Elections Headlines:

Transit & Streets:

Land Use & Housing:

Commentary & Miscellaneous:

Selected election results (1st drop; 8pm, Aug. 5):

  • King County Executive: Girmay Zahilay (40.4%) and Claudia Balducci (30.3%)
  • Seattle Mayor: Katie Wilson (46.2%) and Bruce Harrell (44.9%)
  • Seattle Council Pos.2: Eddie Lin (45.7%) and Adonis Ducksworth (30.6%)
  • Seattle Council Pos.8: Alexis Mercedes Rinck (75.2%)
  • Seattle Council Pos.9: Dionne Foster (53.7%), Sara Nelson (39.1%)

This is an Open Thread.

131 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: 2025 Primary”

  1. Surprising that incumbents are second in several races. Usually they’re first.

    I had an unexpected election experience. Today at 6:30pm I met a friend and his wife to show them Nora’s Woods at 29th & Columbia in the CD, and the Columbia Street pollination corridor from MLK to 12th. Afterward we went through the Seattle U campus to a bar they recommended that I hadn’t heard of. But when I got to the bar counter inside the establishment, I saw the logos had a different name than they’d said, Stroup Brewing. So maybe two parts of the building have two names. I vaguely remembered I’d been to Stroup once and recognized the menu; it had been a Seattle Subway event I think. Today there was a different event, a rally for three city councilmember candidates I recognized from the ballot: Dionne Foster, Erika Evans, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck. The people I was with had only been in the US a couple years and asked what it was about. I said the only time I’d been to something like this was an election-night party. I’d forgotten the election ended today so I thought this was something else, “Maybe a party for their volunteers.” I looked it up online and it said it was a doorknocking event, so I explained it was like a work-coordination party for their volunteers. The group was in one half of the bar; we were in the other half. It was loud but I didn’t hear any full speeches, just a few lines here and there, although we weren’t really listening. It was only after I got home and went to bed, and woke up at 2am and saw an email announcement from Balducci about her win (the STB address gets some of those county executive/concil announcements and they get forwarded to be), that I realized the election had ended today and we’d probably been at the bar right then.

    1. Surprising that incumbents are second in several races. Usually they’re first.

      Exactly. Everyone I expected to advance, did. But I didn’t expect Wilson to lead Harrell or Foster to lead Nelson. In the latter case, Foster has over 50% of the vote and the incumbent has less then 40%. This is great news for transit advocates as Nelson is not good when it comes to transit (https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/11/19/sara-nelson-warns-she-can-kill-any-transit-project-she-wants/).

    1. Updates say Beacon Hill station is closed until further notice. The cause alternates between “mechanical issue” and “power issue”.

      There have been a lot of power outages at Link stations in the past year. Some of them were part of larger neighborhood power failures, but most are just trains or stations. But then, there are a lot of other unplanned Link disruptions too, so this is more of the same. I hope Dow is on it and is somehow getting Link to be more reliable someday.

      1. I have a clear view of the SODO yard and Beacon Hill tunnel from my workplace. As of 730a, trains are easily going through the tunnel, thus accessing Beacon Hill Station. Each one is stopping at the operator shack and either taking on or discharging operators. Does anyone know the exact nature of this “power issue” at Beacon Hill? Is it just the platform/passenger area of the station that has power issues? because trains are going through.

      2. There is a bus bridge between Mount Baker and SODO. Trains are running empty through the Beacon Hill tunnel.

      3. It could be the elevators. For fire safety issues, so many elevators must be working at the same time for the station to remain open.

      4. If the “power issue” is only affecting passenger access, then there’s no need to shut down train service to Beacon Hill. Simply have trains bypass and continue through. There’s no switch-back at Mt Baker, right?

      5. @Jordon,

        “Simply have trains bypass and continue through.…”

        It depends on whether the failure affects emergency egress and smoke evac. If those two functions are unavailable then ST can’t run passengers through the tunnel.

      6. I was riding northbound from Columbia City to UW and got off at Mount Baker due to the 1 Line closure. My friend, who was on the same train and also going to UW, got on the “bus bridge” shuttle to SODO, but I decided to wait for the 48 at Mount Baker Transit Center. Even though it was a 10 minute wait for the 48, I still beat him to UW by about 10 minutes.

        When in doubt, take the bus!

      7. Trains are continuing through the affected area without passengers, so train frequency should be as normal. The shuttle is still running between SODO and Mt Baker. I would take the 36 or 60 to Beacon Hill if it’s just as convenient from your starting point. ST sent out a press release this morning as well as the alerts, so it’s a bigger issue than usual. There’s no further explanation of what the “power issue” or “mechanical” issue is. The first thing I thought of was the elevators, since it’s the only elevator-only station, but I don’t know for sure what it is.

      9. There was a cryptic alert that could be interpreted as the entire 1 Line being down, but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t copy it. The latest alert says the 1 Line is running but skipping Beacon Hill station as it was this morning, and that crowding is unusually high so you might want to take a bus alternative.

    2. Beacon Hill is the only station that comes to mind for having elevators programmed to coordinate with each other.

      That is a bug rather than a feature, as only one elevator at a time (out of four) can be called to the platform level.

      Then the elevator doors keep re-opening if anyone pushes any of the elevator call buttons on the platform level. A stuck button can disable all four elevators.

      I wish the call buttons would cease holding doors open, if that could be done with a simple program change. I also wish another elevator could be called by pressing the call button while an elevator is already there with its doors already open.

      It can take several minutes to exit Beacon Hill Station when there is a crowd coming home from a large event.

      There is no particular reason to have multiple elevators waiting at the street level. Passengers arrive sporadically. Having up to three elevators staged at the platform level makes sense because passengers depart the trains in surges.

      1. I’ve heard that only one elevator is active most of the time, so they’re wasting the multi-elevator capacity and forcing people to wait longer than necessary.

        But we don’t know whether the current problem is the elevators or not, so everyone avoid jumping to conclusions. We’ve been through this before where a lot of people thought a Link outage was due to one thing but it turned out to be something else.

      2. I’m not saying the elevators are the cause of the closure. But I’d be curious to know if the failure of the elevators forces ST to not carry passengers through the Beacon Hill tunnel.

        It can’t hurt to ask the question, “Have you tried shutting down the elevators and re-starting them?”

      3. @Mike and Brent… ST has a terrible knack for not disclosing details. In fact, this characteristic is shared amongst all transit agencies nationwide. I don’t understand what the mentality is for not disclosing reasons behind disruptions other than generic and vague verbiage. I hope ST releases a detailed report as to the cause of the issue and why trains were allowed through Beacon Hill and not people.

      5. Nathan beat me to it. It’s a ventilation issue that fire codes require ST to close stations if it occurs. The alerts are still saying “power issue”, so maybe it’s the power to the fans.

  3. A comment in the Pedestrian Observations article:

    “The best example of this is actually the LRT craze in the US which is dying down city by city due to horrible alignments. Portland and Denver once praised (never understood that) have stopped building all together since freeway and freight ROW produce so little ridership they barely transport 1000 pax per mile. Even cities that build lines that more closely resemble french tramways have stopped building or definitvly going to stop after choosing turds like the green line extension (MSP) and purple line (Houston). Phoenix out of all places is continueing to build since it more or less has always picked sensible alignments and thus actually gets a boost in ridership (relative to what place Phoenix is). Denver could have easily made the ridership of its current quagmire with a single line along Colfax. “

      1. WSLE won’t negate Link’s dramatic improvement of transit service in north Seattle, or the mostly-sensibly-placed lines in Rainier Valley and the Eastside or service to the airport. Link will still be better than the vast majority of American cities with only light rail or no rail. It’s only the ten or so cities with heavy-rail metros that have better overall transit service or more effective train lines.

      2. You are listing mostly ST1/ST2 projects I believe. ST is still prioritizing turds like WSLE, which poisons the well for ST4. This ST3 voter certainly isn’t voting for ST4 if WSLE gets built for 3x the original cost and half the ridership.

      3. “You are listing mostly ST1/ST2 projects I believe.”

        What matters is the total transit network that’s running on the ground now or has a good chance of opening within say three years. You can’t ride transit that’s just on paper, and ten or fifteen years is a long time to wait. Some people will be dead or retired by then or moved out of state.

        The fact is, Link has dramatically improved the lives of riders between downtown and Lynnwood, and for many people going to the airport, and to a lesser extend Rainier/Beacon residents, and it’s poised to do the same for cross-lake trips.

        The West Seattle, Everett, Tacoma, and Issaquah projects suffer by not really addressing the residents’ mobility needs, and Ballard suffers by bad design decisions after the vote. That’s on top of their cost overruns. But that doesn’t mean they’ll cause people to turn away from Link completely: they’ll more likely turn away from those kinds of projects.

        Transit fans were mostly supportive of ST 1 and 2. They were divided on ST3. I wanted Ballard, the three Stride lines, and Pinehurst and Graham stations, and went along with the others for the sake of regional compromise. But I never thought Everett, Tacoma, or Issaquah was necessary, and West Seattle is counterproductive in terms of serving most West Seattle residents. I won’t obstruct them, but I’ll continue to state my skepticism and I won’t cry if they’re canceled. Ballard/DSTT2 has gotten post-vote changes that threaten to make it unusable for parts of its primary purpose, so I won’t cry if it’s canceled either.

        Many transit fans have had similar reconsiderations of ST3, and that makes them less likely to vote for ST4. That puts ST in a dilemma, because we were the biggest champions of ST1/2/3 and encouraged the people around us and politicians to vote for it. If we’re half-and-half or less on ST4, that would significantly reduce its chance of passing. And that looks like where the region is likely headed.

        In some sense that doesn’t matter, because ST3 was expanded to include things that were previously expected to be in ST4, so those are already voter-approved. It will take ST two decades to finish those before it can get bonding capacity for anything beyond that. The ST3 tax stream is essentially on top of the ST1 and ST2 streams, which were reused for ST3. That means any additional taxes would be on top of those. Many people think ST1/2/3’s tax stream is already high, and would be less inclined to put a fourth one on top of that. That argues against any ST4 vote before the 2040s. ST hasn’t even decided what might be in an ST4: it just has some projects that are presumed to be at the top of the list, but it will have to reevaluate those when/if it comes time to assemble an ST4 package.

        So there’s kind of two Link eras: ST2, which is essential for core circulation in a metro of 6 million, and ST3, which is less necessary and more flawed.

        Note: Some “ST2” things are technically in ST3: the Redmond Tech-Downtown Redmond extension, the KDM-Federal Way extension, and Pinehurst station.

      4. Transit fans were mostly supportive of ST 1 and 2. They were divided on ST3. I wanted Ballard, the three Stride lines, and Pinehurst and Graham stations [and the extension to Federal Way and Downtown Redmond]

        Exactly. You weren’t alone. A lot of people thought that was the only part of ST3 that was actually worth it.

        In contrast all of ST 1 and ST2 was worth it. If you think of ST 1 and ST 2 as being Link from Federal Way, Lynnwood and Downtown Redmond (along with all of the infill stations) then it is definitely worthy*. At that point ST3 offers very little for the money. Ballard Link, some Stride lines and that is about it.

        *As you mentioned it doesn’t divide that cleanly, but it is easier to think of it that way.

      5. I get Andrew’s point though. I have argued that the next thing we should build is a line from Ballard to the UW. But instead we are building the rest of this, which won’t be nearly as good. When the dust settles it is quite possible that folks will have lost faith in Sound Transit as well as Link. They will assume that expansion just isn’t worth it. Sure, there are some good parts, but more recently we are getting diminishing returns. So then it becomes harder to convince people that running trains from the UW to Ballard (or to First Hill) is worth it.

        As far as “light rail” goes it is basically an American fad. It has its place, but is overused. In our case we would have been much better off building an automated light metro (like Vancouver) given we rarely run on the surface. But the (slightly) incorrect mode is nothing compared to the other mistakes we’ve made (and are in the process of making).

      6. “When the dust settles it is quite possible that folks will have lost faith in Sound Transit as well as Link.”

        The ultimate test of faith will be what it is like to ride every day for the next 40 years. People don’t dwell as much on public investment boondoggles after a few years. They will probably dwell more on the reliability, cleanliness and security aspects of their past several rides. Service disruptions, smelly vagrants treating trains like restrooms and a drugged-out rider threatening violence will ruin someone’s perspective — sometimes for life.

        While things happen that cannot be planned, how ST handles Link operations every day will matter lots.

        ST has mostly been planning like Link is an engagement (visioning and planning), wedding (construction) and honeymoon (new stations and tracks recently opened). Now we are finally entering the stage where the actual daily routine defines daily life.

      7. People don’t dwell as much on public investment boondoggles after a few years.

        I agree. Consider the past. ST3 passed a little while after U-Link. Despite the fact that the project took longer than expected and was over budget it didn’t matter. U-Link was great (as expected). This was a huge accomplishment, and there was great excitement about it. Now consider some timelines for the future:

        West Seattle to SoDo: 2032
        Tacoma Dome Link: 2035
        Ballard Link: 2039
        Everett Link: 2041
        Issaquah Link: 2044

        West Seattle Link doesn’t really offer anything. It is basically an East Link Starter Line but with fewer stations (and less of an improvement over buses). Metro has already made it clear that they won’t do much. Maybe they’ll modify the 50 and that’s about it. Ridership will be small and folks will wonder if it was worth it. That won’t be fair of course (you can’t judge it until the trains go downtown). Meanwhile, they will have closed the SoDo busway. This means riders from Renton and Auburn will be worse off. They will probably add some BAT lanes on Fourth, but it won’t be as fast. You really don’t want to have an election then.

        In 2036 you will have Tacoma Dome Link. That means no more express buses from Tacoma to Seattle. Riders finally realize how long it takes to ride Link that far. Many switch to Sounder. Some people drive. Ridership is disappointing and this means back-to-back projects with ridership nowhere near what they originally estimated. Again, this is a bad time for an election.

        That basically leaves 2040. Assuming everything goes well and the project isn’t further delayed, that is the next big win. So we want to push for another project (with the name “Ballard” in it) after finally finishing Ballard Link? Meanwhile, what exactly is in it for the South Sound? They already have Tacoma Dome Link as well as the various park and ride lots they were promised last time. Maybe they run Sounder a few more times but it is hard to see them getting excited about an extension, especially since Tacoma Dome Link was such a dud. They might be able to convince Everett voters that the train won’t get to Everett without ST4 (just as they convinced Lynnwood voters that ST3 was needed for Lynnwood Link) but by then they will be able to see the finish line. It will be clear that even if they reject ST4, Everett Link will be built.

        For the East Side there is Issaquah Link. Maybe they’ve started construction or maybe it has been delayed further. It is hard to see East Siders getting excited about that project or hoping to extend it (before it is even done).

        Maybe a proposal passes in 2040, maybe it doesn’t. But it doesn’t look like the same dynamic as ST3. By now you are just trying to manage this massively large train system that has fairly low ridership per mile (even though it is doing OK in the city). Do you reduce frequency to the suburbs (like every other city facing similar problems)? That won’t go over well. Even before you deal with whatever outages and maintenance problems could easily kill a good proposal you have some fundamental issues with your system that could doom a system wide vote. Maybe you focus on the city, where support will be stronger. OK, but means changing how the agency operates which requires the state changing things. Most likely it would require a failed region-wide vote. So we are probably looking at 2044 at the earliest for passage of the next vote. Figure another ten years (if we are lucky) to actually build the thing which means the line could be completed by around 2055. By then the buses will be automated and many will question whether rail is the way to go. It is quite possible the idea of light rail will be dead (which was Andrew’s point).

      8. “It is basically an East Link Starter Line but with fewer stations (and less of an improvement over buses).”

        Nit:
        Plus, West Seattle is like an East Side Starter Line, if the starter line had been built in 1992.

        There’s nothing like today’s Bellevue, or even the housing development at Wilberton, anywhere near West Seattle link.

      9. West Seattle is like an East Side Starter Line, if the starter line had been built in 1992.

        Good point. I would go further (and should have in the original comment). West Seattle to SoDo is like an East Side Starter Line but with fewer stations and no major destinations. There is no equivalent of Downtown Bellevue in West Seattle.

  4. Glad to see that NYC is moving forward with a new rail line, the BQX, and it is interesting that it is essentially a new Light Rail line running in a freight rail corridor.

    Several other Light Rail lines have been proposed in NYC, including several in Queens. It’s interesting that this sort of hybrid system is the first to move forward, but looks like they are finally making some progress.

    But the one thing that has always baffled me about NYC transit is the lack of real transit to LaGuardia. So why end the BQX at Roosevelt? Ya, the fright line continues over toward Astoria Park/Ditmars, But why not simply follow the Brooklyn Queens Expressway E and go straight to LaGuardia. Seems like a no brainer.

    But hey, maybe they are holding that in reserve as a future extension. Because it would be absolutely awesome to be able to go straight from Bay Ridge to LaGuardia without changing trains or taking a slow Q bus.

    But at least this is progress.

      1. That’s my fault – I didn’t realize the BQX and IBX (which is what’s actually being built) were two different proposals. I’ve corrected the post.

      2. Funny that I only realized this yesterday when I was talking to someone about recent progress of IBX and he pointed out that BQX is probably very dead at this point. That’s when I realized BQX is not IBX.

      3. I think I just read IBX in the article and when I wrote the roundup, misremembered it as BQX since I’d heard about that one before.

    2. I think there’s been proposals or concepts for LaGuardia in the past few years. I don’t know enough about New York to know how difficult it is to get to without a train. None of my flights have offered it: once I went to Newark and once to JFK; the other times I took Greyhound.

      From Newark airport there’s a 24-hour bus to Newark Penn Station. It takes maybe twenty minutes, and then the PATH subway goes into Manhattan to 34th Street. There’s a faster Amtrak train but it costs significantly more; I took it once.

      From JFK airport the airtrain goes to an external subway station, and from there the A subway goes to Manhattan. It’s usually express but when I was there, there was maintenance so it went local and took an hour. There’s a combined airtrain+subway fare and if you get a multi-trip pass, be careful, because there are two kinds, one for airtrain+subway and the other for airtrain only. I accidentally got the second one and then it was useless to me since I wouldn’t be using it again except for my return flight, so I gave it to somebody else who would use it more.

      1. From JFK the Airtrain also goes to Jamaica where you can catch the E train or LIRR into Manhattan. For all but the far south end of Manhattan this will be faster than the A train.

      2. I think a LaGuardia AirTrain was at its most promising point right before Cuomo resigned. He was promoting this a lot. When Hochul took over, she seemed to shift the focus to redevelop Penn Station. Around the time when LGA AirTrain was canceled, Q70, aka The LaGuardia Link, became fare-free.

        It is pretty difficult to quickly get to LaGuardia from Midtown Manhattan ever since NYC Airporter went out of business. A few years ago (during pandemic), I followed MTA’s guideline and took subway to Jackson Heights to transfer the Q70 to LGA. Jackson Heights is a pretty busy/chaotic urban hub for someone out of town holding luggage to wait for bus. Before it became a SBS (similar to RapidRide here), there was little special signs to highlight that you are at the right spot to wait for bus to LGA which is not very friendly for people from out of town especially those who barely use public transit back home. The bus ran every 15 minutes back then I think and I actually waited for the entire 15 minutes probably because of congestion on the way. It was quite crowded by the time the bus I boarded left Jackson Heights. Good thing is there was barely any other stop between Jackson Heights and LGA, so it was a short ride. The service has been upgraded to SBS earlier this year. So it is probably more reliable and frequent now, but that also means NYC is one step further away building AirTrain LGA.

      3. And just as Evan mentioned, I think nowadays the best way to travel from JFK to Manhattan is taking LIRR at Jamaica.
        You will have to pay attention to arrival board at Jamaica to walk down to the right platform.

        Regarding fare, ever since they rolled out the OMNY digital payment system, paying fare is easier than ever. I really think city like Seattle full of tourists should invest something like that so everyone can pay with credit/debit card. I’ve seen so many times tourists who are very eager to pay their fares end up not paying because they don’t know how to. Portland has implemented this long time ago.

      4. “For all but the far south end of Manhattan this will be faster than the A train.”

        I was staying at the south end of Manhattan at the time. Funny, the airline lost one of my luggage, so I ended up having to go back to JFK to check on it, so I actually made two round trips on the A+airtrain, utilizing my Airtrain multi-trip card and sitting through local service because the express track was under maintenance. When I got to the airport and identified my bag type, the clerk said they’d deliver it to me. I said, “But I’m staying in Manhattan.” They said that didn’t matter; they’d deliver it to wherever I’m staying. I couldn’t believe they’d deliver it that far, but they did in the next day or two.

        I’ve always thought of LaGuardia as mainly for Queens and Long Island residents. I don’t know if cross-country flights go to it; mine never have.

      5. “I’ve always thought of LaGuardia as mainly for Queens and Long Island residents. I don’t know if cross-country flights go to it; mine never have.”

        LGA is definitely for every part of NYC. It is also the closest airport to Manhattan. LGA was so desirable and overcrowded in the 80s that Port Authority had to limit it to only serve flight that < 1500 mi with few exception. Also, its runaway is not long enough to fly widebody.

    3. I have been wondering whether the Everett Link Extension will serve Paine Field airport, or merely some random point in the industrial area from which riders will have to get a bus or private vehicle the rest of the way to the terminal.

      If the train does not have a stop near the airport terminal, why not? And then, why is it detouring so far from the spine to fail at serving what could have become easily the busiest light rail stop north of UW?

      1. The Everett Link Extension is a poster child of light rail planning by a committee of non-transit riders.

        1. They think getting close is good enough. That not only applies to the station locations near Paine Field but also to other destinations there.

        A few years ago, staff even gently suggested turning the route up SR 99 — but the committee wouldn’t budge partially because it would be further from Paine Field — yet even the current tracks are still not within good walking distance of the terminal (even just the tracks are 0.4 miles away) and the nearest planned station is over a mile.

        2. They don’t understand the importance of branching. In their eagerness to have all the destinations in one line, they make every rider endure the snake alignment of trains moving no faster than 55 mph . Plus, they don’t get how turning around an end-of-the-line train in the middle of another line is often more challenging operationally than just having two branches with two end-of-line stations.

        3. They ignore the need to optimize attracting riders. The committee cares more about where it goes in a map and not how to make it the most productive by attracting the most riders for the cost. Building 11 miles of tracks with just three (four with optional station) stations that attract very low ridership is particularly revealing about how the committee doesn’t really know or maybe don’t really care about what they’re doing.

        There are issues about station area planning too — but these three overarching mistakes about light rail planning are to me the most glaring.

      2. Oh…. Even if Link went to the terminal it wouldn’t generate that much ridership.

        SeaTac has about 1154 flights departing every day. Paine Field has 24. Even if that grew 4.5 times (115 flights), that’s only 1/10th of SeaTac.

        Parking at SeaTac is very expensive. Terminal congestion is notoriously heavy. Link does get about 10K boardings a day (and another 10K arriving). So assuming 1/10th of SeaTac means only 1K boardings. Both Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace exceed that by far today.

      3. I think it is safe to predict that flights at Paine Field will grow as offerings grow, especially if transit eventually connects well to the terminal. Since that is not currently the plan, I’m baffled why the ST Board went along with this nonsensical plan.

      5. There’s an Everett Link comment period” open just for you until August 28th. It’s the first scoping phase, so it’s just asking broad questions about what you think about current transit service and what you want ST to include in its EIS studies, but you can reply that you’re concerned about the closeness of stations to the airline terminal, the Future of Flight museum, and the industrial jobs that are supposed to be the reason for the detour. Summaries of previous Everett Link outreach and feedback are here: https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/everett-link-extension-scoping-outreach-summary-jan-23-march-10

        I don’t know if I’ll say anything because I don’t know enough about travel patterns in Everett/Mukilteo to advocate for anything specific. I’d like to see the Link line truncated at Ash Way or Mariner or bypass Paine Field, but those issues have been heavily debated and ST is so strongly against them that I don’t see the point in mentioning them again now. I want to see the Paine Field stations within walking distance of destinations and jobs so that it can actually be usable if it’s built, but again that’s an obvious concern that ST already knows (but doesn’t necessarily prioritize). I don’t know enough about other issues, like how dense Casino Road really is or how much a station there really matters, or whether people would really transfer between Link and Swift Blue at Airport Road, or anything north of 164th, the extent of most of my personal experience. So I’m hoping people who now more about Everett’s travel patterns will give more insightful and credible feedback than I can.

      6. “I think it is safe to predict that flights at Paine Field will grow as offerings grow, especially if transit eventually connects well to the terminal.”

        There are so many obstacles to overcome to get even 1/10th of the boardings that SeaTac has. Like I said, that gets them 1000 average daily boardings — if and only if parking rates are hugely jacked up at Paine Field (which they don’t want).

        That’s about what the current long-range plan for Paine Field calls for.

        – 15 planned Paine Field gates versus 115 gates at SeaTac currently (and way too deficient)

        – 4M passengers planned at Paine Field vs 65M at SeaTac currently

        And again let stress that even the planned tracks are over 2,000 feet away from the terminal. It’s walkable only for the hearty — and some sort of shuttle will be needed even if there is an unplanned infill station on those tracks. And there’s not even that.

        Had the ST delegation wanted it to actually serve Paine Field, they would have planned for it to be an end station. That way, trains could lay over at a station right at the terminal (located in a general cul-de-sac) and leave every 10 minutes.

        But the committee is too busy believing that Link will magically transform the employment district all by itself. They ignore the real-world transit ridership disappointments of denser suburban employment areas like Las Collinas in Dallas or the Tasman corridor in Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.

        And the committee is way too obsessed that the train must run direct from Downtown Everett. Heaven forbid that a handful of riders between Paine Field and Downtown Everett must transfer! They ignore that the tracks are still too far away from the terminal to walk for most people — so they’ll be transferring anyway (shuttle to/ from Link).

        It’s like Peter Pan. The leaders want to ride a train around Snohomish County someday like it’s an amusement ride — but don’t understand the adult reality of what an actual rail transit line does and needs to do.

      7. “The committee cares more about where it goes in a map and not how to make it the most productive by attracting the most riders for the cost.”

        The purpose of the detour is to attract industrial employers and their jobs and tax revenue. I guess they won’t look further than a map either.

      8. And not many Snohomish residents even can take Link to Paine Field. It’s a C-shaped arc between Everett and Lynnwood. Everett has some kind of density that might improve someday, but most of it is between Everett Station and Paine Field. Downtown Lynnwood is just starting its density. The stations in between have only very modest density, and the vast majority of residents don’t live near them and don’t have 10-15 minute feeders to them.

        In contrast, essentially all of the eastern half Seattle has an incentive to take Link to SeaTac, because it’s a longer distance (15-20 miles) and the fastest transit way to get there. Even the western half of Seattle has an incentive to take a bus 1-3 miles to Link to the airport for those same reasons. Only those living right near Westwood Village have a strong comparable alternative with the 560, and that will go away with Stride 1. And all these station-cachement areas have several times more people than counterpart areas in Snohomish. Even Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood are excited about Link to SeaTac airport!

        There is a potential converse demand, from King County to Paine Field. That’s a long enough distance to justify going a bit out of the way to a Link station, and there are many more people in the station cachement areas. But the Snohomish subarea should primarily be concerned with its own residents, one would think. There’s a large imbalance with many Snohomish residents commuting to King County for work. Snohomish County is trying to generate more jobs within the county so its residents don’t have to do that. It should be focused on that, not on getting King County residents to Paine Field and the Boeing jobs, or on a dubious Link alignment that won’t meet most of Snohomish residents travel needs or travel-to-Paine-Field needs.

      9. I have been wondering whether the Everett Link Extension will serve Paine Field airport, or merely some random point in the industrial area from which riders will have to get a bus or private vehicle the rest of the way to the terminal.

        Riders will have to get a bus or private vehicle.

        If the train does not have a stop near the airport terminal, why not?

        It was never considered a priority. To begin with there aren’t that many flights. It is a non-trivial distance (580 meters) from Airport Road to the terminal. While the walk from the SeaTac Link station to the airport itself is annoying it is actually shorter (https://maps.app.goo.gl/KPbC8eVQNsmDUaHD6). It is also sheltered.

        The Swift Green stops along Airport Road, but the Everett 8 will get you right to the terminal. It is far enough to justify the detour for the infrequent 8. But since not that many people take transit for a flight, not far enough to justify a detour on the Swift Green.

        Eventually the airport could be big enough to justify the extra station. It seems like they could have added a “provisional” station. But even that would add to the cost. The trains will be really long and there is a curve there.

        And then, why is it detouring so far from the spine to fail at serving what could have become easily the busiest light rail stop north of UW?

        The airport would not be a busy stop. It would be a minor “might as well” stop. The goal is to serve the employment center by Boeing. Unfortunately it won’t do a great job of that because the employment there is spread out. There will be shuttles but you might as well run shuttles from Lynnwood and Everett. The problem is that there isn’t the density to justify running north of Everett. If you run express to Everett it would cost a bundle for not that many riders. It will instead try to pick up more riders along the way but it will still cost a bundle for not that many riders. Everett Link (like Tacoma Dome Link, Issaquah Link and even West Seattle Link) is a poorly thought out extension not because there is a flaw in the routing. It just shouldn’t be extended that direction.

      10. Another weird thing about the light rail going to Paine Field: nobody around there seems to be aware of it! I have a lot of family and friends that live and work in the Holly Drive/Airport Road neighborhood. I have been keeping an eye on a piece of family property that is blocks away from Paine Field. Anytime I show info about the light rail plans to folks from there, I feel like I might as well have a crystal ball because that would be more believable. Could just be my experience though with people who don’t follow transit or local news. But I’m getting concerned that outreach is not reaching people in that neighborhood.

    4. The one thing that both projects have in common is use of the term “express”. I get that the concept is to eliminate having to enter Manhattan to transfer so it’s like skipping stations.

      But it doesn’t look like it’s being designed with the ability to run express trains that skip stations on the line, which is what NYC normally considers an express. It’s instead appears to be a “circumferential” line rather than an “express” one.

      1. I agree that the IBX should not be called an express. It is definitely “Interborough” (eventually it could extend to the Bronx). That is the selling point. It is basically an orbital line that takes advantage of existing right-of-way (and is thus much cheaper than if you dug tunnels the whole way). I would call it the IBL for Interborough Line.

  5. I was a bit worried about the 48th District Senator race. Amy Walen (who has been disappointing on housing, among other issues) sent me a ton of mail before the election. But she seems to be well behind Vandana Slatter, who only sent me one piece of mail.

    For those of you who don’t live in Redmond, it may be interesting to note that the winning candidates here all heavily emphasized their endorsements from the King County Democrats. It doesn’t look like you can win around here these days without that endorsement. There was a lot of noise about “safety”, referencing that homeless shelter getting built downtown, but it didn’t amount to much in the end.

    The only disappointing result is that Balducci is running behind Zahilay. I think it’s likely that in the general, Balducci picks up most of the ~30% that didn’t vote for either of them in the primary. I am still hopeful about this one.

    This was a good election overall.

    1. I’m in the 48th district. I was used to seeing Amy Walen and Vandana Slatter both as state reps, and was surprised to see them running against each other for state senate. Another surprise was the shear amount of negative advertising coming out of the Walen campaign, she sent mailer and mailer of Republican-style attack ads, accusing her opponent of defunding the police. It did not go well with me, and it seems it didn’t go well with with other people, either.

      For King County executive, the choice of Balducci over Zahilay was an easy one for me as, a few years ago, I attended an East Link connections open house (over zoom) run by Zahilay. During the meeting, Zahilay droned on and on about equity, equity, equity, to the point where I sincerely believe he considers the racial composition of a bus route’s ridership to be more important than the actual level of ridership (and, I felt like, as a white male, that Zahilay could care less whether I ever rode the bus or not). Meanwhile, Balduccui’s main impact on transit was successfully lobbying the rest of the Sound Transit board to open the 2-line through Bellevue when it was ready, rather than having it just sit in a mothballed state for an additional couple of years, while people slog it out on slow buses. Needless to say, my vote for Balducci was an easy choice, and I hope she does better in the November election.

    2. @Christopher Cramer,

      “…….. it’s likely that in the general, Balducci picks up most of the ~30% that didn’t vote for either of them in the primary. ”

      Barring the unforeseen, Balducci is toast. No way does she pick up 2/3’s or the non-committed vote. And turnout in the general tends to be higher and somewhat more liberal, so that will favor Zahilay too.

      And the reason is obvious. Balducci blew it on Light Rail. She thought she could ride the ELSL to an easy victory, but that line has been somewhat underwhelming. And just having the ELSL open puts the obvious focus on Full ELE and the screwed up cross lake segment.

      So she thought the ELSL was an easy winner, but it just puts the focus on the screwed up segment and her role in that screw up.

      If I was Zahilay I’d hammer her on the delayed cross lake segment. And I’d also question whether her focus on a ELSL delayed Full ELE.

      But I think Balducci is toast. And good riddance as far as I’m concerned. People love Light Rail, and Balducci hasn’t delivered.

      1. I am genuinely puzzled by your assertion that Balducci is to blame for the problems with East Link. She is usually the only person on the Sound Transit Board trying to improve it. Everyone else on the board (Zahilay included) is usually trying to make it worse. I would be surprised if anyone really paying attention to King County Council and Sound Transit Board proceedings believed that transit in King County would be better with Zahilay as executive.

        The logic here doesn’t even make sense. When the contractor screwed up the I-90 bridge section, she wasn’t running Sound Transit. She wasn’t King County Executive (who appoints most of the board), she wasn’t Sound Transit Chairman, she wasn’t Sound Transit CEO, etc., she was just one board member. And in fact, she has been the board member most likely to complain about how things are going, and most likely to be trying to fix it.

        I don’t think she necessarily deserves much credit for East Link (Bellevue and Redmond are the 2nd and 3rd biggest job centers in the state – a line here is almost inevitable), but she certainly doesn’t deserve most of the blame for the fact that it’s late.

      2. Balducci has spent decades on the Bellevue city council, Bellevue’s mayor, King County council, and now King County executive. My mom is one of her constituents, and I would be if I still lived there; actually I am now because of the King County executive. We both think she’s one of the best politicians around and we strongly support her. She’s done tons of other things besides the 2 Line Starter Line and advocating Link. The 2LSL is working even if the full 2 Line is much later than expected. People understand that crossing a floating bridge is unprecedented and might have unprecedented delays.

        Even beyond Balducci’s achievements, she’s a clear-headed thinker, and more urban-minded than most Eastside politicians, even if she’s more suburban-minded than our (many STBers’) ideal, but that’s to be expected from an Eastsider and Eastside politician. She has been the one pushing the rest of the ST board to reconsider its worst decisions and blind spots, such as the long downtown transfers, which will do a whammy on Eastsiders going to the airport. She and Roger Millar, the former WSDOT representative on the board, they’ve been the best in recent years.

        I want to give Zahilay fair consideration but I’m not as convinced he’d be as effective at this point.

        One wildcard which gets to Lazarus’s point is, Seattle and South King County constituents don’t know much about Balducci, so they don’t know all the things Eastsiders and my family have seen. But at the same time, Link is not on their minds for the King County executive position: the executive does many other things. Many in South King County probably don’t even know about East Link and wouldn’t care whether it’s late or not, and those in Seattle waiting for crosslake service have a lot of other things in mind too when choosing a King County executive. So I don’t think Crosslake’s delay will hurt Balducci much, but the lack of familiarity with her outside the Eastside might.

        Why, look at this, both Balducci and Zahilay are on the ST board now. So what has Zahilay been doing and saying on the board?

      3. “So she thought the ELSL was an easy winner”

        Not everybody thinks only politically. It wasn’t just to rake up reelection points; it was so that her constituents could ride it, and to address transit holes in the existing network. Because that’s, like, her job to do those kinds of things.

        What transit holes? Lack of all-day Bellevue-Redmond express service. Lack of transit to the new Spring District village. And with the Redmond extension, access to Marymoor Park on transit without walking a mile from the bus stop.

      4. I voted for Balducci in the primary but have not decided who I will vote for in the general. Balducci’s main accomplishment on transit seems to have been moving Downtown Bellevue Station a couple blocks west. If her advocacy for saving the downtown light rail hub (and Zahilay’s silence thereon) ends up costing her the election, that would be disappointing.

      6. And turnout in the general tends to be higher and somewhat more liberal, so that will favor Zahilay too.

        Nationwide that is the case. But in races like this, the general election tends to more centrist. It is common for candidates endorsed by The Stranger to do quite well in the primary (as they have a strong “ground game”) only to flop in the general. Time will tell, of course, but I wouldn’t count Balducci out.

        So she thought the ELSL was an easy winner

        Are you saying it hasn’t been? The East Side Starter Line got over 8,000 riders in June. That is more than Lynnwood Link. Unlike Lynnwood Link, the cost is minimal. You are basically just paying for operations. Are you saying that we shouldn’t run trains to Lynnwood because it “has been somewhat underwhelming”? It may not have been easy, but running the trains early on the East Side has been a clear winner.

        Blaming her for the problems with East Link is absurd (as Christopher Cramer pointed out).

    3. I was a bit shocked that the first evening totals were rather low. Outside of obvious trends, I wouldn’t attach too many conclusions to the initial results. They are subject to change — probably by as much as ten points.

      I’ll add that I saw a parade of voters dropping off ballots late yesterday afternoon when I walked by my local drop box. I’ve not seen that surge before.

    4. The Eastside was Republican when I grew up there but has since become Democrat, but moderate. It’s more an issue of the parties changing than them changing. As they’ve grown into bigger cities they’ve had to deal with what were previously considered “Seattle issues”, so that has softened their stance on density and homeless services and the like, and the Eastside has also gotten used to rapid non-white diversification in a short period of time. The city governments know full well how much they need transit, that 1/5 of Bellevue is lower-income, and Kirkland has homeless kids because they attend the schools. But they sometimes have difficulty explaining it to some constituents who don’t believe it’s possible there, who think they can just continue the low-density, car-dependent la-la land and shunt all the homeless and druggies to Seattle, but it just doesn’t work anymore, and the cities’ leaders know it.

      1. My guess is the East Side is still fairly fiscally conservative but socially liberal. Kind of like Orange County. Arnold Schwarzenegger was the perfect candidate for the county and he managed to do quite well there even though he lost Los Angeles County. In my opinion we really haven’t had a candidate fit that mold in a while.

    5. Balducci doesn’t look to be in a poor position to me. I think Wilson/Chartrand voters will likely shift to her over Zahilay, who is running to her left.

      1. @John D,

        “Balducci doesn’t look to be in a poor position to me.”

        Anytime you only poll 30% in the primary, you are in a “poor” position.

        Anytime you trail your main opponent 40% to 30% in the primary, you are in a “poor” position.

        Think of it, Zahilay only needs to get roughly a third of the other votes in the general to win the election. That should be reasonably easy for someone as charismatic as he is.

        That said, maybe Balducci has a couple of dirty tricks up her sleeve. Time will tell, but I think she is probably toast.

      2. @Lazarus

        Primaries in King County tend to lean progressive, and this is a relatively crowded primary. Calling the race one way or the other at this point is pretty shortsighted

      3. Anytime you only poll 30% in the primary, you are in a “poor” position.

        Anytime you trail your main opponent 40% to 30% in the primary, you are in a “poor” position.

        That is simply not true. Votes get split all the time. Rivera got 31% in the primary. Davis got 45% (a wider margin than this race). But Rivera won in the general election. Saka got 24% of the vote in the primary. His opponent got more. He won the general election. Those are two races from the last election, both for city council. It is fairly common to see votes split in the primary and then coalesce all sorts of ways in the general, especially when there is an open seat.

        If someone gets more than 50% of the vote then the opponent should be scared. If you are an incumbent and you fail to get the most votes you should be very scared. Therefore, both Sara Nelson and Ann Davison should be terrified. Balducci should be disappointed but not scared. Pick up the votes of Derek Chartrand (a fellow East-Sider) and this is a dead heat.

      4. That said, maybe Balducci has a couple of dirty tricks up her sleeve.

        Right. Because the only way a woman can win the race is to play dirty. WTF?

      5. What really matters is what lane candidates are in. People who voted for someone who didn’t make it through the primary tend to jump to someone similar to them.

        For instance, last year, Dave Upthegrove barely made it through the primary in 2nd place for Lands Commissioner. But because the 3rd place candidate was very similar to him politically, Upthegrove picked up their voters and cruised through the general election handily.

        Balducci and Zahilay are very similar politically, so it’s going to be more split who Wilson’s supporters jump to, or how many supporters of the more conservative candidates simply sit out that race in the general election. Zahilay’s 10 point margin seems more likely to hold up in this case.

      6. Balducci and Zahilay are very similar politically.

        Maybe, but perception is everything. Zahilay got the endorsement of The Stranger. Balducci got the endorsement of The Seattle Times. This confirms what John said. They may vote the same and govern very similarly but Zahilay is running to the left (or at least appears like he is). Chartrand got more votes than Wilson and he is clearly to the right of both candidates. He is also from the East Side. It seems quite plausible she picks up almost all of those votes. That would make it a dead heat. Wilson and the rest of the candidates may go anywhere from what I can tell (there is no obvious lane).

  6. Hope it’s ok to ask again here.
    Did anyone attend the Renton BRT Access Study community meeting on Monday?
    https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1320117983259537&set=pcb.1320118086592860
    =================================================================
    Are you a transit user in Renton, WA?
    We are excited to share @Washington State Department of Transportation’s (WSDOT) opportunity for transit users to participate in the Renton Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Access Study! This study aims to identify options to improve transit access and reliability around the I-405 and SR 167 facilities and the Renton Transit Center currently being designed by Sound Transit to support their new Bus Rapid Transit system and local King County Metro service.
    So far, they’ve met with key community groups representing residents, business/property managers, and local organizations serving the study area. Next is the final roundtable discussion, focused specifically on transit users!
    Seeking participants who regularly use the following bus routes:
    • King County Metro: 148, 153, 160, 101, 102, 107, 105, 106, 240, DART 907, RapidRide F Line
    • Sound Transit Express: 560, 566
    The Renton BRT Access Study Roundtable Discussion for Transit Users will happen in-person on Monday, August 4th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Renton Chamber of Commerce and online via Microsoft Teams (link provided upon RSVP).
    If you’re interested in signing up, please RSVP via the email on the flyer.
    #kingcounty #renton #soundtransit #kingcountymetro

    1. I didn’t know about it, and I’m not as familiar with the details of Renton’s travel patterns as I am with Seattle and the Eastside. If one councilmember candidate is prioritizing transit and all-day service to meet more of the residents’ total needs, that’s a great sign. But Renton has had opportunities since 2014 to be a leader in its own transit evolution and it has largely waited for others to do it or dropped the ball. It could have had a different ST3 package and Metro long-range plans if it had asked, and if it had come up with its own local-bus-route priorities earlier, and if it had set up a TBD like Seattle’s to get additional service beyond Metro’s baseline, and if it had done more to help the last countywide Metro measure pass (it failed). So it’s kind of late now, but better late than never.

      The two biggest problems I see is Renton’s obsession with moving the transit center away from the walkable destinations, and the fact that so many routes terminate at Renton TC that it creates transfer overhead to get from eastern Renton where most people live to western Renton, Seattle, and other regional destinations. Westgaard has the right idea on that, and Metro’s long-term plan proposes to fix the 106/105 problem by splitting them at Rainier Beach station instead of Renton TC, where there’s both a Link transfer and no last-mile issue getting to western Renton. The transit-center move is baked in now, so I hope Renton rises to the occasion with walkable destinations and housing around it to make up for it.

      RapidRide I is still an issue as Metro plans to terminate it in downtown Renton, with no direct access to a Link station. It would make sense to extend it to Rainier Beach station, possibly replacing that part of the 101 or 106. But the 106 is already spoken for if the 106/105 concept is pursued, and Metro has been adamant about keeping the 101 forever for over a decade now, so it’s unlikely to change on that.

      The city of Renton finally made a transit master plan; I don’t know how good it is. That’s a starting point for more city advocacy for better transit in Renton, and an opportunity for Renton to put its money where its mouth is and contribute to some solutions.

      I don’t like the idea of a separate Renton transit agency. That seems like a lot of money wasted in not just increasing the service hours and bus fleet and giving smarter advice on route alignments. There’s the Everett Transit precedent, and also the Renton Library precedent. Renton used to be one of the few suburbs with a separate library system from KCLS. We know why Seattle Public Library isn’t merged with KCLS: a state law prohibits historically-large cities from joining what was originally a “rural library district”. But most King County cities joined it, while Renton and Hunts Point were outliers. So they didn’t have cross-library access to KCLS library cards and materials (which Seattle has long had) because they didn’t want to pay KCLS’s higher taxes. Until Renton finally did join it. (Hunt’s Point is now the only outlier with no library service for its residents, since it has neither KCLS nor a local library with or without a reciprocal-service agreement with KCLS.) So I’d hate to see that happen anew with a Renton transit agency.

      1. I think Renton BRT Access Study here is for STRIDE S1. It is about mitigating potential transit travel time reliability issue between I-405 and South Renton TC. It was brought up a couple times in some recent discussions.

        It is not related to Urbanist’s recent interview with Westgaard.

      2. Until Renton gets light rail, the 101 has to stay. Forcing people to transfer will ruin ridership even more. Many 101 riders already transfer from another route like 105/148/153/160.

        The best light rail solution in hopefully ST4:

        1. Renton-Seattle: Start at Southport/Coulon Beach, pass through Landing/Downtown, South Renton Station, Skyway, then back up to Rainier Valley. Then go to Mount Baker directly with elevated rail. The existing stations Othello and Columbia City can be replaced with a short street car with more stations using Link style cars. From there, head to SODO then up to at least Westlake.

        2. Existing 1 Line goes from Tukwila to Boeing to Georgetown to SODO instead. Speeds up the airport trip significantly.

        3. This is a stretch and probably never going to happen, but some sort of commuter rail that eventually replaces Stride between Airport and Lynnwood to follow the 405 corridor, stopping in the airport, Tukwila, Renton, Factoria/Eastgate (around the I-90 interchange with inline transfer options), Bellevue, Kirkland, and Bothell.

        4. Stride service moved to SR 167, terminating at South Renton station.

        5. Transit fund from Renton to boost local service to nearby neighborhoods and cities.

        That’d essentially get the Renton region fully connected. It is a stretch for us. A shame we can’t get things done like Europe and Asia. I even see more transit even better than this being built in second and third world nations.

      3. I also think the 1 Line should go all the way from Tacoma to Lynnwood. I know they are cutting S King people off because middle high income people in E King want to send their kiddos directly to UW. But a East West line should go… East west. It’s ruining service for the rest of us. Ballard should go to West Seattle and Bellevue fully automated.

        If we can’t get Link to run that long (it’d be possible if we can automated), at least from the airport to Lynnwood/Everett, and airport to Tacoma (and maybe eventually Olympia). The airport is a major destination and requires a one seat ride along I-5. It can also act as a decent transit hub around the region, along with Tukwila International Blvd Station.

      4. South King;
        The problem is the very limited ridership.
        With having yo take a bus or streetcar from anywhere in Tacona to Tacoma Dome, ride through all the stations, etc, you’re looking at something like 90 minutes to get from anywhere meaningful in Tacoma to downtown Seattle on Link.

        SoundTransit’s own optimistic 2019 ridership estimates show some 1/4 the ridership south of Federal Way as north of SeaTac.

        This same dynamic is already happening north of Northgate.

        It’s just too far for a local train service to attract large numbers of riders.

        I’m not saying Link shouldn’t connect Tacoma to SeaTac, but there’s no way it’s going to satisfy any sort of Tacoma to Seattle need.

      5. “I know they are cutting S King people off because middle high income people in E King want to send their kiddos directly to UW.”

        The 2 Line is going to Lynnwood partly because North Seattle and Capitol Hill need 4-5 minute frequency: that’s where ridership is highest and is the most prone to overcrowding, as can be seen on the 1 Line now. It’s not just because rich Eastsiders want to do their schooling and shopping and nightlife there.

        South King’s and Pierce’s primary problem is its long distances. 15 miles from Westlake gets you to Lynnwood, Redmond and …. north Kent (240th Street). Between Lynnwood and Westlake there’s the U-District, Northgate, Roosevelt, and Capitol Hill. Between Redmond and Westlake there’s downtown Bellevue and Microsoft. Between Kent and Westlake there’s nothing comparable: no major institution or job/retail district to generate a lot of trips and riders and so that people don’t have to go all the way to downtown Seattle and beyond. There’s only the airport, and people don’t fly every day.

        So anyway, you go 15 miles to north Kent but then you have to go further to Federal Way, Tacoma Dome, and “real Tacoma”. And that takes an hour or more. And the Link line on 99 is too far away from downtown Kent, Auburn, and Renton to meaningfully help them with north-south travel.

        Then there’s the Rainier Valley/SODO surface alignment and east-west detour that adds 12 minutes to the trip by my estimate.

        ST can’t do anything about the distances. It’s the cities’ responsibility to make the areas more walkable and have more public-facing destinations so that people can do all that in the south county and people from up north will come down there and spend money in south county cities. They aren’t because of this persistent car-oriented bias and adversion to density that’s worse in the south end than in Seattle or the Eastside.

        What ST is responsible for is the transit modes and speed. Link is not an appropriate mode for 30 miles out to lower-density, unwalkable areas. And if you’re going to do it anyway, use light rail’s full 65-80 mph capability to make it faster than driving, don’t artificially limit the train and track specs to 55 mph. And focus on the center of South King County’s population and ridesheds, which are in Kent and Renton, not on 99.

      6. Realistically, the best chance for decent transit in South Sound is to pour money into the buses and leverage Sounder. This is what most cities across the world would do. I realize this doesn’t sound like what they would do in Europe but they typically don’t have the same issues there. When they do, this is what they do.

        The southern suburbs are sprawling low-density areas. This is common in the U. S. and Canada, but not in Europe. Dealing with this lack of density requires a different set of tools, primarily buses. They aren’t like European suburban cities, which are not only quite dense but also centered around the railroad tracks. Even if the public owned the rail lines and even if we ran the trains every fifteen minutes all day long they wouldn’t get that many riders because not that many people can walk to the station. Hell, the Tacoma station isn’t even downtown anymore. This also makes the bus network more challenging. In a small, concentrated suburban city the buses can not only easily cover the urban areas (which make up the vast majority of the city) but they are typically focused on the center, where there is also a train station. This is difficult in our suburbs. You have a hospital over here, a few buildings over there and a huge swath of humanity scattered across the countryside. The only thing you can do to actually serve such areas well is run a lot of buses.

        That doesn’t mean we will actually do that. We will throw money into long-distance light rail because somehow the idea of light rail from Tacoma to Everett appeals to people. It is like someone who sees a nail gun and thinks “Cool. I want one of those. I’m going to put up my posters with that!”. Dude, you just need thumb tacks.

        As Glenn pointed out, metros don’t work well for intercity travel. They make too many stops (as well they should). Either you run commuter/regional rail (leveraging existing tracks) or you run express buses. This means you wouldn’t have a direct metro connection between say, Fife and Star Lake. So be it.

        That doesn’t mean things can’t or won’t improve. Federal Way Link will improve the options in the area. Riders will have a two-seat ride from Fife to Star Lake involving a fairly straightforward transfer. More importantly, riders from Tacoma to Seattle should be able to retain their fast one-seat midday ride between the two cities while also connecting to Link for trips to the airport, Highline College (and Star Lake). Of course what Tacoma really needs is decent bus service *in Tacoma*.

        I know folks what more midday Sounder runs but the most cost effective thing in my opinion is to extend peak service. I realize people want to “get to work by nine” (if the train’s on time) but it is also quite reasonable to get to work at 9:30 or 10:00, especially in this “work from home, mostly” era. A couple more runs in late morning as well as better reverse peak service would do nicely.

        But mostly it comes down to buses. Right-of-way should be improved. The HOV-2 lanes on I-5 should be converted to HOV-3. If you can get away with HOT lanes then I have no problem with that. But buses should not be stuck in traffic on the freeway. For that matter they shouldn’t be stuck in traffic getting to and from the freeway. There should be a ramp to better connect the HOV lanes of I-5 with the SoDo busway (and we should retain the SoDo busway). It would be fairly cheap to do all of this and yet it would be a much bigger improvement for a lot more people than things like Tacoma Dome Link or any other rail project to the south.

        There are other things they could do. Boeing Access Road Station represents a missed opportunity. It should be a major multi-modal hub. Just as buses from Tacoma will be able to stop at Federal Way and then continue to Seattle (without leaving the HOV lanes) buses from Renton should be able to connect to Link at BAR. Riders from Renton could more easily get to Link destinations in Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill. Sounder could connect as well.

        A more ambitious project would be to bury the train in Rainier Valley. While disruptive in the short term, this could be a huge win for a lot of people and not just for those in Rainier Valley. The train could run faster and more frequently. You still have the crossings in SoDo but those too could be fixed (with overpasses) which would also help the express buses. At that point the train line could be automated. Burying the line in Rainier Valley would not be extremely expensive (somewhere around a billion) and yet everyone who travels to or from the south would benefit. It would be a much better value than Tacoma Link, let alone a Georgetown bypass (that even ST thinks is silly).

        But mostly the area just needs better bus service. There are only a handful of areas outside Seattle proper where a metro makes sense and we have mostly built it already. We also have trains running where they can run. We just need better buses.

      7. “I also think the 1 Line should go all the way from Tacoma to Lynnwood.”

        The maddening thing is that the track configurations through SODO are still not being designed to enable any easy through-routing between SE and NE Seattle for any reason. This is a problem that I’ve been pointing out since 2018.

        The typical bystander thinks that trains will still have the option to operate like today after West Seattle and DSTT2 supposedly open. But ST is designing things to sever the track connections through SODO. And this is happening RIGHT NOW with the final West Seattle Link design contract just authorized.

        The terrible transfers are bad enough. But as I look at the track plans that I’ve seen, there will not be any operational capability to develop any through-routed train for any reason — not only for a possible new line configuration but even service disruptions, special events, overcrowding relief or any other needed operation — just because the SODO tracks won’t be designed for it.

        This literally affects the entire system. ST staff and management ignore it. Snohomish, North King and South King Board reps are not being told about what they’re losing or they don’t understand what they’re losing by the negligent track design through SODO.

        This question is never asked and never answered:

        “Will any train coming to and from the Beacon Hill tunnel be able to still use DSTT tracks seamlessly once the project is finished?”

        The current answer appears to be NO! And that’s a very basic problem!

        It’s my sincere wish that every transit advocate take up this issue ASAP. We need to ket Board members know that the current SODO track configurations are unacceptable. The design team at ST has had many provide feedback over many years to correct this but they’re unmoved. It’s going to have to be directed at the Board level to happen. And if we don’t, the region’s transit users are cursed for a century.

      8. If North Seattle needs more frequency, why are they going out of their way to divert the 1 Line (which already goes there) instead of the 2 Line when Ballard Links open? The airport is a far more important destination than the Eastside.

      9. If North Seattle needs more frequency, why are they going out of their way to divert the 1 Line (which already goes there) instead of the 2 Line when Ballard Links open? The airport is a far more important destination than the Eastside.

        A couple things are happening. As soon as East Link is complete, then trains from the East Side will go up to Lynnwood just like trains from Federal Way will go up to Lynnwood. Thus by definition the 1 Line is the train that goes from Lynnwood to Federal Way while the 2 Line is the train from Lynnwood to the East Side.

        If and when they build a brand new tunnel, things change again: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/st-future-service-map.pdf. So:

        1 Line — Tacoma to Ballard
        2 Line — Redmond to Mariner
        3 Line — West Seattle to Everett

        The original plan was to combine Ballard with West Seattle but they were concerned about having a really long train ride. At least that is the stated reason. It is quite possible that Dow Constantine just wanted to give West Seattle riders a one-seat ride to the UW (a bigger destination than Ballard).

        In my opinion the best pairing would be:

        1 Line: Tacoma to Lynnwood
        2 Line: Redmond to Ballard
        3 Line: West Seattle to Everett

        The 1 Line would be longer, but not that much longer. Redmond gets paired with Ballard, which means the train is more east-west. You combine the business-oriented Downtown Bellevue with business-oriented South Lake Union. Every trip is better with a train. (In contrast folks at the UW may be better off taking a bus to Bellevue or Redmond.)

        Of course I wouldn’t build half of that. West Seattle, Everett and Tacoma would be better off with bus improvements, the Ballard Line should be stand-alone, automated, and eventually serve First Hill, etc.

      10. “why are they going out of their way to divert the 1 Line (which already goes there) instead of the 2 Line when Ballard Links open?”

        Because a Tacoma Dome-Everett Station line would take 2.5 hours, and that’s too long for drivers to go without a break. That was the stated reason for the split spine plan in December 2015.

      11. “In my opinion the best pairing would be:

        1 Line: Tacoma to Lynnwood
        2 Line: Redmond to Ballard
        3 Line: West Seattle to Everett”

        Yeah that would be my big picture recommendation too if it had to be three longer lines. In particular:

        – The transfer south of Downtown could be better configured to be east-west and aerial, perhaps with a walkway to King Street and a direct perpendicular connection to Stadium Station Lines as the main southern transfer point.

        – The east-west line could stay aerial, thread by the stadiums on Royal Brougham and cross over 99 as the tracks turn north.

        – The tracks could have a station in front of of the ferry terminal as they enter a cut-and-cover subway on Alaskan Way (a street with enough width to remain open through cut-and-cover construction).

        – It could eventually reach Interbay and continue to Ballard with a station near Belltown as well as one down the hill from Pike Place Market.

        The problem is that it would lose the access to SLU, Seattle Center, Westlake and the high rises near City Hall. Given all the backroom real estate deals and the imminent release of the Ballard EIS, I don’t see this even getting remotely considered. The idea is a decade late.

        So as Ross says, put all three planned lines in the DSTT and spend lots less money improving existing tunnel capacity and circulation. An automated line to SLU and Ballard could eventually connect First Hill and maybe further someday. Keep in mind the high frequency of an automated line means much smaller stations and less deep digging for the station vaults. And I’m not averse to more aerial or cut-and-cover in SLU and LQA and even Downtown to save money.

        The bigger mistake was how ST3 was planned. There were never alternatives developed done at a regional systems level to assess in 2015. It was a series of corridor studies glued together by leaders who don’t get how rail transit needs to be productive and cost-effective with reasonable cost contingencies in 2016 before even U-Link opened. It was planning by committee consensus comprised of people who had never ridden rail every day.

        Apparently, ST is now close to having what I’d term “Realignment Revisited” because the current plan is just too costly at this point. The big question remains if ST will budge at all or try to squeeze out a program that won’t open until past 2060 or 2080.

        When that door opens, I’m hoping that our leaders will embrace the “ Ballard Automated Stub/ Interlined Central Tunnel” (BAS/IC Tunnel) concept enough to study it because it would save many billions while keeping most of ST3 station catchment areas intact and offering much better transfers for riders. (Even if train frequencies have to drop by a minute or two, it still beats the 5-8 laborious minutes of transferring Downtown now proposed or the additional 2-3 minutes needed to use the planned very deep stations.)

      12. “ST is now close to having what I’d term “Realignment Revisited” because the current plan is just too costly at this point.”

        ST has started the process of a bigger realignment that considers things the board until recently deemed unthinkable, like descoping (deleting) certain project segments or features, or reversing some decisions. A few boardmembers have been saying for months that certain things should be on the table. Until now the board has always avoided descoping; I think boardmembers find it unseemly to suggest descoping in other subareas and are afraid of others pushing for deletions in “their” subarea, and how could they explain that to their constituents? (“You let another subarea delete a project we voted for. You were supposed to stand up for everything in your subarea.”) But now it has gotten to the point the board can no longer avoid it.

        Generally the Snohomish and Pierce boardmembers think Everett/Paine and Tacoma Dome are essential and part of ST’s “Spine” mandate, and Ballard and West Seattle are not and shouldn’t get in the way of Spine completion. Balducci has tried a couple times to get a rethink of the long downtown transfers and split-spine pattern (i.e., modifying DSTT2 and the lines) but hasn’t been able to get a majority on it. So that could come up. I dare not hope they might consider deleting DSTT2, but we’ll see. Somebody might push Snohomish and Pierce that Everett/Pine and Tacoma Dome aren’t really necessary and have diminishing returns. A more enlightened board could consider truncating Everett to Ash Way or Mariner, or bypassing Paine Field. Again, who knows.

        But given the nature of the bureaucracy, it will probably take them several months to come up with a list of candidate changes and evaluate them, so I’m not expecting to hear any specifics until 2026 at the earliest.

      13. “But given the nature of the bureaucracy, it will probably take them several months to come up with a list of candidate changes and evaluate them, so I’m not expecting to hear any specifics until 2026 at the earliest.”

        Yes that is very likely.

        I believe that the entire Link expansion program will be shaped by one inevitable singular decision about DSTT2’s future. The revised DEIS and its costs is due in the next few months. DSTT2 requires contributions from all the subareas and will likely be many billions more than currently programmed. So building it would require major sacrifices across the entire district, dooming most other Link expansion plans. I see it as an either/or thing.

        If DSTT2 is kept, stations and tracks will likely have to be dropped in every other extension project.

        If DSTT2 is axed, money comes back to the subareas to ease their pet extension affordability but it still may not be enough. And SLU will need a replacement service of some sort.

        The other budgeting choices are going to be minor in comparison.

    2. There was also a suggestion to extend the F’s Renton end to somewhere, what was it?

      And the city of Renton could have something to say about about a successor to the 166; ideally more frequent service south to Auburn and championing a Stride line there.

      1. End it at 405 and add an infill Stride station. There are a few different options in the NE corner of urban Renton that have been suggested in prior threads.

  7. Link isnt doing a very good job lately with service for special events. Trains were packed last night after the Mariners game only to then hit packed platforms at Westlake from the Storm game. Do they not add extra trains for multiple large events?

    Then tonight they have advisories on OneBusAway about Link to seek alternative transport because of the special events tonight.

    1. The alternative transport pleas are due to impacts from the Beacon Hill issue: ST reported unusually crowded trains this morning after the shuttle started and the entire line may have been interrupted for a time (I’m not sure if it was).

      As to whether ST is adding extra game trains, you can tell that by whether northbound frequency after the game is 1.5 minutes as it has been in the past. The trains turn around at Roosevelt, UW, or Capitol Hill and take the “wrong” track back at least until the next crossover, and full northbound/southbound trains fit in between them whenever they can. Has that been happening with the games this summer?

  8. I discovered yesterday that KCM has uploaded all printable schedules for this fall. And I just noticed that it has published the fall service change.
    https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/routes-and-service/service-change

    Related to east link,
    – New routes 203/222/223/256 will start as proposed in East Link Connections and existing routes 221/241/246/257/311 are deleted.
    – Existing route 226/245 will be modified as proposed.

    Here comes the part that is different from final proposed network:
    – 240 routing will be modified as proposed and will get more trips, but additional trips only create constant 20-minute frequency rather than 15-minute frequency between 6:30 am – 9:30 pm. East Link Connection web page still shows 15-minute frequency for 240 and Final Network Proposal Engagement Report didn’t mention anything about 20 minutes frequency, so I hope this is only temporary.
    – 249 will be modified almost as proposed except that it will stay on Bellevue Way for now probably because 271 won’t change this fall.
    – 269 will drop the Overlake tail and end at Marymoor Village but it won’t extend to Mercer Island and get peak period frequency boost this fall, which is fair because Mercer Island Link station won’t open this fall.

    That’s all I’ve noticed so far.

    1. The 203 is an excellent route in my opinion. They designed it well and it will serve people better than the 271.

      The 240 should skip Eastgate and go straight to Bellevue. Are there really that many people going that way that we need to create that big of a deviation? Maybe only run a few peak hours to Eastgate if such ridership exists?

      1. The 240 should skip Eastgate and go straight to Bellevue. Are there really that many people going that way that we need to create that big of a deviation?

        Yes. For a southbound 240, the Eastgate stops get about as many boardings as Downtown Bellevue. There are also quite a few people that go between Factoria and Eastgate, presumably for the college. The 245 also provides that connection but that part of the 245 is going away. I’m not saying this is the best possible routing, but some bus should run between Factoria and Eastgate (and Metro chose the 240).

      2. “Yes. For a southbound 240, the Eastgate stops get about as many boardings as Downtown Bellevue.”

        Could those boardings be transfer from 554?

        I don’t see why it has to be 240 to serve Eastgate to Factoria
        – From Bellevue to Eastgate, there is 271 and 556 now and there will be 220 and 554.
        – From Factoria to Eastgate, how about don’t change 245?

        The only reason that 240 has to stop at Eastgate is that, hypothetically, a lot of people from Bellevue College, Issaquah, and walking distance from Eastgate TC are traveling to New Castle and Renton. I’ve noticed that 240 always board whole bunch of people at Eastgate, but I think a lot of them might be from Seattle by 554. If that’s the case, these people will use South Bellevue next year.

      3. “Yes. For a southbound 240, the Eastgate stops get about as many boardings as Downtown Bellevue.”

        Could those boardings transfer to the 554?

        Sure. But why? Put it this way. Consider a bus heading north from Renton. As it arrives in Factoria they ask riders where they are headed. About half of them want to go Downtown Bellevue and the other half want to go to Eastgate. That gives you three choices. You could skip Eastgate and go towards Downtown. You could just end at Eastgate. They chose the third option, which was to serve both.

        The only reason that 240 has to stop at Eastgate is that, hypothetically, a lot of people from Bellevue College, Issaquah, and walking distance from Eastgate TC are traveling to New Castle and Renton.

        But it isn’t hypothetical. This is what the ridership of the route shows. Not only that, but a lot of the riders of the 240 are coming from Renton. Renton TC has the highest ridership (higher than Downtown Bellevue). Obviously not all of those riders are heading to Eastgate but none of them are heading to Seattle (they wouldn’t go that way). East Link really doesn’t matter to them. There are also riders currently taking the 245 from Factoria to Eastgate, which brings up your other point:

        From Factoria to Eastgate, how about don’t change 245?

        That would have been an option, sure. But the tail of the 245 is flawed. It is basically a stub between Eastgate and Factoria. Someone trying to get from Factoria to say, Overlake, has to wait as the bus lays over in Eastgate. It would be different if the bus laid over in Factoria. But for whatever reason that doesn’t exist. The 240 at least adds additional trips (e. g. Renton/Newcastle to Eastgate).

        Again, I’m not saying this is an ideal network. There are clearly drawbacks to having the bus detour to Eastgate. But it also looks like a reasonable compromise. I also think time will tell as to whether Eastgate is popular in its own right or whether people were simply using it as an express to Downtown Seattle. If Eastgate ridership drops dramatically (with all those riders using a stop in South Bellevue instead) then I could see them restructuring things. They they could revisit the 245 stub (or better yet, find layover space in Factoria) while running the 240 more directly to South Bellevue and Downtown Bellevue.

        But for now this doesn’t strike me as clearly flawed approach with simple solutions. In contrast the various restructures after RapidRide G were clearly flawed and there are obvious solutions (e. g. branch the 10/12 later).

      4. “The 240 should skip Eastgate and go straight to Bellevue.”

        It did that from the 1970s to the 2010s. It went on 108th, South Bellevue P&R, and Factoria. It was changed to Eastgate because a significant number of Rentonites complained they need access to Bellevue College and the previous roundabout options (240+271, 560+271) took too long.

        I didn’t know Rentonites went to Bellevue College, just like I didn’t know Seattlites went to Bellevue College or Shoreline CC but then my roommate did for specific courses that were better there or didn’t exist at the Seattle Central or North.

      5. “I don’t see why it has to be 240 to serve Eastgate to Factoria”

        It doesn’t; the issue is Renton to Eastgate.

      6. “Obviously not all of those riders are heading to Eastgate but none of them are heading to Seattle (they wouldn’t go that way).”

        Yeah that’s a fair point.
        It would be interesting to see a comparison of Eastgate boarding as well as how South Bellevue boarding looks like for 240 after 2 Line fully open next year.

      7. “It would be interesting to see a comparison of Eastgate boarding as well as how South Bellevue boarding looks like for 240 after 2 Line fully open next year.”

        I meant comparison of Eastgate boarding before and after 2 Line full opening.

      8. “It would be interesting to see a comparison of Eastgate boarding as well as how South Bellevue boarding looks like for 240 after 2 Line fully open next year.”

        I’m expecting that the effects of the cross-lake 2 Line opening will ripple through the entire Metro network ridership data. That’s especially true for the Eastside, of course. But the through-routing on the 2 Line will enable such a high North Seattle frequency (4-5 minutes from 5 am to 10 pm) and add so many brand-new direct and frequent through trip possibilities (Like UW to South Bellevue or Capitol Hill to Microsoft) that ridership will go up in some places and down in others. While Metro can speculate about those changes, the ultimate result could have some surprises — both up and down. It’s like waiting for the final chapter of “ST2” to drop with passengers as the collective authors.

        I would expect that Metro will need to at least adjust some frequencies if not some routing as part of the fall 2026 service changes — and maybe make changes again in 2027 because of it.

        Regardless, things will change for riders — even if they won’t be riding the 2 Line.

      9. Yes, East Link will be a big change and it will be interesting to see how much it changes travel patterns. It is quite possible that Metro changes the routes again based on that (especially if it gets more money).

  9. Beacon Hill station is open again and Link has returned to normal.

    Upcoming reductions:

    Link will run every 12 minutes evenings and weekends August 11-13 (Monday-Wednesday), and 3-5 days per week after that until September 26th for Pinehurst station construction, because Shoreline South station will be single-tracked during those periods.

    Saturday, August 23 in the morning until 1 pm, the downtown tunnel will be closed for East Link testing. Shuttle buses will run Westlake-SODO every 10-15 minutes. Trains north and south of that will run every 12 minutes. (Note: The endpoint is Westlake this time, not Capitol Hill.)

    1. Just a note that Pinehurst Station platforms were rushed to be built early to prevent disruptions after Lynnwood Link opened. ST didn’t get that done like they promised a few years ago.

      And a note that the entire line is disrupted — rather than just the segment north of Northgate (where a track siding can reverse trains).

      And a note that had 2 Line been operating like expected up until last year, the disruption would be considerably more major.

      Is it better to have a train every 12 minutes for the whole 1 Line, or 10 minutes to Northgate and 20 minutes (every other train) north of that?

      Also, the single-tracking keep the 12 minutes promise?

      1. 20 minutes is a significant inconvenience and time-waster for everybody in that segment. 12 minutes is a reasonable compromise. People generally think:

        6 minutes is “very good”
        8 minutes is “2 minutes more than 6 minutes”
        10 minutes is “pretty good” (as long as you don’t have a lot of transfers/trips in a day)
        12 minutes is “2 minutes more than 10 minutes”
        15 minutes is “bare minimum convenient”
        20 minutes is “getting bad”
        30 minutes is “bad”

        ST usually pairs single-tracking an outer station with 12-minute service. I haven’t timed it to see if it sticks to it. Everyday frequency +/- 3 minutes of the nominal 8 or 10 minutes, and the same range probably occurs with 12-minute headways.

        When the DSTT or part of it is single-tracked, headways get much worse, down to 20-40 minutes. Although the last time I think ST announced that horror but then did the sensible thing and just closed the tunnel.

      2. I would mostly agree with you, Mike.

        My only reservation is whether ST can actually maintain 12 minute headways. Did ST announce this a PR promise that can’t be met? I’ve seen comments about ST over-promising frequencies with past disruptions .

        This past year, I think I’ve seen ST post about disruptions announced just a few days before more than I’ve ever seen them do before. There seems to be something changed systematically. I’m not sure if it’s because of bad system expansion coordination, a new protocol for safety, a lack of having a CEO push back on sudden disruptions, a willingness to do whatever it takes to keep opening date promises or other things.

      3. The past several single-trackings have had 12-minute frequency, so there’s empirical evidence available. We just haven’t collected it fully. Several of those single-trackings were at the same station, Shoreline North, and during the same hours, so they’re an exact precedent.

        My anecdotal experience is that 12-minute reductions have the same variations as normal 8 or 10 minute service. That is, some runs often exactly 12 minutes, but others are 10 or 15 minutes, and some are 5 minutes.

      4. Just a note that Pinehurst Station platforms were rushed to be built early to prevent disruptions after Lynnwood Link opened.

        Not really. They could have built it with the rest of Lynnwood Link. It could have opened with the rest of the stations. Lots of people pushed for that. There are a lot of good reasons for that. Having it open early would benefit riders sooner. You also get fare revenue earlier. Metro has an easier job with the restructure. But the folks pushing for building the station earlier were not emphasizing that point. They were emphasizing the lack of disruption. That’s because the meeting was occurring at the same time as downtown service was being shut down (to add East Link). They figured the board would be more sympathetic to the idea that avoiding disruptions is important. The folks in charge didn’t want that though. They wanted to avoid spending money so soon. They basically said “Don’t worry. We’ll build the rest of it first then finish it off while Lynnwood Link is operating. There won’t be any disruption.”

        I guess they were wrong. Of course they were wrong about East Link so it shouldn’t be too surprising.

      5. “… built early to prevent disruptions after Lynnwood Link opened.

        Not really… They were emphasizing the lack of disruption… They figured the board would be more sympathetic to the idea that avoiding disruptions is important…. They basically said “Don’t worry. We’ll build the rest of it first then finish it off while Lynnwood Link is operating. There won’t be any disruption.”

        @ Ross: You say essentially what I just said .

      6. TriMet is completely rebuilding the 82nd Avenue MAX station, and the only disruption was a couple of days (coinciding with other work) to build a temporary station and staircase to serve riders while the construction is going on.

        So it’s difficult for me to believe this level of disruption to Link is truly needed.

      7. @Al — My issue was the word “rush”. There was no rush. It wasn’t built early. It was built late. It should have been built with every other station in Lynnwood Link. Then there wouldn’t be a problem. They started late and now there is this disruption. The disruption is probably less than what it would be if they delayed it even further, but it is still disruptive (and late).

      8. ST never tells us what it’s doing during these project closures or why it takes so one. The month-long “Connect 2020” closure in January 2020 was supposed to be all that’s needed to prepare East Link, or so we thought, and so ST’s messaging led us to believe. Then later we find out it needs several more weeks-long and weekend closures, why? What is it doing? How many steps does it take to set up East Link?

        OK, it has gone a little further. It finished “typing in” East Link and the next closure is to “test” East Link. That’s progress? But what is this testing that it’s doing? Are the trains going to go to Westlake and turn around? Since there’s no crossover there, will they go back out on the wrong track? Or will there be trains at all or will they just press buttons and see if lights blink?

        Likewise with Pinehurst Station, there’s single-tracking after single-tracking. It gets to the point that you wonder how many maintenance days does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

      9. @ Ross:

        Pinehurst Station was an ST3 project. That’s why it didn’t open with the other Lynnwood Link Stations. If it was part of the original project its timeline would be late — but it wasn’t.

        Of the three infill stations in ST3, it was funded and built years ahead of schedule . It was originally to open in 2031 like the other infill stations. That’s the part that was rushed.

        Here’s a link to a WSDOt summary of the original build dates for ST3 showing that 2031 date:

        https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/partners/erp/background/Timelines%20major%20ST3%20projects.pdf

      10. The Seattle City Council passed a resolution in October 2013 recommending the inclusion of a station at NE 130th Street in the final environmental impact statement for the Lynnwood Link project. The 130th Street station was deferred from the final plans for the Lynnwood Link Extension, which was approved by the Sound Transit Board on April 23, 2015. ST3 passed in November 2016. The groundbreaking for Lynnwood Link was in September of 2019. Three months later, on January 9th, the System Expansion Committee met to discuss the timeline for opening the station.

        One option (pushed by advocates) was to open it with the rest of the stations. Folks had signs saying “130th Station in 2023”. It was kind of funny because during the meeting the planners announced that Lynnwood Link was going to be delayed a year (and wouldn’t open until 2024). People were busy crossing out “2023” and writing in “2024”. Advocates also pushed for the idea that opening as part of Lynnwood Link would be less disruptive. This was an issue fresh in the minds of everyone, given the disruption downtown due to East Link.

        The planners then presented the options. The two main options were basically unchanged. Building sooner was definitely possible and would cost less money, be less disruptive, raise fare money sooner and provide benefit for riders sooner.
        The only advantage of waiting until 2031 was debt. It would cost more to build the station but they wouldn’t incur as much short-term debt. They also unveiled a new option — a compromise of sorts. They could build some of it now and some of it later. This was going to be more expensive in the long run but not incur the same short-term debt. It would not incur the same level of disruption that building later would. It was supposed to be designed such that there were no disruptions at all.

        Thus the advocates (representing the largest city in Washington State) were left a bit flat-footed. Not only were their signs out of date, but one of the main political arguments (meant to appeal to suburban board members who don’t care about Seattle riders) was suddenly moot. If the main reason to build it sooner is to avoid disruption, then you might as well go with the compromise. Sure, riders in the area have to wait longer for transit, but tough shit. Buy a car and drive to a park and ride. That is basically what happened.

        Clearly the board had multiple opportunities to build the station sooner, going back to 2013. They could have easily committed to it in 2015, when they approved final plans for Lynnwood Link. They could have approved it January of 2020, after ST3 passed. But they kept dragging their feet. The idea that the station was “rushed” is absurd.

      11. “Clearly the board had multiple opportunities to build the station sooner, going back to 2013. They could have easily committed to it in 2015, when they approved final plans for Lynnwood Link.”

        I get how you feel that the station is late because you wanted it all along. So did others in North Seattle. I don’t dispute that sentiment.

        My reference is merely the actions about timing that occurred after ST3 passage. The referendum did indeed say 2031. The schedule was shortened to prevent disruption and perhaps save money like you said. And then ST did indeed over-promise opening dates for it as well as Lynnwood Link.

        However, the station could not have been “easily” added in 2015. The project was already over budget and stations were even reduced in size right before construction began because of it.

        And ST certainly does a lousy job at keeping expansion timelines. Does anyone seriously believe that West Seattle Link will still open in 2032 (including tall signature bridge and deep station excavation after extensive property acquisition), given how Tacoma Done Link is already pushed to 2035? ST is almost always late. It’s just a matter of when they announce the delay.

        In the long run, we are both right and it depends on the perspective one has about the project. It’s almost open regardless.

  10. Seattle Times’ Opinion article today-> Bus lane in busy Fremont will stall area’s livelihood: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/bus-lane-on-busy-fremont-bridge-will-stall-areas-livelihood/

    Unfortunately Seattle Times doesn’t allow gift article like NYT does.

    I was under the impression that the author was trying to make a point that bus lane on Fremont Bridge is bad idea while reading this. And then I saw this interesting note in the end:

    “Editor’s note: The headline on this story has been updated to reflect where the bus lane is proposed.”

    1. Yeah, it is a guest editorial by the same folks who have been trying to kill the project from the very beginning.

  11. South King Resident in the Pioneer Square article: “Amazing evening going on for King County Metro. Buses are totally not arriving an hour late.”

    Metro is dependent on congestion-free streets or at least steady congestion to stick to schedule. That’s why transit-priority lanes are so important, because that’s the only way to guarantee reliability (=on-timeness). Cities like Paris prioritize cars last and give buses what they need, but this ain’t Paris.

    If congestion is thick and worsening as it is here now, Metro needs money to pad the layover time and have standby buses that can swoop in if a scheduled one gets delayed or breaks down. In the early 2010s congestion and reliability worsened. Then in 2015 it started getting better because Seattle’s Transit Benefit District and the improving economy gave Metro the resources it needed to compensate for the congestion. In the post-pandemic congestion increase since 2022, Metro didn’t get that kind of support and there was a driver shortage, so the only thing it could do was watch the buses get slower and slower and more and more off-schedule. We’re still in that era now. When Metro eventually gets a batch of additional service hours and enough drivers, the first thing it will do is those reliability-improvement measures, before adding more frequency and coverage.

    The cities could help Metro get faster runs and more frequency for free by just putting red paint on the streets, but that’s up them to do so. Metro doesn’t have the authority to do that.

    “King County Metro for one could save service hours by not having a bus do a long peak hour route, then drive back up to Seattle to do it again.”

    Post-covid ridership and work-from-home have shifted ridership from peak long-distance commuting to more all-day and weekend trips. Metro has responded by shifting runs from the former to the latter. It’s not 100% because there are still stakeholders pushing to keep those unidirectional peak expresses and there’s still ridership on them. but the shift is substantial. Of all the routes suspended in the pandemic, almost all of them that are still suspended are peak expresses. So with Northgate Link and Lynnwood Link, Metro deleted most of the downtown expresses, and the two or so it kept it rerouted to downtown-adjacent neighborhoods (SLU and First Hill), a new potential transit market that Link doesn’t serve as well, and that people who still want an express to downtown can take to almost-downtown. If those routes fail to be popular, they’ll be first on the chopping block in the next recession.

    The pressure to keep peak expresses is partly for capacity management (if the buses are full, might as well make some of them expresses to serve different kinds of trip patterns better), partly because some influential people insist on one-seat rides, and partly because the trip travel time without them is objectively unacceptable (an hour or more).

    ” 102, 162, 556, etc. sends the same buses (you can tell because of the bus number scheduled on OneBusAway) back up to Seattle for later evening runs. Instead they could just serve the 101/150?”

    Then they can’t get back to their next express run in a reasonable amount of time.

    1. I also would love to know which route, which trip is running an hour late to see what’s the reason behind instead of trying to randomly fish for a trip. Tracker doesn’t tell everything but at least it can have some more information than just a random bus running an hour late

      1. Replying to Steve:

        The 102 in particular ran an hour late. Two runs ran 50+ minutes late. I’ve also seen the 111 and 556 have similar delays. OneBusAway / King County Data has a bug that hides routes that over an hour late, you can see them disappear after they cross 59 minutes late.

        I understand it was the unusual traffic due to construction but most buses managed only a 20-30 delay. Operators need more training on how to minimize lateness.

        And still during non traffic days I’d call it unacceptable to run more than 10 mins late, which still regularly happens on many 102 runs.

      2. For people riding non peak routes, severe lateness gets masked by frequency. A bus will show up

        For riders of peak hour buses they can be stranded in cold and rain for an hour.

      3. Any bus that goes on I-5 is going to be delayed. It is very slow southbound pretty much all day, although it isn’t that bad around noon. Northbound there is congestion approaching downtown. The HOV lanes help, but then about a couple miles before the express lanes they are worse than the other lanes. Drivers make their way over to the express lanes and they change lanes at the last minute. It is basically the America version of a free-for-all. If you are lining up for coffee we all sit patiently and wait our turn. But when driving we essentially shove each other out of the way just to get in front. That is what it is like getting into the express lanes (northbound).

        The other place I’ve noticed a lot of congestion is the exit to the Spokane Street Viaduct. My guess is drivers are cutting over to SR 99 and taking the tunnel. This is probably hurting buses much worse than the fight for the express lanes. As with the express lanes a bus can be aggressive and change lanes at the last minute (after all, it is a bus) or it can “play by the rules” and get in the lanes early. It would be nice to have that HOV connection to SoDo.

      4. “My guess is drivers are cutting over to SR 99 and taking the tunnel.”

        Last I heard the tunnel wasn’t used much.

      5. Last I heard the [SR-99] tunnel wasn’t used much.

        I bet the tunnel is getting a lot more use during the I-5 work.

      6. “Last I heard the tunnel wasn’t used much.”

        In 2024, the SR 99 tunnel’s AM/PM peak and daily volume in 2024 is about 75-80% of volume of SR 99 in SODO.

      8. I believe Mike meant that the SR-99 tunnel isn’t used much by buses.

        That is irrelevant. I mentioned the backup on the I-5 ramps to the Spokane Street viaduct. This effects buses heading to the SoDo busway. I speculated that a lot of the congestion is due to drivers heading over to the tunnel instead of sticking with I-5 (given the issues there).

    2. I assumed SKR meant several routes were an hour late. That has happened when there has been a major blockage on I-5 or unusual congestion downtown. It’s not normal service. Normal service on the 131/132 is 5-15 minutes late, maybe going up to 20 or 30 minutes at worst. Not an hour. But something like an hour has happened on the 75, again when something extraordinary is happening like the street is blocked or there’s unexpected snow.

    3. “Then they can’t get back to their next express run in a reasonable amount of time.”

      Then they don’t have to come back for the same route. Instead send another route that’s already in downtown.

      “Metro is dependent on congestion-free streets”

      Even during bad days, some buses run 45+ minutes late while others only run 10 mins late. Why the difference? Even on days without traffic, while some buses arrive on time or even early, others arrive 10-20+ late regularly. The scheduling is poorly done in my opinion, or some operators don’t value timeliness. Some of them also drive way slower than they need to and I’ve experienced this myself.

      1. I’m also suspicious if some of them are running late on purpose to get overtime because I noticed many of them do it on their last route of the day

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