Transit & Streets:
- The bus lanes on Aurora will be enforced 24/7 while WSDOT works on repaving I-5 from Downtown to Northgate from 2025-2027 (The Urbanist)
- Bus operator and writer Nathan Vass comments on the killing of Shawn Yim and transit safety (The Urbanist). Meanwhile, the Seattle Times ($) details how a Metro driver helped identify the murder suspect.
- View your ridership patterns with the new “ORCA Wrapped” feature (The Seattle Times, $)
- As the major repaving project on the Ballard Bridge wraps up, the Route 40 TPMC project is gearing up to work in Fremont and Westlake (My Ballard)
- Metro’s ADA Transition Plan is accepting comments until January 10 (King County Metro)
- After Proterra’s bankruptcy last year left few options for battery bus makers, Metro has contracted with European bus builder Solaris to buy up to 16 zero-emission buses, which is apparently enough to motivate starting production stateside. Discussion of a related article in The Urbanist started in a previous Open Thread.
- Community Transit expanded its Zip rideshare service area to Arlington, Darrington, and Lake Stevens (CT News)
- Rearrangement of NE 130th & 125th St as reached final design (SDOT Blog). See our previous post on the project.
- Sound Transit has expanded GoodMaps coverage to Northgate, University of Washington, Capitol Hill, Columbia City and SeaTac stations (The Platform).
- Sound Transit wants your input on pedestrian connections around King Street Station (ST Project Updates)
Land Use & Housing:
- This land handout will bring apartments to Lynnwood light rail station (The Seattle Times, $)
- Priced out of Seattle rental market, more opt for backyard cottages (The Seattle Times, $)
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- King County Metro celebrates Streetcar Employee of the Year Mike Nicolay (Metro Matters)
- Op-Ed: A Wishlist for Pierce County Under Ryan Mello’s Leadership (The Urbanist)
This is an Open Thread.
For Darrington, demand may be very low, but the microtransit model still doesn’t seem right. The town itself is small enough that you can just walk everywhere and don’t need motorized transit. What transit is needed for is to get from the town to Arlington, Marysville, etc. to connect with the broader region. But, because the service area is so big, any microtransit service is going to take a very long time – possibly hours – to show up. For example, imagine making a ride request in Darrington while the shuttle van is busy servicing someone’s local trip in Lake Stevens – it’s going to be a very long wait for them to come out to get you.
For Darrington, I would argue that even a fixed route bus that runs only twice a day is better than this, because at least the fixed bus will follow a published schedule that you can plan around, and the inbound and outbound trip can be timed far enough apart to allow enough time to bus all the way to Seattle and spend a few hours there before going back.
Agreed. I know someone who uses microtransit and that is what she complained about. She works in Seattle and takes a bus to the Kenmore Park and Ride. Then she tries to get from there to her condo across from Saint Edwards Park. The wait for microtransit is just too long. She ends up riding a different bus that runs every half hour and walking almost twenty minutes to home. Or she calls her husband to get picked up (if she misses that connection).
The microtransit model really doesn’t work because it can’t scale. This means one of three things happen. The first is that hardly anyone uses it. This means the service is effective, but extremely expensive per rider. Basically you are paying a cab driver to wait around all day for someone to go somewhere. The second is the scenario I mentioned. It is busy but ineffective. It is also expensive per rider. The third is that you spend a bunch of money making it more effective. With a lot more vans and drivers my friend could have a ride home. But you are much better off spending that money on fixed route service.
It really only works in that first case — you are trying to serve a tiny number of people. That is a laudable goal but first you should serve everyone else. That means fixed route service.
And yes, that means a bus to Darrington. The demand is at least linear (you stop at various places along the way). I could easily see hourly service there (if Community Transit was willing to spend the money). For the most part micromobility is just symbolic transit. It is a way to tell various communities that they have transit (on-demand transit — the best kind!). Except it either serves a handful of people or just doesn’t work.
I’m not a fan of microtransit in general, but there are some areas where it is clearly less bad than others. The areas where microtransit works best is when demand is scattered random throughout an area of maybe 3-5 square miles. That way, at least if the service is lightly used, an idle vehicle can get to you within 15-20 minutes of driving. On the contrary, if you request a ride in Lake Stevens only to discover that your van is on the way to Darrington, it might take 3 hours for the van to get to Darrington, pick up the person, drop them off at their destination, and drive back to Lake Stevens again. Simply put, I would call microtransit fundamentally unworkable with a service area this big, even if passenger demand is light enough that the average ride request is #2 in line for a van.
Now, the CT page didn’t make it clear whether it was really one big service area for the microtransit or several smaller service areas around various communities. If the latter, the “long drive to be picked up” problem goes away, but now a person in Darrington wanting to access a big-city amenity can’t get out of their town to connect with the broader transit system at all. They can use the microtransit for local trips around town during the day, but as I said, the town of Darrington is actually pretty compact, to the point where for anyone not disabled, microtransit is not necessary – to go half a mile between home and the grocery store, you can just walk.
My guess is that what they’re actually doing is keeping the twice-per-day fixed route bus connection Darrington to Arlington, and using the microtransit to form a local service area around Darrington to connect the town with various rural/semi-rural destinations within a few miles of the town. So, strictly speaking, service is still no worse for Darrington with the microtransit vs. without it, but I still think the town would have been better served by taking the money used to run the microtransit and, instead, increasing the regular bus service from two trips per day to three.
The only way I see microtransit working is through driverless automated vehicles. It’s not a far-fetched idea as several cities already have driverless taxis.
Microtransit also seems more useful if it has a hub like a Link station or transit center.
It rather amazes me that someone would by a house that isn’t walkable to transit to turn around and then expect the locals to pay for an adequate microtransit service so they can have transit access.
When vehicles become driverless it really doesn’t change the equation. It simple moves the bar. The easiest way to explain that is with an example.
Assume that you want to serve as many people as possible with a minimum level of service (e. g. a bus every fifteen minutes within a five minute walk). You have a certain amount of money. As a result, people who live in low-density areas are out of luck. But if you get more money you serve more people. The bar has been moved. Instead of serving 50% of the people you serve 70%. But you have to get to a very high percentage before microtransit makes sense.
Now do the same equation with automation. You start with a certain level of service but then it is like you got a lot more money. You go from 50% to 80% very quickly. But the money is not infinite. You still have to buy and maintain the vehicles. Microtransit still only makes sense for that small percentage that can’t be served very well with automated buses (and vans) running on a fixed route, fixed time path.
So yes, I could see microtransit becoming more useful as it is automated but not for the reasons people often cite. It isn’t suddenly better than traditional transit. It is just that you have the possibility of basically serving everyone with transit — including people you would never dream of serving before. Not Duvall (which would be served with fixed-route, fixed-time transit) but outside of Duvall on a road that gets a handful of cars every day but is too far of a walk to Duvall.
Of course we might just decide (as a society) that it isn’t worth it (unless you are disabled). It is like providing sewer and water. At some point folks are basically on their own (and many prefer it that way).
@ Ross:
Microtransit has generally been popular here during off hours as demand is too low to run a bus — like hourly. Rather than pay for staff to drive an empty bus and force a rider to wait up to an hour, having a driverless vehicle begin the trip within 15 minutes is a last-mile game changer and makes transit use be more attractive for a longer trip. It may even be that they don’t even go into service until 7 pm.
I can’t wait to be an old man complaining about how taxis used to have real drivers. /s
All I can hope is that they’ll have a option to reject the ride if the interior has been ruined by a previous passenger.
If the movie Total Recall is an accurate look into the future, taxis won’t be self-driving or driverless, they’ll be driven by human-looking robots.
If 007 is an accurate look into the future, vehicles will be controlled remotely, armed to the teeth, and used to kill people.
Oh, wait. That’s already happening.
Metro must be pretty lazy people to not realize that Proterra buses are
still being built, just under a new name.
https://phoenixev.ai/
Even if they, that doesn’t necessarily imply that parts are available that are compatible for the existing Proterra buses, in the model years that Metro has. It could be that only newer models are supported.
Unfortunately, this is a risk in buying vehicles from startup companies in general. And, of course , if everyone thinks that way, then the startup goes bankrupt, which is one reason among many that vehicle startups are extremely difficult. In the car market, I have no doubt that many would-be customers are shying away from companies like Lucid and Rivian out of fear that if the company goes under and a part breaks, there might not be anybody making replacements.
“Unfortunately, this is a risk in buying vehicles from startup companies in general.”
Great insight. I know this is a anti-car, pro-transit blog, but that is why no one in their right mind should buy an EV. In the late 19th and early 20th century, there were hundreds of “horseless carriage” builders in the USA alone. By the middle of the Great Depression, all but a handful were out of business. A lot of early adopters were screwed. At least those vehicles were simple, used common parts, and could be maintained by enthusiastic DIYers. Today’s EVs are electronic and software heavy, and very much designed to thwart DIY. The saving grace is today you have the option to lease an EV, often at very good terms and at no risk to you. I would think the same approach would be available to Metro and other bus operators.
I don’t understand, Phoenix bought out Proterra so why wouldn’t they
have the same parts? Doesn’t make any sense to me. And Proterra
has been making EVs for 15-20 years, about the same as Solaris.
And I don’t see why Rivian or Lucid would go under, they’re both deeply
financed and possessing leading tech. VW and the US gov just pumped
billions into Rivian, which also has an Amazon contract that has
years to go on it. Lucid has got the best tech along and have the Saudis pumbing billions into it. Those two are going to be around for a long, long time.
If you want a good example of a company going under see the old stalworth Nissan who has to merge with Honda because they can’t go it alone in the ev world. This totally contradicts your argument.
Multiple corrections: :)
Lucid has got the best tech along with having the Saudis pumping billions into it. Those two are going to be around for a long, long time.
Yeah, I don’t see car companies collapsing with no one willing to make parts. I get the analogy but the bar to make cars now is so high that the company will likely survive (even after bankruptcy). If not then it is quite possible someone will make different parts. I think it is more about the model not the health of the company. Porsche/Volkswagen is fairly solid. But apparently it is difficult and expensive to find replacement parts for the Porsche 911.
That does go back to the EVs though. In some cases (Tesla especially) they are building things that are hard to maintain. As technology improves it is quite possible that it becomes even more difficult and expensive to find parts (even if Tesla survives or is bought out).
lazybums, None is just here to “Own the Libs”. I doubt that he (?) even understands that EV’s are much simpler than ICE cars, considting mostly of a big mattery and two or three electric motors.
The suspensions and other running gear are pretty standard, at least for the major manufacturer EV’s.
As a former “car person” who’s actually rebuilt an engine or two, I’ll pitch in to say there are very few modern cars an operator can service themselves beyond basic oil changes. Even brake pad changes have become highly specialized affairs. As far as I’m aware, basically every new car sold in the USA after ~2016 is nearly impossible to service at home unless you’re practically a professional mechanic. Long gone are the days of swapping out injectors or adjusting timing in your garage – even basic diagnosis of computerized cars requires extremely expensive tools and software.
Meanwhile, EVs are an interesting shift because the “engine” (the electric motor) is not the primary failure point for the vehicle; the software is, followed by the chemistry of the battery itself. With no oil to change, regenerative braking reducing brake wear significantly, and modern lubricated joints being very well-sealed, mechanical service is minimal on SOV EVs. The main problem with EV startup companies going out of business after putting physical products on the road is the lack of software/firmware updates for all the critical computer-controlled features, which will become vulnerable and unstable over time.
Regarding Proterra, my guess is the bankruptcy voided their maintenance contracts. Perhaps “PhoenixEV” can produce same-spec parts, but I think it’s safe to assume someone at Metro decided it would be less risky to engage with a proven manufacturer whose only limitation was a lack of manufacturing capacity in the USA. Some folks seem to be forgetting Proterra had some significant issues with powertrain reliability.
recent cars have been called computers in wheels because that’s what they are.
My friend’s family owns a multigenerational car repair shop, and they’re gradually going out of business because recent cars can only be serviced at the dealership. An independent shop would have to get expensive brand-soecific training and certification and diagnostic equipment, which they can’t afford and wonder if they could recoup the investment. The current operators are near retirement and wondering if it’s time to close the store and sell the land to the developers who keep making unsolicited offers.
I don’t think “spare parts” argument is a good reason to avoid EVs in general. I think an EV from an established company such as Ford, GM, or Tesla, should be reasonably safe as far as availability of parts. But, at the time that King County Metro ordered the Proterra buses, the number of vehicles that Proterra was a new company with very few vehicles sold so far, so it’s future was genuinely very uncertain, something that is especially a concern with buses, as opposed to cars, since the overall market for buses (particularly in the United States) is much smaller.
For what it’s worth, I do own an EV these days (made by General Motors), and it’s good, reliable transportation. It hasn’t caused me any problems. Battery health is still very good after 5 years. I also appreciate the quietness of the ride, as well as the fact that I can leave my dog in the car for 30 minutes of shopping, with climate control on, without spewing out noxious gasses. Taking longer trips with it took a bit of a learning curve, but I’m reached the point where I can confidently do it, and it isn’t that big of a deal anymore. Last year, for example, I made it from Seattle to Crater Lake, and back in the car, didn’t have any trouble charging. Even including charging time in one of the slowest-charging EV’s available, I still beat the Coach Starlight in getting to my hotel in Klamath Falls by several hours.
But, there are some very good reasons why a transit system should be more cautious about going electric than what would be needed for a typical consumer vehicle, or even a delivery van or taxi. It’s critical service with a very low tolerance for service impacts caused by equipment faults. The shear amount of money needed to electrify hundreds of buses is very high, as is the cost of wiring up the base to charge several hundred of these buses all at once. Planned charging times during the day have to hold up, even in the coldest possible weather, in order to keep the buses on schedule and avoid service delays. The consequences of a bus going out of service for 30 unplanned minutes in the middle of the day are much more severe than for a taxi or delivery van; in the case of a taxi, passengers get picked up on another taxi; in the case of the delivery van, packages arrive at 6:32 instead of 6:02 (who cares?). In the case of the bus, either passengers get left stranded at the curb for 30 minutes (very bad), or the agency has to bring out another bus to take over (possible if it’s a one-off, but not practical if whole bunch of buses need to be swapped out at the same time). And, of course, the up-front financial cost of the switchover is substantial, and cutting service for a few years to pay for it is not acceptable (which, realistically, means, the switch should be funded with state grant money, not out of the transit agency’s own budget).
Rivian or Lucid won’t go under but Fisker already did even though they had a decent product. Some Uber drivers are still using them, but the question will be how long they will update the software.
Glad Solaris is backed by CAF which funds expansion around the world which should help the U.S. market.
@Tom “I doubt that he (?) even understands that EV’s are much simpler than ICE cars, consisting mostly of a big battery and two or three electric motors.
Add a giant freaking rheostat, and I’m good to go!
@NoneoftheAbove
“Today’s EVs are electronic and software heavy, and very much designed to thwart DIY.
@Nathan
“As far as I’m aware, basically every new car sold in the USA after ~2016 is nearly impossible to service at home unless you’re practically a professional mechanic.”
The problem isn’t that the technology is too complex, it’s that manufacturers are controlling access.
The culprit:
Proprietary Software
Oh, one could pull the machine code and decompile it to figure out how it written, and hack the code and get things to do what you want, but what needs to change is the laws.
As of now there are only 5 states with Right To Repair laws on the books.
Frankly, I’m tired of firing the parts cannon at problems because I can’t get to the diagnostics without signing up for a yearly subscription.
Software is going to kill us all!
Metro probably picked Solaris because of reputation and the fact that they fit the needs of Metro more than Phoenix can right now.
Solaris is a well known bus manufacturer in Europe who are part of the CAF Group (Spanish transportation manufacturer). Solaris itself has eyed the NA market for awhile and is now in the process of getting manufacturer facility set up here to begin manufacturing for the NA market. KCM and NYC MTA are some of the first contracts they signed for busses.
Well if they are a CAF company that makes sense. It didn’t say that in
the link. CAF is a multinational that has a pretty decent rep in public
trans. Ty Zach
There is just not enough bidders in this market. I am surprised Solaris would take this steps.
In the past few decades, foreign-background bus manufacturers came and left (or got acquired).
Some of the big one started off a major order from agency like NYCT, order from which could keep their US-based plant busy for at least half decade. In the meantime, their reputation with MTA got their some minor orders while delivering the remaining MTA’s orders, but these companies’ pretense in the US never lasted, which left very few players in the US on these days. I think this is just not healthy. If there were more players in the US, NFI probably wouldn’t say no when KCM wants to order some 5-door versions XT60 for G Line. I don’t think 5-door version of XT-60 is that difficult to make, or maybe it is.
I was told by someone who worked in the industry that his company considered entering US market a while back and found out the NHTSA regulation for bus are “unnecessarily complex”. The regulation specifies too much detail and a major redesign of existing product would be required in order to comply NHTSA regulation. Sometimes the requirement was set up for outdated reason.
I am not familiar with any of those NHTSA regulation, but I can kind of see that’s the case because buses in the US today don’t look so different from 20 years ago. Also, The Solaris model in the picture of news announcement looks very different from Solaris models running in EU.
We should have a contest predicting the opening date of the DRLE, and the full 2 Line.
@Sam,
I’ve pinged my sources on a DRLE opening date and they have been oddly quiet. No information at all, not even the normal off the record “estimates” that I can’t post. I’m not sure why that is, but supposedly things are going smoothly.
Per a Full ELE opening date, it is still too far out for estimates. But ST has said that there should be dead tow tests on the line in Q1 and live wire testing in Q2. That will be great to see.
Both of these openings will be major improvements in regional transit. And with the opening of Full ELE I won’t need to drive my wife to her meetings on the Eastside anymore. Can’t wait.
I’ll take a wild guess at it. I won’t even attempt to guess the exact day. DRLE opens in April, and the full 2 Line opens in November.
Given how as the opening date gets closer ST gets more vague, I get more skeptical about the imminent openings. It’s as if we have some shoe to drop.
ST’s vagueness may be due to last minute opening date pushback for Lynnwood. However, the lack of a solid Lynnwood date resulted in the bus restructure dates being two weeks off.
For full East Link it seems more justified. I’m optimistic but remain concerned how the floating bridge performs under regular use including routine things like passing trains on the bridge.
For Downtown Redmond the vagueness is more troublesome to me. Do you think ST cares that when Link shows up at the party lots of other agencies have to plan around it? Not only Metro but things all over Redmond too. Plus I imagine that Redmond wants and deserves a celebratory and well-executed civic event. ST needs to give everyone two months advanced notice if not more — and stick to it. The opening date needs to be stated ASAP! If I was in a Redmond leadership role, I’d be ringing ST asking for a date every morning .
Sam’s guess is about what I would guess for Downtown Redmond (April 2025). I think full East Link won’t open until March 2026 because so much has to go right to get to November 2025 — and for that to happen is like a football team going a season undefeated (nothing but wins). ST may be ahead in the fourth quarter but hasn’t reached the two minute warning step yet.
(I’m watching some college football tomorrow…)
@Lazarus,
“I’ve pinged my sources on a DRLE opening date and they have been oddly quiet. No information …. I’m not sure why that is, but supposedly things are going smoothly.”
Because, they know if they say anything, they’ll put the whammy on it.
Plus, what if things happen sooner?
(Trust me, I’ve had that happen before. Nothing like having your customers tell you something before you hear if from your managers)
Jim, with the DRLE, they are in the home stretch. They should now be fairly certain when it will be ready to open. If they know it will be ready to open sometime in April, for example, what’s the harm in saying so? They don’t have to proclaim it’s going to open in April, they could just say they are shooting for an April opening if everyone goes smoothly. But, this late in the game, if they really have no idea when in spring the DRLE will open, that suggests some disfunction at ST.
@Sam,
I’m not a betting man, but if I had to, I’d agree with you.
But 1 year since ST announced the start of fit and function testing is pretty ridiculous. Normally the entire process to opening only takes 6 months.
But clearly LLE and Full ELE took priority. Which I understand. But given the size of DRLE, I’m surprised they couldn’t just fast track it.
@Al S.,
“Do you think ST cares that when Link shows up at the party lots of other agencies have to plan around it?”
Ah, why should ST care? Link is totally not dependent on the bus restructures. If the Link infrastructure is ready, then ST should just open it and get it in service. The bus agencies can catch up later.
Opening early and getting the system in service makes much more sense than letting it sit fallow and waiting for Metro to catch up. And letting it sit fallow costs money.
And the quality of the Metro restructures aren’t that good anyhow. I think ST has learned that they don’t need to wait for a weak Metro restructure. That is what happened with the LLE opening, and it worked very well.
Just open it and let those riders who can use it take advantage of it. As a region we shouldn’t have to wait for real transit improvements.
Link is totally not dependent on the bus restructures. If the Link infrastructure is ready, then ST should just open it and get it in service. The bus agencies can catch up later.
That has been the attitude from Sound Transit from day one. Just build something and ignore what happens with the buses. That is why our system is second-rate (despite the extremely high price tag). Obviously the buses could be routed better as well (regardless of Link) but Link’s poor station placement isn’t doing them a favor. It really isn’t that hard to design a system so that the buses and trains can be well integrated (look at Vancouver) but ST doesn’t seem to care. If your assessment is correct they can’t even be bothered with informing the agency that carries the most riders when they will be done.
Guys, it isn’t just the bus operating agencies that have to adjust.
City law enforcement and emergency service departments need to have systems and training in place when Link opens.
City street departments have to expect shifts in traffic behavior that may affect signal timing, and have to be on guard for new neighborhood and nearby street parking intrusion.
And the opening day event planning has been intentionally major. Special events need coordination to provide police crowd protection, waste disposal, vendor registration and assignment, notification on the street for participant locations and other special event items. And any vendors need to prepare for things — not only commercial vendors but many public agencies and advocacy groups.
While these things can be managed without much lead time, some lead time is required to make them go well and have wide participation.
@Al S,
“ it isn’t just the bus operating agencies that have to adjust……City law enforcement and emergency service departments need to have systems and training in place when Link opens.”
Exactly, and all that is part of simulated service. When simulated service is complete the system is ready to open, including security, EMS, and local traffic control. It’s all part of simulated service, and that is exactly why it is done.
But that doesn’t mean that the final opening should be delayed. Far from it. Just look to the opening of LLE to see how well it can work.
The opening of LLE was one of the smoothest openings ST has had yet, and it is exactly a case where Link opened well before the supporting bus restructures were in place. That early opening allowed for a phased transition from old to new, and that phased implementation worked to minimize confusion and make for an easy and smooth transition to the new system.
Does the success of the early LLE opening mean ST will do more of these early openings? Hard to say. The successful opening of LLE was driven largely by CT and ST working together, and both those agencies have a good understanding of how rail works and are fairly progressive. Future Link openings won’t benefit as much from that productive relationship between CT and ST.
“Link is totally not dependent on the bus restructures”
Some of the bus routes are ST’s. It doesn’t matter whether the bus restructure is the same day or a bit later. There’s an argument for later in that it gives a fallback if Link doesn’t work. What would happen if Northgate Link opened but didn’t work but the 41 were already deleted and its hours redistributed? It would cause a hole in transit service. But if the bus restructure were later, it could be postponed further.
If the bus restructure is later, nobody has worse transit than they had: everybody still has the same bus service plus a new Link corridor. They may not be able to get to a Link station easily but they haven’t lost anything. So if the bus restructure is delayed by two or four weeks, so what? That’s just one month out of the years the new routes will operate.
The restructure itself has advantages for some trips and disadvantages for others, so it’s a mixed bag.
One big loser would be ST itself because it would have to run the 545 and 550 redundant to Link during the overlap. The East Link bus restructure is an integrated whole of both Metro routes and ST Express routes. You can’t do one without the other without blowing holes in parts of the network.
@ Lazarus:
“The opening of LLE was one of the smoothest openings ST has had yet, …”
ST announced the August 30 opening date on April 4 of 2024. That was just under FIVE MONTHS of lead time.
Looking back at the East Link starter line, ST announced the date 2.5 months in advance. However the simulation began at about six months before opening.
Looking back further at Northgate, ST set the date just under six months ahead,
The fact that ST has not yet revealed a date for Downtown Redmond Link extensions and full simulation has not yet begun are harbingers to me of delay. I wouldn’t be surprised if the segment does not open until May or even later if some unforeseen delay occurs.
Maybe ST is testing the vertical conveyances, finding several of them deficient, and having tough negotiations with the contractors to make the contractors pay to fix or replace them.
Very glad to see here that the E line is now getting bus lanes 24/7. This is years overdue, and will hopefully be made permanent.
https://publicola.com/2024/12/30/publicola-questions-king-county-executive-candidate-claudia-balducci/
Balducci open to ditching West Seattle light rail
I think Balducci is one of the more savvy ST board members. She doesn’t roll over and accept the backroom dealing that Constantine and Harrell do (and may be participating in). She is more likely to get that riders have to actually use Link rather than it being some real estate board game.
I sense she’s particularly not pleased with the ID debacle. She’s complained about how 2 Line riders really get negatively impacted by the worsening Downtown station transfer layouts. I’ve been surprised that she hasn’t publicly demanded down escalators to be installed at ID-C station yet.
The incoming Trump admin and the possible phase out of the New Starts Capital grants may be all that’s needed to slow down or stop the shopping spree giddiness with ST since ST3 passed in 2016. The ST3 program has been gleefully amok for quite awhile as everyone tries to figure out how to play it to their personal financial advantage (as opposed to doing what’s best for riders and taxpayers as a whole). That makes the investment that was a low return value to begin with even more expensive and more difficult for riders to someday use. And unless this approach gets steered differently, this personal advantage game will only get worse and more prominent as ST gets closer to possible construction. I don’t think we have fully understood how disruptive all these new deep Downtown (and now West Seattle) stations will be to build and use — especially when adjacent property owner concerns and deals get more imminent.
I briefly worked with CM Balducci when I worked on affordable housing at the County level and she was, by far, one of the most clear eyed elected officials I’ve worked with. Not only did she know her stuff, she understood when to defer to those with more expertise/experience.
Did you mean “defer” rather than “differ”? They mean almost diametrically opposite things, but they do sound much alike.
One “defers to” or “differs from” so it’s not really clear what “differs to” might mean.
I hope you meant to type “defers to”. And if so, I also very much hope she wins.
*defer to those with more expertise/experience.
Thanks for catching that Tom
Editor: Fixed.
Also fixed “do defer” to “to defer”.
Any word on increasing bus service since Amazon’s return to office begins next week? I.e. reinstating the express rides that ended during the pandemic.
Given Metro’s staffing shortage and the low productivity of the old express routes, I imagine (and hope) resources will go into making the all-day frequent network more robust instead. We can already see hints of that, for instance in the 24×7 bus lanes for the E that certainly will help people going to and from SLU. The north end restructure around Lynnwood Link that Metro and CT did earlier this year will help tremendously too, although it certainly can be improved on.
Note that Lynnwood Link still has routes 303 and 322 that duplicate Link.
East Link Connects has routes 566, 256, and 630 that would duplicate Link.
FWLE outreach has routes 162 and 193 that would duplicate Link.
In the SR-520 corridor, routes 422, 252, 257, 268, and 545 have yet to be restructured at UW Stadium station (March 2016).
It is past time for the Legislature to allow WSDOT and the commission to study the reallocation of I-5 ROW and tolling on I-5. Link extends to Lynnwood.
It is past time for the Legislature to allow WSDOT and the commission to study the reallocation of I-5 ROW and tolling on I-5
They have actually done the study. The simplest solution is this one (from the report):
2+ or 3+ Occupancy (Modify Existing Occupancy Requirement)
This sub-option would change the occupancy requirement for the existing HOV system from two to three persons per vehicle at all times.
They have done the study. It is time for the Legislature to act. As far the various routes go:
Note that Lynnwood Link still has routes 303 and 322 that duplicate Link.
FWLE outreach has routes 162 and 193 that would duplicate Link.
To be fair the amount of service hours for those buses is minimal. They are peak only. They spend relatively little time getting from Northgate to Downtown. They spend a lot of time getting from South Lake Union (SLU) to First Hill. Think of it as three pieces — suburb to Northgate; Northgate to SLU; SLU to First Hill. The two end pieces are justified. If you somehow eliminate the middle section (and kept the rest) you would add maybe an extra trip or two.
East Link Connects has routes 566, 256, and 630 that would duplicate Link.
I can’t find the 566. Do you mean 554? The 256 is peak only (and not very frequent). While I agree in principle I think from a practical standpoint you wouldn’t gain much sending these to the UW. At least the 256 stops at Evergreen Point so that riders can transfer. For those along the corridor the bus is significantly faster.
It is hard for me to get worked up about these routes. They are nothing compared to the waste found on Capitol Hill or the sloppiness of the Metro restructure surrounding Lynnwood Link.
FWLE outreach has routes 162 and 193 that would duplicate Link.
Yes, and this is an odd choice given that the one time of day when Link can compete with Link is during peak. The big Kahuna in terms of express service to Downtown Seattle is Sound Transit. From Tacoma I think this should continue (other than the 586 which has express service to the UW, which is silly). Midday service from Tacoma is considerably faster than Link will be. With a stop at Federal Way you have the best of both worlds. Riders get a fast trip between Tacoma and Seattle and folks get a connection to Link as well. This is another argument for changing HOV-2 to HOV-3.
Same goes for the north end. The buses are slow getting to Lynnwood. ST continues to run the 510 — an express to downtown (although they may truncate it after they get enough trains). It is crazy that we are willing to spend billions building on a system that largely just mimics the express buses but we aren’t willing to spend a few bucks changing the signs from HOV-2 to HOV-3.
The 566 goes from Renton to Bellevue and onward to Microsoft. The Bellevue to Microsoft section is redundant with the 2 line and I don’t think should exist.
In this case, the argument for truncation is not just about saving service hours, bus also about reliability for people getting on the bus in Bellevue to go to Renton. Because the Redmond extension exists, the bus often gets stuck in traffic at the 520/405 interchange, which makes it unpredictability late for people getting on afterward. If the bus simply started in Bellevue, it would be able to begin every PM trip on time. Considering that most of the riders board in Bellevue, and those going to Microsoft have an easy Link connection as an alternative, I think the bus should still end in Bellevue, even if the saved resources are insufficient to fund an extra trip.
Also, keep in mind, Microsoft runs its own private shuttle route down 405, which skips Bellevue altogether and goes straight to Microsoft, so MS employees that really want a one seat ride can ride that instead. Here, the value of the one seat ride is greater because it not only avoids the connection, but also the overhead of exiting the freeway in Bellevue. But, a bus that is geared towards the general public and not just Microsoft cannot simply skip downtown Bellevue like that. It’s too big of a destination, and Bellevue is more ridership than the Microsoft campus.
The 566 goes from Renton to Bellevue and onward to Microsoft.
Oh yeah, the Auburn/Renton/Bellevue/Redmond bus. It isn’t mentioned on the East Link restructure page (https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/east-link-connections). It isn’t clear what they plan on doing with it. They should have truncated it at Downtown Bellevue when East Link was built. They may wait until Stride 1 is built before modifying that route. In general ST is very conservative when it comes to restructures, seemingly ignoring its own train.
>> It is past time for the Legislature to allow WSDOT and the commission to study the reallocation of I-5 ROW and tolling on I-5. Link extends to Lynnwood.
> They have actually done the study. The simplest solution is this one (from the report)
That’s the 2023~2025 studies which are still underway, but the 2010~2014 studies were already finished. The more recent ones are just restarting it again.
The 2010 study called for adding tolling at the i5 reversible express lanes and tolling the existing hov lanes from tacoma to everett. There would also be an additional peak direction lane from northgate to lynnwood. There was also talk about adding an additional toll lane from tacoma to tukwila (405) for two toll lanes on that segment.
I’m pretty sure the 2023~2025 study will come to almost the conclusion as the previous decade’s study. Honestly seems almost a waste of tens of million dollars they are spending on this study.
Anyways I guess if enough people are interested maybe a small article on it would be nice.
https://app.leg.wa.gov/ReportsToTheLegislature/Home/GetPDF?fileName=I-5_ExpressLanesReport_063011_web_6b0cc9e9-ed6e-4d31-8947-c401ebd1fa17.pdf
That’s the 2023~2025 studies which are still underway
Right, but there is enough information to make short term changes while they consider long terms ones. Just change the HOV lanes to HOV-3. Then at some point you can add dynamic tolling, improve the ramps and whatnot. The legislature is ignoring the cheapest, simplest way to improve things while they hide behind a study.
> Right, but there is enough information to make short term changes while they consider long terms ones.
I agree, I just meant they already finished the studies a decade ago. and are kinda wasting money redoing the study yet again
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/schedule-566.pdf
ST Route 566 was not included in ELC and should have been; it duplicates Link between BTC and RTS.
Note power of South Sounder: 20 minute headway, plenty of available capacity, much faster and more reliable than I-5 buses.
All the duplicative one-way routes have similar issues; they waste scarce hours and operators; they include significant deadheading, often on congested limited access highways. Their hours would provide more benefit if used on the local two-way all-day networks.
Conceptual Route 256 has several issues; it is one-way; the WSDOT ramp is postponed; it duplicates Link and does not connect with Link; it goes through regular and known congestion on the east-to-north ramp between SR-520 and I-405. The planners are lost.
@mdnative,
Metro can’t afford to provide the service they are currently providing. They are facing a looming financial cliff, and adding more service is just not in the cards. At least not unless the voters approve a tax increase of some sort.
And with Metro’s farebox recovery expected to drop below 8% this year, expanded bus service won’t come anywhere close to paying for itself. The best Metro can hope for is that RTO increases ridership on existing routes, and thus slows the bleeding somewhat.
Yeah, that’s the problem. Sound Transit is spending hand over fist on dubious projects but Metro is strapped for cash. It will take another levy to get more money.
@Ross,
Sound transit spending on infrastructure improvements isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.
Specifically it is the solution to decades upon decades of regional transit neglect by our local elected leaders and by Metro. Neglect that saw this region arrive at a situation where we had no high capacity, high productivity transit option. And a situation where the one transit option that we did have (buses) was grinding to a halt right along with our road system.
This region finally has a transit option that is free from gridlock and is capable of moving large numbers of people both quickly and reliably. It doesn’t serve everyone in the region, but it is getting better and better with every extension.
As per the looming Metro financial cliff, it has nothing to do with ST and everything to do with Metro. Providing 100% of pre-COVID service levels, while garnering only 65% of the ridership, is a recipe for financial disaster. Metro simply needs to increase productivity, trim service levels, or both. Or hope that the voters just hold their noses and vote for more revenue to cover the loses.
“Metro can’t afford to provide the service they are currently providing.”
Metro’s current problem is labor/parts shortages, not cash. That’s why it’s not running the full service its metrics say it should have now. It may have a cash shortage in the future, but it’s still unclear when or how much.
Sound transit spending on infrastructure improvements isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.
The problem is they are spending the money poorly.
Specifically it is the solution to decades upon decades of regional transit neglect by our local elected leaders and by Metro. Neglect that saw this region arrive at a situation where we had no high capacity, high productivity transit option. And a situation where the one transit option that we did have (buses) was grinding to a halt right along with our road system.
Bullshit. The bus tunnel was extremely effective. It probably saved more people more time than anything ST has ever built. Of course we should invest in rail, but we’ve done a poor job of it.
You are suggesting a false dichotomy. The only way we would ever have any subway line at all is if we agreed to build Link. That is absurd. Metro should have built the our rail system. It would have served more places and carry way more riders than what we’ve built (or what we are building). Again, our system is not terrible. They managed to cover a few key areas (just barely). But rather than learn from our mistakes (and our successes) we are doubling down on the same failed decisions.
As per the looming Metro financial cliff, it has nothing to do with ST and everything to do with Metro. Providing 100% of pre-COVID service levels, while garnering only 65% of the ridership, is a recipe for financial disaster.
First of all, it is ridiculous to think that Metro ridership isn’t effected by ST. Look at Northgate. Huge numbers of riders used to take the 41 to downtown. Now they can’t. They are forced to take the train. The station actually serves *fewer riders* then when it was a bus.
As for a “financial cliff” your argument is bizarre. ST has spent way more per rider than Metro on infrastructure and has seen a modest increase in ridership so … Metro should spend less? That is absurd and completely backwards. You seem to think that ST can do no wrong while ignoring the enormous budget for infrastructure improvements that would make Metro planners drool. Hell, they can’t even pay for bus lanes! Or our half-ass BRT system called RapidRide! Give them a small fraction of the capital budget and our buses would carry way more riders. With a decent investment we would probably see an increase in bus ridership that exceeds the total ridership of Link.
Look, clearly we have a second-rate transit system. Ridership is still well below pre-pandemic levels. That even includes the parts of Link that existed before expansion. We have already completed almost all of the key pieces that we plan on building (with Bellevue to Seattle being the lone exception). It is pretty clear now that our massively expensive subway system will never carry a huge number of riders. It is increasingly serving obscure places while continuing to ignore our more urban ones. There is no effort to provide a real network — a system that complements the buses. Instead it seems designed to poach bus trips that are actually faster on rubber wheels. We are actually getting *worse* ridership per mile as it expands. I can’t emphasize enough how strange and bad that is. We should be getting a big network effect but we aren’t — and a big reason is because the system isn’t built very well.
Nor are there any plans to fix it. There are no plans to run a train to First Hill. There are no plans for a “Metro 8 Subway”. There are no plans for Ballard-to-UW rail. In short there are no plans for anything that would have a major, region wide impact on transit (other than the aforementioned and now very late connection between Bellevue and Seattle).
This is what I mean when I say “the buses have to carry the heavy load”. I’m not talking about just ridership — I’m talking about a route like the 8 or 44 or a corridor like Madison. The “buses grinding to the halt” is happening, and there is no solution because we are spending all our money on trains to places that already have fast buses (like West Seattle, Tacoma and Everett). We are spending our train money in areas where we shouldn’t and thus aren’t spending it in areas where we should.
Someday someone is going to write a comparison of the three Northwest cities and how they invested in transit. Portland didn’t spend a lot and didn’t get a lot. Vancouver spent a lot and got a lot. We spent a lot and got very little. Oops.
“Providing 100% of pre-COVID service levels, while garnering only 65% of the ridership, is a recipe for financial disaster. Metro simply needs to increase productivity, trim service levels”
It means service costs more now than then. It doesn’t necessarily mean the 2019 level was the ideal balance, or that it’s a disaster now. You’re assuming the disaster threshold is somewhere between 100% and 65%, but that’s unproven. In any case, the county has new equity goals it’s pursuing, so that’s part of the reason for the 100/65 pattern. (Or the equity goals are being more aggressively pursued, one or the other.)
In any case, service is not at 100%, because some routes/runs are still suspended, and Seattle’s 2020 TBD is lower than its 2016 one. Metro isn’t running 2016-level TBD service on 2020-level TBD money. Otherwise we’d see 10-minute service on the 48, 49, and 67.
“Sound transit spending on infrastructure improvements isn’t the problem, it’s the solution.”
Only to the extent it improves mobility options or replaces less-efficient or overcrowded service with more efficient ones. That’s true in the case of downtown-Lynnwood, downtown-Eastside, and downtown-SeaTac. It’s not true for the West Seattle stub, the long DSTT2 transfers downtown, and marginal at best for the full West Seattle Link and Everett and Tacoma Dome and the Issaquah line.
To add to what Ross said, the region handed many of Metro’s highest ridership corridor segments over to Sound Transit. Supporting ST Link construction effectively penalizes Metro productivity unless that high ridership bus trip was a very long distance and the route was slow. It’s an externality that remains ignored in the ST3 referendum.
The hope was that Link would attract more riders that would then use Metro buses to get to the station. Instead, most Link trips are people who were on Metro. Metro was carrying transit trips between UW, Capitol Hill and Downtown 10 years ago and this is no longer the case.
The public doesn’t obsess about which agency runs which service. The just want transit,
“staffing shortage, low-productivity express routes, farebox recovery, fiscal cliff…”
We need to disentangle these factors; they’re not all the same, or hit at the same time, or have the same effect on peak-express service.
Metro’s highest priority is avoiding overcrowding and pass-ups, so if it has to restore some peak runs to keep load levels acceptable, it will do so. It always keeps some hours in reserve for these kinds of needs, and it has known for months that in-office work would/might increase.
Low-ridership express routes was probably a myth in the first place, especially given the post-2011 restructures. An exception might be political/experimental routes like Northshore-First Hill. I rode the 218 expecting it to be an empty redundant run, but it was full, and we’ve heard the same about the 15X. In any case, suspended low-ridership express runs won’t be restored, and will eventually be deleted.
So Metro will restore only high-ridership runs, and fare revenue will increase with it. Commute-heavy runs may have higher fare compliance than other runs. In any case, large employers are paying for that bus service, and deserve to have it if needed.
The fiscal cliff is sometime in the future, not right now. When/if Metro reaches a point it can’t afford current operations, it will have to make widespread cuts (as it did in 2014). We don’t need to prematurely anticipate that by refraining from peak relief runs now.
15X always was full (and only a rush hour route). I think of all the Ballard express buses, there is a 17 or 18 X run, but not as frequent as before. I understand the equity reasons for cutting the express buses during the pandemic, but for better of worse, Ballard has more than its fair share of Amazonians– it could get crowded (just as covid is increasing) on the D if nothing is added.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/10/29/train-drain/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I see 3 possible solutions to the capture of our rails by Wallstreet.
– bust em up
– reregulate
– nationalize
I personally prefer the last, because it will allow us to finalize use the existing rails efficiently for intra and intercity passenger service.
Wow. Great article. This is one of those articles that should be read by every voter (and potential voter) in America. It has is it all. Bipartisan support for a policy that ended up being much worse for America. (Holy cow, Ralph Nader supported and Jimmy Carter signed a law that I just assumed was passed by Reagan.) Eventually, of course you had the return of the monopolists. Modern day robber-barons using the modern day playbook to maximize profits while leaving destruction in their wake. Higher costs for both consumers and producers. Bankrupt businesses and towns. Oh, and then the great twist:
Today’s stripped-down U.S. rail system does passably well at moving Chinese imports from West Coast ports to retailers like Amazon and Walmart. And it still handles large reverse flows of bulk commodities like coal and grain. In this, American railroads have become like the ones the British Empire once constructed in India and other colonies: optimized for importing manufactured goods and for exporting natural resources.
Holy cow, we’ve colonized ourselves!
As far as solutions go, I agree with you. The best answer is to nationalize them. Railroads are essential. They are a natural monopoly. This is in contrast to trucking or even the airlines. I can start a trucking company tomorrow. Buy some trucks and start trucking. It takes more money to start an airline but the key infrastructure — the airports — are publicly owned (and publicly regulated). But I can’t create a new railroad tomorrow. I have to build a line and for the most part these are already built. Even if you broke up the various companies you would still not have real competition (in most cases). Real competition leads to innovation and I don’t much with the railroads (again in contrast to trucking or the airlines).
You could regulate but then you end up spending more money than you would if you owned them. The author — in his solution — expected the government to pay for infrastructure. He pretty much gave up on the idea that the corporations would make that sort of investment themselves. That leaves pricing. Now you dust off the old rules and try to update them with a Congress that is ruled by lobbyists and an economy that is highly litigious. You end up spending money on government lawyers while the companies spend money on corporate lawyers instead of actually hiring workers to improve our infrastructure.
I’m all for creating a framework that allows for the free-market to thrive but I just don’t see it in this case. We should buy the railroads.
The railroad ownership monopoly trend is certainly concerning. It’s the only transportation mode we have with most of the linear facilities owned in private. There are things like private roads and airports but they don’t dominate their modes.
A solution is going to be legislatively and legally complex, costly and lots of corporate types will lose their favorite incentive of monopolization. But tracks don’t last forever.
The “competition” is the trucking industry. Inland waterways provide alternatives in some parts of the US but trucking can compete almost anywhere.
It’s not talked about much in our region, but cross-country truck volumes are much higher now that we have all this direct shipping going on from factories and warehouses to people’s homes. It’s beating up the cross country interstates pretty badly. It’s not just rails looking sorry; it’s our cross country interstates too.
Our ancestors used pristine land to streamline our freight system with rails and roads cheaply with little concern for mitigation. We benefitted from that but our current system only prioritizes replacement once we can’t use them anymore —even at slow speeds.
If it’s any consolation, rail freight is not as dominant in Europe. A modern country doesn’t have to have a robust freight rail system. However, not having it drives more jobs to the coasts. It’s middle America (geographically) that gets hurt the most from bad options for cross-country roads and rails.
“financiers who over the past decade have taken control of major railroads and forced them to adopt a new predatory business model”
How much is that an issue in BNSF-land? Warren Buffett seems interested in rail’s long-term potential, not in extracting short-term gains and destroying it. And BNSF isn’t opposed to more passenger trains: it just wants a profit from them and doesn’t want it cutting into viable freight runs.
“The consumer activist Ralph Nader and liberal Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy were united in their calls for abolishing ICC regulation of both railroading and trucking, just as they had successfully worked two years before to dismantle regulation of airlines.”
Ralph Nader, the pro-consumer crusader, was anti-consumer in these areas?
“Railroads can carry a ton of cargo for 472 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel”
Wow!
Mike: that’s actually an approximate industry average. The actual number is better than this number.
The number is calculated for diesel fuel purchased. This includes fuel for non-revenue maintenance and construction trains, as well as certain other equipment.
The average number includes a lot of empty grain and coal hoppers that are only used one direction, under-used container cars, etc. An actual general purpose freight train with boxcars and other car types that can handle traffic going both ways is probably closer to 600+ ton-miles per gallon.
Even CSX, with its preponderance of one-way unit train coal traffic, averaged 506 revenue ton-miles per gallon of fuel.
https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-advantage/fuel-efficiency/
Well, in Britain the track is publicly owned and maintained, while the trains are often private and either have an exclusive short-term lease on the track or multiple providers have access to the track. So that’s one model.
The federal government would have to spend a lot of money to buy the track and take over maintenance. It’s hard to see how that could get through Congress, especially with a more Repuiblican/billionaire-friendly government coming in.
Maybe it’s a Nixon goes to China moment.
Trump isn’t your normal laisse faire Republican. He’s an opportunist with autocratic designs who might see nationalization as a powerplay, consolidating rail power in the executive branch.
Who knows what would happen if someone whispered in his ear.
“He’s an opportunist with autocratic designs who might see nationalization as a powerplay, consolidating rail power in the executive branch.”
Can we do that without losing our democratic freedoms, economic success, and functioning railroads?
Who knows. Probably depends on who he relies on to run them.
But I’d much rather see dems sweep both houses and the executive in 2028, and nationalize in a way that is sustainable and beneficial. It sounds like the RRs will just be debt-laden husks by then, however.
I’m not sure what the courts will have to say about nationalization.
“But I’d much rather see dems sweep both houses and the executive in 2028, and nationalize in a way that is sustainable and beneficial.”
We have to look at how much of the country will be left in 2028. Congress may be responsible sometimes, the courts may be responsible sometimes, foreign adversaries might not be successful in weakening the US, but we don’t know on what or when or how much. The administration has the most control over executive orders and foreign policy. His irresponsible appointees if confirmed have some influence over their agencies. If he loses confirmations repeatedly, that would leave those agencies without a director, which means they can’t make high-level decisions or do some things. That could also be harmful depending on what it is.
The government could presumably nationalize the railroads citing some compelling national-security reason. It would doubtless have to pay the owners for them as happens with eminent domain. Passenger rail was nationalized with Amtrak. The question would be what kind of structure the government sets up, who would run it, and what their motivations and competency would be.
“We have to look at how much of the country will be left in 2028.”
I share your fears.
But if our democracy is legitimately under threat, I am not going worrying too much about the frequency of Sounder South if there are pitched-battles in the streets.
It would probably take the rail monopolist venture capital folks pissing him off somehow, however.
He clearly is thinking about freight, however. The Panama Canal thing is weird, but it shows freight is on his mind.
https://publicola.com/2024/12/31/publicola-questions-king-county-executive-candidate-girmay-zahilay/#comments
zahilay supports 4th Ave stop, less open to dumping W. Seattle light rail
We need them to question the second tunnel; that would save billions and provide the great IDS transfer point. Service in the DSTT would have very short headway and clear the platforms quickly.
I expect the ridership model has been updated; ST3 was based on modeling in 2015 before Covid and with robust CBD office work.
Much of DSTT2 was “justified” to address the peak direction peak time overcrowding that the models predicted without it. The overcrowding was heaviest on paper between Symphony and ID. The irony is that the same stations have multiple Metro buses just above the stations that could be used to accommodate the overcrowding.
This is especially true if someone is transferring between a Third Ave bus and Link. Their models push them on to Link at the first possible transfer point. Of course a savvy rider will choose which station to use so they may ride further on the surface.
And this is all before Covid and work from home that you mention, link’s demand is increasingly day-long.
Now that the peak surge appears lightened, ST should adjust their forecasts. The thing though is that relieving overcrowding was a stated reason in the original DEIS Purpose and Need for WSbLE. To admit that their forecasts were wrong would pull the plug on project justification.
The crazy thing is that ST knows it doesn’t have funds nor the bonding capacity for DSTT2 + Ballard/SLU. Unless $10B is handed to St, it’s delayed at least to 2045 and probably more linke 2050. That’s plenty of time to run West Seattle trains through the DSTT as a thing d line.
If I remember right, even before 2020 the models suggested the worst ridership overcrowding would be between UW and Westlake. DSTT2 does nothing to solve that.
The way I remember it, the crowding problem from Westlake to IDS was too little platform capacity and not enough capacity for extra trains. This has nothing to do with solving the actual overcrowding problem on the trains, because even then it isn’t where the added train capacity was really needed to handle the actual ridership.
If they wanted DSTT2 to solve ridership overcrowding, it would be a Ballard – SLU – Westlake- UW or Northgate line.
@ Glenn:
Here are the segments loads for midpoint 2040 that ST gave the blog in January 2020:
https://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/PM_Peak_ST3_Plan_2040_Midpoint.pdf
https://seattletransitblog.com/2020/01/27/sound-transits-station-ridership-in-2040/
If you add DSTT1 and DSTT2 together you see the peak three hour afternoon forecast in black.
I agree that DSTT doesn’t help the segment north of Westlake. However I would also look at the Beacon Hill tunnel loads because they’ll have only half of the trains that the segment between a Westlake and UW will have.
Finally, the miles and miles of low volume extensions are quite apparent. Link will have long unproductive segments with few riders while at the same time they will have short segments Downtown that are potentially overcrowded.
Michael Smith, Will, or Nathan, you seem to have the best statistical skills. How feasible would it be to look at total transit ridership (Link+bus) over time in various areas? That might better get at the question of whether the total transit network is becoming more useful or more used, as opposed to just Link in isolation or Metro in isolation.
For instance, what’s happening in North Seattle where Link could have an influence (i.e., Aurora on east)? What’s happening in Southeast Seattle, which has had Link and several bus restructures for a long time now? What’s happening on the Eastside, both with the 2 Line and with Metro’s ridership? Especially post 2021, since that’s the world we live in now.
We don’t know the big Eastside question yet: what will cross-lake Link and the Eastside restructure will do to ridership and perceived mobility opportunities. But what can we say so far in the underlying 2021-2025 trends it will go on top of?
It’s hard to merely look at boardings on the two systems to assess things. A one seat Metro ride has become a two seat Metro and Link ride.
The Orca tap records are probably the most direct way to look at things. I don’t know if they can access those records or if they are geo-located.
I’ve heard of using Bluetooth records for gathering data, but I don’t know how far back that can go to get a “before” analysis.
In either case, it’s something that the agency has to pursue.
Is there a way to estimate how much of an increase is due to newly-forced transfers if you don’t have multi-seat ORCA data? Even a rough estimate would be helpful. One way would be to ignore the sudden jump when a Link extension starts. But that would throw away both forced transfers (which you don’t want to count), and newly-viable trip pairs (like northeast Seattle to Capitol Hill). You could assume that newly-viable trips are a small part of the initial total. On the other hand, that’s partly what we want to know.
If we can’t exclude newly-forced transfers, is there a way to interpret the unlinked-segment totals in a way that sheds at least some light on what we want to know? Such as assuming that the jump is all beneficial, even if some of it is the same A-B trip pair now counted as two instead of one?
@ Mike:
I think it’s more how buses are restructured for extensions.
For Northgate Link opening it’s not easy to guess because so many one seat rides became two seat rides and new short trips suddenly became possible. On the other hand, Lynnwood Link ridership looks like it’s all very long trips with many of them diverted from either Northgate boardings or a few remaining long routes into Downtown Seattle. There may be trips from Montlake Terrace to Shoreline, that appears to be a very small number, for example. The latest data really show that most Lynnwood Link boardings (7K average weekday) shifted from Northgate (-6K average weekday) or from a former Downtown express bus than suddenly started riding Link in October 2024 compared to October 2023. .
I will note too that there are more average weekday Link riders boarding south of Boeing Field (about 20K) than north of U District (about 14K). The reports of overcrowding on Link seems to be driven by the higher peak surge and the lack of daylong destinations north of Northgate..
Finally, when 2 Line simulation begins later this year (several weeks before full 2 Line opens) it will be telling what happens as train frequency doubles. The number of new riders coming because of more frequency will be directly measurable. Then another bump (Big? Small?) should happen when the full 2 Line opens and Lynnwood Link riders can ride one train to the Eastside.
Two comments:
1)I don’t know if it’s worth trying to determine how many unlinked rides are part of the same “trip”, unless we’re specifically trying to count transit trips – but then you’d get into arguments over the definition of a “trip”.
I think the bulk ridership data is most telling, but the signal is going to be muddled by larger factors like seasonal ridership changes, system reliability issues (especially on Link), return-to-office, and uncertainty on whether we’ve actually generally reached a new “post-COVID” normal.
2) for a regional analysis, that sort of geostatistics may be possible using stop-level data, but all that is going to tell you is how many people are boarding in any given area. I don’t know if Metro gathers stop-level data on a monthly or annual basis (maybe per service change?), but it might be something worth asking about. It might make for an interesting series if there’s a story to be parsed from the data. I know the Seattle Times did a pre/“post” pandemic analysis last year; maybe it’s something we can drill into.
“I think the bulk ridership data is most telling, but the signal is going to be muddled by larger factors like seasonal ridership changes, system reliability issues (especially on Link), return-to-office, and uncertainty on whether we’ve actually generally reached a new “post-COVID” normal.”
We’re trying to determine whether ridership is increasing year on year every year, with the expected 2020 plummet when the lockdowns and “essential trips only” started. Is the year-on-year change steady. When does it flatten out, accelerate, or jump? Not one-year outliers, but changes whose effects remains for multiple years. Seasonal variability won’t affect annual totals.
Link unreliability, return-to-work, Taylor Swift, and sports teams winning streaks are background issues we can’t do anything about. They’re kind of like Link extensions and bus restructures. We can see when ridership accelerates/decelerates, and whether we can identify whether an event might explain it, or conversely whether the event had no effect.
So maybe we just count unlinked trips, and forget about trying to quantify forced transfer changes, and see what we end up with.
I don’t know if Metro gathers stop-level data on a monthly or annual basis (maybe per service change?)
It is per service change.
Is there a way to estimate how much of an increase is due to newly-forced transfers if you don’t have multi-seat ORCA data?
I think you need linked-trip data to be precise. I don’t know of any source for that. Otherwise we may be counting an increase in transfers as an increase in ridership.
But I think we can make certain assumptions, especially if we have route data. For example consider the 41. (Note: these aren’t the actual numbers but pretty close.). So it used to have about 10,000 riders a day or about 5,000 one direction. About 4,000 of those riders used it to get downtown. So if the station only has about 4,000 riders then things aren’t looking very good. You haven’t actually increased ridership through there.
I think we make assumptions about certain express buses as well. For example my guess is almost all of the Community Transit riders were going to and from Downtown. We can largely ignore the folks that were using those buses to travel within Snohomish County. This again gives us a starting point.
I think this approach works fairly well for Link. We just compare the new Link ridership (per station) with the old bus ridership (that used to go through that station). I think it is much harder to determine whether the buses have come out ahead (because of the associated savings). If ridership is also increasing on the buses then it is clear sign of success. But if it is flat (or down) then it suggests we are simply counting transfers. For example if the 75 (which took over for the 41) suddenly got a decrease of 4,000 then it suggests that overall ridership is flat. Link got higher ridership because people are asked to transfer while the bus ridership stayed the same because people are now using it as a shuttle.
Of course it is rarely that clean. Maybe Link ridership goes up a little but bus ridership goes down a little. So for our example maybe Link ridership at Northgate is 5,000 (exceeding the bus by 1,000) but bus ridership goes down 2,000. But it didn’t go down 4,000. So not every has abandoned the bus. What portion of those riders are using the new buses to get to Link and how many are using it for getting around the north end? To figure that out we need stop data again.
I agree that it is best to consider the entire system. But if you want to isolate a particular change then it becomes difficult without more data. For example ridership goes up in the fall (as students go back to school). So comparing one particular month with a month the previous year is a good starting point. But we have seen a big year over year increase. By isolating the stations we at least have a good chance of seeing how much was due to the change.
Then there is the terminus effect. Every time Link has expanded we’ve seen a decrease in ridership of the previous station. This has happened with TIBS, SeaTac, UW and Northgate. People who used to drive to the nearest station don’t drive as far. Buses connect to the new terminus, not the old. In the case of the UW, some riders walk to the U-District instead of the UW. So it makes sense to isolate much of the system, but not all of it.
I think you have to consider all of this when trying to asses a change. The good news is that a lot of this information isn’t that hard to get. One exception is ridership per route for Snohomish County (I have no idea how many people used to take the express buses to downtown).
So maybe we just count unlinked trips, and forget about trying to quantify forced transfer changes, and see what we end up with.
From a system standpoint that is pretty easy. Both Metro and Sound Transit show their full ridership on their respective (“dashboard”) pages. ST goes back to January 2019 while Metro goes back to January 2020. But you can get older data — as well as data from other agencies — from APTA. The main page has links to the latest info as well as old reports.
I think the “hole” in the data is for very recent ridership numbers for Pierce and Snohomish County. They don’t have the equivalent of a dashboard, so we need to wait for the quarterly reports from APTA.