Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Sounder, Sound Transit’s commuter rail service. On the morning of September 18, 2000, the first Sounder trip departed a temporary station in Tacoma and headed towards King Street Station in Seattle. Along the way, the train stopped in Sumner and Auburn. A second trip ran later in the morning, and two trips back to Tacoma ran in the afternoon.
Over the past 25 years, the Sounder network has grown to include 2 lines, 12 station, and nearly 83 miles of track. Let’s take a look at a few key milestones in Sounder’s history.
- September 18, 2000: Sounder begins revenue service with two daily round trips between Tacoma and Seattle.
- February 5, 2001: Stations open in Puyallup and Kent.
- March 12, 2001: Tukwila station opens.
- September 30, 2002: A third daily trip is added.
- September 15, 2003: The temporary station in Tacoma is replaced by a platform at Tacoma Dome Station’s Freighthouse Square.
- December 17, 2003: Sound Transit and BNSF agree to a perpetual easement agreement to Burlington Northern tracks between Seattle and Everett.
- December 21, 2003: The North Line begins service with a Sunday train for a Seahawks game. The line had one stop in Edmonds.
- December 22, 2003: Regular North Line service begins with one daily round trip from Everett to Seattle.
- June 6, 2005: A second daily North Line trip is added.
- September 24, 2007: The South Line adds its first ‘reverse commute’ trip, traveling from Seattle to Tacoma in the morning and Tacoma to Seattle in the afternoon.
- May 31, 2008: Mukilteo station on the North Line opens.
- October 8, 2012: The South Line is extended to South Tacoma and Lakewood.
- March 23, 2020: Service on both lines is cut in half, the South Line is cut to eight daily round trips and the North Line is cut to two daily round trips.
- September 18, 2021: The North Line and South Line are renamed to the N Line and S Line, respectively.
- September 19, 2022: S Line is fully restored to pre-pandemic service levels.
- September 16, 2024: N Line is fully restored to pre-pandemic service levels.
While much of Sound Transit’s focus has shifted to its Link light rail system, a S Line extension was included in the 2016 voter approved ST3 package. This extension, scheduled to open in 2045, will add two new stations at Tillicum and DuPont.
I rode Sounder for the first time to Lakewood the other day, and I found it to be really pleasant. Quick and comfortable, and a pretty easy transfer to the Intercity Transit 600 to Olympia (which was a bit painful on account of I5 traffic).
I wish that Sound Transit’s longer range plans had more mainline service included. Especially in Pierce County, there’s a lot of trackage that could have or could be used in a regional system, and it’s a lot cheaper to upgrade existing alignments than build new ones. I get that the BNSF line between Tacoma and Seattle is probably too busy for consistent half hourly scheduling that good mainline systems like Caltrain do now, but it seems inevitable that the “light rail regional rail” system that we’re building will fail at it’s regional goals to move people quickly.
We still need both – and I think looking to a region like the Essen/Dortmund/Cologne area in Germany is a good place to start. They’ve got both mainline and light rail options connecting all their major centers, since both serve important roles. And if we had bonafide regional rail to complement the light rail, it wouldn’t feel so quixotic to consider the role of infill stations.
blumdrew,
I love the Sounder as well!
If you want to know the real difference between mass transit in Europe and the USA, it’s moving people on heavy rail. I know BNSF is hard to work with, and expensive as well, but there are tracks that run the entire length of the State to most the major and minor cities in Western Washington. What would 50 billion dollars do to upgrading this system? 100 billion? Yeah, that’s a lot of money but it’s certainly a better investment than a 22 to 30 billion light rail line to Ballard.
Definitely agree. The US tends to have relatively good urban mass transit in our major cities, even by European city standards, but extremely bad regional service. The NY Subway is better than anything in Europe, but regional mobility in NY is made so much worse by the hostile relationship between Metro-North, the LIRR, and NJT. And NY has real mainline rail service. So I’d take Paris over NY overall, since Paris has the RER – maybe the best mainline regional rail service in the world. Outside of NYC, even systems like Boston and Chicago compare favorably to systems in much of the continent, but the totally anemic regional service that has spent years being commuter-only as a traffic relief makes each of those places middling at best from a more global perspective.
Seattle’s urban system compares favorably to a lot of places I’ve been to in Europe. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but the bus system here is really good. It’s just also reached essentially the limit of what a bus system in a US city can do without overlapping regional service. I think massive state-level investment in passenger rail – including getting at least a double tracked corridor that can be electrified from Vancouver WA to Vancouver BC that the state owns outright – would allow for immediately better regional rail service that would make Seattle genuinely world-class for transit mobility, instead of just good for the US. It doesn’t even need to be a 300 kph Shinkansen stuff, even just 200 to 250 kph semi-high speed rail would allow for regional service that would put Link and Sounder to shame.
But instead of coordination between ST and the state, the state sort of vaguely studies what HSR would mean for the intercity market, with zero discussion of regional travel, while ST spends $100B on a regional tram network that is also trying to do regional rail, or maybe urban rail, or maybe whatever is a convenient cheap option. If there was a publicly owned, double track electric railway with passing loops that could host 200 kph trains, 15 minute service between Tacoma and Everett with regional stops could probably make the run in 45 minutes to an hour, and express trains could do it in 30 minutes. Instead, we’ll have a light rail spine making the trip in 2.5 hours.
The US tends to have relatively good urban mass transit in our major cities
Wait, what??? I think we are widely considered the worst in the world when it comes to urban transit. New York has a very strong system (most of which was built decades ago) but it is remarkably outdated compared to other really big cities. It breaks down all the time. It lacks modern touches that are common around the world. Enhancements like the Second Avenue subway cost a fortune. A relatively simple project (like the IBX) is full of questionable decisions. And this is New York! This is the city with by far the best transit in the United States. L. A. (the second biggest city) is just now building a half-way decent rail network to go along with improvements to their fairly weak bus system. Speaking of which, American bus service is generally poor compared to Europe. Hell, it is poor compared to Canada. To quote Jarrett Walker:
“For God’s sake, stop envying Europe and start envying Canada.”
Just running the buses more often would be a good way to try and catch up with the Europeans but instead we seem fixated on projects that involve ribbon cutting (whether it is streetcar where they aren’t needed or “BRT” that is nothing more than a different colored bus running more often).
Yes, regional rail sucks too. But in many places it is actually where the focus lies. You can get very quickly from San Fransisco to Walnut Creek. But getting around around San Fransisco can be a real pain. East Bay is worse. Whether it is BART, DART or DTD we have a tendency to focus on distance trips while ignoring our core. As a result, our system sucks.
Of course we could do a better job with our commuter/regional rail. We should definitely leverage our old rail lines. In many cases (although not ours) this would be relatively cheap. But let’s not fool ourselves. It wouldn’t get that many riders (unless you are talking about a place like New York). Not like in Europe. That’s because after you’ve made that long distance trip, no one wants to have to wait a really long time to catch a bus that is stuck in traffic just to get to their final destination.
“You can get very quickly from San Fransisco to Walnut Creek. But getting around around San Fransisco can be a real pain. East Bay is worse.”
San Francisco is not so hard to get around. Since BART built the Muni Metro tunnel under Market Street from the pre-existing tunnels to the Embarcadero, they have built the rail extensions south to Caltrain, T Line (including Central Subway) that runs the full length of the City’s eastern edge and the Van Ness busway. They’ve also tried many times to make Geary work better.
Meanwhile, BART extensions to the East Bay and to SFO have been seeded by sales tax revenues not collected in San Francisco but in the outlying counties. That’s why BART is more extensive today and why Caltrain has really surged since electrification was completed last year. The outlying county’s transit problem there is more a function of their abundance of free parking and low density development (Santa Clara VTA’s light rail is a poster child of how building light rail by itself doesn’t create productivity success even after being open over 35 years).
The Bay Area outcomes really should be more talked about in the context of Sound Transit 3. The failure of the Central Subway deep stations to attract riders is directly analogous to DSTT2 and the Ballard Link SLU segment. The VTA light rail inability to attract riders is analogous to Everett Link and 4 Line — and somewhat to Federal Way Link. The stress of reversing trains at Lynnwood and planned at Mariner were lived experience at Embarcadero Stetion in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Transit agencies love to take field trips to see other cities’ successes. However there could be lots to learn by looking at their failures. I still sense that too many ST Board members don’t fully grasp the basics of what they’ve been planning for ST3 and now that it’s needing revisiting. It is an excellent time for the Board to study and visit the failures in other areas.
blumdrew,
Because of heavy rail lines and different ideas of growth… Tacoma and Everett would be way bigger towns in Germany and Seattle somewhat smaller. Germany moves people and stuff really well on heavy rail. America? We use cars and trucks. The differences are baked in so change isn’r easy.
Ross – there are like 5 US regions that have a regional system that functions as such, while just about everywhere has a local bus system. Many of those local buses are far better than you’ve been led to believe as well – though I would vastly prefer comfier seats and less rattling. The problem is that without a faster regional service, it’s just not possible for transit to be time-competitive with driving at all. LA has incredible local buses, but it sucks trying to get anywhere even sort of far away unless there happens to be a convenient Metrolink option or you’re going to like one of five places served by the subway
And getting around San Francisco is so much easier than you’re giving it credit for. Sure, Muni could stand to be faster but the buses come like every 5 minutes on busy lines. Have you tried to get from a part of Pleasant Hill/Walnut Creek that isn’t next to BART without a car? I have, and it sucks. The buses come every hour and a half in the peak hour!
Unfortunately it doesn’t go to the Eastside. ST should annex highway 2 from Everett to Monroe and run an East Sounder, as well as run Sounder North to Stanwood.
The reason we don’t have European style rail here really boils down to a couple issues:
1) We don’t have European style development.
2) We don’t own the tracks.
In Europe a place like Auburn would be a real city. Tens of thousands of people could walk to the station. Frequent buses or trams would criss-cross the city of 100,000. But instead it is basically a tiny town next to bunch of other tiny towns that sprawl for miles and miles. The only way to get around the region is with a car. So most people own one and use it. The other “cities” (Kent, Puyallup, Sumner) are similar. So even if you manage to live near one of the stations and take the train to another city you find yourself struggling to get to your actual destination (unless you are heading to Seattle). Even then you may find it easier to drive.
As a result, even if we built a European-style system (with frequent all-day trains) it is unlikely they would carry many riders. It is worth noting that even with outstanding regional rail systems and dense, compact cities of the type I described, most of the transit trips occur in the city. Japan has an outstanding high speed rail system. Yet way more people ride the subways. The same thing is true for regional/commuter rail. The best example of this is San Fransisco. BART is one of the best regional rail systems in North America. The trains are very fast. This makes a huge difference if you are going far (from city to city). Yet most of the trips are fairly short. Meanwhile, the buses (and Muni trains) were notoriously slow and unreliable (they have gotten a bit better of late). Yet more people took the buses than BART. People tend to take smaller trips, not long ones.
But the second issue is what is stopping us from making a major investment. It is likely we would have all-day Sounder (at least to the south) if we owned the tracks. Even if ridership was very low (similar to what a bus carries) we would subsidize it just like we subsidize a lot of riders (we run express buses from Tacoma to the UW — this must cost a lot per rider). But because we don’t own the tracks, prices to lease time are expensive. They go up every time you want more time. Per train. This is exactly the opposite of when you own the tracks (or run buses). Things get cheaper *per train* if you own the tracks. You’ve already paid for the trains. Part time drivers — only working during peak — tend to get paid more (per hour) then full time drivers. But since we don’t the tracks, everything is flipped. It really doesn’t cost the railroad much to allow one passenger train a day, for example. But the more trains, the more difficult it is to squeeze in the freight deliveries. Running a lot of trains becomes a huge burden and they have every incentive to ask a lot of money.
Meanwhile, you aren’t gaining that many riders. Frequency is related to ridership. Ridership would go up. But if you double the frequency you don’t quite double the ridership. Thus if we run twice as many trains we will get less than twice as many new riders. It is even worse for longer trips. Frequency matters a lot less. Thus costs are going up exponentially while ridership is increasing slowly. This means the cost per rider goes way up.
The only way I see this working is if the state invests in high speed rail. Not ultra-high speed rail (AKA bullet trains) but trains capable of averaging 100 mph from Seattle to Portland. This would likely require a lot of double tracking and other improvements. Not only to go faster but to be more frequent and reliable (to avoid the freight). This would still be a poor investment compared to investing in local transit but still a reasonable one.
In the meantime they should run bus service that complements the trains. Since the vast majority of riders are heading to Seattle (and not between one of the other cities) this is not especially difficult. The challenge is balancing cost and quality. If you ran frequent express buses from all the stations directly to Seattle it would be ideal for riders but cost a fortune. So you will likely have to combine a few of the trips. But you don’t need to go to the other extreme. There is little reason to mimic Sounder with a bus.
More can be done to help the buses (besides just running them more often). Change I-5 from HOV-2 to HOV-3 (or HOT-3). Make it easier to get from the Tacoma Dome to the freeway. Add bus or BAT lanes from the Tacoma Dome to Downtown Tacoma. Consider going the other direction in Tacoma (starting at the Tacoma Dome and then serving Downtown Tacoma before getting on the freeway). There are a lot of things they could do which would greatly improve regional transit while costing a lot less than increasing Sounder.
This is also common in Europe. People are quick to point out how much better the trains are but one big difference is that the buses are so much better. We actually have a fairly robust freeway system and many of the cities are as centered around the freeway as they are the train tracks. A train is faster from most of the stations (especially when there is traffic) but the stations are remarkably close to the freeways. Tacoma is an especially interesting case because the train is *not* faster than a bus (unless traffic is heavy). Because the train line curves south and east, it is much shorter to take the bus. This means that if traffic isn’t an issue, an express bus is faster. Unless the train were to travel at much faster speeds — but again, that would likely happen with the state’s help.
594: approx 51 minutes of traffic doesn’t suck.
Sounder: approx 1 hr 8 minutes
The huge mess created by the express lanes and HOV lanes ending at Northgate that’s seen on the north end is absent on the south end. It seems to make a huge difference on the south end.
@blumdrew,
I only ride Sounder very rarely, and always in the reverse commute direction from Seattle to Tacoma and back. I find it to be absolutely awesome. Definitely one of the more pleasant transit rides in all of the PS, and a good transit value too.
I haven’t ridden Sounder N since the inaugural trip with the press. I accidentally boarded the car with all the politicians in it, and was told that I wasn’t allowed in Patty Murray’s car.
But I don’t hold that against her personally. She has done a lot for this region, and she was key to saving ST when the first tunnel proposal melted down. We are a lot better for having her as our senator.
Sounder ridership has not recovered and does not seem to be growing. Commuter trips seem to have dropped significantly. I think all day and weekend service (even once every 2 hours or so) would go a long way toward building ridership.
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
I wonder if there’s any opportunity to partner with Amtrak Cascades. From WSDOT’s 2024 Service Development Plan: “On Sound Transit’s recommendation, the study assumed that Sounder service would include 21 roundtrips south of Seattle (four of the 21 would go to DuPont) and 4 roundtrips north of Seattle in 2045.”
https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/statewide-plans/passenger-rail-plans/amtrak-cascades-service-development-plan
I think hourly service would the minimum viable regional service, but I have no idea how that would mesh with BNSF operations. I’d be nice if we could consolidate freight operations on the UP line between Tacoma and Tukwila, and consolidate passenger operations on the BNSF line, then it would just be a matter of maybe adding a few tracks and doing work between Tukwila and Seattle.
I’m sure there are reasons this isn’t viable, UP and BNSF not wanting to being one of them, but it Sounder and Cascades ran on state owned tracks it surely make service and speed upgrades a lot easier
A Sounder-Cascades unified approach would yield benefits for travelers. I’ve said this in prior posts. Even just publishing the timetable of both services together would be powerful. Welcome to the world of rail service parochialism.
Doing that would reveal the service gaps in the corridor. Things would become more obvious like how Cascades should have another South King stop at the very least should be discussed (Kent alone has a population bigger than the entirety of Lewis County or Cowlitz County.) Maybe there are time of day gaps as well. Maybe a reverse peak South Sounder train can be introduced as a Cascades service with all the Sounder stops.
It’s rather odd how two services that are both only a few decades old in their current incarnations are treated so independently from each other.
Why does Amtrak stop in Tukwila anyway? Kent is the obvious choice, but any stop south of Seattle seems like it would be better than Tukwila.
I’m not sure if anyone does that, even though it seems like a good idea. I looked at MARC (Baltimore to DC) and Amtrak. There are lots of both types of trains going between there but no combined schedule. The best option is some other software. Google Maps works but it doesn’t list the fare of MARC (although it at least links to the page of the fare). That is an issue in general — MARC is much cheaper than Amtrak. Sounder is also much cheaper than Amtrak. It would be nice to just have a complete combined schedule of both even if Amtrak is a lot more expensive.
“Why does Amtrak stop in Tukwila anyway?”
One key factor: Overnight parking is available.
Maybe with the addition of new parking garages on Sounder South, overnight parking could be reserved so Amtrak stops could then be added.
“Why does Amtrak stop in Tukwila anyway?”
Politics. The stop was added in the 2010s. Tukwila is where I-5 and 405 converge, so it must be important and where most south King County residents are or can drive to. Tukwila has Southcenter and that big-box city south of it so it’s an economic powerhouse. The station is on the border between Tukwila and Renton so it supposedly serves both cities; never mind that there’s nothing around the station.
From a population perspective, station-access distance, even station spacing, and logical perspective, the station between Seattle and Tacoma should be Kent or Auburn.
My understanding was Tukwila was added at the request of the Port of Seattle, who pictured it as an easy connection to the airport. At the time, I think there was a bus route that went from there to Highway 99 or something.
If the Port actually wanted that to work, they really should also extend a shuttle bus to the station. There are dozens of hotel and parking lot shuttle buses plus the rental car shuttles. If having an Amtrak connection is so important to them it seems like they should be able to find someone willing to provide a bus that connects directly to the station. Isn’t one of the parking lots near there a private remote airport lot or something, whose shuttle could be used for both?
Or, just tell everyone to take the 574 from Tacoma.
I think all day and weekend service (even once every 2 hours or so) would go a long way toward building ridership.
Ridership would go up but I don’t think you would get that many riders. Midday trains carry very few people. It is easy to argue that we need a “tipping point” level of service. No one rides the train midday because the train is too infrequent. Except generally speaking it doesn’t work that way. I’ve never read any report, anywhere that shows ridership *per vehicle* going up when you increase frequency. You increase overall ridership, but ridership per train (or bus) goes down.
Consider how bad it is now. The last two trains from Tacoma to Seattle (leaving Tacoma at 4:30 and 5:15) carry less than 80 riders a day (total). So does the first train leaving Seattle in the morning (at 6:05 am). The other two morning trains heading to Tacoma do better but they both struggle to get much over 100 riders. To be fair, some of the midday trains do better but they still aren’t pulling in the numbers that the commuter style trains are do (and the commuter style trains are doing much worse than they used to). Given the cost, it seems like just running more buses would be the answer. Yes, it would be great if Kent had a train connecting it to Seattle every hour. But it would also be nice if it had an express bus connecting to Seattle every fifteen minutes. It wouldn’t surprise me if the latter would be cheaper.
The private track and operations ownership aspects significantly reduce what can be done. Things that would be low-cost and quick to implement become higher-cost (and relatively unpredictable too) and take longer negotiation to do. This magnifies the effort many times.
The US incentivized widespread rail construction through sweetheart deals in the 1800’s. Those deals remain in place today.
Things would be very different if the rail mode worked like the car mode or the plane mode or the ship mode in its legal/ corporate situation. But it doesn’t. And no political force sees the need to change things. Instead passenger rail service is provided as best as it can while required to use an institutionalized stacked deck of cards.
I’m generally a strong proponent of the free market but I’ve become convinced that the best answer is to just nationalize the railroads. The regulations that created a level playing field were excellent. They served this country well, allowing us to become an economic powerhouse. It was a mistake to get rid of those regulations. But I think even if we had those regulations it would be a mess. We live in very litigious times. It is easy to imagine companies fighting such regulations tooth and nail while little gets accomplished. The railroads act as natural monopolies — at least in the areas they serve. While I’m sure there are various innovations that one railroad company or another uses to try and get an edge, they don’t strike me as being particularly innovative now. Nationalizing the railroads fixes a lot of problems while we would lose very little. Of course this means the government has to run things and the Republicans have made a career out of convincing the public that the government is incompetent (even though various agencies have been remarkably successful). From a political standpoint it would be difficult. But I think it would be the best thing to do.
Certainly some sort of reform is needed. The current system severely hampers what the US can do using passenger rail.
The transportation economic models that seem to work best are for facilities to be in public ownership (roads, airports, signals, air traffic control) with the vehicles using them being privately owned and paying money for use of the public systems (trucking companies, airlines). But even in those situations there are examples where the free market can’t fully provide the need — so government provides transit, passenger air service subsidies to remote areas and such.
The big change in recent decades is the emergence of better rail signals, train location monitoring and other technologies that can radically improve the use of rail if the established structure is modified.
I can’t say how it would work, but the most obvious way to get reform is to look to taxation and insurance costs as a way to move the needle. If rails could be assessed at a higher market rate, companies would start giving up underutilized tracks. If liability insurance rates skyrocketed companies would do that too. A final incentive could be to require a nationalized train control system like the air traffic control system rather than expecting private companies to only control their trains and tracks.
This is a very complex situation that has frustrated many for over a century here in the US. A bipartisan effort to restructure things would be needed and it would require commitment by smart policy experts and lots of public money to make it happen. But if more progressive leadership in our past decades couldn’t get reform done, I don’t know how it could happen.
The reason the railroads are private was so that Congress could get out of paying to build them. That was a mistake: national rail transportation is a national asset and necessity.
Mike Orr,
Ah, I don’t think the Federal Government built much of anything in the 1860s. There wasn’t a national road system back then either and canals and railroads were built with private funds.
This all changed after WWII with the Federal highway system. Along with the roads (a good thing) came the idea of Federally funded pork (a bad thing). Right now we’re entering a lean time with Federal spending… which is good for much of rural America and very bad for Blue Cities. Over the next few years a wave of more Left leaning leaders are likely elected to Blue Cities (starting with Katie Wilson in Seattle). The problem is Seattle is upside down on debt and tax revenue and the Federal and State governments aren’t going to bail cities out like in past 50 years. So we enter a time of unfunded socialism in American Cities.
A way forward would be for Oregon, Washington, All the port cities, Amtrak and BNSF to sit down and come up with a plan for rail upgrades. The States need laws passed guaranteeing rights to ship oil and gas through Washington and Oregon, big rail upgrades at all the ports and much better passenger service in the PNW. There’s a deal out there… but the NIMBYs and Eco-NIMBYs would be dead set against it.
Tacomee, you might want to check your history on your perceived lack of federal support for infrastructure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_land_grants_in_the_United_States
Sure, the government didn’t “pay” for much of anything, but they had a massive reserve of extremely valuable land and disbursed it liberally to facilitate the transcontinental railroads.
Nathan Dickey,
My family is from Montana, so before the railroads came, land was worth a whole lot less (often nothing). At the time, trading land for infrastructure was the only way get the railroad built.
Trump seems serious to opening up federal land (Utah and elsewhere in the West) to build housing on. There’s really not any other options the Feds have to kickstart housing that doesn’t include spending actual money.
Opening federal land for housing sounds good, but only works in specific locations. It needs to be close to a city, so there’s jobs and services nearby, and not in an ecologically sensitive area. While I’m sure such locations definitely exist (around Las Vegas would be my best guess as to where it would be), there’s not enough of them to make much of a difference in the national housing crisis. I also place zero trust in this administration to balance needs for housing conservation in good faith.
Far more likely, he’s using the housing crisis as a smoke screen to sell off national forest land to rich people to buy country homes. With the result being land used by the public for hiking and other recreation becoming a private retreat for a few billionaires, while the ability for ordinary people to afford a home remains as difficult as ever.
> before the railroads came, land was worth a whole lot less (often nothing)
If the land was truly worthless, what was the value of the land to the railroad barons? Of course the land became much more valuable after the railroads were built, but it’s silly to say the railroads were built with no federal support or incentive whatsoever.
I guess if you’re arguing that the railroads were built by speculative investment, that’s correct only so far as the fact that those investments were directly enabled by federal land grants.
A more relevant argument would be to compare modern transit construction to privately-built streetcars and interurbans of the late 1800s, which were entirely privately-funded based on speculative investment (and not buoyed by free land from the government, but instead saddled by onerous franchise agreements) and and financially failed after they ran out of newly accessible land to sell. The only reason we don’t see more private transit today (excepting rideshare shuttles that are practically modern jitneys) is because it’s extraordinarily difficult to compete with the total market saturation of publicly subsidized roadways.
“Right now we’re entering a lean time with Federal spending… which is good for much of rural America and very bad for Blue Cities.”
Blue cities subsidize red states and especially exurban and rural areas. So if the government is cutting back, it will hut rural areas the worst. We’ve already seen that with Medicaid cuts and rural hospitals closing.
The only type of housing that’s going to get built on the federal lamd so far proposed for development are going to wind up serving as second or third homes. These are not the type of locations where the average wage earning person will be able to buy a house.
I thought the price of housing was low outside blue coastal metro areas. That’s what I keep getting told. But it’s all relative to local wages. The price of housing skyrocketed far past local incomes in the Bay Area in the 1990s. Then Seattle followed in the early 2010s (with a milder version of it in the 2000s). And starting in the late 2010s, most of the rest of the country followed. We keep hearing about housing-cost burdens in Idaho, Montana, San Bernardino, etc. The first two are part of rural America.
Federal land ownership is widespread in the Western US. With the exception of congressionally-designated National Parks/ Recreation Areas, the leasing, acquisition and selling of these lands is pretty much in the purview of a Presidential administration.
However land ownership does not easily mean development. It costs money to build infrastructure. What value is in a piece of land 10 miles from a paved road and 40 miles from a clean water source? Not much.
I suspect that the current administration would sell off lands only where there is demand to use it — like lands near rapidly growing metro areas of the West like SLC, Boise, Phoenix, Vegas and Tucson. Beyond that, there may be some parcels scattered near other Metro areas that could be developed. But much of it wouldn’t yield much payout to the government.
The major fear I have is if nutty control-obsessed people with loads of money want to buy large enough tracts of land to create a new “kingdom”. They wouldn’t actually secede from the US but would instead have additional rules that effectively create a police state including military weapons, prison-like access control and free speech censorship within those lands.
I’m reminded of a discussion I had with a coworker who transitioned to work for a big national housing developer. He was planning the advanced work when the developer wanted to build new large projects. He told me that the days of big new developments on the outskirts have faded as the land development costs and drawn-out timetables have often become too financially difficult to pencil out. Instead his company pursued building out 15-50 acres that were next to things like nice roads, water systems and such.
Regardless, I think our current “housing crisis” is due to market forces rather than population increases. The US population growth has slowed considerably — and things like new anti-foreign-worker and anti-immigration rules slow it even more. So I view the pitch of providing housing to be a driver for selling Federal lands to be faux logic.
The hidden intent seems to me to either create US-protected compounds that are effectively kingdoms for the owners, or for developer friends to get their hands on certain targeted in-demand (metro adjacent) properties owned by the Federal government at a bargain price..
“Right now we’re entering a lean time with Federal spending… which is good for much of rural America and very bad for Blue Cities.”
You certainly haven’t lived in rural America if you actually think what you wrote. Many rural towns would be connected by dirt roads without Federal (and State) dollars. You think Othello and Washtucna and Colfax are funding the highways and the road maintenance on their own that run through their towns? Not. Even. Close.
Al S.
Washington State could build a entirely new City on Federal or State land somewhere on the Eastern side of the State… I wouldn’t doubt tech companies wouldn’t be “all in” either. As far as the infrastructure costs…. 50 billion would go a long way. Seattle somehow believes a subway to Ballard is worth 22-30 billion. Look at housing as a return on investment and Sound Transit is a terrible investment.
Utah has already built entirely new cities south of Salt Lake City. (American Fork is like 80% new). Using Federal lands, the State is planning even more growth. Sure, there’s a water shortage, but cut out the lawns and buy out a few hay farmers and there’s enough water to go around. Solar and wind power? Yes please! All this housing growth has attracted plenty of employers as well. Utah has most of the answers for growth in the USA. Maybe it’s the sort of “dad, mom and Mormon 4” living in a 3000 sq ft home some posters here really hate, but for most of America, it’s the dream.
Over time Blue State NIMBYs have pretty much given political power to GOP by repressing growth and making it impossible for people to own houses, have kids and live the good American life. The Red States build more housing and attract more families than the Blue States. There are huge political ramifications to this.
I think Seattle has tried a lot harder to grow than California, but it’s only caused Californians to move north. And although Seattle is growing, but it’s the wrong sort of growth. It’s a very unfriendly city towards children and retired people.
@tacomeee
Literally just upzone and allow apartments it really is not that complicated. Sigh we’ve been over this a thousand times it’s about the job to housing ratio. Are there jobs when you build a city in the middle of nowhere.
Plus let’s say you do build that city and then those same citizens then locally vote to block anything new housing. We are just back at the same situation
“It’s a very unfriendly city towards children and retired people.”
Except like most American cities, most of the land in Seattle is single family homes.
So if Seattle is unfriendly towards children and retired people, it must mean single family homes are unfriendly to children and retired people.
“So if Seattle is unfriendly towards children and retired people, it must mean single family homes are unfriendly to children and retired people.”
At this point, it’s just a whole lot of hot air from said person. I would take what they say with a very heavy grain of salt. Most people my age I know want either a townhouse or condo for raising a family if they don’t want a suburban life, but unfortunately state condo regulations make that difficult atm for developers to properly build condos here compared to Vancouver.
His belief that federal land is the way forward is pure fantasy and ignores what Federal protected lands are, there’s a good reason why they are federally protected lands and why they aren’t fit for housing or much of anything.
I’ve driven through SLC on the way to NM a few times in the last decade. You have a serious and worsening traffic problem south of the city that doesn’t have any easy solution.
Glenn in Portland,
I’d say one of the saddest things in America is two 40 year Liberals living in a 3000 sq ft house in a Blue City…. obsessed over homelessness. Welcome to Seattle! and Portland. The whole Left Coast really.
As a guy who’s worked construction for decades, I honestly think the industry build “enough” housing for everyone in terms of square feet or construction costs. The problem is rich people sucked up most of it. Back in the days after WW2 the industry kicked out thousands of 1200 sq ft cracker boxes, now we just turn out 5000 sq ft McMansions and condos with fees bigger than the mortgages in past decades.
I’ve always been a big supporter of zoning changes, but I also understand that the market is what controls what’s built. When I hear young people stop believing they deserve a real honest to goodness house with a 30 year mortgage, it just breaks my heart. Home ownership has been one of the few ways lower income people in the USA could get ahead. Mortgages are fixed and hedge against inflation, rent is not. If I’m a renter paying that magic 33% of take-home for my apartment and my rent goes up 6-9% per year…. and I’m getting a 2-3% raise every year…. I’m just a rat on a treadmill, right?
Looking at Portland…. do you see any plan to get some sort of home ownership for young couples? I’m aware of a lack of physical land and think condos and townhomes are great if they’re done correctly. I won’t even ask about the Portland public schools because like every other Blue City they’re an absolute disaster and there’s no political will to fix them. Same with homelessness. Zero political will. Who wants there kid walking past a bunch to homeless tents to attend a subpar school?
As far as the State or Oregon, there really is only one news story you should be fallowing right now. Oregon’s public pension fund is tanking…. https://www.wweek.com/news/state/2025/08/05/how-the-managers-of-oregons-100-billion-pension-fund-ignored-expert-guidance-and-lost-big/
> As a guy who’s worked construction for decades, I honestly think the industry build “enough” housing for everyone in terms of square feet or construction costs
They literally didn’t build enough. We can see the housing units versus job growth for the metro areas. It’s not a secret…
“The US tends to have relatively good urban mass transit in our major cities, even by European city standards”
I can’t believe this. Tell that to the people who are waiting inordinately long for a bus or train. The 5 runs every 15 minutes daytime, 30 minutes evening, 20 minutes weekend; in Europe it would be 10 minutes daytime and 10-15 minutes evening. The 8 runs every 15 minutes daytime, 20 minutes evening, 30 minutes after 10pm; it should be 10 minutes daytime and 10-15 minutes evening. The 10, 11, 12, and 49 each run every 20 minutes daytime, 30 minutes evening, in one of the most urban, highest-ridership areas Seattle has. The 550 runs every 15 minutes weekdays and Saturdays, 30 minutes evenings and Sundays; it should be 10 minutes daytime, 15 minutes evening. The 226 runs every 30 minutes, it should be 15. Practically all the bus routes in Pierce County run every 30-60 minutes; it should be 15. Even the T Line runs only every 12 minutes at most.
In other words, you need to double bus service across the board for a European level of service. The exceptions are just a few: G (6 minutes daytime, 15 minutes evenings), C/D/E/H/40 (10 minutes daytime, 15 minutes evenings). This is what hinders people from getting around as easily as European, Canadian, Asian, or Latin American cities, and it’s a major reason ridership is so much lower than them.
Link is a lucky exception, with 8 minutes peak, 10 minutes daytime, and 15 minutes after 10pm. That’s the minimum for an international average and reasonably good service. It’s better than MAX, BART, or VTA, which are 15 minutes on each branch, and sometimes drop to half-hourly during a recession and on part of the VTA network. Still, Link could do better with 6-minute frequency, which it can do because it had 6-minute peaks for several years in the 2010s. The full 2 Line’s delay is unfortunate because when it opens, we’ll finally have New York/London/DC level of frequency somewhere, so people can experience it and see what other cities have.
Then there’s what we didn’t build over the past century. The NYC subway stopped expanding in the 1940s for seven decades. Seattle didn’t build a two-level city metro and regional rail; instead it built an in-between hybrid Link network that does a mediocre job at both. Sounder has such a small span of operation times that it barely even qualifies as regional transit compared to an S-Bahn (which runs every 20 minutes in Dusseldorf). Seattle has no smaller automated lines like 45th, Denny Way, or even Ballard and West Seattle. If Forward Thrust had passed, we would have had something like Link running in the 1980s. There are no gondolas in strategic places like downtown-Harborview or Uptown-SLU-Capitol Hill-First Hill. The E doesn’t have full transit-priority lanes in Seattle even though it’s called RapidRide and claimed to be BRT. Seattle just decided not to give the 8 BAT lanes in its most congested part because of a concern about reducing car capacity.
Then there’s all the flawed designs around Link station locations and station areas that are too much to get into now.
You could go on and on: these are things average real cities the size of Seattle/Pugetopolis do. The Netherlands recommitted to them in the 1970s after a few unfortunate decades of Los Angeles-like prioritizing freeways and car-oriented development. Utrecht or one of its suburbs recommitted to it in the 1990s, and in just twenty short years it transformed the town’s walkability and transit access.
I’m talking about urban mass transit with major cities in the US. Yes, things could be better and buses could be more frequent, but I’ve gotten off trains at 11:30 PM at King Street station and seen the 3/4 running every 15 minutes still. If you pick a bunch of minor routes (and one that is that we all know needs fixing), it looks worse than it is. Yes, the Capitol Hill trolleys are minor services especially since the G has opened. In other parts of town, the 36 runs every 10 minutes til 8 and every 15 til midnight, and has overnight service. It’s a toss up as to if I’d prefer that or the #4 tram in Zurich which runs every ten minutes until 12:30, but has no overnight service. I mean yes, I’d prefer Zurich but it’s not like King County Metro is some mediocre service.
What city of Seattle’s size is building an automated metro line on a peripheral corridor like 45th? Maybe somewhere in China, but that would be an extraordinarily unusual line by global standards. I think you’re combining and conflating a whole lot of places, all of which have different histories and priorities of which you can’t be as familiar with as you are with Seattle, to a place that you know well. The devil you know, or whatever.
Should we run more buses? Yes, but we should also be realistic about the specifics of why, rather than vaguely gesturing that “in Europe, it’d be doing x/y/z”, when that may not even be true. Sure, 10 minutes for trunk lines is more or less the norm in places I’ve visited, but I didn’t pay super close attention to the timetables outside of planning specific trips, and I don’t know the ins and outs of European transit funding and politics (other than that it’s a bit less awful). All I’m saying is that bus service in US cities that invest in it is genuinely good, and that the biggest issues to solve (stop spacing, comfort, shelter, etc.) are easy fixes with small capital investments.
What our buses are missing is a uniform high level of service, which means frequency. Yes, a handful routes have 10-minutes daytime and 15-minute evening, but most routes don’t. That handful of routes doesn’t help you if you’re not going to that area or in that direction.
“What city of Seattle’s size is building an automated metro line on a peripheral corridor like 45th? ”
45th is secondary, but it’s not “peripheral”. There must be tens of thousands of people in that corridor. It’s the biggest east-west corridor in north Seattle, and probably the third-biggest in the city after Jackson and Denny. We could have had Ballard-UDistrict instead of Ballard-downtown or before it. ST’s own studies say it would have higher ridership for lower cost than Ballard-downtown. A crosswise line enables more unique trip combinations and transfers than a parallel line. It’s a strategic location in Seattle for a line, in a way it may not be for wide-open cities without Seattle’s water and hill barriers. It’s not necessary because the 45th corridor is so short, so we could speed up the 44 to bring its travel time up to par, but it’s one of the most strategic locations for a rail line, and that’s what other cities would do: not neglect their strategic locations.
“the Capitol Hill trolleys are minor services especially since the G has opened”
The G doesn’t help in the western half of the route where the gap to Madison gets wider and wider. A ton of destinations are on Pike-Pine, not Madison. You can’t just throw away, again, tens of thousands of residents because they aren’t next to Madison Street. Especially when tens of thousands of non-residents also go to the commercial/institutional/recreational destinations there all day and evening.
Bellevue has only one full-time frequent route, the B. The 15-minute daytime routes are so few you can count them on one hand. This is for a city of 155,000, not a regular suburb. Tacoma and Everett together you can count the frequent routes on one hand. This is far, far below peer cities in a comparable metro.
In the best transit cities you can go practically everywhere on transit, and it’s often as convenient or more convenient than driving. Here we have widespread areas where you get stopped up because the only transit option is a 30-60 minute bus route, even in Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, and Kent. Or frequent service is limited to weekday daytime or maybe Saturday. Or there’s no transit at all that direction.
Mike Orr,
The biggest difference I’ve experienced between Seattle transit and European transit is the lack of good regional service and slightly less consistent 10 minute level frequency, but much better night service. I’ve mostly been to France and Switzerland though, and haven’t spent much time in Paris. Seattle has very good local bus service, but lacks any higher order more.
I’m not saying that 45th isn’t strategic or wouldn’t be well used, just that it would be highly unlikely for a Seattle sized city with one rail line to build a second line on such a secondary corridor. The 44 is certainly a well used bus, but probably not the highest priority for the region. And for what it’s worth, tons of cities neglect critical corridors. It’s why the lines going in and out of Waterloo end unceremoniously at Waterloo instead of going into the city. It’s why the 2nd Ave subway doesn’t exist yet. It’s why the Petite Ceinture hasn’t had service in 90 years. The list goes on. Seattle has bigger fish to fry for key transit routes than 45th.
The places in Capitol Hill further from Madison have good service on Link. I like the Pike/Pine trolleys, but I don’t know how critical service on 15th and 19th is. Plus, ridership is up on all the routes that we’re adjusted from the G coming into service.
Bellevue is a suburb! Just because it has a lot of jobs doesn’t make it not a suburb. It would have much less transit service if Seattle didn’t exist. I really don’t think it’s unusual for an American city to have just a few key routes with good transit service.
You can get to most parts of Seattle on transit without too much effort. It’s slower than driving (except on certain trips), but that’s because there’s not enough regional level service, not because the buses only come every 15 minutes on some routes instead of every 10 minutes. My broader point is that the thing missing in almost every US city that exists in almost every European city is a train network for regional trips.
“And for what it’s worth, tons of cities neglect critical corridors. It’s why the lines going in and out of Waterloo end unceremoniously at Waterloo instead of going into the city.”
The lines don’t go past Waterloo because in 1848 that’s where the London and South Western Railway stopped building their lines. While originally designed as an intermediate station, further building into the city was never completed. Then they built the Underground, and it was really no longer that desirable to expend the huge amounts of money it would take to go further.
When the private lines got nationalized in 1947-48, there were bigger problems, such as rebuilding everything after World War II, further extension would be really, really expensive, and a desire to modernize since efforts to dirselize or convert to electric power had stalled. Only a few experimental diesels, plus one series of small yard engines for one company, existed in the British Isles. The private companies were easily 20+ years behind those in the USA and the huge modernization effort required is illustrated by British Rail continuing to operate steam until 1968.
So, there are definitely some reasons why corridors that may seem neglected are such.
“ridership is up on all the routes that we’re adjusted from the G coming into service.”
No, they’ve decreased; Metro’s marketing is misleading. Ross has the per-route ridership:
“”” These are the numbers I get for the 10, 11 and 12:
8/2024 8/2025
10: 1,868   1,508
11: 2,347   2,218
12: 1,745   1,248
Total: 5,960   4,974
So a loss of about 1,000. The G got 6,391 last month. Total it up and you go from 5,960 to 11,365. That is actually over 90% growth.
“””
Metro is lumping them all together to make it sound like ridership has increased across the board, but in fact it increased massively on the G and decreased moderately on the other routes. (“Increased on the G” (which didn’t exist) means compared to when the 12 was on Madison.)
Some of that shift is natural: I take the G when I can because it’s much faster between 3rd and 17th, and its 6-minute frequency weekday/Saturday daytime means it’s always coming soon. It doesn’t help between home and 17th, but if I have a reason to go to the downtown library or I’m coming from elsewhere and can transfer at the library or at 3rd & Spring, then I can take the G eastbound. Westbound, I sometimes take the G rather than waiting for the 12, but it’s a longer walk home. So that’s the extent I have defected to the G: mostly eastbound, when I’m in the vicinity of the library. Other people probably have similar stories.
But part of the decrease is frequency. The combined 10/12 is more frequent, but the individual routes are less frequent. I haven’t taken the 49 to Broadway or the U-District since the change because it’s not worth it to go to the bus stop and possibly wait 20 minutes. I hardly take the 11 anymore because it’s less frequent to the Arboretum, and there’s no bench now so you have to stand you don’t know how long because the bus is always late.
“The places in Capitol Hill further from Madison have good service on Link.”
Link only gets you from outside the neighborhood to the center of Capitol Hill. It doesn’t address going to other parts of Capitol Hill, or from one part of Capitol Hill to another.
“I really don’t think it’s unusual for an American city to have just a few key routes with good transit service.”
That’s what’s wrong with American transit. Every route should run at least every 15 minutes full time. Both Jarrett Walker, Reece Martin, and the Not Just Bikes guy say this is the minimum for usable mobility. Actual service is less than that because of budget limitations and politicians unwilling to prioritize transit like Paris does. That doesn’t make the need go away: it just means it’s unmet. Bellevue has 154,000 people; it’s not like Snoqualmie.
“My broader point is that the thing missing in almost every US city that exists in almost every European city is a train network for regional trips.”
That is a major difference, but the lack of more widespread frequent bus service is another.
Every route should run at least every 15 minutes full time.
That is true in the city. But for a trip to a more distant, rural destination it can run less frequently. If I’m trying to get from Darrington to Everett I would be thrilled to catch a bus every half hour. Even hourly would be a huge improvement over what people do now (hitchhike or drive). But in the city, fifteen minutes is a reasonable baseline.
I agree, this is — more than anything — what sets us apart from Europe. Sure, there are more trains over there. But the bus service is also better. Transit in general is just a lot more frequent. It isn’t the mode — it is the frequency that is very different (and makes more of a difference).
I asked this in the last post, but I’ll ask it again.
If you were going to advocate to the Pierce County contingent (Mello, Walker, George) of the Sound Transit Board what ends up on “The List” options that ST would study to solve the yawning pit of billions they need to cut, what would you advocate for?
– No DSTT2, obviously, to save spending the scarce Pierce ST money to make transit worse for residence by shunting us to Ballard.
But then what would you spend the savings on? Do we advocate for
postponing TDLE indefinitely? Or just dropping stations? Neither will go over well, and replacing trains with buses is going to be poison for a politician, no matter how much you explain how it makes sense.
So Sounder frequency and span expansion as a replacement for TDLE? That is too much of a leap, I suspect.
Cam Solomon,
Good Question. Who knows really? The big problem with the ST board is all the subareas pay for a second tunnel… that’s in Seattle. Can’t see Dow giving up “other people’s money” very easily. “Other people’s money” is drugs to politicians.
Mello and Walker have been around for a long time politically…. and either one knows squat about transit. Sound Transit is a terrible deal for Pierce County… Tacoma had a City Councilman (David Boe) actually quit over it. Well, the downtown boosters got a parking garage and a toy train to nowhere out of it.
Looking at the T-line… how do you even link a local bus system to that?
I’d say better Sounder, but the buses to Seattle are more popular. Maybe an airport only bus with no stops? Another Seattle bus with no stops? running 15 hours a day every 30 minutes? Who cares of anybody even rides that damn thing. Beats spending billions of dollars on light rail nobody is going to ride (that’s slower than the damn bus)
“Beats spending billions of dollars on light rail nobody is going to ride (that’s slower than the damn bus)”
Yes the slowness of TDLE light rail is an issue that no one seems to want to address. Many only see a light rail line on the map connecting to SeaTac and Seattle.
Can’t see Dow giving up “other people’s money” very easily.
Yeah, but North King also has to chip in. They bring in about a third of the money. A third of billions is still a lot.
It’s not about your money or other people’s money; it’s about which corridors are most strategic for total travel patterns, and which areas are most likely to use transit if they have it. That will naturally be in the densest areas, where the strongest transit-riding culture exists, and where people from the rest of the region go to the most. A strong core benefits the entire metropolitan area.
Mike Orr,
Isn’t the projected light rail times from Tacoma to Seattle projected to slower than current bus times? Just look at the maps of what proposed and Sound Transit does near nothing for majority of residents in Pierce County.
And yes, it is about “other people’s money”. That’s why we have subareas in Sound Transit.
I get the case for the second tunnel being a “regional asset”. The idea is that unless we build a second tunnel, the trains will be delayed (or we won’t be able to run them often enough). For example, someone on the East Side wants those trains to run frequently during rush hour. They want to avoid crowding and have reliable service. Fair enough.
But that case is weaker for Pierce County. During peak, it makes more sense to take Sounder from the Tacoma Dome. That leaves two stations — Fife and Portland Avenue — as places in Pierce County where riders might commute to Seattle via Link. If Pierce County doesn’t build Tacoma Dome Link then the case that Pierce County should chip in becomes even weaker. Riders could take a bus and then transfer to take Link at Federal Way. But those types of trips are more likely to occur outside of peak. Trips to the airport are heavily oriented towards early-morning, late-night. Yet no one is worried about midday train delays resulting from a shared tunnel. Running the trains every ten minutes (like we do know) is fine. Their is minimal benefit to Pierce County for a second tunnel and it is even smaller if they don’t build Tacoma Dome Link.
You could take a more abstract argument: Folks from the suburbs benefit indirectly from transit improvements in the city. It doesn’t matter how you get there (train or bus) — once you are there you want a good system. Furthermore, Seattle is the economic engine of the state. Everyone from the state benefits if they have a strong transit system. It makes sense that you chip in. But using that logic (which I happen to agree with) then we don’t have subarea equity. The state pays for mass transit in Seattle because it helps the suburbs and satellite cities. Of course if we are going down that road then the state should give Tacoma a lot of money so they can run their buses more often. More to the point, that definitely contradicts the spirit of subarea equity.
“Isn’t the projected light rail times from Tacoma to Seattle projected to slower than current bus times? Just look at the maps of what proposed and Sound Transit does near nothing for majority of residents in Pierce County.”
That’s what I said in another comment. I linked to a series on what far-more-effective strategies in Pierce County would look like. But that has nothing to do with financial issues or other people’s money; the difference is in the network geography.
“And yes, it is about “other people’s money”. That’s why we have subareas in Sound Transit.””
And I think that’s part of the problem. The right thing to do is put rail and BRT strategically where it’s most needed and would be most used. That generally means rail in Seattle and to strategic transfer points, and much-improved bus service in Pierce County. Since Seattle has the most rail, it would have the highest capital costs, but it would be paid by the entire metro area rather than just North King. That’s how transit in Germany and Vancouver works, and why they have such better transit networks and more effectively-functioning cities where you don’t need a car even in the periphery than we do.
But the outer subareas didn’t want that. They insisted on subarea equity as a condition for supporting Sound Transit, to prevent their money from going to Seattle projects. Except for “systemwide infrastructure” or whatever the term is, that benefits all subareas. That includes DSTT1 and DSTT2. But most of their money is going to projects either within their subareas or specifically benefiting their subareas (like Judkins Park to the East King boundary, Shoreline North to the Shoreline boundary, Federal Way TC to the Pierce boundary).
But what do they do with these subarea-equity-protected resources? They squander them on questionable megaprojects. Tacoma Dome Link, when the minimum travel time from Westlake will be over an hour. Everett Link, when a terminus at Lynnwood-or-Ash-Way-or-Mariner would address 80% of the need. A Paine Field detour, ostensibly for industrial workers, but not within walking distance of hardly any jobsites. Paine Field-area employers will need the equivalent of “BART/Caltrain shuttles” to get workers to the station. Will they rise to the occasion and provide them?
You have this fantasy in your head that North King and Seattle urbanists forced Tacoma Dome Link down Pierce’s throat. The facts are, Seattle has only 1/5 of the region’s population and representation on the board, so it can’t unilaterally make Sound Transit do anything. Seattle gets outvoted when the rest of the board opposes it. Seattle and urbanists DON’T CARE whether the Tacoma Dome extension is built or not, and never pressed it on Pierce. We have ideals we talk about, but we didn’t originate the Tacoma Dome idea, and we never pressed Pierce to accept it.
Even Seattle Subway would have recommended something different if Tacoma Dome and the T Line alignment hadn’t been Pierce’s primary ask. What Seattle Subway does is incorporate everything ST wants, and then adds its own things beyond it. It doesn’t contradict what ST wants, because that would hinder regional consensus and the chances of it being built. What ST wants is whatever the cities and counties want. The only thing Seattle Subway has contradicted is one station alternative, favoring 4th Ave Shallow over the Administration Building location for CID2.
In contrast, STB articles contradict Sound Transit’s preferred alignment and projects a lot. The preponderance of our Pierce County advocacy is against the Tacoma Dome extension (and the Tacoma Mall extension beyond that), and for other solutions for Pierce County transit. Including the bulk of intra-Pierce regional trips that ST ignores.
In other words, if Seattle and urbanists and STB are dictating the Link network’s scope and alignment and what Pierce can have, we’re a complete failure at it, because 90% of our recommendations are overruled or ignored. Our role is to document these discrepencies, show what kind of transit Seattle and the region could have had, and to try to influence the politicians’/public’s decisions when we can.
The way I see it, the fundamental question is which three options does Pierce want to pursue:
1. Build TDLE and South OMF as planned?
2. Cancel a TDLE station or back fill its cost another way (like local funds or a casino/tribe deal)?
3. Cancel TDLE entirely in Pierce?
In a build TDLE (with or without a full build) scenario:
I believe the current TDLE is estimated about $1B higher thanks mostly to Fife soil issues and additional South OMF costs. I’m not sure what share of that will be assigned to Pierce. Cancelling the DSTT2 contribution can put a dent in that but maybe not the full amount when all the other cost increases hit. Dropping a station or setting up a way to fund it from other sources mentioned above could complete it. Maybe the T Line extension to TCC gets cancelled. Anyway, the costs are still in the ballpark so the project would probably go forth — barring a new sticker shock surprise.
If Pierce wants to fully cancel TDLE. Then it’s back to the drawing board for other spending options. Those would need a long consensus period as I’m sure there would be a long list of transit improvements to consider and lots of different ideas on what to do — and each idea would need to be analyzed for costs and benefits. (Please no rushed, bad cost estimate like the way ST3 was developed.)
Al S.
You know Tacoma is only about 14 miles long? North to South. TCC and Tacoma Mall are less 2.5 miles away from each other but there isn’t an easy to drive, so the trip is 4.5 to 5 miles. The modern story of Tacoma is how freeways chopped the place up into several places that really are not connected…. financially, socially or culturally. Politics in Tacoma often boils down to these fiefdoms fighting each other.
Has Sound Transit made this worse or better? I’d say worse. Tacoma’s history is one of bad transportation choices… for 120 years.
I agree tacomee. The freeways encouraged sprawl which weakened central Tacoma. It created a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If Tacoma tried to ignore the freeways there was a very good chance the downtown would shrink as people fled to the malls. Then the city implodes (like Detroit). On the other hand, the freeway made things worse in the long run. Maybe Tacoma needed the freeway to survive back in the day but now it just gets in the way. It is tough to get rid of once you have it (look at Seattle and the viaduct). Oh, and losing Union Station was a big hit. Imagine if Sounder ended there. It would be so much better.
I would say ST has been more of a mixed bag in Tacoma. The streetcar is a waste of money. Tacoma Dome Link will be even worse. The BRT project failed miserably because of poor planning. But the express buses and Sounder are nice. While local transit is terrible, regional transit is very good. This gets back to many of the issues surround ST. There is definitely a role for a regional transit agency. Seattle needed a mass transit system. But the two goals got conflated. Then you have this obsession with trams and folks lose sight of what really works. If ST had spent Pierce County money on just Sounder and buses (both local and regional) they would be much better off. But there is this assumption that all rail is better when quite often it isn’t.
I think Sounder and Amtrak have conversations around sharing the load of expansion and improvement of track, particularly the track Between King Street and Tacoma Dome, is a high priority. They have shared goals, and share budget woes. They need to coordinate.
If they figured out a heavy rail solution that made TDLE largely unnecessary, and was also a huge boon for South King towns in the Kent Valley, that could also bring another subarea into pitch-in on track improvements.
“The way I see it, the fundamental question is which three options does Pierce want to pursue”
Which would you pitch? This is not a hypothetical.
I don’t live in Pierce so I don’t have strong feelings.
My outsider advice is first a rather radical: plan a battery EMU from DuPont to Link — ending at a station terminus in South Federal Way or Fife. ST hopefully could tie in the tracks that ST helped pay for south of Downtown Tacoma. A two-way Battery EMU shuttle could run every 20 to 30 minutes and could possibly have single track sections to save money if needed. It would hopefully have a 79 mph max speed — negating any time penalty from having to transfer.
If that doesn’t pencil out, then I’d suggest three new Stride lines from the Link terminus station in Federal Way, South Federal Way or Fife:
1. Puyallup and curving back using SR 512 to Lakewood
2. Downtown Tacoma and TCC.
3. Tacoma Mall and Spanaway or JBLM
Pierce Transit does the best that they can with limited funds. I think that the ST service should augment transit there to benefit intra-county trips more — rather than merely get service from there to SeaTac or Seattle.
Can an Emu run on the Tacoma-owned bypass tracks? So you would only need to build center running along Pac Hwy from Dome to Federal Way.
And are Emus faster than ostriches?
“And are Emus faster than ostriches?”
Haha! Cute.
I’d suggest that the transfer station be a new one in this scenario. The South OMF project is already building a majority of the trackage to South Federal Way already. It could go there or stop at Fife, where the battery electric mobile unit train could continue onward to Tacoma Dome and beyond. It all would need study.
And I wouldn’t ignore a Stride bus scenario. The cost of TDLE is high enough that replacement Stride service could cover lots of the ST District in Pierce County where today they get crappy, slow service.
We published a five-part series about a much better transit network for Tacoma and Pierce County.
The problem with Tacoma/Pierce is its politicians were completely out to lunch for forty years while all the Sound Transit decisions were made — far worse than the other subareas. So I sympathize with tacomee’s position that Sound Transit looks bad and useless from Pierce’s perspective, but that’s specific to Pierce and it’s their own fault. There’s only so much people and politicians outside Pierce can do about it.
Link in the Eastside and Snohomish goes deep into the subarea right to major downtowns (Bellevue, Redmond, Lynnwood). While Everett Link won’t quite reach downtown Everett, it serves several points in the middle of the subarea where people can take a short bus connector to it.
Link barely gets into the nearest corner of Pierce County, so it doesn’t really serve anywhere in the entire subarea. There’s a last-mile problem to downtown. It doesn’t help people get from central Tacoma or north Tacoma to Tacoma Mall or Lakewood. It serves Fife, but Fife is tiny and at the edge and is mostly a casino; it’s irrelevant to 99% of the intra-Pierce trips or Pierce-King trips. The Stream 1 that was supposed to be like RapidRide and connect central Tacoma to the Pacific corridor, is now peak-only and terminates at Tacoma Dome. So it has the same last-mile problem to downtown Tacoma as Link does. The T Line doesn’t do very much, and is infrequent, and slow in most of the corridor.
The fact that the Pierce County border is so far from the next major center (downtown Seattle), and just getting to Tacoma Dome will take over an hour, and that’s only the first part of a trip to 99% of the subarea, and there’s barely anything for intra-subarea trips: that should hint that light rail to Seattle is not the best way to serve the Pierce subarea overall.
I think each subarea needs to work their board pols individually. You aren’t going to turn the board all at once, but if you have more voices that start to think more outside the standard, non-automated light rail box as the only solution, you have a chance to flip some votes.
I agree. Anyone who has ever worked in politics knows that representatives focus on the people they represent. Sometimes you are able to meet with them individually, especially if they represent a relatively small area.
Yeah, I think it now is occurring to the Pierce County members that the end-of-the line sections of the rail spine are likely left out or pushed so far into the future it doesn’t matter. Start with Mello. He’s pretty easy to communicate with.
At this point in time… would a transit only separated 1-5 lane with left driving buses been better than the light rail fiasco Pierce County is currently staring down?
“the end-of-the line sections of the rail spine are likely left out or pushed so far into the future it doesn’t matter.”
Tacoma Dome is scheduled before Everett or Ballard. Even if it’s late it will probably open in the mid 2030s. That’s only ten years away. It’s inexpensive because it’s in public flat right of way. It doesn’t have the major cost increases that Ballard, West Seattle, or Everett have. It’s the only major expense the subarea has, and ST will want to show deliverables in every subarea in the 2030s. Pierce saved up for a big down payment on it in ST1 and ST2. So I think Pierce will get Tacoma Dome without too many issues or delays.
The T Line extension to TCC is scheduled at the end, but it’s not part of the Spine. Its scheduling is appropriate because it’s a dubious secondary project, like the Issaquah line which is also scheduled last.
The only other things in the Pierce subarea are the Dupont Sounder extension, more Sounder South runs, and the full Stream 1 vision. None of those are part of the Spine.
Yeah, that is one of the big problems. The order is off. To be fair, it initially starts out OK. Downtown Redmond, the infill stations, Federal Way Link; all of that is OK in the order they are built. You could end there and have a decent system. But then things get worse. The next project is West Seattle to SoDo. Ending there would be a mess. Very few riders would benefit. That would be like building Northgate Link in the other order, starting with Northgate to Roosevelt for a few years.
At about the same time, there is Tacoma Dome Link. As Mike pointed out, it isn’t facing the same sort of problems as West Link is. Thus it is quite possible that Tacoma Dome Link is built next. In terms of order, this isn’t that bad. To be clear, you still want to build the more beneficial projects first (that is the thinking behind this essay). Tacoma Dome Link will not benefit that many riders. But at least they aren’t building the pieces in the wrong order, like West Seattle Link. Other projects are similar. But at the end of the list (or at least close to it) you’ve got Ballard Link and the new tunnel. This is when West Seattle finally gets a train from its three stations to downtown.
Thus everything is backwards in two respects. We have projects like West Seattle Link that offer very little value until other projects are completed. At the same time, the project that adds the most value (and quite likely the most value per rider) is build last (or close to last). Oops.
By the way, if they build things as planned it some very interesting political issues. Metro has already said that they won’t do much when West Seattle Link opens. This means that the buses from West Seattle will continue to run downtown. Even some of the people that could walk to the stations may prefer the bus. Ridership of this new line will be low. Ridership per dollar spent may very well be the worst project ever built anywhere. Proponents will defend the project by saying “wait until they build the second tunnel” but that may have slipped even longer.
If you were going to advocate to the Pierce County contingent (Mello, Walker, George) of the Sound Transit Board what ends up on “The List” options that ST would study to solve the yawning pit of billions they need to cut, what would you advocate for?
Same thing I would advocate to any group. I would focus a bit more on the projects that Pierce County is supposed to pay for (the second tunnel and Tacoma Dome Link). But I would also mention the other projects because they are so poorly planned and ultimately effect everyone. It doesn’t do anyone any good if Seattle has poor transit after spending a fortune.
But then what would you spend the savings on?
It might be a hard sell but I would mostly push for improved bus service, both regionally and locally. That’s hard because of how ST screwed up BRT in the area so I might emphasize service before anything that involves cutting ribbons. Running the buses twice as often is always popular. Also emphasize small improvements (in terms of right-of-way) over big ones. It is a more fiscally prudent approach — it shouldn’t be hard to sell that idea to the public. “More bang for the buck” and so forth.
I would improve the express options from the various Pierce County cities (Puyallup, Sumner, Tacoma, Lakewood). If we can’t make service from Lakewood to Tacoma reliable then we should break that connection. Yes, that costs more but cancelling Tacoma Dome Link will pay for a lot of buses. Run buses from the north end of Downtown Tacoma (close to the hospital) to the Tacoma Dome to Downtown Seattle every fifteen minutes, all day long (and every half hour late into the evening). The bus should stop at Federal Way so that riders can connect to Link. That seems like the type of project that gets people excited.
I would try and get a few more midday runs on Sounder but I would also acknowledge this is bound to be very expensive. Weekend service might be a better value. There are other ways of improving Sounder. Crowding is less of an issue but trains with open gangways is a nice thing to have when it happens. This also means you don’t need to waste money making stations bigger. Again the focus is on value. That seems like a fairly easy thing to argue for politically. Remember, voters in Pierce County rejected ST3 by a pretty big margin (56% to 44%). It is possible they would be happy spending it something a lot more people would use.
I guess id build
1) for express intercity service just add tolling i5, the industrial way hov ramps, and tacoma hov ramps. This would allow for fast express freeway bus service from downtown Tacoma to federal way to downtown Seattle.
2) for local service in Tacoma fund building a center running brt line on pacific avenue.
I think the most important project is to figure out how to not overbuild things.
For the cost of just the Pinehurst infill station, TriMet built the entire “Better Red” project, including an extremely complex elevated section above Interstate 84.
Then, it’s important to figure out what money there is to operate and maintain what is built. Tacoma Dome Link can be the best rail line in the world, but if there’s only enough money to operate it at Sounder North level of service it’s not going to be particularly popular.
I think it’s also important to realize Tacoma Dome Link doesn’t do what was asked for by Pierce County in 2016: connect downtown Tacoma to the SeaTac airport.
But if Tacoma Dome Link is built:
Busy Link stations need good infrastructure, but Tacoma Dome Link was estimated in 2019 to have 1/4 the ridership of what is north of SeaTac. Simple MAX style stations should be sufficient. MAX green line has a mostly grade separated alignment along I-205, and the only elevator is at the parking garage at Clackamas Town Center. I wouldn’t run the 4 car trains past Federal Way.
I think the most important project is to figure out how to not overbuild things.
I think that is very important but picking the right projects is just as important. In general there are two big considerations with any project: cost and benefit. Ideally you keep costs low and provide a lot of benefit. But sometimes building something that is extremely expensive but really valuable is worth it. The Second Avenue Subway is way more expensive than similar projects in other countries. But it is worth it. California High Speed rail is costing way more than it should — but at this point I think it is still worth it. In contrast, building West Seattle rail just isn’t worth it at any realistic price (in my opinion). You have to run deep into West Seattle (with a lot more stations) before you provide more value than a bus-based system. If you could provide such a system for cheap then it would be worthwhile but I don’t that is realistic.
The other projects vary in terms of value. A second tunnel adds very little value unless it includes First Hill*. Of course if you could build a second tunnel very cheaply with “world-class” transfers and just as many stations downtown then you might as well do it. But the fundamental problem is not cost, it is value. It is not that hard to do an assessment of the other projects in the same way. Ballard Link could be quite benefit. it needs to be done right and I’m not sure they will.
But this brings up another aspect of this. It is pretty easy to argue that Pinehurst Station was overbuilt**. But in other cases we’ve faced cost overruns and made compromises that produce a weaker system. Years ago, Martin Duke pointed out how awful Mount Baker Station was (https://seattletransitblog.com/2012/04/18/the-awfulness-of-mt-baker-station/). The main reason was money. They could have created a better station but it would have cost more. That is one of the major problems with increasing costs. We cut corners and end up with a worse system. Or we fear cost overruns and the same. This was the case when building U-Link (we abandoned First Hill). But sometimes we just do a poor job of planning. It sucks that we don’t have a station at First Hill, but why not a station at 23rd & Madison? That goes back to balancing cost and benefit. Maybe a station at 23rd & Madison would have been a lot cheaper than a station in First Hill. If so it would have been a good alternative. Unfortunately right now the board is considering alternatives to ST3 that are much worse and much more expensive than originally proposed. Given that most of the original proposal wasn’t that good and very expensive, this is quite unfortunate.
*Theoretically a downtown tunnel could include another part of downtown besides First Hill but there is obviously nothing to the west.
**Pinehurst Station is overbuilt but not in an obvious way. At first glance it seems like a fairly spartan station. There aren’t any fancy mezzanines or anything of that nature. It doesn’t have center platforms. It appears like they’ve worked hard to keep prices down. But they didn’t. Part of the problem was planning errors. They decided early on to build it north of 130th. Having a station straddle the road is better but they assumed this would be cheaper. But they didn’t measure the slope of the hillside properly. So what they assumed was going to be relatively cheap cost a lot more. But there are other flaws. Despite the platforms being located north of 130th they built two sets of entrances on each side. This assumes that a significant number of people will come from the north. This just won’t happen. There is hardly anything to the north. You can see some of the future north-end escalator ramps from the freeway: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7frD9aYeVz4HreYx5. You can also see how they had to build a large wall on that side. This is the area where they misjudged the hillside. Thus they spent a lot of money building escalators that very few people will use. They do need some level of redundancy. But it was probably cheaper to just build an extra set of elevators. So for each side you could build two elevators, one set of escalators and one set of stairs. That’s it.
It is also possible that straddling 130th would have been cheaper. Their original assumption was wrong. The hillside is too steep to the northwest. Might as well move the platforms south a little bit, which is ideal for riders. Now you are back to needing two sets of escalators on both sides but you’ve also got a much better station. But by the time they figured out the slope of the hillside it was probably too late to move the station to the south. The track had already been built. Even though the smart thing to do was build it all at the same time, ST didn’t do that. So lots of people made a lot of mistakes.
It really isn’t that Pinehurst is overbuilt, it is that they’ve spent the money on the wrong things. It is neither ideal (with entrances on both sides of the street) nor is it inexpensive. It is in some ways a microcosm of Sound Transit projects.
I think this is all true, but at this point we need to work within the confines of what politicians would realistically be willing to try to convince the rest of the board to do. What would both save money and make the system better. And here I think Glenn (and Troy in the past) have it right. Go smaller and at-grade where possible (perhaps revisit 99 routing instead of I-5) and at the same time make the transfers better, perhaps set yourself up to integrate with the T-Line in the future connect to downtown. Get rid of East Tacoma station.
We just have to get a simple, well-justified message that is easy to articulate and sell to the non-wonk.
I think this is all true, but at this point we need to work within the confines of what politicians would realistically be willing to try to convince the rest of the board to do. What would both save money and make the system better.
I still contend that the best way to do that for Pierce County is to abandon Tacoma Dome Link. Keep the streetcar extension (it’s cheap). Put the rest of the money into running buses more often and little projects here and there.
Think about the politics in Pierce County again. Remember, they voted *against* ST3 by a considerable margin. The bus system is woefully underfunded. Pierce Transit recently came out with a long range plan that showed how much better things would get if they just had a little bit more money. Buses may not be that popular but we *know* that ST3 wasn’t. Given everything that has happened, it is hard to see ST3 being more popular anywhere. It really shouldn’t be hard to sell this “value-added” alternative.
Throw the planners under the bus. Blame it on them. Tell people you are going to get more bang for the buck. There will be less ribbon cutting and more service. If a politician can’t sell this idea — which has wide spread support across the political spectrum — then they are in the wrong profession.
“Tacoma Dome Link doesn’t do what was asked for by Pierce County in 2016: connect downtown Tacoma to the SeaTac airport.”
Tacoma Dome Link is doing exactly what was in the 2016 ballot measure. A one-seat ride from downtown Tacoma to the airport was an earlier vision that Troy said was forgotten in the early 2000s. It wasn’t a requirement in the 2016 measure, and no politician/stakeholder/advocacy group mentioned it or asked for it when the measure was being assembled that I recall. Troy had concepts of continuing on Pacific Street to downtown, but he was one person.
The only substantial discrepency with the representative alignment are the exact location of Tacoma Dome station and how far the transfer walk to the T Line will be.
In contrast, the Ballard/DSTT2 representative alignment said nothing about ultra-deep downtown stations, ultra-long transfers between DSTT1 and DSTT2, having CID2 station’s walkshed missing substantial parts of the CID, or a Ballard 14th station location. Tacoma Dome station’s discrepencies are infanitesimal compared to those.
“[Pierce] voted *against* ST3 by a considerable margin.”
That’s the issue. It’s Pierce county/city politicians that decide the alignment and services and pushed for them. Pierce voters thought the opposite. But it was Pierce voters who elected those politicians.
Just to be clear: I’m not suggesting eliminating vital capacity or access points. It’s an attempt to try to figure out why costs are so high at SoundTransit.
My employer has only worked on a couple of SoundTransit projects, and only one TriMet project, so this is strictly anecdotal:
With TriMet, the engineering staff met and communicated with us regularly and when we pointed out problems with the specifications written by one of their consultants (the physical requirements were not physically possible to maintain under gravitational conditions on planet Earth) they were willing to change things to be more realistic. They had engineering staff assigned to the project that could look at the specifications and say “Oh, you’re right. They slipped some serious bull$#!+ into this. We’ll get that corrected.”
We never had any such thing with SoundTransit. In fact, some of the meetings had no ST staff at all. Our overall view was from the perspective of a pimple on the rump of an elephant, so it’s only an impression from way down on the basement part of the totem pole, but I got the impression a number of the prime and sub contractors were floundering a bit with questions without quick answers from ST.
I was left with the impression that ST could probably spend a bit of money on experienced project technical staff and probably come out ahead.
Link report, 4:11pm, northbound between Northgate and Shoreline North: Link is sailing faster than the cars. Go Link!
I got from Westlake to Aurora Village in 30 minutes. The wait for Swift Blue was 3 minutes. That’s my best time so far to the Shoreline Costco.
That is not bad at alll. Actually, that is great!
I got stuck in that mess going the other way on an Amtrak connector bus. The bus was so late getting into King Street station, and the train crews so delayed in getting to the station, that I’m now going through Kent on Amtrak 511 some 5 1/2 hours late. I think at least one Catrail bus to Vancouver got cancelled too.
They really need to figure out some alternative to I-5. Weather that’s dumping everyone off in Lynnwood and having everyone figure it out on their own, or some other option, this I-5 bus thing really just isn’t working for trying to to make reliable transportation.
To the extent that increased passenger service comes at the cost of less freight rail service, the net impact is more emissions and more congestion than simply doing nothing. After all, each freight train displaced adds over 100 fully loaded semi trucks to the road to carry the cargo that the train would have. There is no plausible way that a Sounder train is going to get enough people out of their cars to make up for that, and definitely not with current ridership levels.
Of course, up to a point, operators can accommodate passenger trains by adjusting the schedule of freight trains, rather than cancelling them, but that only goes so far. If ST were to offer BNSF enough money to get hourly Sounder service all day, it probably would result in an least some cargo shifting from trains to trucks.
It’s very easy to only think about passenger trains and say “we want trains”, but the fact is, trains, at least here, are simply much more productive replacing trucks than passenger trains are replacing cars.
BNSF and UP have little motivation to use the tracks efficiently, at least from the perspective of efficiently synchronizing freight and passenger runs together. Their profits come from running massive mile, two-mile trains on high-margin runs with as small a crew as possible. Which I suspect is usually oil and coal.
They squander massive amounts of rail time, just focusing on widening their margins. I am close enough to their tracks and watch what comes by and when. They use a tiny fraction of their capacity.
https://solutionaryrail.substack.com/p/interview-us-railroads-endgame-moment?publication_id=2726932&post_id=173877924&r=1pipry&triedRedirect=true
Industry insider explains why freight is broken.
Can you summarize the argument? It takes time to go through an hour-long podcast or the transcript.
I’m not sure I agree, but he feels like the short-line rail owners are getting a raw deal, and can’t compete with the class 1 railroads, because they are dependent on them for linkages, and there is no competition. So class 1 can do what they want. And the shortlines can’t thrive and grow, and certainly can’t compete with the class 1 rail.
There was a lot more, including speculation on nationalization, but it’s an interesting insider perspective.
I’m not quite understanding the competition supposition.
Competition really isn’t a thing in freight railroading. Only a rare few places have equal access to two railroads. Even in intermodal, one railroad has the best route (fastest, shortest distance, least elevation gain, etc) between two points.
Short lines are terminal carriers. They are paid a fixed rate per car delivered to the main line. This price remains the same, no matter if the freight classification makes it worth $500 or $5,000 to the mainline.
This also means the customer gets charged the interchange fee, no matter if it is moving a short distance or long distance, unless there’s some special interchange agreement. Say a warehouse sits 500 feet past the interchange point, and they have a car for somewhere on the shortline. The fee for the mainline to shove the car that 500 feet on their local switching job to get it to the shortline as it would be to move the car across town. (Certain areas have a per mile switching interchange agreement so customers on one company can access the other if they need to, but not all places have this.)
I am not a train guy (though I’m trying to learn), so I am sure you can give a much better summary of the argument than I can, Glenn. I just provided the bit that sounded like an aha that was new to me.
Cam, trains are only two miles long on two-main-track main lines like the Overland Route east of Ogden, the Sunset between Colton and El Paso, The Southern Transcon from LA to Clovis, and several surviving multi-track northeastern routes. We don’t have any of those connecting the northwest to other parts of the country. Most sidings in CTC territory are in the eight to ten thousand foot range, and that’s almost enough to tuck a two-mile train into. But most trains are limited to about seventy-five hundred feet so that there is a little “rolling room” in the siding, allowing the train “in the hole” to inch along without stopping.
As I’m sure you know from your familiarity with railroading, starting a standing is a fraught action; it’s then that loose drawbars break loose, or a flat wheel slips off the track.
So we don’t have two mile trains here in the Northwest.
Also, short-lines are, by definition, short. With the three exceptions of the Iowa Interstate, Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago and Montana Rail Link (now merged back into BNSF), they don’t connect two large rail markets; they mostly are long branches which have shriveled to the point that the high overhead of a Class 1 can no longer be supported.
So short-lines don’t “compete” with Class 1’s; they complement them.
Not every passenger train displaces freight, and WSDOT/Sound Transit could build more capacity. The Amtrak Service Development Plan has a preliminary list of projects in chapter 4.
https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/statewide-plans/passenger-rail-plans/amtrak-cascades-service-development-plan
Wish it went to downton olympia, would love for students in Seattle to be able to commute to The Evergreen State College, and get the chance to experience a difference style of learning.
A key south Sounder service milestone was omitted; in 2013, more trips were added and the peak direction service reached a 20-minute headway.
South Sounder provides good speed and reliability to Puyallup, Summer, Auburn, Kent, and Tukwila. The southern four have downtowns developed before WWII with tight street grids. The Interurban helped; it ended in the 1930s.
Tukwila is a good station. It is the max load point as riders reach employment nearby.
ST owns the Nalley Valley line. Does it have potential for two way all day service with a south Tacoma station? Could it diesel multiple units?
Could ST and WSDOT meet with the BNSFRR and UPRR to consider shifting freight trips to the UP line to free capacity on the BN line for midday Sounder.
With Covid, Sounder ridership fell as it was dominated by office work.
Could South King afford Sounder operations if it were truncated at Auburn?
“Tukwila is a good station. It is the max load point as riders reach employment nearby.”
Isn’t the issue whether it has as many on/offs as Kent and Auburn? Does it? The load on the train would seem to be immaterial; it’s just the “middle effect” regardless of whether there’s a station there or it’s highly used. RapidRide E also has a maximum load in the middle, and the Empire Builder has a maximum load in North Dakota.
It does not. Kent does the best, followed by Puyallup, then Auburn, then Tacoma.
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/system-performance-tracker/ridership
Daily boardings in July 2025:
– Seattle: 3284
– Tukwila: 383
– Kent: 987
– Auburn: 783
– Sumner: 511
– Puyallup: 857
– Tacoma: 730
– Lakewood: 217
John beat me to mention the data!
Yes the big three station boardings are Kent, Puyallup and Auburn (even higher than Tacoma Dome for Sounder boardings). Summer is even higher than Tukwila. And why not? The Tukwila station isn’t in some existing village like the others are. While the trip to get to Seattle is a fast ride on Sounder the time savings could get negated by the effort to just get to or from the Tukwila station platforms.
I would recommend that the State either push for adding an additional Cascades stop or moving the Tukwila stop. If just one could happen, I would recommend Auburn as it’s next to SR 18 ramps just off SR 167. If two could happen, then I would instead recommend Kent and Puyallup. And wherever it goes would need to have some multi-day parking provided .
I would say the only thing that makes Tukwila different is that it is awkward to serve with a bus. You can easily approach all the other stations from the highway (either direction). Thus a “Sounder Bus” has a lot of potential for those stations but not for Tukwila. Tacoma and Lakewood stations are also unusual from that perspective. In both cases you save quite a bit of time if you go a different way to Seattle. This means a Puyallup/Sumner/Auburn/Kent/Seattle does not involve much delay for riders while combinations involving other stations would. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t connect those cities but it means that a regular bus (not an express) probably makes more sense.
“I would say the only thing that makes Tukwila different is that it is awkward to serve with a bus.”
No there’s much more. Downtown Kent, Auburn and Puyallup have some retail and food services near the stations — as well as some housing. Tukwila is sited so remotely that it’s almost using unless you’re in a car or a bus. If you’re waiting to catch an intercity train in an hour, it’s a terrible setup for waiting.
If you’re waiting to catch an intercity train in an hour, it’s a terrible setup for waiting.
OK, but I think hardly anyone does that. Trains typically run every twenty minutes although you might have to wait thirty. If you miss the last commuter train then yes, you would have to wait a very long time (well over an hour) to get to Seattle. But why would you do that? You would just take the bus. I don’t think it really matters what amenities are next to the station.
You run midday trains or midday buses for a couple reasons. One is to support the commuter trains. Someone who works 9-to-5 doesn’t want to be “stranded”. They want a way to get home at noon or late at night. But you also run this service because some people want to take those trips in the middle of the day. Not a lot. But enough that you can justify bus service.
If we are talking about station specifics, Kent is clearly the station with the highest potential. It has the highest ridership. It is by far the biggest station destination between Tacoma and Seattle. You can make the case that we should simply run an express from Kent to Seattle every fifteen minutes the train isn’t running and call it a day. But if we are going to run that bus, we might as well extend it to Auburn. Sure, there isn’t as much in Auburn, but Auburn isn’t that far from Kent. And if you are going from Auburn to Seattle, Kent is basically on the way. But wait, isn’t Tukwila on the way too? No! That is my point. Tukwila is a major detour. So not only is Kent a destination in its own right (with the potential of attracting riders from the south) but it doesn’t cost that much to detour buses there. The same is true for Auburn, Sumner and Puyallup. Obviously there is some delay but it is minimal compared to getting to and from Tukwila. Obviously the farther away you are the more you miss that express but the savings increase as well. The main reason you can even think about running express buses from Puyallup to Seattle (midday) is because they might stop somewhere along the way and pick up more riders.
For Tacoma and Lakewood the dynamic changes. It makes more sense to follow I-5. They can (and should) stop and connect to more riders — at Federal Way. That particular “detour” is definitely worth it.
So that leaves the following express “shadows” for Sounder:
Seattle/Kent/Auburn/Sumner/Puyallup
Seattle/Tacoma/Lakewood
These should run when Sounder isn’t running. There are express buses going from station to station (although they should run through Downtown Seattle and make the usual stops). Tukwila will get by with local Metro buses (RapidRide F which connects to the 150).
“OK, but I think hardly anyone does that. Trains typically run every twenty minutes although you might have to wait thirty.”
I’m talking about Amtrak Cascades and not ST Sounder. Sounder already stops several times between Seattle and Tacoma. Cascades just stops once at Tukwila.
“If you miss the last commuter train then yes, you would have to wait a very long time (well over an hour) to get to Seattle.”
Of course there are several transit options to get into Seattle. The kind of intercity train trip I’m discussing is to Portland and other stops in SW Washington and Oregon.
When it comes to Seattle projects, there are a number of different options for each section which means a bunch of different potential combinations. As a shorthand I will refer to an automated, stand-alone Ballard Link line from Ballard to Westlake as “Standalone Ballard Link” or “SBL”. I also assume that cancelling West Seattle Link comes with the type of improvements mentioned here (lots of buses run to the SoDo Busway).
There are plenty of combinations. But I really don’t see us building West Seattle Link without Ballard Link. We might stumble into that, but as an official policy that is ridiculous. That leaves the following combinations:
1) Build it as planned.
2) Build West Seattle Link and branch to Ballard.
3) Build West Seattle Link and SBL.
4) Cancel West Seattle Link while branching to Ballard.
5) Cancel West Seattle Link. Build SBL.
6) Cancel all of the rail projects.
I think the projects are listed in terms of cost (from most expensive to least expensive). I assume that other subareas chip in for a branch although it would not be nearly as expensive as a new tunnel (Option 1). I assume that other subareas won’t chip in for Seattle projects unless there is a branch or tunnel (making options 3, 5 and 6 especially appealing).
The branching options are better for most riders than Option 1. Transfers become trivial. Riders from Ballard or the south end get better downtown stations.
But branching could limit the number or trains in certain sections. Consider option 2. If we are limited to running trains every three minutes through downtown then we can only run trains from the south end lines (West Seattle, Federal Way and East) every nine minutes. Option 4 has a different issue. The trains from the north are paired with those from the south (directly or indirectly). That means trains to the UW every six minutes at best. Realistically it means trains running every eight minutes peak (which is what we are doing now). Months from now (not years) the north end will have trains running every four minutes peak and every five minutes midday. I can’t imagine they would like going back.
A stand-alone line has other benefits. The trains run a lot more often. It is likely the stations themselves would be better. This could more than make-up for the extra transfer.
I think the most likely options are 1, 2, 5 and 6. I’ll limit the rest of this comment to those options. There are trade-offs depending on where you are. Most of the trade-offs been discussed previously. For some areas it is a bit more subtle:
East Side: Hard to see West Seattle Link adding much value. To get to the East Side from most of West Seattle would require a three-seat ride. Thus even East Side business owners (trying to attract potential Seattle employees) get little out of it. In contrast, Ballard Link adds value. Branching means a nice same-platform transfer to get to Ballard Link locations. Get off the train, wait four or five minutes, catch another train. But transferring to an automated trains isn’t that bad. Option 2 is probably best for the East Side but 5 is fairly close (and cheaper).
Sound End: Option 1 is the worst. Riders are sent to Ballard instead of the UW. Bus riders lose the SoDo Busway. As with the East Side they get very little from West Seattle Link. For certain trips it could be better. For example Othello to High Point. But it is also easy to imagine a bus-based alternative (Option 5) being much better. You would take a train to SoDo and then catch one bus to get to various places in West Seattle. With Option 2 the train from the south is likely sent to Ballard. This is better than Option 1 but still worse for plenty of riders. Option 5 seems like the best option. Instead of having to transfer to get to the UW they transfer to get to Ballard. The transfer isn’t a same-platform transfer but at least the other train is frequent.
North End: Option 1 is especially annoying — they lose their one-seat ride to the South End and swap out West Seattle instead. That is a poor trade. Option 5 seems ideal while Option 2 is OK. If a rider is heading from the north end to a Ballard Link destination (e. g. Capitol Hill to Uptown) then they have to transfer at Westlake anyway. You might as well run those trains to Ballard more often.
Option 5 not only seems like the consensus choice but it seems to favor more riders. The East Side will get plenty of riders going across the lake but not like the riders coming from the north and south. It is also the cheapest option (other than just replacing the thing with bus service). But Option 2 (what they are more or less considering at the moment) still seems like an improvement.
There are certainly many ways to spend ST3 funds. Ideally, rational Board members will make difficult choices partly on performance measures. They have yet to indicate that they will though.
More fundamental and urgent to that is the SODO station and track layouts. Simply put, the station and tracks are not laid out for any flexibility in the preferred West Seattle scenario.
I can’t say this strongly enough: UNLESS THE SODO STATION AND TRACK APPROACHES CHANGE FROM THE CURRENT PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE, THERE WILL BE NO OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY THERE. SODO NEEDS ALL NORTHBOUND TRACKS TO THE EAST AND ALL SOUTHBOUND TRACKS TO THE WEST.
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I was thinking today about using a pair of shoelaces as an analogy to tracks. ST wants to tie each line’s shoelaces together. But there is no need to tie the shoelaces together at SODO because only a handfulbofboeoplecwill transfer back in the direction from where they came.
Instead, the laces should be tie tie the northbound shoe with one pair and the southbound shoe with the other.
The track configuration is literally like threading the two right (northbound) shoelaces together only by threading it through a left (southbound) shoelace in between. It is technically possible to still move with that situation but it’s not easy and sefiniateky fraught either the risk of failure.
I don’t think operational flexibility matters. Yes, this is technically being built piece by piece. But we aren’t going to build West Seattle Link without knowing where those trains will eventually go. They aren’t going to build the second station in SoDo and then suddenly go “Wait a second, why don’t we just send both lines to the main line!”. If that was the plan then there won’t be a second SoDo Station. For sure, the northbound tracks will be to the east and the southbound tracks will be to the west — but by the time they reach SoDo they will have already merged.
West Seattle Link really shouldn’t be next. That is obvious. The entire reasoning was based on the idea that it was cheap. Obviously it isn’t. But we sure as hell shouldn’t build it next without knowing what the plan is to the north.
Put it this way. Imagine we simply run out of money. We can’t build what we want to build. This has happened several times. We sure as hell don’t want to be looking at West Seattle Link and no Ballard Link. At that point it doesn’t matter whether the West Seattle trains are interlined or there is a second tunnel. That would be one of the stupidest decisions any transit agency has ever made (and there is plenty of competition in this country). If we have to abandon one of the projects we abandon West Seattle Link.
“West Seattle Link really shouldn’t be next. That is obvious.”
Yes I agree. It’s a terrible value. And abandoning the project would certainly eliminate the problems with the SODO layout that I’m mentioning.
My comment is meant to point out that if the Board pushes through West Seattle Link in whatever form, it will not be flexible for other operations. And my greatest fear is that ST will force 1 Line to be switched to a version of DSTT2 that stops at the County buildings at the north end, leaving awful transfers at SODO and Pioneer Square for generations — all just for adding a poor performing West Seattle extension.
Doesn’t anyone care about the planned lousy SODO operations and transfers?
Looking at the high cost of the Ballard and west Seattle link I don’t think sound transit is able to build full grade separated rail with reasonable costs. And on the flip side the public doesn’t seem willing to accept additional impact aka visual, noise, road blockages etc… for cheaper construction methods.
We should revert back to building light rail as what is actually possible to build with reasonable costs. Center running at grade light rail from Ballard to Seattle to west Seattle could be built with the money we have now.
The problem is that surface rail is no better than buses. At best it offers an advantage in terms of capacity. But the one area where that might be an issue (UW to Downtown) has already been covered. Surface rail can cost a lot extra as well. We already have a high speed bus system to West Seattle. It isn’t perfect but it wouldn’t cost much to make it better. You could run a surface line to Delridge but that would cost a lot and likely be slower than the bus. Getting up the hill to the Junction would cost a lot more. The situation is similar in Ballard. If we are running trains to Ballard they should definitely run on the surface along Elliott and 15th. But you still have to cross the water. It would be a lot cheaper to leverage the existing Ballard Bridge than build a parallel rail bridge even if the bridge isn’t any taller. Likewise running rail on the existing bridge would cost a lot more than simply painting it. Then there is Uptown. It seems a little steep to get up the hill there. Meanwhile, the streetcar is slower than the buses through South Lake Union.
You would be much better off improving the buses. This would cost way less and provide a lot more. The case has already been made for West Seattle buses over rail. It rests on the fact that buses can make that trip just as fast as trains. Thus you avoid a lot of transfers with a bus (and save a lot of money). But in the case of Ballard, the stronger argument for Ballard Link is that it would be a lot faster than buses because it wouldn’t run on the surface. If that is no longer true then you might as well run buses — for the same reason. You avoid transfers. You allow for more flexible routing.
What would that actually mean? For Greater Downtown it is challenging. You either have to spend a lot of money (tunneling) or you are taking lanes and living with all of the traffic lights. But north of downtown there are projects that are big that wouldn’t cost that much:
Have center running buses from Ballard to Mercer. This is similar to the “Reimagine Aurora” plans. On the bridge itself you take the middle lanes. On either side you take the middle lanes as well but add center platforms. You would need to add a stop under Dravus (so the bus doesn’t have to exit like it does now). This wouldn’t be trivial (it wouldn’t be like Denny) but it also wouldn’t cost a fortune. We are talking hundreds of millions — not billions.
If you want to be bold, you run buses through the Seattle Center. Thomas/Lenny Wilkens Way is a straight shot. Otherwise you do the same thing we’ve been doing (and trying to do) all across the city: take lanes. We can do a better job of it (I think we should consider contraflow in Uptown) but it the same process. Convert regular lanes to BAT and bus lanes.
Meanwhile, there is no reason to assume that we have to follow one path. This isn’t a train — these are buses. RapidRide D is a solid route, but it is slow from Ballard to downtown. An all-day 15 would save time. Better yet, run an all-day 17. This covers the heart of Ballard and would complement the RapidRide D (and 40) quite well. If you are headed to Uptown from 24th you would have a same-stop transfer. Old Ballard to Magnolia doesn’t involve so much walking.
Of course by then we’ll have BAT lanes on Denny; that covers the Uptown/SLU connection Ballard Link offered. Maybe throw in a “Boren bus” (Uptown/Roy/Harrison/Fairview/Boren/Rainier/MBS).
I can see the argument for Ballard Link if it is includes the type of improvements that allow it to be significantly faster than the buses. But otherwise I don’t see the point. Might as well just make the buses faster.
If it’s true that BNSF is winding down operations of the yard in Interbay, you’ve got a lot of surface right of way space that could be used to get to Ballard.
However, Ballard Link really doesn’t make sense unless it goes to Ballard. The 14th station doesn’t work that well for buses or stuff within walking distance.
First time taking a Link shuttle bus today during a service disruption. Hundreds of people crowding the sidewalk outside Westlake station, no queue system, and not enough buses to take everyone. Lots of people got frustrated when the bus pulled up and opened its doors ~50 ft before the sign where people were waiting longest. Then the bus driver took a wrong (?) turn to head south on 3rd for a few blocks before turning back to go up on Olive.
The last time I took a shuttle bus was in DC with WMATA. As soon as we exited the station, 4 buses were waiting for everyone and easily whisked everyone away, some even contacted from third party bus companies. ST/KCM ought to visit over there sometime to learn how they do it.
Thoughts: In the situation today, ST should have run shuttle buses on the freeway between Westlake and U District instead of local service with a stop at Capitol Hill. That would’ve been much faster and probably let the buses run higher frequency too.
Yeah, I agree. Unfortunately, the backup plans for a Link outage seem to be to simply run by every station. That is a bound to fail.
But as I mentioned below, the key is communication. Riders trying to get from Westlake to Capitol Hill may not know that there are a bunch of buses heading that way. The bus stops are close to the station — you just have to know which way to head. The drivers (of the shuttle bus headed to the UW) would know this as well. But it does make sense to have at least one person on the ground handling crowd control and letting people know that the shuttle buses are headed to the UW and riders heading to Capitol Hill should take the Metro buses (over there).
But as Al wrote (and I did below that) communication is key. You should have
that gets back to what I wrote below. It is tricky. On the one hand people who are ignorant of our system may not realize that there are a lot of buses heading from downtown to Capitol Hill. You really don’t need to take a shuttle. On the other hand sending those buses to Capitol Hill first is a major delay for anyone heading to the UW (or places north).
By now, ST should have contingency plans for disruptions that staff should have as reference. That should cover everything from audio announcements to signage to FAQ from riders to authorities to contact if things get hairy. Each station and each set of tracks should have a distinct plan — and emergency signs should be available in storage at every station.
It wouldn’t be so needed if disruptions were rare. But they aren’t.
Note that disruptions can occur for lots of reasons — not just train or systems mechanical or electrical ones. Injuriy falls, biological hazards, verbal or physical harassment by a rider and mental trauma situations are examples of unanticipated disruptions.
I agree. It is a tricky situation and it doesn’t happen that often. But it happens often enough that they should have clear cut plans that they should follow. One of the keys is communication. Riders should have a good idea what their options are. This is complicated and not easy to pull off. It is similar to snow plans for Metro (and other agencies). Each route has a “snow route”. There is also an Emergency Snow Network (ESN) when things are really bad. Thus communication is challenging. Not only do riders have to figure out (on the fly) whether the buses are on the snow route or not, but whether the entire system is on ESN.
In theory Sound Transit has hundreds of outage possibilities. But they often follow similar patterns. They likely have a standard set of shuttle buses that jump into action. Again, the key is communication.
Fortunately, we live in the communication age. Even if you don’t have a phone, someone else does. There should be a web page you can go to which shows you immediately what is going on. There should be web pages showing the alternatives. Not only the shuttle buses but Metro as well. Quite often it makes sense to take Metro buses (even if the shuttle buses aren’t crowded).
Then there are the navigation apps. It is essential that this information be relayed to them immediately so that the information is accurate. For example assume I’m at Capitol Hill Station and want to get to Beacon Hill. Normally I take Link. But now Link is down. I can take a shuttle bus but that is really slow and there is a big lineup. The best option is to just take the 60. Does Google Maps (and all the other navigation apps) know this? If so, then this is a good thing for ST to recommend. If not, then ST needs to figure out how to convey that information to the apps better.
I just saw the ST alerts that said there were widespread Link outages between 2:34pm and 5:52pm. The combination of problems is surprising:
2:34pm : Trains to Angle Lake are holding due to power issue.
3:07pm : Delays due to tunnel ventilation issues.
3:10pm : Suspended UDistrict-Stadium due to tunnel ventilation issue. Shuttle buses.
3:32pm : UDist-CID closed due to tunnel ventilation issue. Shuttle buses.
3:49pm, 3:51pm, 4:23pm : Capitol Hill closed due to tunnel ventilation issue. Shuttle buses UW-Westlake. Each alert had different wording for the same thing.
5:52pm : Resumed regular service.
Possibly the power outage caused the ventilation failure. It’s unclear whether there was one ventilation failure at one station, or several failures at several stations.
We reported on ST’s reliability progress report this month.
Possibly the power outage caused the ventilation failure.
Yep, that’s what it was. To quote the Seattle Times:
A tunnel ventilation malfunction caused by a power outage shut down 1 Line light rail service from the University District to downtown Seattle for about three hours Saturday afternoon.
I got to Pioneer Square station in the window after trains had been suspended in the tunnel but before the stations were closed. The overhead signs were mostly showing (inaccurate) next train times alternating with the standard announcements. I saw that the email had already gone out about service being suspended. The signs should have ONLY showed that information as the rest was irrelevant at the time. There were dozens of people waiting unaware of the issues, and it probably stayed that way until the station was closed. I hopped on a 106 and got home before the shuttle busses had even been started.
In a no-build situation for both West-Seattle and Ballard link, what would it take for ST to reconsider adding Sounder stations on N line at Ballard and a couple in Seattle. Additional through runs with the S line can be negotiated with BNSF for more slots to run the extended S line into Ballard. All while improving West Seattle bus network? Surely this would cost less than the current plans and would deliver more transit solutions for both regions.
Unfortunately it’s the underground stations that cost a lot to build. To infill a new underground station to connect to the existing northern line would be pretty hard
It surfaces at Pine. You don’t have to dig a station box. Build some stairs and Pike Place, a surface station near Seattle Center. Another at Dravus. Profit.
There are several problems with that. Frequency is the biggest. You can’t possibly run trains every ten minutes all day long to Ballard. Without that level of frequency — which is less than what most of us here are proposing — it won’t get many riders. Ballard is not Auburn.
There is the other big issue. It doesn’t actually run by the urban part of Ballard. There are very few people that far west. Metro doesn’t even bother to run a bus on Seaview Avenue (although they have thought about it). It is a really long walk for anyone who would even consider a ride. What are they supposed to do, drive? That won’t work. Ballard is not Auburn.
Of course you could branch after Interbay and otherwise leverage the railway. Sure. But while serving Belltown is laudable (and arguably should have been done instead of serving South Lake Union) any station would be next to the water (making it a weak station). It means you skip the Seattle Center. This basically means you’ve added a station at the edge of the waterfront along with the weakest stations in Ballard Link (Smith Cove and Interbay). But mostly it just won’t work because their is no way BNSF is going to allow subway level service for the line.
By all means we should look into a station in Belltown for Sounder. It wouldn’t be great but it could be cheap. But otherwise it just won’t work.
The bridge at Elliot and Thomas is 4 very short blocks to Climate Pledge. That wouldn’t be a stop under the space needle (as if), but it would definitely serve Seattle Center.
It would be the go-to transit, by far, for any hockey or (the dream of) NBA games.
It is at over a ten minute walk from the nearest potential station to the Seattle Center. Anyone who is heading to any event in the center would just ignore it and take the monorail. More to the point, it would do a terrible job of serving the neighborhood next to the center (the entire reason for the “Seattle Center” station, despite the name). To be clear, there are some buildings nearby, but you are still right next to the waterfront. Fish don’t take transit. You’ve eliminated half of any potential walk-up ridership.
But that’s not the worst of it. Again, you can’t run trains every ten minutes there. If we owned the tracks and they were just sitting there empty then I could see it. You would use it mainly as a way to cheaply get from the south end of downtown all the way to Interbay. From there you would spend the big bucks to branch towards Ballard. But that isn’t the reality we live in. We don’t own the track and even if we did we have to manage freight on it.
About the same walk as it is from Lumen or T-Mobile to Link. Nobody would ever make that walk.
But I agree it’s predicated on wrangling control of the tracks and using them efficiently to run freight and passenger service, as any reasonable government should have done long ago.
After that, it’s practically free. All you need is a platform and some stairs.