Brainstorming Fixes for ST3

170 Replies to “Brainstorming Fixes for ST3”

1. Using regular diesel-hybrid buses instead of electric buses might not up to the transit agencies.
   NFI has discontinued XDE60 model (diesel-electric 60-ft bus widely used by KCM). With Nova leaving the US, New Flyer is the only one that is making non-EV articulated bus in the US right now.

   It always hit me when I think about how a country like the US only has few transit manufacturers to choose from.

2. You wanted radical ideas, here’s a radical idea for Ballard: Refurbish and Extend the Monorail as Ballard Link. Automation might even be possible, as it would be completely elevated. This would be a MAJOR undertaking especially for Seattle Center, since the only real way would be for the monorail to run THROUGH the Armory building! But it might still come out cheaper than the tunneled plans for Ballard Link, and the area has proven up to the task with the Climate Pledge renovation.

   1. If only there were some sort of major construction project happening around there, say, a replacement of Memorial Stadium. Then, a revamped Monorail could make use of that work to find a path around the Armory to get to Republican, heading through LQA and down to a center-running elevated alignment down Elliott/15th West to Ballard. There’d still be the problem of crossing Salmon Bay, but it’s solvable.

      Meanwhile, the southern end could be extended down 4th Avenue all the way to SODO and then head over to West Seattle.

      Of course, we could have had something like that already close to running if the City had figured out how to finance the monorail system 20 years ago, but we love to tear down our own plans.

   2. Even replacing the Armory building would cost less than the difference between an automated elevated line and the tunnels ST is planning.

   3. We could call it the Green Line!

   4. I look at how the monorail is now over 60 years old, and frankly it needs a retirement strategy. That includes retirement for the structures that hold the tracks as well as the vehicles. It belongs in a museum — maybe with track — somewhere else.

      Then put an aerial automated guideway on rail onto a soon-to-be needed replacement structure and extend it to Ballard. Several billion dollars saved!

      It’s a great idea! It’s just needs a modern technology on new structures.

      Of course the new DEIS is due out in a few months and ST won’t reconsider anything about the project — especially that radical. ST has refused to consider any alternative beyond minor variations ever since ST3 passed. Then one day, they’ll roll out some worse idea and force it as “preferred” like they did in the ID.

      1. Innovative idea for sure. And of course unless it’s integrated with the existing network somehow, it would require a separate O&M base. That’s a challenge to overcome.

   5. It always impress me how fast I can get from Westlake to Seattle Center by monorail. The route is super straight and there is no stop on the way. Even if monorail mode is not sustainable in the future (due to lack of fleet replacement option or some sort), demolishing it and building standard gauge light rail along the monorail corridor today probably will still be cheaper than the Ballard Link alignment. It might not be perfectly ideal for SLU, but I think the money saved can probably make it up.

   6. Modern elevated rail would be faster than the monorail.

      The monorail is also running slower than it used to. I think it takes 90 seconds instead of 60 seconds or something like that, in order to avoid damage.

3. I’ll push again for my idea to keep WSLE but delete second SODO station. Instead, wait for OMF South to open first, then reconfigure the outer OMF Central tracks for revenue service, so that WSLE seamlessly uses existing track connections to connect with the 1 Line. Lynnwood-Alaska Junction station from Day 1, maybe turn back some trains at Northgate to save service hours.

   1. (And if ST does decide to build DSTT2, this is still compatible because this line was supposed to end up in DSTT1 anyway. Three lines will only have to run in DSTT1 in the interim period before DSTT2 is built.)

   2. I agree that the least disruptive way is to build WS Link in SODO is to tie the tracks into the existing OMF track switches and have a single center platform at SODO. It saves hundreds of millions and saves the busway too. It also virtually eliminates construction disruptions.

      Too bad that ST is too adamant to not build what they design — and rethink SODO. They would rather buy more property out, spend more money — only to make same direction transfers take two level changes, and add more elevators and escalators that will need ti be maintained going forward. Their engineering and architecture consultants want the added revenue from bigger design fees that come with bigger designs too!

      ST’s cultural motives: Spend! Disrupt! And then beg for more money by blaming it on “inflation”!

      Ever notice how ST’s agendas include more money for contractors to build Link at almost every Board meeting, but there never seems to be an agenda item to reduce a contracted scope and budget?

   3. Short Sunny: do not construct WSLE at all. Operate turnback trains from/to South Forest Street; first/last revenue station would be SODO at South Lander Street. Could retain and improve C and H Lines. Restructure remaining West Seattle bus network to serve SODO Link station via South Lander Street overcrossing that opened in 2020. SDOT owns and controls both the high and low level bridges over the Duwamish; it can provide transit priority. ST3 funds can be used to improve lines C and H and station interface; they could be used on lines D, E, and G as well. It is not a no build, as ST3 funds would used. D line could be extended to Northgate station via the Route 40 pathway; Route 40 could use the Route 61 pathway to Northgate. G line could be extended to Madison Park and swallow Route 11.

   4. I think that is up there (under don’t build DSTT2).

4. We need to take advantage of automated rail as much as possible. And run it with very high frequency. This will solve downtown travel issues significantly. Then we should prioritize higher speed rail and light rail through/out of Seattle, that connects to major transit centers with reliable feeder buses to nearby communities. Link could also be reliably automated for shortened segments, and it can save a huge amount of costs with some upfront investment as well as enable higher frequency reliable service.

   1. As for the parking issue,… we need parking. Many communities simply don’t have bus service or the ride is too slow. Either (1) improve the bus service or (2) promote carpooling/microtransit. Microtransit is bad but it’s better than single occupancy vehicles, and park and riders. Metro’s 2050 vision is good but nowhere near sufficient for most travelers. I have no bus service within a mile of my home, and even if I walk the whole two miles to get to the bus stop, I need another several hours to get anywhere meaningful. So there needs to be options for people to reach the transit spine… Aka park and ride.

      1. P&Rs cost $30K per parking space for a surface lot, up to $130K for a garage space. Is that a good use of limited transit money, when the space will only be used by an average of one car per weekday (filling it at 8am and leaving at 6pm, when demand for spaces drops precipitously). Only a small fraction of train riders can use P&Rs because there aren’t enough spaces for the rest of them unless we quadrupled the sized of the garages.

         For transit desert areas like your home, more bus routes could provide more cost-effective mobility than P&R garages.

      2. Parking is expensive, but feeder buses can be similarly expensive, depending on their ridership. For instance, if the feeder bus has a per-passenger subsidy of $10/boarding, that means that the subsidy for each passenger-round trip is $20/day, $400/month (assuming 20 weekdays per month), $4,800/year, or $144,000 for 30 years. This is roughly on par with the cost of garage parking, assuming each parking space serves one car per day, carrying one person, but may get people to the station in a way that is quicker or more reliable by not having to walk to the bus, wait for the bus, sit through stops where other people get on or off, or risk missing the train because a bus driver showed up to work late. And, also, in areas that are very sprawly, it is typically not feasible to run feeder buses everywhere.

         The counter-argument is would point out that parking spaces only serve people with cars, and only in the peak direction. If you don’t have a car, have a disability that prevents you from driving, if your car is in the shop, or if you’re traveling in the reverse direction, parking spaces simply don’t serve you, but feeder buses do. Because owning a car costs a lot money, “feeder buses serve people without cars” is also a strong equity argument. Then, of course, there’s land use. A feeder bus is compatible with the immediate station area containing homes and businesses, creating some semblance of weekend activity and nightlife. But, mass parking takes up so much space (because cars take up so much space), you end up with a big dead zone, outside the 9-5 commute crowed. Lastly, of course, everyone driving to the station in a separate car creates a lot of traffic around the station for everyone driving through the area. The only way to avoid this traffic is to limit the parking, and the only way to ensure that people without someone to drop them off can get to the station with limited parking is to run feeder buses.

         My personal opinion is a small amount of parking at station does make sense. Namely, ADA parking for disabled people, along with a waiting area for people picking people up are relatively cheap to provide. For everyone else, you can put in some parking and make it paid, but trying to put enough parking in to accommodate every single rider of the train is not worth it. However, the idea that RossB suggested, where you lease church parking along the route of the feeder bus is cheap, and makes a lot of sense.

      3. I should also that microtransit, I’m not really a fan of, as it more expensive to provide than either parking or feeder buses, while providing passengers a very unreliable service, as the wait times to get picked up with microtransit can be very unpredictable, depending on how many people are using the service at the moment. At least, with a fixed-route bus, you know when it is going to show up, and you know when it will get you to the station. For people that live at the end of long cul-de-sacs, leased parking at a church lot along the feeder bus route seems like a reasonable, pragmatic solution, along with limited, *paid* parking at the station for people that are in a rush.

      4. “if the feeder bus has a per-passenger subsidy of $10/boarding”

         A cost-effective bus needs just ten passengers an hour, and at 13 it uses less fuel than 13 SUVs. Even lightly-ridden coverage routes get that many or are close to it. The 906 (Southcenter-Fairwood) had 8 when I rode it on a Saturday afternoon from Southcenter to the Talbot Road, and that was just half the route and 18 minutes travel time. The Snoqualmie Valley Shuttle had 20 when I rode it last summer from Snoqualmie to Duvall, 55 minutes travel time.

      5. I think parking space is always desirable. If ST wants to drop the parking structure to reduce project spending, they probably still can find P3 partner to build and operate the parking lot. The private entity can decide how to run it and how to price it, but ST might need to set up some ground rules so the station parking’s pricing model won’t hurt transit attraction.

      6. I see the station parking garage planning as lacking in good demand analysis. Specifying exact numbers of cars for each garage in a referendum is arbitrary and wasteful. That’s what ST3 did at many planned stations. It should have listed much lower minimums rather than actual fixed numbers.

         It would seem better to quit having each garage listed on the ballot too. It should not be an either-or choice. Any decision to add a parking structure to anything beyond a bare minimum for ADA and short-term needs (drop off and pick up) should only be acceptable if warranted by analysis.

         And speaking of parking structures, how about all the free parking spaces occupied by vehicles outside of the ST district? The State should issue a different sticker for plates when the car owner paid extra to ST that entitles it to free or reduced station parking at stations. The other (non-district) vehicles can be charged for parking!

         Or maybe ST should get out of the garage building and operating effort altogether and let each city figure out what works best for them. If the cities are in the hook to build and maintain structures (like they are in suburban Boston) as part of a station area parking program, the parking program would be quite different.

      7. “It would seem better to quit having each garage listed on the ballot too.”

         The garages were listed to generate enough Yes votes in the suburbs for the measure to pass.

      8. if the feeder bus has a per-passenger subsidy of $10/boarding

         … it would be one of the worst feeder-buses ever built. The Bonney Lake- Sumner route (596) had a subsidy per boarding of less than $3. This is fairly normal for a feeder bus. The only buses that have a really high subsidy per boarding are really long (e. g. Dupont to Seattle). It spends a really long time picking up no one. But feeder buses do the opposite.

         Feeder buses also scale. If they become really popular you run them more often. You can combine them with other buses to provide more service for less money. If ridership goes down you can reduce service. In contrast a parking lot assumes a certain level of use. If it doesn’t reach that level you spent too much money on the project. If it exceeds that level you are stuck with unsatisfied customers are you are ending up running feeder buses on top of the park and ride.

         Park and ride lots make the most sense when they are small. Ideally you lease them from a church (when they would otherwise be empty on weekdays). Then you have a feeder bus stop there along the way while also serving other places.

         Remember the goal here is to reduce costs. This means you set the feeder service at a certain level and if you can’t park at the station so be it. You have still saved money. Meanwhile, other riders are better off.

      9. “The Bonney Lake- Sumner route (596) had a subsidy per boarding of less than $3. This is fairly normal for a feeder bus”

         I’d like to see the source because that number surprises me. With $3 being the fare, a $3 subsidy per boarding would imply a farebox recovery rate of 50% , but we know the actual figure is nowhere near that. My understanding is that only routes with very heavy ridership and turnover – like the 7 – get per boarding subsidies that low.

      10. Subsidy per boarding can be found here: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2020-service-implementation-plan.pdf#page=37.

          The information is a bit old (since ST doesn’t release current information). But the 596 had a subsidy of less than $3 in 2017 and 2018. It is common for some routes to have minimal subsidy and others have a lot. You can see that for ST Express. In 2018 it ranged from $1.48 to $14.28.

          It is quite likely it is much higher now as ridership has plummeted. But that is another argument for feeder bus service. It is a lot more flexible. Don’t build a big park and ride lot — just live with what we have. If there are a lot of riders then add a lot of buses (they will perform well). If there aren’t many riders then the existing parking lot will work just fine.

      11. I also thought most bus routes had a high subsidy per passenger. Metro’s farebox recovery policy in the 2010s was around 20-30%, so a $2.75 fare would imply a $5.50 subsidy on average.

          The highest-volume routes pay for themselves from fares, like the E, 7, and 8. That was also from the 2010s before ridership and fare compliance dropped, so I’m not sure where it is now.

      12. To serve an area like mines (medium low density?), the buses need to go through absurd routes that will take forever and probably won’t see enough ridership. I think the idea of smaller church park and rides makes sense in these cases. Also some abandoned store parking lots could be transformed. Most people here own a car anyways but would prefer fast transit to work.
          The point is we need parking but it doesn’t have to be a large centralized P&R. We can distribute that parking to local areas and introduce more feeder buses. Market them as fast and reliable compared to driving to encourage ridership.

   2. But the reason I suggest microtransit is because parking isn’t sustainable even at a local level. If few people ride transit, then parking works. But if people want to ride transit, we can’t have enough parking even with the church lots. I don’t think the state should pay for microtransit but we will see an era where we can automated smaller vehicles operate for fairly cheap. Like those DART size buses could operate like microtransit to get people to their nearest feeder bus (that may be 1-2 miles away ) while avoiding parking altogether. Peak hour buses could work but then riders lose flexibility. They have to confirm to a few fixed bus times. That is the challenge of local buses compared to high frequency.

      1. Or even better people’s cars will self drive back home after dropping them off at the nearest bus station a few miles away. No need for microtransit or parking! Hopefully a thing of the future 20 years from now.

      2. None of these comments apply for most people on the blog. But talking about the substantial population who lives in the Eastside of King county or suburbs of South King county. Density is not high enough for bus service to touch every home and apartment.

5. Well, I think it’s lawsuit time and Sound Transit’s days are numbered. I mean we were promised light rail to Tacoma by a public vote. If that’s going to change, (along with a raft of other changes) doesn’t Sound Transit lose authority?

   I propose a ST4 vote as a plan to unwind all the ST3 bullshit projects and give existing assets to local transit authorities. I honestly think Metro and other local transit companies can use the money to provide better transit…. in my lifetime! If you think blowing up Sound Transit is radical…. how about pushing back projects for decades? Or asking the State Government for some gawd awful 75 year repayment plan?

   Seattle is a city that can’t hire enough bus drivers and yet keeps planning for subways it can’t afford to build. At what point is it just over? Give Metro the proper funding and just stop with the light rail we cannot possibly afford.

   1. I’ll support your ST4 Minus plan! Yes, let’s have better bus service sooner, serving more places, rather than dreams of light rail going somewhere vaguely close to a few places!

      Maybe with the Sound Transit dollars, we can have some targeted capital projects to make the bus service even better.

      1. lol tacommee supports people living in the hinterlands. Don’t think they are serious in more bus service

      2. ST3 does have that. There was ~$100MM for Pierce Transit’s first BRT line. That project got bogged down in complete street scope and did not move forward, but the ST3 project is still there & fully funded. The Stride capital projects are moving along just fine. ST 1 & 2 included a number of capital projects for STX which also benefited express bus service provided by the county agencies.

         ST is building a new bus base for Stride service; given that pre-COVID KCM peak service was constrained by bus base capacity, adding an additional base to the region is a win. Same for the ST2 Link extensions, which will result is a number of route truncations and therefore reallocation of bus service elsewhere in the network.

         Finally, ST3 fully funds the O&M for the STX network, which is a substantial chunk of money both to operate the lines and to maintain the bus fleet over time.

      3. ST3 fully funds the O&M for the STX network, which is a substantial chunk of money both to operate the lines and to maintain the bus fleet over time.

         Yes, and most of that is because the buses are electric. There really aren’t that many buses and it shouldn’t cost that much to store them. But if you need a facility with chargers it changes everything. Remember we are talking about buses running on the freeway. This is not like the CKC where battery buses is a reasonable option (in my opinion we are better off running wire but whatever). The point being that running diesel buses on what is now a pedestrian path is unacceptable. But running diesel buses on the freeway is just fine.

         The same thing is true for ST3. I really think the problem in Lake Forest Park is a sleeping, evil giant. It is easy to think it is just a handful of folks complaining about losing their trees. But it is more than that. It is boatloads of money just so that a handful of cars aren’t slowed down.

         Total up all the potential savings with the bus projects and it is roughly a billion dollars. That is huge. It is another sign that ST is focused on vanity projects rather than just improving transit. Or they just don’t know what they are doing. But even at that it is nothing compared to what we are wasting on the rail projects. West Seattle Link alone costs over 6 billion.

         For that kind of money we can definitely have some targeted capital projects to make the bus service even better. But we still need to spend money wisely and not obsess over things like “BRT”.

      4. What? Electrification has little to do with the project scope or cost. ST staff want their own bus base so they could bid out the bus operations directly and avoid contracting through KCM. The cost savings of using PT or CT rather than KCM are significant, and contract directly with a private operator will be even cheaper because PT & CT charge their own overhead (but not has egregiously as KCM). I was involved in this work directly. The cost difference per platform hour was ~20% IIRC.

         The region needs an additional bus base on the eastside. The fact that it is an ST rather than CT or KCM base is irrelevant from a total network perspective.

      5. That is a huge amount of money to store a relatively small number of buses. You are saying that has nothing to do with them being electric?

         Metro is doing the same thing and making the same mistake. But at least it will cost about about half as much. Is Canyon Park that much more expensive than Tukwila? Is it any more convenient?

         Sound Transit: https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/05/27/sound-transit-greenlights-bothell-stride-bus-base-construction-contract/

         Metro: https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/03/15/metro-breaks-ground-on-new-electric-bus-base-in-tukwila/.

      6. Neither project cost includes land, but the Canyon Park location includes some wetlands so there may be more mitigation involved?

         Tukwila: $115 million for 100 40-foot and 20 60-foot BEB
         Canyon Park: $274 million for 120 double decker and articulated buses.

         So same bus count, but larger buses at ST Base. Also, the Tukwila base is literally called “Interim Base” and is nearby the South Base Annex, so perhaps it doesn’t have the same scope? Larger maintenance events may occur at South Base, with “Interim Base” little more than an overnight layover & charging location?

   2. “Well, I think it’s lawsuit time and Sound Transit’s days are numbered”
      Old man yelling at clouds again

      1. Zach B

         Maybe the “old man yelling at the clouds” actually supports transit projects that will be built in his lifetime?

         What realistic choices does the Sound Transit Board even have it this point? Delay projects for decades so the tax revenue stream can catch up? My guess is when the Eastside rail comes online, just running the already built projects (light rail and ST buses) might eat up most of the local incoming funds. Not that this is a bad thing. More transit is a good thing. Sound Transit built a light rail network…. time to move on.

         I wouldn’t look at it like Sound Transit failed…. it’s more like “Mission Accomplished!” Going forward with more high dollar projects is greatly hampered by the expense of running the transit that’s already built. The cost overruns on the projected West Seattle train will drain the operating budget for the rest of the system. So if you want to actually ride ST trains and buses, the smart move is to oppose further expansion.

         My guess is the Sound Transit board is going to come up with something that’s complete bullshit without a realistic timeline or price tag.

      2. “Maybe the “old man yelling at the clouds” actually supports transit projects that will be built in his lifetime?”

         You forgot the old phrase “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit”. Clearly you forgot about that old proverb and would rather just be a petty and vindictive person because of your own irrational hatred of Sound Transit

         Whereas I don’t believe such behavior is productive and comes off as someone who’d rather burn everything down than be part of the solution.

      3. Zach B

         In my lifetime I’ve watched Left Coast Liberals promise so much shit…. and yet deliver very little of it. I’ve had it with expanded time tables, endless excuses and the never ending cries for more money. At some point you have to stand and deliver.

         If we honestly look at Sound Transit’s current ridership, area population density, operating expenses and incoming tax revenue….. the era of building light rail lines is over. Operational and maintenance costs are gobbling up more and more of the Sound Transit pie…. and the cost of future projects is just not in the budget. It’s all over but the crying.

         It’s very possible to look at Sound Transit as a success story. All of the high density areas of greater Seattle are currently served by light rail. That’s a big win! The idea that low density areas need light rail….. well, that’s still a bad idea. West Seattle doesn’t need light rail. Federal Way doesn’t need light rail. Pierce County and Everett? None of these places have enough population density to support planned ST rail projects. Most of these places currently have substandard bus service.

         How about we just have a ST4 vote to unwind Sound Transit and give the current tax money to subarea’s local bus service? That’s a “transit now!” plan. What the ST board is likely to do is kick that light rail can down the road 20 years… and that 20 years means 40 years or most likely, never.

      4. “In my lifetime I’ve watched Left Coast Liberals promise so much shit…. and yet deliver very little of it. I’ve had it with expanded time tables, endless excuses and the never ending cries for more money. At some point you have to stand and deliver.”
         It’s easy to point fingers at “liberals” for your supposed ills like you seem to do a lot, and yet I have more confidence in liberals in running things compared to you who has a petty and vindictive attitude towards anything they don’t like or don’t understand.

         The fact that people have had to explain housing works to a supposed “developer” and “landlord” like you multiple times here honestly says more about your own limits than a liberals ability to run things.

         It’s easy to get on your soapbox about some supposed “incompetent breauacrats” like some Stossel wannabe. It’s another to be nuanced and pragmatic, which is what I do instead of moaning that ST are incompetent idiots.

         Do I agree with everything ST has done, no. But I’m not going to throw the baby out with bathwater like you wanna do because I’d rather have imperfect than nothing at all.

         We already had enough of that grandstanding nonsense with Tim Eyeman.

      5. “It’s very possible to look at Sound Transit as a success story. All of the high density areas of greater Seattle are currently served by light rail. That’s a big win! ”

         ST has clearly done some very good things. The Westlake-Northgate segment is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a real urban subway, and when the full 2 Line starts we’ll have its 4-5 minute headways to match. And it goes to the airport and Lynnwood and soon to Bellevue and Redmond, tying together the largest downtowns and job/activity centers within a 15-mile range. And it serves Rainier Valley rather than hugging the I-5 “jungle” hillside. In spite of ST2 Link’s flaws, it does do these.

         And the ST Express network is nationally renowned and held up as a model for other cities.

      6. And the ST Express network is nationally renowned and held up as a model for other cities.

         I think the ST Express network is the best thing that Sound Transit has done.

         Obviously Link is more important but most of what ST has done with Link is what just about anyone would do. The only thing worse would be if they made Link even more like BART. The main issue with Link (and BART) is that it lacks stations and is focused on quantity (of track) over quality. But you really can’t screw up downtown-UW too bad. There should be more stations in between (and more stations in the U-District) but at least they have what they have. But a lot of the other decisions are wrong and they aren’t completely to blame. They had the original idea in Rainier Valley right (underground and via Rainier, not MLK) but then settled on MLK. They skipped (almost) everything between there and the airport which is why the southern part is neither here nor there. It doesn’t have enough stations to be a real metro but it is still pretty slow so it doesn’t work well for bus intercepts. Oh, and there are no bus intercepts where the freeway crosses the rail line (at Boeing Access Road) which is why buses like the 101 and 150 continue to run downtown. To the north it isn’t horrible but at some point (after the UW) it should have connected to Aurora. I would have continued to Roosevelt and then gone under the freeway to the west side of North Seattle College. Then continued that direction, popping up to the surface at Northgate Way & Aurora. At that point you could probably build ramps from the HOV lanes to North Seattle College and just extend Link to 145th & Aurora. You could go farther north but there is diminishing returns, even on Aurora. Build East Link and UW to Ballard before extending there (or extending farther south than the airport). That would have been cheaper and better. It would have complemented the buses better while still covering the main destinations.

         But as I wrote in the other comment the main problem is that the goals of building a metro and providing regional transit got conflated into this massive light rail project that won’t be very good despite the really high price tag.

      7. What tacomee, and others like him, misunderstands is that his frustration with “Left Coast Liberals” is not because of the failings of “left” politics, but because the Liberal promises are compromised with and by backwards-looking conservatives. I think he actually shares many beliefs with socio-economically progressive advocates like myself, but his misunderstanding of the impacts of compromise with conservatives leads him to believe that leftist politics can’t succeed.

         For example, tacomee wants to see his tax dollars go toward useful public services. So do I! He’s frustrated with how long it takes to build anything and how expensive everything is. Me too! He thinks everyone should be able to afford to live near their job and in a healthy, clean environment. Agreed!

         However, he sees the “Liberal” government’s failure to provide these fundamentals as a failure of progressive politics, whereas in reality, the progressive policies that do get passed are hamstrung by the inability to accept that we actually need to pay for stuff. He thinks the milquetoast “moderate” policies we end up are the best that progressives can do, but instead he should look at the successes of progressives in State government who are successfully using a top-down approach to force the centrist-conservative council of Seattle to implement positive housing policy.

         Additionally, tacomee is actually correct in identifying that the concept of our extremely long “spine” is far from the best use of transit construction dollars, but it’s the compromise transit advocates had to make in the 90’s to get three counties to agree to fund Sound Transit in the first place. Tacomee is wrong in his belief that all the dense areas of Seattle are currently well-served by Link, but nobody’s perfect.

      8. Nathan Dickey,

         Actually I believe you have me pegged all wrong. I’m more of an old school Lefty. The New Left believes that Big Business can be harnessed for progressive policy. I do not believe the big REITs and property management companies will ever provide affordable housing in Seattle no matter what the zoning is.

         Sound Transit has just turned into a huge collection of backroom deals between board, the transit technocrats and big construction and engineering firms. It’s all about money… not transit at this point in time

         Let’s start with the math behind Sound Transit. It’s the same math behind MLM marketing schemes. The first projects have it real easy but it gets harder and harder after that. At some point the whole thing just collapses.
         It’s something like this.

         (capital costs of current projects) + (current operating costs) x inflation x (number of years left to completion).

         The thumbnail graph of this starts out slowly and then just skyrockets at some point. Sound Transit is at that point. Last I thing I heard is the ST Board is exploring asking the State government for some wacky 75 year bond scheme….. It’s just pure insanity.

         Now let’s move on to a little game theory. All the projected areas look at Sound Transit from a different angle.

         Tacoma is a low rent backwater at the end of the line, so getting a huge parking garage at the T-Dome and a streetcar to downtown was the goal for the downtown boosters. The fact that the T-line doesn’t really go anywhere and isn’t compatible with other light rail trains? Who cares! We got parking!! And a cute toy train!!

         Columbia City and Rainer Beach would agreed to anything….. just as long as they were first in line for the light rail. At grade? Hey, no problem. Just get it built. Because Rainer Beach knows that if they put up any fuss or resistance, they’ll get passed over.

         Now we have Ballard….. a place that frankly doesn’t want light rail. The only way to get a train there is deep under ground. And they’ll be no end to bitching about construction! Same thing in West Seattle I’m afraid…..

         If Columbia City can live with at grade rail….. Ballard can. If you want to be a real progressive mover and shaker…. if you really believe in racial and class equity… go write a piece for “The Urbanist” demanding at grade light rail for everybody. That’s pretty much the only way forward, right?

         At grade rail! If it’s good enough for Portland, it’s good enough for Ballard!

      9. “What tacomee, and others like him, misunderstands is that his frustration with “Left Coast Liberals” is not because of the failings of “left” politics, but because the Liberal promises are compromised with and by backwards-looking conservatives.”

         Exactly! The problems with the Great Society and welfare and public housing eliminating poverty and homelessness is that the conservatives derailed it starting in the 1970s, and Clinton added to it in the 1990s. The reason we don’t have major transit projects federally funded 90% anymore and are so behind peer countries in transit is because the conservatives derailed it. The same for mental-health institutions and clinics, and on and on. We could have had a Scandinavian-style public infrastructure by now (safety net/transit/housing/education/childcare). Forward Thrust would have opened in 1985.

         Besides politicians just being knee-jerk anti-New Deal, anti-transit, anti-tax, there’s also Fox News and the New York Post and right-wing podcasts spewing out misleading inflammatory rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and Russian propaganda, confusing and angering people and making politicians do dumb things that shoot themselves and everybody in the foot again and again.

      10. There’s a difference between sensible liberal/progressive goals and policies like Finland and Sweden have (and Canada to a lesser extent), vs identity politics and “no rent is good rent” and the other extreme things that have emerged since the mid 1990s. It’s important to recognize the distinction between the two, and not lump everything left-of-center together, because that’s throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

      11. “What tacomee, and others like him, misunderstands is that his frustration with “Left Coast Liberals” is not because of the failings of “left” politics, but because the Liberal promises are compromised with and by backwards-looking conservatives.”

          Exactly!

          Agreed. One of the big problems is that the Republican Party has gone from conservative to reactionary to nationalist in less than fifty years. As a result there is no sensible opposition. Things become polarized.

          For example consider ST3. It was, in my opinion, a very flawed plan. So much so that I felt that it should be rejected. I’m a big tax-and-spend liberal who thinks we should spend a lot more money on transit (and other things) but it was so poorly designed I couldn’t support it. It would make sense for a conservative to point out the weaknesses in the plan and the fact that it adds too little for the vast sums of money. The conservative would suggest we take slower steps towards building out our transit system — focus on the most cost effective changes. But instead the opposition to the proposal in the voters pamphlet was written by Tim Eyman. Eyman is a tax extremest. It is fair to assume that there is no proposal that he would support. Even a perfectly crafted system that would transform the region with only a minor increase in taxes would face his opposition. This is the typical Republic response. It is not “We want transit but we want to make sure you spend the money wisely” it is “no taxes for transit”. This is an extreme position that is unfortunately common place in this country. It isn’t just Eyman. As a result there is no well-respective opposition. The Seattle Times Editorial Board opposed ST3 just as they opposed every tax increase. ST1, ST2, roads and transit, Move Seattle, more bus service — they opposed it all. As a result a lot of voters just assumes this is basically a question of whether they support transit or not. They had no idea what was in the plan or if it really was well-designed or not.

          What is true from a ballot perspective is true from a board perspective. Without a reasonable conservative voice the left is left doing all the work themselves. They are free to push for pet projects that favor their constituents (like Dow pushing for West Seattle Link). They avoid building reasonable projects at the slightest opposition (buses on cross-Kirkland-corridor) and instead listen to enthusiastic boosters who resemble Lyle Lanley and pour money into Issaquah Link. Relatively minor issues like the possibility of crowding downtown lead to a brand new tunnel but with absolutely no additional coverage (who does that?). At no point is there someone saying “Wait a second. I’m all for better transit but are you sure we need that?”.

          This is what happens when one party (the Republican Party) loses all credibility and yet still manages to win plenty of elections.

      12. Now we have Ballard….. a place that frankly doesn’t want light rail. The only way to get a train there is deep under ground.

          What??? You make some good points but you are all over the place here. Ballard definitely wants light rail. They would much prefer the stations be in the heart of Ballard (e. g. 20th & Market) rather than in West Woodland (14th & Market). But they still want it.

          And no, underground is not the only way to build it. It could easily go elevated next to 15th or much further west and curve around. OK, maybe not “easily” but it still could be done and with sensible engineering it wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg. It might end up going underground but transitioning between above ground over the water and underground is not that difficult (Vancouver did it). Running on the surface really only makes sense south of the bridge (on 15th West and Elliot) where you have a long stretch with overpasses and surface crossings that could easily be eliminated. The train would run on the surface but never actually cross an intersection (unlike Rainier Valley and SoDo). Fence it off and the train can go fast without worrying about accidents.

      13. tacomee claims I’ve got him all wrong, but then goes on to prove my point about misunderstanding the failures of modern Liberal politics.

          > The New Left believes that Big Business can be harnessed for progressive policy.

          No it doesn’t! You don’t understand the ideology of leftist urbanists! They want abundant social housing paid for by progressive taxation, not “inclusive affordability mandates” or whatever the NIMBYs are hawking these days. Mandatory affordability is the way of 90’s neoliberals who were more in stopping gentrification than preventing displacement, so they wanted to shut down new market-rate housing construction at the turn of the millennium because they didn’t understand that the big cities were just starting to expend the housing surplus from white flight and that new construction was critical to maintaining enough of a surplus to keep housing costs down. Read a book!

          >Now we have Ballard….. a place that frankly doesn’t want light rail.

          One of your more ignorant takes that isn’t worth rebutting any more than a brick wall is worth headbutting.

          >At grade rail! If it’s good enough for Portland, it’s good enough for Ballard!

          Another L for tacomee. At-grade rail isn’t good enough for Portland, actually, and they’re seriously considering building a downtown transit tunnel but can’t quite figure out how to pay for it.

          I don’t get the obsession with at-grade running through urban Seattle. At-grade operations were so bad for BUSES in downtown that King County Metro built a tunnel for them! Which was then gifted to Sound Transit (in pretty poor shape, albeit, but still gifted) for their use, so the shallowest underground station that Sound Transit has ever built is the half-buried Bellevue Station!

      14. Ross Bleakney,

          Maybe Ballard wants light rail… but only if it’s underground and has the minimum impact. This just adds to the price tag. It’s the same NIMBY fight as adding housing density. If Sound Transit was to come up with a cheaper, above ground plan for Ballard light rail…. Oh boy! the poop would hit the fan!

          Enough of trying to blame Republicans for progressive failures, Ross. Seattle made its bed with transit and housing all by itself. with zero GOP input. Seattle has been ruled by registered Democrat Liberals NIMBYs for decades. Remember super Red Houston has absolutely no zoning! Seattle still has fights over every fucking tree that gets cut down for more housing.

          Sound transit could come up with cheaper above ground rail plans…. and if Ballard or West Seattle want to opt out… just let ’em. But Sound Transit isn’t really running the show here, are they?

      15. It’s not a liberal or conservative issue. It’s an American issue. Don’t act like either party gets it’s right. But at least Dems try to make slightly more ambitious transit. Though Florida has impressed me a bit.

      16. It’s not a liberal or conservative issue. It’s an American issue.

          I agree. There are probably a number of reasons for this but I think one of the bigger ones is the lack of community that exists now. We have lost a lot of our “social capital” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital).

          If you have Netflix I recommend this documentary: https://www.joinordiefilm.com/. If you are a political or social scientist it may be common knowledge but I found it enlightening. It features Robert Putnam, who is best known for writing “Bowling Alone”. I remember the book (but didn’t read it) and was skeptical about the idea and its importance. But the documentary goes into the history of the idea and why it matters so much. Putnam is a political scientist. His earlier work was “Making Democracies Work” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Democracy_Work). To quote the Wikipedia summary of that book:

          The authors studied the performance of the twenty regional Italian governments since 1970, which were similar institutions but differed in their social, economic and cultural context. They found that regional government performed best, holding other factors constant, where there were strong traditions of civic engagement.

          “Bowling Alone” was just his way of saying we were slipping into a dysfunctional democracy. Sounds about right.

          At the same time it is easy to assume that folks are now connected — just differently. Instead of chatting next to someone they are involved on social media and forums like this. But that isn’t the same. Face to face contact is better. While it is great to exchange ideas in this manner it is also common to get the wrong idea (see how many times it happens here — amplify that by a hundred on Twitter).

          But there are other ways in which it is different. The Atlantic had a feature article about this recently: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/02/american-loneliness-personality-politics/681091/. To quote that article:

          … to see how chosen solitude is warping society at large, we must first acknowledge something a little counterintuitive: Today, many of our bonds are actually getting stronger.

          Parents are spending more time with their children than they did several decades ago, and many couples and families maintain an unbroken flow of communication. …

          At the same time, messaging apps, TikTok streams, and subreddits keep us plugged into the thoughts and opinions of the global crowd that shares our interests. “When I watch a Cincinnati Bengals football game, I’m on a group text with beat reporters to whom I can ask questions, and they’ll respond,” …

          Home-based, phone-based culture has arguably solidified our closest and most distant connections, the inner ring of family and best friends (bound by blood and intimacy) and the outer ring of tribe (linked by shared affinities). But it’s wreaking havoc on the middle ring of “familiar but not intimate” relationships with the people who live around us, which Dunkelman calls the village. “These are your neighbors, the people in your town,” he said. We used to know them well; now we don’t.

          This is obviously a problem and explains a lot of the dysfunctional nature of the American political system right now.

   3. 70 mins from Tacoma to Seattle on light rail is unacceptable. They need to cut it to 30 mins and use faster rail methods. The whole Rainier Beach segment needs to be a separate line. Nobody is going from Tacoma to Columbia City.

      1. The “faster rail method” is Sounder. By all means advocate for speed & frequency improvements to South Sounder.

      2. More Sounder lines (e.g. one that is more direct along I-5), frequency, and hours would be appreciated. And better bus connections.

         An I-405 line from Burien to Lynnwood should be in the long term vision to complement Stride BRT during peak hours. It’s unfortunate we ripped out the East rail.

      3. Current Sounder is 1 hour from Tacoma to Seattle. Hardly any different. I’m a bit surprised how that is possible given Link is pathetically slow and has way more stops. Sounder should be MUCH faster.

      4. Current Sounder is 1 hour from Tacoma to Seattle. Hardly any different.

         It is still faster (and a lot more comfortable) to take Sounder.

         I’m a bit surprised how that is possible given Link is pathetically slow and has way more stops. Sounder should be MUCH faster.

         Sounder makes stops too. It also goes way out of its way (southeast) before heading north again. (And you thought Link made a detour.) But it would be much easier to make it faster. Doing so could be part of the work making train travel between Portland and Seattle faster.

         But either way Sounder is faster than Link (when it is running) and the buses are faster (when it isn’t). The buses can directly serve Downtown Tacoma. The only advantage to Link is that it is a faster way to get to places in between (like the Tacoma Dome to SeaTac). But there are very few people going that way — hardly enough to justify an expensive extension of Link. They should simply run the express buses to Seattle bus stop at Federal Way so that riders can transfer to those locations in between.

      5. Are any speed improvements in scope for the Amtrak Cascades route? Perhaps ST/WSDOT could work together on those?

         https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/statewide-plans/passenger-rail-plans/amtrak-cascades-service-development-plan

      6. ST3 did not include any speed improvements for Sounder. Like many of these proposals, it would take some serious advocacy effort (and, potentially, legislative action) to get ST to pivot from spending money on expanding stations (which it owns) to spending money on improving the railway (which it doesn’t own).

         WSDOT and Amtrak are expecting to implement speed improvements, but specific projects are still largely conceptual without further funding for planning and design.

      7. “The only advantage to Link is that it is a faster way to get to places in between (like the Tacoma Dome to SeaTac). ”

         There are several other doors-to-door time considerations.

         While express buses are usually moving faster, the travel time is less reliable when traffic is heavy. Plus, if West Seattle Link construction happens as planned, it will get worse because ST will close the SODO busway.

         With Sounder there are two additional travel time issues. One is that riders plan trips to arrive at stations several minutes earlier to make sure that they don’t miss their tram while Link riders mainly just show up because of the high frequency. The second is that Sounder riders must transfer at King street which adds time and effort.

         If a rider is headed to UW (not “in between”) Link looks particularly attractive. Why add a transfer and its extra time and effort when you can just ride the train directly between UW and Tacoma Dome? You’ll take your seat and relax!

         At the end of the day, Link may still be slower according to schedules but the in-vehicle travel time advantage won’t look so advantageous when other things get considered.

         I’m reminded of how Chicago’s RTA operates Metra and CTA in corridors where stations are very close — yet most of the riders are on CTA trains. And keep in mind that several Metra lines run all day. That’s a function of similar things like train frequency and Downtown destination.

      8. Sounder’s additional trips may result in more peak trips. If Sounder runs every 15 minutes instead of every 20 minutes, that’s a modest improvement in travel time because the average time waiting for the train will be reduced. But longer term, yes I would really like to see ST electrify South Sounder, as the best opportunity for speed improvements is to boost the acceleration/deceleration in/out of stations. This is what Caltrain did to good effect.

         I would certainly not look to the RTA as a best practice. A few of the Metra lines are owned by freight lines and are comparable to Sounder, but most Metra ridership is on lines fully owned by Metra. Metra needs to convert those lines from peak orient commuter trains to all day regional rail, The fact that the CTA runs some lines in parallel is because of bureaucratic disfunction: a few years ago Metra wanted to lower fares on all day Metra lines to match the L, so that riders were not penalized when they took Metra rather than the L or bus, but the Chicago mayor vetoed the proposal because she didn’t want the CTA (which runs the L but not Metra) losing out on fare revenue, never mind that the change would have been a clear win for riders.

6. “The workgroup also reported identification of 385 “project opportunities” for the West Seattle Link Extension, highlighting three examples that could result in a combined savings of $290 – $365 million on the $6.7 – $7.1 billion project.”

   Wow that’s not doing any serious cost cutting! It’s like taking a floret off of a piece of wedding cake and declaring that you’re on a diet.

   Just doing what Sunny says and route the West Seattle extension through the OMF and scope SIDI station to have a single center platform would save more.

   And dropping that last half mile to the end station with its bored tunnel and deep station vault would not only probably save another billion but it would also shorten the construction schedule and enable a sooner opening day. ST3 never promised a tunnel for West Seattle.

   These things are just for West Seattle. The big savings is not building DSTT2 as a subway tunnel with very deep and very large station vaults. Go with an all-aerial extension to Ballard except for maybe the Ship Canal. The stations will all be closer to street level and thus more convenient for riders. And an automated line requires smaller platforms, saving even more money.

   1. “Wow that’s not doing any serious cost cutting!”

      It’s the beginning of a long bureaucratic process. It will be several months before we know what ST finally decides to do and the board votes on it.

      1. But he’s right. It’s just nibbling around the edges. There don’t appear to be any serious cost cutting actions on the table for WSLE (see my comment below for examples). It’s really hard to take seriously, and looks more like a list you would consider to close a tight gap. We are not facing a tight delta on a nearly affordable project. We are facing a gaping chasm on an unaffordable PROGRAM.

7. Eliminate Sounder North (maybe keep it for events because those trips have the highest ridership)

   Ditch West Seattle light rail

   Ditch the absurd “4-Line”

   Shorten Everett to Airport Rd & Hwy 99

   1. I don’t ride the n line but I’ve been thinking about it for some reason. The trainsets are so much shorter than s line. If you could stand up some additional stations relatively quickly in ballard or maybe internal you might be able to run longer trains that might help with ridership. I rhink the old great northwest depot building in vallard still existssi maybe that could be used ib some form? I can’t help but think more stops and higher capacity trainsets might make line more viable..

   2. Extend the S line to Ballard, adding a few infill stations at midtown, belltown and uptown.

      Invest in triple tracking, jacking frequency, speed, and span.

      Cancel link to Ballard and DSTT2.

      Cancel TDLE.

      Profit.

      1. If you want to replace Ballard Link, you’d need to run trains every ten minutes or so. That’s vastly more often than anyone has contemplated running Sounder, and more often than BNSF would let Sound Transit run it even if they wanted.

         Extending Sounder to Ballard would be a good idea anyway if BNSF would sell the slots for an affordable price, but I don’t think they would given how the tunnel is capacity-constrained.

      2. The BNSF line doesn’t really serve Ballard, either. It crosses quite a bit *west* of the Locks (which is quite a bit west of the main part of Ballard). There are no buses that far west for good reason — there just isn’t much there.

         Good brainstorming though. If we owned the line it might be worth it to take advantage of the railway and modify it to better serve the area. From Magnolia you could cross the Salmon Bay Bridge and then go underground and turn to the east. By the time you turn to 24th you could easily be around 58th. Then continue that general direction for an underground station close to 15th & Market. That would be the terminus for now but eventually keep going to the UW (via Fremont).

      3. “If you want to replace Ballard Link, you’d need to run trains every ten minutes or so. ”

         Ballard is more Far Rockaway than Brooklyn Heights. Actually, it wishes it were Far Rockaway.

         Big heavy rail every half hour and a frequent rapid ride is far more than it deserves. A tiny, trendy dead-end.

      4. Ballard is more Far Rockaway than Brooklyn Heights. Actually, it wishes it were Far Rockaway.

         Big heavy rail every half hour and a frequent rapid ride is far more than it deserves. A tiny, trendy dead-end.

         That is ridiculous. Far Rockaway is 15 miles from Manhattan. Ballard is 5 miles from Downtown Seattle. It is one of the more urban neighborhoods in Seattle. The RapidRide D is one of our best buses in terms of ridership per mile (the metric you typically use when evaluating a corridor). A train every half hour would be pointless. You would still need to run every bus in the area since just about every bus runs more frequently. There would be no point in sending any bus to the train since the train would be infrequent. At best you truncate the 17 and it gets a few hundred riders a day. The same would be true for Interbay. Instead of sending all of the Magnolia buses to the UW (and none to downtown) you just continue to run the 24 and 33.

         Running South Sounder or even North Sounder every half hour be expensive but it would transform transit in the various stations it serves. Running trains every half hour to Ballard would largely be ignored.

      5. @Cam. If Ballard was a city it would be the 8th largest in the state. It has both jobs, including industrial jobs, and residential, growing density and is moving toward being a 24-7 community. And also every high transit ridership and utilization. Don’t be silly.

   3. The 4 Line should be replaced with an enhanced Route 554/556.

      Route 554:
      Start at Sammamish P&R for select trips, through Issaquah Highlands and Issaquah TC, Eastgate freeway station and Mercer Island station. Go all the way to Seattle and offer light rail transfer to all the lines (Westlake station is a good conjunction).

      Route 556:
      Start at Sammamish P&R for select trips, through Issaquah Highlands and Issaquah TC, Eastgate freeway station, I-90 HOV ramp onto 405 into Bellevue TC, a stop at South Kirkland P&R, and continue to the UW. Serves all the major destinations. And much cheaper while also creating a very important new HOV flyover project for the notorious I-405/I-90 interchange.

      And these buses will be faster than light rail if the HOV flyovers are built.

      1. Stride 1 and Metro Route 111 should be updated to connect with Eastgate somehow. That would complement I-90 transit. I also think a Factoria stop could be a valuable addition if a local bus can serve it to the nearby office parks.

8. The solution is simple – West Seattle BRT instead of WSLE. It makes sense on multiple levels.
   1. The savings will free up funding for all of the other objectives
   2. ST3 did not promise light rail to West Seattle it promised transit solutions
   3. West Seattle is not the right density and geography for light rail infrastructure.
   4. Buses will serve the dispersed population of the peninsula better
   5. A dedicated bus ramp will be amazing and will end up being the envy for many neighborhoods that are waiting decades for light rail and then locked into multi seat rides.
   6. The WSLE ridership and revenue projections are evaporating while the costs are ballooning. The linked article for BRT was compelling and it was back when costs were $4B not $7B. Not just that the ridership forecasts are all contingent on Ballard being built. Ballard is no guarantee if WSLE drains the funds and certainly not for quite some time. When you take Ballard out the cost of WSLE on a standalone basis is over $1.3 million per daily rider which would be a world record by a large margin.

   1. I disagree on a few points but item 3 particularly. West Seattle is a vibrant, desirable, growing area of the city, that will continue to increase in density for the foreseeable future. The only reason it isn’t denser now is, failure to invest in transit in the past, historical preference for detached single family homes and a failure to allow sufficient growth.

      Moreover the West Seattle Bridge is in dire shape. That bridge will need to be replaced at some point in the next 20-40 years. By having transit alternatives such as WSLE, that transition will be much less painful. A BRT system, will only increase reliance on the West Seattle Bridge and further increase the City’s reliance on that failing system.

      I agree costs for WSLE need to be reduced, this can be done, by right sizing stations, eliminating a station or two (if necessary), standardizing design elements, and getting away from the expensive cable stay bridge design. ST needs to go with simple cheap archway bridge or a similar alternative to save the money in the short term. The City can build the big beautiful Cable Stay bridge when they replaced the West Seattle Bridge.

      1. The fact that Seattle can’t seem to come up with the money to replace the West Seattle bridge should be a sign to give up and building light rail there. It’s not like the mayor can photocopy money to pay for this stuff. Currently the City is flat broke with all sorts of bridge and road projects that need to taken care of long before another huge transit project.

         Yeah, West Seattle is cool part of the city and yes, it might need a light rail line built. 40 years from now when all that density is built out. The City has too many problems, too many fires to put out, too many things than need to be fixed right now to worry about a rail project that “might” be needed in the future.

      2. The bridge reaches end of life in 2060. We are pretty good at replacing bridges, it’s mostly a question of how much money is available for construction (see: 520).

         If the West Seattle bridge closes for whatever reason, SDOT would most likely do what it’s done in the past: close the lower bridge to cars and run buses down there.

         https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/bridges-stairs-and-other-structures/bridges/west-seattle-bridge-program/high-rise-bridge-replacement-study

      3. I disagree on a few points but item 3 particularly. West Seattle is a vibrant, desirable, growing area of the city, that will continue to increase in density for the foreseeable future. The only reason it isn’t denser now is, failure to invest in transit in the past, historical preference for detached single family homes and a failure to allow sufficient growth.

         That does not contradict point 3. It actually makes it stronger. To repeat the point:

         West Seattle is not the right density and geography for light rail infrastructure.

         The key phrase here is geography. Start with the basics. It has three stations. Yet it will cost over well over 6 billion dollars to build those three stations. That is incredibly expensive (especially for light rail). The much maligned CCC project (which is also light rail) has seen prices soar to the point where it is clearly in jeopardy. But $410 billion for four new stations is a relative bargain. Why does West Seattle Link cost so much for so few stations? Because it is not on the surface. It requires a massive new bridge and viaduct. It is long and tall and yet has very few stations because there is really not much between West Seattle and SoDo.

         But this massive price tag can be justified if there is massive density. It could be like the Second Avenue Subway — extremely expensive but worth it. Unfortunately West Seattle will never look like Manhattan. Nor will it look like Belltown or even Downtown Bellevue. When folks talk about West Seattle density they mean the type of density you will find in places like Columbia City or Greenwood. This is good, but clearly not high enough to justify the high price tag.

         This brings up another geographic problem. West Seattle density will not be centered around the three stations. Various neighborhoods and corridors will have similar if not higher density. Admiral, High Point, Alki or most of the Delridge corridor to name just a few. The vast majority of people moving to West Seattle (and thus increasing density) will not move close to the three stations. Also consider the destinations. Alaska Junction is definitely a destination but so are the other West Seattle junctions. So is Alki and so is South Seattle Community College. From a density or destination standpoint the three stations are not special. As a result, very few people will ever be able to walk from the station to their destination.

         The vast majority will have to take a bus. This gets into the crux of the issue. Consider the bus in West Seattle that has the most riders: The RapidRide H Line. Right now riders take the bus along the corridor to downtown. Instead they will take the bus along the corridor and just as it is about to get on the freeway (and quickly get them to downtown) they will be forced to transfer. Link will replace the fastest part of their trip with a lot of waiting. The transfer probably won’t be trivial, either. The station will likely be high in the air requiring plenty of walking and escalator riding. The vast majority of riders would be better off if the bus just kept going. There would be some who would transfer of course. Those headed to a different Link destination (e. g. the UW) would definitely transfer there.

         But that is why it makes sense to send the buses onto the SoDo busway. That would give riders the best of both worlds. Those who want to go downtown would retain their one-seat ride. Those that want to transfer to Link could easily do so at SoDo. This would be better for some Link riders because the train would go both directions. If you are headed to Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley or SeaTac you would transfer just once (at SoDo) instead of twice (in West Seattle and at SoDo).

         Meanwhile, with the massive savings that come from building a few freeway ramps instead of West Seattle Link you could run the buses more often and run more buses to downtown. This is by far the biggest weakness with transit in West Seattle. Run the buses more often and things change far more dramatically then they would with West Seattle Link.

         West Seattle Link is like someone buying a state of the art nail-gun to put up a poster. It is way too expensive and it isn’t even the right tool for the job. Build ramps from the Spokane Street Viaduct and run the buses more often and you easily create a much better transit system for the same or less money.

      4. Moreover the West Seattle Bridge is in dire shape. By having transit alternatives such as WSLE, that transition will be much less painful. A BRT system, will only increase reliance on the West Seattle Bridge and further increase the City’s reliance on that failing system.

         John beat me to it but we already have a transit alternative: the lower bridge. When the main bridge was out they shifted the buses to the lower bridge. Regular cars weren’t allowed which meant that for a lot of people it was much faster to take the bus. There is also the ferry. It wouldn’t be too difficult to increase frequency on the ferry and shift bus service that direction.

         That reminds of North Vancouver. North Vancouver has a lot more density (https://storeys.com/media-library/the-lower-lonsdale-area-of-the-city-of-north-vancouver.jpg?id=52509326). Yet SkyTrain does not serve it. To get from this very dense part of the city to the main part of downtown you either take a ferry or a bus. West Seattle should be the same way.

      5. “The City can build the big beautiful Cable Stay bridge when they replaced the West Seattle Bridge.”

         How about the city hire a painter to make a mural-sized painting of a beautiful bridge? Then people can look at the painting and ride a simple but effective bridge.

   2. I think rather than speaking to the raw costs focusing on the amount of time the project is delayed due to cost escalation is more compelling. Unless someone is looking deeply into financials they don’t really care if their project costs a lot of money.

      The expected start date of West Seattle to Seattle is the 2040s at best, since it’s waiting on the Ballard Link tunnel to complete. A busway would likely be delivered a decade (or maybe even more) earlier than that

      1. That is a good point. I think to a certain extent it is both. Seven billion dollars for three stations is a huge amount of money. That will buy a lot of extra bus improvements. For that much money you can build infrastructure to connect the buses to Link at SoDo *and* run more buses to downtown *and* run them all a lot more often. You can do all of this a lot sooner as well.

      2. Your point is well taken, the time value of money is important. However you have to address the base cost first. The higher the base, the worse the inflation later. That’s why dealing with the “raw costs” to use your term is the most important first step.

      3. @another engineer

         I meant that politically speaking it’s easier to sell a changes based on delivering a project sooner versus raw costs. They’re obviously tied together but the average person doesn’t have a benchmark for project costs.

   3. I agree with all of your points Aardvark1. I wouldn’t call it BRT though*. BRT implies a few key routes going downtown and nothing more. I think we can do better. That is really the thinking behind this. Check out the map of proposed routes. This is not a fantasy map. This is a realistic map based on realistic levels of service if funding was shifted (and we built the ramp from the Spokane Street Viaduct to the SoDo Busway). There would be five buses going downtown including an all-day 56 (serving Alki). Thus riders could take one bus from Alki to get downtown and it would run every fifteen minutes all day long. The 21 would use the SoDo busway and run more often — it could easily be RapidRide. The 128 would also use the SoDo busway and run every fifteen minutes midday. Most of the buses would run that often (or better). The exception would be the peak-only buses and maybe routes like the 22, 35 and 39. Even then it would be a huge improvement to have half-hour (or peak) service on those routes given there is nothing on most of those corridors now.

      We could easily create a first-rate bus system for West Seattle that would be much better for the vast majority of riders than what they have planned.

      *Way back when (before ST3) I called it BRT as well. Obviously I’ve changed my mind.

9. If subarea equity were eliminated we’d be fine. Let the rich Bellevue residents start paying for most of ST3.

   1. Snarf,

      This sort of thinking is what gets Seattle in trouble all the time. Gosh, if only the Feds and State and King County would realize how much poor Seattle needs the money! Seattle politics are full of Lefties who want to solve all of Seattle’s problems with “other people’s money”. It’s a pipe dream of course…. Bellevue isn’t going to cough up money for a train to West Seattle. And it’s looking less and less like the State or Feds are going to either.

   2. If subarea equity were eliminated we’d be fine. Let the rich Bellevue residents start paying for most of ST3.

      Not really. To be clear I think subarea equity is a major problem. It has led to big projects in the suburbs to try and compensate for big projects in the city. But even the big projects in the city are not great. West Seattle Link is fundamentally flawed. It isn’t even that good for West Seattle. It is a terrible value and will damage aspects of the current system. The trains that go through downtown can go all the way to Everett or Tacoma and it doesn’t really matter. We can (and will fairly soon) add trains from the East Side and it can handle the load just fine. But with West Seattle Link the board thinks that is too many trains so they want to build a second tunnel. This means that existing riders from the south get screwed. They lose their one seat ride to the Capitol Hill, the UW and places north. The stations downtown will be worse. Even riders from the north headed to SeaTac are screwed as well. They will be forced to transfer and it won’t be smooth.

      Subarea equity is definitely a problem but it isn’t the biggest problem. Poor planning is.

   3. Subarea equity creates a lot of distortions and is the reason we’re not building light rail in the most effective places, but eliminating it wouldn’t automatically make everything wonderful. ST might still proceed with its exact Ballard/DSTT2 and West Seattle projects rather than better ones.

   4. “But with West Seattle Link the board thinks that is too many trains so they want to build a second tunnel. This means that existing riders from the south get screwed. They lose their one seat ride to the Capitol Hill, the UW and places north.”

      That was known in December 2015, when ST staff first presented the split spine concept to the board in a board meeting I attended. That was eleven months before the vote. We at STB loudly tried to warn South King and Pierce about this many times, and about Link’s longer travel time compared to the 574, 594, and Sounder, but they ignored it.

      “The stations downtown will be worse”

      That wasn’t known until after the vote, how deep the stations would be and how long the downtown transfers (up to 8 minutes and 9 escalator levels). It was assumed the transfers would be like typical multi-line subways. When ST found out it had to go ultra-deep, it should have tried harder to avoid that (I don’t think it tried hard enough), or it should have said, “This won’t work” and gone back to the drawing board for something else.

10. If ST would drop the South Kirkland Station and put the end at the first 2 Line station (East Main in the ST3 plan), the 4 Line could be a fully automated line with smaller stations and even short single track sections over sensitive environmental areas. It would eliminate the cost of adding switches to merge the lines too.

    That would also put a train waiting to board someone from the 2 line as soon as they get to the platform, and assure more frequent trains because drivers would not be needed.

11. Sell the rights to N-Line runs to Amtrak, so the service can continue, but with more destinations to the north.

12. Cancel all the Link projects that would only marginally improve my life. Build the ones I want to ride.

    1. Yeah, Fuck everybody not named Brent White!

       No seriously, transit is supposed to serve the masses. The reason I hate Sound Transit so much is if you make a heat map of transit spending in Tacoma in the last 20 years, a very small section of the City (the T-Line) has received over 10X the money than the Great Unwashed that live in the rest of the city. There’s absolutely zero social justice in Sound Transit spending.

       But then a working bus system in Pierce County isn’t actually a priority to most people reading this. It is to me however. I honestly question how Sound Transit spends huge amounts of money in a select few places while the great transit area system continues to slowly degrade.

       1. I honestly question how Sound Transit spends huge amounts of money in a select few places while the great transit area system continues to slowly degrade.

          Different priorities. Sound Transit was created to do two things: provide regional transit and built a metro. Building regional transit is a worthy goal. While it typically results in less ridership per dollar spent it usually doesn’t cost that much to provide a pretty good system. Just run a bunch of buses and take advantage of existing rail if you can. We actually do both and for the most part that part of the system is a decent value.

          In contrast metros are expensive. You can save money by building light rail and running on the surface but those tend to be slower (and they are harder to automate — I don’t know if anyone has done it). Sometimes you can get lucky but even with our system the surface running (now in three places) is not without issues despite the relative lack of conflicts. (Portland has a bigger problem in that regard.) Thus we are basically building a subway system that just happens to have light rail equipment. So be it. The main problem is that building a system like that is extremely expensive. The only way you can justify it is if you have a dense area with lots of travel between those points. UW, Capitol Hill, Downtown for example. But that doesn’t exist between Mountlake Terrace, North Shoreline and South Shoreline. Somehow the regional transit goals were conflated with the goal of building a metro.

          Once you buy into this attitude it leads to similar mistakes. You start to focus on length and coverage instead of trip combinations even in the city. Alaska Junction, Avalon, Delridge, SoDo, Stadium. That is your new set of combinations that you add with West Seattle Link. Is that worth six billion dollars? Of course not.

       2. “a working bus system in Pierce County isn’t actually a priority to most people reading this.”

          You’re ignoring Troy Serad’s articles, my many, many comments, and a lot more.

          “I honestly question how Sound Transit spends huge amounts of money in a select few places while the great transit area system continues to slowly degrade.”

          Look to your Pierce city and county councilmembers. Those were the ones who insisted on the Tacoma Dome Link extension, said it’s Pierce’s highest priority, and now insist it be completed before doing anything else. Your Pierce politicians forced it on Sound Transit, not the other way round. Sound Transit as a whole would have been happy to give Pierce something else if it had asked for it. That could have included frequent BRT in all the ST Express corridors, upgrading all the single-digit routes, etc.

       3. Mike Orr,

          Respectfully Troy Serad’s articles are part the problem, not the solution. According to Mr. Serad, everything Sound Transit ever in Tacoma is wrong and needs to be torn out and replaced! There’s no way to connect downtown Seattle and downtown Tacoma directly by light rail. Financially and politically impossible and likely was never possible. Why write manifestos about stuff that can’t happen?

          One of the biggest problems Tacoma has is a shitty freeway separating downtown from the waterfront (and taking up the best real estate in the whole city) The 705… Ruth Fisher dreamed that turd up! I’m betting Sound Transit builds lots of worthless junk that will only block progress in the future. I mean the T Line is bad… but it can get worse.

       4. Yeah the 705 is a real tragedy. Maybe you should try to talk Dow into redirecting Sound Transit funds to demo the spur. It would certainly be a better “urban renewal” project than CID-N

       5. “According to Mr. Serad, everything Sound Transit ever in Tacoma is wrong and needs to be torn out and replaced!”
          —I have literally never written any such thing.

          “There’s no way to connect downtown Seattle and downtown Tacoma directly by light rail.”
          —This is clearly not true. Light rail can absolutely do that.

          “Financially and politically impossible and likely was never possible.”
          —If it is financially and politically possible for light rail to be built from Seattle towards Tacoma, then it is also possible to actually reach Tacoma.

          “Why write manifestos about stuff that can’t happen?”
          —Visioning and planning are helpful exercises to understand what can be. My writings also reflect many of the original intentions of Pierce County as it began participation with the RTA concept.

          “The 705… Ruth Fisher dreamed that turd up!”
          —Ruth Fisher did not dream up I-705. In fact, she gave it scrutiny at a time when many political figures were heavily for it.

13. if we can’t afford more broken down trains, maybe that’s a good thing.

14. Kirkland should revisit their vision of BRT on the CKC. That would get built much earlier, save a lot of money, and also actually serve downtown Kirkland.

    Issaquah should consider BRT as well (as mentioned). The cost savings could be used to deliver the project earlier and extend the line through downtown Issaquah to Issaquah Highlands. For that route I think center ramps to Bellevue Way combined with bus priority to Bellevue TC would be higher value than an I-90/I-405 center ramp. Bellevue Way would probably be more politically difficult to pull off though (and potentially more expensive).

    Kirkland BRT: https://www.kirklandwa.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/public-works/transportation/plans-and-studies/ckc-bus-rapid-transit-brt-study-2016.pdf

    Issaquah BRT: https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/ERP%20150505%20HCT%20Corridor%20Studies.pdf

    1. The Cross Kirkland Corridor trail has become very popular for people walking and jogging. I can’t see the city willing to give that up for years fo construction, even if they ultimately get the trail back when it’s all done, years later. And, even then, the aesthetics of the trail would be destroyed, and many neighborhoods that, today, have a direct walking path to the train, would find their route cut off by fences.

       1. First point is true for any alignment. It’s a wide ROW; You can keep the trail open during most of construction, but then construction will be longer and more expensive.
          Second point is odd. I don’t see why the new trail would have any worse aesthetic. This reminds me of when some people were irate that the East Lake Sammamish Trail was upgraded from crushed gravel to paved.
          Third point is wrong. I would not expect ST to close any of the existing at-grade crossings. Are you worried about people’s ability to cut through someone’s backyard?

       2. That’s an argument for using it not less. The entire reason why the cross kirkland corridor is useful is because it is near people.

          If we chose a rail line corridor that didn’t have people it’d be because it is far from density and useless.

          If you’re wondering how uk or germany has better rail transit it is precisely from using corridors like the CKC.

       3. Overall — for most users — it would not be clearly worse for biking or walking. It would just be different. It would mean a paved pathway for biking — often separate from the walkway. I would consider that considerably better from a biking perspective. From a pedestrian standpoint you would still have the walkway. It would be below the level of the busway and often below the level where bikes travel. The buses would be electric (under wire or battery). From an aesthetic standpoint it would be nice in my opinion as you can see from the pictures of similar systems and diagrams. The trail would be wider but we aren’t talking old growth here. This is typical Northwest, formerly logged scrap-land (blackberries, grass, weeds, along with big leaf maple). It would still feel just as woodsy for someone walking as the pedestrian trail would be closest to the forests that exist.

          There would not be an ugly fence. To quote the document:

          As envisioned, the BRT-way does not need to be separated from the shared use trail by a high wall or fence. A vegetative swale with heavily planted shrubbery could provide a sufficient barrier to prevent trail users from entering the BRT-way.

          You could not wander from one side to the other like you do know but there would still be plenty of crossings. You could still cross at every intersection and every bus stop (of course). That leaves a few areas where you might have to “go around” but not that many. Quite often you have to go around anyway. Google doesn’t show every shortcut but Open Street Map is great at that and there are very few. Most likely the big ones will have crossings. For example here. It is quite likely the trail would be to the west of the busway. That would give people access to the swath of parkland on that side of the trail (Forbes Creek, the ball park, etc.). But right now folks from the east side access the trail via 111th. Thus they would need to build a crossing there. But there really wouldn’t be that many of those to maintain the same general level of access as exists now.

          The crossings won’t be bad either. We aren’t talking about high speed rail here. These are buses that have fairly short stopping distance at the speeds at which they will be traveling. It is a major consideration mentioned in the document (section 3.7):

          Protecting the safety as well as the aesthetic experience of the CKC for recreational users has been a key community priority. The City of Kirkland places the highest priority on the safety of the CKC and the City’s recently-adopted “Vision Zero” safety goal, which calls for elimination of all transportation-related fatalities and serious injuries on Kirkland’s transportation system by the year 2035. This Vision Zero goal provides a clear policy basis for how the CKC Trail and BRT concept should be designed.

          In a September 2013 report, which is directly applicable to the CKC, the Rails to Trails Conservancy found that “rails-with-trails are safe, common, and increasing in number.” This study found that while concerns about safety were common, they are often unfounded because “a well-designed pathway provides a safe travel alternative and reduces the incentive to trespass or use the tracks as a shortcut” (Figure 3-32). … The CKC BRT concept fully embraces the dual nature of the corridor and anticipates maintaining and enhancing a majority of the existing or potential access points identified by the CKC Master Plan. Crossing points would be clearly marked as crosswalks and could be improved with tools such as enhanced lighting, rapid flashing beacons and other safety measures.

          There is another big advantage to adding transit along here. It is quite common for folks to go for a walk one direction and then take transit back. I routinely walk from Pinehurst to Greenwood and then take transit back. My friends and I often do the same thing from Ravenna to Capitol Hill. This would make that walk better. At various points you could decide you’ve “had enough” and easily find a way back.

          From a political standpoint there would be local opposition. That is a given. It doesn’t matter what you build — folks in the neighborhood will complain. The NIMBY attitude is common.

          But to convince the general public would take some effort. People are ignorant and assume the worst. It is common for people to complain about “stinky buses” with a project even if the plan clearly states they will be electric. You will need to hold meetings as most of the public is too lazy to read the actual plans. There would be back and forth when it comes to the particulars (like crossings). It would be essential to get the backing of local organizations (like the Cascade Bicycle Club). It would take some effort but most people would benefit so it isn’t an impossible task.

    2. The cost savings of converting Bellevue/Issaquah Link into BRT should go into 3 things.

       1. Accelerate the two keystone stations at Factoria and Central Issaquah.

       2. Accelerate the I90/405 HOV interchange. This is in the WSDOT master plan, so this is essentially be an interagency loan, consistent with other interchange rebuilds ST has financed (ST fronts the money, which WSDOT “banks” and then credits to “pay for” ROW when ST runs Link within WSDOT ROW).

       3. In Central Issaquah, expand the project scope to fund the city’s desired I90 overcrossing. This is a keystone project for the city (it’s been consistent across administrations) but the city is struggling to figure out how to afford. Folding this into the ST project scope would be a fair political tradeoff for Issaquah “losing” Link and would still result in a coherent transit project as the overcrossing sits where the station should be (the Eastgate freeway station doubles as an SOV overcrossing and that seems to work well for both bus & SOV circulation)

       4. Fund the provisional Lakemont station. I’m not super excited about this station, but East King money needs to go somewhere, it’s an approved project, and gives Issaquah something else to hang their hat on. This project will also be much cheaper as a BRT station as it will essentially be a interchange rebuild to add an HOV direct access ramp (ideally a project like this ends up 80% WSDOT funded and 20% ST funded, but whatever).

       Since I90 is already a significant express bus corridor, the individual projects can move forward on different timelines as each will enhance bus service. This should feel simillar to 405 Stride, where ST (and WSDOT) can make improvements over decades until the corridor is collectively upgraded to Stride. The 90/405 direct access ramps in particular would benefit all of the existing I90 bus routes, allowing ST to consolidate Bus/Link transfers on to Bellevue TC.

       Issaquah overcrossing: https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/06/21/issaquah-eyes-new-i-90-bridge-to-connect-to-future-light-rail-station/

       1. The overcrossing would be good as the HOV exit. That would bypass the existing transit center but save a significant amount of time

       2. The overcrossing would be good as the HOV exit.

          Great idea. That doesn’t look that expensive (the freeway has a median there). That would make it a real transit project. Otherwise the bridge would be the same. This means it would have the same combination of general roadway, bike and pedestrian access. Ideally it would be built for only buses, bikes and pedestrians but I don’t think that is realistic. This is Issaquah. They want to drive. I imagine that would also make the project that much more popular.

          This would offer plenty of possibilities when it comes to bus routing. If you are going from the freeway to the north (Costco or Sammamish) this would be a much better way to go. You avoid the backups on the freeway and you don’t really lose anything as there are no bus stops on 17th north of the freeway. From the south it is a bit more complicated. If you are just running an express from the transit center then it isn’t much of a detour. It is basically the same distance and would likely involve less traffic. If you are heading down Gilman you could skip Maple (and get there faster than today). You could also loop around as well. This is slower but serves more areas. Right now there is very little transit in Issaquah (which is why building light rail is ridiculous). The hope is that the area would get developed. If it does you can add a lot more routes (with less zig-zagging). If not this would still be a nice improvement.

       3. 1. Accelerate the two keystone stations at Factoria and Central Issaquah.

          Stations? You mean bus stops? I really don’t think we need anything. I suppose a freeway station in Factoria (Richards Road) would be useful but it is so close to South Bellevue from a bus standpoint (and not that close to anything in terms of walking) it doesn’t seem worth it. It might also be hard to build if you are also building ramps to I-90.

          2. Accelerate the I90/405 HOV interchange.

          Yes, I agree. This is the key project in my opinion. It is the tipping point. Once you do this, buses are better than Issaquah Link.

          3. fund the city’s desired I90 overcrossing.

          Yes, and as John mentioned also add HOV ramps. My initial thought is that you only need those to the west but you could make it like the Eastgate crossing. This means that buses could access it either direction. It also means that you could add a freeway station there. Riders from the Highlands could take an express in the morning and walk to Issaquah headquarters. Other riders could transfer there. That might be overkill — I could see it evolving in stages (first have the HOV access to the west).

          4. Fund the provisional Lakemont station.

          I agree that this would be much cheaper as a freeway station (for buses) but it is hard to see it ever being worth it. There is nothing there and I doubt there will ever be anything. It is a freeway station surrounded by a big green belt. Lakemont could have connecting bus service (it does now but that will go away with the next restructure). So I suppose we might as well include it but it seems like just spending money on bus service is a much better value. There are no buses through Lakemont itself (the 271 only goes on the boulevard for a tiny section). I think it makes way more sense to fund bus service first (even if it is just peak-only). Something like this for example would be a good start: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jSg9PGpoP66DJ2Zg6. This connects Lakemont to Bellevue College and all the buses that would be going to Downtown Bellevue or Mercer Island. The bus itself could keep going and do the same. This would give those riders a one-seat ride to Link, Bellevue College (and either Mercer Island or Downtown Bellevue). Or the bus could keep going and connect to Factoria and/or South Bellevue. If for some reason the area gets developed and there are a lot of riders taking that bus (and/or similar ones) then it would make sense to add a freeway station there. (Of course by then traffic would likely be really bad on the boulevard and there would be no easy way to solve that problem).

       4. I have always assumed the current TC would be deprioritized, if not abandoned (sold off for TOD), with Issaquah’s bus network instead organized around this new station + HOV ramp. If the express buses all connect onwards to the Highlands, there is already good layover space at that TC + P&R.

          1. Yes, “stations” like Stride stations. More than a bus stop because will have shelter, real time arrival, and whatnot. For the Factoria station, it likely will include some vertical conveyance to move between I90 and Factoria Blvd.

          2. Right – this investment can proceed ahead of everything else.

          3. Agree; the 142st Place overcrossing at Eastgate is exactly what I have in mind.

          4. Yeah I’m not super excited about this project, but as an HOV project (with a minor incremental investment to add a bus stop) it is fine. This is the kind of project I would fund with East King’s money but then stick the project down at the end of the line (2045) and could always be repurposed later.
          The route you propose is a good one, but 1. the traffic is already terrible (W Lake Sammamish Pkwy was gridlock every morning when I lived there), and 2. the more compelling bus corridor is Newport Way between Lakemont & 17th; there is multifamily development pretty much the entire length of the road. With a freeway station at Lakemont, I’d love to see 2 routes between Factoria/Eastgate and Issaquah with an X pattern, crossing I90 at Lakemont for a transfer to the freeway route(s), providing service on both Newport Way and W Lake Sammamish Pkwy. There are libraries, schools, and some excellent parks that all deserve local bus service. These would be local routes, so like the station itself low priority.

       5. 1. OK, that makes sense. Basically fancy bus stops like at Northgate. They have the kiosks showing arrival time (which is quite handy if there are multiple buses). I don’t think it is worth having off-board payment on any of the routes given their express nature so I don’t think it would be worth having an ORCA reader on the sidewalk but that can all be figured out later.

          One big advantage of bus service over Issaquah Link is that you would have a lot more stops. I don’t think we should assume that the buses would serve only the stations that Issaquah Link planned on serving. But some of the bus stops could be very busy and warrant the sort of fancy stuff that exist at places like Northgate.

          4. Yeah, it is provisional as a Link station so it might as well be provisional as a freeway stop. Personally I don’t think it will ever be worth it but there is no harm in having it on the books. I believe I am provisional governor of Bermuda. Any day now I expect a call.

       6. I am assuming the corridor will be serviced by a HCT line, which would mean Stride not STX and therefore the relevant upgrades to each stop/station, but no reason these freeway bus stops cannot be regular bus stops both before and alongside Stride service.

       7. I am assuming the corridor will be serviced by a HCT line, which would mean Stride not STX

          Stride buses and ST Express buses have the same capacity. The main difference is that Stride buses are battery electric.

          The other difference is that Stride will have off-board payment. This is the only significant difference from the perspective of a bus stop and really the only difference from a user perspective. To support this you want an ORCA reader on the sidewalk. That should speed up boarding.

          Otherwise they are basically the same. But I don’t think the area makes sense for off-board payment given the relatively small number of people getting on each bus. It won’t be like the 7 or 40. I suppose they may want to pretend this is something special (BRT!) as a way of getting federal funding but my guess is the vast majority of riders won’t care. By focusing on infrastructure and service they allow a lot more flexibility (especially in Issaquah). I would much rather see the bus make all the stops that the 208 makes in Issaquah (with ordinary bus stops) then a handful of stops at “stations”.

    3. Excellent point John. I agree. Replacing Issaquah Link with a mix of bus improvements for both the I-90 corridor and Kirkland would likely save a huge amount of money and result in a much better system. From a capital standpoint there would be two big projects:

       1) Ramps connecting the HOV lanes of I-90 with 405
       2) Rebuild the CKC to allow buses (running under wire or battery) along with a bike and pedestrian path.

       At that point I could see this sort of thing but even better. The main change I would make on the map is to alter the red line so that it uses the freeway (and new freeway ramps). I also like some of the service concepts in that document you referenced.

       1. Plus the red & green lines would get an infill station at Factoria and perhaps freeway station(s) in Issaquah.

    4. BRT on the CKC is a bad idea. Mainly because the CKC is close to, and roughly parallels Hwy 405, which also will have BRT. And another reason is the CKC for much of its length, runs through areas of low density.

       Let’s run future BRT and rail where it’s smartest to do it, not the easiest or cheapest. Remember the Link on Bellevue Way vs 112th debate. What was the smartest alignment of the two? Was the smartest alignment the cheapest alignment?

       1. No, BRT on CKC provides local access. Stride on 405 is the express overlay. Kirkland should grow enough to merit both service.

       2. [violation of our comment policy. Don’t purposely misrepresent someone’s argument, especially in an obnoxious, offensive manner.]

       3. Stride 2 will bypass downtown Kirkland. That’s the reason for a second BRT route to downtown Kirkland, and possibly using the CRC for it. Kirkland is one of the three major downtowns in the central Eastside; you can’t just bypass it.

       4. The K Line is going to Downtown Kirkland.

       5. The theoretical Eastrail line could head to UW or Seattle

          The existing plan of South Kirkland to Bellevue duplicates the K line

       6. [ah]

       7. [reply to ah]

       8. “The K Line is going to Downtown Kirkland.”

          The K isn’t an express. It has a longer travel time.

          I also am not keen on BRT on the CKC. After walking it a couple times, it’s a wonderful woodsy nonmotorized oasis corridor, and I think cities need those too.

       9. AND it
          Retains The Character Of The Neighborhood! 😉

       10. The editors here sometimes complain when a commenter puts words in their mouths (esp Ross), even warning against doing so. But when Jim twists what I said, my reply to him was expectedly deleted, but his original comment is left up? He completely lied about my position on the issue. I am disappointed with the editors here.

       11. I agree Sam. I didn’t follow the thread last night. I was just about to edit the comment and then I saw yours (right now). That comment has now been edited.

           OK folks, it isn’t that complicated. Don’t be a dick. Don’t call people names or suggest there is some ulterior motive when it comes to someone’s argument. It is just an argument. In this case it is a perfectly reasonable one. AJ has already ripped it to shreds (and I’m about to pile on) but it is all about the argument itself — not the person making it or anything else.

       12. BRT on the CKC is a bad idea. Mainly because the CKC is close to, and roughly parallels Hwy 405, which also will have BRT.

           As AJ pointed out, they are two different things. Stride (on 405) is an express service. There will be only be two stops between SR 522 and Downtown Bellevue (Totem Lake and NE 85th). In both cases these will be freeway stations. This puts it out of reasonable walking distance for a lot of potential riders. In contrast the set of bus routes using the CKC would serve seven stops in Kirkland. It would make that freeway connection but also serve the main Totem Lake Mall and a lot of other places in Kirkland. There would be a real network. Some buses would run “express” and stay on the CKC between Totem Lake and Houghton/6th Street. Some would serve Juanita. Most would serve Downtown Kirkland. Unlike Stride, there would be a lot of buses going to the UW.

           And another reason is the CKC for much of its length, runs through areas of low density.

           It doesn’t matter if parts of the route is low density as long as it serves higher density areas like Totem Lake Mall, Downtown Kirkland and Juanita.

           Let’s run future BRT and rail where it’s smartest to do it, not the easiest or cheapest. Remember the Link on Bellevue Way vs 112th debate. What was the smartest alignment of the two? Was the smartest alignment the cheapest alignment?

           Where is it smartest? Seriously what exactly are you proposing — a tunnel under Kirkland? I really don’t see how you can build anything better than what that document proposes unless you spend billions building a huge underground or elevated network in Kirkland and that is just unrealistic.

           Agencies should definitely take advantage of existing infrastructure when it comes to transit, especially with BRT (or bus service in general). The RapidRide E is a very successful route because it takes advantage of the highway. It could run on the surface and cross the Fremont Bridge but that would be much slower. They could build a tunnel so that it could both serve Fremont and all the other places along the way but that would be a lot more expensive. We are better off just running buses like the RapidRide E when we can. You have to make a balance between potential speed, cost and ridership.

           BRT on the CKC does exactly that. It is a rare opportunity to take advantage of a corridor that while not ideal is still fairly urban and much better than the highways and freeways in the area. It doesn’t run through the heart of things but since it is a busway it isn’t difficult to leave the busway and serve other areas.

       13. My apologies Sam,
           by putting “@Sam” at the top, it read as if I was going after you, when I was trying to go after the idea of [any transit on the CKC] is a bad idea.

           My frustration comes from the initial fact that this region has pissed away a perfectly viable transit corridor because privileged NIMBYs will tie anything up with lawsuits, or their influence with the elected officials, and when transit advocates meekly roll over and never make the arguments to those elected officials.

           The Highway Lobby is still eating our lunch.

           I view that attitude as the evil.

       14. My frustration comes from the initial fact that this region has pissed away a perfectly viable transit corridor because privileged NIMBYs will tie anything up with lawsuits, or their influence with the elected officials, and when transit advocates meekly roll over and never make the arguments to those elected officials.

           I agree with that but it definitely wasn’t the argument that Sam was making. It is perfectly reasonable to say “it won’t happen — the NIMBYs are too powerful”. But it isn’t obvious to non-NIMBY people why it makes so much sense. Sam’s argument is not unique and not rooted in NIMBYism.

           I encourage everyone to read the document that John referenced (and I’ve cited numerous times). It is long but you can easily skim it. It addresses all of these concerns. The folks that wrote that have obviously done their homework. I think part of the problem is that people don’t really know what it would be.

           That is clear in the comments. It would still be a very good bike/pathway. You could cross at places where it makes sense to cross. The buses would be electric and not going that fast (and thus clean and fairly quiet).

           Likewise I think people misunderstand the basics when it comes to routing. Part of the problem is the name. “BRT on the CKC” implies one route. But it is really about creating a busway and then running several routes on it. This makes all the difference in the world. Imagine the only thing on 520 was a bus from South Kirkland to to the UW (stopping at Yarrow Point and Evergreen Point along the way). It would hardly be worth adding HOV lanes for that. But that isn’t what we do. We run buses from all over the East Side to the UW and having those HOV lanes makes a huge difference. The freeway stations are just a bonus.

           The same is true here. It is not that the stops on the CKC are fantastic but it is still good to serve Google (a stop better than most freeway stations) while providing transfers to other places. But mostly it would allow buses to get from one destination to another much faster while serving destinations along the way.

       15. Ross, could you help me out with the specific link John [and you] are referencing?
           (There’s a lot of links above)

           If it’s referencing the ERC, I’m up to my knees in the original documents, and even preliminary documents that were never published in the FEIS. Plus, I witnessed this type of decision making firsthand.

       16. Yeah, sorry. Usually when I mention a link I also include it. Oops. Anyway, here it is: https://www.kirklandwa.gov/files/sharedassets/public/v/1/public-works/transportation/plans-and-studies/ckc-bus-rapid-transit-brt-study-2016.pdf

15. While thinking up solutions is good, let’s look back at how we ended up here. ST3 was a sales job and Board added what sells to voters rather than what’s needed.

    A big factor was people wanting things that would not pencil out in terms of cost, travel time and ridership but looked cool on a diagram.

    Can we get a performance-based planning exercise? Can we get a plan that improves measured transit system deficiencies that look at more factors than mere train travel time (adding in getting to and from platforms and transferring from on transit vehicle to another)?

    There’s another money-driven game with ST3 that’s happening behind the scenes . It involves developers, property owners and engineering and construction companies. The only way to shift away from this backroom activity is to daylight the performance of what ST is building.

    Finally, every solution needs to be reviewed and approved by a targeted committee of riders. It’s so ridiculous that there isn’t one. It’s like having a bicycle plan developed without bicyclists mostly on the review committee or a school plan either no teachers or principals reviewing the plans.

    I wish ST would ease up with the backroom stuff and start looking at rider needs much more.

    1. Al S.

       A “targeted committee of riders” ? Just who in Hell would that be? Who would get to pick these people? The editorial board of “The Urbanist”? Friends of Mayor Bruce? Brandi Kruze and Erica Barnett arm wrestle over it?

       After you strip away the sales pitch and all the backroom deals… is there anything of value left at Sound Transit?

       Sound Transit seems really good at producing little models of huge train stations and colorful maps of light rail that are not built yet. They seem to have a real tough time keeping light rail serving Capitol Hill.

    2. Seattle is full of intelligent transit fans. Probably too many! lol

       It includes everything from retired professionals who see the decline of good transit planning and operations to professors who ride transit and teach transit to people with mobility problems who better understand the system obstacles to community activists who both ride and coach people how to ride to social workers that both ride and help others.

       Maybe what’s needed is a larger short-term effort though. Like a pool of a few hundred people to commit to a series of focus group sessions. The sessions need to have less lecturing and more interacting. Attendees usually aren’t stupid or belligerent.

       A contributing problem is how ST set up a “stakeholder committee” for WSBLE in the first place. The unstated vibe was that transit is a nuisance to be mitigated rather than an asset to be valued — with property owners, developers, corporate reps and homeowner organizations all there to ask for more money for things that don’t improve transit . That vibe ends up piling on more and more “mitigations” adding to the cost, while doing nothing to benefit riders.

       The penultimate example is how the main cost cutting move that ST typically takes is escalator removal. Bigger costs to appease other interests go untouched. The cost of just that one tunnel station at the end of West Seattle Link is greater than adding many dozens of escalators at all the other stations combined!

       1. Al S.

          If there really was a group of “transit riders” assembled to hash out a new plan forward…. the Seattle Times would certainly print the findings and local pols would be forced to endorse the findings.

          But there’s never going to be a group like this. Ax grinders of every stripe and hue want a piece of this sort of thing. Everybody from tree huggers to law enforcement abolitionists would want to weigh in. I don’t see what “Free Palestine!” has to do with a subway to West Seattle but for some folks it does. We already have Seattle Subway and Seattle Transit Riders Union and absolutely nothing on their platforms is based in reality.

          The reality is a simple math formula…

          (costs of new light rail projects) + (operational costs of finished transit lines) X (inflation) X (the number of years to finish)

          We looking at exponential growth here and we’re getting close to straight up part of the graph.

       2. Getting input from any kind of transit riders is better than listening only to politicians, large employers, and nimby groups.

          The input from passengers I’ve seen on sounding boards, small-group meetings at open houses, etc, is generally good and has gotten better over the past two decades. People think about other passengers’ needs, not just their own parochial interests. They hear from each other what those needs are. 95% of them aren’t transit fans with technical knowledge; they’re ordinary people addressing ordinary issues in their community. When Metro sets up a sounding board to give feedback for a restructure, it allows a maximum of one or two transit fans; the rest are ordinary riders. So I’m confident that a standing passengers’ advisory board for ST would give reasonably good advice.

    3. ST should lead the way in envisioning a comprehensive regional+local transit network based on transit best practices and passengers’ needs, as Vancouver and various Eurropean, Asian, and Latin American cities do. It could partner with the local transit agencies in this, since the local part would be their responsibility and deserves their input. It could hire Jarrett Walker or somebody similar to help it design it and gather input. It should have done this in 1993 before planning specific light rail corridors to Everett and Tacoma and ignoring most of the urban transit needs in Seattle (the people most likely to use transit for most of their trips and go car-lite, and a disproportional percent of the total ridership).

       But it didn’t, and nobody urged it to, and STB didn’t exist until 2006.

       ST could at least do it now. At least with the regional part. Have somebody take a look at the actual passenger needs and how various regional transit concepts could address it, rather than sticking to a political model based on jurisdictional desires uninformed by passegers’ needs. Create an alternative vision as a second opinion. Then there would be the issue of whether to pursue it or not. But we at least need it articulated, so that people can see what’s possible, what could be more cost-efficient and serve more people’s trips, and how far from it our current projects are.

       1. What I’m mainly saying is that there is too much emphasis on drawing diagrams and not enough on performance measuring.

          The agency that should be leading the way with systems planning and evaluation is PSRC. They have elaborate demand forecasting tools that can test lots of systems scenarios. They’ve spent billions building the tools and have several staff dedicated to using and maintaining them. Their forecasting is supported by USDOT and all the ST EIS work is required to be consistent with their forecasts anyway.

          ST didn’t and doesn’t trust them and have their own forecasting staff and consultants. They don’t want the forecasts to reveal anything more embarrassing than they already do.

          The Achilles heel for PSRC is their lack of design staff to understand station and track engineering for different transit technologies and their costs. But given ST’s penchant for messing up cost estimates by over 100% and poor engineering borne out by repeated disruptions, I don’t trust them. That’s where an outsider is needed.

          The problem then becomes that the major engineering firms all want to build expensive things. They are all compromised — and won’t push for anything that might offend ST like changing technology or abandoning a rail corridor.

          So there are some significant institutional challenges to make such an effort happen. But still it needs to happen.

          The first step is to identify the measures that would define success. Capital cost per new rider or total rider, aggregate door-to-door travel time saved (adding in time to get in and out if stations), targeted utilization (not too crowded but not too empty either) are examples.

          It’s particularly galling that the Board isn’t already pushing to force staff to report on performance measures. They’ve been around for decades. When the West Seattle fire cats dropped significantly, the Board didn’t care. And while all the reporting focuses on cost escalations, no one is caring about the drop in forecasts between 2016 to 2019 to 2025. And all these lower forecasts still assume DSTT2 rather than only the West Seattle stub operation.

16. It’s not exactly about saving money in the same way the article describes, but could it make sense to build the Ballard tunnel as part of a future intercity rail connection? Similar to how Paris integrates its intercity trains with the RER by sharing tracks. There might be some long-term efficiencies and cost savings if the infrastructure is designed with that kind of integration in mind. Also, then state money or federal money might become more likely?

    1. Light rail couldn’t share tracks with heavy rail. The FRA crash standards won’t allow it. The power systems are also different. Modern regional rail is 25kv AC while link is 1.5kv DC. The only option would then be to build a quad track tunnel which would be insanely expensive

17. Reposting from Sunday’s open thread for those who’ve stopped reading it:

    Another Link reduction this Saturday, June 28, but just from 4-9am, to inspect the I-90 bridge. (What does the downtown tunnel have to do with inspecting a bridge three miles away?) Shuttle buses Westlake-SODO every 7-10 minutes; Link beyond that every 12 minutes.

    1. A very cogent reminder. Why are we talking about building more tracks for Sound Transit to run, when they can’t even competently run the trains where the tracks are already built?

       1. Because hopefully the disruptions are temporary and ST will eventually get a handle on things. Average subway networks don’t have nearly this many problems, so it should be possible to get it into better shape.

          I’m HOPING that ST is getting most of the problems fixed now before the full 2 Line starts, and that then we might have better reliability for a while. That may be wishful thinking, but it’s better than being depressed over a future that will never get better.

18. Quite a few things that I feel like aren’t being considered enough by Sound Transit right now:
    – Push off the second Downtown Transit Tunnel: utilize Westlake as a connection point for the time being and then consider coupling a second tunnel with the eventual replacement of I-5 through downtown (hopefully via a lid park). Stations along this route could provide access to Midtown, First Hill, upper Pike/Pine, the Convention Center, and the park itself. This should be a long-term goal, more appropriate for ST4.
    – Seriously rethink the Ballard extension to reach more areas with less work:
    —Part One: I think a clear option would be coupling together projects to create a cut and cover tunnel under Westlake Ave while removing the tracks for the South Lake Union Streetcar, which is both redundant and underutilized in its current iteration. This could create a better Westlake Ave for BRT, pedestrians, biking, and even cars. Stops could be at Denny and Mercer to provide efficient access to high traffic areas of SLU and other transit connections.
    — Part Two: Continue the cut and cover up Westlake Avenue to approximately the Aurora bridge, providing a station for the Westlake Steps Area “Lakefront Station”. Then bore a tunnel under the ship channel, arising back to cut and cover level around the start of Leary Way. A deeper station for Fremont area would be created as the tracks rise back up around the Fremont Place area. The cut and cover method would take back over along Leary Way, which is wide enough to allow drivers to still utilize during construction. The resulting project would also improve Leary for BRT/pedestrians/bikers/drivers. There is potential for a station where Leary curves at 48th “West Woodland” and then the final terminus would be at Leary and Market “Ballard”.
    – Add infill stations to the Sounder North Line: There is potential demand for 1-2 stations. Options include a single central Smith Cove option or a north “Interbay” (Dravus St) and south “Elliott” station (Expedia HQ). This utilize existing track for an area that will likely be more park and ride from Magnolia and Upper QA given its decentralized lay out.
    – Retirement and Repurpose of Seattle Center Monorail: This is another underutilized system due to its age. It may not need a complete redo but a serious update at least with modern rolling stock and track. The Westlake Station needs to be reconfigured to allow two track boarding by adding the second platform. All of Westlake Center could use a good refresh to make it an efficient central station for Link with updated shopping and clearer connections. Belltown needs its own station around the Battery/Bell block, and then the Seattle Center Station needs to be redesigned for longer trains and should be moved as close as possible to the NW corner of the park to allow better access to Uptown and Climate Pledge. As others have mentioned that can easily be coupled with the Memorial Stadium Project by at least laying the ground work and clearing the right of way to August Wilson Way.
    – West Seattle Link Catastrophe Correction: The line should end at Union/King St Station for now for connections to the 1 and 2 lines. This could require an interim terminus at Stadium or SODO to allow for a cut and cover under 5th that would be capped at Jackson until a later date. Later, when the second “tunnel” is added under I-5, the connection to Ballard can be reconsidered. The bridge over Duwamish should be kept simple. This would match the existing West Seattle Bridge and be cheaper. Then just keep the track elevated for the remainder with hilly areas allowing for some “at grade” sections but without crossings. The sides of Fauntleroy are bare enough to accommodate construction support areas right now before new development starts picking up.
    – Throughout: Utilize prefabricated guideways as much as possible and consider automation for the entirety of the Ballard to West Seattle lines (with future middle connection). Maintenance facilities for the different rolling stock could be built in Ballard in the Leary industrial area and added to existing yards in SODO.

    1. A lot of costs would shrink if ST were willing to consider cut-and-cover. But the city went through the cut-and-cover construction of the Pine Street tunnel in the 1980s, International District station, and the surface First Hill Streetcar, and too many business VIPs say never again. So it’s hard to get cut-and-cover approved now, and ST won’t even try. It would take a lot to get them to change their mind.

    2. I wouldn’t call the legacy monorail underused. It fills up with people going to Seattle Center events and Kraken games, and even during low periods it gets as respectable ridership as bus routes or Link do.

       There are other reasons for maybe retiring the monorail, either to put another elevated rail in its place or just because it’s so old, but lack of ridership isn’t one of them.

19. Everett Link:

    Operationally, Snohomish service would work better with two termini instead of one. It’s so much easier to reverse trains. The branching could be SR 525 or SW 128th St with the other branch going up I-5.

    The down side is that Everett and Paine Field trips would require a center platform transfer. But the time savings would be negligible.

    Given the generally terrible ridership running through similar areas of Santa Clara County and between Dallas and DFW (higher employment densities than the Paine Field area will ever be), running that train on its current circuitous preferred alignment is a huge waste. Those other lines have been opened 20-30 years now and the situation has not improved. In this case, Everett would only be losing direct service but the are would still have a train..

    1. I don’t follow you. Are you suggesting we branch Everett Link to serve two locations to the north? How would that save money?

       1. My thought is based on a solution to a basic operational challenge — reversing trains. It could save quite a bit of capital dollars if planned correctly. It’s a problem that operations people see but planners and elected officials and citizen reps typically don’t see.

          Right now, ST proposes reversing 3 Line trains at Mariner. Before the switch for the 1 Line into DSTT2, it will likely be the reversal point for 1 Line trains.

          *****

          There are two ways to reverse trains: use a siding track or have an end station. Siding track would be one track where an end station would be two. That gives an extra cushion to operations layovers. By reversing at a station platform has the added advantage of more easily clearing trains from loitering riders as well as provide an opportunity for drivers to change train ends on a platform — giving opportunity for things like bathroom breaks.

          It also gives a place to hold trains in a disruption, allowing for trains to hold in a station rather than on a siding. When the disruption clears, the train could already have most passengers on board already, meaning that the service can resume to normal operations faster.

          Certainly sidings can work. It’s just that I’m saying that a branching with two end stations will be much better for the entire operation.

          Some may disagree but I think most train drivers get what I’m saying generally here.

          *****

          The issue directly affects operational capacity. It can be the big bottleneck for the entire system if not planned right. This affects how many trains a hour can squeeze into the DSTT.

          If ST changes to a higher frequency train (someday with 10 trains rather than the intended 8 trains an hour), the north of Mariner siding reversal becomes even tighter as the DSTT will go from 16 to 20 trains per hour.

          The operational challenge continues to grow if any third line (say from West Seattle) through the DSTT. If for example, there are 3 trains for 3 lines (21 total) it would eliminate the need for DSTT2. But the reversal challenge with a siding could limit that to less trains per hour.

          The number one historically stated obstacle to having DSTT carry more trains is that the track capacity doesn’t allow for more trains. Many have pointed out that the three minute (20 trains per hour) is exceeded in many other cities around the world. Why is that? Because they branch at the end!

          *****

          So it helps to save costs by optimizing the DSTT and eliminating the need for DSTT2.

          But it can help save costs with the ELE too!

          The north of Mariner siding will require buying property for three tracks on Airport Roadcrather than two. That will mean taking more homes and more land. ST has not accounted for that in ELE planning.

          ELE is 16 miles on one line. Most of those riders are in the 5 mile segment between Mariner and the current end station. That leaves 11 more planned miles that are less useful.

          If those 11 miles is reduced to 7 miles ( getting a branch up 405 to Downtown Everett) plus 2 miles (a second branch to Paine Field terminal) it is just 9 miles — 2 miles less of track to build to boot! It could even save more miles if that second branch ends at 99 where Blue and Green Swift lines intersect.

          Certainly the specifics of I’m saying is all “back of the envelope “ speculation. However the concept looks like it could enable cancelling the DSTT and reduce the track miles needed for ELE — in saving capital cost money, getting trains and riders from Everett into and out of King County faster and reducing the impact both systemwide disruptions recovery and of potential overcrowding.

       2. … 7 trains for 3 …. (Typo)

          Footnote: They could also be 8+8+4 or 8+6+6 trains per hour depending on peak crowding needs.

20. There are a lot of good ideas here. I think these are the most important corrections:

    – New lines should use shorter, automated trains to allow for smaller stations and higher frequencies. As I wrote about in my article (https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/02/25/automate-ballard-link/), I believe Ballard-Westlake is the best ST3 link expansion project and a strong candidate for a separate, automated line.
    – A second downtown tunnel should not be built as planned, with deep, inconveniently located stations and long transfers. It should probably serve first hill and other destinations further east, but that would probably be best included in a future ST4. If the new tunnel is built as proposed, trains should run from Ballard to West Seattle instead of breaking the spine. This way shorter, automated trains could run on both corridors without making service worse for existing riders.
    – New lines should use more elevated or cut and cover alignments to save on construction costs, especially in Ballard and West Seattle.
    – ST should cancel all new parking garages and instead develop the land around stations with housing and commercial space. The revenue from leases could help fund transit, as it does in other parts of the world.
    – Suburban link extensions should be reconsidered and evaluated on their benefit to transit riders. A few HOV ramps and HOV 3+ restrictions could offer greater benefit for much lower cost. Projects include Tacoma, Everett, Issaquah, and maybe even West Seattle Link. From my research and experience as a transit rider, I think we should cancel Tacoma, Issaquah, and Everett except for a short extension to Alderwood Mall.
    – As much as I would love for Sounder North to exist, it would probably be pragmatic to stop running it and boost ST express service instead. If Amtrak/Washington state can find the money, maybe ST could sell the track rights to them and run some more Cascades trains, maybe to Bellingham. ST express service should be increased on Route 510, and new service should added between Mukilteo and Lynnwood and Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace. HOV lanes, ramps, and freeway stations could offer significant advantages here as well.

    1. Thank you!
       I don’t understand why people are so eager to cut Ballard Link to ribbons—it’s a heavily-used corridor and is relatively quite isolated from the rest of the city. I live in this great city, but I don’t really go to do stuff in Downtown or Capitol Hill because it generally takes about hour to get there by transit. That’s frankly insane for a neighborhood as dense and relatively close as Ballard is.

       1. There are very few people who are willing to cut Ballard Link to ribbons (as you put it). The general consensus was that Ballard Link was by far the best major project in ST3. A lot of people (myself included) felt like it was the only major project that was worth building.

          There are plenty of people here who want to see Ballard Link get better (and cheaper. We want an automated line from Ballard to Westlake. We want it to have smaller stations with trains running more often. We want it to serve the heart of Ballard and not West Woodland. We want the line to end at Westlake but with a stub pointing to First Hill so that it can eventually be extended to First Hill and then connect to Judkins Park and/or Mount Baker.

          A much smaller number would rather see a bunch of bus improvements to replace Ballard Link. Some of it would be relatively easy. From the bridge to Mercer it would be fairly cheap to have the bus run in the middle of the street with no cross traffic. You would simply close the handful of surface crossings that exist now. You would add a bus stop at the lower part of Dravus. Riders would access it from the Dravus Street Bridge. You could add bus stops on the bridge (with BAT lanes) for the 31/32 for really easy transfers. All of this would likely be done as part of the Magnolia Bridge replacement project (where we add a much smaller bridge close to the Dravus Street Bridge). At other locations (e. g. Smith Cove) you would add similar pedestrian overpasses to get to the middle platform or just live with stop lights.

          But there are a couple of really tricky areas. One is the Bridge itself. But if you are willing to take a lane (and we generally are) the bus could just run in the middle of the street and transition to serving center platforms on both sides. You probably wouldn’t be able to have any bus stops between Dravus and 51st but that is no worse than the plans for Link.

          The tough part is Uptown and SLU. One option would be to just skip it. Extend the 8 to Elliott (Smith Cove) and have the Ballard bus(es) just continue down Western like the 17, 24, 33. This would mean continuing that center running path all the way to the end of Elliot until it becomes Denny. There are a couple choices after that. The bus could just keep going to Broad and then make a left and right to connect to Third (which would then be a bus mall all the way to CID). Another option would be to transition from center bus lanes to side BAT lanes on Denny (just as the RapidRide G transitions from center running to side BAT lanes). Another option is to just follow the current routing through Uptown but have more BAT/bus lanes (e. g. on Mercer Place and the west end of Mercer) and better BAT lane enforcement. That would be a bit slower for a trip downtown but continue to directly connect Ballard and Uptown riders. Neither option would serve South Lake Union but it isn’t clear how essential that is. Even the fastest option (via Western) would take longer than the train although it could serve more places along the way. By my estimate it would take about 20 minutes to get from 15th & Market to Westlake Center as opposed to 11 minutes with Link.

          As I see it though, that is the trade-off. But Ballard is definitely important. If I was suddenly Seattle’s transit czar I would go with the bus technique while building an automated line from Ballard to the UW. Even with a transfer that would be a very fast way to get from Ballard to downtown (or anywhere else on Link). But I don’t think that is realistic. I think we have to build something that focuses on the areas that were supposed to get the improvements as part of ST3. In the case of Ballard I think the only option that comes close is running an automated line to Westlake. In other areas the buses could offer better functionality than Link but it is tough to do that for Ballard with just buses.

21. Handing over Sounder North to the state and running it through Amtrak makes sense to me. Maybe the could extend it to at least Arlington if not further. Maybe the trains can travel through King St for reverse commute service to Tacoma. Maybe WSF can be the backup provider for a non-peak service to Edmonds and Mulkiteo. There could be lots of new things to explore!

    As it stands, there are no new infill stations or extensions planned. With ST so eager to grow generally but not with Sounder North, it seems like they don’t really want it anyway.

    Better cross-agency branding for both Sounder and Cascades seems like a win-win for riders.

    1. The state isn’t thinking about replacing all the Sounder North runs. It’s thinking about implementing the Amtrak Cascades 2024 long-term plan update, and which options and funding levels to exercise. And it has a bad track record with implementing the entire plan, as it has repeatedly failed to do since the 1990 plan. So expecting it to add additional runs beyond the plan to replace Sounder North is unlikely.

22. I didn’t see many dollar amounts attached to these projects, but surely not building a second downtown tunnel would save an enormous amount of money–maybe more than the rest of these proposed cancellations put together. I have always thought a second tunnel was a wasteful, if not downright stupid, idea. There is no reason the single tunnel can’t handle a lot more trains. Maybe when the 2 line gets going the limitations of a single tunnel will become more clear. Right now the mostly empty, echoing, giant stations are criminally underused. Why does ST fear 90-second headways?

    1. We should have linked to some of the documents showing the cost of the projects. I’m not sure what the best resource is. Hopefully someone will link to them.

       When it comes to savings, sometimes it is fairly simple. For example West Seattle Link would cost around 7 billion dollars. We could replace it with a mix of bus infrastructure and service improvements worth 4 billion dollars. That would put the cost back at the original estimate. It is likely that the ramps from Spokane Street viaduct to the SoDo busway would cost well less than a billion — leaving over 3 billion to spend on bus improvements and red paint in West Seattle.

       But determining the savings from eliminating the second tunnel is trickier. I’m not sure if we even know how much it costs. I think it tends to get lumped into the cost of other projects.

       But then there is the cost of the replacement. There are a couple choices to be made (which means essentially four variations). The first is what to do about West Seattle Link. If West Seattle Link is replaced by bus improvements we don’t have to worry about crowding in the tunnel. If we still plan on building West Seattle Link then we have to address the increased frequency of trains in the tunnel (and the added number of people). It is highly likely this would be cheaper than building a new tunnel but we don’t know the price tag.

       Then there is Ballard Link. If Ballard Link is a stand-alone (automated) line that ends in Westlake we again don’t have to do anything additional to the tunnel. If we decide to make it a branch of the main line then we would have to break into the tunnel and do a lot of digging — that would cost quite a bit. Again it is unlikely it would cost as much as a second tunnel but it still wouldn’t be cheap.

       The cheapest option (by far) is to make Ballard a stand-alone automated line and replace West Seattle Link with bus improvements. The latter would save about 3 billion dollars while giving West Seattle a level of bus service rarely seen in North America. We are talking Seoul level of service (OK, maybe not that good, but still a major improvement). We also don’t need to build the second tunnel or do anything special with the existing tunnel. That saves a huge amount (but I don’t know how much). On top of all that savings we would have smaller stations in Ballard which again saves money.

       I don’t know how much that would all add up to, but it is highly likely it gets us back to the original cost estimates if not *below* them. This means things could be built a lot faster. A lot of the improvements (e. g. running buses more often in West Seattle) could happen right away as planning continues.

    2. North of Westlake is 90-second ready, but ST claims the 1980s tunnel (Westlake-Intl Dist) can’t go beyond 3 minutes reliably without capital improvements. In December 2015 there was a list of ST3 candidate projects the agency was considering. One was for the capital improvements for DSTT1, another was to build DSTT2. When ST selected DSTT2 it deselected the capital improvements.

       As to what improvements it needs and why, ST has given contradictory answers. In 2016 it talked about updating the signaling system to avoid train bunching. In 2022 in a system expansion meeting, several public testimony speakers urged ST to cancel DSTT2 and do the improvements to DSTT1 to avoid the ultra-long transfers, or at least to study it. ST refused to even study it, saying the previous board in 2016 had rejected it, so it didn’t want to reverse precedent.

       A boardmember asked the staff representative what the DSTT1 improvements were. He spoke from memory, having not thought about the issue for years (or maybe he wasn’t around then), and gave a completely different answer. This time he didn”t say the problem was train bunching, he said it was overcrowded platforms and not enough egress (elevators/escalators/stairs) to handle the larger loads.

       So why knows which of these reasons is true, if any of them. ST hasn’t said anything about the issue since then.

23. Re: “Take a (turn) lane on SR 522. …One potential solution is to just make one of the left turn lanes a regular lane (as it is on Lake City Way). This would have a minimal effect on traffic (drivers would learn to stay in the right lane as they go through there). This would dramatically reduce the cost of this project while still adding just as much BAT lane.”
    Removing left turn lane is a terrible idea as it increases the chance of head-on collision (it will be three lanes of oncoming traffic) and induces congestion & unsafe maneuver (pass turning vehicles from the right). Unprotected left-turns on LCW are historical artifacts.
    Instead, building discontinuous BAT lanes w/ bus-priority signals (when possible), remove unused middle two-way turn lane to create curb BAT lane, etc. Safety should not be compromised.

24. The only part I care about is the South King County extension. Since Sound Transit doesn’t want to have any concerns for my region.

25. one tunnel issue shuts down everything. It has been horrible. Imagine affecting 3 lines all the time! ridiculous. build the second tunnel. the system needs redundancy.

    if you’re killing subarea equity and short changing Everett and Tacoma as well as Issaquah, then let’s head to the ballot. Let’s us see what voters say about sound transit. Maybe Seattle should pay for its own thing alone if it wants to rip off the rest of the counties and cities. let’s go baby as I can’t wait to vote no and laugh when Forward thrust 2.0 happens again

26. I’m late to this thread due to biz travel. My compliments to STB staff for a thoughtful and well-written piece. This is exactly the conversation the ST Board needs to be having and I couldn’t think of a more useful topic for this blog to sustain coverage on. Our collective futures are tied up directly (mobility) and indirectly (economic growth and affordability) in the decisions the Board makes in the near term committing us to long term cost obligations.

    At the risk of repeating some other comments (haven’t scrolled them all), here are big picture thots I’ll offer for consideration.

    To make meaningful progress reducing costs, they have to look at the big cost drivers, and there are only a few:

    1. Right of Way. Property costs are a huge piece of this. Anywhere ST is forced to purchase land where they otherwise could avoid it is simply adding costs, and high, inflated costs at that. This means they should be doing everything possible to keep Link lines and facilities within public rights of way, whether elevated, surface, or sub-surface. All BLE underground stations, for example, should be cut & cover facilities in public right of way. They should work with cities — and cities should help — to secure long term, lo/no-cost easements for Link facilities. The board is uniquely positioned to leverage these relationships– that’s one of the rationales for the federated structure.

    2. Material quantities. The hardware costs what it costs, and the prices are set by the international market. Yards of concrete. Tons of steel. Miles of copper wire. Hours of labor. Fuel & leasing for trucks & heavy equipment. These are the main ingredients of all public infrastructure, the more of them you buy, the higher the cost goes. If you want to reduce cost in big chunks, you can’t nibble around the edges: you HAVE to reduce these quantities in significant amounts. Think in terms of number of stations, linear miles of guideway, station & guideway profile, etc. Big routing deviations just add unnecessary cost (looking at you, Paine Field). Tunneling and elevating where it isn’t necessary just adds cost. We’ve beaten this horse to death here, but this is the reason I didn’t support the 130th station; it took $200 million from the program for modest benefit. (Be cool, Ross, I’m over it). Tho those in-fill stations are suspect for the same reasons.

    3. Guideway Profile. This is a simple one: In dollar terms, surface-running < Elevated < Tunnel. Costs vary, but a simple rule of thumb would be if the per-mile cost of at-grade LRT is X, then a mile of elevated is 2.5X and a mile of tunnel is 5X. Wanna save cost? Get it on the ground everywhere you can.

    4. Station Profile. Same as above. Surface stations are the least expensive, subject to the aforementioned right-of-way costs. If you must have underground stations, do everything possible to make them cut & cover so they can be built from the surface and used to stage tunnel and systems delivery to minimize disrupting surface activity. Deep-mined stations are the most expensive piece of any subway project, by a lot.

    5. Design Complexity. This is the case regardless of delivery method. The more complicated or novel a design is, the more expensive it will be to deliver, as the contractor will price that risk into their proposals. Example A is the I-90 floating bridge. Novel track attachments, novel transition joints, novel cathodic protection, restricted construction environment, so many things to account for in that project, and then it was done improperly the first time around. The KISS principle applies to all future project where planning and design are concerned.

    6. Policy Efficacy. This is a huge one, and has nothing to do with brocks and mortar. Does the investment make sense from a mobility standpoint? Does $7 Billion Dollars make sense for 20,000 riders? Hint: the 2nd Avenue subway in New York is $7 billion for 500,000 riders. So there's that.

    SO here's my editorial comment: Any effort by ST that doesn't meaningfully tackle these ingredients is likely doomed to failure in bringing the program into an affordable status within a reasonable timeframe.

    Everything else is just nibbling around the edges. As the post points out, the whole list of stuff staff came up with for WSLE amounts to 4-5%, a literal drop in the bucket. The staff and the board must be willing to look at overall project scopes, including miles of guideway, profiles, numbers of stations, perhaps whole segments and so on. They need to consider some tough decisions. Past boards have done this successfully. And ironically the old sub-area equity could be an asset here. Now that there is light rail in all five subareas, it is possible allocate the scarcities in a fair, equitable way just as the investment were planned originally to be equitable across the region. In other words, preserve equity by sharing the pain.

    NOW is the time to do this. Nearly all the projects are still in planning, and it is well worth taking more time and using the flexibility provided by the environmental process to revisit the project definitions. Once they move into design, the leverage the agency has to influence cost diminishes exponentially.

27. I’ve been advising on completing the north side of the Ash Way direct access ramp for years. No doubt, the plans are somewhere in ST’s basement (think: the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark). It’s close to if not flat, for I-5 rises north of the ramp. It is started. Yet, each time it makes the initial plan, it gets stricken down. It would save transits millions of dollars and riders time. One time, I was intending to go to the eastside from Everett. It was icy. The Ash Way exit had traffic backed up about 1/2 mile. Once around the corner, it was slip-siding up the hill. An articulated bus had jacknifed at the start of the bus circle. It took 45 minutes to get from the end of the line at the exit to the Ash Way bus stop. Meanwhile, a KC Metro (I think it was) 951 exited onto the northbound ramp and down to the bus stop opposite where the bus I was on stopped, no problem.
    Re: Everett Link, of course I felt it should go up I-5, I still think that it should, at least the 1.6 miles from Mariner (128th) to South Everett Freeway Station. Unfortunately, County Executive Somers browbeat any dissenting ideas, including having a spur from South Everett Freeway Station to Boeing. I supported the idea to split the Everett Link in two parts. Some may remember that the first segment was from Lynnwood to Mariner: three stations, about the same length as the Northgate extension, except no tunneling required. It may have been opened by the end of this decade. I support that idea even more so today. Unfortunately, that idea was short-lived, my guess due to Snohomish County Executive Somer’s apparent desire to appease Boeing. That’s because they made a quick revision was to have the first segment go another several miles to Boeing, bypassing a stop at the region’s secondary airport, where the recent master plan indicates a potential expansion from 2 to 12 gates. There has been a BRT bus from Mariner to Boeing, including a station at SR-99, for several years that Link riders are smart enough to transfer to and from, but Somers, who I was told by a former boss ghosted invites to ride Swift BRT since 2009, perhaps equates BRT with a milk run, in-city bus with shady characters that are beneath him.
    There is presently no ST commuter bus to Boeing, yet in Somers’ mind, it’s worth spending an extra $1 billion of other people’s money and a few extra years to send light rail to this lightly-congested area about a decade from now. On the other hand, the decades of congested “S” curves are only worthy of BRT! Yes, there’s the 513 in southwest Everett, but that’s a peak-only bus for Seattle commuters, to Seattle in the a.m., from Seattle in the p.m., with only one streetside stop in southwest Everett. Those buses speed by several other bus stops, by thousands of low-income, multi-family folks, the opposite of what ST does for well-off Bellevue, where all-day bus service and an express bus to Sea-Tac has been the rule for decades, as have several streetside in-city bus stops. They refuse to route the 513 to the South Everett Freeway Station, their excuse being that it would inconvenience their customers, yet after they wrote me that a few years ago, they added the aforementioned Ash Way and Lynnwood diversions to the 513. If Boeing is worthy of Link, the 513 should be two-way service and should serve South Everett Freeway Station and at least the major bus stops along West Casino Road and 19th NE.
    In short, Everett ranks low with Sound Transit, and Everett and Snohomish County politicians have succumbed to their board counterparts, some of whom are trying to “dumb down” the components of Everett’s Link (to Rainier Avenue like) while successfully getting their 2 Line orphan in place without the I-90 bridge situation solved. The Everett Link split should revert back to Mariner or have one additional stop after-at the Paine Field Terminal, the north direct access ramp at Ash Way constructed, and the 513 go to two-way service with stops at major stops in southwest and southeast Everett to provide service while allowing time for revenues and potential development to catch up.

    1. @ transiteider:

       I agree with you and feel your frustration. I don’t live in Snohomish County so I’m not directly affected other than with ST operations. But I give my thoughts as an outsider.

       I’ll add the very important point I made a few days ago: It’s easier operationally to have two ends of lines be in separate end stations rather than to reverse one line at an intermediate station. That’s because having four tracks to hold and reverse trains inside an end station works so much better than what ST3 will need to create at Mariner. Branching to have two end stations is much better for operations and it probably would save rider travel time to boot!

       If ST wants to ever offer six minute service on each line, this reversal challenge becomes even more critical. If ST ever wants to look at three lines in the DSTT, the reversal challenge becomes even more critical. Each line should ideally have its own end station branched at the north. WMATA just readjusted its Silver Line operations on the Maryland side for this very reason. (https://secretdc.com/new-metro-changes-dc-june-2025/)

       Bluntly put, your local politicians and leaders don’t understand how to run a multi-line transit system with higher frequencies. And no one can seem to educate or challenge them about these basics either. Rail is a political concept to them; not a real-world operation.

       On top of that, the new Mariner Station means buying lots more land rather than use the existing land for the station and parking.

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