Can expanding Link generate enough new housing? (City Beautiful)
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67 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Link and Housing”
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Can expanding Link generate enough new housing? (City Beautiful)
This is an open thread.
Comments are closed.
Commuter showdown: Is driving or taking the light rail a quicker way to get to SEA airport? (KING 5).
https://youtu.be/BN6rgg7uGbc
If you start from Northgate at 4:00 PM for a 7:00 flight Link wins hands down. At 8:00 AM, probably driving, because the express lane is in your favor.
If you go from Broadway and John and include the time to get from “long-term parking”, it’s probably usually Link.
IOW, “it depends.”
Depends a lot on where you park. If you park in a satellite lot, waiting for the shuttle can eat up a lot of time. Parking in the garage avoids this, but you have to pay for the time saved with a much higher daily parking rate.
The exact point of origin also plays a big role in the comparison, as no trip actually begins right at Northgate station. For example, when somebody from Greenwood drives to the airport instead of taking the train, the bus to the train has a least as much to do with that decision as the train itself.
My last airport trip, I took a combination of Link and the 255. Taking Uber instead would have cost around $90 after tip to save maybe 40 minutes, which would have implied a time value of well over $100/hour, which was more than I was willing to pay.
“when somebody from Greenwood drives to the airport instead of taking the train, the bus to the train has a least as much to do with that decision as the train itself.”
They have a (Northgate) P&R they can drive to. I’d still call that a win for transit and the environment and the people around them, because it eliminates 90% of the vehicle miles traveled. And it saves them the cost of airport parking and dealing with shuttles.
“They have a (Northgate) P&R they can drive to”
Not for going to the airport. Park and rides are for day use only, not for long-term parking while you fly somewhere on a plane.
While the video was a fun and light-hearted mode race to the airport, in real life, people consider other factors when deciding how to get to the airport, other than just travel time alone.
Honestly Sam, mostly no. Time is absolutely the driver in these sorts of choices. It’s why Uber and Lyft make money. Companies pay hundreds of dollars for an hour or two less travel time..
As far as regional transportation goes…. the number #1 goal should be the airport, and not only getting there but maybe avoiding the whole place altogether. It’s easier to take Amtrak from Tacoma to Portland than drive to SeaTac and fly to Portland.
Seattle and Portland need to work to make rail the #1 option commuting between the cities. Because by cutting the number of flights between the two cities is likely cheaper than expanding the airports.
Tacomee, maybe you misunderstood my comment. I said people consider other factors besides just travel time when deciding how to get to the airport. What I said isn’t debatable.
“Time is absolutely the driver in these sorts of choices. It’s why Uber and Lyft make money. Companies pay hundreds of dollars for an hour or two less travel time.”
Uber/Lyft/airporter riders often don’t know the transit travel time because they haven’t looked. It may be the same or it may be just 30 minutes longer; it all depends on the starting point. And companies don’t know, especially in other cities. The ones I’ve worked for encourage transit or taxis over renting a car but they don’t look further; they just pay for whichever one you use. They’re more concerned about the cost of the hotel room.
For going to the airport, one factor that definitely does matter is reliability. If driving means leaving early just in case you hit traffic, only to sit at the airport for two hours if there isn’t traffic. Since Link is immune to traffic, you can cut things a bit closer, so the question of how much earlier you have to leave home to make the plane on Link vs. driving ends up being much less than the actual time difference.
This is especially true since a lot of my trips to the airport end up happening during morning rush hour.
I like that media in this region looking into things like this and give people better perspective about travel in different modes.
I think for trips to airport which doesn’t happen with everyday commute (at least for most of us), reliability is more important than speed. That’s why I think taking light rail is always better.
This video implied knowledge and authority that wasn’t there. In particular he implied that Seattle had terrible transit before Link. His explanation of the Interbay area was confusing. Then he chose KDM as where Kent and Des Moines have been working through several things to create TOD and he didn’t mention that. In fact many open and upcoming stations that are traditionally very suburban have ambitious development plans that all deserve a mention — at least in passing. Some of the pronunciations were off too.
His biggest omission was how expensive and badly costed ST3 was when it passed.
Al S.
But the problem is ST3 has always been binary thinking. Any opposition to ST3 or light rail is seen as anti-transit. Cheerleaders like the Urbanist got us into this big mess. They’re certainly not the solution.
Crazy how the City Beautiful team (I would guess they’re educated smart people?) would fall for the King County/Seattle City government plan to “sell” a bunch of worthless downtown office buildings to Sound Transit for enough money to offset building new County and City office buildings somewhere else. The City and County are blatantly trying to rip off Sound Transit.
Yeah that implication that demolishing county buildings was a good thing was very simplistic.
And he never addressed how the proposed relocated County offices campus on top of the Metro yard isn’t near anything nor cheap to build! I don’t believe it’s even been vetted publicly, right?
Yeah, he definitely made some odd choices about what to focus on. Interbay, not Ballard? Kent-DeMoines, not Federal Way?
He was far too accepting of the egregious over-spending on Park and Rides rather than, you know, transit. In South King and Pierce, ST can seem more like a Park and Ride authority than a transit authority.
But park-and-rides are multi-use and can really bring home the bacon for though sales taxes. The powers-that-be in places like Federal Way see a destination shopping center with lots of parking freely furnished by Sound Transit for shoppers driving there. Light rail you ask? Only window dressing my friend.
Tacoma went in big time with this sort of plan at Tacoma Dome Station. Massive fail. Meanwhile the Tacoma Mall just keeps hitting homers!
All I see at the mall is gun violence, fear, and Simon desperately grasping at straws, after losing most if it’s anchor businesses over the last 5 years. Time will tell if it’s faux tiny U-Village will fool people into returning, and slow it’s clear decline.
Cam Solomon,
“Gun Violence” is often gaslighting negative stereotypes for non-White people. If groups of Black dudes in puffy jackets freak you out, own it, because those people love the Tacoma Mall. Play fair dude, your chances of being a victim of violence are way better on Puget Sound transit than Tacoma Mall. Some Pierce Transit routes are the Wild West now.
Tacoma Mall IS the center of Tacoma for a majority of the City. It’s certainly that for most of Black and Brown people, and most people who live South of the freeways. I’m open to other people’s opinions and love every part of the T-Town, no matter how humble. Shopping-wise, the Mall area sells everything from appliances to underwear. Tacoma absolutely needs the retail. Shopping downtown Tacoma? There’s almost zero retail that isn’t focused on booze or coffee. Not even a grocery store…. Stadium Thriftway is the closest.
In the last 25 years, the Mall has just kept getting bigger and bigger and bringing in more and more tax money to the City. Those are the facts. And there has been a good deal of housing built around the Mall as well. You don’t have to like the Mall, but as far as the Tacoma taxbase…. it’s the biggest game in town. How can a place be the retail champion of the a city…. and yet not be the transit hub?
Downtown Tacoma? Well, it added light rail, a waterfront park, a new art museum and a new university (UWT). All these were welcome additions. Light rail connects UWT and the Stadium District, one of Tacoma’s more walkable neighborhoods. The rest of downtown is a failure. The space between those places is just bars and empty office spaces for the most part. There has been a good deal of housing built around downtown (Yakima Ave), but most of it was on empty land and little of it is affordable. That’s why rent control is all the rage for the Tacoma Left. All the young Liberals believed the developers promise of affordable housing and after thousands of units on the fringes of downtown… the rents only went up.
Mixing urban renewal and transit isn’t the winning combination. Transit needs to serve the people who already live there.
On a little less negative rant…..one of my favorite places in Downtown Tacoma….
\https://www.welovecampfire.com
“In the last 25 years, the Mall has just kept getting bigger and bigger and bringing in more and more tax money to the City. Those are the facts. And there has been a good deal of housing built around the Mall as well.”
Where’s the walkability? From Google Maps and people’s reports, it still looks like a typical suburban mall and strip malls in a sea of surface parking. Like 120th in Bellevue or Alderwood Mall. A lot of lost opportunity and foot-dragging.
“All the young Liberals believed the developers promise of affordable housing and after thousands of units on the fringes of downtown… the rents only went up.”
You keep missing the point. The rents would have gone up anyway because the price trend is regionwide, not limited to new five-over-twos. Adding thousands of more units dilutes the price pressure and is necessary long term. It doesn’t magically cut rents in half to make them affordable again, which is what you keep claiming “liberals” believe but they don’t.
Dedicated affordable housing is, of course, affordable, but it doesn’t fully solve the problem when it’s only 50 or 1,000 units and the need is like 50,000 or 100,000, and there are 5,000 homeless alone. But it’s a first step, and several first steps can add up.
Mike Orr,
I hear you. The Tacoma Mall area isn’t very walkable and riding a bike there is an adventure to say the least. Rode my bike down 48th to the Mall during the Holidays many times over the years… and back up Steele St, past the light on 38th and finally to the stupid pedestrian overpass on Hosmer … not an easy trip.
But the truth is the Mall is the only place to shop for stuff that isn’t food, booze or coffee in the whole City, except maybe 6th Ave Plaza? Harbor Freight tools is over there if you need a hammer drill. And for most of America, life is about hammer drills, school clothes, pet food and car repair.
The City of Tacoma has taken so much sales tax money out the Tacoma Mall Subarea over the decades and spent it on everything but the neighborhood it came from…. does it surprise you that it’s not walkable? Who’s at fault here?
I’ll let you in on a little secret…. the more walkable any residential neighborhood is in Tacoma is…. the more White it is. That’s a 100 years of urban planning for you.
Mike Orr,
“Dedicated affordable housing is, of course, affordable, but it doesn’t fully solve the problem when it’s only 50 or 1,000 units and the need is like 50,000 or 100,000, and there are 5,000 homeless alone. But it’s a first step, and several first steps can add up.”
. If anybody really believes the powers-that-be would build 100,000 new homes to bring down the price of rent in Greater Seattle, I just don’t know what to tell them. Everybody in the building industry would just laugh at you.
First off, where is billions in capital to do such a thing? Real estate development floats on credit after all. Who’s paying the investors AFTER building “affordable” housing.
Second of all, who would build 100,000 news units? Seattle went “all in” on building units for last 25 years. It’s physically impossible to build more housing in the next 25 years than the last 25 years (mostly due to high housing prices and smaller blue collar workforce)
Third, Seattle is almost completely built out. There isn’t any more building sites to slam up apartment buildings on and turn a profit. There are places to build, but site preparation is more expensive. Tearing down shit like old office buildings doesn’t pencil out for the builder. Tearing down Seattle single family houses for multiplex development puts to site preparation, permitting and utility work . at least 300k per new unit. Before construction even starts. Can you afford an 800K condo? There are plenty of people who can and that’s who the builders care about. The upper crust will be served way before anybody else.
Back to the Tacoma Mall for a minute. It is what it is. It’s a real place with real people and real money. Tacoma would be 100% completely fucked without it, shopping-wise and sales tax-wise. But “progressives” still hate the place. Don’t shop there I guess?
White people commit crimes.
It’s not just perception of violence, it’s actual violence.
https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/city.of.tacoma/viz/TacomaPoliceCrimeDashboard/CrimeDashboard-IntroPage
“Don’t shop there I guess?”
Not really. I shop on the periphery. Best Buy. Costco.
The mall is pretty much Macy’s (I do occasionally shop there if I need a tie or a suitcase), 72 shoe stores, and a dozen incredibly mediocre restaurants.
You do know that transit doesn’t actually serve the mall, right? There’s a transit center near Best Buy, but no bus routes go particularly close to the mall. It’s all parking lots, one apartment complex, and Sean Kemp chasing fast cars around in the lots, emptying his clip at random perceived enemies.
The Tacoma Central complex on Union is much more useful. Target, Office Depot, Walmart.
But if I feel the urge for a pair of Nike’s maybe I’ll dodge the bullets and hit the mall.
I’m tempted to moderate the shooting references as off-topic. The idea that you’d get shot if you go to Tacoma Mall is remotely possible but mostly imaginary, and just stirs up fake fears that hinder a productive discussion. The stats Cam posted show 4 potential shootings that day in the entire City Council District 2. (3 “weapon law violations”, 1 “robbery – gun”.) That’s not just at the mall, and is typical of every urban council district throughout Pugetopolis. At the same time there were 9 traffic accidents with injuries, 15 without injuries, and 18 motor vehicle thefts.
What matters is the actual number of shootings, and the actual likelyhood that any one person would get shot while spending 1 day or 10 years in district 3. And those numbers are very low, otherwise the district would be depopulated.
“Crazy how the City Beautiful team (I would guess they’re educated smart people?) would fall for the King County/Seattle City government plan to “sell” a bunch of worthless downtown office buildings to Sound Transit for enough money to offset building new County and City office buildings somewhere else. The City and County are blatantly trying to rip off Sound Transit.”
I don’t think they were really implying anything like you’re saying. He said in the video that the City and County has floated selling off old city office buildings for redevelopment. Not one mention of Sound Transit in relation to the selling of county property, you’re saying that. And tbh said proposal is in an exploratory stage and may not even happen anyway. So you’re making a whole lotta hoopla over nothing.
“Some Pierce Transit routes are the Wild West now.”
Not really, but go off.
Zach B,
I don’t support Sound Transit because its mission is decades long and murky at best. Seattle and King County own a bunch of tired old buildings nobody wants to work at, much less buy for a fucking billion dollars. Tearing this junk down and building something useful? Every pol in King County knows the answer. “Let the suckers at Sound Transit bail us out!” This has absolutely nothing to do with transit and everything to do with politics. And the Urbanist and City Beautiful are just fish on a line…. Guys like Bruce Harrell, who is skilled politician, just sets the hook and reels them in. If you’re really about transit and have common sense, just take a deep look at what City Beautiful claims in video.
Misunderstanding #1. Affordable housing in downtown Seattle. Being that pretty much every square inch of downtown is covered with concrete buildings that cost $$$$$ to get rid of, there’s no cheap wood construction on empty land. 20 story condos are never going to be affordable. Penthouse apartments cost a lot of money for a reason. Concrete and steel are never affordable housing…
Misunderstanding #2. If the County and City con Sound Transit into buying their complex downtown…. where the Hell are the new County and City buildings going in? How would that be cheaper? And where is the transit hub for City Government? Oh, Harrell drives a city owned SUV to work?
Misunderstanding #3. Housing has very little to do with transit. Sound Transit insists on building trains on next to the 1-5 freeway. Nobody wants to live next to the noise and pollution. Nobody wants to live next to the Tacoma Dome Station and or the car-transit mess in Federal Way. Walk over a freeway for shopping or riding a train? Every day? Ahh. no thanks.
Misunderstanding #4. Why does Seattle need a second subway tunnel at all? A subway to West Seattle? Nice place, but an underground tunnel?!?! for what? 2 billion? Read this from the Urbanist. https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/10/10/king-county-metro-faces-looming-fiscal-cliff/#:~:text=This%20cliff%20will%20also%20likely,in%20Metro's%20capital%20facilities%20plan.
I’m not falling for the boys with toy trains crap and neither should you.
Also, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever you and yours celebrate the darkest time of year with. To better transit in 2025!
“Nobody wants to live next to [freeway] noise and pollution”
Yet the apartments next to I-5 are filled in the U-District, Northgate, Ash Way P&R, etc. The new ones at Mountlake Terrace station probably will be too. People live wherever they can. If the units next to the freeway are cheaper because of the noise, they’ll get people who can’t afford quieter units. They’ll also get people who really want to live near Link or frequent transit. They’ll get people who want to live in that city or county.
@ Zach B and Tacomee:
The residential development may be speculative, but that doesn’t preclude Dow having ST buy and demolish the current county buildings. ST cleverly was given the power to buy real estate before a project has been fully designed. So the ST Board could buy those buildings next year, lease them back to the County until the new government buildings are ready, then take ownership leaving them vacant until they get demolished. And they don’t have to start building a station right away.
Tacomee has a valid point. The ST3 money is an opportunity to have our local dollars given to transit to buy station sites. In this case the property owner is the county. However, unlike WSDOT and cities handing over right of way for free , I suspect King County will expect a large compensation amount for the property.
I think the housing pitch is mostly a PR gimmick designed to grease the wheels of skeptical Board members to let ST staff give King County money for the property. I also agree with Tacomee that this urban monstrosity vision will ever be mostly affordable housing. It will probably sit vacant or demolished (and fenced off) for many years literally creating a dead zone between the Financial District and the ID.
Had King County pursued new buildings before the ST plans changed the situation could be interpreted differently. But for a change like this to end up as the preferred alternative without a prior County offices relocation study and consensus effort, it suggests to me that this is more like how a Tacomee sees it.
“I don’t support Sound Transit because its mission is decades long and murky at best. ”
I don’t even know why you’re bringing this up when it’s not even relevant to the current thread.
I didn’t even bring up anything relevant to your ramblings of not liking Sound Transit, so I don’t know why you needed to bring it up again like you’ve done for 5th or 6th time in the last couple of months when it’s often not relevant to the thread topic. At this point, all you’re doing is stump speeching at the breeze.
AI
People are putting way too much weight into this proposal. I don’t see much happening in my view as its from a one off study that discussed what could possibly happen with the properties. We’ve seen multiple proposals like this over the years for other similar things and sometimes nothing materializes from it and it just becomes another document in what could of been stored deep in the archives of the County Administrative Building.
The other reason I don’t put much weight into it is because I doubt whomever is next County Executive will pursue it for a multitude of reasons. Mainly that the redevelopment was Dow’s baby and will likely die with him as he leaves office. Sometimes a project loses steam the moment said person who spearheaded it leaves and I see that happening with the county civic center redevelopment.
@Zach B,
“ the redevelopment was Dow’s baby and will likely die with him as he leaves office”
Dow is being slotted as the next CEO of ST. As such, he should be able to make this happen.
“I’m tempted to moderate the shooting references as off-topic.”
Definitely Mike. Feel free. Tacomee’s Mall boosterism gets under my skin, and I sometimes react badly. Your point is valid.
It is clearly not the appropriate place for a mult-billion dollar investment in transit in ST4, given 99.93% of the people drive there, and it is only served by a couple of bus routes on the periphery.
Kids clearly spend time there, and we should make it safer to get there outside of a car. We need to vastly improve the walkability and transit.
Third, Seattle is almost completely built out.
I think anyone in the building industry would laugh at you if you made that statement.
Seattle went “all in” on building units for last 25 years.
Bullshit. Seattle was severely limited in what they could build just like every city in the US with a housing shortage. There has been a lot of new construction, but much of it has been in the form of new houses — the only thing they would allow developers to build. More recently there was a huge boom in new ADUs and DADUs. This is a direct result of the change in regulations (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-is-now-building-more-adus-than-single-houses/). If they changed the regulations to make it easier to build apartment building then they would build a lot more of those. Instead of the house/ADU/DADU (which is the standard in *most* neighborhoods) they would build small apartment buildings. For the same amount of material and labor they could add a lot more places to live (with more room for the occupants as well).
Maybe you aren’t that familiar with how they building things in Seattle, but it is really kind of bizarre. If not for the regulations it would make no sense. They tear down an old house (that part is normal). If the lot is big they subdivide it. That is normal, but since Seattle has such ridiculously large lots you instantly make it much harder on developers. It makes no sense to build a single townhouse on a 7,000 square foot lot. It is illegal to subdivide into 1,000 square foot lots and put up townhouses (in all but a handful of places). Legally they can only build one house. But there is a loophole. They are allowed an additional ADU and DADU. So technically this is a triplex. But the rules are such that it can’t be built like a normal triplex. Nor can you just build three townhouses. Instead they require one structure to be attached somehow to the biggest house. The second one must be detached. But there are silly rules and regulations on the various dimensions which of course push the price way up.
This is for relatively simple low-rise housing. It is worse for bigger apartments. So what would otherwise be the most cost effective form of development per unit (an apartment building) is a lot more costly. First you have the fact that they are illegal in the vast majority of places in the city. This pushes up the cost of the land in those areas. Second are rules and regulations that push costs up (perhaps by design). Things like required parking and design review.
Thus is is often cheaper to build housing for the rich, not the poor. If you want to build a McMansion you just truck in the various pieces and you are done in now time. If you want to build a triplex you can do it, but it is far more tricky and expensive then it should be. If you want to build a six-story apartment you are fighting city hall. Sure, it can be done, but it appears the city is trying to do everything in its power to make construction more expensive — for the poor. (Ironically it then turns around and says we need to build more publicly funded low-income housing.)
This is why housing in Seattle is so expensive.
Dow is being slotted as the next CEO of ST.
That is the last thing the agency needs. That would be like putting Joseph Hazelwood in charge of nautical safety for Prince William Sound. OK, that isn’t fair. I’m sure Hazelwood has learned his lesson. He probably knows a lot about nautical safety and would like to make amends.
But Dow doesn’t know much about transit and is responsible for the mess we are in. It isn’t only the construction problems (although those are big) but the design problems as well. The seemingly arbitrary decisions that appear to have little to do with enhancing transit. Taking corridors with relatively few transit riders but very fast average speed and then overlaying rail on the fastest parts. It is a fundamentally stupid thing to do but Dow has spearheaded the poorly thought out plans.
No, we need a CEO from outside. One that is willing to look at the system with a critical eye and not assume it was built with any forethought or expertise. That at least gives us a chance of changing directions. Otherwise Dow will be like Captain Hazelwood — totally confused as the ship runs aground — while the rest of the region has to deal with cleaning up the mess.
Note: The Exxon Valdez spill is actually more complicated than that. As always Wikipedia covers it well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill). Exxon itself had a lot to do with the problems (of course). The problems were more systemic (and the result of a drunken captain). Likewise Sound Transit has fundamental systemic problems (you can’t blame Dow for everything — that would be silly). Oh, and Hazelwood died a few years ago.
Cam Solomon,
So I’m a Tacoma booster. Sue me. Honestly, what’s the harm of loving your adopted hometown? Every inch of it. Warts and all.
I could care less what you think about the Tacoma Mall subarea. I don’t care what anybody on this blog thinks. To each their own I guess.
But here just the basic facts about the Tacoma Mall.
1. The sales taxes generated from the subarea by a lot of the City’s bills.
2. There’s never been any effort to make the subarea for walkable or have better transit. Even though there are lots and lots of lower paying retail jobs added and more housing built there all the time.
3. Transit and walkability are real social justice issues. The City owes the Tacoma Mall subarea after decades of neglect and taking millions and millions out of the area in sales taxes.
I’ll be walking around the Tacoma Mall with an old friend from the neighborhood after Christmas…. just turned 90 this Summer and she walks the Mall pretty much every day. She’s not the least bit afraid of getting shot I guess….
“The City owes the Tacoma Mall subarea after decades of neglect..”
On that we can agree.
The broken promises, even in the list of relatively modest short-term priorities are too numerous to mention them all. The most relevant to this blog (none of which have occurred or even moved small steps forward, to my knowledge):
https://www.cityoftacoma.org/government/city_departments/planning_and_development_services/planning_services/current_initiatives/tacoma_mall_neighborhood_subarea_plan
– Relocate the existing Tacoma Mall Transit Station to a central location within the
Subarea in order to improve access, increase ridership and spur transit-oriented
development.
– Coordinate with Sound Transit to add Tacoma Mall transit center as a stop on the
express bus service from Lakewood to Seattle
-Enhance transit service and attractiveness by improving multi-modal station access,
improving station amenities and aesthetics, and ensuring transit effectively links key
City and regional destinations
– Promote transportation mode shift by enhancing transit, bicycle and pedestrian
options, implementing Transportation Demand Management (TDM) measures and
implementing access management measures.
I agree Al. Unfortunately this attitude is common. There are clearly issues with American transit, and it boils down to these categories:
1) We don’t build enough mass transit.
2) It costs too much to build mass transit.
3) We build the wrong thing.
4) Our bus system is underfunded.
Transit advocates tend to focus on the first two items and blame that for our problems. But the last two are actually bigger issues. People who actually get paid to do consulting work tend to understand this (e. g. Jarrett Walker). Even armchair experts often grasp this. For example Reece Martin has produced videos on transit for quite some time. He has an extensive knowledge of transit systems around the world. Like most experts he understands that there are almost always trade-offs. Despite his enthusiasm for rail systems and focusing his videos on things like running light rail in a tunnel (don’t do it) he has evolved to be quite similar to Walker in his general assessment of transit systems.
Yet people who don’t have the time or inclination to critically assess what we are building just look at that first item and applaud us. Then they regret the second item. The completely ignore the last two issues. They ignore the very real possibility that we are building the wrong thing and that our bus system is underfunded.
I agree with your conclusions here about focusing only on the first two of four problems, Ross.
It really shocks me how people supposedly in the know can’t determine the basic problems of planning, building and operating the “wrong thing”. And big civil engineering company or construction company executive wants the revenue and won’t question what their “client” wants to build even it it’s the “wrong thing”.
I attribute part of it to not ever living in different big metro areas with different kinds of transit systems. A station and a train may look cool the first few visits, but if you used it several times a week for a year its functionality issues become apparent — even primary. If you are no longer as agile or have to carry things with you like a suitcase or stroller it becomes even more obvious.
Sometimes I wish that ST should have wheelchair day for senior staff and Board members. Or even stroller day, suitcase day, walker day or big box carry day. Maybe a simulated visually impaired day or hearing impaired day or a “with child” day would reveal some issues that go unseen. Even one round trip on transit that way would be revealing. A person with mobility issues can experience and observe things more obviously than a generic young able-bodied rider can.
Heck I find it surreal that Board members have a “rider experience” committee meeting where its members aren’t even required to “ride” to the darned meeting! It’s like when a panel of men make decisions targeting women’s health. Or when car drivers design a transit system from a 2D property ownership map.
Isn’t that how it’s done????
(/snark)
@ Tom:
Obvious deadpan snark!
“Crazy how the City Beautiful team (I would guess they’re educated smart people?)”
He’s an urban planner and focuses mostly on zoning issues.
He clearly doesn’t know much about Seattle and about certain controversial aspects of Ballard/DSTT2/ST3; he’s talking from a general national perspective. That in turn shows how much of the issues are Seattle-specific. It also shows what our situation would look like generically if you just look at more transit service and housing units. He also fails to notice the long transfer walk: he calls it “just a block”, as if a block weren’t already long for the primary subway-to-subway transfer station, and even longer with the deep elevation changes. I put that down to, he’s not a transit expert, he can’t experience the walk because the station doesn’t exist yet, and his focus is housing.
He’s an urban planner and focuses mostly on zoning issues.
Fair enough. But he calls himself a “transit nerd” and then shows a very superficial understand of transit. To put it simply: Focus on the network.
Sure, it is important that areas around the station be developed. But in a city like Seattle it is way more important that the trains be part of a much bigger, more effective network. It is simply unrealistic to expect the vast majority of people to live close to the relatively small number of stations that will be added. The only way we will have an effective transit system is if the trains and buses cover a much bigger area.
For example he focuses on development around the Interbay Station. But that isn’t really why the station is there. It is designed to connect to Magnolia as well as the north end of Queen Anne (including SPU). It is one of the few major network improvements in ST3. All the buses from Magnolia can follow the 31/32 corridor (SPU/Fremont/UW) which would be a huge improvement. At the same time, they get a good connection to Link (for trips to Uptown and Downtown).
Unfortunately most of ST3 fails in enhancing the network, despite the massive cost. He does a good job in pointing out why building stations next to the freeway is a bad idea, but he is missing the forest for the trees. Development will be largely independent of ST3 (it will happen where they allow it). ST3 won’t be critical for our future transit needs simply because it won’t improve the network that much (if it is even built).
This escalator video came out yesterday.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7wFdnnPg1S0
Many of these are in metro stations. I like that the video gives the depths and the time it takes to actually ride them.
Sone of these were reported with vertical distance of just over 110 feet. Will any of the planned stations have escalators this long?
Also notice that the metros all have 3 or 4 escalators in the bank.
Regular inspections and preventative maintenance: that sounds like what ST’s escalators and elevators need.
The Huangguan escalator seems to have a hump. (9:49) I had to watch it again to confirm it seems to go up and then down as if over the the top of a hill.
The count-up clocks in Moscow and St Peterburg platforms are visible at 21:13. These count up the time since the last train. That’s probably cheaper than next-arrival displays, and more reliable if the next train is late or unknown.
Continuing the thread about airport transportation, I’d like to talk about the 560 to Bellevue. As I type this comment at 9:45 PM on a Sunday night, it’s peak time at SeaTac for arriving flights, with Google Maps showing solid red all the way back from the SR-518 exit ramp. Yet, the 560 only runs once per hour, and when it finally comes, the bus has to wait in line with all the cars. This makes it very unpredictable when the bus is going to show up and near impossible for people to depend on making a connection at Bellevue Transit Center without a long wait.
Sound Transit has a long term plan of replacing the 560 with the STRIDE line, but there’s a lot they can do to make the 560 better now. For instance, they can run the 560 at the frequency they intend to operate STRIDE at, without waiting for construction to finish. They can also change the route at the airport to avoid traffic delays. For example, instead of going down the airport expressway like all the cars do, the bus could take I-5 to 188th St. to International Blvd. and serve the same bus stops at both ends of the airport that RapidRide A does. Or, the bus can go into TIBS and use Link as an airport shuttle, but they’ll need a timed connection in the SeaTac->Bellevue direction, particularly when Link is reduced to every 15 minutes in the evenings, and ST just doesn’t seem capable of doing times connections.
I would be super reluctant to use the 560 for catching a flight given its wide fluctuations in travel time, unless I had a huge cushion of time. I rode it once during the PM rush and was sweating it on I-405 in bumper to bumper auto congestion. The last thing one wants is to miss their flight because the bus took an extra 30 minutes on top of an already extra 30 minutes baked into the schedule at high traffic times. I know the schedule has it ranging from 40-75 minutes Bellevue TC to SeaTac.
They totally need to look at ways to avoid traffic with the current route and soon, those are great ideas to just hit TIBS or Rapid Ride A stops on Intl Blvd. The 560 is a much lower profile bus used by those who know about it so while those locations aren’t ideal, they get the job done by having a more reliable bus that avoids huge auto congestion.
Long term, I love the idea of the Stride with a branch or detour to serve SeaTac via the proposed elevated busway. Of course that’s a decade away at earliest and very likely won’t be an open busway. There is a real case for more SeaTac Airport oriented regional transit bus service and would be great if it could use the busway.
I live near one of the upcoming Stride stations on the Eastside, and I love the idea of that Stride system connecting to Sea-Tac via dedicated lanes or busways. At the very least, the Eastside Stride line will connect to the airport via Link at the Bellevue Transfer Station.
I’m kind of a minority on this but I think Stride 1 should be fully rethought. I’m not advocating letting go of it. I’m instead saying that it could be so much more!
Even if it’s not there on opening day, the corridor needs better long-term thinking for additional stations and operations. I would first suggest freeway stops near Factoria and SouthCenter for starters. Then I would revisit how to get buses in and out of the new Renton TC without so many lane changes on 405.
I’ve long argued that the awful TIBS connection for Stride should be abandoned with the transfers at SeaTac Airport Link instead. The buses should have a way to get to and from a stop next to the SeaTac Link station without getting in the middle of clogged SeaTac terminal traffic.
In the short term, I actually wonder if ST should switch out 560 for 574 for points west of SeaTac and TIBS when FW Link opens in 2026. With Stride not going to West Seattle anyway and ST wanting to drop routes going fully into Downtown it looks like a strategic early move. Of course, it all boils down to rider patterns and travel times with traffic congestion.
I don’t see STX 560 being competitive to get to Bellevue from Westwood. The scheduled assugns assigns a travel time of 70 minutes midday with buses every 15 minutes. RR-C is 38 minutes to get to Pioneer Square with 2 line taking 22 minutes and both lines having 10 minute service midday (60 total with another 5-8 for transferring).
By moving that leg to 574 the Renton to West Seattle direct connection is severed — but it’s severed with Stride. anyway. And if that’s the terminus of 560 then it could stop at both SeaTac and TIBS.
@Al S
You aren’t alone, but the ship may have already sailed. I think Stride 2/3 are great but Stride 1 is a bit lackluster.
I don’t think it is that bad though. The 560’s detour to Seatac takes a very long time and it would still take a long time with a dedicated busway. The existing routing through Renton is incredibly slow as well. I think Stride 1 will be a net improvement overall.
I think the biggest missed opportunities are a center stop at Southcenter and 1-2 center stops in Renton. I dont think serving Factoria is realistic.
Stride 1 wouldn’t be bad if they’d just do a split of the line at TIB. I think that would make the line less terrible in my opinion.
Stride 1 wouldn’t be bad if they’d just do a split of the line at TIB. I think that would make the line less terrible in my opinion.
Yes, but you would need more money. For example you could do this:
1) Run the 560 every fifteen minutes.
2) Run the Stride 1 line every fifteen minutes but skip Renton.
That is probably the cheapest option but it would still cost a lot of money. If they simply branched then it would *more* terrible for riders in Burien (most of whom are not going to SeaTac). It isn’t obvious to me what the best option is. SeaTac is a significant destination for the 560, but Renton got more riders and Bellevue got way more riders. I see why Stride made the choice they did (and skipped SeaTac). Unlike the north end of 405 I don’t see an obvious combination that would add a lot of value. With the north end of 405 you could easily create two overlapping lines. For example keep the Stride bus but run a new route from Woodinville to the UW (ever fifteen minutes). The UW and Woodinville make good tails from a geographic standpoint. The overlap isn’t that big so it doesn’t cost that much. Not only that, but the UW is a major destination.
But I don’t see an easy way to do that with 405 south. SeaTac is not the UW. It isn’t that big of a destination. It is basically in between Renton and Burien. Thus riders from Burien to Bellevue are delayed by the trip to SeaTac. You would be better off with buses just ending at SeaTac (or having both). There is another route to consider: The 566 (Auburn/Renton/Bellevue). I could easily running that bus every fifteen minutes. Ultimately something has to give. Unless you throw a huge amount of service at the area someone has to transfer. It seems to me that transferring to Link is the best option.
More Link related improvements on the way.
From the October report, Shoreline expects to place the superstructure for the 148th Street Pedestrian Bridge on its piers in the summer of 2025.
Unfortunately, placing the superstructure will require the closing of I-5 in both directions for up to 14 hours. Given the lack of good alternatives to I-5 in the area, and the behind schedule roundabout construction at 145th, this should make for a real mess. Will be fun to watch!
https://www.shorelinewa.gov/government/projects-initiatives/148th-street-pedestrian-bicycle-bridge
Hopefully the Ped bridge will open relatively soon after the superstructure is placed, because there is a huge amount of TOD under construction on the west side of I-5, and those people could really benefit from a better pedestrian connection to Link.
Oh, and once this project is done WSDOT expects to tear the area up again to daylight Thornton Creek. More I-5 chaos! Thank gawd we have Link so we can bypass it all.
“placing the superstructure will require the closing of I-5 in both directions for up to 14 hours”
Practice drill for the big I-5 renovation next year. Good thing Lynnwood Link is in place. We’ll see how it goes.
Fourteen hours can be 6 PM Saturday evening to 8 AM Sunday morning. I-405 can certainly handle the “through” traffic, and Aurora and 15th NE will be up to the task for local jaunts, especially with the 130th southside ramps just a half mile away. I hope that the closure is widely advertised in many media outlets, in order to make detours orderly.
I would suggest Sunday evening rather than Saturday evening.
Another option is to pick a holiday weekend. That with a Sunday evening closure would give the work crew a time cushion if things start to take too long.
The Northgate Pedestrian Bridge ($56 million). The Overlake Village Pedestrian Bridge ($10 million). The Redmond Technology Station Pedestrian Bridge ($33 million). The Eastrail NE 8th Wilburton Station Pedestrian Bridge ($32 million). The 148th street pedestrian bridge ($40 million). The RTS Ped Bridge cost seems low, but that’s what it said it cost.
I wonder if ST factored in the costs of the bridge, when it chose hwy running trains.
Long ago, Portland came to the conclusion there needs to be more such pedestrian bridges, new light rail lines or not. The problem is freeways cutting up neighborhoods, not just transit access.
So from time to time we get new such bridges:
• Blumenauer Bridge
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/pbot-projects/construction/congressman-earl-blumenauer-bicycle-and-pedestrian-bridge
• Ned Flanders crossing:
https://www.portland.gov/transportation/news/2021/9/9/portlands-newest-bike-and-pedestrian-bridge-has-new-name-ned-flanders
and a few others.
Yeah, pedestrian bridges are very important. They make a city a lot more livable. The Northgate Bridge has basically connected two neighborhoods. Sure, you could always take a bus around, but that takes a while. It is so much easier to just walk across. For biking it is arguably more important. Quite often the freeway forms a wall or at best a very dangerous narrow section that has to be navigated just to continue the trip. The bridges can make a huge difference in terms of safety and mobility.
Pedestrian bridge costs are part of the problem. There are many companies that can build bridges or at least major pieces of them in a factory and install them quickly — closing a roadway for only a few hours.
Cost is really affected by a required span. But it’s even possible to reduce costs for longer spans in different ways.
It’s a component of why construction costs and efforts seem so high and take so long. Too often each bridge is bespoke.
I get that bridge designers don’t want a repeat of the FIU pedestrian bridge collapse. But that was a bespoke bridge design as well as an obviously poor combination of design decisions (long span of 175 ft using a concrete design).
Some of that cost also depends on what the perceived need. Eg: two of the new Portland pedestrian bridges were built with support for emergency vehicles in mind. It is well known that many of our bridges, including those over I-84, won’t survive an earthquake. Thus, the new span cost $19 million.
You’ll soon see light rail trains arriving in Federal Way.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ll-soon-see-light-rail-131500399.html