Midweek Roundup – Open Thread 61

84 Replies to “Midweek Roundup – Open Thread 61”

1. The primary election seems to have gone well for the progressive/urbanist slate.

   1. Except for Lands Commissioner. But that one is still close..

      1. That one will be interesting to watch as ballots are counted. Lots of races proving to be strong arguments for ranked-choice or similar alternative voting processes.

      2. That one is torn between two candidates with different progressive advantages. I myself was torn between DePoe and Upthegrove. There were several down-ballot races where the Seattle Times, the Stranger, and/or the Urbanist endorsed two different people, and sometimes the two gave compelling reasons. I ended up siding with one on one race, but in another one (this lands commission) I felt equal toward both, so I sided with the other endorsement to kind of “balance out” my leanings.

      3. This is why the Democratic Party needs to advocate for much higher standards for State level candidacies.

         I REALLY hate that Kevin Van Der Waage is a supposed “Democrat” in the race and has two of his three highest contributions from Rayonier and Weyerhaeuser. Can you say “fox” and “chicken-house”?

         I got four mailers from him in his stupid fire-fighters’ gear. The Lands Commissioner shouldn’t WANT to fight fires. The Lands Commissioner ought to want forests managed not to burn.

         Throw him out of the party.

         I agree 100% with Nathan.

      4. ” forests managed not to burn.” Um, good forecast management requires burning, particularly on the east slope of the Cascades. The difficult & expensive part is how to let large fires naturally burn without killing people or damaging critical infrastructure.

         https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-megafires-why-wont-anybody-listen

      5. Two Republicans are ahead last night, Beutler 22.6%, Pederson 20.8%; compared to Upthegrove 19.9%, DePoe 13.4%, Lebovitz 10.6%. The difference between Pederson and Upthegrove is 10,222. So the Democratic candidates clearly split the vote this time and are close to losing both of the top two slots.

2. I did something unusual (for me) yesterday. I rode a bus just for fun. I hitched a ride to LTC (Link isn’t open for passengers yet), and then rode CT’s 402 back into Seattle.

   The bus was mainly full thanks to a group of 10-15 school kids all chattering away excitedly in the world’s most beautiful language – German! And the bus left exactly on time.

   As we were approaching the top of the Texas T I noticed that a Link test train left the station just after us and was passing us on the right. It made for a good pace train. A race!

   Traffic was really bad in all lanes, including the HOV lane, and it took sometime for the bus to merge onto the freeway. All the time the Link train continued to pull ahead.

   I was using my speedometer app and the 402 didn’t hit 50 mph until just before the 148th St LR station. A long time of slow progress. By this time the Link train was out of sight.

   The bus travelled at or above 50 mph for only a mile or two, but then dropped back slightly below 50 as we approached the entrance to the express lanes.

   However, as we passed Northgate Station there was the Link train again, also just leaving the station. We had caught up! And I was sure, given the Link route and its dwell time, that the bus would end up being faster. Alas, not to be.

   The express lanes were also very slow, starting north of the Ship Canal bridge. We actually dropped into the teens at one point. But the really slow part was yet to come.

   Exiting the express lanes was nearly impossible. It took at least 4 light cycles just to get across Eastlake Ave and enter the downtown street grid. And that wasn’t much faster.

   I had picked the 2nd and Seneca stop as my destination since it is near my wife’s work and is central to the business district of DT.

   Elapsed time to 2nd and Seneca was 51 minutes and 25 seconds. This is longer than normally scheduled.

   To be fair, the slowdown exiting the express lanes appeared to be related to road construction, so that part might improve in the future. But the 402 goes away on Sept 14th anyhow.

   All in all a good ride though. The bus was nice and clean, the operator was smooth and professional, and it is always nice listening to German.

   1. I have a feeling that in the couple of weeks between Lynnwood Link’s opening and the September 14 restructure, that ride (or its reverse) will be a popular transit fan ride as it seems the “Double Talls” won’t have a home afterwards.

      1. @Nathan Dickey,

         I don’t think there were any transit fans onboard. Other than the kids on their field trip, everyone appeared to be a regular commuter deep in their commute routine.

      2. Why won’t the double talls continue to be used? The 512 will still run from Lynnwood to Everett, and there are plenty of other Sound Transit routes that could use them too.

      3. I hate the double talls because there’s not enough room to stand up upstairs, and in the back the step up to each of the seats is so high I can’t get up it, so that gives only a few seats I can use, and if they’re full then I have to stand.

         However, ST is doubling down on double talls for Stride unfortunately. I hope that doesn’t make them unusable.

      4. I remember reading that CT has no plans for the double-talls after the commuter routes are cancelled.

      5. Also, Laz, I think you were at least one “transit fan” on the bus, seeing as how you took the ride just for fun.

      6. I’ll give kudos to Lazarus for giving it a go and comparing it

      7. I believe both 405 Stride routes will be using double-deckers. 522 Stride will be an artic bus.

         ST planning staff like the double-decks for long haul routes because the data shows it results in less people standing, and ST doesn’t want SRO for more than short time periods.. As Mike says, going upstairs may be difficult, but if there are seats open upstairs then the driver should be asking abled bodied people to shift up top.

      8. I think they were going to try to pawn off the double-talls on Pierce Transit, but when the BRT and new maintenance facility got canceled, we couldn’t service them.

      9. @Mike– Customers love the double-talls. There is often competition at Everett Station and LTC to secure the front row upstairs. Tho I agree it’s not easy for tall folk to get around up there.

         It’s an odd choice for ST to make for BRT. Any good BRT system is designed to minimize dwell time, hence 3-door boarding and off-board payment. Seems to me riders might have a tough time with quick egress from the upper level.

      10. I suspect ST staff valued the extra seating given the longer stop spacing of 405 Stride. S1 & S3 are BRT but also still freeway expresses.

      11. Double talls would be a big upgrade for the 574 and 594, compared to those greyhound coaches they use now.

   2. “Elapsed time to 2nd and Seneca was 51 minutes and 25 seconds. This is longer than normally scheduled.”

      Amtrak’s bus from Bellingham to King Street Station is scheduled to take 2 hours from Everett to King Street Station. Sounder does it in an hour, with intermediate stops.

      Your experience shows why there continues to be a small but vocal group of Sounder North advocates.

      1. @Glenn in Portland,

         I don’t think the 51 minutes and 25 seconds was normal. A lot of that was related to the construction on Stewart.

         But there is always construction in Seattle. The reversible HOV lane project at I-5 and SR 520 has been going on for a few years now, and the 1200 Stewart Street project is at least that old. And Revive I-5 is about to start. The WSDOT is supposedly going to do a salmon crossing project at 145th.

         So lots of fun!

         But, ya, I-5 is slow even on a good day. Having separate ROW speeds travel, and it really improves reliability.

      2. I don’t think the 51 minutes and 25 seconds was normal.

         Yeah, it is like when ST runs every twenty minutes for maintenance. It sucks (my wife got caught in that mess the other day) but it isn’t common. Generally speaking Link is frequent, and the express buses are fast.

         Losing the 402 won’t hurt much. I doubt people will complain. It is losing a bus like the 413 that will hurt, because riders will have to make an extra transfer. I’m not saying I would do anything different — running express buses is very expensive — but some express riders will lose out (for the greater good of the network). Same thing happened with the 41. The folks who used to take that downtown still miss it, but it is worth it.

         Truncations remind me a bit of what Walker has written about here: https://humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html. Of course you want the direct one-seat ride, but quite often that is too costly, and results in an overall network with poor frequency. Agencies often have to balance speed and frequency.

      3. “Generally speaking Link is frequent, and the express buses are fast.”

         I’ve yet to see this happen on I-5 southbound north of downtown Seattle, and I’ve been headed back and forth from time to time since 2013. The 594 and its affiliates move along vastly better than the north side.

         I’ve even tried the Belair Airporter, and even it spent a huge amount of time crawling along at 20-30 mph, from Marysville to Southgate.

         Northbound never seems to be a problem.

      4. “Amtrak’s bus from Bellingham to King Street Station is scheduled to take 2 hours from Everett to King Street Station. Sounder does it in an hour, with intermediate stops.”

         I’ve ridden that bus, and it does not take two hours. At least half of that time is just padding so the train can arrive in Seattle on time if it reaches Everett late. Amtrak trains do the same thing. According to the schedule, Tukwila->Seattle takes way longer than Seattle->Tukwila. In reality, the train takes the same amount of time on both directions.

      5. @Glenn in Portland,

         I’m always a bit reticent to spend too much time discussing these long distance, point-to-point routes. Because at some level it is just another application of the end point falacy.

         However, that said, reliability is often more important than raw speed. And any long distance route operating in Seattle traffic is likely to be highly unreliable, at least if it is operated during the day when most people want/need to travel.

         Long transfer delays, missed pickup times, long waits in sketchy conditions. These are all artifacts of unreliable transit. It’s why dedicated ROW is so important.

3. Pretty exciting to see the rapidride g progress https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1820487713541542235

   other news just released is they are moving forward with the king county civic campus idea
   https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/08/07/king-countys-transformative-vision-for-south-downtown-comes-into-view/

   actual plan on https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/executive-services/buildings-property/facilities-management/major-projects-capital-planning/civic-campus-initiative

   the “cci-king-county-civic-ground-20240802.pdf” is a 300+ page pdf though so will take some time for me to skim through. I’ll check if there’s anything transit related

   1. It seems to lean pretty heavily on the assumption that Sound Transit’s preferred alternative for the North CID station will require demolition of the King County Administrative Building, as if that plan wasn’t cooked up by Dow Constantine and Bruce Harrell. Get the whole ST revenue to pitch in for demolition of King County’s nearly-abandoned building! It’d be genius if it weren’t such a waste.

      The interesting (and weird) concept is the rebuild of the Central and Atlantic Bases to have bus storage/charging beneath “corrective” facilities.

      1. What’s weird about that? After buses convert from diesel to electric, it is much easier & cheaper to have parking (and charging) in enclosed spaces and therefore have structures on top. In SFMTA they have tried to put affordable housing on top, but bus bases are still loud 24/7 working spaces.

      2. I guess if you think the County is lacking for developable land, then putting stuff on top of bus bases seems reasonable. I just wonder where the County expects to put all the buses for the ~2-3 years it will take to prepare the site for a several-story structure. I’m sure the same question could be asked about where to put all the detainees if they need to demolish the jail, but this isn’t the Seattle Jail Blog.

      3. “County is lacking for developable land” if you limit it to land already owned by the county, then yes. Not sure if you were aware, but land of all kinds is rather expensive in King County, so I support the County government figuring out ways to put its current land ownership to highest & best use, which within Seattle likely means denser uses.

         There is plenty of developable land across the county. For example, the Army National Guard Readiness Center moving out Interbay to a vacant parcle out in North Bend is an easy win, as land is (relatively) cheap in North Bend, the Readiness Center shouldn’t be in a urban neighborhood, and the Interbay land can be put to another use.

      4. Land might be expensive, but administrative/office buildings are not. In July, the County bought the Dexter Horton building at the edge of Pioneer Square for $36.6M, or just under $100/square foot – crazy cheap (and way down from its $151M sale price in 2019). Sure, the building is 100 years old and doesn’t have parking, and the County was already leasing a big chunk of it for the Public Defense office, but it’s still something the County can and should pursue instead of using their power as board members of ST to throw transit riders under the bus and get the whole ST subarea to pay for the demolition (and extremely expensive asbestos abatement) of the vacated Administration Building.

      5. But back to the point – there must be better places to put a new jail (setting aside questions of whether or not we actually need a new jail in Downtown) than stacking it on top of a bus base on land that’s a geotechnical/seismic nightmare.

4. Why is Dow Constantine pushing so hard for his Civic Center Plan? It’s like it’s single handedly his pet project and seems to be the only person in favor of it.

   I don’t disagree this area of Downtown could use some attention but it’s such a back corner combined with a lot of long standing public safety issues that aren’t going away. Civic Centers are never vibrant areas anyway. Amazing we are sabotaging our future regional transit system around this ill planned vision of one politician.

   1. I’m not really understanding why the Civic Center Plan need to get tied to splitting the 4th Ave station. The “CID N/S” stations don’t seem to add anything; City Hall is already next to Pioneer Square, and it’d be a 5 minute walk from the potential Midtown Station? Is it just to get Sound Transit to pay for demolition?

      1. Yes, it is exactly that. And it is utterly foolish. It’s a vanity project for someone leaving office in a year and a half. It’s all about shifting cost to Sound Transit and regional taxpayers. And the effect is really to diminish ST’s ability to deliver on its regional obligations. Can’t understand why the politicians from outside North King aren’t up in arms about it.

         They have a massive cost problem with the ST3 projects. And in the face of this knowledge, King County is trying to set aside the voter-approved plan and force two stations and a more expensive tunnel into an area that could be served — arguably — more efficiently with one station. Horrible.

      2. the cid north station (aka pioneer square 2) will involve demolishing the king county administration building. so it also requires removing the king county jail somewhere down to sodo bus area. though maybe in some weird situation they could demolish that building without moving the jail

      3. The jail needs to be overhauled anyway from what I’m hearing. I don’t think it “has” to be torn down at the same time as the Administration Building; they just have to sever the skybridge somehow.

      4. Amazing too how the stations are all shifted south… Jackson -> Dearborn, and Madison -> James (nevermind to poor transfer connections), leaving a huge gap downtown between James and Pike Street with no station. This whole scheme needs to be fought, better to not build this line than blow $12 billion on the worst designed subway, barely usable, that we will be stuck with.

      5. “Can’t understand why the politicians from outside North King aren’t up in arms about it.”

         It is really hard to know what good transit is if you have never experienced good transit.

         South King and Pierce have never had good transit. The politicians on the board are happy with anything that gets an oversized set of scissors in their hands, and the few people who do understand good transit don’t really have access or influence with the ST board members.

      6. As an example, I was having a conversation with what I thought was a pretty knowledgeable senior planner with the city. They started discussing The Ruston Runner and it’s sister services in these glowing terms. I started to realize nobody really knows anything about transit, good or bad, in Tacoma/Pierce.

      7. Cam, I think you have an unrealistic vision of what transit should be. It seems like you criticize everything that isn’t a frequent, fast train. Not everything can or should be that. Ruston and the Tacoma tideflats probably doesn’t require frequent anything. The Runner is an on-demand service, correct? And its service area is large than the couple of infrequent routes that came before it, correct? So, what’s wrong with a city planner speaking highly of it?

         Sam. Tacoma expert.

      8. South King and Pierce have never had good transit. The politicians on the board are happy with anything that gets an oversized set of scissors in their hands, and the few people who do understand good transit don’t really have access or influence with the ST board members.

         I agree. I think people who have never had good transit think of transit in terms of driving. I’m no different. Until I got on this blog I thought in much the same way. For example it is easy to view “the spine” as the equivalent of a transit-freeway from Everett to Tacoma. But transit doesn’t work that way. They aren’t at all similar. It takes time and effort to understand the differences — what works and what doesn’t — and quite often that is well after the ribbons have been cut.

      9. Sam, you may be a Tacoma expert, but you aren’t a Cam expert. I have on many, many occasions supported and advocated for improved bus service in Pierce County.

         The only time I advocate for trains is for intercity transit. Which, for anyone with experience with good transit, is the proper mode for the distance.

      10. Cam, it sounds like you aren’t a fan of on-demand transit vans, is that what I’m hearing? That you prefer regular fixed bus route, however infrequent and poorly ridden, over on-demand microtransit? Ruston and the tide flats used to have the routes 13 and 63, as you know, but cancelled them in favor of the Runner. One benefit to the Runner over the two cancelled fixed routes is now those service zones has weekend service.

          It’s a tough call. Personally, I prefer fixed routes, even if they are infrequent, but PT is probably doing it to save money.

      11. That may be their reasoning, but that’s not how it’s portrayed. It’s portrayed as an upgrade in service. At $50-80 dollars a boarding, in a growing community serving dense multifamily housing, it isn’t cheaper. And it doesn’t scale to the need, so it isn’t improved transit. More expensive, and less service. In other words, crap.

      12. The two fixed routes that ran in the tide flats and Ruston waterfront didn’t run on the weekends. The Runner runs on the weekends, so I’m not sure why you are saying the Runner provides less service. Also, the routes 13 and 63, before they were cancelled for the Runner, had the second and third lowest boardings per hour in the Pierce Transit system, which was around 5 boardings per hour.

          Cam, if you are going to criticize the Runner, that’s fine, but at least come up with an alternative idea. What is your transit solution, if not micro transit, for neighborhoods that have extremely low ridership?

      13. Those routes were peak express, iirc. Like 3 or 4 runs a day. Not useable transit. And didn’t serve Ruston, with thousands of new apartments and condos.

          Of course it had shitty stats.

          Run a bus on the ruston way every half hour 7 days and weekends, and see how well it does.

          How many boardings per hour is the Runner getting?

      14. Ruston has grown considerably over the last few years. You can see some of it via Google Maps. For example look at this picture from about 12 years ago: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mWAS6NrNGgr8EJYK7. You’ve got nothing but a sign. Now look at it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/E7RKHndHuLwPX3FZ9. Six story buildings everywhere. Looking at previous ridership numbers would be like looking at ridership in South Lake Union back when it was mostly warehouses. Things have changed since then. This is not a low-transit area.

          I’m not sure why you are saying the Runner provides less service.

          It is pretty common for mictrotransit to fail, and fail miserably. Really long waits are common. No one likes to wait an hour for their bus. But at least you can (sometimes) time it. In contrast if you have to wait an hour and a half for your cab, you call another cab company.

          Microtransit only makes sense in extremely low density areas. By its very nature it won’t pick up that many riders (otherwise it makes sense to run a coverage bus). Why then should we spend money providing coverage service for a handful of riders when we can spend the same money providing service for a lot more people using fixed routes?

      15. Microtransit gets overwhelmed if more than a few people try to use it simultaneously. It’s like bike racks: they only work if only 3 people per bus run or train car have bikes. If half the passengers did, it would get overwhelmed and bicyclists couldn’t get on.

          We’ve gotten anectotal reports that this is already happening with PT Runner.

      16. I have determined that the Runner is the correct type of public transit for the tide flats and Ruston areas, and a few other Pierce County areas. Pierce Transit made the correct decision.

      17. Same, you’re the only one dying on this hill despite the evidence that points to its glaring problems. Even I’ve tried microtransit before with Metro Flex and I’m like “this isn’t the solution people think it is, just give me more frequent busses”

   2. Here’s an interesting question:

      Why put everything that’s a County office Downtown?

      County workers are often working peak hours. That’s where the biggest loads on Link are at peak hours.

      If the County had some facilities away from Downtown, wouldn’t that reduce peak direction overcrowding?

      For example, should the jail the Downtown? Wouldn’t it be easier to build another new judicial campus off Boeing Access Road (along with a new court complex too) to partially offload the stress of having it all Downtown?

      1. Downtown is the easiest for people from everywhere to get to. If you put it at Boeing Access Road or downtown Kent, it’s hard for people in Bothell or Issaquah to get to it. Downtown Seattle has the infrastructure for large crowds. Not all county institutions have to be in downtown Seattle, but it would be a mistake to chase them all away from it for a principle that looks good on paper but causes problems in the real world. The ones that get the most people from the largest surrounding area should be in downtown Seattle. E.g., Harborview Medical Center should be near downtown Seattle, not in Issaquah or at the Boeing Access Road.

      2. Mike beat me to it. There is a lot of value in having things downtown.

      3. Kent already is a bit of a secondary judicial center, right?

         Given Seattle is such a strong center, and high cost*, I think there is value is leveraging King County resources to create additional dense nodes. Government offices generate lots of ridership, from citizens in addition to employees, so the are great anchors for transit. Functions that only exist once, like the city council, are appropriately in downtown Seattle as that is easiest to access from the entire county, but other functions like the courthouse or permitting can have multiple locations. For example, we have libraries and post offices all across the county, usually anchoring neighborhood centers.

         For example, dropping KC offices into downtown Bellevue isn’t helpful – it’s an emerging transit node, but it’s high cost and rapidly developing with private investment. There are several good options in south King where a thoughtful investment by the county, in partnership with other public & private investment, can nurture additional nodes.

         A great example could be downtown Kent. Between the Maleng Regional Justice Center, the ShoWare Center (city owned), and the James St Park & Ride, that’s 3 super blocks that could be redeveloped into denser use, helping anchor downtown Kent as a regional transit node and justifying more frequent bus service on several routes, notably the pending RapidRide. For citizens in south King and workers in south King & Pierce, that location could be much more compelling than traveling into downtown Seattle …. with Link expanding, North & East King will have excellent access to downtown Seattle, but for locations like Federal Way, Aurbun, even Renton, Kent can be easier to get to than Seattle most of the day.

         For Snohomish & Pierce, Everett and Tacoma have good bones and cheap rent/land, so it make sense for those county’s functions to be centralized.

         *Pre-Covid it was like 10x difference in rental rates for downtown Seattle vs rest of region. Covid has certainly depressed the gap, but it is still much more expense to operate in downtown Seattle than anywhere else in the region.

   3. We don’t know why, but it appears to be to get ST3 to pay for demolishing/replacing the King County Adminstration building, and to be sensitive to the subset of Chinatown activists who don’t want a station in the neighborhood (due to construction impacts), and for a ribbon-cutting photo-op.

      ST3 is a large chunk of legislature-authorized, voter-approved tax revenue. It’s easier to dip into it than to get another large tax measure authorized and passed.

      The policians should be stewards of the ST3 tax revenue, and put riders’ needs and circulation mobility first. But they have trouble seeing what riders’ needs are or prioritizing them.

      1. A charitable view would be that Dow is looking to leverage land already owned by the public (allowing for ST to get a full block for 3-5 years of active construction) to save costs, and then having a blank slate for the county to then develop is an added benefit. If the block was in a better location, it would be an obvious win-win. I didn’t really mind it as an alterative for the Midtown station, as the loss of a transfer to RR-G would be a bummer but nowhere near the loss of the strong transfer to ID (Link) and King (Sounder, Amtrak) stations, but it really is problematic as a replacement for the ID/Chinatown station.

      2. A charitable view would be that Dow is looking to leverage land already owned by the public (allowing for ST to get a full block for 3-5 years of active construction) to save costs, and then having a blank slate for the county to then develop is an added benefit.

         Yes, although that shows a profound ignorance of the various issues surrounding transit in general, and the controversy surrounding CID Station. It isn’t like activists (like The Urbanist or Seattle Subway) haven’t made their position quite clear: they want the transfer to be really good. Various people in the neighborhood don’t want the construction impacts. (Various people on this board — including me — don’t want a second tunnel at all.) It is understandable that he ignores this third position, but it is hard to imagine he isn’t aware that people have complained about poor transfers.

         Keep in mind, this is nothing new. Dow pushed for West Seattle Link, then pushed against building the new tunnel on First Hill. Both decisions show a lack of consideration of the alternatives. I don’t think the guy understands transit at all or he doesn’t care. As long it looks like big improvements are being made, that is fine.

      3. I agree the idea of a “civic campus” in this part of downtown Seattle is unrealistic, considering city and county employees refuse to return to in office work in this area, and building new affordable housing right downtown would take very large public subsidies.

         In my experience a transit or rail station rarely rehabilitates a bad or depressed urban area.

         A lot of people don’t understand the current county and city buildings have a structure value of zero (actually less than zero) because they are no longer habitable so must be torn down if the property is to be used, and the land is worth a lot less than people think because its only real use – large office towers – cost a fortune to build (after removing the existing structures) which are not economical today. No developer builds affordable housing without public subsidies, and quite honestly you don’t design a city’s urban commercial core or “civic center” around affordable housing.

         Based on current factors I don’t see a lot of future office development downtown, especially in this marginal area. But when it comes to CID north/south I am not sure what some want Dow Constantine or Bruce Harrell to do.

         The CID successfully fought against a second station for DSTT2 on 5th Ave. The CID successfully argued that years of constructing such a station on top of the current station for DSTT1 was racist, and unfair to a historically marginalized poor community of color that feels it has been treated disparately by past mayors and councils. I suppose some could argue it doesn’t matter, the years of construction and economic loss are overridden by passenger convenience from a second station on 5th over the long term, but that is not how the Board saw it in this politically charged city.

         The other options are: 1. a station on 4th Ave. S. that would cost $800 million. Some argue a large part of that cost is utilities and rebuilding the overpass, but just like RR G it makes little sense to dig up an entire street and not use that opportunity to upgrade and replace the utilities or overpasses when that is not an option in the future. Just like RR G I am sure Harrell would love ST to pick up such a huge city cost, but I don’t think ST has the funds (of course neither does the city). 2. The other option is to build the transit infrastructure and then wait a few years and dig up the street and transit improvements to replace the utilities.

         If you ask me, even more problematic is the elimination of the mid-town station. I hope that sometime in the future downtown recovers, both for business and pleasure, and to build a $4 billion tunnel and skip the main commercial part of downtown where the office buildings are is crazy in a city that is so steep, no matter how deep the station is. The current station at University is very deep, but better than no station. I also have problems with the lack of stations planned for Belltown which is the densest housing zone in the city.

         So if CID is out, and midtown for some reason, where else do you put the stations? One end is Westlake and I suppose the other Sodo. Somewhere in between there needs to be at least two stations, ideally three. Constantine and Harrell think CID N/S is the best of bad or no options, which I can understand given the limited options although I agree the civic campus idea is pie in the sky. The idea the stations could be built cheaply using cut and cover isn’t realistic either.

         Maybe I am missing something, but if CID is out, 4th Ave. S. is out, a station at “midtown” is out, what is left?

         I don’t know enough about future Link ridership to say whether a second tunnel will be necessary. My guess is ST is loath to admit that. So I guess the transfers at CID N/S won’t be great but they won’t be terrible either. Most transfers have longer walks, and getting more folks walking on the streets even if transferring is usually a benefit and the stations aren’t secured anyway.

5. Mike Lindblom on the Symphony Station rename. ($)

6. G-restructure signs are at bus stops. They have a map of the new/changed routes, and a table of the route numbers and which neighborhoods they serve. This is the first time I’ve seen a map rather than text descriptions, but it’s understandable since there are so many changes it would be hard to visualize them with just text.

   The only frequency indication is grouping them into “RapidRide”, “Frequent”, and “Local” routes. Metro’s “Frequent” threshold is 15 minutes weekdays until 7pm. By this defintion, the only changed route that’s “Frequent” is the 60. The 10, 12, and 49 now join the 11 as “Local”. At least the 10/12 will be coordinated for even frequent spacing where they overlap to 15th, and in other Metro maps the line would be thicker to show the frequent overlap. The sign doesn’t get into coordination; it just shows the 3/10/11/12/49 in the blue “Local” color, with the same thickness in both their overlapping and non-overlapping segments. This is understandable, since Metro has to convey a lot of information in the map, and the paramont consideration was to show where the routes go (and thus which stops serve which routes).

7. I finally understand why Ballard link is expected 9 to 11 years after west seattle link. Even if it requires extensive tunneling, that should only take 2-3 years longer than the tunneling and high bridge construction of west seattle

   But now I see the scheming going on behind the scenes. Building the “North of CID” station goes in tandem with the county civic campus redevelopment, which requires moving some facilities south, which first requires redeveloping the king county metro bases south of I-90 over the course of 10 years. That’s the actual reason it will take 17 years to build ballard link.

   This is bs.

   1. That’s not the main reason. The reason is because we are deep bore tunneling it and also with 100 feet depth stations. Each section will take years to dig and costs like a billion dollars so sound transit literally doesn’t have enough money and must wait until it has enough to attempt building it.

      1. by section I mean like a mile + station

      2. University link (also deep bore with deep stations) took 7 years from start of tunneling to opening for service in 2016.

         As far as finances, since it is considered a regionwide project, tunneling could start before constructing Everett link and Tacoma Dome and yet those projects are still prioritized to open first. Even the operational challenges of running from tacoma indicate that ballard should open before or concurrently to tacoma, and yet…

      3. @M

         It’s the stations not the tunnel that is causing so many problems. The downtown stations cost like a 700 million/ billion each at midtown, westlake, denny, slu and uptown.

         If we wanted to build something like U link with a 2/3 mile stop spacing sound transit could probably start building Ballard link tomorrow but it’d like only stop at Westlake/ uptown / exit onto at the portal. U link only really had three deep stations the one at uw, u district and Roosevelt; and for all three they dug a giant pit from above for them.

      4. M, they can’t start boring because they don’t yet have a selected option. The keep trying, but people keep saying, “That sucks, Dude!”

         It’s embarrassing.

      5. “They”, not “The”

      6. Ballard Link requires the OMF-N to be open. Until Everett Link project is split into stages, ST staff is assuming Everett Link needs to open concurrently or before Ballard Link for there to be sufficient fleet.

   2. The reason is political: ST scheduled the West Seattle-SODO work first as an early deliverable. The full ST3 income won’t be available until ST 2 is finished and the bonds substantially paid down because they’re sharing over half the tax stream. So only small ST3 expenditures can occur now,and ST put the West Seattle stub ahead of other small things in North King like the RapidRide C/D upgrades and the Graham and 130th infill stations.It would have made more sense to to do the other small things first, then Ballard/DSTT2, then West Seattle. That would match ridership and usefulness better. But the West Seattle stub got put first, apparently because current/former politicians live in West Seattle and it’s “people like us” (people like affluent suburbanites). (Yes, Delridge and 35th are equity areas, but I don’t think that’s what’s driving West Seattle Link. What’s driving it is the California Avenue corridor and the Junction.)

   3. My understanding is that it has everything to do with the money. It costs a lot to build this, and because we are funding it with bonds, we can’t spend money too fast or we exceed our debt limit. As prices go up (and they have) things get pushed back. If it wasn’t covered by bonds — and was built like say, an aircraft carrier — then it could be built a lot sooner.

      Which doesn’t mean there isn’t bs with the project. The idea that we need a second tunnel is bs. The idea that the second tunnel shouldn’t cover more of downtown (like First Hill) is bs. The idea that we should have a very poor transfer downtown because the county exec wants to rebuild the county buildings downtown and build a station there is bs. The station at 14th Avenue NW in Ballard is bs (and even 15th is bs if it ends up being really expensive). The idea that the best thing for West Seattle is a stub line that forces the vast majority of riders to transfer is also bs. So yeah, lots of bs with ST3. Oh well.

   4. [Elevating my comment to allow for responses]

      Ballard Link requires the OMF-N to be open. Until Everett Link project is split into stages, ST staff is assuming Everett Link needs to open concurrently or before Ballard Link for there to be sufficient fleet.

      The timeline for planning & permitting, for Ballard + Everett Link, are likely the critical path, not the actual construction.

      WS Link can open “early” because the incremental fleet need is small and can be handled by OMF-S.

8. Westlake Station is closed for an emergency response. Shuttle buses will run between Capitol Hill and Stadium.

   1. University Street, Pioneer Square, and CID stations are added to the closure. That was implied with the bus bridge, but I thought that was because trains can’t turn around between University Street and Stadium outside a planned maintenance period. The email alert seems to imply these stations are also now added to the emergency response. I don’t know which interpretation is correct, or what the situation is.

   2. I checked the online Link scanner. Someone had a luggage cart on the southbound Westlake platform. Something “went off” inside of it. The person with the cart disappeared. The fire dept was called because the luggage cart “kept reigniting.”

   3. The 10, 11, and 49 were affected too, but it’s finished.

   4. What’s the online Link scanner?

      1. It’s like a police scanner, but for Link light rail. You hear communication between Link operators and the control center, and others, like security and police. If you click the link, to start hearing communication, click on any of the lines.

         https://openmhz.com/system/psern025?filter-type=talkgroup&filter-code=1497,1499,3779,3771,3769,3777,1503,3753,3754,3755,3756,3757,3759,3760,3761,3762,3763,3765,3767

   5. Third major service disruption in the afternoon commute the last two weeks. Reliability issues creeping up again.

      The big power outage north of U District and a disabled train on the northbound track near Mount Baker (presumably, not sure but guessing based on the ST alerts).

      ST’s handling of the power outage was comically bad. There were 4 different service alerts on the website. The automated announcements said something to the effect of “trains are delayed” (no kidding). The train dumped 100s of people at U District. The train operator said “this train stops at UDS” and “we have some buses” – in the station there were ST staff members but nobody giving directions, no signage, or anything.

      I just walked.

   6. I was on Light Rail last Thursday when they had the power outage between the U District Station and Northgate.

      I had to get off at U District and wait for one of those shuttle buses. While doing so I talked to a Metro supervisor who was coordinating the shuttle service and he told me that when Light Rail has service problems Metro pulls buses from their regular routes to provide the shuttle service.

9. What’s the deal with the helicopter flying low along the Lynnwood Link Extension today?

   Is ST doing some sort of simulation? Or are they shooting a video of LLE in operation?

   Only 20 days to go! It’s almost showtime.

   1. They did an emergency response simulation on July 27. It might be some sort of aerial tour like Tim Bond and Bruce Nourish rode along in back in 2021: https://seattletransitblog.com/2021/10/22/a-photo-tour-of-link-construction/

      1. Ya. I knew about the simulated derailment, but that is long over. I actually asked those Rail Supervisors that I talked to earlier about it and they said it went really well. So that is good news.

         I also got a chance to talk to someone from CT about the Swift Blue extension that will occur on Sept 14th. They are really excited about it and say the route will be really good. They have no plans to move the extension over to Aurora unless there is a significant investment by SDOT in infrastructure, including signal priority.

         And even then they might not change it. Serving AVTC is just too important to their ridership base and makes running on Aurora awkward.

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