Month: November 2024

Winnepeg transit potential. (RMTransit)

Updating rules could create better apartments. Praise for Seattle at 3:06 and 5:10. (About Here)

This is an open thread.

Eight years after Sound Transit 3 was approved by voters in 2016, Sound Transit is still trying to figure out where exactly to put a new station near the Chinatown-International District as part of the Ballard Link Extension (BLE). After the agency published the Draft West Seattle and Ballard Link Extensions Draft Environmental Impact Statement in 2022, community uproar around the potential impacts of building an expanded International District-Chinatown station under 5th Avenue South drove Sound Transit to consider several alternative station locations. In late 2023, the agency determined that the amount of additional study required splitting the two projects apart, necessitating a complete restart of the environmental impact assessment process for BLE (starting with a request for comments on impact assessment scoping) and forsaking the supposed expediency of planning these projects simultaneously.

At the Board’s System Expansion Committee meeting on Thursday, Sound Transit staff presented a review of another round of “Further Studies” on the Ballard Link Extension, this time focused on three alternatives under serious consideration for the CID: the “Preferred Alternative” of a Dearborn Street location (formerly known as the “CID South” Station), a diagonal station under 5th Avenue South, and a transit hub under 4th Avenue South.

Continue reading “Ballard Link Extension: 4th Ave Shallow is Dead, Long Live 5th Ave Diagonal”

Stop spacing is a trade-off. If the stops are too close together it takes too long for the bus to get anywhere. Too far apart and riders can’t walk or roll to a bus stop. Although the basics are fairly simple, the geometry surrounding stop placement can be a bit complicated. Jarrett Walker has a great primer on the subject. The RapidRide J Line in particular has some interesting geometric issues. Much of the corridor is fairly narrow. For example Eastlake & Galer is hemmed in by Lake Union and the freeway. This is where you can walk from there in five minutes. In contrast, a stop like Eastlake & Boston is much wider. A five minute walk from there resembles a standard diamond shape. Narrow areas can get away with longer gaps between stations for this reason.

Using the standard walking distance of 400 meters (mentioned by Walker) and the geographic particulars of the route, I’ve decided to analyze the stops of the J Line. I was inspired by this comment which questioned the elimination of a particular stop. As it turns out I don’t see that particular bus stop as a problem although I do see some stops that could be changed (and one stop that could be added).

Continue reading “RapidRide J Stop Spacing”

Transit & Streets:

• RapidRide G Bus Ridership Starts Strong and Is Trending Upward (The Urbanist)
• Seattle Police Department Updates Its Emergency Driving Policy (PubliCola)
• Rob Saka Pushes to Decommission the South Lake Union Streetcar (The Urbanist); also on Puget Sound Business Journal, paywall passable with a Seattle Public Library account, here.
• Downtown Seattle light rail stations reopen after weekend work continued through Monday morning (The Seattle Times, $)
• Seattle Set to Double Down on Arbitrary Parking Mandates (The Urbanist)
• A $2.1B King County plan seeks boosted, more climate-friendly bus service (The Seattle Times, $)
• MLK Transportation Justice Team Honors World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (South Seattle Emerald)
• US Transit Turns to Camera Enforcement to Keep Bus Lanes Clear (Mass Transit Magazine)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Trending Upward”

Which styles would you nominate for Link stations? The Paris Metro has a steampunk station, “Arts et Métiers”: the Line 11 platform is inspired by Jules Verne.

This is an open thread.

Sound Transit recently announced a survey regarding potential names for the infill station currently under construction near N 130th St in north Seattle.

The station names under consideration are:

• Pinehurst
• Pinehurst/Haller Lake
• Pinehurst/130th St.
• North Seattle/130th St.

This would be the northernmost Link station in Seattle, filling in a gap between Northgate and Shoreline S/148th. Some thoughts on the potential station names below the jump:

Continue reading “Survey: Naming the infill Link station at 130th Street”

As announced in October, Link will be replaced by shuttle buses between SODO and Capitol Hill Stations from 10pm tonight (November 8) through Sunday, November 10, and return to full service on Monday, November 11. Trains will run every 15 minutes north of Capitol Hill and south of SODO. As a commentor noted earlier today, this means attendees of this evening’s Kraken game and other events this weekend will need to plan ahead.

Sound Transit and The Urbanist each posted articles recently describing this closure and other upcoming closures. This weekend’s closure is in service of tying in the upcoming 2 Line extension between Downtown Seattle and South Bellevue across the I-90 floating bridge and Mercer Island.

Continue reading “Link Disruption This Weekend (Nov. 8-10)”

Election 2024

Discussion of election results can be found in yesterday’s thread, but here are some news items:

• The Urbanist: Early Washington State Election Results Are Favorable for Progressives
• The Seattle Times ($): Seattle Proposition 1 wins strong support from voters

Transit & Streets:

• The Urbanist: Sound Transit 1 Line Maintenance Disruptions Will Bring Long-term Gains; also on Sound Transit’s blog, The Platform
• The Seattle Times ($): Light rail gets a slow-ride test on Mercer Island; testing is occurring piecemeal as sections are completed. Full opening still scheduled for late next year.
• The Urbanist: Saka Seeks to Remove Delridge Median He Compared to Border Wall; looks like Budget Chair Strauss will task SDOT with doing so.
• My Ballard: Upcoming meetings to review Ballard Link light rail extension project; the meetings are required as part of BLE restarting the environmental process from scratch.
• Pierce Transit: Pierce Transit Pilots New, Accessible Signage with the installation of seven new signs at bus stops at Pierce Transit’s Commerce Street Station featuring braille, raised lettering and large print. PT also launched a redesigned website.

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Long-Term Gains”

I hear there’s an election today. This article will be updated as results come in. King County’s results will be on the county site or state site (other counties are also on the state site); the first batch usually comes around 8:15pm. The STB Election Committee made some endorsements on local transit and land use issues. Earlier today, the Urbanist reviewed what’s at stake in local and statewide elections. The Seattle Times has their live tracker running without paywall. KUOW is live-blogging as well.

What do you see happening or what do you think about the election?

8:15pm, 11/5:

First results have dropped in King County: 777,581 ballots counted of an forecasted turnout of about 1,168,000 voters (82% of the total 1,425,313 registered voters).

• 43rd Leg. District Pos. 2: Shaun Scott (67.77%); Andrea Suarez (31.41%)
• Seattle Council Pos. 8: Alexis Mercedes Rinck (57.32%); Tanya Woo (42.28%)
• Prop 1 (Transportation Levy): Yes (66.82%); No (33.18%)

8:41pm, 11/5:

The four “Let’s Go Washington”-funded initiatives have ~57% of votes counted state-wide:

• I-2066: Ban on Natural Gas Bans: Yes (1,269,813, 51.2%); No (1,212,471, 48.8%)
• I-2117: Carbon Tax Credit Ban: Yes (956,395, 38.2%); No (1,549,070, 61.8%)
• I-2109: Capital Gains Tax Repeal: Yes (921,835, 36.7%); No (1,592,015, 63.3%)
• I-2124: WA Long-Term Care Opt-Out: Yes (1,102,740, 44.4%); No (1,380,209, 55.6%)

9:16pm, 11/5:

The statewide turnout summary shows the next ballot count will drop at 1pm tomorrow. As of 8:59pm, the 39 counties are estimating there are 793,865 ballots left to count. With 2,642,738 ballots counted plus the remaining ballots, the estimated statewide turnout is about 68.47% of the 5,018,747 registered voters.

This is an open thread.