Honolulu’s automated metro had an extension open last month, and a third phase started construction this summer. The video discusses four levels of automation, and the last section talks about how to partly automate Chicago’s Blue L Line. (Car Free Keith)
Toronto’s Eglington light rail project is a long saga. (Andriyas Redel)
Fill out the ST Express restructure survey by November 11th if you haven’t already. Here’s our overview of the proposal and Alex’s alternative.
This is an open thread.
Do this day I have no clue why Honolulu chose to build their HART line in segments starting from the suburbs TOWARD the city rather than beginning in the city center outward. The first phase of the line essentially went nowhere and was seldom used. That would be like building Link from Lynnwood to 145,th St first.
Yeah, it is backwards but unfortunately fairly common. While maybe not as extreme, we went south before going north even though everyone knew the most cost effective project was UW to downtown. Vancouver is going out to Langley before they build a line on Broadway (and many years before they build a line to UBC). The next thing we should build (after East and Federal Way Link) is Ballard-UW, but that isn’t even planned. But yeah, Honolulu is an extreme example of building things in the wrong order.
Just a clarification, in Vancouver the Broadway line should be operational in 2027. Tunnel was completed a while ago. Langley construction just started this year
Thanks. I have my timing wrong.
The video says it was the only area with enough room for a maintenance base to launch it from. Link’s maintenance base is in SODO, just two flat industrial miles from the pre-existing DSTT, so it could have been built out from U-District to SODO if necessary. In contrast, getting from the base to downtown Honolulu or Waikiki to the base would have been much longer and would require spending most of the total budget up front.
Ehhh that was the cited reason but it’s not as if there isn’t some industrial land nearby the airport as well that they could have used to build the train base.
The real reason was probably just politically they wanted to start there.
In retrospect I agree it was a mistake they should have built the section closer to downtown first. They ended up spending too much money on the first suburban segments
“The real reason was probably just politically they wanted to start there.”
Was there a suburban constituency clamoring to get service first? Would they want it if it doesn’t reach downtown? What were they so eager to get to?
Link’s reason for going south first was ST was afraid the Ship Canal crossing might have huge cost overruns or prove infeasible, and that might sour voters on the whole concept of Link, and that would leave us where were when Forward Thrust failed in 1970 and it took twenty-five years to get enough political momentum to try again. Lynnwood didn’t expect a segment until after Northgate opened, and Federal Way/Tacoma didn’t expect a segment until after Angle Lake opened. The closest comparable situation is the West Seattle stub, but that’s after Link was running in SODO. The 2LSL doesn’t count because the cross-lake delay wasn’t anticipated, and the SL waited 3 years after cross-lake was scheduled to open.
Like with any urban rail project, things get built in phases because of a number of factors. I would like to find out what current or former Oahu residents think.
One notable characteristic about Honolulu is that it is an island far from other places so air travel is much more common and frequent — meaning that airport accessibility is more important for the residents (and obviously the visitors too) than it is here. Now with an airport station opened for a few weeks with Phase 2, locals can more easily get there.
It does strike me as odd that the construction began at the western end rather than the eastern. I’m sure there’s a back story there. It appears that the opening sequencing was deliberate rather than one that was governed by construction delays.
I don’t think air travel is that much more common. Honolulu is the 30th busiest airport in the USA.
I’m riding the 60 from Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill (a common trip for me) and god it’s so slow. Why can’t this bus go straight down Broadway?! Do we really need to serve the front door of Harborview at the expense of the front door of Swedish? Anyone have any useful reading material about why the 60 is the way it is?
I swear I could walk from 12th and Jackson faster than this bus, and it’s not even a traffic problem!
I agree and have argued as much for a long time now. It is worth noting that the 60 and the streetcar run every 12 minutes. At no additional cost you could combine them so that they provide 6 minute headways down Broadway. I would go further* but this simple change would really improve things.
*I would take the 60 and send it downtown (replacing that part of the 36). Then I would take the 49 and continue on Broadway until Beacon Hill. At Beacon Hill I would have it over the other part of the 36 (to Othello).
Your first paragraph is a winner!
But it would be even better if SDoT found a way to acquire another streetcar, and run both the FHSC line and the 60 every 10 minutes. Add more recovery time at Capitol Hill Station so each southbound streetcar or 60 can at least start on schedule.
But also make it possible to turn the streetcar around at Japantown Station before and after large-crowd events.
No, wasting money on another streetcar would be stupid. It is bad enough that we can’t (easily) move the existing streetcar. If these were just buses the combination would be much better. The 49 could just go all the way down Broadway and turn on Jackson. That way north Capitol Hill and Broadway riders could still have a one-seat ride to downtown (while the latter would avoid the stupid button-hook). Meanwhile, the 60 could just be the 60, but altered slight to serve Broadway. Riders would get a few extra blocks of high-frequency transit at little cost. It would be much easier to add BAT lanes (or at the very least, skip-ahead lanes) for both routes.
Things are clearly worse because the streetcar is a streetcar (instead of a bus). So now we muddle along as best we can.
“The 49 could just go all the way down Broadway and turn on Jackson. That way north Capitol Hill and Broadway riders could still have a one-seat ride to downtown (while the latter would avoid the stupid button-hook)”
Going to Intl Dist station is not going to downtown. The library, Pike Place Market, Westlake Center, the central waterfront, the art museum, the medical clinics on Olive Way, and tons of office buildings aren’t near there.
If the 49 turns north on 3rd Avenue to reach all those places, then you’d recreate a button-hook somewhere else.
Ross,
Why swap the Beacon Hill tails of the 36 and 60? I don’t see a reason to do it, and the Beacon Hill – Jackson/C-ID link seems pretty important, more so than the Westwood Village – Georgetown – N Beacon Hill – Capitol Hill one.
Going to Intl Dist station is not going to downtown. The library, Pike Place Market, Westlake Center, the central waterfront, the art museum, the medical clinics on Olive Way, and tons of office buildings aren’t near there.
@Mike — So you are saying that neither Amtrak or Sounder actually serve Downtown Seattle? Sorry, that is silly. A lot of people would consider Pioneer Square the heart of downtown. You don’t have to serve all of downtown to “go downtown”. Otherwise the 10, 12 and 49 don’t serve downtown either.
In any event, that won’t happen since that streetcar is not going away. The best option is to combine the 49 and 60. It would mean someone on that bus would have to transfer to get to downtown but they would have numerous options (depending on which part of downtown they are headed to).
Why swap the Beacon Hill tails of the 36 and 60?
Because if you combine the 49 and 60 without making any other changes it would be too long. In contrast if you sent the bus to Othello (taking over that part of the 36) it would not be.
the Beacon Hill – Jackson/C-ID link seems pretty important
Yes, and that would still exist (with the other bus). The only difference is what happens in Beacon Hill. If you took the bus from downtown, the bus would continue on 15th South and run by Cleveland, etc. If you took the bus from First Hill, it would run down Beacon Avenue until Othello. If you took the bus north on First Hill it would keep going to the UW (not just end).
There are other options. On my previous proposal I truncated the 60 at Beacon Hill and left the 36 alone: https://seattletransitblog.com/2023/08/30/high-frequency-network-surrounding-rapidride-g/. I would rather swap tails (there would be more combinations) but that might be too long as well.
Just to make it clear, this is what I am proposing as a possibility: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1qPPdu61sp3PDtx68998YYgX27s7Q7_s&usp=sharing. I used new route numbers to avoid confusion. I didn’t fill in the southern tail of the existing 60 because it is too much work. Hopefully that helps.
“A lot of people would consider Pioneer Square the heart of downtown.”
It’s the historic heart but not the current heart, And Intl Dist is outside downtown if you consider downtown as ending at Yesler Way.
“Otherwise the 10, 12 and 49 don’t serve downtown either. ”
They serve the center of downtown! They serve the most transfers to other routes. They serve Pike Place Market and the retail core, which is the center of downtown.
I lean toward a Broadway north-south route to the U-District and Beacon Hill as Ross has outlined. But I can’t be 100% confident that Metro isn’t right that the current 36 going to downtown is a stronger and more strategic route, because a lot of people use it for a lot of things and would miss out if it were modified. Potentially a lot more people than would benefit from the north-south alternative.
A downtown-Beacon-southewest concept is intriguing, but this is the first I’ve heard of it so it would have to be vetted more. It would preserve a one-seat ride between the Jefferson Park area and downtown, which is at the center of this to-move-or-not-to-move-the-36 controversy. And I don’t see Beacon south of Jefferson Park as dense enough or mixed-use enough to justify a one-seat ride to downtown on its own. The issue is the core of the Beacon Hill village and the dense apartments west of northern 14th, which is the core of the district.
I will note that once you get to the north end of Jefferson Park or even a but north of it, 15th and Beacon Ave diverge so widely that it gets harder to walk to the 36. I looked at an apartment near 15th around there, and found that the 60 was the only feasible neighborhood route; the 36 was just out of the way enough that it was debatable whether it was worth walking to it. This was back when both the 36 and 60 were less frequent, so the 36’s higher frequency may now justify walking to it more. But the point is that most of 15th really is a separate transit market from Beacon Avenue, so it needs its own route.
So you are saying Pioneer Square isn’t downtown? The streetcar, Sounder, Amtrak — none of them actually serve downtown? That is ridiculous. Of course Pioneer Square is downtown. Look at the Wikipedia entry for Pioneer Square: Pioneer Square is a neighborhood in the southwest corner of downtown Seattle, Washington, US. Here is part of the entry for King Street Station: It is located at the south end of Downtown Seattle in the Pioneer Square neighborhood, near the intersection of South Jackson Street and 4th Avenue South…
When the 60 was created and initially planned to go straight down Broadway, the First Hill community argued to route it to 9th to serve more of the neighborhood. How that would affect travel time between Broadway, Jackson Street, and Beacon Hill wasn’t considered important apparently. That reflects the general position of all-day bus routes at the time: they were very long and slow and stopped at every haystack and detour. The 210 was local from the I-90/405 exit to North Bend; the 174 from downtown to Federal Way; the 150 from Tukwila to southeast Auburn; the 226 and 235 went through Medina and Enatai, made three stops on Mercer Island, and went on Rainier/Dearborn in Seattle; the 252 and 253 waited until the last possible stop to get on 520 (that’s why the 271 still goes through Medina).
I lived at Jefferson Terrace, and the 60 was the main access to shopping on Capitol Hill. At one point, Metro considered terminating the route north of Beacon Hill. There was an outcry from JT residents and Harborview employees and that plan was sacked.
The Route 60 is a rather complex issue. The core challenge is that it’s the only route that runs north-south through First Hill. It’s an area with lots of destinations and lots of residential density. So it really deserves some sort of north-south bus service west of Broadway and that service needs to connect as far as Beacon Hill or Mt Baker Link.
Whether Route 60 is the right one is debatable. Since Route 60 ends in north Capitol Hill it probably is unless there’s a major restructure.
To me, the “missing service” is something that runs more quickly north-south to the east of Downtown. I’ve long argued that Metro needs to enhance Route 9 to be at least a 20 minute service all day by taking hours away from other routes. I have sometimes suggested that half of Route 7 hours be moved to Route 9, for example.
Instead, many services all concentrate routing onto Jackson Street. Does Jackson Street really need Routes 7, 14, 36, 106 and the FH Streetcar? I get how it ties residential areas to ID businesses and further into Downtown — but it seems a bit overserved. And with 2 Line beginning service in several months it will have even another redundant service available.
Sometimes I even think the RapidRide R upgrade that was promised years ago remains a concept because Metro and SDOT won’t take the initiative to face the core structural problem of way too much Jackson St corridor transit service and not enough north-south service through First Hill. It’s easier to delay than face the reality of this basic service allocation problem and the community response to it.
“The core challenge is that it’s the only route that runs north-south through First Hill.”
The 9 and streetcar run north-south through First Hill.
“It’s an area with lots of destinations and lots of residential density”
And many of them are between 9th and Broadway. Harborview is three flat blocks to Broadway. I lived in between at Terry & Jefferson. While some disabled patients can’t walk that far (and I increasingly can’t walk long distances and may be in that category someday), that should be handled some way than diverting the 60. The farthest point from Broadway is 9th & Madison, and it doesn’t have anything big like Harborview. (Or are people going to Virginia Mason via that stop?)
During the 2014 cuts Metro contemplated routing the 27 to 9th, and it may have done so for a time. So something like that would be another way to serve 9th.
If the 106 is routed to Boren and SLU as we’ve long wanted and is in Metro Connects 2050, would that eliminate any remaining need for the 60 to be on 9th?
“many services all concentrate routing onto Jackson Street.”
That’s how the trolleybuses get to the Atlantic base.
“Does Jackson Street really need Routes 7, 14, 36, 106 and the FH Streetcar?”
Again, priorities. Let’s not eliminate very good transit service where we have it. 3rd Avenue and Jackson Street are the only thing people who really value ultra-frequent transit have. (Soon they’ll have the 1/2 Lines.) If RapidRide R runs every 5-6 minutes (following the precedent of RapidRide G), that could allow some other runs to be consolidated into it.
We are recommending the 106 be rerouted to Boren Ave, and that would remove it from Jackson Street. And the streetcar is not fully interchangeable with the bus routes since its stops are in a different location. One more reason the streetcar should have been a trolleybus if it needed to exist.
” And with 2 Line beginning service in several months it will have even another redundant service available.”
The 2 Line will not help get to 12th & Jackson.
“Sometimes I even think the RapidRide R upgrade that was promised years ago remains a concept because Metro and SDOT won’t take the initiative to face the core structural problem of way too much Jackson St corridor transit service and not enough north-south service through First Hill. It’s easier to delay than face the reality of this basic service allocation problem and the community response to it.”
Your argument depends on whether Rainier-Broadway ridership is really as high as Rainier-Jackson-downtown, or whether Rainier-Jackson or Rainier-Jackson-downtown is so important as to be practically essential. Your position is at minimum controversial and many at Metro would probably say wrong. If any southeast Seattle route should be rerouted to not go downtown, it should probably not be the 7. Rainier-Jackson forms a single cultural/economic/shopping corridor in more ways than Rainier-Broadway does.
The 36 seems like a stronger candidate to reroute to Broadway, as it would impact fewer people and businesses. RapidRide 36 had two alternatives, one the current alignment and the other going north on Broadway to the U-District. The 36 and 150 are in the next tier after the I, J, K, and R. Metro is currently favoring the downtown alignment. So I would focus my energy on convincing Metro to switch to the other 36 alternative rather than modifying the R.
@ Mike:
I should have said the only one that runs north-south through First Hill west of Broadway. But even the FHSC and Route 9 have issues. FHSC only goes as far as Havkson and Route 9 only runs a few times a day. It’s on the map but pretty useless most if the time.
Swedish moved a ton of outpatient services to Boren and Madison (including many procedures that require not driving home from), and Route 60 also runs close to Virginia Mason, O’Dea, St James Cathedral, and well over a dozen residential buildings at least 12 stories tall.
It’s not some low density cute shopping area like Ballard Ave or Madison Park or upper Queen Anne. It’s much, much more active.
And the reason that Route 60 takes a long time is partly because those stops are used. Boarding passengers takes time.
I should have said the only one that runs north-south through First Hill west of Broadway.
Which is another way of saying it is the only route that goes well out of its way to get riders a block or two closer to their destination. The fact that just the streetcar — which has its own stupid detour — and that bus are the only routes on that corridor just makes the decision worse. Imagine if the RapidRide D just went up Madison and then turned on Fifth so it got closer to the Columbia Tower. It would then go back to Third via James. At least then you could say there are plenty of buses on Third — what is the harm? Except as silly as that is, it isn’t do that. None of the buses do that. People are expected to transfer or haul themselves up the very steep hills. Yet somehow they can’t walk a block or two on the flat part of First Hill. And yes, I’m well aware that there are plenty of hospitals and clinics in the area but I’m also aware that people will walk a block or two to avoid crappy, infrequent, unreliable service.
This is just the outdated inertia that drags our system down. Instead of consolidating service on a few well-spaced corridors the buses twist and turn like it is 1947 and traffic isn’t an issue. There are places on the streetcar where you can get off the train, walk a leisurely pace and then comfortably catch the exact same train. Now it appears the same thing is happening with the 60. It is not only terrible for those riders but the whole system. Too much service money is spent on such a slow, ponderous route and a result, the buses run less often. It is just bad routing.
@Ross
A block or two? St. James Cathedral is 4 or 5 blocks off of Broadway, on a hillside!
“ I’m also aware that people will walk a block or two to avoid crappy, infrequent, unreliable service.”
Route 60 runs every 12 minutes. I wouldn’t call that “infrequent”.
The post was only about its speed, not the frequency. And the speed is a longer aggravation from south of Beacon Hill station to the northern route end.
I’m not sure a Broadway reroute would be that much faster. Route 60 schedules list 16 minutes from Pine and Broadway to 12th and Jackson. The FHSC lists 15 minutes from the northern end to 13th and Jackson stop. Even Route 9 schedules say 10 minutes from Broadway and Pine to Yesler and Boren so Jackson may be 3 minutes more (or 13 minutes total) with lots of the time savings being on Boren south of Harborview. Keep in mind that all are in a slow segment between Madison and Pine.
Before moving the route or dealing with a complex route restructure, how about we simply suggest that SDOT evaluate how to get Route 60 to save 2-3 minutes on the First Hill segment? Maybe the aggravation can be eased with a 9th Ave refresh.
Mike,
I largely agree, but there are far stronger links between Beacon Hill and Chinatown/ID than there are to Capitol Hill. I ride the 36 a lot and the C/ID stops are extremely busy – much busier than the 60 stops in Capitol Hill. Moving the 36 away from downtown would leave all of Beacon Hill (majority Asian) with a single light rail stop for service to C/ID.
The 106 running to SLU via Boren plus the 60 to Capitol Hill via Broadway are the low hanging fruit to address. I can’t speak to ties between the rest of South Seattle and C/ID but I’d be strongly opposed to moving the 36 off that corridor.
Route 60 runs every 12 minutes. I wouldn’t call that “infrequent”.
You are missing the point Al. Speed is related to frequency. We have lots of buses making all sorts of twists and turns. These delays hurt frequency. Maybe not for that bus, but for the system as whole. Avoiding detours leads to faster travel times *and* better overall frequency.
As to your original point, 12 minutes is OK, but it sure as hell isn’t 6 minutes. Holy cow, look at the G. People have complained about the fact that it isn’t nearly as fast as promised. It encounters all sorts of problems downtown. Yet it is extremely popular. Why? Because it runs every 6 minutes!
The post was only about its speed, not the frequency.
But they are related. Come on, how many times must I write this. One of the key advantages of sending the 60 on Broadway is that you could combine the 60 and streetcar for 6-minute frequency along Broadway at no extra cost! It would probably save money! If the 60 was the only route on Broadway it wouldn’t matter as much. But we can’t ignore the streetcar.
St. James Cathedral is 4 or 5 blocks off of Broadway, on a hillside!
Yes, and it is a very flat block away from a RapidRide G bus stop. Moving the 60 would not create a big coverage gap. Far from it.
“you could combine the 60 and streetcar for 6-minute frequency along Broadway”
You can’t do that when they stop at different stops, and the buses are unreliable so you don’t know whether a bus or streetcar will come next. I have my doubts about the streetcar’s unreliability too given how long I wait for it sometimes, but I’m not sure about that.
Al S.,
I see 13 minutes from Yesler/Broadway to Pike/Pine on the 60 versus 9 on the FHSC. Both routes share both stops, and that 4 minute gap is more representative of the difference the 60s diversion to 9th costs. Of course, the streetcar has its own diversion from Broadway to Jackson, but that’s a different topic.
And the issue is not traffic on 9th. It’s the cost of turns, slow (and frankly scary) routing around 9th and Yesler, and occasional traffic issues on Madison. 9th is basically traffic free for a inner Seattle street. The fact that the streetcar can crawl down Broadway 25% faster than the 60 can do it’s little dogleg on 9th is ridiculous.
The day I wrote this original comment, I walked the route instead of taking the bus back, and I made it all the way to Yesler (from Broadway/Pine) before a bus passed me. I had about a 7 minute scheduled head start, and it was Sunday afternoon without notable traffic. I’m almost 100% sure I could beat the 60 from Yesler to Madison if I walked on Broadway at a leisurely pace. We should have buses that run faster than that.
Seems the Crosslake 2 Line opening has been delayed again to 31 May 2026. Am I reading that right? https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/system-expansion-monthly-status-report-september.pdf
Somebody else said that in the 11/5 open thread. Nathan replied that a later progress report was released October 6th after the power wire was energized and integrated testing started, so that may allow the date to be moved forward again back to April or early May.
Thanks. The document I posted was from 11/7 so no change in the last two reports. At least it’s not getting worse.
The one you posted says “Reporting period September 2025” on the cover.
Yes but in typical ST fashion they are published two months later than the month on the cover. September was published on Friday. See archive: https://www.soundtransit.org/get-to-know-us/documents-reports/system-expansion-monthly-status-report
Let’s all hope it’s not that late, I really want the cross lake connection to open already, I asked an employee at ST if they are planning to accelerate the opening, and they told me they are leaning towards an “early 2026 opening”, but May 2026 is not early, so it MAY be earlier, not to mention they have already begun testing. Pre-revenue service has begun on the FWLE and wasn’t too long for the 1 Line extension north, so I’ll guess February 2026, they said they are going to do different types of testing every day, so I’ll guess pre-revenue will start in December, which will leave a mean opening of February or March, LLE pre revenue started June 2024, and FWLE started September 2025, so I might be accurate, which may mean full 2 Line February /March 2026…
Yay
Microsoft rto is February.
May is too late.
“Microsoft rto is February.”
How did people get to Microsoft before the pandemic? They can do that again until the full 2 Line opens. Those coming from Sammamish, downtown Redmond, or the densest parts of Bellevue can use the 2LSL, which is the same as what the full 2 Line would give them.
“How did people get to Microsoft before the pandemic?”
The Microsoft Connector is still far reduced compared to how it was pre-Covid. I haven’t heard of any plans to increase service.
Also, ST route 567 is dead; I haven’t heard of any plans to resurrect it.
“The Microsoft Connector is still far reduced compared to how it was pre-Covid. I haven’t heard of any plans to increase service.”
There’s three months until February. MS wouldn’t necessarily announce a detail like that now. Microsoft has been exceptionally strong in encouraging people to commute without an SOV, so I doubt it would reverse course now and try to fill the Redmond Tech P&R. And where else is there to park at Microsoft? Plus there’s a state law for large employers to have a commute-trip reduction plan, which means an SOV reduction plan.
> in typical ST fashion they are published two months later than the month on the cover
I think this misunderstands the timing of the reports. They summarize the work completed that month. ST typically gets the monthly reports out within 5-6 weeks of month end, which I think is fairly impressive as there are dozens of projects to update with charts, narratives, and other details.
Thanks Nathan. Looking through the history, it seems unlikely any date will move forward. They’ve only been going backward for the last year, and really three years.
January: 13 December 2025
February: 27 December 2025
March: 16 January 2026
April: 31 Jan 2026
May: 24 April 2026
June: 25 April 2026
July: 27 May 2026
August: 31 May 2026
September: 31 May 2026
Comparing the August and September reports, the systems integration testing and pre-revenue service dates have all pulled in significantly while project float for activation and startup has moved from 7 days to slightly over 2 months.
Sound Transit hasn’t committed to an earlier opening day yet, but the September progress report points to it trending significantly earlier than May 31st.
The revised contractual opening deadline is September 05, 2026. The May 31 opening date appears to be a carry-over from the August progress report, which showed the project timeline as finishing simulated service on May 30.
As we know, progress over the summer was complicated by uncertainties regarding when ST could turn on power in the overhead wire, which was finally allowed in September. So, the August progress report showed delays relative to the July report, but the September report shows recovery from those delays and indicates the project expects to achieve substantial completion of all systems by the end of the year. At that point, ST will begin operator familiarization, operational certification, and begin simulating service. As of the end of September, simulated service is expected to end on March 27, 2026, after a slim three months of operator training and regulatory approval.
While it’s possible the East Link integration testing/tweaking work could finish sooner than planned, ST is planning to install signal updates in the DSTT over three weekends in December, which is apparently necessary for reliable operation of both the 1 and 2 line through the tunnel at peak frequencies. With that in mind, I think it’s fairly certain we’re looking at a late March/early April opening.
It better open no later than April, preferably by February.
Pardon my ignorance, but did Sound Transit ever spend money on the RapidRide C and D Lines like they promised? I can only find this article from 2020 (https://www.theurbanist.org/2020/09/14/sound-transit-recommends-unpausing-10-projects-key-projects-remain-on-hold/) when it was still paused.
No, those projects were punted to “Tier 4” in the 2021 Realignment, to me means they were functionally cancelled.
https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2021/Resolution%20R2021-05-As%20Adopted%208-5-21.pdf
With so many Link openings that have happened or are scheduled, isn’t it time for better signage on the freeways to encourage Link use? There was often signage added to highlight suburban transit park-and-ride garages in the past I’ve not seen recent changes.
At the very least, WSDOT should be adding a light rail station logo and/or wording to fixed signs to announce the new stations.
I could also see usefulness for a few realtime electronic signs on freeways stating the amount of available parking in Link garages at strategic decision points too.
It’s one of those things that seems to be a gray area administratively. Who should be installing and maintaining the signs? Anyway, it seems to be needed yet I’m not seeing multi-agency advocacy for it. Is anything happening with this?
Parking numbers should be available online as well. The worst thing is showing up and not finding any parking. A major discourager in transit use on busy days.. by knowing if there is parking, educated decisions can be made about whether to drive the remaining length, take a bus, etc.