In Defense of West Seattle Link

137 Replies to “In Defense of West Seattle Link”

1. Thanks for taking the time to write this Nathan. I’m in the minority on this blog because I’m really excited about Link coming to West Seattle. For those of us who live in WS and work downtown, the C Line is anything but rapid. Going downtown in the morning it’s fine, but coming home it’s a slow slog through 3rd Avenue, Columbia Street, Avalon & 35th, etc. The bus is crowded, people are standing, just kind of unpleasant. Link will be so much better even with the initial SODO transfer.

   I attended one of the Sound Transit community meetings in WS. Everyone I spoke to – from ST folks to City of Seattle reps said the Alaska Junction is set to go gangbusters with TOD once Link construction starts. One person I spoke to said it will look and feel completely different 10 years from now. I don’t think there will be Burnaby BC 50-story high rises or anything but I can definitely see the potential.

   Also the Alaska Junction is an established walkable urban neighborhood. The Link station will fit into the urban fabric. This is not a suburban station on the side of I-5. I’m surprised there’s not more excitement on the blog about this fact.

   And like you said “The high bridge over the Duwamish and the start of a tunnel under Alaska Junction set the stage for an affordable and high-value extension through White Center into Burien in the future.”

   1. Thanks for the comment. Just as there is diversity of opinion in the comments, there is a range of opinion on WSLE among the current (all-volunteer) editors of the Blog, so we felt it worthwhile to display that range on the main page.

   2. I’m on the same page as you. I’m fact, I recently bought a home in the Junction near the future light rail station, because I think it’ll be incredibly convenient for me and my partner to access the city, because we love trains, and because I think it’ll be great for our future home value. I’m also really excited about the idea of us having a permanent walkable plaza in the vicinity of the station, more crosswalks, and generally just making one of the city’s best walkable neighborhoods more walkable. I do of course want any property owners facing eminent domain to be compensated fairly, and I want to be sure displaced commercial properties like Bartell’s will get a functionally equivalent replacement (we still need a drug store in this neighborhood), but regardless I am cheering on WSL every step of the way.

      1. There is no replacement for bartells. Rite aid and all the others are a mess

2. Thank you

   I think it is most interesting, because I think the Lynnwood Link Extension most closely matches what will happen with the West Seattle line. And I think growth is just going to go off in both areas.

   This alone is important.

   “The high bridge over the Duwamish and the start of a tunnel under Alaska Junction set the stage for an affordable and high-value extension through White Center into Burien in the future.”

   People who don’t believe a Sound Transit 4 will happen are delusional. And the white center extension will be the cheap extension that provides the value to offset the expensive decisions.

   1. Even if there is a ST 4 there is no reason to believe West Seattle will get an extension. Dow will no longer be in charge, so power will likely shift. There is no reason from a ridership/time saved reason to favor West Seattle. Other areas of the city are more important from a network standpoint, or have more density, slower rides, etc. If there is a ST4 it is likely to be very tiny, and focused on where they can get the most bang for the buck (which is likely UW to Ballard). But it is also quite possible that it will be fifty years (or more) before there is a meaningful expansion of the system, which is quite common in the United States.

   2. > People who don’t believe a Sound Transit 4 will happen are delusional.

      Of course there will be rail expansion eventually.. the question is how long away. The problem is that ST3 already used 25 years worth of funding unlike the other ST1 for 10 and ST2 for 15 years. West Seattle link extension is extraordinarily expensive for what we are getting. For the same cost as east link (4 billion dollars) we only get 3 stations, the high bridge, lots of elevated guideways, and short tunnel in west seattle all cost a lot.

      Unless if one is going to tack on even more cumulative taxes now, you’d have to wait past 2040 and even then as Ross noted, it’s unlikely west seattle would be first in line for an extension, so we’re more talking about like 2050/2060.

      1. I’ve used this example before, but consider Oakland. They were clearly shortchanged when it came to BART. There should be a lot more stations, and at least one more line. BART started construction in 1964 and service began in 1972. This is also when most of Oakland’s stations were built although a couple of them cam online in 1973 and 1974.

         That was fifty years ago and there are no plans for new lines or additional stations. Fifty years. This is for an area that is much bigger and much denser than Seattle. It is possible that they will need to build another tunnel under the bay, but it isn’t a given that Oakland will get a meaningful improvement. Thus it may be another fifty years — or even longer — before Oakland gets the stations you would expect with a standard metro.

         This is pretty common. It is a pattern in US metro systems. There is a flurry of activity and then things basically just stop. Often for decades. It doesn’t seem to matter if the systems were well designed at the beginning or not; it doesn’t seem to matter if lots of people ride it or not. Construction just stops. OK, not completely, but the amount of activity is minimal. The New York City Subway System is outstanding, but there are plenty of areas with no service of awkward connections. There are 472 stations. Of those, only 12 have been built since 1960.

         I can see them building UW to Ballard just because it is such a big bang for the buck and it would benefit people over a very wide area. But that is about it. If the trains were running on the surface than extensions would be more likely, but that isn’t what they are doing.

   3. I think the Lynnwood Link Extension most closely matches what will happen with the West Seattle line

      There are some similarities. Both follow existing transit pathways that are quite fast. Both were pretty expensive even though they are above ground (and aren’t dodging skyscrapers). In both cases the vast majority of riders will arrive by bus.

      There are some key differences though. While both areas are connected to downtown via very fast expressways there is a big tension in the north between running an express and serving places along the way. Link basically solves that problem. It is a little slower for an express bus to get from the north end to downtown, but it is much faster to get to Northgate, the UW, Capitol Hill and other places. This tension doesn’t really exist in the south end. The main benefit of West Seattle Link (versus an express bus) is to connect riders to SoDo. But SoDo is not a major destination. More to the point there is no easy way for buses from the north end to serve those destinations along they way. A bus that stopped at Northgate, Roosevelt, the UW and Capitol Hill would be extremely slow compared to an express (or Link). In contrast buses that run on the SoDo Busway are still quite fast. Thus by adding ramps West Seattle riders could have both a (fast) direct connection to downtown and a fast connection to SoDo (and the rest of Link).

      Another difference is just the distance. It is quite impressive that buses like the 125, C and H go very long stretches without making a stop. From an urban transit standpoint the distance (and speed) is huge. But from a cost perspective it isn’t. It doesn’t take that long to get downtown, simply because it isn’t that far. In contrast it really is a long ways from Snohomish County to downtown Seattle. Thus the savings from truncating avoiding a trip on I-5 are very large, but the savings from staying in West Seattle are fairly minor. From a service standpoint the biggest hit is actually running through downtown. It is worth noting that nowhere in the plans for a SoDo Busway proposal did we suggest just ending the West Seattle buses at the SoDo Link Station. We didn’t think it was fair to all of the riders coming from West Seattle who have no interest in getting on Link (and want to go directly downtown). In contrast it is quite likely that the vast majority of riders of West Seattle Link will be forced to do exactly that. Instead of that one-seat ride to downtown, they will be forced to transfer. The time savings between transferring at SoDo and West Seattle are minimal. But again — we aren’t suggesting that riders be forced to transfer when they are only a few minutes away from downtown. But with West Seattle Link it is a given.

      Both Lynnwood Link and West Seattle Link are interface stations that depend on feeder buses. The difference is that West Seattle is very close to downtown, and has very little in between while Lynnwood Link is mostly just an enhancement over the awkward interface at Northgate.

   4. Easy to condem property there like they did in the central district

3. I see WS Link opposition comments here as divisible into two general outcomes: don’t build it or build it more strategically.

   My issues with WSLE is the latter — with huge concerns about the land use planning and station design, as opposed to the idea. My issues are in three areas:

   1. The line will not only kick riders from my neighborhood (SE Seattle) out of the DSTT after 25 years, but yet ST doesn’t give a crap about building same level cross platform transfers for us to compensate for it. That could be resolved a number of ways — and if it was I would be lots less critical. Would you WS Link supporters advocate for redesigning SODO station for cross platform same direction transfers?

   2. The “stub” interim operation is not being discussed. That’s somewhat because ST won’t provide realistic opening dates. (In the latest progress report, ST lists a number of projects with a December 31 opening date, which is obvious doublespeak for an actual opening date years later.) As a stub, the time savings doesn’t exist unless you live within walking distance of the stations. West Seattle would benefit greatly from having the line be a third West Seattle line operating in the DSTT, which can be done if ST would just spend the money to study it and then do it. (ST clings to denying the idea even though light rail systems all over the world operate this way.) Plus it would provide more service between UW and Downtown, eliminate the transfer layout problems (listed above), eliminate the “stub” operation and instead get a direct train between West Seattle and Downtown and UW and Capitol Hill from opening day. Added to that, it would save billions and eliminate the need to build deep stations south of a Westlake and the several years of construction disruption. If a coalition of groups all over Seattle would support this change, every neighborhood would benefit — including West Seattle by having a Downtown train years earlier. Would you WS Link supporters advocate for three lines in the DSTT instead of building DSTT2?

   3. There is a difference between getting Link light rail and getting a link light rail in a deep bored tunnel with a station. To me, the additional cost and disruption is only worth it if the density is there. And as much as West Seattle supporters think the Alaska Junction area is worthy, it’s no more dense and active than other neighborhoods in Seattle that either aren’t getting any light rail or they have it on the surface or up in the air. The primary opposition seems to be based on viewing light rail as an “ugly” landscape feature, a noise avoidance problem or a way to prevent buying some property along the path. Meanwhile, every transferring bus rider will have to descend or ascend 80 feet in West Seattle to get to or from light rail taking a few extra minutes with every trip. So would you WS supporters support more justification for a deep subway station by expanding the upzoned walkshed area near Alaska Junction to the south, north and west by at least 2 blocks, allowing for 200 foot buildings, making parking more difficult and scarce with much higher parking costs, and enduring the years of earth removal and pilings for the station vault just to get the end station underground (noting that this design feature alone will add a few more years of delay to the WS opening date and take funds from Ballard Link)? Would you support an extra assessment to nearby property owners to pay for the additional tunnel cost? Would you forgo the last station entirely to get WS Link stub open years earlier? Would you support adding a surface or aerial Alaska Junction station to the EIS as a design alternative?

   1. 1. It seems that the second SODO station is designed based on the assumption that WS trains will need a place to layover until it can be connected to the line to Everett. An unstudied alternative would be to build a siding of some sort along the between SODO and where operators can pull the train out of the way while DSTT2 is being built. To have the West Seattle branch lead into SODO from the south, and then have the track branch into the two Downtown tunnels north of SODO, would require two sets of crossings where trains would have to cross in front of oncoming trains, which adds operational complexity and risk. The East Link branch south of CID avoids this configuration by having the branch lines join from each side of the main line rather than fully crossing over. Based on this, I wonder if ST is simply averse to building a flat branch with crossing tracks?

      2. The stub operation is obviously designed in service of staggering construction efforts; rail construction on WSLE would finish just as it’s getting started on BLE. I assume this is driven by funding/debt limitations as much as it is by physical logistical limitations.

      >having the line be a third West Seattle line operating in the DSTT, which can be done if ST would just spend the money to study it and then do it.

      I have a public records request in to ST regarding their determination that triple-line operations in the DSTT is infeasible. I think this could be a viable line of advocacy if the original assessment is genuinely inadequate.

      3. You ask a lot of questions at the end, but to me the important ones were regarding upzoning and support of an above-ground alignment. I advocate for increased density at the end of my post; based on PT’s comment, it sounds like folks who were willing to show up to ST’s meetings in WS are supportive of good TOD around the stations. There will always be NIMBYs and conservatives opposed to changing the status quo, so they key will be lobbying the City to change the zoning in response to WSLE (especially in regard to state-wide legal mandates for upzones around high capacity transit stations). ST is studying veritable spaghetti bundle of alignments into Alaska Junction, some elevated, some buried. ST3 promised all-grade-separated routes, so no surface alignments are being considered today. I didn’t get into advocacy for specific alternatives since there’s apparently been some evolution of the alignments since 2022, and the WSLE FEIS is due this year. When the FEIS arrives, we’ll have to be quick on our analysis to determine if the cost and delay associated with abandoning some of the preliminary engineering being done for the Preferred Alignment doesn’t override any potential time savings.

      1. “I have a public records request in to ST regarding their determination that triple-line operations in the DSTT is infeasible. I think this could be a viable line of advocacy if the original assessment is genuinely inadequate.”

         Excellent.

      2. It seems that the second SODO station is designed based on the assumption that WS trains will need a place to layover until it can be connected to the line to Everett.

         All the more reason to build a full wye junction at Stadium so the trains can operate West Seattle – Redmond.

      3. Thanks for pushing on the DSTT2 issue!

         Getting DSTT2 cancelled would literally resolve so many problems with rider transfer experience, better WS Link usefulness from opening day, cost escalation and construction disruption. It really needs to have a broad level of support that is citywide though. It’s not a fight that STB can undertake by itself. I remain surprised that North Seattle and Snohomish interests have been so quiet so far about severing their SeaTac connectivity from a direct train to a big transfer hassle. Add to that direct service to West Seattle and no ID construction disruption — and then less of a delay to SLU and Ballard by switching to shorter automated trains meaning both less construction disruption and higher train frequencies. Everybody wins — except some ST staff having to eat crow and real estate interests planning to make money from DSTT2 construction.

         Is there any elected official or corporate leader willing to push to get the issue revisited? I’m sure if Amazon pushed, the Board would oblige. The advantages across the board are just too powerful.

      4. I think there is a limit to how much density you can easily add. There are only three stations (and two of them are relatively close to each other). There are some natural and unnatural barriers (although it isn’t nearly as bad as the Lynnwood Link stations). There is some density there now, or in the process of being built. Most highrise development involves leapfrogging. Parking lots get converted to twenty story buildings. That is how Bellevue and the north end of downtown (all the way to South Lake Union) grew so quickly. Once you build six-story buildings it is unlikely you build higher unless you build a lot higher (like in Belltown). That seems unlikely. I think when the dust settles you will have the sort of density found in Rainier Valley. I could see the Junction being similar to Columbia City. There is a “there” there. There are clubs with live music and other attractions that get riders from the region. The junction station may actually be closer to the action as well (then again, the way things are going, maybe not). The other stations would be similar to Othello (places without much until recently). If not for the forced transfer, I would expect ridership to be similar. With three stations that would mean somewhere between five to ten thousand riders a day.

   2. As planned, the current West Seattle extension makes transit worse for a lot of West Seattle riders due to the nature of terminating the buses at a Link station.

      For Northgate – UW the truncations made sense, because the express buses replaced took a long time to get from the stop at 45th to downtown.

      This doesn’t work out for West Seattle.

      1. West Seattle riders need to look hard at the current City survey mentioned in an earlier post.

         https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WSStreetConceptPlans

         I swear it looks like the designers never ride a bus! The Alaska Street transfer situation is devoid of even a bus pullout, or the ability to provide room for a bus layover at the key transfer station. Then once off the bus, they propose cute landscape features — that directly block the path between the bus stops and the station entrance. They don’t propose crosswalks in front of the station entrances.

         Then the early feedback that they want is about cosmetic things like furniture and plants. Regardless of how someone feels about WSLE, they really should rip the City staff pretty harshly about these early sketches.

      2. Yes, exactly. Consider this idea (just as a mental experiment):

         1) Close off Lander to cars and trucks. This would be good for the train and good for buses.

         2) Build ramps from the Spokane Street Viaduct to the SoDo busway. Design them so that buses don’t have to stop at Spokane Street (when heading towards downtown). This means that once a bus gets on the West Seattle Bridge it doesn’t stop until SoDo Station.

         3) Truncate all the West Seattle buses at SoDo Station.

         From a service savings standpoint this is quite similar to truncating all the buses in West Seattle. From a rider standpoint it is also quite similar as well. There wouldn’t be much difference between transferring in SoDo versus transferring in West Seattle. For Alki you would likely save time. For Delridge (or South Seattle College) it would be a little faster (simply because the SoDo station is on the surface). For Avalon it would be a wash, while for the Junction it would cost a little bit of time. Overall it would be quite similar to what they have proposed, unless you walk to the station.

         There is an another issue. If you are not going north on Link, but headed to Rainier Valley, Beacon Hill or SeaTac, then sending the buses to SoDo is much better. You avoid a transfer.

         Of course proposing such a thing would be outrageous. Folks in West Seattle would hate to be forced to transfer at SoDo just to get downtown. Yet that is exactly what will happen for the vast majority of potential riders. Metro has aggressively truncated their buses even though they knew it cost those riders a lot of time. It must have been terrible to lose your express bus from the U-District to downtown (via the tunnel at that) and be forced to either take the 70 (along Eastlake) or 49 (over Capitol Hill). But they did that so they could run other buses a lot more often. They will do the same for West Seattle, and most of the riders will be worse off.

         West Seattle Link is a little better transit for some, and worse transit for many. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if West Seattle transit ridership goes down after they built it (although so much depends on what Metro does with the service savings).

   3. re 2. stub operation
      Why does ST think this is necessary? Since, WSL is slated to hook with Lynnwood after Ballard Link, why cannot it hook with Lynnwood at the start?

      1. ST says it can’t run three lines through the DSTT, so it won’t connect WS to points north until BLE is finished and the 1 line is rerouted through DSTT2 to Ballard.

      2. My off-the-cuff explanation:

         ST3 promised to run lines every 6 minutes rather than every 7.5 minutes. That’s 10 trains an hour rather than 8 trains an hour. That ST3 promise doesn’t seem to have a technical study indicating how to do this through changes in signaling and such.

         However, the EIS assumptions for all of the ST2 projects were done at 8 trains an hour, and that’s what they were designed for (the engineering calculations).

         So ST has said that they can only run 20 trains an hour in the DSTT, meaning just two lines with 10 trains an hour.

         Since the pandemic flattened peak transit demand, 8 trains an hour for each line may be ok. Actually 6 trains an hour appear ok for lines to West Seattle and perhaps the Eastside given likely demand in the 2030’s. . That leaves the current line at 8 trains an hour which is what ST operates today. Note too that the current line is much more crowded from Downtown north, requiring the 8 trains an hour. When 2 Line starts in 2026 there will be 16 trains an hour through the DSTT unless ST cut service back.

         8 + 6 + 6 = 20 trains an hour

         8 + 8 + 8 = 24 trains per hour

         Other systems can run up to 30 trains an hour. St runs trains at higher frequencies like after stadium events. It’s risky to promise that for a few hours every day because any problem train (even a late train) can mess up scheduling the trains behind it for quite awhile.

         I or others here have not seen the mainline capacity examined recently. The WSBLE EIS appears to still assume pre-Covid transit volume peaking, for example.

         There are other operational ways to get trains through. Like every other West Seattle train could end in SODO with the other half going through to Northgate or Lynnwood. That would be 8 + 8 + 4 trains in total at peak hours. Off peak could be 6 + 6 + 6 with apparently no issue.

         A big limitation is also how to reverse trains. Can ST squeeze in a reversing at Northgate? Again we don’t know and ST has not recently discussed it.

         There are ways to get more capacity out of the DSTT. That includes platform screen doors or gates (trains can enter stations faster without hitting someone), different seating layouts, removing driver cabs at one end, better train control and signaling, and probably other things.

         At some point the question you ask here will be asked of ST. I don’t see the issue not getting asked by West Seattle interests at some point. It will probably take an aggressive Board member (someone like Balducci) to get past the stonewalling that I expect to initially see from ST management. It takes more than a handful of us advocates to get over the ST staff stonewall.

         As a SE Seattle resident, I’m fearing that ST will “stub” the line I use once it reaches Tacoma Dome. Tacoma Dome to Lynnwood (estimated right at 90 minutes one-way) is a far distance that may be just too long for a driver to handle.

   4. I’m for fewer stops, higher speeds, and greater distances.
      In this situation, a premium would be worth being ble to get from Downtown to West Seattle in 10 minutes.
      The only concern I have is long load/unload times and longer wlks due to long trains and stations.

4. The proposed West Seattle subway extension here is about 5 miles long — and that doesn’t include the cost of the aerial portion shown south of that. A five mile subway could be built from Fremont to Downtown to First Hill and the CD or Judkins Park instead. Or a Ballard to UW Subway line could be built. These lines would generate lots more riders and value than this extension would — unless West Seattle was completely transformed into a high density string of urban neighborhoods.

   Vision maps are inspiring. They just aren’t a practical regional investment.

   Frankly, any more rail in West Seattle should probably be in the form of either a two-car surface streetcar or automated aerial train. The envisioned transit line extension doesn’t have to use Link trains in a subway.

   1. I agree. I’m sure the West Seattle subway vision would be useful. I’m sure the actually-planned line to Alaska Junction will be useful. But there’re a lot of more-useful transit things that could be built with that money.

      1. Agreed.

      2. Build it now!

         Elevate and subway

   2. The benefit of going 100% grade-separated today is that it leaves the door open for 100% automation tomorrow. With the “breaking of the spine” in the 2040’s, the line from Everett to WS will be all grade-separated and compatible with modern automation technologies.

      1. If WS to Everett was a stand alone line, that would be true.

         But the 2 Line shares the tracks north of IDS, and the East Link portion has many grade crossings for either pedestrians (at six stations) or cars. So it’s not a true statement.

      2. I don’t know the limitations of running a mix of driverless and driver-operated trains on the same line. The primary barriers to driverless operations via automation seem to be identifying emergency situations, not maintaining safe distance from other trains. Assuming a driverless train has to have some awareness of the exact distance (presumably within a few hundred feet) between itself and trains ahead/behind, the math, signals, and sensors required seem like a relatively trivial engineering issue compared to the more complicated issues of managing emergency stops and communications regardless of whether other trains are driver-operated or not.

         Some quick googling revealed that Paris operated trains in a driverless mode alongside manually driven trains in Line 4 of their metro starting in September of last year, and a few months later they had completed the transition from driver-operated to driverless trains.

         https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/metros/line-4-automation-complete-on-paris-metro/

      3. There are two advantages to automated rail:

         1) You can run the trains more often for very little cost.
         2) You can take advantage of that and build smaller stations and design your system for very short headways.

         The latter is what Vancouver did and it is what Toronto is doing. There are huge savings and benefit for riders. Retrofitting your system does save money (and benefit riders) but not as much. It is also quite likely that fairly soon we’ll see automated trains operating in a mixed environment (like Rainier Valley). But that doesn’t mean we’ll see trains every three minutes (throughout the day) since the system just wasn’t designed for it.

         Likewise I could definitely see automated trains running between Everett (or Lynnwood) and West Seattle. But they would probably still be four-car trains. It would be weird otherwise since the stations serve the other lines (and most people aren’t going to West Seattle). Thus I don’t see how they could make the stations smaller in West Seattle. I suppose they could just live with the weirdness, but by then it is quite likely that all the trains would be automated (even the ones on the surface). Thus the benefit seems fairly minimal.

      4. Nathan, there are no barriers to running driverless and human-driven trains on the same line. BART has had “drivers” since it opened. They press the “close doors” button which begins the “go forward” automation that actually controls the train.

         So, if Line 2 needs drivers east of Mercer Island, they can either board and deboard at Judkins Park (or MI) and control things north (railroad east) of South Bellevue, or they can just ride to and from Lynnwood.

         Obviously, it would require significantly fewer operators if they turn back, but it might make people feel “safer”. In either case the train would be under the control of the automation system west of MI or Judkins Park.

         The trains would require little in terms of modification. They are already run by computers that turn throttle and braking activations into commands to the motors, the friction brakes, and (presumably) the track brakes. The doors open and close to commands issued by the operator. Those same commands could be issued by the automation system or the on-board computer.

         The upgraded trains would of course need a means to communicate with the lineside communications points which would be the most costly element of any automation adopted.

         But do not be stampeded by claims that automation would require replacing the trains. It would not.

      5. Is there any technical reason (apart from liability and labor related concerns) that automated trains cannot run at grade? The train still cannot divert from the tracks, and conversely, it cannot stop any faster if it is automated. Trying to “beat” the train as a motorist or a pedestrian is not smart regardless if it is automated or manually operated! Indeed, if it is automated, sensors in and around the at grade portions of the tracks can be used to automatically slow or even stop the train (internet of things). Am I missing anything?

      6. Brandon, I think that the strong preference for human operators in at-grade, unfenced rights-of-way is skepticism that lidars can identify pedestrians as reliably as human beings. No transit system is going to survive an automated train running down a mother and her toddler, even if they shouldn’t have been on the tracks.

5. “ Sound Transit’s long-range financial plan states it has the capacity to build Link to the Junction.”

   Given the wildly inaccurate estimate for DSTT2 and the recent choice to even lower farebox recovery targets because the original ones were so unrealistic — and the lack of broad support at the national level to fund building new light rail lines (only Seattle and LA have ambitious programs beyond those in the New Starts pipeline at this point), I take issue with that blanket statement. It’s a heady reverie — but it is about as believable as Teyve singing “If I were a rich man”.

   1. > I take issue with that blanket statement.

      It’s a simple fact of ST’s financial projections; if you disagree, I suggest you take it up with the 2024 Financial Plan and Proposed Budget. Of course, the caveat is that financial plan assumes the costs associated with the Representative Alignment, which is aerial through the Junction. Additional costs (if any) associated with boring under the Junction will have be considered under ST’s new Betterments policy. Although, given the inertia associated with doing preliminary engineering for the Preferred (below-grade) alignment, it will be an interesting discussion to follow once the Board selects a final alignment and baselines the project.

   2. The cover of the 2024 Financial Plan and Proposed Budget should have Teyve on the cover!

      How many times since 2016 has ST said “Oops! We need another $1B!”? They’ve lost much of their credibility.

      Even the “realignment” effort basically resulted in ST saying “we will just extend the length of our mortgage to cover our earlier costing mistakes.”

      1. C’mon Al, you know better than that – at least be fair in the criticism.

         The costs for every project exploded at the same time, because ST’s unit cost table was bad and the original project costs assumed much less complexity than what’s necessary in an urban environment. They convened a whole Technical Advisory Group about it! ST’s new cost estimates are the result of following the Group’s advice, and additional cost estimates are associated with new alternatives added for analysis by the Board.

         It’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not just ST facing unexpected cost increases; WSDOT estimates its costs but still sends its projects out to bid, and the only bid for the Portage Bay project came in 70% higher than expected: https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2023/11/wsdot-scrambling-over-1-4b-bid-for-520-portage-bay-bridge-roanoke-lid-project-70-higher-than-expected/

         One of the recommendations of the TAG was to update their unit cost table in collaboration with their heavy civil subcontractors, so ST’s major project costs could be estimated more accurately and avoid surprises like WSDOT got last year.

      2. I am being fair, Nathan. ST3 promised no subway station in West Seattle, Nathan and ST3 did not budget for it. That single design change seemed to add at least $500M more to the cost if not as much as $1B. That has nothing to do with inflation.

         Add to that the fact ghat the most difficult segment of DSTT2 was never studied beforehand for either cost, construction disruption or rider experience. It was done more carelessly than the monorail proposal was a few decades ago. Even now, there is not a clear message of what DSTT2 construction would ultimately cost.

      3. ST3 did not promise “no subway station in WS” – it promised a fully grade-separated line and described a Representative Alignment that was all-elevated. The DEIS studied both elevated and underground alignments, and the Board preferred the underground version but we will see cost estimates and potential impacts of every studied alternative in the FEIS. The representative alignment is still elevated, so additional costs associated with going underground will have be assessed in the face of an updated Betterments policy that will (likely) require that the City find some way to pay for burying the station.

         We don’t have total costs and impacts for DSTT2 because it’s still being studied. The Board and the public saw the potential impacts from the various alternatives in the WSBLE DEIS and the Board demanded refinements and additional alternatives analysis. I don’t know what you want from ST – more staff overhead to publish weekly updates to the alternatives they’re considering? If you want numbers now, go submit a public records request about it.

      4. Nathan, your reference to WSDOT’s problems in Portage Bay is a great argument for the State to develop its own in-house engineering office for major projects and only take bids on the actual work of construction, rather than paying for “designers” who put every frill they can in their “design-build” contract.

         Engineering is exactly where “technocrats governance” can excel. Engineers are usually uncomfortable knuckling under to the sales types in the C-Suite. Most are much happier in a setting where excellence in execution is prized over slam-bang profiteering.

      5. Tom, don’t you know advocacy for an increased size of State government is tantamount to Communism? If we don’t allow a heavy civil construction firm to profit 10-15% off every public project with markups up every subcontractor and materials delivery, we might as well be East Germany.

      6. Very well done snark. Nathan, especially the “East Germany” reference.

6. The biggest problems with WS/BLE are the long transfers between DSTT1 and DSTT2 downtown, and a potential 14th location for the Ballard station. None of these affect West Seattle Link directly. The problems with West Seattle Link are forced transfers for almost all riders, and the temporary transfer in SODO. Those haven’t changed since the 2016 vote, so just as some of us recommended a bus alternative then, we still do. What has changed since 2016 is the downtown transfers and the 14th alternative.

   The commonality between all these problems is harming the passenger experience, making trips take longer. Even if West Seattle Link isn’t directly involved in DSTT2’s alignment, it will affect West Seattle to Eastside trips and West Seattle to southeast Seattle trips. And severing southeast/south to Capitol Hill, U-District, and northeast trips is a big deal, because there’s probably more ridership there than southeast to SLU/Ballard, or anything to West Seattle.

   So our priorities for WS/BLE advocacy should be, first, shorten the downtown transfers, or put three lines into DSTT1 and cancel DSTT2. Second, a Ballard station between 15th and 20th, not 14th,.Third, anything regarding West Seattle Link.

   1. General agreement here; one correction is that the Board’s preferred alignment for BLE has the terminus at 15th and Market, which is what was promised in the Representative Alignment. The 14th Avenue option was only studied as a cost-saving alternative.

      Edit: I am reminded the 15th Avenue station is the preferred alignment with “third-party funding”. It will be interesting to see how much “third-party funding” is needed compared to the unconditioned preferred alignment of an elevated station at 14th Avenue. At least all the preferred alignments are getting preliminary engineering as part of the EIS, so choosing between the alternatives won’t come with additional costs or delays.

   2. Just to be clear about distances:

      The distance between Avalon and Alaska Junction proposed stations and the distance between proposed Ballard Station and Leary/ Market is about the same (about a half- mile. Although West Seattle has an elevation change greater than Ballard, there is not a street as busy at 15th Ave NW to cross. Note too that single family homes start between 400 to 900 feet south, north and west of the Alaska Junction station site.

      Finally, ST’s own projections show that the Ballard Station will get higher boardings than the three West Seattle Stations COMBINED assuming the full ST3 buildout.

      These are all strong arguments for deferring the Alaska Junction Station. That’s on top of the hassle of having that station be so deep — and so reliant on bus transfers where the buses could easily stop at Avalon station. The additional time penalty on the bus would be eased by the time saved by not having to go so deep into the ground.

      Deferring that station appears to save about $500M to $1B as well as enables the line to open a few years earlier since no deep stations will have to be dug.

      How would you WS Link supporters feel about sacrificing the last station? You get light rail to West Seattle and most of Alaska Junction is still within the walkshed assuming a half-mile. That also gives West Seattle time to consider what the best way to extend rail in the future too.

7. > the start of a tunnel under Alaska Junction set the stage for an affordable and high-value extension through White Center into Burien in the future.

   That is the second problem that is not very realistic. If you look at the map above how many deep tunnel station is that. Morgan Junction, High Point, Roxhill, Westwood village. Each deep tunnel station costs at minimum 500 million or more realistically a billion each. Are we going to spend another 4 billion aka the same as east link to extend down to westwood village?

   Alternatively if it was at-grade on delridge, or at least elevated down fauntleroy it’d be more feasible; but west seattle wants tunnels.

   This is not like south kirkland where it can easily be extended north to kirkland and then woodinville for 2~3 billion but where sound transit can barely travel a mile without spending a billion underground.

   1. West Seattle wants tunnels because ST would rather bulldoze the whole half-block along a roadway to build above-grade than put pylons in a center lane or columns in the sidewalks. I’d prefer tunnels, too, if that were the choice.

      The preferred alignment, as chosen by the Board last year, is a tunnel to the Junction; there are elevated alignments under consideration as well that will be described in the FEIS due this year. At-grade is off the table, and has been since 2019. Maybe a future southward extension could consider at-grade operations if the crossing protections implemented for the 2 Line serve are effective at protecting the ground-running segment there.

      1. Whatever the final reason for tunnels in alaskan junction, my main point stands that further extensions south are incredibly expensive if they are tunneled.

         “Maybe a future southward extension could consider at-grade operations” But that is the problem, west seattle consistently wants low rise density but also tunnels instead of elevated. And once you build a tunnel at alaskan junction it is hard to exit out in the middle.

         Aka if we are building a tunnel to west seattle alaska junction there will be no likely extension for 40/50+ years.

   2. I agree, WL.

      It’s obviously ridiculous to tell someone to build a car garage 90 feet deep rather than build a carport at the surface or a second story roof deck. Yet that’s exactly what West Seattle expects — yet they don’t want to pay for it.

      The only thing I can deduce is that many in West Seattle think of light rail as something to look at more than it is something to actually use.

      It’s crazy making.

      1. I think most people in West Seattle haven’t thought about West Seattle Link very much. This is common. It wasn’t until I became a transit nerd that I started paying attention to the details. I remember talking to a friend of mine who lived somewhere in the south end of Seattle (around Cleveland maybe?) and he said he took a bus downtown. I thought for sure he took the train, but he said it was too far away. This seems like a fairly obvious idea — if the station is to far away it isn’t convenient — but for some reason I just assumed it had more extensive coverage. In hindsight that is ridiculous. No single bus can cover the area so no train can either. So relatively subtle things (like station depth) are going to be missed for folks who don’t pay much attention to transit.

         My other guess is that most of the people in West Seattle look at Link as handy for the occasional trip to downtown. My guess is the modal share for the peninsula is somewhere around 90% car. My brother lives close to High Point and he talked about how great the 21 was for getting downtown (and how the RapidRide was overrated). So he was no novice to using transit. But he also hikes a lot which means he also drives a lot (now that he is retired). When the bridge was closed I wanted to go for a walk in town so I suggested Roosevelt (with a walk in Cowen/Ravenna). I figured this was relatively handy for him. He could just take the 21 to Link and take Link to Roosevelt. Turns out he just drove. Even though the driving was far more indirect than he was used to (and the bus wasn’t) he said “he was just used to driving”. Anecdotal for sure, but I think this is common.

         My guess is most people don’t view West Seattle Link (or transit in general) as something they expect to use on a regular basis. It is like that Onion cover where people expect everyone else to use transit so that their drive is faster. In this case it is probably a combination. They assume it is handier if you are headed downtown and even if it isn’t, a lot of people will benefit from it (although not them personally). At that point you don’t really pay much attention to the details. You might glance at the headlines and form a general opinion (seems a shame to tear down that building but I guess it is worth it) but most aren’t going to dig into the details because they don’t expect to use it on a regular basis.

         Even regular transit users may be oblivious. If you regularly take a bus downtown then you may just assume the bus will keep running like it always has. Or you just assume that the transfer will be easy.

      2. My friends who live in West Seattle just have a vague sense that light rail is “coming” but also know that it’s coming later rather than sooner, so they’re not thinking about it as a significant part of their lives, or something they should plan around. Longer-term thinkers more think about how access to Link might increase the value of their condos or house or whatever.

         They also assume that wherever it ends up is the best possible location “they” (a nebulous sense of the Government or whoever decides these things) could reasonably put the line. Most folks feel like they don’t have much say in how these things get built, which is generally true this late in the process. If you tell them that’s it’s $4B of project, there’s sticker shock but also an assumption that $4B is just how much such infrastructure costs these days.

      3. “ I think most people in West Seattle haven’t thought about West Seattle Link very much. ”

         I don’t think most people think much about the Link rider experience anywhere, frankly. They see a schematic and think “Oh that’s not too far.”

         This is a core issue with stakeholders and elected officials. They don’t think about details either. They trust that some mid-level project manager is reviewing details. Yet a whole slew of professional staff that are trained in things like track design, landscape architecture, land use policy, cost estimation, real estate appraisals et al are often just as clueless.

         I’m grateful that several regular orders here are able to look at plans from a user’s perspective. That’s been missing from many projects.

         Even then, someone has to look at things several times before a light biulb goes off and they see problems as basic as station entrances not at crosswalks or missing escalators when there’s 60 steps down (equal to walking down four floors). Even then, they think that someone is just as mobile as they are.

         As plan making AI keeps improving, I think a day is coming soon where we will often see walk-through simulation videos and plan reviews that recognize things like street furniture blocking paths or shelters being useless against rain, wind or sunlight. Until then, we really should be putting every design through the lens of trained experience visualizers of various mobility capabilities.

      4. Bellevue and Redmond residents are barely aware of the 2 Line’s existence. Most probably couldn’t say what the line is called, where it goes, or name any stations. So of course West Seattle residents would be even less aware of a light rail line that doesn’t even exist yet.

   3. TBF the elevated options being offered to West Seattle are options that demolish the neighborhood instead of simply following Fauntleroy? I don’t believe ST has ever seriously considered an elevated above Fauntleroy option (correct me if I’m wrong).

      1. Yes, a consistent problem with ST’s elevated alignments is that they refuse to seriously consider running elevated rail down the center of wide streets like Fauntleroy (or Elliott/15th Ave) in the case of BLE). I have a vague memory from when I was in the BLE Community Advisory Group reviewing in the original DEIS, when ST stated that SDOT was the one refusing to let them put permanent structures in the ROW, but I might be misremembering or have misunderstood.

         An alternative would be putting support columns on the side of the road with the guideway supported in the center, but apparently that’s a no-starter, too.

         Instead, ST prefers to just plow down all the properties on one side of the road to avoid impacting the roadway altogether.

      2. The key word is “seriously considered”. The upzoning at Fauntleroy south of Alaska resulted in new apartment buildings which ST doesn’t want to take out. Fauntleroy is too narrow for an elevated line without taking out a building on one side. I guess ST could try to retrofit one of those buildings to have adjacent track or a station entrance, but — given that the upper floors are wood frame construction — a full building demolition probably pencils out better. And buying a big apartment building won’t cost nearly as much as buying out Jefferson Square in order to then build a giant, deep, expensive station vault (of course ST won’t tell the public about that detail ).

8. What I gather from this article is that building light rail is not about West Seattle. Rather, it seems to be more about light rail to White Center and Burien. Or, perhaps more cynically, it is about the ‘possibility’ of building light rail to White Center or Burien. A possibility that may never come, or if it does, could be a long way in the future.

   It may well be true that the commute of a worker in either place would be improved by access to a train. I don’t know. I haven’t studied it, and don’t care too. However it is true that the commute of someone in West Seattle proper will not be better.

   And yet Dow gets to claim credit for everything because the average West Seattleite probably doesn’t care very much. They have their car, and whether or not the transfer at SODO is in the same direction really isn’t a consideration. All they know is that West Seattle is keeping up with the other areas of the city that are getting this new train infrastructure, and that is good enough for them!

   1. The point is that WSLE is more than a train; it’s a permanent regional investment in new rail ROW for a neighborhood that’s on the other side of a river with only three crossings in the City of Seattle (it’s a bit weird that the South Park Bridge is outside city boundaries, but you have to draw the line somewhere).

      Some folks oppose increasing density in West Seattle because those bridges are already close to capacity and the buses are already full; the capacity of Link will allow that premise to be rejected. I recognize that the same job could probably done with BRT, but that argument was had and lost over eight years ago. Unless a fiscal catastrophe greater than COVID strikes, WSLE is coming. The question is what will we do with it once it’s here? I think we should argue over how tall the TOD should be, and how far the TOD should extend, rather than whether it should be built at all.

      But sure, if the line cancelled or ridership is nil, then all the cynics can proudly say “We Told You So!”

      1. The problem is that if west Seattle does not want to allow for elevated or at grade trains what makes you think they’ll approve apartments either?

         This is not a small sum of money but on par with east links entire line from mercer island to bellevue all the way to Redmond. If they really want a bunch of tunneled stations the land should already be approved for high rises now; not some nebulous promise that they probably won’t approve

      2. >If they really want a bunch of tunneled stations the land should already be approved for high rises now

         Agreed, which is why I’m saying instead of proposing alternatives for WSLE when WSLE is going to happen, we should focus instead on legalizing high density around the stations and make WSLE as worthwhile as possible.

         No one has proposed any new arguments about ST3 except that it’s more expensive than folks thought it would be. ST3 passed in 2016, back when gas was $2.50, a beer was $5, and a dozen eggs could be gotten for less than a dollar. Everything’s more expensive, now!

         ST3 wasn’t about building high-capacity transit to places that are already dense; it was about building out rail and inducing density where it lands, which would allow newcomers to move to the Puget Sound and move between the regional centers without a car. If the cities are being stingy with upzoning, that’s not ST’s problem, but it is ours and we should do something about it than implying traffic isn’t bad enough to justify rail right now or that the only worthwhile rail project is Ballard-UW and all else be damned.

      3. West Seattle has lots of apartments. How high are you suggesting land around the stations be upzoned, and how far a radius.

         Like Capitol Hill that has modest height limits for a relatively short radius around the station. I would think West Seattle expects some upzoning directly around the stations as long as like Bellevue there is a hard line between it and the SFH zone. Probably like Capitol Hill or Roosevelt. But not high rises which are not human friendly or close to adjacent scale, and not 1/4 mile radius based on walkable. More like one block radius with a 5-7 story height limit. Even if zoned at no man’s land for steel framed buildings between 8 and 22 stories I doubt few would get built above 7 stories when wood frame goes to steel.

         West Seattle is part of Seattle. The council controls the zoning in West Seattle. However zoning something and getting someone to build to that zoning are two different things. After 20 years look at how little the land around CHS is built to the zoning maximum, or even close, and a neighborhood association that fights any further upzoning like a mother wolverine.

         How many people who don’t live in West Seattle go there? I don’t know many. What is in West Seattle as a draw. No matter how tall the zoning near the stations I don’t see farebox recovery even if 100% pay a fare covering even 10% of operations let alone a $4 billion price tag to build.

         I am always a bit of a skeptic on the “zone it they will build it they will come” mantra, but to justify $4 billion WSLE is going to need a lot of riders who don’t live in WS taking Link to WS for some reason when WS is basically suburbia on the Sound.

         Which is my way of saying zoning will never make WSLE pan out.

      4. > Agreed, which is why I’m saying instead of proposing alternatives for WSLE when WSLE is going to happen, we should focus instead on legalizing high density around the stations and make WSLE as worthwhile as possible.

         But that is the problem, the same west seattle that doesn’t want elevated rail is also the one that doesn’t want high rises.

         People just say they “might” build more denser housing for tunnels but I find that a poor justification to spend a couple billion. West Seattle sure can have rail but basically can only afford at-grade or elevated at most.

         > But sure, if the line cancelled or ridership is nil, then all the cynics can proudly say “We Told You So!”

         I’m fine if it saves 4 billion dollars. I really need to emphasize this since I don’t think many have an understanding of how much west seattle link will cost. it is the same as all of east link. If perhaps they were building at-grade they could actually reach say white center and eventually burien/ renton then it might make some sense.

         1) if west seattle is willing to have changes to their zoning and apartments — why not just build it elevated instead then.
         2) if west seattle is not willing to have change to their environment, then I don’t see how a tunnel is going to pan out.

      5. WL, the reasonable opposition to an elevated alignment is that either ST refuses to build directly over roadway, or SDOT refuses to let ST consider building over roadway, so ST assumes they’d have to buy and demolish surface properties along the entire elevated route. For both of the elevated terminals included in the preferred alignment that doesn’t need third party funding, this includes demolishing multiple new midrise apartment buildings at the cost of hundreds of $M and hundreds of housing units. You’re right that folks who think elevated guideways are ugly are the same folks who think new apartment buildings are ugly, and frankly they’re not worth listening to.

         Look, I’m fairly certain the blog has fully hashed and rehashed the various proposed alignments from 2022. Enough folks came away with “No Build” as their preference that I felt motivated to explain that at this point, “No Build” advocacy is a waste of effort.

         The WSLE FEIS will come out some time this year, which will have details on the refined alignments and revised cost estimates. At that point, we can reignite the fight over underground versus elevated, but it’s wasteful to keep arguing about it now.

         But I guess the single-issue voters out there who only care about whether every single dollar spent on transit accrues as many riders as possible and who don’t care about the bigger political picture will always complain.

      6. > The WSLE FEIS will come out some time this year, which will have details on the refined alignments and revised cost estimates. At that point, we can reignite the fight over underground versus elevated, but it’s wasteful to keep arguing about it now.

         That is fine, but basically one cannot claim that with an underground alignment to alaska junction we can easily extend past it.

         Like we are spending nearly 7 billion for just the 3 mile tunnel segment from CID over to belltown and can barely afford it. And then somehow one is going to handwave away tunneling from alaska junction over to white center? That’s also 4 miles and a station every mile it’ll be very costly as well.

         Basically if one wants to move forward with an underground alaska junction station — then I don’t see any further extensions for at least half a century being possible.

9. Thank you for the history lesson there; that was actually quite educational for me.

   I agree that our best course of action is to accept that West Seattle Link is getting built, and focus on changing the land use around the stations.

   1. Even with Roosevelt-style land uses, Link to West Seattle would be wasteful folly that complicates and delays most riders’ trips. It is four billion dollars to host six mostly-empty trains per hour each direction.

      It is folly whether the folks in West Seattle who won’t be riding it are angry at being “ignored” by the rest of the City or shrug and say, “I don’t know anybody who would use it anyway.”

10. This is very interesting, thank you! I’ve really wanted to see more of the “pro” side because I really support the idea of light rail but felt very discouraged by the criticisms that did seem considered (rather than the reactionary ones). I do hope the extension south works out. I see a lot more benefit to this if the intention is to also carry the link on to other neighborhoods, towns, and cities that have harder access to Seattle. I had the impression it was exclusively going to West Seattle indefinitely. Again, thanks!

    1. Fyi if you want to see the past plans for extending past west seattle they are here:

       https://seattletransitblog.com/2014/05/10/sound-transit-presents-some-options-for-west-seattle-south-king/

       A5 LRT via Alaska Junction to White Center and Burien/Renton is the closest.

       https://wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/ERP%20150505%20HCT%20Corridor%20Studies.pdf

       26 Miles
       38-47 Minutes
       65-79k Average Daily Riders
       $6.2-$8.2 B

       This was studied back in 2014, so I guess it’s conservatively more like 8~12 billion now.

       1. “Burien/ Renton”?

          Burien is lots closer to White Center than it is to Renton. But when you live in Seattle, South King County seems like a monotonous sea of suburbia, right?

          Note too that the earlier study assumes both Lines from West Seattle and SE Seattle run into the DSTT. It’s proving how DSTT2 is a last minute ST3 idea.

       2. I just meant it went to burien then renton to shortly describe the routing. the user can open the link to view the full path if they want.

       3. @Al, it really is Burien/Renton. As in West Seattle, White Center, Burien, Tukwila, Renton. It forms a big reverse-J.

       4. A Junction tunnel will make it very expensive to extend LR further south.
          The consultants who Sound Transit hired for the south HCT study realized that going elevated along Fauntleroy/California Ave is challenging. Even the monorail struggled (and came up with tulip towers) with that, it’s just not wide enough. They also suggested a left/right turn onto 35th which is challenging, too. The BRT route mostly used 35th Ave (or Delridge). I wish they would have considered LR along 35th. Maybe with a funicular or gondola up to the Alaska Junction. Unfortunately you won’t find such option in the FEIS.
          Maybe Al’s suggestion to skip the Junction for now would be wise, but you may still want to have a south extension idea as that impacts the design of the Avalon station alignment, or you skip that one, too, and just stop at Delridge. (contemplated in the DEIS as a phased approach)

       5. Elevated really isn’t cheaper than tunneled alongside has more political cost to it

          Tunnels are for intents and purposes the path of least resistance in this case as West Seattle really doesn’t have a wide boulevard like MLK or Aurora to use as a transit line. It has Fauntleroy, and Fauntleroy has wide “parts” but not the whole way. So you’d need to tunnel underneath anyway unless you wanna deal with angry neighbors about eminent domain for an elevated guideway. Something no government employee likes dealing with.

          If we had some unused rail trail tracks in West Seattle then sure I could say go for it, but we unfortunately don’t have and have to go with next best thing.

       6. > Elevated really isn’t cheaper than tunneled alongside has more political cost to it

          Elevated has always been cheaper, I don’t know why people keep trying to make up reasons as to why it is more expensive. Sure there’s some weird edge cases but for the vast majority of the time including for west seattle it is vastly cheaper.

       7. “Elevated has always been cheaper, I don’t know why people keep trying to make up reasons as to why it is more expensive”

          I’m not making up reasons here, these are practical problems a transit agency faces building infrastructure and wanting to deal with the path of least resistance.

          I mean do you wanna deal with eminent domain land acquisition and the inevitable lawsuits and legal costs when some or a good chunk of homeowners and businesses don’t want to cooperate with the request.

          Because I can tell you no one wants to deal with that unless it can be minimized to a degree that they only have to negotiate with so few homeowners.

          Tunnel under West Seattle is the ideal situation for ST because they don’t have to deal with the eminent domain problem as much, whereas Elevated meant a bunch of requests for eminent domain have to be submitted and that can back up a project for multiple years as it gets stuck in the legal system for years and be a drain politically on future projects.

          We don’t have the same luxury other countries do in that they can do whatever they need to do (within reason). If the laws around NIMBYISM and it’s associated affects on government funded infrastructure were different, I’d be singing a different tune.

       8. > I’m not making up reasons here, these are practical problems a transit agency faces building infrastructure and wanting to deal with the path of least resistance.

          Well yes I am well aware of the path of least resistance of tunneling as much as possible, but again it is also incredibly expensive to tunnel so much. People including both you and Nathan keep trying to ignore the high cost of tunneling by implicitly assuming with just a small increase of funding we can tunnel in west seattle.

          > We don’t have the same luxury other countries do in that they can do whatever they need to do (within reason).

          Then just don’t build rail in West Seattle if they are so against any construction changes. You say we should spend billions in West Seattle which is so resistant to change and at the same time expect me to believe they’ll allow apartments to be built?

       9. Zach B,

          It used to be that tunneled was about twice the cost of elevated, but that just isn’t true anymore.

          With modern TBM’s the cost of tunneling keeps going down, while the cost of elevated and surface have tended to go up slightly due to land costs, increased litigation/mitigation, etc. And these costs are very site specific. So the old rules of thumb really don’t apply anymore.

          Also, the tunnel itself is actually quite cheap. It’s everything that goes into the tunnel that is expensive (inverts, systems, cross passages, etc). However, if these costs can be contained, then the total cost of the tunnel can also be contained.

          So it really becomes a sort of nuanced decision regarding whether to go with tunneled, elevated, or surface.

       10. > With modern TBM’s the cost of tunneling keeps going down, while the cost of elevated and surface have tended to go up slightly due to land costs, increased litigation/mitigation, etc. And these costs are very site specific. So the old rules of thumb really don’t apply anymore.

           Sigh, people just keep wanting to tunnel and then go with tunnel vision ignoring the high costs of tunneling. And even for tunneling you will still need to move the utilities at the station location.

           > So it really becomes a sort of nuanced decision regarding whether to go with tunneled, elevated, or surface.

           It’s really not, it’s just people who really want tunneling pretend the costs will be cheaper at the initial stage and then are ‘shocked’ when the construction costs balloon when it actually is time to bid and escalate even further once construction starts.

       11. I’m not sure why this is even a discussion. WL is right. Surface is cheapest. Above ground is more expensive. Tunneling is most expensive. Of course you can find particular exceptions but that is the general rule the world over.

           Why do you think the big Link extensions (north and south and even east) are above ground? To save money. Lynnwood Link would have much better routing if it wasn’t above ground. Same with Federal Way Link. The problem in both cases is that it would cost a fortune. With East Link it does tunnel, for a very short section. Then it almost immediately goes elevated — because it is cheaper. It is so much cheaper that it does a weird button hook at the end (that would be unnecessary if it was underground).

           Maybe you are thinking of cut and cover? Sometimes cut and cover can be fairly affordable but you need a wide street and the willingness to live with the disruption. In Rainier Valley it is possible that cut and cover could be competitive with elevated although it would definitely cost more than running on the surface.

       12. A big cost factor with tunneling are the station vaults. A TBM may be a faster and cheaper way to build, but a subway station vault of 100 feet deep that over 400 feet long and over 50 feet wide is quite expensive to do.

           It’s why East Link got a huge cost savings by moving the Downtown station out of the tunnel.

           (Speaking of East Link, it needs to be noted that Bellevue had to agree to other measures to get their Downtown tunnel in an area of many 20-floor plus buildings, while ST isn’t asking the same from West Seattle. )

           There are cost savings from improved aerial construction methods too, like in steel fabrication and off-site assembly.

           There are also cost savings based on the height of the track. Track 80 feet in the air is several times more expensive than one 20 feet in the air.

           As I said before, ST does not disclose how much extra getting to the last station in West Seattle is. With Ballard there was extensive discussion about aerial and subway cost tradeoffs. But in Ballard’s case, the TBM segment is about 1.5 miles to the last station and not the half-mile of Alaska Junction. And Ballard’s station won’t be quite as deep.

       13. “Then just don’t build rail in West Seattle if they are so against any construction changes. You say we should spend billions in West Seattle which is so resistant to change and at the same time expect me to believe they’ll allow apartments to be built?”

           People surprised it costs a lot of money to build something, I dunno what to tell you. I’m just more realistic about the fact that it costs a lot of money and have stopped pissimg and moaning about its cost because it’s a waste of time and energy that can be focused on other things related to WS Link. Like the shipped has sailed and it’s going to happen. I’d perfer to stop bitching about it for the millionth time like we tend to do on here.

           I’d rather see people put all the energy towards their dislike of West Seattle link rather towards advocating for a better West Seattle bus network that’ll compliment WS Link than moaning about WS Link till the cows come home.

       14. > I’d rather see people put all the energy towards their dislike of West Seattle link rather towards advocating for a better West Seattle bus network that’ll compliment WS Link than moaning about WS Link till the cows come home.

           The time to debate west seattle link is right now while sound transit is choosing the alternatives and going to send out the bids, not later down the future…

       15. > People surprised it costs a lot of money to build something, I dunno what to tell you. I’m just more realistic about the fact that it costs a lot of money.

           No what I am highlighting is west seattle tunnel alignment proponents advocates trying to have their cake and eat it too.

           They claim that we should tunnel because building elevated involves too much construction impacts for west seattle and that in the future they’ll build apartments. If west seattle is not going to accept construction impacts what makes one think they are going to accepting many apartments either?

           And again this is 4 billion dollars when the original estimate was 2 billion dollars. this is not a 100 million brt project. If anything I feel we have not “complained” enough for what we are building of ~1.3 billion dollars per station.

       16. Zach: Fauntleroy is five lanes wide between the Alaska Junction and Morgan Junction area, and two of the lanes are used for street parking, in a neighborhood where most people have off street parking plus street parking on side streets. 5+ lanes of right of way along the stretch where the elevated rail would actually go. Note: you would follow Fauntleroy, not divert from it to stop *at* Alaska Junction. Then you would just have to walk two blocks to get to the farmer’s market there. West Seattle ain’t Ballard!

           If an elevated structure there is opposed on “visible blight” grounds, It could also run at grade between Alaska and Morgan junction. This would be ST4 and not subject to the full grade separation promise of ST3. (Any argument against “attractiveness” ON Faunleroy between Alaska Junction and the bridge can pretty much be dismissed as frivolous).

       17. Then just don’t build rail in West Seattle if they are so against any construction changes. You say we should spend billions in West Seattle which is so resistant to change and at the same time expect me to believe they’ll allow apartments to be built?This.!

           There is no possible future wherein the Avalon/Alaska Junction oval becomes a new U-District. There’s no “anchor” like UW to attract people and businesses, so the best one can hope for is a Roosevelt clone. Even that is not likely and would be insufficient to justify the huge costs to defeat the topographic difficulties even if it were.

       18. Or ST could build light rail where the people and riders are already.

           I agree with Nathan that WSLE is a done deal, mostly for political reasons although it does have 80,000 residents who mostly don’t use transit. It is in ST 3 and is scheduled to go first, probably because Dow lives in West Seattle.

           To expect that magically building light rail will dramatically increase transit ridership in WS over the buses it replaces is naive. It is likely this region won’t return to pre-pandemic transit ridership levels for decades. Even when Link is fully built out the PSRC estimates 3.5% of all trips will be on Link, and that was pre-pandemic.

           I also agree with WL that West Seattle isn’t going to accept WSLE conditioned on changing the character or zoning of their neighborhood. Why should they? They are getting WSLE anyway. ST doesn’t have the authority to mandate zoning changes in exchange for Link. We are already at the FEIS stage. Building a few 5-7 story apartment buildings near the stations (or even within a ¼ mile walking radius) won’t increase ridership much, certainly not enough to support the $4 billion price tag (which in the end will be closer to $5 or $6 billion based on ST’s project cost estimates, even as recently at the station at 130th).

           Whatever meager new transit ridership WSLE might produce over buses today is dwarfed by the decline in ridership post pandemic. We have to stop clinging to the hope that zoning changes will lead to the kind of lower income construction that will make up for the decline in transit ridership from work from home, especially with downtown Seattle no longer an urban retail hub.

           I think what would be productive for this blog is rather than designing a complex bus system for WS to replace WSLE when the riders are not there for that either and there is zero chance WS will accept a bus system instead of Link when Fife, Federal Way, Lynnwood, Everett, Shoreline are getting Link is to design a complex bus system to replace Ballard Link. The actual cost of WSLE and then DSTT2 isn’t going to leave enough to build Link to Ballard, which is also a long slog through a bunch of nothingness to get to very mild urbanism and another bedroom community not all that keen on upzoning or building the station in the heart of the retail zone.

           Ballard actually has two main access/destination points: UW and downtown. A better bus system could serve both and will actually be necessary whereas the cost of Link would be too great, and the subarea will be tapped out with WSLE, DSTT2, 130th and Graham St. stations. It could also be implemented decades earlier than waiting for Link that is likely never coming.

11. The crux of it is that West Seattle has always been too expensive to build versus the amount of density that it has. There is no magical way around it — only hard choices.

    You can view it in the original South King County HCT Corridor alternatives.

    https://wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/ERP%20150505%20HCT%20Corridor%20Studies.pdf

    1) Basically the main option was to go down Delridge actually and skip Alaska junction due to the high cost of going down that route. For $4.6-$6.1 B (Note this is back in 2014 dollars)
    2) The other way was elevated and at grade to reach white center. and then have brt from white center to burien / renton for $4.1-$5.4 B.

    The expensive tunnel approach always just cost too much at $6.2-$8.2 B.

    3) If ya’ll really want a tunnel to Alaska junction — the only way I could see it panning out to extend further south is to basically skip every single destination/stop and just exit at white center. No stations in between.

12. Sound Transit expects 5400 daily riders to SODO until the line is extended downtown. I find it hard to believe that we spend $4b for such low ridership. As Al keeps suggesting, at least we should study running it as a 3rd line through DSTT to Northgate or Lynnwood to increase capacity between UW and CHS. That also would allow Metro to truncate buses and redirect bus hours to other WS destinations when the line opens and not 5-10 years later.

    1. It really comes down to the buses. Metro has been fairly clear that they won’t truncate until the line gets to downtown. The 5400 number may be optimistic.

       Oh, and there is no reason to assume that when Metro does truncate that they will redirect those bus hours to West Seattle. They did that with U-Link, but have moved away from that approach with other restructures.

    2. A question about the 5400: is that one-way or two-way?

       It’s pathetic for one-way. It’s merely weak for two-way.

       And thanks for reading my posts.

       ****

       Finally, a note about BART’s history about stub lines with the line to Dublin and Pleasanton. That was originally going to be the new end of their all East Bay line — reducing trains to Fremont by half. (Think like our proposed 4 Line).

       Once the project got more clear, both the Fremont people complained about losing service and Dublin/ Pleasanton people wanted a through train to San Francisco. So that’s why there are four lines in the Transbay tube rather than just three. Keep in mind that BART has an elected Board and the two areas had two of the nine board members.

       Later the board took a stub line risk at Oakland International Airport and with E-BART to Antioch. The airport ridership is embarrassingly low but Antioch ridership isn’t as bad. With both stubs, the transfer effort was a major consideration as opposed to ST treating it more as an afterthought.

       1. The problem with BARTs airport connections and ridership is how overpriced they are with the dumb “airport fee” they tack onto any trip in or out of SFO and OAK instead of just being in line with the rest of BARTs fares. If the fare was like at or just $1 above the normal fare, more people would ride to the airport with BART. Instead of the very silly $6.70 (OAK) and $4.95 (SFO) airport surcharge they do now.

       2. That’s true Zach. It shows how there are many factors that affect ridership including fares.

          If SeaTac Link station users got zapped with a hefty ticket surcharge, the boardings there would plummet!

       3. FYI moderately relevant, they’ve changed and cut some lines during off peak times. (I think it was the same during the pandemic?)

          https://www.bart.gov/system-map

          Before 9 pm they have the same 5 lines (with 4 lines going through the transbay tube). After 9 pm they cut out 2 lines for 3 lines total running (only 2 lines going through the transbay tube)

          Namely the Richmond to SF and San Jose to SF lines are cut, and one will use the Orange line (richmond to San Jose) and transfer to the yellow or blue line to SF.

       4. That’s how it always was on Sundays and maybe late evenings: the only San Francisco lines went to went to Concord/Antioch and later Dublin/Pleasanton. Richmond-Fremont required a transfer in Oakland to get to San Francisco. Between SF and Richmond it was a cross-platform timed transfer at MacArthur.

13. I do love it, as, again, we see the anti-West Seattle activists flood in with the usual long, droning and repetitive arguments dripping with contempt and disdain. So many of these commentators do not live in West Seattle but are very comfortable making assumptions about “what West Seattle people want” and “what West Seattle people are thinking.” These are the same commentators who lambast Sound Transit’s faulty financial projections but fiendishly grasp on to a Sound Transit ridership forecast as a crucial piece of primary evidence in favor of their viewpoint. Funny how that works.

    The decption is frustrating but, at least, it’s repetitive. Much like NIMBY’s who say things like “I don’t want to lose the neighborhood character” but REALLY mean “I want to preserve my single family home value,” I love hearing anti-light rail commentators concern troll about costs and rider experience when, in reality, they just don’t like that the transit dollars aren’t being spent on THEIR preferred projects. That’s all it’s been, this whole time, for almost decades now. “I thought my ideas were better than Sound Transit’s ideas, and I’m still mad about it.”

    Here’s the deal: Move on. Nathan’s article at least approaches the topic from a position of “how can we make what is inevitably happening a better experience.” But some people here will go until their last, gasping dying breath arguing that this should be canceled and money reallocated to their pet projects. And they don’t care if it supports NIMBYism and broader anti-transit arguments. They just want to be right, no matter the long-term cost to the region.

    It’s purely anti-West Seattle hatred, which is nothing new in Seattle, generally. You can read it in the assumptions made about (in unsupported ways) “what West Seattle people want.” Including the anti-transit NIMBY group “Rethink the Link” group as a bastion of unified community representation is argumentatively insulting and, frankly, the kind of argument a child would make while throwing a tantrum. And that’s really what I read a lot in these comments. “They didn’t like my idea, and I will never, ever stop telling them how stupid they are because of that.”

    Again: time to move on.

    1. You could also make the case that those who support West Seattle Link just don’t care about most of West Seattle (they only care about the people who live close to the stations). They don’t care that transit for them will get much worse. Whether this can be considered “West Seattle hatred” or “West Seattle apathy” or just ignorance probably depends on the individual.

       Assuming that everyone who is fighting for better transit for West Seattle somehow hates the people of West Seattle is absurd. My brother and sister live in West Seattle. My mom spent the last twenty years of her life there. No, I’m not going to ignore the fact that West Seattle is getting screwed with West Seattle Link. I want something better for West Seattle.

    2. Thanks, Jort. I agree it’s long been time to move on. There is plenty of space to advocate for changes in other systems (e.g. land use, bus networks) that would improve the “worthiness” of the project instead of continuing to fight a lost battle.

       If it’s revealed that WSLE is truly unaffordable, then we can pull out a plethora of proposals for non-light rail alternatives from our very knowledgeable base of armchair planners. But until then, it’s simply wasted effort that does more harm than good.

       1. But until then, it’s simply wasted effort that does more harm than good.

          I get the wasted effort part, but what harm does it do? If there is no stopping this train (no pun intended) then what difference does it make if people point out the weaknesses while suggesting solutions that are better? If it has any influence at all on the project itself then it would be to make it more likely that they don’t build it.

       2. Good faith criticism is always co-opted by bad faith opposition; wholly opposing WSLE today only serves to legitimize anti-transit sentiments region-wide. You were brave enough to come out against ST3 before the vote, and many of your concerns are still reflected (if not more strongly now than then) in the current status of WSLE. The problem is, however, that the question of whether or not the concept of WSLE (and the rest of ST3) is worth it was argued and decided via direct democracy 8 years ago.

          If the concern that ST3 wasn’t doing enough to improve transit to justify its cost had won out, we would have no ST3. ST probably would have waited until 2020 to try again with a smaller measure, and then it probably would have been retracted or failed again as transit ridership was still in the COVID hole. If they waited until 2024, we’d have ST2 coming to completion with no additional major projects planned whatsoever, no additional ST bus service, and no major rail projects in the City to consider building around.

    3. > Here’s the deal: Move on. Nathan’s article at least approaches the topic from a position of “how can we make what is inevitably happening a better experience.”
       > If it’s revealed that WSLE is truly unaffordable

       Uhh… well part of the problem is that we still need to find additional third party funding even for the medium tunnel option that people are advocating for.

       West Seattle link is currently only funded for the elevated alternative.

       1. >West Seattle link is currently only funded for the elevated alternative.

          I thought you preferred the elevated alternative?

       2. Yes I do prefer the elevated alternative. I meant we are here assuming the tunneled one will be funded when that is not even guaranteed.

       3. The City sure seems to be assuming it will be funded, but it’s obviously far from guaranteed. We’ll know more about the cost difference when refined estimates are released with the FEIS.

    4. > Again: time to move on.

       The problem is that west seattle link is asking for more and more transit dollars. It was originally only supposed to cost ~2 billion. Now it is costing 4 billion for the elevated alternative and will cost even more for the medium tunneled alternative.

       If you want us to just ‘move on’ then let’s just set it at the original 2 billion and west seattle can build whatever with that pot of money but no further. Otherwise I find it completely acceptable to debate where billions of transit dollars will be spent.

       1. > more and more transit dollars.

          There isn’t some “general fund” for transit dollars – WSLE is coming from ST3 taxes and “third-party funding”, which surely isn’t coming from the city that’s hesitant to add $100M to an 8-year Transportation Levy.

       2. @Nathan

          Money doesn’t grow on trees. The money comes in each year and then sound transit then constructs how much they have at the time. Going from 2 billion to 4 billion dollars still comes from our taxes that and delays other projects or cancels other projects. You cannot handwave away 2 billion dollars by ignoring it.

       3. But the implication that ST tax dollars could somehow be used instead to buy more Metro service or support non-ST projects is disingenuous.

          I’m not saying WSLE is perfect and can’t be criticized; I’m saying that WSLE is coming and we can spend time working to make it better or waste time arguing it should be cancelled. If there’s an alternative that costs only $2B and gets WSLE built sooner, then that’d be great. I don’t see it, though, and unless someone gets leaked info from ST staff before the FEIS is released, then we’ll have to wait for the FEIS to argue about which alternative is better.

          It’s hard to imagine how, if the environmental process were restarted and alternative analysis restarted from scratch, we wouldn’t end up in the same place but in 2032 with costs doubled from what they are today.

       4. “It’s hard to imagine how, if the environmental process were restarted and alternative analysis restarted from scratch, we wouldn’t end up in the same place but in 2032 with costs doubled from what they are today.”

          Not as many people would buy Dow’s argument that West Seattle should be prioritized so highly and scheduled first. There’s awareness of the deep downtown stations, the post-covid ridership changes, the CID/N-S alternatives and dubiously rolling the administration building into it, cost increases, and more examples of automated lines and platform screen doors. Only some of the public is aware of these, and different people are aware of different ones. But at minimum there would be more debate about these issues that ST would have to address.

       5. > But the implication that ST tax dollars could somehow be used instead to buy more Metro service or support non-ST projects is disingenuous.

          We don’t even have to get to other metro or non-st projects. Even just funding the current ST projects on schedule like the everett extension and tacoma one.

          Honestly I find this attitude of trying to shut down the discussion while simultaneously asking for 4 billion dollars a bit absurd. literally 2 billion more than what was allocated originally.

       6. You’re assuming Everett and Tacoma are any better with their cost estimates relative to their subarea revenues?

       7. > You’re assuming Everett and Tacoma are any better with their cost estimates relative to their subarea revenues?

          The point is the excessive expensive tunneling for a low density area. If Everett and Tacoma ask for tunneling for their stations I’ll be just as skeptical.

       8. Your issue is clearly with the costs associated with tunnelling, and it’s not decided whether ST can afford to tunnel or not.

          You also seem to assume that it’s tunnel-or-bust for WSLE, which I’ve never said, and I don’t think anyone is saying that either. The Preferred Alignments selected by the board for preliminary engineering work include aerial and underground options, but it’s obvious the politicians are being pressured to plan for the underground option. I’ve said it a few times now – I expect to advocate for an aerial alignment if serves the neighborhood just as well and is more affordable than an underground version, but we won’t know the final cost differences until the FEIS is released.

       9. Nathan, it isn’t just a matter of cost. It’s a matter of the effort to descend 90 feet into the ground too. The Alaska Junction station will be notably deeper than our DSTT Stations.

          Stations should be designed to get riders in and out as easily as possible. To me, it’s more important than worrying about the appearance of an aerial or surface station. Taking an extra two minutes to get out of a station is more disruptive than having trains run with frequencies lowered by two minutes — because it has to be encountered by a rider every time.

          Rider experience is very important. ST tries to spin system performance to better address the rider experience. Unfortunately there are many paid professionals designing Link extensions who don’t seem to get it — and no Board member is going to have the ability or time to question these things.

          Since 2017, I’ve advocated for a riders experience committee to review every plan for rider user friendliness early in the process. ST loves meeting with property-owning “stakeholders” but won’t even acknowledge the need to discuss and adjust plans for the actual riders — who are ones paying the fares and thus the service!

          Anyone can begin visualizing this by looking at a 3-D plan of each station. Where is the bus letting me off? Where is the crosswalk if I’m walking? Where is the station entrance? Where are the stairs? If there isn’t a down escalator, how many steps are there?

          Then think about the same trip if I have luggage? Or a child with you? Or I’m using using a cane or wheelchair? Or even a bicycle?

          If ST won’t put a public committee on the task, they should look at least build an independent team who have no financial stake in the outcome to do it. There should be ergonomic experts, personal safety experts, people with various mobility challenges, transit security people who help riders overcome design deficiencies on a daily basis, train drivers who see things all day at their jobs and other similar people.

       10. > I’ve said it a few times now – I expect to advocate for an aerial alignment if serves the neighborhood just as well and is more affordable than an underground version, but we won’t know the final cost differences until the FEIS is released.

           The draft EIS has already stated that the underground one is more expensive. Also by the time it is the FEIS that is basically when they have already chosen the alignment.

           Or to put it differently if we were to debate about this a couple months/year when the FEIS is out; you’ll (In the general sense of other west seattle link tunnel supporters) shut down the debate saying we should have brought up the objections earlier and now it’s too late the FEIS is already out.

           > Your issue is clearly with the costs associated with tunnelling, and it’s not decided whether ST can afford to tunnel or not.

           Nathan, let’s say we had ballard link or everett link going first before west seattle link instead. If everett link extension added tunneling to their stations and alignments that then greatly exceeded the estimates and then postponed by 5 or 10 years/truncated the west seattle link down the line would you be fine with Everett link tunnel supporters just saying “it’s just a couple billion dollars”?

    5. I wouldn’t say that the anti-WSLE comments all uniformly advocate for canceling the project. Many comments would enhance the project or make it a better value.

       My comments have often included recommending finding a way to add direct Downtown service from opening day. Does that make me anti- WSLE? No. Does that make me critical of ST plans? Yes. There is a difference.

       And the Alaska Junction station is a whole other subtopic. As I’ve said before, it’s only a half-mile from Avalon Station and it’s hella deep. A casual observer would think the depth is only an inconvenience, but the recent terrible ridership in San Francisco’s deep Central Subway shows that depth does matter for serving shorter trips. It’s why I suggest either truncating the line at Avalon or running it on the surface until plans and funding evolve to run the line deeper into West Seattle (something that’s clearly 30-60 years away). The cost savings would make the project more competitive for grants because its metrics would be stronger.

       It’s unfair to conflate ST criticism with being anti-West Seattle Link.

       1. “It’s unfair to conflate ST criticism with being anti-West Seattle Link.’
          You and Jort are right.

          It’s fair to levy criticism towards aspects of the project that could be better. I’m not blind to the fact that things could be better.

          At the same time some of the criticism towards WSLE does feel like saltiness towards First Hill, Ballard to UW and Metro 8 subway ideas not being picked. I would like for all three to have been picked, but unfortunately compromise was inevitable with ST3 and having to “kill your darlings” as they say for getting political consensus from all stakeholders.

       2. @Zach:

          It is a good time to review the unique circumstances of First Hill, Ballard-UW and Metro 8.

          Of the three, First Hill has voter support from the original funding measure. ST will say it gave money to the FHSC and RapidRide G to compensate but it’s either woefully slow or pretty distant from the original First Hill station site. I’ve long personally advocated for a simple Jefferson Street funicular connection between Harborview and Pioneer Square but that’s never been studied.

          The problem with Ballard-UW is that it skips South Lake Union and Seattle Center. There is lots more interest to reach those places across the region than to merely reach Ballard. The question that has never been analyzed is what would be the cost to stop the central segment at Smith Cove and use the funds to build Ballard-UW instead (a hybrid solution). Given how costly DSTT2 is, I think that ST will just give up on crossing the Ship Canal pleading lack of funds instead and leave Ballard out in the cold (after blowing their ST3 prize money on a less productive West Seattle Link).

          Of the three, Metro 8 has the least study. It’s merely a travel market. Whether it’s suitable for Link, a streetcar or a combination of different lines and stations has yet to be analyzed — and there are no funds to even study it better. A study would seem to need to be best if a few dozen ideas could be initially objectively explored — but more open ended studies aren’t the way things get decided in our region.

       3. Just other points about the Alaska Junction station:

          1. Ending at Avalon may enable West Seattle Link to open years earlier. Digging deep holes for a station vault takes a longer time and it’s not like ST has a TBM sitting in a lot waiting to be used. Opening earlier be better for getting Link to West Seattle, right?

          2. ST split off Angle Lake from FW Link, and Downtown Redmond from East Link — both as a result of funding. Forgoing Alaska Junction station now doesn’t mean it won’t ever get built. It could merely mean it won’t open in the same year or decade.

       4. ST proposed the Delridge station as the western terminus of the “minimum operable segment” (MOS) of WSLE in the 2022 WSBLE DEIS, but also stated that completion of BLE was necessary to tie in WSLE to the rest of the system so a two-station MOS for WSLE was not justifiable. The DEIS explained that Avalon was not considered as a terminus due to the added cost of construction for relatively little ridership when compared to temporarily terminating at Delridge.

          Of course, with the splitting of WSLE and BLE into two separate environmental assessments, it will be very interesting to see how ST handles this in the FEIS for WSLE.

       5. “The DEIS explained that Avalon was not considered as a terminus due to the added cost of construction for relatively little ridership when compared to temporarily terminating at Delridge.”

          If all the bus riders transferring at Alaska Junction instead transferred at Avalon as an end station (in addition to residents who would live close enough to walk to either station), Avalon Station would have plenty of riders as an end station. To me, that claim of too little ridership is thus ridiculous and illogical.

       6. “The problem with Ballard-UW is that it skips South Lake Union and Seattle Center.”

          South Lake Union wasn’t noticed as a high-capacity transit need until 2016, so the original Ballard-UW vs Ballard-downtown debate didn’t include it and wouldn’t have served it. It was rerouted to SLU just months before the vote, following a Seattle/SDOT request.

          In retrospect, everybody was to blame for not recognizing SLU earlier: both the city, Sound Transit, and transit activists. Nobody connected the dots between building highrises there and needing HCT for those thousands of people.

          On the other hand, when it routed it to SLU, it routed it away from Belltown. Which has just as tall highrises, and has had them for fifty years without fully addressing the transit issue. Belltown does have many overlapping lines on 3rd Avenue, so that has made it work, albeit with congestion. But Western Avenue has no transit at all and I don’t think it ever had it, yet there are also thousands of highrise condos there, and a steep hill up to 3rd Avenue. And First Hill, of course, keeps getting ignored. Still the failure to address Belltown and First Hill doesn’t mean we should also fail to address SLU.

          So SLU gives a strong factor in favor of a Ballard-downtown line. At the same time, Ballard/northwest Seattle has nothing comparable to UW or the whole UDistrict-to-Northgate megavillage and the gateway to the north that northeast Seattle does. It’s just Ballard and then it ends.

       7. The problem with Ballard-UW is that it skips South Lake Union and Seattle Center. There is lots more interest to reach those places across the region than to merely reach Ballard.

          Ballard-UW serves UW. UW is a bigger destination than South Lake Union or Seattle Center. But it also has to do with competition and the overall network. Going east-west north of the ship canal is extremely slow. An east-west subway would be dramatically faster than a bus and faster than driving (even at noon). North-south service is quite fast. Thus running a fast east-west train complements the fast north-south service. Furthermore, there is no regular street grid for much of the way. This means that for a lot of people they can’t go east and then south to get to the UW. They have to go south, then east, and going east is the slowest part of their journey. For example, this trip on Aurora from 95th to 45th takes ten minutes (https://maps.app.goo.gl/R5GyGFeM9LpooftU9j). The much shorter trip to the U-District takes longer (https://maps.app.goo.gl/J4TpPhJaabrQEX788). Despite the presence of Link not very far to the east, it is irrelevant for riders (https://maps.app.goo.gl/M2cGUoKyBbNywean7).

          The same thing is true for the other corridors like Greenwood, 15th and 24th. Thus anyone north of the ship canal and east of Aurora (inclusive) headed to the UW would benefit from the east-west train. It isn’t just the trips to the UW, but Capitol Hill as well as more northern destinations. Northgate and Roosevelt are not major destinations but they are add up. Likewise there are people headed to Ballard and Wallingford, for various reasons.

          South Lake Union, Belltown, First Hill and Seattle Center are definitely worthy destinations. But Seattle Center does have the monorail while the other destinations are not that far from Link. The time savings would be not be as large for that reason. If I’m at Capitol Hill trying to get to SLU in the year 2050 it is quite likely that the fastest option is the bus, since it is so direct and the distance fairly short. Same goes for Belltown and possibly even the Seattle Center. In contrast if I’m at 100th & Aurora and I’m trying to get to the UW then I will go south on the E (hopefully running in center lanes by then) and then east (either on the slow 44 or Link). It is tempting to say we should make the 44 BRT but that would require making the street wider, digging tunnels to go under the various intersections — in short doing the same sort of work required to build a subway line.

       8. “The DEIS explained that Avalon was not considered as a terminus due to the added cost of construction for relatively little ridership when compared to temporarily terminating at Delridge.”

          If all the bus riders transferring at Alaska Junction instead transferred at Avalon as an end station (in addition to residents who would live close enough to walk to either station), Avalon Station would have plenty of riders as an end station. To me, that claim of too little ridership is thus ridiculous and illogical.
          

          I think you are misreading what was written. Consider the three possible end points:

          1) Delridge. By far the cheapest and assuming all the buses terminate there, it would get pretty good ridership.
          2) Junction. Very expensive, but quite a few additional riders that walk to the station.
          3) Avalon. Almost as expensive as going to the Junction, but without nearly as many additional walk-up rider.

          If you are going to stop short, then you should stop at Delridge.

          I think there is a lot to be said for just running on Delridge. If I was forced to run a line to West Seattle, that is what I would do. Build a stub so that you can someday branch up the hill (to serve the Junction). In the mean time you actually add significant value for those who are nowhere near the expressway that is the West Seattle Bridge. It means that some trips would actually be faster than they are on the bus. The train would also be a lot lower when it crossed the Duwamish (which reduces the cost). Of course this means that if it did branch to serve The Junction it would be challenging (to get up the hill) but that becomes a problem for another day. In the meantime you would add a half dozen stations that are not particularly close to the freeway and hope that a lot more people decide to live or work there.

14. West Seattle has been so drastically in need of literally any good and quick transit options through it. It’s otherwise a transit island for everyone that takes a minimum of 15 minutes to just get out of and to a highway or true thoroughfare. And this takes twice as long on any of the West Seattle busses, rapid ride or not.

    It could have used a highway through it 20 years ago. Just a simple 50-60 mph 2 lane thoroughfare of some form and not 35th or Fauntleroy. A BRT option would have been able to perform very well. As is, the existing roads in WS cannot handle just shoving more busses and stops around. It still all bottlenecks at Roxbury, Highland, or The bridge. And since it doesn’t have a highway, it will never be able to in this political climate. So rail is the only thing that makes sense. Especially since it will be unimpeded and can be faster than existing parallel roads. People would take it just out of consistency of travel time. It’s really annoying never knowing exactly how long getting out of WS takes in the morning. Also like was pointed out, it’s right in the middle of an already very active area, which just makes the entire network even more valuable.

    I also see absolutely no realistic future where Seattle, or anywhere in this area, shrinks. More people will continue to want to come here. It’s a naturally nice area, high paying, and coastal. And the geography makes it crowded at these population levels already. That’s only going to get worse and prompt more and more density. There’s no where left to sprawl without just being too far away.

    1. “I also see absolutely no realistic future where Seattle, or anywhere in this area, shrinks. ”

       Seattle has certainly had significant growth for much of its 150 years. However Seattle stagnated through the 1930’s and lots tens of thousands of residents in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

       These past few years as seen a pretty major stagnation of King County population as a whole. It’s not typical in modern history.

       Nationally, the US is continuing to see slower growth rates. It’s expected to even cap out later this century. It’s a stark contrast to our prior 150 years.

       Population growth is driven by economic growth. It’s easier to do jobs remotely. So artificially expensive cities like a Seattle will slow down growth until the cost of living moderates to the national average.

       Franky, Amazon and Boeing and Microsoft drive so much of our economy that any decline will slow things here. All three corporations have such big market shares that they can’t get much bigger. Unless new companies boom here, our past 50 years won’t be repeated.

       It’s not all bad. There are plenty of places in the Midwest that boomed for many decades that have stagnated — yet are still pleasant places to live (winter excepted).

       1. The 2012-2017 growth rate was unprecedented and unlikely to be repeated. It happened because Amazon introduced third-party cloud computing in 2008 and it became a runaway success, and Amazon built up its headquarters at the same time, and other large tech companies set up Seattle offices. There’s no “next Amazon” on the horizon. Seattle declined to upzone Northgate enough for an Amazon-sized campus, so where would it go?

          However, typical medium or slow growth like in the 2000s and 1990s is to be expected. It may be more in the form of residents rather than downtown offices. Seattle is growing again, even if downtown office real estate is still struggling. That’s a national issue that’s affecting a lot of cities.

          We’ve needed a core subway since the 1960s when it was going to be Forward Thrust and King County’s population was half the size. We could have gotten a head start with the Bogue subway in 1912.

          “Population growth is driven by economic growth. It’s easier to do jobs remotely. So artificially expensive cities like a Seattle will slow down growth until the cost of living moderates to the national average.”

          The problem is the population growing faster than housing. Since Seattle is politically incapable of building enough housing for a high rate of job growth, a slower growth rate and a Seattle’s typical construction rate could allow it to catch up, or at least fall behind more slowly.

          It’s like inflation: 2% was a slow minor problem; 6% was an acute problem. Inflation and wages were growing 2% between 2000-2022, while rents were increasing 5-7% in 2003-2008, and 5-15% in 2012-2018.

    2. The current proposal, however, requires the vast majority of West Seattle transit users transfer from their existing bus to Link. This is not likely going to result in much change or be significantly faster than driving.

       Now, if DSTT2 could be canceled, supplying sufficient money for large improvements to West Seattle and Ballard, it might be a very different story.

15. Sam raises a good point. Folks on the eastside and in West Seattle hardly even know what Link is, let alone where it will go, or when, or how much. East Link is nearly five years behind schedule and eastsiders don’t even know that. Maybe 5% of the local citizens throughout the county use transit or ride Link. Less on the eastside or in West Seattle. Less than 0.5% could explain the realignment.

    ST and its supporters and transit advocates have been claiming for so long that Seattle’s population will grow exponentially, Link is far superior, important cities and neighborhoods must have Link, cost is irrelevant, you won’t even see it or notice the construction, the books are not cooked this time, to pass the levies that is all the residents know. Link is better, and for anyone who takes the bus that isn’t hard to believe.

    Some of the nuances some raise on this blog about WSLE would be like teaching particle physics to the citizens. All they have been told is Link is good, buses bad, ST said it can deliver what it promised, and it won’t change the character of your neighborhood, or cause a lot of construction disruption. We saw how happy people are with construction disruption with the closure of the West Seattle Bridge.

    So I think Nathan has a point. Stop wasting your breath. West Seattle Link is in ST 3. The voters approved ST 3, especially transit advocates. ST says it can afford ST 2 and 3 and stations at 130th and underground tunnels through Seattle and in West Seattle, which is what those residents WANT to believe.

    Telling them now a complicated bus restructure on congested streets will be better FOR THEM, but wasn’t better for CID to Northgate to Shoreline for God’s sake, ain’t going to work, especially when they have the queen on the chessboard, Dow Constantine.

    Sure WSLE will break the bank. Why do you think Dow insists WSLE goes first. Not many will ride it, but they won’t notice it either since it will be underground. First rule is do no harm. WSLE if underground will do no harm to West Seattle, and that is where Dow lives. Will West Seattle upzone because urbanists claim they must. Fuck no. They expect Link to complement West Seattle, not the other way around. What standing does someone on this blog have to tell West Seattle what it must zone or do. Get real.

    On the other hand, some like me don’t see much more benefit in running Link to Ballard so if WSLE shoots the wad then Ballard gets the complicated bus restructure that will be better FOR THEM.

16. When TriMet was planning Westside MAX, the original concept they were told to produce was a line that ended at 185th Ave., about halfway between Beaverton and Hillsboro. It quickly became clear this was a bad idea, and the line needed to go all the way to Hillsboro. A stub end in the middle of what was then farmland would have had quite detrimental network and development impacts.

    So, even though it was more expensive and took longer to build, they wound up with a line all the way to Hillsboro.

    (This is why anti-transit advocates say the line opened “late” and “over budget” but TriMet says it was under budget: they compare the cost of what was built to a proposed smaller line.)

    It seems to me the problem with West Seattle Link as proposed is that it’s based on a budget number and politics. It’s not based on what would be needed to really transform transit in West Seattle.

    Sure, a line from TIBS to Burien to West Seattle to Seattle could really do some interesting things. Among other things, that could help alleviate the capacity problem in Rainier Valley.

    That’s not what is being proposed, and in fact what is being proposed could make an extension more difficult, depending on what gets built.

    A Westside MAX style rethinking is what should have been done during the “realignment” but obviously that’s a bit too idealistic.

17. I gotta say, it’s not exactly convincing that the main thrust of the argument “in defense of West Seattle Link” is essentially a sunk cost fallacy. “ST has spent so much money studying this, it would be a shame to let it go to waste.” “ST is so far down the tracks that there’s no stopping them from building this, so why bother relitigating it?”

    If Ross had made his post while ST3 was in the process of being put together, what sort of argument would you have against it? To be sure, that would have been before ST’s cost estimates ballooned and before a tunnel became the preferred alignment, the degree to which West Seattle would support substantial upzones would have been purely speculative (if reasonable to guess), and I don’t know how much of Metro’s propensity for spreading around transit dollars freed up by forcing transfers to Link had been established, but most of the arguments would have been essentially the same: “you can’t serve West Seattle comprehensively with rail”, “this line doesn’t provide enough value over buses to be worth the expense”, “there’s no guarantee there even will be an ST4 to extend the line towards White Center and Burien”, etc.

    1. Oh wait, that post was credited to Martin Pagel. Ross has been so prominent in defending it in the comments on that post and here that I just sort of associate it with him.

       1. Martin wrote the recent article outlining a bus-based proposal for West Seattle (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/06/07/west-seattle-by-bus-instead-of-light-rail/). I wrote the bus map for that (and we worked together on the project). Way back when I wrote about alternatives to West Seattle Link that involved a downtown bus tunnel (that could eventually be converted to a train tunnel) although Seattle Subway wrote a better article (https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/02/18/westside-seattle-transit-tunnel/).

    2. Ross did write that article back in 2016, which I linked in my post.

       The technical arguments against WSLE are strong. For the cost of the project, ST could probably build a high coverage, high frequency BRT network for West Seattle, or build a higher-ridership line and speed up transit connections in an area that has slow transit and high demand like Ballard-UW.

       But the designers of ST3 apparently had different priorities. As you note, the technical arguments have been the same since before 2016, and yet the train is still coming. So maybe a “defense” of WSLE isn’t necessary, but I would hope to see less assumption that the project will be cancelled, and more advocacy for ways to make the most of it.

       If WSLE is determined to be unaffordable and cancellation is on the table, the Blog and its technical commentariat clearly has several alternatives (of varying viability) to propose.

18. I realize I’m TOTALLY out of my depth here. So please forgive me in advance.
    The entire idea of extending light rail to West Seattle feels like something being done TO West Seattle and not FOR West Seattle. If it does “Induce development” that doesn’t mean good things for those who live in the community. It feels anti-aspirational. If you were given a million dollars (or worked toward that) would you opt for a 400 square foot apartment with your kitchen down the hall, ride your bike to the train to take it to your job in South Lake Union after transferring at SODO? Don’t people choose to have a better home, better schools, eat better food in better restaurants or in a great kitchen at home? I don’t want to whine about this.. damn it. Again.. I’m honestly puzzled. We are on the verge of an exponential kind of change that virtually no one can imagine. AI and associated technology is going to alter the job market, and with that patterns of travel and transit. Why do people take transit? Not to go to downtown Seattle. To get to a game? I don’t know,.. as I said. I’m simply not informed. But if you read this information at this link(below) and realize that millions of jobs are going to be gone, that the much maligned metaverse is going to come back with a vengeance and power that will obviate a lot of the need to go to an office… and I see the forecast for 5600 daily riders and a delay of out to 2039 for Ballard..and the absolutely absurd idea that light rail will be extended somehow to White Center and Burien.. and the absolute FOLLY it seems to build a 160 foot high NARROW bridge directly atop the Seattle Fault on Harbor Island.. It all just feels wrong. The massive cost getting higher all the time, the hope to canyonize the streets of West Seattle so we can get people ever more packed into less and less space. If we don’t build it we are assuming they will all STILL show up? I must be just a complete fool..and I will confess again.. I don’t know much about transit, urban development, and the rest. But somebody tell me WHY we MUST make room for the convenience of thousands. https://situational-awareness.ai/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/situationalawareness.pdf?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2SfjACfHqZ9yx_GQ0xGio8-0aO2lu5aZCyR4FREa12–Itqi7f1z5VanM_aem_ARpw3YwxFLtSNcJLGPiethWtfHDWSjWuH-9vVJAKFiDlHn2n5ntMO_QklGbJyrq4SClMZzqvkNE0Iz5aqS4N7FeZ

    1. I’m waiting for those giddy West Seattle Link supporters to wake up and fathom how Link will destroy the quaintness of their beloved Alaska Junction commercial district. After many years of disruption by having a giant hole dug in the middle of things for the station vault where a supermarket is today, residents will see traffic intrusion on nearby residential streets (especially if Alaska Street converts to bus-only as the City proposes) and dramatically increased parking difficulties once the station opens.

       I increasingly think the only way to get Link to West Seattle but not destroy the neighborhood character is to simply make Avalon the last station. If people want to take Link to get to Alaska Junction, they could simply walk that half-mile similar to what they do at Columbia City today. That would keep the area quaint and free from years of construction disruption. It would save several hundred million that could be spent on other things.

       It’s not a big regional draw like Downtown Bellevue or Downtown Tacoma is. It’s not a parking-lot filled area like Lynnwood or Federal Way is where acres of parking could quickly make way for TOD. It’s a great village that doesn’t need a Link station jn the middle to make it thrive!

       1. A fundamentally better answer but better still, why not redevelop the Frye Business park itself which is massively under used by making it a combination business tower, retail space with parking and train station and leave Avalon and the Junction out of it. West Seattle is, TODAY suffering from extremely high rents (A restaurant in the Junction pays $27,000 per month rent.. yes, not a typo). Which translates to chain restaurants and the loss of small retailers and owners. More Chipotle’s, Subways, and McDonald’s for everyone!.. None of the current plan from Sound Transit HELPS West Seattle in any way at all. Unless you count “saving people time stuck in traffic”..

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