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109 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: The Shoup Doctrine”

  1. I read the Urbanist article about trolleybus expansion, and the timetables are ridiculous. We’re talking timetables for 2 miles of trolley wire on the same order of magnitude as entire Link extensions, such as Lynnwood and Bellevue.

    How are we ever going to make meaningful progress towards an all-electric bus fleet when each individual route takes 10+ years, including planning and dithering?

    And that’s not even getting to the question of why, after all these years, Metro still has no idea whether route 48 can be electrified today, using the existing trolleybuses’ batteries to fill in the wire gaps. How many years does it take to study this? If somebody tells me the specs for how much energy a bus uses per mile and how many kilowatts the battery can charge at off the wire, I can calculate the answer in a few minutes – it’s just math.

    1. asdf2,

      Take a deep breath…. and curse Sound Transit. Look at this way, Metro is a transit provider that runs the buses and trains. Sound Transit is the long term planner for new transit projects. You can’t possibly believe that after the tax payers shell out billions for light rail to West Seattle, there’s money left for electric buses, right? Metro is underfunded and can’t even hire enough drivers!

      I’m sure somebody will post that the funding for Metro and Sound Transit are not the same, and that the Sound Transit money is in a different bucket than the Metro money….. but that’s not the political reality here. As the region spends more and more money on light rail projects, bus service is bound to suffer. Metro is currently underfunded and it’s better off than its sister organizations like Pierce Transit. At some point something has to give….

      1. > As the region spends more and more money on light rail projects, bus service is bound to suffer.

        This is also not the political reality, in the sense of politics equating to policy, but you claim to already understand that.

      2. Nathan Dickey,

        Since we’re coming up to an election and let me ask you a question. Does it even matter who is Seattle’s next mayor? Because no matter who wins, the City budget is still underwater for the next few years at least, the bridges of infrastructure that needed to be replaced 20 years ago are still there, and the homeless problem, Seattle Public Schools and Sound Transit all have huge budget problems with little leadership and unpopular solutions.

        Who would even what to be mayor? Or lead Sound Transit? The only reason Dow is the CEO of Sound Transit is because all the transit experts around the USA who could have been hired looked at the situation and said no to the job.

        How many two term mayors have there been in Seattle… in your lifetime? Because Seattle is town with these huge systemic problems with no easy solutions that no elected official can fix. Add Sound Transit to that pile… ST has taken on a life of its own and I don’t even think elected officials can phase it. We’re going to build all those light rail lines on voter’s pamphlet no matter what it costs or how long it takes… even if they have low value transit-wise.

      3. tacomee, it’s hard to answer rhetorical questions, but to answer your first one, I think the Mayor of Seattle actually has a lot of power to both solve problems and create them. As we see with Mayor Harrell, he’s obviously more interested in using the power of his office to enrich himself and his friends than to fix the problems of the city. If he were actually interested in solving problems, he would have been pushing solutions before he got trounced by Katie Wilson in the primary.

        Sound Transit is a strange beast because Joni Earl is regarded as such a good leader and the agency still hasn’t found someone able to fill her shoes, but Sound Transit under ST3 is also a very different agency than pre-ST3.

        It’s clear you think the problems facing this region can’t be solved by the methods often proposed by the political left and “urbanists” but you never propose solutions with greater evidence of success so I’m not really sure what you do here besides complain.

      4. tacomee,

        I would argue that who is mayor matters even more in periods of deficit than in periods of surplus. The mayor will have to make vital decisions on where to cut funding and where to maintain it, which could have widespread ramifications. For example, Bruce Harrell’s proposed budget for 2026 adds $2.1 million in additional funding for graffiti removal, $1.2 million of which is coming from SDOT’s budget (source: https://bsky.app/profile/typewriteralley.bsky.social/post/3m3asswuexc2g).

        Imagine what would be possible if we had a mayor that allocated that $2.1 million to bus lanes instead and who also had the political will to push for those transit priority improvements rather than being content with the status quo.

      5. “Take a deep breath…. and curse Sound Transit. ”

        Sound Transit has nothing to do with the gaps in wire on the 2, 12, and 48. They’re different pots of money, with different kinds of state caps and public support for increasing them, as you briefly acknowledge but immediately dismiss. These three projects cost practically zero compared to the Link projects.

        Metro has a limited amount of capital money because of its sales tax rate and Seattle TBD rate. The TBD was renewed in 2020 at a lower rate than previously because of a compromise with one or two city councilmembers who wanted it even lower. Seattle voters have recently been passing transit taxes with high majorities, so it’s very likely a higher 2020 rate would have passed, and a higher renewal in a couple years could pass too. A countywide Metro levy is a different issue because the last two failed due to mostly South King County “No” voters, so that’s not a hopeful precedent.

        In any case, any conceivable TBD or Metro or SDOT levy would be much lower than what ST3 Link needs. That means it could pass concurrently with whatever happens with ST.

        Sound Transit must deal with its Link overruns itself, and it has an easy alternative: descope/defer things to fit within the currently-available tax revenue. That won’t strand people using the essential part of Link (the soon-to-finish Federal Way/Lynnwood/Downtown Redmond extent). In contrast, Metro route reductions could leave locations with 30-minute service or no bus service, which is a more critical issue.

        “Metro is currently underfunded and it’s better off than its sister organizations like Pierce Transit.”

        And it’s worse off than Vancouver BC. It should aspire to be like Vancouver, not resign itself to being better than PT.

      6. “Who would even what to be mayor?”

        Ask Bruce Harrell and Katie Wilson. They’re running for mayor. They know it’s a lot of work, a lot of hard decisions, and a lot of unrealistic expectations by members of they public, yet they want to do it anyway.

        “Or lead Sound Transit? The only reason Dow is the CEO of Sound Transit is because all the transit experts around the USA who could have been hired looked at the situation and said no to the job.”

        That’s pure speculation. It’s just as likely the board wanted Dow because he was one of them, and appointed several of them, and obviously has Sound Transit experience. We don’t know who the other candidates were, or whether they were especially good candidates that the board rejected.

        “How many two term mayors have there been in Seattle… in your lifetime”

        There were multi-term mayors through Greg Nickels (2010). I wasn’t paying close attention to the mayors’ term lengths until the 2002 election. I feel Schell, Nickels, McGinn, and Murray were all good mayors who should have gotten to serve for longer, but voters put unrealistic expectations on them and voted them out after one term (or two for Nickels). In contrast, I haven’t been as impressed with Durkan and Harrell, so I wouldn’t mind seeing them replaced after one term.

        Because Seattle is town with these huge systemic problems with no easy solutions that no elected official can fix”

      7. Murray had to go for non-policy related reasons, and Schell mishandled the WTO and Mardi Gras situations. I barely remember Nickels, but I do agree that McGinn should have gotten a second term.

      8. “Murray had to go for non-policy related reasons”

        It was a moral issue that I felt was unrelated to his qualification as mayor. There was no allegation that he acted inappropriately to his staff or to people who came to see the mayor.

        “Schell mishandled the WTO and Mardi Gras situations”

        WTO was one of the unrealistic expectations I was referring to. People blamed Schell because an unprecedented situation went badly. It wasn’t all under his control, and I don’t see how anyone could have handled it perfectly. It wasn’t a reason to throw out a mayor as far as I’m concerned. I don’t remember the Mardi Gras situation.

        “I barely remember Nickels”

        Nickels was mayor during the large 2008 snowstorm. Seattle had only two snowplows because it doesn’t snow here very often and it’s usually gone in a day or two, and it hadn’t been salting the streets because the effluent harms fish. In 2008 the snow stayed for a week, and people were stuck in their apartments/houses. And there were widespread bus outages because buses got stuck in the middle of their route. All snowstorms had been like that up to then, and people had thought the city shouldn’t spend money on more snowplows or use salt and kill fish. But in 2008 the public changed its mind and said those were intolerable, and voted out the mayor.

        That’s what led to SDOT to buy more snowplows, publish a map with predetermined and more widespread arterials it committed to plow, and Metro’s Emergency Snow Network that says it will operate a limited set of routes on certain streets when it snows. And we got a new mayor McGinn. All that came out of the 2008 snowpocolypse.

      9. The way Nickels lost was also convoluted. He and McGinn and Mallahan were in the primary. He was the incumbant with experience, and was facing a rebellion over the snowpocolypse. McGinn was an upstart environmentalist against the 99 tunnel. Mallahan was for the 99 tunnel and single-family drivers’ interests.

        The Stranger endorsed McGinn. I followed that advice, thinking Nickels was sure to get the other slot and I’d have another chance to reconsider Nickels vs McGinn in the final. But too many other people followed The Stranger’s advice too, and Nickels came in third. That has made me more leery of The Stranger’s endorsements ever since. I still read them every time, but I’m more skeptical about them in my evaluations.

      10. King County, like all others, has a legislatively imposed limit to its ability to tax its residents, even with levies they vote for.

        A county has statutory responsibilities it has to meet first out of its tax stream: public safety, public health, non-state rural roadways, planning, justice, corrections and on and on I can’t remember them all…

        These take up all the allowed general taxes and usually some optional levies. The county has a PTBA for Metro that is allowed optional sales and tab taxes. To my understanding they’re all used fully at this time.

        If you can go to The Legislature and with your Super Powers of cajoling, threatening and confusing them, convince the Members to allow Sound Transit to spend money on overhead electrification, please do so, sir, post haste.

        We will all thank you.

      12. “Seattle multi term mayors: Royer, three; Rice and Nickels, two each.”

        So it’s been 20 years since Seattle reelected a mayor. The last time was when Seattle had 575K in population in 2005.

        Experts put us at about 800K this year. Given other people moving out and dying and new voters on the rolls, probably less than half of today’s electorate voted in 2005.

        I get that each election is unique. I also get that Constantine never had a formidable challenger. However, I do perceive that the Seattle political operatives enjoy changing mayors and talking trash about the current one — usually because they haven’t been very charismatic.

        The volume of bulk mail for Wilson that I’m getting is staggering — yet none of it has proven noteworthy to educate me that she will be different. It’s all vague, happy PR — yet there seems little that’s charismatic in the pitch once again. I’m expecting that she will also fail the typical operatives in some way — especially with looming budget issues — and they’ll have a new darling in 2029.

      13. Flip a coin a few times and it seems like there is a trend but it is just random.

        So it’s been 20 years since Seattle reelected a mayor.

        Yes, and its been 12 years since a sitting mayor has lost reelection. It’s not really a trend. For example it is quite likely Murray would have won reelection if not for the sex scandal.

        I think most pundits expected Harrell to cruise this election. If not for the issue of housing I think he would have as well. It is really the pivotal issue in the city (again) and he is simply behind the times. He is too conservative. The approach would have worked 20 years ago (when housing prices weren’t so damn high and a lot fewer people rented) but the city has changed. Otherwise he has done a decent job. There are areas where I think he could do better but the city council has been the main problem. Then again, he largely hand-picked the council, so there is that.

        There are other differences of course. Wilson is way more likely to support bike lanes and bus lanes. But those aren’t enough to garner a majority if Harrell embraced a more progressive policy towards density (like the state legislature). From a transit perspective or a housing perspective the choice is clear: Wilson is the best candidate. If she wins it is not easy to tell whether she will run again and if she does whether she will win or lose. Might as well flip a coin.

      14. Please note that Joni Earl was good at getting the wrong things done. In 1999, it was known that the north King subarea could not afford Link between NE 45th Street and the south city limits. Sims and Schell suggested focusing the north King funds on Link between NE 45th Street and Mt. Baker and providing great bus programs for the south corridor. The board rejected that. ST settled on south-first Link. Link reached NE 45th Street in 2021 and had a second ballot measure in 2008 to do so. They survived as an agency but looked bad doing so. Yes, survival was key.

    2. Is rebuilding wire really the problem or procuring additional fleet is the real problem?

      I think there are more difficulties of buying trolleybuses than building wires these days. Look back in the past 10-15 years..
      – SF and KCM had to team up to make the order from NFI in the early 2010s.
      – Dayton OH managed to get Gillig to build a small batch for them, which was a surprise.
      – Boston’s MBTA just gave up after the Neoplan fleets retired. Then a few years later it did the same to its dual-mode trolleybus fleet running on Silver Line.
      – NFI was not interested in making 5-door trolleybus for G Line a few years ago.

      Looking forward..
      – Philly probably will give up trolleybus too after SEPTA’s E40LFR (similar models to Vancouver) retire. Vancouver will buy new trolleybus but it appears that it is not even considering NFI, the brand from its own country.

      Metro seems to avoid planning service that requires regular off-wire running while some routes have been doing that all the time these days.
      Battery life is certainly not the problem for the gap Route 2/12 had to run off-wire. With minor upgrade by installing pole catching pans where the route needs to reconnect to the wire, operators don’t need to get off the bus to reconnect manually.
      I spot one of this device on southbound 3rd Ave right outside the Symphony Hall. One night I saw a 7 driver successfully reconnected to wire from inside the bus using that pole catching pan.

      1. “Is rebuilding wire really the problem or procuring additional fleet is the real problem?”

        It’s the wire. Metro already has enough trolleybuses for the 2 and 12 because they were operating until a year ago. The 48 alone would only be a handful of buses, and Metro has never raised procuring them as an issue. It may have enough spare trolleybuses for the 48 already.

        Electrifying entire other routes would require significantly more trolleybuses, but Metro has never gotten that far. It got stuck at the wiring stage.

        If Metro had chosen an available bus spec, the G would be a trolley route now. It was originally going to be, but there was no American supplier willing to make a trolleybus with left-side doors because the market was so small, and the federal grant required American suppliers. SDOT/Metro could have reversed the lane directions so that right-side doors could serve the center stops, but they were unwilling too. So we got hybrid buses instead.

      2. I thought some trolleybuses were scrapped for parts. If the wire is the problem, that brings to another point. Why does it have to be complete wire for a regular service to run by trolleybus. G Line construction only breaks a small segment of 2’s wire. The current battery should be able to handle it on daily basis. They just need to install pole catching pan on each direction and train drivers how to connect to wire remotely. This is the way how many systems including MUNI have been operating.

      3. The current battery should be able to handle it on daily basis. They just need to install pole catching pan on each direction and train drivers how to connect to wire remotely.

        I agree. It is really bizarre that one of the biggest trolley users in North America (and the world, really) seems to be so antiquated when it comes to them. I get it. It’s tricky. But why can’t you copy European cities (or Muni, apparently)?

      4. Off-wire capable trolleybuses came at least nine years ago, but Metro still refuses to use the feature it paid for. It’s using it on Broadway to allow trolleybuses to traverse the incompatible streetcar overhead (something about trolley poles vs pantographs), but for some inexplicable reason it won’t use it for other even trivially-short gaps like on the 12.

    3. The Urbanist article states that Metro’s budget includes “nearly $900,000 for trolley network planning, spending that could identify future trolley projects down the line.” Why? If it’s going to take 18 years to implement the 48 electrification, what’s the point of planning more routes. Shift the money to the construction budget and get the 2/12/48 running under wire sooner. Or, schedule a Saturday morning work party to move the 7 wire under I-90 into a position where the 7 can use the curb Bus Only Lane to bypass the huge traffic jams near Rainier and Massachusetts.

      1. Today: “why spend money planning future routes?”

        Tomorrow: “planning is cheap but takes time, why don’t we have plans in place to build now?”

      2. Let’s be realistic. Given what we know about the costs and the current planning process, what other routes could be considered for electrification? Metro will be fully occupied with the introduction of the battery electric fleet and designing more trolley routes will be an afterthought.

    4. Nathan Dickey,

      You might want to believe I’m some sort of political hack or agent of the Far Right or even the GOP, but that’s absolutely not true. Greater Seattle’s problems are not really political in nature…. it’s the structure of government and the people who live there like it that way.

      I’d guess Katie Wilson wins… not because she’s done anything great, but Mayor Bruce also hasn’t done anything great and “the people” want change. Here’s the important part…. this is caused by Seattle being resistant to change in general, not anything Mayor Bruce did or didn’t do. Katie will come in with a parade and slink out the back in 4 years after getting close to nothing done. Having we all seen this happen before? Here’s a couple of reasons why…

      1. The sins of father become the sins of the son. The next mayor is saddled with the same debt and the same list of problems as the last mayor. I mean if Harrell could have done something about the homeless problem, he would have, right? At least enough to give him a chance at re-election if for nothing else. Anything Katie is promising? I wouldn’t bet on any of it happening.

      2. The Seattle Mayor doesn’t really call the shots. King County government doesn’t take orders from Seattle. Neither does the Sound Transit board. The Seattle government can’t really even tax rich people because some of them might just move across the lake. Big tech companies, public sector unions, even neighborhood activists, (I love how I.D. folks just kicked ST straight out of their hood!) all sap the mayor of power.

      3. Seattle is not a progressive town. Sure, it has its Lefties, but many of them will chain themselves to tree to stop anything from being built. Name one thing Seattle ever did “on time”? Progressive comes from progress, right? I mean better zoning is nice, but that’s like 25 years late. Everything about Seattle is 25 years late. Oh look! Sound Transit is behind schedule! Who would have ever guessed?

      1. What matters is whether the mayor has pro-active ideas and good judgment. Not what the debt is or external constraints are. This issue is who you want making the decisions when expected or unexpected things happen.

        It doesn’t cost any money to change the city’s priorities, propose a revenue-neutral bus restructure, to reallocate the TBD funds in a different way, or to reduce zoning restrictions to what Chicago’s north side has. It only costs a little money to put red paint on two lanes of Denny Way — SDOT could easily afford it in its regular budget.

        Suppose Wilson became mayor and supported Balducci’s idea of taking another look at upgrading DSTT1, and tried to convince the city council boardmembers and other boardmembers of that. To be clear, I don’t know what Wilson’s positions on specific ST or Metro projects would be, but I know she has a more passenger-oriented vision than most of the politicians and is pragmatic and works with others (I hope she sticks to those), so maybe she’d support it or be convinced to. And if we must have DSTT2, she could reverse Harrell/Constantine’s moving the Midtown and CID2 stations to CID/N and CID/S. Harrell and Constantine won’t be on the board anymore to oppose it; the other subarea boardmembers probably wouldn’t oppose it; and Constantine seems to feel less strongly about those stations and West Seattle Link since he became CEO. Championing 4th Avenue Shallow would be another way out. That would cost some money, but she could get to work on finding it rather than just dismissing the alternative.

      2. Again, another batch of complaints and suppositions with no proposed solutions or alternatives.

        Boo hoo, Seattle didn’t predict the Amazon boom and still has a relatively strong NIMBY-Left population. If you can’t imagine a path to fixing problems today and tomorrow, then stop wasting the time of those who can.

      3. Nathan Dickey and Mike Orr,

        So you want solutions? Easier said than done, but certainly worth fighting for.

        1. Seattle needs to make positive changes in the here and now. Long term projects are not a solution. The problem of course is that short term solutions often come with hard political solutions the public isn’t ready to take, like closing 20 schools. Kicking the can down the road is easy in the short term, but look where Seattle is now. (and L.A. or Chicago in total fairness)

        2. Seattle should never engage is any regional “solution”. Seattle is stuck with Sound Transit and even worse, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA). If Seattle wants a subway to Ballard, why on earth get Tacoma and the Eastside involved in it? But here we are!

        3. Seattle is at the point where these huge festering problems that should have had some sort of working solution decades ago look completely hopeless. I mean just take the basic math of the number of people who live in Seattle…… a small percentage of those folks are so mentally ill they need to locked away in an asylum or hospital for there own good…. but the City can’t come up with the will or the cash to treat them humanely. On the Sound Transit front, the City just caves into every demand and the price of getting stuff done on time and somewhat on budget doesn’t happen. Seattle has no political backbone.

        So the next mayor needs to bring a “Portland” solution for light rail in Seattle. Because Ballard and West Seattle are not any more dense than most Portland neighborhoods, “at grade” rail built quickly and on the cheap should serve those neighborhoods just fine. And let’s be clear about why that won’t happen…. The Urbanist and The Stranger would trash such a plan straight out of the gate. Poor Mayor Wilson!

      4. “If Seattle wants a subway to Ballard, why on earth get Tacoma and the Eastside involved in it?”

        Do you really not know? Or have you just ignored the countless times people have tried to tell you? Seattle doesn’t have state authorization to raise enough in transit taxes for a subway. The state would only give it to Sound Transit. Presumably because the suburbs are 4/5 the population and the legislators can identify with them more. That was why Seattle went with Sound Transit.

      5. > So you want solutions? Easier said than done, but certainly worth fighting for.

        It’s certainly been exhausting fighting your resistance to actually proposing anything material.

        > like closing 20 schools

        A terrible example, as closing 20 schools wasn’t going to actually save any money. The real solution is to get the WA state legislature to amend the state constitution to allow implementation of a truly progressive income taxes at all level of government.

        > Seattle should never engage is any regional “solution”

        Sure, because the monorail authority really worked out well. I also seem to remember you thinking the Seattle Social Housing Developer could never have any impact because its funding base (limited to Seattle) isn’t enough to do anything. So, which is it – are Seattle solutions too small, or regional solutions too big?

        >these huge festering problems that should have had some sort of working solution decades ago look completely hopeless

        In 1990, Seattle’s population had declined about 8% over the previous 30 years. How could the grunge-meisters of 90’s Seattle have foreseen the city’s population jumping 50% in the next 30 years? When would they have been motivated to implement these “working solutions” decades ago? They say hindsight is 20/20, but if you’re saying it’s worthless to plant trees now because we didn’t plant them 30 years ago, that’s completely illogical.

      6. The real solution is to get the WA state legislature to amend the state constitution to allow implementation of a truly progressive income taxes at all level of government.

        Or just an increase in the property tax. Or an increase in the sales tax. No, these aren’t ideal but they sure better than closing schools.

      7. “Or just an increase in the property tax.”

        There’s a constitutional cap on property taxes too. Seattle and King County are near their limits, and have to keep some capacity in reserve for emergencies.

      8. Yes, there are constitutional limits. But you can pass a levy and increase taxes higher. Cities can increase their sales taxes. The state can amend its constitution. It is also quite possible they could pass an income tax as long as it is flat (without changing the constitution). It would be fought in court but my guess the court would rule that it is OK (just as the capital gains tax is OK).

      9. Property taxes and sales taxes aren’t progressive.

        The fundamental problem with regressive taxes is that most social services funded by taxes are meant to help those with the least resources to help themselves. However, regressive taxes have the the worst financial impacts on the very people the programs funded by those taxes are supposed to help. So it becomes extremely difficult to implement constructive solutions when the only way to do so is by utilizing an equally destructive resource.

      10. Nathan Dickey,

        Closing 20 schools wouldn’t save any money? Gosh, can “The Urbanist” find an accountant to prove that? One of the big reasons I think the way I do is my wife works for a big insurance company and I hang out at hotel bars with the actuaries on occasion. They’re a pretty liberal bunch on the whole, but they also see the fiscal realities of things. The Seattle School District is currently shuffling around funds to cover short term debt they’re not legally allowed to have. Do you see a State or Federal bailout coming? Because something has to give with education in Seattle.

        And it’s not going to be the changing the State constitution to raise taxes.

        In theory I think many of us would agree that a progressive income tax would be better than what we have now, but only if the powers-that-be cut the sales tax at the same time. Politicians don’t give money back BTW. The sales tax will be a burden on the lower income people in Washington State forever. Topping it off with an income tax would be just insult to injury.

        The biggest problem with Seattle might be people living there who frankly can’t afford it and should move along. Seattle has more renters than home owners now? I mean a person “could” spend their entire adult life in Seattle working some non-tech job and paying 40-50% of their wages in rent, but where’s that going to be in 30 years? No paid for home to retire in? The numbers of renting in a hot market are terrible… you get a 2-3% raise a year and your rent goes up 8-10%? Has anybody reading this even heard of a 401k? Compound interest? The government isn’t going to bail you at 65. Maybe it’s just social security and blue tarp to sleep under in retirement? Plenty of senior homeless in Seattle right now. I wouldn’t be in hurry to join their ranks.

      11. tacomee, the school closure plan wasn’t just opposed by the Urbanist, but panned across the board as being short-sighted and ineffective. Here’s a column from Danny Westneat, who’s no darling of the progressive left: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattles-school-closure-plan-slashes-what-works-not-what-doesnt/

        (by the way, SPS is not under the purview of the Mayor of Seattle, so it’s not related to your questions about Mayor or Sound Transit. One school board seat is up for election this year, but you didn’t bring that up.)

    1. The Broadway / Madison Whole Foods always struck me more as an oversized deli with mostly prepared foods rather than a full-service supermarket. Residents wanting a supermarket probably just went to QFC a mere two blocks away instead.

      And Amazon Go always felt like a trial balloon concept by a big corporation rather than a deliberate neighborhood supermarket to me.

      I see the supermarket “desert” as several blocks further south centered on the James/ Boren/ Broadway triangle. Given all the new residential buildings with Yesler Terrace and surrounding blocks on top of older First Hill apartments, Seattle U dorms and nearby hospital employees, it seems to need the real supermarket.

    2. > Another major property owner was less enthusiastic calling the proposed legislation “a joke.”
      >
      > “The issue we really have is no one wants to open a new business in Seattle,” the developer said. “The current businesses are struggling to stay profitable. It’s a very difficult time for businesses in Seattle. Regulations and taxes are out of control.”

      Glad we got to hear from an anonymous property owner who hates Seattle. That opinion was useful to the article.

    3. I’ve gone to the Capitol Hill Whole Foods occasionally. I’m surprised I haven’t been there since May, because it was open the last time I went. I almost went there on Saturday for bread because Central Coop has been out of my favorite kind for weeks (Franz Organic, Naked, or similar), but I went to CC again and luckily it was back, so I never made it to Whole Foods.

      “Residents wanting a supermarket probably just went to QFC a mere two blocks away instead.”

      And some people don’t want what QFC has, or the bad customer experience there. I used to shop at QFC and Fred Meyer for years, but an accumulation of policy changes has made me avoid them now if I possibly can.

      “And Amazon Go always felt like a trial balloon concept by a big corporation rather than a deliberate neighborhood supermarket to me.”

      It was a trial balloon for its “Just Walk Out” business model. I didn’t want to shop at a store dependent on an app or biometrics or cashless payment, so I never went. It wasn’t a regular supermarket serving the entire community; it only served people willing to switch to that paradigm. So it was a kind of specialty store. So its loss didn’t affect overall supermarket availability as much as losing a full-service supermarket would.

      1. Amazon Go has always been the test ground for Amazon’s camera imaging processing algorithm. I think soon as the technology is ready to roll out in large scale, Amazon will probably shut this line down completely. For now I am taking advantage of its endless discount as much as I can.

    4. “The Broadway / Madison Whole Foods always struck me more as an oversized deli with mostly prepared foods rather than a full-service supermarket.”

      It’s was like all small supermarkets. It had all the basic things and many of the others. It just didn’t have a hundred kinds of ice cream or some obscure things.

      I have to get distilled water for my CPAP. I went to Bartell’s until it started having persistent shortages during the pandemic. So I switched to QFC, but then they ran out there and never came back. The manager said they were having supplier difficulties. I looked at a couple other places but they were twice as expensive and felt like a rip-off. So I went to Whole Foods. The price was higher than Bartell’s but availability was more consistent. But even Whole Foods would be out sometimes. The Broadway Whole Foods had the best availability. I couldn’t go to QFC because they’d been out for over a year there. Now I go to City Market, which is a convenience store two blocks from my apartment. The price is 30-50 cents higher than the lowest store, but there’s also value in not having to lug a gallon jug a half mile or mile, and it has always been available.

  3. Terri Mestas: throwing’s people under the bus since 2024. She’s wrong, and Ryan Packer missed an important fact. The ST3 estimates were based on Sound Move and ST2 ACTUALs, not high-level wild-ass-guesses. By the time ST3 passed, ST had delivered four Link segments: the Initial Segment, Airport Link, U-Link, and Angle Lake. All on budget. Northgate was fully designed with known costs that ended up on budget. East Link was through 30% design and in Final Design. At that point the agency had a deep and consistent unit cost library, and a solid handle on what it take to deliver infrastructure at this scale. Terri should think about her audience when she throws out gratuitous lines like that.

    I say this (again) not to assert the planning was perfect, but to highlight the main reason the program is so far over budget: the board’s inability to make and stick to tough decisions, and its predictable-as-the-sunrise track record of ADDING SCOPE that was not paid for in the voter-approved plan. These are human failings, not technical ones. But we seem to take so much delight in blaming and debating technical issues that result from poor human behaviors.

    Ryan Packer highlights the WS tunnel scope addition, and the IDS scope additions. But he got so wound up in questioning the second tunnel downtown that he forgot about the Ballard tunnel, also never included in the plan. And the bigger, higher cost WS bridge over the Duwamish.

    Imagine, what if the board has included those major scope additions in ST3 before the vote, perhaps in lieu of some of the out-year investments? Instead of living through the trauma of eating a $30 billion hit and putting needed core capacity at risk, we’d instead be focused on managing only the inflationary impacts of the post-pandemic economy,

    But that’s not what happened. All that stuff got added AFTER the voters approved the plan, without the corresponding funding needed to pay for additional the scope. Cynical to be sure, and made worse by the sane-washing going on today trying to pretend that it’s only the result of inflation.

    More design work and better construction practices are not going to solve this problem. Terri Mestas is not going to solve this problem. The scope and the available revenues are simply too far apart for that.

    The only way to get the plan back to within a semblance of affordability is taking a hard look at cutting out unfunded scope and picking a set of projects to intentionally delay. That requires tough leadership to get to a common view of how the region can be best served, targeting investments toward that vision, and saying “no” to a lot of sacred cows until the next voter-approved plan.

    1. “ She’s wrong, and Ryan Packer missed an important fact. The ST3 estimates were based on Sound Move and ST2 ACTUALs, not high-level wild-ass-guesses. By the time ST3 passed, ST had delivered four Link segments: the Initial Segment, Airport Link, U-Link, and Angle Lake. ”

      No. The bad cost estimates were based on wild-ass guesses about underground station layouts, many of which were obviously wrong. Sure the Alaska Junction station was budgeted as aerial and that was what you’re talking about with scope creep — but nowhere before ST3 did anyone look at how DSTT2 would have to start at Holgate (for example) or how difficult and costly the Downtown and SLU station vaults would actually be to create. Sure comparable costs are more valid for surface extensions with some aerial segments and even some tunnel boring, but ST hugely missed the mark the most on the costs of the tunnel station designs that have emerged.

      And if it was truly comparable, why didn’t ST inform the public that the sizes of the needed station vaults would need to be the size of those for Capitol Hill and UW and base the costs on buying and digging on those the huge sites that were used?

      1. Al, you are entitled to your opinions, but not your own facts. Look it up. By insisting the planners eff’d up, you are aiding and abetting normalizing of letting the politicians off the hook for gross mismanagement of the opportunity given them by the voters.

        That issue you raise is another one the board has its finger prints on. Westlake aside, ST3 plan assumed the agency would build cut & cover station boxes in public ROW connected with twin-bore tunnels. As it did successfully with the Pine Street tunnel and UW station. The city of Seattle didn’t want to indulge that. So the agency got forced into a different set of design scenarios because of poor leadership. Again, post-vote. Think about how different the right of way cost conversation would be if the board had insisted.

    2. By the time ST3 passed, ST had delivered four Link segments: the Initial Segment, Airport Link, U-Link, and Angle Lake. All on budget.

      What??? That is ridiculous. Sound Move was supposed to run from SeaTac to the UW. It was so overbudget it couldn’t get to the UW. They eventually gave up on a First Hill Station. They didn’t give up on a First Hill Station because someone was “ADDING SCOPE”. They gave up on First Hill because years after the initial vote they actually did some soil samples and realized it was risky.

      It was only the *revised* budget that was done on time and less than expected. There is a long history of this. ST puts out a budget with very little planning. They realize they can’t possibly build it for that cost. Then they come back with a much bigger budget (and more delay). Then they pat themselves on the back for meeting this revised budget.

      It is quite possible the same thing will happen here. The point being, they can’t possibly built it the way they originally planned because that would be too expensive. The main reason there is feature creep is because the costs are so damn high that they might as well do something different. Meanwhile, we are seeing various changes that *reduce* cost. Ballard Link is supposed to go to 14th, not 15th. This is obviously a degradation but it is based on costs that are much higher than estimated, not lower.

      Again, the problem was that they really hadn’t worked out the details. They never knew exactly where they were going to put the stations downtown in the second tunnel. We only had promised of “world class transfers”. Yet every proposal is very expensive, especially the ones that are supposed to be similar to what they proposed.

      But yeah, who to believe. Some random person making comments or the former CEO as well as someone who has served on the board since 2010.

      1. Oh, and just to be clear, I’m not saying the engineers are necessarily at fault. It is quite possible that they said “this is just an estimate” and the board went with it. People hear what they want to here.

        In general the board and the engineers don’t cooperate well. There is an initial estimate. They make the decision based on that. They dig into the details and it costs a bit more. They just pay it, rather than rethinking the original choice (that was based on the estimate).

        Pinehurst Station is an example of that. It costs way more than the original estimate. That’s because they realized (after more detailed engineering) that being so far north means dealing with the steep slope. At that point it would be worthwhile to see if you could move the station farther south. But it was too late. We are stuck with a station that is way more costly than it should be and yet less than ideal (it doesn’t straddle 130th).

        To a certain extent that sums up ST3. The vast majority of projects are just too expensive. Yet we aren’t ready to consider that alternatives would be much cheaper (and in many ways better).

      2. “I’m not saying the engineers are necessarily at fault. It is quite possible that they said “this is just an estimate” and the board went with it.”

        It’s the board’s job to evaluate the engineers’ work, check to see if they missed any reasonable alternatives or factors, and look at what’s succeeding in other cities or call in outside experts if necessary to determine that.

        So, when the engineers said DSTT2 would have to be much deeper than expected and have ultra-long transfers between the tunnels to avoid building foundations, the board should have pushed back and said, “Why didn’t 3rd Avenue have to be so deep when it also had highrises along it? Go back and see if you can make it any shallower. If you really can’t, the long transfers are unacceptable because of the impact on passengers, so we’ll have to go back to the drawing board and figure out what we can do to avoid those transfers, or cancel the project if we can’t find an acceptable solution. By the way, there was that project to upgrade DSTT1 to 90-second frequency so we wouldn’t need DSTT2. Go back and reconsider that.”

        That all is what the board didn’t do.

      3. So, when the engineers said DSTT2 would have to be much deeper than expected and have ultra-long transfers between the tunnels to avoid building foundations, the board should have pushed back

        But that is not the root of the problem. They had an estimate. The board put together a proposal based on the estimate. Voters approved the proposal. Then, later, the engineers came back and said the estimate was way off. The problem isn’t the new estimate, it was the first estimate. Or rather, it was basing everything on the first estimate. They should have waited for more detailed engineering (i. e. the new estimate) before making any decisions. At that point they could have explored various options (like they are now doing) but that all should have occurred *before* the vote. It should all occur before they put together a package.

        Because if a second tunnel is way too expensive it isn’t worth it. For the same reason if getting to West Seattle is too damn expensive it isn’t worth it. There may very well be projects that are much cheaper that are much better values. But this should happen *before* the vote. There is no reason to commit to even a vague set of proposals (light rail to West Seattle to Ballard) if it was based on estimates that were not the least bit accurate (because they weren’t detailed enough).

      4. Oh Ross. “Some random person,” indeed.

        I didn’t say ST did not eff up Sound Move, did I? I said by 2016 they had delivered four segments. And had a 5th on track that came in on budget. And a 6th that was on pace to come in very close to budget had they exercised proper oversight of the I-90 construction.

        (I’ll elaborate here: those segments included a combo of at-grade & elevated guideways, bored tunnel, mined tunnel, cut & cover, deep mined station, post-tension segmental guideway, MSE walls, and 3-beam construction. All the features of complex heavy civil construction we’re considering here in ST3.)

        Those are facts, not opinions. The project budgets I reference certainly were re-baselined after ST gave up on Sound Move MOS 1. That’s what you do when confronted with challenges like they faced at the time. And their project delivery record thereafter was exemplary. Prove me wrong.

        My secondary point has been and remains the professionals at the agency knew what they were doing by the time the decisions were made about what to include in ST3.

        My primary point is this: The leadership and oversight post-vote has been catastrophic. That is not the staff’s fault. That lies squarely at the feet of Rogoff, Timm and the policy makers who hired them and put them under impossible demands.

        You write, “they can’t possibly build it the way they originally planned because that would be too expensive.” That is literally my entire point: They aren’t even trying to build what was originally planned. They have departed so significantly from what was originally planned they can’t even see it in the review mirror. They’re trying to deliver a bloated program they packed up with about 40% more unfunded scope. And my beef is no one is being held accountable for that fact.

        You apparently can’t see it either, because you are quibbling about 14th vs 15th in Ballard when more important fact is the original plan DIDN’T INCLUDE A TUNNEL. Your beef is moot when the underlying decision-making basically tripled the cost of crossing the ship canal. And don’t call me out on a moveable bridge. I think a tunnel is the right call there, too. But if you’re going to add something that big to a project, you have to cut something of equal scale somewhere else, an act of courage they haven’t been able to muster anywhere else in about two decades.

        We all lament the loss of First Hill. That was a real tough pill to swallow, and the street car was a marginal substitute. But that’s exactly the kind of hard-nosed decision the agency used to be capable of making in order to deliver the balance of a program. Its the kind of decision they need to consider now to deliver the most impactful components of ST3. The leadership has failed miserably in that regard since 2017, so I doubt they’ll step up to the challenge now. I fear things will get worse before they get better, unless the public starts getting outraged and demands change. Alas, there is too much else to get outraged about these days, so we’re probably doomed to watch this play out for another decade.

      5. You write, “they can’t possibly build it the way they originally planned because that would be too expensive.” That is literally my entire point: They aren’t even trying to build what was originally planned.

        They aren’t because it is too expensive! Who cares what happens after that. For example at Ballard a bridge to 15th is too expensive. So is a bridge to 14th! Got that? Much worse, but too expensive. At that point you might as well ask for a tunnel.

        The project budgets I reference certainly were re-baselined after ST gave up on Sound Move MOS 1.

        Exactly! There are too different estimates here: a rough one and a detailed one. ST has basically made rough estimates at various times that were way too optimistic. Their detailed estimates were much better. Just because they made good detailed estimates doesn’t mean they solved the problem. That’s because they went back to using rough estimates before ST3! Clearly they were. They had no idea where they were going to put the stations. They still had a wide range of options they were considering. They had a “representative” project that was supposed to mimic what they presented the voters but guess what? It was too expensive! That’s the problem.

        If it really was as simple as you suggest they would do that. Someone would say “Hey, let’s just build what it was the voters approved. It will be much cheaper”. The reason they don’t do that is because it wouldn’t be. It would still be too expensive.

      6. Regarding DSTT2 being much deeper than expected… I believe I remember reading this is actually not due to building foundations so much as it is the BNSF tunnel that is east of DSTT1…. crossing the DSTT2 alignment. Where this occurs matters less than the fact that it happens at all because it means you have to go below the BNSF tunnel with enough room for structure.

        That BNSF tunnel is not going anywhere, and it means there isn’t going to be a way to make DSTT2 anything but a deep, long, newly mandatory subterranean transfer experience. It is undesirable and unaffordable at the same time.

        Metro says they will keep running RapidRide C and H until West Seattle Link (as if) connects through downtown to Ballard. (Meaning, forever at this rate, or maybe 2050.) So we will be paying the operational cost of running empty Link trains from Delridge (face it) to SODO (the plan of record) plus the bonds on same, after having dealt with years of messy construction delays, while we start tearing up downtown and SLU for construction of a line to Smith Cove (let’s be real).

        That, at this point, is sort of a best case scenario, unless we rethink the project. Which we desperately need to do. The cost of unaffordable DSTT2 is a gift from the universe, giving us another chance to make a plan that works.

      7. @Jonathan Dubman,

        Dude, the current DSTT1 crosses the BNSF tunnel exactly TWICE! Once under it and once over it. And DSTT1 isn’t that deep.

        And DSTT2 will actually have an easier time of it since it will run further east of DSTT1 and shouldn’t have to cross the BNSF tunnel even once.

        So don’t blame BNSF.

      8. The 3D environment under downtown is certainly complex. It is possible to stay east of the Great Northern Tunnel but at the expense of running through a forest of skyscraper footings.

        Exactly what drives the depth of DSTT2 (at minimum it has to cross DSTT1) is less important than the fact that it is at once so deep, so unaffordable, so undesirable.

        It’s worth reviewing what made anyone think we needed DSTT2. West Seattle trains (that we shouldn’t build) would be better off in DSTT1. It was assumed that Ballard would have to connect to Tacoma which means you need DSTT2.

        But Ballard does not actually need to connect to Tacoma. There are other strategies to let a train driver pee. And if we automate the Ballard line, there’s no driver at all.

        The future we currently seem to be building for is where delivery robots and automated taxis ply our crowded urban streets, while trains on separate ROW require human drivers whose human needs we design the entire $30 billion system around.

        Cancelling West Seattle Link may or may not be possible, but DSTT2 looks vulnerable.

      9. @Jonathan – I agree with all of your points. I really hope that the board takes a good look at all the projects, not just the second tunnel. The same mindset that recommended that tunnel is what drove so much of ST3. Look again at Ryan Packer’s outstanding article:

        “You build a second tunnel when you have maxed out the capacity of your first tunnel,” Goldwyn said. “The first thing you would do, if you’re saying we have more ridership than what our tunnel can currently provide is: can we run more trains per hour? If the answer to that is no, then it’s, can we put in a new signaling system that will allow us to run more trains per hour? If the answer to that is no, then it’s: can you lengthen the trains, can you lengthen the platforms, like all these other things, and then if the answer to all those things is no, you build a second tunnel. I have not ever read anything that suggests that all of those earlier things have been exhausted.”

        This is the same thing a lot of people have been saying. But ignore the particular case (capacity inside a mass transit tunnel) and back out a bit. How does that apply to West Seattle? It is the same idea! You max out everything else first, then you build mass transit. By the way, we did that with the UW. The buses were running frequently between the UW and Downtown Seattle. So much so that my son asked “Why are they running trains between the UW and downtown — the buses are great!”. But the buses were maxed out. Are the buses from West Seattle maxed out? No! Not even close. We have barely scratched the potential for bus service to West Seattle. Most of the buses are infrequent! There are only two buses that run every ten minutes midday (the RapidRide C and H). They run on completely different corridor. There is the 21, which runs at a decent frequency (15 minutes midday) but it takes a slow meandering route downtown. That’s about it. The 125 runs every half hour. The 56 and 57 only run peak. The 50 will get you to Link and it only runs every twenty minutes. So just from a frequency standpoint, West Seattle is nowhere near what you call “great”. At best they are barely adequate. For most they simply suck.

        But what about speed? Turns out, a lot of the buses are quite fast. The only time they encounter significant congestion is during rush hour and only then heading towards Seattle. Can we fix that? Yes, of course. Add ramp meters and those buses would be cruising.

        But what about other places along the way. What my son didn’t realize at the time was that the UW-downtown line also included Capitol Hill. This was huge. Getting to Capitol Hill (from either location) was never fast and not nearly as frequent as just skipping it (via the express lanes). (And yes, I know they weren’t always in the buses favor.) It can be argued that the main reason they built UW Link was for Capitol Hill Station. Does West Seattle have something similar — something “on the way” worth serving?

        Not really, but it would be useful to connect to SoDo. Not because there is a lot there but because it is a transit hub. Buses from the south run there — including major workhorses like the 101 and 150. It is a connection to Link for those who are heading south. The buses that go to downtown also connect to Link and I’m sure some of the riders heading north would prefer the connection occur sooner. Is there a way we can speed up the buses to downtown *and* make all these connections better (without spending a lot of money)?

        Yes! Turns out there is. Just build ramps from the Spokane Street Viaduct to the SoDo Busway. Then a bus leaving West Seattle would run in it’s own lane all the way to downtown. It would connect to SoDo along the way. This would reduce the travel time to places like Capitol Hill and UW. It would also mean that transfers to places like Renton, Kent, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley or SeaTac would be much better. In fact, they would be better than the proposed train!

        So why the hell haven’t we maxed out the buses before building a subway line that will cost over $2 billion dollars a station? Because no one (on the board) ever thought of it. It was never seriously considered. There is not a single study of this very basic, simple idea.

        If you think this error was limited to West Seattle, you would be wrong. Look at what happened to Kirkland. Same idea — and they even hired a transit consultant who recommended BRT. But the board insisted on rail and then, of course, Kirkland will get a line that connects to an obscure parking garage at the edge of town.

        ST has simply not considered alternatives. They became obsessed with rail even though most of the heavy lifting is done by buses (and will always be done with buses). I only hope they come to their collective senses and figure out where rail makes sense (hint: Ballard to UW) and where it doesn’t.

      10. @Jonathan Dubman,

        “It is possible to stay east of the Great Northern Tunnel but at the expense of running through a forest of skyscraper footings.”

        This is absolutely not true. Any DSTT2 that run under 5th would not pass under any skyscrapers – it would be under 5th all the way to McGraw Square!

        And the current IDS is adjacent to 5th. Meaning if the new DSTT2 station was under 5th and next to the current station exactly zero sky scrapers would need to be crossed under.

        And if the new station was directly under the current one, then there is the possibility that one building might need to be tunneled under, but ST has demonstrated on multiple occasions that they can do this with their modern EPB TBM technology. And even Metro did it back in the day with their older shield excavators. It’s just not an issue.

        But the wonky routing and high cost estimates are exactly the sort of scope creep “another engineer” warns about. The politicians have ignored engineering advice and gone with a political solution that attempts to appease everyone while inconveniencing no one. And costs have gone up with that political approach.

        This is exactly the current danger with Dow, and the future danger with Balducci. They are both politicians that typically seek political solutions to engineering challenges. And their results speak for themselves.

      11. If you put the tunnel under 5th the whole way, you wind up with a line at Seattle Center (not serving Lake Union) and having to go under the highway 99 tunnel.

        You’d switch to going under Westlake once 5th hits that maybe?

      12. “You build a second tunnel when you have maxed out the capacity of your first tunnel,”

        That’s what motivated DSTT2 in the first place: fear that DSTT1 might get overcrowded if you had all of Everett, Redmond, Tacoma, Ballard, and West Seattle in it. The split spine concept came later, when ST staff got nevervous about Tacoma Dome-Everett Station being too long for drivers to go without a break. First it was Ballard-West Seattle in DSTT2. Then it was Ballard-Tacoma Dome in DSTT2.

        You have to start a second tunnel project 15 years before the first tunnel reaches capacity, given the 5-year planning and 10-year construction. Otherwise you’ll get a crisis in the first tunnel before the second tunnel can open.

      13. @Glenn in Portland,

        I said “ it would be under 5th all the way to McGraw Square!”

        McGraw Square is exactly where you would turn to serve SLU. And it is at an angle and there is plenty of room.

      14. “You build a second tunnel when you have maxed out the capacity of your first tunnel,”

        That’s what motivated DSTT2 in the first place: fear that DSTT1 might get overcrowded if you had all of Everett, Redmond, Tacoma, Ballard, and West Seattle in it.

        Right, but the point is they never maxed out the capacity of the first tunnel. That is the point. Read the rest of the paragraph — they did none of that. So not only did they anticipate a problem that will probably never occur but they didn’t do the smart thing (and deal with it in a cheaper manner).

      15. Let’s talk about what Sound Transit is holding back about West Seattle and Ballard.

        1. The West Seattle FEIS left in the need for DSTT2 in its purpose and need even though the project is fully south of Downtown.

        2. The West Seattle FEIS wrongfully assumed that DSTT2 was open in its forecasts. It was a wrong assumption because ST knew that it was mostly unfunded.

        3. The revised EIS for Ballard is due imminently. To do all the technical work, ST have had updated forecasts for ridership already developed for several months at this point. Yet they’ve provided NO PREVIEWS on what they are. Why the heck not?

        So rather than academically debate whether DSTT2 is needed, we should be pushing Board members to simply demand to know what the revised Ballard ridership forecasts are — and whether there is an alternative that upgrades the capacity of the DSTT in any assumption. (Note that the No Project for WS FEIS assumed only 8 trains per line at peak hour in the DSTT even though ST3 assumed 10 trains per line at peak hour.)

        The forecasts have been done — months ago. They directly affect current Board discussions about the funding shortfall. ST staff isn’t releasing them to the public or Board members. This should probably be something that the Seattle Times or Urbanist should pursue as the suppression is much more significant that what this blog can do.

      16. “the point is they never maxed out the capacity of the first tunnel. That is the point. Read the rest of the paragraph — they did none of that. ”

        By maxing out do you mean those capital improvements to increase DSTT1’s frequency? The comparison is without those. But then you’re comparing apples and oranges: the other cities’ tunnels don’t have that limitation. It was because DSTT was built decades before there was a rail spec or even a guarantee there would ever be rail in the tunnel.

        As for the comparison itself, it’s your estimate against ST’s.

      17. “You build a second tunnel when you have maxed out the capacity of your first tunnel,”

        And, almost always, you add coverage when you add a second, third, or 11th tunnel.

      18. By maxing out do you mean those capital improvements to increase DSTT1’s frequency?

        The term “maxed out” is not mine, it is Goldwyn’s. I quoted the paragraph but it is worth reading the article again: https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/10/10/how-ballard-and-west-seattle-light-rail-became-a-30-billion-undertaking/. It is pretty clear what “maxed out” means.

        And, almost always, you add coverage when you add a second, third, or 11th tunnel.

        Agreed.

      19. I rode the São Paulo metro a few times before 2005. At the time there were only two lines: north-south and east-west. They were attempting to serve the transportation needs of a metro area with the population approximately the same as the state of California. Based on ridership per mile of track, at the time they were busier than any other metro system in the world. I saw situations where the front of a train would be entering a station platform while the rear of the one in front was still departing at the other end – rendering any sort of measurement of headways almost meaningless.

        Thankfully, since that time, they’ve embarked on a building spree and now have some 15 or something lines in service, providing badly needed coverage while also adding badly needed capacity.

        Anyway, I’ve seen “maxed out” tunnels, and even with the 3 proposed lines DSTT1 doesn’t seem especially “maxed” to me.

    3. I may have overlooked it, but I didn’t read Mestas saying any particular group was to blame.

      If anything, the interview’s stated blame was simply rushing to the ballot too early which meant that initial cost estimates were not realistic. That was something that set the stage for the half-baked, low-benefit projects locked into ST3 as elected officials went on a fantasy spending dash to assemble the measure in 2016. The energy was akin to the Simpson’s famous monorail episode.

      And if realistic costs were used (and cost-benefit numbers shown using more realistic costs), I’m not sure that it would have even passed.

    4. Certainly building stations, especially underground stations, is a huge expense chunk. University Link was at $1.7B for just two stations or $850M per station.

      WS Link has four stations. It’s also about a third longer. While three are not underground, the above ground sections have not been in existing public rights of way and the bridge was always an obvious extra cost. So doubling the $1.7B to $3.4B is certainly realistic. And that’s in 2009 dollars! Yet in 2016, this project was estimated at just $2.6B for ST3.

      So doubling $3.4B for inflation from 2010 puts it at $6.8B or not far from the $7-8B currently projected.

      In other words, the cost given in 2016 for ST3 was way lower than what would have been expected by comparing it to U Link — and the now much higher per station cost are actually pretty dang close to U Link.

      1. Yes, building underground is typically more expensive than going above ground. But you forget why they did that. The options for going above ground are really expensive! That is the issue. The engineers have come up with proposals that stick as closely as possible to the original proposal (approved by voters). We simply can’t afford it. (They came up with other proposals that ended as well.)

        A lot of people really don’t get it (but Ryan Packer does). It isn’t “the Seattle process”. It isn’t because we can’t make a decision. It isn’t because we keep adding new features. It is because we can’t build what the voters asked for at the original cost estimate. Why, because those estimates were way off. They were tentative. There is nothing actually “wrong” with them — they are just estimates. But basing projects on estimates that are not detailed is a really bad idea and yet that is what we did.

        We now have much better estimates. The problem is, the various projects are way too expensive as a result.

      2. Good point, Ross.

        While another engineer keeps claiming that the higher costs are mostly because of massive scope creep after 2016 (and I think everyone agrees that it has added substantially to the cost), I think that in West Seattle Link’s extreme vertical challenges and lack of surplus real estate were always going to make the baseline project much more expensive than the $2.6B in 2016 dollars assumed in ST3. And the actual U Link per station cost and per mile cost were an indicator of how off the $2.6B was even back in 2016.

  4. Metro silently took their electric buses out of service, and thought we wouldn’t notice.

    The 4700-4719 and 4800-4819 which normally serve commuter routes in S King County are now not being used for the past few weeks. Instead they’re using the old Orion buses or even worse the 35 foot buses, leading to additional crowding on these routes.

    So clearly something went wrong with the electric buses. It lines up with their recent pivot away from electrification. This was predictable. They could’ve bought more hybrid 40 and 60 footers, and called it good – and focused on trolley investment for sure.

    3. KIRO reported that this is due to a manufacturer’s safety recall. Apparently a fire safety issue with the battery packs.

  5. “Canadians put a lot more emphasis on service frequency. The US is still playing around with 15- and 30-minute frequencies for a lot of bus routes and even some rail service. I think Canadian transit agencies understand [transit consultant] Jarrett Walker’s idea that frequency is freedom. We have a ton of routes where buses are running every three or four minutes. You’d find the same in Toronto or Montreal.”

    “Running the bus every 30 minutes isn’t going to cut it if you want to grow ridership. With 30-minute service, if one bus doesn’t show up it’s now 60-minute service.”

    “In Vancouver, we have lots of buses run with headways of five minutes or less. The SkyTrain is running every three or four minutes, and because it’s driverless, we have the capacity to run even more.”

    Frequency! Frequency is king!

    Seattle and the larger suburbs can get to 15 minutes full time on most routes if they prioritize it and really try to make it happen. Then Seattle can aim for 10 minutes daytime on those routes. Then 5 minutes daytime on some routes. I think I can, I think I can….

    1. 10 and even 15 minute frequency is livable, but only if no-shows are very rare. There are few experiences worse as a rider than waiting for a bus that never comes, particularly as frequency extends.

      1. We have to give Metro financially realistic incremental goals. The first step is to fill in 15-minute weekend and evening frequency on all the totes that are missing it, like the 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 49, 50, and those are just the routes I know best. All those are core routes, not minor coverage. Then it needs to increase the number of 10-minute daytime routes. It did this in 2016 with the TBD (44, 45, 48, 65, 67), but then they lost it in 2020 and some of them still haven’t recovered it. That 130th corridor is another one that should have 10-minute service to get people to Link, but it will have to wait until these higher priorities are fulfilled.

        Metro can’t do this right now; it doesn’t have the money and it’s still recovering from the driver shortage. But that’s where the politicians and public need to step up and find Metro the resources for comprehensive bus service like Vancouver, Chicago, San Francisco, and European, Asian, and Latin American cities have.

        No more saying we can’t do it it don’t need it. This is the level of service that’s optimal for cities. It will generate economic activity by increasing job opportunities, allow more people to be self-sufficient in mobility, allow people to minimize the externalities of using cars, and make the region more resilient to supply shocks and environmental/national/international shocks.

    2. People here can’t even handle 15-20 min frequencies in the city that can be easily timed, imagine the 30-60 that some suburb commuters have to put up with. And you wonder why people take their cars.

      1. You’re preaching to the choir. I spent years living with 60 minute and 30 minute bus routes when I didn’t think anything better was possible. That’s why I’m so against it now: I don’t want anybody to go through what I went through. It’s not a competition where the people with the worst transit win. 15-minute minimum frequency belongs in Renton and Kent and Lynnwood as much as it does in Seattle. Good transit is good transit everywhere, no matter whether it’s a city of 40K or a city of 800K. We need to try to make it happen everywhere.

    3. I think there are two things we need to make that happen:

      1) Better routing
      2) More money

      Seattle isn’t far off from reaching that second goal. It just needs a bigger levy. A more progressive council and mayor could help.

      But the Metro planners need to focus more on improving headways. Several recent restructures have failed miserably to do so. This (https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/) is not a radical proposal. It does not involve buses using layovers that don’t exist or starting from scratch. There are some changes that would definitely be controversial but so is running buses every 20 minutes in the heart of Seattle. Metro didn’t compromise — they completely ignored the value of increasing frequency. Even something as simple as branching the 10 and 12 at 15th & Thomas wasn’t done. As a result, dozens of riders in one of our most urban areas have to wait twenty minutes for a bus — any bus.

      The same thing is true in various other parts of the city. We still have too many buses that run too close to other buses or overlap without really improving headways. Buses like the 65 and 75 can combine for better frequency. That’s great. But the 2 doesn’t combine with the RapidRide G for good frequency — it adds neither coverage nor a meaningful headway improvement. The 67 and 45 manage to run very close to each other but not on the same corridor.

      It becomes a vicious circle of bad transit. Transfers are painful because the buses aren’t running often enough. Riders insist on various curving routes (e. g. the 60) or silly tails (e.g. the 4) so that they don’t have to transfer. This makes it harder to increase frequency and people hate the transfers even more. At some point Metro needs to bite the bullet and create a network based on frequency. They need to do what cities like Houston and Miami did — even if it means hiring an outside firm.

  6. The Rapid ride G stop at Madison & 4th has a sign I haven’t seen before; a schematic of the three door locations, with icons for which ones take ORCA, cash, wheelchairs, or bicycles.

    1. Heck yea! The whole gloomy cave experience is kinda cool until you add potentially dangerous people and the smell of urine.

  8. The Toronto Star is running a series called “Worst Commute”. I’m not sure what you win if your commute is determine to be the worst, but it is pretty funny:

    https://www.thestar.com/news/commute/

    And this guys night owl commute is pretty bad: unpredictable, lack of lighting, body lice, skunks at the bus stops, scattered food, and triply bunched buses (even though it is late at night and the buses are infrequent):

    https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/welcome-to-the-night-bus-is-this-heavy-eyed-commute-torontos-worst/article_7e06c3c9-73a6-4163-8e98-738ade262855.html

    Maybe Seattle should do something like this.

      1. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have a few. To quote the state fish and wildlife website, the striped skunk lives in most lowland areas in Washington. It is also seen—or its musky odor noticed—in some suburban and urban locations, particularly near sources of open water. The spotted skunk is more likely to be seen in and around forests and woodlands, and is not as tolerant of human activity as the striped skunk. So if you see a skunk in Seattle it is probably a striped skunk. Or just a cat (and you need to get your glasses checked).

        https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/living/species-facts/skunks

      2. They tend to be nocturnal.

        I see them a lot in Portland, but almost always well before sunrise on my way to an early bus.

        They’ll eat an assortment of things, including slugs and rotted fruit fallen from unmaintained fruit trees.

      3. @Delta,

        Growing up my neighbor friend somehow ended up with 2 juvenile skunks. His mom let him keep them as long as they stayed outside and he paid all the costs.

        However, he didn’t have enough money to de-scent them both, so he only de-scented one. But the two skunks looked exactly identical, so having one skunk with the scent glands removed and one with them intact proved to be a rather problematic approach. He eventually got rid of them both.

        But the point here isn’t the skunks. The point here is poor transit.

        Contests like these are sort of fun, but they also highlight issues with our transportation system that most people might not be aware of. And that is a good thing.

        The Seattle Times should run something like this.

  9. I will be writing in Reagan Dunn’s name for King County Executive. The two candidates who advanced will do nothing for South King County. The last Executive who cared about South King County was Tim Hill.

    1. What would an executive who cares about South King County do?

      I’m betting you won’t answer this, because you keep making occasional assertions that King County or ST or individual politicians don’t care about King County, but you’ve never answered my questions about what they’re doing wrong or what they should be doing.

      1. The biggest thing would be to ensure that South King County has the same level of influence on the county that Seattle does. The Office of Equity and Social Justice was even forced to admit that South King County is far below what impact we should be having on government. The thing is we don’t get as much say on our areas as Seattle does. Increase the impact and hear our voices more. These are things that neither Councilmembers Zahilay or Balducci are willing to do.

      2. The biggest thing they are doing wrong is they do not care what we think here. Separation would be best.

      3. Councilmember Zahilay is basically running as the candidate representing the South End (while Balducci is running as the East Side candidate). There are some other differences (Balducci has more executive experience, etc.) but they agree on almost all issues.

        Since you are willing to vote in Reagan Dunn, are you suggesting that South King County just wants less taxes? That is a reasonable assumption but I don’t think that would be good for the region. Is that your argument though — South King County should have less taxes?

      4. Thanks for responding. That’s still vague though. How does Seattle have disproportional influence in the county government? What has South King County wanted that it hasn’t gotten? What has Seattle gotten through disproportional influence? Is it really just Seattle, or Seattle and the Eastside both?

        Some of South King County’s problems are self-inflicted. South King County cities are much less willing to upzone than Seattle or Eastside cities are. That prevents it from developing large non-industrial job clusters that could bring more jobs and higher average pay. It limits housing growth so severely that the population barely rises, and that causes low vacancies that cause rents to rise faster than in other areas. South King County does have a niche with industrial jobs, and as far as I can tell the county is doing as much as it can to support it.

  10. I posit that a single (PRODUCT RED) bus lane on Denny Way would actually do *more* for mobility in Seattle than West Seattle Link + DSTT2 to Smith Cove (which has pros and cons for transit, as opposed to the bus lane that is a pure good for transit.)

    The bus lane could be implemented in less than a year, while we wait 15-20+ years for Link extensions. Before they open, what they mean is years of construction impacts.

    The red bus lane yields operational savings that start paying off immediately and could be put back into giving Metro 8 RapidRide G type frequencies.

    The reason we are scared to build this is that we suspect it would make the system somehow untenable for the car traffic we think we need to handle. The traffic will expand to fill however much space we give it… and it will find another way through the grid if we limit traffic on Denny Way. And some of those folks would take a bus that comes frequently and goes fast. It might be enough to make the system work better than it does now.

    We can and should model it. SDOT should study it. And then they should paint that lane.

    1. I posit that a single bus lane on Denny Way would actually do *more* for mobility in Seattle than West Seattle Link + DSTT2 to Smith Cove

      I agree. I think it is easy to ignore the timelines. West Seattle Link is scheduled to open in 2032. This is to SoDo. Before then, the SoDo Busway closes. So some riders in West Seattle get a faster transfer to the main Link line while lots of riders have a slower bus to downtown. I don’t think there is much of a net benefit at that point.

      A line to Smith Cove is a bit better. But the new tunnel makes life worse for a lot of existing riders. The new tunnel won’t be as good as the old tunnel. Lots of people come from the south and get off the train downtown — their experience will be worse. Riders going through downtown will be worse off as well. They will be forced to transfer. SoDo may involve the least amount of walking (from platform to platform) but that means trying to connect to two trains that run every ten minutes. By then you’ve clearly added some benefit, but still not a lot. The Seattle Center Station will provide an alternative to the monorail (or slow buses). The South Lake Union Station likely won’t get many riders (given its location) and it benefit as a connection point is minimal. Denny Station adds some value for those already on the train (but again, they would rather be on the other line). If the stations are really deep (which is the plan) it doesn’t work well for short trips. Riders may prefer frequency surface transit.

      But again, think of the timeline. Imagine they build the line out to Smith Cove in 2037 (five years after West Seattle Link). That means that for well over ten years there would be bus lanes on Denny. The time savings for those on Denny could be huge. At what point does the Link project actually catch up with the bus lane project? 2040? 2045?

      It is highly likely we will have a large, automated bus fleet by then. These buses will be capable of getting riders from various parts of West Seattle to downtown faster than making the transfer to Link (even if Link is automated by then). The trains will add value where they manage to avoid the congested surface options. Unfortunately a line from West Seattle to Smith Cove does very little of that. What will matter most is how much red paint we’ve added.

    2. This has been talked a lot and I imagine any analysis won’t be enough to satisfy those who are againist it.

      Can SDOT just do a trial project like Pike Place Market do a pilot to ban cars.
      They will have plenty of real-world data to measure the benefit and drawbacks rather than having a team to desktop-guessing the impact

      1. I think (greater) Boston did that sort of thing. They created temporary bike lanes using cones. After a month or two they realized it worked out fine and they made them permanent.

    3. Let’s muse.
      Route 8 alone is a bit modest for BAT lanes in each direction. Let’s boost its service in two ways. One. Shift Route 11 to serve the Route 8 pathway; the issue will be finding curb space for layover in Uptown; Metro could attempt operator fall back. This could be cost neutral; the on-line Route 11 timetable shows times to/from 4th Avenue but the slowest blocks are the five blocks west of 4th Avenue in the congestion left by the PBL (e.g., Pine, 2nd, Pike). Two. Restore Route 43; it was nearly deleted in 2016; but the network ridership fell. Consolidate routes 8 and 48, Uptown to Mt. Baker via 23rd Avenue with a deviation to serve the Lighthouse and Center Park. Do not serve MLK between East Madison and South Plum Street; do not add friction to the G Line; allow SDOT more room for bike infrastructure to connect with the I-90 trail. Could Route 8.48 be improved to 10-minute headway; Route 11 has 20-minute headway; together that would be nine trips per hour per direction. Better. Route 43 could be ETB. Denny Way and 23rd could eventually get overhead after Trump 2.0.

      1. I think it was implied by Jonathan’s statement that the 8 would get a big increase in frequency along with the BAT lanes. There are a lot of options with the routing. I think combining it with the 11 is the best option. Madison Park is not a dense area but it can be served fairly quickly (and has decent ridership potential). With BAT lanes a bus could do the entire thing and live-loop back to Madison Park. This eliminates any issues with layovers in Uptown.

        Another option is a branch in Madison Valley. One branch is the current 8 (heading south on MLK) the other heads to Madison Park (replacing the 11). I forget who suggested this or I would give them credit. With higher frequency turning adds less value. Just transfer. I would increase frequency on the 48 (as well as the 8).

        I could see service along the core of the 8 (between Madison Park and Uptown) being very frequent (e. g. 7.5 minutes midday). If so, the branching would work well. Sending that many buses to Madison Valley would be a bit of a waste. Could the buses lay over in Madison Park (next to the G Line buses). That might provide too much friction (as Jack put it). But it would mean two versions of the bus (one to Madison Valley, one to Madison Park) similar to buses like the 3. While sending buses to Madison Park every 7.5 minutes would be overkill it would still be cheaper than branching (because it is much shorter to Madison Park). You just get less out of it.

        The 48/8 doesn’t add that much just as the 8 doesn’t add that much. With the existing 8 there are people that make the turn but the vast majority of riders are just going east-west. With the existing 48 there are plenty of people going between Mount Baker and Madison Valley but most riders just keep going (or they board in Montlake). Consider an outbound 48 (starting in Mount Baker). By the time it reaches John, about 1,600 riders have boarded and 800 of them have alighted. A lot of people just want that one-seat ride to the UW. The Montlake section of the 48 isn’t as strong as the rest of it (I get that). It just happens to be on the way towards a very big destination (the UW). Yes, you could turn and head over to Capitol Link and the riders could take the train but the vast majority don’t want to do that. Not when the UW is only a couple miles up the road. Not when it is faster to just stay on the bus.

        The 43 performs poorly. To be fair, it doesn’t run often and it can’t compete with other buses. But it gets about half of its ridership within the U-District. People just happen to catch that bus (instead of a bus like the 44 or 271). Most of the remaining riders are just going along 23rd/24th — they would be just as happy with the 48 (but happened to catch the 43). A relatively small number are actually taking advantage of the unique routing (to and from First Hill). The 48 is fundamentally stronger.

        I would keep the 48 as it is now but run it more often (and faster). With a faster, more frequent 48 there isn’t much point in the 43. People in Montlake would miss the old 43 but they would have a much more frequent 48 (and the RapidRide G to get to First Hill or downtown).

    4. The BAT lanes would not be sufficient by themselves to yield headway reductions. The travel time saving has to one-half of the headway to pull a bus from the schedule. There are times when Route 8 flows okay. In the p.m. peak it flows like molasses.

      There are parts of other routes that are jammed in the p.m. peak: Route 44 westbound in the U District, routes 5 and 45 in all directions in downtown Greenwood, routes 3 and 4 on James Street, Route 36 southbound approaching Columbian Way.

      Below, I suggested shifting Route 11 to the Route 8 pathway.

  11. Link is suspended between Roosevelt and UW during the PM peak due to a power outage.

    I was in one of those once or twice. I took a 67 to Campus Parkway and transferred to a 49 to Capitol Hill rather than wait for a Link shuttle.

    2. Overheard on the northbound 372 this afternoon:

      “They kicked us off the Link and told us to take a bus. I don’t know why. I’m on a bus. It won’t get me all the way there but at least it’s going north.”

    3. These power issues should be a top priority for ST, along with getting the 2 line complete. This is eroding trust in our system.

  14. I looked at some of the latest “dashboards” from both Sound Transit and Metro. The information from Sound Transit doesn’t seem to be updating. It doesn’t list anything (for any mode) after July. The Sounder numbers seem to be working now but the station numbers are odd. They seem to show a huge drop in September 2024. For example Tukwila went from over 300 to less than 100 (and it hasn’t surpassed 100 since then). They don’t seem to add up, either.

    Metro has data from last month. It has been a full year since RapidRide G opened and ridership has gone up almost every month. Last month it had 6,722 riders a day (a new high). To put things in perspective, the two Shoreline stations peaked at 2,533 boardings. Even if you double that number (accounting for travel both directions) that is less than the RapidRide G.

    But there are other things to consider. The Shoreline stations will likely see a huge jump in ridership when more buses are sent there way. Just as the RapidRide G gained ridership over time, so will these stations. While ridership is important, it is worth considering how much time the improvement saved for each rider. Riders using those stations clearly had other others for getting to Link (they could have just taken a bus to Northgate or driven there) but in some cases the time savings are huge. Something to keep in mind as we open up other stations in the future.

    It has been a full year since the Lynnwood Link restructure as well. The 20 replaced the 61. It is much shorter but has about as many riders. This is a classic “ridership versus coverage” trade-off. The bus has got more riders per service hour but Tangletown is not covered as well. It shouldn’t take too much effort to allow the 62 to be altered in the neighborhood. This would provide better coverage *and* allow the bus to run faster. In other words it would improve ridership *and* coverage. Yet the city has done nothing about the issue. It is quite possible the city has no idea about the issue.

    In Shoreline the buses have not performed well (in my opinion). The 333 is one of the few frequent buses in the area and it has peaked at just over 1,300 riders (in May). I think this has to be considered one of the big disappointments in the restructure. In contrast the 348 (which runs about as often) has topped 2,000 riders the last seven months (hitting a high of 2,200 in May). The 348 took over for the 347 and this isn’t quite as many riders as the two buses had together (but it didn’t completely replace the 347 either). As with so much of the restructure it is hard to break it all down. It will be easier to judge when we have ridership-per-service-hour numbers for each bus. I’m not sure when Metro publishes their report but I think it is in the fall (meaning we should have it fairly soon). The last one is here: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/about/data-and-reports/2024/2024-system-evaluation.pdf.

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