The biggest electric ferry in the world, built in Australia for use in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (ABC Australia)

This is an open thread.

55 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Biggest Electric Ferry”

  1. Yesterday, while passing a Link train driving down I-5 through Shoreline, my speedometer said 66 and I was just barely going faster than the Link train. I thought their top speed was supposed to be 55 mph, but this train seemed to be doing at least 60. (When traffic hit around Northgate, the train passed me for good, so, yes, Link can save time over driving, even on a Saturday).

      1. Yes. The KIs have a limit of 57 while the s700s we have can get up to 62 for short periods of time. The ones that TRAX uses in SLC go up to 65 operationally though, so it’s probably a balance issue more than a raw power/capability of the propulsion issue.

        I track the speed on my phone when I’m riding to lynnwood sometimes at it consistently hits the low 60s for some very short sprints. Usually though it comes back to 55 quickly, and the train will get a penalty stop if it speeds too fast for too long.

      2. IIRC, Link climbs as it heads north, so I wonder if southbound the train can get above 60 since it has a bit of gravity assist.

      3. I’ve been noticing a slow descent heading north in Shoreline, which I am guessing is because of some of the new stations still being work zones.

    2. I feel envious. Lately the 2 is going about 30% slower than when it opened. It’s going particularly slow on the curve between Bellevue Downtown and Wilburton, adding an extra two minutes on that stretch alone.

  2. Impressive that a company in Tasmania can build electric catamaran ferries while the boat builders around the Salish Sea can build impressive America Cup carbon fiber boats etc (such as https://safeboats.com/) but are struggling to build ferries to serve local demands. I wonder whether there is an opportunity to bring together their expertise and the expertise from their partners in Scandinavia with local expertise to build ferries for the Puget Sound.

    1. Are you bothered by the massive weight of the batteries, and how much of the charging is for the batteries’ commute?

      1. Our current ferries are already hybrid, meaning they are propelled by electric motors but the power is generated by diesel engines. I wonder how the weight of those diesel engines and the fuel tanks compare with batteries. I bet in proportion to the hull and the cars the ferry transports, any additional weight is not relevant.
        Todays battery technology allow recharging to 80% of capacity within 30min. That’s about the same time a ferry needs for unloading and reloading. If you go with slightly higher battery capacity, that should line up just fine.

      2. The video mentions that the ferry’s batteries are lighter than a diesel engine with fuel tanks. However, due to the video editing, it isn’t clear if the entire electric propulsion system is lighter than a diesel system.

      3. Are our current ferries hybrid? I didn’t think that was true. The ferry plugs in at the dock to run HVAC and whatnot, but I didn’t think the engine was electric.

    2. I wonder whether there is an opportunity to bring together their expertise and the expertise from their partners in Scandinavia with local expertise to build ferries for the Puget Sound.

      I would assume there is some of that going on but there are bound to be issues. It is obviously very cutting edge stuff. In a few years they may be common but they aren’t now. It is like hybrid cars back around the turn of the century. Toyota made the first mass-produced hybrid car (but it was only available in Japan). Honda followed suit a little while later. But neither sold that many until the second generation Prius came out. It changed the nature of hybrids forever. Honda didn’t really catch up until everyone was making hybrids.

      We are nowhere near that point when it comes to electric boats. It would make sense to try and leverage the expertise of the other boat builders but they may be busy working on their own boats. If you worked for Toyota back in the day (on the hybrid) would you leave the company for Honda? I certainly wouldn’t. By all means they should try and collaborate but part of the problem with very innovative technology is that it costs more. If the Scandinavian company is way ahead they will help you — for a price. You might be better off doing it on your own — hard to say. The main thing is, it won’t likely be cheap. Not yet anyway.

      1. To continue your car analogy: Toyota licensed some hybrid technology to other manufacturers, the latest Honda EV is actually built by GM, while Mercedes licensed Tesla technology. Together you can spread the initial development cost.

    3. I wrote a post on BC Ferries’ electrification progress several years ago. I haven’t followed it since.

      It seems like there ought to be some opportunities for collaboration between Washington and the 51st state. That goes for our concrete production as well, since BC has been an industry leader.

  3. The same yesterday I rode 61+Link in the afternoon.

    I’d started by going to Greenwood. At Roosevelt station I took the 45. Its streets were more congested and slow than I remembered. It has a smart new inline stop pair at the Greenlake library, with a protected cycletrack next to it. I was going to Greenwood park, where I thought I’d seen an interurban streetcar artwork. (I’d forgotten the 61 existed: I was thinking the only way to the park was the E, 5, or 45. I was tired of the E’s congestion and assumed the 5 would be the same, and the 45 would get me slightly closer to the two parks at 88/86th & Fremont. It turned out the 45 was congested too.)

    I didn’t make it to the parks. I had lunch in the village, and started walking to the parks. By that time my leg was getting tired so it was too much to walk a mile uphill and through the parks and back to 85th. I’d walked two blocks east of the 85th & Greenwood stop and a 45 had passed, when I turned around and went back to the bus stop. OBA said the 61 would come in five minutes. It was 5pm.

    I’d ridden the 61 a few times before and it had always been almost empty west of Northgate station, so I wanted to try it again and see if it was at risk of deletion. But instead it was busy. Some 10-15 people were already on the bus, surprising because this was only the second stop or so. A few people got on/off at every stop on 85th. One couple had a wagon of groceries they’d apparently gotten at Fred Meyer at the first stop; they got off two stops after me. The bus got to Northgate station remarkably quickly and UNcongested. So that’s the way to get to Link from Greenwood without getting frustrating at a bus crawling.

    At the Northgate Link platform I looked down and saw the usual I-5 southbound congestion. It reminded me of that sales pitch, “Drivers will loop up and see Link zooming past them.”

    I took four buses that day (45, 61, 11, 12). Three of them had a flyer on the window saying service changes are coming March 29 but didn’t list the changes. None of the buses had a Rider Alert brochure with the changes, and Metro’s service change webpage is still from last September. Metro often puts the new schedules on buses two weeks ahead on a Saturday, so I thought it might happen yesterday, but no, just the flyer, with no information about specific routes. So we at STB still don’t know what the changes will be March 29, or whether the first phase of the East Link restructure will happen then or not.

    1. I wish the trailhead direct buses would start with the spring service change. The Issaquah apps and Little Si are are totally hikeable right now, and I think with a bit of snow preparation Mt Si will be hikeable in April.

      1. The span of service of Trailhead Direct is determined by funding, not trail conditions. People hike Si even in January (I did so myself this year). The issue is that there’s only enough money to pay for so many trips per year, so if the season starts earlier, it has to either end earlier, run less often, or run only one day per week.

      2. Span of service is dictated by parking conditions more than trail conditions. Trailhead Direct is wonderful for people who don’t drive, but it’s primarily a tool for King County to resolve crowding issues at popular trails on popular days. Trailhead Direct will work best if KC charges for parking at the trailhead while parking is free at the relevant P&Rs (Eastgate, etc.)

      3. If Trailhead Direct were a pickable route, it could last longer. I talked to one of the TD drivers about how it operates. He said it is Metro drivers signing up for overtime.

        Alternatively, they could farm the work out to paratransit providers. I believe the TH buses are the same size as the standard paratransit vans. If they are larger, then they could run more frequently with the smaller vans.

        All that said, this should be the last summer TH operates from the westside.

    2. If your leg feels better you can make a nice one-way walk from Greenwood (the neighborhood) to Northgate (the train station) by going northeast via the various parks, like so: https://maps.app.goo.gl/J8gWHqbi4cgBMGif7. Google Maps won’t let me complete that route (they don’t think you can cross College Way there even though there are crosswalks clearly marked). Anyway, that route has several areas that are pedestrian only. Not only walking diagonally through the parks and the pedestrian bridge (obviously) but 100th is also a Greenway with limited car access. At 92nd you cross Aurora at a pedestrian/bicycle only crossing. Then there is a slight jog (via Stone Way) and you get to continue on a pathway only available to cyclists and pedestrians. It is a surprisingly pleasant way to walk through an area that is otherwise clearly built for cars and often lacking in pedestrian (and cycling) amenities.

      Even though I drew that map starting at Greenwood, I would probably do the trip in the other order. Take Link to Northgate and walk to Greenwood. The advantage of doing that is that you can take either the 61 or 45 back to Link (whichever comes first).

    1. The primary beneficiaries of a bypass, South King and Pierce, didn’t raise one finger to prevent the bypass from being deleted from ST’s long-range plan in 2014. ST deleted it saying it wouldn’t be needed. South King and Pierce were far more interested in the Federal Way and Tacoma Dome extensions, BAR station, and Sounder improvements. A Duwamish bypass wasn’t even on their wishlist. So now people want to build it against their indifference? With them not paying for it? North King has far higher priorities before it would get to this.

    2. It is just a repeat of the video that was discussed here. It is basically a fantasy map. It is not realistic. I get the whole point — we built a hybrid system and now it doesn’t work very well at any particular thing. It is the spork of transit systems. To explain the hybrid nature of our system I’ll use broad terms:

      Regional Rail — Longer trips from a different city or suburb into the main city (e. g. the middle of Long Island to Manhattan). It is very similar to the term “commuter rail” but commuter rail suggests limited frequency. Regional rail typically involves fast trains with big gaps between stops.

      Metro — Basically a rapid transit system that serves an urban area and is largely grade-separated. It is very similar to the word “subway” but subways often imply they are underground (even though the New York Subway runs above ground in places). The Chicago “El” and SkyTrain are metros. Metros typically have stops relatively close together with frequent trains (newer ones are often automated).

      Light rail — Similar to a metro but without the grade-separation. MAX is a great example. There are pieces that are grade-separated but much of it runs on the surface, encountering intersections that slow it down. It is a compromise as this greatly reduces the cost of building it. They aren’t automated and are typically not quite as frequent as a metro.

      Link has aspects of all three. From a cost standpoint it is a metro (and a very expensive one at that). For riders it is mostly a mix of regional rail and metro. It isn’t very good at either. It isn’t very good at long-distance trips nor does it serve enough areas in the urban core. While Link trains are light rail, only a small part of it is actually built like light rail (SoDo, Rainier Valley and parts of Bellevue). These small sections prevent automation while the large sections of elevated and underground rail push up the cost of any expansion. Link is not really a spork — more like a splayd (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splayd#/media/File:Splayds.jpg).

      But the solution is not to spend a fortune building an extremely expensive regional rail line that will only be used by a relatively small number of people. BART did that. In fact BART did that extremely well. The trains are extremely fast. The gaps between stations are huge. If you are trying to get to a more distant suburb or satellite city it is great. And yet very few people do that. Almost all of the ridership comes from within the urban core — in other words on the metro part of the system. Despite the fact that the regional rail part is outstanding and the metro part is really poor, more people use the latter.

      That is just the nature of travel. It doesn’t matter how good your regional rail/commuter rail system is or how poor your urban system is. More people ride within the urban core. There is just more of what leads to higher ridership. Look at the keys to higher ridership: https://humantransit.org/basics/the-transit-ridership-recipe. Several of these have to do with the quality of the system — frequency and linearity for example. But a lot of it has to do with things that have little to do with the system, like density, walkability and very importantly, proximity. It is highly unlikely someone in Tacoma will suddenly decide — on a whim — to just visit Capitol Hill no matter how far Link is extended. It will just take too long. In contrast someone in the Roosevelt neighborhood is quite likely to take that trip. Proximity matters — a lot.

      But what about other trips? Maybe someone in Fife will suddenly want to go to Federal Way? Absolutely. But not to the numbers that suggest a metro is needed. There is a reason why (outside the US) people don’t build metros in small cities or distant suburbs. They just aren’t worth it. It is really kind of silly to think otherwise. Bellingham is a great little city. It doesn’t need a metro.

      The obvious solution — the one used around the world — is to run express buses along with leveraging existing railways. This means muddling along with Link, running express buses to places like Tacoma (with a stop at Federal Way to connect to Link) and continuing to run Sounder/Amtrak trains.

      1. Agree that BART is excellent regional rail. Disagree that it is why BART has mediocre ridership. BART outside of SF would have excellent ridership if California did not have the most dysfunctional land use policy in the globe. The land use around a station like North Berkely makes Mercer Island looks progressive.

        BART in SF is pretty good. Remember that the Market Street subway was built through BART, so Muni and BART should be considered together. BART in SF outside the Market Street subway is also good, but again SF’s land use policy kneecaps BART’s ridership: the fact that SF’s high-rise downtown has not extended down the Mission street corridor is ridiculous (even a skinny highrise corridor like along Wilshire in LA would be preferrable to the status quo). It would be like Seattle insisting on Capital Hill and Roosevelt stations to be midrise to preserve neighborhood character rather than allow the highrise downtown & university neighborhoods, respectively, to organically expand along the rail corridor (oh, wait…)

        Link is a combo of BART & Muni. East Link and Rainier/SeaTac Link are good in the same way that Muni is good. Link from Seattle to Lynnwood is good in the same way that BART is good. The problem in ST3 is West Seattle/Ballard should be Muni-esque but is currently BART-esque.

        Similarly, SeaTac-Tacoma should haven been Muni-esque (run along 99 as was originally proposed), but was built BART-esque from Tacoma to SeaTac. A a BART-esque Dwamish bypass to realize it’s full potential (whether that bypass is worth the investment is a different question) … but if the Dwamish bypass is built with a half dozen stations between SeaTac and ID, ST will have again screwed up by building a “Muni” segment when a “BART” segment is needed.

      2. BART fares are also quite steep for long distances. I tend to believe the fares are actually impacting ridership.

    3. Given the billions still needed to make ST3 a reality, solving the MLK safety and speed problem with a bypass is way down the list of priorities. Plus, as long as Boeing Field is operating, both Georgetown and South Park will still have height limits — and both areas have unstable soils so that it’s tough to pencil out moderate density housing there and suggest that this is a TOD opportunity. (If Boeing and King County eliminated the airport things would be much different but I don’t see that happening.)

      Finally the basic design of MKK as an overly wide street is still not remedied — so fatalities on the streets won’t go away overall. Overly wide streets encourage anyone to take bigger safety risks due to the longer waits to cross and due to longer crossing times for pedestrians.

      A short cut and cover segment from north of Orcas to south of Webster (under 2 miles) — with stations just beneath the surface for Othello and Graham — would eliminate most of the accident-prone crossings and allow for faster train speeds in this area. This is where there are lots of commercial properties (as opposed to mostly residential properties along MLK found on the other segments). Add to that some strategic crossing closures or minor redesigns near Columbia City and Rainier Beach stations and most of the safety and speed issues would be resolved.

      The only way I ever see a Duwamish bypass making sense is if Link trains got too crowded for SE Seattle residents to board.

      1. Not when Sounder isn’t running. Not to the airport, Kent-Des Moines, or Federal Way. ST is leaning toward the East Marginal Way BAR alternative, which would put it several minutes away from a Sounder station, a station ST hasn’t chosen to build.

    5. Ross, why are you against what Stephen is saying????? You have frequently lauded Rainier as a better location for the transit spine through the Valley, because it goes through the activity nodes that generate trips.

      I can’t imagine that this would be too terribly expensive compared to the complexities and costs of trenching Martin Luther King Jr Way, though I can foresee quite a bit of neighborhood resistance to the elevated trackway, even though it doesn’t look like the “El”.

      It might be worthwhile to consider NOT increasing the station count as much as Stephen proposes, though. If you add two new stations, you pretty much eat up the time gained by not having MLK Way speed limits slowing the train down.

      This may never be needed, in which case, don’t build it. But after twenty or thirty years of E4 tornadoes in March, one-hundred and twenty degree heatwaves in July, and hurricanes from April to December, folks may get sick of livin’ dahn Sath and “reverse migrate” back to the Sane States.

      1. See my comments above on “BART” vs “Muni” lines … I agree that a Dwamish bypass only makes sense if it creates a “regional rail” line between Seattle and Tacoma, with limited station count in Seattle and straightening out the wiggle in Tukwila; Link from SeaTac to Tacoma will already be solid regional rail. The question then becomes is that corridor (Seattle-SeaTac-Tacoma) worth the incremental investment in regional rail … all comes down to land use and population growth along the corridor.

  5. If I were tasked with finding a way to electrify the WSDOT ferries, my first idea would be to roll a Tesla Megapack onto the ferry like a car, park it in a special place behind the last car, and add the necessary wiring to allow the battery to power the ship. (I’m assuming the motors that actually move the ship are already electric, it’s just a matter of making the electricity come from the battery rather than the engines). At port, the ship plugs into shore power while the cars unload, then the battery unloads last. After the battery unloads, the cars load to go the other way, then a freshly charged battery loads at the end (aka battery swap). The original battery then charges at the port, ready to go by the time the next ship arrives.

    Even if these batteries cost a couple million dollars each, and you need two of them per boat to swap them out, even assuming another few million dollars for parts and labor to do the wiring, this still seems like a bargain compared to buying entirely new boats.

    Given that the ferries are already designed to carry fully loaded semi trucks, weight of the battery at the back of the boat should not be a concern.

    This approach also seems like it could be made to work in hybrid mode – shrink the batteries, and have the ship’s engines turn on when the battery gets low.

    1. I don’t see a reason to make it that complicated.

      The boats spend quite a lot of time loading and unloading cars relative to actually traveling. They have to be in precisely the same spot each time they stop.

      I don’t know you could get a more ideal battery powered vehicle scenario. You’d need one hell of a substation and pantograph system to connect to them while they’re at the dock, but this isn’t impossible.

      As an example: Seattle-Bainbridge Island: 35 minute crosssing. A 7:55 am departure gets to Seattle around 8:30 am. It’s scheduled to leave at 8:45 am. That’s 15 minutes of charging time for a 35 minute trip.

      If only King County Metro had that kind of luxurious layover time with its bus routes, battery buses wouldn’t be a problem…

      1. If this company already has a charging pantograph developed, why not use it? The Port just provided new power infrastructure so that cruise ships can plug in rather than run their diesels. May be some of the power could briefly be used to charge a ferry.

  6. 2 Line Eatery recommendation;

    The granddaughter and I traveled the 2 line today looking for eateries. We had a lunch at Bellevue Brewing (Spring District) (a more pub-ish name could be “the Dragon and Phoenix” after the station artwork).

    We then decided to get out at Overlake Village next. We were impressed with the TOD as it is so far and enjoyed a second lunch at Pizza Poggio and Jack Sprat Park Cafe. They appear to be two different businesses but maybe not as we ordered the pizza at the outdoor snack bar like Pizza Poggio but we ate it in the very nicely appointed Jack Spratt Park Cafe (nice beer selection) on the first floor of the adjacent apartment building. I highly recommend this location for pizza and beer and it looks like a good breakfast stop too!

    The neighborhood is showing more life with people out walking and two familys playing in the park even on a pretty cold day. And the cafes were busy but not packed at both stations. We both enjoy the “live-in” feel of many stops in Seattle but see these new clean stops as very nice also. With age they will develop character.

    1. There are several Asian restaurants near Overlake Village station on 152nd and 24th. My roommate and his brother praise the large Thai one on 24th. None of them seem suitable for a quick in-and-out while you’re waiting 10-30 minutes for a transfer.

      1. “ There are several Asian restaurants near Overlake Village station on 152nd and 24th”

        Thanks Mike Orr. The granddaughter will be interested in that one!

  7. At the other end of the scale:
    Probably some of the world’s smallest electric vehicle carrying ferries have operated for over 100 years on the Willamette River.

    Because the crossing is less than 1,000 feet, they’ve been using overhead trolley lines or a variant thereof since horses or reaction ferries were outmoded.

    Sadly, the only thing in Puget Sound with a passage short enough to use an overhead trolley line for power is probably Point Defiance to Vashon Island.

  8. I ended up going to Tacoma (9 pm) and back (1 am) tonight. There was a Link train or two parked at Star Lake Station both times I passed the station. It appears that the cars were parked overnight.

  9. Former readers of Sound Transit’s monthly Agency Progress Reports, rejoice! The progress reports have returned as the “System Expansion Monthly Status Report”, here: https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/system-expansion-monthly-status-report

    Per a presentation to the System Expansion Committee last week, “January and February reports to be issued in April 2025”
    https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2025/Presentation%20-%20System%20Expansion%20Monthly%20Status%20Report%2003-13-25.pdf

  10. “As a South Parker, I remain baffled what the point of BAR Station is.”

    As a transit rider without a car, I remain baffled what the point of BAR station is. The City of Tukwila’s arguments for the station were:

    (1) to extend RapidRide A to BAR to serve a planned urban village at 144th (which is between TIB and BAR).
    (2) to facilitate transfers to the 124 for Museum of Flight visitors and Aviation High School.

    To that we can add another P&R and unspecified bus routes that could be rerouted to it.

    Not for Sounder transfers, since that would depend on a Sounder station, and ST didn’t select the Sounder station. I don’t recall a BAR Sounder station in Tukwila’s priorities. Tukwila probably wants to focus on its other Sounder station, and avoid people raising the issue of why such a small suburb should have two Sounder stations.

    The calls for a Link-Sounder transfer at BAR seem to come from other people, who haven’t thought through who would ride it for what trips. One that’s been mentioned is trips to the airport. That would only be South King/Pierce, and really only Puyallup. Renton, Kent, and Auburn would be better off taking an east-west bus to Link. Especially with Link’s and buses frequency giving better recovery in case you miss one. Then there’s between the Kent Valley and Rainier/Beacon, but is that more than a few people? Most of them would be people working in Kent warehouses, but Sounder doesn’t serve that area.

    1. @Mike Orr

      Yeah that is true, it doesn’t really serve the same travel patterns.

      My thought was that BAR would create an I-5/RV bypass during peak hours. I imagine riders on the 101/124/150/59X/etc would save a significant amount of time by transferring to Sounder or Link.

      1. Yeah, there are several potential connections to a Link station there:

        1) Surface buses.
        2) Express buses running on the freeway.
        3) Sounder
        4) Folks in the neighborhood walking to the station.

        The last looks minimal. There is not much there right now. In the future you could see development but it is close to the freeway, railroad tracks and what looks like a lot of land that can’t be developed.

        The Sounder connection would add value. Riders could transfer from places like Auburn and Kent to get to Rainier Valley (without backtracking).

        With express buses it is the same idea. I could see the 101 and 150 stop at a freeway station and continue to downtown. As with Sounder this would save riders heading to Rainier Valley quite a bit of time.

        The same goes for local buses. The only bus in the area is the 124. It wouldn’t have to go far out of its way to serve the station. Another possibility is for buses to “weave” while serving the station. For example the 107 could cross over the freeway and then run down East Marginal Way. The 124 could do the opposite (cross over the freeway and run to Rainier Beach and up Beacon Hill). That could happen today but the bus coming from Renton wouldn’t connect to Link until much later.

        Combinations add value beyond Link. For example taking Sounder and then a local bus. But my guess is the biggest potential set of riders is with connections to the express buses and Sounder. Without such connections it adds value, just not a lot.

      2. The connections – something we’re not good at at all in this region – seem to be the primary reason for the BAR station and hence the last thing thought of. When it was originally mooted I assumed it would be for a Link-Sounder connection, plus whatever bus connections made sense; as Ross mentions, there’s not a lot of “there” there.

        A Sounder connection would be stronger if they didn’t terminate the two lines in Seattle, but rather extended North Sounder to Renton (grade-separated trackage is available all the way to the original Renton train station downtown and there is space available for a layover siding there; it would be nice to extend to the Landing but that would involve some street running in Houser Way). South Sounder, conversely, should run at least as far as Interbay with a transfer station to future Ballard Link at Smith Cove; it could also be run as far as Shilshole for layover purposes (I’d also add a Belltown station for connections to SLU and Uptown/LQA from both lines).

        Doing this would increase the usefulness of a transfer to the airport via Link at BAR as riders from north and south would find this convenient and considerably faster from many areas. It would also likely increase ridership on Sounder North as an additional major destination would be reachable, two if you count Boeing’s proximity. Best would be a station at Monster Road just for the name, but unfortunately there’s no reason for that. ;-) Riders from the south would gain much better access to the areas north of downtown and Ballard; from the north, transferring at Shilshole or Smith Cove brings Ballard and LQA/Seattle Center much closer than having to do so at King Street – even more so if Ballard Link ever opens.

        Unfortunately as is typical in this region, no plans for connections were made here and the BAR Link station becomes much less useful than it could have been.

    2. A double BAR Station with a Sounder- Link transfer would be awesome for getting to SeaTac airport — but only is Sounder ran at least every 30 minutes all day into the evening in both directions. A transfer is only as valuable as its least frequent route. Plus, if TDLE ever opens, Link will carry airport travelers from either the north (ID-Chinatown) or the south (Tacoma Dome) anyway.

      I would much rather see a transit systems study first. Tukwila is awash with different transit modes that skip possible transfer points. We have Link running without stopping between TIBS and Rainier Beach. We will have Stride not stopping between TIBS and South Renton. We have trunk Routes 101 and 150 that have no transfers to each other or to Link until SODO, and the major trunk connecting to Sounder and Amtrak is RapidRide E. And only Link and RapidRide A connect to SeaTac — and they both run in effectively the same corridor.

      It’s like each route and mode is playing Twister in the way they all hop over each other without using the same dot where easy transfers can be made.

      Incremental transit route planning is good. Sometimes though planners need to step back and design a user-friendly system concept though. South King is an evolving disjointed mess of transit service trunks that don’t cross each other.

      PS. Renton should be part of this transit system planning. It’s a cruel outcome that Renton is in the ST East King subarea.

      1. South King County was designed as a bunch of highways to industrial/rural areas. The roads don’t connect to each other very well. How could the 101 and 150 connect to each other without significantly adding to travel time? How could Stride stop between TIB and South Renton without a big detour?

  11. Re: the mobile home sale from today’s ST email. Do we if they are wiping out all of Belmor Park, just south of the Federal Way Commons? Or just part of it? I can find the plans.

    It would be a shame if they had a choice between taking out the Target and a few hundred affordable units within walking distance of the station, and they choose the latter.

    1. Looking at the map, Target is not really in the path of the light rail tracks, like it’d barely kiss one corner of the building.

    2. Check PDF page 34 (Figure 2.3-2) of this document, from the OMF-S FEIS: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/omf-south-feis-toc-chapters-1-and-2-purpose-need-alternatives.pdf

      The impact on Belmor Park is in service of getting the train back to the I-5 corridor, where it when travel down to OMF-S. I don’t know if they chose the 40mph alignment or the 55mph design option.

      King County Tax Assessor says the mobile home park has 336 mobile home pads: https://blue.kingcounty.com/Assessor/eRealProperty/Detail.aspx?ParcelNbr=1621049037

      ST says they’re looking to get rid of 74. So, they took 22% of the homes.

      1. Which is unfortunate, tho it does make me wonder why more of the Federal Way P&R wasn’t used for the alignment over taking out a chunk of the mobile home park.

    3. Thanks, Nathan.

      I’m honestly baffled as to why they even weave back to hug I-5, then weave back to 99 for South Federal Way.

      Just go straight to 99 from Federal Way, and maybe even drop a useful station in between, maybe around 336th. Kinda serve the hospital, a bunch of retail, some multifamily, and the potential for a boatload more TOD.

      Instead, destroy housing, and spoon with I-5. Brilliant.

      1. Blow up Kohls, and straddle 20th. Serve the OMF and have an at-grade stop at 336th. TOD dreamland.

      2. ST refuses to run above existing ROW, and/or the city/county DOTs refuse to let them close the ROW for construction. Either way, ST now only builds new ROW alongside existing ROW, which requires land takings and angry neighbors. Land along freeways is cheap since the freeways are so loud and air so polluted, so the land takings are easy.

        It’s backwards priority, but so are most of ST’s priorities when it comes to its project planning.

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