Transportation:
- How to beat the heat by taking Metro to cooling centers (Metro Matters). Community Transit recommends a few transit-accessible boba tea shops (CT).
- The Harrell administration quietly cancelled safety upgrades planned for Lake Washington Boulevard (Seattle Bike Blog). Additional coverage by The Urbanist.
- WSDOT has successfully converted the M.V. Wenatchee in a plug-in hybrid, burning 25% less diesel in normal operations and 95% less diesel once shore power is installed (the Seattle Times, $)
- Seattle’s main “micromobility” (e-scooter and e-bike rental) app company, Lime, reported a record 1 million rides in June 2025 (The Seattle Times, $). Ridership is up 84% over June 2024.
- “Overbuilt” argues that the expansion of the US roadway network has exacted social and environmental costs that far outweigh the benefits (CityLab)
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- Op-Ed: How Transit agencies are resisting fiscal cliffs and doom spirals (Mass Transit)
- Housing Is a Human Right: How we created this housing crisis and how to build our way out of it (Urban Land)
- Should Cities Take Over Responsibility for Fixing Sidewalks? (Next City, $)
- Reece Martin argues that cut-and-cover should be used more often to save time and money, despite the short-term construction impacts (Next Metro).
This is an Open Thread.
Philly is in the [overdue] process of renaming their “Metro” line. Basically, all of there light rail and heavy rail lines with the exception of their region commuter trains (their equivalent to the Sounder):
https://wwww.septa.org/metro/
Originally, the lines were merely numbers or street/neighborhood name. For example, one popular subway route was labeled as The Broad Street Line. A trolley route (a single light rail car – not a trolleybus) would have just a simple number, like route “10”.
Now the new naming conventions are Letters or Letter+numbers and based on existing locales. Their popular Broad Street Line is now the “B” line. A trolley line is now T10 or T11. And the Market-Frankford Line is now officially the “L”, as it has always been referred to by locals for years.
Philly is also planning to work on signage. This is something that Sound Transit, despite going through a redesign a few years ago, still struggles with in wayfinding and customer flow. Stand on the mezzanine for 30 minutes at Westlake Station at 12p and you’ll see wave after wave of confused tourists trying to either find the right exit or the correct platform for the airport.
Philly definitely put some thoughts in their transit network rebranding effort. They need to because Philly has way too many independent rail systems (like the link you shared shows).
Unfortunately SEPTA is having to cut service by 45% soon. Catastrophic.
Catastrophic indeed. Especially for a city metro area of 6 million. I’ve only visited the city a couple times, so I don’t have intimate experience of the needs of the city. But merely going off of the transit maps and basic knowledge, some savings could be found in shortening regional lines, closing down underutilized stations, removing many stops from their trolley routes (stop spacing is at a ridiculous 2-3 blocks) and eliminating though Norristown “high speed line”..which is operated by a single car at 30m intervals.
San Francisco and I think Vancouver BC lost 70% of their bus service in the pandemic, so it would be like that.
In the late 90s or early 00s, there was a BC Transit strike that suspended all bus routes but not the Skytrain (which was a different union). Ironically, the union that struck also maintained the Skytrain TVMs, so when they ran out of change they shut down. So then Skytrain was running and free.
I think it took a month to resolve the strike. During it, non-drivers could only go where the Skytrain went. That led to a significant drop in nightclub business, and Londsale Quay merchants fretted that their clientele had dried up and they weren’t making any money.
In Seattle I think most people drive to nightclubs, or would if there were no buses, and do because they can’t get home on transit at 2am. So there would probably be little impact on nightclub business. But in Vancouver there are more non-drivers, so suspending transit has a bigger impact on businesses apparently.
I have mobility issues with all three kinds of ST Express buses. It’s not an official disability and not as severe, but it still makes it harder to use them or reach all the seats. I only ride them occasionally (mostly the 550 or 545 monthly), but if I lived where I’d depend on them several days a week, it would become a bigger issue.
METRO LOW-FLOOR ARTICULATEDS: The seat rows are so close together and the backs so slanted that it’s hard to get in and out of them. If I’m carrying a backpack and maybe other bags, it takes even longer to get in/out, and if the seats around are full, I feel the large space I take to get in/out of them and my bags may encroach on other passengers’ space. I also worry that it might take so long to get me and my bags out of them that I may miss the stop, so I start collecting my bags and getting up especially early so I can jump out as soon as the bus slows down. Many of these buses don’t have a third door, so it’s impractical to walk from the front part all the way to the back across the articulation to exit, so I use the front door (and thus delay other passengers more). One some buses there are insufficient handholds in the articulation area to walk without without being a bit concerned about falling, especially when you have bags in both hands or the bus is moving. I don’t remember if the lack of handholds is on ST Express or other Metro buses, since most of my ST Express buses don’t have a third door so I don’t go to the back. I don’t have this narrow/slanted seat issue with regular Metro buses.
PT HIGH-FLOOR WITH STAIRS AT THE ENTRANCE: going up/down the stairs is an ordeal and slow, and the space is so narrow and has a turn. At some point I may have to use the wheelchair lift. It’s at the middle of the bus, that I assume is slow and not as reliable as the new Metro ramps that just swing out so they have less moving pars to break. When Metro buses had entrance stairs with wheelchair lifts, I saw several times where the lift didn’t work and would-be wheelchair passengers were left on the sidewalk for the next bus. That’s especially an issue when the next bus is 30 or 60 minutes away.
CT DOUBLE-DECKER: The only place I can sit is in the lower area near the entrance, and it has only a few rows of seats. The stairs to the second floor are hard to get up. The upper level is low so I have to stoop to walk, and that’s difficult. I worry that it may take so long to get from my seat to the door that the bus will leave before I get there and I’ll miss the stop. The lower back section has a high step up to it that’s hard to navigate, and the second step up to the seats above the wheels is so high I wasn’t able to get up it and I had to choose another seat at the very back, which was also difficult to get into. So that leaves only about ten seats in the lower front I can easily use, and if those are full because the bus has more than a few people, it’s a miserable ride for me.
None of these problems happen in regular Metro, CT, ET, or PT buses. Except that no-handholds-around-the-articulartion issue that may be on some older Metro buses.
I really wish ST would ditch the MCI motorcoaches. No one was thinking of ADA accessibility and longer boarding/exiting times at the time of purchase. They’re now the oldest transit vehicles throughout the Seattle Metro area.
Didn’t ST send a bunch of buses to mothball storage in eastern Washington sometime in 2019?
If so, there’s a potential replacement fleet right there too.
I feel like after Eastside restructure and South King restructure, ST probably will find no reason to keep those MCI running anymore.
The Gilling Phantoms purchased for STX service are still used, which are older than the MCI by a year.
The North American manufacturers like Gillig call their model low floor but they aren’t really low floor. This kind of layout with step(s) next to rear door is called low-entry by European standard because you need to climb a step or two to reach certain seats. The real low floor has no step at all from front to back.
There are few models running in the US that are really low floor. Many of them were not manufactured in the US got some kind of FTA waiver. One that’s still running is the AC Transit’s Van Hool AG300. I believe this model has engine mounted in the middle instead of back, so there is no need to elevate last few rows to make room for engine.
https://www.ttmg.org/act-vanhoolb.html
The over the road coaches used by ST by motor coach industries are high floor, a single door, and long dwell times. The wheel chair lift deployment takes several minutes. One smart planner at Metro tried to have them banned from downtown Seattle, but Metro and SDOT allowed them. They might be best used on point-to-point services where dwell time is less of an issue. They still have some life. See the large coaches used by Microsoft and other large employers; come are Van Hool.
I drove by Westlake Ave tonight and saw SDOT crew almost done with painting the bus lane. I guess they are trying to get things done before I-5 closure.
Excellent news. How’s the Freight + Bus signage?
The sign I saw looks just like those along other normal all-day bus lanes. I didn’t see any signs mentioning things like “truck ok”. The pavement paint also looks just like other bus lane with dashed red pattern, but they were not done yet. They also added two-way left-turn lane for the part where they only concerted northbound curb lane into freight & bus lane.
The US transit ridership hasn’t bounced back from the pandemic. The rest of the world is, for the most part, not having this problem:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-06-05/asia-europe-cities-lead-in-public-transit-recovery
A deep dive into French cities highlights some of the potential reasons, including a decrease in US investment, vs. France increasing access to high quality transit, our slower movement towards getting people back in the office, and our low transit usage starting point in 2015, suggesting that broadly high rates of car ownership provides an easy alternative to transit that doesn’t exist in other places.
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/transit-ridership-hasnt-recovered-pandemic-what-can-us-learn-french-transit-systems?=
America has the worst transit system so it shouldn’t be surprising that we have the least resilient one as well. We have always spent way too much money chasing the relatively small number or suburban riders and now those riders just aren’t riding. The networks that have recovered the most are those that were designed the best. Once again we have a great comparison with DC Metro versus BART. Similar cost, similar size cities, DC Metro gets a lot more riders. The DC Metro is designed so that you can get around the city (like a typical metro). It extends to the suburbs but that isn’t the main focus. In contrast BART is designed for long distance commutes. You can’t get around the city with it. Nor does it complement the other transit very well. There are no other grade-separated lines in East Bay. San Fransisco proper has the Muni trains, but they don’t cover that much of the city. People rely on buses that have historically been very slow (although San Fransisco has made progress in that regard). DC Metro is just a lot better which explains why it has recovered much faster.
Meanwhile, Vancouver has basically fully recovered, despite no major changes in the system. We could really learn a thing or two from our nearest neighbor.
Agreed. I spent a weekend last month playing hide and seek with my family using Vancouver transit. A car in that city is a liability. The only other city I can really say that about is NYC. I tried living car-free for a couple years in Seattle. Didn’t work with my lifestyle.
Yeah, and it is also really easy to see how Vancouver will have much better transit in the future. Fairly soon, Broadway will finally have a subway. Eventually that will go to UBC. The expansion to Langley will provide both a fast connection into the city and a core line for buses to leverage in the large and fast growing suburb of Surrey. Eventually they will build that gondola to Simon Frasier. When they do, it will be one of the most productive gondolas north of Panama. The biggest weakness is the lack of right-of-way on their buses (join the club). But I expect that will eventually be solved as well. You can’t have the third most-used bus system in English-speaking North America without some level of political support. It wouldn’t surprise me if they have all that long before we run a train from West Seattle to SoDo (our next big expansion after Link gets across the water).
DC being a city full of federal employees certain helps its fast recovery. Meanwhile in SF, RTO is slow and some jobs are not even in downtown anymore.
I have a question. Does SDOT or other cities in King County always sign BAT lane as bus-only lane? Is there sign anywhere that actually calls it BAT lane or the term BAT lane only exists in documents and press release.
I haven’t seen any signage using the language “Business Access and Transit” for those kinds of lanes – it’s just semantics derived from a necessary legal differentiation between lanes that are restricted to buses only always, versus lanes where “right turns are permitted” (which is language on many signs in Seattle) so cars can enter the bus lanes to access driveways and such.
Yeah, I don’t think a typical driver knows what a BAT lane is. So they are worded “Buses Only, Right Turn Permitted” or they have an right arrow with “Only” along with “Except Buses and Bicycles”. Similarly the lane itself is either labeled with a right arrow or “Bus Only”. You can see all of this with older pictures of 15th NW (https://maps.app.goo.gl/SRA8xvAJwyr75VaAA, https://maps.app.goo.gl/Hs4Qut3SKdK4ftgY9). The idea is pretty clear but of course people often stretch the idea. You are supposed to turn right at the *next* intersection. But it is common for people to get the that right lane and go past a couple of minor intersections before turning right at the major one. That is relatively common along that part of 15th. If you are heading north and turning right on Market you aren’t supposed to get into that right lane until you are past 54th but unfortunately some people do. The new paint may make it more clear.
Side note, I noticed the other day that the new bus lane on the north end of Westlake does not carve out an exemption for bikes, presumably because they have the separated path right there.
“I noticed the other day that the new bus lane on the north end of Westlake does not carve out an exemption for bikes, presumably because they have the separated path right there.”
I guess so. They have that Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop paralleled with Westlake Ave from SLU to Fremont Bridge, so there is probably no reason for bike traffic to share the lane with bus on Westlake Ave.
I really like that trail system on south bank of Ship canal all the way to South Lake Union. It has grade separation at almost every busy intersection. Biking on this route beats driving sometimes. It serves move than just a joyride.
Consider another option for the south-end ST Express off-peak bus restructure that attempts to have a bus between Federal Way and Tacoma Dome as often as 1-Line trains run, using two overlapping routes.
One route would follow the path of ST Express 590, including through downtown Tacoma, with a stop at Federal Way added. It would run every 20 minutes.
The other — Call it 572 — would run from Federal Way to Tacoma Dome, then SR 512 P&R, then Olympia. Designated runs could serve Lakewood Station and DuPont Station. This route would also run every 20 minutes off-peak.
I doubt ST will pay to run buses to Olympia. It is outside their zone and ridership per service hour would be really low. Maybe if the state kicked in some money. But if the state kicked in they would probably just run buses from Seattle to Olympia (and quite possibly beyond). These could be integrated with ST buses in the same way that Amtrak is integrated with commuter rail on the East Coast.
Otherwise I see it as a possibility. So basically:
1) Add a stop at Federal Way TC to the 590.
2) Truncate the 594 at Federal Way.
3) Run both every 20 minutes (opposite each other).
There is something to be said for running the buses every twenty minutes given the distance. There is a perceived “sweet spot” when it comes to transit frequency. The shorter the trip, the more frequent the bus has to be to attract riders. For many trips, fifteen minutes is considered “good enough”. For a longer trip like this, a lot of people would be happy with buses running every twenty minutes.
Timing it with the train is bound to be tricky but you could at least try. The southbound 594 could be designed like the Community Transit 117. It leaves after everyone from the ferry has had time to get on the bus. Northbound it is a lot harder. You are never going to get it right but you can at least minimize the *average* wait time. The same is true with the northbound 590 and even the southbound 590. I would not have the southbound 590 wait for the next train. With the exception of a southbound 594, I think you base the schedule on the averages and roll the dice.
Given the fact that these buses only run every half hour, this would be seen as a big win. You would have very frequent buses to Federal Way from both Lakewood and Tacoma, which would help make up for the loss of a one-seat ride to SeaTac. Tacoma and Federal Way would retain their one-seat ride to Seattle. Lakewood would not. But last time ST reported on it, the 594 had about 80% of its riders from Tacoma. The gap has likely grown as the longer the commute, the more likely the commuter works from home. Meanwhile, the 574 had significant ridership from Lakewood (more than the 594 had). So I could definitely see it.
My guess is you would need to retain the 592 (express from Lakewood). They could also run Sounder to Lakewood more often (a lot of the trips end in Tacoma).
Right, an Olympia extension would depend on Intercity Transit funding it, or the state funding it through Intercity Transit? That’s what it did for the pilot project of extending some 592s to Olympia for a few years. It got low ridership I heard, and wasn’t continued. I looked into using it for a trip to Olympia, but it didn’t work because the buses only went the wrong way (northbound AM, southbound PM). So that’s one would-be rider lost. I wasn’t about to go to Olympia in the afternoon and have to spend the night there.
The basic problem with transit to Olympia is that it is infrequent and poorly-timed for connections. Going there by transit generally does mean spending the night.
The 592 reverse-peak-only experiment provided ample evidence that stops at out-of-the-way Park&Rides (e.g. Hawks Prairie) cost more riders than they add.
A big reason to make Olympia more reachable via transit is so riders can be seen more by legislators.
The other problem with transit to Olympia is the amount of time the buses spend stuck on I-5. At 5 in the evening, the northbound 620 is scheduled to take 45 minutes between Olympia and Lakewood, and I’m sure it often takes longer than this considering the congested mess that is often on I-5. Going the opposite direction it’s scheduled for 50 minutes.
Flixbus takes 2 hours from Seattle – about the same as 594 to 620.
It scheduled to take 2 hours 8 minutes to take Amtrak and then the local bus from the suburban station to Olympia. Half an hour of that is spent on the local bus.
So you could cut a fair amount of time off Seattle – Olympia trips just by having an express Olympia-Amtrak connector that makes a guaranteed connection.
I should say, Intercity Transit does have the 620. Service goes up and down over the years. Sometimes it’s hourly, sometimes peak only, sometimes to Tacoma Dome station, sometimes to the 512 P&R. I don’t remember if it ever has weekend service.
Currently it’s weekdays only from Olympia TC to the 512 P&R, northbound 5:39am to to 7:30pm. Southbound 5:50am to 8:25pm. Peak frequency is every 20-30 minutes. Midday and early evening frequency ranges between 35-50 minutes.
The latest northbound trip leaves Olympia TC at 7:30pm and gets to the 512 P&R at 8:15pm. The next northbound 594 leaves at 8:35pm and arrives at 4th & Pike at 9:37pm. Total travel time 2 hours 7 minutes.
If you take the 574 instead, it leaves the 512 at 9:03pm (hourly, 27 minute wait) and arrives at SeaTac station at 9:51pm. Then it would typically be a 5-minute (?) transfer walk and up to 15 minute transfer wait (since it’s 10pm), and 37-minute Link travel time, arriving at Westlake at 10:43pm. That would give a total travel time of 3 hours 13 minutes.
https://www.intercitytransit.com/plan-your-trip/routes/620
I’ve seen an express bus of some sort on Saturdays going through Nisqually. It was several years ago, and I think they had two different express routes then.
WSDOT does plan on adding HOV lanes past Olympia someday (https://wsdot.wa.gov/travel/roads-bridges/hov-lanes/hov-system-map). How long that will take is anyone’s guess.
My guess is the best approach is to improve Amtrak service while adding a bit more bus service to complement it. The various (relatively short term) proposals for improving service between Portland and Seattle would include improving service to Olympia. Ten round trips a day seems quite plausible which would make a huge difference. If we went with the variation I proposed, riders who find that the Amtrak schedule just doesn’t work for them could:
1) Take Link from Seattle to Federal Way
2) Take a truncated 594 from Federal Way to SR 518 Park and Ride (in Lakewood)
3) Take the 620 into Olympia
Midday, Link would be running every 10 minutes and the 594 every 20 while the 620 runs every half hour. It would be difficult to time the transfers. Northbound you could at least time the first trip which means you would at worst be looking at a long wait in Lakewood and a shorter wait in Federal Way. It would be worse going the other direction.
One option would be to subsidize a certain level of service (to complement Amtrak). Assume for a second that the train runs every two hours from Seattle to Olympia between 10:00 and 4:00 pm (and more often during peak). You could run a bus between the two cities every two hours as well. It would stop at Federal Way, Tacoma and the SR 512 park and ride. It would replace one of the 590 runs as well as one of the 620 runs. Thus it would cost extra, but not a lot extra. You are really only paying for the section between Tacoma and SR 512 (the rest of it is a one-to-one replacement). You are also not running it very often. The only drawback is that some of the bus service would be less reliable. A northbound 590 (that normally starts in Tacoma) could be delayed quite a bit coming from Olympia. I don’t think this matters that much because there would be a regular 590 (starting in Tacoma) in twenty minutes. Meanwhile a southbound 620 could be delayed. This could be more annoying but this seems like a small price to pay.
Of course you could implement this sooner (and not wait for the train improvements) if you wanted. The cost does not seem exorbitant. It just requires some cooperation between the various agencies and a bit of money. It seems like ST is well suited to run the buses. In my opinion it is what ST should have been focused on in the first place (cross-agency service and coordination) instead of building a subway line. But the state could still contract with them.
Some sort of Federal Way to Capitol express bus service would be great. The State could subsidize it and contract with PT or IT to run it. Maybe brand it as an ST service and have ST take the lead.
While it could run nonstop, it could also stop a few times along the way. However there is something appealing about a separately-branded service that has a premium fare and doesn’t stop any more than 2-3 times.
Route 927 (WAS on the phone keypad)?
The nice thing about Federal Way is that not only is there frequent service from SeaTac and Downtown Seattle and Snohomish on Link, but there are places to eat (even a nearby Starbucks) or pick up incidentals while waiting for a bus. I can’t imagine that such a service would be more frequent than every 45 minutes and I could see 2 hour gaps in the evenings.
Olympia Transit Center to Olympia Amtrak station should take about 7 minutes by train, if the track were in good repair.
Have a local overlay for Cascades that serves downtown Olympia and stops at all the Sounder stations up to Everett.
Nobody with decent rail service has one type only. There’s always varying degrees of local and faster trains.
Some sort of Federal Way to Capitol express bus service would be great.
Why run from Federal Way to Olympia when you can run from Seattle to Olympia? By all means it would stop at Federal Way. But it would be a lot more useful if it ran between the cities. It wouldn’t cost any more either. Assuming they continue to run buses from Seattle to Tacoma (now stopping in Federal Way) you might as well just extend a few of those to Olympia.
During peak it makes sense to leverage Sounder and Amtrak. Amtrak doesn’t run enough trains along the corridor. The state is trying to fix that. Until then, I could see running buses based on the Sounder schedule. So someone could take Sounder to the Tacoma Dome and then an express bus from there to Olympia. Otherwise they would take the bus from Seattle to Olympia. It gets a bit complicated (because of the Sounder/Amtrak schedule) but I could see it working out nicely without spending a lot of money.
[Edit — Another option for leveraging Sounder would be to run from Lakewood. The train doesn’t run as often to Lakewood, but when it does it would make sense for the “Sounder Shuttle” to leave from Lakewood (not the Tacoma Dome).]
Olympia Transit Center to Olympia Amtrak station should take about 7 minutes by train, if the track were in good repair.
Oof. I didn’t bother to check to see where the Amtrak Station is for Olympia. It isn’t really in Olympia. So yeah, you would have to serve it with a spur or deal with a shuttle bus. A spur would be expensive. It is one thing for a train to stop along the way (between Portland and Seattle). A lot of riders will go ahead and take then instead of trying to time the express. But that would be a significant detour. I’m not sure how you get 7 minutes. From what I can tell (based on this map) you have to go past the station a couple miles and then take a hairpin turn here. Then you head back northwest towards downtown. But there are level crossings, so the train can’t go that fast. It is about ten miles from the station as I measure it (via those tracks).
The good news is that it avoids crossing downtown. So I could see it, but unless traffic is really bad, the fastest approach is probably just to stop at Lakewood and run an express bus from there. If they add HOV lanes and BAT lanes (for inside Olympia) then the shuttle would likely be faster every time. That being said, I could maybe see this as a once or twice a day extension of Sounder service. A long one-seat ride on a train for this sort of trip is appealing. But it is hard to imagine a lot of trains running there given it is a major detour for those going between Seattle and Portland.
“Why run from Federal Way to Olympia when you can run from Seattle to Olympia?”
Certainly that could be considered.
One concern is reliability. That’s why I suggested a service that’s independent of a standard ST route. I’ll compare it to taking a flight to Spokane. Fliers don’t freak out if that flight is 45 minutes for the one hour flight. However a 45 minute delay is a major headache for a shorter bus trip like within the ST service district.
Traffic on I-5 has many places where it becomes congested between Seattle and Olympia — Downtown, near the Stadiums, Southcenter, Fife curve, Tacoma, JBLM, Nisqually — creating a heightened uncertainty about arrival times. Any bus would need ample recovery time built in. Hence that’s why I suggested looking at a stand-alone service.
There are always Cascades as an option to Downtown Seattle too — except a transfer and feeder bus would be needed to shuttle people between Olympia Amtrak and the Capitol.
“I’m not sure how you get 7 minutes.”
It’s about 8 miles. The next step above 25 mph track is FRA class 3, which is 40 mph freight 60 mph passenger. Despite being a lightly built interurban line, much of the old Oregon Electric is maintained to this standard for local freight service. You’d need to be slow in the 5 blocks of street running in downtown Olympia and at the junction, but most of the curves on the line itself don’t appear that sharp. Much of it is dead straight but I doubt the neighbors would allow anything faster than 60.
FRA limits speeds at level crossings to 110 mph, so there’s not much to prevent crossings at 60 mph, so long as they’re protected.
So, you should be able to get between downtown Olympia and the Olympia Amtrak station in under 10 minutes.
With 0 traffic, driving non-stop from Lakewood Sounder to downtown Olympia is 30! minutes, but it’s very rare that there isn’t congestion somewhere through there. The I-5 / Hwy 101 interchange backs up badly a lot of times, as does stuff at JBLM, making that section of I-5 pretty slow a lot of times.
For the amount of money being talked about for adding lanes through JBLM to reduce the congestion, you could probably add a third track to the BNSF main line from Nisqually Junction, over the Nisqually River, and to the Olympia junction. Sure, it’s no straight line like I-5, but it’s mostly arrow straight and would be congestion free.
Rebuild the rail spur from Lacey to Downtown Olympia as a rail line.
I think it’s currently part of the Woodland Trail system.
Crossing I-5 might be a bit problematic, though.
For fun, here’s a link to an interactive map of abandoned rail lines around the world:
https://www.frrandp.com/p/the-map.html
One concern is reliability.
Link has problems with reliability as well.
Traffic on I-5 has many places where it becomes congested between Seattle and Olympia — Downtown, near the Stadiums, Southcenter, Fife curve, Tacoma, JBLM, Nisqually — creating a heightened uncertainty about arrival times.
Several of those are south of Federal Way (where the bus would have to run either way). Buses downtown are generally fairly reliable. That is also where it would pick up most of its riders. A lot of people would avoid a transfer. For example, First Hill to Olympia would be a simple two-seat ride.
“ One concern is reliability.
Link has problems with reliability as well.
Traffic on I-5 has many places where it becomes congested between Seattle and Olympia — Downtown, near the Stadiums, Southcenter, Fife curve, Tacoma, JBLM, Nisqually — creating a heightened uncertainty about arrival times.
Several of those are south of Federal Way (where the bus would have to run either way). Buses downtown are generally fairly reliable.”
My comment about reliability is why I think it would be better as a separate route rather than a route extension applied to some runs of an existing route. I’m not arguing about the northern terminus in that comment.
And reliability south of Federal Way is a big reason why I say that. So I’m actually agreeing with you on that point. Through routing a bus from Olympia would make any bus between Federal Way and Seattle significantly more unreliable on its arrival time at Federal Way.
I will dispute that HOV traffic north of Federal Way is routinely reliable. There’s a reason why WSDOT put up real-time travel time signs on the corridor between Federal Way and Seattle many years ago — and the minutes can get quite high even at midday and on the weekends (when there are lots more HOVs). There’s a reason why WSDOT put up variable speed limits to respond to congestion starting south of BAR in 2009 too — and it’s because congestion is very common many hours a week on that segment.
Finally, Link can be unreliable but it’s rarely off by more than 10 minutes — while Federal Way to Seattle easily varies by more than 10 minutes at least a few hours most days.
@Glenn — There is no way you could go 110 mph on that pathway. Too many curves. You would have to rebuild the thing for those kind of speeds and that is just not gonna happen. But assume it *averages* 60 mph from the Olympia-Lacey station to the terminal. That is being very optimistic. But it works out to about ten minutes.
That is still a major detour. You can’t expect Amtrak trains heading to Portland to make that detour on a regular basis. It becomes a Sounder extension at best. So you are looking at only a handful of trips a day. With luck, a couple peak and a couple reverse-peak. The peak service would be an extension from Lakewood. The reverse-peak would be an extension from the Tacoma Dome. In both cases it wouldn’t be cheap and the cost per rider (just for the service) would likely be very high (just as it is with Sounder). You still want service the rest of the day and for that there are the buses. There are several things going on here:
1) It is quite likely that in the next few years, WSDOT finishes the HOV lanes from Olympia to Tacoma on I-5.
2) It is also likely that they add HOV/HOT lanes along 512. This could HOV access ramps from the nearby park and ride (which is a regional connection point).
3) WSDOT is also trying to dramatically improve Amtrak service from Seattle to Portland. While some of these trips would be express, most of them would stop in Tacoma (as well Olympia-Lacey).
4) While there are no plans for it, adding access ramps from the Tacoma Dome to the HOV lanes of I-5 (both directions) is a better value then Tacoma Dome Link. This would speed up travel between Tacoma and Seattle and make the Lakewood “detour” to serve the Tacoma Dome trivial.
So consider the timing again. It takes Amtrak 33 minutes to get from Tacoma to the Olympia-Lacey Station so about 43 minutes from Tacoma to the heart of Olympia (if the train can do that section in ten minutes). As of right now, that takes a half hour by car. Stopping at the 518 park and ride along the way adds another five minutes (at least). The bus is still competitive if not faster than the train most of the time (even with the SR 518 stop). It would be faster and more reliable with HOV lanes and access ramps. The Olympia-Lacey station is awkward and doesn’t really work for Olympia. Here is what I would do in terms of service.
1) Extend Sounder to Olympia if it isn’t too expensive.
2) Run express buses from the Tacoma Dome to Olympia (stopping at SR-512 along the way) timed for Amtrak and Sounder (when the Sounder trains don’t go to Olympia).
3) Depending on how often Amtrak runs to Tacoma, run express buses from Seattle to Olympia.
The combination of Sounder and Amtrak could easily provide enough service to Tacoma that you don’t need that direct bus from Olympia to Seattle very often (if at all). The shuttle from Tacoma wouldn’t be as comfortable as taking a direct train but it would be competitive in terms of timing as long as they add the HOV lanes.
My comment about reliability is why I think it would be better as a separate route rather than a route extension applied to some runs of an existing route
I understand that. But back up here. As I noted elsewhere, I would also run shuttles from the Tacoma Dome, timed with Sounder (and Amtrak). These would be more reliable than shuttles from Federal Way. The Sounder/Amtrak + shuttle would complement the buses from Seattle to Olympia. The direct bus would mainly just fill in the gaps. Right now, between Amtrak and Sounder, there are a fair number of trips. Peak is covered fairly well and even off-peak isn’t bad at all. It is really only the rest of the day that is a bit weak. It is mostly Amtrak doing the work in the middle of the day. Trains arrive in Tacoma (from Seattle) at 9:43 am, 10:43 am, 12:58 pm and 3:08 pm. At 3:37 the first of many Sounder trains arrive. So midday we could use a bus (from Seattle) arriving in Tacoma at around 11:45 and 2:00 pm. The last Sounder run goes through Tacoma at 7:25 pm. There are a couple Amtrak runs at 9:05 pm and 11:15 pm. So we could use a bus at around 8:15 and 10:10 pm. Throw in a midnight bus (might as well). Likewise, the first Seattle to Tacoma Sounder train arrives in Tacoma at 7:06 am. So maybe an early-bird bus to Olympia before that. All the buses from Seattle would essentially be extensions of the 590 buses that current operate.
Thus we could have hourly (or better) service from Seattle to Olympia throughout the day. Riders heading south would have to know if they should take the bus or take the train but that would actually be fairly simple. If you just miss the train you have plenty of time to make it to the bus stop. Northbound it is even simpler. Either you take the bus that ends in Tacoma (and then take the train) or the bus just continues to Seattle. Northbound the transfer is tricky because the bus is less reliable. You would likely build in plenty of cushion. But worse case scenario is really not that bad. If you arrive in Tacoma and there is a big gap for the next Sounder run you can always transfer to a different bus (that runs from Tacoma to Seattle) or you take a bus coming from Lakewood headed to Federal Way (and transfer to Link there).
The buses from Seattle to Olympia would not be that expensive. They would also be fairly reliable (given the timing). They would replace one of the 590 runs as well as one of the 620 runs. Thus it would cost extra, but not a lot extra. You are really only paying for the section between Tacoma and SR 512 (the rest of it is a one-to-one replacement).
The main cost is those shuttles from Tacoma to Olympia. But some of these would be extensions of the 620 runs. This wouldn’t cost a fortune (depending on how often you run it) but it would make it much easier to get to Olympia from Seattle (and back). You would also be providing direct service between Tacoma and Olympia. Thus any loss in reliability (in the southbound 620 bus) is more than made up for with this direct connection.
It doesn’t seem very smart to me to try to time some infrequent transit service to a transfer to some other infrequent transit service. That’s lots of stress and uncertainty placed on transferring riders. Keep in mind that weather and traffic congestion vary quite a bit. Connections will be missed and done if those connecting points are pretty lonely for a waiting rider.
While other combinations can be faster or cheaper in theory, the major advantage of connecting to Link is its frequency. A train from early in the morning until late evening every 10 minutes is a powerful draw — even if light rail moves slower than we like. It’s much easier to plan and make a transit transfer trip if one leg has high frequency.
And despite its suburban setting, Federal Way at least has some nearby convenient retail / food if there’s a wait for 45 minutes or an hour. It’s got more nearby than any other South King station.
You “can” make a trip from Olympia lots of ways. But it seems to me that the most effective connection would be to Federal Way Link. Other stops can be made – but meeting high frequency light rail sobewhere is what I’d consider the most optimal operation. And if Tacome Dome Link ever opens, it can be reduced back to there.
It doesn’t seem very smart to me to try to time some infrequent transit service to a transfer to some other infrequent transit service.
Yet that happens all over the world. Switzerland is famous for it. They have timed connections from the intercity trains to local trains or buses. These are the trips based on what I’m proposing:
1) Southbound bus from Seattle to Olympia. Doesn’t run that often but it is fast when it does. It is probably the fastest option (even though it stops in Federal Way, Tacoma and SR-512). It is also a one-seat ride (thus making this ideal).
2) Sounder/Amtrak to Tacoma followed by a bus to Olympia. The connection is as good as it gets. Riders get off the train and there is the bus, waiting for them. As a rider you are just focused on the schedule of the train. This is the second fastest option and significantly faster than Link.
3) A bus from Olympia followed by Amtrak or Sounder. This is the hard part. Just like running the bus from Lynnwood to Mukilteo, it is difficult to time this. You have to basically roll the dice. You aim for a good connection but it may not happen. But again, consider the worst case scenario. Within 20 minutes you can catch a bus heading to Seattle. If it is rush hour (the most likely time the bus will miss the connection) you can probably catch a Sounder train within 20 minutes as well.
This isn’t bad at all. Now consider running the bus from Federal Way instead. South it is clearly worse. For Sounder riders you’ve introduced the same sort of uncertainty that exists northbound. I suppose you could time it such that the bus leaves Federal Way really early and has a big layover at the Tacoma Dome. From a rider perspective this adds value but it also costs extra. It isn’t really a substitute for the 594 because of the big layover in Tacoma. So you are running extra buses from Tacoma to Federal Way (on top of the buses that are timed to run every ten minutes). Hard to see it worth it. With that long of a layover you might as well have a transfer.
The main time you would want the bus to continue to Federal Way is northbound. This means running buses from Tacoma to Federal Way during peak in case the bus completely misses the connection with Sounder/Amtrak. Consider that for a second. Sounder takes about an hour from the Tacoma Dome to King Street. The bus from the Tacoma Dome to Federal Way takes about 20 minutes. Link will take about 50 minutes from there. So if the bus arrives in Tacoma just as Sounder takes off, riders will stay on the bus and save ten minutes on their trip. At best. It is also likely that they stay on the bus and then wait five minutes for Link in Federal Way. Link is more frequent but not that much more frequent. I can definitely see the value in giving people the option but it has the same issue. If this takes the place of a 594 then the bus is less reliable. Instead of starting in Lakewood it starts in Olympia. If it separate then it costs extra. All to avoid a transfer that in the grand scheme of things really isn’t that bad.
Again, it just seems like the best value is to run buses from Tacoma to Olympia when Sounder/Amtrak is running and run buses from Tacoma to Seattle when it isn’t.
“There is no way you could go 110 mph on that pathway. Too many curves. You would have to rebuild the thing for those kind of speeds and that is just not gonna happen.”
There is no problem at all with 110 mph running between approximately the curved bridge over the Nisqually River and the Olympia/Lacy station. You’d want the third track to prevent freight interference.
One of the main reasons Sounder costs so much is poor utilization. You have to pay the crew for a day of operation, even though they are only used for 2 hours per day. You have to pay BNSF to clear the main line for a schedule slot of freight trains operating from Seattle to Longview, even though that empty slot on the main line is only being used for Seattle to Tacoma.
I’ve often pondered what to do about the “Olympia transit access” problem. I get concerned that even the visionary high speed rail concepts obsess about getting to Portland but treat Olympia as a mere diversion. State government interacts with the Seattle metro area lots — as well as SW Washington and Portland. SeaTac access is also important.
I feel like it’s state government’s responsibility to provide better connectivity. It benefits the entire state, not just the Intercity Transit district.
The most viable strategy is to have a regional bus connecting Olympia with Tacoma, SeaTac and Seattle. The reliability challenge would need to be addressed.
A ferry connection is a curious strategy too. I would get concerned about the travel time though.
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Ultimately, it seems most logical to me for the state to build at least a single track for passenger trains to the state capitol with a walkable station to state offices. Whether that’s along I-5 or using a less direct path is open to discussion. I would like to see it reserved for passenger trains and not be owned by BNSF so passenger service could be operated as needed with great reliability . It’s easy to wish for — but the Nisqually River crossing has ground issues similar to the Puyallup River crossing that can make it difficult and costly.
As far as who operates a connecting train is a more complex matter. I could see it wrapped into Cascades service or a Sounder extension. I could even see it as a service coming from east of the Cascades with a station hub at Tacoma Dome or Federal Way or in between.
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A wilder solution would be for the state to shift much of the state administration to Tacoma or some new campus next to Link in the long run. Imagine if the state bought up blocks around Tacoma Done to build several state office towers there! It would take a few decades — but it could be cheaper than building and operating a rail connection into Tacoma. I wouldn’t personally be bothered by a full state government relocation but it’s a rather radical thing to do.
Many big states have less state government reliance on their smaller capitol cities. Florida, New York, California and Illinois don’t put as much at their smaller state capitol cities. A network of smaller state government campuses scatted across the state has some appeal too.
We should rebuild the tracks. People will want their commuter buses unless the train can run 100+ mph. The Sounder is still too slow for that transfer. 20 minutes from Tukwila to Seattle is really bad. It should be 10-15 mins. The 150 and Light Rail can compete with that, and take you more places (fewer transfers)
If a commuter train is slower than an express bus, it’s not worth even existing and forcing people to transfer. Light Rail is different because it serves a different purpose.
Riding in a car without traffic, 30 minutes from downtown Seattle gets you to Tacoma, Everett, or North Bend. 45 minutes gets you to Olympia. 60 minutes gets you to Mt Vernon. 90 minutes gets you to Bellingham. 180 minutes gets you to Portland.
Transit takes around twice as long. The difference should be less. In the UK trains are often twice as fast or 50% faster than intercity coach buses, like London-Cambridge or London-Edinburgh.
Transit takes around twice as long. The difference should be less.
It is less, depending on when you go. Just to be back up here, consider the infrastructure. You can get between the two downtown areas very quickly (when there is no traffic) because there is a freeway connecting the cities. Not just the outskirts, but the ramps go right downtown. The buses get slowed down because we have HOV-2, not HOV-3.
But it also depends on where you are going. The bus is competitive with a car when there are no stops in between. The problem is, not everyone is going between those points. If I’m trying to get from the Tacoma Dome to the first stop on SoDo, the bus is as fast as a car (and quite often faster). But not that many people are going to those specific points. You could make the routes more “express” like but it isn’t clear that would be any better (some people would come out ahead, some would lose out). I don’t think there is anything wrong with the routing — it just means that if you are going from the north end of Tacoma to the north end of downtown it takes significantly longer that a car would (if there was no traffic). Direct access ramps would be nice (as would those HOV-3 lanes) but that is about all you need to add.
It is worth noting that the train isn’t much better. The freeway is much more direct and the Tacoma Dome isn’t really in the heart of downtown. That is just geography (and how they built the trains). The trains travel a farther distance *and* make plenty of stops in between. The trains would have to be considerably faster to compete. The same is true with Everett. The train travels a much farther distance than a car between the two cities.
In contrast the trains to Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, Sumner and Edmonds are far more direct and often much faster than a car (even with stops).
We could run an all-day bus to Everett, but in my opinion it isn’t worth it. The transfer to Link isn’t that much slower and there just isn’t that much demand for express service. It also isn’t the biggest issue. By all means we should change the HOV-2 lanes to HOV-3 (we should have done that decades ago). Access ramps are a much better value than extending Link. But a lot of the issues have to do with the slow travel *within* Seattle. Service from Downtown Everett to Downtown Seattle *is* very good. It is both fast and frequent. While there are improvements I would make (like having the 512 skip Ash Way) those are minor. The big problem is that once you get to Seattle, then what? What if you are trying to get to Fremont, Ballard or First Hill? You have to deal with an extremely slow or indirect bus. That is why ST3 is backwards. It is focused on the trips that are already pretty fast while ignoring the trips that are extremely slow (Ballard Link being the sole exception).
Consider all of these things put together. You board a bus in Downtown Tacoma. It makes several stops before getting on a direct-access ramp to the HOV-3 lanes on I-5. At that point it travels between the two cities at the same speed that a car would at 3:00 am. The bus then takes a direct access ramp from the I-5 HOV lanes to the SoDo busway. You get off the bus at the SoDo Station and wait for Link. It runs every 6 minutes and before long you are at the UW. Why does it work so well? Because Link goes to the UW (and in this mythical world, running frequently). But that is the UW. What if you are headed to First Hill? At least now have the G. But that mainly works if you are headed to some place close to Madison. The 3/4 is notoriously slow. So is the streetcar and it loops around. There is a major “last mile” problem and it exists in the heart of the city (not in a rural outpost). The biggest problem isn’t getting from Seattle to Tacoma. It is getting around Seattle and Tacoma.
“You get off the bus at the SoDo Station and wait for Link.”
I absolutely despise just barely missing the train at SODO. For some reason the buses love arriving just as the train leaves. They’ll be just late enough for it to happen, and trains don’t want. Can only dream of a 5 minute frequency…
A bus can only compete if it has dedicated lanes and more importantly…
Traffic signal priority.
We completely neglect this. Every stop a bus has to make can be made up by signal priority. Cars can’t get signal priority. With bus lanes and high frequency, that makes buses faster without a doubt.
Second, we need trains that are actually fast to complement these buses. I’m impressed with Lynnwood and UW link, as well as hopefully East Link. They could be a bit faster to at least meet the speed of a car at peak (60-70mph instead of 55) but I understand it’s light rail and there are engineering constraints. But the 1 Line south of Chinatown needs some serious improvements.
Signal priority is important but Mike was focused on regional travel (e. g. Seattle to Tacoma). For such trips the buses run on the freeway (where there are no traffic lights). They travel in HOV-2 lanes that should be HOV-3. Ideally they also have direct access ramps (as I suggested in my rambling comment). The buses would encounter traffic lights in the cities themselves but in some cases there isn’t much they can do. There are too many buses on Third Avenue to have signal priority — buses are arriving all the time. But by then you are officially “downtown” anyway. I suppose you could have more signal priority on the SoDo Busway but it has the same issue (lots of buses). The best thing to do is prioritize traffic that direction. There are probably things they can do to improve it but nothing obvious to me. Traffic (and traffic lights) in Tacoma may be a bigger issue but I don’t know enough about it is needed.
Getting to 10th and Commerce in Tacoma could definitely be sped up. The lights on Pac Ave are painful through downtown. You hit every single one. Either synchronize them, or allow the STXs to use the T-Line’s tracks. Or both. Or just remove the lights entirely. They don’t serve much purpose.
You don’t need queue jumps, because there is basically no traffic in downtown Tacoma.