The longest subway platform in the US, spanning three stations and a closed station. (Trains are Awesome)

Extend the Brown Line. (Joint Transit Association)

This is an open thread.

31 Replies to “Sunday Double Feature: Chicago L”

  1. Great videos Mike! I couldn’t believe the first time I entered the Blue Line’s Washington Station and looked down the platform and how it went on forever. It seemed completely unnatural and eerie to me. I Googled it later and was surprised that you can actually walk on the long platform from station to station and it’s apparently okay to do so. Though, as you can see from the video, it’s a little spooky, and you might want to bring someone along with you.

    1. I notice now narrow the old CTA subway platform design (support walls so close) is. It’s probably not ADA compliant.

      Plus having an unsecured long subway platform seems like a magnet for non-transit-related criminal activity. Maybe there’s a reason that the video blogger did this with a friend.

      Interesting nonetheless.

  3. This is the best photo I’ve found showing Marymoor Village residential TOD. First photo down. It shows about four different apt bldg structures. Not sure if there are more apts out of frame. If there are, it’s probably no more than 1 or 2 bldgs. This shot is looking south. The station and garage are just behind the camera to the right. The Whole Foods and other businesses are just to the left of the road on the left.

    https://encorearchitects.com/project/spectra/

    1. There’s at least 3 buildings right by the station and there’s a few more apartments down the East Lake Sammamish Trail to the South. There’s also another complex by Marymoor Park (https://maps.app.goo.gl/DhPC8g3TDjCMPqRc8). I highly recommend taking a look at the satellite view or street view on Google maps.

      The area has changed considerably in the last few years (take a look at street view over the years, it’s drastic), but I do hope they continie to densify this area!

    2. @Sam,

      That is a fairly nice looking building. And if you look in the background on the RH side of the building you can see another large building under construction.

      As the region moves more towards a rail based transportation system we will see more of this. Very nice indeed.

      Thanks for sharing as I’m not too familiar with that neighborhood.

      Now if you can just find a video of a Link LRV operating on DRLE I’ll be doubly impressed.

    3. It would be nice if there were a more pedestrian friendly route between the TOD and Fred Meyer/Target. The lack of crossing points of SR-202 is a big issue. At least Whole Foods exists as an alternative.

      1. There’s actually going to be a very pedestrian-friendly route from Marymoor Village station to Fred Meyer/Target. Half of the walk will be on a paved trail, the other half is on a sidewalk. I estimate the 1300 foot walk will take about 7-8 minutes.

      2. Here’s a map of the walk. At the bottom of the image you see the north corner of the station garage. In front of it is East Lake Sammamish Trail/Redmond Central Connector Trail. One will walk west on the paved trail, then turn north to another paved trail which will become a sidewalk next to NE 76th St. There’s Fred Meyer and Target. It’s a bit further than 1300 feet.

        https://www.google.com/maps/@47.670161,-122.1066898,717m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MTIxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

    4. I’ve always liked how Marymoor and Downtown Redmond Stations are close to each other. It creates an end-of-line district of two stations rather than one. If ST builds a line that is almost two miles with no station, having two helps to make the line segment more ridden.

      It’s a station location strategy that could have made planned Everett, Issaquah and Ballard Link end station areas more useful to the system. Imagine each of those ends as two stations rather than one!

      I think there is a general appealing strategy here with residential at this station . Each East Link station has a different mix of residential and non-residential (and parking) that enables the line to be useful for all kinds of things. Unlike a line that ends mainly with residential stations with parking (like Lynnwood) that ends up looking like a peak hour commute service (overcrowding for an hour or two daily but otherwise very lightly used), the varied land use mix for the corridor in total will help to get rail users riding in both directions several hours a day.

      The street renderings honestly look a bit uninviting to me. Having park-like pedestrian lanes a nice for dog walking and quiet strolling — but village streets bustling with activity are also important to have and those often need to be planned with deliberate attractions like children’s play areas and sidewalk cafes.

      I do lament how our codes and current architecture trends don’t result in visual focal points for pedestrians. Not having clock towers, corner turrets, public gathering fountains, steeples or grassy lawns at these places creates something like a face with no features to look at. The buildings look very Soviet-era sterile to me. Seattle architecture blandness as unfortunately a revered principle in the profession locally .

      Finally, I can’t help but wonder if cramming as many five story apartments next to each other is so great for residents. Would 20-story buildings with more openness around them be better? I get how the current building codes encourage the shorter building design (wood frame above concrete base) but a cramped apartment view is a negative with an otherwise bustling urban life elsewhere in the region that’s a positive. Replicating the building crampness combined with a more sterile street environment (without bustling urban activity on the pedestrianized internal paths ) seems as an unappealing housing choice to me.

    5. Kudos for the red vertical decoration and the matching outhouse-cover on the roof. That’s a way to break up the monotony of these large, wide, boxy cookie-cutter buildings.

    6. “I’ve always liked how Marymoor and Downtown Redmond Stations are close to each other. It creates an end-of-line district of two stations rather than one.”

      The primary purpose of Marymoor Village station is for a P&R for the city of Sammamish, which isn’t getting Link directly but is paying ST taxes. We can’t have the P&R at Downtown Redmond station or it would damage the downtown’s urban potential (see: Lynnwood, Federal Way), so if we must have a P&R, it’s better to have an extra outlying station for it (see: South Bellevue). If the station also ends up creating an extended two-station walkable downtown, so much the better.

  4. Any updates on the Montlake 520 station bus stops opening? Kinda wondering what the hold up is as buses are already using the busway.

  5. General bus question. Can I use an Orca card to pay for two fares, if I’m with someone who doesn’t have one?

    2. Not in ORCA second generation. The older system allowed one card to pay for multiple fares, but the current system doesn’t. Every passenger needs their own card.

      There are non-ORCA ways to pay. You can get a Link ticket or Link day pass at a TVM. You can use cash on buses. Metro still has a paper transfer to transfer to other Metro routes, but other agencies have abolished non-ORCA transfers. Some of the mobile apps may be non-ORCA. Ultimately it’s best to get an ORCA card, if you’re going to be riding more than once, and can make it to a Link TVM or agency sales office to get one.

    3. If you have enough money in an e-purse, you can pay for someone else. Tell the driver what you want to do before you tap, so they can make the necessary adjustment.

      1. Can they still do that? That was activating another option on the control screen. The public explanatory materials when ORCA2 was activated said that was no longer an option.

    4. Actually, Mike might be right. You used to be able to pay for others via e-purse, but now I don’t think they allow it.

  6. Interesting article on the Link service disruptions:

    https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/what-were-doing-to-make-link-service-more-reliable

    Sounds like a lot of the stray current type events are occurring in the old bus tunnel. One has to wonder if this is a side effect of the rails being embedded in the roadway?

    Also, it’s interesting that they talk about retensioning the contact wire in the tunnels. That was my first thought when they had that bent pantograph incident near UWS. If the contact wire is improperly tensioned, then the pantograph could be out of geometric compliance and potentially be at risk for contacting other system components mounted on the tunnel sidewall.

    And not stated in the article, are other operators of Series 2 S700’s seeing the same reliability issues that ST is experiencing? If so it is the vehicles. If not it is either ST’s maintenance practices, or potentially something unique about the operating environment.

    1. The two Link problems I’ve heard the most about over the last few months are northbound just before UW station, and secondly between SeaTac and Angle Lake. I’m still not clear on what the two different issues are, or if they have been fixed. I heard the south end problem may have something to do with “SCADA” issues.

      “Sound Transit’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is a part of the Operational Technology (OT) systems that help keep the Link light rail system running safely and efficiently. The SCADA system monitors, alerts, and controls the rail systems, stations, garages, and other facilities.”

      1. @Sam,

        I’ve heard the same thing about the south end SCADA issues. But I’ve also heard that some of these issues are related to cutting in the new systems to support the extensions which will be opening over the next 2 years.

        If that is true, it is a good sign because it means the problems are being identified early and should be easily resolvable. I.e., not systemic problems.

        It also means that progress is being made on the extensions, and that is also a good thing.

        I get roped into driving my wife to meetings on the Eastside occasionally, and I hate dealing with Eastside traffic. I can’t wait for Full ELE to open so I don’t need to do that anymore.

    2. “Sounds like a lot of the stray current type events are occurring in the old bus tunnel. One has to wonder if this is a side effect of the rails being embedded in the roadway?”

      A lot of the signal issues, mechanical issues, lost power, and single-tracking have been in the U-Link, Northgate Link, and Lynnwood Link segments. Rainier Valley and SODO get more of the object-on-track and collisions, and also some single-tracking. SeaTac is having some particular problem, which may be due to connecting the South Link electrical infrastructure. I wouldn’t say DSTT1 is getting a particularly large number of outages.

      1. @Mike Orr,

        I was referring specifically to the stray current events. It appears that such events are a subset of the total loss of traction power events, and often in the old bus tunnel.

      2. Ah, I didn’t understand the first part. By current you mean electricity escaping? Is that happening?

  7. Is there a way to get ORCA cards with different designs other than showing up to a transit opening event? I had a pretty one from the Lynnwood Link opening that I accidentally fried with a wireless phone charger that I would like to replace, although it doesn’t have to be the exact same design. I see one review of the Pass Sales Office at King Street Center mentioning “artwork cards”. Do they usually have some there? If so, it’s not well advertised.

    1. I haven’t heard of them. You can visit the office and see, or email Metro’s customer service address.

      1. I stopped by the office and got one of https://www.4culture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Orca_rey-1600×2421.jpg . They only had that and the normal black card. According to https://www.4culture.org/limited-edition-artist-designed-orca-cards-now-available/ it’s the commemorative card for the 2025 RapidRide I Line launch. I guess they ran through their limited supply of the older ones.

        The clerk said they just sometimes get in special ones with no notice. I did find this list of all known ORCA card designs: https://transitcards.xyz/orca/

      1. There we see the Oregon ORCA, the Disco ORCA, the Green ORCA, the Ferry ORCA, and the Dazzling Fireworks ORCA.

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