Trolleybuses and cars roll over a newly repaved Ballard Bridge on January 9, 1941. Bring back the wires! Item 16410, Seattle Municipal Archives.

Transit & Streets:

Land Use & Housing:

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

This is an Open Thread.

101 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: Metro Superhero”

  2. If you do not need to be outside this morning, please stay safe inside. Most schools are delaying openings today a couple hours, at least, while waiting for the bomb cyclone to pass.

    Thank you to the essential workers who are braving the high winds and working to restore power to over 600K Washingtonians currently without it, and to the road crews clearing debris and dealing with dangerous downed power lines.

    1 and 2 Line service will not be open until 7 am at the earliest, to clear debris and inspect tracks.

    This comes after Northgate-Lynnwood service was reduced to a bus bridge for a portion of last night, due to power outage(s).

    I noticed the next-stop signs go offline on the 70 I was on. The operator might not have realized, as they did not call out stops. I had no idea at the time that it was a system-wide problem.

    Check the latest school closure times, weather reports, and route alerts before going anywhere today. Be safe, everyone!

    1. I was at MLT station around 9p last night when it was announced that train service was suspended (I was coming from Edmonds going to Ballard). I didn’t want to wait for the bus bridge because, given the low availability of drivers at night and the fact I was in Snohomish county, I opted to take the #331 to Aurora Village. We got there and it was pitch black and full of riders waiting for the E-Line that was a no-show. So I stayed onboard to catch the #5 at Shoreline College instead. Just as we were making our final half mile stretch, we were stopped dead by a massive tree that had fallen acres the road. I got off and walked the remaining distance only to realize the $?#5 was also blocked by a downed tree. So I ended up back on Aurora to catch the E-Line.

      All of Shoreline through 125th S was pitch black. The driver did an excellent job of watching for riders and stopping at each dark traffic light.

      And surprisingly ST did an excellent job of informing its riders online and at the station of service suspension in a timely fashion.

  3. “ The Northwest Construction Consumer Council (NWCCC) has awarded Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link Extension project two awards in recognition of the project’s achievements. The awards, the Best Public Project over $10 Million and the award for Innovation & Achievement in Sustainability, exemplify excellence in project delivery in the Pacific Northwest. ”

    https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/news-events/news-releases/lynnwood-link-project-recognized-excellence-northwest

    Congrats to ST!

    Now on to the opening of RLE, Full ELE, and FWLE.

  4. Metro posted this yesterday: https://kingcountymetro.blog/2024/11/19/bus-lanes-are-for-buses-metro-pilot-project-uses-cameras-to-count-red-lane-and-bus-stop-violations/

    “ As part of a 60-day pilot project that will NOT issue warnings or tickets, Metro is using onboard cameras on two buses to assess and evaluate how often private vehicles illegally use bus lanes. Launched on Nov. 6, cameras mounted on a RapidRide E Line bus and a Route 7 bus begin filming a 10-second video after identifying a violation and noting the location.”

    The Urbanist wrote about it today: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/11/20/king-county-metro-testing-onboard-cameras/

    This is a much-needed technology to enforce bus lanes.

    1. Yeah, this is a huge step in the right direction. I feel like we are piloting things that other cities have already implemented just because we are so conservative. (Not left-right conservative, but reluctant to change.)

      So we have these little pilots. We are experimenting with traffic cameras even though many cities have implemented them and we know they are a fair and effective way to save lives. We are experimenting with freight and transit lanes, even though we did a study five years ago (https://depts.washington.edu/trac/research-news/freight/freight-and-transit-lane-case-study/). Now we are looking at putting cameras on buses, just like several other American cities (and who knows how many cities in Europe).

      Again, this is progress. Baby steps are better than no steps. Hopefully we will get there, even if it takes a while.

      1. Agreed, but I think there’s value in doing pilot studies even for “proven” technologies – there are so many little unpredictable ways a new process might interact with existing processes that (well-designed) pilot tests can reveal. Doing multiple pilot studies is silly, though, unless conditions significantly or meaningfully change.

        The UW study is funny because it sounds like they didn’t tell freight companies about the lane, so freight drivers didn’t know about it and didn’t use it, which kind of spoils the point of the test. I think SDOT’s “pilot” use of FAB lanes on Westlake for the Route 40 TPMC project is good because it’s actually building a meaningful length of FAB lane as the pilot, and it’s unlikely to go away soon after the “study” is done. Sure, they could be implementing similar lanes elsewhere instead of waiting for the results of the Westlake lanes, but it’s much better than a block or two.

        Our cities may have been built on a “go fast and break things” mentality before the mid-century, but we don’t have the appetite for these things anymore – or, at least, our litigiousness doesn’t. Now we need pilot tests and proof of concepts before trying ideas en-masse (unless they’re in service of private automobiles).

      2. It isn’t even “go fast and break things” that I am interested in. It is “do things that other cities have done quite successfully”. That is clearly the case with cameras on the buses. Metro is aware of this as well. This is from their press release:

        Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland and Washington, D.C., are among the metropolitan areas already utilizing active bus lane enforcement programs.

        And yet we are rolling it out like it is a huge experiment. I think part of the reason is that we are so provincial. We are here in the corner of America and seem oblivious to what other cities are doing. We even ignore our closest neighbor (Vancouver).

        The Freight and Transit lanes are a little different. These are being used in other cities, but I’m not sure they are being used in the daytime. (Typically they allow freight to use the bus lanes late at night.) So it may be that we are actually a leader in this area.

      4. I think it’s less about being first in the nation or world or whatever, and more about incorporating a change of process and responsibilities into bus operations.

        The most recent similar addition to operator responsibilities I can think of was the implementation of driver shields fleet-wide in 2020, which seemed like a quick roll-out without a visible pilot test at the time. However, a quick search revealed there were driver shield tests back in 2017/2018 which likely provided the groundwork for adding operation of driver shields fleetwide in 2020, although they ended up developing the current plexiglass design in-house instead of tempered glass.

      5. I think RMTransit mentioned freight-and-bus lanes in the Winnipeg video.

        Yeah, it seems unlikely that we are the first. But when I did a search for it I couldn’t find anything but us. In contrast other ideas — like using cameras on buses to enforce bus lanes — have been around a while and are in use in many cities. We are just being timid (the same way we are being timid with cameras to catch speeders). We should stop pretending this is some new-fangled idea just because we don’t have it here. Just copy what other cities do and implement it.

      6. Well it’s really about coddling whiny, entitled SOV drivers to provide political cover for this obvious course. Anyway, I’m with you. Baby steps better than nothing.

      1. Seriously. I either take the G or walk down Madison every day to get to work and I can’t remember the last time I didn’t see at least one car driver use the bus lanes.

    3. Don’t tell Ashley from The Stranger about those cameras, as she’s opposed to “carceral urbanists.” Apparently, The Stranger is now against enforcing parking and/or lane usage and that… quote: “everyone should be allowed to cover their license plates – especially when parked – and especially in Seattle with its proliferation of automatic license plate readers.”

      It’s like when Ned Flanders was made acting principal of Springfield Elementary, put everyone on the honor system, and the teachers were afraid to leave the faculty lounge.

      1. I wonder if that’s the person who’s sometimes on KUOW’s Week in Review saying defund the police.

        Letting people ignore parking time limits anonymously works for the first people who get those spaces, but it doesn’t work for others who would like to park somewhere.

  5. The first monthly ridership numbers from electrified Caltrain are out. Of course, California HSR contributed significantly to this project.

    https://www.metro-magazine.com/10231595/first-month-of-electrified-caltrain-service-sees-750k-riders?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20241118_1706:673b8c42bb27fc496d07bd5b:ot_NL-MET-Express-Monday-20241118&omid=1102423317&cid=63449deadd511e2f2001f815

    It’s a 38% increase in weekday ridership and a more massive weekend jump.

    To me, it represents yet another case where transit speed makes a difference.

      2. As Mike notes, it’s the distance to speed up and slow down that’s vastly improved. Local Caltrain service used to never get to top track speed because it takes a long distance to slow down a heavy train.

        Electrification lets Caltrain run some services with more stops but take a similar yet a bit faster amount of time. It’s kind of like adding a parallel RapidRide route on top of a freeway express route — but at a different scale.

    2. The travel time boost as a result of electric service is nice. But, I wouldn’t expect that alone to produce a 38% increase in ridership. To get that, you’d need something stronger, like the trains running twice as often.

      Does CalTrain still run once an hour these days, or have they managed to improve it? A service like this, I feel, needs to run at least every 15 minutes, if not better, to be taken seriously, particular for people just doing local trips around Silicon Valley, rather than commuting all the way to San Francisco.

      1. Here is the new schedule:

        https://www.caltrain.com/media/33909

        It looks like all stops are served every 30 minutes all day. At peak times there are “limited” and “express” runs added in.

        Note too that Gilroy service is not electrified. Riders must change trains in San Jose.

        Because a round trip on a local train is much faster, there is a boost to frequency at no cost. If a round trip plus layover took almost 4 hours that’s only two round trips per day per train labor shift. If it was reduced to 2.7 that’s three round trips per train labor shift. That explains a big part of the frequency boost.

        I’m curious to know if better frequency is affordable because fewer staff per train are needed. Staff is a big cost factor.

  6. A tree fell on a [Route 65, per eddiew] bus in Wedgwood – no injuries: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wa-windstorm-tree-falls-on-a-king-county-metro-bus-in-north-seattle/

    On twitter via Shawn Chitnis (Fox13): https://x.com/shawnchitnis/status/1859233112989036997

    Meanwhile, ST shut down all light rail operations until 7am, announcing that service would resume at 7am. Apparently that meant they would start releasing trains from the central OMF at 7am, meaning that northbound service wouldn’t resume until trains turned around at Angle Lake ~30 mins later.

    Edit: neighborhood spelling – thanks eddiew

    1. I would much rather have our government agencies shut down to keep people safe, as opposed to trying to stay open and putting lives at risk in the process.

      Metro is very lucky that nobody got seriously hurt (or worse) in this incident. Ya, the bus might have been empty (Metro won’t say), but the operator’s life counts too.

      And it just continues. About an hour ago I walked past a bus stop in Pinehurst. I got about 15 feet past the bus stop and there was suddenly a huge flash of light and a horrendously loud buzzing sound. Scared everybody around.

      I got away from the area and looked back. A tree was leaning against the power lines directly above the Metro stop, and the power lines had finally shorted out And there was a guy still standing there waiting for a bus – directly under the tree!

      Why Metro allows safety situations like this to persist is beyond me. They should have a plan for events like this so they can assure the safety of the traveling public.

      People shouldn’t be waiting for a bus directly under a tree that is only being held up by power lines.

      It boggles the mind.

      1. > They should have a plan for events like this so they can assure the safety of the traveling public.

        Under your implied preference, there would be no travelling public whatsoever. That standard is ridiculous – would you have WSDOT shut down the freeways and state routes every time there was a major storm that might knock a tree onto the road? Should SDOT have closed the roads? Whose responsibility is it to make sure people can still get around during severe weather events, if not the transportation agency? Did ST stop running their STX buses? I didn’t think so.

        >People shouldn’t be waiting for a bus directly under a tree that is only being held up by power lines.

        No, they shouldn’t! But that should be the responsibility of the person standing under the fallen tree, right?

      2. Why Metro allows what? You described a tree falling into a power line, and a guy underneath it waiting at a bus stop. What should Metro plan for? They shouldn’t allow bus stops to be near trees or power lines?

      3. @Sam,

        “ Why Metro allows what?”

        Metro shouldn’t allow people to be waiting for a bus at a bus stop that is clearly unsafe. Period.

        “What should Metro plan for? They shouldn’t allow bus stops to be near trees or power lines?”

        Metro should have a plan in place to verify the safety and safe operating condition of their system during and after major weather events. This shouldn’t be a matter of debate.

        Safety should come first, and letting some unaware guy wait for a bus directly under a tree that is only being held up by a couple of damaged power lines is not safe. Metro should close the bus stop until the situation can be rectified.

        And least you think that this is all hyperbole, there was an SDOT crew working nearby doing general storm cleanup. Raking, removing downed limbs, clearing drains, etc.

        The SDOT guy called the event in to his boss. His boss then forbid him from going near the bus stop, or from driving his SDOT truck on the street adjacent to it.

        So now we have a situation where SDOT is forbidding their employees from going near the tree, but Metro is somehow allowing bus riders to wait for a bus directly under it?

        That is just crazy.

        But I’m sure Seattle City Light will arrive on the scene and rope off the area while they work. Last I checked SCL claimed they would have it fixed by 11:59 pm. Let’s hope nothing happens before then.

      4. Lazarus, did you call Metro to let them know about the unsafe situation at the bus stop? You apparently didn’t notice the tree leaning on the wires, so it clearly wasn’t obvious until the transformer shorted out.

      5. @Nathan Dickey,

        “did you call Metro to let them know about the unsafe situation at the bus stop?”

        Absolutely not. It is not my responsibility to do Metro’s job.

        And one would think that, once both SDOT and Seattle City Light know about the situation, then Metro should to. If Metro doesn’t know about it now, then my bad for assuming Metro is tied in with the other agencies.

        And the situation is obvious when approaching the bus stop from the south (as a Metro operator would). I approached from the north, and it is not as obvious when approaching from the north.

        I might just drive up there in a few minutes to see if Metro has closed the stop. You know, just out of curiosity.

      6. > Absolutely not. It is not my responsibility to do Metro’s job.

        If it were an ST Express bus stop, I’m certain you would have a different opinion.

      7. I mean “see something, say something” is important Lazarus. Saying “not my problem” when you clearly care about it is just sending mixed messages here. I’ve tweeted to KCM before about broken glass or bent bus poles and usually is fixed within a couple days. It’s not difficult to send a message to KC Metro about this stuff, it’s better they know so it can be addressed sooner rather than later.

      8. Did anyone notice ST shutting down ST Express service for any portion of last night or this morning?

        L, what do you think ST should have done with its bus service?

      10. A tree falling and hitting a power line sounds similar to the tree or power line being struck by lightning, and agencies plan for that. We can’t have no transit because lightning might strike a bus stop sometime somewhere in the county.

      11. @Zach B,

        “see something, say something”

        Maybe you haven’t been reading along, but apparently you missed the part about an SDOT work crew being present in the area and calling in the event.

        They called it in to both SDOT and SCL, but one would expect that once such a thing is known the situation would be handled. Of course this is Metro, so all bets are off.

        This was by far the worst safety situation I have ever seen. Allowing people to wait for a bus directly under a fallen tree that was only being held up by power lines is inexcusable. For any agency.

        And I did the math. At least 20 buses had passed the stop in the northbound direction that morning (the direction from which the problem was visible). One of those operators should have seen it and called it in. But I guess “see something, say something” doesn’t apply to them.

        The good news is that I drove by this spot about 3:30 just to check. SCL had cut the tree down and eliminated the safety problem. They hadn’t yet removed the tree however, so as of 3:30 the bus stop, the sidewalk, and the curb lane were all effectively unusable.

        So SCL solved the problem for Metro. And the web says that they had also restored power to 150 of the 152 customers affected by the event I witnessed.

        Good job Seattle City Light.

      12. Lazarus are you saying it was Metro’s responsibility to ensure the safety of the sidewalk and not the city? Seriously?

        That isn’t how it works. Metro doesn’t trim the trees. The city does. The city also handles the power. There is obviously communication between the various agencies, but Metro isn’t going to go out there and fix it.

        People shouldn’t be waiting for a bus directly under a tree that is only being held up by power lines.

        I agree, but ultimately that is the responsibility of the person standing there. The city was busy trying to deal with a ton of downed trees and I’m sure they prioritized ones they felt were the biggest hazards. I’m sure they closed off sidewalks — and streets — as appropriate. But it is there call — not Metro’s. And they can only do so much. There are only so many people employed to do that work. This was a “once in a decade storm” (according to the National Weather Service). Someone ignoring a tree right above them seems like the fault of the individual, not the city (and definitely not Metro). If you were out and about that night (or even the next day) you need to be really careful. This is just common sense.

      13. “Maybe you haven’t been reading along”
        I have Lazarus and I’m telling you “see something, say something” is how you deal with the situation instead of complaining Metro didn’t do enough in your eyes.

        Metro doesn’t know everything that’s happening and sometimes is only notified by riders passing along information to them.

        Metro was only probably notified by me and not staff in my case when I told them that the bus shelter at Highline College had a broken window pane at their campus bus shelter.
        And likely only got fixed once the regional operations staff for South King was able to investigate the complaint I forwarded to them. Because at the end of the day, they only have so many bus stops to maintain and it can take a week or two if no one sends in a report in the first place if it’s not an urgent matter.

        That’s how the cookie crumbles unfortunately. Trying to say it’s really on Metro to find that information out is really misunderstanding how operations work. ST deals with the same operations conundrum as well, things only get fixed by either riders telling them, Municipal or County staff telling them, or ST operations staff finding out on their daily walkthroughs. Trying to say they aren’t being fast enough for you is ignoring how operations works in a nutshell.

  7. On a day with lots of yard debris after a storm, I’m going to rant about gas powered leaf blowers, and the excessive levels of noise and pollution that comes from their use. While it impacts everyone, it’s especially bad for people trying to get around the city by walking or bus. In a car, it’s annoying, but you can zoom by it it in seconds. Waiting for a bus or walking past it to reach a bus stop, you’re just screwed. Noise cancelling headphones help only a little bit on the sound and do nothing for the exhaust.

    Electric alternatives have been available for years now, and people do indeed use them to blow leaves on their own lawn. The problem is that most of the blowing is done by commercial landscaping services and nearly all them cling to gas because the equipment is slightly cheaper, they have a large pool of desperate laborers willing to take jobs that damage their health for little pay, and it’s a race to the bottom to offer lawn services for the absolute cheapest possible price.

    I read somewhere that California is banning them, starting in 2027. When will Washington or at least King County do the same?

      1. Unfortunately, I live in Kirkland, so Seattle’s phase-out won’t help me. Still, it sets the precedent, so maybe one day, King County or the city of Kirkland will do the same.

        At least I live in a blue state where it’s actually legal for cities to ban gas leaf blowers. In red states, using any device that burns fossil fuels is considered a sacred right, so even if your city wants to ban the obnoxious blowers, they simply can’t.

        One would think that even Republicans would like to be able to watch TV or walk their dog without having to listen to those obnoxious things, but apparently no.

    2. My apartment building and neighboring buildings use them every morning to clear the decks and sidewalks. I’ve grown to close the windows when I hear them, to keep out both noise and exhaust fumes. I wish they wouldn’t use them.

    3. I absolutely hate leaf blowers. They drive me crazy. The building next to me has landscapers leaf blowing at least twice a week, even if it’s unnecessary, and it usually is. I don’t even know what they’re blowing around but it seems pointless.

      I also work from home and they’re blowing right next to my open windows. They seem to have a knack for starting right when I’m on a call too. I wholeheartedly support banning gas powered leaf blowers!!!

  8. “2 Line service is suspended until further notice due to power outage.
    In effect: Nov. 20, 12:44 p.m.
    Routes: 2 Line

    Suspension is due to loss of power at all stations, as well as a loss of communication between the control center and trains, rendering regular operations unsafe. Please exit the stations and use link below to find alternate transportation options.”

    Then they direct riders to other transit options like shuttle buses and Metro buses that pass by 2 Line stations.

  9. So streetcars have been in the news lately. I’ve written a lot about the CCC project (I think it is a bad idea). I also think we should get rid of the South Lake Union Streetcar (to improve transit and bike travel).

    But I’m not so eager to get rid of the First Hill Streetcar. The routing — though flawed — is still pretty good (unlike the other streetcar and the CCC). It gets a decent number of riders. Having one streetcar means it retains its main purpose: attracting tourists. I still don’t think it is ideal from a transit perspective, but we have bigger battles to fight.

    But then I started thinking of what the transit network could look like without it. I began with the map that I made for this post: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. I made some minor changes that have little to do with the streetcar, and then proceeded to make a few that did. This is what I ended up with: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1zrSAoMnDcTkeqExDasWU8jNR19VHmC8&usp=sharing

    Some of the changes from the previous map:

    * There is no 47. There is only the 3/4. The 3 and 4 continue to overlap each other, but the two routes are much easier to understand. The 4 does not go to Judkins Park (it always ends at Garfield High). The 3 always runs from Madrona to Summit. Both buses run every fifteen minutes (midday) to provide 7.5 combined service on First/Cherry Hill.

    * The 60 runs straight up Broadway. It is also extended to Aloha (where the 9 currently ends).

    * The 49 takes over the streetcar routing (minus the deviation to 14th).

    This offers many of the same advantages as the other proposal (much more frequent service) and then some. For example:

    1) Service from Pioneer Square to Broadway is extended all the way to the north end of Capitol Hill. This is better than what the current streetcar offers and even better than the Aloha extension to the streetcar they (unsuccessfully) tried to make.

    2) Likewise, the section of Broadway that would have really good frequency is extended to Aloha. From there to Jackson you would have service somewhere between 5 and 7.5 minutes (as each route runs between 10 and 15 minutes).

    3) Much simpler for Beacon Hill riders. The 60 is changed, but not dramatically.

    4) People along 10th (north of Broadway) retain their one-seat ride to downtown (albeit just the south end of downtown).

    Overall it looks better, although maybe not enough of an improvement to justify losing the streetcar. But there is more:

    5) If the streetcar was gone from Jackson, then we could add BAT lanes there. Of course center-running transit lanes are better, but that gets really complicated with all of the buses on Jackson. Every buse would need doors on both sides. In contrast BAT lanes are trivial to add. Furthermore, we could have the buses serving center stations by using the weave method (https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/segment1_busway-1.png?w=986&ssl=1). Any bus in our system could serve stops like that. Thus we could initially add BAT lanes and then evolve to a system like that. Doing so is not that expensive when you are just dealing with buses. (In contrast, moving the rail to support that kind of configuration would cost a bundle). In short, having just buses along the corridor is a lot more flexible — it is a lot cheaper to make improvements.

    Same goes for Broadway. Part of the reason transit is slow along there is because SDOT added bike lanes on Broadway instead of 12th. But even if we moved the bike lanes we would have to deal with the tracks. For example here is a picture of Broadway and Pine: https://maps.app.goo.gl/P45K7nWYWjr6oAyR7. You can see the streetcar up the street, stuck in traffic. If you look at Broadway itself you can see that while it is definitely broad, it isn’t quite wide enough to have transit lanes, bike lanes and lanes for cars. But I think it is quite possible that if we shifted the bike lanes over to 12th and added BAT lanes for the buses (which also allow bikes I might add) that I think the buses could have transit running much faster on Broadway. More to the point, this is much easier with buses than it is the streetcar. Not only is it not easy to move the rail, but mixing rail and bike travel is a bad idea. Thus transit on both Jackson and Broadway could be a lot better without the streetcar.

    1. Before redrawing bus route maps, I would simply begin by asking this basic question:

      When is a streetcar better than an articulated bus with doors on both sides?

      I guess the reversal capabilities with driving from either end is unique as well as the smoother ride quality. But that’s about it.

      And streetcars can’t quickly deviate from hazards which can affect reliability. We don’t run two streetcars together to save driver hours either. And bicyclists hate the tracks.

      It’s a lot of time and money to retrofit the system for streetcars. Given all the transit capital shortfall for ST, I just don’t see public support to expand our network at all.

      1. > When is a streetcar better

        The only thing I think it’s better at is acquiring a bit more transit lanes and ability for larger property acquisition changes. For example the westlake transit bat lanes were originally for the streetcar, but also helped out the buses.

        If there wasn’t ballard link i’d say we should build a streetcar following route 40 to fremont/ballard.

      2. I guess the reversal capabilities with driving from either end is unique as well as the smoother ride quality.

        The big one is capacity (although our streetcars aren’t much bigger than our buses). But fundamentally that is the main advantage of a streetcar. Instead of running a bus every couple minutes you run a streetcar every five. This saves you money in operations (although this is not applicable in our case). Oh, and of course there is the tourist value (I mentioned that).

        The only thing I think it’s better at is acquiring a bit more transit lanes and ability for larger property acquisition changes.

        That is not true in Seattle though. RapidRide G has center-running buses. The streetcar doesn’t. Even in the same neighborhood — heck, even where they actually cross — there is more right-of-way for the bus than for the train. As I mentioned it is much easier to add right-of-way for a bus than for a train (along both Jackson and Broadway).

    2. Would it really be that hard to speed up the streetcar as-is?

      also, re:
      >Having one streetcar means it retains its main purpose: attracting tourists.

      I’m pretty sure the First Hill streetcar was about Sound Transit paying for a major capital transit investment connecting the Capitol Hill and CID stations via First Hill with steel rails in lieu of building a Link station at First Hill, not attracting tourists. Sure, the ~4,000 riders a day could be fairly easily served by a bus, but that wasn’t the point.

      1. Would it really be that hard to speed up the streetcar as-is?

        Yes, assuming you also want to speed up the buses on Jackson (which carry more riders than the streetcar). Consider the options for Jackson:

        1) Have the buses use the stations in the middle of the street. That means that the 7, 14, 36 and 106 would all have to have doors on both sides (like the RapidRide G). Some of the buses could be reconfigured, but at a minimum you are looking at the 7, 14 and 36. This gets expensive and complicated.

        2) You use the “weave”approach and move the tracks. Moving tracks is extremely expensive (tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars). It would be by far the most expensive part of the project.

        That is Jackson. For Broadway you would probably have to move the tracks — I don’t see any alternative. Consider this stop here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/mEvjodPURt32rp228. You have actually have three lanes for cars (one each direction and a turn lane). But transit shares those lanes. The western lane is overly large. To the east there is a bus stop and bike lanes (each taking up a lane). The street is basically five, maybe six lanes wide. One option:

        1) Get rid of the bike lanes (move them to 12th).
        2) Get rid of the island bus stop (have people wait at the sidewalk).
        3) Now add BAT lanes on each side.
        4) Add the three general purpose lanes (one each direction plus the turn lane).

        Of course it is also possible you could use the staggered bus stop approach, which means that transit could run in the middle of the street. Again this assumes the bike lanes are moved. But as I mentioned, bus lanes are also bike lanes. A staggered bus stop approach would mean that the buses weave, which would require moving the rails (but be trivial for the buses).

        But my main point is that even if you made the streetcar faster it still has an inferior routing. Not as bad as South Lake Union Streetcar — and not as bad as the CCC — but still not as good as what I’ve sketched out. For the same amount of service money you have a much better system with just buses. Mainly this is because it is so much easier to move buses around. For example I propose sending the 49 down Broadway until Jackson and then Pioneer Square. How much would this cost in capital? Probably nothing. I’m pretty sure there is wire the whole way. In contrast how much would it cost to extend the streetcar a few blocks up to Aloha? Hard to say. Original estimates were around $25 million, but the cost kept going up. Meanwhile, locals objected.

        >> Having one streetcar means it retains its main purpose: attracting tourists.

        I’m pretty sure the First Hill streetcar was about Sound Transit paying for a major capital transit investment connecting the Capitol Hill and CID stations via First Hill with steel rails in lieu of building a Link station at First Hill, not attracting tourists.

        I realize that. I’m not saying that is it was built to attract tourists, I’m saying that it is the main purpose now. It is one of the few arguments for keeping it. It is a (minor) tourist attraction. Put it this way. Imagine it gets replaced by a bus tomorrow. The main people that would object are tourists. Everyone else wouldn’t care.

      2. I don’t like the idea of removing the Broadway bike lanes and saying just use 12th. It’s several blocks out of the way and people need to be able to take a bike to destinations along Broadway. It’s also not good for the legibility of the bike network. You shouldn’t have to study the bike lane map and plan routes in advance, you should be able to just go on the direct route and get where you’re going safely.

        Last summer, I recall biking down the other Broadway in downtown Portland. It has a great protected bike lane, but when it was time to go back the other way, Broadway was one way, so I needed another street. So, I went over one block east and took that, only to be shunted on a street that was clearly designed for all types of transit -bus, MAX, Portland Streetcar, but was not at all friendly for bikes. I made it safely, but only by nearly stopping in the middle of the road multiple times to slowly cross the streetcar tracks at 90 degrees. Yes, there were bike lanes on Naito Parkway a few blocks further, but the point is, neither detouring further nor carefully studying the bike map should have been necessary. Capitol Hill, with our Broadway, is similar. There should be bike lanes on both Broadway and 12th, not one or the other.

      3. I think you are better to just add/replace new floating islands on Jackson St that allow for center-running with right door boarding (like Market St SF). The right lane jogs around the islands.

      4. I don’t like the idea of removing the Broadway bike lanes and saying just use 12th. It’s several blocks out of the way and people need to be able to take a bike to destinations along Broadway.

        A few things:

        1) BAT lanes are bike lanes. So if you removed the biggest hazard (the streetcar tracks) then bikers can just use the BAT lanes.

        2) You can always get to Broadway from 12th. It is only three blocks. This is the same way you get from Fremont to Ballard on a bike. You go on the Burke Gilman and then leave the bike path and travel a couple blocks to your destination. Unless we add really high quality bike lanes on every single street people will need to (continue) to travel in that manner.

        3) I am also suggesting we improve the bike lanes on 12th. The bike lanes are really bad right now (or nonexistent). 12th is a better street for bikes (it has a better grade).

        4) There are plenty of destinations on 12th (including Seattle U). I’m sure many riders use the bike lanes on Broadway and then cut over (just because they are better).

        5) The bike lanes on Broadway are better than the ones on 12th, but they still aren’t ideal. You have people biking the opposite direction of traffic. This is fundamentally more dangerous. People making a turn might not expect someone coming from that direction.

        6) It is much easier to build really good bike lanes on 12th then it is to build them on Broadway. First thing to do is move the bike lanes next to the sidewalk. I would also get rid of parking one direction. That allows enough space to make the bike lanes wide, with real barriers (on both sides).

        Ultimately riders would have their choice. Either they go on 12th — a pathway much better than what exists on Broadway or 12th right now — or they use the BAT lanes on Broadway.

      5. I think you are better to just add/replace new floating islands on Jackson St that allow for center-running with right door boarding (like Market St SF). The right lane jogs around the islands.

        The problem is that doing that would require buying a bunch of special buses (with doors on both sides). In contrast it would be much cheaper to just do a weave with the buses (https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/segment3_busway.png?w=987&ssl=1). But again, doing that with the streetcar would be really expensive (because it would require moving the tracks).

        The main point is that if it was just buses then making the street fast (BAT lanes) or really fast (center-running) would be quite cheap. But because we have a streetcar, any option because expensive and complicated. Same thing goes for Broadway.

      6. @Ross, no no that’s the point of the floating islands for right doors, it allows standard fleet buses to use them, that’s the case on Market St in SF

    3. There’s sections of the streetcar where we could have the cars drive in the current parking lane instead. The streetcar could travel relatively faster in the northbound direction. Though we’d have to remove the pedestrian bulbs at the intersections but I think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.

      1. Probably in a few cases, but not many. Parking was largely added because they had left over space (might as well add parking). For example this is Broadway facing south just past James: https://maps.app.goo.gl/5kphB1pstJw3WmE67. At first glance this looks exactly like what you are talking about. There is a line of parked cars in the right. But go forward to the next intersection (https://maps.app.goo.gl/pCyvFwhhU67hqAXp8). The streetcar slides over to the right. So that right lane (where everyone is parked) can’t be for general purpose traffic. Of course it could be used as a BAT lane (a skip-ahead lane) for that block if not for the fact that it would mean moving the tracks.

        I’m not saying that there aren’t areas where it could be improved, but I don’t think there are any that are obvious. Here you are saying it is easier to get transit lanes for a streetcar (based on your previous comment) and yet they couldn’t manage to get more for Broadway. I think the obvious reason is that there isn’t that much space.

        Keep going to the next bus/streetcar stop and you can see the issue: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DU6ZH27GnkCEmd1w5. Notice the island platform for buses/streetcar going the other direction. Notice the northbound bus (piled up behind all of the cars) waiting to get to the stop. (The streetcar has the same problem.) The basic problem is:

        1) There are bike lanes there. The bike lanes end up taking up a lot of space as they require island platform stops for the transit.
        2) The tracks are a major hazard for bikes.

        If you moved the bike lanes over to 12th (where they should have been all along) then you have a lot more space to work with. Ultimately this would mean:

        1) More BAT lanes on Broadway.
        2) Bikes could use the BAT lanes safely (or use the general purpose lanes without worrying about the tracks).
        3) Bikes could also use the new bike lanes on 12th.

      2. I think Pine to Howell could fit center-running bus lanes with just paint (~2 blocks, remove the SB bus stop). It’s not much but it’d help the streetcar, 49, and 60 through one of the more congested parts of Broadway.

        Outside of that there might be a few other opportunities, but I’m not sure they’re worth it since they’d require some curb modifications and would only really affect the streetcar:
        – Seneca/Spring to Marion NB/SB (~2 blocks, SB GP traffic shifts to center, NP GP traffic shifts to east)
        – Yesler to Terrace NB (~4 blocks)

        Maybe if the 36-49 ever happens the streetcar tracks can get moved.

      3. Maybe just close it to cars. I don’t drive on Broadway anyway, if I can avoid it. I’m sure I’m not alone. And there are a ton of parallel streets.

        That would speed up the streetcar, right?

      4. I think there’s some parking lot entrances you have to maintain access to. Closing Broadway to thru traffic in cars would be nice, but I don’t know how to do that in a way that’s enforceable.

      5. @Ross

        It’d still work in other areas like broadway and union. And even for the ones where the right lane doesn’t continue like broadway and pike it could be a right turn only lane.

      6. “ Maybe just close it to cars. I don’t drive on Broadway anyway, if I can avoid it. I’m sure I’m not alone. And there are a ton of parallel streets.”

        South of Madison the City already closed the parallel streets to cars. 10th and 11th are now pedestrian streets through the Seattle University campus.

        I don’t think it’s possible to make on of them the bicycle track, is it? It would seem to me to be a much more pleasant ride between Madison and Cherry.

      7. Yeah, I am more familiar north of Madison. It might not work to close Broadway south of there, looking at the street grid. Then again, it would be a pretty nice campus feel, similar to UW, if they did. But yeah, I suppose hospitals need parking. Though probably not as much parking as they think they do. And improved transit speed and frequency would alleviate some of that need.

        I was reading some survey responses for Pierce County, and I was surprised to see health care access being up there as a strong need, when asked about transit prioritization.

      8. Note: Because the wording is easier I am going to use bus-based terms in this comment (e. g. “bus stop”) even when the streetcar uses the same stop.

        It’d still work in other areas like broadway and union.

        Here is the aerial view of Broadway and Union: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vavPpm8GkfPNvWJV8. Consider the area just south of Union (next to the crosswalk). From west to east (left to right) it is:

        1) Southbound lane (one lane).
        2) Northbound left turn lane.
        3) Northbound lane for going straight (also streetcar lane).
        4) Bus stop (an island platform).
        5) Bidirectional bike lane.

        Behind the bus stop are parked cars. You could get rid of that parking, but it wouldn’t do any good. There are some things that can be done, but they get complicated very quickly. For example, you could move the island bus stop into the left-turn lane. Then ban left turns there. This could work. The drawback, of course, is that only the streetcar could serve it. Buses couldn’t. Or at least regular buses couldn’t (we would have to buy buses with doors on both sides).

        Now consider what we could do if there were no tracks (if it was just buses). Instead of moving that bus stop to the left turn lane, move it to where the streetcar tracks are. Now regular buses (in their own transit lane) use the current left turn lane to serve that stop. After the stop the buses move back into the lane with the tracks. It is the same basic idea, but just a lot cheaper. You don’t need a special fleet of buses.

        Of course none of that actually helps southbound transit. Here is what it looks like going south (approaching the intersection): https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZN3gR3zLKSUbgM1L9. That leaves two lanes going south — one for for the streetcar and one for cars turning left. One way or another they have to squeeze into the one southbound lane (south of Union).

        Assuming we keep the bike lanes we basically have four lanes to work with. There are some options for this:

        1) Ban left turns and have cars drive in the middle lanes. The curbside lanes are BAT lanes.
        2) Make Broadway one-way for cars. Now you have three lanes to work with. The contraflow direction only has buses (with curbside stops). The other direction you have buses running in the middle of the street, changing lanes to serve the island bus stops.
        3) Have the middle two lanes be used for transit. This creates a choke point at the bus stops. When a bus is stopped at the bus stop, a bus going the other direction has to wait (even though it isn’t actually serving that stop). It is similar to single tracking in trains. You avoid all congestion except for that caused by buses going the other way.
        4) Move the bike lanes over to 12th. This would allow enough space for center running buses without the conflict mentioned in (3). Basically it is this: https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/segment3_busway.png?w=987&ssl=1 (except with fewer lanes for cars).

        All of these ideas could work with streetcars or buses. The difference is that all of them are much cheaper with buses. Every option would require moving the streetcar tracks. This is expensive. Furthermore, it is pretty easy to see us evolving the system. The simplest approach is that first one. It is not ideal. There would be plenty of cars turning right, and slowing the buses down. But it is still much better than what we have now. But I could also see us going from that to one of the other (better) options. It could evolve easily — at very little cost.

        Unfortunately that isn’t the case with the streetcar. It is a fundamental weakness in rail. It is “measure twice, cut once”. This goes for right-of-way as well as routing. You have to get it right, otherwise it costs a bundle to fix. In contrast improving buses (with better right-of-way or routing) is much cheaper.

      9. I don’t think banning cars on Broadway is realistic. Doing things like banning left turns or making it one-way seem plausible though. No matter what you do, improving it is much, much easier if you are dealing with just buses and not the streetcar tracks.

      10. “Maybe just close it to cars. I don’t drive on Broadway anyway, if I can avoid it. I’m sure I’m not alone.”

        “I don’t think banning cars on Broadway is realistic.”

        I’ve thought about this for a while and I think the best and most realistic place to close Broadway to cars would be between Pine and Denny (https://maps.app.goo.gl/KUxD3BApBAZzL66f7).

        The only driveway for this entire stretch that would lose access is the parking lot at 1843 Broadway. This lot is rarely used from my own experience and is directly adjacent to the entrance to Link, so it would be better off getting redeveloped anyways.

        This won’t do a ton in the way of reducing travel times for the buses and streetcar but it should reduce traffic by eliminating Broadway as a throughput and would greatly enhance the pedestrian environment outside of the link station. The businesses still retain their vehicle access via Nagle or Harvard and only ~30 ish on-street parking spaces are eliminated while no east-west vehicle access is lost, so I think it would be politically easier than to achieve than closing other parts of Broadway.

    4. I think the main problem with the streetcars is insufficient frequency.

      Sure, they can become a little more frequent with expensive street treatments, but the main barrier to reducing headway is insufficient fleet.

      I bet that is also one of the causes of the T Line having to significantly reduce its frequency.

      Of course, the fleet size might be limited by the streetcar barn sizes.

      I want the streetcars to survive. But I would be much more likely to ride them if one was waiting there or getting close when I get to the station.

      1. I think the main problem with the streetcars is insufficient frequency.

        Sure, but you could say that about almost any bus in our entire system (as well as Link). The First Hill line runs every 12 to 15 minutes, just like similar buses (like the 8). The fleet could support running 12 minutes all day, which is pretty good. Unlike some of our other routes (like the 8) I don’t think we can easily justify more service. If we had enough money I could see running the 8 every 7.5 minutes. I just don’t see that with the streetcar.

        I don’t think the route is that good. As Mike mentioned it doesn’t go very far north or very far south.

        But it isn’t the only transit on that route. In the case of Jackson there are plenty of other buses. In the case of Broadway there should be other buses. One option would be to straighten out the 60 (which already shares several stops). Have the 60 go straight up Broadway. That way the bus and the streetcar run on the same path north of Yesler. Try and time it so they run opposite each other. That would that trips along Broadway would have combined headways somewhere in the 6 to 7.5 minute range (a big improvement).

        As I wrote earlier I would take it a step further. Split the 60 into two routes at Beacon Hill. Call the southern section (Westwood Village to Beacon Hill the 60). Now take the northern section (Beacon Hill to First Hill) and combine it with the 49 (which means the 49 wouldn’t go downtown). That saves a huge amount of service, which goes into running the 49 as often as the streetcar (hopefully every 12 minutes). Riders at the north end of Capitol Hill get much better frequency. Riders along Broadway get much better frequency.

        But I still think the routing I mentioned up above is better. The streetcar basically just becomes a small piece of the 49. There are way more one-seat rides. The combined part of Broadway (with the really good frequency) is longer. It is basically the same idea, but just a bit better.

        Oh, and then there is the South Lake Union Streetcar. This is even worse. The route is now redundant. It is basically a subset of the C and 40. Running it more often would be waste. It would make way more sense to just extend the H to follow the same pathway as the C.

      2. T line seems to be doing fine, is 12 minutes during peak (6:30 AM to 8 PM weekdays and all day Saturday) and 20 minutes off peak (early morning amd late night) and Sunday. It’s also popular and well ridden. Only disappointment is that it’s not 10 minute frequency as promised. But in the end, it’s the most frequent route in Pierce atm. Even the 1, the busiest route for PT still has very inconsistent frequency. It’s not 15 minutes all day as it should be, but hoping the new county executive will work with PT to get improved frequency and to hopefully get a new tax levy proposed in the next couple of years.

    5. From earlier discussions I didn’t make myself as clear as I should about streetcar benefits and goals. I feel like we need to answer his question better: When is a streetcar a better investment value and strategy than using another technology?

      It’s easy to ask the question but answering it can be difficult. I’ll try …

      I would suggest that these settings are “streetcar eligible”:

      1. Exclusive lanes apart from cars unless it’s very low volume shared lanes.

      2. A corridor with daylong activity as opposed to peak hours. Things like colleges and medical facilities are seemingly the best — along with certain retail situations.

      3. A corridor with anchors that are at least 1/3 of a mile from a Link station. People will just walk if the distance is short.

      4. A corridor that can be operate at least as frequent as every 10 minutes through the day. ST Link and Metro RapidRide projects are de facto thought of in this way. A 20 or 30 minute frequency is terrible for attracting riders — making the cost of building rail and all the additional multiple feet of concrete underneath the street to keep the rail from sinking rather wasteful.

      *. I put an asterisk here for the “tourist” and “economic development” goal. It’s not required; it’s optional. However, if it is a goal of the line, the streetcar cannot be merely utilitarian. It cannot be something like “just another cup of coffee”. It has to be remarkable enough to attract tourists and real estate investment. It has to be reachable from hotels and convention centers/ high volume event spaces. For example, an open air streetcar in the summer would be a tourist attraction as would a narrated streetcar ride — but not a generic vehicle with seats inside that aren’t paired with another seat and dirty small windows and a driver that doesn’t speak. A streetcar would also need to have streetscape to make the ride entertaining as a visual experience. Consider this unrealistic example: What if Alki Ave/ Harbor Ave or Lake Washington Blvd were streetcar routes rather than streets? They would be so popular! I even rue that a streetcar along the waterfront wasn’t in the cards — as it would be so much better for tourists than First Ave is. Similarly if the Center City Connector had served the Convention Center directly and connected to hotels annd retail, and had tourist-oriented vehicles and drivers it could have really been amazing.

      Are there other key reasons that I’m missing? Did I state the right ones?

      1. I think that situations where a streetcar is better than a bus to be almost never. Really, the only theoretical advantage of a streetcar over a bus is capacity, although the way we implement it, we use tiny street cats and that don’t even beat buses in capacity.

        I don’t buy the “spurs development” argument. The number of people who ride the streetcar is just so tiny compared to the number of people who work in the area, it’s essentially meaningless.

        In the meantime, a streetcar has lots of disadvantages compared to a bus. Huge capital cost to build. Requires valuable downtown real estate to host a maintenance barn because you can’t deadhead streetcars on the freeway. A single car parked two inches over the line brings the entire streetcar system to a grind halt until the car gets towed. A streetcar can’t let people off 10 feet back of a stop when there’s cars in front of it, like a bus can. Extending or moving a streetcar route, even one block, costs an insane amount of money. And, for what? A streetcar is theoretically higher capacity than a bus. But, not our streetcars, and capacity only matters if you have to run it more often than every 5 minutes to prevent people from being left behind. Electrification is nice, but you can do that easily enough with a trolleybus. I suppose a streetcar is legitimately better for the disabled, with wheelchairs able to roll off and on on their own, but that hardly feels like a good enough justification for such high costs.

      2. The advantage of light rail is it’s faster than a local bus, and it’s high capacity. The advantage of buses is they’re relatively inexpensive so they can serve more areas for the same price. A streetcar is the worst of both worlds: not faster than a bus (and the SLU streetcar is slower than a bus), but more expensive to operate. Not all possible streetcars, but the kind of streetcar networks in Seattle and Portland. That’s where the benefits of tourism/economic development if any outweigh the transit benefits, because the transit benefits are minimal so it’s a low bar.

      3. I think focusing on the streetcar is the wrong thing.

        We should just focus on where can we build center median transit whether it s a streetcar or “real brt”

      4. I think you have the right idea Al, you need different numbers for that last point. A transition from a bus to a streetcar should happen when the buses are running very frequently. Just how frequently is ultimately a judgment call. Jarrett Walker suggests the “three-minute range” (https://humantransit.org/2009/07/streetcars-an-inconvenient-truth.html). That sounds about right. The more frequent you run transit the better. But there diminishing returns and increasing costs. Again, this is a judgement call, but it is relatively standard (around the world) to consider 5 to 6 minutes as “good enough”. Any lower than that and it isn’t worth it. Six minutes is typical for a stand-alone line, and five minutes when you it has a branch (so the branches have ten minutes) or you are trying to run a precise schedule. If you are running buses every four minutes (because of crowding) then it probably isn’t worth it, but at the same time it isn’t that bad. As you get to three minutes (and more frequent) it becomes too expensive. At that point it is probably worth spending a bunch of money so that you run transit less often (and save money on operations).

        There are no corridors in Seattle like that. The areas where we tend to have frequent transit are “spines” (https://humantransit.org/2018/09/dublin-what-is-a-spine.html). Buses from all over converge onto a street. Frequency on that street is really good, but each individual bus is not coming that often. You can replace a spine with a streetcar, but you gain very little (and lose a lot in rider convenience).

        The only corridor I know of that could easily be replaced by a streetcar is the 99-B Line in Vancouver. It carries a huge number of riders — and more importantly a huge number of riders per mile. But it won’t be replaced by a streetcar, it will be replaced by a metro.

        That is why Reece Martin called streetcars a “niche” mode. They make sense when a bus is inadequate and yet you don’t want to build a metro. This happens rarely. It happened in Paris though. That’s because Paris is, well, Paris. It is a hugely dense city with an outstanding metro and bus system. Even though the metro is great, sometimes the best option is surface transit. For at least one route, the bus is so busy that it made sense to replace with a streetcar. But Seattle isn’t Paris. We don’t have any corridors that are like that.

        The closest we have is probably the 7. But there are alternatives to building a streetcar. Sometimes the geography is such that you can create a spine along the corridor where it is busiest. That is true for the 7 (since other buses join it on Jackson). Another option is to run express buses when the bus is running extremely frequently (every 3 minutes). We have that — sort of — in the 9, but frankly, it isn’t really needed. The 7 isn’t running that often. None of our buses are. For a while they did — at least during peak — but since the pandemic I can’t think of a bus that runs more often then every six minutes (and the bus that is doing that is not dealing with capacity issues). A streetcar is a niche mode, and we don’t need it.

      5. Agreed there are a lot of issues with in street mixed running streetcars but many of the modern lines were also terribly designed. There is a place for Rapid Streetcar which is a smaller scale Light Rail. It functions a lot like Light Rail in that it has its own lanes and priority and can be linked together. T Line in Tacoma is an example (the 2002 portion). Also what’s proposed for the Belt Line in Atlanta. Its typically the more minimal construction of streetcars, and a better fit into the cityscape with less of the over engineering of LRT but then operated more like LRT with its own track/ROW and with stations.

        I do find modern streetcars slower than PCCs.

  10. The problem on Broadway is that we added a streetcar but didn’t give it enough resources to be the primary mode of transit in its area. Three things are missing: high frequency, transit-priority lanes, and going north-south beyond Denny Way and Jackson Street. So it functions as an add-on.

    1. Yes. And because it is a streetcar it is much more difficult to fix. Rerouting it — even just extending it a few blocks — is a pain in the ass. Something bigger (like what I proposed in my map) would be extremely expensive if it was a streetcar. The same is true for improving right-of-way. Sometimes you can add BAT lanes and not the track. But quite often you can’t.

      Consider the little improvement to the 8 on Denny, just west of Stewart (https://maps.app.goo.gl/1xoJpbkoV8AcTjwW9). No, it isn’t perfect, but it still improves things greatly. It also wasn’t that expensive. Some paint, some added curbs — that was it. Yet if it was a streetcar it would cost a fortune.

      Same goes for various projects. For example buses can now make a left turn from the right lane on Montlake Boulevard (https://maps.app.goo.gl/e2afHm1rL6uioCWV8). This is fairly new. Adding it was fairly cheap, but would have been really expensive if there was rail.

      This gets back to what I wrote up above. Rail is really a “measure twice, cut once” proposition. You can improve it, but it costs a fortune. You better get it right the first time. In contrast, improving bus service can be far more iterative. Mainly because the road exists already — might as well make it available for the buses.

    2. By add-on I mean the tracks and stations are added onto the street, and take space away from other potential improvements that might serve more people better. The add-ons would make sense if the streetcar really were the primary transit mode: if it had exclusive lanes like MLK, and if additional lines continued south to Mt Baker and north to Aloha (or if the Jackson Street segment were replaced with Rainier). But in its current state, the disruptiveness of the streetcar infrastructure is maybe disproportional to the benefit the streetcar provides. I could mention that the entire route has trolley wires, so a trolley bus could do it, using the existing bus stops and bus lanes. You’d lose the 14th detour and you’d have to truncate it at Intl Dist, but it could be done.

      1. I may be in the minority but I don’t see benefit in a streetcar extension to Aloha. There’s no anchor there. And it’s an easy walk to Link anywhere south of Mercer Street if not Roy Street (where commercial development and taller apartments stop).

        It always seemed to me that an extension north of Denny would do better if it turned east on John and end at the former streetcar loop at 15th and John next to Kaiser.

      2. I’ll add that another reasonable nearby northern extension destination for that streetcar is Volunteer Park, especially directly to the Asian Art Museum and Conservatory. Broadway/ Aloha is too far to serve those destinations well. A John/ 15th alignment would hit both Kaiser and the park attractions — and then the bus on 15th could be eliminated with those drivers on streetcars instead.

        And tying the Asian Art Museum at one end to the ID on the other seems a strategic cultural match.

  11. On the 1 line heading south from U District around the evening rush hour, trains were significantly delayed because of a combination of “signal issues” and yet another collision along MLK near Columbia City (at Dawson). I waited ~25 minutes for a train, but couldn’t squeeze on due to overcrowding, though I was able to get on the next train.

    On this next train, the entire elevated seating area next to the driver’s compartment in the first car was closed off with a chain and “area closed” sign — meaning, 16 seats plus standing area were off limits in a very crowded train. This was not due to biohazard or spill or anything — it seems to be at the driver’s discretion, presumably due to concerns about drug use. We switched drivers at the usual spot between SODO and Beacon Hill, and the new driver immediately opened up the closed seating area. It was quickly filled by people who had been crowded into the rest of the car.

    Everyone on the train respected the “area closed” sign, and that’s been true all the other times I’ve seen that area closed off unnecessarily. But at some point, people are going to get angry and just take the sign down and sit in the empty seats, particularly as ST continues to struggle with service reliability and train crowding. (As I write this, there’s just been another collision in the Rainier Valley and trains are again single-tracking). Does ST policy really allow drivers to close this seating area at their discretion? Even during rush hour? Is this just something we have to grin-and-bear as transit riders?

    1. I don’t hesitate to take small issues into my owns hands. I’ve removed barricades from functional elevators, taken down outdated signage that was misleading riders, used the call-box to inform the operator of a MAJOR biohazard in the car (it was so bad, everyone moved to the other side of the car)… and yes, I have taken down a closed sign from the upper section of a rail car (after close inspection of the area).

      I doubt if drivers are allowed to put up the closed sign to their discretion. I have a feeling it has to be a legitimate issue. But even it they’re allowed, it’s a poor policy and affects riders. And in your circumstance, I wouldn’t hesitate to take it down. I’m tired of Sound Transit’s deteriorating quality of service.

    2. That’s certainly an odd tidbit about the closed seating area. If it was a bio-hazard or an equipment problem , surely a cleaning or repair person would have removed the sign. Could it have simply been a mischievous stunt?

      Regardless, a 25 minute delay at a high demand hour is almost too long to treat nonchalantly. A more seasoned rail transit operation would have a few operations “fixes” that could be used.

      One thing that often frustrates me is that there are no “early” visual announcements announcing delays to a rider. (By “early” I am referring to an early point in time at which a rider first enters a station, especially before a rider taps on at the paid fare area boundary.) A rider has to be almost at the platform before they find out about a delay. It’s really frustrating after walking down about 45 or 50 steps to find out. Many times there could be a reasonable alternative nearby like a Metro bus route.

      Ideally, every station entrance should have an electronic sign announcing delays or disruptions at each station entrance. The sign can remain dark unless there is a problem — or it could be used to inform riders about the level of crowding on the train. It could be used to instead announce the next train arrival time — but that could backfire if a rider starts running down stairs — and trips and falls.

      1. If this were the first time I’d seen that seating area closed, I might have guessed it was a prank, mistake, or legitimate issue (spill, hazard) causing the closure. But I’ve seen this same thing at least 4-5 times now, going back a few months, and always in the same spot: first car, adjacent to the driver area. In each case, there has been no obvious reason for the closure. In two of those cases, I’ve seen one or more ST employees casually sitting (in hi-viz vests or uniforms) sitting in the “closed” area, strongly suggesting that it was simply the driver’s choice to close the seating area.

        Last night was the first time I’ve seen it happen in an overcrowded train, though. The previous train was so crowded that ~50 passengers were left on the platform, unable to squeeze on, and this next one was similarly crush-loaded by the time it got to Westlake. Those 16 seats plus standing area would have made a big difference — and did, just a few stops later.

    3. It’s a lot harder to build a rail system than to plan and find one. And it’s a lot harder to operate a rail system than it is to build it.

      For a few decades, many have basked in the visions of urban rail in Seattle. It has always been a great hope. It even brought many to STB to discuss the exciting system expansion!

      Well the days of visions have turned into daily reality. It’s never as alluring as renderings or diagrams — and never as alluring as unused stations and trains because they are new.

      Let’s hope that the ST Board realizes the need for a paradigm shift from planning a rail system to running one. After 2026, every expansion will impact only a small number of riders positively compared to in the past. Many more riders will be negatively affected by train delays and station vertical equipment failures.

      It’s like when we were children and got asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Followed by “what’s your major?” in college. Those have been and will always be more hopeful times. We have now reached the “how’s work going today?” stage.

      In years to come, even the content of STB posts themselves will move more into a discussion of operations and maintenance. It’s just what happens. Some people may even complain that STB has become “too negative” or “too unsupportive” from a few years ago — but what’s actually happened is that the hopefulness of dreaming has turned into drudgery of actually living out our dreams.

    4. Link has many more failures than peer systems. ST’s excuse for escalator and elevator closures is “every city has these”. Yes, they have closures, but not even a quarter as many, especially on recently-opened lines. Likewise, they don’t have “signal issues” and “mechanical issues” and single-tracking and frequency reductions almost every day. I’m not even talking about collisions, which are not solely ST’s fault, but in a way they are, because it’s the choice of surface alignment that enables the collisions.

  12. “Sara Nelson Warns She Can Kill Any Transit Project”

    If anyone has read the Urbanist article, I must concede that Nelson has a valid point. Though she may be anti-bus lane, her request for up-to-date traffic and ridership data is not without merit. Accurate data is the one determining factor by which projects are shaped. Bus lanes don’t always make a huge difference and sometimes can backfire. For example, the bus lanes added to First Hill and Cap Hill. I wonder if the G-Line is any faster than its predecessor route 12 (in those neighborhoods only). I’ve also noticed route 60 routinely becomes stuck on First Hill along with other traffic now that everyone has only a single lane to drive in. The 44 now has bus lanes along EB 45th st. Great! But now it routinely gets stuck at 45th & Roosevelt as cars try to funnel into a single general purpose lane.

    I believe we as transit nerds & advocates shouldn’t be more cautious of “transit improvements” and seriously consider their effectiveness.

    1. > Accurate data is the one determining factor by which projects are shaped. Bus lanes don’t always make a huge difference and sometimes can backfire.
      > I believe we as transit nerds & advocates shouldn’t be more cautious of “transit improvements” and seriously consider their effectiveness.

      SDOT and KCM already analyzes the street traffic impacts in very lengthly studies and traffic counts. If you want to read about it feel free to.

      In the cases where bus lanes don’t work they already don’t install them, sure in some rare cases it can backfire but adding bus lanes already has a very high barrier to implement. I’m not exactly sure what you asking for beyond what both departments already do.

      For example for sound transit there’s an appendix of nearly 200+ pages of every intersection impacted for the link alternatives.

      For route 40 if you want to read there’s again already nearly 60 page analysis of every single intersection analyzed along the route https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/TransitProgram/Route%2040%20TPMC/Appendix_B_Route_40_Transportation_Tech_Report.pdf

    2. I must concede that Nelson has a valid point.

      I disagree. All of this information is available. Hell, she can just walk over to Spotts’ office and discuss the details is she has trouble understanding it. This is just classic bureaucratic BS being thrown at the agency. Someone in the department will have to spend a lot of extra time presenting the information (that is already available) to the public in a different way. Why? To make a political point. Now Nelson can say that she has forced SDOT to do something they were doing already. No longer will the agency slow down our precious cars when it doesn’t actually help the buses.

      It is exactly this type of crap that makes it hard for public agencies to get things done. It is ironic that one of the more conservative members of the council is proposing exactly the type of thing that conservatives complain about. She is adding red tape when what we really need in this city is more red paint (in the form of bus lanes).

  13. Surprising Washington vote results. ($) Late vote counting reveals that Washington state moved right overall like most states. Some counties moved left, and they weren’t the typical ones. King, Snohomish, and Pierce Counties moves slightly right. The counties that moved left are most of the rest of Western Washington, and two rural counties in the far southeast corner. Clark County, which for many years has had loud right-wingers and tax avoiders (live in Washington, work and shop in Oregon), moved left, while its surrounding rural counties (Cowlitz and Skamania) moved right.

    1. Perhaps if we’d had a real primary, an effective Democratic challenger to Trump would have emerged, and the progressive left would have turned out to support a actually left-ish candidate instead of being expected to obediently support a “centrist” candidate as a vote against Trump for the third time. The data shows the youth (18-24) vote slacked, probably because they’ve only ever seen Trump-era politics and only ever seen Trump vs. some lame Democrat on the ballot.

      1. I don’t think nominating a leftist would have helped. Lots of people perceived Biden and Harris as too far left, very few refused to vote for Harris because she wasn’t left enough. There’s also a fundamental problem that the types of stuff that real leftists propose (e.g. Medicare for All) tend to be almost impossible to achieve, even with implausibly large congressional majorities. So, even if the leftist somehow does win, it just sets the stage for disappointed voters and broken promises later.

        Somehow, Democrats need to find somebody in 2028 that can sound exciting, yet propose ideas that are actually realistic and don’t cause people in the middle to freak out. Which is easier said than done.

      2. Mike Duggan… Democrat mayor of Detroit would be my pick. Detroit has done a remarkable transformation which he is largely responsible for (along with the Quicken Loans founder on the private side). IMO these are the kinds of people we need in government, those that have proven themselves at a lower level of government. Most of the politicians on both sides of the aisle are blowhards with nothing to show, just grandstanding on national issues.

      3. “… very few refused to vote for Harris because she wasn’t left enough. ”

        I think this is false. Harris was wishy-washy center-left, and didn’t make a strong stand for the Palestinians. I think Gaza was a very significant issue, and many moderately engaged or disengaged lefties simply stayed home. The numbers bare this out.

  14. What’s happening with the First Avenue streetcar? This article ($) says, “Last week the Seattle City Council voted 7-1 to abandon the proposed “center connector” project to extend the streetcar on First Avenue through downtown, connecting up with the more successful First Hill line. While council members stopped short of also pulling the plug on the lonely South Lake Union line, they signaled its end may be near.” But another article a couple days ago said that while there was a late amendment to cancel the CC plan, it failed. So which is it?

    1. The Seattle budget process has been remarkably chaotic and opaque, per Erica C. Barnett’s reporting: https://publicola.com/2024/11/18/last-minute-amendments-lack-of-transparency-characterize-new-councils-first-budget/

      With all the walked-on amendments and last-minute votes, budget-followers might be waiting a while until the actual final budget is published. Westneat is probably right that the CC is dead (or, at least, the City will spend zero $ on it over the next two years), but the City will continue to limp the SLU streetcar along until the next budget crisis forces more cuts.

    3. “the CC is dead (or, at least, the City will spend zero $ on it over the next two years)”

      Those are two different things. Dead means the city entirely cancels the CC plan, so that a future council would have to recreate it if they want it, not just add money to a dormant plan. It also sounds like a 3rd Avenue alternative is still a potential possibility. That gets at the issue too: it’s easier to redirect an existing CC project from 1st to 3rd (and take the federal grant with it), than to cancel the CC plan and then recreate it on 3rd.

      SLU sounds like the least important part of this. It would be nice to get rid of it, but if it continues operating for two years or more, that’s just continuing the status quo, not a worsening of the situation.

      There’s also the issue of how much the CC’s zombie status is blocking consideration of other transit improvements on 1st. Namely, repurposing the proposed center streetcar lanes for bus lanes.

      1. > Those are two different things. Dead means the city entirely cancels the CC plan, so that a future council would have to recreate it if they want it, not just add money to a dormant plan.

        It’s larger than that. The federal government will actually actually take the project off for CIG grants now. To restart it will be a bit harder than just seattle adding money into the dormant plan.

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