Another East Link connection disruption: From 10pm on Saturday, June 7, through end of service on Sunday, June 8, 1 Line service between Capitol Hill and SODO will be replaced by shuttle buses operating every 10-15 minutes. Trains north and south of downtown Seattle will run every 15 minutes.
Tonight: The Urbanist and other orgs in the MASS Coalition are hosting a Seattle District 2 candidate forum focused on transportation and land use issues. 6-8:30pm at the Centilia Cultural Center (Beacon Hill). RSVP here.
Local Transit News:
- Metro’s gradual return to fare enforcement now includes issuing “a warning, fine or an alternative resolution” on a three-strikes system (The Seattle Times, $). Details on Metro’s website.
- Pierce Transit’s summer service returns to the Gig Harbor Waterfront with Route 101 running half-hourly on Thursdays and weekends from June 7 to August 28. To get to it from Tacoma Community College, take Route 100 to the Kimball Drive P&R and transfer to the 101.
- Dow Constantine served a buzzword salad in his announcement of an agency-wide “enterprise initiative” to “really rethink the way we plan and we provide board members with the tools to drive the agency forward” (The Urbanist). Perhaps this is how CEO Constantine expects to achieve a “thoughtful update” (instead of a “reset”) of Sound Transit’s strategic direction.
- Maritza Rivera (D4) wants to add more public process in front of permit approvals for ST projects in Seattle (The Urbanist). The proposal will be voted on today.
- WSDOT’s Revive I-5 work kicks off this summer – here’s how you can keep moving in Seattle (SDOT Blog)
Land Use & Housing:
- Kenmore Considers McMansion Tax in Zoning Overhaul (The Urbanist)
- Judge Upholds Burien’s Total Ban on “Camping,” With Appeal Likely (PubliCola)
- Judge Dismisses Last-Ditch Challenges of Draft Seattle Growth Plan (The Urbanist)
- Affordable Housing Providers are Losing Money and Selling Their Buildings. But is Eliminating Eviction Protections the Answer? (PubliCola)
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- Lawsuit blames oil companies for woman’s Seattle heat-dome death (KUOW)
- Sound Transit’s preparations for the arrival of the FIFA Club World Cup in Seattle with six matches at Lumen Field between June 15 and June 25 (The Platform)
This is an Open Thread.
Constantine says the board needs “iterative” “tools” from staff. WTF?
I like how WSDOT is stomping on two of the last three FIFA Club World Cup games by scheduling simultaneous lane closures on the Ship Canal.
Way to go WSDOT!!!! (Not).
But hey, just take Link. It will be the only travel mode that isn’t severely impacted by the resulting congestion chaos.
PS: I cant wait for the Sounders to beat PSG.
The N Line (formerly known as North Sounder) will also serve all but the first match in Seattle (and will have a trip to Seattle earlier in first day).
Amtrak might also have some seats left, too.
Youth 18 and under ride free, but need to acquire a (free) ticket to ride Amtrak.
If someone can explain the bicycle parking options, that is above my pay grade.
As an aside, the Seattle Opera, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Paramount Theater, and 5th Ave Theater all offer discounts for youth tickets. The Vancouver Whitecaps do so, too. Has anyone managed to acquire a youth discount for Sounders or FIFA matches?
The FIFA Club World Cup games will be over by the time the closures start. The last game in Seattle is June 25. The northbound main line will be closed down during two weekends (July 19/20 and August 16/17). In between these weekends there will only be two northbound lanes. The express lanes will be northbound the entire time (24/7).
Very few buses go over the ship canal right now. None of them run during the weekends so the closures don’t matter. All run only during rush hour and all but one run peak-direction (south in the morning and north in the evening). The one exception is the ST 586 which runs to the UW every morning and the reverse every evening. It will be fine — it will just use the express lanes to exit in the U-District. The peak-only buses are the ST 510, 535 and Metro 303, 322. These should be fine (and basically unchanged) in the evening since they run in the express lanes. In the morning it will be a problem since the express lanes will be running the wrong direction. There are no HOV lanes on the main line so not only will there be more traffic but they will be stuck in the worst of it. Link will likely be a better alternative.
Big evening events (like ball games) won’t impact transit (over the ship canal) because the buses will be OK in the evening. It is also quite possible that this won’t be as bad because people will expect it to be horrible. I expect the newspapers to play this up. It definitely is a big deal. But as a result more people will work from home (along with people naturally taking that time off since it is summer). If I regularly took the 510 to work during this time I would probably take the bus once just to see how bad things get. If it really does take forever to get downtown (which wouldn’t surprise me) then I would switch to Link.
I doubt attendance will be that much greater than a normal Sounders game, if that, given that FIFA is slashing ticket prices due to lackluster sales. For the games that don’t involve the Sounders, attendance is going to be paltry.
I wish Metro would start running its new routes that connect to the existing 2 line to make it more useful. What’s the holdup on 931, 251, 222, and swapping service in Medina for the freeway stations on 270?
A lot of the new routes were based on the savings that come from truncating routes going across the lake. Others were based on sending more buses to Link locations like Mercer Island and South Bellevue. Some of those changes would still make sense but some of them wouldn’t. If you made all of the changes it would result in a network that would be worse in a lot of ways.
You could make some of the changes but what you really want is a network for this interim period. But the gap between the starter line and full service across the lake was supposed to be about a year*. It also wasn’t clear if Downtown Redmond would open with the full East Link (across the water) or sooner. Given the fairly limited gap (roughly a year) and the potential for other changes, Metro decided not to restructure during this interim period. I think this is perfectly reasonable given the temporary and fluid nature of the situation. Riders will basically have to tough it out until East Link is complete.
*In this document they show the starter line as opening in Spring 2024 and the full East Link (from Downtown Seattle to Downtown Redmond) as opening in Spring 2025: https://www.soundtransit.org/blog/platform/update-link-projects-construction
When 271 becomes 270, it will be less frequent during the peak if its peak frequency is really just 15 minutes as stated in Route 270 factsheet.
271 nowadays is speeding as hell passing through Medina because very few people board/debeard west of 100th Ave NE and traffic is usually light in Medina, so I don’t know how much faster it will be when it shifts to Bellevue Way.
It certainly will cover more area along Bellevue Way, which is a good thing, but I just don’t know if there is much for existing 271 riders to look forward to…
271 picks up a surprising number of people in the Medina area… at least more than one might think. Its kind of a slow area IMO.
Some serious HOV enforcement is needed on the Montlake Lid and HOV ramps because that’s becoming a slow part of the route which should be a fast stretch if not for HOV violators. It would be very easy to enforce on the off-ramp at the Lid as cars come to a stop at the stop sign.
“Some serious HOV enforcement is needed on the Montlake Lid and HOV ramps because that’s becoming a slow part of the route which should be a fast stretch if not for HOV violators. It would be very easy to enforce on the off-ramp at the Lid as cars come to a stop at the stop sign.”
I’ve noticed it too. If HOV is too difficult to enforce, maybe it needs to be strictly bus only, with red paint. I’m ok allowing tech company shuttles, but the number of private cars is clearly way too many.
It will be nice for riders living in lakemont.
it will be less frequent during the peak if its peak frequency is really just 15 minutes as stated in Route 270 factsheet
Yeah, that seems really bad. But the specifics on these routes can change. It was clear that the 270 was one of those buses that could use extra service (a lot of people mentioned that when they looked at the restructure plans). So if they find a little extra money it wouldn’t surprise me if it goes to that bus.
I’ve been using the new transfer station at Montlake several times a week and I’ve repeatedly noticed 271 drivers using the old cloverleaf loop for access to 520 eastbound. I’m waiting for the 255, so it doesn’t mess with my commute; but the people waiting for the 271 are getting pretty frustrated. It happened again this morning, June 4th, almost 2 months since the transfer station opened.
@Poncho
Yeah it does have more people than I realized. I guess part of it is because 271 is frequent.
Delay at Mountlake Blvd is pretty bad sometimes. I once was stuck at lid stop for more than 10 minutes. Not sure if it is an HOV cheater problem, but I do notice that the intersection of Mountlake Blvd at HOV access contributes to a huge delay. The intersection is not signalized at WB approach (there is no signal head for HOV from westbound). I guess the idea is that HOV/buses can turn right when the paralleled off-ramp from 520WB is in green phase, which is true when it is not congested.
During PM peak, the traffic in Mountlake spills back bad, so this set up gives GP off-ramp priority to join the Mountlake queue and HOV and buses barely have a chance to turn right to Mountlake Blvd. If there is a protected signal phase for the westbound HOV acces, I think the HOV ramp congestion can be relieved a lot.
Is the northern portion of ST Express 556 going away for sure? It seems like Metro would get the word and backfill 270 service with enough runs to make up for the eliminated 556 service.
That said, I’m not sure eliminating ST Express 510, 515, 545, 550, and 556 will yield enough operators to extend the 2 Line ca. 50 minutes or so in length (which would happen a couple months or more before the bus route restructure).
“Yeah, that seems really bad. But the specifics on these routes can change. It was clear that the 270 was one of those buses that could use extra service (a lot of people mentioned that when they looked at the restructure plans). So if they find a little extra money it wouldn’t surprise me if it goes to that bus.”
To me, the real problem is the capacity. I think if 270 runs 15-min headway during peak period but with 90 % of trips in articulated buses, I’d be totally fine.
Right now there seems to be a 60-ft fleet shortage in KCM, so I am not sure if KCM will run more 60-ft buses on 270 or see this as an opportunity to reassign some of the DE60LFR to other bases to fill the shortage created by retiring RapidRide fleets.
It seems like ST Express won’t need as many as 60-ft they are running on cross-lake routes today. It will be interesting to see how those fleets will be handled after the eastside network restructure is implemented.
It seems like Metro would get the word and backfill 270 service with enough runs to make up for the eliminated 556 service.
Those are two different agencies with two different budgets. To answer your question though, I don’t think ST has said one way or another what will happen with the 556. There are no ST Express buses listed in the current version of East Link Connections (https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/east-link-connections). Some of the maps show ST Exprees routes but I don’t see the 556. I have some old links to ST Express buses that they were planning on changing (i. e. the 555 — https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/554.pdf) but a similar link doesn’t work for the 556. I think everyone assumes they will truncate the bus but they haven’t so far.
If “a recently-tapped ORCA Card” is acceptable, is it okay if it was for a different agency? Or a different Metro route?
What happens if I fail to tap, and then don’t have ID with me (or simply refuse to show it)?
It has to be with the specific agency. A sound transit tap doesn’t give any money to metro. They want a metro tap.
As for refusing ID, from the conversations I have had with fare enforcement they will remove you from the bus.
*At least that’s what they said they’ll be doing. I haven’t seen it in action yet.
It has to be with the specific agency.
Yes, which is an obvious flaw with the system. The agencies could do some simple modeling (or just come to a revenue sharing agreement) but instead they insist that riders tap every time. To be fair, most buses don’t have all-door boarding or proof-of-payment. They require you to pay at the front. So failing to tap at the front would be strange and send a bad signal to other riders. It would be like someone with an unlimited monthly pass failing to tap at the front of a bus. They aren’t really costing Metro any money (other than the potential for an aforementioned split of revenue) but it is not a good signal for the rest of the riders.
Where the current system gets silly is with other proof-of-payment lines. If you take Link to downtown and then catch the RapidRide D you are supposed to tap for the D Line. This can be on the bus or at one of the readers nearby. In contrast if you C and transfer to the D you don’t need to tap (at least in theory).
The tapping is also very important for travel data, to help planners understand ridership and trip pairs. It’s not just about revenue collection.
Boarding and alighting data is mostly based on Automatic Passenger Counters. That is how they can calculate alighting data (since you don’t have to tap when you exit). This is also why we don’t have trip data. We can count the number of people boarding and alighting at particular stops but we can’t determine how many people ride a particular combination.
“We can count the number of people boarding and alighting at particular stops but we can’t determine how many people ride a particular combination.”
That’s true about APC data but there is a way to add to the entry-exit information using Bluetooth records from station entrances and exits. All out cell phones double as trackable devices. It costs money but anytime ST or Metro want these data they can pay for it.
Here’s an article from UW talking about it. The article is now 9 years old.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2016/01/20/bluetooth-and-wi-fi-sensing-from-mobile-devices-may-help-improve-bus-service/
The method isn’t able to capture every rider like an APC, but enough people travel with cellphones emitting Bluetooth signals that it’s easy to adjust the counts as needed.
Oh it can also be parsed by time of day too.
@Ross Bleakney
The APC is really crap for more precise data collection unfortunately. IIRC it counts everything, including security, fare ambassadors, multiple riders, bicycles, strollers, etc all as individual boardings.
The APC is really crap for more precise data collection unfortunately.
Yeah, but I think ORCA card data is not precise either. A significant number of people (e. g. all those under 19) are not supposed to pay. They are supposed to use ORCA cards but many figure it isn’t worth the bother. Cash fares and paper transfers can’t be tracked either. Ultimately you have to do some statistical analysis based on observational data (and the other sources) to get a really accurate account. Ultimately it probably doesn’t matter. If one bus gets twice as many riders as the other bus it doesn’t matter if both are off by 10%.
I can see the value of tracking ORCA data because it offers other information. It has information like whether the pass is employer-paid, where the riders live, low-income ridership, etc. But I’ve never been able to get that data. It certainly isn’t revealed to the public in any meaningful way. They don’t use it to determine whether a route has a high percentage of low-income riders (even though that would seem to be a very useful thing to know). If the data is hidden in the basement somewhere it is hard to see it actually being valuable.
So far, I have seen the ambassadors skip anyone claiming to be under 19.
“That’s true about APC data but there is a way to add to the entry-exit information using Bluetooth records from station entrances and exits.”
Bluetooth and WiFi-sensing are all part of Location-based service (LBS) data. I believe it is only capturing a sample of trips. That could be good enough if you are studying OD pattern or travel time reliability assuming sampling process is random, but since it is not counting every signal, it cannot replace APC. Also, the bar for leaving a trail in LBS dataset is too low. to a degree that it is no longer a good way to identify a person trip anymore. That’s why traffic forecast prefers connected vehicle data nowadays.
It is not this cheap to get this kind of data in reality. The cost in the UW article is the cost for you to start a business with all the academic knowledge backing you. It is unlikely for KCM or ST develop such system in-house. If they procure from a vendor, it is a lot more expensive.
I think one reason that agencies are using APC is probably because this works better for their data reporting requirement to National Transit Database.
@Brent White,
It’s just not that hard.
You are supposed to tap every time you board. Just do that and everything will be OK.
I’m slowly coming around to the idea that penalties for fare evasion should be increased. I have no trouble with the idea of forced deboardings.
Theft is theft.
You are supposed to tap every time you board.
That doesn’t apply to Link, obviously. You tap when you enter the station. With RapidRide you can tap on the bus or tap at a bus-stop ORCA reader. But for a regular bus you should tap as you board (every time).
Monthly passes are monthly passes.
The ambassador should say “I see you have a monthly pass, Thank you, and please remember to tap next time.” Then the ambassador can record the encounter for the back-office monthly revenue distribution.
And then they have time to get to the actual fare evader at the back of the bus or middle of the train car.
You’re not paying Sound Transit for your pass. You pay ORCA. You disperse your ticket based on your taps. Invalid fare is invalid. It only takes a quarter second to tap and if you ride regularly it really isn’t hard to get into the habit of having your orca as you approach the station.
Not tapping your pass is evasion just the same as not buying a ticket and represents more revenue lost to whatever agency than the person who legitimately cannot pay at all in the back. Special treatment isn’t fair to people who cannot buy the pass for whatever reason. Just tap your card.
@Brent White,
Monthly pass or not, none of the transit agencies get paid until you actually tap. Only after tapping does the agency get paid out of your account. Fail to tap, and the agency doesn’t get paid. You have committed theft and should be subject to the consequences.
And it just isn’t that hard. Tap every time and you are in total compliance. It’s easy. And tapping generates data that the agencies use to inform routing decisions. It’s a win-win.
Having a monthly pass doesn’t make you special, or above the law. Just tap.
Sometimes I wish the fare ambassadors carried tasers. I bet fare compliance would go up.
Monthly passes are monthly passes.
That is the way it should work. But again, that is not the way it works. The agencies could agree on how to divvy up monthly pass ORCA money in a fair manner. But they don’t. Instead they calculate each and every tap and then divvy it up based on that. This means that if you don’t tap to get on Link you shortchange Sound Transit. If you don’t tap to get on Metro you shortchange Metro. It does seem silly but that is the way the system works. As a result it is essential that you tap even if you have a monthly pass.
The agencies get paid a percent of your monthly pass or e-purse transfer period depending on the relative number of taps they get compared to other agencies and the fare levels. One tap may or may not be enough to make a significant difference in the percent. If both fares are $3 and one day you forget to tap ST and the next day you forget to tap Metro and you don’t use any other agencies, then they cancel each other out and ST and Metro get paid the same amount as if you’d done both taps.
I always try to tap and have an ORCA passport. Unfortunately on some busy routes/stops at busy times with packed buses you have to board back doors (or say a mobility device is boarding/deboarding at front door) and not all buses are equipped with rear door ORCA readers… so a missed tap.
@D M,
If your goal as a fare ambassador is to maximize fare income for the agency, I don’t think ST’s approach of accusing monthly passholders of theft makes any sense. The agency could easily count missed taps by such passholders, extrapolate that to how many missed taps that would be among all boardings, and agree among ST, Metro, and CT to accept each other’s data for their fare-inspected services.
ST (and maybe Metro and CT, but I’ve only heard about accusing passholders who have clearly and obviously pre-paid of theft as being a thing on ST) has made a lot of extra counterproductive work and stress for fare ambassadors.
When someone with an activated pass (and I recognize that a not-yet-activated pass does not count as proof of prepayment) is encountered by a fare ambassador, the most useful thing to say would be something like “I see you have a pass sir/ma’am. I have to give you a friendly reminder to tap when you board / enter the station. But thank you for purchasing a pass!” Then tap the card so the agency does get its fare share of revenue for that ride, and add it to the count needed for the back-end correction among the agencies.
As an aside, the “fair share of revenue” argument is kinda baloney on ST’s part at the moment. I still see lots of Link riders reflexively tapping a second time as they exit the station. I am guessing there are a lot more of those than there are passholders who failed to tap. But I digress.
If ST thinks monthly passes should cost more, then bringing that up at the ORCA Pod is a much more appropriate approach than passive-aggressively having fare ambassadors accuse passholders of theft, in hopes those riders stop buying monthly passes.
I’m the meantime, passholders can reward the agencies they deem to be providing the best service by tapping a second time on the way out.
If I see an operator wearing a mask, I will start tapping a second time as I exit the bus (if there is a reader there). Sure, that will be to ST’s detriment, but they kinda deserve it for asking their fare ambassadors to engage in poor customer service. But in fairness, I will do likewise for ST if the fare ambassador checking my fare is wearing a mask. (I’m using my appreciation of wearing a mask as an example, not to start a sidebar on the efficacy of masks, for which I have ample personal experience to know N95s work as advertised.)
@D M,
This should be easy, but I think you have your work cut out for you. Unfortunately.
Good luck!
The issue with the tap is so that the agencies can 1. validate their ridership tracking and 2. apportion the fare between the agencies based on the trip that was taken. In other words, if you ride Link ($3) and then transfer to Metro ($2.75), that $3 trip is split between those two agencies. Or three ways if it was Community Transit ($2.50) to Link to Metro, splitting the highest fare as a single charge between the three.
Yes, and I’ve mentioned several times the splitting of the fares this way is completely unnecessary. They could calculate it based on the ridership data. Ridership data is mostly based on Automatic Passenger Counters. I could see using the ORCA data as a way to verify the counters but it is hard to see monthly passes impacting it significantly. There is bound to be some level of error. Someone taps but it doesn’t seem to work. The driver lets them on. A parent taps but doesn’t tap for their kid (who rides for free either way). Neither system is 100% accurate.
The only value I could see is tracking low-income ridership but given the agencies never seem to share the ORCA data it isn’t clear they are doing anything more than divvying up the proceeds from the monthly fares (which is a silly way to do it).
@CS,
Counting tap failures by passholders and extrapolating is much faster than issuing warnings and threats to passholders, and frankly, far superior customer service, as well as advertising a benefit of passes that they ought to have. Please cease and desist threatening passholders.
Sorry if this is your first time responding to this debate, but we have been offering this simple solution for nearly 16 years.
Oh, and thank you for not tazing your most devoted customers.
“Oh, and thank you for not tazing your most devoted customers.”
WTF, did you really need to say that. That’s pretty uncalled for when no one implied that in the first place.
@Brent White,
It really isn’t that hard; “If you ride, you must tap.”
I don’t really understand why you have so much trouble with that. It’s pretty simple and it’s a really small thing. And it is the policy.
Don’t tap and you are stealing from whichever agency’s services you are using. That is pretty simple too.
Not taping is fare evasion. And there is also a policy for how to deal with fare evaders. I wish it was stricter and more strictly enforced, but maybe someday.
But holding a monthly pass doesn’t make you special or above the law. You still need to tap. For a variety of very valid reasons.
But your obstinance on this issue makes a very good case for one thing — fare gates! I wish American society hadn’t degenerated so much that we need such things, but if that is where we are, then so be it. Bring on the fare gates!
Oh, and if we start adding fare gates in a mixed open/gated system, then the gated stations should be tap-in and tap-out. That way if a scofflaw boards without tapping at an open station and travels to a gated station, the scofflaw must pay the legal fare to exit the station.
I’ve seen it done in Europe and it works quite well. Simple and quick.
Brent is correct. The notion that someone who paid is guilty of theft is absurd. The system can even tell you paid. You have zero right to call someone who paid and forgot to tap a thief. End of story.
@Pete S,
He’s wrong. Dead wrong. Failure to tap is defined legally as theft, and the enforcement mechanisms treat it as such.
It hey, the enforcement process is long, with lots of warnings, and has plenty of off ramps to things like remedial education. I doubt he will ever see jail time.
People can say whatever they want, but it does not make it true.
L’s suggestion that ambassadors threaten to taze passholders is in a different WTH category. Ambassadors did not sign up for threatening violence.
Revising the revenue split to take into account the number of tap failures by passholders observed by ambassadors is far less expensive than installing fare gates. Nor can Metro install a fare gate at each bus door.
If L has a reason he wishes to see fewer riders buy monthly passes, I wish he would just say it.
I hope L accidentally misses a tap some day, is caught by the ambassadors, and is treated with more courtesy than he thinks he should get. Perhaps that has already happened, and the ambassadors did not point his “theft” out to him.
I bet if a case of a monthly passholder being threatened with fines or expulsion ever makes it to the state Supreme Court, I bet the court would side with the passholder’s clear and obvious prepayment, based on recent cases, even cases I thought ST should have won.
If such a case even makes it to a civil jury, I am pretty sure the passholder will win unanimously, and make bank on damages.
Also, in the case that CS laid out, the $3 agency would keep the first 25 cents for itself, it would split the next quarter with the $2.75 agency, and the remaining $2.50 would be split three ways, if they all occur within the same 2-hour transfer window. Oran wrote an awesome primer on the formula in the Way Before Times.
That said, the amount being split might be more or less than $3, when dealing with a monthly pass, usually less if the rider is riding enough to justify the money they spent on the pass.
In the case of ORCA Business Passport, the money being split might be much more, but still not worth tasing anyone over.
@Brent White,
I have never missed a tap (that I know of) and have always been 100% in compliance when checked.
Tapping just isn’t that hard. It’s what responsible individuals do.
And there is not one set of procedures for pass holders and another for non-pass holders.
But hey, some people get very nervous around people in uniform and authority figures. If you are one of those people, then the easiest way to avoid future stress and anxiety is simply to tap every time. And be respectively and courteous in all your dealings with fare enforcement and security staff.
I find such staff to be very friendly and helpful. They actually have a very hard job and deal with many very difficult individuals. I try to bend over backwards to make their task easier, or at least pleasant. And that starts with a simple tap.
Try it some time. It makes life better for everyone involved.
“L’s suggestion that ambassadors threaten to taze passholders is in a different WTH category.”
Where did Lazarus suggest ambassadors should taze people? You seem to be the only one talking about tazing.
@Mime Orr,
I did express the sentiment that I “sometimes wish” that fare inspectors were equipped with tasers, but that is certainly not the same as wishing they had to use them.
And it would be mainly for their own protection. Remember, I just witnessed a high school girl hit a security officer twice and get away with it. I think such behavior needs to be discouraged. Somehow.
And speaking of conduct, why isn’t “advocating for illegal behavior” part of the Code of Conduct for this blog? Seems like it should be.
@Lazarus We are not encouraging illegal behavior. We are pointing out that breach of protocol is a different and lesser crime than theft that should be accompanied by a different and lesser penalty, if any. You have now falsely accused us of encouraging illegal behavior and you have equated breach of protocol with theft.
“I have a monthly pass, so it doesn’t matter if I don’t tap!” This sounds like an entitled person.
@Sam,
You think?
I would prefer that we lived in a civil society where everyone followed the law, but if we are beyond that, then bring on the fare gates! At least Brent will be reminded to tap, and tap accurately.
But this would be a mixed open/gated system, so make the gated stations tap in/tap out. That way ST could catch the scofflaws coming and going. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
Fare gates would also mean youth would have to tap, either with a youth ORCA card or a registered school ID. That has certain advantages including:
1). It teaches good civics and “adulting”
2). It automatically enforces the age cutoff date.
3). It leaves an electronic record of where the youth last was, in case something bad were to happen.
4). It significantly eases the task of the fare inspector.
bring on the fare gates!
So you want to spend a bunch of money on fare gates even though it won’t prevent people from cheating. Someone could easily use their kid’s ORCA card to get around. So you would need extra fare verification at the gates (instead of the trains). Of course there are also fare jumpers. Then of course you will still need extra security on the trains themselves because you no longer have fare-enforcers serving in some capacity in that role. This is not a good idea for an agency that is looking to save money.
The people that annoy me when I am checking aren’t the homeless who have no capacity to pay, but people who do and are just too entitled to tap or too lazy. They often make my day much harder because they don’t care to follow the rules. Homeless people I interact with are, generally, much nicer than commuters who feel entitled to a service that they did not pay for at that moment.
If you do forget to tap and get inspected, do us all a favor and acknowledge you made a mistake, and take the warning. Everybody gets two and if you forget more than twice that’s on you.
@D M,
I’ve seen it. And I’ve seen it multiple times.
I’ve seen that rich tech dude with the laptop that suddenly hides his corporate ID, his wallet, and his laptop when the fare inspector comes onboard. And then claims that he can’t afford to pay, or lost his card, or whatever, and then says he has no ID either.
Absolute crap. And it annoys me just watching the process play out. I can’t imagine how the fare inspectors feel about it. Or even how they manage to handle it politely.
It’s so much easier if everyone just follows the rules and taps. It’s not a game. Everyone should be able to do this. It’s simple. If they just try.
And two warnings in a year is an easy standard to meet.
But interesting point about the homeless being more polite than the privileged. I guess that is just another sign of how far we have degenerated as a society.
@D M,
I wrote a long-winded response for you, but managed to post it in the next chain up. Sorry.
But thanks for expressing your feelings. You’ll probably get more empathetic ears here than from your agency’s management.
The Publicola article about the dire condition of low income housing in Greater Seattle is worth reading. Publicola doesn’t bother with looking for a solution of course, but something needs to done about public housing in the next year.
Seattle needs to invest a couple 100 million to low income housing that already exists and is peril before building anything new.
“Publicola doesn’t bother with looking for a solution of course”
You never bother with a solution either. You just tell people to move hundreds of miles away or buy a house.
Mike Orr,
Well, I’ll give you a solution. Spend the 50 million in new tax money pegged for “social housing” on rehabbing existing low income housing. Otherwise the total amount of affordable housing will take huge drop.
My educated guess is over the next 4-5 years, Seattle loses at least 3 units of traditional low income housing for every one new unit of social housing built. My contacts in the low incoming housing industry predict the loss of a couple thousand units of low income housing in Greater Seattle over the next couple of years…. it’s combination of loss of rental income from crazy renter protection laws, deferred maintenance by providers, loss of Federal and State money and landlords opting out of Section 8 housing,
Every single low housing provider in Seattle is in dire straights right now and the City budget is in the deep red. Expanding new programs should be out of the question with current providers in such deep trouble.
The PubliCola article to me is a complete indictment of “housing first” as a homelessness strategy. Before throwing money at providers we should consider why so many folks are being put in unsupervised housing when they’re clearly not well enough for it.
So many folks? It sounds like only a handful are causing problems. The people that are being hurt are the vast majority of those in the buildings. But at least these people have a place to stay. This is why the “housing first” strategy does work and has been successful across the country. Instead of spending a fortune trying to figure out why people can’t afford rent (which most of the time consists of “they poor”) they find them a place to live. Some of these people are trouble makers just like any renter can be a trouble maker. All this suggests is that you need additional money on top of that to deal with the people who have other problems on top of poverty.
In a general way this is how more sophisticated countries deal with the problem. First reduce poverty. Then deal with people who have other issues. In America the approach seems to ignore poverty while just jailing as many people as we can.
HousingNext,
Yeah, you’re right. “Housing First” just won’t work with hardcore druggie homeless people. How in the world does a “tenant” set their apartment on fire, not once, but twice and not be locked up in prison or an insane asylum?
From the Publicola article………….
Like Persons, Lee said LIHI has struggled to evict tenants who cause significant property damage. “We had a tenant who would just pile everything on the bed and light it on fire, and we couldn’t get them evicted,” she said. “In some cases, when we tried to get someone evicted, the response we get is ‘This person will become homeless, or this person has a mental health issue.’ …The problem is that they don’t consider other people in the building who are who are in harm’s way in if we keep an arsonist in the building.”
How can LIHI come up with 10s of thousands of dollars to make repairs for shit like this?
Science: https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Housing-First-Evidence.pdf
@HousingNext
The alternative to “housing first” is to have many more people living on the streets or spending much more money to house people in jail. To me it sounds like the issue is a handful of bad actors, and it appears HDC is already working with the city to solve that. From the article:
“All of the [proposed] changes, quite frankly, are very intentional,” HDC director Patience Malaba said. “They are informed by affordable housing providers who understand, from a mission perspective, the need to keep buildings operating while providing the right protection for tenants at the same time.”
“we should consider why so many folks are being put in unsupervised housing when they’re clearly not well enough for it.”
We know why. The US hasn’t been funding mental-health treatment and related housing adequately since the Reagan-era cuts and deinstitutionalization in the 1980s. The problem festers and gets worse and worse, and this is the state in 2025.
“How in the world does a “tenant” set their apartment on fire, not once, but twice and not be locked up in prison or an insane asylum?”
Because there aren’t any spaces in insane asylums, it costs a lot to house somebody in jail, and their crimes haven’t necessarily reached the level of life imprisonment.
Look, we need a lot of money to adequately house everybody. We also need a lot of money to fill the gaps in the mental-health system, not to mention other medical issues. Cities and states can’t do all that themselves, only the federal government can, and the federal government isn’t doing it. In the meantime cities are focusing on the housing issue because that’s an immediate universal human need. If people are misbehaving in their own rooms, it doesn’t affect everybody else as directly as if they’re misbehaving on the street, and the fact that they have a room and can sleep better might itself cure some of their problems.
There are two major strategies: “shelter first” with shelter and temporary housing, and “housing first” with permanent housing. The government first tried shelter first and then tried housing first. Given the government’s inability to build 5,000 permanent units right now this year for the current homeless, and 150,000 units next year for the backlog in the gap between income and housing, I’d say go back to shelter first and get people off the street, because shelter space costs less than permanent apartments, and then keep working on the longer-term goal of apartments for everybody.
John D
Besides dangerous behavior, the bigger problem is just non payment of rent. The margins are so slim on low income housing that residents have to pay rent in order for the system to remain solvent…
Tenant protection laws are killing outfits like LIHI and Community Roots.
I think it helps to differentiate between “low income housing” and “housing the homeless”.
The kind of housing best for someone varies widely by personal circumstances. Some are rational, well-behaved people who struggle financially. Others are so messed up on substances or have such serious mental health problems that they can barely function as responsible adults even if they are housed.
With such variability, it’s not enough to have a single program approach. Some sort of method to classify beneficiaries with the intent of assigning funds for solutions has to be undertaken. It sounds cruel to have to classify people, but I see this as the only way to be successful at remedying the challenge of unaffordable housing.
I also see that part of the solution has to involve supervision for some. We’ve accepted this general bias that everyone should be given autonomy within their home. But some people need to be monitored with compassionate oversight. That may involve directing housing options in more supervised, congregate settings for some people.
If you give a bird a nest but that particular bird cannot fly, the gift is not going to last long.
There is a differentiation in services.
If somebody is merely low income, they get a public housing unit or rent-subsidy voucher for an ordinary apartment or such.
If they’re more challenged, or need more support to hopefully get back on their feet and get a job, they go to home with onsite full-time social workers and other “wraparound” services.
If they’re prone to light their mattress on fire or assault other residents or destroy their neighbors’ things in a drug-induced haze, then they need a third kind of unit that doesn’t currently exist.
It’s hard to focus on one without spilling over into the others because all three are acute current needs.
On another matter, here’s a chance to test out going to Marymoor Park post-2 Line extension. The Seattle Orcas cricket team is having a Fan Fest this Sunday at Marymoor, to coincide with Redmond’s Big Backyard 5K/10K run/walk. I’m not exactly sure where in Marymoor the fan fest will be, let alone where the eventual cricket field will be, but I’d like to see how long a walk the event will be from the Marymoor Park Station. https://happeningnext.com/event/meet-your-seattle-orcas-2025-squad-at-marymoor-park-eid3a0cgk3bmn
Note: The team won’t have any actual “home” games this year; all of the leagues’ six teams will barnstorm in Oakland, Dallas and Broward County, as building cricket stadiums is still a new thing in this country. Marymoor will be the Orcas’ home stadium when it gets built in the next couple of years, and the plan is for NY, DC, San Francisco and LA to get their own fields eventually.
If they need to run shuttle buses so be it, but why are they also reducing service to every 15 minutes for an “East Link disruption?”
1 Line downtown replacement shuttles used to run every 10 minutes, but in the last few closures they’ve been running every 15 minutes. No reason is given; it’s probably just to save money. In the last closure the Link segments outside downtown were also running every 15 minutes instead of 10 minutes.
I remember the last batch of weekend work was every 12 minutes, no? But those northern segments went to Westlake, and I swear some of those every 12 minute trains were more crowded than normal trains that run through, because probably most people get off by Westlake anyway. That should’ve been every 10 minutes. To Capitol Hill probably should be every 12 minutes at least.
I’m guessing that people just aren’t riding the Link shuttles in significant numbers. Downtown, there are lots of KCM buses with more obvious schedules and pickup locations, plus you can see how long the wait is going to be on OneBusAway.
In some cases, the alternate route might bypass downtown Seattle entirely. For example, some people might take the 60 between Capitol Hill and Beacon Hill, or, perhaps, the 560 to the 2 line, rather than Link to the 542/545, if going from the airport to Redmond. Etc.
There are also undoubtedly many people who, when reading about the closure, will decide to abandon transit entirely, in favor of driving or Uber, although a few might shift to cycling, and some trips entirely within downtown might shift to walking. This, too, is reducing load on the shuttle buses.
@asdf2,
“There are also undoubtedly many people who, when reading about the closure, will decide to abandon transit entirely, in favor of driving or Uber”
I haven’t been directly affected by any of these planned interruptions, but the people I know who have been impacted either just stay home or take an Uber around the shutdown.
Basically they replace the three seat Link/shuttle/Link ride with a two seat Uber/Link ride. It seems to work fairly well and still avoids the high cost of taking an Uber all the way to the airport (for example).
Or they just postpone their trip entirely until after Link is back up and operating fully.
I probably wasn’t clear, but I mean why are they reducing the link frequency on the northern and southern halfs? I mean it’s bad enough they have to shut down some stations and run buses, but then why also cut frequency on the trains that are still running?
There’s no official reason, but the following makes sense to me: ST tries to run themselves like a for-profit business. Ridership will be much lighter if trains don’t go downtown, so to save on operations costs, they feel like they can get away with running trains at a lower frequency without overcrowding issues.
The frequency is cut on the northern half because there isn’t any access to a yard from start of service. All trains for that day of the disruption have to be stored north of CHS. So you are limited by that number.
https://vigor.net/news-press/vigor-completes-historic-hybrid-electric-conversion-of-washington-state-ferry-wenatchee
I’m excited to take a ride on the new Wenatchee and see how efficient and reliable the new propulsion system will be. I’m hoping it will be a smooth introduction process, but there are always some teething problems to go along with the usual cost overruns and schedule delays. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have an electric ferry and modern trains on the Cascades network next summer when the World Cup is being played in Seattle?
Does anyone have any explanation for the following … About a month ago, on two different days, I talked to two different rail workers on Mercer Island, who both told me that the South Bellevue to Mercer Island segment is 100% complete. So why am I still seeing workers working on various parts of the track and overhead? Just today, I saw two large trucks parking on the East Channel Bridge, on the tracks, doing some sort of work on the overhead wire. Then parked on the tracks on the island itself I saw a specialized piece of rail equipment, I believe called a Hydraulic Switch Tamper.
Either two different workers lied to me when they said that segment of track was 100% done, or, it was 100% done, but workers keep discovering new problems that need to be fixed.
The latest progress report (March 2025 issued in May 8, 2025) says this:
“Track remediation including rail shimming on the East Channel Bridge.”
Page 51 here —
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/system-expanion-status-report-march2025.pdf
I don’t have any engineering expertise, but normally there’s peripheral work all the way up until opening to finish station details, and that could include what appear to be work on the overhead. The workers may have meant the track is finished enough that test trains can run on it.
Northgate station and the ped bridge weren’t completely finished when they opened. It was obviously safe and usable or they wouldn’t have opened them, but the last details were completed in the following few weeks.
That lack of side netting on part of the bridge was scary. They could have waited a week to open the bridge. If someone had fallen…
The lessons of the Point Defiance Bypass disaster were already forgotten.
I can imagine that segment completely finished.
I even saw LRV once in Mercer Island (on Apr 11th) from the 550 I rode yet there was zero press coverage on that.
It was mainly complete a long while ago. They have been running occasional powered trains on it, but they aren’t going to do any thing like simulated service until they commit to an actual opening date for the cross lake segment.
The progress was covered in the press, but until there is an opening date people don’t really pay much attention.
Ah, yet again sound transit showing why a single downtown tunnel is a mistake. One maintenance event and we lose service for days. Image if we had 3 lines running under. Build that second tunnel !
St can’t even manage operations reliably in one tunnel. 2 tunnels sound great to all the zealots but construction and operation seem problematic at best and could become a fiasco.
Anyone know the deal with stop 515 ib pioneer Square? It has been closed for a few months and the reopening just got pushed again from June 9 to August 1. Is sound transit managing the work for sdot/ metro? I’ve no idea the passenger numbers but a lot of routes pass through there.
I have nothing to offer to your second paragraph.
But I would point out that Link disruptions are occurring more often commensurate with the longer lengths of the line. Having a second downtown tunnel means keeping one or two lines operating normally and isolating disruptions to the other tunnel’s line.
Interoperability between is a laudable goal. It’s the way systems should be designed. It’s implied in the ST3 maps.
The only problem is that ST is not only designing the 2 Line to never intersect with DSTT2, they aren’t designing the SODO Station area with good interoperability between 1 and 3 Lines either. There are currently no tracks planned in SODO adjacent to each other that run in the same direction. The only way I see them connecting is if a train is run through the OMF or can cross two tracks (meaning that trains coming in the other direction must be paused for a few minutes to enable the crossover).
So if something happens in either tunnel, trains cannot easily be switched. This pretty much makes your argument moot.
Also, there is only one segment in the preferred segment — Westlake to Pioneer Square — with both lines connecting. And there will be so many level changes between the platforms that a rider would be just as wise to just come to the surface and take one of the many Third Ave buses.
Having a second downtown tunnel means keeping one or two lines operating normally and isolating disruptions to the other tunnel’s line.
The extra line adds redundancy but the distance is so short, the transfers so bad and the bus alternatives so good that it doesn’t really matter. For example imagine if you are trying to get from Northgate to Belltown. The second tunnel is irrelevant. What about Northgate to CID? If the outage is limited to the area between Westlake and CID then the second tunnel might help. But it is also quite likely a rider would be better off just taking a bus at Westlake. Even you planned on using the other train as a temporary bridge (e. g. Northgate to West Seattle) it isn’t clear that the train is the best option. The train is faster but the buses are a lot more frequent.
This just doesn’t add much in terms of resilience. We probably lose more by making the agency less efficient. This means more track to support without more riders (probably fewer). Meanwhile, we lose a lot by forcing existing riders to transfer for everyday trips (like Northgate to SeaTac). It would be different if the line was longer (e. g. downtown to the UW via Eastlake). That would provide additional, meaningful coverage while also providing a backup for the main line on its busiest section. This does neither.
More fare enforcement can’t come soon enough. Would also love to see fare gates in link like those in LA