As expected, Line 1 Line service through Downtown Seattle will be severely disrupted starting Monday as crews work to replace a cracked rail between International District/Chinatown Station and Pioneer Square Station. This work will require closure of the southbound tunnel between Westlake and Stadium Stations for 10 days.
Previously, Sound Transit has handled single-tunnel closures like this by splitting the 1 Line in two and reducing service along the whole line. This time, the agency is trying an “alternate service plan” which involves operating a shuttle train (instead of the typical shuttle buses used during full tunnel closures) through Downtown Seattle. Meanwhile, Link 1 Line trains will operate every 12 minutes north of Westlake and south of Stadium when it would normally operate at 8-10 minute frequencies during the day.
The shuttle train will run every 25-30 minutes between Westlake and Stadium stations.
Although no shuttle bus will run during the disruption, Sound Transit is partnering with King County Metro to provide a circulator bus to handle crowds during peak evening hours. Sound Transit told the Blog the bus will run from about 2:30pm to 6:45pm through downtown, serving the Downtown Seattle stations from SODO to Westlake as shown on the map below.
Notably, the circulator bus will serve the SODO stop as well as Stadium and the Downtown Seattle stations, and the southbound stop near Stadium station is on the far side of Metro’s operator parking garage. Riders hoping to use the circulator bus to connect to the 1 Line south of Downtown may want to stay on the bus and transfer at SODO station instead of hiking around Metro’s parking garage.
Meanwhile, Sound Transit is strongly suggesting riders consider using other King County Metro and Community Transit services to get to their destinations during this time of reduced service. The agency provided this summary graphic of bus routes serving two or more Link 1 Line stations:
Riders headed to events at the stadiums from north of Downtown may want to consider transferring to a bus in Downtown, such as King County Metro’s Routes 101, 102, 124, or 150, or Sound Transit’s ST Express routes 590, 594, or 595, instead of using the circulator.
A spokesperson for Sound Transit also told the Blog that signage will be posted at stations telling riders about the forced transfers and the signs will recommend passengers switch to local bus service to avoid long wait times. The destination signs on the trains, which normally indicate “Lynnwood City Center” or “Angle Lake”, will update to indicate the true terminal destinations of Stadium and Westlake while the shuttle train is running. Unfortunately, they could not promise that real-time arrival will be working correctly but said their teams are working hard to configure the system to provide accurate arrival times during the disruption.
Sound Transit’s recent blog post provides some background on the project. This is not first time the agency has replaced rail in the former downtown transit tunnel, which it took over in 2022. Regardless, the agency says riders should expect a faster, smoother rider from Pioneer Square to the International District once the work is completed. The rail replacement is not the only work the agency is planning to get done during the disruption; a spokesperson said they’ll be working on a number of projects. Crews will install “bird mitigation” features, test electrical transformers, clean storm/sewer drains, inspection fiber cables, and complete other maintenance work made easier by the closure.
This won’t be the last tunnel shutdown this year. Sound Transit still needs to complete a batch of electrical tie-in work to finish the upcoming 2 Line connection to Seattle. That work is tentatively scheduled for late May.
It’s unfortunate that Metro can’t add extra service on the E and extend all trips to Stadium, since they already do that for late-night service when Sound Transit terminates trains there. That would avoid at least some of the transfer penalty, especially since a lot of folks on Link transfer to the E anyways.
It would have been nice if Metro preserved the ability to run buses in the tunnel. There could be two buses single-“tracking” while using the center lanes to pass each other and serving all the stations on one side.
I think the biggest problem is the lack of a north portal for buses now that Convention Place Station is gone? Otherwise the battery-electric buses and maybe upgraded ETBs would work fine in the tunnel, even if the new diesel-electric buses can’t do hush mode anymore.
running buses in a train tunnel is very inefficient and will be a chaotic mess at the detriment of all for the benefit of few….which is why it is rarely done. If your trains are not performing to keep up with demand, the increase frequency via automation or build more tunnels. Keep the buses where they belong: on surface streets.
I don’t think they meant regular buses, just for “maintenance mode” replacements. A shuttle every 25-30 minutes is extremely poor service for downtown, and will encourage many people to drive in the meantime. Buses in that section of the tunnel could probably be a lot more frequent, and if deployed as a platoon (3 bendy bois in a row all arriving and departing together), could provide the capacity that downtown needs for this 10-day repair.
Joint operations was such a bad experience that the agencies, governments, and much of the public were eager to end that temporary phase. Buses are just less reliable than trains, at least in our traffic conditions, so buses would appear at random off-scheduled times and bunch, hindering the trains. Or a wheelchair lift would be deployed in the tunnel and delay a bus and the buses behind it. Or a bus would break down because buses have more moving parts than trains. People would compare it to other subways that didn’t have these problems, so the trains were more reliable and frequent.
There were always going to be more trains in the tunnel, that would be too many for buses. East Link was supposed to start in 2021 with combined 3-4 minute frequency (the service level varied over time in planning scenarios). So trains would become so many there would never be room for buses again.
The final straws came when Convention Center expansion filled in the Convention Place tunnel entrance, and ST installed a non-revenue turn track for East Link at CID that somehow precluded buses; I guess it took over their layover space at the south end.
So with so many people wanting buses out of the tunnel, and Link’s intended frequency going higher, there wasn’t an ear for keeping bus availability for occasional maintenance periods, and it wouldn’t have occurred to them.
It may seem strange to talk about joint-operations unreliability now when Link has so many breakdowns and collisions, practically every other day. But that is unusual and unanticipated, doesn’t occur in other subways, and it wasn’t happening then.
It cost Metro (and sound transit by extension for the 550) a lot of money to run buses in the tunnel.
Last time the buses were in the tunnel the 150 had 15 minute service Monday through Saturday only and the 101 lacked all weekday 15 minute headways all together. Those are the best two routes during the disruption to connect sodo/ stadium and westlake. Also the 594 (albeit with different stops than the 101/102/150). . So there’s plenty of good choices for avoiding this mess.
And don’t forget the 545 for accessing the east side you can access that from 5th and that’s every 10-15 minutes Monday through Friday.
It’s better for metro and sound transit to invest in reducing canceled trips and more reliable bus and train service than keeping buses in the tunnel during these events.
That crossover track at symphony would
Be nice though.
I have an airport trip coming up during this disruption. Will be sure to avoid Link.
I hear the smart move is to get a ride to TIBS and use Link from there.
asdf2 can take the 560 from the airport to Bellevue and transfer to Kirkland there. If you’re coming from north Seattle, I’d still take Link from SODO to SeaTac to avoid the 124’s slowness, the bus-to-bus transfer at TIB, the A’s slowness compared to Link, and crossing the boulevard twice to get from the bus stop to the terminal passage.
Yeah, the 560 is my preferred backup route. However, at the time my flight is arriving, it will be running only once per hour. Depending on how the wait time works out, I may end up riding Link for one stop and catching Uber at TIBS. That way home is fast, but expensive (though still cheaper than Uber pickup at the airport).
If you’re coming from North Seattle, going to the U-District and taking the 48 to Mount Baker Station is a good alternative too. I’ve done that in the past to catch the first morning train and it’s worked out well.
I do this 48 to mount baker often to get those first Link trains to the airport at 4:15am. Not super well coordinated at that time between the 48 and Link (like 30 min wait) but beats the alternatives at that hour like an $80 Uber to the airport or getting downtown by owl bus to transfer to the 124 owl.
Does ST have any plans to add switches in the DSTT?
There are currently no funded projects that would add switches to the downtown tunnel.
and this is why a second tunnel is common sense. one hiccup and all 4 lines will experience pandemonium under the misguided single tunnel suggestions. Thankfully sound transit has leaned from the cities that are transit super powers that the more tunnels the better
Except that in no way can a second tunnel provide ANY multi-path options for Line 2 trains. How are Line 1 trains to continue to SLU and Ballard if the outage occurs in the purported new tunnel?
Yes, people could transfer at Westlake and SoDo back and forth between Line 1 and Line 3. But Line 2 is to have no southern transfer to Line 1 except the absurd hike between CIDS-N and Pionerr Squate.
Will redundant tunnels “help”? Probably, but at significant inconvenience to passengers detouring to “the other” tunnel.
The bottom line is that Sound Transit — really, The United States — doesn’t have the money for the second tunnel because mass transit construction is a gold-plated grant machine for consultants and contractors. ST just doesn’t have the in-house excellence to kerp costs down.
The 2nd tunnel provides no additional routing for trains from the north.
So, with this same exact closure:
• Passengers from the north would have to go down ≈10 floors worth of escalators to get to the second tunnel at Westlake if they wanted to continue on the Rainier Valley line.
• Passengers to Bellevue and West Seattle would wind up having to transfer a second time by going up to the surface and walking ≈ 2 blocks to get from International District 1 Station to International District 2 Station.
For most passengers, it would wind up being faster to get any of the bus routes on 3rd to travel the distance.
Sure, a second tunnel could add a lot of redundancy while adding service to places that need it. The proposed tunnel spends a lot of money doing neither.
The second tunnel doesn’t have planned tracks to connect to the current one. Even where they are parallel next to the SODO busway they are not currently planned to connect. A 2 Line train going to or from the Eastside would have to pull into the siding in the middle of the ID station, reverse all the way to the OMF and the reverse again to use the second tunnel.
And as others have pointed out, the physical transfer from the Eastside trains would be tough. If the track is closed north of the ID (where this is happening) the 2 Line trains would have to terminate at the ID and riders would have to walk on the street a few blocks to get to the preferred second tunnel at Fifth on Jefferson or Dearborn and Fifth.
What I think that what asT should do is to instead revisit their operations strategies when tracks must be shut down. There will be blockages between today and the second tunnel opening (2045 or 2050).
ST instead needs a public contingency plan for every track segment closure. Closures happen periodically no matter what for all sorts of reasons. Good corporate culture anticipates problems and develops contingency plans. Accidents, trackway blockages, suicides, power outages and such will routinely happen. They just will.
*****
The first strategy should always be to minimize the disruption period. ST has a history of telling the public that project work takes longer than it does. When staff request two weeks, there is not the pushback by senior management that I think there should be (what happens when the CEO does not have experience in running a rail transit system). These kinds of fixes in a place like Tokyo get done in a much shorter time period.
A second strategy would be for ST to purchase a few train sets with open gangway cars. These trains would add probably 20-25% more capacity per train. They could also be put into service at key times like game days or the very peak demand of travel. Even if they are merely supplemental, having some could prove very useful.
A final potential strategy is to put in crossover tracks inside a DSTT station and temporarily close that station when in use. It’s beyond our skill level to plan, but it would appear useful.
(It is worth noting that part of the Graham St station planning includes adding another set of track crossovers. ST does plan ahead at times.)
For this disruption, I’d think something like an I-5 express from Northgate to SoDo or something would help a lot of people.
It’s slamming to me that the 2 line rie in work drags on 5 years after the first closure to work on it. And no..
T by definition better more tunnels are not by definition better. St cannot pelroperly manage rhe one it has had control if for three years now. If st and the fan boys insist on going forward with dstt 2 it threatens to drag the whole system into insolvency.
Yep with the qualification that government agencies technically “can’t fail”. They run out of money and just tax to pay the bonds for longer.
I actually agree with Good Grief for once.
TriMet’s MAX has many problems, but at least when MAX gets shut down, they do a bunch of stuff at once.
• Better Red closed the Gateway junction for a couple weeks to tie in the new track and rebuild the junction? Let’s also replace 6 miles of rail and ties from there to Lloyd Center.
• In April they’ll be closing the line from Gateway to Gresham for 2 weeks to replace the overhead lines (the tensioning system isn’t good enough for global warming weather conditions in Portland as temperatures rise, so a different tensioning mechanism is needed). This opportunity will also be used for one crossing replacement, a bunch of station work, some track work, etc.
With all the work going on to tie in Line 2, it seems like ST e have coordinated all this so fewer closures were needed.
ST has been doing several maintenance projects in each recent reduction. However, it hasn’t been transparent about what the total amount of work is to connect East Link, and why it needs so many weeks of closures to do it. It implied that Connect 2020 was the only thing needed, but then we find out in 2023 that several more are needed, and we don’t really know what ST is doing in them.
Now that nearly all buses have been truncated to the light rail, disruptions like this destroy not only Link service but the broader public transit network serving north Seattle and Snohomish County. It is shocking to me how blase Sound Transit is about these severe service reductions, and how little effort they put into replacing the service with reliable and fast bus shuttles.
It seems to be because of the post-pandemic ridership decrease. There are no longer huge crowds downtown at rush hour, so ST seems to think it won’t melt down with overcrowding like it would have in the past.
The biggest thing I’d fault is the infrequency of the downtown shuttles. They used to be every 10 minutes, but in the past few closures they’ve been 15. Still, ST is trying a new bus strategy this time, so let’s see how well it works and how frequent it is before dismissing it. Shuttles can’t go fast because they’re constrained by the street grid, stoplights, and congestion. SDOT could do more about congestion with transit-priority lanes, but ST doesn’t have the authority to do that unilaterally, and it can’t change the street grid or stoplights.
I don’t see the point in a 25-30 minute shuttle train. If it’s that infrequent, just close the tunnel. Who wants to wait 15 minutes to transfer, or go down from the surface when they might have to wait 30 minutes for a train? Really, who?
Still, if surface buses are going to be the workaround for downtown tunnel closures, and not a dedicated “Link Shuttle” route with highly-visible bus stops at stations, then ST and Metro need to do better about communicating which bus routes can be viable Link alternatives or transfers downtown. Not just the chart of routes between all stations (as innovative as that chart is), but a map downtown that unknowing riders at Westlake and SODO can consult.
Very well said. Link is truly “The Spine” of the entire system now. Many trips that could be made by express bus to downtown Seattle and express or local bus beyond or voce versa now depend on Link to carry people through downtown.
When it works — almost all the time — it is a big improvement, especially when the origin or destination is directly on Link.
But when the system fails in the midpoint, a high-frequency direct bypass should be funded bt ST.
Ideally it would be one stop at Jackson between Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill using Broadway. That would mean the only people affected would be southend folks traveling to and from downtown, and northenders heading to south of Seneca who would need to take a bus a few blocks.
However, there is no spare capacity to give the shuttle buses their own lane, and I like the idea of a dedicated shuttle between HSS and Mt. Baker.
However, it would be at the mercy of cars along 23rd.
So, whatabout a shuttle from HSS to Mt Baker via Martin Luther King, again with stops at say Madison for the G, Cherry for the 3 and Jackson for the 10? To give the bus freedom at Madison close Lake Washington Boulevard between Madison and Montlake except to the shuttle and residential users.
Yes, this would be controversial, but it would be short-term.
I’d like to hear how this is going if anyone is on the ground – are the transfers well-timed and well-executed? How’s crowding?
I’m just going to be driving this and next week because of the insanity of adding two transfers (one with a half-hour headway) to my commute. Best case I’m guessing it would add 10-15 minutes each way for me, worst case maybe 30-40 or more if procedures break down.
My experience from day 2 going to/from the south end –
Northbound from Angle Lake went well this morning. Arrivals were well timed with the shuttle train, reducing transit time. Lots of staff and security to help direct which was helpful, and tons of additional signage at Westlake to help with the transfer.
However, this afternoon was pretty bad.
The shuttle train was running late, leading to large crowds, and causing it to fall out of sync with the train to Angle Lake (which left maybe 30s before the shuttle arrived at Stadium).
All in, my commute was about 30 mins longer than normal which is pretty brutal.
Recommend skipping the shuttle train in the afternoon and use the bus (590/594/101/150/etc) to get to Stadium/Angle Lake instead.
@HW,
Ya, I drove my wife to work downtown yesterday and took the opportunity to check out 3 of the 4 DT stations to see how things were working.
Generally speaking the Link shuttle train seems to be working very well and is a big improvement over the former bus bridge. Waits were a bit long, but still seemed reasonable compared to the alternatives,
Kudos to ST for coming up with this new option.
That said, I think ST could still improve things a bit. For example, they have slowed the shuttle train down. Normally the Stadium to Westlake transit time is 8 mins, but now they have slowed it down to 10 mins. That is a 25% longer transit time and 25% less total capacity. That is not good.
Additionally. They seem to be allowing 5 to 10 mins per RT to reverse the shuttle train (2 reversals). That seems a bit long to me.
That said, anyone who is going only one station past the transfer point is still probably better off just walking to their final destination. One station just isn’t that far in the old bus tunnel, and it seemed like a lot of people had figured that out on day one.
So I’m encouraged. And only 5 more days to go.
Now if we can just get Full ELE open this year. If only….
@HW,
I rode Link again yesterday across downtown and used the Link shuttle. It worked really well.
One transfer only took 8 mins total, and the other transfer was directly across the platform and into the waiting 1-Line train on the other track. The train then waited for a while before departing, but all in all, it worked very well.
I can see why ST has developed this Link Shuttle concept. It appears to work reasonably well for these rare circumstances, and it is certainly better than transferring to a bus.
That said, I traveled during AM peak and the train was very crowded. ST could improve the shuttle by running the existing north and south segments at the standard 8 min headways. That would reduce crowding, which would be a huge advantage. And personally I don’t like waiting 4 extra minutes just to board a train that is carrying 50% more people. Just bring it on time at 8 min headways and I’ll trust my luck with the transfer.
Also, ST says part of the issue with the cracked rail is the result of damage caused by Metro buses during Joint Ops. I don’t really understand how that failure mechanism, but if true, that would mean fewer of these shutdowns in the future now that the buses are permanently out to the tunnel.
We just took Link from the airport to Stadium, and transferred to Metro at Royal Brougham, hoping for either a 5 or 28. There was a 33 that was waiting when we got there, and that took off after a few minutes. We got on a 28 after waiting about 8 more minutes, then waited over 10 minutes while other buses (including a 5) stopped and kept going, and then the driver said he was waiting for a train. We then got on the next 5, which proceeded to leave immediately.
Apparently Metro is timing a subset of buses for a subset of trains, but not actually announcing it when people get on or having any kind of signage? Hopefully this was just a mistake and not a miscommunication between Metro, Sound Transit, and the riders that are stuck in the middle.
Maybe it’s the way you told the story, but I’m not sure what went wrong. You waited a bit for a bus, then got on, then transferred to a different bus. I’m not seeing the problem. You wanted some sort of announcement to be made?
We live close to the 5 and 28 so wanted those specifically, but ideally we would have taken the E because it runs more often, except it doesn’t start close to Stadium station except for a couple very late night runs. There was a 33 at the stop that waited a few minutes that we could have taken to the E, though. We instead got on a 28 when it showed up, then waited over 10 minutes at the stop for the driver to leave. While waiting, a 5 stopped and immediately left that we also could have taken. At the point, the driver said he was waiting for a specific train so the entire busload of people, many of whom got off the Link train we were on and presumably at least wanted to go as far as downtown, got off. We waited a bit longer, and then a second 5 showed up that most of us got onto instead. We tracked the 28 on OBA and it didn’t leave for another 5 minutes (making a total wait of something like 20 minutes for that bus).
Sound Transit claimed that they didn’t need to run shuttle service because there’s plenty of other buses that run past Stadium station. That’s mostly true, but apparently they’ve worked out something with Metro where specific bus trips are timed to facilitate transfers from specific Link trains. I have no idea why, and it makes the notion that you can just transfer easily to any bus false. If the 28 driver had said he was waiting for a specific train, making that entire trip 20 minutes late (also probably the return 28 and following 131), we would have just taken the 33 or the next random bus that came by.
@Skylar,
I’m not sure if you were planning on transferring to a bus anyway, but I’d just skip all that bus chaos completely and take the shuttle train. You might get lucky and only have a short wait, or you might get unlucky and have a trip time sort of like what you probably had anyway.
And there wouldn’t be any chaos. Very predictable, and good security too.
Lazarus, that was my first thought, but there was both a 28 (the one we waited 10 minutes on before giving up) and a 5 (the one that showed up about 5 minutes after we got on the 28) that we could easily walk to. That cut the number of transfers down from 2 to 1 so seemed like a less risky proposition. Also, looking at Pantograph right now, the shuttle train is now 41 minutes late so isn’t doing too great…
@Skylar,
Earlier this week I walked over to the Link Shuttle stop and my app said “28 mins”. But I looked down the tunnel and could see the Link shuttle coming. So I’m sure that 41 minutes was not accurate. And, with a 25 to 30 min RT trip time, it is highly unlikely you will ever see a 41 minute arrival time prediction.
You got fooled. You should have just taken the Link shuttle.
And ST could make it even better by increasing the speed back to normal levels. That would help a lot.
Lazarus, I actually think we still came out ahead of the Link shuttle, just not as far ahead as it should have been without this odd attempt at timed transfers. It’s a two minute walk from Stadium to the stop on Royal Brougham. The 28 was only 6 minutes away at that point, so by the time we got to the stop it was about 4 minutes of waiting. Link Shuttle would have an average best-case wait time of 13 minutes, plus probably two minutes just to get out of the tunnel and get to 3rd & Pike to get the 5 or 28, or a bit faster to get to 3rd & Seneca to get the E. Either way, that involves a second transfer (train→train→bus) rather than one transfer (train→bus), so limits the risk and wait time.
Skylar, the driver of the 28 was rude and remiss not to announce the long layover time when a large number of transfer riders showed up on his bus. Shame on them.
But you made exactly the efficient and reliable decision to choose a one-transfer routing to your preferred bus. Changing to a 30 minute headway shuttle and THEN to your 30 minute headway preferred bus would have been a fool’s errand. Miss either transfer by three minutes and you’re sitting for half an hour minimum. Miss both by three minutes and it’s most of an hour.
Sure two transfers missed by three minutes each is (thankfully) rare. But those “long tail” events sting when they occur as is clear from your analysis.
How rude of Metro to hold the bus at Lower Royal Brougham for fifteen minutes.
I really like the intuitive diagram showing the parallel bus routes to the 1 Line!
However, Route 7 doesn’t go to Columbia City, Othello or Rainier Beach Link stations. It’s a glaring mistake. Othello Station is the furthest away at well over a half-mile from Route 7.
ST does put a little asterisk on Route 7 explaining it’s a 10-minute walk from the 1 Line stations, but it’s certainly a stretch to say it serves these same stations.
It’s also odd that Route 60 doesn’t not appear on the diagram. It’s nicely set up to offer connectivity between Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill during the disruption. Plus it runs frequently.
These mistakes suggest to me that ST has some basic internal quality control problems here — careless planning staff and lazy supervisor reviewing.
RaphdRide G is closer to Capitol Hill Station than Route 7 is to Othello Station.
Plan on an extra 25 to 30 minutes of extra commute time if you need to take the link. Glad I don’t have any major plans to travel to Seattle until after this is all done.
Just gor home from Westlake. A few day 2 thouguts:
1. They seem to have lots of staff to direct people, answer questions; and hand out fliers so what’s a plus.
2. The train destination signage and real time arrival systems seem to be functioning and accurate so that’s a plus.
3. The shuttle trains definitely seem to be running closer to 30 rhan 25, so not so great.
4. Rhe Lynnwood trains are running more like 20 minutes than 12, so not also great.the Lynnwood trains are using the sb platform to reverse direction which was not what I was expecting. I was thinking the nb platform would be the only one in operation at all but perhaps I read the notices incorrectly…at westlake everything is reversed. Ro go south on 5he shuttle to stadium use rhe nb platform. For all points north use the sb platform.
Anyone know if st is planning any interim status reports before the 23rd on how the work is progressing? Connect 2020 ended up tskinglonger than planned but maybevthey hwve a better handle on this project.
Is this current disruption going to end on tume?? Tick tock…