are cheaper. Fewer stations are cheaper. Generally speaking it is the stations (not the tunneling) that is expensive. If you look throughout our system you can see examples of this. Mount Baker Station is not in the right location because moving a block farther east would have cost more money. The UW Station is not in the ideal location because they couldn’t come to a financial agreement with the UW to put it in the triangle. In other words the station is built in the cheapest (bus worst) location. First Hill Station doesn’t exist because they thought adding the station could result in major cost overruns. They still had to dig a tunnel from Capitol Hill to the UW — it just goes on a different path. When it comes to cost, it is not the tunneling, it is the stations.
That’s for the higher bridge; the drawbridge option is still much cheaper.
Define “much”. Here is the page: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/0-wsble-drafteis-executivesummary-202201.pdf#page=51
It is a bit of a mix-and-match situation. They don’t cover all the combinations. Here they are though:
14th Movable Bridge — Not studied.
14th High Bridge — 1.5 to 1.6 Billion
14th Tunnel — 1.5 billion
15th Movable Bridge — 1.5 billion
15th High Bridge — 1.6 billion
15th Tunnel — 1.7 billion
Since this is a moving target, it seems like the difference between these is minor. There do not appear to be huge savings when it comes to using any bridge. Don’t get me wrong — I think surface with a bridge is still probably significantly cheaper than what they have planned, but it is an apples and oranges comparison.
In contrast, if we shrink the stations and run smaller trains, the stations are cheaper. It isn’t just the platforms, it is dealing with egress. Instead of a huge group getting off the train every six minutes, you have a group half that size getting off every three. As a result, certain approaches that would have been considered impractical become plausible. For example, they might just go with 100% elevators (with stairs for emergencies) for a lot of the stations. This would be a huge savings.
Of course we don’t know how much, but my point is that the same is true when it comes to other potential savings.
@Ross
> Whatever. You are stilling missing the big picture here
Ross I am not asking some superfluous detail here. If you guys will not take it seriously now why in the world would sound transit listen to such a plan that has giant holes in it. And then you want to extend it to first hill and talk about as if it can be done in sections again ignoring where to dig the tunnel portal
the shallow stub idea and the at grade options were studied by Seattle/sound transit already. If you guys want some deep stub idea to be taken seriously then you have to at least remotely think about these concerns.
And again the OMF no one has ever talked about where it will be sited in Ballard/interbay.
Like a study isn’t going to magically find a solution for these issues.
If you guys will not take it seriously now why in the world would sound transit listen to such a plan that has giant holes in it.
There are no holes in the argument! You are simply creating strawman arguments. You are the one claiming that the savings come from less tunneling. No one else is making that argument. Look, it is isn’t that complicated. Do the exact same thing as planned but get rid of the downtown tunnels. Is that cheaper?
Of course it is! This is worse case scenario. The exact same tunnel, with the exact same pathway, except without the downtown stations. This would of course enable a future extension to First Hill, because the section between Westlake and SoDo would not be used by riders. It would only used to move trains back and forth. Since the track would by its very definition go south of Westlake, it would be fairly easy to build a different tunnel that goes east to First Hill without major interruption to existing service.
Would the First Hill project be expensive? Yes! So what. We build that later. That is the key here. We build the key piece (Ballard to Westlake) now, and leave the rest until later. You are basically arguing that cancelling two very large, very deep downtown stations will not save you a dime! That is ridiculous. Of course it will.
Again, that is worse case scenario. Second worst is if they say “Well, OK, since the tunnel doesn’t have to actually have any downtown stations, we will go this way, saving more money”. Again, this is assuming that is the only way to do this. It is quite likely that they build a non-service connection to the existing trains or connect at Interbay. At that point all you need is to extend the tunnel for Westlake a little bit further. Again, it is quite likely that doing that is cheaper than going all the way to SoDo (although it doesn’t have to be). The main savings come from not building two very expensive, very controversial and very bad downtown stations.
Same goes with the smaller stations. Are you really arguing that smaller stations won’t save you anything? Come on. This is as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you can get so of course it saves you money. You are obsessing over details that don’t matter.
the shallow stub idea and the at grade options were studied by Seattle/sound transit already.
Various options were studied, but not in great detail. Obviously things have changed. Everything is a lot more expensive. The idea of 14th was never considered. That is because the studying was very rough. Only a few options have been studied at much detail. This is the big problem. The fact that they have studied going underground and have not considered a Ballard station west of 15th shows just how ridiculously limited the studying has been. For that matter, consider the above-ground option for 15th. It is supposed to run west of 15th, crossing Leary between 15th and 17th. It seems quite plausible that they could bend it to go on Leary and then curve again to go up 20th. It is quite possible this is actually the cheapest possible option, yet it isn’t being studied. As long as you stick to the very limited (and poorly thought out) confines, you end up with poor options. But I digress.
I’m quite sure they never studied building with smaller stations and automated trains, even though folks suggested it way back when.
As far as a stub is concerned the initial estimates all included a stub. Basically Ballard Link was from Westlake to Ballard. https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/12/06/sound-transit-refines-ballard-options/. If anything, this bolsters the argument (i. e. it is plausible — at least based on the very rough initial plans).
WL, now I’m angry. If all the stuff I have written in this thread (and the two things in the thread previously that I misplaced there) are not “details” I don’t know what they might be. I SPECIFIED how the TBM’s would be removed — “through a lid that would be opened if they were eventually used to extend south which would afterward become a full-fledged permanent parklet”.
You might take exception and jeer at that idea, but it’s a plausible solution. Get off your high horse and actually READ when we write.
And YES I DID “specify where the MF would be in Interbay”: I stated that it would go in the otherwise empty large truck parking lot west of BNSF and just north of the Magnolia Bridge. I stated clearly that a Light Metro system would be elevated from the Elliott Avenue portal to somewhere around Dravus and if a drawbridge is used, all the way to Ballard. So getting across BNSF to the MF is pretty much handled. Yes, there would have to be ramps down, probably along Garfield and the hillside to the west.
I grant that I wrote all that in one of the two replies that I mis-placed in the thread above. But they’re there for you to read, and I directed folks to them.
Excellent point, Ross, about the 15th Avenue crossing option leads very easily to running up Leary elevated. I think ST is fixated on extending to 85th (with no intervening stations; what’s THAT about?) so they won’t countenance it, but it’s a great idea for getting the terminal into the heart of the regional center.
Ross or Mike, can you close the first blockquote in the March 3rd 2024 1:01 AM post that’s all “nested” blockquotes? It’s not supposed to be that way but I can’t edit it.
Thank you. It will be more readable if you do.
@Tom
I was mainly talking to Ross, you and Ross have different plans about the stub if you want to discuss it further might be better in a separate comment thread. Otherwise it’s hard for me to talk about one thing and then Ross or you are then talking about a different idea about the stub
you and Ross have different plans about the stub
Not really. I’m looking at the big picture. Tom is drilling into the details — and only because you felt those details were essential to the argument. They aren’t. The big picture is this: You save money with smaller stations and fewer stations. A stub has both.
You also save money if you can make the 2nd Westlake station not as deep as required of going under the existing tunnel, plus all the other obstacles. It’s 11 floors worth of escalators and mezzanines.
Thank you, Ross or Mike! It reads much more coherently…..
These options between automated light metro and light rail don’t necessarily need to be exclusive.
Eg:
1) the conventional propulsion SkyTrain cars have fold out control panels. They can be moved by an operator when needed (the linear motor type can’t be).
2) light rail cars can have automatic controls added.
Additionally, in preaching to the choir here:
Los Angeles Metro A line takes 2 hours to get from one end of the line to the other. They change drivers at Union Station in downtown LA halfway through the route. So, the concept that Tacoma Link and Ballard Link must be the same line to cut down on line length doesn’t play out on the only other line that’s close to this long. You’d probably want to change operators at Mt Baker instead of downtown Seattle to prevent train congestion.
Balducci continues to be the best advocate for actual transit riders on the Board.
Agreed. She really should be head of the board.
Idea for a post that’s a little different. Odds are you’ll get a no, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. Contact ST, perhaps the media relations dept, or contact Claudia Balducci and see if she can arrange it, and ask for a ride-along on the East Link Starter Line before it opens to the public. Then write a post about it.
I think that would be great. I think just an interview of Balducci would be great. This is why it is unfortunate that this blog doesn’t have a reporter any more. It just doesn’t carry the same weight. Even Mike — who is doing most of the work right now — doesn’t have a title reflecting his importance. He can’t say “I’m the editor of Seattle Transit Blog” even though he does almost all of the editing. He is stuck saying the same thing as me (“I write for the Seattle Transit Blog”) which is not the same as “editor” or “reporter”. We are in a weird state of limbo.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. I think a ride-along would be wonderful and Mike would be the guy to to it. He was born on the East Side, and knows the area well. I would be saying things like “I used to work over there” and “I think I got my car fixed there once”.
Thanks. The problem isn’t titles. I could choose any title I want and the other editors would probably agree. The problem is I don’t really want to go asking officials for things, or schmoozing with them to get inside relations with the agencies/governments, or organize action campaigns, or have a highfalutin’ title like editor-in-chief. There are people who like to do that and are good at it, but I’m not one of them. If I were in my 20s or 30s I might be more attuned to getting into that but not now. What we need to do is re-acquire people who are eager to do that kind of outreach.
There’s always a press ride before opening, and I can just as easily do it after opening anytime. It’s less than two months away.
When we finally reorganize the titles we might have highfalutin’ ones, but part of me just wants to have “editors” and “authors” and that’s it. We don’t have to have public titles for internal issues, and we can always give a title to someone who needs it for outreach.
“Executive Editor” for Mike. “Transit Editor” for Ross and “Technical Consulting Editor” for Martin.
Those should open some doors.
I don’t think you (or I) can just call ourselves “reporter” though. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable saying that. That is one of the big reasons we don’t have the stories we used to have — we don’t have a reporter, and no one wants to pretend to be one. Interviewing Balducci (or just taking notes with the ride-along) is how reporters operate. We just don’t do that any more, and haven’t for a long time (I forget who the last reporter was).
You don’t have to be a reporter, or anything else, to just ask. There’s a very good chance they’d say no, anyway. But, all you’d say is … I’m so and so with the Seattle Transit Blog, and I’d like to write a post about the 2 Line starter line, and was wondering if it would be possible to have ride along before the line opens on April 27th. The Seattle Transit Blog is a big supporter of public transit in general, but especially our region’s growing light rail system.
That’s a little short, and you’d want to add some other stuff in there, but basically something like that.
You need to find someone comfortable with that.
And more importantly, you need to find someone good at it. It’s a skill. You don’t want to burn bridges. You wan the opposite. You want Balducci to jump at the next chance for a positive experience and positive press.
I’m not that person. Ross and Mike have confessed they aren’t that person either. Maybe that person is in out there. If so, hopefully they will step up. Unfortunately, this blog smells like old white guy introverts.
Hopefully there is much more than that in the silent majority.
This is a natural for Lazarus. He’s a good writer and he loves All Things ST.
And so what if we’re Old White Guy introverts. Does that make our observations wrong in some way? Not “dope” enough?
No. The, the introvert part is the only part that should matter. Though ive found, as an OWM myself, sometimes there is ironically a bit of a barrier to access for the dominant demographic in this region. Or maybe it’s just me. ;) Not insurmountable. I been able to talk to my share of politicians, advocates and transportation professionals about issues I care about in Pierce County.
But interviewing is a skill. There is a reason there are degrees in communications.
People are making it out to be a much bigger production than it actually would be. Here’s how simple it is:
Ask for a ride along. That’s extremely simple. There’s a big chance the answer will be no. If the answer is yes, you will then ride the train for a trip or roundtrip. Also simple. Then write about the experience. Start at the beginning … what’s the station like where you got on the train (South Bellevue or Redmond Technology). What’s the travel time from end to end? Which areas does the train pick up good speed? What was going through the Bellevue tunnel like? Station observations. Maybe a few quotes from the Link Operator or ST handler. Maybe a few photos. That’s it.
Yes, a commenter could do this. They just say they want to write a post for the STB about the Starter Line. (It could be a Page 2 or Guest Post). I also think Lazarus, with his enthusiasm for Link, would be great at it.
I also think the post, if it were to happen, would give the blog a much-needed boost, and expand the audience. And I’m sure some people at ST and in local government would read it.
… Then write about the experience.
Steps to writing the great American novel:
1) Get yourself a nice pen and paper, or a computer if you prefer.
2) Make yourself comfortable.
3) Write.
So simple!
Seriously though, I don’t know why you think being a reporter is easy. It isn’t.
As eloquent as many of the posts are (typos that cannot be corrected excepted), I think the future of transit advocacy is going to increasingly be through video.
Consider how the video of George Floyd’s needless murder by the police ignited a sea change that 1000 written articles could not. As the old adage goes, a picture is worth 1000 words. And a sequence of 1000 pictures to create a video is worth a million words!
Who among us isn’t watching RMTransit?
I would love to see more transit videos focused on making Seattle transit better. When I watch YouTube videos of places like Columbus or Dallas or Nashville , I can’t help but be so grateful about what we do have and what we are building with ST2. Plus we don’t have a hostile state legislature with a backwoods bigot coalition to fight.
Good topics:
1. Link and RapidRide stop access experiences. (Good topics: Mt Baker. Aurora.)
2. Transfer access experiences at places where there are or will be many. (Good topics: Sounder / King St to Link. BTC to Link.)
3. Bus rides and rail rides between major destinations. (Good topics: Seattle Center to SeaTac. Microsoft HQ to Harborview.)
4. Wayfinding (the good and the bad).
5. Escalators, stairs elevators. (Count those steps, buddy!)
6. Tripmaking in a wheelchair or with a baby stroller or can or a bicycle. (Expose the hassles that even regular riders miss!)
7. Traveling at 10 pm. (Lighting and wait times highlighted)
8. Traveling during high demand times. (What is “crowding”?)
9. Field trips to look at Vancouver and Portland and other metro’s do’s and don’ts.
I think the video content could be augmented by a team video of say three or four transit advocates discussing a particular topic, or people at different mobility levels making a trip. It would be fascinating to tour things with transit advocates from other places. (The one major limitation to the transit advocacy videos that I do see today is the single perspective nature of the video.)
Then link the video back to the Blog as a post.
I admittedly I’m not a video content expert. However, I would be happy to participate if such an effort was pursued.
A final comment: Such videos would educate Board members that are too busy and too disinterested to see things on their own.
I don’t watch RMTransit. He’s just too dorky for me, though I freely admit he makes good points.
@Tom Terrific,
I typically don’t watch the RMTransit videos either. I find them to be way too long for way too little content.
@Lazarus — You can read the transcripts. I do that with most videos. It is just much easier to read what they have to say and then decide whether you want to look at the pictures. He also writes (independent of the videos) as well.
I’ve been thinking we should get into videos too. But again, the editors don’t have the skills or time for it, so it would have to be somebody else. Since videos would have to go on a video site like YouTube, it could be an independent project from STB, and we could link to the videos and offer topic ideas.
2024 Service Plan Phase Two came out.
1) Route 580 (South Hill – Puyallup): suspend route and
2) Route 590 (Tacoma – Seattle): suspend downtown Tacoma segment between 10th & Commerce and Tacoma Dome Station and suspend approximately half of weekday trips between Tacoma and Seattle
1 Line capacity improvements
* Improve planned peak hour capacity on 1 Line with trains operating every 8 minutes with as many 4-car trains as possible.
* Temporarily store 36 light rail vehicles overnight at locations outside of OMF-Central in order to improve headways and carry more passengers during the peak
* With 140 vehicles assigned to OMF-Central, additional time to perform safety related maintenance activities for the larger fleet will require adjusting existing 1 Line service evening frequency from 10 to 12-minutes starting at 8pm and reducing the span of service at some stations.
Lol, Mike remember when I said they were prioritizing peak frequency for the farther extensions/suburbs, they’ve decreased off peak frequency. Anyways it’s not that bad but this is exactly why I’m a bit wary of the far flung extensions decreasing frequency in the core.
New service proposal for I-5 North ST Express restructure
*Temporarily provide direct peak period service from Snohomish County to downtown Seattle by temporarily keeping Route 510 (Everett-Seattle) and adding a new temporary Route 515 (Lynnwood-Seattle) until the 2 Line is complete.
* Continue to provide connections to Link by moving Routes 512 and 513 currently connecting to the 1 Line at Northgate to Lynnwood, offering passengers improved reliability with less I-5 congestion impacts
Fall 2024 with 1 Line extension to Lynnwood
* Route 511 (Ash Way Park and Ride-Northgate)
* Route 512 (Everett-Northgate): Shorten Route 512 to operate between Everett and Lynnwood
* Route 513 (Seaway Transit Center-Northgate): Shorten Route 513 to operate between Seaway Transit Center and Lynnwood
* New Route 515 (Lynnwood Transit Center-Downtown Seattle): Add new temporary peak-period Route 515 to supplement Link capacity between Lynnwood and downtown Seattle
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Resolution%20R2024-03.pdf
(might be a nice short post? granted most of it is the same as we already know)
This is a stopgap due to the delay in Line 2 trains crossing the lake and thus the inaccessibility of OMF-East for westside operations. There were similar stopgaps and temporary operation patterns between the ending of the Ride Free Area in 2012, the U-Link trains arriving, U-Link opening in 2016, and the Northgate trains arriving in 2019.
The Pierce ST Express reduction is due to the driver shortage and the fact that ST Express and Pierce Transit (which operates the Pierce ST Express buses) haven’t done an overall temporary contraction like Metro did in fall 2023 to reduce the schedule to what it has drivers for.
ST has also found that its regular service requires more trains than predicted to remain reliable. I assume ST has the same maintenance-worker and supply shortages that Metro has, so an unusually large number of trains are sidelined up for maintenance or parts. So both of those squeeze operations, but are hopefully temporary and easing.
8-minute peak is the current level, so the change is really a reversal of the planned reduction during the gap. The net change from current will be that some 4-car peak runs will become 3-car.
The biggest disappointment is the evening reduction from 10 minutes to 12 minutes between 8 and 10pm. Link has always had impressive midday and evening service for a US light rail, except when it doesn’t (covid and maintenance reductions). MAX is 15 minutes on each branch, VTA is 15-30 minutes, and heavy-rail BART is 15 minutes. Both MAX and BART went down to 30 minutes in recessions when Link didn’t. But reaching the sweet spot of a transit-oriented population requires 6-10 minutes until at least 9pm. Still, it’s not the end of the world, and at least midday service is intact.
The highest operational priority is relieving overcrowding during the busiest periods so that would-be passengers aren’t left behind or standing without a handrail (and falling into other passengers when the train starts and stops). We’ve long pushed the agencies to realize that midday and evening demand exists, and people make trips all day, and reducing car use requires good all-day transit, and the agencies are finally getting the message. The post-covid environment has reduced peak demand and increased weekend and other off-peak demand, and the agencies are trying to adjust service to match the new demand patterns, with varying degrees of success. But still, adding one of the biggest Link segments when there’s a limited number of available trains could overwhelm even the lower peak demand, and require shifting resources to peak temporarily.
I don’t understand how adding peak service requires reducing evening service when there’s no money or driver constraint forcing it. Making trains run peak doesn’t mean they have to sleep in the evening — trains aren’t animals. But I suppose “additional time to perform safety related maintenance activities for the larger fleet” is necessary, whatever it means.
The 515 is a conventional tactic — to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail. Maybe ST is right that it may be needed and the best place for it. Or maybe ST is wrong and more creative routes — like Ash Way to SLU, or Northgate to downtown — would be more effective. Actual demand will show. And it’s only for a year, if the full Line 2 opens on time in 2025.
> I don’t understand how adding peak service requires reducing evening service when there’s no money or driver constraint forcing it. Making trains run peak doesn’t mean they have to sleep in the evening — trains aren’t animals. But I suppose “additional time to perform safety related maintenance activities for the larger fleet” is necessary, whatever it means.
It’s the operational cost (not just money) to maintain more running trains.
We don’t tend to talk about it as much as usually it’s about the driver limitation for busses. And for the other European/Asian systems they have millions more riders so they are talking about capacity constraints.
The longer the train cars and length of the route the more of a concern this becomes. For a concrete recent example, BART recently reduced the their train car sizes to reduce operational costs and to still maintain frequency
> Fewer delays because new cars have double the reliability rate of old cars and we will have more standby trains available
> BART will realize cost savings and efficiency gains through this change. BART is expected to save about $12 million annually through reduced power consumption and cars logging fewer operating hours.
https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2023/news20230823
ST Express 510 actually does help a little with peak train crowding.
The 515 is probably designed to be the fastest alternative to the 1 Line, but I don’t see how it will draw riders, since those getting on northbound downtown will find space on the train. It will be those trying to get on further north who will be impacted. A chunk of them will be riding to Snohomish County.
But if Snohomish subarea wants to pay for an empty new bus route, it’s their money.
The 515 is a conventional tactic — to a person with a hammer, everything is a nail. Maybe ST is right that it may be needed and the best place for it. Or maybe ST is wrong and more creative routes — like Ash Way to SLU, or Northgate to downtown — would be more effective. Actual demand will show. And it’s only for a year, if the full Line 2 opens on time in 2025.
It is a really bizarre route when you think about it. Not the fact that they are running express buses — that part is normal. What is weird is that it has the exact same stops as Link. If the train is crowded, then wouldn’t that also mean there is a lot of traffic, and thus the train might actually be faster? The opposite is true as well. Savvy riders will take the bus when traffic is light (like the week of Christmas) since it will be the faster trip to downtown. Of course that is when the train won’t be that crowded.
In contrast, if you actually serve an area that Link doesn’t, you provide something attractive. You eliminate a transfer. I don’t have ridership information for Community Transit bus routes, but it is quite clear that the area to focus on for riders is Swamp Creek. The 413 and 415 combine for about 25 trips in the morning or evening — way more than other express buses. The 413 is just a subset of the 415 — the two have identical stops west of Swamp Creek (where the 413 starts). The 413 runs every ten minutes, while the 415 runs every 20. With this many buses (and the pattern) it is obvious they are dealing with crowding (instead of the opposite — providing coverage). This is the area where they should run the buses if they want to reduce crowding on Link.
The 413 and 415 do not serve Lynnwood Transit center, but they do connect to Mountlake Terrace. I would skip that stop. While it would provide functionality (and increase ridership on the bus) that is not the goal. The goal is to get people off the train and onto the bus. While I could see someone at Mountlake Terrace preferring the express bus over the train, I think you would see more people using this as a way to connect to Link (e. g. Swamp Creek to the UW).
Thus Sound Transit could simply run a bus from Swamp Creek (415) or 35th & 151st (413) but skip Mountlake Terrace. I would probably choose the 415 (based on the schedule). It runs more often (every ten minutes). With the loss of the 413 it might be a bit crowded, but ST has only promised to run their express bus every ten minutes anyway. As luck would have it, the numbering is perfect (replace the 415 with the 515). Riders would have all the same stops, along with a cheaper ride (than what they are paying now).
It is nothing new, but it is baffling to me why they continue to run the 586 (from Tacoma to the U-District) but are cutting service in Downtown Tacoma with the 590. That seems completely backwards. Someone special must really like that express to the U-District.
FWIW, riders taking the 586 avoid adding to peak congestion on the 1 Line.
However, the 586 runs the opposite direction as the peak direction 1 Line trips through the zone of maximum constraint, so 🤷
The buses from the south have little to do with the Link congestion issue. They are just coincidentally happening at the same time. The problem in the south end is the driver shortage.
The problem I have with the 586 is that it is redundant, and terribly inefficient — exactly the type of bus to cancel in this situation. Some riders would switch to Sounder (and then take Link). Others would switch to the 590 (and then take Link). The buses aren’t that crowded anymore. The 590 runs consistently every ten minutes now. It used to have buses every couple minutes. It is quite possible that if you cancelled the 586 the other buses (and Sounder) would absorb the riders without having to add additional bus trips. The savings could then go into continuing to run the 590 through downtown Tacoma.
Just to play ST’s advocate here…
The 586 riders used to have a one-seat ride from downtown Tacoma, express to UW after leaving TDS. Then the route was truncated to TDS. Then the stop at Federal Way was added. Along the way the route started into a frequency death spiral, now half-hourly or worse.
There is no more cutting to be had here unless the route itself is discontinued. The least-painful time to axe it is when Federal Way Station opens.
There is no more cutting to be had here unless the route itself [586] is discontinued.
Yes, and that is exactly what they should do. They should have done that a long time ago. It has poor ridership and has always had poor ridership. It is extremely expensive to operate. It overlaps Link at a spot where Link is quite fast (Downtown to the UW).
There was a time when it could be justified. If the 590 was running every couple minutes then you might as well run a different bus that goes up to the UW. But even then it never got very good ridership. Now that ridership is really low (on the 590) and that bus is running infrequently, it can’t be justified. It really doesn’t work for getting downtown, whereas the 590 works for getting from Tacoma to the UW (as one leg). It is one thing to have this route when times are good, it is another to be cutting baseline routes (like the 590) while this is kept around.
“The problem I have with the 586 is that it is redundant, and terribly inefficient”
I mean compared to other express peak busses, it’s one of the less egregiously bad express bus lines and is still used by passangers, this isnt say some of the weird peak Seattle to Kent/Maple Valley/Covington/Black Diamond express busses that don’t get much ridership. They wouldn’t be keeping it if there wasn’t enough ridership to merit keeping it around or someone footing the bill, like UW is likely paying a portion of money to ST to pay for service alongside the other UW express busses. Alongside serves UW students, professors, doctors, med students, administrators, staff, etc. Who all get a HuskyPass to cover their commuting cost on public transit.
My public comments on the proposed cuts can be found here.
While I think the cuts are deeply problematic, cuts to Downtown Tacoma are indeed in general alignment with long-range transit plans in Pierce County as they are presently understood. So, I think we are at an inflection point with how best to move forward. Interesting times.
If I were trying to push more riders onto Sounder using a hammer, my nail of choice might be to push more riders onto the T Line, and remove the 590 from being a 1-seat ride to Seattle for peak Downtown-Tacoma-to-Seattle riders.
It’s not as if ST is removing the peak loop on STX 594, when Sounder is not running. 🤔
Or just make the service more frequent on the Sounder. Transit can be complicated, and people like to use the same mode that works and they trust. That’s impossible with the sounder except for very narrow range of commuters. If that was the way people could travel for all their trips, most would likely do it.
If you try a new flavor of ice cream, you can say yuck, throw it away and buy another.
If you take a new mode or route on transit. It can be a wasted hour, $100 uber ride, or be late to work and lose your job. So people often stick with the modes an routes they know work.
If I had to guess, however, it’s because the Sounder is almost always a transfer, and that transfer is fairly crappy at both ends. The real bus lines that people actually take to places they actually want to go, like the 1, 2 and 3 (as apposed to the T-Line, which basically takes you to my house, and not a lot more), oddly don’t serve Sounder. It’s mostly served by routes that compete with Sounder.
Ditto on the Seattle end. 4th shallow could theoretically provide easy transfers to both tunnels, but I wouldn’t put it past ST to actually make the transfers harder.
So now you are talking like a 5 seat ride and long walks to transfer from TCC to Capital Hill if you use the Sounder. Nobody in the right mind would do that.
Yes, I think transfers are the issue, on both ends. With the 590, you can go from several stops in Downtown Tacoma to several stops in Downtown Seattle. With Sounder you have one stop in Tacoma (just outside downtown) connecting to one stop in Downtown Seattle. So for a lot of riders (e. g. UW Tacoma to Westlake Center) you are looking at a three-seat ride with Sounder, but a one-seat ride with the 590. It gets worse, because the Tacoma Dome is not a major transit hub. Various buses don’t go there. So now instead of a two-seat ride, you are looking at a four-seat ride.
Then there is the nature of the four-seat ride. In Downtown Seattle it is actually fairly good (once you get from stop to stop). Link runs frequently (or it will fairly soon). The surface buses form a spine through Downtown Seattle. Unfortunately that isn’t the case with Tacoma (at least from what I can tell). The streetcar runs every 12 minutes (at best). The buses seem to be all over the place. For example, this is a trip from Central Tacoma to the Tacoma Dome at 7:30 on a weekday: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ti4oXQFvfu9wMZra9. Notice that the options are all quite different. You can see that more clearly if you just go from roughly the transfer point to the Tacoma Dome (https://maps.app.goo.gl/hadCrmNHY8nR5qoZ7). In this case, for this particular bus, the fastest option requires a 2 minute walk and a five minute wait. So even if you time the 28 just right, it takes about a half hour before you get to the Sounder station.
Yes, I could see how cancelling service through Downtown Tacoma would get people to use Sounder, but they would probably just drive to the park and ride (or just drive to Seattle).
Yeah, it works if you are willing to ride a bike, because it makes those last mile and crappy transfer problems much, much better. Given the lack of thought our transit agencies put into transfers and rider experience, bikes really make transit usable, when in general it is not.
Of course someone beat my locked bike up in Burien last week, causing significant damage. And someone hit my son on a bike a few days ago. So the infrastructure around bikes needs to improve as substantially to get the vast majority of people to consider that as an option.
That’s insane to store the trains overnight outside the yard, they are sitting ducks for vandals. They did something like this when Link first opened on the viaduct down by TIBS and the trains got tagged.
Random question that highlights problems with transit data. I’m trying to get from the Shoreline conference center to Lake City by bus. I haven’t made this particular trip in a few years. In theory, I want the 348 bus. However:
Google Maps doesn’t show the east/southbound 348 as an option and instead wants me to take the 346 to Northgate, then backtrack.
One Bus Away also doesn’t show the east/southbound 348 exists. In fact, while there are green circles to show westbound stops along 185th, there are no green circles to show eastbound stops.
Metro’s trip planner says that I can catch the eastbound 348 as normal at 185th street and 1st ave.
Metro alerts say that 185th/1st is closed due to construction and I have to walk to 185th/Ashworth. The construction started 4 months ago.
All this leaves me very confused. Does eastbound 348 run? Presumably if the westbound 348 runs, the eastbound should as well, but OBA and Google say no. Is there a construction reroute? Metro (alerts) says it’s been happening for 4 months, but Metro (trip planner) also says there’s no reroute.
Maybe I should just call an Uber?
Somebody would have to go see. I’d trust Metro’s alerts over interactive maps and trip planners, even Metro’s own. The trip planners get the most ridiculous notions. If you live in the area it would be a public service to ride the 348 sometime and see what it’s doing now, or see if there are signs at the doubtful bus stops or evidence of street construction.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/347-348
I expect Route 348 still operates in both directions, but takes different streets around road closures. The variation may be too much for the trip planners. The reroutes also varied by time of day. See below.
I have biked to the station many times during Covid. For many months, 5th Avenue NE was closed; it is looking much better and has some sidewalks. NE 185th Street has had months of one-lane operation with a signal controlling it.
During the long-term reroute, the stop pair on 10th Avenue NE at NE 180th Street was nearside with ditches.
Single Route Reroute
ONGOING
Route 348 continues to be rerouted in both directions off portions of NE 185th Street and 10th Avenue NE until further notice, due to construction.
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Affected stops:
Stop #81317 10th Avenue NE & NE 180th Street (Northbound)
Stop #81322 NE 185th Street & 3rd Avenue NE (Westbound)
Stop #81321 NE 185th Street & 1st Avenue NE (Westbound)
Stop #81326 N 185th Street & Corliss Avenue N (Westbound)
Stop #81230 N 185th Street & Meridian Avenue N (Eastbound)
Stop #81232 N 185th Street & Corliss Avenue N (Eastbound)
Stop #81234 NE 185th Street & 1st Avenue NE (Eastbound)
Stop #81236 NE 185th Street & 3rd Avenue NE (Eastbound)
Stop #81315 10th Avenue NE & NE 180th Street (Southbound)
For Route 348 to Northgate get on/off at:
Stop #75734 N 185th Street & Ashworth Avenue N (Eastbound)
Stop #77752 NE 175th Street & 10th Avenue NE (Eastbound)
For Route 348 to Richmond Beach get on/off at:
Stop #77737 NE 175th Street & 10th Avenue NE (Westbound)
Stop #75902 N 185th Street & Meridian Avenue N (Westbound)
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My observations:
The eastbound 348 is operating on a reroute.
Google, one bus away, and pantograph all say the 348 is westbound only, even in the areas where there is no detour like Richmond Beach and Northgate.
I give Metro a C-/D+ for communication.
4 months in, only half of the closed stops have a sign posted
BEATER streets around there. I hope (and expect) that Shoreline is rebuilding them for the station.
The above discussions by Tom, Mike, WL, Ross, Lazarus, myself and others is great! This has effectively been turned into a badly needed workshop of sorts!
But I think it’s important to get back to the core problem: DSTT2 south of Westlake was never studied in a comprehensive alternatives analysis process. It was not in a pre-ST3 study like Ballard and a West Seattle were. It appeared on a map one day. ST threw it into ST3 with a price tag that was severely off. Not off because of inflation; off because it was rushed to the ballot and so there was no time to reasonably investigate into these things. Then ST didn’t build enough contingency to allow for mistakes.
And everything associated with BLE can be traced back to this original process mistake or lie about costs or omission of a healthy planning discussion with interests in the CID or in Downtown about it all. That project description in the ST3 referendum ignored the deep station issue too.
Since 2017, ST has been proceeding as if DSTT2 must be built within a block of sketched map as if the quick sketch was “decided”. Their insistence has been to mask that ST skipped an essential planning step. That has unleashed a continual parade of problems about design and cost that has plagued the entire effort!
I look back at 2018 when the central DSTT2 segment was not a topic. It was about Ballard and West Seattle ends of the project. Of course, those ends got lots more study and discussion before ST3.
Rogoff rang the budget alarm and the board spent a year in “realignment” which turned into a generalized delay strategy only rather than changes to the projects. Hello tax extensions along with years more of delays until there is enough money in the pot! No one then admitted the glaring problem of having an expensive, unresearched item for ST3.
Now most of us are getting our jollies on STB by envisioning solutions — except a few that seem to feel that ST doesn’t ever make big mistakes (making me wonder if they are being financially compensated to blindly defend ST).
The thing is — no solutions with DSTT2 were ever proposed or screened prior to the ST3 vote. We are trying to do our own mini version here via chat board to do just that — while ST seems dead set against changing direction about anything (until it gets sprung on the public and helps a developer) like when ST changes the CID area of the project so significantly that it could easily be branded as “inconsistent with ST3” in court.
So rather than try to agree to pitch an elaborate proposal, let’s create a specific set of obvious items. Here are some to ponder:
1. ST must admit that they skipped a planning step with DSTT2 portion of ST3 and agree to relook at broader systemic solutions that got ignored in the 2016 referendum preparation and WSBLE EIS .
2. ST must admit that automated technology is not futuristic or speculative, and instead start to develop a phased automation plan for driverless trains. Further, that plan should include evaluating different automated metro vehicles for any segment not already under construction with an eye to shorter and more frequent trains.
3. ST must inform the public about how many people are expected to transfer between rail lines by direction. (Lazarus stated the ST staff has this information recently. Still no Board presentation or published report about it though.)
4. ST must explain what the capacity of the DSTT is WITH AUTOMATION.
5. Any time ST says that something can’t be built, they should be taken to task . Anything can be built with enough money and time — and BLE is going to need lots more money which will take many years or even decades to raise with the current scheme. The question should be how much does it cost and what’s the benefit to a rider, and whether it opens the exploration for broader possible alternatives.
6. ST must prepare a resiliency plan of action for both trains and stations that will be in operation in 2026. And if that plan requires adding more crossover tracks or sidings or elevators or escalators , identify them so design and funding can be pursued.
Al, that’s an excellent point that DSTT2 just suddenly appeared one day in 2016, based on grandly inflated ridership expectations.
I would urge you to add ” and Platform Screens” after “WITH AUTOMATION” in point 4. I grant that platform screens on the narrow DSTT platforms would cut capacity, but with automated two-minute headways perhaps the crowds could be whisked away quickly enough that losing two feet of platform width wouldn’t be fatal.
Alright if we have to build a second tunnel and want it cheaper what about the Lumen Field alternative studied? It’d still head down 4/5th but instead of Chinatown head to the lumen field parking lot and have a station there. We could just build an independent Ballard to West Seattle line that heads down 1st avenue and skip the flyover. Ballard to Northgate/east link/south Seattle transfers mainly same as before. East link can still use the original chinatown station.
The only transfer that suffers is west Seattle to south Seattle having to backtrack at Westlake or exiting at lumen field and walking to CID.
If capacity is ever a concern in the far future we can still build the flyover so trains from south Seattle head to Ballard
You can’t go down First because the south end of the auto tunnel wiggles back and forth across it at not too great a depth, but perhaps Second Avenue would work. However, either has the same problem that a surface alignment routed around the west side of Queen Anne does: it doesn’t serve South Lake Union, which is about the only real reason to build BLE at all. And a big problem with Second is that there is a large sewer main under Second that would squeeze things at the south end.
Why do you want to tie Ballard to West Seattle and skip SLU? Just because the Monorail project did that? Just to have a train to Ballard?
Sure, the triangle south of Mercer is an attractive neighborhood, but it’s mostly already built-out so any increase in housing capacity would have to be replacement of already multi-family structures. That’s expensive.
“the triangle south of Mercer is an attractive neighborhood, but it’s mostly already built-out so any increase in housing capacity would have to be replacement of already multi-family structures.”
What about the existing residents who need high-capacity transit? It’s not just future housing that does.
“it doesn’t serve South Lake Union, which is about the only real reason to build BLE at all.”
Ballard is the fifth-largest village in Seattle, and the largest one furthest from an existing transfer point (Weslake or U-District). That’s the main reason for Ballard Link. SLU can take a bus 10 minute to Westlake. Ballardites have to take a bus 25 -45 minutes to Westlake or U-District. That makes it hard to get into or out of Ballard, which limits its ability to be a contributing part to the region. We can’t just throw away Seattle’s major village assets like that.
The Ballard line was originally planned to go through Belltown. SLU was a late addition in 2016.
Yeah, serving Belltown is about as good as serving SLU. Very similar really.
Mike, I was contrasting service to all three of “Denny Way”, “South Lake Union”, and “Lower Queen Anne” versus “Belltown” and “Mercer Triangle”. Since Lower Queen Anne serves Mercer Triangle, that works down to Belltown versus Denny Way plus South Lake Union.
If “South Lake Union” is envisioned a little more creatively, it could be put in the now nearly empty block between Mercer and Roy east of Sixth North. WHAT A WALK SHED the southeast quadrant of Queen Anne Hill would be! It’s mostly not gentrified, and with some sort of pedestrian tunnel over the Dexter the bit of South Lake Union northwest of Mercer and Roy would be prime development territory. It gets it away from Denny Way’s walkshed and gives it around the clock demand from The Gates Foundation and all those lovely hillside blocks.
I agree that a station around First and Cedar would be a smashing success, because the Belltown grade is full of really big buildings. But that would make the Mercer Triangle station peripheral rather than central, and that’s not very good. Maybe Martin’s gondola idea could stitch together service to Amazon.
Alright if we have to build a second tunnel and want it cheaper what about the Lumen Field alternative studied? It’d still head down 4/5th but instead of Chinatown head to the lumen field parking lot and have a station there. We could just build an independent Ballard to West Seattle line that heads down 1st avenue and skip the flyover.
I don’t follow you. Are you saying Ballard to West Seattle for the new line? I’m not sure if that gets you anything. You still need stops downtown for the Ballard to West Seattle line, so the cost seems similar (assuming it is underground). Where would the stops be?
Or are you thinking above ground?
Does anyone here watch watch YouTube videos by Eastside Transit? There are many 1 to 1.5 minute videos of East Link trains running tests through and near the new stations.
I was not aware of this account, but they seem to post a new video every day or two. Good find!
Sounds like they got the guy. That was fast.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-arrest-three-suspects-in-three-separate-homicides/