CityBeautiful explores San Francisco’s new transit center for MUNI and regional buses, and in the future Caltrain and high-speed rail. It’s located south of Market and has a rooftop park reminiscent of New York’s High Line.
This is an open thread.
51 Replies to “Weekend Movie: San Francisco Transit Center”
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Sunday movie?
That sort of confused me. Thought maybe I had overslept by a full day.
Looks like the auto-post got set for the wrong day… it’s now the “weekend movie”!
It’s my fault; I woke up early in the morning and thought it was Sunday.
But yaay, this means I can ride the G to the arboretum during the 6-minute period.
Found these indoor “transit terminals” interesting where buses enter a building for a central transfer. The predecessor to the Salesforce “Transit Center” (really more of a Transit Terminal), the Transbay Terminal was another great example and based on its former life as a rail terminal.
Theres a fairly new indoor bus transfer in Downtown Boise for their downtown bus transfer. Also Denver and Boulder have them. There’s also some great historic transit terminals like the Dixie Terminal in Cincinnati (used until the late 90s for buses), Subway Terminal Building and Main Street Terminal of the Pacific Electric in Los Angeles, BC Electric Terminal in Vancouver, Illinois Terminal in St. Louis, etc. Very integrated into development, so much so that the transit vehicles enter the building via ramps with waiting rooms and transit-patron-serving shops with offices upstairs.
Would be great to see transit transfer models better than your typical conventional “transit center”… some basic bus islands in a sea of nothing. Nothing mixed use or offering riders convenient access to shops and services at their transfer point.
When Bellevue Transit Center opened on the 80s, it was the first time I’d heard the term, and it shaped what I think of a transit center as. Its primary characteristics were (A) consolidating the spaghetti of routes in downtown Bellevue into one place, (B) its location in the city center, and (C) no park & ride.
Consolidating routes allowed easy transfers between all of them. The routes were timed to arrive at :15 and :45 and leave at :50 and :20. I lived on the 226 (Bellevue Way, NE 8th Street), so I transferred to the 235, 240, 252, or 340 depending on where I was going.
The location in downtown Bellevue made it a major destination as well as a transfer point, and meant you could stopover at local businesses on your way.
The lack of a P&R I never noticed until later; I just assumed P&Rs didn’t belong in city centers. The South Bellevue P&R in the outskirts was already established. That seemed like a good pairing: the transit center in the walkable downtown, and the P&R on the outskirts. P&R drivers are connecting to express buses, not local buses, and they can just as easily do that in the outskirts.
Later “transit centers” appeared in Renton and Burien with with garages. This was worse for pedestrians and seemed to defeat the purpose of a transit hub. The justification was that the P&R doubled as downtown parking. OK, but Bellevue didn’t need that, so why did Renton and Burien?
Then even more egregious transit centers appeared. The Issaquah transit center is in the middle of nowhere. It serves only as a P&R and bus layover. That’s the opposite of what I thought a transit center was.
Knoxville TN has a combined local and intercity bus “station”. It’s indoor, has escalators and some amenities.
The West Edmonton Mall TC has an indoor waiting area with restrooms. Of course who wants to wait outdoors during an Edmonton winter? Lots of the transit facilities there are indoor and heated.
If a bus takes so long to show up that you need a fancy place to wait, the agency has already screwed up. Quite likely, all the money spent building that SF transit center would have been better spent just running the buses and MUNI trains more frequently.
I wish the video would have shown the Salesforce Transit Center on a weekday during commuter time. I have a friend who lives in the East Bay and takes the bus into SF a couple times a week. The bus terminal is well used and he loves the convenience of getting straight onto the Bay Bridge without having to go through city traffic.
West Seattle Link should be put on hold until after the agency finishes Ballard Link, which is more regionally important.
I think ballard should’ve been prioritized over wsle when they decided to split them. At this point they should still build wsle but run the trains through lynwood instead of stubbing. In terms of cost they should just defer line 4 to the next transit measure. From what I’ve seen it just hugs i 5/90 from Issaquah to south kirkland park and ride with a couple stations overlap with line 2. I used to live near that p&r and the only thing there is a burgermaster and highway ramps. It would be better if they did another transit measure with line 4 all the way to totem lake if not Woodinville.
I think most of the people who look at local transit issues would agree with you on all the points you made.
Most of us here feel the stub concept is exceptionally stupid. However, supposedly they don’t have space in the tunnel for the 5,000 riders per day from West Seattle *.
That’s why many of us here want to see them work on tunnel capacity first.
* partly snark
Issaquah Link won’t hug I-5. Delaying it further would not benefit N. King Co. due to subarea equity. If there is another Link transit measure and IF it passes I would rather see Issaquah Link access downtown Kirkland and more than one station in Issaquah than hug 405 north to Bothell which will get Stride. I agree though that based on the size of downtown Issaquah and outlying areas Issaquah Link will serve, like buses today, large park and rides at the station will be necessary, like Lynnwood Link or Tacoma Link.
Since Issaquah Link is in the levy, Issaquah and Kirkland are powerful on the Eastside, it is relatively inexpensive by Link standards for its length, and the subarea has the revenue it will get built although the subarea is agnostic at best about Link and transit in general. Just look Stride 1. The route is being determined by real estate development, because current bus and future estimated Stride ridership are anemic. Stride 1 is as wasteful as Issaquah Link based on expected ridership.
The issue with BLE is the subarea cannot afford it even with its current design before Ballard wants tunnels and underground stations under 20th.
Delaying or scrapping WLE won’t change that reality. Spending $15 to $20 billion to serve a neighborhood of 28,000 makes Issaquah Link look like frugal transit at $3.2 billion (estimated under the old formula).
Eventually — if there is a ST 4 — WLE will access DSTT1 and run to Lynnwood and then Everett although I would guess the number of West Seattle residents from WS to Lynnwood could be counted on one hand. Even with ST 4 BLE won’t be affordable.
Here is the unfortunate reality: WSL, BLE, and Issaquah Link are extravagant transit and should be scrapped. Period. For N. King Co. the subarea equity will generate enough revenue for WLE and stations at 130th and Graham St. but not connecting to Line 1. BLE is not affordable period, affording DSTT2 is questionable with stations at CID N/S but not 4th Ave. S. but at best to SLU which is just another stub. But based on the subarea reports I don’t think N KC can afford the actual cost of DSTT2 even with subarea contributions that will be based on the $2.2 cost estimate in ST 3 leaving N KC responsible for around $3 billion of the actual cost.
Issaquah Link is affordable and is valued engineered. Its problem is not many will ride it, but I doubt many will ride East Link or Stride. Ironically East King. Co. would be the most sanguine if some of its ST 3 projects got cancelled but can afford them. It is impossible to tell a subarea they won’t get their projects in ST 3 if they can afford them. Blame ST 3 and some transit people who believe there is no such thing as bad spending on transit, not the subarea.
N. King Co. needs to focus on.these things: 1. BLE will never be affordable so it won’t get built; 2. Link needs to access SLU although I don’t know how; 3. N KC has the revenue to build WLE to a stub but not to DSTT1; 4. ST could propose value engineering for WLE but the political fallout would be fierce and ST really doesn’t have a good place to spend that extra $1 to $1.5 billion in the subarea that would be a huge eyesore in WS for very few riders; 5. I doubt ST would pass. . At least with Issaquah Link the eyesore is along I-90 and 405 and won’t access downtown Kirkland unless underground.
Start with subarea revenue under ST 3 less subarea loans owed. Then eliminate BLE because it will NEVER be affordable. Find a way to get DSTT1 to SLU that avoids new stations at CID N/S (despite Dow’s urban renewal dreams) and hope for the revenue one day to connect WLE to DSTT1 although ridership will be so weak it won’t be worth it fiscally.
I commend the new CEO for finally estimating these projects realistically so subareas can plan and be realistic about what is possible. For the most part I think the four other subareas have been realistic. Now it is N KC’s turn to be realistic which I think is hard for transit people in N KC like Seattle Subway who don’t pay attention to what is actually affordable when dreaming or The Urbanist who believe transit will change society when the other subareas don’t approach transit this way.
One of the many reasons why that idea is so wrong is that it ignores where the crowding is most likely to occur. They assume *within* downtown. I doubt it. For travel within downtown itself (e. g. 9th & Thomas to 4th & Madison) Link will remain a decent option. But a lot of people will just take buses for that trip, given the depth of the stations and increased coverage of the buses.
That leaves overlapping riders, which is a fair assumption. Folks from the south (West Seattle, the East Side and West Seattle) ride into downtown and they don’t get off until Westlake. Riders heading to the north board downtown and there are just too many people where they overlap. Sounds reasonable, except I can see a lot of flaws with that idea.
First take a look at the folks coming from the south. There is very little reverse commuting to West Seattle or the south end of Link. There will be a lot more reverse-commuters to the East Side (when they finish East Link) from Seattle, but it still won’t be huge. A lot of those people aren’t heading to north Seattle, either. If you commute from anywhere south of downtown (Rainier Valley, West Seattle, Georgetown) then you get off the train at CID (before the train heads north and starts picking up a lot of the downtown commuters). Even if you are headed to a neighborhood in the north end, Symphony Station is actually better for a lot of those transfers. For example if you commute from Fremont to Bellevue you might as well transfer at Symphony. That means that by the time the train reaches Westlake, there aren’t that many people who have come from the south, or they are headed north anyway. Which brings up the next point.
The UW is a destination. It draws people from throughout the region. It is the largest destination north of downtown. In terms of being an evening destination (when peak crowding occurs) it is bigger than a lot of downtown.
Meanwhile, employment north of Westlake is extremely high. As a result, a lot of people board Link there after work, heading home (to the north). The combination of commuters and folks heading to the UW suggests that the most crowded section will not be within downtown, but between downtown and the UW. This is where peak crowding will occur and the second tunnel doesn’t help in the least.
If anything, it is just a distraction. We may need more trains (and trains with bigger capacity) going between downtown and the UW. Eventually we may even need a second line. Not within downtown, but from downtown to the UW.
Would love to see 4-line just be Eastgate to Downtown Kirkland
WSL, BLE, and Issaquah Link are extravagant transit and should be scrapped.
I agree with many of your points but it is crazy to lump all those together. First of all, last time I checked (which was quite a while ago) the D had the most riders per mile of any line. Second, a train offers some huge benefits over existing or potential bus service. I’m not saying they couldn’t do some very good things with the buses, but you would basically break up the current (and proposed) corridor. You would have to fix the issues with the bridge as well. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be better, but Ballard Link is clearly in a league of its own compared to every major ST3 Link project. It may be too expensive, but it could (potentially) serve a lot of people, and save those people a lot of time. It could have the type of high ridership that justifies a train.
You just can’t say that with any of the other projects. West Seattle, Issaquah, Everett and Tacoma Dome Link all have a lot in common. For sake of argument I will call these “the flawed projects”. The flawed projects generally follow an expressway (the exception is Everett Link). They generally have very few stations per mile. The flawed projects tend to be far away from the central core of the city (the exception is West Seattle Link). They generally have fairly minor destinations and serve fairly low-density areas. Existing bus service is often competitive with the train, and future bus service (with relatively minor improvements) would compete very well with the train (again, the exception is Everett Link). They tend to be highly dependent on feeder bus service, but that bus service doesn’t improve the network very much, because they tend to ignore destinations (this isn’t like UW Link). They will never have the kind of ridership that requires a train.
Maybe Ballard Link is too expensive. Maybe it will die a thousand cuts as they make it worse, bit by bit. But fundamentally it has more going for it than any other major ST3 plan and it isn’t even close. This isn’t a unique or unusual viewpoint. A lot of people said this in the lead-up to the vote. ST3 is crap, with only one decent major project (Ballard Link). Nothing much has changed, really. Things have clearly gotten worse (the projects are worse *and* more expensive) but the fundamentals are the same.
Frank:
Why do you want to build West Seattle and not Ballard?
West Seattle is connected to Seattle by a freeway, which the buses use. With stations some 100 feet underground, it’s doubtful to me any transit trips from West Seattle to anywhere else get better with a West Seattle link line.
Transit to Ballard is on surface streets, making it slow. Link to Ballard actually stand a change of improving transit for a significant number of people.
Would love to see 4-line just be Eastgate to Downtown Kirkland
Clearly that is better, but it just doesn’t make sense to run trains for so few riders, given the freeway is right there. Just run buses. The only infrastructure you would need to make it just about as good as a train is an HOV ramps between Eastgate and Downtown Bellevue. This would cost a bundle, but be way cheaper than new rail. Once you do that, you are basically done.
Run a “Stride” bus from Juanita to 85th then onto 405 (taking advantage of the new work there) and straight to Downtown Bellevue. Meanwhile, Eastgate is “on the way” for buses from Issaquah or Bellevue College. Frequency is better because the buses converge onto Eastgate. Service is better (overall) because you connect to more places.
Ross, I agree with what you write about BLE compared to WLE and Issaquah Link IF project costs were the same and East KC and N KC had the same revenue left at this point. It isn’t that Ballard isn’t the better place to run Link; it is the subarea doesn’t have the money to do it, and it costs around three times as much as WLE (underground) and 5 times as much as Issaquah Link (although I think Issaquah Link will be expanded to add a station in Issaquah and to get it somehow closer to downtown Kirkland).
Glenn, I don’t favor building WLE at all, and said that, as well as scrapping Issaquah Link because it will have too few riders (and buses on I-90 would do the same thing and do today). I said N. KC has the money to build WLE, it is in the levy, I don’t know any great place in N KC to spend the extra $1 billion to $1.5 billion an elevated line would supposedly save, and WS (and Dow) would fight like hell.
BLE is out. Too expensive. We should almost ban the acronym for clarity. BLE at $20 billion is around the cost of Link from Lynnwood to Federal Way. Think about that.
Those advocating for an elevated or value engineered line for WLE need to identify a compelling case for spending $1 to $1.5 billion in savings somewhere else which when it comes to Link doesn’t go far.
It isn’t an issue of favoring WLE or BLE because BLE is not an option because of the cost. Issaquah Link is irrelevant to this discussion as well because the subarea can build it. Too bad BLE doesn’t cost $3.2 billion.
The issue at this point is whether to build WLE at all, and if so value engineer it. That means you have a compelling case for spending the savings somewhere else. So far no one has identified that compelling somewhere else. Instead they keep arguing for BLE to go first when that isn’t an option, or abolishing subarea equity which is not an option, and there is very little you can do with Link with $1 billion (actual not estimated costs).
Where else would you spend $1 to $1.5 billion in N KC that ST will try to force an elevated value engineered WLE down West Seattle’s throat when the chair of the Board lives there?
It isn’t an issue of favoring WLE or BLE because BLE is not an option because of the cost.
Sure it is. Without West Seattle Link there is no second tunnel. Without a second tunnel, Ballard Link is an independent line with smaller stations and automated trains running from Ballard to Westlake (for now). That is a lot of savings, and likely gets it a lot closer to the original estimate (let alone the estimate for both projects combined).
To be clear, I’m not saying it is worth it. It is certainly not the next thing I would build (Ballard to the UW is). But it is a reasonable project with high upside. Every station (save perhaps Smith Cove) would get lots of riders and save those riders quite a bit of time over a bus*. I just don’t see that with any of the other major ST3 projects.
*Unless we spent similar amounts on bus-infrastructure, which wouldn’t offer automation.
Ballard to Westlake might be quite a bit cheaper if built as an independent line, simply because it likely won’t need to be 11 floors under ground. You avoid the whole mess of having to dive under the exist transit tunnel.
You still have to deal with the Highway 99 tunnel, but if you tunnel under Mercer or Republican it’s north of that tunnel.
If all else fails, you could also look at putting it elevated above Mercer. Mercer is a wide street, and unlikely to have the same clearance problems of West Seattle stations. If you’re not building the line to King Street, you don’t need to worry about any obstructions south of Westlake.
It would meet a lot of opposition, but if all else fails, heavily modify the SLU streetcar for longer platforms and cars that are 8 inches wider, and run Westlake to Elliott on the surface, with traffic priority and dedicated lanes, like streetcar/light rail should be. The traffic mess on Mercer and Denny are due to I-5, and chopping out one lane east direction through there really isn’t going to impact things too much.
Eliminating the DSTT2 really helps a lot of other stuff be more affordable.
Ballard is a just a fundamentally better project. This was written almost a decade ago, and prices have skyrocketed. But the basic idea is the same. Ballard is just a better project.
A station at the junction should be deferred dont you think? Stop the line at Avalon at an underground station.
I’ve been saying that for some time. Here are some reasons:
1. 60 percent of those forecasted to board from Alaska Junction are coming from buses and another 10 percent from dropoffs. Riding to this station and descending almost 109 feet takes about as long as getting to Avalon and descending about 35-40 feet.
2. Alaska Junction Station area density is really bounded on the north, south and west just a few hundred feet from the station. The heights are limited upwards too. It’s not a larger and denser station area.
3. The original timeline for West Seattle was to be completed five years before Ballard in ST3 because the project had NO TUNNEL. When the later decision to prefer a tunnel was made, this was conveniently forgotten.
4. The distance between the two planned stations is about the same as the distance between Leary and Market and the planned Ballard Link station. (Note too Ballard has a much bigger upzoned catchment area than the Junction does.) Note that at least half of the riders arriving on foot (15 percent of the remaining 30 percent in reason one), can get to Avalon Station pretty easily.
5. The construction impact of digging a whole 100 feet deep and the size of a football field in the middle of Alaska Junction will take many years (Capitol Hill’s hole was fenced off for about seven years) and thousands of dump truck trips will damage the area’s commercial district. It will end up forcing many neighborhood businesses out of business. The character of the area will change radically.
6. Getting to that last station appears to subtract $1B or more to the project total. Stopping at Avalon would bring the costs more under control.
I would actually favor the last station as cut and cover under Fauntleroy between Alaska and Oregon. It should have entrances at either end of the platform. It would be relatively easy to reroute Fauntleroy traffic for a few years to build it. But that option is not on the table. So the next best thing is just to stop at Avalon.
Why not cut and cover or something akin to Downtown Bellevue Tunnel for the Junction? These deep tunnels are insanity… take forever to build, are a pain to access platforms and cost a ton. What I dont get are these street right of ways are 60-80-100 ft wide, all thats needed is like 25 ft for a trench in the center of the street for the transit route plus maybe another 10 ft when they drive piles for shoring. At the station areas you close the block off for construction. They can build this quite fast and get the street back fully open.
This country really can’t build transit without turning everything into an astronomical overengineered megaproject.
The big change of the entirety of ST is the stubborn embracing of the current light rail specs. This is to me the underlying problem with ST3. It makes stations big and costly, limits the flexibility to put stations in better locations and increases the likelihood that long unproductive stretches will have only a handful of riders per train car.
Putting an automated driverless train technology option back on the table changes the viability of the whole ST3 program. The reasons are:
1. The technology is proven — all over Europe, Asia, as well as Honolulu and Vancouver. It’s not some gadgetbahn. It’s no longer a speculative cost or operations gamble.
2. By running trains lots more often, the station platform sizes and holes dug to provide them shrink massively. It makes it easier to jog the alignment closer to key destinations like Bellevue College or Paine Field or UWT, making them more useful. This reduces cost and construction impacts and adds destinations. It can even let ST build some platforms closer to the street level.
3. Single track sections are possible in environmentally sensitive areas. The automation makes the use of short single track sections almost imperceptible. This helps reduce impacts (environmental and cost) to things like Mercer Slough or the Puyallup River crossing.
4. The specs for the top speeds can be changed. That would not only compensate (even improve in some cases) for the time loss by changing trains at an end station but also make local trip making faster.
5. The huge savings in not needing drivers or long trains would let ST operate high frequency train service with much less extra operating cost.
Just changing the technology assumptions could do so much for the long ST proposed corridors. ST might even be able to complete 80 percent of ST3 without needing billions of extra dollars.
The major challenges would be rethinking station layouts to have cross platform transfers and providing suitable OMFs.
I see automated lines as potentially good solutions for four ST3 corridors:
1. Issaquah to any Link station between South Bellevue and Downtown (someday with 2-3 stations in Issaquah).
2. Ballard to Westlake (maybe someday UW to Ballard to Westlake — or maybe a West Seattle to Ballard automated line if DSTT2 has to be built).
3. South Federal Way to Tacoma (someday UWT and further)
4. Mariner to Everett (someday further than the Amtrak station).
I would abandon the DSTT2 (three lines in DSTT instead) and the South Kirkland station.
As long as ST refuses to put automated trains on the table, we are doomed to repeat the costly expansion challenges for another 20 years. That’s true for every major Link extension in ST3 (except maybe West Seattle).
A secondary technology option are better electric trains. Combined with automation, they could make the Capitol costs of the ST3 corridors shrink.
Unfortunately, I don’t see how to unplug ST from their last century light rail technology assumption. It’s probably going to take a concerted effort by a group of ST Board members along with some outside corporate and environmental and neighborhood advocacy to take on this uphill task.
I agree. It just doesn’t make sense to build a brand new metro/subway line in this day and age and not automate it. I get why you wouldn’t do that for commuter rail. It isn’t worth it. With a tram it doesn’t make sense — we don’t have the technology (yet).
But a metro/subway is designed for frequent, spontaneous travel (or at least it should be). Riders benefit immensely if you run the trains more often. This is especially true if the metro/subway is heavily dependent on surface transit (trams or buses) like ours is. This means transfers. For example Ballard Link has a station at Interbay. This is one of the few areas where you actually have a real network. Riders take buses from Magnolia to SPU to the UW. Other riders (on those same buses) take the train from Magnolia (or north Queen Anne) to Interbay and then transfer to the train. The shorter the wait, the better the trip. This is how Vancouver has built such an outstanding system. People routinely transfer to and from the train, and think nothing of it.
It would certainly lower the cost of West Seattle Link, but probably not dramatically. A lot of the cost overruns have nothing to do with the stations (after all, there are only three) but how they get there. Just getting to West Seattle is extremely expensive. But an elevated or tunnel is expensive as well unless you follow the roadway, and they have rejected that (and to be clear, it isn’t that much cheaper).
In contrast, I think Ballard Link could save a bundle with smaller stations. Much of it is underground anyway. A lot of the stations are deep underground in part because they are so large. It all adds up. Again, I’m not saying it would be cheap. But it would be a lot cheaper and just as important, better.
One caveat about automated stub lines: Wouldn’t you need a maintenance and overnight parking facility for each stub line?
Here is what I could see. A “zig-zag” line that goes: West Seattle, downtown, Ballard, UW working well though. This could branch out on the north side: Go up 15th Ave. and Holman to Northgate (on to Lake City?), and on the south side: Extend the West Seattle line down to Burien and a branch to Georgetown – Renton, and have a transfer station with Link somewhere at or near Rainier Beach.
East Side might have it’s one separate system functioning independently as East Link currently does, maybe use it for a Line 4 that gets in to downtown Kirkland and/or Totem Lake, if you’re really ambitious, maybe branching out as Crossroads – Eastgate – Factoria (if you’re rolling in dough, go all the way down to Renton to link up with the Seattle side system).
So, two maintenance facilities instead of 4 (unless you do the link up at Renton, then it’s just one).
It might be fair game if anything like a ST4 ever happens? You’d build out some of the ST3 stuff as light automated metro in ST4.
@ Brandon:
It depends on the vehicle design. Most automated systems have a “manual override” mode. So it’s a matter of whether the tracks and power and clearances (like platforms) can accommodate the vehicle model.
It may even be possible to convert existing Link tracks to a cross platform transfer point.
One other automated vehicle benefit is that ST wouldn’t need a driver cab at both ends of a vehicle.
“One caveat about automated stub lines: Wouldn’t you need a maintenance and overnight parking facility for each stub line?”
For the Ballard stub, you’re only talking about several trains required to just keep moving back and forth to meet the need.
This need depends entirely on what they decide to build.
If you go with something like an airport people mover, the shop facilities required to keep those going is tiny, and designed to be underground just like most of the 100% underground train routes they operate over.
If they decide to build it using something like the streetcar cars with an automated control panel, you could operate them manually to one of the streetcar storage facilities using the Central City Connector tracks. (Even many of the SkyTrain car types have a manual control panel that folds out of the section below the front window).
If they decide to use something like the existing light rail cars with an automation control panel (I think Los Angeles has a line that does that?) you’d want to do storage and maintenance at one of the existing facilities. A maintenance track only used for out of service trains may be possible somewhere, but at the extreme cost of the DSTT2, it might be worth it to adapt the Central City Connector to take both streetcars and light rail, or build the Central City Connector as a light rail line and convert first hill to take cars that are 8 inches wider.
Or, kill off the SLU streetcar, adapt the street trackage to take a light rail car, bring the automated line to the surface at some location, and use the SLU streetcar facility.
If they go with a SkyTrain type system, it’d be completely different rolling stock, but again I think you wind up killing off the SLU streetcar and using the maintenance facility for it for the stub line. It’d be a huge modification because the new facility would either be underground or elevated. However, if it’s just a single track with no stations, I’m not sure even built as a tunnel extension it would be that expensive.
The existing DSTT has an old connection point to the old Convention Center tunnel bus station. I don’t know if anyone on here knows what the convention center put behind that wall. If there is still a way to modify that part of the existing tunnel to connect it to an under-street tunnel that could extend northward, that might be one way to manage a maintenance connection to a new line. None of us here really knows, however, as it’s something nobody seems to have studied.
Now that we know the costs of the preferred alternatives, some of this other stuff needs to be studied though. What’s being proposed has turned into an expensive mess.
West Seattle is prioritized over Ballard because there are King County councilmembers from West Seattle and none from Ballard. In practical terms, this means that the Ballard Link money will inevitably get redirected into West Seattle Link cost overruns, which means West Seattle eventually gets its train (albeit very late), while Ballard gets nothing. There no such thing as sub-area equity within a single sub-area.
Should be noted that Dan Strauss is on the Sound Transit Board.
Nope! The “logic” in 2016 was it could open earlier because there would be NO TUNNELING OR UNDERGROUND STATIONS.
Or that was the public reason.
Some average route speeds from Pantograph. (Click on the square route icon, then click on trip info).
2 Line: 19.3 MPH
1 Line : 27.2 MPH
594: 30.9 MPH
554: 25.7 MPH
G Line: 7.9 MPH
B Line: 16.5 MPH
44: 8.6 MPH
FHSC: 6 MPH
There is a food stand that has been using the bus stop at th NW corner of Northgate Way and Roosevelt Ave Ne at night after 9pm. I am not sure if it is every night. But I have seen it 3 times. Has anyone else seen it? A month ago, it was on the south side of Northgate Way on the old mall property. It looks like a walk up taco stand to me.
I guess it is there often enough to show up on Google: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BXsmi9zAnNLiQ2Un8. That lot there has been empty for a long time. I think it used to be a gas station and no one ones to pay to clean up the soil. So they will occasionally use it for surface retail (e. g. Christmas Trees). I think it would be a good place to put tiny houses (that just sit on the cement). It is a good spot in terms of transit (with buses running to the UW as well as Northgate).
I’ve seen it. It is a taco stand. It must be popular based on the 30+ people I’ve seen in line every time it is up and running. Each time I see it I think, “man, why does the bus stop have so many folks waiting.” Then I see the taco stand.
A month ago it was near the Tesla charging stations on the north side of the mall property. One of these days, I will stop in and see who runs it. It looks cool, but I am surprised Metro has not done anything about it. It completely blocks the bus zone while busses are still using it.
I am wrong. Sorry. It is not in the bus zone. But the bus zone looked blocked to me by the people in line. It is west of the bus zone.
Shoreline’s roundabout project on 145th is going long — really long.
https://www.king5.com/article/traffic/traffic-news/145th-street-closure-shoreline-seattle-extended/281-14c9f5a3-fd50-456d-802b-cce21fd5046b
Let the traffic chaos and the bus reroutes continue. Link unaffected.
Bummer. That sucks, and makes the routing decisions of Metro even worse. This is the route that the bus takes from the station to the college: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q1ez2KymgDiUMHrj8. This is the route the 330 used to take and the one the 331 should take: https://maps.app.goo.gl/72jRtdbEiqrnC9j9A. This is considerably faster and covers more of Aurora. Even when they finish the work on the road the other approach is faster (and likely to pick up more riders). Metro should have waited until all the dust settled on 145th and performed a traffic analysis to see if it is actually worth it go on 145th. My guess is it won’t be. They aren’t adding bus lanes on 145th and traffic is funneled there because of the freeway ramps.
Your two links are the same; can you post the ones you meant to post?
Oops, sorry. I corrected it.
On a more positive note, according to the Urbanist, KC Metro’s trolley buses are getting equipped with new battery packs, featuring 3X the range of the current packs.
This could potentially open the door to using trolley buses on routes that are only partially covered with trolley wire, the 48 and 11 being two potential candidates.
According to the Urbanist, testing is needed to determine the feasibility of this, particularly whether the time penalty of connecting and disconnecting from the overhead wire is sufficiently small to be acceptable to do with a load of passengers on board. But, it would be really nice if the trolley network could be expanded without the enormous expense of building a bunch of new trolley wire.
I was on a 2 that traveled the length of downtown with poles down, and then put the poles back up just south of Seattle Center, where there was (maybe still is) a pan for doing this without the driver leaving the seat. The process took less than 10 seconds.
Considering the time penalty for diesel buses to go up some of the hills, it seems quite insignificant by comparison.
I’d love to see the 70 back as a trolley route. My understanding it’s diesel now due to the lack of wire for it to go the several blocks to Roosevelt?
The ability of trolleys to reconnect has gotten a lot better. It can now be done inside the cab (the bus driver doesn’t have to get out and manually hook them up like in the old days). This helps a lot if the wires get knocked off. If the route is designed for it then they put in these contraptions that are essentially funnels. After driving off-line, the bus stop and the poles reattach in a few seconds. It makes sense to do this at a bus stop, as in this example from Zurich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k1z10U3utc. Thus there is essentially no delay (since the bus has to stop there anyway).
The trolleys also don’t fall off the wire nearly as much as they did before the 2000s. I used to experience it every month or two, and the driver would get out, walk to the back, and pull the vertical cables around to reconnect the trolley. Now I experience it only once every one or two years, and the trolley reconnects itself more quickly without the driver leaving their seat.
Metro still hasn’t committed to using this capability for more than just unexpected outages. The article says,
“This is expected to extend the range of operation offwire for when there are incidents blocking the trolley route, or construction closures that deenergize the overhead catenary system.”
And,
“potentially allowing buses to be permanently assigned to routes that are mostly on-wire but have segments where there isn’t any overhead wire, or adding new segments to existing trolley routes. But Sanders confirmed it’s too early to say whether that’s something Metro has in the works.”
Candidates include:
* The new 12, which has a 2-block gap between 15th & Pine and 16th & Madison.
* The new 11, whose wire ends at 23rd. (That’s further east than the old 11, whose wire ended at 15th.)
* The 48 for a mile between John and Jefferson.
* The 3/4 reroute to Yesler. (But note Metro canceled it for other reasons; namely the jail stop. Is the jail still open?)
And for future extensions:
* The 13 or 4 going to Fremont.
* The 7 reroute to Rainier Beach station ahead of RapidRide R.
* The 8 could add wire from 1st to Olive, but continue off-wire east of 23rd.
Which entire route would you like to wire first if you could? I’m thinking the D or 40 since they’re so highly used.
These exact same trolley buses in San Francisco (same model) go off wire as part of their regular route on the #30 to the Sports Basement parking lot in the Presidio which is the new #30-Stockton terminal. Its about a mile or a little over a mile off-wire each way. They also run the 30 &45 off wire through Union Square for some reason still, initially it was for Central Subway construction, I think it’s a slight change in route to Caltrain on a street without a wire.
I rode the train up to Lynnwood yesterday.
The approach to the station felt more like south-end sky train speed.
After I headed down to the transfer center, I saw the train pull forward to the switch north of the station, and then south onto the southbound track. It was headed back to base out of service. Another train made the switch shortly thereafter, but this time picking up passengers. I presume the switch required two operators for the turn-around maneuver.
Would having that switch operate all day sacrifice the ability to keep a spare train waiting north of the station?
.
I paid more attention to the bus bays on this visit.
The south row was all Swift and ST. Oddly, 513 and 515 were grouped together at the far west bay on the southern row, with an unused bay just east of it.
The old CT building at Lynnwood Station is now available for lease.
My dream of having a Bolt Bus line between there and Surrey succumbed to the plague.
What other re-users would be a cool addition to the new station landscape? Dream quickly, before it becomes a junk food stand.
The thing I dislike about Pierce Transit is their terrible timed transfers when connecting to another bus route in the same Transit Center. I rode the 48 down to Lakewood TC to connect with the 2 to go up Bridgeport to University Place, bus driver for the 48 was slow as molasses driving their bus and took 2 multi minute long breaks for no real reason in the middle of the route.
Even though people have places to go and may have connections to other busses they need to catch and now you’re stuck with a half hour or hour long wait for the next bus.
Pierce Transit didn’t used to be this way, it used to be a lot better back around 2013/2014 when I went to TCC for school. Going via Tacoma Mall TC with timed transfers to connect to my bus heading to TCC.
It’s deeply frustrating looking at an agency that could be so much better but is so complacent at being mediocre. Compare this with Community Transit which while I have my qualms with CT, they have a vision to get better and are at least trying to reach beyond being a perpetually mediocre transit agency like PT.