This year saw a handful of new writers join STB’s staff and a few excellent serial posts sparking good discussion. In the transit world, we saw the opening of the RapidRide G Line, the Link 2 Line Starter Line, the Lynnwood Link Extension, bus restructures in King and Snohomish Counties, and continued rebound in ridership from the lows of 2020. Let’s look back at the Top 10 Most Read (by pageviews) and Most Commented posts of 2024.
Continue reading “Most read & commented STB posts of 2024”
Vancouver SkyTrain extensions, at-grade high-capacity transit corridors, and a gondola. (StainerTheFirst) Vancouver has been good at including stub ends for future extensions, thus minimizing disruptions to existing service when/if the extension is built.
The London Overground, established in 2007, now has six lines, and more are proposed. (CityMoose)
This is an open thread.
King County Metro’s Route 40 travels inbound from Northgate Station to downtown Seattle via Crown Hill, Ballard, Fremont, and South Lake Union. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In October 2024, Route 40 had 8,539 average weekday boardings.
The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.
Some transit promotional videos.
King County Metro ad: “Metro Go”:
Travel Community Transit with Rick Steves. This four-part series was published for Lynnwood Link’s opening.
More videos below the fold.
Continue reading “Movie Special: Transit Ads”Tuesday December 24: Regular service on Metro, Link 1 Line and 2 Line, ST Express, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit.”Reduced weekday” service on Sounder and T Line. ….. Agency shuttles: Metro Flex regular service, CT Zip regular service, PT Runner regular service except JBLM Runner no service.
Wednesday December 25: Sunday schedule on Metro, Link 1 Line and 2 Line, ST Express, T Line, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit. No service on Sounder. ….. Agency shuttles: Metro Flex Sunday service, CT Zip regular service, PT Runner no service.
Agency holiday announcements: King County Metro and Metro Flex, Sound Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit.
Washington State Ferries: see bulletin for holiday changes and vessel outages.
This is an open thread.
Can expanding Link generate enough new housing? (City Beautiful)
This is an open thread.
ST Express fares will decrease from $3.25 to $3.00 on March 1st. This matches Link’s recent fare change and Metro’s upcoming increase, so all three all three will have the same fare.
Metro closed the bus stops at 12th & Jackson ($), citing safety concerns with the people hanging out at the intersection. (Seattle Times) This is a hub for routes 7, 9, 14, 36, 60 and 106, so you’ll have to find the next stop on the route.
The Tacoma Dome Link extension draft EIS is accepting through February 9th.
Making Link more reliable and replacing escalators and elevators in downtown tunnel stations. (Sound Transit)
Reenvisioning Pace, the bus agency for Chicago’s suburbs. (Human Transit) We recently featured two videos on the Chicago L.
Shoreline eliminates parking minimums, allows more density around transit stations than the state requires, and allows small storefronts on non-arterial streets. Bellingham eliminates parking minimums. Kirkland pursues more “10-minute cities”. (The Urbanist)
WSDOT gets a $50 million federal grant for Cascadia high-speed rail planning. (The Urbanist)
Video: When studies get in the way of building transit (RMTransit)
This is an open thread.
Just before 3am this morning, a King County Metro operator was stabbed to death in the U-District. From the Seattle Police Department blog:
Just before 3:00 a.m., patrol officers were dispatched to reports of a stabbing near the 4100 block of University Way Northeast.
They located an adult male suffering from stab wounds to the chest. Police provided medical aid until the Seattle Fire Department arrived. They pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.
Officers determined that an adult male passenger got into a physical altercation with the driver at the intersection of 15th Avenue Northeast and Northeast 41st Street.
The Seattle Times is reporting that the operator was 59 year-old Shawn Yim. The suspect is still at large.
This incident is another tragic example of ongoing public safety issues across the city. Although violence on transit continues to be exceedingly rare, ensuring safe and secure spaces for the riding public should remain a key objective for transit agencies.
King County Metro’s RapidRide H Line travels inbound from Burien to downtown Seattle, via White Center and Delridge. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. The H Line launched in March 2023, replacing Route 120. In October 2024, the H Line had 8,636 average weekday boardings.
The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.
