RMTransit explores how the space between transit stops (“stop spacing”) is a careful balance between convenience and speed.
Oh The Urbanity! looks at transit-oriented development (“TOD”) in Montreal and discusses the promises and perils that come with this style of dense construction.
This is an Open Thread.
Potential Magnolia service improvements, from a thread on RapidRide R.
Glenn suggested extending the R to Magnolia.
I said that Magnolia (and Madison Park) got an exemption from urban-village upzones in exchange for not getting upgraded transit. That doesn’t mean it can’t get RapidRide or more frequency/destinations if it helps Metro’s operational efficiency or citywide transit-access goals, just that it has no right to demand RapidRide.
Glenn suggested extending the R’s trolley wire to Magnolia Village. I assume on the 19 path (straight west), although Glenn said 24 (which has a huge north/south detour all single-family). Ross said that would create an imbalance: huge capacity/frequency requirements on Rainier-Jackson-3rd, much less in Magnolia.
Ross suggested a Magnolia restructure of his own, involving the 24, 31, and 32. The revised 24 would serve downtown, 28th (the eastern north/south leg of the current 24), and east Discovery Park. The 31 and 32 would variously serve Magnolia Village, Viewmont Way (the western leg), 32nd (the middle leg), Thorndyke/Gilman/Government Way (eastern Magnolia), and the U-District, but not downtown.
My ridership observation is that the 19/24/33 get impressive numbers only because of the jobs in Belltown/Elliott/15th W, so that makes them appear stronger than they’d otherwise be. However, several times I’ve seen people riding the zigzagging 24 from one part of Magnolia to another, so it does get that. There’s a very steep hill between 28th and 34th, which is why people ride what appears to be a short distance. All these north-south corridors are islands, like in West Seattle but probably more extreme.
One disadvantage of Ross’s proposal is it would disconnect 28th from 34th/Magnolia Village. That would fix the zigzag but leave people on 28th without a retail area.
Metro had proposals in mid 2010s for a north-south route coverage route from downtown to Magnolia to Ballard. Maybe to 32nd Ave NW (which lost the all-day 17 several years ago). That’s been dropped in the latest revision: a 31-like route is still there, but nothing to Ballard that I can see. It may be worth reviving one?
I don’t think it makes sense for a bus to Magnolia to have the same level of frequency as the 7, which is what you’d get if the R were extended. One could argue for extending the R just to Seattle Center, but that would duplicate numerous existing bus routes that already run between downtown and Seattle Center (including RapidRide D, plus others), with better combined frequency than what the R would be able to provide.
I’d lean towards just keeping the R at the 7’s current terminus.
That would fix the zigzag but leave people on 28th without a retail area.
There is retail, but it is different. For example folks on 28th would lose two grocery stores (the Albertson’s on 32nd and the Metropolitan Market on 34th) but pick up a different grocery store (the QFC on Interbay). The two pharmacies are on 32nd, which means they are easier to access from 34th than 28th (because of the hill). Restaurants are fairly spread out in Magnolia. Access to the library is shuffled around, as is access to the two elementary schools. You could easily swap the tails (have the 32 go into Discovery Park and have the 24 loop around like it does now and end at Magnolia Village) but I’m not sure if that gains you much.
My ridership observation is that the 19/24/33 get impressive numbers only because of the jobs in Belltown/Elliott/15th W, so that makes them appear stronger than they’d otherwise be.
That may be part of it (I’ve never read any data on the routes) but I also think that Magnolia benefits from being close and having relatively fast roads. Consider the tail of the 24. The route looks ridiculous. You have to go back and forth and back and forth until you finally head towards downtown. But even from the far end it takes about half hour to get downtown. That is less time than it takes to ride from Hillman City to downtown (on the 7). There isn’t a lot in Magnolia, but Magnolia is just close. Proximity is a big factor in ridership and especially ridership per mile.
It would be nice to connect Magnolia to Ballard. Davis Lawson suggested that with his map about ten years ago (https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/19/your-bus-much-more-often-no-more-money-really/). The link to the map no longer works, so I’m not sure the trade-offs. Likewise I think it would be nice to run a bus to upper Queen Anne from Magnolia via Gilman. Then again maybe that makes more sense from Ballard (e. g. a replacement for the 17).
In terms of service this is roughly revenue neutral, with similar frequency (not good — basically every bus runs ever half hour). Hard to see how you can save much service. This eliminates pretty much all overlap in Magnolia, but there isn’t much there now (just one little section along Thorndyke). This does have one bus to downtown (not two) so there is that, but again, that doesn’t save that much.
The main thing it does is connect more riders to Interbay, and give Interbay riders 15-minute service to Fremont and the UW. Interbay has changed a lot since lived there (about thirty years ago). There are big apartment buildings around there. The 31/32 don’t actually combine until 12th and Nickerson, which means that the folks who live on the west side of Queen Anne (where there are also a lot of apartments) have infrequent service to the UW and Fremont. You have to walk farther to Fisherman’s Terminal, but that is a small price to pay in my book.
I noticed the Sound Transit ridership dashboard has changed: https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership. They now have forecasts on there. It is also easier to look at averaging boarding, as well as several other aspects of the data.
Worth noting, they still don’t have data for East Link. Hopefully they will have that soon.
They still don’t have a lot of the data they used to release regularly with their Service Information Plans (https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf). This includes:
1) Bus stop ridership.
2) Ridership per stop by direction (e. g. number of riders taking Link north from Beacon Hill Station every day or south on the 512 from Lynnwood). Interestingly enough, they have this for Sounder (e. g. Auburn Southbound) but no other mode.
3) Load per trip. They do have this for Sounder, but not on the buses or Link.
They haven’t released a service implementation report for a while, so it isn’t clear if they will ever release this type of information again.
Last month ST said 2 Line’s data is being vetted for accuracy. They still must be vetting.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts on places to eat close to Tacoma Dome station. I’m currently at Coco Grill, right up the hill from the Amtrak platform. Very little vegetarian options but nice outdoor space.
A video speculating on nationwide mass transit improvements if the US DOT got the entire US Department of Defense budget. This one focuses on the Northeast; the rest of the country will get future videos. Might be a good inclusion for a future Sunday Double Feature post. https://youtu.be/K0Iu7CFqoc4?si=h0wX_r6jOpJqaAud