“Fremont Bridge Open With U.S.S. Tatnuck Passing Under”, dated August 27, 1936. Item 73874, courtesy of the Seattle Municipal Archives.

Transit Updates:

Local News:

Other News, Opinion, and Miscellaneous:

This is an Open Thread.

84 Replies to “Midweek Roundup – Open Thread 66”

    1. I’m not the least bit surprised. In the eyes of Republicans, the only legitimate form of land transportation is privately operated cars and trucks powered by gas or diesel. Everything else, be it walking, bikes, transit, or even EVs, is considered a waste to be stamped out.

    3. If a factory is spewing out toxic pollution, they’re made to clean up all of it and retrofit the factory to stop pollution. But with cars and trucks we should just reduce a bit of pollution and leave the rest? People are getting asthma because of it, oil droplets seep into our water and food, and carbon emissions are creating deadly heat waves.

      1. “If a factory is spewing out toxic pollution, they’re made to clean up all of it and retrofit the factory to stop pollution.” Nope – most pollution has a minimum level of acceptable emission, set by the relevant state or federal authority. A factory only needs to implement mitigation if the facility exceeds the emission standards, and those standards can very depending on both the size and location of a facility (larger facilities have tighter regulations in my experience). It’s very rare for the emission standard to be zero.

  2. Chicago already has some of the best transit in the country, so if there’s so much low-hanging fruit that it could dramatically increase ridership, that’s impressive.

    What I noticed in Chicago was that all the core bus routes in the north side ran at an impressive 5-10 minute frequency but they were crawlingly slow due to traffic congestion. So speeding them up would be my priority.

    I’ve seen people in Chicago (and San Francisco) drive to an extent that they wouldn’t in New York or London. One person drove to her pottery studio, a trip from Lawrence to Fullerton on the Brown Line, even though she knew the L traveled between them and sometimes rode it. Another person drove from the suburbs to her shop at Belmont. I don’t know which suburb or what transit access from there is like, but it struck me as something she wouldn’t do in New York. When I’ve seen people in Jersey City or Bronxville drive into Manhattan, it’s only on evenings or weekends. So if a major transit investment in Chicago can make mode share more New York-like, that would be a good thing.

    “CTA notes previous research from ANL and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) showed the Chicago region would face severe consequences if its public transportation system was eliminated, including increased vehicle congestion, reduced economic activity and a disproportionate impact on underserved communities and minorities.”

    Seattle/Pugetopolis is the same. The debates focus on whether to increase transit investment and whether more transit would be used. But if you eliminated existing transit, all those passengers would have to drive or forego their trips. That would add a huge amount to congestion, people not able to get to work, people wasting more time getting from A to B. The existing transit is the unsung hero of the transportation system.

    1. Keep in mind that much of Chicago is suburban. Chicago is an older city, so there is a ton of low rise residential neighborhoods that are in city limits that in a younger city would have been incorporated as independent cities.
      http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3716.html

      Also, NYC isn’t that different – there is a clear transition from “urban” and “suburban” land use and therefore a sharp transition in mode share, and this transition occurs within NYC city limits, not afterwards. Check out the drive alone rate map in this post – much of Queens and southern Brooklyn is clearly suburban: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/03/06/land-use-around-the-interborough-express/

      Chicago has a great rail network, and a pretty good bus network, but terrible bus prioritization and plenty of opportunity to invest more in bus frequency & reliability.

    2. Like most US cities, it is quite likely that you could get the biggest improvement in transit (per dollar spent) in Chicago by investing in the bus network. What makes Chicago unusual is that they have a very important rail system (most US cites don’t). But the buses still carry about half the riders of the trains*. Thus if they added bus lanes (and increased frequency) it would yield huge dividends.

      As you mentioned, Chicago already has good frequency, so the effort should be on making the buses faster. Of course that leads to even better frequency (at no additional cost). In a lot of smaller cities, traffic isn’t the biggest issue. Service is. Then there are cities like Seattle, where it is a mix. We have plenty of key corridors (like Denny) where the buses are stuck. Adding bus lanes would make a huge difference. That would allow us to run the buses more often, but we still need to put money into service, and design a more efficient, effective network.

      * Boston and DC are also about 50-50, while New York is unusual in that most of the ridership comes from the subway. Every other US city (including Seattle) has a lot more bus riders than train riders. It is worth noting that Vancouver has more bus riders than SkyTrain riders, despite a first-class metro. Buses are really important.

  3. I’ve been fussing with the news roundup format to try to make it easier to read. Is the condensed list format better or worse than previous? Is the [source]: [headline] (comment) format good?

    Are there any news sources I’m missing, or sources that folks usually skip? Are the roundups too long, too short, or just right?

    2. The source/headline format puts the generic part first. I’d rather have the article-specific part first.

      2. I guess I’m just burnt out by headlines like:
        WINDMILLS CAUSE CANCER – DONALD TRUMP
        where a reader skimming headlines might miss that the source is unreliable

    2. Yep, my train just sat at Northgate for close to 30 minutes. Finally had to get off and make alternate travel plans.

    3. They seem to have removed the disabled train from the NB track at UW Station last night, but now there’s a disabled train on the SB track instead.

    4. Was stuck in the mess last night but fortunately missed it this AM. Very frustrating that all of the massively faster service from Cherry St express lane entrance to the N end of the line is gone.

    5. There’s almost no information being given on the trains or platforms, my experience yesterday was the same. It’s really difficult to figure out if you should use alternate routes if you don’t know how long you’ll be stuck. Is waiting for the train to clear faster than the transfer time penalty? Hard to tell when you don’t know how long the delay will be.

    7. This the third time in the last few months there has been a power issue on the north end of the line. I reply on Link EVERY day and it’s frustrating not only becuase of the service disruption but the persistant lack of communication. No announcments onboard or at the stations.

    8. I’ve ridden light rail in multiple cities and lived in two prior cities with light rail. I’ve never seen the electrical problems in other places that I’ve both experienced and heard about on Link. Even Metro’s ETB system doesn’t get failures like this. Even on Lynnwood Link Extension opening day, the light rail car I rode had a loud electrical discharge for no obvious reason.

      Which makes me wonder if there is a fundamental design problem. Is it the new vehicles, a new wire design, the underlying power specs or something else?

      If it keeps happening, something has to be done to get to the bottom of the problem. It probably will take an outside expert with no stake in the outcome to “tell it like it is”. ST generally doesn’t like frankness though — preferring to never admit that they’ve done something badly. They generally double down on any decision — good or bad.

  5. As folks might have noticed, we’ve been able to increase our posting frequency lately with new authors (most recently Wesley Lin, who is great) stepping up to write about transit and land use issues. We also have a couple folks working on “guest” articles which I’m looking forward to posting on the Blog.

    If you have a topic you think would be good for the blog, or are interested in writing for the blog but don’t know where to start, please reach out to our contact address, contact at seattletransitblog dot com.

  6. I was at the Diller Room yesterday before the M’s game and saw tons of bus-bunching on the G-Line. It seems this trend is continuing. What’s the dispatch method for RapidRise? Are drivers on standard blocks and abide by then no matter what? Is there a dispatcher manually sending out buses or is it automated?

    2. In speaking with some agents and Amazon employees I know this is their take away from Amazon going back to five days/week in office. I was kind of surprised at how many current Amazon workers live well outside the Seattle/Bellevue area. A lot of Amazon workers still work M-F from home, whether it is authorized or not.

      1. Some employees think this is Jassy’s way of reducing employment and avoiding layoffs. Jassy has been talking about “efficiency” and staff reductions. This way it would be voluntary. Except he doesn’t get to select those employees who leave. Anyone who doesn’t want to return to in office work will want to force a layoff for the unemployment benefits, or stick around hoping for a severance if laid off.

      2. Real estate agents are hoping that this plus lower mortgage interest rates will lead to a 20% increase in housing prices in the Seattle area.

      3. Landlords are also hoping for a 10% to 20% bump in market rate rents in the $2000 to $3000/mo. apartment market. I live in Belltown and wonder how much of the recent stabilization of rents in my area is due to Amazon workers moving out of downtown. I don’t see many of these returning workers moving to TOD along LLE. Their return to the Seattle market will put a lot of pressure on vacancies and rents.

      4. The Bellevue office for some reason has a pretty high percentage of workers who work at home full time, and some who live on the eastside and work from home but haven’t formally switched from the Seattle office to the Bellevue Office. Bellevue is hoping that Amazon’s 12,000 Bellevue employees increases and may see a bigger impact from Amazon’s full return to office than Seattle. This would help offset the loss of 10,000 Microsoft workers.

      5. My own take is once East Link opens across Lake Washington it will be easier to get to Bellevue than SLU for anyone living along Link unless they can walk to work. Amazon hasn’t stated yet whether it will resume its shuttles to work.

      1. Fact Check, why would rents and housing prices dramatically increase? The vast majority of Amazon workers live in the Seattle area. And most are already coming into the office. You are trying to make it sound like the exception is the rule. Only small number of Amazon workers work five days a week from home. And only a small number live outside of the Seattle area. Most employees live in the Seattle-Eastside area, and many currently work a 3-2 office-home hybrid schedule. The small exceptions to the rule you are talking about are not enough to move the real estate price needle.

      2. How long can they go on raising house prices and rents that only a smaller and smaller portion of the population can consider?

      3. @Sam

        It’ll probably pressure belltown a bit. it is quite close to amazon and when going in for 5 days a week a lot more would choose to live next to their office.

      4. WL, right. There might be a little pressure here or there, probably more traffic-wise than housing price-wise, but I object to this idea that there are a large number of Amazon employees who moved away from the greater Seattle area, are working 5 days a week from home, and now will be forced to move back to within commuting distance of Amazon. That has to be an insignificant number of workers. Certainly not enough to make housing prices increase.

      5. Sam, time will tell. I think you make a lot of assumptions in your post that may not be entirely true. The DSA is hoping for a significant bump in downtown retail activity form Amazon workers returning to downtown. I don’t know why they would anticipate that if as you state all these Amazon workers already live in the downtown area.

        If you add 5000 or 10,000 highly compensated employees back into the Seattle housing/rental market in the next five months you will see fewer vacancies and higher rents. At least that is what the real estate and multi-family landlords are hoping for. I don’t work in that market, but they see higher housing prices as a good thing, and an additional 5000 or 10,000 highly paid customers is gold for them.

      6. > I object to this idea that there are a large number of Amazon employees who moved away from the greater Seattle area, are working 5 days a week from home, and now will be forced to move back to within commuting distance of Amazon.

        It doesn’t have to be out of the greater seattle area. For amazon workers that were say living in lynnwood, federal way or redmond commuting 2/3 days a week is different from 5 days a week. if they were renting an apartment when their lease comes up I’m sure many will at least consider renting closer in SLU or belltown

      7. If you add 5,000 or 10,000 highly compensated employees back into the Seattle housing/rental market in the next five months you will see fewer vacancies and higher rents.

        Right, but it isn’t clear that you are doing that. A lot of people who have been working at Amazon already live in the area. They won’t move. A lot of the people who were say, living in Montana and took the Amazon job so they could work remotely will switch jobs (or work something out with Amazon). It isn’t like Amazon never had people working remotely before. They are basically just changing the standard. Not too long ago you could just decide not to come into work. Now you have to work it out with management (and they might tell you to come in or find another job).

      8. Fact Check, 5000 to 10,000 Amazon employees did not move out of commuting range of the Seattle area, and now have to move back. The vast majority of Amazon workers are still in the Seattle area. There is no flood of Amazon workers moving back into the area. Most are already here.

        I do agree with you that Amazon workers coming back into the office two more days a week (many currently work a 3-2 hybrid schedule), will help with retail activity.

      9. Five days/week also makes taking the ferry too burdensome. I know a lot of Amazon workers who live in Kitsap or Island Co. We are not talking about rural Montana. We are talking outside King Co. now moving back downtown to avoid a five day/week commute during peak hours.

        The other reality is the three-day workweek was widely manipulated, known as the “latte check in”, in part because the team leader was also on a three day workweek and not always there three days/week. As WL notes, just like pre-pandemic, when an Amazon worker has to commute five days/week to an office and be there 8 hours/day, which means they are commuting during peak hours, they move to housing that is much closer to the office, i.e. Belltown, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, and SLU, areas which since the end of the pandemic have seen an easing in rent increases.

        A well known saying is we can debate the future or wait for it. Since Jassy has set January 2025 as the start date that means Amazon workers who need or want to move closer to the office need to start looking pretty soon, and not wait until January when the market will be picked over.

        As someone who lives in Belltown I hope the new Amazon residents will increase retail vibrancy which has been anemic since the pandemic but won’t increase rents. But I also understand the conflict between the two. It isn’t logical to assume all these workers already live downtown but their return to work 5 days/week will somehow result in increased retail vibrancy as the DSA hopes. If anything they will shop and dine less if they are stuck in an office 8 — 10 hours/day five days/week.

        The more interesting headquarters is in Bellevue because the Bellevue office has never been M-F office work, but during the pandemic and last few years Amazon has moved 12,000 Seattle Amazon workers to Bellevue where they are not subject to the head tax. I was told Bellevue has a higher percentage of full time work from home workers than Seattle but don’t know that personally. Where will those workers want to live if the must commute five days/week? I am just going off what my Amazon friends have told me and some agents/landlords I know who are enthusiastic with the new policy because they think it will be good for business.

      10. Re. 5: It’s not *that* far of a walk from Westlake Station to Amazon. If it were like Fred Hutch, I can see that. Sitting on the train to go across the lake and up Bellevue way, then still having to walk through downtown Bellevue (because they put the station in the wrong place) doesn’t seem easier at all.

      11. I know a lot of Amazon workers who live in Kitsap or Island Co.

        So what? Again, those folks either commute or they worked from home long before the pandemic. What you are suggesting is that in the last couple of years there was a massive wave of people that moved out of the region and now they will move back. Sorry, I just don’t buy it.

        This will definitely effect commuting. This will definitely effect the areas where Amazon workers work. But I don’t think this will effect housing prices much at all.

      12. Ross, you may be correct. As I noted above, we won’t have to wait long to find out. You don’t have to “buy” anything because I am not trying to convince anyone of anything.

        I never stated a massive amount of Amazon workers moved out of the “region”. You said that by stating they worked in rural Montana. I said they moved out of the downtown Seattle area to other areas in the region that are hard to commute to SLU five days/week, so many may move back downtown when they return full time. There was very little if any full time work at home at Amazon before the pandemic.

        I find it interesting that people think their pet interest will benefit from full time work at Amazon but there will be no other effects. Transit people think full time office work at Amazon will increase ridership on transit (although the return to work three days/week did not increase transit ridership much) but rents and housing prices won’t increase from people moving to live closer to work, the DSA thinks requiring Amazon workers – most of whom some claim already live somewhat close to downtown or SLU – to work full time will revitalize downtown retail despite Amazon being in SLU and supposedly these workers already live downtown, landlords and real estate agents I know think returning to full time work will increase local housing prices and rents, Amazon workers I know still think M-F will have as many loopholes as three days/week work, and so on.

        My pet interest is my rent in Belltown doesn’t start increasing 5%/year again but retail vibrancy increases, although I know those two usually don’t go together. They didn’t pre-pandemic.

        There is a good chance the impact to Bellevue will be much greater than Seattle. KUOW – As Seattle lost 10K Amazon employees, the company added corporate workers in Bellevue. Amazon clearly sees Bellevue as its future growth center. There is no head tax. Amazon employment in Seattle has declined by 10,000 workers and increased by 12,000 in Bellevue, and according to this article and my sources in the commercial office industry that will continue.

        So any impact on transit in Seattle, or housing, or retail, by requiring Amazon to return to full time work may be offset by the shift of workers from Seattle to Bellevue. According to the article, once East Link opens across the bridge that may blur where Amazon workers live even if they do work in Bellevue and vice versa.
        https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-lost-10-000-amazon-employees-in-4-years-bellevue-gained.

        If I had to guess I think the requirement of five days/week work will be enforced as weakly as three days/week. Amazon can’t afford to lose its most important workers to companies like Microsoft, especially in AI, and those will be the ones who can change companies the easiest if they don’t want to commute. Time will tell.

      13. “Sitting on the train to go across the lake and up Bellevue way, then still having to walk through downtown Bellevue”

        Amazon is right next to Bellevue Downtown station. So are most of the office jobs and highrises. That’s what Bellevue optimized for in the Link alignment. What’s harder is getting to the retail along Bellevue Way and the downtown park.

        When cross-lake service starts, people will be able to live in walkable Seattle neighborhoods and get to Amazon jobs in Bellevue more easily.

        Seattle Amazon workers didn’t just live “downtown” if downtown means west of I-5 between Denny and Yesler. They also lived in southwest Capitol Hill and walked to work, or lived further east on the 8, as well as in northwest Seattle and other places. Some of them moved to the suburbs after 2020 but not all of them, because they may have other reasons to stay in Seattle too.

        The number of people moving back is probably more like 1,000 than 10,000. And again, they all were in Seattle just four years ago, so the apartment squeeze won’t be worse than then. The population has increased at a more moderate pace in the past three years, but apartment construction has also increased so there are more units available. Vacancies are higher than they were then, so they can start by filling the “excess” empty units. Landlords will be grateful they don’t have to leave units empty for two months looking for a tenant, as has been happening the past two years. The vacancy rate will have to get back down again before rents can substantially increase.

      14. I said they moved out of the downtown Seattle area to other areas in the region that are hard to commute to SLU five days/week, so many may move back downtown when they return full time.

        Right, but I’m just saying that it works the same way. If people moved to Montana then they are hosed. They have three choices: negotiate with Amazon, move, or find another job. In contrast if someone left their apartment in Capitol Hill and started renting a place in Ballard they have a fourth option: commute. Sure, it isn’t a great commute but it is probably what you signed up for in the first place.

        The idea that lots of people left town because of what appeared to be a temporary situation (that mass numbers of people could work from home) seems highly doubtful. We are talking a few hundred in a city of 3/4 of a million.

        Look, I get why people hate some commutes. But I think you are ignoring option number three here — just find another job. I did that. I live in the north end and commuted to Factoria. It was a good job and an important part of my career. I was also very happy working there. But the commute was terrible, so I left that job to work in Seattle. There was no way in hell I would have moved.

        Moving is a pain in the ass. It is common to move because of your job, but that is typically to another region (e. g. moving from the Midwest to Seattle). It is common to move because they raised the rent, or you really don’t like the neighborhood, or you want a bigger place. But moving just because you want to be a bit closer to a job that you might not have in a few years just seems odd. I doubt there are a significant number of people who will do that.

        I really doubt that when Expedia moved to Seattle (at a location that is a lot less convenient than Amazon offices) a huge number of people decided to move to the city. Moving is just a pain in the ass.

  8. Re Link single-tracking north of Capitol Hill, one announcement this morning at 5:25am said it was fixed, but another at 8:07am said it’s continuing on the opposite platform (northbound), and a third at 8:12am says, “1 Line trains are sharing one track from Northgate Station to UW Station until further notice due to mechanical issues. Passengers at Roosevelt Station and U District Station, please board all trains on the platform to Lynnwood City Center.” So I don’t know what’s going on.

    1. Trains may have to wait up to a half four due to lack of switches between UW and Northgate. Free Regional Day Passes for everyone! /

      1. What was the source of the problems with today’s and yesterday’s issues? Was a pantograph or catenary issue? Something else?

      2. I don’t any more than ST’s announcements and what the comment section said. ST said “mechanical issues”. A commentator said a train this morning broke or lost power on the opposite track from yesterday (i.e., today on the southbound track).

      3. We got a response from ST PR today saying they’re still trying to figure out the cause of yesterday’s issues. This morning’s delay was cause by a brake fault.

      4. To clarify: ST said they repaired the overhead catenary wire last night, implying that the catenary wire system broke. They did not share the extent of damage to the train or its pantograph system.

  9. Has Sound Transit/Link light rail ever received a grant or significant support from WSDOT/State level? Google just yields federal grants, can’t find anything at the state level. If so, what was the largest contribution the state has made to the program?

    1. The state has a small amount of transit grants, mainly for rural service and intercounty connectors. Metro’s 168 (Kent-Maple Valley) got a grant in the 2010s for weekend coverage in an area that otherwise wouldn’t have buses. And the free universal youth fares come from a state grant funded by the carbon tax.

  10. Final update on Sound Transit’s new fare policy:

    A Sound Transit representative voided the warning and added: “I agree that a passenger should not have to delay their trip as we are here to serve you. If this happens again before our software update please don’t hesitate to contact me. Apologies and thank you for being a Sound Transit passenger, have a great day!”

    I’m glad to hear they are aware of the issue and are working on a fix.

    Previous thread: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/09/11/midweek-roundup-open-thread-65/#comment-940480

  11. I gave a friend who rides the train frequently a heads up about the $6 Regional Day Passes. They bought the $6 Link paper day pass, and ended up having to pay separately for bus rides.

    That got me thinking. How about a deal between ST and Metro, in which ST stops selling the Link-only day passes, and Metro ends the paper transfers?

    It took a deal on the county council to get a car tab passed, which gave Ds on the county council cover to end the Ride Free Area and Pay-After-You-Shove-to-the-Front-to-Exit.

    How about a deal the county council can’t refuse to be rid of our legacy paper transfers?

  12. Was reading the motion about the stride bus renamings. Might create a short fun article about the new station names and remaining ones still debated that if people are interested.

    But more importantly one note is that

    “”””
    Participants results were mixed for “Renton Transit Center” vs “South Renton Transit Center” revealing many passengers were unaware that the existing Renton Transit Center would be replaced by this new facility. Staff recommends “Renton Transit Center”, which is favored by the City of Renton. Staff also note that more outreach with our transit partners is necessary to raise awareness of the existing Renton Transit Center closing and being replaced by the BRT facility.
    “”””

    1. I really fret over the use of the term “transit center” for almost everything. Local agencies really need to up the terminology choices.

      In Renton’s case, I would have suggested using the word “junction”. We have a West Seattle Junction that is known to originate from transit functionality. To me it would have been more intuitive to have called it “Renton Junction” — channeling its park-and-ride function as well as its location in the regional freeway system.

      But the decision has been made.

  13. Looking forward to tomorrow’s STB coverage of the mammoth (yet predictable) cost overruns on West Seattle Link; cost per new rider and cost per new station will be interesting metrics to compare with other major projects.

    2. I’m holding back on specifics about the new DEIS — but I will say that this gravy train has no nutritional value.

    3. Fair warning that there’s no direct discussion of cost per new rider because there’s little difference in ridership between studied alternatives, and ST hasn’t published cost per new station separate from ROW & guideway costs in each segment.

  14. Why are the DSTT elevators so goddamn slow? I got to the Westlake 5th entrance and it said “Lynnwood 3 minutes”. Knowing that it takes less than 2 minutes to go down all the UW escalators I thought I might have a chance. I pressed the elevator button down to the platform and waited a while for the elevator to come up. The train was arriving when I got in. When zi got to the platform the train had just closed it’s doors. if it had been a perky elevator like the recent ones I wiukd have made it.

    I always assumed the slow elevators were so that wheelchairs wouldn’t jostle. But the high-soeed elevators in highrise buildings and the newer Link stations seem fine, so why did elevators go from speedy in the 1960s to slow in the 1980s to speedy again in the 2000s it 2010s?

    1. I believe that it’s probably the elevator technology. Hydraulic elevators are notorious slower than cable-electric motor elevators. They are cheaper to install but more costly to maintain.

      Plus there may be a mismatch between the expected and actual elevator use. In the 1980’s, transit station designers thought of elevators as something nice to have that would be rarely used. Then ADA happened. Then the average traveler got both older (more arthritis) and more obese. And people today travel with more stuff — laptops, gym clothes, extra pairs of shoes and such. So elevators get more use than designers thought.

  15. Our Prayers have been Answered!
    from the Seattle Times Eastrail article

    “The trails offer recreational users plenty of miles to cover, but also act as bicycle “super highways,” providing commuters an option to get from home or work to transit, without having to navigate a road system dominated by automobiles.”

    No need for USEFUL rail transit,
    BICYCLES are the answer!

    Bring on the SR522 widening!
    Bring on the Hewitt Ave. Trestle rebuild.

    Time for another gas tax increase.

    1. In a better world, we’d levy a VMT tax scaled by manufactured vehicle weight, and keep the gas tax as a carbon tax.

  16. I took Community Transit 130 to Lynnwood Station late this morning, first time taking the bus to the rail. There was a family waiting at the bus stop, and several people already on the bus when it arrived. Everybody was going to the Link station. Before Lynnwood Link, I would often be the only person on that bus, or there would be one or two others. The walk to the station was effortless. There was some fire rescue activity at the north entrance, but the south entrance is the more convenient one coming from the busses. Escalator, which is like brand new, was down though, so I took the elevator. Fortunately this was after the single tracking got resolved, so the ride was fine. Took roughly five minutes longer door to door compared with park-and-ride at Mountlake Terrace, not too shabby. It will however take longer getting back, and I might end up just walking or runcommuting it, as it’s difficult to time the connections to half hourly busses.

  17. Reports of a northbound train approaching UW station a couple of minutes ago lost all power, and now disabled.

  18. Wednesday afternoon report:

    Link southbound at Roosevelt, 6pm: train packed, 50+ people passed up.
    Next train in 5 minutes. An announcement said to expect crowds due to a Mariners game. Somebody said there are two games today.

    1. Second train standing room only but I got on. More pass-ups. Next trains in 2, 6? Minutes.

      Transit reports, the Wednesday edition, commentary that puts the light in light rail. (Spoof on As It Happens )

    2. At Capitol Hill observing the platform. A bunch of people got off/on, but still 50 pass-ups. Next southbound trains 1, 6, 14 minutes. Next northbound trains now, 7, 19, 28 minutes. Northbound trains has a few seats available. Third southbound train has a few standing spaces available.

      1. @Mike Orr,

        Im confused. You say SB trains had standing room available, and NB trains had seats available, but still people weren’t getting on? Why?

        And this is all under normal ops, right?

      2. I should have clarified the last sentence. The second southbound train, the one I was on, has pass-ups. The third southbound train managed to fit them all.

      3. Now we know ST has enough trains and turnaround/layover spaces for 2-minute ballgame service even with the Lynnwood extension.

  20. The post below is trending on Seattle Nextdoor that reaches about 100,000 members (and the eastside as well for another 70,000 when all neighborhoods are included). After one day it has 141 likes and 81 comments. This is just not a good look for transit or a brand new $100 million RR. Not a lot of comments about bunching. Hopefully this stop is in one of the new stay out zones, which are an indication of serious problems since almost all stay out zones are near transit hubs.

    I know some on this blog dismiss any concerns about safety at transit stops as Eastside right wing pearl clutching but this person who lives on First Hill and the 81 people who replied did not strike me as right wing or out of touch b

    “Sarah Adams”
    North First Hill

    North First Hill

    • 1 day ago •

    “Last night while I waited for the new G line on Broadway, a man approached me and said something like if my lips were moving he was going to put his fist in my mouth. I told him I had no beef with him and wham his fist connected with my jaw and collar bone. Dam that hurt.

    ” And he walked towards my apartment building and I called 911. Seattle East Precinct arrived made the arrest. I gave my statement and photos. My boyfriend came down and felt horrible. I kept thinking this man is mentally ill without the ability to help himself. What he did was wrong but not helping him seems more wrong. He appeared to be reliving something from his past, It was sad and scary (for him and for me)

    “I just needed to tell someone. Thanks for listening, I’m wondering do you ignore the growing number of people in mental health crisis, the drug addicted, the unhoused. What is the right answer look the other way? incarcerated them? commit them? I’m fairly sure voucher programs aimed to remove affected from the streets are creating bigger problems. I’m overwhelmed tonight by the lack of true options these people have and the affect that one man choices had on me. Again thanks for listen”.

    1. My heart goes out to Sarah, and that shouldn’t have happened to her or anyone. But that could just have easily happened two block away without RapidRide G involved. The only people riding the G are those already on Madison, so they’re already in that area. A fast/frequent east-west route is needed for First Hill circulation in spite of the temporary state of the streetscape or what people outside the area think about the area.

      Madison Street is not in the stay-out zones (SODA zones ($)). The zones are centered around 3rd & Pike, and Broadway & Howell, among others. A corner of the second one is a half-block away at 11th & Union. I was surprised my area between them wasn’t included, but then we’ve had just homeless people, not people lighting up or hot-goods salesmen, which is what the zones are targeting.

      The right answer is some kind of effective solution that clears the streets, gives the disadvantaged all the services and housing they need, and prosecutes the organized-crime rings that are perpetuating the hot-goods sales markets and drug markets. If it were just a few individual ad-hoc drug dealers, it wouldn’t be so concentrated or sustained in one place.

      I’m not an expert in how to implement this; that’s what elected politicians are for. Until the politicians can do something effective or we can find effective politicians, we’ll just have to muddle along. Downtown Seattle was in a similarly-decaying phase in the 1970s but it recovered.

      I assume by “voucher programs” you mean subsidized housing vouchers to private landlords like Section 8. That’s just one of several tools for getting homeless people into housing. I’m not sure that it in particular is being used much in this case. Section 8 has a thousand-person waiting list. As for the general success cases of getting people sleeping on sidewalks into housing, what “bigger problems” is it creating, and is it really doing so? What’s the alternative? Leave them on the sidewalk? Put them in jail (as a kind of housing alternative)? I dream of just giving them a rural plot of land and telling them to start a commune and grow their own food, but it’s unlikely the politicians will go for that.

      Nextdoor from what I’ve seen secondhand is full of NIMBYs and people blowing crime issues out of proportion and saying certain areas are unsafe for everybody. That’s based on what Nextdoor readers have said here about various neighborhood chapters and posts. So if the other posts you allude to are about more of that without citing a specific incident, I wouldn’t be surprised. The media reports on the 1 person who was assaulted but not the 50,000 people around them who weren’t assaulted.

      1. Mike, I read STB and Nextdoor, and a few other blogs including The Urbanist and Seattle Times. I take all of them with a grain of salt.

        Recently for unknown reasons, (probably advertising rates), Nextdoor expanded its general feed to combine Seattle and a large part of East King Co. from Mercer Island to Renton to Issaquah to Medina to Bellevue to Redmond, which is an interesting mixture.

        Members can opt to post to only their city or neighborhood but most don’t and post to everyone. I live in Seattle but can now see in real time a slice of eastside life. At the same time those on the eastside can see a slice of Seattle (which could use a few grammar and English lessons).

        Without a doubt those posting from the eastside (and really only about 3% of members who read ND post on it but will thank a post) are more “concerned” or hysterical about crime, but then the governor’s race has devolved into a single issue: who will be tougher on crime.

        The biggest difference is the level of crime between Seattle and eastside posters. Eastside posters get worked up about vandalized mailboxes, speeding cars, trash, drinking in public, while Seattle posters get worked up about carjackings, murders, assaults, cars being burned yesterday on Mercer, stolen cars, gunshots.

        The reality is way more Seattle ND members post about crime than those on the eastside because way more are victims of crime. These are in highly dense areas and multi-family housing and not pearl clutching eastside residents, but I am sure it doesn’t help downtown retail, restaurants, or work commuters to read this from Seattleites.

        IMO if downtown Seattle streets were safe and clean there would be at least 25% more workers commuting there, at least 25% more shoppers and diners that now stay on the eastside or go to U. Village, and at least 25% more transit riders. Again IMO I think the biggest hurdle to getting eastsiders to ride East Link across the bridge will be public safety, and having by far the number one soapbox, Seattle’s Nextdoor, with SEATTLEITES telling eastsiders day in and day out Seattle is too dangerous is not helping downtown or transit.

        I ride transit in Seattle although I’ve pretty much switched to Uber at night. The biggest change I have seen since 2019 is the loss of normal riders who provided a sense of safety. We need to get those back, and they probably pay their fare. Right now we are not getting them back and it is almost 2025.

        It isn’t transit’s fault. Transit keeps getting better and better, but the regular riders haven’t returned even when driving in the city is expensive and difficult. If we don’t get them back I think we will start to see cuts to transit because all these transit projects we are seeing open are from pre-2020, and transit is almost never a topic for Eastside ND members except East Link bringing Seattle to the Eastside.

        I just don’t think we can afford to dismiss 25% of our potential customers/riders because we need their fares, political support, and just presence on transit.

      2. I grew up in the Eastside, and many Eastsides have been saying Seattle is unsafe or Rainier Valley and the Central District are unsafe since I was a child in the 1970s. The crack epidemic and gangs peaked in the early 1990s, the valley started getting gentrified and more middle-class people in the mid 1990s, and the CD in the 2000s. Yet still many suburbanites think that if they drive through those neighborhoods or get out of their car for an hour they’ll get caught in a drive-by shooting. Meanwhile tens of thousands of middle-class people have moved to those areas and are doing fine and enjoy the integrated diverse valley. I see their unwillingness to go to downtown Seattle or Capitol Hill or ride a bus or Link as more of the same.

        It may be Seattlites posting about crime right now, but I think a lot of it has been suburbanites seeing sensationalist news clips on local TV websites and then assuming that what happens to one person once happens to everybody 24/7.

        “if downtown Seattle streets were safe and clean there would be at least 25% more workers commuting there, at least 25% more shoppers and diners that now stay on the eastside or go to U. Village”

        Yes of course, downtown Seattle needs to get back to at least the safety level it had from 1985 to 2019.

        “the regular riders haven’t returned”

        Where haven’t they returned? Peak-hour commuting is way off but midday and evening ridership is mostly back, and weekend ridership is higher than it was. Metro has always had more middle-class riders than many American bus networks, and that continues. It also has working-class riders who are just going to work and errands and are well-behaved. Link has always had middle-class riders, and has always had a more middle-class average in southeast Seattle than the surrounding bus routes do, and that continues. Metro has responded to the change in ridership patterns by shifting service from peak hours to weekends and filling in some midday and evening gaps.

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