Local Transit News:
- King County Council may enact its condemnation authority on 10 properties to facilitate construction of RapidRide I Line (The Urbanist).
- Efforts by Metro and Sound Transit to make transit feel more safe were on the cover of the Seattle Times ($) on Sunday.
- King County Metro wants to know how you’d improve Route 106 (Metro Matters). The 5-minute questionnaire is open until October 8.
- Sound Transit is considering double-length railcars for its Series 3 of Link light rail trains (The Urbanist).
- Between 2017 and 2023, Seattle added 35,000 households but only 3,300 cars (The Seattle Times, $). Additional coverage by The Urbanist.
Land Use & Housing:
- Seattle City Councilmembers are poised to vote on 106 amendments to the City’s decadal Comprehensive Plan Update before its adoption (The Urbanist).
- Seattle’s apartment construction boom has had an unexpected side effect: publicly-subsidized buildings seem to be struggling to compete against the depressed market rate as over 10% of affordable units are vacant (The Seattle Times, $). Are “affordable” rents (30% of household income) too expensive, or do we have too many market-rate units? City officials think it’s the latter.
Other Transportation
- USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy continues to use any means necessary to justify defunding transit (Streetsblog USA).
- Anaheim, CA, is considering an aerial gondola (among other options) to connect its central transit center to its major tourist destinations (The Los Angeles Times). I wouldn’t want to be in one when the Santa Ana winds kick up, though.
Commentary & Miscellaneous:
- The Waterfront celebrated its Grand Opening last Saturday, but many planned features were left on the cutting room floor (The Urbanist).
- With Seattle city leaders refusing pump the brakes on Seattle ST3 projects, the Sound Transit Board seems to be breaking back into parochial cliques as it stares down a $20-30B deficit over the next 20 years (The Urbanist). Additional coverage by the Seattle Times ($). However, both Mayor Harrell and County Councilmember Balducci are open to delaying or cancelling construction of a second tunnel through Downtown (KUOW).
Upcoming Events:
Tomorrow, Sept. 11, 5:30pm: Transit candidate Meet & Greet hosted by Seattle Subway. RVSP here.
Thursday, Sept. 18, 5:30: Meet and Greet with King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci hosted by The Urbanist and Seattle Subway. RSVP here.
This is an Open Thread.
Colman Ferry Dock could use a better connection to International District / Chinatown Station and King Street Station. There are no plans to extend the streetcar to serve the purpose.
Perhaps the waterfront could be a more useful terminus for route 106.
If the city were going to spend a boatload of money on streetcar expansion, extending the First Hill line to Colman Dock would make a lot more sense of a route compared to connecting the two lines down 1st Ave. But, the fact that the route can’t be extended, even a few blocks, without $100 million of track work shows just how broken the mode of streetcar transportation is. If the First Hill Streetcar were a bus, the only constraint to extending it would be service costs; such a route would almost certain serve both Colman Dock and go up Broadway further, today.
And, it gets worse since, to really extend the streetcar properly, just building new track and overhead wire would not be enough. Basic math says, if you run the same streetcars over a longer route, then service frequency would have to decline, meaning that everyone along the existing route would have to wait longer for their streetcar to show up. To avoid that problem, it would necessary to purchase additional streetcars, which cost several times that of buses, each. On top of this, the streetcar maintenance facility probably doesn’t have room for additional streetcars, which means, either the maintenance facility would have to be extended, or a new one build. Because trains can only travel along tracks, such a facility would, by necessity, have to be located along the line. So now, to extend the streetcar without cutting frequency, Seattle would have to go so far as condemning property along the streetcar line to tear down a perfectly good building to build a streetcar barn, and foregoing the ~1 million/year in sales/property tax revenue a commercial property of that size, in that neighborhood would likely generate, in addition to ongoing increased operating costs to actually run those trains. (Note: When Sound Transit extended Tacoma Link, they did not buy additional storage space or additional space, so service frequency on the existing line had to drop as a result of the extension, so many existing riders were actually hurt by the extension).
Of course, adding buses to extend a bus route costs money too, but at least, when more bus base space is needed, it can be located out in the suburbs, since buses can deadhead on the freeway to/from the service area, which a streetcar cannot. In my opinion, needing to condemn and sacrifice valuable urban land in the central city for a streetcar barn is one of the strongest, but often under-appreciated problems with streetcars. The streetcar barn in SLU would likely be a high-rise right now, perhaps with hundreds of people living or working there, had the SLU streetcar not been built.
asdf2: The FHSC service could be better improved by truncating it at 5th Avenue South. Then the fixed number of cars and the current service subsidy could be focused on a shorter line, achieve shorter headway and waits. Perhaps they could achieve 10-minute headway. The ST2 purpose was to connect First Hill with the Capitol Hill and IDS Link stations. The extension to Occidental Avenue South just gets it stuck in traffic; the shorter line would be more reliable. SDOT and Metro used the 5th Avenue South truncation for the months when South Jackson Street was dug up for utility work.
I like the idea of terminating the streetcar at 5th Ave S, given how often it gets stuck in traffic and crowds by heading further west.
If not all the time, turn it back at 5th when there are large crowds. Those trying to catch the streetcar from the west will actually save time by walking to 5th.
But, does the streetcar have a turnback near Japantown Station?
To be clear, I didn’t say such an extension was a good idea, just that it was less crazy that the CCC that was actually proposed – at least it wouldn’t create a U-shaped route.
If the First Hill Streetcar were a bus route, I think an extension to the ferry terminal would be a great idea, at relatively modest cost. What makes it a non-starter is all the problems with streetcars. Having to tear up and rebuild the street to extend the tracks. Having the only way to do this without a frequency cut being to buy up a downtown or First Hill building, only to tear it down and replace it with another street barn. Streetcars just suck, in general.
It’s only roughly a ½ mile walk to Pioneer Square (Link) or KSS.
That’s about the same as from Link to the center of the SeaTac concourse. (When not traveling on Alaska Airlines)
However, having done that with luggage, I would like to see a lot of money spent on making the Seattle sidewalks smoother!
A FHSC extension would have very high capital cost, operating cost, ROW cost. Seattle does not have the funds for such a low benefit project. The ROW was already allocated during the waterfront planning.
A Route 106 extension would also have costs. It would require a layover curb space and a turnaround loop. Western Avenue was not ready for transit a decade ago and has not been improved.
I will provide different concepts to the Route 106 questionnaire.
Will you submit an article to the blog?
A Route 106 extension was presented to the King County Council as a potential option for waterfront service last year:
https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/05/21/county-council-receives-update-on-waterfront-shuttle/
Last weekend I needed to go somewhere in Capitol Hill to Ferry terminal in a timely matter. I was not in the area of Capitol Hill Link station so I took bus. Because where I was, all those West Seattle routes on Alaska Way were useless. It looks like the option with minimum walking is G Line. That’s still 10-15 minutes walk in total but better than all the other ridiculous options Google provided.
Ferry terminal is such a transportation hub, but the bus coverage doesn’t seem to catch up of that. On one ends are routes going from/to different part of West Seattle an on the other ends are routes all going to 3rd Ave with only C Line that extends to South Lake Union. I really think ferry terminal should be treated as a regional destination for transit or at least provided more accessible walkway from regional destination like Chinatown-IND
Last weekend I needed to go somewhere in Capitol Hill to Ferry terminal in a timely matter. I was not in the area of Capitol Hill Link station so I took bus. Because where I was, all those West Seattle routes on Alaska Way were useless.
Why, exactly, was the bus stop useless? When I plug in a Ferry-to-Capitol-Hill trip (https://maps.app.goo.gl/ik6giwLNUtq6DizPA) it offers me up a couple options. The fastest is to walk to the G Line. However the least amount of walking involves taking a West Seattle bus and then transferring to a Capitol Hill bus. This begs the question. Why does it take so long to make the transfer? There are three reasons:
1) The transfer between a bus running on Third Avenue (in this case a bus that started in West Seattle bus) to a Pike/Pine bus is bad. This is a known problem. The way to avoid a lot of walking (apparently) is to catch the Capitol Hill bus as it is heading towards the water and ride it as it loops around.
2) You have to wait a wile for a Capitol Hill bus. In this case seven minutes. Even though a lot of buses run up the hill, they aren’t that frequent. Keep in mind the RapidRide G has a maximum wait of 6 minutes (most of the day). The 3/4 runs every 7.5. Yet a random connection to the Capitol Hill buses has a 7 minute wait.
3) The Capitol Hill bus (in this case the 12) is slow, even before rush hour.
All of these are known problems and effects more riders than those heading to the waterfront. Anyone taking a bus on Third and trying to take one of the buses up to Capitol Hill has the same problem. It sucks and they should try and improve this vital set of buses.
For what it is worth some people argued that the RapidRide G should run on Madison/Marion instead of Madison/Spring so that it could better connect with the ferry. There were arguments against that based on the “pulse” nature of the ferry. It is one of the challenges with serving the ferries. Most of the time, there are no riders at all coming off the ferry. Then there will be a huge surge. By pushing the bus stop a bit farther away you avoid overwhelming the bus that happens to be nearby when people get off the ferry. Instead you spread things out a bit. I don’t particularly buy that — I haven’t heard of it being a big problem with the West Seattle buses — but that was one of the arguments against having the bus use Marion.
If the bus runs as frequently as the G-line does, you won’t get a pulse effect because variations in the amount of time it takes people to exit the ferry and walk to the bus stop exceed the service frequency of the bus. And, not every ferry passenger is looking for the G-line bus anyway. It all depends on where, exactly, they are trying to go.
If the bus runs as frequently as the G-line does, you won’t get a pulse effect because variations in the amount of time it takes people to exit the ferry and walk to the bus stop exceed the service frequency of the bus.
Yes, because the bus stop is not that close. That is the point. The farther away the bus stop, the more spread out the riders are.
Another issue I have found with the C and H serving the ferry is that they both seem to arrive at once and then there is a 15 minute wait between busses. It appears that they are scheduled this way. I understand that this is the end of the route for both routes and so maybe it is assumed that they just won’t be sticking to Schedule at that point but in my experience, they often run one to three minutes apart from each other, and then there is a 10 to 15 minute wait, which is frustrating, especially if you just miss one. When the 49 still have 15 minutes service, they also did this in the district. 70 and the 49 would show up within two minutes of each other (both heading downtown-ish) and then there will be about a 15 minute wait until the next one, as opposed to one bus every 7-8 minutes.
i think extending the slu streetcar up to fremont was the only one that made the most sense.
1) extending to u district via eastlake just wasn’t that high priority after u district link extension
2) extending to belltown/lower queen anne was just too duplicative of the existing monorail
Am I right in saying that WSF can spend capital money for car access to the ferry terminals but doesn’t contribute to transit access to the ferry? So any streetcar extension to there should have big part of the costs paid out of the WSF budget.
I’ve thought a streetcar extension to Colman Dock would be great! My hesitation is that the streetcar person capacity appears to be similar if not worse than an articulated bus is. The streetcar would fill up with only a few dozen riders. If they could run with two streetcars together or be a much longer vehicle it would be more convincing. But currently it is almost a mere amusement park toy train ride. .
If all the non-improvement-related disruptions in the tunnel haven’t convinced the advocates of non-redundancy through downtown that a second tunnel really is needed, then the first year of two-line Ops probably will.
Candidates looking to pick up the votes of non-redundancy advocates would likely lose orders of magnitude more votes by being “open” to such folly than the dozen or so votes they would gain.
(This is not an endorsement for the current deep tunnel mess with time-consuming transfers.)
Brent;
Even with a second tunnel, they still have to deal with the existing tunnel on all trains between International District and Westlake. Trains from the UW can’t go anywhere else. Trains from the eastside can’t go anywhere else.
Making a second tunnel useful for this purpose is going to require a significant change in what they have planned.
Or, they could abandon the single tracking through the tunnel concept, turn the trains the same as they do at the far end of the line, and have a well planned bus bridge. Among other things, you could have an express bus bridge from SoDo to Northgate. (This would be helped a great deal if the express lanes were converted to 24 hour non-directional HOV lanes)
I agree that the transfers at Westlake and ID/CS need to be easy. Otherwise, the second tunnel is not really creating redundancy.
I hope that is where Balducci focuses, instead of embracing the crowd-sourced grab bag of weird ideas.
Tom had a nifty idea on last wednesday’s open thread about how it might be possible to connect ballard to the one line with ‘fantastic’ transfers if for now they go with only a single tunnel. Lots of ‘ifs’ in the idea though and the engineering might not even be possible.
However, if you could build that, and then plan for and eventually build a second tunnel you would then have, albeit in the future, that redundancy you need, and the connections between the lines that you want.
It is more than just the transfer. It is the fact that it adds very little resilience despite the high cost. The second train becomes — at best — a small bridge between the two lines. Imagine there is an outage on the main line at Symphony Station. The trains from the north reverse direction at Westlake. The trains from West Seattle and the East Side reverse direction at Pioneer Square. Riders heading downtown would be able to transfer to the other train. This is handy but this is one of the few areas where the buses do just as good a job (if not better). Those trying to continue on the main line have to transfer to the other train and ride it from Westlake to CID and then transfer back. This is definitely handy but still not that much of an improvement over the buses. So even when the second tunnel is most useful in terms of added resiliency it isn’t that great.
Now consider what happens if Westlake Station is out. Basically (with or without that second line) we are screwed. The trains from the north reverse at Capitol Hill Station. You can’t get from Downtown to the UW — by far the most common trip in our system — without taking a bus. There are plenty of buses up to Capitol Hill, but they are slow. It is also quite possible that (unlike downtown) the buses get overwhelmed with all of those riders. You are going to have to come up with extra buses and extra drivers. So much for resiliency.
The same is true at various places. If trains from the East Side turn around at Judkins Park then a lot of people will be riding a lot of slow buses. If the trains from the south can’t reach Beacon Hill (or have to turn around there) you are in the same sort of mess. This new downtown tunnel is redundant and yet offers little in the way of added resiliency. In contrast, consider a “Metro 8 Subway” that connects to the existing lines at Mount Baker, Judkins Park and Capitol Hill stations (while adding a lot of new stations). Now as long as the train from the East Side gets to Judkins Park, those riders are OK. Even if they are forced to cross the lake on a bus they still have additional connections to Link before that bus gets downtown. Likewise the main line from the south only has to get to Mount Baker and the line from the north only has to reach Capitol Hill.
Of course a subway line like Metro 8 (serving very urban areas) would be considered a “weird idea” by some. It probably won’t happen for a long time (getting to Fife is a higher priority). The best way for the system to be more resilient is to do what the consultants recommended. This won’t be cheap. You have it backwards. The more money we spend on a second tunnel (that isn’t needed) the less we can spend making our system more resilient.
Brent White,
Actually, I’ve got to say the “grab bag of weird ideas” is actually better than much of the crap proposed by Sound Transit engineers. We’re talking about an agency that spent billions on a light rail station in Federal Way, that’s around a 1/2 mile walk from anything useful (besides town square park)…. and those 1/2 walks are terrible because of relentless air pollution and traffic noise from 320, 99 and I-5. I’d rather get shot with a taser than walk to the Federal Way Target.
If you add up all the billons planned light rail is going to cost and spent that money for actual things that could help those communities (like fixing sidewalks, and better bus service) every Sound Transit Community would be much better off from the “grab bag of weird ideas”
“We’re talking about an agency that spent billions on a light rail station in Federal Way, that’s around a 1/2 mile walk from anything useful (besides town square park)…. and those 1/2 walks are terrible because of relentless air pollution and traffic noise from 320, 99 and I-5. I’d rather get shot with a taser than walk to the Federal Way Target.”
Yeah I agree that the fact that ST did not include a pedestrian over crossing on the tail track viaduct over 320th was very short-sided. They could have even just built a walkway in between the two tracks southward from the platform end to a station entrance with stairs and elevator southbound of 320th.
In FW’s defense, they have recently installed a new 320th mid block pedestrian crossing signal just west of the tail track viaduct. It’s still heels scary but at least it’s now there. Also, FW apparently allows for buildings as tall as 200 feet around the station (taller than any other Link station south of Downtown Seattle) so there is a financial incentive to redevelop the large shopping center parcels.
I fear that a pedestrian overpass over I-320th would become an excuse not to allow pedestrians to cross at-grade within a few blocks of there.
There’s a huge difference between “nice to have” and “so important as to be worth spending several billion dollars over”. The first tunnel through downtown meets the bar of being worth several billion dollars. The second tunnel, given that the first already exists, at best, only in the “nice to have” category. You can’t possibly argue that a contingency for something that happens so rarely justifies an expense of that much money. It’s also not even guaranteed that the second tunnel would really help in the disruption scenario, in the event that trains have to turn back at SODO or Judkins Park, before even connecting to the other tunnel.
idk i think you’re kinda underestimating the cost and effort of a second tunnel.
it’s like saying my roof is leaking therefore i must buy a 5 story house. rather than just fixing the roof.
It’s not as if repairing the tunnel is impossible. ive never heard the justification to build a second tunnel for other cities’ metro tunnel not having enough maintenance
WL,
Check out “Strong towns” https://www.strongtowns.org This organization is maybe the premier DYI urban planing outfit.
Everything Sound Transit is…. pretty much what Strong Towns tells cities to avoid.
@tacomme
strong towns is about upzoning and sound transit is about transit construction. i don’t really see how they both are that related.
> Everything Sound Transit is…. pretty much what Strong Towns tells cities to avoid.
strong towns advocates for stuff that you hate usually actually.
WL,
Let’s start with this…
Light rail…. it’s hell of a drug.
Strong towns is about the “here and now” . The idea is look at where you live and make upgrades and adjustments to your town in real time. Stupid light rail projects that take 50 years? Not good urbanism. Not even a good transit plan.
So the rail bros will go on and on about a second tunnel that may or may not be built in what? 12 to 15 years? Maybe never? Seattle has problems, real problems, transit and otherwise, that need solutions right now.
Smart people stop digging when they’re deep in the hole.
@tacommee
> Strong towns is about the “here and now” . The idea is look at where you live and make upgrades and adjustments to your town in real time.
strong towns is about upzoning as well… did you actually read the website? I’m not entirely sure why you are citing strong towns when it’s basically the antithesis of what you believe in. Most of the time you tell people to leave the city and live elsewhere and believe in making no changes to the zoning keeping the city in amber.
WL,
For the record, I’ve always been pro density and pro transit. I don’t believe that much of the density that Seattle has gained (small rented units) does much for long term health of the city. I also think after the first round of light rail, Sound Transit is just squandering money that could be used to shore up a failing bus system and/or make more pedestrian friendly spaces. But I’m an urbanist and I believe in a better life for the working class, starting with home ownership. High housing prices actually pushed of Seattle long ago, but I found I could afford and thrive in Tacoma. I still have friends in Seattle my age who have nothing saved for retirement…. between student loans from Hell and rent increases they never got ahead. The sad truth is nobody cares if you personally fail. The streets are jammed with the tents of failed already. I’d rather be 70 and own a house in Muncie Indiana than live under a freeway in Seattle.
Be politically active! But never believe there’s a political solution to your personal problems. No matter what the politicians say, NYC nor Seattle are not turning into socialist gardens anytime soon.
Right now the economy is cooling off and municipalities should be looking at downsizing and paying off debt. But not tone deaf Sound Transit! If the US goes into recession, all the big ST plans just get delayed even longer!
> For the record, I’ve always been pro density and pro transit. I don’t believe that much of the density that Seattle has gained (small rented units) does much for long term health of the city. I also think after the first round of light rail, … I’d rather be 70 and own a house in Muncie Indiana than live under a freeway in Seattle.
Uhhhh do you really not know that you’re an anti-urbanist? You literally keep talking about how much you hate cities and density. And more importantly want to enforce onto others as well.
Tacomee thinks he’s an “Urbanist” because he’s not afraid of shared walls and isn’t morally opposed to public transit for office commuters. Which, to be somewhat fair, is a fair bit more progressive than your typical anti-urban conservative. But man, the sheer lack of awareness it takes to immediately follow “I’ve always been pro density” with “I don’t believe that much of the density that Seattle has gained (small rented units) does much for long term health of the city” is impressive.
I’m pretty sure tacommee is just trolling. I doubt they lack that much self awareness to earnestly claim theyre an urbanist
The track diagrams in SODO that I’ve seen don’t allow for easy switching between the current tunnel and the deep proposed one.
> For starters, the proposed deep tunnel portals would be near Holgate Street. That means that the only place to transfer riders is SODO Station.
> The WSBLE track diagrams did not allow for adjacent track crossovers near SODO. Because each track runs in the opposite direction from the ones next to it, a train will have to cross over two tracks rather than merely to the adjacent one. This is a basic design flaw that I’ve loudly commented on in ST feedback since 2017 — yet the concern never registers with anyone important .
> The interface between lines could happen differently if the West Seattle tracks go just a block further to the Central OMF property and both 1 and 3 Lines merge at the existing switches and both share the SODO platform. It could save the project lots of money by not building the additional SODO platforms anyway (just build the Lander Overpass for cars (but not pedestrians/ bicyclists). Maybe that will come to light in upcoming value engineering of WS Link if that moves ahead.
> There are more forecasted riders between Capitol Hill and Westlake than between Westlake and Symphony + between Westlake and Midtown added together. DSTT2 would not provide any relief from that segment.
Anyway, a major flaw to redundancy is the actual track -configurations south of Holgate. A train on one track cannot be directed to another adjacent track according to the track plans that I’ve seen. So it provides no real redundancy for train operations.
And another major flaw is the lack of cross platform transfers at SODO. If a train is forced out of service there, every rider is forced to make two level changes to get to the other train headed in the same direction. Kicking off 500-800 riders from a train all at once and forcing them to change levels twice at SODO is a terrible setup. Even a shared platform where they all just get off one train and wait for the next train on the same platform is better and probably faster.
Like I keep saying, too many people see the tunnels conceptually redundant on a diagram so people think it’s possible — but the actual operational requirements are never presented, discussed or refined to make any redundancy actually work well.
The word “redundancy” is causing some confusion here. It’s not really about trains somehow switching from one physical tunnel to another.
The question is, when there’s a problem at Pioneer Square, do you want the entire system to go down? Or do you want to maintain service from Federal Way/SeaTac/Rainier Valley to downtown and continuing to Ballard? It’s about removing single points of failure.
The word “redundancy” is causing some confusion here.
Agreed. Redundancy is really not an asset. What you want is resiliency.
The question is, when there’s a problem at Pioneer Square, do you want the entire system to go down? Or do you want to maintain service from Federal Way/SeaTac/Rainier Valley to downtown and continuing to Ballard? It’s about removing single points of failure.
But an outage at Pioneer Square would not cripple the entire system. Trains would turn around north and south of downtown. People would ride buses between there.
I think folks have it backwards. The larger your system the harder it is to maintain reliability. The more money you spend on expansion the less money you have to spend on resiliency. Remember, the recommendations the consultants came up with were not cheap. Not only were there big bureaucratic changes but a lot of mechanical and electrical ones as well. If we want to focus on reliability and resiliency then we should spend money on those proposals, not a second tunnel.
‘“> The interface between lines could happen differently if the West Seattle tracks go just a block further to the Central OMF property and both 1 and 3 Lines merge at the existing switches and both share the SODO platform. It could save the project lots of money by not building the additional SODO platforms anyway (just build the Lander Overpass for cars (but not pedestrians/ bicyclists). Maybe that will come to light in upcoming value engineering of WS Link if that moves ahead”
I would think that if they can figure out keeping everything in one tunnel, and build some sort of train to west Seattle instead of buses, that this is how it would pretty much have to be. Anything else would t make sense.
Well, then, what exactly is it an endorsement of?
Condemning property is much cheaper than using eminent domain. So just condemn the properties. Because the people who own the property don’t matter.
Condemnation is the act of government exercising its power of eminent domain. One is not cheaper than the other; they are the same thing.
https://mrsc.org/explore-topics/planning/takings/eminent-domain
Not really. I witnessed the Des Moines city council condemn a person’s home and take it for much less than it’s value because he challenged the city.
Does anyone know how much the Link 4 line is projected to cost?
Around 2 billion in 2014 dollars back in 2016. https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/south-kirkland-to-central-issaquah-via-bellevue-light-rail-202008.pdf
Id need to find the most recent estimates though its before the post covid cost increases and inflation
I was definitely starting to doubt if the 2 line would ever be tested for real.
@zzyzx,
It was 3+ months between the dead tow test and the next test. Let’s hope ST doesn’t repeat that.
That said, has there been a second live wire test yet? I’ve been hearing rumors of WSDOT requiring time between tests to allow the bridge to relax.
I can understand hard working humans requiring rest and relaxation, but a bridge? Seems like you simply do the requisite inspections of data and infrastructure between tests and then get on with the next test.
That said, WSDOT is the agency that lost 2 of their 4 floating bridges (I-90 counts twice). So maybe they just want to be extra careful. But eventually it is going to be a train every 4 minutes, so best get on with it.
But this is progress. And soon there will be fast, frequent, and reliable transit across the lake.
It’s been a long time coming.
Aw, can you imagine if this floating bridge sinks or something? we’ll be gimped for like a decade while it’s replaced.
@ Delta:
I worry about a more likely scenario where only the trains can’t run on the bridge as opposed to a catastrophic bridge failure. A bus bridge is the obvious solution to me between Judkins Park and Mercer Island.
And I’ve mentioned many times that the biggest missing hassle to a temporary bus bridge scenario is reversing buses near the Judkins Park Station. The land inside the loop ramp could be reshaped for that. It’s just that no one in a position of authority or even the other advocates on this blog seem to care enough to advocate for this. A turn around could be beneficial for other things too, like a Harborview shuttle or general pickups and dropoffs.
@al a bus bridge to just judkins park station doesn’t make as much sense as reaching cid. one would have to then transfer to some stub line to reach the rest of the 1 line.
one can just have the st bus bridge run similar to the st 554 and use the rainier ave exit. most buses continue north on rainier so could still take the rainier/dearborn bus stops. the bus could then run from cid to south bellevue station
“PM
@al a bus bridge to just judkins park station doesn’t make as much sense as reaching cid. one would have to then transfer to some stub line to reach the rest of the 1 line.”
I don’t think you understand, WL. The 2 Line will run from Lynnwood to Judkins Park at 10 minute intervals like the 1 Line. It will only add 2-3 minutes to ride Link one more station (to/ from Judkins Park) while a bus bridge would probably add 10 minutes in just bus travel time each way. That also means that a bus bridge would need twice as many buses since it’s less than 10 minutes to go between Judkins Park and Mercer Island on a bus using 90 HOV lanes.
In your proposal, buses between ID and Judkins Park would crawl through traffic. Dearborn had a recent lane reduction for protected bicycle lanes making a bus bridge travel time even worse. The only time advantage would be between South King/ SeaTac and East King (or for stadium events) and added congestion (especially at stadium event times) may make even that advantage moot.
@al
You’d still end up needing to transfer multiple times
Coming from say SeaTac or beacon hill one would need to wait 5 minutes at cid, then transfer to the line 2 stub line over to Judkins park. And then transfer to the bus running to south Bellevue station and then transfer to the light rail again and wait again.
A bus from cid to south Bellevue station then you’d only need to do the bus transfer once and then get to the light rail station. If sound transit can afford it honestly I’d just run it all the way to downtown Bellevue so one can access most other buses there.
@Al S
Riders would still be able to transfer at Judkins Park if they so choose. The transfer would be mediocre but that’s fine for a temporary bus bridge. Judkins Park-CID should hopefully be improved in the longer term as part of the RapidRide R project.
I don’t see how a bus layover near I-90 improves the situation without massive expense. There’s no way to get back on I-90 unless the bus loops further north or south. The best case would be roughly Bush Pl from the north or S Massachusetts from the south. If the bus only serves Judkins Park, it might as well exit SB and loop somewhere south of there.
“I don’t see how a bus layover near I-90 improves the situation without massive expense. There’s no way to get back on I-90 unless the bus loops further north or south.”
To me the project appears quite easy and inexpensive:
1. Excavate into the hill inside the loop ramp.
2. Construct a one-way loop entering off on Rainier, adding a loading and unloading area immediately on the right, turning the roadway towards the north, and exiting to the loop ramp and across to the eastbound 90 on-ramp from Southbound Rainier a few hundred feet above the merge points . For safety, install a new signal at the exit point for buses coming out — that can then turn right to exit on Rainier or turn left to get back on eastbound 90 using that ramp.
Also, buses exiting at Rainier westbound or eastbound could not stop at Judkins Park as both 90 on and off ramps are a block north of the station. The stops would be north of Charles Street and that’s a very awkward place to load and unload hundreds of riders at once. .
This turnaround in contrast appears easy peasy! It doesn’t appear to be a massive expense at all. It’s just earthwork, pavement, lighting, maybe a retaining wall, and a new signal on the ramps.
@Al S
Are you suggesting rebuilding both the exit and on-ramp in the northwest quadrant? I would consider that massive expense…
And wouldn’t the bus stop still be a block north of the station (~800ft)?
Isn’t that worse than just having the bus loop somewhere south of Judkins Park? In that case the SB stop would be directly under the station (0ft); the NB stop would be just north of Massachusetts (~600ft)
Alternately adding temporary stops at roughly Bush Pl would be almost as good as the bus loop (~1000ft) and cost basically nothing
Also there are already plans to rebuild the ramps in a few years
https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/i-90-judkins-park-station-reconnecting-communities
I found a couple of references to a second round of testing on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, including in the Seattle Times:
“The first trip, completed early Tuesday from the Eastside to Seattle, lumbered along at walking speed, then reversed direction back to Mercer Island.
After that, operators went back-and-forth on the eastbound track “not once, but many times at speeds up to 55 mph,” said executive project director Tony Raben, in an email to colleagues. Similar overnight trips, on the westbound rails, were scheduled again for early Wednesday.”
What I haven’t found are any reports on if that 2nd night of testing happened and how it went. Of course, the first night is far more interesting, so perhaps no one actually ventured out to watch.
Yes, they did a second round of tests last night!
How are the governments of King County and Seattle (they are one and the same) trying to improve safety on transit? By pretending to care, holding phony safety meetings that are closed to the public, and secretly celebrating crime on transit.
“and secretly celebrating crime on transit.”
What the heck are you going on about
They are not doing anything tangible to stop crime on transit. That is the only logical conclusion.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy gleefully went on a defund-transit rant based on the murder that occurred on the Charlotte light rail, rather than make himself aware of the data regarding the hundreds of traffic deaths that occur every day, or offer his condolences to the family of the victim.
“They are not doing anything tangible to stop crime on transit. That is the only logical conclusion.”
Okay, and?
Ryan Packer is wrong to predict congestion south of Westlake with a stubbed Ballard-Downtown line. That’s because roughly as many riders from the north Spine trains will deboard to ride the Ballard line into SLU and walk to nearby destinations as will riders from Ballard wanting to go farther downtown board the southbound Spine trains.
Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly equal, but Westlake is a major destination, and the two other downtown DSTT stations have much lower patronage, less than half that of Westlake. Exact figures available here https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/08/25/ridership-patterns-for-link-1-line
There would be plenty of space on a three-line Spine for riders transferring from Ballard-Downtown.
As a reminder, on last week’s Open Thread I have a proposal how at least some Ballarf-Downtown trains can continue southeast in DSTT1. It’s not free — it would require some major construction in the middle of Symphony and a new tunnel north of there to Pine Street below the existing tubes — a tricky boring exercise — but it is probably doable and would have much better transfers to and from The Spine than ST’s deep DSTT2.
If this is i teresring, you can start here:
https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/09/03/midweek-roundup-mid-life-overhaul/#comment-965398
There are some following replies and refinements.
Yes, Packer’s concern south of Westlake is disproven in 2040 forecasts.
https://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/PM_Peak_ST3_Plan_2040_Midpoint.pdf
The segments north of Westlake tally 210K while the segments south of Westlake talky to 198K. And the forecasts methods and assumptions are flawed in several ways:
> pre-Covid travel behavior with heavy peaks
> ST’s recent statement that they will switch to higher capacity train car designs (https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/09/05/sound-transit-eyes-double-length-light-rail-vehicles-for-next-major-purchase/)
> There is duplicate bus service on Third Ave that the forecast models appear to not fully assume as crowded. That’s especially true for people like Sounder or ferry commuters to Downtown jobs where walking to Link requires some effort.
For the sake of discussion – if they build it like this with the northern divergence at Symphony, and only the north line needing a new station built adjacent to Westlake; and the line coming from Ballard interlining just north of the Westlake box –
if they were to have a tunnel from Ballard that continues on to First Hill/Central District/wherever, does that mean another station, perhaps stacked, would need to be built adjacent to Westlake so that transfers that direction could be made?
Is there room for something like that?
jas, the line on Westlake could be side-by-side; it would not have to be stacked. The stacking allows the northbound line from Third Avenue, which is the lower tube, to under-run the Ballard-Downtown “Main” headed to Sixth and Westlake (and eventually beyond) and rise up to a merge somewhere between Sixth Avenue and the south edge of the Denny Way station. The Westlake Avenue street ROW is wide enough to host a three-track merging junction. The southbounds would just diverge by going straight down Westlake between Sixth and Stewart from the right-hand southbound B-D “Main” at Stewart.
However, I would be inclined to include bellmouths for a possible future Aurora line between Denny Way and the Seventh Avenue station. They might cost a couple of hundred million to rough in, but it would be worth it. If they were included, then it would make sense to have the stretch between Denny Way and Seventh Avenue stacked, which would mean that one or the other station would have to be stacked. Soooo, it would behoove ST to study stacking Denny Way and the trackway under Westlake Avenue. That would make the merge from the Third Avenue Tunnel just as easy as the diversion to it.
Does this make sense? I know I write pretty run-on abstract sentences, but I don’t have a personal website to put diagrams on.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
@Tom Terrific, if you want, you can put up a sketch somewhere like imgur and link it from here? I think I understand what you’re suggesting, but it might be helpful.
Or you can write a guest post; I think it’d be very interesting.
Ryan Packer is wrong to predict congestion south of Westlake with a stubbed Ballard-Downtown line.
Where exactly did he write this?
For what it’s worth, I do so potential crowding if there is a branch at Westlake. Basically this limits the number of trains that can go from Downtown to the UW (which will likely be our most crowded section). One of those trains would head towards Ballard instead. Chances are, we would be fine (most of the time) but I can see why someone would be concerned about a branch.
But that is another argument for an independent, automated line from Ballard to Westlake. The only connection to the main line would be non-service (if that). Such a train wouldn’t fundamentally change crowding for the main line. Lots of people would get off the train at Westlake and transfer to the main line heading north or south. Big deal. That is what they do now. It really doesn’t change things very much. If you work in South Lake Union but live in Roosevelt you take the bus south after work and then the train north. Or you take the 70 (which will eventually be RapidRide, running faster and more often to the north). The same is true for someone who works in Uptown. Instead of taking the monorail or bus to Westlake they take Ballard Link. People farther north (e. g. at Ballard) will continue to do what they do now — take the 44. It will probably be faster as the slowly, bit by bit keep making that bus faster. Even Magnolia riders may prefer to stay on their 31/32 bus until it reaches the U-District instead of transferring once in Interbay and a second time at Westlake. It is worth noting that the ship canal bridges don’t open during rush hour.
Overall I would say that Ballard Link would have a pretty minimal impact on mainline Link crowding. The RapidRide J could have a bigger impact (in a positive way).
Ross, Sorry, it was Doug Trumm, in The Sound Transit Board Signals a Return to Parochialism on 4 September. Here’s the pull-quote:
[Emphasis added]
I thought it was Ryan because it was a linked story. My apologies to Ryan.
With trains running as often as every three minutes through Westlake, there isn’t much time for people to accumulate.
I guess southbound is possibly more challenging as the trains would be soon branching so some riders would have to wait longer for their train.
And the whole danger risk could be eased by installing platform screen doors in the station.
OK, thanks Tom. Yeah, I think he has it backwards in terms of crowding. Assume for a second that the best headways we can manage through the existing tunnel is a train every 2 minutes. Without a branch that means 30 trains heading to the UW. If we sent 1/3 of the trains to Ballard it would mean 20 trains to the UW. That means less capacity for trains between the UW and downtown. That is a reasonable concern.
But an independent line is just that — independent. It doesn’t change the capacity of the other line. So the only crowding that would occur is if this leads to additional trips on the main line. Why would it? The fundamentals don’t change. Imagine someone taking Ballard Link south and then transferring at Westlake. Now imagine that Ballard Link disappears. What do they do? They walk, take a bus or ride the monorail to Westlake and then transfer at Westlake. Nothing really changes other than the entrance they use to get to the existing Westlake Station.
There is a hint to his reasoning in this section:
especially if Sound Transit has to cut frequencies to make the single tunnel plan work
OK, so he isn’t really worried about the frequency of trains running downtown. He is worried about trains running to Rainier Valley, West Seattle and the East Side. If you assume that the best Sound Transit can do is run the trains every three minutes through downtown, then those trains (at best) can run every nine minutes outside it. That is quite pessimistic. Sound Transit itself has said they can run trains every two minutes through downtown, it just “wouldn’t give our ridership as reliable a service.” That would mean trains running every six minutes down Rainier Valley — something that hasn’t happened in a very long time. But dig into those reliability concerns a bit more. From the article:
Although going below 3 minutes is possible, due to the variability inherent with human factors and surface operations it “wouldn’t give our ridership as reliable a service.”
[Emphasis mine]
So surface operations make it more likely to have these delays. Fair enough. But now consider the situation in more detail. The trains from the north are not running on the surface. This means if you are at Westlake they should run like clockwork. There should be a train every two minutes and every third train is headed to Rainier Valley. It is the other direction where trains could be delayed. But that doesn’t really matter since we would be sending more trains to the UW than the current plans. In other words, worse case scenario there is some bunching and the trains run every three minutes to the UW for a while (before going back to every two minutes). That is still better than the current plan which has them running every three minutes.
Of course if West Seattle Link is replaced with bus service (which is the consensus on this blog) then we are back to the original plan in terms of crowding. We run trains every six minutes to Rainier Valley and the East Side. We run trains every three minutes through downtown and up to the UW (and the way to Lynnwood apparently). If that isn’t enough capacity then a second tunnel doesn’t really help. Downtown isn’t the issue. We would need to send more trains to the UW and the East Side (which wouldn’t be that hard) and more trains to Rainier Valley (which is the hard part).
Al, plus 100 in the platform doors for safety. They also improve reliability by stopping people from forcing the train doors apart. Close the platform doors first by three or four seconds.
Ross, I think that the solution to a lot of potential operations issues is complete automation from IDS north. Whether you have the operators ride along like on BART or deboard northbound and reboard southbound at Pioneer Square, the trains need to be under system control with platform doors to ensure prompt departure throughout the all-lines section.
If the operators turn back at PSS, it can produce significant labor cost savings, perhaps enough to pay for the retfo-fitting costs.
If Katie Wilson becomes mayor, will she have the power to make bus lanes on Denny way?
I don’t know what the mayor can do unilaterally, but if she’s elected, the city council would probably get more liberal and transit-prioritizing too like it was in the last few administrations, and would have influence on SDOT. The current SDOT director is interim, and I guess they’re waiting until after the election to choose a permanent one.
The state has authority over I-5, and that may include aspects of the entrances stretching to Denny Way. The freeway entrances are what’s causing most of the congestion and bus delays on Denny Way, as cars line up to go to the rest of the region. So I doubt Seattle alone could close an entrance, much less the mayor alone, but they could probably reconfigure Denny and close a half-block toward the entranceas long as some access to the freeway is maintained. And they could press WSDOT to agree to wider changes.
WSDOT has been more wholistically-minded recently. There was Roger Millar on the ST board, the most forward-thinking one along with Claudia Balducci. And WSDOT hasn’t objected to lowering part of Aurora’s speed limit and to reenvision it as a complete street. The state is probably ahead of the city at the moment in some aspects, and would be agreeable to positive changes.
I would imagine city is more concerned about the impact of bus lane on Denny Way than WSDOT does because it will make general-purpose lanes at city streets more congested than it does to I-5.
On the on-ramp side, fewer general-purpose lanes at Denny Way means less throughput processed at on-ramp, which will actually make freeway volume lower. Plus there are ramp meters at on-ramps, so WSDOT has full control on this side and congestion is mostly city’s problem.
On the off-ramp side, it is possible the I-5 off-ramp in the area will spill back a little more to freeway mainline, but I cannot imagine it will be as serious as the problem SDOT has to deal with on city streets.
That is a good point. It is quite likely that WSDOT wouldn’t mind the city closing down on-ramps. Off-ramps are a different story. How the city handles off-ramps is probably an issue as you don’t traffic backing up onto the freeway. But the city should be able to go hog wild when it comes to restricting access to the freeway. It doesn’t have to be a complete shutdown, either. They could toll it. They could charge a lot of money during peak and not much at midnight.
No, the big issue that SDOT is concerned about is just general traffic on the city streets. But this is flawed thinking. As long as the buses aren’t delayed, it is OK. Drivers adjust. A lot of them stop driving, especially if you have an alternative that is a lot faster (which it would be if you added BAT lanes). I’m sure there are plenty of people who have tried taking the 8 and finally said “screw it — since the bus is no faster, I’m driving”.
“As long as the buses aren’t delayed, it is OK. Drivers adjust. ”
I agree that this is probably what will happen, but it doesn’t matter to those who opposes to the project or transit priority in general and they will certainly use this against the project and ignore the possibility of travel behavior change.
That’s why I think this hypothetical traffic problem can still compromise the project and SDOT probably needs to do something to show they are mitigating the situation for cars.
I also see SDOT says something like they “would prefer to tolerate the poor operations for vehicle traffic in favor of non-motorized modes.” in transportation report these days, maybe they will just say that and build the bus lane.
Yeah, it is a political problem for sure. The easiest thing to do is BS your way through it. Point that that fewer cars will drive on the road (which is actually true). Suggest that all those people taking the bus will more than make up for the loss of the lane for general purpose cars (which is not true). In all likelihood it will be quite similar though (induced demand and all that).
But I think anyone who believes that we should add lanes for cars (or just retain them) has been whining about Seattle for years. There are various places where they have taken lanes with a less justified cause than this one. It is not like there aren’t alternatives to Denny. Mercer is the obvious one. They have spent a huge amount of money eliminating the so called Mercer Mess. Now it runs smoothly, all day long. Drivers should just use that.
(Yes, I know Mercer is really slow. But that’s my point. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t argue that Seattle should spend a lot of money making the roadway better for cars when we did. The work on Mercer was designed to eliminate big bottlenecks. It didn’t work. So why do we assume that adding bus lanes will fail?)
In other words, one option is to treat the voters like grown-ups and level with them. Traffic is inevitable and there is no cure other than maybe variable tolling (which gets really complicated inside the city). The only thing we can do is offer an alternative. But another option is to just BS your way through. Pretend things will be better for cars and then when they aren’t you can just say “Oh well”.
“It is not like there aren’t alternatives to Denny. Mercer is the obvious one.”
Mercer doesn’t go to Capitol Hill. If you’re only going a few blocks, it doesn’t matter which street you use. It’s when you’re going longer distances to places that only one street goes to that it matters.
I’ve felt that Interstate 5 has too many exit and entrance ramps in Downtown Seattle. Closing off a few may shift traffic away from Denny.
Mercer doesn’t go to Capitol Hill.
Mercer to Capitol Hill by car: https://maps.app.goo.gl/jnwmLtnJWPYrHubp6
Anyway, no one is talking about closing off Denny to cars. There would still be one lane each direction. My point is that Mercer is the obvious alternative to Denny for the vast majority of trips. It has freeway access. You can use it to then go north on Eastlake or south to downtown. It connects to Elliot in the west and Capitol Hill to the east. Just as people often get Pike and Pine confused they’ve been known to get Mercer and Denny confused since they are so similar.
Put it this way. Imagine we were just committed to “fix” the Mercer Mess. Drivers are excited. Finally we can get traffic to flow freely on Mercer. Months later, transit folks want to take a lane on Denny (damn hippies!). Drivers object. The mayor calls for a “grand compromise”. We take the lanes on Denny just as soon as the Mercer project is fixed. Hurray! Driving will be just fine since the Mercer Mess will be gone.
That is basically what is happening, but years after they did the Mercer work. Of course Mercer is still a mess, but that only shows that you can’t actually “solve” traffic. You can merely move it around.
If Katie Wilson becomes mayor, will she have the power to make bus lanes on Denny way?
Most likely, yes. SDOT is the main one in charge of BAT lanes. They consult with Metro but of course Metro would be happy with that. The city council can try and get involved (and stop the project) but I doubt they would do that. Sara Nelson — the main opponent of transit on the council — will probably be replaced anyway. I don’t think they would have the votes to pass a law over a certain veto and it would be a very weird thing to do.
Keep in mind that SDOT is doing plenty of controversial things when it comes to BAT lanes. There have been a lot of complaints about making the 40 faster in Fremont. Nelson has been one of those opponents. Yet it is happening. Same goes for other changes throughout the city. It is possible that opponents will fight a project like this on legal grounds (like they have done with the Burke Gilman “missing link”) but I don’t see much of a case.
if Wilson is elected I fully expect BAT lanes by the end of her first term.
About live wire test, will the test be done mostly overnight at the beginning? Was there a test on the second night? During the day, the scene seems largely similar to last month. Few workers at sites doing something.