“They took sledgehammers to sidewalks.” How curb cuts originated. (PBS American Experience)

Big box stores. Why they exist, and how they’re becoming more urban friendly. (City Beautiful) The Target at 6:49 appears to be the one in downtown Seattle.

This is an open thread.

33 Replies to “Sunday Movies: Disability Activism”

  1. Great article on the transformative power of Light Rail. Congrats to Redmond!

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/from-deadmond-to-redmond-light-rail-transforms-a-suburb-to-a-city/

    Just 6 days until the largest improvement in regional transportation so far this year will open. It’s a great step forward, and downtown Redmond will only continue to improve.

    Unfortunately it is likely that this will be the only major transit improvement this year. ST has now missed both their internal target, and their publicly announced target, for the dead tow test on I-90. And they have precious few opportunities to make up the lost time.

    Question is then: if the opening of Full ELE slides into 2026, will ST then need to slide the opening of FWLE until late 2026? After the 2026 World Cup?

    That would be a shame.

      1. Yeah, while the extension to Redmond is definitely important it is small potatoes compared to East Link across the water. That will add Judkins Park and Mercer Island — stations in the same league as the two Redmond stations. More importantly it will dramatically improve travel across the lake. The 550 used to be fairly fast but it has been very slow for a long time (which is why ridership peaked in 2016). The completion of East Link will be a huge improvement.

        But it doesn’t stop there. Frequency will double north of downtown as well. Instead of trains every ten minutes (midday) there will be trains every five minutes. Again this is a big improvement. ST will stop running the 515 (since it won’t be needed). Hopefully ST will put those service hours into other routes (e. g. an all-day 513 for commuters to Boeing).

        A more controversial change is the 522. It will no longer go to Roosevelt but serve 148th Station instead. This will set off a small chain reaction of changes by Metro as they backfill the service. Eventually the bus network should accommodate Pinehurst Station but that station won’t be here for a while. It was always assumed this would be a two-step process. First Metro backfills service on Lake City Way and eventually it runs buses to Pinehurst Station (from Lake City to Bitter Lake). But if the gap between these two events is small then Metro may implement all the changes at once. This will further complicate efforts by those of us who are trying to get Metro to provide a better network in the area.

        For example one way to backfill service on Lake City Way is to just run a bus from the Lake City Fred Meyer (where the 61 lays over) to Green Lake Park and Ride (or the U-District). With that bus in place it then becomes easy to argue that the route stay the same. That the 75 be sent to Bitter Lake instead (and we backfill service on Fifth). But if the Metro bus along Lake City Way is never implemented it complicates the argument (instead of arguing for retaining a route we are arguing for a new bus route).

      2. @poncho,

        I’m not sure what the holdup is, but it sure is annoying. The majority of the plinth problem wasn’t even on the floating bridge. Given the time it took to fix the plinths, I sort of expected the FB stretch to be complete and ready for the start of testing, but I guess not.

        That said, given the delay, it sure is nice to see what a difference even the promise of Light Rail has made to downtown Redmond. Downtown Redmond really is much improved over the bad old days where everything was road based. It’s a vast improvement.

        Note: It does look like they are getting close to starting testing on Full ELE . So hopefully the delay is isn’t too much longer.

      3. it sure is nice to see what a difference even the promise of Light Rail has made to downtown Redmond

        I’m not sure Link has made any difference at all. Redmond changed because of Microsoft. Then the city of Redmond decided it would be nice to push development to their old town center and thus you have it. It would probably have happened with or without Link (like so many places in the region). I’m thinking Totem Lake, Downtown Kirkland, Greenwood, First Hill, etc.

      4. “I’m not sure Link has made any difference at all. Redmond changed because of Microsoft.”

        I see Link to Downtown Redmond as paired with Downtown Redmond’s deliberate transformation. The 520 freeway is also likely a major influence in originally setting Downtown Redmond’s fate in motion. But the City of Redmond did put in the reforms in recent decades to make it possible. They could have restricted land use around their Downtown area — but they chose not to.

        Good transportation planning needs to work alongside denser land use planning to maximize the utility of a rail transit investment. Redmond did this. It’s a stark contrast to the Shoreline or Mountlake Terrace situation (or Pinehurst for that matter), where station area planning is more recent and hasn’t been a culmination of decades of being a destination for nearby residents.

      5. From the Seattle Times article … “While Overlake seemed destined to grow, thanks to its deep-pocketed multinational corporation, downtown needed help, and Marchione saw light rail as the galvanizing force, much as the highway, spurred the city’s growth decades before.

        ‘Downtown was my first priority because it was vacant,’ said Marchione, who took office in 2007. ‘There was no reason to go down there, there was nothing there.’ ”

        (John Marchione. Former three-term mayor of Redmond).

      6. The other day I noticed a single car labeled “testing” pulling in to Lynnwood. I wonder if they are doing a few “partial 2 line” runs in between the regular 1-Line runs, even if they are not crossing the lake yet. Can’t think of what else a “testing” train would be for.

      7. @Sam,

        Thanks Sam. I trust the policy makers involved in this transformation when they give credit to Light Rail. And I certainly trust the opinion of the three time mayor of Redmond.

        Trust the experts, and the experts all give credit to Light Rail. It’s had an amazing impact.

        Hopefully Full ELE opens soon enough to allow me to spend a little more time over there without driving.

      8. It’s a stark contrast to the Shoreline or Mountlake Terrace situation (or Pinehurst for that matter), where station area planning is more recent and hasn’t been a culmination of decades of being a destination for nearby residents.

        Yes, and that has been a flaw with ST plans for a long time. Redmond is an exception.

        Just to back up here, basically Redmond developed a downtown on it’s own. They developed there because it made sense to develop there. There was some history there they could leverage but there was also low-value malls. These areas tend to go two ways — they collapse (as the city around them collapses) or they become dense urban centers. Since Microsoft located in Redmond it wasn’t that hard to transform the area. It is also fairly easy from a political standpoint (you aren’t upzoning suburban housing tracts). It is quite likely that Downtown Redmond would look similar to what it does today without Link. But kudos to ST for having the good sense to run the train there.

        In contrast ST basically ignored the developments in north Seattle and Shoreline. Lake City and Bitter Lake are the biggest neighborhoods north of Northgate. They both have seen the kind of growth that Downtown Redmond has seen. Link serves neither. Hell, it doesn’t even serve Pinehurst. To be fair Pinehurst is pretty small and has multiple tiny hubs. But at least there is something there. At Pinehurst Pub you likely pass the test for a fifteen minute city, especially if your list includes Ethiopian food and a really good Taco truck (and it should). In contrast they are building the station in the middle of nowhere. It has no history and is about the worse place to create an urban hub (it is right next to the freeway). If not for Link it would make no sense to develop there.

        The same goes for Shoreline. The 155th and Aurora area looks very much like Downtown Redmond did just a few years ago. It already has some big apartment buildings — the mall just needs an upgrade. It is in a pretty good location too as it is not that far of a walk to Shoreline Community College. It is pretty easy to imagine the area transformed like so many suburban areas around the region (and that includes Seattle). But Shoreline can’t focus their efforts on Aurora while ST builds Link next to the freeway. So instead of Link being the final piece that results in that area becoming a little urban center it sits in limbo while Shoreline is busy trying to develop around the stations as well. Speaking of which, the development around 148th is clearly a case of TOD because it simply would not exist without Link. But that doesn’t mean it is good planning. Shoreline is stuck trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, desperately trying to transform what is basically a set of freeway ramps into a community center. That development should have happened at 155th & Aurora (and would have if they had put the station there).

        Same goes for the neighborhood of North City. It is not that built up but it is clearly a center of development — a hub for activity. But Link doesn’t serve it. I’m not saying it should, but ST failed to connect areas with real potential, let alone ones that have been developing for years. Instead the attitude has been “We’ll build our stations here and you just deal with it. Build around it as best you can.”

        Hell, that is happening in Ballard! Ballard is one of the great urban success stories of Seattle. I had a friend who grew up in Seattle visit recently (after about a decade living in New York) and she remarked “Have you seen Ballard lately? It is like Brooklyn!”. There is a strong, urban community there and yet ST is basically ignoring it. They will instead build over to the east in hopes that the area around there will be developed. It probably will but still leaves the heart of Ballard without a station despite the line being named after it.

        The problem is not that communities haven’t developed it is that ST has largely ignored them. Downtown Redmond is an exception — good job ST for actually running Link to it.

      9. I thought the gist of the Seattle Times article was that Redmond thought they may have a shot at convincing Sound Transit to extend Link to downtown Redmond, so they went all out in transforming their downtown into a place Sound Transit couldn’t say no to. The thought of Link lit a fire under them. That’s what sent reimagining downtown in motion.

        If Link didn’t exist at all, but there was still Microsoft in Redmond, I don’t think downtown Redmond would look anything like it does today. Maybe it would be a quarter to a third of what it is today. I do agree with Ross that large multifamily development happens all the time, even without the promise of light rail, or sometimes even any transit. Look at the Redmond Hill apartments near Marymoor Village. I think it was built in around 1987. At one point, I think it was the largest garden-style apartment complex in the state. And that’s a development that was built not only without the promise of light rail, but even without nearby regular Metro bus service.

    2. I think the more critical date for FWLE is the day when out of service trains can operate from the East OMF. FWLE could open first as long as trains can easily get there — regardless of if the final East Link stations are opened or not.

      Similarly, the peak crowding through Snohomish and North Seattle could also be eased by using trains stored at the East OMF. That’s especially true if the full 2 Line trains are in service on this segment during testing but before the stations open.

      Several rail openings were significantly delayed due to new problems revealed in testing, like BART to East San Jose and WMATA to Dulles. So the commencement of testing is still not a guarantee of meeting the planned opening month.

      But getting East OMF accessible looks to me as the more important accomplishment as all the other projects rely on having those additional train sets available (not just a full 2 Line)..

    3. The Club World Cup is just over a month away, and still not getting respect.

      With huge crowds expected from Paris, Madrid, Milan, Buenos Aires, Rio, and Japan coming to town, I hope all the special maintenance impacts are behind us.

  2. Was on the G yesterday and paid attention to the signals. Bus was hitting every single light and waiting through the whole cycle. These aren’t optimized or triggered at all for buses, this is just your standard lights on a cycle with synchronization of the traffic light network on the street in the same way 2nd Ave or Aurora is synced.

    1. That happened to me Friday. I’d come from Pike Place Market and took the G instead of a Pine Street bus to Trader Joe’s, because it’s more frequent, faster, and more pleasant. I took a 3rd Ave bus (H) to Spring and went to the G stop at 3rd & Spring around 5pm. The wait was 8 minutes (should be 6), and the next bus was 2 minutes later, so there was some bunching. A car was sitting in the bus lane near 1st. The bus came, and managed to miss practically every stoplight to 17th. I didn’t know if there was a protest at the Federal Building; the people Thursday had said they’d “be back tomorrow”. The Thursday one had thrown off the G, because I heard a dispatch announcement on another route saying any bus coming to relieve the G should go to 1st & Seneca instead of 4th & Seneca (indicating that that part of 2nd that had been closed was reopened). But the bunching could have been more of its long-term problems. As for missing the lights, that puzzled me. I guess the peak-hour congestion slowed it down enough to just miss the lights. There weren’t any other cars in the bus lanes but the surrounding cars may affect it somehow.

    2. Yeah I can’t tell if there is any priority. The light at Spring and 6th is particularly bad; freeway traffic gets to go before the bus.

  3. “The Spoke [at Marymoor Village station] has 0.71 parking spaces per unit. If a tenant wants one, it’s $60 a month”

    Wow. In my building on Capitol Hill parking is at least $250 a month.

    1. This shows just how much Sound Transit is under-charging for parking. Right next to a garage where parking goes for $60/month, Sound Transit is giving away parking in another garage for free.

      That said, any kind of a price on parking is still a big change on the eastside. I was expecting two parking space per unit, completely free, even right next to Link.

    2. $60 sounds low, but I guess since it is a new apartment in a newly developed area, the management would do anything to drive down its vacancy rate.

    3. What are the prevailing parking rates in recent mixed-use buildings in Bellevue and Kirkland?

      1. I have a friend who pays $250 a month to park in Bellevue. I don’t know if that is typical; they live in an expensive unit in the middle of downtown.

        From what I’ve seen parking in Kirkland is typically included in rent, though I’ve seen a handful of places charge $100 or $150.

  4. The parking at big-boxes is horrendous, for sure.

    Given a huge expansion of the hospital, Mary Bridge, near my house that includes a massive new parking garage, I am asking myself, is it really essential that hospitals have all the parking? Especially one on a frequent transit line (T-Link)?

    I don’t have an answer, but it really does seem like hospitals have way more parking capacity then they could ever use. Sure, the surgeon rushing to the emergency room needs a parking spot. But does every nurse, janitor and visitor also need a spot? Or from what I’m seeing, 3 spots for every job and visitor? I’m not sure what the regulations are around hospitals and parking, but I’ve never seen any of the structures even close to capacity, which makes it bizarre they spending 10s of millions building more.

    1. Considering how short Tacoma Link is, I doubt it’s relevant to more than a tiny fraction of hospital workers’ commutes. I suppose they could park at Tacoma Dome and ride Tacoma Link as a last-mile shuttle, but it’s less convenient (and essentially the same amount of VMT) as them driving directly to the hospital, plus I’m not sure how much spare parking capacity Tacoma Dome has, with all the commuters going to Seattle.

    2. Agreed. Tacoma transit sucks.

      But I count at least 2 square blocks of surface parking and 3 very large parking structures. The visitor lot accessed at MLK and 5th is generally well used, but the staff lots are not. The top levels are empty:

      https://maps.app.goo.gl/se9odCgk4AJFw8yx8

      I walk by them, and it’s not a trick of the satellite.

      If you provide ample, free parking to staff, they will drive. They will not advocate for transit. There is no push to move to a more environmentally sustainable transportation model.

      Also, this is a highly resource-rich area. Parks, grocery stores, post office, pharmacies, hospitals (obviously), restaurants, bars all within easy walking distance. This is actually incredibly rare in Tacoma.

      They should be building housing, not car storage.

      1. And I forgot to mention they are building a 4th monstrous parking structure on that construction site on on 5th and M in the map. With the others not close to capacity. Madness.

  5. Upcoming articles: Monday will have another article in the ridership series, and Wednesday the weekly roundup. Thursday there may be a Redmond-related article, but the main Link opening article will be Friday so that people can plan their logistics for Saturday. Saturday will be article-free as we’ll all be in Redmond, and then Sunday we’ll write about our experiences.

    I haven’t seen any media preview ride, sorry to disappoint Sam. But we’ll see it all Saturday so I’m not concerned about that.

    The following week, a new Friday series will debut, something lighter-weight and more interactive than what we’ve done before. “Interactive” meaning asking a question for the commentariat to consider. So there will be regular articles Sundays (movie), Wednesday (roundup), and Fridays (new series), and then other articles will go in between whenever they’re ready.

  6. The trail between Marymoor Village and Downtown Redmond is now open, as well as the plazas at both stations. Crossing SR 520 feels so nice now. The trail section from 170th to the actual Downtown Redmond station is still temporarily closed, but NE 76th St right next to feels comfortable to walk/bike on. There is an amazing amount of TOD everywhere. In Marymoor, 176th Ave NE has new bike lanes now, buffered on one side and parking protected on the other. The new 173rd Ave NE (the street going north-south directly in front of the station, close to Marymoor Park) is marked closed only by a sign, so pedestrians/cyclists can already get a sneak peek. Everything looks great and I’m super excited!

    2. Thanks Sunny. It truly is an amazing transformation in downtown Redmond. I can’t wait to check it out.

    3. Downtown Redmond is so much nicer to walk around than Downtown Bellevue. It feels like at every step, Redmond tried to make things nicer for pedestrians, and Bellevue just hoped pedestrians would go away.

      1. Doesn’t anybody remember Clinique Girl anymore? The Bellevue Squares will do anything to keep the Factoria Trash out of their turf.

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