Transit & Streets:
- A First Look at Seattle Center Monorail Station’s Planned Access Upgrades (The Urbanist)
- Voters across America show support for more transportation options (Transportation for America)
- The lie that broke American transportation is breaking intercity bus service (The High Speed Rail Alliance).
- Greyhound bus stations are being replaced by curbside pickup in several cities, possibly including the Chicago hub. (Governing)
- Amtrak notches ridership and revenue record for fiscal 2024 (Trains Magazine)
Land Use & Housing:
- State Senate Taps Bateman for Housing Chair in Major Committee Shakeup (The Urbanist)
- The Case for Converting Vacant Offices to Congregate Housing (The Urbanist)
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- Will La Niña help produce snow in Seattle this winter? (The Seattle Times, $). Although last winter produced no snow days, this winter is looking more promising for fans of flurries. Prepare by reviewing Metro’s Emergency Snow Network, here.
- Editorial: King County Metro on right route to better transit fare enforcement (The Seattle Times, $); also free at Mass Transit Magazine.
This is an Open Thread.
Before Metro ramps up fare enforcement, it needs to clarify its fare policy. Since COVID, Metro has lost all control of whether or not riders are allowed to enter & pay through the rear door. Combined with:
1) Operators’ “no-fare-dispute” directive from the union.
2) non-Rapid riders seeing Rapid riders board through any door (so they think they can do it too)
3) ORCA readers installed at rear doors on non-Rapid routes
…all of the above has created a free-for-all when it comes to boarding at the front versus the back. Metro has not updated its policy about boarding which door to board and not all buses have rear-door ORCA readers.
1) I believe it is also Metro’s policy that operators not engage in fare disputes.
2) I’ve seen boarding riders directed to the back door to board many times when a slow alighting or boarding is taking place at the front door. The operators appear more concerned with efficient bus movement than with fare revenue. Which means 3) is a glass half full.
4) I look forward to $3 fares reducing fare collection costs (including dwell time), but until Metro goes cashless, there will continue to be ORCA-less riders boarding at the rear, with no fare box in which to deposit their fare, That goes especially for RapidRide, in which some operators only open the rear doors.
5) Operators who keep the front door closed may be doing so to protect their health.
1) Yes, I think that has been the case for a long time. Ultimately, the driver can only do so much. They aren’t going to stop the bus and kick the guy off (way too dangerous). They might radio someone, but that is too much trouble as well.
This is why agencies often see less fare evasion when they go with “proof of payment”. It is counter-intuitive. If the bus driver isn’t asking for fares then it seems like you can get away with not paying more often. But it is the opposite. In cities like San Fransisco they found that proof-of-payment led to fewer people cheating the system.
until Metro goes cashless, there will continue to be ORCA-less riders boarding at the rear, with no fare box in which to deposit their fare
My guess is there are very few people who do that. There is little reason to. The vast majority of people who board in the rear are people who regularly ride the bus (and thus know they can board in the rear). They either have ORCA cards or are just refusing to pay. I can’t imagine going to a different city and then getting on in the back and thinking “Huh, where do I pay?”.
Metro has been on the criminals side for a while now.
Metro going cashless would discourage the casual rider. The ones who do not ride often enough to justify an Orca. Getting an Orca should be free, and be more available to get in more places.
A friend told me their ORCA card was allowed to go into negative balance when tapping off from the train. You can do the math from there on how much the cards need to cost in order to not make them able to go into a larger negative balance than the cost of the card.
Hopefully casual riders will soon be able to open a card-free ORCA account on their smartphone, for free, and pay fare in some cheat-proof manner.
@Mathew P Renner,
“Metro going cashless would discourage the casual rider.”
Not necessarily. In New York you can just tap your credit card right on the turnstile. No Metro card, fancy cell phone, or MTA account required. Easy peasy.
@Lazarus if that was available here, you might be right. However, we don’t have that option.
How do European cities with cashless buses and visitors handle this?
The $5 ORCA fee was reduced to $3 to minimize the psychological deterrent. It’s not really a financial deterrent except for some homeless people who have only $5 or $10 at a time and the fee would be a big portion of their assets. The fee pays for itself after one transfer, and that will be more obvious when Metro, Link, and ST Express all converge on $3 fares, as they have all signaled intent to do and will probably complete within a year.
It will be when Metro finally gets rid of paper transfers that an ORCA card pays for itself within any two-part trip.
(frustrating) fun fact: you still get charged a $3 fee if you get a brand new ORCA card entirely through Google wallet.
RE Greyhound stations:
1. Airports are usually owned by public entities. So are many rail transit stations. Interstate highways routinely have welcome centers and manned rest areas at the public expense. Why would we expect intercity bus stations to be privately owned?
I’m actually surprised that intercity rail agencies or local public transit agencies have not developed arrangements with intercity bus companies. It can add local transit ridership.
I get the bus station loitering is also a security issue. It may be that the way that the stations intake riders may need revisiting too. But pushing riders to wait on the sidewalk due to lack of public agency responsiveness is pretty mean and — given how other travel modes don’t encounter this — it’s biased too.
Many cities have multimodal train/bus terminals. Portland and most of the stations on Amtrak Cascades in Washington do. Spokane does too if I remember. This is mainly for cities that don’t. Those cities may see intercity transit as unnecessary or not appropriate for government involvement. Greyhound’s own corporate instability is a large part of it. But that instability is partly because governments have been indifferent transit for decades so it’s hard environment to do business in. We’re lucky Greyhound has survived for so long; it’s kind of surprising.
Seattle offered Greyhound space in the King Street Station renovation but Greyhound declined. It said it wanted to remain at its existing terminal on Stewart Street. A couple years after that the lot was sold and Greyhound had to move. It opened a small station a block east of Stadium Link station. So at least it’s on Link, and one station away from Amtrak. It actually has better transit access than it had on Stewart and the location is easier to explain to visitors. I used to arrive in Seattle and fellow passengers would ask how to get to Amtrak or the airport or Link, and I struggled to explain.
I’ve rode from New York to San Francisco on Greyhound in the 2000s. Two buses traveled together once a day to St Louis or so, then one continued to Los Angeles and the other to San Francisco. I was stunned that in a country of 300 million people, the governments and Greyhound think only 100 people travel across the middle of the country each day. The number would be much higher if we had better transit. Because it’s not just people traveling from coast to coast; it’s also people traveling between Chicago, St Louis, Kansas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Reno, etc.
One of my favorite aviation YouTubers took a Greyhound bus from New York to Los Angeles last year. He captured a very raw and first hand look at how interested bus service is neglected and how riders are treated like convicts.
https://youtu.be/z8QGTaGwxxc?si=t8IpEohw1tDylPXz
I’m pretty sure internal operations at Greyhound is pretty bad as well.
If I were taking a bus to Portland or Vancouver, I would personally rather pay less on the fare and get curbside service than pay more for a fancy station. It’s a bus, not an airline, so there’s no need to arrive more than about 15 minutes before departure. You don’t need a fancy station to wait 15 minutes.
It is pretty common to make transfers on Greyhound that require a lot of waiting. I’ll admit I haven’t take Greyhound in years, but I definitely appreciated being out of the cold and being able to buy a snack from the vending machine.
Greyhound stations aren’t fancy. The new ones just aren’t seedily run down like the decaying ones. Cleanliness is an important factor to some passengers, so the new or renovated stations may increase ticket sales. In any case, Seattle’s recent Greyhound station is a small hole-in-the-wall in the relatively low-cost industrial district. It’s hardly a major factor in fares.
October 2024 Link ridership data is posted.
Interesting. The total for October is notably higher — but it looks like it could be mainly a college student effect. Of course student riders board at other stations too.
2 Line and Lynnwood Link station boardings aren’t growing. In particular, I thought the restructures from mid-September would have a bigger impact like Swift at Shoreline North. But generally the first few months of a station opening should show consistent growth and I’m not seeing it — and this is just month 2 for Lynnwood Link stations.
105,000 average boardings per day comfortably sets a new record. That’s awesome!
To be fair, it’s 25% more riders than 2019 — but with 100% more stations and track.
For just 1 Line, it’s 47% more stations and 19% more riders since 2019.
In other words Link productivity is significantly dropping as ST opens new stations even though total ridership grows.
And ST predicted at least 47K average weekday riders by 2026 on the Lynnwood Link segment. It appears to be at only 16K (8K boardings x 2 for those getting off the train) with many merely shifting from Northgate station. I don’t see it tripling in 18 months — and even doubling would be surprising. It should grow more as 2 Line opening will add more service to Lynnwood Link and the Eastside will become a direct one-seat service on Link, but I’m hard pressed to think it will actually double the number of current boardings.
Yeah, ridership per mile is going down, despite the addition of new stations. Transit in the area just hasn’t recovered from the pandemic. Northgate Link was a huge addition. It included U-District Station — a station that we should have started with (i. e. U-District to downtown). Yet despite that station — and two others with very good ridership — the overall ridership is still not that high. From what I can tell, only three stations have ridership higher than before the pandemic: Capitol Hill, Tukwila, SeaTac and Angle Lake. Obviously Capitol Hill saw a big increase with Northgate Link. SeaTac is as good as its every been (it is even higher than it was before Angle Lake) and much of that has to be due to increased air traffic. But I don’t get Angle Lake and Tukwila.
The total for October is notably higher — but it looks like it could be mainly a college student effect.
The same is true of just about any bus that serves the UW. For example the 45, 65, and 67 are way up, and I figured that was due to the restructure. But the 44 and 75 are also way up, and it didn’t change (nor did any of the buses around it). Overall October was a very good month for Metro — highest ridership for the year. Second highest was in May. This suggests a gradual increase in overall transit ridership combined with a strong college-student effect.
Al, this is exactly what all of us, you included, have been predicting: the farther the system moves into the boondocks, the lower its productivity will fall and higher its operational deficit will grow. A bus-only ramp at the new SR509 interchange with I-5 leading to bus-only on- and off-ramps at 26th could have completely replaced the south leg of ST3, including the previously deferred extension to Highline. It would have saved four or five billion spent on the extension to Federal Way will end up costing after the high-tech Bridge-Too-Far over Gruesome Gulch is factored in.
Or, if ST wanted to “meet the promises” of ST2, they could have built to Highline where a slightly widened I-5 south of K-DM Road would have allowed center-lane bus-only ramps to a new bus-only bridge at 240th.
Every mile south of whichever station would have become the permanent-at-least-until-2070 terminal station is just saddling ST with ever-ballooning operational costs in perpetuity. S-T-U-P-I-D!
Lynnwood Link has apparently “topped out”, with just about the same ridership that took ST’s and CT’s expresses. Yes, there’s more opportunity for in-fill growth up that way, because it is a lot closer to downtown Seattle and the U-District than the hinterlands south of Sea-Tac. There is certainly no reason to preserve the cottages surrounding North and South Shoreline and Pinehurst/130th. Their owners will be abundantly rewarded for moving somewhere else, probably generously enough that they’ll quickly forget about how charming the 24 hour roar of the freeway was.
So Lynnwood Link has at least a bit of a chance for future growth.
That said, NO MORE TO THE NORTH either! Well, maybe a single station extension to Alderwood Mall the better to serve actual downtown Lynnwood.
“It would have saved the four or five billion that the extension to Federal Way…”
Changed horses in the middle of the stream but didn’t check the saddle….
“Lynnwood Link has apparently “topped out”, with just about the same ridership that took ST’s and CT’s expresses.”
It can’t have because the full 2 Line hasn’t started yet, Amazon’s stricter office mandate doesn’t start until January, more companies will probably increase office mandates over the next year, Community Transit’s service increases will kick in next year, the population continues increasing every year (especially in Snohomish and Pierce Counties due to lower housing prices), and it takes months or years for people to one by one try new transit service or move to where they can use the service.
Lynnwood Link ridership appears stable from last month. Weekday numbers: Northgate down from 8k to 3.5k, both Shoreline stations + MLT about 1k each, Lynnwood about 4k. In total, 2.5k new daily riders from Lynnwood Link. Isn’t that quite bad? That’s less than half the ridership of ELSL. (And I think ELSL riders are legitimately new, since RR B ridership is the same now as last year.)
From last month, an increase of 8k daily weekday riders overall, mostly from previously existing stations. With UW back in school, Capitol Hill/UW/U District all gained about 25% ridership, totalling about 5k.
As a side note, I overheard a conversation on an inbound train from Lynnwood last weekend:
“Man, they really a good job with this train, I’m really impressed.”
– “Now they just gotta start building bigger parking garages.”
– laughs in agreement
With about 2k parking spaces at Lynnwood and reports that they get full, this means at least half the weekday riders are driving and parking at the station (more if some of these drivers are carpooling). Likely even more are getting dropped off.
In total, 2.5k new daily riders from Lynnwood Link. Isn’t that quite bad?
It is not too different than what I expected. I think there are several factors:
1) People who park and ride largely just switched their parking spot.
2) A lot of the buses were already truncated. This includes the all-day 512, but also the 800 series from Community Transit (that went from serving UW to Northgate) and various Metro buses.
3) Not that many people rode the 400-series buses from CT (not since the pandemic). This is likely the biggest source of new ridership, but it still doesn’t add up to too many people.
4) The various improvements were enough to account for a decent increase in ridership for the area but not that many riders overall. The buses in Shoreline and Snohomish never served that many people. Now Link (which only serves a subset of those riders) is only going to get that many riders. It is quite possible that overall transit ridership in the area went from 20,000 to 22,000 — a big increase. But it still isn’t that many people.
In contrast, consider Northgate to downtown. If those buses carried 50,000 people (which sounds about right) then a similar increase resulted in a lot more new transit riders (as well as lot more people switching from the bus to the train).
The great mystery to me is how Lynnwood Link is supposedly suffering from overcrowding in North Seattle with a daily one-way system increase of 2.5K south of Northgate. I realize that they may mostly be getting on the same trains between 7:15 and 8:45 and leaving between 4:30 and 6:00 pm — but with 11 trains over 88 minutes and assuming that a big 2/3 of daily riders it’s just 150 riders more per train — or less than one train car.
The crowding reports and the daily boardings seem telling different stories.
@Al S,
“ The great mystery to me is how Lynnwood Link is supposedly suffering from overcrowding in North Seattle with a daily one-way system increase of 2.5K south of Northgate.”
Peak crowding was always expected to occur in the vicinity of Cap Hill Station, so look there first.
With the opening of LLE the number of boardings at CHS has increased 45%. (Oct 24 vs Aug 24). That is a lot, and it has led to crowding. And this is a location that was never served well by buses from North King or SnoCo, so the boost in ridership is purely from increased LR usage.
Additionally, the entire Link system has seen ridership increase by over 15k daily riders, or about 18%, compared to pre LLE. That also is a lot.
And those are new riders to the Link system. There are also some riders who are now transferring from bus to Link at locations farther north in the system. These riders don’t show up as increased ridership, but they are surely taking up a seat and adding to the crowding issue further north on the system. Because it’s not just the number of boardings that contributes to crowding, but also how long a given passenger is onboard and taking up space.
It’s the old “passenger miles vs passengers” thing.
And if you still find the data hard to believe, just go check out some of our urban stations during the AM or PM peak, Tue-Thur. Check it with your own eyes. Crowding is real.
Re: Crowding. 4th car is generally not crowded. If you happen to be riding on a game day, often quite crowded. Where and when matters if you are citing anecdotes.
@Leslie Basel,
“4th car is generally not crowded.”
Yep, that is a pro tip.
The 4th car is usually the least crowded, and that is where I prefer to board. Although I will often stand on the platform at the barrier between the 3rd and 4th cars. That way I can board either depending on circumstances.
People will get better with time, but after 50+ years of board at the front with Metro, it will take time.
Old habits die hard.
4th car is generally not crowded
This is one of the reasons why open gangways are so much better. If a car is crowded you just walk to the next one. So not only do you have better overall capacity, but you are able to handle crowding a lot better.
The great mystery to me is how Lynnwood Link is supposedly suffering from overcrowding in North Seattle with a daily one-way system increase of 2.5K south of Northgate.
Lynnwood Link stations are probably very peak oriented. It is fairly common to have commuter-oriented systems with relatively low overall ridership, but huge crowds during the times they operate. This is why commuter trains are so long, but commuter trains never carry as many people as the transit that runs all day inside the city.
“The 4th car is usually the least crowded”
You still have to stand peak hours and often midday. I board the 4th car when I can because it’s the closest to most of my exits or bus transfers, so I experience it .
I find it hard to believe Lynnwood Link has less than half the ridership of the ELSL, so there may be a mistake in the data or its interpretation. Every time I’ve ridden the ELSL — including peak hours — there are never more than five or ten people in my car, and I travel from end to end. Lynnwood’s P&R gets so full people are complaining they can’t get a space, so that’s more than ten people.
“I find it hard to believe Lynnwood Link has less than half the ridership of the ELSL, so there may be a mistake in the data or its interpretation. Every time I’ve ridden the ELSL — including peak hours — there are never more than five or ten people in my car, and I travel from end to end. Lynnwood’s P&R gets so full people are complaining they can’t get a space, so that’s more than ten people.”
You may be right, Mike. I could see extreme peak demand for Lynnwood and modest peak demand for ELSL — but like you the observations and the ridership data aren’t telling the same story. I’m wondering what is the root of the discrepancy.
Lazarus suggested that the overcrowding is from Capitol Hill south. But others have reported overcrowding at Roosevelt. Of course, crowding is a bit subjective.
Since I live south of Downtown I have no personal observations to explain the situation. But the average weekday data and crowding reports aren’t lining up — even assuming pronounced peak demand for Lynnwood.
The reason people are accustomed to standing near the front three cars is because they frequently see no fourth car on the train.
If ST were to stick with four-car trains, the crowds would spread out better. I understand that the rolling stock limitations on the 1 Line might be forcing some 3-car trains, for the time being.
This has nothing to do with boarding (all, including ST Express) buses at the front door.
@Mike Orr,
“ I find it hard to believe Lynnwood Link has less than half the ridership of the ELSL, so there may be a mistake in the data or its interpretation.”
It’s not true. And it’s not a data mistake, or a misinterpretation. At least not an unintentional misinterpretation.
In rough numbers, LCC is getting 4K boardings per day just by itself. And each of the new LLE stations south of there are getting roughly 1k. That is ~8k total boardings at LLE stations, which is already about 50% higher than what the entire ELSL gets.
And those 8k passengers that board at LLE stations usually board later in the day to return. So the actual number of added boardings due to LLE should be around 16k, which agrees fairly well with the 15.5k that the data shows we are actually seeing.
So the 2.5k number just isn’t true.
And I only use CHS as an example because that is approximately the area where peak crowding is expected to occur. When LLE opened boardings at CHS jumped by approx 3k, or 40%. That is about 50% of the total ELSL boardings at just one station!
So clearly the 2.5k number is wrong. But hey, I guess the mode wars never end.
My recommendation? Stick to real data when discussing transit.
The reason people are accustomed to standing near the front three cars is because they frequently see no fourth car on the train.
Yes. The crowding is caused by the extended service area of Link along with more people riding during peak. They just don’t have enough trains. They will have plenty more when it connects to the East Side.
So the 2.5k number just isn’t true.
The 2.5k number is the net increase in boardings north of Roosevelt. So basically the five stations (Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, 185th, 145th and Northgate) in October versus the one station (Northgate) in August. These are the numbers I get:
Northgate in August: 8,034
All five stations combined in October: 10,521
That works out to a bit less than 2,500 new riders. But you are correct, we need to count the round trip. Some of those riders are already counted (e. g. a trip from Northgate to Lynnwood and back would be counted both ways) but it is fair to say that most are not. So just double the number and we get 5,000 new boardings north of Roosevelt. East Link had about 5,600 riders last month.
Any other increase in Link ridership is clearly independent of Lynnwood Link. This is good, and consistent with the increase in transit ridership on Metro as well. October is just a better month than August (and transit ridership in general for the region is slowing increasing).
Thanks for explaining the 2.5K Ross. Most of us understand that many riders aren’t new but are instead boarding at one of the new stations.
And of course it assumes that no one gets off the train southbound north of Roosevelt. So the 2.5K train load increase may actually be too high by a tad because a few riders do.
The Sounder data are also out for October. Both lines are down 60%. Was there some sort of service problem or is the posted data wrong?
If that data is accurate, the North line really should be axed and the resources shifted elsewhere. Basically we’re spending millions on a handful of waterfront communities who may or may not need to commute to the office Monday through Friday. I will admit however that special game service blows ridership numbers out of the water.
It looks like a data error to me. I don’t think there was anything that would account for that much of a decrease.
@Jordan — I don’t think the data is accurate for October. But I think it is correct for September, and your point stands. It would be cheaper to run a bunch of express buses instead.
One of the more interesting things: Capitol Hill ridership is much higher than before. The change isn’t just seasonal either. It is the highest it has been all year by a big margin. (In contrast the UW/U-District stations saw a big jump but they are roughly the same as April/May). What could account for the big increase?
Maybe the restructure. I haven’t done a detailed analysis yet, but most of the buses in the area I’ve spot checked have seen a decrease in ridership. It is possible that people are basically rejecting the infrequent options for going downtown. If they are close to CHS, they walk to it. If they are close to the G, they use that. But they aren’t taking the 10, 12 or 49 to downtown unless they are on the combined section (at Pike/Pine). So fewer people are taking the bus to downtown, but more are taking Link. Or is there some other reason?
Capitol Hill Station is getting riders in both directions. Service to downtown hasn’t changed, but Northgate Link and Lynnwood Link dramatically improve access to the north, so that attracts riders. And people from elsewhere have always come to Capitol Hill for the college, shopping, and cultural activities. Now it’s easier to get there from Lynnwood and Shoreline, so people do.
Bus service is more frequent on Pine Street and the 60 and Summit, but less frequent on 10th, 15th, and 19th, and John. The 3, 10, 11, 12, 43, and 49 are now more competitive from downtown to Broadway, and the 10 and 12 to Trader Joe’s, so that may lose some Link riders. Coming back from Broadway only the 10, 12, and 49 converge, so the effect is less, but still more than it was before the restructure. But if you’re going to their tails, each route has dropped from 15 to 20 minutes, so that may make you take Link and walk, if it’s not too far or steep to walk. To get to Trader Joe’s from downtown or the south, I used to take Link to Capitol Hill and the 8 or 10 up to 15th because the 11 on Pine ran only every 20-30 minutes. But now that Pine is more frequent and John is less frequent and the G is a third alternative, I take the 10/12 from Westlake or the G from Symphony. I haven’t been on the 11 east of Bellevue Ave since it moved, because of having to wait 20 minutes for it and no bus shelter. I will take the 11 when I eventually go to the Arboretum and Madison Park. But the G is now an alternative to the Arbretum if you walk 7 minutes uphill to Madison (which may be preferable to standing for 20 minutes), and then walk the one more bus stop beyond the eastern terminus. And all these bus routes are unreliable since 2021, so the “20 minutes” may actually be 30 minutes. So the 11 may have lost people except those going to Madison Park. But I don’t know what the numbers are.
The most interesting thing is the 49 was positioned as the most frequent route on Capitol Hill and always articulated, but now it’s downgraded to a single bus. So I suspect it has lost a lot of riders.
They finally updated the data on the Transit Recovery website. Unfortunately it is only snapshot, and they choose September of 2024 as the data for their update.
ST shows as providing 115% of pre-pandemic service levels, with ridership at 109% of pre-pandemic levels. But again, this is Sept 2024 data. So LLE shows as increased service, but the ridership patterns still hadn’t developed since the service was barely a month old and the bus restructures were only in place for half the month. So the data doesn’t tell a complete story for ST, but service and ridership are still nearly in balance. That is good.
For KCM the data shows that Metro is still having trouble. Service levels are at 99% of pre-pandemic levels, but ridership is only at 71%. This explains a lot in-regards to Metro’s low farebox recovery rate (~8%) and looming fiscal cliff. Most agencies have right sized. Metro? Not so much, and it shows in the data.
The monorail really shines though! 109% of pre-pandemic service levels with 202% of pre-pandemic ridership. Thank you Kraken!
Now bring on those $4 fares.
“This explains a lot in-regards to Metro’s low farebox recovery rate (~8%) and looming fiscal cliff. Most agencies have right sized. Metro?”
What is the right size? Ridership and farebox recovery aren’t the only factors. It needs to be frequent enough to be usable. Reducing 15 minute service to 30 minutes, or 30 to 60, just drives riders away.
If Metro doesn’t have money to operate full service, it will have to cut. But that has nothing to do with what its service level should be, or the sweet spot for maximum ridership and farebox recovery.
@Mike Orr,
“What is the right size?”
I’d say that if Metro is running 99% of their pre-pandemic service, but is only getting 71% of the ridership, then clearly Metro hasn’t found the “right size” yet.
Heck, even Spokane is doing better. They are running 113% of pre-pandemic service with 105% of the ridership. That is pretty good.
Everett Transit is running 105% of pre-pandemic service, but getting 123% of the ridership. That’s even better!
Metro could certainly reduce frequency slightly on their higher frequency routes to bring service levels more in-line with ridership. And dialing back frequency slightly wouldn’t create new coverage holes or equity issues.
So the big question remains, why isn’t Metro doing more to right size?
I’d say that if Metro is running 99% of their pre-pandemic service, but is only getting 71% of the ridership, then clearly Metro hasn’t found the “right size” yet.
I don’t want to be rude here, but it is clear that you know nothing about transit. If you reduce service then ridership would go down further. This is what is known as the “transit death spiral”. Service goes down because the agency has less money to spend on transit. Ridership goes down even more because service is worse. Round and round it goes.
Metro could certainly reduce frequency slightly on their higher frequency routes to bring service levels more in-line with ridership. And dialing back frequency slightly wouldn’t create new coverage holes or equity issues.
No, but it would reduce ridership. The buses that run most often are the ones that are most cost effective. The coverage buses — the buses with very few riders per service hour — are the ones that run less often. If you wanted to improve fare recovery you would cut a lot of the infrequent buses and then put that money into running frequent buses more frequently. Again, this is just basic stuff. I suggest you read Human Transit (the book). This is a good primer on this particular subject (https://humantransit.org/2018/02/basics-the-ridership-coverage-tradeoff.html) but the book goes into more detail and covers a lot more subjects.
You are ignoring the elephant in the room: Link. Link had a huge expansion during the pandemic. They added three of the most important stations in our system. Metro immediately truncated all but a handful of buses from the north end. Riders used to take buses like the 41 to downtown. Now they can’t. They take Link instead. Some of those riders just transfer, but some of the riders who used to walk to the bus now just walk to the train. If you include both Link and Metro then ridership is still not great, but it isn’t that bad either.
But if any agency should consider scaling down, it is Sound Transit. Ridership of Link is not nearly what you would expect given the enormous (and expensive) additions. Most transit stations are well below their 2019 levels, despite connecting to way more places. So far, Lynnwood Link has resulted in a tiny increase in ridership (roughly 2,500). If you are measuring things relative to before the pandemic then ST has fallen well short.
Which doesn’t mean they run the trains less often. Far from it. It suggests that after East Link and Federal Way Link are done, we should focus on improving what we have, instead of endlessly extending it. The trains will run more frequently with East Link, but they should run them every 7.5 minutes all-day long (especially since ridership is way more all-day oriented). ST could help subsidize Metro service where it would lead to the most new riders — in the city. Clearly the buses in Seattle are still underfunded. For example the 62 is doing well — last month it had the highest ridership since the pandemic last month. A huge portion of its riders take the bus to the Roosevelt Station. Yet it still only runs every fifteen minutes. The lack of funding for Metro buses — especially in Seattle — may be playing a part in the relatively low ridership of Link. If ST would focus on what they have — or at least what they will have in a couple years — instead of what they might be able to build twenty years ago, they could help create a transit system that is a lot more cost effective (and benefits a lot more people).
Anecdotally, I’ve been riding the 255 a lot less into Seattle since they cut back on evening frequency from 15 minutes to 30. It may make the bean counters happy, but 30-minute service is pretty terrible for riders, especially since many of them are connecting to other services, rather than riding one bus all the way.
The bus does a great job of bypassing congestion on 520 during rush hour. But, it’s not much good if every minute the bus saves you save sitting in traffic is replaced by double or triple that time waiting at the bus stop for the evening return trip.
“I’d say that if Metro is running 99% of their pre-pandemic service, but is only getting 71% of the ridership, then clearly Metro hasn’t found the “right size” yet.”
What makes you think the pre-pandemic service/ridership ratio is the best and what we should aim for?
@Mike Orr,
“ What makes you think the pre-pandemic service/ridership ratio is the best and what we should aim for?”
In rough numbers, the pre-pandemic version of Metro had 40% higher ridership, triple the farebox recovery ratio, and wasn’t facing a financial cliff. In my mind those are all good things.
One can argue all day about what exactly the precise numbers should be, but clearly the current situation isn’t it. And I can’t imagine anyone arguing that the current situation with Metro is better. It just isn’t.
Maybe Metro should consider a leadership change. You know, hire away some of the key staff and/or C-suite people from the Spokane and/or Everett transit agencies. It couldn’t hurt.
Both in 2019 and now Metro is running less service than its own performance metrics say it should — in other words it’s underserving several corridors. So it should at least fill out the underservice. Metro is also losing money to congestion, as buses get off-schedule and that drives passengers away. So it needs some hours to improve reliability as it succeeded in doing in the mid 2010s (and then lost it in 2022 as congestion returned but resources were more limited). Seattle and other cities should also make more transit-priority lanes — then Metro would get more reliability and frequency for free because buses could sail past the congestion.
Just noting that most of the Lynnwood Link riders are boarding outside of Metro territory in Snohomish County. And many of those were on CT and ST Express buses before LLE opened, with some on even more buses running before NLE opened in 2021.
Service levels are at 99% of pre-pandemic levels, but ridership is only at 71%.
This is a problem for Sound Transit as well. Massive increases in infrastructure have resulted in a minimal increase in ridership. Only a handful of stations are even equal to what they were before the pandemic, despite serving more places. For example the four downtown stations carried 19,850 people last month. In October of 2019 they carried 32,500. That is a huge decrease despite the huge improvements to Link. This includes U-District — and essential station that forms the core of our system. It also includes Northgate Station, replacing a bus that used to carry over 10,000 riders a day to downtown. Those riders no longer have a choice — the only way to take transit downtown is via Link. And despite that, Link ridership downtown is way down.
I’m not sure where you are getting your data about service levels. Service in Seattle (on the buses) is down from before the pandemic (due to less funding). I also don’t know why you are obsessed with fare recovery. The only agency in the region that does well with farebox recovery is the monorail. This is because it is so short and so urban. If Link had done the same sort of thing (built a standard subway system with lots of stops in the city instead of one that goes so far outside it) then recovery would be much higher. I don’t know why you want to see fares on the buses (or Link) going up to $4.00. That seems excessive for the amount of money it would raise (relatively little).
That’s unsurprising, because most metro areas in the US have had similar ridership recoveries to about two-thirds of 2019 levels. Including NYC, Chicago, Washington DC, etc. Seattle has recovered about the same as the mean of the major cities. Some have done better (like Miami), others have done worse (like Phoenix).
@Susan — Do you have a source for that? I seem to remember a website that listed various agencies and their ridership/service levels since 2019. I can’t seem to find that now. There is this (https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/APTA-POLICY-BRIEF-Transit-Ridership-04.01.2024.pdf) which shows overall levels at around 79% of what they were (confirming what you wrote). It is a little higher for some modes (with commuter rail suffering the most).
I thought DC recovered better than most (https://www.vox.com/cities-and-urbanism/24125535/dc-metro-transit-wmata-urbanism-cities-commuting). I think part of this is that the system was in dire need of repair before the pandemic. Ridership had dropped as problems mounted and frequency (on buses and rail) was poor. Ridership recovered quickly as things improved.
Seattle is in a weird state. The subway system (Link) has gotten much better. But the bus system is underfunded (at least in areas like Seattle, which account for most of the ridership). Overall I guess transit is a bit better, but it really depends on where you are and where you are going.
@Susan Milankovich,
“because most metro areas in the US have had similar ridership recoveries to about two-thirds of 2019 levels. Including NYC, Chicago, Washington DC, etc”
Metro shouldn’t be aiming to be just as good as the worst systems nationally. That is a pretty low bar, and we really need to do better.
And the cities you cite all have large rail components, so have different economics than 100% bus systems.
With rail systems like the ones you cite there is little incentive to reduce train size. Running a 10-car train vs a 9-car doesn’t cost that much more, so the tendency is often to run them as-is with overcapacity. There just isn’t much of a financial penalty for doing so, and it is operationally simpler.
But bus systems are different. With one operator for every individual bus, the economics of running nearly empty buses become very dire. And that is what is happening at Metro with their ~8% farebox recovery and looming financial cliff.
But comparing nationally can be misleading anyhow. It is far better to compare locally because the local conditions are similar. And when comparing Metro to other local transit agencies, Metro is clearly an outlier.
Everett Transit has 105% of pre-pandemic service levels, but 123% of pre-pandemic ridership. That is good.
And Pierce Transit is even more interesting. They have cut service levels by 15%, but ridership recovery is still 20% higher than Metro’s. More power to them.
Metro shouldn’t be aiming to be just as good as the worst systems nationally.
You are misrepresenting what she wrote. She wrote “most” systems. That clearly is not worst. Your comment reads like a reverse Lake Wobegon (where all the children are below average).
She did mention a few examples, but they are the best transit systems in the country (not the worst). New York has clearly the best system. DC has recovered better than most and probably has the second best system right now. Chicago is top ten. If you think those are the worst transit systems in America you know little about transit.
And the cities you cite all have large rail components, so have different economics than 100% bus systems.
You are saying that Link is completely irrelevant to Metro? Seriously? That is absurd.
Holy cow, you realize that a lot of very cost-effective routes that carried a lot of people are no longer running and those riders have to take Link. You can’t take the 41 from Northgate to downtown, no matter how much you want to. Of course this effects the ridership of both agencies. Link expansion has been great, but of course they poached many of the high-ridership routes for Metro.
This is why it is best if you look at the overall picture: Total Metro and ST ridership. (You can add in the other agencies, but ridership is so small it doesn’t really matter.) Metro does that exact thing on their system dashboard. For whatever reason they haven’t updated the numbers from ST, but it isn’t hard to do the math.
Metro hit a yearly high last month. So did Link. Together they have about 400,000 riders. That is still down from the pre-pandemic levels, but not that much below those levels. The problem is as much ST as it is Metro. Ridership on most of the existing Link stations is still down, despite taking over the bus routes from Metro (like the 41). ST was poorly designed — adhering to a bizarre mission (the spine) while ignoring both the bus system and the urban framework. This has hurt the entire transit system (buses and trains). But it is not terrible — it certainly isn’t the worst one in America. It is basically average (for America). But it is nothing like what they would build in Europe (or Canada for that matter).
Of course the bus system could be better, but the train system could be a lot better as well. The difference is that it is a lot easier to fix the bus system. The biggest problem — by far — is just lack of service. Buses aren’t running as often as they were before the pandemic. (I don’t know why you think they are back to normal). Some of this is the driver shortage, but some of it the lack of funding (that went way down in Seattle). Buses aren’t running as often, so of course this effected ridership. But your answer is to … run them less often?
But some of this is obviously caused by the lingering effect of the pandemic (i. e. people still working from home). It is hard to see any other explanation for the fact that the downtown Link stations have lower numbers than 2019, despite the massive expansion to the north. But this is common, which is what Susan was getting it. We are average.
Should we be better than average? Sure. I have been very critical of the recent bus restructures, which I believe do not measure up to restructures of a few years ago. But this will only make a difference in a few areas. The big problem is just overall service levels. The problem is that we are spending way too much now on expanding our rail system while not spending nearly as much as we should on the buses. It doesn’t help that our rail expansion plans are also very poorly designed (from a cost/ridership standpoint).
It is also not trivial to make those changes. We could run a lot of buses a lot more often (and see ridership go way up) if we went with this sort of approach. But I know this would be very difficult from a political standpoint. Folks want to keep their bus, no matter how inefficient it is or how much better it would be (overall) if we did something different.
For example, consider the 20. This had clearly underperformed south of Northgate. It made sense to send it to make it much shorter and send it to Greenwood. But when Metro made one of the few choices that is likely to increase overall ridership, people objected. I could be wrong, but I think you — of all people — were one of the folks complaining. You seem to be claiming on the one hand that Metro should focus more on ridership while on the other hand saying they should focus on coverage. Which is it?
And Pierce Transit is even more interesting. They have cut service levels by 15%, but ridership recovery is still 20% higher than Metro’s. More power to them.
So you are saying it is a shame we didn’t build a system like Pierce Transit — which is obviously underfunded — because then we would have recovery numbers that would look good? WTF?
Yeah, what a shame our system wasn’t really bad before the pandemic. Shucks.
“the economics of running nearly empty buses become very dire. And that is what is happening at Metro with their ~8% farebox recovery and looming financial cliff.”
That’s not what’s happening! The lowest-performing routes were deleted between 2012 and 2016. What remains performs better. The biggest ridership loss is in peak-hour commuters, and Metro has responded by suspending unneeded peak-express runs and extra peak local runs or restructuring them away. The threshold for a worthwhile bus run is 10 passengers per hour, and even most of the coverage routes that look mostly empty can get that. You may not see all of it because they get on after you get off, or the end-to-end run is less than an hour so it can start returning and picking up passengers.
Metro’s target farebox recovery is 20-30% per county council policy, so the gap is 12-22%, not 88%. Part of that is because all levels of government started prioritizing equity more, so Metro has been adding service in lower-income areas (and that’s the same areas that have a high propensity for ridership, but maybe not enough to keep the farebox-recovery level up). And part of it was the pandemic period of free fares and the loss of fare-enforcement staff, which was also partly for equity, because they were citing minorities and lower-income people disproportionately. Now Metro and Link are in the middle of ramping up their fare ambassadors again, so we’ll probably see a favorable change over the next year.
“Everett Transit has 105% of pre-pandemic service levels, but 123% of pre-pandemic ridership. That is good.
And Pierce Transit is even more interesting. They have cut service levels by 15%, but ridership recovery is still 20% higher than Metro’s. More power to them.”
Look at that again. Downtown Seattle and Bellevue had the largest number of office commuters who now often work at home. People never did ride Everett Transit or Pierce Transit to Everett or Tacoma office jobs as much, one because such jobs largely don’t exist, two because ET and PT are so lousy, and three because exurban residents are the most car happy. Many of them who stopped commuting to office jobs in Seattle used Sound Transit and maybe Metro, so they didn’t appear in the Everett Transit or Pierce Transit numbers. But ET and PT have benefitted by the regionwide population increase, and perhaps by people’s increasing acceptance of transit over time, or poor carless people being displaced to Everett and Tacoma. Metro and Sound Transit have a big hole in office commuters that probably can’t be fully replaced by other riders for two decades or so. So it’s unfair to compare them directly to ET and PT. ET and PT operate in a different geographic/social environment.
Lazarus, I don’t know where you are getting your numbers but they are wrong. I did the math recently. Below is from the Q3 data from the NTD database, and is laid out as 2024Q3 (2023Q3) (2019Q3).
Link is up 37% with 105% more service. KCM is down 31% with 12% less service.
King County Metro (Motorbus + Trolleybus)
UPT: 20,975,463 (18,802,818 +12%) (30,271,753 -31%)
VRH: 801,200 (790,086 +1.4%) (912,127 -12%)
UPT/VRH: 26.2 (23.8 +10%) (33.2 -21%)
Sound Transit Bus
UPT: 2,525,075 (2,339,737 +7.9%) (4,516,657 -44%)
VRH: 125,101 (129,087 -3.1%) (166,053 -24%)
UPT/VRH: 20.2 (18.1 +11%) (27.2 -26%)
Link
UPT: 8,210,627 (7,151,390 +15%) (5,998,784 +37%)
VRH: 136,812 (94,607 +44%) (66,785 +105%)
UPT/VRH: 60.0 (75.6 -20%) (89.8 -33%)
Regarding the La Niña discussion in the ST referenced above, it needs to be noted that the ENSO probability from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has decreased over the last couple of months, from 71% in the Sep 2024 report to 57% in November’s report.
Additionally, as the ST article has pointed out, there are other factors at play here and we sometimes see significant snowfall events during El Niño winter patterns as well.
Mechanical issue at SoDo delaying Link on one of the busiest travel days of the year. Well done, ST – your record is sterling.
Plan ahead if you are trying to get to SeaTac. I left three hours before my flight… thank god my mom always taught me to be super early to the airport. ; )
Wonder if fare enforcement will extend beyond just RapidRide to other busy routes.
What we need is a transit police force. When I was stationed in San Diego, they had a full-time police force who checked for fares, enforced laws, and handled situations on transit. Buses and the trolley system. They could detain, cite, and arrest, when necessary.
Sounds good on paper, but if the only way to pay for it is to make the bus run less often, suddenly, it’s not so appealing (I don’t think the extra revenue from more people paying the fare would be nearly enough). The general problem is, we’re underfunded.
Agreed. I think I would rank the flaws within our system as follows:
1) Lack of funding for the buses.
2) Flawed Link design.
3) Poor bus routing.
4) Link doesn’t run often enough (especially midday).
5) Lack of funding for everything else (security, escalator/elevator maintenance, etc.).
The first three go together. Metro has to spend extra money on bus routes to go out of their way to connect to Link. Some routes would be made much better if Link had a station there (e. g. RapidRide G would be a lot better if we had a station at 23rd & Madison). Basically we don’t have a system where the buses and trains work together really well (we aren’t Vancouver). But the bus routes are also quite wasteful. We could have a system with a lot more frequent buses without spending any more money (https://seattletransitblog.com/2013/08/19/your-bus-much-more-often-no-more-money-really/). But we don’t.
The fourth is a problem, but at least much of Link will get a lot more frequent when East Link finally makes it over the lake. The fifth issue is largely independent and for the most part not nearly as big a deal as the other items.
Metro has a security force. I guess it has been growing.
https://kingcountymetro.blog/2024/03/05/metro-improves-safety-with-boosted-security-presence/
https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/rider-tools/rider-safety
What good is a security force if it doesn’t do anything?
There’s more money for cleaning and security in the King County budget next year. KCM has slowly been ramping up security over the last year or two
RennDawg said police. Private security agents can’t arrest people. Metro does have a police patrol, the King County sheriff. We’d need more information about how extensive San Diego’s bus police coverage is to compare it. Metro has thousands of buses and serves all of King County. It would take thousands of offices to have one on every bus all day, and you’d need two officers for a full 18-hour day. Does San Diego manage to achieve that? The San Diego bus agency doesn’t cover the entire county: there’s a North San Diego Transit agency where my relatives live in San Marcos. So the San Diego agency may have a smaller denser area than all of King County.
Whether agencies should arrest fare evaders or put them off the bus is of course a topic of wide public diagreement.
Private security agents can’t arrest people.
That is a distinction with a difference. They can detain someone until the police officially arrest them (as long as the suspected crime occurred on their property). For a suspect it is essentially the same. They are apprehended and then officially arrested once the police arrive. Go pull a gun inside a bank and see if the security guard’s powers seem limited to you.
San Diego had a transit police force, nick named the “Trolly Cops.” They could issue citations. Make arrests. They had the same powers as regular police officers.
One thing they would do, if you didn’t pay the fares in the trolly, more like our light rail than a traditional trolly. You would be escorted off the train, given a chance to buy a ticket for the trip you are taking. Then you can get get back on, if you have no record. If you don’t have fares, then you are issued a citation, given a court date, and escorted off the station.
On another note, the province of Ontario has apparently passed a law not only forbidding cities from installing bike lanes without the provincial government’s permission, but also authorizes the provincial government to actually *remove* bike lanes in Toronto over the objection of the city of Toronto itself. And, to put the cherry on top, the law even contains a provision denying cyclists who are injured as a result of not having a safe place to ride the right to sue over the law
Thank goodness we don’t have state and national overlords passing laws like that.
Yeah, it is pretty messed up. A lot of people have been complaining on the various forums. Reece Martin (who is more of a transit guy) has joined the chorus. It is a really stupid plan pushed by Doug Ford (brother of now deceased Rob Ford) who is the premier. (The Liberals and NDP more or less split the vote, allowing the Tories to take the most seats.)
Did Toronto become a red state when we weren’t looking?
Actually, in Canada (along with most of the world), red means liberal and blue means conservative. It’s only in the U.S. that we have it backwards (kind of like how we’re the only country to not use metric system).
One could easily imagine a world where red states governors like Ron DeSantis pass Doug Ford style laws here, as some sort of crusade against “woke transportation”. We should all be thankful that isn’t happening.
Yeah, Ontario and Premier Doug Ford’s politics are a confusing mess to parse out. But Ontario and Quebec have always had politics that are very all over the place on transit.
I think it is basically vote splitting and packing. If I understand the Canadian system they have a parliament (of course) but it is winner take all in each district. There is no primary. There is no second choice voting or proportional representation (within the district). If there is a strong regional preference then you have a more democratic outcome as you form coalitions within the parliament itself. But if one party manages to win a majority of seats (by taking a plurality of the vote in a lot of districts) then they can control the government.
Now consider a few particulars. The (Progressive Conservative) Tories are center-right. The parties to the right of them are too small to make much of a difference. They are appealing to suburban districts and Ontario has a lot of suburban districts. Meanwhile, support for the NDP, Liberals and Greens is in the city. So the three left wing parties split the vote in the city, while the Tories have support in the suburbs. (This is basically the packing part.)
But it gets worse. Various districts can go either way. Within various districts it is common to have less than a majority for the Tories, but a plurality vote for them. This is the vote splitting part. For example Scarborough Centre went for the Tories, even though they got 36% of the vote. The Liberal and NDP candidates (combined) got a lot more votes, but it didn’t matter. The seat went to the Tories. Overall the Progressive Conservatives won roughly 2/3 of the seats, despite getting only 40% of the vote.
Wikipedia covers this quite well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Ontario_general_election#Results.
That’s interesting. In the U.S. plurality elections produces strong incentive for all factions to consolidate into two parties in order to avoid the spoiler effect. The fact that it hasn’t happened in the UK and Canada too is surprising. What’s the particular reason why the NDP and liberals didn’t merge?
Good question. First thing to consider is why the US has a strong two-party system. I think this goes back to the Civil War. The anti-slavery forces coalesced around Lincoln (even though he didn’t campaign on ending slavery). The pro-slavery forces were split. So Lincoln won an electoral landslide, despite winning less the 40% of the vote. The other parties got nothing. This led to an era of two parties right up until 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt through a wrench in the system and ran as a Progressive. But he lost, and split the vote in the process. It was clear to a lot of people that there really wasn’t much point in supporting a third party, especially one to the far left or right.
Of course that hasn’t stopped people from trying. But those efforts usually don’t last long or accomplish much. Sometimes they backfire; quite often they are pointless.
In contrast, if you come in second or third in a election for parliament you at least have a chance of forming a coalition government. You have some power. But it is still very much flawed.
As with most public policy issues, it is always good to look at what the Scandinavians do. Sure enough, they have a system that is a lot better. You have proportional representation within each area. So if a party gets 25% of the vote, it gets 25% of the seats. (There are other countries that do the same thing, but I always like pointing out that the Scandinavians are really good at this government stuff).
Interestingly enough, the US could elect the members of the House of Representatives that way, and it would not require a change in the constitution. Up until 1967, it was common for states to elect House members at-large. This was often “winner take all”. So if a state voted Democratic, then all its representatives were Democrats. But then they passed this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Congressional_District_Act. This meant districts for every state, and each district had to have roughly the same number of people.
But there is no reason they can’t elect everyone proportionately. So if a state has ten representatives and 10% of the people vote Green, then they get one representative. All it would take is a new law.
@asdf: From my understanding, Canada’s Liberals are center-left and pro-business (think Bill Clinton), while the NDP is socialist/social democracy (think Bernie Sanders, AOC). That distinction is probably enough to prevent a merger, although the NDP willingly caucuses with the Liberals if the latter needs to form a majority.
Britain does have the Liberal Democrats, but I’m not sure of their political stances, as “liberal” in Europe means “pro-free market, pro-business” as much as the word means “progressive” elsewhere. The Lib Dems were in a recent coalition with the Conservatives, but that government didn’t last long. The only other third parties there to make a difference are two single-issue parties, the Scottish Independence Party and the Brexit, now UK Independence, Party.
I personally like France’s system, which directly elects the President and has a top-two runoff if someone didn’t get a majority. (Brazil does this, too.) The Assembly (legislature) members are elected separately.
As for the US, I think third parties should concentrate on local races and Congress instead of the big offices; they’ll make more impact if they can get 10% of a legislature’s seats instead of taking votes away from another gubernatorial or presidential candidate. I also think we should consider expanding the House. Britain has 650 seats for a population of 67 million, Germany has 733 for 90 million. We have just 435 for 330 million, that’s too high a ratio.
I personally like France’s system, which directly elects the President and has a top-two runoff if someone didn’t get a majority.
France elects a president as well as parliament. The president is head of state, while the prime minister (the leader of parliament) is the head of the government. The presidential election has a top-two runoff (like we do for all races in this state). But the two-round system for being elected to parliament allows anyone with over 12.5% into the final. This means there is the potential for vote splitting as well. There is only one person elected per district, which means it has all of the flaws or our system although in 1986 I guess they did go with party-list proportional representation.
I think if you do have a separate president (elected by voters nationwide) then a top-two runoff is much better than what we have. You could still split the vote, but it is rare (notice how no one can name a single race in Washington where vote splitting has occurred — they can only name a race where it almost occurred). You could easily have a “center-squeeze” problem (like we do) but vote splitting (which is how Bush beat Gore) is much worse.
But in my opinion legislative bodies should be elected proportionately. Consider why we have republics in the first place. A pure democracy is too messy. We can’t expect citizens to vote on dozens of potential laws, let alone hammer out a compromise. We need representatives. But we should have as many people represented as possible. Right now there are millions of people in America who can say they opinions are not being represented. They live in a district controlled by someone who disagrees with them on 90% of the issues. They can reach out to someone in a different district, but that person isn’t likely to respond (since they don’t actually represent them).
In contrast a proportional system represents all but the fringe candidates. Even then they are able to at least elect a secondary candidate. So if a Green candidate in Washington only gets 5% they might be able to elect another Democrat. But in most states they would be able to get someone they can say actually represents them (more or less). Of course one long-overdue change is to have more house members. Proportional representation doesn’t do much good if you only have one house member.
Does anyone know why the section of track from judkins park in the 1-90 median heading towards Chinatown is triple track?
Theres a pocket track to the left of Judkins park station. It’s for turnarounds.
Sorry I mean to the west
To add context: it’s best to have these sections once in a while so that there’s a place to put a car or train if they break down. It gets them out of the way so service can be restored.
Link also has one at Rainier Beach and SoDo.
There’s one just north of Northgate too.
East Link has that one at Judkins Park. Since it’s next to where lines merge it will be very useful should trains need to be diverted. It also may be use when high winds close the line across Lake Washington (a hopefully rare event). I imagine that some Lumen Field post-event trains will also idle on those tracks.
The East OMF in Bellevue can be used to reverse a train if needed and the South OMF in Federal Way will likely also have the same functionality.
If it’s west of Judkins Park station it sounds like it would be useful when the downtown tunnel is closed and trains can bounce back to the Eastside. But if I-90 is closed and the stub track is west of Judkins Park station, then can Seattle trains serve Judkins Park station when they turn around? And is there a crossover track between Intl Dist and Judkins Park?
The Link third track segments are pretty short. They could be used to bypass another train but most likely they are used only to reverse or idle a train for some reason. They work like crossover tracks but with storage room. So the one west of Judkins Park works like crossover tracks.
With the tunnels, it’s hard to see where other crossover tracks are in aerial photos. Is there drone footage of the tunnel tracks? I’m curious where they are between Judkins Park and Mercer Island stations.