Jarrett Walker is a world-renowned transit-network consultant, and the author of the Human Transit book and Human Transit blog. At a UCLA forum he discusses his philosophy and answers extensive questions. Topics include transit as “freedom of opportunity”, good vs bad route and land use designs, why the locations of buildings is the make or break of transit, the dangers of elite projection (e.g., “the tech commuter”), and much more.
This is an open thread.
I responded to your Tacoma questions in the last open thread, Mike. Didn’t want them to get lost.
And I pasted them into a file for my next Tacoma excursion.
Here’s Cam’s suggested Tacoma walks northwest of Tacoma Dome, focusing on walkable neighborhoods, architecture, and views.
Thanks!!!
Let me know if you want any fleshed out or modified based on starting point – probably either dome or 10th and commerce.
I still need to see the T Line MLK extension, so I’ll start with that and explore 11th, 6th, and St Helens.
Then I’ll do a separate walk from S 38th & Pacific to Tacoma Mall. And then what? Where are McKinley and the brewery district?
I don’t want to go to Titlow at this point. I went to Titlow Beach when I was staying there, and I don’t need to see the lower-density area west of TCC.
Where on Proctor would you go? From S 19th to N 30th? I vaguely recall Proctor having Piggly Wiggly and Frisko Freeze maybe, and being a denser street than the others.
Walking 38th to the mal at this point is pretty awful/dangerous. I’ve done it once and survived, but now I take 37th with a pedestrian bridge. You are still dropped into to a big box nightmare hellscape. The are around mall is truly truly awful.
I would check out Lincoln, then head south to 34th, and go east to McKinley district. From there, you can walk down McKinley Ave and right back to the dome and regional transit options.
Proctor is centered at Proctor and 26th. I would walk UPS to Proctor, and check out that neighborhood. Then walk east to 26th to Alder to 21st, and then either catch a bus or walk south through 3 bridges and back to Stadium.
Pretty much Jarrett Walker is spot on about how we got the transit cards that we have and what trends are showing.
In particular, I’m struck by several observations. One key one is this:
Density alone does not create good transit environments or ridership. Layout within walking distance is just as important. I really like how he includes “linearity” as well. These two aspects are topics that get discussed in concept all the time and do get prioritized more, but we have a long way to go. I particularly like his comment about bus stops on roads that don’t offer safe crosswalks to make the street safe, accessible and convenient. How many RapidRide stops have this problem?
I don’t think RapidRide stops have that problem, as they’re located at crosswalks.
The worst I can think of is the B’s 120th, which have been affected/moved due to construction and the poor sidewalks on those blocks.
The worst bus stops I’ve encountered are on the 131 at 1st ave S and 120th. I looked at an adult family home just west of there, but the nearest northbound bus stop had no crosswalk, and the nearest crosswalks were 10-15 minutes in either direction. So you have to go across a six-lane 40 mph highway and hope you don’t get run over. I saw people with walkers and dogs crossing it. I was afraid that if I came once a month, eventually I would be hit by a car. The bus stop itself had no bench or shelter, so you had to stand for a half-hourly bus that often came 10-15 minutes late. I chose another home partly because of it.
In contrast, the home I did choose for my relative off 156th in Lake Hills, has crosswalks at the residential bus stops, with blinking pedestrian flashers.
The”linearity” and layout issues and problems that happen in our region. How many badly sited higher learning institutions do we have? More importantly, would any institution that’s badly sited move — even partially? Would we ever consider even redeveloping one of these sites to turn it into an anchor of a TOD or do we keep perpetrating the concept of single-use campuses only easily accessible by car?
We have so many flawed campus sites and layouts in our region. South Seattle College, Bellevue College, UW Bothell, Shoreline College, Green River College. Even the latest UW Seattle campus plan puts most new buildings as far away from Link as they can and doesn’t reorient the campus to Link. Ironically, the wonderfully sited UW Tacoma could be centered by a 1 Line station by building a short state-funded extension from Tacoma Dome but isn’t.
I pick on higher education campuses specifically here because they are major public capital investments. Yet each is fixed on creating a “campus plan” that treats campuses as if they are still self-contained “protected” compounds for full-time 20-year-old students with little need to interact with the rest of the region — even though their enrollments are mostly part-time older adults. Even the most desirable college campuses usually have had a commercial district within the walkshed (like the U-District). They keep updating their plans incrementally and do not ever admit that their campus layout is just badly sited or laid out. And the legislature won’t push for reform either — instead feeling accomplished because they fund a new “green building” on a badly site and laid out campus. I might even say that the college campus planning industry needs total reform, and that the legislature needs to demand it.
Then Jarrett further makes the point that transit agencies aren’t empowered to do land use planning and campus planning. Transit service is mostly an afterthought, even to the point that higher education boards even expect mitigation for transit construction while never demanding mitigation for their own parking expansion. The agencies are often not even in the discussion until the plans have developed.
I’m of course taking Walker’s words as inspiration here more than just repeating them. But I think there could be merit to having a regional higher education facilities Master Plan that reshapes our approach to campus capital development. As long as each campus keeps doing its own incremental planning, nothing can change.
Hospitals get a lot of public support and have the same basic problem. For example Northwest Hospital used to be a minor, neighborhood hospital. Now it is operated by the UW (a public institution) and is growing rapidly. But it is in a really difficult place to serve, even by buses.
The main reason the UW is sprawling to the east is because that is pretty much the only place without significant development. UW has the same basic problem as Downtown Seattle or Downtown Bellevue. It is just big enough to be difficult to serve with one line. It is a shame that the train line didn’t add a station close to the HUB. But it is also a shame that there is no stop at Campus Parkway. If we had added the former, we would still be talking about how Link underserves part of the overall U-District, which has grown in population to be every bit as important as the main part of the campus. At some point you either add an additional line, or you have to depend on buses. The buses do a pretty good job (in my opinion) with the only real challenge connecting to Link (due to neither a station by the HUB or Campus Parkway). Riders from the northeast either have to wait for the bus to curve around and get close to the U-District or walk a ways to the UW Station.
I agree that Northwest Hospital is badly sited for transit. The hospital campus layout is very similar than lots of the community colleges — in a mostly residential area, not along a major thoroughfare, surrounded by big parking lots.
There are often good histories why these things are sited like they are. It’s usually some large site that was never developed likely because it’s cheaper land and not on a major thoroughfare! Then the neighbors in the adjacent residences demanded a green buffer to reduce the disruption.
The toughest problem with Northwest Hospital is that you can’t serve it with an east-west bus. You can only connect to it with north-south transit. In contrast, Children’s Hospital is on the east-west corridor (NE 45th Street) as well as the convergence of two north-south corridors (Sand Point Way and 35th). (OK, it is not actually on 35th, but very close.)
Things get more complicated for Northwest Hospital because of Link and the street grid. Destinations that can only be served in one direction are challenging and there are several ways to do it. One is an hourglass type of pattern. The buses converge on one end, spread out, then converge again at the other end. You see this in Lake City and Ballard. To get to Ballard High School from 24th NW & NW 75th you can take the 40 north or south and transfer to the D.
Another option is to do a weave. We used to have more of those but they went away. The basic idea is for one bus to go due north, then east, then north again. Meanwhile another bus to the east does the opposite (north, then west, then north again). This way you can transfer once to go on a parallel street. Again, this only makes sense if you can’t run buses east-west (and we often can’t).
In the case of Northwest Hospital there is no hourglass (it is in the middle of the city). A weave is the way to go, especially since Link can be in the middle of the weave. For example you could run a bus north on 5th NE that then turns west and goes by the 130th Station before heading north again. The problem is, you can’t do the opposite. 5th NE is one-way now. Thus a bus that goes north on Meridian (to serve the hospital) has tough choices. If it serves the closest Link Station (130th) it has to go all the way to 15th (probably creating a lot of overlap). It can go all the way up to 145th, but that puts it a long ways from the nearest station (especially if you are approaching from the south). There are no great options.
It is worth noting that North Seattle College is also really hard to serve, and has much the same problem. The 40 goes way out its way to serve it. The only reason it has good transit is because ST decided to go with a freeway alignment and take advantage of the transit center (and the city built a bridge). It really isn’t good from a network standpoint. You want your stations at crossroad, not in dead ends. You certainly don’t want them next to the freeway. But at least the college is served.
“How many badly sited higher learning [and other] institutions do we have?”
South Seattle College, Bellevue College, Tukwila City Hall, the VA hospital….
The colleges and VA hospital would just have to change their internal layout to put their front door on the street next to a bus stop. In other words, to become TOD (transit-oriented development) instead of TAD (transit-adjacent development). Tukwila City Hall would have to move since it’s on a slight hill, and the land adjacent to Southcenter Blvd may be too steep to build on.
Shoreline Community College seems like it’s off the beaten path, but isn’t too far off I guess.
I remember taking either a 125 or 128 from Tukwila to West Seattle, and being annoyed at the loop it makes to go north to South Seattle College, then comes all the way back south to get on a major thoroughfare.
Yeah the VA hospital could have been reconfigured to enter from Beacon Avenue. Still it’s more of a layout problem rather than overall bad location. And the City could have worked with the VA to reroute Columbian Way traffic to run along the south edge of the VA parking lot to a T intersection (maybe a modern roundabout) at Beacon Avenue. That would have made it possible to also do something about the awful congested Columbian Way/ Beacon Avenue intersection like putting a roundabout there too or at least rethinking the signal since the approach on the east would become a low volume street if traffic shifted to this new street. Bonus points if it could link to 15th Avenue urging Snoqualmie Street so Route 107 or 60 could be shifted from 15th to Beacon on this new short street. But it would have cut into VA parking!
Back to Jared’s point: The master planning is done there seemingly ignorant of transit operations or access. Or at least not making transit access a priority.
There isn’t a proactive effort to connect places better anmong City staff either. Consider that there is no way for a pedestrian to get between Beacon Ave and MLK between Spokane St and Columbian Way. There are lots of places around Seattle where paths could be built to make bus stops and local shopping destinations closer to more residents but no imagination, interest or funding to make them happen. Plus neighbors worry that such access invites vagrants to camp there (channeling suburban cul-de-sac attitudes).
Both of these colleges were sited decades before Link was envisioned. Are we stuck with them? It would seem so strategic to swap the land with the golf course land at a Link station so the colleges could go next to Link and the former campuses could be reused as the new golf courses. Expensive I know — but a more optimized land use.
@Al S,
“ Both of these colleges were sited decades before Link was envisioned.”
Ya, that is bad planning on the part of those colleges. Bad on them.
But Link 1 is already pretty much the “Education Line”. The biggest university in the state is served with not one, but two!, Link LR Stations. That is awesome.
Additionally the 1 Line also serves Seattle Central College, North Seattle College, and soon Highline College, in addition to several high schools.
As for those colleges that aren’t directly served by Link, Metro should look north to what CT has done with Orange Swift. The combination of a Link and Orange Swift will provide a fast and efficient way to get to Edmonds College with a minimum pain two seat ride. It’s a great model on how to handle situations like this.
Metro could do the same with some of these other prime destinations that aren’t directly on Link. And the bonus for Metro is increased ridership, and Metro certainly needs that now.
Is Bellevue College poorly sited? Access from Eastgate TC & freeway stations seems fine. The parking is on the east side of campus and the sports fields are on the north side, so the core academic campus skews southwest, towards the transit. As the College grows, parking lots 12-15 are good opportunities for infill development.
I’ve had the same thought on colleges swapping land with parks, in particular West Seattle CC. This can be done over time, as buildings need to be rebuilt/replaced. Additionally, most of our community colleges are lowrise, so if new buildings are midrise (4~8 stories), steady redevelopment can actually create more space for other things, like affordable housing, public-private partnerships*, or more green space.
*In CA I think there has been efforts to allow public universities to build unlimited** housing on university owned land. All 4 Seattle CCs would really benefit from this type of policy, either using market rate housing to fund a total reimaging of each campus (ideally with land swaps for some, per the original point of this thread) or to build a bunch of affordable housing (which would require funding from someone else but the CCs would be willing partners)
**i.e. restricted by fire codes, etc, but not by city zoning.
@AJ,
“ Is Bellevue College poorly sited?”
There seems to be this attitude on this blog that every site of moderate or high importance needs to be served by Link. It’s just not true. There is still a role for Metro in a post Link world, and Link will never serve every location at a granular level.
Bellevue College is well served with buses, and connecting Bellevue College to East Link is a no brainer. CT has done this quite well with Swift Orange and Edmonds College, and Metro could do something similar in areas where it is warranted.
The future of Metro is definitely more feeder buses connecting to Link. Places like Bellevue College are key examples of why that is.
But will Issaquah Link serve BC someday? Would be nice, but we will see. But in the meantime Metro needs to step up.
[The VA hospital] is more of a layout problem rather than overall bad location.
Agreed. It really isn’t bad at all if you don’t mind walking a bit. It is quite close to the convergence of Beacon Avenue and Columbian Way — two main corridors. An express from the north (or West Seattle) can easily serve it (the 50 does). The main weakness is the giant parking lot in front (although this is slowly being developed). If you are accessing it from the 36 it is just fine, and even accessing via the 50 isn’t too bad. The detour is debatable — which makes it better than a lot of places.
As Jarrett pointed out, many campuses in NA have been located on top of hills. Looks great on marketing brochures but makes access difficult. Will we relocate them? I doubt it. Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain plans a gondola to connect it to Vancouver’s SkyTrain station. We could do the same for Bellevue College and connect Eastgate Mall/T-Mobile at the same time.
Yes, linear corridors work well for transit lines but if you have outliers then you may consider a point-to-point solution such as an APM or gondola feeder if we can’t serve them by bus like the CT Orange line does.
@AJ:
“ Is Bellevue College poorly sited? Access from Eastgate TC & freeway stations seems fine. The parking is on the east side of campus and the sports fields are on the north side, so the core academic campus skews southwest, towards the transit. ”
You are missing Jarrett’s point. He describes how the campuses aren’t designed to be for transit and walking. They especially aren’t designed so a bus can quickly serve a campus in the middle of a route (his “linearity” comment).
From a regional perspective, Bellevue College is located well. It has a major thoroughfare on the east and the freeway on the south. It’s close to 405 too.
I note that the campus buildings are mostly on the site’s west side – not the southwest side. And get the main thoroughfare where a bus would normally run is on the east edge of the site.
I disagree that it’s well sited. All those bus routes that come into campus have a circuitous and slow route. The Eastgate freeway stop is convenient but it still requires walking a few blocks. The transit center is also a few blocks away but not very convenient for a through bus. If the buildings lined 148th a bus route could have remained on this street and served the campus well.
Then the campus itself is not designed so students can quickly walk to and from a commercial district. That really diminishes the appeal of using transit to get there because a student is kind of stranded. They must either get food or transact business inside the campus or walk pretty far — if they used transit to get there.
A number of design and zoning decisions over many decades created this situations. Neither the college nor the City said “let’s build a walkable village for students” but instead seemed to say “let’s build an educational retreat that is ideally driven to and from, even for lunch (only limited options available now) — and expect Metro to serve those unfortunate people who must use transit” yet seemingly caring little about how buses can get through the site.
Rather than end my comment complaining, I’d suggest considering some changes:
1. Rather than to keep adding traffic calming measures to keep through traffic away and make buses slower, the college should embrace having a though road in campus — at least some sort of busway. Then the college should line that road with new buildings that have ground floor retail stores and restaurants.
2. The City should look at how the adjacent non-residential property on the south can be converted to be more student-serving supporting commercial. It’s hard to do such conversions — but a busy college deserves a student village rather than an obscure office building on the edge. And lots of pedestrian connections would be needed. Now actually may be a good time to encourage this as suburban office space is not as desired in the marketplace.
3. Finally, Line 4 planning should begin now. The planned Eastgate station should be positioned on campus rather than in the freeway median or next to it. Creating that would require reserving the corridor — maybe with things like having space in new building basements to someday build tracks and station platforms under them. Such a corridor could be reserved, or even used as a faster busway (mentioned in point 1) in the meantime.
Unlike some other colleges listed here, I don’t see the need to relocate to be near transit. A little rethinking of the area’s layout is what I think would address the localized linearity challenge that Jarrett talks about.
And making it a full-on university is badly needed. The region is populous enough to support another public university. Atlanta metro has 6 or 7 by comparison.
“Both of these colleges were sited decades before Link was envisioned.”
The VA hospital was renovated in the 2010s according to comments here then, so it could have had a door to a Beacon Avenue bus stop but didn’t.
Shoreline, South Seattle, and Bellevue College were all sited decades before Link, but that doesn’t excuse their car-oriented layout. The bus routes have to make deep detours into the campus to reach the bus bays. They’re designed as they would be if the assumption was everybody would come by car, and preferred monumental architecture over practicality. That was the overwhelming belief then, but even then it created a sad environment to live in, one with wide streets, deep turnarounds, and buildings oriented toward the turnarounds. In contrast, Harborview’s front door is right off the sidewalk and is pedestrian oriented. ‘If there is a garage, it’s not right in front blocking everything, unlike Overlake.
At least Shoreline is a terminus. That makes the detours less bad.
“Is Bellevue College poorly sited?”
The lot location is OK, near I-90, 148th, and the apartments on 145th Place. The problem is the internal layout. Buses spend several minutes turning and turning into campus to reach the bus bays and get back out and continue on their trip. I’ve done it a couple times from Main Street to the 554 freeway station, which is on the other side of campus.
We could turn it around and say, if that site was the best or was chosen anyway, then there should also be a U-District like neighborhood around it. Not necessarily with highrises, but at least with walkable retail. There are a lot of apartments northwest of the college, but few businesses. And that Mormon temple lot is really underused: the city/county could have put a mixed-use district there, and the church could have found another lot.
“instead seemed to say “let’s build an educational retreat that is ideally driven to and from, even for lunch (only limited options available now) — and expect Metro to serve those unfortunate people who must use transit”
I don’t think they intended to stick it to pedestrians and bus riders. It’s more that they ignored their existence. I don’t know what transit was like in 1966 when the college was built, but in the 70s and 80s there was one hourly bus to the rest of Bellevue (252). It’s not that the college was uniquely bad with transit: that’s how everything in suburban King County was then. The people who made the decisions apparently didn’t ride transit and didn’t know anybody who did, and didn’t know anything about transit best practices, and didn’t try to find out. Or maybe there weren’t transit consultants or they hadn’t done their research and developed their theories yet. An outsider can think, “A bus every hour or half hour is fine,” but that means they don’t understand the passenger experience. Would they want a gate at their driveway that let their car out only at one certain minute each hour? Or they might have counted on Bellevue’s low population at the time, and lacked vision of what it could grow into.
“Line 4 planning should begin now. The planned Eastgate station should be positioned on campus rather than in the freeway median or next to it”
An elevated train crossing the street grid and parking-lot layout. Now that gives more justification for rail, since it’s adding value to the route. We’d be making the same argument we did about UW, that the station should be where the pedestrians are, not where the freeway is.
As I noted up above North Seattle College was actually pretty bad before they added the bridge and Link. It still messes up the network (although there are other reasons for the 40 to detour to it). South Seattle College really isn’t that bad. The 16th corridor is worth serving. I would say the only weakness is the overall density in that part of West Seattle. Shoreline Community College is probably the worst. Innis Arden would have to suddenly leapfrog everything in the area to justify decent service. A lot of it is low-density and a lot of it is no-density (green belts). The college is basically the only reason to go that far with any kind of service, which makes it a dead-end. This limits your options. It works OK for the 5, and could work OK from the east (especially as it connects to Link) but it is less than ideal from the north.
Bellevue College isn’t terrible; it is again the layout. There is essentially a wall blocking access from the west. The 240 gets within about a quarter mile of the campus, but you can’t get there that way. North-south buses have awkward trips through the area because of the street layout as well. You can get there (it isn’t too bad) but it is tougher than it should be. One nice thing is that it isn’t that far from the freeway bus stops, so you can leverage the buses that go to Issaquah.
Lake Washington Institute of Technology is not in a terrible location, but it isn’t great either. Again the problem is density. There is plenty on the path towards the freeway, but south on 132nd it is quite desolate.
At least Shoreline is a terminus. That makes the detours less bad.
It is a terminus in part because it is otherwise a bad detour. Imagine if there was no school there. Better yet imagine it a few blocks to the east, close to Aurora. Now the 5 would make continue on Westminster Way until it reached Aurora. By doing so it would make an hourglass pattern. This means riders from the north could take the E and then take the 5. From there the 5 could continue east to connect to Link. Instead the bus goes west to serve the college and once there it just ends.
“South Seattle College really isn’t that bad. The 16th corridor is worth serving. I would say the only weakness is the overall density in that part of West Seattle.”
The 128 goes north along 16th to the college, then does a U turn in the parking lot and goes back south on 16th to get to Dumar. Meanwhile, the H is over on Delridge, which is only 4 physical blocks away but completely inaccessible due to the canyon and the lack of any through streets.
It just seems a bit of a tangle to me.
The 128 goes north along 16th to the college, then does a U turn in the parking lot and goes back south on 16th to get to Dumar. Meanwhile, the H is over on Delridge, which is only 4 physical blocks away but completely inaccessible due to the canyon and the lack of any through streets.
It just seems a bit of a tangle to me.
It is, but a lot of that is due to the density. If the 125 ran every 15 minutes (or better) than the 128 wouldn’t detour. Riders would take a two seat-ride along there. Ideally it would be at a major junction. But otherwise it is no different then being in a similar spot on Delridge — except for the frequency. It is a straight shot from downtown. The 125 goes straight to Westwood Village as well, which means it connects well to the south. It is an hourglass pattern (as I wrote about before). It would be OK if not for the bad frequency. It has bad frequency because it doesn’t quite have the density to justify better frequency. It is probably pretty close though.
In some ways North Seattle College was similar (before they put in the bridge). No crossing streets and a fairly low density corridor. But in other ways it was worse, since it doesn’t lend itself to an hourglass pattern up north. The corridor is also not as straight and fast as 16th (a lot of zig-zags). The 26 took a while getting from downtown to the college and it served no major destinations along they way. South Seattle College isn’t quite that bad — it just needs a more frequent 125.
“ As I noted up above North Seattle College was actually pretty bad before they added the bridge and Link.”
The John Lewis bridge was a smart investment — not only for Link but for connecting students to Northgate. Plus it connects to Northgate Transit Center. The bridge should have been built decades ago! I would think that the students appreciate the new direct path to the nearby commercial district (even with the deafening road noise below).
The advantages to waiting is that it was designed to feed the station, and that it didn’t get in the way of construction of the line. I really like how it connects at the mezzanine level.
“Is Bellevue College poorly sited?”
The problem is the internal layout.
I think the biggest problem is the roads and egress. You look on a map and it actually looks pretty good. It makes sense to cross the freeway at 142nd. You avoid the giant cloverleaf at 150th while also connecting to express buses going east-west. To the north it makes sense to spread out but converge there. This puts the college very close to a crossroads and an area where buses converge. Sure enough, there are actually quite a few buses in the area. It is only in the details where it fails.
You can’t access the campus from the west. Not only that, but it is a dead end. To get the 240 to come close to campus you would have to connect the north end of 142nd Place to 139th and then open the gate in the fence that blocks off the college from the west (https://maps.app.goo.gl/mKyd2Eacc7WA2ZcL8). There are similar problems for some of the businesses. For example the businesses along Eastgate Way can’t be accessed via Coal Creek Road. This means that instead of the bus doing this (https://maps.app.goo.gl/hZqeBv7fqcGgq4wv6) it does this (https://maps.app.goo.gl/7XWrZm71NzayvUDY6). This is considerably slower, and much of the route is in the middle of nowhere. In other words the route through campus is actually the shortcut but going that way would not cover some of the businesses because the businesses are essentially walled off from the road that is next to the campus. A pedestrian connector would help a lot.
As it turns out, even if you ignored those businesses there are other problems. Bellevue doesn’t want buses running on that street. They did a study and felt like the best solution is to run on Snoqualmie River Road, which is actually quite a bit faster. But buses can’t run there until the City of Bellevue does some work. It has taken a really long time (Bellevue Process) but it looks like they will have the 90% plans done this summer, which means (I assume) they can start construction soon after that. It is not clear how many buses would be altered (because Metro probably still wants to serve part of Eastgate).
The John Lewis bridge was a smart investment — not only for Link but for connecting students to Northgate. Plus it connects to Northgate Transit Center. The bridge should have been built decades ago!
Agreed. It would have made the 41 the main bus to get to the college which would have saved riders a lot of time. But It is a huge improvement just for walking (or biking) in the neighborhood. Not only for students but for people that live and work in the area.
The advantages to waiting is that it was designed to feed the station, and that it didn’t get in the way of construction of the line. I really like how it connects at the mezzanine level.
Agreed. The bike and pedestrian connections could be a bit better (although that would have added even more to the cost) but the connection to Link is quite good.
“ They did a study and felt like the best solution is to run on Snoqualmie River Road, which is actually quite a bit faster. ”
It works but it’s not ideal. First off, Snoqualmie River Road is essentially a parking access road. It’s not built for buses and the pavement might be too thin to support bus weights over time. Plus it’s fully fenced off thon the adjacent apartments so they can’t reach it. Of course, the College will probably blame Metro for eventual pavement damage and expect them to foot the repair bill.
https://www.bellevuecollege.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/224/2016/10/BCMP-2017-Digital-Report.pdf
The diagram in their Master Plan does show the routing in the west side. It summarily ignores any possible Link station. It adds three parking garages instead. The proposed new building positions actually preclude any 4 Line potential to run through the site too. And their pedestrian connectivity plan doesn’t open up connectivity in more directions. It’s a circulation strategy that reminds me of the 1970’s.
This pretty much is the exact situation that Jarrett Walker is describing. The plan treats transit like stormwater — literally! It’s not viewed as a catalyst for better layout to make the campus more accessible (even though the lofty goals want this) but is instead treated like a utility.
I forgot to link to the article: https://seattletransitblog.com/2021/11/22/streamlined-bellevue-college-service-may-really-happen/. That article also links to the project: https://bellevuewa.gov/city-government/departments/transportation/projects/transportation-capital-projects/bellevue-college-connection. This is more recent than the transit master plan, and addresses your concerns.
Yes, I mentioned that the condos are separated from the college. I also mentioned that Coal Creek is separated from the businesses along Eastgate Way. That makes the two corridors (Snoqualmie River Road and Coal Creek Road/Landerholm Creek ) fairly similar. Both skirt the campus and don’t get close to much of anything else until you get up to 24th (Carrington Apartments) which they both would cover. At best the Coal Creek approach would allow you to detour to the middle of the campus (via Landerholm Circle) but that would be slower. Even without that detour it is slower. The approach that the city is taking is significantly faster and yet covers the college fairly well. I think it is the right one.
It still leaves places in the area without coverage, but again that is due to the poor road network and terrible pedestrian network. The only way to cover those areas is with a different bus (or buses). This is really a different issue than a place not being “on the way”. It is more of a “can’t get there from here” problem. For what it is worth the gate that I referenced earlier looks like it has a door controlled by a key pad. Thus it is quite possible that condo owners could use it as way to access a bus stop on Snoqualmie River Road. It just wouldn’t work the other way (students couldn’t access a bus stop to the west). Fixing access from the offices on Eastgate would require pedestrian infrastructure (stairs and a spiral ramp) even if the bus went on Coal Creek Road, making it unlikely to happen any time soon.
In terms of routes it is a bit hard to figure out the exact routing based on the project diagrams (https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/east-link-connections). It looks to me like the 240 will cover the western part of Eastgate, then cross over the freeway. Four buses (220, 223, 226 and 245) will go though campus then be forced to go back out to 148th and then around to Eastgate. Unlike today, none of these routes cross the freeway, which means they avoid the little loop to get up to the bridge. The 226 continues into South Bellevue Station (via Eastgate) which doubles up the frequency along that corridor. The other buses just end at Eastgate Park and Ride, which is a fairly weak anchor.
First thing to do after they open up that road is run more buses through there. I would probably have one serving Eastgate, but half-hour midday service is adequate. The 223 seems like a good choice since the bus would just keep going straight on 148th (and not head towards the college). Every other bus would go through the college, which would save a significant amount of time. I would use that savings to extend the 245 to Mercer Island (via I-90). This would make for a very fast connection from Seattle, with 15 minute midday service. The service cost for the extension would be minimal, and more than made up for with the savings that come from using Snoqualmie Road. If you really wanted to go hog wild you could have the 220 do the same thing. Assuming the 220 and 245 run opposite each other (which is a safe bet) that would mean 7.5 minute (midday) frequency from the college to Link. Suddenly Bellevue College would be a lot more attractive to people from Seattle.
There seems to be this built-in assumption with Metro that hospitals require buses to stop right in front of the main entrance – not a few hundred feet away – regardless of what impact that has on riders trying to get to other places.
Such assumptions are probably made by imagining sick/injured patients riding the bus to the hospital, in reality, if somebody really and truly can’t walk a few hundred flat feet from Columbian Way to the VA, they probably can’t walk a few hundred feet on the other end from home to the bus stop either. Simply put, mass transit is about moving masses of people, it is not designed to be a special-needs transit system, providing door-to-door service for hospital patients who can’t walk. That is what paratransit/Uber/taxis/etc. are for.
By contrast, the people who do ride the bus to hospitals tend to be employees of the hospital, not patients, and even among patients, there are numerous reasons why one might need to visit a hospital that don’t involve being crippled – for example, I’ve been to hospitals for routine blood draws as a follow-up to an annual physical.
If the hospital really cares about having door-to-door service connecting it with some nearby transit hub, the hospital can pay for its own shuttle bus to provide that service, but I can tell you right now that the ridership on such a service is going to be terrible. But, such door to door service should not be paid for with the time of every transit passenger who needs to pass near the hospital on a bus to get somewhere else.
Agreed.
There are other factors though. Rider patterns in the past play a big part. If the hospital is pretty much the only reason someone rides the bus then a detour to the front door is reasonable. While not a hospital you can see that with the 345 and Four Freedoms. It is definitely a detour, but riders there make up a very high percentage of the route. Throw in the fact that some of the people there have mobility issues and a detour is justified. Otherwise it may not be worth bothering with the route. Then there is the design of the hospitals themselves. Quite often they were built well off the road, with big parking lots in front. As they grow they tend to get closer to the curb. Thus choices that were made in the past may not make as much sense any more. For example the routes on First Hill go this way and that to get close to the hospitals that existed decades ago. But the neighborhood has grown around them. The hospitals themselves have grown. Staying on the main corridors could work out better for most people.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be potential detours. The best way to serve them is with a dead-end. That is basically what I recommend for Shoreline Community College. It is unlikely there will be anything in the area that comes close to that as a destination. The 5 ends there; buses coming from the north and east should end there. (The plan is to have the bus keep going, but there is very little value in that.) Overall it is unfortunate though, and requires often making tough choices.
Most hospital shuttles are not low-floor. Most buses are. If you are mobility impaired in any way (even a sprained ankle or broken arm) they are hard to use. I’m sure most would rather walk or roll or even limp a few hundred feet.
There are hospital shuttles for employees, but vans that are used to shuttle people around are often designed with wheelchair use in mind. The process may not be especially quick, but the driver has plenty of experience and a reasonable expectation that those who are mobility impaired with use the van.
It’s a small scale version of the “linearity” problem that Jarrett talks about. There is this belief that pervades local transit planning in our region that transit centers and major stops with bus loops are the gold standard. ST really gravitates to them! The sad fact is that the loops add travel time for through riders and bus operations. And that’s not even getting into the vertigo that riders get, especially with side-facing seats.
Being able to lay over or at least turn around a bus is important at the end of a route. However, I think that a mid-route deviation creates wasted time for a transit operating agency unless the stop is serving a large percentage (say over 25%) of riders — or the road is too busy or scary to cross on one side (when only one direction needs to loop but not the other).
However, I think that a mid-route deviation creates wasted time for a transit operating agency unless the stop is serving a large percentage (say over 25%) of riders — or the road is too busy or scary to cross on one side (when only one direction needs to loop but not the other).
That is a good rule of thumb. The other aspect of it (which you allude to) is where the detour is. It comes down to the ratio of people who are directly hurt by the detour to how many are helped by it. But it is worth nothing that everyone is hurt indirectly with detours (as they use service hours that could otherwise be used to run the buses more frequently).