Which styles would you nominate for Link stations? The Paris Metro has a steampunk station, “Arts et Métiers”: the Line 11 platform is inspired by Jules Verne.
This is an open thread.
78 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Small City Transit & 50 Design Styles”
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https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/11/11/rapidride-g-bus-ridership-starts-strong/
RapidRide G ridership is picking up: “Over the first 26 days of October, average weekday ridership reached 4,111 daily riders, a 15% increase over initial weekday ridership in September.”
Napkin math puts that at 42-50 rides per vehicle hour (164 trips per day; 30-36m per trip). Potentially the highest productivity route in the entire system.
This productivity calculation shows how speed can improve productivity just as powerfully as more riders can.
Yes. Speed can improve frequency at no additional cost. This means that riders benefit in two different ways. They don’t have to wait so long for the bus and once it gets there, it moves faster. If buses like the 8 and 44 were faster we could run them more often and they would carry a lot more riders. This is why investing in speeding up the buses is almost always money well spent.
That is good, but it is nowhere near what they expected. I wonder if folks are hesitant to ride it, given the problems it had (and to a lesser extent likely still has). If you feel confident that it will run every six minutes than you will head towards it. If not, it loses much of its appeal.
It could also be dragged down by overall transit problems. Overall ridership is still way down compared to pre-pandemic levels. The East Link delay could have hurt it as well. Once Link gets across the lake it will be a very good option for getting from the East Side to First Hill. Hopefully it continues to get more riders as they continue to make improvements.
What was the projected ridership?
12,000 to 18,000 daily riders (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/promised-madison-bus-line-will-open-later-than-expected/).
Oh wow that is quite a gap. Ridership will likely grow substantially over the next few months, but tripling from 4000 to 12000 would be surprising.
Link to original project profile (from the Seattle Times article): https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/WA-Seattle-Madison-Street-BRT-FY-18-Profile.pdf
Here is a more recent FTA report:
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2021-05/WA-Madison-Street-BRT-Project-Profile-FY22.pdf
12,300 is the 2015 forecast. 3035 is 17,600.
Note too that this is”lined trips” — assuming that at least one leg of the trip is on the bus.
Which raises another question: How many of those riders were on another bus route — leaving that bus route with lower ridership? I would think Route 2 would have fewer riders.
I read that it is requiring over 100 specially trained operators to run this two mile bus route. That’s what it takes to move that many people across town by bus. Can we finally get serious about bus route automation? Especially when it is a relatively short stretch that has good separation from cars. NOT saying that the G should have been automated as the tech was not there when it was being constructed. More that it can eventually be automated, and future routes with similar infrastructure investment can possibly be automated.
I’m not sure how you’re calculating it but I don’t think it takes that many buses. Assuming the 20 min travel time end to end, one bus driver can probably make around 1.5 round trip per hour. for 6 minute headway that requires 10 buses per hour. 10/1.5 ~= around 6.5 buses per hour.
But either way, I do agree, automated buses or transit in the future I’m a bit more optimistic about compared to others. Though it remains to be seen what model of automation wins out from
1) single occupancy vehicle owned
2) rented aka like ubers
3) shared aka uber pools
4) transit van style on a fixed route
etc…
My understanding regarding “101 operators alone qualified to drive the G Line” is that they trained 101 operators so that they are qualified to drive on G Line if anyone of them need to be assigned to G Line. I don’t think it necessarily means 101 operators are working full-time to run G Line service, but I do agree that some tech like to automate or better assist bus operation will unleash agencies’ labor constraint of running high-frequency transit.
By definition of small city they mean more like “small” dense urban metros with copenhagen or frankfurt, not aka nashville or richmond. They’re just talking about using either “stadtbahn” aka sf muni / boston green line or automated metro. I’m not sure there’s much takeaway here applicable to usa smaller cities. it’s kinda applicable to seattle but there’s not much more of a detailed discussion in the video besides at-grade trains and smaller but more frequent trains work for smaller cities.
Potsdam has a tram system and only has 185,00 people. Rennes has a population around 350,000 and a metro area population around 750,000.
These are both smaller than Portland, let alone Seattle.
Yes, but the point that WL made is that they are a lot more dense than a typical American city. Should Spokane (a city roughly the same size as Potsdam) build either of these two types of systems? Probably not. It just doesn’t have the density. It is much better off improving its bus system.
Ross: To some extent they are dense because of the investment in the transit system. *All* of Spokane probably wouldn’t attain this density, but it really only takes the core area of Spokane to do it (while the lower density outlying areas either drive or take busses).
@Brandon
It’s much much denser than our American cities. https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#10/55.6175/12.4139
it’s how say Berlin and Atlanta can have the same population in the wider metro area, but for their urban cores Berlin is much much denser. To give an exact number, USA suburbs are like 1k or 2k pop / sq km while European ones are like 4k pop/ sq km. And then in the urban core European cities easily reach 7~10k pop / sq km while in US cities we’d be lucky if there’s even a couple blocks reaching 5/6k pop / sq km.
“Should Spokane (a city roughly the same size as Potsdam) build either of these two types of systems? Probably not. It just doesn’t have the density. It is much better off improving its bus system.”
You can’t improve the city without improving the transit system. Should Spokane have a tram line? Of course it should, like similar-sized European cities do. It’s just train phobia that we don’t.
The lesser density in Spokane or in cities like Auburn just means the transit is less efficient than in Europe, but the solution to that is to fix the density and walkability — not to say American cities don’t deserve rail or full-time frequent buses. That just perpetuates the problem and throws tens of thousands of people under the bus so they can’t get around, and then they demand cars and parking for another fifty years.
Rail construction in the US would cost less if the governments were serious about prioritizing it and addressed the cost issues, and then the US would have a large enough market to get off-the-shelf train manufacturers competing on price and state-of-the-art features. If the cost of rail construction shrank, the argument against building rail in medium-sized corridors that could be either rail or BRT would diminish.
Should Spokane have a tram line? Of course it should, like similar-sized European cities do.
Mike, you are ignoring an important issue: There are no cities like Spokane in Europe! There just aren’t.
Look at Potsdam from the air. One of the first things you notice is the farms and forests surrounding it. Then start measuring. Holy Cow — it is small! I mean physically tiny. How the heck does it fit so many people in such a tiny bit of land. Then zoom in more — to street level. For example here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/kvLvLKEvFgZfBcpp7. Wow! That is extremely dense — it is like Paris. That has more density than just about any place in Seattle, let alone Spokane. But this isn’t the center of the city! This is outside it.
Spokane simply isn’t like that. They can run trams, but why would you? The main reason to run a tram is if your bus system is overwhelmed. Is there any bus route in Spokane that has so many buses that they are running every few minutes and yet it is still full? Are there any buses that resemble the 99-B in Vancouver? Of course not. Not even close. The entire bus system carries 36,000 riders a day. The only BRT line (the City Line) carries 2,500 riders a day. Let me repeat what Reece said about cities like that: Run more buses.
To some extent they are dense because of the investment in the transit system. *All* of Spokane probably wouldn’t attain this density, but it really only takes the core area of Spokane to do it (while the lower density outlying areas either drive or take busses).
That is a stretch. Spokane is the way it is (and Seattle it the way it is) based on thousands of decisions made over decades, most of which have little to do with transit. But I get your point — they should focus the expensive transit efforts within the core of the city. But that still doesn’t mean rail. Spokane has one frequent bus. It is considered BRT and runs every 7.5 minutes peak and every 15 minutes off-peak. It carries 2,500 riders a day. This is the queen of the system and it barely manages 15 minute service in the middle of the day. Clearly what they need to do is run the buses (including that bus) more often.
It’s just train phobia that we don’t.
Wrong! It is the opposite. The US is full of cities that have built rail systems in areas where they should have just improved the buses. It is this very argument that leads them to this ignorant decision. “First class transit cities — like those in Europe — have rail. Rail is just fundamentally better. The best way to get people out of their cars is run trains. ”
All true to a certain extent but what they ignore is that those same cities in Europe also have outstanding bus systems. Or their trams are legacy (they never got rid of them). Or they have the density to support them. In other words, faced with the challenges we have, they would have invested first in the buses.
But American cities want to take the easy way out. Instead of running the buses more often or allowing them to run faster they add a streetcar line. American cities are littered with streetcars that Europeans would laugh at. Streetcars that carry fewer riders than a typical European bus. Even many of the metros are jokes. Remember I wrote that Vancouver BC — not that big of a city — has close to 800,000 riders on their bus system right now (third in the US/Canada). What rail systems have more than half that. Let’s see there is New York, DC, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, and … uh, Boston maybe (if you combine the light and heavy rail)? Maybe LA in a few years.
Oh, but in terms of amount of track we can compete with anyone in the world baby! We have miles and miles of track. We have dozens of systems and hundreds of miles of track and yet very little to show for it. In contrast, a tiny city in the Northwest manages to carry almost 800,000 people on its buses.
The problem is not rail-phobia. Quite the opposite. The problem is the inability to invest properly in the buses or build the right kind of rail system. Vancouver has made its share of mistakes. But the overall approach is a sound one that few cities in the US are even attempting, despite the simplicity of it: Invest heavily in the buses. If you build rail, make it automated, with plenty of stops. Combine the two to form a good network.
“Spokane simply isn’t like that. They can run trams, but why would you?… The only BRT line (the City Line) carries 2,500 riders a day. Let me repeat what Reece said about cities like that: Run more buses.”
But now we’re approaching a scenario where the automated light metro might make sense: it would cost a bit more to build, but separated from traffic the line might be made faster than driving (to be faster than driving is one of the other primary reasons European cities would build a rail line).
For somewhere like Spokane, something like a very light metro might be better. Picture something like the “Personal Rapid Transit” (really more of a group rapid transit) system in Morgantown, West Virginia. The light weight vehicles make the construction standards cheaper than full SkyTrain, and they operate frequently enough that they can skip stations. So, on the case of a downtown Spokane circulator, you could have both express vehicles from one end to the other and others that make more stops, but because it’s automated the vehicle frequency would be high enough it wouldn’t matter too much.
“Spokane has one frequent bus. It is considered BRT and runs every 7.5 minutes peak and every 15 minutes off-peak.”
That’s the fallacy of assuming the current frequency is the optimal frequency. No, it’s an arbitrary decision based on other factors. In Spokane’s case it’s because people are more conservative so they’re less willing to spend as much taxes per capita on transit as Seattle does or to have as much density as Seattle. Metro isn’t running 20-30 minute evenings on core routes because it thinks the neighborhoods aren’t dense enough to justify more service: its own reports say these corridors are underserved. It just doesn’t have the money (or the drivers) to fully serve them. Spokane is probably in a similar situation.
“That is extremely dense — it is like Paris”
So what? The primary issue is that people need to get to work and shopping and other destinations conveniently and reasonably quickly. We need to have a robust way to do that without a car — regardless of whether the city is as dense as Paris or as undense as Spokane. If you really had a robust system, ridership would eventually be higher than Americans assume possible — even in areas with mediocre density. That in turn would generate public demand to increase density.
“That is extremely dense — it is like Paris”
So what?
Seriously? You think density doesn’t matter? That is ridiculous. Density is the first thing you consider when it comes to running rail.
The primary issue is that people need to get to work and shopping and other destinations conveniently and reasonably quickly.
Yes, and for an area that isn’t dense that means taking a bus. A bus!
If you really had a robust system, ridership would eventually be higher than Americans assume possible — even in areas with mediocre density.
Yes — using buses! . Spokane does not need rail. That should be obvious when you just look at the system. What they need is better buses.
It’s much much denser than our American cities. https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/#10/55.6175/12.4139
I really like that website. I wish there was a way to get the data in text form. It is nice that you can use a map and zero in on a city, but it would also be nice to scroll through various cities and just look at their profile. What is really striking is that many small European cities have so much density. The profile is similar whether you are a big city or a small city.
I was thinking about it the other day. Basically the US has income stratification, while Europe has density stratification. In Europe people tend to live in dense areas or very rural areas. In the US we tend to live in areas that are in between. They are not really low density, but low enough to make transit extremely challenging and expensive. They are also low enough that most of the time, the best thing to do is just run more buses.
“Spokane has one frequent bus. It is considered BRT and runs every 7.5 minutes peak and every 15 minutes off-peak.”
That’s the fallacy of assuming the current frequency is the optimal frequency.
Huh? No one assumes this is the optimal frequency. That is my point. Clearly Spokane put some time, effort and money into this bus route. It is by far the best bus route in the city. Yet in the middle of the day the buses only run every 15 minutes. It is second-rate.
Why? Because Spokane only has so much money and it is really expensive to serve such a sprawling city. You just get way less for your money. Of course it would be better if they spent more money, but ultimately that is one of the big challenges.
But that is largely beside the point I was making. Spokane should focus on the buses for the foreseeable future. They are clearly underfunded. You could easily double funding and it would still not be a great transit system (although it would be a lot better). To even talk about rail for a city like that is just silly.
Most US cities should focus on their buses first. That is why Jarrett Walker got excited about the plans for Nashville (https://humantransit.org/2024/11/nashville-presenting-a-transit-plan-in-a-car-dominated-city.html). Nashville is much bigger than Spokane. The city itself has almost as many people as Seattle (although there are fewer people in the surrounding area). But it sprawls. It is doing the right thing, and improving its bus system first.
Eventually it could justify rail inside the core. But it is highly unlikely that trams are a good idea. Trams are a niche mode — when buses can’t handle the load, but you don’t want to invest in the expense of a full-on metro (or doing so is unnecessary). Nashville should improve the buses to the point where they can’t get anything more out of them and then build an automated light-metro.
It should almost be a requirement for running rail. Have you maximized your bus system? Unless you have, don’t talk about rail. There may be exceptions — areas where leap-frogging makes sense — but only a handful.
I like Ross’s last three “forceful” comments. The cities in the US that need rail almost all have it now. There may be some in-fill opportunities, like the Second Avenue Subway in New York, but the truth is, we Americans have built ourselves into a malignant cancer of development. Since we have such a beschissen “safety net” the vast majority of people see homeownership as their one way to accumulate real wealth. Once they have a home, they guard its value with their lives.
So buses it is, and we can only hope that automation on a fixed route is easier to solve than “Full Self-Driving” in the hinterland. That at least would make providing the service less burdensome for the public purse.
I think one of the big problems is that many Americans are well aware that Europe has better transit. We also know that they have lots of rail. So we just assume that the key is to spend a bunch of money on rail. What they ignore is that Europe has really good bus service! Take it from an American who knows his way around Europe: https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/city-transit/buses.
The point is Europe builds rail when it’s worthwhile. American cities have a much higher threshold, imagine a city has to have five million people before rail is justified, or never build it at all and refuse to build comparable bus infrastructure.
Mike, I’m sorry, but you are wrong. It’s not about size, it’s about wide-spread density. It makes sense to dig a subway under Wilshire Boulevard because there are tall buildings along it for seven miles. It does not make sense to build an elevated light rail line along I-5 or I-405, even if it does have little dabs of density every eight or so miles.
American cities are categorically different from cities in any other part of the world other than Canada, Australia and New Zealand. What is it about the English language that leads to sprawl?
@ Ross:
I have been to Nashville at least a dozen times in the last four years.
I would agree that buses would do the job. However, the city is in dire need of a higher-capacity surface tram from Vanderbilt Medical Center through Lower Broadway to the State Capitol. Parking and crowds are nuts!
The core problem is that Nashville has a merged city-county government. It’s like having King County but no Seattle. It’s also socially divided into wedges like spokes from Downtown (“Pikes”).
The result is that a center city only tram is a non-starter. There is no center city advocacy that is a strong force in local government because of the expansive nature of its borders.
And the terrain in hard limestone almost immediately below the surface making even gentle grades hard to create without blasting. So it’s expensive to build in many places.
And on top of that, over half the metro population lives in outer counties at least 15-20 miles from Downtown. All in a state that is so anti-transit that stopped a BRT route on a state highway.
Commuter rail? The Music City Star is barely used. It’s too directional with horrible frequency. 6 trains in each direction every day. At least it’s got trains in both directions during the hours that it runs.
“It does not make sense to build an elevated light rail line along I-5 or I-405, even if it does have little dabs of density every eight or so miles.”
There’s other kinds of rail besides elevated light rail on I-5 or 405. I was talking generally about connecting neighborhoods and activity centers, not specific projects. It’s the underlying mindset that has to change. Then when governments get their priorities straightened out and commit to really addressing people’s non-car mobility, they can take a look at more sensible kinds of rail projects. They can start small, with smaller, less expensive projects, such as stadtbahns or automated light metros like in the video.
A tram or light metro in Spokane would be fine. I think some people here are being genuinely hyperbolic towards rail in smaller US cities. It’s fine.
Zach, I lived in Spokane for three months on a database contract and I can say categorically “There is no place in Spokane which needs rail transit. Not one block.”
Yes, there are apartments (I lived in one), but there are never two apartments next to each other. Oh, no. They’re scattered like lost beads in a sandbox.
Let’s just forget Spokane, OK? If there are still humans living on Planet Earth in 2120 Spokane might be a bustling metropolis because it’s not that far from the Columbia River to have an abundant water supply. Everywhere south of the 45th parallel is going to be a parched wasteland so what humans make it until then will have to live somewhere, and Spokane is nicely sited.
The real question is “Given the very likely rural Republican lockhold on the Senate for forever, why do we think that we can waste money NOW on diversions like “TDLE Links”, the “PaineFul Express”, “WSLE”, “BLE” and folly-of-follies Issaquah Link!!!!”?
[Ed note: Has anyone else noticed how much it sounds like a product from Hillshire Farms?
]
Some sort of wiggly automated train between Harborview and Expedia running itty bitty short trains every two minutes makes sense, if done with riders’ convenience in mind. [Hint: this means shallow stations!!!!! Or gasp! an elevated!!!]
Personally, I don’t care if it has steel wheels, rubber tires or floats on MagLev wet dreams. Clone the airport people mover if that would be cheapest. If it takes eight minutes to get to Expedia, people can stand.
Build that and say “good enough”. If the region booms and fills up Puget Sound from Olympia to Bellingham, deal with the problem then. There’s a perfectly good parallel ROW between Renton Junction and Tacoma (the UP) that can be upgraded to divert lots more freights.
Plenty of other countries have cities with moderate density that have built trams before. I mean I can bring up the city of Tampere, Finland which just built a tram and opened in 2021 and is working on expansion of the system in the coming years. Which has similar population and population density to Spokane.
So the notion a tram wouldn’t work in Spokane doesn’t hold much water here in my opinion when other countries with moderate density cities have build trams. Alongside the city of Spokane actually looked and floated a tram system before back in the 90s and 00s. They went with a trolleybus system instead before it just became a BRT line.
In the end, nothing is set in stone and we can’t predict how the future unfolds. Nobody believed a streetcar would come back to Tacoma for decades and yet it’s here and is a popular means to get around downtown Tacoma area and Hilltop and in the future to TCC.
The point is Europe builds rail when it’s worthwhile.
Correct. And they don’t built it when it isn’t. There are some cases where it is left over from decades ago (and buses could do a similar job) but any new rail is built in areas that are very dense and the buses are running frequently (in other words, where it is justified).
American cities have a much higher threshold, imagine a city has to have five million people before rail is justified, or never build it at all and refuse to build comparable bus infrastructure.
Wrong. It is the opposite. Every town thinks that rail is the answer, when their buses are horrible and nowhere near European standards. Look at the light rail lines in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_light_rail_systems. Sort by ridership or better yet, ridership per mile. Feel free to dig into the individual systems to see if a system maybe has a good line and a dud. What you find, without too much effort, is that in the vast majority of cases, buses could do just as good a job. The extra capacity of rail is simply not needed.
These are systems that Europeans laugh at. One of the first questions they ask is “Why didn’t you just improve your bus system?”. To which we give a collective shrug. Maybe it is because the federal government won’t chip in for that. Maybe it is because there is no ribbon cutting if a bus starts running every ten minutes instead of every thirty. But clearly there is no hesitancy to build rail in the US, even in areas where it makes no sense.
It is worth noting that Spokane was heading down that road. They considered a streetcar but went with a bus because it would be cheaper and just as good Again, it runs every 7.5 minutes at most. This is nowhere near the point that you consider shifting to rail. Instead of spending a fortune running rail, just run the bus more often.
Plenty of other countries have cities with moderate density that have built trams before. I mean I can bring up the city of Tampere, Finland which just built a tram and opened in 2021 and is working on expansion of the system in the coming years. Which has similar population and population density to Spokane.
Sigh. This is getting tedious. First of all, no, Spokane is not as dense as Tamper. Look at the map that Wesley referenced. Hover over both cities. Don’t want to do that? Fine. Here it is, density profiles of both cities:
Spokane — Tampere
Clearly there is a lot more density in Tampere. But there is more. Consider that tram for a second. How often will it run:
The time between trams is 3 to 4 minutes on the common route and 7.5 minutes elsewhere.
Does that sound like Spokane? Of course not. Remember, trams generally run *less* often than buses. That is their big selling point. When you are running buses every minute or two then a tram is an excellent choice. But again, Spokane doesn’t do that. Spokane doesn’t have a bus that runs every 3 to 4 minutes — it certainly wouldn’t have a tram running that often.
But look at the Tamper bus system a little bit more. Here is a map: https://eu.remix.com/project/35391c4e?latlng=61.48747,23.75835,11.614&sp.id=95efbea7-6150-4d52-9857-a7529dd236ac. Because of the geographic barriers in the city various corridors converge and form spines. For example, here is a bus stop on some street I can’t pronounce: https://maps.app.goo.gl/LfDrsQuCwniijDPm8. That is nine buses in an area that is not particularly close to downtown. Nor is it where there are (or will be) trams. This is a secondary location and yet it has nine buses. You might be thinking “OK, sure, there are a lot of buses, but if they are all infrequent, it doesn’t matter”. Absolutely. So look at the first bus on the list — the 8. Holy cow, it runs every 7.5 minutes from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM! That is way better than any bus in Spokane (even the BRT) and it is merely one of the nine buses that are part of a spine. But it isn’t even the main spine! No wonder they are adding rail service. To quote Wikipedia, “The backbone of public transport in Tampere remains the bus network”. Their bus system is outstanding. In contrast, the Spokane bus system is not. Not even close.
So the notion a tram wouldn’t work in Spokane doesn’t hold much water here in my opinion when other countries with moderate density cities have build trams.
I never wrote that it wouldn’t work. I wrote that it was completely unnecessary. American cities act like someone in Tampa insisting their car have all-wheel drive because their cousin from northern Minnesota really knows cars and he has all- wheel drive. Yeah — it makes sense in Minnesota. It doesn’t make sense in Tampa.
Nobody believed a streetcar would come back to Tacoma for decades and yet it’s here and is a popular means to get around downtown Tacoma area and Hilltop and in the future to TCC.
Great example! Tacoma Transit sucks! The streetcar carries as many people as a bus! It clearly doesn’t need to be a streetcar. Tacoma would have been much better off putting their money into the bus system, just like Spokane made the right choice by running BRT instead of a tram. They saved dozens of millions of dollars that can now be put into adding service where it is needed — which is pretty much everywhere.
It is really not that complicated. Until you have an outstanding bus system — at least for part of your city — don’t consider rail. Just make your bus system better.
Another way to think of it. Imagine the feds embarked on a major public transportation spending spree. They have two choices:
1) Run the buses twice as often. If the buses are frequent and stuck in traffic, then spend money making them faster.
2) Build rail projects across the country, including cities like Tacoma and Spokane (as well as much bigger ones).
Clearly the first option would be much better. You would get way more riders *and* way better coverage. Of course cities like New York would say “This is nice, but our subways carry more people and they could use more work”. This is true. But even in New York the bus system could use help! There is a proposal for six minute service for the trains and buses in New York. Because New York has plenty of people that take the bus (around 2.5 million a day). Of course the subway carries over six million. Which means that you can further refine the two options like so:
1) Improve what you have.
2) Build new stuff.
The first is much, much better. If the New York Subway ran smoothly and frequently it would make a huge difference. Same with every rail system in the country. Same with the buses!
To be clear, I’m not saying we shouldn’t build new stuff. I am all in favor of new stuff in various places (especially New York) but also in Seattle. But what is needed more than anything is to just improve what we have — including the buses.
This is not a new idea. People much smarter than me came to the same conclusion:
https://humantransit.org/2021/01/fixing-us-transit-requires-service-not-just-infrastructure.html. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/buses-infrastructure.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. To quote from the latter:
“Every major city in America has streets where, if the bus were made more convenient, transit agencies would reap a bumper crop of new riders,” writes the transportation researcher Steven Higashide in his book “Better Buses, Better Cities.”
fyi if y’all are interested btw i could make a spokane post. they are planning on adding more brt’s but are also debating between providing more coverage routes or on the main avenues. I’ve been following along the most recent stuff but it’s kinda far from seattle so didn’t think many were interested.
https://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-transit-authority-faces-community-pushback-on-new-strategic-plan-priorities/article_de8cb74e-9efe-11ef-a360-57c70097c062.html
> “STA can only provide and only should provide routes where the people are. And low density, neighborhoods like Eagle Ridge just aren’t where the people are,” Lowe said. “The people are along Monroe that people are along the city line, but people are along division. And that’s where we should be prioritizing our transit resources.
> While the STA board said its priority is on Mobility on Demand, a pilot program that would offer rides for underserved communities, the public preferred a focus on future high-performance transit corridors. Both are included in the draft strategic plan, giving balance to both parties feedback.
There’s also the discussion on rail.
> But people like Sarah Rose, a volunteer with Spokane Reimagined, believe long-term solutions like rail systems are being ignored. “Long term transportation ideas are more important,” Rose said. “So things that have more physical permanent infrastructure, such as tram lines that run through our city.” STA said that Connect 2035 does not have the funds to support a rail system and that it is too lengthy of a project for the 10 year timeframe.
I have been to Nashville at least a dozen times in the last four years.
I would agree that buses would do the job. However, the city is in dire need of a higher-capacity surface tram from Vanderbilt Medical Center through Lower Broadway to the State Capitol.
You know Nashville much better than I do. But from what I can tell there a handful of peak-only express buses on the corridor but the only bus that makes that trip on a regular basis is the 7. It runs every 15 minutes. So the first thing you do is run it more often. If it is stuck in traffic you add bus lanes. I could be wrong, but my guess is you run a bus there every six minutes it could handle the load just fine, and they wouldn’t need a tram. Hopefully they do something like that with the new levy money (even running every ten minutes would be a huge improvement).
As I wrote before I could easily see Nashville eventually adding an automated light-metro within the urban core (perhaps along that corridor). But first thing to do is just improve the buses.
Ross, what you’re advocating for is a structural federal program funding operations instead of capital projects in large cities. The feds already offer funds for cities with populations between 50-199k; for example, this operational funding provides about 1/6th of Link Transit’s (Wenatchee) budget. https://www.linktransit.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/2024-Budget-Summary.pdf
I think it’s worth considering the motivation for getting operations funding from the federal government rather than state or local government. Federal funding for capital projects makes sense (in theory) as a way to spread burden of expensive construction and procurement projects across the shoulders of all the states and smooth out the spikiness of capital expenditure, but federal funding for operations as a continuing effort doesn’t hold the same water.
Let’s say tax & spend democrats take over DC in 2028 after the next administration crashes the economy, and as part of a Green New Deal or whatever, they decide to offer to go on your supposed transit spending spree. Where does the money come from, and where does it go? I would be willing to bet my federal withholdings that we’d continue to send more to the Other Washington than we’d get in return.
Right now (and at least until early 2029), I think the way forward is to push the State to increase transportation revenues and realign its priorities away from new State Highway construction and toward operations, maintenance, and transit capital projects. Between the SR-99 tunnel and ongoing SR-520 rebuild work, and SR-509 extension, King County has largely been getting its money back with WSDOT dollars. Perhaps its time to join the advocacy campaigns like the Aurora Reimagined Coalition and Reconnect South Park to reorient WSDOT dollars to people-oriented improvements.
There is absolutely no need to yell and be passive aggressive at me Ross when I explained my view pretty calmly and rationally. Yelling at me is unproductive and unhelpful to the conversation.
When all I said is that it’s fine and that small and medium sized cities should see rail transit as a valuable tool as is the case for nearly over a century at this point.
Mike made the point that rail exists in many small and medium sized places and is doing fine. Believing you need high density to justify rail is throwing the baby out with the bathwater to it as a tool.
@Nathan — I don’t mean to imply that it has to come from the feds or that it would be better if it did. I’m just saying that given the choice, spending money on service is much better. The fact that spending a ton of money on construction projects is far more realistic than spending a bunch on service is basically just an indication of how messed up our system is. It leads to perverse outcomes where cities that lack basic transit functionality will embark on a huge spending project with little to show for it.
Of course that is just one reason for the problem. Even without a federal contribution the leaders like ribbon cuttings. They like the sense that the problem has been solved. In general though I’m not obsessed over why American cities are making the wrong choice — I’m just saying they are. We don’t spend nearly enough money on service and yet many of these same cities spend money on big projects that yield minor increases in efficiency (if any).
I think by “small” he basically means “not big”. The model doesn’t apply to cities like New York, Paris and London. Not only because they have big metro systems (built a long time ago) but because those are huge cities. In contrast, it definitely applies to cities like Seattle, Vancouver or Portland. For cities like Nashville or Richmond consider how he starts the video:
One of the biggest problems a transit system has to face is what to do when a bus line gets busy. And I’m serious here, you can almost always run more buses, as the BRT systems in Bogota or Guangzhou show. But at some point moving to a rail system is just going to make sense.
In other words, run more buses until it makes sense to switch to rail. Cities like Nashville and Richmond are nowhere near that point. They should just run more buses (and Nashville will).
I was debating whether to keep “small city” or change it to “medium-sized city”, but in the end I kept Reece’s wording.
I think the first video is excellent. I agree with its premise — there are two common models for building mass transit in a small to midsize city. Each have their place, although I think a lot depends on what the existing geography is like.
It is common in Europe to have relatively small towns that are very centralized. So instead of 50,000 people spread out over twenty square miles they are all within a couple miles of the town square. Often these towns have been connected to other towns via railways since the 1800s. When they haven’t, there is often farms or forests separating the towns. This makes the Stadtbahn approach fairly cheap to build, but also effective in getting riders. Typical branching means that the urban areas (that are likely to carry most of the riders) have more frequent service, while the areas farther away (that are less influenced by frequency) have to wait. It is a solid model for these areas.
But it tends to be less effective in the type of development that is typical in much of North America. Sprawling low-density areas without existing railways are tougher to work with. Quite often, the existing rail system is marginal (or in our case, privately owned). There are no gaps in development — areas between towns are filled with plenty of roads and traffic lights. There is often just enough development to make running trains expensive, but not enough to get a lot of riders. It also means that unless you spend extra, the trams will spend a lot of time waiting for traffic lights or at the very least run slowly. The suburban cities and towns are not strongly centered. Thus it is slower, more expensive and less effective than a similar system in Europe. Sometimes you can pull it off — but quite often a similar investment in buses would be more effective.
In contrast the automated light-metro (combined with good bus service) is quite effective in a low-density sprawling environment — as long as you have some semblance of an urban core. That is because the trains and buses complement each other. The trains — running relatively short distances and without a driver — can run very frequently without it costing a fortune. Thus the transfer penalty is smaller. With good bus service it all fits together quite well.
Vancouver is a great example of this system. People assume that Vancouver has the density of an East Coast or even European city. It doesn’t. It sprawls with low-density development like most North American cities.
Yet the transit systems serves it well. Jarrett Walker has called Vancouver “an almost perfect grid“. I think the best example of how this works is the Canada Line. It really wasn’t expected to get that many riders. One of the main reasons is because there hasn’t been that much development around most of the stations. It is only when you look at the overall network that it shines. For example consider King Edward Station. Despite being very close to downtown (only about three miles) the area around the station is not very dense. There are plenty of apartments right next to the station, but walk a couple blocks and it looks like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5Aj4XRfN29pPmBq66. This is — at best — the type of density you would find in Wallingford. It is no wonder they set such low expectations for the Canada Line. And yet as you step out and examine the network it begins to make sense. The Canada Line runs almost due north-south. Frequent buses run east-west. King Edward Station serves the 25 and 33 (both 15 minute buses). While this is good, it is nothing compared to the 99 B-Line or R4. The R4 runs every 8 minutes at noon (and a lot more often during peak). The 99 B-Line is the busiest bus in North America. Again, these are east-west buses that connect to the north-south Canada Line (an automated light metro). It works. About 500,000 thousand people a day take the train. Almost 800,000 take a bus. These are extremely good numbers given the size and density of Vancouver
I think Portland is a good North American example of the Stadtbahn approach. It isn’t bad — it certainly didn’t cost a fortune — but it isn’t great either. This is why Walker (a Portland resident) went so far as suggesting that a bus-based approach could have been a reasonable alternative. He makes it clear that he isn’t advocating that — only that taking that approach would have been reasonable. In contrast, the Vancouver approach is such a clear success that no one — certainly not Walker — is questioning its basic approach.
For Seattle — which has built a bizarre hybrid of several different models — it definitely would have worked better. It is frustrating to me that our closest city (Vancouver) has built such a great system and yet we haven’t bothered to learn from them. Even as we expand the system we seem wedded to doing things our own way, instead of the way we know would work better.
There’s a train line in the Netherlands. One stop on the line is in a tiny hamlet called Beerschoten. The stop is in between two towns called Driebergen and Zeist. Most riders getting off at the stop in Beerschoten will take a short bus ride to either Driebergen or Zeist. Almost no one’s final destination is Beerschoten. It’s that small. But, the station name isn’t Beerschoten Station, despite being located in Beerschoten. The station is named after the two nearest population centers riders will be taking a connecting bus to: Driebergen-Zeist.
(Mike posted a Not Just Bikes video about this station a few months ago).
This was back in october 10 but fyi some tidbits from the sound transit system expansion meeting
* The Federal Way Link Extension is on track to open the bus loop at the Federal Way Downtown station next spring, roughly a year before train service is expected to begin. The project has begun Systems Integration Testing and is evaluating a newly optimized testing schedule that could allow the agency to begin pre-revenue service up to 3 months ahead of the current schedule.
* In addition to completing the structural work on the long span bridge at Structure C, the project recently celebrated the College Way connection opening at a ribbon cutting ceremony with the City of Des Moines and Highline College.
* The South Renton Transit Center has also reached 100% design completion with permits filed with the City of Renton
* The Everett Link Extension has completed a compatibility report that is now under review by WSDOT’s Northwest Region
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/ActiveDocuments/241010%20System%20Expansion%20Committee%20minutes.pdf
Just saw a 515 going to Lynnwood. The bottom level has most it all if the seats full. The top level has half the seats full.
Where in downtown did you see this 515, and at what time? The fact it was also on Veterans Day is interesting.
On Olive Way east of 6th, so after the Westlake-area passengers had boarded.
Taking the G eastbound at 6:45pm. It came right on time.
It’s a bit difficult to stand at the strip and board with the steep hill, so I hope I never skip and fall down. There’s a reason the snow route goes on Jackson: it’s not just the bus that can’t go up and down the hill, but passengers would have trouble getting to the stops too.
Video of an Oslo tram crashing into storefront a couple of weeks ago.
https://youtube.com/shorts/3hGk3Epr0w0?si=_rZj-QtLub7fs1JM
According to Sound Transit ridership estimates, September had lower average weekday ridership than August. How is that possible with Lynnwood Link opening in September?
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
If it’s like Metro, deleted segments show up as subtracting all their riders, so a segment that had 200 riders now suddenly has -200. That brings the average down.
I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate? Also – are you implying that these are preliminary numbers that may not be accurate?
How is that possible with Lynnwood Link opening in September?
As Lazarus mentioned, for some reason it is only showing the stations that existed before East Link and Lynnwood Link. The decrease in ridership (which is minor) is probably due to folks switching from using Northgate to using stations to the north. This is barely enough to offset the new riders taking the train back to Lynnwood Link stations.
“I’m not sure I understand. Can you elaborate?”
It’s what I’ve seen on Metro performance tables. When a route is deleted or Metro changes where a through-route changes number, it shows up as a subtraction of the previous riders relative to the previous period, and an addition of where they are in the new scheme.
So if ST is using that system, when the 512 is truncated from Northgate to Lynnwood, people can no longer ride the nonexistent segment, so it shows up as a subtraction of N riders. This can make the entire route look like a worse performer because ridership went down. Those riders presumably switched to Link and increased its numbers, but the carryover may not be 100% or ST may not be able to fully count all riders as switching from the 512 to Link, so there may be a minor mismatch.
Metro used to define through-routes like the 28/131 as changing number at Pine Street, or U-District routes like the former 75/31 as at University Way or so. Later it switched to a system whereby the number changes when it enters downtown or the U-District/U-Village area. So the 131 now switches to the 28 at Jackson Street, and the 28 switches to the 131 at Bell Street. The 75 switched to the 31 around 50th St near Children’s (far from its previous position), and the 31 switched to the 75 near Roosevelt (close to its previous position). That meant the large number of people boarding in U-Village going to the Ave or further were previously counted as 75 riders but were later counted as 31 riders instead. Likewise people going from Jackson Street to midtown or further, or from Bell Street to midtown or further. It appears as if all the riders abandoned the old routes and switched to the new routes. But that’s not what happened: they’re still riding the same bus and boarding exiting at the same stops, but the interpretation of what boarding at that stop means has been reassigned to a different route. So it looks like one route was so bad its entire ridership abandoned it, and the new route is so good that hundreds of people suddenly started riding it, when that’s not the case.
I’m not sure what ST is doing with their ridership data right now, but if you look at the station list you will see that none of the LLE stations are included. None of the ELSL stations are included either.
It’s been like this for awhile now.
Weird. The data from ST seems to come and go.
Now that I look at it though, my guess is they are revamping the website. Last time we lost data it was across the board. This time it is more selective. Maybe they are adding “Line” as an option (“Line 1” or “Line 2”). They just haven’t got it all working yet. Seems odd though. I haven’t been impressed with the QA for the folks in charge of the website. Sounder is still broken (as has been for months).
I check often.
LLE data appeared, then disappeared, then appeared and then disappeared in the last month.
Sounder data has been broken this whole time.
I check both with my phone and laptop. So it’s clearly a problem with ST rather than my browser.
I’ve noticed a general pulling back of info generally at ST. The Progress Report details have been turned into a marketing tool for example (photos and optimistic language rather than actual status) and then only reported one project at a time. The only thing that seems timely are Board materials — because they are required in public disclosure rules.
Observers get spoiled by having thorough and timely data sources. We notice when things aren’t posted.
I’ve noticed a general pulling back of info generally at ST.
Agreed. The website was never as detailed as the yearly Service Implementation Plans (e. g. https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=98). But at least they were timely. You could get information much sooner. Now they seem to be failing in that regard as well.
City council is getting ready to cancel the SLU Trolley. https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/11/12/rob-saka-pushes-to-decommission-the-south-lake-union-streetcar/
Finally! This toy costs $4.5 million per year for about ~500 riders daily. I just hope they can remove or fill in the tracks so that it ceases to be a hazard to cyclists. I’d also hope that removing the station at Fred hutch could improve the planned roadway on Fairview avenue for J line construction (they are widening the roadway in part because the streetcar station takes up a whole lane of road width) but the ship has probably already sailed for that.
The SLU streetcar was built and opened when there was no light rail yet, so it was seen as a bigger step forward than it looks like now when Link connects downtown, the U-District, northeast Seattle, and southeast Seattle. That dwarfs the overall contribution to transit mobility he SLU streetcar makes.
The SLU streetcar in its then-or-current form never made transit sense. It’s not faster or higher-capacity than a local bus route, yet it costs more to operate. This diverts money from more service hours for buses that could benefit more riders more substantially.
Also when it started, the 40, 62, and C didn’t exist. The 40’s predecessors (26, 28) went to Fremont and Greenlake, but not to central Ballard or 24th Ave NW which have more people and destinations than either of those. The 62’s predecessor (16) was on 5th Ave N and Aurora, so not really serving the SLU neighborhood. The C extension was new bus service with no precedent. All of these route go further than the streetcar at both ends, so the streetcar is limited to a small subset of those trips, and the current bus routes could do all of it. You’d probably need just one more peak run if that; at other times there are empty seats for everybody from the streetcar.
And those current bus routes are faster than the streetcar. Not theoretically, but proven on the ground. The streetcar misses every traffic light between Westlake and Denny Way, while the buses don’t. The streetcar has too-close stop spacing, every two blocks. So when you combine all those intended stops with unintended stops every block for a red light, the streetcar crawls.
If the city cancels the Culture Connector on 1st Avenue, I want to see a plan for transit-priority lanes the streetcar would have had, and a plan for north-south bus routes. This could include shifting the 1/14 from 3rd to 1st as eddiew and RossB have suggested. Or some other way to get buses from not just Jackson Street to Pine Street like the streetcar would have done, but ideally beyond it to 1st Avenue in Belltown and Seattle Center, and south into SODO. That’s what a comprehensive transit network would look like. Don’t just abandon street improvements and leave the lanes to SOVs.
Note: I have pushed for moving the 1/14. eddie wants to see other buses moved there. I am leaning towards eddie’s ideas — hopefully he will repeat them here. The one thing we both want: buses on First, not the streetcar.
For those reasons, I have to agree, it’s time to declare the SLUT a success and then pave over the tracks. Its primary job was to spur development. Job done in SLU.
I enjoy riding streetcars, but this streetcar is so slow it’s pretty close to useless even when I am actively trying to use it. Having to cross both Denny and Mercer at grade is tortuous for all. The trams in Europe with separate ROW and higher capacity and speed are great. I miss the old George Benson trolley on the waterfront; this streetcar never had such charm. Its anemic ridership recovery, redundant route, and sub-glacial pace on a good day make it more of an obstacle to transportation than an amenity at this point. Those tracks are a hazard to cyclists and even worse for those with smaller wheels.
Years of construction downtown and >$400M to extend the hazard through the rest of our downtown just so it can stop at every single light… I don’t think that makes sense, when we have Link + all the buses already. Without that middle section, the SLUT is doomed and we might as well stop the bleeding.
Another factor looming in the next couple decades will be the eventual construction of the real train between Westlake and South Lake Union (a.k.a. Ballard Link). When that starts, the streetcar will have to be either shut down or detoured, with the detour option costing a huge amount of money to tear up more streets and build more tracks.
So, if the streetcar is going to be shut down in a few years anyway, and the ridership is so anemic, you may as well just shut it down now.
Between Westlake and SLU? Are they pretty much one in the same?
BLE is between the wee hamlet of little Norway and Amazonia. It’s international.
You could redesign it as a limited-stop with signal priority from Pioneer Square up Westlake to Fremont and on to Ballard. The crossing would be tricksy. Maybe turn Fremont Bridge into Ped/Bike/Tram only.
Stops at Pioneer Square, Midtown, Mercer, Fremont, and Ballard. Put it into the side of the hill on Westlake, and along the canal in Fremont Ballard. No crossings, make it fast.
All for a teensy fraction of the BLE.
Or you can grade-separate and automate it. Make if frequent. It would serve Far more residences and businesses than where the light rail trainwreck is heading now.
There’s a long section of old railroad and streetcar right of way along Westlake. I think it’s the only remaining place in Seattle that still has that type of thing. It would not be difficult to make it elevated above that. It’s only used for parking now. Hell, BNSF may still own the right of way, which would be one reason why nobody has built anything more substantial on it.
Yes, this could be a very good thing for both transit and cycling (https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/10/04/replacing-the-south-lake-union-streetcar/).
Hard to say what effect this would have on the J, but it has to be positive. It is really not that hard to move bus lanes (and even wire). Moving rails, on the other hand, is really expensive.
The reason “it’s not used” is because when you look at real time arrival (like right now when I did) it says “17 min (scheduled) delayed 28 min” and 25 min (scheduled) delayed 1 hr”… WTF does that mean on a line this short?? Of course I hopped a bus arriving in 2 mins. Every time I try riding it I encounter this real time/scheduling shtshow. So the solution now proposed is to trash the whole system… insanity.
I don’t think that makes any difference. Most buses don’t have real time arrival data. I think the main problem is just that it can’t compete with the buses. It is essentially redundant. It is telling that Metro did nothing when it was out of service (it didn’t need to).
I read today that Dow Constantine will not seek reelection.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/dow-constantine-will-not-seek-reelection-as-king-county-executive/
Does this mean we can revisit the unaffordable/disastrous DSTT2 prematurely preferred alternative plan that tears apart the existing transit hub at International District / Chinatown while failing to deliver what voters were promised in ST3? Because he was the primary proponent of that vision. Maybe with Dow retiring and the lack of money and restarting the scoping process, there might be an ounce of hope?
When does his term end? It may not end until next November.
Dow’s term ends January 1, 2026. Last election was November 2, 2021 and the four year term begins in the new year.
What that means for Ballard Link, I don’t know.