Not Just Bikes compares an Amtrak+VIA trip (New York – Toronto – Fake London) with European train lines.
56 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Amtrak vs VIA vs European Trains”
Anyone else notice that ST put up ridership data for both August and September, including by station boarding data for LLE?
Ridership is obviously partially pre-restructure, and in the phase where people were still trying out the system, but the data shows strong gains. Link ridership is now at about 100k daily, and October numbers should be much stronger.
It wasn’t reported on this blog, but ST had previously published August numbers and then taken that data back down for an extended period. I’m not sure why that was, but the previous data had shown an approx 40% drop in ELSL per station boardings. The current data still shows a big drop for August, but now shows an even bigger gain for September. I have no explanation for this.
So good news generally for ST, but it is clear that the reported ridership is nowhere near final values yet, and still needs some time to settle out and a stabilized level.
A 30% increase in Link ridership over 2019 levels is nothing to sneeze at!
ST had previously published August numbers and then taken that data back down for an extended period.
I’ve noticed that ST sometimes puts up tentative numbers and then nothing much happens. I think in general it is best to wait until the dust settles a bit before looking at the numbers. This is frustrating (of course) since so much as happened lately and we want to know about it. But the reports used to come out annually, so it isn’t too surprising that they have had glitches and it takes a while.
Thanks for the heads up! I was eagerly waiting. I hadn’t checked in a few days. The data release is pretty recent.
I poked around a bit at station data. It looks like there was a jump of about 10K average weekday riders. It is just shy of the 100K threshold now.
Lynnwood’s opening appears to have added about 9K boardings at its 4 stations . 4K of those appear to be from former Northgate riders. That comes out to 5K net new boardings ( Lynnwood Link boardings at the four stations minus the Northgate drop).
The bulk of Lynnwood Link riders annd boardings appear to come from Lynnwood CC Station. (CC = City Center) The boardings at the other three stations are remarkably low. Of course it’s the first full month and the bus restructures kicked in in the middle of the month. ST said 47-55K average daily riders for Lynnwood Link by 2026 and this only appears to be about 18K (both directions) of that. And only 9-10K of that appear to be new to Link (the remainder switching from Northgate). It should grow each month — and jump a tad when the full 2 Line runs from Lynnwood to Redmond.
Of course those riders have to get home so one could say that a general increase at other stations is where the bulk of the growth is from. There are notable increases of over 1K at Seatac and Capitol Hill.
Another factor in that is the 2 Line stations in aggregate appear to have added over 1K boardings between August and September. As a new line it should be adding some ridership each month.
There are no data for September Sounder yet. The Sounder ridership page has been giving me errors for a few weeks now so I can’t see it. I’m curious if some Lynnwood Link new riders are coming from Sounder North.
There are also major crowding issues, and the extension is operating at less than half-frequency due to East Link being incomplete.
Wow, I didn’t realize they had Lynnwood Link numbers (for September no less). As folks have mentioned, we should take this with a grain of salt. There may be errors that they end up correcting.
But it is in line with what I would expect. I thought we would see somewhere around five to ten thousand riders on Lynnwood Link stations (and most of those at Lynnwood). I also figured that the Northgate Station would lose riders. Wow, did it ever. This was the worst month for Northgate Station on record. There is still a huge terminus effect. Buses and cars (going to park-and-ride lots) shift to stations further north.
Ridership at Northgate was over 10,000 per weekday in September 2023. It was a little over 4,000 last month. It lost about 6,000 riders, while Lynnwood Link gained about 8,000. This isn’t too shocking I guess. Community Transit didn’t share their numbers for their Downtown Seattle express buses, so we didn’t know how many people were riding them. But judging by the schedule running (prior to their termination) my guess is there weren’t that many riders. Metro truncated all but a handful of buses from the north after Northgate Link. Unlike previous northern extensions, this one didn’t come with huge numbers of people switching from the buses to rail.
Weekend ridership follows a similar pattern but there are subtle differences. Ridership is actually higher on the Lynnwood Link stations than weekday, topping 9,000 both days (again suggesting the CT 800 buses weren’t carrying many riders). Weekend ridership at Northgate Station lags the weekdays, likely due to the students who walk across the bridge on weekdays but not weekends. My guess is the overall increase in transit ridership has largely taken place on weekends. Otherwise it is mostly people switching from Northgate to the other stations.
Oddly enough there are no September ridership numbers for ST. My guess is it took a pretty big hit (like Northgate did).
There are some things that are likely to cause an increase in ridership for these stations in the near future. The 522 ST bus will be shifted to 148th. That will likely cause Roosevelt Station ridership to go down and 148th Station ridership to go up about a thousand. The area around 148th is a mess right now (which hampers walk-up ridership). Eventually they will add the pedestrian bridge which will connect the people in the neighborhood to the station much better. Overall though, this is fairly consistent with what I expected.
Weekend ridership may be boosted by ballgames. But that’s one of the purposes of Link: to take large crowds to/from ballgames and other large events, and it’s certainly doing that.
I believe the Sunday numbers are inflated for the September Link numbers – based on the averages it appears they’re counting 6 Sundays in September and 20 weekdays, when it should be 5 Sundays and 21 weekdays.
@D,
They are probably counting Monday, Sept 2nd, as a Sunday. Holidays really shouldn’t be counted as normal “work” days. It would screw up the data trends.
I forgot that the various agencies didn’t change their bus routes until half way through September. This means that Community Transit (for example) was still running the express buses downtown. Thus there may have been a considerable increase in ridership at the second half of the month (and into this month). I would expect another increase for October, as it will be the first full month with the new bus routes and Link extension. At that point we will have a better idea of what the typical ridership is.
(Of course since ridership goes up and down every month it will take several months to have a lot of confidence.)
They are probably counting Monday, Sept 2nd, as a Sunday. Holidays really shouldn’t be counted as normal “work” days. It would screw up the data trends.
Agreed. It is also a good idea to look at ridership per day (not per month) as the number of days per month varies.
Speaking of ST data, does anyone know why ST consistently put out monthly progress reports, but then apparently stopped in June? Is there a more recent progress report, but I’m looking in the wrong place?
ST suggested that they would dispense with comprehensive Progress Reports and instead post them by project.
ST had not provided progress reports on project pages yet.
I’m not happy with this. They should have listed it both ways for several months before abandoning the system progress reports. Plus it makes it much harder to learn how the updates are connected (like the South OMF is separate although it’s part of the Tacoma Dome Link extension, or it’s not clear when 2 Line trains will reach Lynnwood).
I did notice that the 2025 service plan announces general opening seasons for both Downtown Redmond and the full East Link to Lynnwood. It seems odd to me that firmer dates aren’t listed given how supposedly close the simulation initiation and opening dates are.
I am most interested in seeing any updates on the Downtown Redmond Link Extension. Have any of the timelines changed?
@Sam, I got the following response from ST last week:
We have integrated key information from the Agency Progress Report and new metrics into the new Project Performance Tracker. These updates will be released later this year.
Appreciate you pointing out that this change was not communicated clearly. We will add a note to the Agency Progress Report section of the website to redirect people searching for documents and information.
Meanwhile, the actual Project Performance tracker hasn’t been updated since March. I speculate it’s the influence of Terri Mestas, the new Megaproject Delivery CEO, who seems to be reprioritizing her team’s efforts toward internal project management and away from external reporting.
The lists all say “spring 2025” on anything recent.
I like you have been waiting to learn specifics. Spring begins in 5 months! They should have a better idea by now. Lynnwood Link opening date was announced about 5 months prior, for example.
It’s frustrating, given that the last few progress reports all seemed to imply that the Redmond extension could open in December.
Also given that the east link extension is now essential for the whole system, being able to track that progress was quite useful. Anecdotally, from passing by on I-90, it seems that all the (visible) plinths have finished reconstruction, given that the track has been laid back down.
Sam & M, as for Downtown Redmond, I also recall seeing the latest update from the Agency Progress Reports indicate that it was on track for a December opening. If you look at the Project Performance Tracker on the last page, you can dive deeper on specific projects. For Downtown Redmond, it looks like there was a sudden schedule contingency dip in August. It’s now trending roughly 90 days late which makes “Spring 2025” sound about right. Unfortunately this dashboard doesn’t provide any detail as to why, as others have noted. I didn’t hear any discussion on the delay at the recent System Expansion Committee meeting. https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/building-system/project-performance-tracker
So we’re thinking that Redmond might optimistically open next April and the full 2 Line the following December? Or Redmond might open December 2025 and the full 2 Line in 2026?
If Redmond opens in April, that’s sooner than I expected.
ST started systems testing in April — 6 months ago. By now, any major problems should be apparent.
The summer progress reports suggested opening at the end of 2024.
So I can’t help but wonder if ST is now hiding a possible new delay on this project, especially since it’s now “spring” rather than an opening month or date.
Al,
I wouldn’t place much emphasis on the summer APR – the most recent one (dated June 2024) noted that the latest schedule was received in February 2024, before testing began.
The schedule there notes that Systems Integration Testing was expected to finish roughly around mid-July, with pre-revenue service set to begin September 23 and simulated service November 7. For a late December start date that would’ve been a relatively short period of simulated service. That’s about 3 months combined; the current East Link update has 3 months each, so I wonder if the December 2024 date was just unrealistic.
I’m not sure if ST expected a shorter testing period for this because it’s a smaller extension and changed their minds later, or if something else came up.
A 30% increase in Link ridership over 2019 levels is nothing to sneeze at!
That is entirely do to the huge expansion (Northgate Link). We made dramatic speed improvements to urban areas. Buses carrying tens of thousands of riders were truncated. We should have started with U-District to Downtown, but better late than never.
What is actually worrisome is that the Link ridership on old stations is still largely down. The exception is Capitol Hill. Basically you have two counteracting forces: generally lower transit ridership and an extremely important expansion. The lower transit numbers are felt more with weekday ridership. Thus we have a situation like that at Beacon Hill. It is now connected to the U-District, Roosevelt, Northgate. These are a major set of destinations. This is likely responsible for the increase in weekend ridership. But weekday ridership is actually still down (likely due to less commuting). What is true of Beacon Hill is true of a lot stations, like most of those downtown and in Rainier Valley.
On exception is SeaTac. It has really taken off the last few months and I’m not sure why. Up until about March it was below 2019 levels. I guess this was a big year for summer vacation travel, so that (and the extension) likely had a lot to do with it.
SeaTac traffic is getting worse and worse — and it’s a long trip from Snohomish and even North Seattle. Lots of people fly for personal reasons (no business expense deduction) in the summer months too and they don’t want to shell out $50-$100 for another way to get there.
Next year, once full East Link opens (no Stride yet), SeaTac may end up as the busiest station — depending on how the CID Station transfers are counted. And perhaps whether South King/ Pierce Sounder and Link riders transfer to the 2 Line at CID Station to get to and from Eastside jobs.
If I lived in Snohomish, I would default to Link for any reason to go to SeaTac unless it’s for a plane landing after 11 pm or leaving before 8 am. At some point, 1 Line trains should run later northward through Downtown than they currently do.
SeaTac traffic is getting worse and worse
Yeah, although anecdotally I haven’t seen anyone change their mind when it comes to taking Link or not. Maybe the big increase in Uber/Lyft prices have something do with it. I heard prices went way up this year and it costs a fortune to get to the airport (unless you are downtown — then you get charged a flat rate by the taxicab companies). I have no idea if they are a lot higher than last year.
it’s a long trip from Snohomish and even North Seattle.
Yes, but again we have no idea how many of the riders came from there. Northgate ridership was basically flat during the time that SeaTac ridership increased.
Hard to say any station (or set of stations) increased along with SeaTac. The I. D. and Pioneer Square saw a huge jump in the summer, but it didn’t get the increase in May. The Rainer Valley/Beacon Hill stations are both pretty close but they don’t exhibit the slight dip in August and rebound in September. The closest match appears to be Tukwila, which seems bizarre to me.
There are both business and non-business travel. There is also resident and non-resident travel.
I doubt that business travel has changed except it’s perceived as more reliable travel time to take Link at certain times of day.
I think the big change is due to rising costs of Link and Uber. It’s much cheaper to get a ride to a nearby station and take Link the rest of the way. Cabs were always expensive.
Perhaps Link is more perceived as an alternative to remote parking too. I have friends who park at other friend’s apartments and take Link to SeaTac, for example. I know people who used to use remote parking but figured out that they would save lots of money taking a short Uber or Lyft ride to Link and using the train the rest of the way.
Last week, I saw many Michigan fans headed to the UW game at SeaTac getting on Link. Savvy visitors use Link too.
Finally, I’ve known people who used to drive longer distances to pick up someone at SeaTac that now drive a few miles to a nearby Link station. It can take 15 minutes to go from the cell home lot to arrivals at some times of day — which can be the time it takes to walk to Link and hop on a train. That’s sonething that longer distance people do.
The $3 fare is quite the Link incentive. Lots of places have an airport station surcharge on their transit systems.
Well, my friend in north Lynnwood has stopped going to downtown or Capitol Hill because of the sketchy people, except when she visits me. (No, I’m not sketchy, really.) When she does come to Capitol Hill she often gets off Link at U-District, does a stopover, and takes a bus the rest of the way. Although the last time she said she saw somebody misbehaving (exposing himself) on the 49; I don’t know why that happens to her but I’ve never seen anything like that on Capitol Hill buses.
“it costs a fortune to get to the airport (unless you are downtown — then you get charged a flat rate by the taxicab companies). I have no idea if they are a lot higher than last year.”
I think taxis are still charging a flat something like $35-40 from the downtown hotel area to the airport, and my roommate got the same rate from Uber for a recent trip.
Every time I take it to the airport and especially from the airport at night I’m amazed how crowded the platform is, like 11 pm or even midnight, there might be 80-100 people waiting on the platform. Sure anecdotal but I know from personal experience that because of the good frequent cheap Link service to the airport running 4am to 1am I fly a lot more, like sometimes I find myself traveling 4 times in 6 weeks out of SeaTac for discretionary leisure travel. Cheap airfare helps too (pinch your nose and be lured by insanely cheap Frontier airfares or also good Alaska fares). But it only works when it doesn’t cost you much more than the price of the plane ticket for an Uber or airport parking… induced demand.
Note that SeaTac station really jumped in ridership. It’s now the #2 highest station and about 89% of Westlake boardings.
This really shows how far away extensions attract airport riders. It also shows why ST needs direct Link service from SeaTac to Snohomish (or a cross platform transfer in SODO for SeaTac goers with luggage).
I flew in last night and there were many riding in from SeaTac. Many don’t yet get that end cars are much less crowded and get on in the middle cars. I think the lack of awnings for the end car boardings deter people from riding in the end cars. I was in the first car and it was surprisingly empty even though the platform was busy with waiting riders.
Yeah, we wrote about the jump in SeaTac ridership at the same time. It started going up in March. By May it was as high as it has ever been. By July it was around 9,000 (every day of the week). This is a huge increase. Up until March of this year we never got over 7,000. Even when it was the terminus it wasn’t that high. The Northgate Link extension is due to some of the increase, but there wasn’t the kind of increase we are seeing now. My guess is just a lot of people traveling (by plane) this year.
I think we’ll see a big increase in ridership at SeaTac once Link gets to Federal Way. In this case though I think it will mostly be folks who work there. A lot of people in the Sound Sound commute to SeaTac.
There really ought to be travellators (moving sidewalks) between seatac station and the airport entrance, to save travelers some 1/4 mile of walking. I looked into this a couple years ago, and seatac was saying that the concrete parking structure couldn’t support such a system without prohibitive renovation. There was a mention of attempting to include it in future expansion facilities that might connect with the link station, but I couldn’t find any actual evidence of this.
This really shows how far away extensions attract airport riders.
I don’t think we have any idea where these SeaTac riders came from. The increase started in May of this year. Lynnwood Link didn’t occur until much later. Northgate Link happened several years ago. It is quite possible that various stations saw an increase in the number of trips to SeaTac but a decrease elsewhere. You would need trip data (e. g. stop-to-stop data) to make a determination. It seems like that would have been easy to release when we had the “tap-off” system, like BART. That agency releases a monthly report as a spreadsheet (https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/Ridership_202408.xlsx) which means you can determine all the combinations. I don’t think ST ever did that and even if they did it wouldn’t work any more (because we no longer “tap off”).
One thing that would at least give us a clue is directional data. They used to release this with their “Service Implementation Plans”. But I haven’t seen one of those reports in years. Thus we only see total ridership at a station — not the number of people going each direction. Sounder does this (as part of the performance tracker). It would be nice to have this — or be able to filter by direction — as this would give us more insight.
For example consider the Othello Station. In August it had almost 2,500 riders a weekday. In 2019 it had about 2,800. But in the old report I could see that 2,300 were riders heading north and 500 heading south. What if ridership is now 1,800 going north and 700 going south. That would mean an increase of 200 going south. Since SeaTac is the main destination going south, there is a good chance those riders are going there. If nothing else this would give us a clue.
For what it is worth there has been a big increase in ridership at Tukwila and Angle Lake to go along with the increase in SeaTac. At the same time, the downtown stations (and Rainier Valley stations) are still well below 2019 levels. Maybe a lot of people are being dropped off at those stations instead of SeaTac. More directional data would help.
Instead we are basically left guessing. ST does occasionally do studies though, so we might eventually have an idea of how many people go from Snohomish County to SeaTac.
There really ought to be travellators (moving sidewalks) between seatac station and the airport entrance, to save travelers some 1/4 mile of walking.
Yeah, it is a long ways.
According to SeaTac, a new Master Plan environmental review is supposed to be released next week (October 21).
It doesn’t appear to vary from the 2019 plan. That’s unfortunate as Link in 2019 stopped at UW. It wasn’t as prominent as it is today. The 2019 work appears to not focus on Link connectivity.
At the very least, plan the new car rental busway to have a stop at the Link station as well.
The Maui airport people mover, by the way, has a total track length of something like ½ that of the distance between Link and the airport terminal.
At some point the new airport master plan had envisioned a people mover (like they are building at LAX) to connect the existing terminal, future terminal, and car rental facility. I had proposed to extend that with a loop to the Link station. Recently it looks like it got replaced with an elevated busway which would be unfortunate. https://x.com/mixio17/status/1590912440359071745/photo/1
I was in Denver recently and noticed the A-train was similarly crowded, way more than other times in past years that I’ve ridden it. Maybe it’s a one off situation but I really think if you provide a quality transit service that is of use to average people, going where they want to go, many will use it. The cost is good, the trains are fast and frequent with long span of service, its clean and safe with inspectors and security. Most people pack luggage they can handle themselves on the plane so also works on the train to the airport.
If you paid $30 for a plane ticket you dont want to pay $80 for an Uber to the airport.
Why also the transit situation with Las Vegas airport is insane. Las Vegas is a hub for Spirit and Frontier with absurdly cheap airfares and absurdly long layovers often. You’d think a cheap frequent bus a couple of miles to the strip would be a no brainer for many reasons but especially when you have many people waiting 12 hours at LV airport for their $40 transcontinental flight with no luggage. They aren’t going to spend $30 each way on an Uber 2 miles to the Strip.
$30 airfare to Las Vegas or $40 across the country sounds unreal: it can’t cover the cost of fuel and staff. So people shouldn’t treat it as normal and expect a proportional ground transportation rate. You’re already saving $60-160 in the ticket price, so take your ground transportation cost out of that. Of course, Link is the least expensive way to get to the airport: that’s one of the purposes of high-capacity transit.
There was a discussion on a recent post here about Metro’s looming fiscal cliff. Elsewhere I saw someone point out that this is fundamentally a revenue problem, not an expenditures one. The reason given was that the state law caps the county’s property tax revenue increases at 1% per year, which is much lower than inflation, especially recently. Given that the fed’s long-term goal is to keep inflation around 1.5-2%, this seems fundamentally unsustainable, and the county’s inflation-adjusted budget is doomed to shrink over time. To me this means that the long-term solution must involve a restructuring of state tax laws.
Agreed. The cities and counties have severe limitations placed on them and it is a big problem. Not only with things like transit, but schools (of course). The city definitely supports more funding, but it is difficult to get it.
It was Eyman initiatives. In 1993 initiative 601 limited councilmanic (unvoted) county/city property tax increases to 1%, plus an additional amount for population growth (to mitigate extending services to the new households). That was intentionally below inflation to gradually starve government and force it to shrink.
Governments can have voter-approved levies beyond this, but those are time-limited. That’s why we have to renew our E911 levy and library levy and Seattle Transit Benefit District levy and others every seven years or so.
Local transit agencies (Metro, CT, etc) are funded mostly by sales taxes. There’s a state-imposed cap of I think 1.2%. CT is at that limit, Metro is a bit below, and PT is below that. Anything beyond that or large capital projects require short-term levies. Metro can fund a trickle of RapidRide construction with its base funds (e.g., the I is under construction now, and the K is scheduled in several years), but anything beyond that (e.g., J) requires additional funding.
The half-dozen initiatives this year are sponsored by a new billionaire similar to Eyman so you can think of them as “Son of Eyman” initiatives. They would generally hinder transit, climate, and education like the earlier wave of initiatives, and I’m sure there’s an anti-urban one somewhere either now or in the future.
“To me this means that the long-term solution must involve a restructuring of state tax laws.”
Yes, but we have to get a governor and legislators in there who would do that.
The anti-tax movement started in 1979 in California with Prop 13, which froze property taxes at their then-current levels for existing homeowners, and for later owners at the rate when they bought the house. That forced everyone else (newcomers, renters, young adults) to make up the difference or services would deteriorate.
That anti-tax sentiment (but not the particular policies) reached Washington state in the 1980s, and achieved success in 1993 with initiatives 601 and 602, and in 1999 with initiative 695. Those have hindered county/city services and transit ever since. At the time, the legislature was scared of the anti-tax activists, afraid they’d be voted out of office if they didn’t support the tax-limiting policies. Even when some of the initiatives were ruled unconstitutional by the courts, the state sometimes imposed the same terms the initiative would have. I think that happened with 695.
In the 2000s or early 2010s, Eyman initiatives began losing some of their popularity and voters began questioning the consequences of anti-tax measures, so some of them passed and some of them failed. And the legislature began getting more assertive against them, although still only half-heartedly. Then in the late 2010s and 2020s the anti-tax initiatives went quiet; I don’t remember when the most recent one was.
Then this year a new guy came to town with a new wave of anti-tax, anti-environmentalist initiatives.
There was another major train breakdown near capitol hill station friday. Every time this happens, people lose trust in Link. But then traffic on the highways yesterday was a complete dumpster fire, with 520 closed, 99 closed, I90 closed for several hours due to a bomb threat (meaning no way to cross the lake in the afternoon), Ballard bridge closed, etc. People were talking about 2-3 hour trips between seattle and the eastside. There really isn’t a very reliable way to get where you’re going on time in this region, unless you’ve got the privilege to shut down the highway for your motorcade like happened on tuesday morning.
The highway construction projects all have to be done in the six-week dry period, so that’s why they all get stacked up on summer weekends. The wet season is about to start, so there will be few or no closures for the rest of the fall or winter.
I’m not sure what to make of this new video about RapidRide G:
He caught it in all it’s glory even the bottomed out buses on opening day. Hope it’s going better now and they ironed out some kinks.
RRG has so screwed up traffic mobility on Madison I don’t see it ever being reliable unless cars are banned from Madison. Plus traffic has now switched to James so it is even more of a mess along with Denny while Madison is at a standstill. So of course drivers are using the in between streets which is unpleasant for walking now as these streets between Broadway and downtown use to be quiet and pleasant for walking. I think it was a mistake to take a major arterial like Madison and reduce lane capacity with the idea buses will flow through in the center lanes despite at least a dozen major intersections and left hand turns for cars. It doesn’t work. Mobility and reliability on the G are worse than they were on even the 8 or 11. I know there are some design problems with RRG and worries about fishtailing in the rain but the fundamental design is flawed. If car traffic is at a stand still buses even in the “center lane” are going to be at a standstill or way off on their schedules. Half the time on the G the bus is completely stopped. There is a reason we build Link with underground lines and stations in urban areas. This was a waste of $100 million. At least Link works. RRG is an advertisement to drivers to not use transit. Will anyone get fired? Hell no, not in government work. I am now voting no on the Transportation Levy that uses rent to pay for transportation like the housing levy uses rent to pay for housing the city now plans to use to cover the deficit “without raising taxes” because this was a waste of $100 million. and these folks don’t deserve more money.
If car traffic is at a stand still buses even in the “center lane” are going to be at a standstill or way off on their schedules.
That is simply not true. If the buses run in their own lanes then it doesn’t matter what the cars are doing. Cross traffic could (illegally) block the buses, but that could happen either way.
RRG is an advertisement to drivers to not use transit.
Of course it will take some time for people to stop assuming that the best way to get around is in a car. The sloppy rollout of the G doesn’t help. But eventually people will figure it out.
Have you ridden the G Ross Bleakney or is your sole source of information Wiki?
Idea for something STB could look into. I recently noticed that G Line icons no longer appear on the Pantograph map. However, other route icons still appear. Also, I checked One Bus Away, and notice the G Line no longer shows real-time arrivals.
It appears as if Metro has done something so that the G Line can’t be tracked. Not that that is their motive for taking the G Line offline, but it is at least a consequence of it.
I’m able to see the buses of the G Line via OneBusAway, but it wasn’t easy. The only thing that worked was “G Line” (without the quotes). “RapidRide G” or even “RapidRide G Line” didn’t work. Nor did choosing a bus stop and trying to get there that way. I found the same problem with other RapidRide buses — might be a glitch in the search-related software.
The good news is that the buses seem to be moving OK and are spaced fairly evenly (no bunching). It is 10:30 AM (not rush hour) but random spot checks the first day were always really depressing. It looked like a little kids soccer game — everyone together moving slowly down the field. It does look better. Whether it is what they had in mind is a different story.
Hopefully Ryan Packer (who did that excellent article about the problems the first couple days) does a follow to see how they are doing.
I just double-checked. I checked a random OBA bus stop on their map for every RapidRide line. Every RR route in the system showed real-time data (for many trips), except the G Line. No G Line stop showed real-time data for any trip. They are all off-line.
And probably relatedly, the G Line icons have disappeared from the Pantograph map. Every other route is there, as usual, but the G Line is gone.
@Sam,
You are correct. The information on OBA for RR-G currently appears to be all honked up. Currently it is only showing scheduled info, not real time info at all.
But I doubt Metro is actively trying to hide anything. More than likely Metro is just having some IT issues on the backside. After all, Metro isn’t exactly known as an IT powerhouse.
Even OBA had to be developed elsewhere. It was actually developed at the UW by some grad students as a thesis project. And thank gawd for that.
RapidRide G service is so wonked up I’m not surprised the data feed can’t keep up. Metro may not know where the buses are except when an east-terminus supervisor sees one depart or a driver radios in, so how could anybody else?
When I took it a week ago Sunday it was only 2 minutes late. The display said scheduled 10 minutes, scheduled 2 minutes, then it dropped off the display and it said the next one would be in 15 minutes, but then it arrived anyway.
@Lazarus, I agree. Metro probably isn’t trying to hide the bus bunching and large headway gaps. And I’m sure this is not permanent. But if this goes on, I would like to know the reason behind it. Maybe they are switching over to active headway management, and in the mean time the real-time data won’t be available.
Yeah, OK, I think you are right. There are symbols for “scheduled buses” and “Real-Time buses”. The “Real-Time” symbols aren’t showing up for the G (at all). Odd.
Metro has numbers for September. For routes that started or ended with the service change the averages are misleading. For example the 347 dropped to 482 a day. Ridership on that bus was over a thousand a day for years. They probably just got the total and divide by the number of weekdays in the month. So I guess technically that was the ridership per weekday, but only because many of the days no one could ride it. Likewise, new buses like the 333 probably have about twice as many riders per day as the stated average.
Anyone else notice that ST put up ridership data for both August and September, including by station boarding data for LLE?
Ridership is obviously partially pre-restructure, and in the phase where people were still trying out the system, but the data shows strong gains. Link ridership is now at about 100k daily, and October numbers should be much stronger.
It wasn’t reported on this blog, but ST had previously published August numbers and then taken that data back down for an extended period. I’m not sure why that was, but the previous data had shown an approx 40% drop in ELSL per station boardings. The current data still shows a big drop for August, but now shows an even bigger gain for September. I have no explanation for this.
So good news generally for ST, but it is clear that the reported ridership is nowhere near final values yet, and still needs some time to settle out and a stabilized level.
A 30% increase in Link ridership over 2019 levels is nothing to sneeze at!
ST had previously published August numbers and then taken that data back down for an extended period.
I’ve noticed that ST sometimes puts up tentative numbers and then nothing much happens. I think in general it is best to wait until the dust settles a bit before looking at the numbers. This is frustrating (of course) since so much as happened lately and we want to know about it. But the reports used to come out annually, so it isn’t too surprising that they have had glitches and it takes a while.
Thanks for the heads up! I was eagerly waiting. I hadn’t checked in a few days. The data release is pretty recent.
I poked around a bit at station data. It looks like there was a jump of about 10K average weekday riders. It is just shy of the 100K threshold now.
Lynnwood’s opening appears to have added about 9K boardings at its 4 stations . 4K of those appear to be from former Northgate riders. That comes out to 5K net new boardings ( Lynnwood Link boardings at the four stations minus the Northgate drop).
The bulk of Lynnwood Link riders annd boardings appear to come from Lynnwood CC Station. (CC = City Center) The boardings at the other three stations are remarkably low. Of course it’s the first full month and the bus restructures kicked in in the middle of the month. ST said 47-55K average daily riders for Lynnwood Link by 2026 and this only appears to be about 18K (both directions) of that. And only 9-10K of that appear to be new to Link (the remainder switching from Northgate). It should grow each month — and jump a tad when the full 2 Line runs from Lynnwood to Redmond.
Of course those riders have to get home so one could say that a general increase at other stations is where the bulk of the growth is from. There are notable increases of over 1K at Seatac and Capitol Hill.
Another factor in that is the 2 Line stations in aggregate appear to have added over 1K boardings between August and September. As a new line it should be adding some ridership each month.
There are no data for September Sounder yet. The Sounder ridership page has been giving me errors for a few weeks now so I can’t see it. I’m curious if some Lynnwood Link new riders are coming from Sounder North.
There are also major crowding issues, and the extension is operating at less than half-frequency due to East Link being incomplete.
Wow, I didn’t realize they had Lynnwood Link numbers (for September no less). As folks have mentioned, we should take this with a grain of salt. There may be errors that they end up correcting.
But it is in line with what I would expect. I thought we would see somewhere around five to ten thousand riders on Lynnwood Link stations (and most of those at Lynnwood). I also figured that the Northgate Station would lose riders. Wow, did it ever. This was the worst month for Northgate Station on record. There is still a huge terminus effect. Buses and cars (going to park-and-ride lots) shift to stations further north.
Ridership at Northgate was over 10,000 per weekday in September 2023. It was a little over 4,000 last month. It lost about 6,000 riders, while Lynnwood Link gained about 8,000. This isn’t too shocking I guess. Community Transit didn’t share their numbers for their Downtown Seattle express buses, so we didn’t know how many people were riding them. But judging by the schedule running (prior to their termination) my guess is there weren’t that many riders. Metro truncated all but a handful of buses from the north after Northgate Link. Unlike previous northern extensions, this one didn’t come with huge numbers of people switching from the buses to rail.
Weekend ridership follows a similar pattern but there are subtle differences. Ridership is actually higher on the Lynnwood Link stations than weekday, topping 9,000 both days (again suggesting the CT 800 buses weren’t carrying many riders). Weekend ridership at Northgate Station lags the weekdays, likely due to the students who walk across the bridge on weekdays but not weekends. My guess is the overall increase in transit ridership has largely taken place on weekends. Otherwise it is mostly people switching from Northgate to the other stations.
Oddly enough there are no September ridership numbers for ST. My guess is it took a pretty big hit (like Northgate did).
There are some things that are likely to cause an increase in ridership for these stations in the near future. The 522 ST bus will be shifted to 148th. That will likely cause Roosevelt Station ridership to go down and 148th Station ridership to go up about a thousand. The area around 148th is a mess right now (which hampers walk-up ridership). Eventually they will add the pedestrian bridge which will connect the people in the neighborhood to the station much better. Overall though, this is fairly consistent with what I expected.
Weekend ridership may be boosted by ballgames. But that’s one of the purposes of Link: to take large crowds to/from ballgames and other large events, and it’s certainly doing that.
I believe the Sunday numbers are inflated for the September Link numbers – based on the averages it appears they’re counting 6 Sundays in September and 20 weekdays, when it should be 5 Sundays and 21 weekdays.
@D,
They are probably counting Monday, Sept 2nd, as a Sunday. Holidays really shouldn’t be counted as normal “work” days. It would screw up the data trends.
I forgot that the various agencies didn’t change their bus routes until half way through September. This means that Community Transit (for example) was still running the express buses downtown. Thus there may have been a considerable increase in ridership at the second half of the month (and into this month). I would expect another increase for October, as it will be the first full month with the new bus routes and Link extension. At that point we will have a better idea of what the typical ridership is.
(Of course since ridership goes up and down every month it will take several months to have a lot of confidence.)
They are probably counting Monday, Sept 2nd, as a Sunday. Holidays really shouldn’t be counted as normal “work” days. It would screw up the data trends.
Agreed. It is also a good idea to look at ridership per day (not per month) as the number of days per month varies.
Speaking of ST data, does anyone know why ST consistently put out monthly progress reports, but then apparently stopped in June? Is there a more recent progress report, but I’m looking in the wrong place?
https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/agency-progress-reports
ST suggested that they would dispense with comprehensive Progress Reports and instead post them by project.
ST had not provided progress reports on project pages yet.
I’m not happy with this. They should have listed it both ways for several months before abandoning the system progress reports. Plus it makes it much harder to learn how the updates are connected (like the South OMF is separate although it’s part of the Tacoma Dome Link extension, or it’s not clear when 2 Line trains will reach Lynnwood).
I did notice that the 2025 service plan announces general opening seasons for both Downtown Redmond and the full East Link to Lynnwood. It seems odd to me that firmer dates aren’t listed given how supposedly close the simulation initiation and opening dates are.
I am most interested in seeing any updates on the Downtown Redmond Link Extension. Have any of the timelines changed?
@Sam, I got the following response from ST last week:
https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/building-system/project-performance-tracker
Meanwhile, the actual Project Performance tracker hasn’t been updated since March. I speculate it’s the influence of Terri Mestas, the new Megaproject Delivery CEO, who seems to be reprioritizing her team’s efforts toward internal project management and away from external reporting.
Slide 9 of this presentation has an apparent preview of the new performance tracker: https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/Presentation%20-%20Approach%20for%20West%20Seattle%20Link%20Extension%20Workplan%2010-10-24.pdf
The lists all say “spring 2025” on anything recent.
I like you have been waiting to learn specifics. Spring begins in 5 months! They should have a better idea by now. Lynnwood Link opening date was announced about 5 months prior, for example.
It’s frustrating, given that the last few progress reports all seemed to imply that the Redmond extension could open in December.
Also given that the east link extension is now essential for the whole system, being able to track that progress was quite useful. Anecdotally, from passing by on I-90, it seems that all the (visible) plinths have finished reconstruction, given that the track has been laid back down.
Al,
I posted a comment on another thread with an updated date for East Link – it looks like it’s trending towards late November 2025. https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/10/08/midweek-roundup-quip/#comment-943052
Sam & M, as for Downtown Redmond, I also recall seeing the latest update from the Agency Progress Reports indicate that it was on track for a December opening. If you look at the Project Performance Tracker on the last page, you can dive deeper on specific projects. For Downtown Redmond, it looks like there was a sudden schedule contingency dip in August. It’s now trending roughly 90 days late which makes “Spring 2025” sound about right. Unfortunately this dashboard doesn’t provide any detail as to why, as others have noted. I didn’t hear any discussion on the delay at the recent System Expansion Committee meeting. https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/building-system/project-performance-tracker
So we’re thinking that Redmond might optimistically open next April and the full 2 Line the following December? Or Redmond might open December 2025 and the full 2 Line in 2026?
If Redmond opens in April, that’s sooner than I expected.
ST started systems testing in April — 6 months ago. By now, any major problems should be apparent.
https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/WASOUND/bulletins/395ce4e
The summer progress reports suggested opening at the end of 2024.
So I can’t help but wonder if ST is now hiding a possible new delay on this project, especially since it’s now “spring” rather than an opening month or date.
Al,
I wouldn’t place much emphasis on the summer APR – the most recent one (dated June 2024) noted that the latest schedule was received in February 2024, before testing began.
The schedule there notes that Systems Integration Testing was expected to finish roughly around mid-July, with pre-revenue service set to begin September 23 and simulated service November 7. For a late December start date that would’ve been a relatively short period of simulated service. That’s about 3 months combined; the current East Link update has 3 months each, so I wonder if the December 2024 date was just unrealistic.
I’m not sure if ST expected a shorter testing period for this because it’s a smaller extension and changed their minds later, or if something else came up.
A 30% increase in Link ridership over 2019 levels is nothing to sneeze at!
That is entirely do to the huge expansion (Northgate Link). We made dramatic speed improvements to urban areas. Buses carrying tens of thousands of riders were truncated. We should have started with U-District to Downtown, but better late than never.
What is actually worrisome is that the Link ridership on old stations is still largely down. The exception is Capitol Hill. Basically you have two counteracting forces: generally lower transit ridership and an extremely important expansion. The lower transit numbers are felt more with weekday ridership. Thus we have a situation like that at Beacon Hill. It is now connected to the U-District, Roosevelt, Northgate. These are a major set of destinations. This is likely responsible for the increase in weekend ridership. But weekday ridership is actually still down (likely due to less commuting). What is true of Beacon Hill is true of a lot stations, like most of those downtown and in Rainier Valley.
On exception is SeaTac. It has really taken off the last few months and I’m not sure why. Up until about March it was below 2019 levels. I guess this was a big year for summer vacation travel, so that (and the extension) likely had a lot to do with it.
SeaTac traffic is getting worse and worse — and it’s a long trip from Snohomish and even North Seattle. Lots of people fly for personal reasons (no business expense deduction) in the summer months too and they don’t want to shell out $50-$100 for another way to get there.
Next year, once full East Link opens (no Stride yet), SeaTac may end up as the busiest station — depending on how the CID Station transfers are counted. And perhaps whether South King/ Pierce Sounder and Link riders transfer to the 2 Line at CID Station to get to and from Eastside jobs.
If I lived in Snohomish, I would default to Link for any reason to go to SeaTac unless it’s for a plane landing after 11 pm or leaving before 8 am. At some point, 1 Line trains should run later northward through Downtown than they currently do.
SeaTac traffic is getting worse and worse
Yeah, although anecdotally I haven’t seen anyone change their mind when it comes to taking Link or not. Maybe the big increase in Uber/Lyft prices have something do with it. I heard prices went way up this year and it costs a fortune to get to the airport (unless you are downtown — then you get charged a flat rate by the taxicab companies). I have no idea if they are a lot higher than last year.
it’s a long trip from Snohomish and even North Seattle.
Yes, but again we have no idea how many of the riders came from there. Northgate ridership was basically flat during the time that SeaTac ridership increased.
Hard to say any station (or set of stations) increased along with SeaTac. The I. D. and Pioneer Square saw a huge jump in the summer, but it didn’t get the increase in May. The Rainer Valley/Beacon Hill stations are both pretty close but they don’t exhibit the slight dip in August and rebound in September. The closest match appears to be Tukwila, which seems bizarre to me.
There are both business and non-business travel. There is also resident and non-resident travel.
I doubt that business travel has changed except it’s perceived as more reliable travel time to take Link at certain times of day.
I think the big change is due to rising costs of Link and Uber. It’s much cheaper to get a ride to a nearby station and take Link the rest of the way. Cabs were always expensive.
Perhaps Link is more perceived as an alternative to remote parking too. I have friends who park at other friend’s apartments and take Link to SeaTac, for example. I know people who used to use remote parking but figured out that they would save lots of money taking a short Uber or Lyft ride to Link and using the train the rest of the way.
Last week, I saw many Michigan fans headed to the UW game at SeaTac getting on Link. Savvy visitors use Link too.
Finally, I’ve known people who used to drive longer distances to pick up someone at SeaTac that now drive a few miles to a nearby Link station. It can take 15 minutes to go from the cell home lot to arrivals at some times of day — which can be the time it takes to walk to Link and hop on a train. That’s sonething that longer distance people do.
The $3 fare is quite the Link incentive. Lots of places have an airport station surcharge on their transit systems.
Well, my friend in north Lynnwood has stopped going to downtown or Capitol Hill because of the sketchy people, except when she visits me. (No, I’m not sketchy, really.) When she does come to Capitol Hill she often gets off Link at U-District, does a stopover, and takes a bus the rest of the way. Although the last time she said she saw somebody misbehaving (exposing himself) on the 49; I don’t know why that happens to her but I’ve never seen anything like that on Capitol Hill buses.
“it costs a fortune to get to the airport (unless you are downtown — then you get charged a flat rate by the taxicab companies). I have no idea if they are a lot higher than last year.”
I think taxis are still charging a flat something like $35-40 from the downtown hotel area to the airport, and my roommate got the same rate from Uber for a recent trip.
Every time I take it to the airport and especially from the airport at night I’m amazed how crowded the platform is, like 11 pm or even midnight, there might be 80-100 people waiting on the platform. Sure anecdotal but I know from personal experience that because of the good frequent cheap Link service to the airport running 4am to 1am I fly a lot more, like sometimes I find myself traveling 4 times in 6 weeks out of SeaTac for discretionary leisure travel. Cheap airfare helps too (pinch your nose and be lured by insanely cheap Frontier airfares or also good Alaska fares). But it only works when it doesn’t cost you much more than the price of the plane ticket for an Uber or airport parking… induced demand.
Note that SeaTac station really jumped in ridership. It’s now the #2 highest station and about 89% of Westlake boardings.
This really shows how far away extensions attract airport riders. It also shows why ST needs direct Link service from SeaTac to Snohomish (or a cross platform transfer in SODO for SeaTac goers with luggage).
I flew in last night and there were many riding in from SeaTac. Many don’t yet get that end cars are much less crowded and get on in the middle cars. I think the lack of awnings for the end car boardings deter people from riding in the end cars. I was in the first car and it was surprisingly empty even though the platform was busy with waiting riders.
Yeah, we wrote about the jump in SeaTac ridership at the same time. It started going up in March. By May it was as high as it has ever been. By July it was around 9,000 (every day of the week). This is a huge increase. Up until March of this year we never got over 7,000. Even when it was the terminus it wasn’t that high. The Northgate Link extension is due to some of the increase, but there wasn’t the kind of increase we are seeing now. My guess is just a lot of people traveling (by plane) this year.
I think we’ll see a big increase in ridership at SeaTac once Link gets to Federal Way. In this case though I think it will mostly be folks who work there. A lot of people in the Sound Sound commute to SeaTac.
There really ought to be travellators (moving sidewalks) between seatac station and the airport entrance, to save travelers some 1/4 mile of walking. I looked into this a couple years ago, and seatac was saying that the concrete parking structure couldn’t support such a system without prohibitive renovation. There was a mention of attempting to include it in future expansion facilities that might connect with the link station, but I couldn’t find any actual evidence of this.
This really shows how far away extensions attract airport riders.
I don’t think we have any idea where these SeaTac riders came from. The increase started in May of this year. Lynnwood Link didn’t occur until much later. Northgate Link happened several years ago. It is quite possible that various stations saw an increase in the number of trips to SeaTac but a decrease elsewhere. You would need trip data (e. g. stop-to-stop data) to make a determination. It seems like that would have been easy to release when we had the “tap-off” system, like BART. That agency releases a monthly report as a spreadsheet (https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2024-09/Ridership_202408.xlsx) which means you can determine all the combinations. I don’t think ST ever did that and even if they did it wouldn’t work any more (because we no longer “tap off”).
One thing that would at least give us a clue is directional data. They used to release this with their “Service Implementation Plans”. But I haven’t seen one of those reports in years. Thus we only see total ridership at a station — not the number of people going each direction. Sounder does this (as part of the performance tracker). It would be nice to have this — or be able to filter by direction — as this would give us more insight.
For example consider the Othello Station. In August it had almost 2,500 riders a weekday. In 2019 it had about 2,800. But in the old report I could see that 2,300 were riders heading north and 500 heading south. What if ridership is now 1,800 going north and 700 going south. That would mean an increase of 200 going south. Since SeaTac is the main destination going south, there is a good chance those riders are going there. If nothing else this would give us a clue.
For what it is worth there has been a big increase in ridership at Tukwila and Angle Lake to go along with the increase in SeaTac. At the same time, the downtown stations (and Rainier Valley stations) are still well below 2019 levels. Maybe a lot of people are being dropped off at those stations instead of SeaTac. More directional data would help.
Instead we are basically left guessing. ST does occasionally do studies though, so we might eventually have an idea of how many people go from Snohomish County to SeaTac.
There really ought to be travellators (moving sidewalks) between seatac station and the airport entrance, to save travelers some 1/4 mile of walking.
Yeah, it is a long ways.
According to SeaTac, a new Master Plan environmental review is supposed to be released next week (October 21).
It doesn’t appear to vary from the 2019 plan. That’s unfortunate as Link in 2019 stopped at UW. It wasn’t as prominent as it is today. The 2019 work appears to not focus on Link connectivity.
https://www.airportprojects.net/sampenvironmentalreview/
At the very least, plan the new car rental busway to have a stop at the Link station as well.
The Maui airport people mover, by the way, has a total track length of something like ½ that of the distance between Link and the airport terminal.
At some point the new airport master plan had envisioned a people mover (like they are building at LAX) to connect the existing terminal, future terminal, and car rental facility. I had proposed to extend that with a loop to the Link station. Recently it looks like it got replaced with an elevated busway which would be unfortunate.
https://x.com/mixio17/status/1590912440359071745/photo/1
I was in Denver recently and noticed the A-train was similarly crowded, way more than other times in past years that I’ve ridden it. Maybe it’s a one off situation but I really think if you provide a quality transit service that is of use to average people, going where they want to go, many will use it. The cost is good, the trains are fast and frequent with long span of service, its clean and safe with inspectors and security. Most people pack luggage they can handle themselves on the plane so also works on the train to the airport.
If you paid $30 for a plane ticket you dont want to pay $80 for an Uber to the airport.
Why also the transit situation with Las Vegas airport is insane. Las Vegas is a hub for Spirit and Frontier with absurdly cheap airfares and absurdly long layovers often. You’d think a cheap frequent bus a couple of miles to the strip would be a no brainer for many reasons but especially when you have many people waiting 12 hours at LV airport for their $40 transcontinental flight with no luggage. They aren’t going to spend $30 each way on an Uber 2 miles to the Strip.
$30 airfare to Las Vegas or $40 across the country sounds unreal: it can’t cover the cost of fuel and staff. So people shouldn’t treat it as normal and expect a proportional ground transportation rate. You’re already saving $60-160 in the ticket price, so take your ground transportation cost out of that. Of course, Link is the least expensive way to get to the airport: that’s one of the purposes of high-capacity transit.
There was a discussion on a recent post here about Metro’s looming fiscal cliff. Elsewhere I saw someone point out that this is fundamentally a revenue problem, not an expenditures one. The reason given was that the state law caps the county’s property tax revenue increases at 1% per year, which is much lower than inflation, especially recently. Given that the fed’s long-term goal is to keep inflation around 1.5-2%, this seems fundamentally unsustainable, and the county’s inflation-adjusted budget is doomed to shrink over time. To me this means that the long-term solution must involve a restructuring of state tax laws.
Agreed. The cities and counties have severe limitations placed on them and it is a big problem. Not only with things like transit, but schools (of course). The city definitely supports more funding, but it is difficult to get it.
It was Eyman initiatives. In 1993 initiative 601 limited councilmanic (unvoted) county/city property tax increases to 1%, plus an additional amount for population growth (to mitigate extending services to the new households). That was intentionally below inflation to gradually starve government and force it to shrink.
Governments can have voter-approved levies beyond this, but those are time-limited. That’s why we have to renew our E911 levy and library levy and Seattle Transit Benefit District levy and others every seven years or so.
Local transit agencies (Metro, CT, etc) are funded mostly by sales taxes. There’s a state-imposed cap of I think 1.2%. CT is at that limit, Metro is a bit below, and PT is below that. Anything beyond that or large capital projects require short-term levies. Metro can fund a trickle of RapidRide construction with its base funds (e.g., the I is under construction now, and the K is scheduled in several years), but anything beyond that (e.g., J) requires additional funding.
The half-dozen initiatives this year are sponsored by a new billionaire similar to Eyman so you can think of them as “Son of Eyman” initiatives. They would generally hinder transit, climate, and education like the earlier wave of initiatives, and I’m sure there’s an anti-urban one somewhere either now or in the future.
“To me this means that the long-term solution must involve a restructuring of state tax laws.”
Yes, but we have to get a governor and legislators in there who would do that.
The anti-tax movement started in 1979 in California with Prop 13, which froze property taxes at their then-current levels for existing homeowners, and for later owners at the rate when they bought the house. That forced everyone else (newcomers, renters, young adults) to make up the difference or services would deteriorate.
That anti-tax sentiment (but not the particular policies) reached Washington state in the 1980s, and achieved success in 1993 with initiatives 601 and 602, and in 1999 with initiative 695. Those have hindered county/city services and transit ever since. At the time, the legislature was scared of the anti-tax activists, afraid they’d be voted out of office if they didn’t support the tax-limiting policies. Even when some of the initiatives were ruled unconstitutional by the courts, the state sometimes imposed the same terms the initiative would have. I think that happened with 695.
In the 2000s or early 2010s, Eyman initiatives began losing some of their popularity and voters began questioning the consequences of anti-tax measures, so some of them passed and some of them failed. And the legislature began getting more assertive against them, although still only half-heartedly. Then in the late 2010s and 2020s the anti-tax initiatives went quiet; I don’t remember when the most recent one was.
Then this year a new guy came to town with a new wave of anti-tax, anti-environmentalist initiatives.
There was another major train breakdown near capitol hill station friday. Every time this happens, people lose trust in Link. But then traffic on the highways yesterday was a complete dumpster fire, with 520 closed, 99 closed, I90 closed for several hours due to a bomb threat (meaning no way to cross the lake in the afternoon), Ballard bridge closed, etc. People were talking about 2-3 hour trips between seattle and the eastside. There really isn’t a very reliable way to get where you’re going on time in this region, unless you’ve got the privilege to shut down the highway for your motorcade like happened on tuesday morning.
The highway construction projects all have to be done in the six-week dry period, so that’s why they all get stacked up on summer weekends. The wet season is about to start, so there will be few or no closures for the rest of the fall or winter.
I’m not sure what to make of this new video about RapidRide G:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVtM7Di6N8
It has elements of joy, criticism and sarcasm.
He caught it in all it’s glory even the bottomed out buses on opening day. Hope it’s going better now and they ironed out some kinks.
RRG has so screwed up traffic mobility on Madison I don’t see it ever being reliable unless cars are banned from Madison. Plus traffic has now switched to James so it is even more of a mess along with Denny while Madison is at a standstill. So of course drivers are using the in between streets which is unpleasant for walking now as these streets between Broadway and downtown use to be quiet and pleasant for walking. I think it was a mistake to take a major arterial like Madison and reduce lane capacity with the idea buses will flow through in the center lanes despite at least a dozen major intersections and left hand turns for cars. It doesn’t work. Mobility and reliability on the G are worse than they were on even the 8 or 11. I know there are some design problems with RRG and worries about fishtailing in the rain but the fundamental design is flawed. If car traffic is at a stand still buses even in the “center lane” are going to be at a standstill or way off on their schedules. Half the time on the G the bus is completely stopped. There is a reason we build Link with underground lines and stations in urban areas. This was a waste of $100 million. At least Link works. RRG is an advertisement to drivers to not use transit. Will anyone get fired? Hell no, not in government work. I am now voting no on the Transportation Levy that uses rent to pay for transportation like the housing levy uses rent to pay for housing the city now plans to use to cover the deficit “without raising taxes” because this was a waste of $100 million. and these folks don’t deserve more money.
If car traffic is at a stand still buses even in the “center lane” are going to be at a standstill or way off on their schedules.
That is simply not true. If the buses run in their own lanes then it doesn’t matter what the cars are doing. Cross traffic could (illegally) block the buses, but that could happen either way.
RRG is an advertisement to drivers to not use transit.
It is the opposite. If the bus is moving and cars at a standstill it makes transit more appealing. I’m not saying you should purposely make traffic worse, but ultimately the only way to actually move more people through a given area is to charge money or do exactly what we did (give priority to the buses). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox. https://thecityfix.com/blog/traffic-evaporation-what-really-happens-when-road-space-is-reallocated-from-cars/.
Of course it will take some time for people to stop assuming that the best way to get around is in a car. The sloppy rollout of the G doesn’t help. But eventually people will figure it out.
Have you ridden the G Ross Bleakney or is your sole source of information Wiki?
Idea for something STB could look into. I recently noticed that G Line icons no longer appear on the Pantograph map. However, other route icons still appear. Also, I checked One Bus Away, and notice the G Line no longer shows real-time arrivals.
It appears as if Metro has done something so that the G Line can’t be tracked. Not that that is their motive for taking the G Line offline, but it is at least a consequence of it.
I’m able to see the buses of the G Line via OneBusAway, but it wasn’t easy. The only thing that worked was “G Line” (without the quotes). “RapidRide G” or even “RapidRide G Line” didn’t work. Nor did choosing a bus stop and trying to get there that way. I found the same problem with other RapidRide buses — might be a glitch in the search-related software.
The good news is that the buses seem to be moving OK and are spaced fairly evenly (no bunching). It is 10:30 AM (not rush hour) but random spot checks the first day were always really depressing. It looked like a little kids soccer game — everyone together moving slowly down the field. It does look better. Whether it is what they had in mind is a different story.
Hopefully Ryan Packer (who did that excellent article about the problems the first couple days) does a follow to see how they are doing.
I just double-checked. I checked a random OBA bus stop on their map for every RapidRide line. Every RR route in the system showed real-time data (for many trips), except the G Line. No G Line stop showed real-time data for any trip. They are all off-line.
And probably relatedly, the G Line icons have disappeared from the Pantograph map. Every other route is there, as usual, but the G Line is gone.
@Sam,
You are correct. The information on OBA for RR-G currently appears to be all honked up. Currently it is only showing scheduled info, not real time info at all.
But I doubt Metro is actively trying to hide anything. More than likely Metro is just having some IT issues on the backside. After all, Metro isn’t exactly known as an IT powerhouse.
Even OBA had to be developed elsewhere. It was actually developed at the UW by some grad students as a thesis project. And thank gawd for that.
RapidRide G service is so wonked up I’m not surprised the data feed can’t keep up. Metro may not know where the buses are except when an east-terminus supervisor sees one depart or a driver radios in, so how could anybody else?
When I took it a week ago Sunday it was only 2 minutes late. The display said scheduled 10 minutes, scheduled 2 minutes, then it dropped off the display and it said the next one would be in 15 minutes, but then it arrived anyway.
@Lazarus, I agree. Metro probably isn’t trying to hide the bus bunching and large headway gaps. And I’m sure this is not permanent. But if this goes on, I would like to know the reason behind it. Maybe they are switching over to active headway management, and in the mean time the real-time data won’t be available.
Yeah, OK, I think you are right. There are symbols for “scheduled buses” and “Real-Time buses”. The “Real-Time” symbols aren’t showing up for the G (at all). Odd.
Metro has numbers for September. For routes that started or ended with the service change the averages are misleading. For example the 347 dropped to 482 a day. Ridership on that bus was over a thousand a day for years. They probably just got the total and divide by the number of weekdays in the month. So I guess technically that was the ridership per weekday, but only because many of the days no one could ride it. Likewise, new buses like the 333 probably have about twice as many riders per day as the stated average.