Month: September 2024

Edit, September 10, 7pm: the original article has been updated to correct errors and clarify statements with input from Sound Transit. We regret the errors.

Sound Transit’s Stride S1 Line, the bus rapid transit (BRT) project approved under ST3 to connect Bellevue to Burien via South Renton in 2028, has been updated over the last year to include support for full electrification, temporary route changes around the Tukwila International Boulevard Station due to issues with fish water culvert requirements, and consideration of potential station location swap in South Renton.

While some of these changes are being spun to imply better connectivity for future riders, the real impact is in making the line slower and likely less useful for future riders, compromising the S1 Line’s original goals of prioritizing speed as a compromise for skipping major destinations in South King County. For the S1 Line to represent a real improvement in transit service worth the capital investment, Sound Transit must find ways to make up for these potential degradations in future service.

Continue reading “Stride S1 Line Updates: TIBS Reroute, Renton Station Swap, and More”

Ahead of the opening of the Lynnwood Link Extension, HNTB offered to participate in an interview with the Seattle Transit Blog discussing their work on the project.

HNTB is an employee-owned infrastructure design firm with offices in downtown Seattle, Bellevue, and many other cities nationwide. They provided engineering design and construction oversight of the Lynnwood Link Extension throughout the life of the project and have worked on almost every major Sound Transit project since they won their first contract from the agency in 1998.

Although HNTB was unable to join the blog for a live interview before the extension opened, they provided written responses to our questions. The following are HNTB’s unedited responses to my questions:

Continue reading “HNTB on Lynnwood Link”

Countdowns: RapidRide G & restructures (Sept. 14)

Lynnwood Link Opening Roundup:

Lynnwood Link Opens to Huge Crowds and Night Markets

New Sound Transit light rail stations draw big crowds for first trips (Seattle Times, $)

Video: What it’s like to ride the new Lynnwood light rail train (Seattle Times, $)

How Cities in Lynnwood Link’s Path Prepared for Light Rail’s Arrival

What to know about connecting to the new Lynnwood light rail line (Seattle Times, $)

Light rail to Lynnwood open for service!

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup – Open Thread 64”

In this video Reece Martin (RMTransit) talks about the rail network in Germany’s northwestern megaopolis along the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, which is similar in size and population to the Los Angeles region. The region is split into two comprehensive transit districts, and this video focuses on the northern one. A later video will look at the southern district.

The northern transit district, Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, contains the cities of Düsseldorf (pop. 644K), Essen (588K), Duisburg (495K), Bochum (386K), Wuppertal (351K), and other cities. The larger ones are the size Seattle was in the 2000s and 2010s. The southern transit district, Rhein-Sieg Verkehrsgesellschaft, contains Cologne (1 million) and Bonn (336K) among others. (Population sizes source.)

There’s a lot of heavy industry (especially in the northern part), some rural areas, and a very active and diverse music and sports scene. It even applied to host the 2032 Olympics. (It lost to Brisbane.) It’s served by regional rail and local high- and low-floor light rail systems and trams. Several of the light rail systems use a single tunnel in city centers. Reece doesn’t mention any of the many bus feeder lines and rural express buses, but he does mention other transit modes such as several hanging monorail systems (including the famous Wuppertal Schwebebahn).

While the Puget Sound region is smaller with only four major cities (Seattle, Bellevue-Redmond-Kirland, Tacoma, Everett), we have similar modes of transportation: regional rail (Sounder), light rail (Link), streetcars (Tacoma, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill) and the monorail which was supplied and built in that region, close to Cologne. The Rhine-Ruhr region decided to focus on regional rail connections between its urban centers, while we focus on light rail connections. We plan to double up our downtown tunnel, while the cities in the Rhine-Ruhr region tend to use a single tunnel or one per direction (east/west, north/south).

What other things do you see in the Rhine-Ruhr network? Or how it compares to Pugetopolis transit?

This is an open thread…

Thanks to Sam for referring this video to us.

The STB staff are collecting their thoughts on the opening, working on other articles, dealing with illness, and preparing for the bus restructures September 14th. So there may not be another article for a couple days.

How is Link ridership this weekend?

This is an open thread.