Driving from Mercer Island to downtown Seattle in 1973. (Mark Tyrrell)
Seattle Now & Then article on the video.
There’s one mistake in both the video and the article. US Highway 10 had been renamed to I-90 earlier, even though the road wasn’t renovated until the late 80s. I moved to Seattle a year before the film and it was I-90 then. I first heard about Highway 10 until decades later when I saw it on a 1940s map.
In any case, this is the corridor East Link will soon be running in.
This is an open thread.
There’s a ton of historical context behind that video. In 1973, the last few miles of I-90 were still unfinished, Mercer Island to downtown Seattle was one of the last incomplete links on the federal interstate system. The designs to finish the project created in the 1960s were very controversial. It was clear from other cities that the new interstate highways were destroying long established, and often, urban communities. The original plans for the last miles of I-90 would have done the same thing to Seattle’s Central District and Mercer Island. While the Central District didn’t have tremendous clout with federal freeway planners, Mercer Island certainly did. And Mercer Island fought those bulldozer plans fiercely, along with the Central District residents. Today, I-90 has a lidded tunnel through Mercer Island and the CD is still a recognizable community.
I suggest slowing the movie down to .25x speed. Some of interesting details, to me, include the reversible lane infrastructure, the mid-span bulge to allow boats to pass, the deathtrap exit (just before entering the tunnel) that connected to Lake Washington Boulevard, the necessity of getting off I-90 and driving on local streets to get on I-5.
Yeah I saw that exit for the first time when I watched this video a few months back. Couldn’t believe it ever existed!
@Volpe,
The original floating bridge opened in 1940 and was part of US Hwy 10. So it definitely wasn’t built to Interstate standards.
We sort of forget sometimes how design standards for our highway systems have changed over the years. Highways are safer now, carry more cars, and travel speeds are higher. I’d still rather have a more robust rail transit system, but it is what it is.
Parts of the “Hwy 10” moniker existed until very late in the corridor history. And I knew locals who still called it “Hwy 10” up into the late 80’s. It’s sort of strange to think how much things have changed.
Back in those days, everyone was also breathing lead in car exhaust and no one thought anything of it. Nor was the air any cleaner indoors, as everybody smoked everywhere back then too. How times have changed.
I-90 didn’t reach the CD; it went through north Rainier and SODO. That was all industrial.
When I was growing up I-90 terminated at Dearborn Street across from Goodwill. You drove on Dearborn Street to get to the I-5 entrance. Buses got off one exit earlier at Rainier, and went on Rainier and Dearborn to 2nd and 4th. I-90 had another entrance further east at 23rd. That was removed in the renovation; there were some complaints at the time that it would be less convenient for residents to get to the freeway. I don’t recall an entrance at Lake Washington Blvd.
The freeway that would have gone through the CD and displaced residents was the Thompson Expressway on Empire Way (MLK).
My parents said drunk drivers crashed into the bulge every weekend.
Part of me thinks the Mt Baker tunnel was already there in the 70s, while another part thinks there was an open trench (“Lake Street”) either instead of the tunnel or west of it. Could the tunnel have been shorter then?
The double bore tunnel you see in 1973 is still there. But today, it carries only the eastbound traffic. Westbound traffic goes through a new tunnel that was built after the movie was shot.
I believe the present-day Mt. Baker bike tunnel used to be a car tunnel before the current car tunnel was built (at least in one of the two directions). Because they wouldn’t have spent all that money to dig a tunnel just for bikes and pedestrians.
GuyOnBeaconHill is right: both directions used to go through the old tunnel, so that answers my first question. But I still have a feeling of going through a deep open trench that isn’t there anymore. That must have been west of the tunnel and was reconfigured out of recognition in the rebuilt.
I’m not sure if the current Mt Baker bike/ped tunnel was part of the old configuration. It’s not impossible it’s newly built: it’s now law that freeways have to provide a bike/ped alternative where local streets don’t go through. If the new bike tunnel is simply built on top of the new car tunnel, it would only be an incremental cost.
The bike tunnel I think occupies the top level of the single bore westbound new (1980’s) tunnel. So it’s almost a freebie.
Funny to hear you all talking like it’s ancient history, but then again I guess I’m getting ancient! I love going through the bike tunnel eastbound in the evening where this is often a substantial tail wind. I’ve hit 30 plus with no wind resistance. It’s a thrill! Like riding down a long High Schol hallway! Gotta slow down a bit to make the S curves down to the bridge.
@Mike Orr,
The original set of twin tunnels opened in 1940 and were built as part of US 10. The west portals of these tunnels were located just south of where the bike tunnel west portal is today. The area between about Judkins Park Station and the old portals is actually not a tunnel at all but a lid over the freeway. You can still see the old portals when traveling eastbound under the lid.
The new tunnel was built in 1989 (IIRC) just north of the old twin tunnels and is the largest soft earth tunnel in the world. It was built using stacked drifts and originally had 2 reversable lanes at the lower level (soon to be Light Rail), 3 westbound freeway lanes in the middle (now 4 lanes) and the bike/ped tunnel at the top.
The bike/ped tunnel is sort of a freebie. Since the tunnel uses a compression arch of sorts the space at the top is essentially unused and makes a pretty good bike/ped tunnel.
All traffic lanes and the future LR tracks travel under the freeway lid. The bike/ped path exits its tunnel onto the top of the lid. Thus the bike/ped path is shorter than the “underground” (tunnel plus lid) sections of the freeway/LR lanes.
It wasn’t the “death trap exit” that was a death trap, it was the east and westbound on-ramps! In high school I worked at the marina in Leschi and had to take the westbound on-ramp home to MI every day precisely at ‘rush hour’. In those days, rush hour was really just 3 hours and only from Seattle in the evening or to Seattle in the morning. Also in those days, people or average wealth lived on MI.
A friend of mine that learned to drive and drag race in the 1950’s told me there were impromptu races thru the eastbound tunnel early in the mornings sometimes. A few cars would block the approach to the tunnel and two cars would quickly move into place then race through the tunnel creating quite a bit of noise then come blasting out onto the bridge and disappear into Mercer Island. I image that would be hard to orchestrate nowadays with the traffic levels today.
I can remember when I 90 was signed as “I 90 (temp)”
Interestingly, there is still a highway 10 between Cle Elem and Ellensburg. I’m guessing, this used to be the main route, before I-90 was built. Today, it’s mostly a scenic byway alternative for drivers with a little bit of extra time on their hands, although it does use less energy than taking the freeway route.
@asdf2,
US 10 was part of the national highway system which predated the interstate highway system. It basically followed the route of what is now I-90, but of course the design standards were different.
When I was 15 1/2, and driving cross state with parents and younger siblings to do some mountain climbing, my dad suddenly got the crazy idea of having me drive Hwy 10. I had just gotten my learner’s permit and had never taken any lessons or officially driven anything. And certainly never driven anything at highway speeds.
Let’s just say it was stressful, and that I’d didn’t do very well. No crashes. But it still wasn’t very pleasant.
I think there are alternatives roads for every freeway. If something goes wrong then traffic is routed that way. I was a passenger on a Greyhound bus when it went on the Denny Creek road because they were working on I-90 (https://maps.app.goo.gl/WpBeUC1Beh4T9MWa6). I’m guessing that was the highway before I-90 went in.
“I think there are alternatives roads for every freeway.”
Snoqualmie Pass?
Agreed with asdf2.
In the Columbia River gorge, in a number of places they blew up the alternative road when they built what is now I-84 (originally I-80N). You’d have to go over to Washington Highway 14 to avoid those places, and bridges across the Columbia aren’t that frequent. Plus, large vehicles can’t travel the length of highway 14 due to tight clearance tunnels.
When I-84 is closed (and weather is sometimes bad enough for this to happen), through traffic is supposed to take US 26 over Mt Hood, which comes with its own set of hazards in winter.
There’s also a couple places on I-5 between Portland and Kelso where the old highway is gone due to construction of the interstate. Eg: going north from Woodland, the old highway ends at Old Pacific Highway and Dike Access Road. A couple miles or so north of there it’s Cloverdale Road, starting at the dead end intersection at Burke. There is an alternative route that goes up through all the rural suburban sprawl between Kalama and Woodland, but it’s not something you’d want to take a larger vehicle through. It’s a bunch of narrow rural roads with a bunch of suburban housing thown onto former farmland with little concern over how it functions as a larger whole.
“I think there are alternatives roads for every freeway.”
Snoqualmie Pass?
Yeah, that was the example I mentioned. I mentioned the western part. That keeps going west. You can see how you would pass by Asahel Curtis Sno-Park and and pick up Tinkam Road (NF-55) which will get you further south. Going the other direction (from Snoqualmie Pass itself) you can follow the road that crosses under the freeway and runs next to the resort to Hyak. At that point I think you would have to go under the freeway and pick up the road that goes by the Margaret Lake trailhead and eventually hooks into the Kachess Lake Road.
This is a good example of what I’m talking about. There may be gaps. I don’t really know. But there are a surprising number of parallel roads in very rugged territory. Usually it doesn’t matter. In winter those roads are closed. So most the time Snoqualmie Pass is closed you are just out of luck. In summer they usually don’t close the freeway. But my point is they can (and have) including at Snoqualmie Pass.
You can ride your bike through the pass, because there are no alternatives for significant stretches. At least you used to be able to. Suicidal. But legal.
You can ride your bike through the pass, because there are no alternatives for significant stretches.
Huh? Wouldn’t you ride the Palouse to Cascades (formerly John Wayne) trail? This goes from the Columbia to Rattlesnake Lake (when it is melted out). From Rattlesnake Lake you would pick up the various trails that will eventually be part of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trail. Thus you can ride through the tunnel at the pass and go on a nice trail most of the way. There is still some work to do but I think riders just use local roads in places like Issaquah and Preston.
The tunnel is closed half of the year.
Probably, but for how long? The whole business of running electric trains nearly as long as BARTMobiles across a chain of strapped-together pontoons made of re-barred concrete sounds pretty short-term.
We are told not to worry; all is well and in perfect harmony with the immutable Laws of the Universe.
We shall, of course, see how well the engineers applied their formulae.
Unending cynicism, how original.
Just for the record, I’d love to be wrong. It’s never been done before, which almost always means that somebody omitted to consider some pitfall.
They may not have done it exactly like this before, but Milwaukee Road had a floating wooden bridge over the Mississippi River, starting in the 1880s until it washed out on 1951. That was before good, functional expansion joints were developed and the approach trestles were on piles, so they had to manually adjust the height of the non-floating parts of the structure up or down, sometimes multiple times per day. They had to deal with highly variable water levels (far worse than Lake Washington) and strong currents (far worse than Lake Washington), with a pontoon section that had to be removed regularly for river traffic, moving heavy freight trains with heavy, point load locomotives and unpredictable freight car weight distribution.
All without the benefit of continuous welded rail with expansion joints, which would have made their wooden pontoon floating bridge vastly easier to work with.
So, no, it’s not been done before like this, but it has been done before with far fewer technical resources and more difficult water conditions.
The Lake Washington bridge may actually be an easier structure to work with, since it isn’t a hybrid adjustable height stationary bridge with a floating center section. Almost the whole thing floats, so the expansion joints take care of adjustment rather than having to raise and lower stationary bridge sections to meet the floating section.
Floating bridges are not that common…and four of the longest are in Washington. I think their relative scarcity is a part of why this hasn’t been done before. There are plenty of other whacky-seeming transit solutions, like those upside-down monorails, that give me a worse gut feeling than this but that end up working out fine. Heck, in Colombia I rode a cable car that is a literal wooden shed! The emergency brake is tied down with a shoelace. As far as I’m aware, it’s never had any major incidents.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pontoon_bridges
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jardin-wooden-cable-car
Floating bridges are not that common…and four of the longest are in Washington. I think their relative scarcity is a part of why this hasn’t been done before.
Good point. This is new, but not experimental. There are unusual challenges but ones that they are quite capable of handling by using proven techniques. If not for the relative lack of floating bridges (worldwide) this sort of thing would be common.
Glenn, great story about the Milwaukee floating bridge. Thanks.
I’m not so worried about the transition bridges at the ends as the concentrated dynamic loads at the pontoon connections — a Link train is a heavy chunk of steel crossing the joint — and the opportunity for stray currents to corrode the rebar in the pontoon boxes.
I know that the engineers believe these issues to have been addressed, and they probably have been. It’s also possible that the solutions will be found to have been partial.
In the first year after the bridge opens, I bet even the optimists here won’t be shocked if ST announces they’ve discovered a problem on the bridge, repairs must be made, and for riders to expect months of slow orders and single tracking while the problem is fixed. I’m not saying it’s likely, I’m just saying if it happens, I don’t think people will be surprised.
I’m optimistic that the floating bridge will not fail during the first year. However, I am concerned about three things:
1. Trains passing each other on the bridge.
2. Trains forced to reduce speed while crossing the bridge, made worse if the first concern is a problem.
3. The effect of removing the concrete barrier walls on the side of the bridge (objective of reducing bridge weight), exposing the rail bridge deck to water action splashing up from the lake resulting in long-term deterioration.
And ST in recent years has repeatedly kept secrets about maintenance problems and related needed disruptions until they can’t. I suspect part of the skepticism is because we have seen way too many sudden problems become announced to the public many months after they’re detected. The bridge crossing’s sudden delay of two years is the most notable — but there are many other vertical device and track problems that the public is told about at the last minute — and some of these become public only after there is such a disruption that riders start asking why they’re happening in the media.
It’s like being asked to trust a cheating spouse after learning about several incidents of infidelity.
A Link train does provide a bit of a point load on the pontoons, but maybe not as much as you think.
Siemens S70 are ≈99,500 lbs., spread over ≈ 95 feet.
A typical semi on the bridge would be a maximum of 80,000 lbs, at 53 feet long.
So, while the light rail car is heavier, it has better distribution of that weight.
And of course neither compares to something like the 275,000 lbs of a Milwaukee Road L2 Mikado or similar 1920s era steam locomotive.
@ Glenn:
Isn’t that the weight of just one train car?
Also, the weight distribution of a steel rail is much more concentrated than that of pavement under rubber tires. So the weight distribution comparison is bigger than just vehicle length and weight.
Al: the rail helps distribute the weight across a larger area as well.
Otherwise, wood cross ties wouldn’t last some 30-50 years.
@Al S,
“Also, the weight distribution of a steel rail is much more concentrated than that of pavement under rubber tires.”
That is not a true statement. In fact, it is actually the other way around.
The steel rail distributes the weight of the LRV over a much wider area, with the result that the point loads at any plinth or tie are actually much lower than what you would get with something like a semi truck.
And think of how many contact points there are between that rail and the bridge deck, as opposed to the limited number on a truck.
Na, the point loads are actually pretty benign between the rail and the bridge. It’s just not an issue.
They tested it in Colorado. It as been pretty well understood as the highest risk part of ST2
https://www.ce.washington.edu/news/article/2017-08-15/enabling-engineering-first-light-rail-floating-bridge
Thanks for posting this…..
I’d guess the engineering part is likely OK. There’s a lot of smart people who worked on the concept. Your link is an interesting read for non-engineering folks like me on how the train crossing is supposed to work.
My problem is I watched Sound Transit flub up the whole Hilltop extension in Tacoma. I’d say it’s at least 50/50 Sound Transit ends up tearing out shoddy work across the bridge based on past performance.
> at least 50/50 Sound Transit ends up tearing out shoddy work across the bridge
Shouldn’t that be closer to 100%, given that they have already had to tear out shoddy work across the bridge and rebuild it, thus delaying the Line 2 opening for two years?
Mars saxman,
Yeah, it’s a big project and you’d expect some early problems…. but things started going South years early on crossing the bridge. Have they really fixed the problems? My non-educated guess is yes, but only for a year or two. So the tracks over the bridge were delayed 2 years for a costly retrofit and after running the system a year or two, the track shows excessive wear is shut down for repairs.
I’m not an engineer and don’t pretend to be one on the internet, but the early “closed for repairs” crap seems like standard operating procedure for ST.
Mars is correct, a contractor had to redo a bunch of work on the bridge, but that was a error in execution not in design. Shame on contractor for doing shoddy work, and shame on ST oversight for not catching the issue earlier, but it still got caught before vehicle testing.
In Hilltop, my understanding is ST has run into a bunch of underground utilities that have needed to be replaced, which strikes me as a very different problem than the cross lake crossing.
AJ,
Actually the Hilltop is way easier than a floating bridge to build light rail on. But there are zero acceptable excuses for messing up either project. Sound Transit has a history here….
I think voters needed a chance to step in and stop light rail rolling across the floating bridge. There are 3 problems here. . Getting the train to run on the floating bridge…..keeping the train running on the floating bridge without an endless parade of breakdowns… and last of all, keeping the train from cutting the lifespan of the bridge short.
Number 3 is the big one. The bridge was not engineered for a train to cross it. Is anybody going to be surprised if in a few years of running a train over it, engineers say the bridge is worn out and needs to be replaced?
Tacomee
The bridge was specifically engineered from the beginning to be converted to rail. There are planning and engineering documents from the 80s discussing conversion of the HOV lanes and what the bridge is capable of handling.
Last year, the East Link Starter Line opened on April 27th, but Sherwin Lee got a sneak peek ride on April 9th as part of a press tour, and made a post about it on April 10th. I believe I have those dates right. So I wonder if there will be a sneak peek press tour for the opening of the Downtown Redmond Link Extension, and he’ll be invited to that? If there is a press preview for this extension, it should occur in a couple of weeks, if history is any guide.
I haven’t seen any press preview announcement yet.
I saw a B-Line bus today with the destination sign reading “Downtown Redmond Station.” However, the B-Line won’t actually serve the station until the train opens there! This missigning is unfortunate.
If I saw that I would assume it to mean the Redmond Transit Center. I mean, I guess they are technically different places, but the two names are so generic I wouldn’t even notice it as a mistake. Which may be how the mistake was made…
So many memories here …
A few details others haven’t mentioned: The old I-90 bridge had concrete ladders on the side to allow for people to get out of the water. At least once I remember diving off the bridge and climbing back up. (Don’t recall if we approached the bridge from a boat or if we walked out). I also recall people jumping from the old, much lower, East Channel bridge but I wasn’t ever brave (stupid?) enough to try that stunt.
My dad and I walked out on the bridge when WSDOT closed it to remove the “Bulge” draw span. Pretty wild to watch the bulge section float away and be replaced by a straight section of roadway. (The bulge was anchored near Boeing in Lake Washington for a long time though I don’t recall when it was removed or what became of it.)
As for the “deathtrap exit” (and entrance) just beyond the Mt Baker tunnel on to the East… Yes… I wasn’t old enough to drive it but I recall many trips in the car to go to a dentist in Madison park. That entrance was horrid. Curious how many collisions / fatalities occurred at that location.
Checked on news from Florence, Italy since I lived there for awhile and like checking in on things there and came across an article in their English language newspaper about their new tram extension that opened earlier this year from Fortezza to Piazza San Marco via Lavagnini & Piazza della Libertà.
https://www.theflorentine.net/2025/01/24/vacs-operational-tramvia/
It’s basically phase 1 of a new extension of the Florence tram system that extends the tram farther into the city center and towards the eastern part of the city on both sides of the Arno River with the T3 Line to Bagno a Ripoli (South of Arno River) and Rovezzano (North of Arno River).
There’s an article about possible future expansion ideas from a local political association that is focused on green politics (It is in Italian so you’ll need to use Google translate to read it).
https://www.ecoloitalia.it/2024/02/19/domande-chiarimenti-proposte-sulla-tramvia-a-firenze/
Continuing the thread about east/west bus service on 65th St., I’m going to throw out another option for the hoard: branch the 5. Under this option, route 5 forms two branches at 85th, one continues straight to Shoreline CC, as current route 5 does. The other turns right on 85th, becoming route 61 to Northgate and Lake City.
Under this option, existing riders of route 5 south of 85 and the whole of route 61 would see no change, while Phinney Ridge gains one seat rides to Northgate, Link, and Lake City, and no bus runs on 65th St. The catch, of course, is that frequency on the Shoreline branch of route 5 gets cut significantly, so I don’t think I’d recommend this change right now. But, if overall service hours could be simultaneously boosted so that each branch runs all day every 20 minutes, and the downtown to 85th St. trunk of the 5, every 10 minutes…that sounds like pretty good service, and a good upgrade for the average #5 rider going downtown, compared to the 15-30 minute service they get today.
Taking a closer look at the map, the 44 actually curves northward as it goes west of Phinney, and by the time it reaches 8th, the distance between Market and 65th is just half a mile, rather a full mile over at Greenwood. Combine this with the fact that the 24th Ave. corridor already gets east/west service via route 40 (via Northgate Way), I think bus service on 65th is less important further west. The big hole that needs filling is finding a way to go east from Phinney Ridge, and a branching of the 5/absorption of the 61 accomplishes this on existing transit streets.
Another tidbit worth mentioning: long ago, back around 2010, route 5 actually did used to branch, only the split point was Northgate Way, rather than 85th. However, the Northgate Way branch only ran every 30 minutes, which made it not super useful. This branch got removed in, I believe, the service restructure that created route 40 and the D line.
I’m going to throw out another option for the hoard: branch the 5
That idea has several flaws. To begin with, the branch north of 85th is too strong. There are more riders north of 85th then there are between 85th and SR 99.
Now assume we get extra money (as you suggest) and run the 5 more often (every ten minutes). We would run the northern part of the 5 every twenty minutes instead of fifteen. We would run the existing part of the 61 every twenty minutes instead of fifteen as well. Somehow Metro got extra money and yet a lot of riders got significantly worse service. I don’t see it.
Nor do I see the 5/61 as a good pairing. The 61 is a diagonal bus, but it is more east-west then it is north-south. In contrast the 5 is pretty much a straight north-south express bus. At 85th & Greenwood the 5 is towards the middle of the network (from an east-west perspective). There are four routes to the west (and there would be five if we resurrected service on 32nd NW). This means it would be forming an ‘L’ from the middle, not the side. This new extended 61 would still fail to connect to any of the four (or five) buses to the west. If you wanted to go from Northgate to Crown Hill you would still have to transfer. If you wanted to go from Northgate to Ballard High School you would still have to transfer twice. You’ve extended the 61 (finally) and the main thing you’ve added is some one-seat rides to Phinney Ridge. Oh, and don’t forget that one of the big selling points of the 5 is that it is an express to Downtown Seattle. A lot of 61 riders would have no interest in that. No one from Lake City or Northgate would ride the bus to downtown — not when they pass right by a Link station.
In contrast, consider this idea that has been around for a while. The 61 makes an ‘L’ but when it gets to Ballard it is about as far west as you can go. It manages to cross all the other buses in the area.
Or consider eddie’s idea for when Pinehurst Station opens: sending the 5 to Lake City via 130th/125th. It has similarities with your 5/61 idea (the 5 ends up in Lake City). But when it turns is very different. At 130th & Greenwood the 5 is the westernmost bus in the city. Then it cuts across and ends at the easternmost point.
This is what you want from an ‘L’ shaped bus. It has many of the same advantages of a grid. If you think of a grid as completely covering the edges of a perfectly rectangular city then connecting the corners is an enhancement that costs you nothing. Of course our city is a lot more messy but that is the idea (you want your ‘L’ buses on the side). But even with a messy city like ours you want buses to intersect as many buses as you can while also being as straight as you can. Seattle can’t build an ideal grid. There aren’t enough roads going east west. But we do have good, well-spaced north-south buses. We can run buses on the handful of east-west corridors but they are often a bit short. We might as well leverage some of the north-south buses that run on the sides when it makes sense to do so.
by the time it reaches 8th, the distance between Market and 65th is just half a mile … I think bus service on 65th is less important further west.
Not really. Just to back up here, there is a limit to how far people will walk to a bus. Even for those willing to walk further it often doesn’t help. It doesn’t make sense to walk twenty minutes to a bus that will save you ten minutes or riding/waiting. Basically you want bus routes about a half mile apart. Any farther and you lose people.
So imagine two situations: in one part of town the buses run parallel and are a mile apart. In another they run parallel and are two miles apart. Now in both cases you add a bus in the middle. All other things being equal, you add just about as many riders either way. In the second case there are only a handful more extra riders.
Now consider 65th. It is never that close to Market. It really doesn’t matter if at Phinney Ridge it is much farther away — you aren’t gaining many riders at that point. The vast majority of riders that are too far away will take the 5 and transfer (like they’ve always done).
So it gets down to the connecting buses as well as the neighborhoods directly and indirectly served by them. The west is actually more important in that regard. 24th and 15th are more important than Phinney Ridge or Linden. 32nd and 8th aren’t that important but they get thrown in as part of the deal. So I completely disagree — it is just as important if not more important to have east-west service to the west. The big drawback to the bus as we’ve imagined it (which is on that map coincidentally — I made it a while ago) is that the 45 has to make a big detour. It has to detour to some degree anyway (to get around Green Lake) but it detours up to 85th (or at the very least to 80th). This makes the bus slower while also using up precious service hours. Someone from 65th in Ballard heading towards Roosevelt or the UW has a slow ride as their bus goes up and around. But otherwise it really isn’t that bad. If you are coming from the north on Greenwood or Aurora Avenue you just transfer earlier. You also serve Greenwood (which is much bigger than 65th & Phinney). I don’t like the detours (it isn’t ideal) but it would still be a huge improvement for a lot of people.
It is also possible (based on the napkin engineering we have done) that running on 65th west of Phinney isn’t an issue but running east of it is. That sure appears to be way more narrow. If that is the case then a bus could (maybe) do this. I know people are worried about that turn but it doesn’t look that bad to me. A left turn (from 65th to Greenwood Avenue) would be trivial. A right turn would be challenging if it wasn’t for the fact that the bus is actually towards the middle of the street at that point. There is both a (tiny) bike lane and a parking lane to the right of the bus. You would definitely move the stop line for eastbound vehicles on 65th farther west (and add a “no right on red” sign to avoid cars creeping into the intersection) but otherwise I think it could work. (Of course this is all idle speculation.) That connects you to Phinney Ridge, leaving only Linden as the area with a detour.
It is also quite possible that either bus would run on 80th. That would be faster, but it would involve two buses running on parallel (and popular) corridors only five blocks apart. Trade-offs.
“Or consider eddie’s idea for when Pinehurst Station opens: sending the 5 to Lake City via 130th/125th. It has similarities with your 5/61 idea (the 5 ends up in Lake City). But when it turns is very different. At 130th & Greenwood the 5 is the westernmost bus in the city. Then it cuts across and ends at the easternmost point.”
I thought about that. It works well for going to Lynnwood. But the detour to reach points east within Seattle feels very severe, to the point where it wouldn’t be worth it. It would be slower than riding the 5 and transferring to the 44 or 45.
Maybe the best overall solution is to just run a minibus down 65th St., all the way from Roosevelt Station to 32nd and see what happens. It can curve around Green Lake to the south to avoid redundancy with the 45. Maybe this route could initiate start with peak hours only, then gradually expand based on ridership. A full sized Metro bus might be too much for certain sections, but I’ve been on plenty of Trailhead Direct buses that ought to be able to handle it.
“send the 5 to Lake City via 130th/125th. ”
I thought about that. It works well for going to Lynnwood.
Huh? Lynnwood has nothing to do with it. It is about the trips in Seattle and maybe Shoreline, but not Lynnwood. For example Lake City to Phinney Ridge, Bitter Lake to Capitol Hill or Aurora to Greenwood Avenue.
You mention a detour but I honestly don’t know what you are talking about. The only people I could see going out of their way would be someone at the north end of Greenwood Avenue heading to Link. But it would still be a dramatic improvement over what they have to deal with right now. They have to go south (via the 5) to Northgate Way and then catch the 40 which loops around before finally reaching a Link station. That is a huge, two-seat detour. In contrast going north up to 130th would be much faster — so much so that you would attract quite a few riders even if they are going south on Link (like just about everyone). This is a lot better than this.
But that would be the exception and really not my point. I’m trying to make clear why you want your ‘L’ shaped routes (in Seattle) to be on the east and west sides of the city — not in the middle. This modified 5 would be on the side.
As a result it would eliminate detours and improve plenty of trips. I mean, look at this mess. It takes about 45 minutes via transit (at noon) even though it would be a 16 minute drive. Oh, and this is if you are standing right next to the bus stop. That isn’t an obscure trip. That is from one major corridor (that has fairly good bus service) to a major north-end destination that is also a major transit hub.
It isn’t just trips like this. Notice that the E and 5 don’t cross. This would be fine if there were lots of crossing routes (forming a grid) but there isn’t. So sending the 5 across helps mitigate that problem as well. No more long walks through the cemetery for what would be a five minute drive. Riders would hop on the E and transfer to the 5.
Basically this would connect Greenwood Avenue/Phinney Ridge to the north end. Yes, that includes Lynnwood but mainly places that are a lot closer. That corridor would be directly connected to Lake City (and some places along the way) but also indirectly connected to any bus coming from the north (like the E). That is the advantage of having an ‘L’ shaped route that is on the side of the network.
Of course this wouldn’t do much to mitigate the lack of east-west service on 65th. That is really a different issue, and why we would need a different bus (that we probably won’t have for a really long time).
Maybe the best overall solution is to just run a minibus down 65th St
Yes, that is what people have been getting at. A minibus is skinnier and might be able to handle the road. Again, I want to be clear — this is all speculation. It is possible that Metro/SDOT would have no problem running a normal bus (like the 45) along that corridor (or at the very least from 8th NW to Phinney). But yes, if we can’t run a regular bus along that route we could run a small bus.
But that runs into issues as well. Such a bus would overlap an existing bus instead of being an extension. This means that any savings from a shortcut are eaten up by the overlap. It also creates (or continues) the awkward nature of the buses that overlap on 85th. Consider the current network. The 61 ends too quickly. It fails to connect to the 40 and D (while also failing to serve Crown Hill). A new minibus wouldn’t solve that problem. In contrast an extension of the 61 (to run on 65th) would be much cheaper and connect more people to more places.
The same thing is true with the map I made but this time the awkward route is the 45. It is the same idea. You really don’t need a new route curving around Green Lake when the 45 does that. You would just redirect the 45 (saving a lot of money). I added a layer on the map to show that.
long ago, back around 2010, route 5 actually did used to branch
We used to have a lot more branches and a lot more routes. That doesn’t mean it was good. Quite the contrary. I think the system is much better than it used to be (even if many of the recent restructures are disappointing).
It should be noted that the 5 effectively has a branch: the 28. The two buses are quite similar from Upper Fremont to downtown. There are plenty of riders along the shared section. It is not a true branch because the 28 is so infrequent. Even if they ran the 28 every fifteen minutes it is quite possible they would increase the frequency on the 5 at the same time (and they still wouldn’t be in sync). The 5 is just a lot stronger in terms of ridership.
Ugh. I remember when the 5 split at 105th St and went to Northgate. It’s much better now that the 40 exists.
Great overview of some gondola transit projects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5126u88E7E
My understanding is that the Montlake bus stops (on the 520 ramps) are finally going to be added soon. I wish I had a source but I’m blocked from where I first read it (and I’m not saying where that was but it is a credible source). Metro isn’t saying anything either. Consider it a rumor unless you want to check it out yourself.
All the construction equipment is cleared out of the way. The existing southbound 48 stop hasn’t been closed and moved to its new location yet, so that’s the only thing that isn’t ready to go. I would love to have that transfer point in operation.
My understanding (from memory) is that the bus stops are in place and there are bags over them (with a timetable on them). Basically the bus stops are there but currently “closed”. I would go down there and check it out but I’m recovering from foot surgery and I’m not very mobile. I haven’t seen anything from Metro about it (which is weird).