It’s the first weekday commute after the big restructure. How is service today? Is ridership any different?
Is the G reliable? How crowded is Link? Is anyone using the 515? The express routes to SLU? How are the Link feeders doing? And new routes like the 61? Do you have a better experience going to your destinations now? Or worse?
The highway 520 ramps at Montlake open today. Are buses using them? Is it an improvement?
This is an open thread.
Metro is urgently requesting drivers to work overtime because of the added service hours. Get ready for tons of cancelations because of driver shortages.
Anecdotal from Pierce Transit driver is that they have been cutting back is overtime hours because they have hired more than sufficiently for runs currently scheduled down here. Hopefully that means that they will feel inclined to start improving frequency by adding more runs soon. Sorry if this is OT, but I assume poaching between agencies in the region is a thing.
It is an open thread.
ST had to suspend STX 580 and truncate STX 590 at PT’s request in the spring.
Yeah, this is a more recent thing. It looks like they have been successfully hiring to the point where my buddy, who was relying on OT hours to pay off his car, is struggling to get them.
The paradox is he loves transit, and would love to be carless, but the transit is so unreliable that he can’t get to his transit job with transit.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
Most Covid deaths were to older citizens and beyond the average age of transit riders and mechanics.
Bus drivers are in short supply because the job market is tight so potential workers have better options including pay, benefits, schedule, status, safety, and drug testing in a state that has legalized pot and a lot of younger people smoke so can’t pass mandatory testing.
So many homeless people yet so many jobs. Even worse, we have jobless people living on welfare (basically our tax dollars that could be going towards better transit and competitive labor wages), and “work at home” people making minimal contributions but earning huge salaries from tech companies. What a broken system. Why can’t we put people to work? There are jobs available clearly.
Yep, it’s an open thread.
Driving, as a job, is not for everyone, and there are plenty of people we should not be in a hurry to put behind the wheel of a deadly weapon. That includes artificial people personalities.
We’ve had plenty of well-to-do visitors, with specialized skills, who can’t legally get a job here, because they can’t get a green card.
We can’t build housing fast enough, because we have so many laws getting in the way.
Open-ended welfare was eliminated in the Clinton administration. What remains are more restricted and time-limited programs, temporary unemployment insurance, and support for the disabled. What are you basing the idea on that there are a lot of jobless people living on benefits?
Okay, I’ll bite. What exactly do you mean by ‘work at home” people making minimal contributions but earning huge salaries’?
A lot of homeless people have jobs. This study said about half (https://endhomelessness.org/blog/employed-and-experiencing-homelessness-what-the-numbers-show/). I would imagine the numbers are higher in areas where rent is really high. In Detroit you can afford a place to live even if you have very little income. Not true in Seattle.
That doesn’t address the key point: Why are there so many open jobs but no people to take them? There is a glaring issue if this is happening. There are plenty of people in this state who can work. Are they not employed when they should be? Are they allowed to roam the streets or sit in their home when they could be working to improve this country? A higher amount of people than we think (including middle class) commit fraud to make money. And what if they are actually employed “legitimately”, is their work actually valuable compared to driving a bus? If our society is too entitled to not work blue collar jobs and rely on a huge influx of immigrants to power it, maybe our people should take a step back.
And predicting your retorts: so if something else is more important than transit, why do we keep pushing the limits and expanding the system beyond what we can handle?
“Why are there so many open jobs but no people to take them?”
Because those people don’t exist. Half the boomers reached retirement age in 2020, and immigration was interrupted in 2020 and we lost a few years. Where do you get the idea that there are a lot of unemployed people sitting around? It’s sounding more like an ideological statement than a fact. Even if people exist that doesn’t mean they’re all qualified to be bus drivers or could be good bus drivers or whatever the job is. If you see fifty people on the street, that’s only fifty people; that wouldn’t make much of a dent in the job openings even if they were all capable of working, which they aren’t. And as asdf2 said, many of the homeless people do have jobs; they just can’t afford housing.
This has little to do with transit. Benefits are mostly federal, or from dedicated funds like unemployment insurance that can’t be used for other things like state/local transit. With affluent work-at-homes it’s between them and their employer whether they’re productive enough. Since they’re drawing high salaries they’re paying taxes and spending money like other workers, and maybe using transit for their non-office errands.
“why do we keep pushing the limits and expanding the system beyond what we can handle?”
Because people need the mobility. To get to jobs for instance. Metro did reduce service a year ago to match driver availability and avoid widespread unplanned or planned cancellations. The report of widespread cancellations coming is just one commentator at this point; it hasn’t been confirmed.
” it’s between them and their employer whether they’re productive enough”
It’s also up to them if they deserve transit or not.
@Mike
Maybe we should edit it to say Open thread to transit related or adjacent topics. I’m not sure what YkwSea2 exactly desires here besides complaining. And there is some change advocated this probably is the wrong blog to talk about implementing any fix.
There is no transit specific to them that we can grant or revoke. Transit is for the entire community. Transit isn’t something that individuals deserve: it’s a public benefit to have mobility available for everybody and to provide an alternative to driving. That allows people to work and shop and spend money and pay taxes, which benefits the city and everybody else. It allows people to get to medical appointments, destress in parks, visit other people, help family members, etc — all of this avoids worse problems emerging that society would have to deal with or pay for. It provides a way to travel with minimum carbon emissions and pollution per capita. None of this has anything to do with whether work-at-home people are productive or not.
Because hiring a transit operator is more complicated than you’re implying here.
You need a CDL to operate a bus or coach in WA State which is more difficult to get than a personal vehicle driver’s license. You also need to clear a background check, which can be disqualify a lot of people with previous criminal convictions who’ve turned their life around. There’s also drug testing, which many people balk at doing for whatever personal reason they have. You also need a good temperament to be a bus operator to deal with all types of customers. You’re also going to end up with the short end of the stick with getting the very early or very late and difficult runs no one with seniority wants to do. Which is why some people don’t bother to become an operator in the first place.
Tho the biggest reason is pay, my very spicy opinion if you can call it one is that a lot of transit agencies are notoriously bad at pay for transit operators compared to administrative staff. Often underpaying or cheaping out on paying their labor that keeps their lights on.
Like here’s the starting pay for bus operators in the Seattle metro
PT: $28.50/hour
KCM: $30.18/hour
CT: $33.54/hour
KT: $24.11/hour
Tho the biggest reason is pay
Yes, and I think this gets complicated. There is a lot more demand for drivers now then ten years ago. People are ordering a lot more stuff to be delivered. There are plenty of people who become taxicab drivers (using their own cars). A lot of these jobs overlap. I’ve talked to more than one Lyft driver who also drives a truck (and I’ve taken Lyft a half dozen times).
So a contract that looked good a few years ago (from the driver’s perspective) doesn’t look that great now. There is also a different mindset with these jobs. A lot of the driving jobs are best suited for the short term or part time. But driving for a public agency is often based on making it a long term career. Not only that, but when the union negotiates a contract, they are focused on existing drivers. They have a lot of benefits that are geared towards the long term worker (including a pension). Thus driving a bus is not attractive to relatively less attractive to someone who wants to do it part time, or only for next few years. If you plan on driving the bus for the next twenty years then it may still be a competitive option, but there are only so many people thinking about that.
What this goes to show is that jobs are not the issue. The main issue is the housing crisis. People who work two jobs and have roommates have trouble keeping up. Build more housing!
Remember, more than a million Americans died during the pandemic. That certainly reduced the pool of available workers for today’s job openings.
[ot] But that isn’t related to the conversation.
In even third world countries, they can build better transit systems than us. African and Asian countries that have better and more reliable transit than us. Yes, they have cheap labor..but why don’t we? If we’re too entitled to do cheap labor, then we must find better solutions and minimize costs. Why not Automated light rail? We’re America – why can’t we do it? Why are we behind the curve..?
As far as cancelling rides goes, the extra service paid for by the City or private partnerships, or Sound Transit, is last in line to get cancelled, right?
Can some of the scheduled hyper-frequency on the G be suspended?
I was asking that same question – do we really need those headways all day?
@Staffing shortage,
Ghosts of Metro Past? And recently past at that? Seems like we have seen this story before. And know the ending.
Usually large amounts of overtime is a sign of a poorly run operation. And there just isn’t much resiliency in an org that is being stretched to its limits.
Expect problems.
Why is it being called a “bus driver shortage” in media like The Urbanist? Metro said that 1000 people have applied to be a Full Time Transit driver at Metro – is there really a labor shortage or is it some other issue that is preventing Metro from hiring and training new drivers?
Why is Metro just hiring Full Time drivers now? Hasn’t there been a shortage for a few years?
https://kingcountymetro.blog/2024/08/05/new-king-county-metro-bus-operators-to-benefit-from-improved-training/
Metro has stepped up hiring and training but is still around 1,000 short. I saw an article with charts this week saying it has almost filled its mechanic shortage and has less than 100 left, but the driver shortage has been hovering around 1,000 for the past several months and isn’t projected to improve anytime soon. I don’t remember where the article was.
“Why is Metro just hiring Full Time drivers now?”
The shift in service from peak hours to weekends and all-day service allows it to use full-time drivers more. The restructure Saturday was part of that, and obviously it’s just three days old.
I also think attracting full-time workers is much easier than attracting part-time workers. Amazon as well as Lyft, Uber, Door-Dash all cater to the part-time worker. That is what they are best at. In contrast, Metro could attract full-time workers, especially those interested in a long-term career.
Why would they add the service hours when we still have shortages? Why not raise their wages instead? I don’t get it.
There’s nothing worse in a transit system than cancelled bus.
Per union rules, King County Metro cannot raise the wages for new hires without also raising the wages for all of their existing employees, with the most senior drivers getting the biggest raise. This makes increasingly starting pay very expensive for the agency and, if they did that, they might be forced to cut back on service to avoid running out of money.
This is different for a private company with a nonunion workforce. When they have a shortage, they can simply raise the starting pay, while keeping the higher level pay scales the same.
This is a revenue-neutral restructure plus the hours gained from the improving economy and driver hires. Metro had to predict three months ahead what the situation would be now: it can’t just turn on and off restructures in an instant. The restructure had last-minute additions because the economy and driver availability were doing better than the worst-case scenario in the previous rounds of proposals.
It’s only Staffing Shortage that’s saying Metro can’t support the planned service with more cancellations than this summer. The RapidRide G cancellations are because the buses are so late they miss runs, and one or two buses apparently went out of service Saturday. It’s not because Metro doesn’t have enough drivers for the G, as far as we know.
@Mike Orr,
“ Metro………..can’t just turn on and off restructures in an instant”
That is absolutely true. And Metro might have bitten off more than they can handle with this restructure, modest as it is.
But what Metro can do is reduce frequency, and they can do that in (almost) an instant. It just isn’t that hard.
If Metro doesn’t have the resources to support their current route structure, and RRG is burning too many service hours and melting down in the process, then Metro just needs to step back and reset.
It’s not that hard. Deliver the service hours you can. Even it that means temporarily reducing frequency on some underperforming routes.
Lazarus, the PROBLEM is RapidRide G vehicles can’t climb the hill very well and get bunched. That has nothing to do with too many service hours or not enough resources in general: it has to do with specific problems with the RapidRide G vehicles and apparently inadequate pre-service route testing. None of the other routes in the restructure are reporting an unusual amount of cancellations or unreliability.
Reducing service on the G or other routes may do nothing to improve the G’s reliability, and drivers can’t do other tasks like fixing buses or improving the street to make turns and climbing easier.
In a recent Metro operations bulletin that is sent to all the transit bases they asked for bus operators to do more overtime and said – we have added 143,000 service hours to our 2024 Fall Service Change in September … in the short term we may experience an increase in some service cancellations. To support our service and prevent an increase in some service cancellations, we are asking for your help.
@Mike Orr,
There are a plethora of problems with RRG right now. The fact that the buses can’t climb a little hill in the rain is just one of them. It’s a fundamental problem that any agency worth its salt should have caught early on, but it is just one of Metro’s problems with RRG right now.
Look at the pantograph data. RRG has significantly more trips planned than RR-E? Despite the fact that RRG is a significantly shorter route? And therefore should need less resources? Doesn’t make any sense.
Na, RRG was a bit of a vanity project for Metro. They tried to prove that they can run a bus with either side boarding just like a streetcar, but that they could do it at Link like frequencies. So far they haven’t proven their point.
The easiest thing for Metro to do right now is reduce frequency on RRG until they can get all the problems under control — if they can.
And it’s not like RRG is going to get a lot of ridership in its current state anyhow. Ridership will only come after Metro fixes the problems.
“Look at the pantograph data. RRG has significantly more trips planned than RR-E?”
That’s a corollary of 6-minute service: it means more runs.
“The easiest thing for Metro to do right now is reduce frequency on RRG until they can get all the problems under control — if they can.”
Metro can suspend half the runs on the G because they’re not serving passengers anyhow. But why are you harping on this? Why are you micromanaging Metro’s issue? Why are you insisting on a tactic that may or may not make any difference?
@Metro operator,
Thanks. It sounds like Metro management knew they were promising too much and just decided to put it all on the operators anyhow.
I guess it is the holiday season and lots of operators might welcome the extra hours, but it also sounds like Metro knew in advance that cancelations would increase and the system would become less reliable. I’m just not sure that is a good trade.
But hey. Good input from the inside. Thanks.
At least we now know that Metro expected this to be an issue, and now it is. I guess the only people who got surprised by this were the traveling public.
“RRG was a bit of a vanity project for Metro. They tried to prove that they can run a bus with either side boarding just like a streetcar, but that they could do it at Link like frequencies”
Center lanes aren’t vanity; they speed up travel time more than side lanes because right-turning cars don’t interfere with them. Speed is the second-biggest thing Seattle needs besides frequency. Look at any transit best-practices guide: frequency and speed are at the top.
What you can fault SDOT for is not considering more modest center-lane designs that would be more foolproof. Either contraflow lanes or the stagger method would allow right-door buses to access center-lane stations. That would allow Metro to immediately put existing trolleybuses on the route and still use the center lanes. If trolleybuses can solve the performance problem, then the new buses could be deployed to any flatter route.
“ RRG was a bit of a vanity project for Metro. ”
I disagree with this. I remember that Netro initially proposed U-Link restructures in 2015-16 that had no RRG in fact. The City of Seattle was instead the agency pushing it.
So RRG is mostly a vanity project for SDOT, not Metro.
“What you can fault SDOT for is not considering more modest center-lane designs that would be more foolproof. Either contraflow lanes or the stagger method would allow right-door buses to access center-lane stations. That would allow Metro to immediately put existing trolleybuses on the route and still use the center lanes. If trolleybuses can solve the performance problem, then the new buses could be deployed to any flatter route.”
Amen Mike, this project was needlessly complex. I love the center lanes but we only have like 3 or 4 spots where they are used which required a whole custom fleet of buses and made it so only these buses can use this route. Should have selected a vehicle first (given the steepness) and designed a route for it. We could still have center lanes with floating island/staggered stops allowing for conventional right door buses, including the existing fleet. This is what Van Ness busway has.
@poncho,
Ya, the loss of operational flexibility incurred by designing RRG around special purpose, dual-side boarding buses is staggering. And it is an issue Metro will need to deal with for the life of the project. I can’t imagine it was worth the cost and complexity.
I’m sure Metro will eventually get the trip cancellations under control, but headway management will still be an issue. Of course the easiest way to help with that is to reduce frequency.
All I can say to Metro is, “Good Luck!”
took the G on saturday afternoon. review decidedly mixed
Bus bunching was pretty bad. Watched a bus pull away as we walked up….waited 15 minutes until 3 buses showed up all at once.
Once onboard the vehicle was wheelslipping on the uphill through downtown on the wet roads and stopped at every light from 3rd to 9th. Had to go around multiple cars double-parked on Spring between 7th and 9th.
but the center-running from boren through capitol hill is definitely excellent
just some first-day teething problems, i hope
But the buses are sweet and people were definitely just….using the bus already.
The bus bunching is annoying. But the buses slipping going uphill should be triggering emergency measures to pre-empt a very predictable disaster.
Traction problems are not a small issue. And are not a teething issue.
It is sort of late in the game to be discovering such fundamental problems. Somebody dropped the ball. Massively.
I see that the source of the problem is letting SDOT define the vehicle requirements. Only operating agencies should be doing that.
I would think that Metro should have been able to tell SDOT that they cannot design for these special, untested buses on steep Seattle streets carrying lots of riders. Metro seemed to push back a bit in the early planning but SDOT pushed ahead like a stubborn bull. They just had to have them like a four year old begging for ice cream.
It appears that those in power need to get SDOT out of the unrealistic transit operations fantasy mindset. SDOT transit folks are not drivers and probably never have driven a bus.
It’s a fundamental organizational mismatch. FHSC was bad (overly slow) and this already appears to be going worse. That’s two major lessons in the last decade. Get a clue!
I would even go as far as to say that SDOT should let Metro lead any more bus transit planning and design — even paying for staff positions under Metro management.
Had Metro led RapidRide G from the outset, things almost certainly would have been different.
@Al S,
Give me a break. Metro was 100% the technical lead on this project. They were in complete control throughout the entire project. And they did the vehicle testing and they signed off on the vehicles, not SDOT.
Metro is not the victim here, the traveling public is.
It appeared to me that by the time the vehicles were ordered that Federal funds had already arrived for the preferred project so Metro’s hands were already forced.
Regardless, I think it’s important to backtrack to understand which agency made what decision when to trace how this decision happened. I see it more as an organizational failure rather than a vehicle one.
If it isn’t done now, it sadly sounds like the NTSB will eventually have to do it — once there has been a major accident.
Traction issues seem bizarre. Trolleys are lighter than hybrid buses — why would they have better traction? Is it the tires? Is it more about the turn from First to Spring (which is new)?
@Al S,
“Regardless, I think it’s important to backtrack to understand which agency made what decision when to trace how this decision happened.”
So are you saying that you support an independent audit by an outside agency? Like the State AG? Or King County Auditor?
I’d recommend an agency with technical expertise, but otherwise I’d support you in this.
SDOT initiated the project, got the grant, made the street improvements, bought the buses, and asked Metro to operate the route and include it in the RapidRide network. I don’t know how much Metro was involved in the bus spec. It wasn’t the technical lead for the entire project; that was SDOT. It may have been the technical lead for something, but not that we know.
“So are you saying that you support an independent audit by an outside agency? Like the State AG? Or King County Auditor?”
First week problems may or may not be solvable. New problems may emerge. I can’t see a rush to audit until there is just cause over a longer period of time like at least three months.
But the current probles seem to suggest that people making decisions don’t fully understand the vehicle’s capabilities and limitations. Thus any sort of “technical expert” probably needs to be versed in transit vehicle design more than anything else. That pints to the NTSB having some role.
Instead of calling for an audit or ascribing blame for the disaster that has not happened yet, can we start by preventing the disaster?
In the decade since the G line project was announced, I have moved and changed jobs three times each, variously looking forward to riding the new bus every day, or failing to imagine any reason I would ride it at all, depending on the configuration of my life. It so happens, now that it the new line is finally open, that I currently have no use for it; but give it another year, and perhaps that will change.
I took the Swift Blue extension to the Shoreline North station yesterday after running some errands on highway 99 in Lynnwood/Edmonds. It’s currently rerouted to take Aurora to 185th instead of Meridian Ave, but overall it ran pretty smoothly and the transfer to light rail is really simple. I do wish the frequency was better though; 20 minutes on Sundays means a lot of waiting especially if you’re trying to go multiple places.
I took the G downtown on Saturday and it was initially really nice (though a bit slow downtown with all the lights and bus drivers still getting used to the stops, reminds me a bit of the Orange Line’s first week). Coming back I was going to take the G, but with the bunching I would have been late to an appointment so I decided to take the 3 up towards Summit and walk from there. Hopefully it gets better as time goes on and drivers become more familiar with the route. I will say though that all the drivers were very nice and helpful to everyone, and making sure people knew their route was changing. With the chaos of the restructure as well as detours and weather, I’m impressed things went as smoothly as they did across the region.
Initially Swift Blue had a longer 10-minute span but it was reduced in the first recession and hasn’t come back. The 20-minute frequency affects everybody on all Swift lines, not just those transferring at 185th. The only way to change it is to tell CT to prioritize 10-minute weekend/evening service on Swift.
It has limited options to do so though because it’s collecting the maximum state-allowed tax rate, so doubling weekend Swift service would require eliminating entire other routes. Or the residents could vote for short-term levies to add service as Seattle is doing.
@Cloe,
The current reroute of Swift Blue on Aurora is only temporary, and only for southbound. Northbound is unaffected and is still traveling on Meridian.
Apparently a new signal on Meridian wasn’t ready, and that forced the reroute for SB.
The good news though is that apparently the new signal also has signal priority. So that will be a great Swift Blue improvement in the (near) future.
> I will say though that all the drivers were very nice and helpful to everyone, and making sure people knew their route was changing.
Hot take, but this may be exacerbating the bunching. I can only hope this becomes less of an issue as folks become familiar.
I doubt that is the problem. Same goes for stop lights. Same goes for whatever traffic the bus is dealing with — it is hard to imagine it is that bad in the middle of the day.
There is something extremely wrong with the system. My guess is it is mechanical.
There was a G stuck turning on to Spring when I went to ride on Saturday. Had a Metro worker tell everyone waiting at the stop on 3rd to walk up to the stop on 4th instead. I imagine that issue contributed to the bunching and delays throughout the day. There were also some issues getting precise alignment at the stops. On one occasion, the bus stopped where the rear door opened up directly to the railing on the center platform. I’m optimistic the bugs can be worked out because this is a great route.
Eastbound route 542 used the new Montlake ramp this morning. It was relatively seamless. A notable improvement that direction, with what I expect to be a major improvement the other direction at rush hour. Bus shelters around the ramp/station are still closed. Does anyone know when those are opening? Will all routes passing through add a stop there? What about the 545?
asdf2 said that even though the ramps are opening, the stops on the lid aren’t opening yet. Those must be the ones you’re referring to. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.
All WSDOT says is that “@KingCountyMetro bus stops open later!” (https://x.com/wsdot_520/status/1833984402365579725).
> What about the 545?
That’s actually a pretty good question. If Eastside to Seattle buses can stop at the hov stops and go through to the general ramps or not. I checked the feis design and honestly it’s a bit unclear. the linked diagram says right turn only, but it doesn’t look physically impossible for a bus to continue straight if given some bus signal.
@Nathan/Ross
do you know of someone we could ask from king county/wsdot to clarify if buses heading westbound could both use the hov ramps and then continue to the westbound general ramps?
It does seem possible but I doubt the buses would do that. Westbound that would mean stopping for a stoplight and then getting back on the freeway. Eastbound it would going through a similar stoplight, then working your way through a couple extra stop signs before going east again. I know the eastbound ramp to Montlake clogs up in the morning (with a lot of people heading to the UW I assume). Although the HOV lanes don’t start until later, a bus can save a lot of time by just staying left.
I think in general ST and Metro expect people to take a bus to the UW if they are headed to the UW (along this corridor). They can always transfer at one of the freeway stations.
But things are messy because East Link got delayed. Right now there are three buses that go downtown via 520: the 257, 311 and 545. The first two run only during peak, so it wouldn’t make sense to divert them. There are four buses that go to the UW: 255, 271, 542, 556. The 556 is peak-only, so it irrelevant. That leaves the 255, 271 and 541. At first glance that seems like enough buses to make an easy freeway-stop transfer. But the 271 doesn’t serve any of the freeway stations. The 255 runs every fifteen minutes (weekdays off-peak) but the 541 only runs every half hour. Thus a transfer at a freeway station looks good, but not great (in terms of potential waiting time). I can see someone wishing that the 545 stopped in Montlake, especially since it runs every fifteen minutes.
These issues basically go away with East Link. The 271 gets replaced by the 270, which stops by the freeway stations. The 542 runs every fifteen minutes. This means a transfer there would be quite good. As it turns out though, it is a moot point, since the 545 is going away. There will no longer be midday service along 520 to downtown. It will be peak-only.
I doubt that Metro or ST will delay these buses by having them stop there, given that there are alternatives, even if they aren’t ideal. Eventually it wouldn’t make sense anyway. The stops are basically for folks who are walking from the neighborhood or transferring to the 48 (although I’m not sure this the best option for that). I think that is why it is not a high priority (whereas the ramps themselves are).
To answer your question though, I don’t know who to ask.
To help solve the platform alignment problem, Lane County (Eugene OR) has been experimenting with automated steering controls on their EmX bus rapid transit buses. It’s been some 10 years ago, but I don’t know where they are on this these days. It seems to work well.
Currently waiting for the G heading downtown from Boylston in first hill. Been here 9 minutes so far, and 5 G line buses have passed eastbound, none westbound, and I can see the entire route to 17th avenue and none are coming soon. Now walking to the library.
At least we tried.
I made it to the library. Just after arriving a G line bus came to the stop at 5th Ave.
G Line: Might as well walk.
That suggest some serious technical issues. I could see how the bus could be delayed going Eastbound. By the time the bus reaches First Hill (going east) it has already gone downtown and has looped back around and is now heading the other way. That is plenty of room to be delayed.
But a Westbound bus just has to go from Madison Park (where it starts) to First Hill. This shouldn’t be an issue. There is layover time (I presume) at MLK. For it to be a problem several buses would have to be really, really late in arriving at Madison Park.
Looking at OneBusAway (https://pugetsound.onebusaway.org/#G%20Line%20%5BG-Line%20Rapid%20Ride%5D) this appears to be exactly what is happening. I know the at the GPS data is not 100% accurate (a lot of buses suddenly disappear) but it does appear that buses are crowding downtown. So much so that they basically form a giant wave that eventually makes its way back to base. The drivers need some break time, so there is a lag before the first bus can go westbound again.
It looks to me like the worst section is heading north on Spring. This seems to take a while. I have no idea why.
Apologies for being pedantic, but the G Line doesn’t run to Madison Park (although I wish it did). The terminus is very much Madison Valley.
I might try the rapidride G later today, hopefully it’s not running into as many issues then. on a separate note I have used the bike lanes a couple times on spring street. It’s been surprisingly useful for some trips.
Also how does everyone like the 5 both door buses? I was wondering if they’ll be more potential for other corridors to use these both side doors.
Since it’s an open thread, the WS link extension broke news last week — and broke the bank. Further casting doubt on the efficacy and utility of that investment. The ST Board is going to run that agency back into the ground if it doesn’t think about pulling out if the dive it is currently in. All of these issues — agency leadership, project scope control, bloated staffing, fiscal performance — have come on the watch of the current King County executive.
Hi another engineer,
Note: The comment period for the west seattle FEIS opens up september 20th.
we (I’m not writing it) might have an article about that soon.
> The ST Board is going to run that agency back into the ground if it doesn’t think about pulling out if the dive it is currently in.
In my opinion I agree with you, the current sound transit cost overruns will quickly mean truncations of west seattle and ballard. we’ll likely end up with the minimal operating service line delridge station to smith cove by 2037.
The cost overruns of west seattle have gone from 2 billion (2024 dollars) originally to 4 billion and now 5.6 billion.
Sound Transit needs to cut back on all the tunneling and go with elevated only and look into alternatives that are have more community/environment impacts that are more cost effective. Instead all of their further studies are even more expensive besides some small entrance consolidations.
“In my opinion I agree with you, the current sound transit cost overruns will quickly mean truncations of west seattle and ballard. we’ll likely end up with the minimal operating service line delridge station to smith cove by 2037″.
Probably true although I doubt Link will get to Smith Cove, but that won’t drive ST into the ground, and it is something Dow Constantine knew all along, which is why he prioritized West Seattle.
This is only one of five subareas, and the four other subareas do have elevated or surface rail, even East King Co. which has the highest ST tax revenue of all five subareas but is going with STRIDE although the communities it will serve seem agnostic about it (but enthusiastic about widening 405). The other subareas will have their issues too when the bonding capacity gets to them, but the tax revenue will still roll in.
I am not a fan of Dow Constantine as executive of King Co., but he got what he wanted: underground Link to West Seattle and three stations. What does he care about Ballard? The cost for Ballard Link is just as questionable as WSLE, including DSTT2 and north/south CID, the Ballard community doesn’t want Link along 20th, and wants it underground. Or not at all.
“Sound Transit needs to cut back on all the tunneling and go with elevated only and look into alternatives that are have more community/environment impacts that are more cost effective. Instead all of their further studies are even more expensive besides some small entrance consolidations”.
I would not hold my breath. First, ST used cost estimates in the levies that were clearly underestimated, both capital and operational costs. This included a 40% farebox recovery assumption and 10% contingency on capital projects when 30% is more appropriate on large public projects. Some smart people pointed this out in 2015-16, but were branded “anti-transit”.
There was never going to be sufficient ST 3 revenue for the projects ST promised, even if elevated, although ST had hoped for greater population growth and greater tax revenue growth to put this off longer, and ideally ST 4.
Second, local communities are not going to allow surface/elevated rail in any kind of vibrant urban/residential setting, whether that is Ballard, Bellevue, Kirkland, West Seattle, U. District, Roosevelt, or even Lynnwood where the station and line are along I-5 and away from the commercial center. If WSL is going to have 5200 transit riders, none new to transit, why would WS deface its community for surface/elevated rail when Link is underground from CID to Northgate? Is downtown Seattle going to run Link along the surface or elevated?
WS could not have made it clearer: underground Link or no Link at all. Same with Ballard. It is a huge mistake to think the small advantages — if any — Link has over buses today are worth a decade of construction or surface/elevated rail in the commercial core, or that these communities value “Link” as a mode as much as some on this blog do. Even when fully completed Link will be 1% of all trips. Which means Link’s political muscle is tiny.
Bellevue would be exactly the same with or without Link, even if Link ran underground down Bellevue Way.
The options for WSBLE are the same as they were in Bellevue: either tunnel or move Link away from the vibrant commercial core, which is much more valuable than Link or transit (why the BTC is along 110th). Ballard, West Seattle, downtown Seattle, SLU are not going for elevated or surface Link because it won’t benefit their neighborhood that much.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Board is spending the entire wad on WSL because what WL advocates for is a non-starter politically. The smart people knew all along the revenue from ST 3 would never cover the actual designs the communities in Seattle would demand, so it was always an either/or and Dow made sure WSLE went first and underground.
If ST had admitted that in the levies communities like Ballard and Issaquah would have voted no. ST still won’t admit it, although it clearly doesn’t have the revenue for WSBLE underground. So WS gets underground Link and Ballard does not (plus stations at 130th and Graham St.). Maybe if WS had a freeway through it Link could be elevated, or if the route was poorer and Blacker it could be on the surface. There will be no substantive changes to the FEIS.
This is only one of five subareas, and the four other subareas do have elevated or surface rail, even East King Co. which has the highest ST tax revenue of all five subareas but is going with STRIDE although the communities it will serve seem agnostic about it (but enthusiastic about widening 405).
The East Side has the Redmond extension (to East Link) as well Issaquah Link. The 405 BRT work is cheap in comparison.
Why do you think the East King Subarea has the highest tax revenue? Every document I’ve read listed North King as the agency that is bringing in the most money (as you would expect). For example: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/presentation-subarea-equity-20230614.pdf#page=12. Do you have a different source for this?
@Frank
Either way there is no process to advocate for an elevated/at grade alignment through the EIS. The EIS prioritizes minimizing community impact above all else.
> Second, local communities are not going to allow surface/elevated rail in any kind of vibrant urban/residential setting
I think it’s a bit overstated that they wouldn’t. While of course every community will opt for underground alignment if given the choice, it’s a bit different when the choice of having no light rail at all versus having light rail but elevated/at grade is provided. Seattle itself voted for a monorail alignment back in the 2000s and even the ballard/downtown alignment was originally at-grade on 1st/2nd.
Or for a more recent example Austin, when faced between underground tunneling a few miles or elevated /at-grade with more miles most people chose the latter https://www.kut.org/transportation/2023-03-21/austins-light-rail-plans-have-shrunk-here-are-five-new-options
Or even the west seattle itself, the alignment voted on was elevated not underground.
The Delridge corridor is poor and non-white enough to run it surface and/or elevated. And it’s a better route, cheaper and with extension possibilities in 2150 to the south. Make the Junction walk, bike and transfer.
Better TOD possibilities to. You can build like crazy in the valley, without rich whiners bitching about their views, like you will get of you try to build west of The Junction.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2022-subarea-report.pdf
Here is the Schedule Of Sources And Uses Of Funds By Subarea for year ending Dec. 31, 2022.
As noted on page 8, tax revenue for N. King was $646.922 million. For E. King Co. tax revenue was $609.370 million.
N. King also received $187.575 million in grants and $615.267 million in TIFIA loans to equal total revenue of $1.475 billion. East King Co. received $68 million in grants but no TIFIA loans.
My understanding is in 2023 East KC squeaked ahead of N. King Co. in subarea revenue but have no published proof. I probably should have said ST tax revenue for North and East KC is around the same.
I apologize for not citing this report in my earlier post. The point I was trying to make was you don’t see $6 billion projects like WSLE in East KC although some cities like Kirkland have greater populations and denser downtowns. I believe all of East and Redmond Link will cost $5.2 billion.
@Frank
> It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Board is spending the entire wad on WSL because what WL advocates for is a non-starter politically.
I know it is not politically welcome to discuss it — that is why I am bringing it up to talk about it. As it’s a very similar trap many american transit agencies, focusing on minimizing environment / community impact over everything else until the financial cost is too high and then they finally actually start to consider either elevated/at grade or if insisting on underground then truncations.
The point I was trying to make was you don’t see $6 billion projects like WSLE in East KC
That is simply not true. Issaquah Link is remarkably like the other projects. You just haven’t seen the gigantic cost overruns yet because it is early in the game. Give it time.
Look, just about major project in ST3 was dubious. The East Side is not special. Issaquah Link is ridiculous. So is Everett Link and Tacoma Dome Link. The fact that West Seattle Link is so bad just shows what a poor job they did with ST3. This is in Seattle! How the hell do you screw that up?
Simple. You treat it the same way. The whole idea of running trains next to the freeway is a really bad idea. You save a few pennies, but you lose potential ridership. The time savings are minimal compared to express buses. You often go miles without any stations at all. Despite all that, it is often extremely expensive. It is remarkable how every major Link project (except maybe Ballard Link) has this in common. First let’s build a train line that mimics the freeway. Go long distances without any stations (because there really isn’t much there). Then, because things are really expensive, try and save a few bucks by making the stations ever worse.
Even Ballard Link isn’t that great. It has serious geographic issues. Consider the section from the Seattle Center to Ballard. It is almost 4 miles. It is in the city. Logic would dictate that you build stops every half mile or so, so maybe five stops in between. But there will be only two. Holy cow, that is commuter-rail type stop spacing! Oh, and keep in mind, this is on a route that should probably be running on the surface. It isn’t like we need to build really expensive tunneled stations here. Even as an elevated line, extra stations wouldn’t cost much. Why then do we not have more stations? Because there is so little there. It is basically a green belt on one side and water on the other for most of the way. There is no opportunity for crossing bus service — let alone a lot of walk-up ridership — until you get to Dravus. Then there isn’t a stop until you get to Ballard. This explains why Ballard Link — by far the most cost effective major project in ST3 — is not that great.
But again, it is not nearly as bad as the other projects (including Issaquah Link). Consider in contrast various proposals that have been bandied about:
1) Metro 8 Subway. Basically serve several places in South Lake Union, connect to the Capitol Hill Station, then serve several places in the Central Area, then connect to the Judkins Park Station and then end at Mount Baker Station.
2) Similar subway, but head due south after serving Capitol Hill to connect to First Hill (with a couple stations) and then a station at Jackson before connecting to Judkins Park and Mount Baker.
3) UW to Ballard Subway.
All of these projects have a lot in common. They serve very urban areas. There are a lot of stops per mile. This means higher ridership per mile which ultimately means higher ridership per dollar (both capital and operations). They all save riders a considerable of time in the middle of the day versus driving. This means they save riders a considerable amount of time versus any realistic bus-based option. They all enhance the network considerably, but they also have plenty of one-seat riders.
This is just basic stuff. The three projects listed above would all get a gigantic yawn from transit experts around the world. Oh, you are building that. Good for you. Maybe you should have built that sooner. In contrast so many of our projects elicit a collective WTF? Why are we building that? Because that is just the way we roll.
@Ross
Issaquah and Everett link are less likely to have such large cost overruns, given there is no underground elements.
What do you expect for $55B? I’d have hoped for more than essentially one line and some extensions. Now we aren’t even getting that. As if we needed more proof of the bloated transit costs in the US.
As many here would prefer, let’s reconsider much of this with no 2nd downtown tunnel, a robust open busway system for West Seattle that works better for its polycentric layout and a Ballard-UW line. Maybe we have some left over to revamp and expand the Seattle Center Monorail to Ballard (hey some things never die).
The worst is spending $6-8-10-12 billion on a line and end up with a highly compromised design that serves nothing, has little use for riders, ruins your current transit network, costs a lot to operate, huge construction impacts, etc. Do it right or don’t do it at all.
Issaquah and Everett link are less likely to have such large cost overruns, given there is no underground elements.
Federal Way Link had a really big cost overrun.
@poncho — I agree with all of your points.
> Federal Way Link had a really big cost overrun.
I fear perhaps you do not quite understand the magnitude of cost overrun of West Seattle and Ballard Link, both percentage wise and in absolute numbers.
West Seattle was 2.3 billion in 2024 dollars, increased to 4 billion last year and is now at 5.6 billion. Ballard was originally 8.7 billion (2024 dollars), increased to 12 billion and now are at 15.2 billion as of last year.
North King get’s around 700 million dollars per year, and after operational costs and loan its more like 500 million that can actually be used for capital spending.
Or to put it in more relative numbers it’s like someone using 50k annually (income around 100k) trying to buy a 500k dollar house and then also buying a 1.5 million dollar house
Tacoma Link Extension was entirely on the surface, and didn’t strike me as especially well run or under budget or on time. At least one Portland contractor said they’d never work with SoundTransit again (which only serves to increase prices as the number of contractors goes down).
Seems to me ian awful lot of the problems with the projects are agency management rather than much to do with project specifics..
They need to admit the ST3 program is unaffordable due to unrealistic expectations, explosive cost growth, and failed leadership. Then start a conversation with the public about how best to retool the program.
“At least one Portland contractor said they’d never work with SoundTransit again”
Did they say why not?
15 billion for Ballard!?!
There’s like a handful of fisherman and a rave or two in Ballard.
Don’t spend 15 billion on an urban backwater dead-end with 29 thousand people who’d rather drive their Subaru, but could easily bike to all their breweries just fine. It doesn’t even have anything else to connect to.
Dead End. 15 billion. No.
And I agree. If it connected to Fremont. Went under Queen Anne. Fine. Build it.
But cruising through the industrial Interbay with no stops for miles. F that. Ballard is moderately trendy. And has some townhouses, and a couple tall apartments. 15 million that does not make.
“Don’t spend 15 billion on an urban backwater dead-end with 29 thousand people who’d rather drive their Subaru,”
Where are you talking about? Ballard is one of the highest ridership areas. The only thing dead-end about it is its location. It punches above its weight in cultural attractions that draw people from all over, as well as a walkable urban environment that people enjoy being in.
Some of the problems ST is in currently with ballooning budgets on expansion projects is honestly partly because of how the Washington legislature legally set up ST funding mechanisms as an agency. They’ve severely limited the amount the agency could borrow against, which has hampered the agency against building things out faster and quicker. Which would combat inflation and construction costs, alongside deter bad value engineering decisions.
Inflation and increases in construction costs are inevitable, but are manageable when there are budget mechanisms to allow flexibility to address problems and nip them in the bud instead of being forced to value engineer to compensate. The state and could honestly do a much better job in funding local transit projects considering how much this state’s government likes to beat the drum of “environment” “climate change” etc and yet have given WashDOT blank checks on dumb useless highway expansion that hasn’t “fixed traffic”. Or at least allow better borrowing terms or other revenue sources to be available for ST to use in their toolkit (like real estate).
I know it’s easy to go yell at the board, local county executives, ST administration, etc for their misteps. But Washington Legislature still has a big role in how we’ve ended up in this mess, and some blame needs to be directed their way instead of getting solely mad at ST.
> Some of the problems ST is in currently with ballooning budgets on expansion projects is honestly partly because of how the Washington legislature legally set up ST funding mechanisms as an agency. They’ve severely limited the amount the agency could borrow against, which has hampered the agency against building things out faster and quicker. Which would combat inflation and construction costs, alongside deter bad value engineering decisions.
No, if Sound Transit could borrow more money that wouldn’t solved anything. The current problem is Sound Transit has too much money and can ignore design problems by just shoveling money at it.
It is like given the task to cut grass rather than use a lawnmower because of noise and environmental complaints, sound transit is hiring people to pluck each individual blade since it has the money to do so.
If Sound Transit could borrow more money they would have added on more of the further studies add-ons spending more money and adding more construction time not less.
“No, if Sound Transit could borrow more money that wouldn’t solved anything. The current problem is Sound Transit has too much money and can ignore design problems by just shoveling money at it.”
It isn’t. The Washington state legislature hampered the financial end of ST funding mechanisms by making it difficult to get immediate funding so shovels are in the ground much faster, thus lowering costs overall. Something people complain about a lot here and yet shrug at the notion of fixing said problem. So I dunno what to tell you.
Complaining about the costs of WSLE and BLE is a fools errand now when the genie is out of the bottle, the time for that fight was a decade ago. People need to accept that and move on from about that or else it’s just pointless yelling into the wind.
Alongside I’d point out that the other projects people have proposed like Ballard-UW, Metro 8, etc. would still be just as expensive as BLE or WSLE. A lot of people would be complaining about the same problems if their favorite project was picked as part of ST3. The funding problem doesn’t magically go away with different plans.
Like I said, if the state put its money where it’s mouth is. Some funding issues would go away as ST could strike while the iron is hot than wait for all the funding to come in.
> Complaining about the costs of WSLE and BLE is a fools errand now when the genie is out of the bottle, the time for that fight was a decade ago. People need to accept that and move on from about that or else it’s just pointless yelling into the wind.
Zach they do not have the money to complete the projects as is. I am bringing it up now before y’all are all surprised that it is truncated.
I find it more surprising that everyone here keeps thinking they can just ignore the costs and Sound Transit will magically build it.
But honestly it’s not too surprising, it’s how honolulu rail or the california high speed rail got truncated partly because transit advocates would just ignore the costs and spend everything on environmental/community impacts like what some are advocating here.
My article on WSLE costs is going out on Thursday.
Alongside I’d point out that the other projects people have proposed like Ballard-UW, Metro 8, etc. would still be just as expensive as BLE or WSLE.
Maybe the two projects combined would cost that much, but they would be a lot more valuable.
In any event, that isn’t how you should do things. You don’t have to build it all at once. You focus on what gets you the most value for the money. That is why a Ballard to UW subway should have been built next. Consider the project for a second, compared to what we are building. It is quite likely this would have its share of costly overruns. But it is highly unlikely that it would cost as much as Ballard Link. We can see that clearly now. Ballard Link was supposed to be cheap because it had that really long surface section. But then they went elevated. OK, that isn’t that much more but it adds up. Then the bridge was supposed to be cheap. Now it isn’t. Oh and don’t forget this comes with a brand new downtown tunnel! So we are basically talking about six new urban stations (Seattle Center, SLU, Denny, Westlake, Midtown, CID) as well as some tunneling, even before we get close to Smith Cove, let alone Ballard.
How many new stations would Ballard to UW have? Six at most. You’ve got U-District, Wallingford, Fremont, 8th, 15th and Leary (eventually). Thus you have some tunneling and the same number of stations as just a section of Ballard Link (that is largely redundant). Clearly even the most ideal version of a Ballard-UW subway would be cheaper than Ballard Link, and yet way more effective.
And we haven’t built West Seattle Link. West Seattle Link is one of those “remind me, why are we building this again” projects. Even if it was much cheaper it is dubious. Are the buses overflowing with people? No. Will it be much faster than what exists now? No. Why do we even need a train then? The simple answer is we don’t. Connect the Alaska Way viaduct to the SoDo busway and you benefit way more people for way less cost.
So now you have a Ballard to UW subway (dramatically changing mobility in northwest Seattle) as well as the West Seattle connection to the SoDo Busway (improving lives for way more people in West Seattle) for a lot less money. Next step: Improve buses to Ballard. Spend a bunch of money so that buses can go to the very front of the line when the bridge goes up. Build an underpass station next to Dravus. Run the buses from Ballard directly to downtown (skipping Uptown). Extend the 8 to Smith Cove. Add Bat lanes on Denny as well as everywhere else so that the 8 and the D are much faster. Fix the 3/4 so that it doesn’t get stuck. Add capacity and mobility to the monorail (why not). Do all that and the system starts looking world class.
Yes, eventually it would be great to have a Metro 8 subway. But it can wait.
“Where are you talking about? Ballard is one of the highest ridership areas. The only thing dead-end about it is its location.”
That’s exactly what I mean. A dead end is a location. It simply isn’t a rational decision to spend that massive amount of money on so few people with no reasonable extension and few destinations on the way. Especially with a perfectly suitable rapid-ride that isn’t a huge step down in capacity or speed.
The only reason they are high ridership is they already have usable transit. Give another area or maybe 10 areas usable transit instead for the 15 billion. Let them have a chance to punch above their weight too. Yes, I’m thinking of the neglected south.
Cam, where in South King County or Pierce County would you build light rail which also meet the requirements for density and destination you have for the Seattle projects?
Cam – continuing the thought: what would you think of a Link line branching off of the 1 Line continuing down MLK/SR-900 through Renton, and continuing down along SR-167 to Kent, and then following SR-516 toward Covington, or continue down to Auburn? Are those places/destinations dense enough to support light rail or quasi-BRT like Stride? What about Sounder infill stations? Are there places in the Green River Valley which are unduly ignored by the commuter train? What about further south? Should Sound Transit fund an extension of the Tacoma streetcar down Pacific Ave/SR-7 to Spanaway?
Do you have specific destinations in mind you think are being sorely missed by FWLE, TDLE, and Sounder improvements?
I want to know where you think the money would specifically be better spent. The idea would be to spend it on major capital projects, since O&M is a relatively small part of the budget, and ST expect to win several billion in federal grants which generally can’t be used for O&M unless there’s a special circumstance like a pandemic.
I wouldn’t build light rail. I would invest in express buses and S. Sounder. Specifically getting the hundreds of thousands of people in the Kent Valley usable transit, mainly through buying time slots on the sounder and triple tracking and other rail upgrades to the point where we can run hourly service 7 days a week into the evenings. I’d also improve South King to South King service, and add an express bus from the spine directly to West Seattle. I’m sure there are dozens of other worthwhile projects that I wouldn’t directly benefit from and therefore am not knowledgeable to speak about.
Generally though, South King has had terrible borderline unusable service forever, so people generally are resigned to take their cars. We need to change that. Give people a reason to trust transit with good service, encourage density along the S. Sounder, and more equitably spend our transit dollars to the people who most need and would benefit from good transit.
15 Billion for Ballard ain’t that.
As time goes on, I am more convinced we built the wrong rail system. What we should have done is build a U-Bahn-type system for central Puget Sound, and an S-Bahn-type system for greater Seattle. Faster rail with greater stop spacing over longer distances. Then the Seattle area has a different system designed just for intraurban travel.
“As time goes on, I am more convinced we built the wrong rail system. What we should have done is build a U-Bahn-type system for central Puget Sound, and an S-Bahn-type system for greater Seattle”.
How do you define “greater Seattle”? And who would pay for each segment. Would you continue with subarea equity and uniform tax rates? Do all roads lead to “Seattle”?
Ich spreche kein Deutsch.
Frank, I haven’t given it that much thought. I’m only saying that the rail system that connects downtown to the U Dist, shouldn’t be the same rail system that connects Lynnwood to Federal Way.
Wiki seems to say S-Bahn is pretty much S. Sounder.
And U-Bahn isn’t too far from Link in Seattle, but with better stop spacing.
Did I get the translation right?
So it sounds unpleasantly like Sam and Cam agree.
Wiki seems to say S-Bahn is pretty much S. Sounder.
And U-Bahn isn’t too far from Link in Seattle, but with better stop spacing.
I would say that is close. U-Bahn is just a normal subway. So yeah, Link with a lot more stops and lines in the city and a lot less outside of it.
S-Bahn is a different beast. It would be like South Sounder but with additional stations inside the city. So, for example, you might take a train from Auburn, then as it got into Seattle it became part of a line that served First Hill, South Lake Union and Eastlake before meeting up with the main subway at the UW. Thus the train is both regional rail as well as a part of the inner subway system. The S-Bahn often has multiple lines converging together inside the city. That way the more distant towns might have trains every twenty minutes, but inside the city it runs every ten (and thus looks a lot like a subway). The stop spacing on the S-Bahn is usually a bit longer than the U-Bahn (and similar to what Link has).
It is a good model, and if we owned the trains it would have merit. Even just a “poor-man’s” U-Bahn could work fairly well. I would start by adding stations in Ballard, Dravus and Belltown. Then start overlapping the routes downtown and running a mix of service. So something like this (midday):
1) Everett to Downtown — every hour.
2) Edmonds to Downtown — every hour.
3) Tacoma to Ballard — every half hour.
Effective frequency:
1) Edmonds to Downtown — every half hour.
2) Ballard to Downtown — every fifteen minutes.
You could always supplement the trains by adding shorter versions (e. g. just run a train from Ballard to downtown every 15 minutes opposite the other trains which would get you effective 7.5 minute frequency through the city).
Alas, that isn’t possible. BNSF owns the railroad. They would charge a bundle for that kind of service.
I wouldn’t build light rail. I would invest in express buses and S. Sounder.
That is pretty standard. You build the subway inside the city. You build express buses or regional rail — using existing track — outside it. It is quite unusual to build a subway system so far from the urban core (especially well before we cover most of the urban core). There is little evidence this approach works. Quite the opposite.
The only reason they are high ridership is they already have usable transit. Give another area or maybe 10 areas usable transit instead for the 15 billion. Let them have a chance to punch above their weight too. Yes, I’m thinking of the neglected south.
Sorry no. It is true that increasing frequency increases ridership. Same with making a route more linear or faster. But there is a limit to that. Jarrett Walker summarizes the subject well in his book. This blog post is pretty good as well: https://humantransit.org/basics/the-transit-ridership-recipe.
It is worth noting that it is quite common to see wide variance on a particular bus. For example the 75 gets a lot of people from Northgate to Lake City. Then not a lot of people board until Sand Point. Then a few people board there, etc. It is the same bus, just different stops with different density.
That is just density. Proximity and walkability are also really important. These have nothing to do with the transit service being offered.
Sound Transit Link has similar station spacing and branching merging (with east link) like a S-bahn. If south seattle was an elevated alignment or along i5 I’d basically call it an S-bahn.
A U-bahn (city subway) would be like a west-seattle / ballard only alignment with either SF muni cars or elevated like the monorail proposal. Or ballard only as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/258hkx/ballard_link_light_rail_route_options_proposed_by
“What we should have done is build a U-Bahn-type system for central Puget Sound, and an S-Bahn-type system for greater Seattle.”
In the case of Berlin, the S Bahn trains really aren’t that different than Link, except maybe slightly slower and a bit more stops. They’re a bit wider, and have high platforms as you might expect from a system built in the 1920s.
The regional trains (Regiobahn), such as RE1, are more like Sounder. We’d call them commuter rail here, probably, but they’re all day trains that are sort of halfway between Sounder and Cascades, except averages a bit faster than Cascades, but with a lot more stations (max speed 100 mph, average about 70 mph).
https://www.vbb.de/fahrinformation/zug-um-zug-mehr-schiene/re1/
Someone in Germany once told me that if someone were operating Sounder in Germany, they’d probably wind up in prison for squandering taxpayer money. If you spend money on that type of infrastructure, the expectation there is you use it all day, every day, and operate it at speeds that generate that level of ridership.
So, something like RE1 in Puget Sound would probably be something like a frequent stop Cascades train from Olympia to Bellingham, that would still run the route faster than driving.
Potsdam – Berlin central has RE1 and S Bahn.
https://sbahn.berlin/en/route-map/
Both are used, but if you have the option of the RE1, most would opt for that it seems.
Link is like a hybrid between an Stadtbahn (German version of a light rail system), an S-Bahn, and an U-Bahn. Some would argue it’s basically a revival of an interurban like system like we used to have from the stop spacing and service.
As for what to do Pierce, tbh I’d probably if we could build the obvious link extension to Downrtown Tacoma. But also a more extensive T Link tram system across Tacoma, Fircrest, University Place, Ruston, and Lakewood. Pierce has good bones for such a system to be built and implemented.
Tho also improved express bus service to Seattle and Olympia. More Sounder service to make it all day, and to get the extension out to JBLM & DuPont built. And honestly just have a Pierce only Sounder Service that moves people around Pierce as we multiple residential and employment centers in Pierce that deserve better commuter service than what currently exists.
How can the ST board run it into the ground? They have the authority to continue the current taxes forever, don’t they? And that’s even if they never produce anything more than studies in the future. And since it is unconstitutional to impair the bonds, there’s absolutely nothing citizens can do about it, other than move. This is as guaranteed a gravy train as I’ve ever seen in my life for the ST staff, consultants and other assorted hangers-on. It will continue on until the revolution.
> How can the ST board run it into the ground? They have the authority to continue the current taxes forever, don’t they?
Technically yes, Sound Transit can indefinitely delay it, though I will caution for other readers that these financial delays are very different from say a construction delay. It means Sound Transit will accept the higher the cost and just wait more years of funding, it’ll also still have to pay off the debt for whatever it takes on loans for.
Secondly, since West Seattle is followed by Ballard, the only way to fund the West Seattle project as is with it’s underground portions is to — 1) delay ballard link further 2) ‘steal’ from the other subareas 3) some combination of delaying/truncating ballard link to fund west seattle 4) some convoluted combination of delaying/truncating ballard link and implicitly taking funds from other subareas.
You can’t defend the indefensible forever. Eventually politics shifts. The chorus just needs to get loud enough to pierce the GroupThink. They have a ton of money and could do some really cool things to improve and expand the system. But they need to do it with fresh eyes and actual expertise.
What do they have now? A semi-retired SDOT director (who seems like a nice man, albeit semi-retired. Someone new from LA whose expertise is … airports? And a calcified county exec who’s been sitting there controlling everything for over a decade with his bloc of votes on the board. The defining characteristic of the ST3 era so far is the board’s inability to make a single decision of consequence. While collecting ST3 taxes for EIGHT years.
At this point, ST will have to choose to cut WS costs dramatically or take it from the other parts of the project (DSTT2 and Ballard) that will delay them by another 5-15 years.
I think the responsible thing to do is to give up on digging the 100 foot hole the size of a football field that is the Alaska Junction Station. Then rethink SODO station to move the track branch to the OMF track branch and use the existing platforms ( but build the Lander overpass). Most Alaska Junction Link riders will come from buses and going 30 feet down at Avalon is easier than the 100 feet down at Alaska Junction Station.
However what I expect to happen is for ST to build what they planned even if it won’t open until 2055 after decades of extending our ST3 taxes.
The responsible thing to do would be to just build West Seattle Link as a rail convertible transit bridge, and leave everything else as is until they have the ability to make it a complete line (ie, no double transfers due to the SoDo line).
The responsible thing to do would be to just build West Seattle Link as a rail convertible transit bridge, and leave everything else as is until they have the ability to make it a complete line (ie, no double transfers due to the SoDo line).
I am not sure what you mean. I could see two pieces to an ideal bus-centric solution for Wets Seattle. First, a new transit tunnel through downtown (connecting to the other transit tunnel). This would be built for buses, but designed so that trains could eventually travel through it. It was discussed quite a bit before they decided on the huge rail projects.
The second piece is ramps from Alaskan Way Viaduct to the SoDo busway. This would greatly improve the West Seattle to Link connection. Riders who want to eventually get on Link from West Seattle (e. g. to get to the UW) would now have that. This gives you 90% of West Seattle Link at 10% of the cost. But in addition they have better reverse-direction connection to Link (West Seattle to SeaTac would not be a three-seat ride) along with the one-seat ride to downtown.
I don’t see a new bus tunnel as being realistic. Meanwhile, the ramps that allow better access to the SoDo busway would not be transferable to rail. So be it. It is like the Mountlake Terrace freeway bus stop, but benefiting way more people. Sure, eventually it becomes obsolete. But it is worth it in the mean time. In this case it isn’t clear that it would ever become obsolete. You really need to get deep into West Seattle with rail before it becomes a decent project, but that would cost a lot of money. For example if it ended at High Point (with a stop in between there and The Junction) it would definitely add value. But the stations would be underground, which means they would be extremely expensive. Thus it isn’t clear you ever get to the point where it makes sense, given the widely dispersed nature of West Seattle, the lack of stations for miles, and the fast busway that is quite possible without spending a lot of money.
“You can’t defend the indefensible forever. ”
You don’t have to defend the indefensible forever. Just long enough for you to escape the scene and retire. Politicians know this, and know that currently in this country there is no real consequences for this type of fraud. This isn’t China, or Stalinist USSR where the failing politicians (and maybe some of the staff) would be executed and their families sent to forced labor camps. As I said, there appears to be absolutely no legal way of stopping this train (pardon the pun). Even a voter-approved initiative to modify or terminate ST3 would be thrown out as unconstitutional, due to the issue of impairing the bonds. The folks who put it on the ballet may or may not have known much about creating a transit system, but they knew a lot about how to create an endless stream of gravy for themselves.
Yes, I have started reading your Walker Bible. The thing he hammers home is that ridership and coverage are often at odds. And there is no right answer. It’s up to us.
I am simply saying we need to tweak the ratio. We shouldn’t always be chasing slightly higher ridership gains in areas that already have very good service. We should be providing better transit in places that may not CURRENTLY have good walkability and density even though it might not yield quite the ridership gains. In places like Ballard and West Seattle, those ridership gains aren’t even mostly real. They are simply going to be poaching from already very good service like the C and the D. Why are we spending tens of billions of dollars for that, when we have people we need to get out of their cars in the south. They won’t do it for hour long “Expresses” and multi-transfer hell in traffic, they are very likely to for 20 minute train rides. And providing regular Sounder service is doing 2 things.
1 – Catalyzing dense growth around all those existing stations and nascent walkable downtowns ,and
2 – improving “Proximity” by making the places people often go much closer through grade separated fast rail.
Yes, I know it will be hard and expensive. But getting Link to Ballard and West Seattle are hard and expensive. And largely provide little additional ridership. Kent Valley is a nascent fertile, untapped transit valley that is worth the effort.
Grrr. Sorry. Response to Ross in a deeper thread, above.
148th station had half a dozen buses at it when I got off the train early this morning. Starting to feel like a real transit hub!
I probably won’t be taking any of them since I have found that the ~1-mile bike to work is quite pleasant (would have been 3 miles on 15th from Northgate previously – no thank you!)
I’m interested to see this PM whether the bus changes bring more ridership. Last week the SB trains were still pretty empty until Northgate.
Part of the fun of Link development has been getting to see the changes on the ground over the months and years. Maybe the area around my home station (rainier beach) will see some change sometime – I’m jealous of the transformation othello has undergone.
Pantograph. Today. Missed Trips. Check out the G Line. What’s going on?
https://pantographapp.com/pugetsound/missed
Also, notice the number of total trips per day by each of the RapidRide routes. The G Line has the most trips of any at 222 trips per day. The next closest is the E Line at 180 trips per day.
>> What’s going on?
I think people are trying to figure that out. I guess Ryan Packer is going to interview someone on Wednesday to try and figure out the problem(s).
I would like to hear more about your western-end “float layover” idea for the G Line. Can you explain how it would work? It sounds like a way that an ahead of schedule, following bus, can pause or recover in an out-of-the-way spot, while the behind schedule leading bus can gain distance and make up time, which would help to maintain better headway. How do you see it working?
I have been on late buses where the bus driver blanks the signage, and drop off only, in order to make up time, and put distance between him and the following bus. However, I don’t think that method would be practical on Madison.
Sam, some of the heavily-used trollie lines in San Francisco used to “run on the thumb”. If a follower was anywhere in sight, a driver was allowed to pass a waiting rider at a stop for which there was no alighting passenger by tossing his thumb over his shoulder as a signal “take that bus behind me”.
It’s the same as blanking the sign but wirh no need for stopping to make the change.
I would like to hear more about your western-end “float layover” idea for the G Line. Can you explain how it would work? It sounds like a way that an ahead of schedule, following bus, can pause or recover in an out-of-the-way spot, while the behind schedule leading bus can gain distance and make up time, which would help to maintain better headway.
You’ve got the idea. It is actually quite common. The first thing you do is change the schedule. For example assume that Metro thought it was going to take ten minutes to get from Madison Valley to First Avenue. For some buses this the case, but for other buses it takes fifteen minutes. So now the schedule says it takes fifteen. If a bus gets to First Avenue a few minutes ahead of schedule it just waits there. It leaves First Avenue fifteen minutes after leaving Madison Valley. That way, the buses leaving First Avenue (and heading back to Madison Valley) are spaced evenly apart (just as they were when they left Madison Valley). It is a way of re-syncing the buses.
First Avenue is a great place to do this, since there won’t be that many through-riders there. Again, this sort of thing happens from time to time on all buses. On occasion I’ve waited at a stop for a while and the bus driver announces he is running too fast, so we have to wait a couple minutes at the stop.
That is a band-aid solution. I also don’t think this really fixes it. Based on what I saw yesterday, there were some major fundamental issues — not your routine bus bunching. It would not shock me if buses bunched a little bit as they approached Madison Valley. At that point the buses would be close to finishing their run. That would be like the 7 bunching a bit going southbound approaching Rainier Beach. Understandable, if not ideal. But in this case, it looks much worse. Ryan Packer mentioned this on Twitter. He had this picture: https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1835778892654895408/photo/1. This was taken midday. Those are three buses, all bunched together approaching 12th heading west. The buses started at 22nd. It just doesn’t make sense that the buses would be that bunched up in such a short distance. The fact that there are three buses there means that there would be bunching even if the buses were 12 minutes apart (and bunching almost immediately). Something is clearly screwed up.
Are the G buses articulated? Is this the first time articulated buses have been assigned to a steep hill?
The 8 and the 11 are the only major ones I can think of with artics on steep hills. Denny by I-5 and also Madison. If not for these exceptions, I was under the impression articulated buses were not run on steep hills, hence the 3/4 to CD, the Queen Anne Hill buses, maybe the 10 (could be the terminal though), the old 12-Madison. The 1-California is a super busy trolley bus line in San Francisco (3 min headways, packed to the gills, even post COVID) and it can’t run articulated because of the steep hills, yet ridership would certainly call for them.
Does Market up to 46th count as steep? If so, add the 44 to the list.
There’s also all of the West Seattle buses (C, H, 56, 57) with artics, where the hill down to the waterfront is quite steep.
The one problem we experienced was fishtailing on red paint, so I do wonder if this is just a problem with the paint job. When SDOT was trialing green paint for bike lanes, one of the test formulations was quite slick in the rain as well. Fortunately I think they just used it at the intersection of 40th & Bridge in Wallingford, and it was an easy fix once they got a better formulation.
The 8, 11, and 44 don’t have hills as steep as Madison downtown.
From what I’ve heard here about the Queen Anne routes, they’re not articulated because the crests of the hills put a strain on the articulation joint (when the parts of the bus are on different inclines).
True but I would say the 8 on Denny is very steep between I-5 and Olive.
It’s not just steepness though, it’s also the sharp, minimal transition between flat intersections and the steep streets… bottoming out and front of the bus kissing the street. I understand these sharp minimal transitions are very hard on the articulation joint.
Yeah, that may be the issue. The various buses that make similar steep turns aren’t articulated. The articulated buses that go up a steep hill don’t make a steep turn. For example Pine is quite flat as it gets down to Second and Third.
That being said I’m sure it is something they tested. But it may also be something they tested and noted, but the drivers didn’t pay attention to the memo. It may require going quite far across first before turning, which itself means a longer delay.
Look forward to trying out the new 520 bus ramps when I visit Seattle tomorrow. Now, if they can just fix the service to run more than every half hour in the evening for my return trip.
I’ve been waiting on the ST July Agency Progress Report to be released. They’re usually published very early in the month (the 9th being the latest I see). It’s now the 16th and there’s nothing there yet. Anyone know what’s causing the delay?
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/agency-progress-reports
To get back to something current and consequential, does anyone have a report on how things went on Link today?
Was Link crowded in the urban core?
Did ST deploy any gap trains?
How did Link perform on the first commute day in 50 years without commuter buses from SnoCo to DT Seattle?
For the record: the only info I have on this comes from a picture that was taken at 6:53 am this morning at LCC. In the background you can see the Link platform, and it looks very full for that time of the morning.
But that really isn’t data. So if someone has something better to report, then I would love to hear it.
> To get back to something current and consequential
You think RapidRide G and bus restructures aren’t current or consequential?
Lazarus is right this time: we want to know how Link is doing. It’s in the second paragraph in the article.
@Nathan Dickey,
“ You think RapidRide G and bus restructures aren’t current or consequential?”
The big restructures of the weekend are all related to CT and the elimination of the 400 and 800 series. Nothing occurring in KC or at Metro even comes close to that in importance.
As per RRG, it’s roughly 1/3 to 1/4 the ridership that should be added to Link now that LLE is open and the CT restructures are in place. In my mind that makes RRG significantly less consequential.
I just take issue with Lazarus’ incessant derision of non-train transit, intended or otherwise.
They’re both consequential. If RapidRide G had worked right, we’d be talking about how exciting it is to have the first BRT service with 6-minute frequency and the best travel time a bus in east Seattle has ever had. Link and the G aren’t competitors; they complement each other. The G is the way to get from Link to First Hill destinations. Seattle has some twenty routes that should have 6-minute service: it’s a step forward to have the first one. Maybe Metro will have to suspend half the G runs to fix this or because with bus bunching they’re not service passengers anyway, but that’s a technical workaround; it’s not that First Hill doesn’t deserve 6-minute service. If you want people to ride transit like they do in New York or Vancouver, you have to have frequency like they do in New York or Vancouver.
The restructure surrounding RapidRide G was minor. But that itself is consequential. Way more people ride transit in that part of town than will ride Lynnwood Link. Or at least they have in the past. Whether they do again depends a lot on service in that area.
Similarly, if done right, RapidRide should be expected to carry about as many people as Lynnwood Link. The fact that Metro isn’t doing it right is huge. Oh, and RapidRide G also represents the potential for something we’ve never had in this region (or this state): Bus Rapid Transit. But again, at this point it isn’t there. Not even close.
The CT 400 and 800 series buses only carried a few thousand riders. The 800 series riders didn’t even go to a major destination (they just went to Northgate). The CT restructure is important, but the entire Community Transit system carries less than 30,000 riders. It is highly likely that more riders are effected by the changes with the Metro buses (since Metro carries over ten times as many riders).
While it didn’t effect as many riders, the 520 ramps are huge. This will save Metro (and ST) quite a bit of money, and save a lot of riders a lot of time.
All of these are major events when it comes to transit. They were all covered in the Seattle Times (and other news sources). They would all be the news story of the season if not for the fact that they all happened at once. To think that Lynnwood Link or CT changes are the only important story is ridiculous.
@Nathan Dickey,
I have never derided non-rail transit. Never.
Quite clearly bus transit has a role in this area, and always will. And I have said that repeatedly.
But this region has historically over invested in buses and underinvested in rail. That is being corrected now with openings like LLE, and that is the big story of the last 2 weeks.
But that doesn’t mean that RRG is above criticism. If any of these reports of traction issues are even partially true, then we have some very serious issues with RRG. And those issues need to be investigated if they are ever to be resolved.
But hey, on to the next big thing in local transit— the opening of RLE and then Full ELE!
“But this region has historically over invested in buses and underinvested in rail.”
That was in the past, as you said. Not now. Cities with the most successful transit have both a mega rail network and a mega bus network. Metro needs a huge investment to catch up, and this is part of it. We’re not even at the level we were in 2019, when there was 10-minute daytime service on the 45, 48, 65, and 67. We need the equivalent of Metro Connects and more, because Metro Connects still doesn’t guarantee 15-minute evening and weekend service on Frequent routes. This has little to do with what we should or shouldn’t do with rail because Metro doesn’t have the resources to build rail lines anyway, so let it do its part and we’ll do the rail part separately.
“And those issues need to be investigated if they are ever to be resolved.”
Maybe Metro is doing that right now. It doesn’t want an unreliable G any more than we do. The problem is only three days old; we can’t expect major investigation results to be finished and public in that little time.
“the opening of RLE and then Full ELE!”
Could you spell out custom or not-widely-used acronyms? Every time these things come up I have to spend a few moments figuring out what RLE and ELE are. (“Relevin”? “Evelyn”?)
@Mike Orr,
Those are the standard acronyms, not custom at all.
RLE, Redmond Link Extension.
ELE, East Link Extension.
The opening of those two extensions will be the next big news in local transit. Particularly the opening of Full ELE.
Obviously RLE won’t have the impact of connecting East Link across the lake, but it will still be a significant extension. And it is only a few months away!
Not standard on STB. I’ve never heard of them except your use. There’s mysterious project appreviations, mysterious station abbreviations, suffixes like “LE” and “S”.
I don’t think it matters too much but anyways the acronym is
DRLE – downtown redmond link extension
ELE – east link extension
For example https://www.redmond.gov/1005/Sound-Transit-DRLE
https://www.transportation.gov/buildamerica/projects/downtown-redmond-link-extension-sound-transit
So…. Since nobody had anything to report on the really big story of the week (LLE and the elimination of the SnoCo commuter routes into Seattle), I decided to do my own field trip and check out crowding on the 1-Line.
I did a partial round trip between Westlake Station and Roosevelt, with a stop at CHS. I did this between 8 AM and about 8:45.
And holy cow is it crowded. Car 1 departing Roosevelt SB was fairly full with standees. Cars 2&3 were near max capacity. However car 4 still had some seats.
The train gets progressively more crowded as you go south, and even car 4 gets a substantial number of standees by CHS. And the river of humanity exiting the train at Westlake is nothing short of amazing. Never thought I’d see that in Seattle. And it speaks to the capacity limits of the transit tunnel
So I’d say that there isn’t too much more room for ridership growth. And again, this is AM peak. PM peak should be worse.
“And it speaks to the capacity limits of the transit tunnel”
Why? Wouldn’t that be more associated with train frequency, not the humans?
From what I’ve read here, there is still a large amount of capacity to increase train frequency in the existing tunnel, with the right investments.
@Lazarus
> And it speaks to the capacity limits of the transit tunnel… So I’d say that there isn’t too much more room for ridership growth. And again, this is AM peak. PM peak should be worse.
Currently Link runs every 10 minutes with 4 car trains or around 6 tph * 4-car = 24 train-cars per hour at a station.
This is less than 8 minutes with 4-car trains (30 train cars per hour) or the other the previous peak period 6 minute with 3 cars or 10tph * 3-car = 30 train cars per hour.
When they are combined let’s say both lines are 10 minute frequency it’ll be 5 minute frequency or 12 tph * 4-car per train = 48 train-cars per hour.
There’s enough capacity for 100% over the existing amount.
Yeah, today’s crowding isn’t due to the limitations of the transit tunnel, but the limitations of not having direct rail access to OMF-E.
https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/09/11/sound-transit-braces-for-overcrowding/
Notably, DSTT2 not only will do nothing about overcrowding north of Westlake, but it will attract even more riders transferring from/to this segment that are traveling to/ from SLU and Seattle Center (rather than ride Route 8 from CHS).
So really the only solution is to add trains between Westlake and Northgate or create more room in the vehicle by eliminating the numbers of driving cabs in a train.
Sound Transit has adequate revenue for most projects and so do most subareas, even with underestimating project costs and higher than estimated inflation. The total ST budget today through 2046 for capital and operations/maintenance is $152 billion for a light rail system that will handle 1% of all trips when fully completed, and so far has generated very few new trips by former car drivers. Traffic congestion certainly has not declined.
The bigger problems have been design issues. Otherwise the full East Link would be open and so would Federal Way Link. ST would be on the way to Tacoma with an above ground line and subarea that generates around $425 million/year and over $1 billion in banked loans. (What surprises me is Pierce does not have more in banked loans, but it has been spending too, on Sounder S., three expensive parking garages along Sounder S., and the T-Line). Plus like every other subarea except N. King it will owe around $500 million for DSTT2.
The two problematic subareas/projects for completely different reasons are Everett Link and WSBLE. The issue with Everett Link is the line from Lynnwood is very long and the subarea generates relatively little ST revenue (think Issaquah Link which on paper connects Issaquah, Bellevue and Kirkland, much better than Everett Link (but in a subarea with much higher revenue, too much in fact). One could surmise in fact that the uniform tax rates in ST 3 were designed to allow Snohomish Co. to complete Everett Link, although it may still not be enough.
WSBLE however is an issue of project change and creep. Probably this began because the subarea had a lot of extra ST revenue based on uniform tax rates because ST 2 pretty much funded the spine through N. King (e.g. 130th St. Station and Graham St. station), and because Link is through mostly “urban” or urban-like areas. Say what you will about Issaquah Link, and I am not claiming that is a wise transit project except the subarea has to spend the money somewhere, it is above ground through public right of ways, which of course is I-90, which is why some kind of rapid buses to S. Bellevue would work well too for a lot less, except where else to spend the subarea revenue?
Transit experts (I am not one) knew in 2016 that DSTT2 would cost more than $2.2 billion, probably closer to $4.2 billion today, but I think ST figured increased subarea revenue would cover that, and the four other subareas paying ½ although the benefit is questionable for them. I have to think ST expected neighborhoods like West Seattle and Ballard, which are two very charming and affluent RESIDENTIAL neighborhoods in Seattle, would object to surface or elevated rail. What other residential neighborhood has ST run elevated Link through? Certainly not Roosevelt. Bellevue shunted East Link to areas where there is very little residential housing today. Easier to complete Link than build the housing then run Link through Ballard or West Seattle.
I think West Seattle and Ballard would balk at surface or elevated Link, even though that was the original design, but who looks at original designs anyway. So the Board can either try and force surface or elevated lines through these neighborhoods and face a bruising political and legal fight with Harrell on the side of the neighborhoods if CID is any indication, and end up like Bellevue with Link far way from the center, or choose one segment to complete now underground with all the bells and whistles, and finish the rest later. ST generally loses when it gets into fights with powerful stakeholders, even the CID.
“Extending” DSTT2 is pretty easy because all the stakeholders and property owners from CID to DSA to midtown to Amazon don’t really want it that badly, certainly not a decade of disruption, and Harrell is in a bind because the decline in downtown business revenue is gutting Seattle’s general budgets so he is trying to cover operations with levies (housing and transportation) which Seattleites apparently don’t notice. So probably the next segment of WSBLE a decade or two out will be Ballard Link to Westlake, maybe SLU. Who cares about Interbay? It can run on the surface.
I think this is backwards. I would have begun with DSTT2 because I believe at some point the capacity will be needed (at least according to ST ridership projections which originally estimated 750,000 daily trips on Link in 2050), and maybe as soon as WSLE and East Link open fully. It would be odd to complete the spine from Everett to Tacoma to Redmond to West Seattle only to have a choke point downtown in one transit tunnel, followed by the choke point south of Seattle which I think will badly decrease ridership on Link from south of Seattle to Seattle. I believe mass transit (Link, subways) should begin at the center and extend outwards, but ST and the Board believe in the opposite, even N. King Co. which spent a great deal of its revenue running Link to the county borders.
I plan to focus on the design in West Seattle knowing it will look like the FEIS, and be underground, and will carry 5200 daily riders, none new to transit. But that is what will happen. Then Ballard Link with maybe additional funding from Seattle although Seattle has no additional revenue right now, and Issaquah Link for sure because the subarea doesn’t know what else to do with the money, and Kirkland and Issaquah are powerful stakeholders who will demand their Link even if they don’t really want it. Tacoma Link to the Dome will get built (never understood ending at the Dome) but Everett Link will be the problem, which ST will probably cover over by having the other subareas pick up Snohomish County’s contribution to DSTT2 through some very long term “loans” because N. King and East King will still be generated over $600 million/year in revenue with most of their Link projects done.
> I think West Seattle and Ballard would balk at surface or elevated Link, even though that was the original design, but who looks at original designs anyway. So the Board can either try and force surface or elevated lines through these neighborhoods and face a bruising political and legal fight with Harrell on the side of the neighborhoods if CID is any indication
Perhaps we can talk about it more in detailed, but sound transit is already starting that process with the updated betterments policy.
“”””
A project betterment is an element beyond the project scope approved by
the Board.
• Sound Transit requires a requesting party to pay for a project betterment.
• Sound Transit will make every effort to incorporate a project betterment
but may decline to do so if it jeopardizes delivery of the baseline scope.
“”””
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/system-expansion-project-scope-betterments-policy-update-202407.pdf
@WL,
“Currently Link runs every 10 minutes with 4 car trains”
No it doesn’t. It hasn’t run at 10 for months now (years?).
Currently Link runs at 8 min headways. That is the root of the whole problem around distributed storage and lack of access to OMF-E.
Link will go to 4 or 5 min headways (interlined) when Full ELE opens. But Full ELE will also deliver another huge slug of increased ridership. As will FWLE.
And FWLE will add more riders without adding more trains. So it will be fun to see where we end up, but it should still be an improvement.
@Lazarus
thanks for the correction, I was just reading off the service change powerpoint but it before the march change. I was a bit confused as I was sure it was 8 minute frequency as well during peak times.
though the main point that the transit tunnel can handle double the frequency is still the same
The bigger problems have been design issues. Otherwise the full East Link would be open and so would Federal Way Link.
The delay to East Link was not a design issue, but a construction issue. They simply built it wrong. In contrast Federally Way Link was a design issue. They made initial estimates but those estimates were way off.
WSBLE however is an issue of project change and creep.
Not really. The projects have gotten considerably worse. The best potential station in West Seattle is close to the junction. Almost all the plans move it further away. Ballard is worse. 15th was a compromise. It made sense to be farther west (20th). But instead it is moving east (to 14th). The promised “world class transfers” downtown are gone. Folks are pushing for second-rate transfers to avoid third-rate transfers. In various ways this is much worse than what was planned.
But it is also a lot more expensive. It is more expensive for the same reason Federal Way Link is more expensive. As they dug into the details they realized they couldn’t build it for that much. The assumptions they made were overly optimistic. This is to be expected. The problem is, this is occurring after we have committed to these ideas. It is backwards. Some of these projects might have made sense at the original estimate, but don’t make sense now. Other projects that were cheaper but didn’t seem like they were as good might be better in comparison, given the new information.
I would have begun with DSTT2 because I believe at some point the capacity.
OK, except nobody does that. Nobody builds a line based purely on capacity because they think that maybe someday it will be crowded. They first wait for it to get crowded. Then do everything else first (improve headways, buy train cars with more capacity, etc.). They even do thing like run commuter rail and express buses (that in many cases offer an improvement over the subway for longer trips). Quite often agencies simply put up with crowding, while also extending the line. Loo at the Boston Green Line. It has had legendary headway issues for decades. Yet they are not fixing that — they are added new stations outside the city. No one starts with a second line, just for capacity.
When they do build a second line, they improve coverage in the densely populated part of town. In other words, it does more than just add capacity. That is one of the fundamental problems with the new tunnels. It is never worth a transfer. Every station is too close to an existing station, just a bit worse. Again, this is largely unheard of, but ST likes to do things their own way. Oh, and it was supposed to be cheap.
Which means that if we did start from the middle and work out, we wouldn’t build anything like what we are building. We would build a line from Judkins Park to Westlake (via First Hill) with several stations in between. It would be designed so that it could be extended to Mount Baker and ultimately even become the Mount Baker Line. The stations would be big enough to handle those trains, but for now just run smaller automated trains back and forth. This would provide potential crowding relief but mainly it would provide a lot of great functionality. I’m not saying it is what I would build next, but it has merit.
Which I can’t say about the new tunnel. How exactly is this new tunnel supposed to help with crowding if the most crowded section is between the UW and Westlake? The simple answer is it isn’t. The only way to deal with that crowding (other than the remedies I suggested earlier) is to run a second line from downtown to the UW.
So now you see why nobody does this. It is quite possible that the spot you thought was going to relieve crowding doesn’t help at all.
The current delay in running Link across the I-90 bridge is a construction issue with the plinths. However, before that there were design issues with the hinge between the bridge deck and span, post tensioning the concrete, installing the raised plinths to begin with to dampen vibrations reaching the concrete, and better guy wires to lessen pitch and yaw. The plinth issue is responsible for the delay from opening in 2023 to 2025, not the earlier delays (the original opening date to downtown Bellevue was 2020).
“But it is also a lot more expensive. It is more expensive for the same reason Federal Way Link is more expensive. As they dug into the details they realized they couldn’t build it for that much. The assumptions they made were overly optimistic. This is to be expected. The problem is, this is occurring after we have committed to these ideas”.
I agree with this, but believe it is consistent with my comment that “WSBLE however is an issue of project change and creep”. It isn’t as if running Link to West Seattle was not part of ST 3 (or Link to Federal Way). On top of the usual project cost underestimation you have changes to the project (or bad soil), and creep by switching to a more expensive design along basically the same general route, mostly tunnel and underground stations.
I am not saying that a surface or elevated line through West Seattle would be better transit or generate more riders, I am just saying it would be less expensive and was the original design until project changes and creep.
Re: changes to DSTT2 that is mostly political (although the estimated cost has doubled even if ST is loath to admit that). That happens, whether the stakeholders are the DSA, Bellevue, West Seattle or Ballard. The mistake some make is thinking Link is transformational for these communities, or they see Link and its disruption worth any price. They don’t. Considering the FEIS estimates WSLE will handle 5200 riders/day with none of them being new transit riders proves their point.
Again my point was ST has the funding to complete almost all its projects that are in the levies voters voted for although some subareas may have to delay certain projects (Ballard Link). The other option is to try and force some kind of value engineering on these communities which generally has not worked, or the enhancements WL mentions, although we are talking significant sums, and it isn’t clear how a subarea like N. King Co. would raise the enhancement funding which I think would require a levy since the enhancements are in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Would Seattle voters approve a levy for hundreds of millions of dollars so Link was under 20th rather than 14th or 15th?
Maybe the solution is for ST to require Seattle voters to approve several billion in levies for the designs West Seattle and Ballard and downtown want for WSBLE. But if the levies failed I could see the stakeholders opting for no Link. Which may be the best TRANSIT option anyway, although ST focuses on rail.
Did you ride further south then Westlake?
Did the escalators at Westlake back up?
@Al S,
I did not ride further south than Westlake. That is as far south as I went.
I did witness a SB Link train unloading at WLS though, and it was impressive.
I didn’t go to the south escalator, but I did exit the station via the stairs under 5th. So that is the only exit I can comment on.
The escalator was packed. And I do mean PACKED. Like 2 people per step and most steps taken. No way couldn’t handle more people.
But that isn’t the worst of it. The adjacent stair was packed too. Absolutely railing to railing packed. I river of humanity walking up. Nobody could come down at all.
So, ya, the bus tunnel capacity constraints are clearly evident at WLS.
Thanks for the report about Westlake.
One thing that is not discussed is whether Westlake Station itself can handle the crowds getting off trains. In particular, I’m curious whether riders can get fully off the platform before the next train arrives.
Even if the additional trains can carry everyone at peak, the station flow itself could be a crowding concern.
The interesting thing is that the bulk of the north corridor riders are now on Link. (The Everett extension may add some, growth should add some, and riders from buses can still switch to Link.) So the big crowding pinch points can now be generally identified in realtime analysis rather than in speculation — whether it’s a train car, a station platform, a vertical device or something else . And if anything isn’t approaching capacity, it’s probably not a future concern either.
@Al S,
“One thing that is not discussed is whether Westlake Station itself can handle the crowds getting off trains.”
Exactly. It’s theoretically possible to stuff a few more trains into the tunnel and get below 4 min headways, but when you do that you quickly bump up against station capacity issues. And those limitations need to be honored too.
Station capacity issues are multiple. Ingress, emergency egress, platform holding capacity, smoke evacuation, etc, etc etc.
It is not an easy problem. And what I saw today indicates ST doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver.
“ Exactly. It’s theoretically possible to stuff a few more trains into the tunnel and get below 4 min headways, but when you do that you quickly bump up against station capacity issues. And those limitations need to be honored too.”
Not exactly. Just because more trains may arrive per hour at the platform, the number of riders getting on and off will be close to the same. Sure the better frequency could attract a few more riders but I doubt it would be a big percentage.
Or in other words, station capacity is a separate issue from trains per hour capacity.
@Al S,
“Just because more trains may arrive per hour at the platform, the number of riders getting on and off will be close to the same.”
Not 100% true. People don’t leave nor board instantly. So with more trains per hour you get more people in the station and more people on the platform at any one time. And more simultaneous demand for ingress and egress.
The station backs up relatively quickly, just like a freeway at rush hour. And all this people need to evacuate at the same time during an emergency.
“ Not 100% true. People don’t leave nor board instantly. So with more trains per hour you get more people in the station and more people on the platform at any one time. And more simultaneous demand for ingress and egress.”
I dont follow you.
If there are more frequent trains there should be a fewer number of riders getting on and off each train.
If there are more trains there is more aggregate open door time in a station so the surges won’t be as pulsed. That should make circulation on the platform easier.
To prove this point conceptually think about the opposite case (assuming unlimited train capacity). If 4 trains an hour released 400 riders versus 8 trains an hour releasing 200 riders the platform crowding would be worse at the train arrival events. Going to 16 trains an hour with 100 riders getting off would make it easier for riders to ascend from the platform. And more easily pass by those getting on.
@Al / Lazarus
As far as I know the tunnel can be used for up to 3 minute frequency but cannot be used any more frequently due to ventilation (fire safety) and egress reasons.
https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/ST3_Draft_PriorityProjectsList%202015%2006%2004.pdf
Project C-07
Transit Tunnel (International I District to Northgate) I improvements enabling increases in system frequency
This project would study, identify, and evaluate capital and operating options in the Transit Tunnel (International District to Northgate) to potentially improve the frequency of trains to less than three minutes. This could include fund ing projects such as train operations, upgraded train control signal technology, ventilation, access/egress improvements, etc
One thing that is not discussed is whether Westlake Station itself can handle the crowds getting off trains.
The bus tunnel was built for huge capacity (a lot more than the trains we are running now, or even plan on running). It was just buses, but remember it was essentially double-tracked buses. Buses could pass buses, which greatly increase the potential capacity*. If we run trains every two minutes it wouldn’t be an issue, but at three minutes (which we won’t do for a long time) it would be fine.
* There is an interesting chart here. Obviously it is fairly rough, but you get the idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passengers_per_hour_per_direction#/media/File:Passenger_Capacity_of_different_Transport_Modes.png.
In other positive news, during my field trip today I got off at CHS to observe the show. While there I took the opportunity to chat up a couple ST employees in “Ask Me” vests.
They said that Link has been noticeably more crowded since LLE opened, but that things have generally been working well. But they also had some *news* regarding FWLE.
Apparently they had recently take a staff tour of FWLE. During this tour they were given some very preliminary info on an opening date target.
Apparently there is an early scoping exercise underway at ST to see if they can bring the FWLE opening date forward a bit. The motivation for this would be to insure that FWLE is open and debugged operationally prior to the World Cup. And to insure that Metro has time to institute a restructure in support of FWLE. So that is very good news.
Hopefully ST is successful in establishing an early FWLE opening date, because every little bit of transit improvement locally is welcome.
I don’t see Federal Way Link opening until the East OMF can be accessed from Seattle.
Note that this date is different — but related — to the 2 Line opening. The date in the latest progress report for the start of 2 Line cross-lake simulated service is August 24, 2025 (11 months +). So the vehicles could be accessed as quickly as next summer.
I wonder if a same day opening of 2 Line and FW Link stations is possible. ST says that they need gaps between openings — but this year we opened 8 stations at once and 4 stations at once. Opening both of these on the same day would be 5 new stations total.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/agency-progress-report-capital-program-june-2024.pdf
@Al S,
I think any improvement in the opening date for FWLE will be relatively minor. And it certainly won’t open before, or even with, Full ELE.
But every little bit helps.
When is the OMF on top of the church south of Federal Way due to open?
2032
Note that Federal Way Link Extendion opening is listed as April 9, 2026 in the latest published progress report linked above.
OMF-S is listed as 2032.
Tacoma Dome Link Extension is listed as December 30, 2035.
Surprisingly, a west Seattle is listed as March 22, 2033. Given how there are several besoke elements including digging out a giant station 100 feet deep and a tall bridge tower , on top of a financial plan and resolution of lawsuits and EIS issues and funding , I just don’t see it opening until 2035 and possibly later.
Regarding the contractor that won’t work with SoundTransit again due to the experience working on Tacoma Link:
https://tacomaweekly.com/contractor-says-red-tape-causing-hilltop-link-delays-p5122-222.htm
There was a Mass Transit Magazine article that mentioned the problems too, but I can’t find it now. That article made it sound like there were a lot of issues with ST not having all the required information available to do the catenary work, and it was slow to arrive when requested.