Sunday Movie: Where Gondolas Make Sense

112 Replies to “Sunday Movie: Where Gondolas Make Sense”

1. In the beginning Seattle was in love with the monorail……

   Then the political postering and the engineering man-splaining kicked in and we ended up with the “Sound Transit rail spine”.

   Meanwhile our neighbors to the North built a “skytrain” and our neighbors to South built gondolas. Seattle has to the least visionary city on the Pacific Rim.

   I’m not sure why on earth we didn’t just build a gondola to West Seattle years ago.
   If the thing turned out to be popular, build another gondola? Could it really be that easy?

   1. Yes, Pugetopolis is to some extent caught in a 1970s vision of transit technology, plus the addition of battery buses and microtransit. The monorail plan was the biggest technical innovation, and its failure leaves many people leery. (The monorail plan also had several structural problems which made failure inevitable: inadequate financing, vendor-specific technology, all bidders except one dropping out, maximum 40 mph speed….)

      Sound Transit never considered anything except 1970s light rail (with drivers). It was trying to imitate the low capital cost of American predecessors (MAX, San Diego, San Jose) but for a much longer and more tunneled network. And the vision changed over time: initially it was “surface everywhere possible” (e.g., except CID-Ravenna Blvd), later it became “more elevated and tunnels”, and finally “grade-separated everywhere except freeway ROW” (which avoids level crossings). That raised capital costs that the original Link vision had sought to avoid. At the same time, the alignment spec was set to 55 mph max — even though light rail can go 65 mph and might be able to approach 85 mph — important when your ultimate goal is Tacoma and Everett 30+ miles away.

      Meanwhile non-American cities leaped ahead with state-of-the-art train technologies, automated trains, more urban rail lines per capita, high-quality exclusive-lane BRT, reviving pre-WWII trolleybus technology and tram patterns, adding gondolas where appropriate, etc.

      Metro has a trolley route network, but has refused to expand it beyond filling in short gaps or extending it a few blocks to new Link stations. Instead it has gone all-in for battery buses, which intrinsically requires transporting heavy batteries and pre-charging them rather than just getting power from the wire. Instead it could convert core Seattle routes to trolleybuses, and leave battery buses for outlying areas like Issaquah.

      The fundamental issues aren’t even technological. What’s missing is a complete passenger-eye view. Passengers want to get from A to B quickly and conveniently, without waiting more than a few minutes. What are all the trip pairs non-drivers do? Both non-work trips and the diversity of work locations. What frequency do they need to make transit a first choice and feasible? What would really entice people out of their cars? That’s what the agencies/governments are failing at. Other countries are addressing this by looking at what non-drivers really need, and prioritizing transit and active transportation first and cars last. The result is a comprehensive transit network like New York or a pre-1940s level of transit. You see this in Vancouver, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Latin America, China, Japan, etc.

      If we were to apply this to Pugetopolis, all core Seattle bus routes would run at least every 10 minutes daytime, 15 minutes evening, and the night owls would run every 30 minutes. There would be more Seattle rail lines and gondolas meeting urban-trip needs. (Ross can tell you all about them.) There would NOT be ultra-long Link-to-Link transfers downtown. If we can’t make the downtown transfers short, we would go back to square one and think about a different technology/alignment that would have short transfers. The Eastside and South King County core routes would run at least every 15 minutes all day and evening. There would still be metro lines to Lynnwood/Redmond/KDM, but maybe frequent BRT beyond that. It would also require adequate funding to fully implement it, which would mean changes to local/state/federal tax policies and land-use policies. Again, countries poorer than the US and regions poorer than Pugetopolis are doing it.

      1. Mike Orr

         The word nobody uses for transit is “debonair”. Gondolas, like the imaginary monorail that was never built, capture the imagination. The reason Sound Transit is struggling is capturing the imagination of riders was never part of the goal. If there was a train to destination and a gondola to the same place, I’d guess the gondola would have more riders even if it was slower… even a lot slower. Because people love to fly above the city!!

         Looking at the NYC history…. engineering marvels like subways and the Brooklyn bridge had deep popular support. Poor Sound Transit was really boring projects that take decades to complete.

      2. Debonair transit is not what we need! We need practical transit that meets passengers’ mobility needs. That’s what makes the difference between cities with a highly-used, high public-satisfaction transit network and those that don’t. The most practical tool may be an old technology or a new technology, it may swoosh high in the air or it may not; it depends on the specific needs and barriers in the context.

         New Yorkers flocked to the subways because of the reason on the wallpaper in Subway sandwich shops: the new subway allowed a businessman to go home for lunch in ten minutes, and travel throughout the city every few minutes faster than any other mode. A few people ride a subway once because it looks snazzy. A lot of people ride it everyday because it meets their real travel needs.

      3. Mike Orr,

         How many people really need an F-series Ford truck? And yet it’s the biggest selling vehicle in America. The biggest problem mass transit has is know-it-all haters who are quick to judge other people’s choices and plan shit like the old USSR. There’s no profit in waiting decades for projects to be finished. And I don’t find this board all that ” judgy” BTW. So yeah, we do need “debonair” transit. A gondola ride from the ferry dock to Capitol Hill? That’s useful… and also very cool. Gosh, maybe we could even build something like that in 2 years?!?! Success breeds more success….

         One thing that Sound Transit has proven over the years is….. everybody hates trains. Ballard and West Seattle only want a train if it’s underground. The Chinatown/ID folks don’t want a train at all. It’s politically impossible to build surface rail and financially impossible to build it underground. That leaves us with quite a problem.

         The solution is to recalibrate area wide transit, come up with new solutions and have an ST4 vote. One thing I’m sure about is people love monorails and hate trains. Don’t ask me why, it likely has to do with the monorail built back in 1964 that’s still better than anything Sound Transit build in Tacoma.

         ST3 is dead…. my fear is Greater Seattle pretends it’s still alive and goes forward with a 40 year timeline or worse 75 year bonds. Those 75 year bonds coupled with massive cost overruns….. the risk is unbelievably bad.

      4. @ Tacomee:

         “ One thing that Sound Transit has proven over the years is….. everybody hates trains. Ballard and West Seattle only want a train if it’s underground. The Chinatown/ID folks don’t want a train at all.”

         I think that this statement pretty much gets at the core problem. The entire West Seattle/Ballard project has been an unending parade of NIMBY’s.

         But I blame ST. ST set up “stakeholder” committees full of adjacent property owners, neighborhood groups and people who are more concerned about negative impacts to their circumstances than they are benefits to the public or even their neighbors. In contrast, ST did not — and still does not — set up a committee of riders to advocate for future system users or even look at basic analytics like boarding forecasts or in-station walk time.

         This approach creates an overarching vibe that the projects do not benefit the public. It also creates a project cost that soars with palatial stations and very deep platforms that will take several minutes to reach — making it increasingly lousy for local tripmaking as well.

         They also decided to selectively interpret the “representative projects” listed in ST3 as fixed in some cases arguing in 2016 that they would be able to open sooner, yet later ST delayed schedules through “realignment” and revisiting environmental reporting that they said would be streamlined by limiting alternatives. That made that 2016 time-savings election pitch fraudulent l. Then they throw out the keystone station of the entire system at CID after the Draft EIS was on the street, making a mockery of the alternatives development process that they endorsed.

         The result are recommendations that wildly increased costs, many years of delay and limited to no rider travel time and convenience benefit.

         And even now, ST prefers to disagree with or ignore what the region’s biggest transit advocates say rather than view them as community support-builders.

         So I see the reason that everybody “hates trains” is because ST effectively gives voice to the NIMBY’s only and that tells everybody else looking at Link extensions to hate trains too. That’s what the many years of the ST3 system expansion staff attitudes, the phony public “involvement” processes and the Board actions suggest to me.

      5. Al S.

         I’ve worked a bunch of local political campaigns in my life, and I have a pretty good feel for what is and isn’t possible in the political realm. The way to get stuff done in Seattle is complete projects as quickly as possible… strike while the iron is hot or just what you wrote about Sound Transit will happen… the NIMBYs will kill it. The worst part of this is the belief that somehow the NIMBYs will somehow be satisfied with whatever costly and stupid revisions Sound Transit comes up with. NIMBYs are always NIMBYs.

         Dow and Bruce need to right the good ship Sound Transit here. Whatever mandate transit supporters think they have from that ST3 vote in 2016 is long gone.

      6. @ tacomee:

         The other part that happens is that ST has no interest in being frugal about anything but removing escalators. We don’t need a cable stayed bridge over the Duwamish for example. We don’t need three platforms at SODO. These are all things that cost lots of money that are superfluous. And that doesn’t even begin to get in the cost of bigger stations that are the size of a football field and as deep as a 10-floor building rather than run automated trains on aerial tracks.

         Of course, the big civils and construction firms see ST as a cash cow, and the more grandiose they bigger the checked for them. There is no one trying to approach asT system expansion as a value added effort.

      7. IIRC, the West Seattle NIMBYs really came out when the plan was changed from running over/along Fauntleroy to plowing through and towering over the surrounding neighborhoods. Gotta get to the Alaska Junction! And still end the line facing Southward! Was it really worth it??? Just build over or along Fauntleroy, and there are no residences to demolish (though you might lose a few surface parking lots during the construction staging). And that plan even ended the line facing southward. Excellent example of over-engineering, over-building where a much simpler solution exists.

   2. Seattle needs to look at Paris, Tokyo, and Taipei, not Vancouver or La Paz for transit ideas.

      1. That is ridiculous. We are much smaller than Paris, Tokyo or Taipei.

         Vancouver is our best model since the cities are quite similar while Vancouver has a much better transit system. Both cities are modern cities (largely built after the automobile). Neither have an old metro line (unlike say, Boston, let alone Paris). They are about the same size. Both are North American English-Speaking cities. This means they are relatively wealthy but have a very strong dependence on the automobile. Both sprawl (like North American cities). For transit to be successful both will need to depend heavily on buses. But both have areas where building a subway line makes sense. Vancouver also has a place where a gondola makes sense — they just haven’t prioritized it.

2. I think it’s worth noting that La Paz is listed at 12,000 feet in elevation with 755K residents but many jobs. El Alto is next to it but is listed at 13,600 in elevation with 944K residents.

   That’s a huge elevation change and a pretty scary distance in snow. Some sorry of cable transportation seems appropriate for such an elevation difference for two cities that are adjacent to each other.

   They are faster than a narrow winding mountainside road. But they are still slower than a modern rail system. They are certainly much cheaper to build but do look a bit labor intensive. And everyday use poses some maintenance risks (ski resorts close at night and off-season, giving more time for maintenance).

   So I see them as useful for elevation changes. They also seem useful for crossing both navigable rivers and sensitive wetlands. But their application is limited by their slower speed.

3. Question for everyone. Where does a gondola make the most sense locally? Let’s say only one gondola can be built in the greater Seattle area. Where is the best place to put it? What location would be at the top of your list? From where to where?

   1. Maybe a gondola from TIBS to Southcenter mall. Would be around 1 mile

   2. Hi Sam,

      Let’s try this on for size. Tacoma has 225,000 people and the town is roughly 10-12 miles long (as the crow flies) The biggest transportation problems are deep ravines (Nalley Valley) and freeways. Most of the major shopping is down South…. the big cultural draws in north end (the zoo, Point Defiance Park and the water front) are up North…. UWT and downtown are sort of East-Central.

      Sound Transit put in 2.5 miles of light rail and fails to connect anything to anything. I’m not sure why Sound Transit just didn’t go down to Peru and find out how to put in 12 miles of gondolas for the same price as the “light rail to nowhere”

      Here’s Sound Transit’s biggest problem. Trains suck. They’re are noisy relics of a bygone era nobody wants around. People rode on trains during the civil war, and pretty much everything has changed since then. So the ST solution is….. put the trains underground! Except that’s not an affordable solution AND it takes decades to build.

      Gondolas are quiet, Riding in them is fun. I’m guessing they’re a better bet politically than rail. Currently, the rail plans to West Seattle, Tacoma and Ballard are DOA. How does Sound Transit retool and go forward?

      1. Much like the monorail, you are describing a gadgetbahn. People ride transit because it is practical, anything else is ancillary and largely irrelevant.

         If debonaire is the reason people ride your transit system then it must be doing very poorly on all other fronts.

      2. @ DM:

         Cable technologies are not “gadgetbahns”. They are used widely around the world. There are hundreds of them! Many have run for decades! They predate diesel buses! Seattle even had cable cars at one time. Today there are probably well over a thousand elevators operating in a Seattle alone.

         It may sound a bit like an unusual technology aaplication but it’s not a novel one.

      3. D M

         No, I can honestly say that everything good about living in city is… debonair. I’m not at all surprised young people keep flocking to Seattle just like I did back in the 1980s. The City is alive, it’s diverse, always changing and, this is the important one, hard to live in. Life in the ‘burbs with a big house and big cars and big stores with lots and lots of parking…. that’s the easy life. City life is both more challenging and rewarding. Weirdly enough I think people on Capitol Hill would adapt living a small village in Iowa easier than suburbia…they share more in common.

         Let’s look at Portland and its lovable neighborhoods and MAX trains (and buses). There’s no tunnel downtown, the bridges slow everything down and honestly the light rail could be made a lot better with expensive upgrades. But the reality is that’s never going to happen. Because like every city, Portland has its problems… and its charms. MAX is both. So if you don’t like funky… don’t ride transit in Portland. Better yet, do even go to Portland.

         MAX transit… it is what it is.

         The problem with Sound Transit is that it tries to build shit to some shiny new suburban standard… there’s no 7 billon dollars for damn subway to West Seattle. So build a gondola for 1 billon and get on with it. So it’s a little slow and a little clunky? Damn thing is going to have a great view. They have gondolas in Mexico City!! Who here is going to Mexico City and NOT riding the gondola?

         Seattle is cool. Gondolas are cool. It’s a cultural match! Of course that isn’t everything, but it the foundation.

      4. tacomee – gondolas sure are pleasant, and there are a few places in Seattle which could make good use of them, but if you think trains suck then I wonder what you are comparing them to. As far as I can tell, trains are the best form of transportation we’ve got; I’d rather take a train than drive, and I’d rather drive than take a bus.

         D M – there is more to life than brute practicality; comfort and pleasure may not be the primary decision factors, but they do matter. (Unless you see public transit as merely a sort of welfare program for the poor who have no choice, I suppose; but I think we can do better than that.)

      5. Mars Saxman,

         I love riding trains as well! Amtrak service should be improved in the PNW.

         My comment about trains wasn’t exactly accurate…. Let’s see if we can agree on this. Many people love trains…. but very few want one rolling through their neighborhood. And that’s the problem with sound Transit from day #1.

         Back in the 1970s, Portland made the choice put in a bunch of surface rail and now people love it. An acquired taste maybe? One of the big problems with Seattle’s dance with light rail is most of the boosters…. on this blog, The Urbanist , Seattle Subway, never came to terms with the financial reality of the insane costs (and timeline) of tunneling. I thought for a minute, when Big Bertha got stuck, that Sound Transit would swear off tunnels like AA members swear off booze. But no luck.

         Seattle Subway is just the worst about pushing tunnels we can’t afford. Can we please get back to reality? So much of the current Sound Transit propaganda reminds me if this dude… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ung95ORVUY

      6. Tacomee, you’re thinking about a certain subset of people who don’t want trains near them. There are lots of people in central and north Seattle who are very glad Northgate Link slashes their travel time. In Rainier Valley there are people who ride Link and are glad it’s there, even if they think the another alternative would have been better. Even some Save Our Valley types who initially opposed Link and wouldn’t ride it, are now riding it and saying it’s the best way to get to downtown/stadiums/Capitol Hill. Even in the CID, the faction that doesn’t want a Link station there is at most half of them, and at the last couple rounds of public testimony, people arguing for 4th Avenue Shallow or another neighborhood station outnumbered those arguing against any station and for CID/N and CID/S. Some people understand that basic transit mobility matters, and being able to walk from a station to the neighborhood and your business easily matters.

      7. Mike Orr,

         That’s not the reality of Sound Transit. There’s not enough money to build subways to West Seattle, Ballard or a second tunnel Downtown.

         The 2016 ST3 vote promised subways to every corner of Seattle (directly or implied). Seattle voters approved it overwhelming. No tunnels in Pierce County…. ST3 failed there. Without tunnels, there isn’t popular support for light rail in any neighborhood. As far as the voters in West Seattle and Ballard think…. it’s tunnels or no light rail.

         Sound Transit made this mess. And let’s be 100% clear here. There is little support for ditching all the tunnels in Seattle from transit boosters.

      8. We were talking about the kind of transit people want, not about ST’s budget or other agencies issues. The people you say don’t want trains anywhere near them are a subset, and you’re not taking into account the variety of people, the variety of their destinations, or their mobility needs and attitudes. It’s like when you say Americans can’t imagine living in a 300 sq ft apartment and their favorite car is a large SUV, and by extension how anyone in the world would not demand that. And you equate small-to-medium apartment buildings with enormous commie blocks.

         If people truly had an equal choice what kind of house to live in, where, in what kind of neighborhood, with what kind of car, and whether to drive or take transit, you’d find a lot of people would prefer a smaller house in a walkable neighborhood with better transit options. And more who would be satisfied with it even if it’s not a priority for them. The most comprehensive numbers I’ve seen is that 20% of housing units are in a walkable, transit-rich neighborhood, but 33% want to live in that environment, and 33% more would be satisfied either way with a walkable or a non-walkable neighborhood. So there’s a gap between what people have and what they want. We need to decrease that gap, but your strategies would increase it.

         Part of the reason SUVs sell so well is they’re more profitable for the manufacturers, so they market them heavily, get them exempted from fuel-efficiency regulations or on a slow path, and that’s most of what they produce in the US. So people don’t exactly have an equal choice, and they get a lot of marketing pressure to buy a large car.

         Pierce County didn’t fail because of tunnels. It failed because it’s a different demographic, and people who are more likely to drive move there. The Link alignment is along a freeway or state highway in industrial areas. That’s where people care the least about elevated trains.

      9. Mike Orr,

         I’m 100% for more growth. I understand cities change. It’s not that I’m against “apodments”, I just think they’re not the total solution. We should build lots of different stuff. I’m not a big fan of the “urban village” concept being pushed by the Seattle City Council right now, nor most of TOD being pushed by transit advocates for decades. Neither plan is driven by market forces.

         My honest question is… If Sound Transit would have said no to tunneling in West Seattle and Ballard before the ST3 vote in 2016, would it have passed? I doubt it. Sound Transit had to “church it up” before the vote and now there’s just no way to pay for it. And damn near everybody who’s not reading this is hating on Sound Transit. The honeymoon is certainly over.

         What’s Dow supposed to do now? Go on pretending the ST3 master plan is still happening? With a toxic 75 year bond package from the State?

         Heck, I don’t know…. email Dan Savage maybe? He’s a guy who believes in everything transit boosters do, and he’s incredibility realistic about the political machine that controls all of this.

      10. “If Sound Transit would have said no to tunneling in West Seattle and Ballard before the ST3 vote in 2016, would it have passed?”

          It did say no. The representative alignment was elevated, and the budget was scaled for elevated alignments. Ballard and West Seattle activists and politicians went along with it, then after the vote they revealed a demand for tunnels.

   3. The most promising ones are Uptown to Capitol Hill, downtown to Harborview, and replacing the West Seattle Link stub (SODO-AJ). These all traverse geographic barriers and elevation differences and serve medium-to-high density areas. The Denny Way one would get the highest ridership because a wide cross-section of people traverse there for a wide variety of purposes, and it would overcome an especially congested route 8.

      There’s also the 45th corridor, where a gondola has been suggested, and ST hasn’t prioritized its Link project there.

      In the suburbs I’m not as sure. The City of Kirkland was considering a gondola from downtown to the 85th Stride station. Martin has his Eastgate gondola and cross-Issaquah gondola. The cross-Issaquah one would overcome the I-90 barrier and minimal intra-Issaquah transit, so those would be notable positives, but the low density in the area means ridership would be low. That may not matter since gondolas are inexpensive and can be built quickly, so high ridership isn’t as much of a necessity.

      I’m not that excited about a TIB to Southcenter gondola because that would basically serve one shopping mall. Could it be extended to Renton? Would a TIB-Renton gondola be too long?

      Another potential place is KDM station to Kent Station. KDM Road is fast but lacks walk-up destinations, so the local bus routes avoid it. Since a gondola wouldn’t be making a lot of stops anyway, it would be similar to a bus on KDM Road. It could also be extended to East Hill if that’s not too long.

      What is the maximum distance for a gondola?

      1. An alternative to TIBS to Southcenter could be to go from the Seatac station to Southcenter, Tukwila Sounder station, and the new Renton Transit Center. Southcenter has several airport hotels now, they may not have to run airport shuttles anymore. It would connect Sounder, in the future may be even other Amtrak services. It would connect Southcenter to Stride. Such high-frequency connection could encourage more airport dependent hotels and business centers in Southcenter which is trying to expand beyond its mall origin.

      2. That’s a good idea. SeaTac is a destination anyway, while TIB isn’t.

   4. Theoretically I would suggest ones under 1.5 miles:

      1. Harborview to Pioneer Square. The affected properties are all in public ownership and it’s a busy destination.
      2. SLU or Seattle Center to Capitol Hill. It takes some analytical work to define a path.
      3. U District to U Village and UW parking. Buses make that trip but it could prove useful for UW circulation.
      4. U District to Fremont or Aurora. Buses are often limited in east-west travel.

      Other places where a gondola could work depend on where ST can afford to build their current plans. Possible places with seemingly strong demand in no particular order:

      – South Bellevue to Factoria and/ or Eastgate
      – Old Ballard to Interbay
      – UWT and/or Hilltop to Tacoma Dome
      – A Delridge gondola hub to Admiral, Alki, West Seattle Junction and/or High Point if West Seattle Link can only go that far

      The distance is a bit far between West Seattle and SODO or Downtown plus I imagine that the FAA would be concerned as it’s the Boeing Field approach.

      I could keep suggesting corridors. Still, buses often will be cheaper, more flexible to continue to other places and more flexible to adjust for disruptions. Even some I mention above are probably better done with buses if possible. The stops are at street level (no vertical challenge) with buses so it’s easier for a rider to use. So unless it can’t be done effectively with a bus it’s probably a wasteful investment.

   5. “Other places where a gondola could work depend on where ST can afford to build their current plans.”

      I wasn’t thinking Sound Transit would build them. I was thinking somebody would build them, with some TBA funding. Some lines would obviate the need for certain Link corridors, but that doesn’t mean Sound Transit has to build them or they have to be in ST# measures.

   6. Capitol Hill to LQA via SLU would also be at the top of my list. It ticks a lot of the boxes for areas that make good candidates for an urban gondola. High population density. Hilly terrain. Congested roads. Relatively short distance. Traditional transit has difficultly serving area.

      1. I think the general consensus is that the route you described has the best potential as a gondola.

   7. Co something the huge amount of staffing it takes to run all those buses, it seems like you could build a gondola from the main SeaTac terminal to the car rental building at a fraction of the cost of the dedicated busway thing they plan, operate more frequently, with less staffing, and get to the other end faster, than anything else that’s been proposed.

      Extend this to a TIBS adjacent freeway station, and you’ve got a way to connect STRIDE to SeaTac.

      Or, build the gondola as a Burien to TIBS line?

      This would push the limits of what people would be willing to tolerate, but something like Oak Harbor to Stanwood would be competitive with driving and connect Oak Harbor to a location on the mainland with transit. It’s a really long way with a long water crossing, and would cross a lot of rich homeowners view lines, but with Stanwood getting more regular bus service now, plus the occasional Cascades train, it might do a lot to avoid the time consuming existing transit routes.

      The navy would hate it, but something like Bremerton – Annapolis could replace the existing labor intensive ferry.

      1. Oak Harbor to Terry’s Corner on Camano Island is 9.4 miles, plus another five miles to Stanwood. That’s competitive with driving if you go by Deception Pass, but not really worth it at gondola speeds IMO given the low ridership on the existing buses. I’d rather run more bus service.

      2. The existing buses take an hour to get from Oak Harbor to Mt Vernon, if you successfully make the March’s Point connection.

         Going south, Oak Harbor to Mukilteo is closer to 2 hours, then another undertaking g to actually get somewhere with decent north-south connections.

      3. Glenn, at the top of your list of places in this region where a gondola makes the most sense is from a SeaTac car rental lot to the airport?

      4. Sam:
         A gondola could do the work with about 5 employees.

         Based on what I saw the one time I went over there, they use about 20 people to run the buses, and had about 8 laying over between trips at the rental facility, idling.

         It’s not at the top of where it makes sense in the region, but it’s near the top of making a lot more sense and being a lot cheaper than what they are doing now.

      5. Sam, a people mover proposed at some point to connect the existing terminal with the planned new one and the car rental facility. In https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/11/30/busway-for-seatac-airport/ I proposed a people mover loop to not only serve those 3 stations but the international terminal, the Link station and potentially TIBS. Such people mover could be cable driven (or maglev). It would be more challenging to accomplish the same with a gondola due to the tight spaces.

   8. Sam, gondolas are great feeders to rail or other high-capacity transit stations due to their great headways. While gondola lines can be of any length, once it gets longer than 4-6 miles (typical for Mexico City lines), its limited speed may limit its usefulness. With all the hills in the Puget Sound, they could provide the ribs for the Link spine whenever high ridership demand justifies the initial expense. I think the SLU to CapHill line would make great sense, so does Pioneer Sq to Harborview followed by all the others mentioned above. Rather than spending a ton of money on battery buses, Metro could build some electric gondolas.

      1. Martin Pagel,

         It’s been awhile since I’ve made the drive, but I’m guessing it’s 5 ish miles from “the junction” in West Seattle to Downtown Seattle. Maybe 4ish to SODO.

         Here’s the truth about living in city. That’s a hard 5 miles any way you want to travel. Maybe a subway would make it smooth and fast, there is no way to pay for that. A gondola won’t have any trouble beating bus, or a car on time and stress. The problem is people want to compare the gondola time to the subway time. For 7 billon or whatever the subway costs now, that’s not surprising the subway would be much faster, but we can’t afford that.

         If there’s a plug and play solution with gondolas…. common sense must prevail.

         I’ve seen this type of thing happen a lot in low income housing. Projects have funding from several sources and the finance and planning stages push the price up. It looks really neat on paper (so so all the ST projects) but spending 4 years and $500K per unit on low income housing means we’ll have enough of it. The solution can’t become the problem.

      2. I think local gondola advocacy should focus on a short list of a few locations that make a lot of sense. When people propose mediocre or even bizarre gondola locations, I think it hurts the cause. “It would make more sense to run a gondola from the Eastgate transit center just up to the campus.” That’s an actual suggestion from an STB commenter. There are dozens of other bad gondola location ideas just like it. Personally, I think by not focusing on only the few best gondola locations, it guarantees that one will never get built around here.

      3. tacomee, West Seattle is served by Hwy99 and the busway therefore buses do well. Link won’t be much faster as none of the Link stations serve high ridership places. West Seattle is too far spread out. Most riders will need to take the bus to the Link stations, then they are better served by staying on the bus. A gondola won’t make this any better though at least it would reduce the time you lose transferring (due to better headways and the station being easier to reach).

      4. The C Line schedule shows a 23-minute trip time from WSJ to downtown Seattle during AM peak and about a 26-minute trip time to WSJ during PM peak. Depending on routing, that trip would be about 6 miles via a cable system. As a comparison, the Indios Verdes line in CdMX is 5.7 miles long and takes 30 minutes end-to-end. So, a long-distance cable system built to replace the C Line is unlikely to offer a faster trip time. Let’s not spend a ton a money on a project that doesn’t significantly improve trip times.

         My #1 suggestion would be a Climate Pledge Arena-SLU-Capitol Hill line. It’s under 2 miles and it would connect very busy locations that are separated by a geographical boundary (I-5) that limits improvements to bus service.

         Does anyone remember the aerial tram at the Seattle Center Fun Forest? At least there’s a historical connection for a cable system to the Seattle Center.

      5. I’m guessing it’s 5 ish miles from “the junction” in West Seattle to Downtown Seattle. Maybe 4ish to SODO.

         That’s a hard 5 miles any way you want to travel.

         What??? Almost any trip in the city is harder. You go over the West Seattle Bridge (which is basically a freeway). Then you go on SR-99 — which is also basically a freeway. For most of the journey there are no traffic lights — like a freeway. As I write this it takes ten minutes to get from downtown to the Junction (https://maps.app.goo.gl/M3eS4BdvJEQwgSPU6). You are right — that is a distance of 5 miles. That means if you drive you can average 30 MPH (and that includes the surface sections). That is blazing fast.

         In contrast try and go from downtown to Garfield High School. It also takes about ten minutes (https://maps.app.goo.gl/qv2SAT4tW9b8hefd9). But that is less than 2 miles. Average speed is about 10 miles an hour. Same thing goes for various trips in the city. Capitol Hill to Uptown. Ballard to the UW. Much, much slower (by car).

         That is one of the big problems with Link. They are building it where driving is fairly fast. This makes it harder for it to compete.

         Of course there are times when driving anywhere is really slow. But for those times there are bus lanes. West Seattle actually has some of that (more than some of the examples I mentioned). But they could make it even better (with a little work) but instead want to build an entirely new, completely separate structure that fails to leverage an inch of the existing, very fast, very expensive infrastructure. It doesn’t leverage the freeways, it doesn’t even leverage the existing rail line.

         There are places where gondolas make sense. There are places where buses make sense. There are even places where a new subway line — as expensive as it is — makes sense. I get what you are saying in that West Seattle Link is so expensive and adds so little value that we would probably be better off with a bunch of gondolas. But West Seattle is one of those places where bus improvements make sense because we’ve already built 90% of it! We just need a ramp from the Alaskan Way viaduct to the SoDo busway and some red paint here and there in West Seattle and it is done. The trip to SoDo would be just as fast when means the trip to a Link location would be just as fast. Hell, if you are going south on Link (Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, SeaTac) you probably avoid a transfer. Meanwhile, if you are headed into downtown you also avoid a transfer (you just stay on the bus).

      6. Ross Bleakney,

         Back at the top of the comments I wrote that “transit needs to be debonair” and I’m going to stand by that. My guess is Seattle needed the one underground line (Downtown, Capitol Hill, U-District) and all the other rail projects are redundant to having better buses. Better bus service really is the easiest way to better transit.

         The question here is… do you really think Seattle is a world class city? Because world class cities do things to set themselves apart. People didn’t vote for ST3 because they wanted better bus service. Light rail was supposed to make Seattle more like Chicago or NYC. There has been so much hype, so many plans for deep tunnels and stations so big kids could play soccer in them… and much of it was pure hubris.

         Seattle built the toy monorail before I was born and people are still riding it. I used to walk over a mile because I could commute on the monorail to work. It was easier to ride the bus…. but the monorail was just more fun. A gondola to West Seattle doesn’t have to be any faster than the bus, although in the real world it will be, because in the real world buses are late (or don’t show) all the time. So the gondola is better because it’s more reliable…. and much, much cooler than a bus. The bottom line is people would likely love riding the West Seattle gondola. Riding the bus never captured anybody’s imagination.

         The problem with some transit boosters is they often hate cars, hate roads, (car sewers) and most other trappings of American life. This leads to this weird vision that’s straight out of a USSR 5 year plan…. light rail serving ugly “pack and stack” Soviet style housing ( TOD apodments…. who in their right mind lives in a 300 square ft space?). This sort of vision just isn’t popular with 90% of America.

         The engineering aside, gondolas would be a bold vision! Dow needs to go down to Mexico City and South America and come back with a new plan. Because Gondolas are something that works in our geography and we could build them in a few years. I have no idea about affordability. Watch the video again! La Paz is the same size as Seattle. The gondola system in La Paz handles 200,000 boardings a day.

      7. Advocacy for “debonair” transit is a short-sight (and daresay selfish) projection of personal preferences. Transit must be function over form. There’s a reason the Monorail is still running and the Skyride was sold to Puyallup, and it’s not because the monorail is “cool” – it’s because it offers the fastest way to get between two popular points in the city. The debonair aspects are a side effect.

         If anything, a majestic cable-stayed bridge with uninterrupted views of Elliot Bay and Downtown might be the most “debonair” transit offered in ST3. A close second might be the section of East Link across I-90, once it opens. But did they plan East Link across I-90 because the views would be nice? Absolutely not – that’s just a side benefit of increasing capacity on a congested corridor.

         Effective transit can’t prioritize tourism – if it did, we’d have built the Center City Connector by now, or have rebuilt the Harry Benson Streetcar as soon as the viaduct demolition was done. It’s also worth noting that post-COVID, effective transit also can’t prioritize the peak commuter – it has to make it easier to get people where they want to go. Most of ST3 was oriented around inter-county commuters and a vision of future TOD, but we’re seeing the deficiencies of those priorities today.

         Transit doesn’t have to debonair – it just has to work. The NYC subway is possibly the least debonair system in the world, and yet millions use it every day because it was built by speculative investment to serve the city at the turn of the century, and then the city grew around it.

      8. Back at the top of the comments I wrote that “transit needs to be debonair” and I’m going to stand by that.

         History has proven you wrong. In every city and every town it simply doesn’t matter. Functionality is the key. People rode the rat-infested, urine soaked and quite dangerous subway in New York City for years. Why? It got them there. They ride the buses in San Fransisco instead of the really charming (but not that useful) cable cars. That gondola in London? Nobody rides it. Because it doesn’t really go anywhere. It has become a tourist attraction (which is why they raised the price). You want a system that is at least clean and decent (which is the old NYC Subway example probably isn’t the best) but you really don’t have to be debonair (the NYC subway most certainly is not). https://humantransit.org/2011/12/outtake-on-endearing-but-useless-transit.html

         An effective bus system for West Seattle (e. g. this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/06/07/west-seattle-by-bus-instead-of-light-rail/) would get a lot more riders than Link or a gondola based system just because it would be more useful. Functionality is key.

      9. Ross Bleakney,

         You do understand that the old USSR focused on functional? Here in the USA we’re better than that. We want functional with style. Gondolas have style and nice things cost money. I don’t think gondolas are the bargain budget option. I’m not against the West Seattle Subway either…. it’s more go the jaw dropping price and timeline that are the problems. Maybe a gondola just has a better price-functionality-style ratio? And I’m deeply sorry to tell you that the “style” part is the most important for political support. This isn’t the the old USSR after all

         Nathan Dickey,

         “debonair transit” isn’t really about me, it’s not short sided and it is well grounded in political reality. Here’s the real deal. There is likely political support and money to build a gondola to West Seattle. The subway idea isn’t feasible because of funding and the residents of West Seattle have told Sound Transit over and over again.”No surface light rail!” There’s not a single neighborhood in the city that wants above the round light rail running though it.

         What’s your solution that’s even remotely grounded in political and financial reality? Jesus dude! Have you ever been to Ballard? How many times has that ‘hood said no to the Burke Gilman trail? And you think those NIMBYs are going to allow light rail? They hate a bike path! West Seattle might be a little better, but we’re talking about a community that’s continually pissed off about traffic to Alki Beach.

         Sound Transit can’t stand up to any resistance so it caves in on every project and now ST has promised all kinds of shit it can’t afford to build.

      10. > Have you ever been to Ballard? How many times has that ‘hood said no to the Burke Gilman trail?

          This tells me all I need to know about your level of understanding of what neighborhoods in Seattle actually want. You must think Warren Aakervik speaks on behalf of all Ballard. I sat on the Community Advisory Group when ST was working on the original WSBLE DEIS. I don’t remember seeing you there.

      11. “History has proven you wrong. In every city and every town it simply doesn’t matter. Functionality is the key. People rode the rat-infested, urine soaked and quite dangerous subway in New York City for years. Why? It got them there.”

          Ross, this is a terrible argument against what Tacomee is saying even if I don’t agree with the premise of his argument either. There’s such a thing as a system becoming a ride for the destitute and people choosing other means to get where they’re going like taxis or driving. The 70s and 80s were not great for NYC Subway ridership from how degraded the ride got. BART experienced a similar dip when the ride experience deteriorated.

          I visited Albuquerque last year during June and while I rode it a few times, I didn’t particularly enjoy my experience riding it. It was sad and depressing to ride as an experience.

          [Ed: Removed email address.]

      12. “Have you ever been to Ballard? How many times has that ‘hood said no to the Burke Gilman trail?”

          Again you’re overgeneralizing. The people objecting to the Shilshole Ave alignment are the industrial businesses on that street, not the majority of Ballard residents.

      13. @Zburchfi — The point is even when a functional system was disgusting it got used by literally millions of people every day. The New York City Subway system failed Walker’s #5 criteria (“it respects me”) and yet still had plenty of people because it did everything else well. Yet one of the most “debonair” systems in one of the biggest cities on the planet (the gondola referenced on this video) is used by hardly anyone. There are local examples as well. The South Lake Union Streetcar gets hardly any riders now that buses are a more functional option. Did the SLUS suddenly get less debonair? No — it just isn’t as useful any more. People take the boring old buses as long it gets them there. Meanwhile the First Hill streetcar is doing much better. Not because it is more more debonair than the other streetcar but because it is a lot more useful (it provides unique routing). When Seattle dumped a lot of money into running the buses not a single dime was put into making it more debonair. Yet ridership increased as frequency got a lot better. When they increased the frequency of the 67 ridership increased while ridership dropped on the nearby 73. The 67 was not more debonair — it was just a lot more useful. The RapidRide G has seen steadily increasing ridership since it’s initial opening. Not because it has become more stylish but because it managed to overcome its initial operating issues.

          Tacomee writes “We want functional with style” yet all he can come up with is the monorail. But monorail ridership was tiny a decade ago (even though bus ridership was quite high). Did it finally get stylish? No, people started going to hockey games and Link expanded. It has suddenly become a lot more functional.

          Meanwhile buses carry the vast majority of riders in the region. Why? Because they get the job done. What if we … just throwing this out here … make them more functional? What if we run them more often and allow them to be faster? Will this lead to higher ridership? Hell Yes! The subject has been studied repeatedly and we know this to be true. No additional style. Nothing to make the buses more debonair. Just efforts to make the buses faster and more frequent and yet ridership increases.

          When it comes to transit, style doesn’t matter. Substance does.

      14. Ross Bleakney,

          Watch the video again please. La Paz is roughly the same size as Seattle and has similar geographical challenges. Peru built a gondola system that handles 200,000 riders per day. Cost 25% of light rail systems in neighboring counties and built out 4X faster. It’s all in the video. Plus all the gorgeous video shots is enough to make me want to go visit La Paz. Hurray for Peru! Well done!

          Zburchfi,

          Thanks for sticking up for me. I lived in Tacoma for a of couple decades, right by Lincoln High School. It was a Beautiful old school that was really run down. Of course there was a pretty big push by many outsiders to tear the thing down build a new modern “functional” school. Remodeling the old school cost more, but it has such beauty and history. My biggest complaint with Sound Transit isn’t the huge amount of money they spend… it’s spending all that money and building nothing beautiful or at least something that sparks the imagination. Many of the kids who attend Lincoln are lower income…. and they have a beautiful, historical school to go to… and as a tutor there for years, it makes a difference. West Seattle High has a lot of low income kids too. A gondola ride from West Seattle to Downtown on a sunny day? Wow! That would get your heart (and your brain) thumping! Who knows if it’s a real solution? But my mind is open to finding out!

          Nathan Dickey,

          Seattle really isn’t all that progressive dude. Look at City Council. Tacoma has a more progressive city government. Hell, it looking like Spokane has a more progressive city government. The State just rolled out new zoning to increase housing…. who’s rolling it back? Seattle is. Not Spokane, not Tacoma, but the good old Emerald City. You are the City of Sara Nelson and The Seattle Times. Own it. Email Mayor Bruce if you don’t like it. Sound Transit’s biggest problem now is Seattle neighborhoods refusing above ground light rail.

          Since I moved to Seattle back in the 1980s, it’s the same old song and dance. Lots of progressive talk but in the end the NIMBYs win. Good luck changing that. It’s a lot like being an alcoholic… the first step is admitting you have a drinking problem. Sober up Seattle, you’ve got a NIMBY problem.

          [Ed: Removed email address.]

      15. “La Paz is roughly the same size as Seattle and has similar geographical challenges. ”

          El Alto is adjacent to La Paz and has a bigger population — and is 1600 feet higher, Even places here like Newcastle and Snoqualmie are less than 600 feet. The very top of Cougar Mountain is also about 1600 feet.

          Their vertical challenges between large populated neighborhoods appear much more significant than ours.

      16. Yeah, La Paz is much more geographically challenging than Seattle. For example here is a trip between two gondola stations. It takes four minutes by gondola. It takes between 48 minutes to an hour to walk (depending on whether you are going uphill or downhill). At 2:00 AM it takes 14 minutes to drive because the road winds its way up the hill. At noon it takes 20 minutes to drive (with typical traffic). Thus even if there is absolutely no traffic the gondola will save you 10 minutes (but there is usually traffic). At the same time, both locations have a lot of people.

          Seattle just doesn’t have places like that. We’ve got a road straight up Queen Anne. West Seattle is connected to the rest of the city via an expressway. It takes about an hour to walk from SoDo to Avalon, but only 7 minutes to drive. Delridge is even closer (6 minutes). There are two types of places that are challenging with a car. The first are generally grouped around the dense middle (where traffic is an issue all day long). Traffic lights are an issue as well but simply adding bus lanes can make a huge difference. Then there are places that more like La Paz in that it is tough to get there even if there is no traffic. These are typically close to the water, like the east side of Lake City or the west side of West Seattle or the east side of Queen Anne.

          I think you are ignoring this fundamental truth about Seattle: Our roadways are very good. Not only do we have major expressways that allow buses to go extremely fast but most of the city has a straightforward street grid. There are exceptions (and I mentioned a few) but even then the drive usually isn’t that bad. Look at that last example. A gondola from Westlake to Nob Hill would definitely add value. But Nob Hill isn’t much of a destination. You want to go further west to Queen Anne Avenue, by the Trader Joe’s. Driving takes 7 minutes — maybe 3 minutes longer than a gondola. This is to serve a part of Westlake that doesn’t have much by it because it is right by the lake.

          It is quite likely that the only place where a gondola would really make sense is where it has already been suggested (Capitol Hill, SLU, Seattle Center, waterfront). That is because it is one of the few places in the city where the roads don’t go through and yet there are plenty of people. There is no way to cross I-5 between Lakeview and Denny. There is no way to drive a bus east-west through the Seattle Center (well, you could on Thomas, but that isn’t realistic). There is a straightforward roadway from the Seattle Center to the waterfront but it crosses the railroad tracks which means it encounters regular delays. Thus every stop combination avoids a potential delay (and can’t be easily solved via bus lanes). At best you have a nearby pathway (e. g. Denny) but even with that you have enough potential riders who would find the gondola more convenient. But these type of situations are rare and even the gondola that has always had the most going for it is borderline.

   9. Third and James to Broadway and James. This corridor has high demand, but will never see rail transit because it’s too steep.

      1. I guess the streetcars of old don’t count.

      2. They were cable cars. They were sold to San Francisco after we decommissioned them in 1930.

      3. I guess I think of rail transit as anything that runs on rails, not only things that run on rail traction. Perhaps a cable car truly is just a ground-running gondola.

      4. Bringing back cable cars doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me. Or maybe just an escalator, like they have in Hong Kong.

         Or we could just improve the bus service, honestly. I used to live on Cherry Street and just never used the buses that went there. It was faster to walk.

   10. Fremont – Queen Anne – Seattle Center – Denny/SLU – Capitol Hill. Hands down. Two large hills. The ship canal crossing. Lots of housing density and amenities in walking distance. Major traffic congestion and drawbridge openings affecting the busses.

       1. That could have some potential. We would still want to add bus lanes for the buses (so that they wouldn’t be stuck in traffic after the bridge opens and closes). A gondola of that nature would only serve a small subset of the folks going across the bridge (e. g. it wouldn’t help with SPU to UW or Stone Way to downtown).

4. I haven’t done the math, but I’m guessing gondolas are faster than most other forms of mass transit as long as the ride is 4 miles or so? Waiting for transit is really the problem… not the transit’s actual speed once it’s moving.

   1. It depends on the cable speed and the speed of traffic it’s competing against.

      Operating speed is about 15 mph, so reasonably competitive with driving in most city traffic with traffic lights.

   2. no. no gondola can beat even your modest contemporary metro line. They don’t call it mass transit for no reason

      1. The mass in “mass” transit refers to the capacity. Gondolas are slow, but typically a lot more frequent than a metro. Thus it depends on distance as well as the frequency of the train. At four miles a metro would likely win most of the time. But consider this trip: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7eiDYmEQDWHnzCyW6. It takes four minutes by gondola. It is a mile and a half so a metro would probably shave two minutes off of that. But if the train ran every ten minutes (like Link) then the gondola is better most of the time since you will likely board in less than a minute.

         Gondolas have their sweet spot in terms of distance. Too long and a metro is better. Too short and surface transportation is better. If a bus is running a long the same corridor frequently (e. g. every five minutes) then it is especially convenient because boarding doesn’t require going up above ground (like a typical gondola) or down below ground (like a typical metro). Thus gondolas are well suited for areas where a bus can’t do the same thing but a metro wouldn’t save that much time (or you need the extra capacity). (Of course cost is a big issue as well.)

   3. In Seattle traffic, the travel speed is absolutely an issue! Even more so is the reliability. Look at the effort required to get Rapid Ride G running reliably at high frequency. Imagine tying to do that with Metro Route 8.

      1. Brandon K.

         Funny how we read so many posts about bus reliability being poor on this blog and yet…. there’s an almost instant dismissal of gondolas! La Paz has a system that’s moving 200,000 people a day that’s fully funded by fare collection. It’s all in video.

         There’s a very short wait time for gondolas and they can’t be late. In the real world a gondola is going to beat a bus. Because in cities, buses are often late.

         Also in video suggests the gondolas are cheaper and faster to build than rapid ride bus systems. Is this true? I really have no idea.

         This the is problem with most Left Coast cities. They believe their own dogma and can’t change direction very easily, unlike say, Salt Lake City or Houston. The first really cool US gondola will be in Salt Lake I’d guess? Up Big Cottonwood Canyon…. one of the city’s biggest traffic snafus.

      2. The biggest problem with North American transit agencies (and a lot of North Americans in general) is that they look at a transit mode and suddenly think it is the solution to all their problems. They ignore the advantages and disadvantages of the mode. This explains the sudden proliferation of streetcars in the United States as well as light rail. They both have their place. But in the United States light rail is often built in places where heavy rail makes more sense. Streetcars are often built where buses would be more useful. Same goes for “BRT”. (Marco Chitti has a great essay about that — https://marcochitti.substack.com/p/down-with-the-brt-long-live-the-bus). Again, they have their place. But the infatuation with “BRT” ignores a more sensible approach which would be to apply those same ideas (like off-board-payment, bus lanes, busways) across the entire network.

         The same thing goes for gondolas. Again, they have their place. But no one is building them in the places you think they should build them. Not because they haven’t heard of them. The world is quite familiar with gondolas even if they aren’t common in North America. If they built them then the folks from South America would not come here and ask “What is that?”. They would ask “Why did you build that there when you could have just leveraged the roadway for faster buses?”. To which we can only reply: “We thought they were debonair”.

         But no one with any sense — and this definitely goes for South American cities — builds them when a bus would be faster and much cheaper. Yet that is precisely what you are suggesting.

5. Didn’t see this reported on yet – Construction has started on the multiuse trail connecting Marymoor Park to Marymoor Village station. The trail goes along the edge of the park, basically straight south, a little bit west from the station until intersecting with the Marymoor Connector trail. Surprised that they think they can finish constructing a whole new trail in one month, but excited that the station-to-park connection will be very nice (minus the lack of a west exit from the station).

6. Does anyone who has been to previous Link extension opening days have any advice for someone who will be attending the Downtown Redmond Link Extension opening on May 10th? Perhaps we have some new readers and future new Link riders here. And by advice, I don’t mean wear comfortable shoes. Rather, what’s the best way to experience the new extension and stations? Get there before the line opens? Get there after it opens? Are there any points of interest specific to this new extension that people might want to check out? To that question, I would answer don’t just stick to stations and trains, also explore some (possible) newly opened pedestrian trails connecting the two stations.

   1. I think it depends on what you want to see. If you want to hear speeches from VIPs, then get there early to get in front of the crowd. The opening day celebrations usually have a good spread of booths from local organizations, businesses, and agencies, so if that’s of interest, it’s also good to get there early in case they have limited-volume freebies to collect.

      If you don’t like crowds, get there later, but I would expect a fairly good showing from the public since it’s on a Saturday. If anything, the biggest driver of crowd size through the day will be the weather.

      I think the main point of interest will be the connection between Marymoor Park and the new Marymoor Village station, but I’m not sure if the connection trail will be complete when the station opens.

   2. My biggest advice is, don’t underestimate the crowds, and don’t bother trying to get on the first public train.

      Here’s our writeup on the 2 Line Starter Line opening day. When I go to Bellevue I usually take the 550 from its first stop (Union & 5th), so that’s what I did. I timed it so that even if we missed the first bus, the second one would get us there ten minutes early. I assumed there would be only ten people on the bus, since it’s usually light weekends until 1pm, and half of those would be STBers. Instead there were ten people at the first stop, and none of them looked like STBers. We got on, and I asked the person behind me if he was with STB, but he hadn’t heard of it, so I told him about the site and gave him the URL. At every other stop downtown, 10-20 people got on, so by the time we left downtown the bus was packed. And so were the next few buses after that. It was clear I’d never see the other STBers in the crowd.

      The speeches were on the plaza outside Bellevue Downtown station. They started late and went long. Then the VIPs got the first ride to South Bellevue, and a long line formed at the station entrance. We hung out a leisurely time having lunch and visiting the booths, and then executed part 2 of our plan. We took the 550 back to South Bellevue station and started our Link tour from there. This bus was also packed.

      I didn’t know it at the time, but several STBers had decided to skip the ceremony and wait at South Bellevue for the first public train. They later reported having to wait longer than expected, and the first trains filling up so they had to wait for a later one. Nathan got on the first train though.

      By the time I got to South Bellevue the crowd had dissipated, so we easily got on a train. Trains were running every 3-4 minutes and were almost full. We took it to the other end (Redmond Tech), and then took a bus to Lake Hills to visit my relative and then have lunch at the big Thai restaurant on 24th. When we got back to Redmond Tech later in the afternoon, the booths were closing down, the crowds were gone, Link had started its normal 10-minute service, and there were less than ten people in my car as became usual with the Starter Line.

      Northgate’s opening was unusual because service started in the morning before the speeches. I left at a convenient time after that, the train and platform weren’t crowded. Attendees were dispersed between the platform, perusing the pedestrian bridge and its one-day art, and the speeches at the college. I perused the bridge and then went to the speeches. There was a crowd there in a parking lot. I missed the first speeches, but the college president gave one, and said Link will allow students at Roosevelt and Franklin High Schools to reach classes at the college easier. I hadn’t realized until then how many high school students take college classes now. I watched a few more speeches and then left; the speeches and crowd audience continued on.

      At Lynnwood’s opening I was recovering from a cold, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time there or in crowded confined spaces. I went up later in the afternoon, and the train was busy. I was surprised to see crowds at the intermediate station festivities. At Lynnwood a lot of people were milling around the booths. I looked around for five minutes and turned around. There was a long line at the escalator: ST would only allow a batch of people up when a train had come and arrivees had come down the escalator. It took three trains before I could get on one.

      For U-Link I saw the line at Capitol Hill, didn’t want to wait 20-40 minutes in it, so I took the 49 to the U-District, stopped at the library, and then came back to UW station. The line had dissipated then although the crowd-control ropes were still in place. I got on a train easily.

      At Link’s initial opening, I went soon after opening and got lucky; I didn’t have to wait at Westlake. I rode to the other end at SeaTac and came back. By the time I got back to Westlake there was a 45-minute line.

      So what to do depends on your intention. Do you want to see the entire ceremony, ride the first train, see some part of the opening afternoon, or wait a couple days until after the tourists have seen it. If you do want to be there in time for the opening ceremony, assume buses will be crowded and you may not be able to get on the first one.

      With Downtown Redmond’s location, the most direct option from Seattle is the 545. But it’s half-hourly on weekends, so that poses a problem if you can’t get on the first one or two. I’d go to the first stop, or consider a back way:

      1) Link to UW station, 255 to Kirkland, 250 to Redmond. I’m guessing the 250 won’t be as crowded.

      2) 550 or 271 to Bellevue Downtown, B or 250 to Redmond.

      3) 550 to South Bellevue, Link to Redmond Tech, B to Redmond.

      I can’t guarantee these won’t be crowded too.

      If you want to go early in the morning before the crowds, downtown Redmond has several trails to explore. One is the Cross-Redmond Connector, a disused railroad corridor that the Link line uses part of. West of Downtown Redmond station is a linear park, with an art exhibit inspired by an old railroad depot. On the other side of 520 is Marymoor Park and the Sammamish River Trail, although you have to go a half mile east to Marymoor Village station to reach a 520 crossing, unless maybe that other trail people have been talking about is completed. There are also trailheads at the park at the Redmond Library, and a retro part of Cleveland Street 161st, and a small park there. The Sammamish River Trail is on both sides of the river, with entrances at Redmond Way (stairs?) and 90th (ramp?). On Redmond Way there’s a small park with historic exhibits, perhaps the one at 168th, although Google Maps says it’s temporarily closed. There’s lots of independent restaurants, although they probably won’t open until the speeches start.

   3. Each opening has its own kind of celebration. I went to Lynnwood’s and the 2 starter line last year, and Northgate link and U-Link before that. I skipped trying to get there first the ribbon cutting and symbolic first train ride.

      I think the best time to arrive is just after the ribbon cutting. The crowds arrive a bit later usually, especially if there are planned street vendor hours later . Check the vendor schedule beforehand if that interests you. I remember that the Lynnwood vendors did not begin until 3 or 4, even though the line opened earlier like at 11. We arrived at noon and had to kill tine. When we did leave in mid-afternoon the crowds were growing.

      The free swag is interesting. Sometimes they even hand out free Orca cards. Cloth bags, pens and brochures are sometimes handed out too. There will likely be a commemorative poster handed out — but the ones I grabbed got easily damaged. Of course the swag is available only when the street vendor booths are opened.

7. How well do gondola cars work with boarding and deboarding wheelchairs, walkers, luggage, and bicycles?

   1. Because a gondola car is “floating” on cable…. a flat entrance/exit shouldn’t be a problem.

      With near arrival/ departure times the platforms can be much smaller, although some back up at peak times might occur. I’d say backups at peak times wouldn’t be terrible to wait though because the system isn’t going to stop shuffling people along… if you’re in line, the gondola is eventually going to move you where you need go. Waiting for a bus is stressful because you just never know when the bus is actually going to get there (if ever). In the real life transit world, certainty beats speed every time.

   2. Modern gondolas are fine for wheelchairs. I remember seeing a video of a group of people in wheelchairs taking one in South America but I can’t seem to find it. It was pretty much as you would expect. There is an elevator up to the platform. The cable car disengages from the cable and folks roll on to it while it is stationary (much as they would enter an elevator). They can secure themselves inside the (although two of the riders didn’t) and then it connects to the cable and they go.

   3. The way I would ask that question is this: What staffing would ST set up?

      I would expect that ST would initially require staff at each station to prevent accidents and disruptions for the first several months if not for several years.

      To use the elevator analogy, folks under 50 don’t remember but staffed elevators were not uncommon before the 1960’s. It took a few decades for our culture to trust unmanned elevators. I remember a few older, staffed elevators when I was a child. It seemed silly to me at the time to hire someone to sit on a stool inside the elevator to simply push buttons and open/close the folding metal gate. The door technology finally evolved to eliminate those jobs.

      I remember that there were elevator staff in old movies like “The Women”.

      1. I have encountered a staffed elevator myself, in this present century! There are still a few buildings in Manhattan which have never gotten around to modernizing.

         The Space Needle elevator had an employee on board last time I rode it, too, though that job seemed to be more “tour guide” than “machine operator”.

      2. Yes, I’ve been on a few staffed elevators in Manhattan (do they still exist anywhere else?). It’s not that they haven’t gotten around to modernizing, it’s that it’s legally impossible, due to historic preservation laws.

   4. check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaE7a7vFdS0&t=5s
      Modern remote operated gondola systems offer a button to stop the cabin from moving for a brief moment to allow for safe boarding.

   5. Even older style gondolas used in amusement parks in the 1980s could be disconnected from the cable and have the cars stationary for boarding. I remember being impressed by the simple counter balance operated switches on the overhead tracks they use in the stations. At least one of them I remember (maybe 6 Flags?) had three parallel tracks in the boarding area. If someone needed a bit extra boarding time, they could do so just fine, because they could board on a stationary car on one track while the other two tracks could continue to board everyone else.

      I’ve yet to see a really good look inside these stations, but from the 1:10 mark onward in this video they show how Disney does theirs. The type they have only has one section of disconnected cars that are brought to a complete stop for those needing a stationary boarding:
      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B5pakLHRS5o&pp=ygUORGlzbmV5IGdvbmRvbGHSBwkJfgkBhyohjO8%3D

8. Is it me or are the buses stopping less on 3rd Ave? There are no #1 or #2 bus stops around 3rd Ave and Pine/Pike. So you get out of Westlake Station or Pike Place and you have to walk to either 3rd/Virginia or 3rd/Seneca to get on the bus? What’s the point of a Bus Corridor when there are few and far between stops for the routes you need to take?

   All the more reasons why we need to diversify bus routes on the other streets. The #1 bus needs to be on First Ave. It’s patently absurd that the busiest tourist street in downtown Seattle has no bus. At least having a #1 bus on First Ave would also make it easier to access the new waterfront.

   1. #1 bus on First Ave is so obvious that I’m mindboggled that Metro has not implemented this yet, especially since the street car is DOA. It allows connection from Pioneer Square through SAM through Pike Place and also up close to Sculpture Park and then north into Seattle Center. And now with the Overlook Pathway complete, it’s way easier to walk to First Ave than before from the waterfront, allowing a much better waterfront access for public transit.

      Implement #1 route on First Ave now!

      1. I don’t think it is that obvious. While it would reduce walking for some trips, it would increase walking for other trips. For instance, what about someone up in Queen Anne along the existing #1 route would wants to reach Link?

         At the same time, if the 1 is moved, but the 2, D, and 13 aren’t, now you have different buses going connecting common pairs of places two blocks apart from one another, so you lose the ability to wait at one stop for whatever comes first. In practice, this means nearly everybody going between downtown and lower Queen Anne chooses 3rd, even if it means walking an extra two blocks, because it means much less wait time. This reduces ridership on the 1, potentially leading it into a death spiral.

         Moving other Queen Anne buses to 1st means accepting a longer walk to reach places east of 3rd Ave., or transfer to Link or other buses on 3rd.

         Plus, Metro would have to spend a bunch of money building trolley wire on 1st and political capital getting bus lanes on 1st (or, allowing the 1st Ave buses to get stuck in traffic).

         It may sound obvious that the #1 should be on 1st, but it’s far from clear cut, and I think a strong argument could be made that drawbacks of rerouting any bus route to 1st outweighs the benefits.

      2. Asdf2,

         The problem is there’s no direct bus stop from Westlake station to #1 bus northbound. You already need to walk two blocks to catch the bus from Link. You might as well walk two First Ave. It’s a lot less sketchy than waiting on 3rd/Virginia anyway.

         There is no circumstance where the #1 bus would have lower ridership on First Ave than Third Ave. This is the kind of arguing for arguing sakes that gets us away from any practical solutions. We are talking about a route that directly connects Climate Pledge to Pike Place to SAM and Pioneer Square and the stadiums. It is also walking distance from the waterfront from both Pike Place and Union St.

      3. Not sure which routes should be moved but I think moving 2-3 routes to 1st would be a big improvement. The SW side of Belltown is poorly served relative to its population, and running a bus down 1st would help a lot. And of course a bus on 1st would also serve Pike Place. The transfer situation from 1st to Symphony Station is fairly good.

      4. OneBusAway shows the 1 as stopping at 3rd/Pine southbound. That’s half a block to the tunnel entrance between 3rd and 4th. Northbound, it stops at Pike, so it’s one extra block, but it’s a short block and you don’t need to cross 3rd Ave. Still pretty direct. Moving the bus to 1st adds two additional blocks to walk.

         And, Link is not the only downtown destination either. You mention Pike Place Market and the waterfront, which is good, but you’ve also got all the office buildings on 4th and 5th. Again, it’s a tradeoff. Moving the bus to 1st means less walking for some, more walking for others, and it’s not immediately obvious that the former group is bigger than the latter group.

         And, then, a switch would mean either losing the bus-only nature of 3rd and having buses get stuck in traffic, or convincing the public to accept bus lanes on 1st, just to shift some buses over two blocks, when there isn’t any real bus capacity issue on 3rd.

         As to sketchiness, the solution is to fix the sketchiness, not to move buses away from it. In fact, one could argue that the whole reason for the sketchiness is that people loitering or selling drugs can plausibly tell the police that they’re waiting for the bus, in which case, if you move the bus, the sketchiness just moves with it. Better to just deploy more police to deal with the sketchiness.

      5. Asdf2,

         You’re looking at oneblockaway while I’m a regular #1 bus rider and I can tell you there’s no northbound bus stop at 3rd/Pike right now. Ignoring real riders’ experiences and managing transit on paper. Sounds like a great way to run transit.

         We absolutely need a bus route on First Ave. The other poster is right about the current Third Ave corridor also ignoring the busiest and densest parts of Belltown too.

         It’s like our Metro bus system wants to prove to the world that public transit is run by morons.

      6. If the 1 is moved to 1st Avenue, it needs to be 15-minute frequent. One advantage of keeping it on 3rd is that if the 1 isn’t coming soon, you have the option of taking the 2 or 13 and walking the rest of the way. With the 1 on 1st, you have to know ahead of time whether it will come soon or which route will come first. I had that dilemma in Ballard with the 15 and 18. If you went to the 15 stop and you missed the bus or it was late, by the time you walked to the 18 stop it had just passed.

      7. I don’t think it is obvious what buses (if any) should be shifted to First Avenue. On the one hand there are more than enough buses on Third Avenue so moving buses off of Third doesn’t hurt the spine there. On the other hand moving the buses could make some transfers worse. There are other complicating issues. Buses that serve the same area (e. g. Queen Anne) should follow the same pathway. Various buses through-route.

         If you ignore through-routing for a second there are a bunch of candidates. The obvious choice from the north are the 24 and 33. Coming from the south there is the 101/150 that runs on 2nd/4th. They could be shifted over to First instead. There is also the 21, 124, 131/132 which currently run on Third. These buses from the south (21, 101, 124, 131, 132, 150) all run on Fourth Avenue South so there is value in keeping them together (although they don’t all run to the same place now). There are also the trolleys that come from the southeast (on Jackson): the 7, 14 and 36 which all go together. If you change one you would probably want to change them all. There is also the 106 but it would require an extension (and I would rather sent it up to First Hill if we are going to do that).

         The 1 and 14 are paired, which is why they are often considered as an option. But that would require moving wire or running off wire (something Metro has been reluctant to do). It would also make sense to move the 7 and 37 with the 14. Meanwhile (as asdf2 and Mike mentioned) moving the 1 would break the connection with the other Queen Anne buses. Likewise the 21 is paired with the 5 which means the bus would cover less of First (which is a weakness with the CCC plan). Same goes for the 131/132 which is paired with the 28. The 24 and 33 are paired with the 124 so that actually works out well.

         From a transfer standpoint it depends on the route. Sending the 24/33 to First retains the connection to buses coming from Queen Anne (1/2/13). So riders could easily transfer there to go on Third. You would lose the connection to the 3/4 though. Riders trying to go from Magnolia to the Central Area or Cherry Hill would have to walk from First to Third. Same goes for people heading up to Capitol Hill on buses like the 10, 11 and 12. Trips that involve “rounding the horn” (e. g. Magnolia to South Lake Union) would take a hit as well.

         Buses coming from the south have some of the same issues but they are mitigated because of all the buses (and the streetcar) that end up in Pioneer Square. For example the 101/150 would still connect to the 70 if they ran on First Avenue (assuming they turned at Jackson). But the 3/4 to the C. D. or the 10/11/12 to Capitol Hill would still be an issue. Fortunately the G goes down to First (which would be especially convenient coming from the south). The First Hill streetcar is also an option that makes sense from that direction.

         So, with all that in mind it depends a little on how much we want to spend and how much we want to inconvenience existing riders. Sending the 24/33 and 124 would essentially be free but hurt riders from Magnolia (heading to the greater Central Area). If this came with an increase in frequency for the 24/33 (which is quite reasonable as I would consider these borderline routes) then it would be a small price to pay. But then that means not pairing those buses with the 124 (which means additional costs).

         If we are willing to break the pairing of the 28 with the 131/132 then sending the 131/132 to Uptown sounds like a good option. The 101 and 150 could be shifted to serve First Avenue and layover with the 8 (in Uptown) and it wouldn’t cost that much. Sending the 1/14 there (by itself) is definitely a reasonable option. So too is sending all of the Jackson buses (7, 14, 36).

         I’m not sure what makes the most sense. Likewise I don’t know how many buses (if any) we want to send to Fifth Avenue. I find it odd that somehow First Avenue service is a priority but Fifth Avenue service is not. Maybe it’s because folks aren’t aware that we are losing a lot of that service fairly soon.

      8. First doesn’t have any service; Fifth has east/west service. I think it is a very noticeable gap in Belltown.

         I like the idea of moving the 101/102, 150, and potentially the 131/132, though it may be difficult to find enough layover space in LQA. I would be glad to be rid of the 2nd/4th couplet.

      9. The buses could dogleg further north, perhaps on Columbia? That would provide better transfer options

      10. “First doesn’t have any service; Fifth has east/west service.”

          Unless you’re envisioning people waiting for a bus to go two blocks to transfer to another bus, rather than simply walking the two blocks, an east/west bus on 5th is useless travel in the north/south direction.

      11. The buses that cross 5th generally turn onto 3rd. That’s not to say it shouldn’t get service but it’s not as obvious that it’s a gap. And on the implementation side 1st is already a wide 2-way street.

      12. First doesn’t have any service; Fifth has east/west service.

          That is not entirely true. The West Seattle buses go along the waterfront and then go up to Third. The RapidRide G goes down to First. So on First Avenue south of Seneca you are not that far away from a bus. There is a bigger gap along Fifth between Madison (the G) and James (3/4). If the 3/4 were moved to Yesler (which I support) the gap would grow larger.

          It isn’t until you get north of Union that First Avenue locations are farther away from a bus then Fifth*. But starting at Union and especially at Pine the terrain is fairly flat (due to the regrades).

          But the bigger issue is that these buses don’t do much good if you are trying to go north-south. (Note: By “north-south” I mean along the avenues; obviously these aren’t exactly north-south.) As frequent as the G is I can’t imagine someone taking it a couple blocks and then switching to a bus on Third. (I suppose someone who is mobility impaired could do that but there are elevators in various buildings they can use for that.) The opposite is true as well. If I’m on First Avenue trying to get up to Capitol Hill (via the 10, 11 or 12) it doesn’t really matter if there is service on First. What would be useful is if the 10, 11 and 12 went all the way to First. (Doing so is tricky but not impossible**.)

          But that is largely a different issue***. People want service on First and Fifth because they want to go along First and Fifth. This is where the argument for a bus (or buses) along Fifth is just as strong, if not stronger. As you move farther west from Third you run into the waterfront. This means diminishing ridership (fish don’t ride the bus). As you move farther east from Third you run across streets with huge buildings on them and no north-south service. There are no buses on sixth, seventh or eighth. You have to go all the way to ninth (and even then you have only a small segment with service). Thus trip (https://maps.app.goo.gl/DA1gDY961dgss9j97) is quite similar to this trip (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ihuctyHuFFZEub368). Either way you just want to stay on the main street and follow it south about a mile but you end up walking from Third Avenue. But way more people live or work along Sixth then along the waterfront. It gets even worse as you go farther east (https://maps.app.goo.gl/gfbZSVnKgQYfvvG37). Same idea — you just want to go along the street you are on — but this time the walk and bus combination is so slow that you are almost better off just walking.

          Put it another way: If you we want to make a grid for Greater Downtown (and I think we do) then it isn’t clear to me that we need north-south buses on First. Third is never that far from the waterfront. It is borderline. In contrast we should have something east of Third. Right now there is nothing except the little section on 9th covered by the 60. At a minimum you need service on Boren. When it comes to making a grid, service on Boren should be higher priority then service on First (or Fifth). But even with service on Boren, there is a pretty big gap between Boren and Third (given the very high density in the area). Ideally we would have a bus half-way between but that isn’t possible because of the freeway. Fifth is about as good as you can get and would add more value then service on First simply because there is more to the east of Firth then there is to the west of First.

          *I am ignoring service on Second and Fourth. It is not clear how long these buses will exist.

          ** We’ve talked about this in the comments. One approach would be to turn Pine into a bidirectional transit mall (like Third). Then the bus could go all the way to First and turn around. You would need to add a short stretch of contraflow lanes so a bus could do this sort of thing: https://maps.app.goo.gl/qiyQ5YuVLhdPMmeN6

          ***It would be nice if Belltown had service that extended to First Avenue from the east (similar to the G and what I just suggested for the 10, 11 and 12). If we do add service to First then buses from the south could provide both east-west service to Belltown as well as service along First. For example the 5 could be moved to First but still run on Battery/Wall. Like any other change it comes with drawbacks and its debatable whether it is worth it.

          The biggest argument for bus service on First boils down to the fact that we committed to service along first with the streetcar. I think we should provide shift some bus service there (and we can do much better than the streetcar pathway).

      13. The gap on 1st is only really notable in Belltown. Downtown/Pioneer Square are served reasonably well by buses on 3rd.

          The most obvious N/S corridors are 3rd and Boren. But if we break downtown into two segments, in my opinion:
          – North of Pike/Pine, other key corridors are 1st and 7th/8th
          – South of Pike/Pine, other key corridors are 5th and 8th/9th. 1st has some potential as well but is less important.

          Of those corridors, I think 1st in Belltown would be the cheapest/easiest to serve. 5th/7th/8th/9th likely require reconfiguring the streets; Boren would require more service hours.

   2. Another issue with service on First that I think should get more attention than it does is traffic. First currently has no bus lanes and bad traffic – I’ve gotten stuck there in a car before on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon, and I can’t imagine what it’s like on a weekday (or before or after any major event at Seattle Center or either or the stadiums).

      So, if you are going to run any bus on First, you have to decide what to do. If you just leave the street as is, the bus will get stuck in traffic, which will make it unreliable, and people will vote with their feet to walk to 3rd, leaving the bus on First empty. You can add bus lanes, but that’s likely to get a lot of pushback from drivers, who will ask why the bus can’t just run on 3rd instead. Bus lanes on 1st would be a particularly hard sell if only the #1 shifts – it would mean an entire lane reserved for one bus route that runs only every half hour.

      1. The plan was to run the streetcar in the middle of the street (with center stations). So there is willingness to take lanes. The easiest thing to do is add BAT lanes. It may be possible to have center stations with a weave pattern (which would allow for regular buses). But a bus should not move from a transit mall to a street with no BAT lanes (let alone bus lanes).

         In general that has been our problem. We continue to focus on routes and not the network as a whole. We build streetcars where a bus would do just fine. We add a BRT line (or more often BRT-lite) instead of focusing our efforts on adding right-of-way. Even the improvements for the 40 — while laudable — largely benefit only one route. Why not look at the overall network and focus our efforts everywhere. Of course we can’t afford to do it all at once but why focus on single corridors when there are obvious choke points (like the Fremont Bridge, Pine/Pine up the hill or the north end of Third Avenue) that effect a lot of buses carrying tens of thousands of riders.

9. Glad to see Sam doing cool videos beyond playing hide-and-seek by train across Japan. Though my family loves watching him play hide-and-seek by train across Japan.

10. This is a very insightful short video by Alan Fisher talking about the craziness of creating deep bored tunnels when they aren’t practical.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LZrrtF8Iy8k

    And that deep station animation is what ST wants to build for the West Seattle Junction Station!

    1. I think West Seattle won’t be quite as deep but the new downtown stations will be.

    2. I think ST has BART beat in terms of worst project. Maybe the technical decisions aren’t quite as bad but the end results are. We have so many bad projects it is hard to pick just one. But I would have to go with West Seattle Link and the new tunnel. They go together since the way they designed it the West Seattle Line won’t actually go downtown until the new tunnel is built.

       So the cost to run the trains to West Seattle is more than the eye-popping $7 billion (or well over $2 per new station). This is for an estimated 27,000 riders a day *after* they stop running the express buses. It will take longer for a lot of existing bus riders to take their trip. Thus the average time savings per rider per dollar spent has to be very low. At the same time, many existing transit riders will be inconvenienced in two ways. The first is obvious. People taking trips along the main corridor will have to transfer. Trips from Tukwila to the UW, Northgate to SeaTac or Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill will now require a time consuming, awkward transfer. The other way it will negatively effect riders is with the stations downtown. The new stations will be just a little bit worse than the existing ones.

       At the same time, there is very little value added with the new tunnel. While the stations are different (and slightly inferior) they aren’t different enough to justify a transfer. Thus riders from the north and the east will just continue to use the existing downtown stations originally built for buses. Even West Seattle riders will use those as well. But folks from the south (and on the new line to Ballard) will muddle along with downtown stations that are just a bit worse. Basically folks coming from the south will be significantly worse off along with plenty of people from the north.

       All to benefit 27,000 riders — at most. But again, a lot of those riders would be better off if they kept the existing buses. So the number of people who will actually benefit is much lower than that. Very few people will benefit, plenty of people will be worse off and the total price tag (for the downtown tunnel and West Seattle Link) is probably somewhere around $10 billion.

    3. BART through Downtown San Jose has some interesting lessons as a case study:

       1. Why is VTA wanting BART rather than much cheaper VTA light rail expansion? Why is Route 522 (VTA BR) in the same corridor not enough?

       2. Why this design and path? Downtown San Jose is reachable by freeways and wide arterials that have room for aerial piers. The decision to tunnel is purely an aesthetic mitigation one.

       It’s pretty similar to ST and West Seattle to me. It’s spending many billions to barely enhance transit travel times once the added time to get to platforms inside stations is considered. The main difference is that San Jose is trying to connect to other regional and intercity rail at Diridon Station while ST’s planning disconnects the 1 Line from regional and intercity rail. So at least VTA is trying to make things better with the BART project. ST instead seems hell bent to make them worse!

11. Does anyone have stop data for the Streetcar lines for both Seattle and Tacoma?

    1. I’ve requested it from ST (for the T Line) and Metro (for Seattle Streetcar lines) and should receive it in 1-2 months (both orgs said they have a request backlog).

       1. thanks! and…DAYUM. That’s an admin headache.

       2. It is strange that Metro doesn’t include stop data for the Seattle streetcars with the rest of the routes, given that they include Sound Transit buses. Total ridership (per day/month) is on the dashboard.

12. Gondola accident in Italy. And in an urban environment too. Four dead:

    https://apnews.com/article/fatal-cable-car-accident-italy-3fbb1c9b7803352a4b5c74903cb3830b

    I really wonder about safety with these systems. And I don’t think winching grandma down to the ground in a sling is an adequate evacuation solution for our fellow citizens who require ADA accommodations.

    1. While quite tragic, the safety record of aerial cable systems is far better than any other transit system, loss of life or even winching is extremely rare. Our light rail system had plenty more accidents. I’m not sure what would ADA accommodations looked like when the trains got stuck under UW last year.

    2. Portland Areal Tram shortens the haul rope every year or so, and does a complete replacement every 6 years.

       Not that this prevents every problem, but such problems are quite rare on ski lifts, gondolas, etc in the USA due to required rope replacement intervals.

       1. @Glen in Portland,

          Not all gondola accidents are the result of shoddy maintenance. Some are the result of direct damage or misuse.

          An example of this is that gondola accident in northern Italy where US military pilots flew into the support cable and dropped 20 people to their deaths. That was a result of the pilots goofing off in their plane, but the effect was pretty darn serious.

          Of course most gondola accidents/incidents aren’t fatal. They simply result in multi-hour strandings. The Skyride at the San Diego Zoo is famous for this, and just about every winter we hear multiple stories of ski lifts breaking down. But this somehow gets overlooked in the discussion of gondolas as mass transit.

          Light rail, buses, streetcars are all capable of being self evacuated in a matter of seconds. Even rail systems in tunnels are required to be capable of self evacuation.

          And airplanes are required to demonstrate the capability to completely self evacuate in 90 seconds. Even with up to 50% of the exits blocked.

          It’s all very tightly regulated.

          But gondolas? Somehow it is OK to leave grandma hanging in a suspended gondola car for a few hours? And with the only means of evacuation being to call out the local fire truck?

          It’s a safety double standard that I don’t completely understand. And I think any serious discussion of gondolas as mass transit needs to resolve this double standard..

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