Election 2024
Discussion of election results can be found in yesterday’s thread, but here are some news items:
- The Urbanist: Early Washington State Election Results Are Favorable for Progressives
- The Seattle Times ($): Seattle Proposition 1 wins strong support from voters
Transit & Streets:
- The Urbanist: Sound Transit 1 Line Maintenance Disruptions Will Bring Long-term Gains; also on Sound Transit’s blog, The Platform
- The Seattle Times ($): Light rail gets a slow-ride test on Mercer Island; testing is occurring piecemeal as sections are completed. Full opening still scheduled for late next year.
- The Urbanist: Saka Seeks to Remove Delridge Median He Compared to Border Wall; looks like Budget Chair Strauss will task SDOT with doing so.
- My Ballard: Upcoming meetings to review Ballard Link light rail extension project; the meetings are required as part of BLE restarting the environmental process from scratch.
- Pierce Transit: Pierce Transit Pilots New, Accessible Signage with the installation of seven new signs at bus stops at Pierce Transit’s Commerce Street Station featuring braille, raised lettering and large print. PT also launched a redesigned website.
Land Use & Housing:
- The Urbanist: Sleepy Bainbridge Island Decides How To Grow Up
- The Seattle Times ($): Microfarms in front yards growing food for the community
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- Seattle Then & Now: Andy’s Diner, 1963 (now the Orient Express) located in a set of railcars off 4th Avenue in SODO.
- New York Times (Free Link): Four Must-See Parks This Fall Herald a New Golden Age; one of the NYT’s four is Seattle’s new Waterfront.
- SF Standard: Muni is actually doing great
- Urban Transport Magazine: A review of the 7th trolley:motion electric bus conference held in Prague this year as the city celebrates opening two new battery-trolley lines. The conference had a heavy focus on mixing battery & trolley operations to provide (fiscally) efficient electric service without sacrificing capacity.
- Grist Magazine: San Francisco’s surprisingly difficult quest to turn a century-old highway into a park
- Streetsblog USA: Talking Headways Podcast: Transit Wins and Co-Benefits from Climate Work
- Human Transit: Nashville: Presenting a Transit Plan in a Car-Dominated City
This is an Open Thread, but the election should be discussed under yesterday’s post.
Are you interested in sharing your perspective on a transit or land use issue? Reach out to us at contact@seattletransitblog.com.
It’s exciting some medium sized cities approving their transit plans. Both
* Nashville https://humantransit.org/2024/11/nashville-presenting-a-transit-plan-in-a-car-dominated-city.html (also above)
* Columbus https://www.axios.com/local/columbus/2024/11/06/ohio-linkus-plan-election-results-pass
Glanced through the plans, they seem more similar to seattle’s transportation levy with large amounts of sidewalk rebuilds, adding smart traffic signals and (maybe?) bus lanes.
The east main brt in columbus https://linkuscolumbus.com/eastmain/ looks pretty good with lots of dedicated lanes
Glanced through the plans, they seem more similar to seattle’s transportation levy with large amounts of sidewalk rebuilds, adding smart traffic signals and (maybe?) bus lanes.
They are basically a combination of our transportation levy and the Seattle Transportation Benefit District levy (which added bus service). Basically the buses will run faster and more often (along with multi-modal improvements). I read some national Twitter comments (trying to find the tiny bits of good news in last night’s disaster) and they mentioned both our levy passing and 2117 failing.
Ad on the front of the streetcar in the post photo says “Highest trades in town.” I believe underneath it, it says “Wm O. McKay. Westlake and Mercer.” It was an ad for William O. McKay auto dealership.
From Ryan Packer, here’s a slide showing the transfer between the 1 and 3 lines at SODO. I’m not sure if/how this has changed, but the graphics seem much easier for me to understand.
https://x.com/typewriteralley/status/1854587323545272422/photo/1
Riders transferring between the Southbound 1 Northbound 3 will have a direct transfer. Everyone else will need to go up and down stairs/escalator/elevator.
It seems to me the most important transfers are the same direction transfers. Northbound 1 Northbound 3, Southbound 1 Southbound 3. I wish ST had prioritized those transfers.
So the only riders that will benefit from cross-platform transfers will be those coming from West Seattle south to the Rainier Valley / Airport / destinations further south? Anyone transferring from the Southbound 1 to the Northbound 3 would likely do so well before the SODO station, most likely at Westlake.
So the only riders that will benefit from cross-platform transfers will be those coming from West Seattle south to the Rainier Valley / Airport / destinations further south?
Looks like it to me. This is the best kind of transfer and I think that will be the only cross-platform transfer in the entire system. The second best transfer involves perpendicular crossing lines at different levels (I looked for a diagram but couldn’t find one). Basically one set of tracks are on one level and a second set are on a different level. To transfer you walk up or down one set of stairs/escalators. I don’t think we will have that in our system.
The third best involves going up the stairs/escalators/elevator, walking a few feet and then going down. We will have several of these, including the first rail-to-rail transfer point at CID. Riders will reverse track direction to go from the South End to the East Side (or vice versa) by going up and over. Three of the four transfers at SoDo appear to be the same type.
The worst is a transfer that involves changing multiple level or walking a long distance in additional to an elevation change. We will have transfers like that in our system. This may the dominant form of rail-to-rail transfers in our system.
I think this is right. My brain is mush right now (more than usual). This is a nice distraction.
Yeah I’ve been talking about this for years. It’s silly to build 3 platforms when 2 would be better for riders (just a few feet across a level platform) and cheaper. They only have to put the West Seattle tracks on the inside and Rainier Valley tracks on the outside.
But ST thinks they’re God and won’t consider doing anything else.
I wonder what their reasoning for not pursuing this option was? Are they worried about the trains crossing over to get to the outside track? Or are they committed to just not moving the existing tracks?
Are they worried about the trains crossing over to get to the outside track? Or are they committed to just not moving the existing tracks?
Probably a bit of both. They don’t want level crossings. But they also don’t want to spend a lot of money moving a track to one side (and then back). The cheapest option is probably what they have — just run the two new tracks to one side. Once you do that, the platform arrangement they have is the best you can do. That is because the lines are next to each other. Northbound 1 is next to southbound 1; northbound 3 is next to southbound 3. The exception of the one cross-platform transfer they will offer.
“ I wonder what their reasoning for not pursuing this option was? Are they worried about the trains crossing over to get to the outside track? Or are they committed to just not moving the existing tracks?”
Somewhere along the way, I heard that they didn’t want to aquire more property in SODO to do it and that they didn’t want to move the existing platforms.
Of course after that “excuse” ST made design changes that both move the existing platforms and requires buying more property to the east of the station.
And of course they’re fine running up the price tags with three sets of vertical conveyances enclosed in a new glass cathedral of a station on soil prone to liquefaction in an earthquake.
ST claims they can’t afford a better station yet they’ll spend lots more extra money on a pretty Duwamish bridge. It’s all about the look and not the riders.
If DSTT2 were ever built, you’d be right, but it won’t. So, the only important transfer there is West Seattle to the Airport or reverse. So if Line 3 to West Seattle IS built — it shouldn’t be! — it will pass through DSTT1 as will Line 1. In-direction transfers can be anywhere north of SoDo.
Folks, the losses of the Democratic Senators in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana are permanent! If you look at the map of the United States, the Democratic Party now has a “hard” ceiling of 48 Senators, and they can’t get the last one until 2030 when McCormick comes up again, if then. Wisconsin and Nevada are always going to be on the verge of slipping away as well.
There will be no more transit aid, certainly not enough to embark on WSBLE. Seattle missed the boat. Steve Effyouseeking Daines is going to be the Majority Leader and transit is about 385th on his list of priorities.
Finish the Spine to Redmond and Federal Way (the latter only because so much has been spent south of Highline) and let that be enough. Focus on the buses and give them some priority where possible. Washington can afford that on its own dime, and it will have nothing else to spend.
There are other possibilities. It is common for projects to stall indefinitely. The Second Avenue Subway is a great example, but a similar project (in the same city) is the East Side Access project.
Construction started in 1969. They did a fair amount of work, but the project was cancelled in 1975. It was revived in 1995. They finally finished it last year. So it took over fifty years to build, even though they had done a lot of construction the first few years. This is an extreme example, but it is quite common to have “ramps to nowhere” that sit for decades until they finally build out the system. This could easily happen to us.
I could easily see West Seattle Link starting construction as planned. Ballard Link gets delayed more and more, until it is essentially put on the shelf. At that point it is difficult to change plans. To run the trains in the same tunnel requires more work — different work. Of course this is much cheaper than building a second tunnel, but it is still work. Meanwhile, to those in charge the second tunnel plans look like a delay, not a cancellation.
Current plans are for West Seattle Link to start in 2032 and Ballard Link to start in 2039. This means that if things go as planned, for seven years West Seattle Link will end at SoDo. I expect this gap to grow. It would not surprise me if it eventually just becomes “indefinitely”. That means that the same-direction transfer becomes more important than ever.
Of course no one knows what Metro will do once West Seattle Link is built. It would not surprise me if the only bus route that changes is the 50. Metro decides not to force riders into three and four seat rides so it doesn’t truncate buses like the C, H and 21. The West Seattle stub becomes like the East Side Starter Line. It gets some riders — especially during game day — but not that many.
Your scenario is certainly possible, Ross, and even “likely” given the inertia that elected officials seem to evidence over and over. Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news.
And that is exactly why WSLE should not even be started. A five to seven billion dollar stub that gets some ridership “on game days” is a towering folly.
It’s not like the area between the bottom of Avalon at the West Seattle Freeway and SoDo Station is going to be redeveloped into McMansions or high rises. It’s still going to be decrepit industrial uses at the end of that fifty years. So if West Seattle is revamped into an urban neighborhood that actually needs rail transit to function, build it then.
And even if The Stub is built all the way to Alaska Junction, there’s no reason for an additional pair of tracks. It is entirely possible to have Lines 1 and 3 share tracks from a junction at Lander north. And when the junction is built, it would make sense to turn SoDo into an island platform station and then EVERY transfer there would be cross-platform or stand in place.
Yes, you’d have to take the bikeway south of Lander, but almost nobody uses it. One or two of the buildings abutting the bikeway might have to be “trimmed” back a few yards. And Yes, Lander would have to overpass the junction. And yes, there would have to be a single-lane stretch of the busway south of Lander, but it could be operated traffic signals. ST wants to take the whole thing, so a short single-lane would be a huge improvement. Buses might be delayed thirty seconds for an opposing one to clear.
Sure, DSTT1 would need to be revamped, with platform doors to speed things up and, ideally, island platforms at Pioneer Square, Symphony and Westlake to handle peak boarding and alighting volumes.
All of that could be done for massively less than DSTT2 and the SkyCastle that The Bored is proposing at SoDo.
@ Tom:
Of course I agree with you.
I remain surprised that ST did not route the West Seattle branching tracks about 700 feet eastward to be above the OMF yard and tracks. The switches are already there after the curve. That would save the busway between Lander and Spokane.
Keep in mind that ST is building a Lander overpass so the busway won’t likely connect to Lander Street. It will need to keep going to Spokane Street to be fully usable.
“Finish the Spine to Redmond and Federal Way (the latter only because so much has been spent south of Highline)”
We should finish those because Federal Way is a major transfer point, but has that much really been spent on it? It’s all in existing highway right of way and some of it is on the surface, which is the cheapest to build. (The surface segment leverages freeway underpasses to avoid level crossings.) There was the issue with redesigning a viaduct, but was that really that expensive compared to other Link extensions? Replacing East Link’s plinths must have cost more.
Al, you are absolutely correct. I used to advocate for using the outer loop for connecting a “bypass” along Airport Way, so I should have thought of using it for West Seattle! That’s a VERY good idea because it saves the busway in its entirety. If they build anything on WSLE they have to make that connection above Hanford Street, which, like the connection to the Spine above Forest has an outbound connection from southbound on the west side of the loop and an in bound connection to the eastbound direction on the same side to the south of the wye. There is the potential conflict at the at-grade crossing of the outer loop for cars and trucks from Airport Way, but it is about forty feet from the street so frequent crossings shouldn’t be too difficult to hold cars there while a train passes. .
And in a pinch they could elevate the outer loop over the car entry. There’s room if the trees are removed. Make Airport Way one lane southbound, or remove the center refuge and replant trees in what’s now the sidewalk.
It would be better, though, to move the connection south to the Hinds Street right of way. I think they’re going to have a hard time squeezing three tracks between the maintenance building and the rail spur there north of Hanford. There’s two upper-level tracks in a wye from The Spine that descends to grade just south of Hanford. Next to it (inside) is an at-grade track which is the main loop track. How are they going to get high enough at Hanford to clear the almost-but-not-quite down track from The Spine elevated and build a wye above it????? It’s pretty tight because of the maintenance building.
Mike, you damn tootin it was. It’s a very long span bridge, not a viaduct. But the point is, it’s pretty much built, so even though a connection using a bus-only bridge in the 240th right of way and a connection to the center HOV lanes would have been 1/5 the cost of extending to FW, it’s done so use it.
It would also have gotten the buses out of the permanent mess on K-DM between Military Road and Pac Highway.
We should finish those because Federal Way is a major transfer point
Right, but the transfer point could have been much further north. For example:
1) Highline. Ideally you want your transit hub/rail terminus to be a destination and this is only significant destination between Tacoma and SeaTac.
2) Some place closer to Angle Lake. 216th seems like a possibility. You would have to widen the freeway and then put HOV ramps in the middle, but that doesn’t seem especially difficult. The point being that the only major goal is just to connect to the freeway so that buses can serve it. (The buses can either keep going or terminate there.) It is highly likely this would have made the project much cheaper, and only marginally worse.
But as Tom pointed out, it is too late now. They have done plenty of work along the entire corridor (from Angle Lake to Federal Way) so it doesn’t make sense to do anything different.
“The point being that the only major goal is just to connect to the freeway so that buses can serve it. ”
Connecting Auburn to Federal Way station is similar to connecting Lake City to 130th station.
Connecting Auburn to Federal Way station is similar to connecting Lake City to 130th station.
No its not. 130th is an infill station. The trains are going to Lynnwood anyway. Adding a stop there is dirt cheap compared to an extension like Federal Way Link.
Secondly, the population is very different. Auburn is a large, sprawling city. Lake City is a neighborhood. In so far as Auburn has a “downtown” the neighborhood is low-density (tiny compared to Lake City).
Lake City is also much closer to the core of the city (some would consider it part of it). It is not very far from the UW or downtown (and all the significant destinations along the way). Proximity is an important factor when it comes to transit and Lake City has it. Auburn does not.
The roadways are very different. One very reasonable way to get from Auburn Station to Federal Way Transit Center is via the two freeways (https://maps.app.goo.gl/zGp5GLFYvtyHpcnu7). Once you are on the freeway, staying on the freeway a bit longer is no big deal. Riders lose their one-seat ride from Auburn to Federal Way — but that is a minor issue. In contrast Lake City is not connected to Link via a freeway. Nor is Bitter Lake. Which brings up another point:
130th Station is part of a (relatively) high-density corridor. It basically includes Bitter Lake, Ingraham High School, Pinehurst and Lake City. There are no similar corridors around Federal Way.
Link is fundamentally more valuable to the people of Lake City than it is to Auburn. If you are in Auburn and want to go to most places in Seattle the fastest way is with Sounder. When Sounder isn’t running the best option would be an express bus. Link offers very little — basically just the connection to SeaTac (something that could be done via the aforementioned bus to a more northern I-5 station).
Of course you add value when you go south of 216th. But you add very little value compared to the cost. Very few people save much time and yet it costs a fortune. This is the opposite of 130th Station.
Now if you want to make the case that Lynnwood Link was overkill — and they should have ended sooner — then be my guest. There are similarities. The only significant difference is proximity; Lynnwood is a lot closer to Seattle (and the major destinations) than Federal Way. If Lynnwood Link was overkill it was to a much smaller degree than Federal Way Link.
Personally I don’t get too worked over it. In both cases it is not the end of the world. In contrast, extensions farther out are a really bad idea. These are a ridiculous level of overkill and mean spending a huge amount of money on the wrong thing. When Link runs from Federal Way to Lynnwood (and Downtown Redmond) we should be done with the extensions. Time to build more urban subway lines and improve the bus system.
Maybe I just missed it, but I didn’t see any mention on this blog of ST’s post on “The Platform” related to testing on East Link.
They have several pictures (no videos) of Link LRV’s being operated on the DRLE, under their own power, and from the POV of the operator.
They also have some dead tow pictures of Link LRV’s being towed on the South Bellevue to Mercer Island segment. And they also have a picture with text that seems to imply that they have actually done some self powered tests on this segment too.
https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/fresh-pics-milestones-reached-eastside-light-rail-projects
So this is all very good news. Spring of next year DRLE will open, and then late next year (hopefully) Full ELE will open. By the time we get to 2026 Transit should be completely changed regionally. I can’t wait.
And then on to Federal Way Link. It’s going to be awesome.
I missed that one! Very nice.
Nice, thanks. Great to see progress on East Link.
@AndyL,
Concur. I love seeing the transit progress that is being made regionally. DRLE will be great when it opens, but the really big game changer will be Full ELE across the floating bridge. That will be awesome.
And adding FWLE to that just a few months later will be even better.
Is everyone aware that at Marymoor Village, the train enters the ground floor of the parking garage on the western side, then makes a turn in the building, and exits the garage on the northern side of the structure?
@Sam,
Ya. I don’t really know why they designed it that way, but it is sort of cool.
I’ve been in various places in Europe where transit does a similar thing. I always find it interesting, and I always sort of like it. Close integration always seems very “urban”, even when it’s not.
It will be interesting to ride DRLE when it first opens. It will shift a lot of commute patterns. But I probably won’t use it much, although I’m really interested in attending a few Orcas games. So glad we have MLC in the area.
I think Marymoor Village will be very popular with park&riders, and station area residents, but I’m not sure about the bus transfer situation. It seems like buses won’t provide many Link riders at that station. The station will be used by Marymoor Park visitors. And it’s also very close to a Whole Foods, Chipotle, etc.
It is a great design solution, Sam!
I kind of wish that all new stations had their parking garages on top of them rather than next to them. The garage would shield waiting riders from the rain (imagine a complete trip using Link without getting wet on a rainy day), reduce the garage footprints (more land for TOD) and provide an elevator ride down to the platform (rather than ride down to the ground and back up to the platform like South Bellevue).
A drawback to doing it is that it would make driving to the station more attractive than walking. It might add costs to the structure too.
TriMet MAX Clackamas station has the bus layover area on the ground floor of the parking structure. It’s so much more compact than the mess at Lynnwood or Northgate, where the buses, station, and parking are all so far from eachother. It’d be great if they could convert Lynnwood or Northgate to a more compact design like what it sounds like they did at Marymoor Village.
@ Glenn:
Redmond Technology also has the bus transit center in the ground floor of the garage.
@ Glenn: The buses will stop in the garage ground level. What makes this station more unique is that the tracks also run through the garage on the ground floor on a curve just beyond the boarding platforms.
As Link station layouts go, Redmond’s get the highest overall scores from me.
There are a Safeway and a Ross at Bear Creek Village, the strip mall on the north side of Redmond Way before it reaches the 520 interchange. So groceries and basic clothing are within a quasi-walkable distance from the Marymoor station. Downtown Redmond residents would likely use the QFC or Trader Joe’s a few blocks near the Redmond Town Center complex.
@Mike Orr: I think the people who would use the Redmond Transit Center/Park & Ride live in the northern reaches of the city limits, such as Willows Road and Education Hill, and the users of Marymoor would be from the eastern and southeastern expanses and Samammish.
The P&R is mainly intended for Sammamish residents, who pay ST taxes but aren’t getting other major ST services.
I really wish Marrymore Village station had a pedestrian bridge to the big box stores on the other side of SR-202. For anyone living in the TOD next to the station, such a bridge would make a huge difference doing grocery shopping on foot.
You can’t call a place “TOD” is the plan for how its residents are supposed to get groceries is for everyone to drive their car to a store that is literally across the street.
@asdf2,
“ I really wish Marrymore Village station had a pedestrian bridge to the big box stores on the other side of SR-202”
Ya, such a thing might have value, but what does that have to do with Link?
I can see ST funding a ped bridge between TOD and the station, or between a major business center and the station. But between TOD and big box stores?
Na. If the connection involved transit that would be fine. But what you describe doesn’t do that. It’s more the preview of the city. I’d contact them.
TOD residents shopping would be just one such use for the bridge. It would also be about people from other stations riding the train to shop, or employees at the big box stores riding the train to commute to their jobs.
The Northgate Pedestrian Bridge cost $56 million, and was paid for from funds from the 2015 Levy to Move Seattle. One end of it connects to a College. It might be a harder sell convincing Redmond residents to spend tens of millions of dollars for a pedestrian bridge to Fred Meyer and Target. In an ideal world, yes, there’d be a ped bridge crossing Redmond Way, but that’s a lot of money to spend to help probably not that many people walking to a couple of stores.
I agree that a crossing is needed there, asdf2.
And like you said it’s good for TOD. It actually would make the stores more reachable from people living in Downtown Redmond as well. And someday those retail buildings may become good sites for more TOD if they had a direct pedestrian connection to Link and the rest of central Redmond.
@asdf2,
“ TOD residents shopping would be just one such use for the bridge. ”
Again, that use doesn’t involve transit. If the city of Redmond wanted to fund it out of city dollars, then fine, but it really has nothing to do with transit, and shouldn’t be funded out of transit dollars.
And there is already a crosswalk at NE 70th St anyhow. I suspect the city of Redmond considers such a thing to be adequate per the demand.
But hey, maybe you can convince Metro to run a free shuttle between the station and the Home Despot, Supposedly that is the kind of thing Metro is good at. Then, if the demand is high enough, maybe you can convince some government entity to pay for a bridge.
And you’ll have data on who is using the free Metro shuttle and why, so that should also indicate which government agency should fund it.
@Sam,
“ but that’s a lot of money to spend to help probably not that many people walking to a couple of stores.”
Exactly. But if the city of Redmond wanted to throw a pile of money at such a thing, then more power to them. But I think it is going to be a hard sell.
And there is already pedestrian access on the south end at NE 70th St, and at the north end via NE 76h St. I suspect the city of Redmond considers that to be adequate per the demand.
And the bigger shopping draw will probably be Redmond Town Center anyhow. And that is literally just feet from the Downtown Redmond Station.
So I think the prospects of a ped bridge are pretty much zero.
The East Subarea needs to save all it can for the 4 Line.
Brent, you forgot the “/snark” tag.
An underpass is planned to exist and (I believe) will open at the same time as the station. I don’t know why people don’t talk about it, but the connection is known as Redmond Central Connector Phase IV, and will be right next to the train tracks. You can see the construction progress if you visit the area, it looks nearly done.
Whoops, I misread SR 202 as SR 520. Okay, your point stands.
There’s a planned extension of NE 70th St that should improve the walk and the bus routing a bit (see “Project Background” in the link below). Adding a small connection to the trail behind Fred Meyer would be a nice addition
I think the plan is pretty reasonable. There are plenty of non-big box options in downtown Redmond, and for groceries there’s a Whole Foods nearby as well as multiple options downtown (within a 20 minute walk once the new trail opens).
https://www.redmond.gov/851/Marymoor-Village-Design-Guidance-and-Sta
@sunny
When that “ Redmond Central Connector Phase IV” opens one could use that path and then ne 76th st to reach the target and Fred meyers.
Either way though for now it’s not that big of a destination.
I’m often amazed how cities can tell developers to make offsite street improvements but don’t often tell developers to connect to pedestrian and bicycle systems better offsite.
A good example is the PCC in Columbia City. The City did not connect the front door to the Columbia Park sidewalk — just 20 feet away. Granted it’s technically a park even though it’s an pedestrianized street (36th Ave S) but it feels like that 20 feet of connecting sidewalk would have been such an obvious thing to have had the developer build. Because this didn’t get added, people cut across the grass to get to the store and they’re wearing that grass!
Why does Marymoor Village station need bus transfers when Downtown Redmond station is nearby? Marymoor Village station shoves the P&R to the periphery of Redmond’s downtown, which is a good enough reason for a station if we’re going to have a P&R anyway
I don’t know what the street crossing to the big box stores is like. 202 is wide, but the biggest issue would be if people have to go far out of their way to get to an intersection and back. Do they?
I used to be able to enter the Columbia City PCC at the south door from the main sidewalk to the south entrance of Columbia City Station.
Now, I have the choice of the swervy pedestrian path to the west door, the straight path through the parking lot, or the even shorter path across the lawn, through the gap in the verge, and across the parking lot to the west door.
If the City has money burning a hole in a pocket, then, sure, that extra sidewalk would be nice to have, and some sort of striped crosswalk across the parking lot. I’m not sure it would help much with ADA access given the slope.
Who did what around the Columbia City PCC that made access so bad? I’ve only been there a couple times but I don’t remember being frustrated about having to walk around too many sides of the building or going through a huge parking lot like at Lowe’s on Rainier, Sky Nursery on Aurora, or Fred Meyer in Ballard. I assume there’s still a sidewalk on the north side of Edmunds Street, so what was the sidewalk that was removed?
NTD data is out for Q3 of 2024: https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/data-product/monthly-module-adjusted-data-release
Numbers are laid out as: 2024 Q3 (2022 Q3 +%) (2019 Q3 +%)
UPT: Unlinked Passenger Trips
VRH: Vehicle Revenue Hours
King County Metro (Motorbus + Trolleybus)
UPT: 20,975,463 (18,802,818 +12%) (30,271,753 -31%)
VRH: 801,200 (790,086 +1.4%) (912,127 -12%)
UPT/VRH: 26.2 (23.8 +10%) (33.2 -21%)
Sound Transit Bus
UPT: 2,525,075 (2,339,737 +7.9%) (4,516,657 -44%)
VRH: 125,101 (129,087 -3.1%) (166,053 -24%)
UPT/VRH: 20.2 (18.1 +11%) (27.2 -26%)
Link
UPT: 8,210,627 (7,151,390 +15%) (5,998,784 +37%)
VRH: 136,812 (94,607 +44%) (66,785 +105%)
UPT/VRH: 60.0 (75.6 -20%) (89.8 -33%)
Sounder
UPT: 483,127 (455,077 +6.2%) (1,173,616 -59%)
VRH: 14,505 (13,251 +9.5%) (19,299 -25%)
UPT/VRH: 33.3 (34.3 -3.0%) (60.8 -45%)
T-Link
UPT: 331346 (81428 +307%) (212257 +84%)
VRH: 5564 (3101 +79%) (2512 +121%)
UPT/VRH: 59.6 (26.3 +127%) (84.5 -30%)
Thanks for doing the UPT/VRH math. I wonder if Link’s productivity is diluted by the low-moderate-ridership 2 Link.
Yeah it’s almost certainly the 2 Line driving down the boardings per revenue hour (UPT/RVH).
While Lynnwood Link seems successful — even overcrowded — half of those boardings were already boarding at Northgate before the opening so those aren’t new boardings. The Lynnwood Link Extension opening may or may not affect this measure much and could lower it further.
The same goes for the full 2 Line openings. The distance and higher frequency will need an order or magnitude ridership increase to match it. Keep in mind that the line will be soon running to Lynnwood and will run later in the evenings. So the line RVH will increase probably about five times. If there are 6,500 boardings now, that’s 26,000 new boardings needed to keep up.
ST said that Lynnwood Link would have at least 44,000 riders by 2026, and the data (oddly removed again this morning from the ST ridership details again this morning) seems to be less than half of that if I remember correctly. (Boardings at the four stations x 2 to account for riders getting off too). So with the full East Link projection in the same range it may be similar or it may be better.
In fairness to ST, the Northgate to Downtown segment is wildly productive and so the current system tops US light rail in productivity.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rail_systems
Yes, that is part of it. The other part is that ridership on the existing parts of the system is lower. It is quite likely that ridership per service hour would have gone down if the system was unchanged since 2019. It is worth nothing that the report does not include Lynnwood Link, but it does include Northgate Link and the East Side Starter Line (Line 2). It is quite likely that Northgate Link is better than the rest of the system (in ridership per service hour) while Line 2 is significantly worse.
It also appears that Lynnwood Link is worse than average as well. At this point it is actually fairly similar to Line 2. East Link takes 17 minutes while Lynnwood Link takes 16 minutes (one way). East Link added about 6,000 riders, while Lynnwood Link has (so far) added about 8,000 riders. I expect Lynnwood Link to increase a bit and perform significantly better than the starter line. However it is quite possible that it never performs better than average (and thus is also responsible for the relatively low ridership per service hour numbers).
Here is how I made that conclusion: Link had over 80,000 riders on Line 1 before the extension. It takes about 68 minutes to complete that section. That works out to about 12,000 people per minute. Line 2 is much worse than that. I get about 6,000 riders for 17 minutes or 350 per minute. We you combine these two (which was the case when this report came out) you get 86,000 riders for 85 minutes, or still over 1,000 riders per minute. Lynnwood Link takes 16 minutes, so it would have to get an additional 16,000 riders to actually increase the efficiency of Link. So far it is about half that.
The geniuses at Sound Transit will be closing the SoDo to Capitol Hill stations at 10pm tonight for maintenance. The Kraken game will get out right around 9:30 to 10:00pm, which means STs inability to schedule the closure for…oh, I don’t know… 11pm or Midnight… will inconvenience a ton of riders.
Well done, once again, ST.
It is hard to hold transit for American sporting events that can go into extra sessions plus shootouts or unlimited extra innings.
The rest of the world lets games/matches end in a draw. NHL and MLB ought to give transit agencies some predictability to work with.
In this case it isn’t an issue though. As Matt said, the game should get out somewhere around 9:30 or 10:00, even without overtime. It takes a while to empty the arena and for people to get to the monorail. Then they have to ride the monorail to Westlake and then get to the trains. This is cutting it really tight.
In contrast if they shut things down at 11:00 it is the opposite. A game lasting over over three hours is rare (even with overtime). If the game lasts 3 hours fifteen minutes (which would be extremely rare in the regular season) it would still mean 45 minutes to get from the arena to a train.
It’s a Friday night too. There are other events happening.
The intent is a weekend closure to have enough time to do their repairs, so I get why ST is starting early on a Friday. But your point that maybe they should have considered waiting a mere hour is a valid one.
Recent data show that Saturday ridership is about even with weekday ridership these days. That suggests to me that weekend closures should no longer be considered as “off hours” that can be sacrificed when repairs are needed.
Thanks for the closure reminder; I was about to put one out. If we’d thought ahead we would have put out an article, but the authors are busy with longer-term drafts and other life commitments, and I suspect some may be exhausted from the flurry of recent articles and the election.
I just put one out – it seems early enough in the afternoon that some readers might still find it and spread the news if they haven’t heard of the closure already.
Thanks for putting this out. Don’t worry too much about the “strident” critics of the free and open debate that happens in the Comments. It is, frankly, a lot more civil than some of the stuff we had to moderate in the Before Times.
@Matt,
It’s too bad that this blog got so strident that many of our policy makers and ST insiders don’t follow it any more. Because it would be really nice to know the actual shutdown procedure and what they actually mean by “10”.
There are multiple ways to shutdown a LR line down, and this one will be complicated because the shutdown is in the middle of the line. But no matter how you shut it down, the one thing it isn’t is quick. So I’d bet that this isn’t going to be a problem per the Kraken game.
But hey, if I was there I’d just take the monorail to Westlake and see what happens. You’ll either get on Link as they are in the process of shutting it down, or you can board one of the shuttles. Either way, you should be able to get to the operating part of Link rather easily.
I’d offer to try to track down better info, but I just arrived in NYC and an altercation just erupted in the hotel lobby. Cops are now on the scene, and I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire. Retreating to a safe room.
You could help by being less “strident” about Metro’s operations.
“you should be able to get to the operating part of Link rather easily”
In a worst-case scenario you’re waiting 4 minutes for the monorail, 15 minutes for the shuttle just to go one station, and 15 minutes for Link. That’s 34 minutes total. Not very easy.
“It’s too bad that this blog got so strident that many of our policy makers and ST insiders don’t follow it any more. ”
It’s lots easier to envision new RapidRide lines and Link lines than to build or operate them.
The posters today are more willing to discuss the realities of transit operations rather than just the hopes of it.
Perhaps too many of our policy makers are still icing on the dreamy world of envisioning and not in the brutal world of limited budgets, bad design, bad cost estimates, bad vehicle supply calculations, and failing vehicles and vertical mechanical devices. Reality is never as good as dreaming is.
@Mike Orr,
“ In a worst-case scenario you’re waiting………..34 minutes total”
Ya, and in a best case scenario you are waiting hardly at all. But the average would be somewhere in the middle, and that is not too bad.
And it’s not like none of us knew this was coming, and what time it was coming. This is a planned outage for a system upgrade. Ya, it will be in inconvenient for some, but it is just for the weekend. And there are options.
Take the provided shuttle, walk, bike, hire a TNC, or even take Metro. Or, if all those options are too unpalatable, just delay your trip until Monday when Link should be back up and running.
But I do find it interesting that there is so much love on this blog for Metro route 8 and RR-D, but now that there is actually a suggestion that people use them as an alternative to Link, it is like the sky has fallen and there is all this angst and gnashing of teeth.
Again, it is a planned event for a system upgrade. We should do our part by planning on our end too. Life goes on.
@Al S,
“ It’s lots easier to envision new RapidRide lines and Link lines than to build or operate them.”
Again, this is a planned outage for a system upgrade. It is not a surprise, and we’ve all known it was coming for quite some time now.
I know we would all like these upgrades to just happen magically and for there to be no disruption in our busy, adult lives. But the new line has to be tied into the old line, and there is no way to do that without taking the old line out of service at least temporarily.
But hey, come Monday we should be another step closer to having a functioning 2-Line between Seattle and Bellevue. That is a good thing, and I think we can all be happy about that.
This region is finally correcting its historic underinvest in rail transit. We are a bit behind, but we are catching up fast. And that is a good thing.
I look forward to the opening of Full ELE. It is goi g to be a great day.
We knew exactly when this was coming, and we didn’t know when the thinning out of transit service would actually reach Westlake. But one could just head to Westlake, be turned around by ST staff, and head to the 49 if they got confusing directions to the shuttle stop. And wait for the next one that isn’t already crushloaded. But hey, pushing back on repeatedly weird attempts at apologia salad that ST media pros probably find embarrassing is “strident”.
LOL