This week (March 17-23) is Transit Appreciation Week! Be sure to thank your bus driver or other transit operator for the hard work they do.
Sound Transit Announcements:
New initiatives to reduce crowing when Lynnwood link opens; reviewed by The Urbanist.
Link 1 Line single-tracking for late-night station maintenance for the next month: Trains will run every 15 minutes after 11pm March 17 to 25, and every 20 minutes after 11pm April 2-17.
News Roundup:
Port Townsend turns parking mandates into “recommendations” (Urbanist).
“Year of Housing 2.0” mostly died in the Senate (Urbanist).
Bi-annual street parking rate changes kick in on Monday (SDOT Blog).
King County became the 12th most populous county in USA last year (Seattle Times [$]).
Mayor Harrell proposes exemptions to rules and reviews for commercial-to-residential conversions in downtown in accordance with HB 1042 passed last year (Urbanist).
Paris maintains affordability by providing public housing, now serving 25% of the population. (NY Times [$])
Seattle’s first protected intersection is nearing completion (SDOT; Twitter). A protected intersection includes concrete barriers between the bike lanes and vehicle lanes to provide additional protection for cyclists and pedestrians.
Opinion and Miscellaneous:
Comprehensive Plan is not ‘Space Needle Thinking’ (Urbanist Op-Ed).
“Everyone Thinks Their Transit Is The Worst” (Reese Martin of RMTransit).
“Why the Shortest Route Isn’t Always the Fastest” (RMTransit video).
“More of America’s Lost Metro Systems” (UrbanDox video; Seattle focus at 7:04)
Upcoming Open Houses and Events:
March 19: One Seattle Comprehensive Plan at Cleveland High School, 6-7:30pm.
March 26: Drop-in session to hear about changes to the street grid around OMF-S as part of ST’s preferred alternative.
March 28: Chinatown-ID info session regarding racial equity outcomes for Ballard Link Extension. 4 – 6 pm at the CID Community Center, 719 8th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98104.
April 17 and 23: Online webinars reviewing feasibility of potential SLU station location west of SR-99 tunnel at 5th and Harrison. Online Survey opens April 10, closes April 24.
This is an Open Thread.
New vinyl seat covers testing on Link.
Currently riding a train with the new seat covers (car 280 has them). They look great, smell clean. Comfort level is about the same – I never felt like these seats were super comfortable.
Oddly ST is going to remove them after 3 months instead of just leaving them in until a final decision is made. But I have to say those old fabric seat covers are not wearing well at all.
I’ve often wondered why systems set up in the 90’s and 00’s went with fabric seats. IIRC LA Metro went through the same process of switching to vinyl seats after the fabric seats were deemed too difficult to maintain.
I was surprised to see the vinyl seats when I got on my first train yesterday.
Like!
Gone will be the days that some random liquid stain puts a seat out of service for the whole day, assuming clean-up stuff is available at each terminal station.
That said, I assume they are more expensive and can be rendered unsalvageable just as easily as the fabric seats, and possibly create more toxic fumes if someone spills hot ashes on them.
I rode a different car (27X) with the seats – twice. They had surveys post on the glass partition between the door and “upper” level. No joke: as I was filling out the survey last week, two rather burly bros came onboard and immediately exclaimed “ohOhoho . . new seats!”.
It was delightfully comical and satisfying.
That RM Transit Video screams out Sounder South. Yes, it’s longer in terms of distance between Tacoma and King Street Station, but it’s shorter than the future Link, time-wise. And with improvements, maybe much, much shorter. And unless we see HOT 3+ on I-5 (which I would love, but very much doubt will happen for decades, if at all), or something similar, it will become much shorter than the unreliable and increasingly service-compromised 5XXs as well.
Also holds true in numerous automobile routes. Direct route from work to home is 10 miles, takes about 30 minutes. The arterial + freeway route is about 20 miles and… takes 30 to 40 minutes in rush hour, 25 minutes in free-flowing traffic.
There is no direct transit route to work. The fastest transit route parallels the 20 mile arterial route, plus an “out-and-back” because all local routes point towards Seattle.
Used to take a beltway drive around Cincinnati in the worst traffic during PM rush hour to get home, rather than a freeway through the City that moved at 10 mph. It was about 3 times the distance but saved 30 minutes. I had to listen to 700 AM “The Big One” for 5 to 10 minutes to assess whether the traffic was bad enough to warrant the detour. Pre-internet, pre-traffic cams… just the AM radio helicopter guy. I’d get off work at the same time as the big GE Aircraft factory and mattress factory, so I’d always get stuck in that mess.
“Cincinnati… the AM radio helicopter guy…”
Why does Les Nessman and turkeys come to mind? lol
It’s notable how quickly we expect realtime traffic and transit info these days. We’ve gotten spoiled by having these technological game-changers!
Al s.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQvCNLIVydM
I lived directly across the street from the big radio tower in the opening credits. That tower is no longer there, but has been replaced by a new one at nearly the same location. Most of the downtown pedestrian bridges in the opening credits are also gone. Riverfront Stadium is gone, replaced by separate stadiums for football and baseball. The dorm I lived in with 700 other freshmen is visible to the right of the radio tower. The waterfront is no longer a “working waterfront” that it was when we used to park next to warehouses when we went to Reds games as a kid. The late 70s and early 80s were really Cincinnati’s hayday. It was a time when the City would come together for the Big Red Machine and opening day parade thru OTR & Findlay Market. It’s been completely transformed after the urban flight and decay of the 80s & 90s and subsequent gentrification of the 2010s, most of it no longer recognizable to me. Also, no more Gary Burbank telling jokes in afternoon traffic. And no more Marty and Joe calling the ballgames as they did for many decades. I stopped being a sports fan in high school, but would always tune in to Reds games when driving, as it was like hanging out with my dad or grandpa.
Within the next two years or so, the number of bus routes on 2nd and 4th Avenues will be dramatically reduced. If my understanding is correct, the remaining routes will be the I-5 expresses 101, 102, 150, 162, 177, 577, 578, 590, 592, 594, 595 as well as the 113 and the 256. Is it in Metro’s best interest to move these routes to 3rd Ave or take a different approach with an east-west focused routing between I-5 and the waterfront?
That’s a lot of routes to move to the street that already has the most buses in the country. The Downtown Seattle Association (a group of business leaders) has an alternate vision of 3rd with fewer lanes, which would reduce the bus capacity.
At the South Downtown Hub workshop, an event jointly sponsored by ST, King County, and Seattle on the CID/N, CID/S, and 4th Avenue Shallow station areas, there were concepts of closing Dearborn Street between 5th and 6th (leaving just parking access to the Uwajimaya lot from the east), a ped/bike bridge over the railroad tracks, and our table suggested maybe closing the 2nd Avenue Extension or at least the south part of it. This would partly or fully pedestrianize the streets. Closing the extension would require 2nd Avenue buses to turn east on streets with little spare capacity or to move to 3rd. We didn’t know how many bus routes would remain after WSLE/BLE/Everett/Tacoma, or how feasible it would be for them to turn or be moved, so we just suggested they study the question. This would be long after the time you’re talking about though, because you’re talking about 2026 and this would be 2039+.
Yes, it is past time to restructure CBD circulation. The deep bore is open and ST2 Link almost open. SDOT and Metro should use the common market tactic to provide shorter waits and clarity for intending riders bound for common markets. In 2005, when the DSTT was closed for Link retrofit, that tactic was used. Even if ST maintains a point-to-point bus route, it might only serve a stop at Westlake, so need not serve the length of the CBD. Both 1st and 3rd avenues should have frequent two-way all-day service. So, here is one possible combination. Kill the CC Streetcar; truncate the FHSC at 5th Avenue South. Shift routes 7, 14, and 36 to 1st Avenue from 3rd Avenue; also shift several SODO and Magnolia routes to 1st Avenue from 3rd Avenue. Shift routes 101 and 150 to 3rd Avenue from 2nd and 4th avenues to protect them from peak congestion. Both 2nd and 4th avenues have two-way PBL; Western Avenue is good for bikes. The March 2019 5th/6th avenues transit pathway can be dismantled. The Metro and ST ST2 reset could delete almost all the one-way peak-only routes and almost all the routes now on 2nd and 4th avenues. As was done in 2005, the three agencies should work together. They should not let RR branding get in the way of efficient network design.
I like the Open Thread layout, with a Sound Transit section, a News Roundup section, etc. 5 different links to the Urbanist is much too much, however. But, I like the overall focus on the local and regional. I hope to see more of it.
It is a lot of Urbanist links, as I thought when I was reviewing the article, but at the same time they’re writing a lot of articles that are relevant to us, so it’s probably better to keep the links than to miss out on the information and analysis, which inform our discussions.
Is STB the comments section for just an occasional tU article, or all tU articles?
I know some folks ignore the Urbanist, but I think their reporting on transit and land use is worth linking in the roundups.
They’ve reached a publication frequency of at least one article a day (and often two articles), so if they put out several well-written and relevant articles in a given week, it’s hard to say we can only link to one or two.
The Urbanist is doing the research and writing we used to do but don’t have the resources for now. So it’s filling out that gap.
Articles from The Urbanist are sometimes relevant to transit and other times they are not. So far as I can tell, it is all random (there is no pattern). Thus there will be times when The Urbanist doesn’t write much about transit (or even transit-related issues like zoning) and other weeks weeks when they write about it a lot. This blog largely ignores the articles about non-transit issues (like the police).
I try to balance articles from the Urbanist with articles from other sources, but it’s hard to decide which articles to skip when they have a strong transit and land use news week. It’s hard to beat Ryan Packer’s full-time reporting on those topics.
I wish I had the capacity write our own articles that could reference some of the Urbanist’s reporting, but I simply don’t.
Nathan and STB folks,
I dig what you do. Local reporting is hard as ****. I used to date a newspaper reporter. She shifted focus, got a master’s, and is a university administrator now (I think… it’s been a while). Thanks for providing a community service. Even if all you do is link the articles pertinent to our interest and location, it’s appreciated.
Also… I genuinely miss the old articles y’all did, but understand staffing funding, etc. I also miss the old Exit 133 Blog for Tacoma (RIP). But times change.
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Mike and were talking about it the other day. It would be great if we had real reporters, but that would cost money and the nature of the blog would change. We would have a larger budget with ads and fundraising (similar to The Urbanist). Neither of us want to take that on. If a reporter wanted to join the group and write on a volunteer basis (maybe just to prove to the journalism world they have what it takes) it would be most welcome (by us anyway). Likewise Mike and I would be happy if someone had interest in transforming the blog with more reporting (to be more like Publicola or the The Urbanist). Until then we muddle along. Personally I think we are muddling along much better now than we were a few months ago. It is largely a mix of opinion pieces and posts like this but I think the quality has improved with various folks contributing.
STB started as an advocacy group in the mid 2000s to get ST2 passed. Within a year it got enough staff to write detailed articles every day. Later it employed a paid reporter, who could spend more consistent time attending hearings and doing research. It started having ads and fundraisers to afford the reporter and expand and pofessionalize the operation. Each reporter left after a couple years to accept a real newspaper job or make a career change, and then we’d hire another one. The overhead and paperwork of managing a paid employee was a major reason the previous editors burned out. The blog almost died until Ross and I stepped in to keep up the news roundups and comment sections and to gradually rebuild an author base.
I’ve always had a knack with reading and writing and grammar, so some things I can do off the top of my head like editing an article or making detailed comments. But researching and writing an article to the quality level of Nathan’s, Martin’s, and Ross’s recent articles takes several hours or a couple days each. You have to gather the information and several links, double-check the facts, explain everything clearly, write a real introduction and transitions, proofread it, etc. If I were in my 20s or 30s I would probably do more of it, but now there are so many things I want to do that I don’t have time or energy for, that I can’t add another thing to it, or make commitments I don’t think I can keep. The other authors are also volunteers with limited spare time, and some have children. My inclination is not to professionalize the blog, or to whip everybody into burnout, but to accept the contributions that come.
I think the blog has a niche in its current form. The original meaning of “blog” was a personal journal, people writing whatever interested them. That got a following of people who knew the author or were interested in the same things. Then some people started using blogs for professional output, like Jarrett Walker. And activist groups started blocks, and professional quasi-newspapers arose. STB is currently somewhere in the middle of these types.
The simplest function of STB is to write and read about transit because it’s a hobby we like to do. Then there’s information dissemination, and activism. Even when we don’t lead organized action campaigns, we produce information that they can sometimes build on and point to for reference. What we can do best is more of that.
[thread hijacking and trolling. It’s disrespectful to the original commentators and those who want to have a serious discussion about another topic. Troll comments have a greater chance of surviving moderation if they’re a top-level thread. -MO]
[reply to trolling]
[reply to trolling]
[off-topic for this thread]
I just discovered a YouTube channel called Seattle.Eastside.Aerials. One video that might be of interest to some of you is called “Goodbye Kirkland’s Clovers // I-405/NE 85th Street Interchange and Inline BRT Station Project.”
The first part of the video is an animation of what the finished project will look like. (The word monstrosity comes to mind). The second half of the video is some drone footage of the interchange area taken three months ago.
https://youtu.be/NX7Q36zZ7CE
> The first part of the video is an animation of what the finished project will look like. (The word monstrosity comes to mind).
I mean at least financially while it costs 300 million, but considering any one of seattle’s new stations will cost over a billion, it’s hard for me to really judge it as that wasteful. It does provide a generally more walkable path between the two halfs of kirkland as well with the off/on ramps nestled under the bridge.
For land use, it’s not as if the existing setup with cloverleafs is that much smaller so I’m just ambivalent on that front.
Is it worse than the 405-522 interchange in Woodinville? That’s one of the biggest monstrosities around here I can think of. It’s surprising a far-out exurb needs such a large interchange. But it’s like how Oakland’s interchanges are gigantic compared to San Francisco’s.
At least 405/522 has the Burke Gilman trail underneath it, so it’s not a complete barrier to non motorized transport. Not the case with 405/85th, at least in its present configuration.
That interchange isn’t for an exburb. 522 is the main connection between King County and Stevens Pass.
Large interchanges actually make more sense in the exurbs. This is essentially the problem with our interstate highway system. Big cloverleafs make sense in the middle of nowhere. Land is cheap, and you might as well just keep the cars moving. But they don’t make sense in the city. I’ve read that Ike didn’t actually want them to build it that way (and others agreed with him) but they did it anyway. As a result you have things like the I-90/I-5 interchange which takes up a huge part of what would otherwise be a very urban area. It is bad enough the freeways cut through the city (which is also a mistake) but the interchanges make it worse.
“Large interchanges actually make more sense in the exurbs.”
Large interchanges are more necessary in the suburbs/exurbs because the landscape is so much more car-dependent. If Woodinville, Monroe, Wenatchee, and the East Bay had the transit mode share and walkability of San Francisco and Seattle, several lanes in those huge interchanges wouldn’t have been built, and there wouldn’t be so many slip ramps in every direction so that nobody would have to face a stoplight or roundabout.
“Big cloverleafs make sense in the middle of nowhere.”
No,. big cloverleafs are excessive. You can slightly inconvenience drivers to keep the land footprint small. The entire right of way including the slip ramps and the open space around them becomes an ugly no-man’s land that people don’t want to be in. Where’s the City Beautiful movement, the could even design nice compact freeway interchanges if necessary? How many people like living next to a freeway or having a view of an interchange? They just accept it as an inevitable corollary of universal cars and big-box stores.
@Mike
Ross is talking about the trade off between land and capital costs when building interchanges not necessarily about capacity.
cloverleafs are cheap because one only needs one bridge but has the tradeoff of using much land
I live in Kirkland and work in Woodinville, so I use both interchanges. For the NE 85th. interchange, I am *so* happy that the cloverleafs are gone. The weaving between accelerating and decelerating cars caused more than a few white knuckles, and the temporary traffic lights during construction are much more calming. I’m interested in seeing how the traffic ovals will work when the BRT comes and the temporary traffic lights disappear.
With 522, you’ve got a river/wetlands and a steep incline on southbound I-405, so that high ramp is necessary. The lengthening of the off-ramp from 405 to 522 has helped a lot with assuaging the choke point of that intersection for northbound traffic, but when I go home to Kirkland at night, long trails of cars still queue up on that ramp.
First, thank you to all the current writers at STB (and tU), especially Nathan, who has been a Fountain of Youth for this Working-From-Home blog.
And now, allow me to belabor the point that STs Link Light Rail service plan for the opening of Lynnwood Link leaves frequency right where it is now, while becoming the justification to mothball Highline Station until the track to Star Lake Station is complete and Federal Way Link opens.
All it takes to extend the 1 Line to Highline is one trainset.
I sense that ST is avoiding using a short loop on the north end out of a first-order sense of social equity. But is making those who live, work, or study in the Highline College / CWU Des Moines neighborhood have to wait a couple more years for their station to open a socially just outcome?
Glad to be able to contribute!
RE: ST and FWLE; I’ll speculate that there’s a combination of factors that is preventing visible motion on any sort of “Federal Way Starter Line”. Someone commented on a previous thread about how each of the major diversions from status quo have had champions on the ST board to make them happen; Harrell and Constantine are pushing CID N/S through; Balducci pushed the East Link Starter Line through. It’s hard to say how much help they got from ST staff; it’s harder to say if Interim CEO Sparrman is willing to offer to push his teams to open FWLE in a piecemeal fashion.
I’ll speculate this: I don’t think ST is worried about crowding or operations on ELSL at all; they’re likely much more worried about crowding (and the associated liability) on Lynnwood, so they’ve been motivated to figure out how to address that. The lack of space at OMF-C, lack of access to OMF-E, and poor performance of the new trainsets are all contributing to a massive headache of logistics.
I was unaware the new Siemens LRVs are performing poorly.
I wish everyone would stop using the monicker “starter line” in reference to Highline Station. It would not be a “starter line”.
It would be a simple one-station extension of the 1 Line, in the tradition of SeaTac Airport and Angle Lake (and possibly South Federal Way in the not-so-distant future, which could be an incentive for antagonists in that area to get out of the way).
But, given ST’s limitation to opening a new track section only every 4-6 months, it would probably have to open between Lynnwood Link and Downtown Redmond Link. That means roughly the end of this year.
Politically, it would probably require Board Member Dave Upthegrove to pick up the ball and champion the on-time opening of Highline Station. But he is not on the System Expansion Committee (which Claudia Balducci chairs).
Right, adding service to Highline makes the potential crowding issue post-Lynwood Link worse, whereas the starter line can open without impacting ST’s peak capacity on the main line. Perhaps once Lynnwood is running and ST is more comfortable with how Link is handling peak capacity, they will pull forward the Highline station opening? I could see to have been presented to the south King board members (in the nonpublic 1×1 briefings staff have with board members), so councilman Upthegrove isn’t bothering to pound the table on the issue if he’s comfortable with the context he has been given by staff.
Also, the starter line allows for the OMF-E to move into revenue service and work through new-facility-kinks without impacting the main line. Bringing a new OMF into service is much riskier than bringing on a single station. I supported the starter line purely from a der-isking standpoint, as a “big bang” Line 2 opening made me skittish.
I wish everyone would stop using the monicker “starter line” in reference to Highline Station. It would not be a “starter line”.
Agreed. I had to stop myself before commenting because I thought the situation was similar to East Link. It is not. This is an extension, not a stand-alone line. The case for extending to Highline College is much stronger than the case for extending to Angle Lake. It is a freakin’ college! It has over 15,000 students. There is a very strong case to be made that Link should just end there. They would have to do some freeway work (to connect the buses) but there are no major destinations to the south. Not until you get into Tacoma and even then Link manages to avoid those. (OK, occasionally there is an event at the Tacoma Dome, but that is relatively rare and it is worth pointing out that Stadium Station does poorly despite a lot more events.)
I think the agency itself is rather passive. They wait for the board to push for things, and the board often has no clue. There seems to be little interest in getting things here sooner, even when it could make a huge difference. You can see that with 130th Station (in Seattle). It would not have cost much at all to simply build it (and open it) with the rest of Lynnwood Link. This would have added to Link ridership (potentially paying for the earlier opening). This would have made the bus restructure much simpler (and better). But they didn’t seem concerned at all, just as they don’t seem to care that one of the best suburban stations in the system is delayed with the rest of it.
Ross, great post in all details. You will never again be welcome in Federal Way, buuuuuut, that’s a small price to pay for being accurate and complete.
Incorrect facts by Ross on 130th.
One, the Board was deeply engaged on 130th opening early, when the Seattle politicians pushing for it and the Snohomish politicians vocally skeptical. To use the word “passive” is bizarre, as there was much coverage and strong feels around 130th opening early or not. Personally, I found the political energy spent on opening 130th station early to be myopic given how slow footed Seattle council and Seattle city staff have been on creating an urban village around the station.
Two, staff was very clear to the Board what heavy construction needed to occur before Lynnwood Link when into regular service and what could wait until later, and based on that guidance the Board authorized heavy construction to occur earlier.
AJ — The board was engaged only because people pushed them to be engaged. Just like 130th in general. Without a citizen-led movement, it would not have happened. You get that, right? This did not come from the agency. This did not come from the board. This came from a relatively small group of people that put pressure on the local representatives to build the station. Those representatives put pressure on the board.
Same goes with building it early. Remember, they wanted to build it ten years after opening the rest of Link. Ten Years! The board was basically ignoring the station and slow-walked the thing. The agency was passive. A more engaged transit agency would have talked to Metro and figured out how important it was to them. The whole thing is just so absurd. 145th will open on time, even though the connecting bus route — the only reason it is being built — is not ready! Meanwhile, Metro is ready to send buses on 130th (no special “BRT” is needed) and yet the station is not ready. Everything is backwards.
A smarter agency would have pushed the board for an earlier opening. A more informed board would have built the thing sooner. But like the situation to the south, there is no urgency when it comes to building these things.
The dearth of service connecting 148th St Station to NE 145th St is mostly on Metro. I lost track of which route(s) will actually do that, and how frequent they will be.
The sidewalk on the north side of 145th is a dead sidewalk. It isn’t even nailed there on a perch. It is an ex-sidewalk. It is falling into the fjords. Rebuilding it would likely involve narrowing some traffic lanes.
Shoreline turning the intersection south of the station into a car loop is a sin worse than using transit money to build bus pullouts, as it will come at a cost in pedestrian lives.
But now that we are stuck with that monstrosity, it would be nice to have a bus stop on the northwest portion of the loop, for routes running east/west by the station, but not terminating at the station or heading north. The buses heading east would just make a full loop on the circle to serve the stop. Cars would have to stop behind the bus for a period shorter than a traditional traffic light cycle.
The main transit destination on 145th will still not be the station, but the private high school west of I-5, currently served by a platoon of specialty bus routes. Future generations will rue the decision to build the station east of the freeway.
But I digress.
Agreed. Especially in comparison to the efforts to bend over backwards to get the East Side Starter Line up and running. High income, low need, very probably minimal use. Compared to low-income, high value, likely decent use for the Highline station, judging by the consistently high transit use for other colleges.
How do we know ST isn’t pursuing a KDM phase? It has been talking about doing it maybe. The East Link starter line wasn’t, then suddenly it was.
The main issue is, is there a South King counterpart to Balducci, who pushed for the ELSL? It needs subarea champions to make it happen.
ST is using more trains to provide regular 8-10 service than it expected, and more trains are out on maintenance due to a lack of maintenance workers and supply-chain issues. That’s hindering it from offering more service now or with Lynnwood Link. I don’t know that the new trainsets are problematic.
Perhaps the Highline EXTENSION is a solution rather than a problem. It only needs one additional trainset to operate the longer line, but maybe 2-3 additional trainsets can be stored there.
Also, I hope it is not named “Kent Des Moines Station”. That road is a few blocks north.
Kent and Des Moines probably want their names in the station name. And it tells riders which station to get off at for those cities.
There is but one major destination in Des Moines. Only one. People trying to get there will be looking for Highline College or CWU Des Moines, not Des Moines or Kent.
@Brent
It was already chosen 2 years ago.
https://www.federalwaymirror.com/news/sound-transit-approves-light-rail-station-names-in-kent-federal-way/
> “This name (Highline) avoids a redundancy issue with the existing Kent-Des Moines Park and Ride and Kent Station,” according to Sound Transit documents. “However, the cities (city councils) of Kent and Des Moines strongly support the name Kent Des Moines Station and passed council resolutions in support of that name.”
> Public input also favored Kent Des Moines as the station name with 67% of the vote. Highline Station received 27% and Highline College Station 5%.
I guess Brent has never been to Saltwater State Park or Des Moines Marina?
Des Moines has a lovely, pre-automobile downtown. I’m looking forward to the 165 becoming a much more powerful route once Link (KCM) and Stride (Burien) stations open.
I guess Brent has never been to Saltwater State Park or Des Moines Marina?
Which is nowhere near any of the stations. That makes the name even weirder. If Des Moines is to be considered a place (instead of just a designation for a random assortment of suburbia) than it is close to the water. Likewise Kent was founded close to what was then the White River (and is now the Green). Neither is close to this Link station. In contrast, the Kent Sounder Station really is in the heart of Kent.
Calling it “Highline College” (or even just “Highline”) would have made way more sense since that is basically where it is. The station name is just an ego-thing. Both cities can now claim a station. Huzzah!
I have been to both those waterfront destinations many times. I am probably at least 1% of the riders who have gotten there by transit.
The Des Moines Community Shuttle is about as good as the transit to the DM waterfront will get.
If you are trying to find the DMCS, don’t go to KDM Station. Go to Angle Lake. The station name KDM is anti-helpful for wayfinding.
There are other station names that will be forever regrettable, most prominently University St Station. I don’t mean to imply the naming of Highline Station was singularly awful, or start a long thread debating station names.
And, of course, blaming ST for the name University St Station is like blaming Hugo Chavez for stealing the next election.
The fact that the name Kent- Des Moines is preferred is a good indicator of what these communities primarily think of Link. They see it much more as something to take you away — and not something to attract you.
Had they wanted to ultimately attract activity more, they would have chosen a name to do that. Examples include Crystal City in DC, Lenox in Atlanta or even Marymoor Village in Redmond.
Had the station been near their city centers the city name would be fine. But not wanting a created “destination name” for branding like Highline or Victoria or Sunset Ridge or Midway pretty much says what their vision-less mindset is.
“Highline” refers to a vast area that stretches to White Center, and maybe to Federal Way. It’s like “Overlake”, which refers to everything from Overlake Hospital at 116th & 10th to Safeway/ex-Sears at 156th & 24th, to Redmond Tech (“Overlake Transit Center”) at 156th & 40th. I’ve heard it originally referred to the entire Eastside.
I wouldn’t mind calling the station “Highline”, but the name is as ambiguous as “Kent-Des Moines” is.
“The fact that the name Kent- Des Moines is preferred is a good indicator of what these communities primarily think of Link.”
Passengers travel both directions, and cities benefit from attracting outsiders to their businesses. So “Kent-Des Moines Station” is the way to get to Kent and Des Moines, the way 130th station could and perhaps should be called “Lake City” station or “Lake City-Bitter Lake” station.
It’s more obvious for Des Moines, which has the college right at the station, and its downtown is off in the water which will never get an express bus route. It works less well for Kent, where Link can never be as fast as the 150, because the 150 gets to Kent Station while Link passengers have just gotten on a bus from KDM or SeaTac.
The naming is fine, it straddles the border of Kent and Des Moines. Would I have preferred Highline College, sure because that is a better geographic indication of where it is.
Honestly this isn’t the worst naming conventions for stations, RTD in Denver is probably more egregiously bad in this regard.
Names usually fall into multiple categories at RTD
– Street Names (ex. Louisiana-Pearl)
– Cities (ex. Westminster)
– Important destinations (Theater District – Convention Center and Ball Arena-Elitch Gardens)
– Some combination of all three (Commerce City/72nd)
RTD has a nasty habit like Chicago CTA to use the same cross street on multiple lines but sometimes without any geographic context. Like we have Colfax at Auraria (H & D Lines) station in Denver but we also have a Colfax station (R Line) in Aurora. And it’s just called Colfax, no Colfax-Fitzsimons/Potomac (either of these cross streets would be an acceptable use in this case) to indicate the important cross street.
They’re also bad about egregiously long names or redundancy for at one station on the commuter rail lines
– 40th Ave & Airport Blvd–Gateway Park (A Line)
– 60th & Sheridan/Arvada Gold Strike (G Line)
– 48th & Brighton/National Western Center (N Line)
There’s also Jeff Co Government Center-Golden (W Line), which is technically in Golden but not the part people wanna go to. You have to get off at Oak Station and take route 17 to go to downtown Golden.
I guess this is a roundabout way to say that in general Sound Transit generally has more consistent station name conventions than some other agencies.
“I have preferred Highline College”
I don’t want stations named after colleges, except UW because it’s the largest one in the state and regularly gets visitors from all over the world, who will be looking for a station named “University of Washington” or “U-District”. (That assumes their guidebook tells them what the “U” means, but most guidebooks do: it’s the neighborhood around the University of Washington and one of Seattle’s biggest attractions in itself.)
“Highline College Station” implies there’s nothing in the area except a community college, which is only of interest to the students going there.
If you want long station names, there’s the station in LA I encountered as “Rosa Parks” (then the transfer from the airport), later “Imperial/Wilmington/Rosa Parks”, and now “Willowbrook/Rosa Parks”.
Washington DC has “U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardoza” station.
@Mike and Zach
The entire dc station name debacle (and other us transit station long names) is why sound transit has the naming policy. Otherwise we might have gotten Redmond/Overlake Transit Center/Microsoft Headquarters or Kent Des Moines/Highline College
Even for DC, that isn’t the real name anymore. There’s the “primary” name of U Street. the other part is the secondary name now, they changed it in 2011
https://ggwash.org/view/9432/wmata-considering-policies-for-shorter-station-names
If you look at the map, the real name is just “U St.” with the rest having a smaller font under it
https://www.wmata.com/schedules/maps/wmata-system-map.cfm
> “Highline College Station” implies there’s nothing in the area except a community college, which is only of interest to the students going there.
I would have been fine with either name. Highline college is probably the largest transit rider destination for that station
Honestly European Metro station names are generally underappreciated for how much they cut through the waffle compared to American Metro station names. Very rare is it to see a double or triple barreled long station name in European metros compared to the US where we need to identify everything sometimes instead of just saying “can this information be added to the latter end of the announcement for point of interest destinations instead of be in the station name.”
It might be interesting to go back and look at Link station names. Which have stayed the same from conception to now? Which have changed? Which future names are still undecided? BelRed first used to be Bel-Red/130th. Then it became Bel-Red. And now, I believe, it’s just BelRed, without the hyphen. Also, which station names should be called something else? (I believe Overlake Village should just be Overlake). Should East Main, which is a made-up street name, really be called Surrey Downs station? Should Wilburton go back to Hospital? Should 130th be Jackson Park?
“Highline College Station” implies there’s nothing in the area except a community college, which is only of interest to the students going there.
It implies no such thing. It is simply noting the largest landmark and biggest destination (by far). It not fundamentally different than “Stadium Station” except far less ambiguous.
I wouldn’t mind calling the station “Highline”, but the name is as ambiguous as “Kent-Des Moines” is.
Maybe so, but “Highline” is an obvious shorthand for “Highline College”. The main advantage is that is short. At best “Kent-Des Moines” is shorthand for “Kent-Des Moines Road”, but if you are going to take that approach (and there is a lot to be said for doing so) then just name it “236th” (or just round to 240th). This is a solid approach and would work well with all the stations of Federal Way Link. You could even tack on an “S” if you want: “S 236nd”, “S 272nd”, “S 320th”. That works for me.
But Sound Transit is into monuments. Even when they do have solid station names based on the crossing street they too often want to clutter it up by making sure everyone knows who helped pay for it. Instead of “185th” or “N 185th” it becomes “Shoreline North/185th”. There is no attempt at brevity. It is easy to see this as just symbolic of an agency trying to please everyone and thus not really important. After all, what’s in a name. But short names help when it comes to making signs and other landmarks. For every person who is helped by the “Shoreline North” part of the name, there are a dozen who can’t quite read (or hear) the station name and aren’t sure if they should get off the train.
Very rare is it to see a double or triple barreled long station name in European metros compared to the US where we need to identify everything sometimes instead of just saying “can this information be added to the latter end of the announcement for point of interest destinations instead of be in the station name.”
Same is true for the New York Subway.
The station name change that I think was the silliest was adding “Martinez” to North Concord BART. The city limits is 2.5 miles away!
That is more silly than adding Auburn to Federal Way Link!
” they too often want to clutter it up by making sure everyone knows who helped pay for it. Instead of “185th” or “N 185th” it becomes “Shoreline North/185th”.”
It must have been Shoreline’s insistence. No other city has its city name in all of its multiple stations, or tacks on a street number afterward, or puts a small residential street like 148th instead of the main transfer point/destination 145th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwll_railway_station
I would have shortened it to “siliogogog,” personally.
Given the above talk about reduction of downtown routes and changes post-2 Line, I thought it important to highlight this potential transit boondoggle:
The Eastlake Layover Facility
https://kingcounty.gov/en/legacy/depts/transportation/metro/programs-projects/transit-corridors-parking-and-facilities/eastlake-layover-facility
If anyone has been over to Eastlake (the I-5/REI area – not the pretty lakeside area), you noticed the web of construction and lane closures. Most of it is due to the construction of a new bus layover facility. It’s being built because of the large number of buses that currently use that space to layover and other spaces that Metro is running short.
But this project makes no sense and is a potential waste because most of the routes that use Eastlake as a layover are Community Transit and southend ST routes… and we all know what’s happening to those routes when Link opens in Snohomish County this year and Federal Way next year. After Link is extended, the only routes I can see potentially using this multi-million dollar space is the C-line and 590/594 (if ST doesn’t truncate to Fed Way).
Unless Metro is planning a massive bus restructure where a lot routes will terminate in SLU, this project is a waste.
> Unless Metro is planning a massive bus restructure where a lot routes will terminate in SLU, this project is a waste.
That actually is the far flung plan to route buses through SLU. Like kirkland to slu to uptown express bus. And rerouting 8 to harrison street. And also an upper queen anne to capitol hill via the lakeview blvd bridge.
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/current-projects/harrison-mercer-transit-access
Anyways regardless it’s land next to the i-5 freeway so it’s not as if this is some prime piece of land for development.
“Anyways regardless it’s land next to the i-5 freeway so it’s not as if this is some prime piece of land for development.” It is in downtown Seattle. If zoning allowed for it, a developer would build a 40 story apartment down.
It’s less valuable than other space in SLU, so they’ve put it in the right spot, but let’s not pretend like this is some fallow land in Frederickson
> If zoning allowed for it, a developer would build a 40 story apartment down.
Its a thin sliver of land nestled in between eastlake ave and i-5; most of it is just used as bus parking converted from the existing street. The only building proposed is just the comfort station. It’s not wide enough to really build anything large.
I’ve legit fantasized about Metro routing the 8 off Denny and through Lakeview. The trouble is every street from I-5 to Broadway is incapable of handling a bus without major retrofit or widening.
There’s a similar coverage route in Metro Connects. Route 3028 is in both the Interim and 2050 networks, replacing the 2N from west Queen Anne to Harrison Street, Lakeview Blvd, Roy Street, Aloha Street, and 23rd to Madison. It’s unfunded and who knows if Metro will choose to do it later, but it’s been in the long-range vision since 2016.
It will be only 11 buses, so it doesn’t need to be a ton of routes. I’m guessing they will consolidate other layover space elsewhere to give drivers access to the rest & breakrooms. Won’t be just the C, the H and some of the 1XX series also run south to north and could use the layover space?
Metro has been eliminating layovers downtown for years per the city’s wishes to redeploy the space to more pedestrian/bike-friendly purposes, so all routes that terminate downtown will have to layover just north or south of it. This might be a place for them. I don’t know if the 49’s space on Pike will go since it can’t get to Eastlake easily, but the city generally wants to minimize downtown layovers as much as feasible.
The problem(?) with moving routes that terminate in the downtown or Belltown area is travel time of 5-10 minutes would have to be added to each trip. Imagine the H-line or the 150 having to slog through Howell St traffic in the PM to reach its terminus. The plus-side is those routes have potential of serving more of the NE portion of downtown, similar to the old bus tunnel routing bring people closer to SLU as well.
Where do the H and the 131/132 “downtown only” runs layover?
That 5~10 minutes would only be when a bus goes out of service. I don’t think this is intended as layover space for a bus that is simply absorbing float before starting a new run.
@AJ — I think Jordan’s point is that if you simply extend a bus like the H (so that it is like the C) then it is a trade-off. On the one hand you give those riders more one-seat rides. You also improve the “spine” into South Lake Union, which would have been considered silly twenty years ago but definitely adds value now. On the other-hand providing that extra service costs money.
> Where do the H and the 131/132 “downtown only” runs layover?
Apparently the plan for rapidride H is to use the eastlake layover facility for 3 spots. Though note this analysis was done pre-pandemic.
North Terminus Layover Spaces
The north end of the H Line service will require new layover spaces for coaches. The Route 120 is currently constrained by lack of layover space and adding service will increase the need for more. Layover spaces allow bus drivers rest time and also increases reliability by buffering the scheduled times for starting and ending routes. Metro is seeking to secure a minimum of three layover spaces for 60-foot coaches in the South Lake Union neighborhood. Several options have been explored during project development, one near Denny Park and another on Dexter Avenue N between John and Harrison streets.
From H Line SEPA checklist
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/departments/sdot/transitprogram/rapidride/h%20line%20sepa%20checklist%20signed.pdf
I mean, don’t forget the rapidride C was extended to SLU after the decoupling, partially because it was already driving up there to reach the layover spots on valley street. They’re still there https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6259495,-122.3333006,3a,60y,313.53h,78.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNTdXRl252Wb68_E8gpkZJQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
> 131/132 “downtown only” runs layover?
131 and 132 continue as route 28, they don’t stop in downtown and through run. The southern section I assume burien transit center. For the north layover spot it looks like it layovers at the same spot as Rapidride D just north of the QFC https://www.google.com/maps/@47.702238,-122.3643903,3a,75y,86.03h,84.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5Dt1eqCiAYnOkAnEtOeZYw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu; though I’m not completely sure.
WL, the 28X is temporarily (hopefully) only hourly off-peak and the 26X doesn’t exist anymore, so at this point only 1/2 of the northbound 131 runs continue past downtown as the 28X, while all 132 runs terminate downtown. They both continue all the way to Bell (unlike the H), so they must layover somewhere past there but I haven’t paid attention to see where.
When the 26 was deleted some of the 131 or 132 runs became downtown only with a last stop at Virginia. I take them northbound from Costco sometimes. Those are the runs I’m wondering where they layover, since those are ones that could potentially use this Eastlake space.
“They both continue all the way to Bell (unlike the H)”
Oh yes, it was the H that was extended to Virginia, not the 131/132. Bell is an important stop and I think where the 28 changes number southbound, so it would make sense to go to it northbound.
@Skylar and Mike
thanks for calling that out. It looks like mostly the 132 turns around? https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/schedules-and-maps/131-132
> Those are the runs I’m wondering where they layover,
If it’s fast/consistent enough it could potentially just turn around and try to reach burien transit center and layover there. Given that 3rd avenue is now a transitway it might be consistent enough.
I sometimes wonder instead of having certain trips on Route 131/132 end in downtown, what if those trips were extended to 8th NW/NW 65th then headed along NW 65th to 32nd NW. From there, it could turn north and connect with the 45, or turn south and connect with the 44. This puts 15 minute service along a portion of the 28, where probably most of the ridership is and eliminates a need for layover space in downtown.
Alternatively, it could run on 3rd NW and provide additional service on NW 65th. This is probably as close to a crosstown route we will get along 65th St since it is unlikely any bus can climb Phinney Ridge on 65th St.
My twelve-year-old has a transit infrastructure question which I am unable to answer. Perhaps someone here knows the history.
The First Hill streetcar, traveling northward along Broadway, has one stop at Marion Street, and another at Pine. Right in between, at Union, there exists a very similar-looking station, complete with concrete island, railing, and shelter – but while the streetcar will pause there, during its wait for the Union light to change, it will not open its doors.
Beloved child asks: “why will the streetcar not let me out, when there is a station there, right where I want to get out? What is that station *for*?” I did not have a good answer, other than to observe that the mystery station is painted in bus colors, not streetcar colors, and to speculate that there may be some reason the two services cannot share stations. The child found this unpersuasive (“they are both part of the city so the mayor should just *make* them share”).
I can’t shrug this off as mere historical anomaly, since the bus station appears to have been constructed during the same Broadway rebuild which installed the streetcar; the planners must have done it intentionally. I wonder why?
> I can’t shrug this off as mere historical anomaly, since the bus station appears to have been constructed during the same Broadway rebuild which installed the streetcar; the planners must have done it intentionally. I wonder why?
Mainly stop spacing. The Pike/Pine streetcar station is just one block to the north so they didn’t want to add so many stations. From pike/pine to marion is around 1600 feet or 0.3 mile stop spacing.
Buses usually we (as in American transit agencies) add more stops, arguably a bit too many slowing them down. Another small reason could be the streetcar stations cost slightly more to construct with them being level boarding; but I don’t think that was that large of a concern.
To retrofit it back in now, might be kinda difficult as you’d need to probably need to expand the sidewalk a bit to build an ada complaint streetcar station with the ramps.
If you’re really interested I can go check the original EIS statement for the streetcar, but I’m pretty sure it’ll say something about stop spacing and speed benefits.
Are the current stations, for which the cement is below the level of the streetcar floors, truly fully ADA-compliant?
The reality that the streetcar sub department failed to even hold onto any of its domain names might help indirectly explain every other jaw dropping mistake they made.
My guess is cost and history. The stop spacing is a little bit off either way on Broadway.
Just to back up here, standard international stop spacing is about 400 meters. Of course it is hard to match that exactly, but the streetcar comes pretty close in places. The SLU streetcar is consistently 300-400 meters between each stop. For a streetcar in an urban area this is quite appropriate.
The First Hill Streetcar is less consistent. It goes under 300 meters in places and over 500 meters in others. It would be quite reasonable and consistent for the streetcar to stop at Union, even if it is a bit close to Marion (just to shrink that gap).
But some of the station spacing on Broadway is less than ideal. I think this is just because they have stopped there in the past. It is definitely tricky in there, but it seems like you could have better stop spacing:
Broadway & Terrace: Existing.
Broadway & Cherry-Colombia: Midway between the other two stops.
Broadway & Madison-Union: This puts it between the buses on Madison and those on Union.
Broadway & Pike-Pine: Existing.
This would still connect to the main crossing buses (about as well if not better than now) while having better stop spacing. If they were starting from scratch this might be what they would do, but they weren’t starting from scratch. My guess is they leveraged bus stops (that very well may have leveraged old streetcar stops). At some point though, they just decided not to leverage the one at Union and my guess is it was to save money. For a route like this you would err on the side of adding the stop but the cost wasn’t trivial, and the stop isn’t essential (unlike some other stops).
The Union stop is intended for Routes 9 and 60 according to the pole information.
I think that the streetcar stops have a higher curb a than that stop. Streetcars need stops with a higher curb because their alignment is fixed to the exact inch where buses have flexibility in both height and distance to the curb.
Finally, it’s common to have stops spaced so that a streetcar won’t get stuck at every traffic signal. If a streetcar stopped there, they would have to wait through an extra red light at Union afterwards. Having the signal system allow the streetcar two or three signals of green lights without stopping can be a great way to make it more attractive.
> Within the next two years or so, the number of bus routes on 2nd and 4th Avenues will be dramatically reduced
> Given the above talk about reduction of downtown routes and changes post-2 Line, I thought it important to highlight this potential transit boondoggle (eastlake layover)
I guess if one really wants less downtown buses, one option is to through-run more buses.
Like rapidride D to say rapidride R (route 7) or perhaps some routing of rapidride R up future rapidride J (route 70). Or say route 62/40 with other routes that continue further south.
Of course there’s a trade off with these longer routes as consistent frequency is a lot harder to maintain. Also matching the frequency from the north to south segments or mix and matching is a bit logistically hard. But it does remove that one mile duplication.
The D to the R? Yikes.
That’s been done before, sorta. At the inauguration of the C & D, they were initially through-routed but people got PISSED to the point of making the news because of its poor reliability (and it didn’t help that the frequency was every 12-15 minutes). Metro impressively had to add extra buses and eventually separated the two routes.
Even if Metro ran the route every 3-5 minutes, I wouldn’t trust the reliability of a through-routed line that stretches from opposite ends of the city. Especially in a extremely busy and active corridor. The 131/132 are often late (based on my experience as they’re a few blocks from my work). I’m not sure how the 5/21 and 24/33/124 fair…
> The D to the R? Yikes.
> That’s been done before, sorta. At the inauguration of the C & D, they were initially through-routed but people got PISSED to the point of making the news
To be fair, back then there weren’t as many bus lanes. The 7 also already through runs with the 49 mornings and evenings. Or simpler ones like rapidride J, there’s already rapidride H and C reaching SLU, it seems like we could have some buses just continue on to U district.
Of course it’s not simple, but it is one alternative for those that want less buses on 3rd avenue.
“I guess if one really wants less downtown buses, one option is to through-run more buses. Like rapidride D to say rapidride R (route 7) or perhaps some routing of rapidride R up future rapidride J (route 70). Or say route 62/40 with other routes that continue further south.”
The plan was to convert more routes to RapidRide, reduce the spaghetti of half-full non-RapidRide routes, and move some transfers to outside downtown (accessible via Link or RapidRide). That got a blow when Move Seattle couldn’t fulfill the half-dozen RapidRide lines it had planned, and then the whole plan stagnated in the covid era, and now SDOT is falling back to incremental improvements in some corridors. Incremental improvements are good, but it’s not a large enough commitment that could reduce other routes or move transfers to outside downtown as much as previously thought. And now with ridership evolving and the huge peak surges apparently gone for good, we’re evolving to a more mixed situation, which will probably lead to some more route consolidation and a lower number of 3rd Avenue buses, but maybe not as low as anticipated in the mid 2010s.
> …now SDOT is falling back to incremental improvements in some corridors. Incremental improvements are good, but it’s not a large enough commitment that could reduce other routes or move transfers to outside downtown as much as previously thought
Focusing on this aspect, the original rapidride D and C decoupling was due to the unreliability of the two routes. With the added bus lanes to both eastlake, Rainier, and Westlake perhaps other routes rapidride or not might be reliable enough to through-run.
I mean if we look at rapidride C it reaches valley street checking google maps that’s around 14 minutes and route 70 from chinatown to u district is 38 minutes — around 40~50% of the route. Also don’t need downtown layover spots if the bus stops outside.
“the original rapidride D and C decoupling was due to the unreliability of the two routes”
It was due to several things. Ever since the D was created there were complaints that it no longer served the south end of downtown and Pioneer Square. The C was routed to SLU to provide capacity for the new highrises when Metro and the city finally realized it needed more capacity than just the streetcar and the existing routes. Reliability may have been a third factor.
In the past the biggest issue was the bridge openings. A lot of the buses that serve the north end but don’t use those bridges are already paired. The Magnolia buses (24, 33), Queen Anne buses (1, 2, 3, 4, 13) and two of the Aurora buses (5 and 28) are already paired. It is basically only the E (which is really long) that isn’t.
In contrast, Metro has really moved away from pairing routes that might be delayed by a bridge opening. It helps explain why the 48 was split into two (the 45 and 48). In general the worst part about an opening is not the time spent waiting for the bridge to open and close, but the big delay after it opens. The traffic builds up and then takes a while to empty out. I’m not sure if enough has been done around any of the bridges to change the situation. I don’t think that much was done for the 70/J. This is too bad, since the combination you describe (C/J) would be great. In the past they’ve considered a 70/7 as well (but I think it has the same issue). If the areas around the bridge can be improved then it is definitely worth reconsidering the approach. It is a trade-off, but I fear we aren’t there yet.
> In the past the biggest issue was the bridge openings. A lot of the buses that serve the north end but don’t use those bridges are already paired. The Magnolia buses (24, 33), Queen Anne buses (1, 2, 3, 4, 13) and two of the Aurora buses (5 and 28) are already paired. It is basically only the E (which is really long) that isn’t.
thanks for highlighting that issue, I thought about it briefly but didn’t realize metro paired all/most routes that aren’t using bridges.
The 44 used to have huge problems with reliability which are mostly addressed now, but I can always tell when I’m waiting for a bus that started as a 43 because it’s 10-20 minutes late. Not to say we shouldn’t connect routes, but long routes, especially ones that should be frequent, have their issues
Tin foil hat time …
Question about why the Downtown Redmond Link Extension didn’t first go to Downtown Redmond, then out to Marymoor Village, which would have meant it went in the same general direction from Redmond Technology Station to Marymoor Village, which is east, or northeast then east. Instead, they chose to go east out to Marymoor Village, then backtrack a mile west to Downtown Redmond.
Was that a strategic decision designed to have the 2 Line terminate in a westerly direction, so if in the future ST wanted to tunnel west through Rose Hill to go to Downtown Kirkland (and be poised for a third lake crossing), or swing the 2 Line north toward Totem Lake? Because if they did do it the other way; hit downtown Redmond first, then terminate at Marymoor Village, they would have painted themselves into a corner expansion-wise. Was any of that a factor in why ST chose to go to Marymoor Village first, then backtrack to downtown Redmond?
Probably just cheaper construction. Allows the path into downtown Redmond to follow the right of way of an abandoned rail line and use an existing underpass to cross SR-520. Doing it the other way would have required a new freeway overpass and probably substantial property takings.
I’m guessing because of the topography: the steep hill starting at NE 51st St and continuing past W Lake Sammammish Parkway. Following SR-520 also impacts the surrounding parkland to a lesser extent.
I think it works out well as the end of the line is “pointed” in the right direction for a future extension to Totem Lake or Woodinville.
It looks to me that with the new 302 revisions and other changes, buses are no longer going to be running to/from the 5th & James Express Lanes exit at all on I-5 after Lynnwood Link opens. That’s basically an entire very fast transit-dedicated lane of I-5 though downtown, abandoned. Wonder if they’ll switch the lane to general purpose.
My guess is they keep it the same even if it is only used by carpools.
There’s already a general lanes exit/entrance on stewart, as Ross noted I doubt they’ll convert it and would rather just keep it as hov.
> Wonder if they’ll switch the lane to general purpose.
If you’re talking about WSDOT, there’s currently an i-5 master plan study undergoing. https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-studies/i-5-study
WSDOT is considering tolling the express lanes. “I-5 Express Toll Lane
Conversion”. Regarding converting to 24-hour two-way operations; I haven’t seen any serious studies
Transit appreciation week…
I don’t take transit often. The past few weeks have been very transit heavy due to person issues. My tag line when I de-board (if it is at the front of bus, depends on the route) is “Thanks for driving.”
If you drove me and I de-boarded via the back, also, “thanks for driving.”
[trolling]
I always thank the driver, the same way I greet and thank the flight attendants when I fly.
Any thoughts about the March 30 king county metro service changes?
I briefly glanced through them, mainly seems to be minor deletion and adding trips.
For instance:
> Route 5: On Saturday, one northbound trip at 10:22 pm will be deleted at the direction of the city of Seattle to better align Seattle Transit Measure service investment with the city’s goal
> Route 28: On weekdays, several trips will be added in the morning and afternoon at the direction of the city of Seattle to better align Seattle Transit Measure service investment with the city’s goals.
Rapidride A and H also adds a couple more weekend morning trips.
https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/service-change
Why is the A-Line being reduced in service while the 28, a route with way lower ridership, is getting a boost? As a 28 rider who uses it for work, I’m all in favor or converting the route to peak hour only and using the funds/manpower to boost service elsewhere.
Also, I hate the “Seattle Transit Measure” verbiage. Does the measure aim to reduce service?? The real reason for the deletion would be appreciated.
The 28 is an important coverage bus, if nothing else. Without it you have a big service hole.
Also, I hate the “Seattle Transit Measure” verbiage. Does the measure aim to reduce service??
Of course not. Without the measure there would be less service. But there is also a driver shortage. As a result, it doesn’t buy as much service as they thought it would. Compromises have to be made and the idea is to come closer to reaching the measure’s goals (even if they can’t be met because of the shortage).
> Also, I hate the “Seattle Transit Measure” verbiage.
It just means highlighting it’s aligning with Seattle’s funding and extra money decision. Typically the cuts or additions are based on king county’s funding/formula to determine.
An article on the service change is pending.
The “Seattle Transit Measure” is the levy that was passed in 2015 and renewed in 2020 (at a lower rate) to provide extra Metro runs to boost frequency. SDOT is in charge of which routes and times to allocate them to, in consultation with Metro.
Since 2020 all levels of the state/county/city governments have pivoted to emphasizing equity. That means emphasizing service in neighborhoods with a higher concentration of lower-income, minority, and essential workers — the areas where ridership didn’t decrease during the pandemic. That’s presumably Seattle’s primary reason for reallocating service this time, from the 5, 10, and 56, to the H, 21, 28, 49, and 60.
The H, 21, and 60 are clearly in equity-emphasis areas. The 5 and 10 can be seen as serving higher-income areas (15th and Greenwood) — although Broadview is an equity-emphasis area. The 28 and 49 are puzzling. The 49 may be to serve Seattle Central College. The 28 may be for the industrial area between Fremont and Ballard. Or it may not be related to equity at all, but instead because Metro’s reduction to hourly service was a hard pill to swallow.. (That reduction was because of the driver shortage, so it’s temporary.)
The A is outside Seattle so its change is due solely to internal Metro issues. It is in an equity-emphasis area, so it’s not that. It could simply be that Metro had to take the hours from somewhere because again limited drivers, and it chose the A, perhaps because even with the changes it’s still more frequent than most routes, and the hours targeted are in the lowest-ridership periods. (Or at least lowest except night owl, which is already bare-bottom frequency.)
I also see a relationship between this and the G restructure this fall. The restructure will reduce the 10 and boost the 49 and 60 for the same reason. So it’s really two similar changes being decided at different times, but for the same reason.
@Ross… In a time of driver shortages and equity concerns, coverage needs to give way to demand or “necessary demand”. I much rather see the A-line, a route that serves low incomes areas and is the only frequent service in that area, get a boost in service versus the 28, which serves a higher income area and already has two other frequent routes nearby: the D and the 44.
The A line change for saturday and sunday 6 am to 11 am used to be 15 minute frequency is increasing to 12 minute frequency. 11 am to 10 pm drops from 10 min frequency to 12 minute frequency.
It’s partially an evening out of the frequency throughout the day, but still a drop in service.
The 28 change seems to be reversing part of the 131/132 truncation and through running more buses.
@Jordan — The 28 is the only bus on 8th NW. Without it there is a wide gap (roughly a mile) between the 5 and the D. While the the corridor is not as densely populated as others, there are still people there.
The A is not in Seattle, so it is really a different beast. A better example would be the 7. The 7 saw a reduction in service (from 10 minutes to 7.5 minutes). This hurts a lot more riders, but the pain is a lot less severe. In that sense it is a classic ridership/coverage trade-off, but the 28 has more riders than a lot of coverage routes. There is also cost. While increasing service on the 7 would increase ridership, you get diminishing returns. It costs the same to go from 6 buses an hour to 8 buses as it does to go from 2 to 4. Yet for a rider the difference is much bigger. Thus even though the 7 gets a lot more riders, the increase in ridership may actually be greater with the 28 (until it gets to roughly 15 minute frequency).
I would say that the 28 as an express to downtown (from Fremont) has lost much of its value. Outside of rush hour it probably doesn’t get many riders. It competes with the 40, and the 40 runs a lot more often. It just isn’t worth it to walk up to 39th, even if it is faster. If there was a place for the 28 to layover in Fremont that would work. That would save about ten minutes off of the 28. (The 28 through-routes with the 131/132 which means it essentially ends in Belltown.)
Another option would be to send the 28 somewhere else but it is tough to think of a good place to send it. Once you get to Fremont you are pretty well covered. You could go to the UW, but the 31/32 already do that. If the 28 followed the route (and ran every 15 minutes) then you would have 7.5 minute frequency from Fremont to the UW. That is probably overkill (and it would probably cost money). Another option is to send it to SPU. This would have some benefit, but the savings would be fairly small. Another alternative would be to send the 28 to Ballard (via Market). This would save somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes (by my calculation). This would create a coverage gap, but a much smaller one as Leary (40) and Market (44) are fairly close through there. Riders would lose their one seat ride to Fremont, but gain a one-seat ride to Ballard. This doesn’t seem worth it either. I think the best option would be to find a way to layover/turn around somewhere in Fremont. Otherwise it means just living with the 28 as is.
@Ross
The 28 is pretty short already. From Crown Hill (8th Ave NW & NW 97th St) to Downtown Seattle is 30 minutes. If it was truncated in fremont it’d be a 15 minute bus route probably too short for most transit trips/riders. Of course most trips continue as 131/132.
@Jordan
> while the 28, a route with way lower ridership, is getting a boost
On that note, the 28 isn’t that expensive to add a couple more trips. It’s travel time is 27~30 minutes so for a comparable one hour long bus route, one can add 2 route 28 trips. Also it’s already setup for restoring frequency since the 131/132 just need to continue rather than turning around.
” much rather see the A-line, a route that serves low incomes areas and is the only frequent service in that area, get a boost in service versus the 28″
You can’t shift Seattle TBD money to a route far outside Seattle. The 28 boost is coming from the TBD, not Metro. The A adjustment is coming from Metro’s base hours, which means it’s competing with the rest of South King, or the entire county, depending on how strong Metro’s commitment to keeping hours in the subarea is. If Metro reduces the 28 to peak-only, that would come from Metro’s base hours, and it could theoretically be shifted to the A. That would raise the controversy of not keeping the hours in North Seattle. And it would contradict the TBD’s wish to boost the 28, so Metro and SDOT would have to straighten that out.
Another small, but significant, routing change: the 221 is rerouted off 148th between 36th and 24th to connect to Overlake Village Station on the East Link starter line!
This removes service from two small bus stops on 148th (serving an apartment building, some condos, and a couple Microsoft buildings), but it’s a clear bonus because of the connection.
The 221 restructure will solve my problem of getting from Link to 164th & Main Street. The 226 will be a 20-minute walk away from Overlake Village station (I timed it last month) — that’s 20-minute walk to a 30-60 minute route.
The full East Link restructure will take that away again, leaving me with a dilemma of whether to walk to the 226 or take the 221’s successor or the 245 to 156th & Main and walk up a hill. Or transfer to the 226 at Bellevue Downtown and ride past four Link stations on the way. Or transfer to the other end of the future 226 at South Bellevue, and ride past six Link stations, and that would probably take take half an hour or more. judging by how long it takes to get from Main Street to the I-90 freeway station (554) now.
SB trains are once again on a slow order when crossing Royal Brougham. They’re going, what feels like, 10mph between the tunnel exit and Stadium. Does anyone have info on this?
Does anyone know where to find the rapidride i 60/90% design document?
I see on https://www.rapidrideiline.com/ they only have the community summaries.
As a side note, it’s pretty hard to find documents on king county website after they remove the “open house” ones for any bus projects
# South Link Connections
Also King county metro started the “south link connections” restructuring bus routes after Federal Way Link opens. This is just the initial needs assessment aka survey gathering https://www.southlinkconnections.com/
Survey here: https://kcit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2mzgA4jKokOT0Ts
Note: this is king county metro, not sound transit so ST express buses aka 5XX are not part of the survey.
People who are live/work/travel in South King can also apply to be on the mobility board.
## Current bus routes
> The following routes will be explored for potential changes as part of the South Link Connections Project.
> Metro routes: RapidRide A Line, 121, 122, 123, 154, 156, 157, 162, 165, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 187, 190, 193, 197, 631, 901, 903
Map: https://assets-global.website-files.com/65c5126e78e56fdf5f559839/65ea01fdbc0dd8207e50d801_KCM_S%20Link%20Connections_Map.pdf
Metro connects interim map: https://platform.remix.com/project/7063754e?latlng=47.38544,-122.19433,11.101&sidebarCollapsed=true
## My thoughts
Currently the area consists of main bus routes like A/156, peak bus routes like 121/157 and then dart routes like 901. The area is vast and hard to cover, but there’s still some gains to be made.
### Main bus routes
For the main bus routes, it’s hard for me to formulate any large changes. It seems most were already done back in 2020 https://seattletransitblog.com/2020/08/22/south-king-county-route-restructure-to-break-up-high-performing-180/ for instance the back-then new route 165 from Green River College via Kent/Des Moines Station to Burien Transit Center.
182: half hour from Northeast Tacoma to Federal Transit Center; Probably can be bumped up to 15 minute or at least 20 minute frequency.
181: just keep same as before.
165: just keep same
156: 30 min frequency route from south center to highline college. Slight extension from highline college to star lake station.
### Peak routes
177: removed, duplicates much of existing link. might be slightly faster in special circumstances, but any time savings are wiped by the hourly frequency.
193: also removed or lowered in frequency. I will note it does reach tukwila park and ride as well as first hill
Many other peak routes have already been suspended, they’ll probably continue being suspended.
121, 122, 123, 154, 157, 178, 179, 197: suspended
### new/extending routes
I did some napkin calculations, but in general there just isn’t really enough service hours if it’s a neutral restructure to create any of these as the peak hour buses were mainly already heavily truncated and the long route lengths makes it costly for even moderate frequency. But anyways:
901 (dart)+183: Metro connects interim suggested creating a diagonal route from Twin Lakes P&R along SW Dash Pt Road then to Star Lake station and finally Kent Station. Downside is one would have to then recreate a new circulator route for the reroute of 183.
162 (currently peak) + 161: Extending the 161 (currently from burien transit center via seatac to kent station) further east to covington. Technically the 161 isn’t under consideration here, and also probably doesn’t have enough service hours to create this.
156: extend from star lake station to Auburn using S 277th St and W Valley Hwy S.
Anyways if y’all have any thoughts or ideas would love to hear them.
Since we’re talking about freeway exits on the ne 80th street. What do you guys think about the rainier southbound/south side freeway exit ramp?
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.5919609,-122.3090228,145m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
SDOT added some flashing signs so far but with the opening of east link station next year (or 2026 lol) that pedestrian crossing looks to be a death trap with it coming right after a sharp turn. The only ‘easy’ fix I can think of is to move the pedestrian crossing further south so at least it isn’t right after the bend.
Given that it took me a moment even to spot the crossing, and had to go to Street View to confirm, I’d say “not great”. If it’s anything like the crosswalks off Green Lake Way from Aurora, a substantial number of drivers aren’t even going to realize they’re off the freeway and maybe should slow to 25mph until they’re well onto Rainier. I’ve had to bike that part of Rainier to detour around Link construction and it’s also highly unpleasant even when taking a lane to try to reduce close passes.
When I asked SDOT about improving the existing crosswalk visibility and adding new crosswalks on Green Lake Way, I got the boilerplate “if you’re not comfortable why don’t you walk blocks out of your way to a controlled intersection where the drivers will blow a red light rather than just paint on the pavement”. There might have been some editorializing from me but that’s the gist of it.
Here’s a new kind of Link outage: “1 Line trains are arriving about every 20 minutes until further notice due to intruder in trackway… 1 Line service is suspended from Angle Lake Station to Sea Tac/Airport Stations until further notice due to intruder in the trackway.”