All about one-way streets. (City Beautiful)
Americans have gone crazy for self-storage units. (Wendover Productions)
This is the last of the movie backlog, so future Sunday Movies will depend on if I can find more relevant movies.
This is an open thread.
Reminder that Link is closed from Capital Hill to Stadium station for planned downtown tunnel work.
Again? FFS, that’s what, the third or fourth time this year?
I was glad to see that not all one way streets are bad. As a Ballard resident I’ve been saying that NW46th needs to be converted to one way westbound, through the Ballard blocks, using NW45th for eastbound and bike lanes.
My problem is the gridlock that occurs as people attempt left turns into the PCC/West Maring lot south of 46th, or the Trader Joes/LA Fitness garage north of 46th.
Simply banning left turns in that block would accomplish what I want, but the only way to stop driver behavior would be with physical curbs that i think would be bad in the already constrained space.
I think the author of the video missed the bigger point. Multiple lanes going the same direction are great on the freeway. But in town they are a menace. It doesn’t matter if it is a one-way street with two lanes or a four-lane street with two lanes each direction. Either way it is not good.
With that in mind, streets that are relatively narrow may be much better off as one-way (for general purpose cars). Your example is a good one. 45th is already one-way eastbound (and only one lane). There is a two-way set of protected bike lanes on that part of the street as well (as it is part of the Burke Gilman).
Likewise, your suggestion seems like a good one. With 45th eastbound, 46th could be westbound. Maybe between 11th and the merge with Shilshole. That would be consistent with 45th going the other direction. I would have it be one lane (with added parking, wider sidewalks or even a bike lane).
In other parts of the city I could see this as a way to add bus lanes. Pike and Pine are already one-way streets. We could add contraflow bus lanes and the buses would run a lot faster. A more radical approach could be taken on North 45th. It is a little tight to add BAT lanes (and general purpose traffic) both directions in Wallingford. What if 45th became one-way westbound (for cars) between Stone Way and 15th NE. On 45th you could have a BAT lane (westbound) and a contraflow bus lane (eastbound). Drivers heading eastbound would use 40th or 50th.
in town they are a menace. It doesn’t matter if it is a one-way street with two lanes or a four-lane street with two lanes each direction. Either way it is not good.
I vastly prefer Portland’s downtown grid of mostly one way streets to Salem’s downtown grid of mostly two way streets. Among other things, the one way streets help buses get around corners by not having so many interfering opposing lanes of traffic. The two way streets wind up being really wide for the number of actual traffic lanes due to turning lanes.
The video suggests that the main problem of one-way streets is the speed of traffic. There are ways to slow down traffic that don’t require converting one-way streets to two-way. For example, just remove the signals and have all-way stops every few blocks. So blaming one-way streets for faster traffic isn’t fair.
It also doesn’t call out that making traffic distances longer only for car drivers but not pedestrians is an incentive to walk! When I’ve visited SLO in a car, I know to just park once and leave my car — walking everywhere instead. It’s just easier and faster.
The video also ignores how one-way streets seem to be much better than an overly-wide two-way street. Needing to cross a street that’s 100 feet wide is scary and everyone else at the intersection has to wait for the pedestrian signal to count down. Crossing two streets at 50 feet each seems easier and streets feel less like rivers. So rather than assess whether a singular street is safer as one-way or two-way isn’t the right comparison. The comparison should instead be two one-way streets as a pair to a much wider stroad! If Second and Fourth Avenues Downtown were one very wide street instead of two, it would be a massive safety problem!
The Louisville example is particularly silly. I’ve lived there. The lower income areas with more one-way streets always had very small homes — and mostly developed before autos were even running on the streets. The one-way streets did not create a poorer neighborhood; it was originally built to be a poorer neighborhood.
And this reflects a problem with a dogmatic anti-one way street crusade. It’s often gleefully and broadly blamed for outcomes that it didn’t cause or perpetrate.
The video also ignores how one-way streets seem to be much better than an overly-wide two-way street.
Huh? Width has nothing to do with whether a street is one-way or two-way. Unless, of course you have a street like 45th (the one William mentioned) that is so narrow (and has bike lanes on it) that it can only support one general purpose lane. But a two-lane one-way road is bound to be worse (for pedestrians) then a two-lane two-way road.
“The video also ignores how one-way streets seem to be much better than an overly-wide two-way street.
“Huh? Width has nothing to do with whether a street is one-way or two-way. ”
If you can’t understand a basic concept that a one-way couplet offers the same traffic flow purpose as one two-way street I can’t help you, Ross.
“But a two-lane one-way road is bound to be worse (for pedestrians) then a two-lane two-way road.”
That’s assuming a major lane capacity reduction. That’s different than going from one-way to two-way.
And consider that having two lanes in one direction provides an opportunity for one of the lanes to be converted to a bus-only lane. Downtown Portland’s light rail and streetcar network could not function like it does without one-way couplets.
Have at it, horde!
https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/11/14/build-the-damn-trains-campaign-pushes-sound-transit/
I think we’ve already discussed it. It really can be summed up with one line uttered by supporters:
delay will ultimately make those projects more expensive.
Bullshit! It doesn’t matter whether we start tomorrow, next week or two years from now. We can’t afford to actually built it quickly, if at all. It isn’t permitting that is the issue, it is the cost of the projects.
Imagine you want to a buy house. It costs a million dollars. You make 50 grand a year. There is all sorts of paperwork involved. It takes time to fill out that paperwork. But that isn’t the problem! The problem is you simply can’t afford it. Even if you got a loan at 5% (good luck with that) you would have to spend all of your salary just to pay the interest. You need more money or you need to buy something much cheaper.
Packer does a good job of explaining this. Unfortunately people just assume the problem is “The Seattle process” and our inability to cut through the red tape. It isn’t. It is the money.
Another quote:
Nearly a decade after this region approved Sound Transit 3, transit riders deal with unreliable and infrequent busses.
Agreed. So maybe instead of spending billions on the trains (that will only benefit a handful of people) we should spend money on the buses (that will benefit a lot more). This idea that the only way to have good transit in the city is with trains is complete bullshit. It also means that most of the city is screwed even if we built everything in ST3. In contrast if we did the opposite (and put our money into buses instead of trains) then everyone has better transit. Most of West Seattle would be better off than they would be with West Seattle Link. A few people living close to the station would be better off with the train but they would still benefit with faster connections to Link and more frequent service to downtown (and other parts of West Seattle) if we built this sort of thing: https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/06/07/west-seattle-by-bus-instead-of-light-rail/. Ballard riders would stand to benefit more but bus improvements could make a huge difference. For example, imagine center running bus lanes for the D through Ballard all the way to Uptown with a stop under the Dravus overpass. From Uptown to Downtown the buses would travel in BAT lanes and a transit mall (on Third). Now run the 15 and 18 all day long (every fifteen minutes).
I’m not saying that is what we should do. While I don’t think West Seattle Link is a worthy project I think Ballard Link has merit (especially if it is built as an automated line). But my point is if we spent a bunch of money making the buses faster and more frequent the city would have much better transit than if we blow it all on lines that aren’t likely to improve transit for that many people.
I believe the 15 and 18 are both long gone. I remember when each had both a local an an express but the 17 is the only thing left.seems like another set of lousy decisions.
They are gone because Metro has no money. Seattle has no money. If ST gave Metro money to run buses to Ballard (as compensation for abandoning Ballard Link) then they could run those all day. They would perform reasonably well compared to most buses. Otherwise it is really hard to make the case for Ballard Link.
Seattle is one of the richest cities in the entire world. It has plenty of money. It collects too little, and spends much of what it does collect poorly.
“Seattle is one of the richest cities in the entire world. It has plenty of money. It collects too little, and spends much of what it does collect poorly.”
Seattle area actually has the highest transit spending per capita in the US at some point due to ST3. If you compare with other US cities, it does spend a lot more.
Low bar.
“delay will ultimately make those projects more expensive.” — “We can’t afford to actually built it quickly, if at all.”
““We want them to get more financial tools at the legislature, be able to be more flexible with the financial resources that they have.”
Translation: raise the debt ceiling, allow ST more taxes. That’s how they get it built now.
I have no idea what “be more flexible with the financial resources they have now” means.
The political risk of doubling ST taxes inside Seattle to raise the money needed for West Seattle and Ballard is that it reopens the debate about whether the investment is productive or not.
Of course, if ST applies the ST3 funds to build West Seattle, the pitch to Seattle voters that the added taxes and fees are needed to build to SLU and Seattle Center can be more easily made to voters.
Regardless, the pitch to raise more money seems in the cards. And it looks like it will be exclusively applied to Seattle only.
A tax placed only inside Seattle would of course raise another unspoken but major issue — control. Imagine the discussions if the taxes could be used for any transit or any transportation rather than be given to ST to do what they want!
“every time our projects are delayed further, it makes it harder for Pierce Transit to do what they need to do to offer good local service or to ask the voters for more funding to provide better local service”
Ahem!!! It doesn’t have anything to do with Pierce Transit offering better local service or asking voters for more funding to do it. PT has had the opportunity to do that ever since the PT service area shrank in the 2010s, and it still hasn’t done it.
While I agree that they should max out their taxing authority to increase span and frequency, you can’t deny that the uncertainly around regional transit affects decision making at the local level.
If Pierce isn’t sure whether ST is going to fund 15 minute service to FW, should they allocate scarce dollars to boost the 500?
Is ST going to subsidize BRT to connect to their incredibly poor choice of terminating in the Dome wasteland?
Are they going to cancel the streetcar to TCC?
All this matters both on a planning level, but more importantly as something that Pierce can point to as justification that transit actually works.
If Sound Transit doesn’t follow through on it’s promises they’ve been making to Pierce for 20 years, or at least complete enough of them to help riders in Pierce in a fundamental way, it will destroy any belief that transit can be useful, and will almost certainly salt the fields for any transit measure on the ballot going forward.
PT has some seventeen routes that should double in frequency. Only three of those are in the ST corridors you mention. The 500 serves a different transit market from the 574 because it makes local stops.
Interesting Sunday for ST so far. Rhete qas a planned suspension between CHS and stadium already. Then due the usual “power issues” the suspension apparwntly got extended north up into shoreline for a time. I guess back to normal now but a good day to not be trying to use link as recovery usually takes awhile
Here are my fixing ideas for ST3 as this is an open thread, inspired by another post:
1. No Ballard or West Seattle Link Expansions
These are the most expensive and most useless projects of ST3, they overlap the C and D lines, which could use improvements that light rail can offer, such as center running BRT lanes, and better stations. Here’s what these two areas offer:
– West Seattle offers high frequency buses, C Line, H Line, and Water Taxi.
– Ballard offers high frequency buses, and the D Line.
I propose this:
Add infill stations on Sounder N Line (which could use some ridership), the one time I rode the latter, it did have good ridership, though there’s always room for improvement. The specific stations are Everett Junction, Meadowdale, give Edmonds a second platform, Richmond Beach, Blue Ridge, Ballard, Interbay, Elliot Bay, Seattle Waterfront, Symphony, and Pioneer Square. Like why build a second tunnel when you can add stations to the one you have? You can save as much as a few billions with this project, making up the money saved for more Sounder cars, because you’ll need to run the Sounder every 6 minutes, it may be hard but I bet ST can do it. This way you can save money by cancelling Ballard Link for more Sounder service. Still no trains to West Seattle. With this idea you can save 30+ billion dollars. Keep the N Line with 4 cars.
2. For now, don’t extend light rail to Everett or Tacoma, keep the 1 Line running between Lynnwood and Federal Way, as I don’t want to include anything extra projects that aren’t included in ST3, we’ll keep it how it is. Also keep the 2 Line how it’s planned between Lynnwood and Redmond.
3. Truncate the Sounder S Line at Tacoma Dome, and work with Pierce Transit to make a Stream BRT line serving Tacoma Dome, South Tacoma, and Lakewood along the highway. Continue express buses between DuPont, Lakewood, Tacoma, Federal Way, and Seattle for now, make sure they run frequently. To make it up, run the S Line every 6 minutes (like the N Line) like how the 1 Line is planned to run between Ballard and Tacoma to make it up. Add infill stations on the S Line at SoDo Central, Georgetown, Duwamish (S Boeing Access Rd), rename Tukwila to Orilla, Algona/Pacific, Lakeland Hills, and possibly the Puyallup Reservation, as frequencies increase to 6 minutes and full time service is given like the N Line, there is no need to add more cars or make platforms longer (saving money again).
4. No I-405 BRT, this means no Stride 1, or Stride 2. Instead, work with WSDOT to invest in an ROW along I-405 for future light rail use, for now improve the frequencies on the 535 and 560. With money saved, right now I bet we can have Stride 3 not go on 98th, 185th, and Beardslee, but stay on Woodinville Dr from 98th to Bothell/Woodinville TC (aka possibly the new UWB/CC Transit hub), this would serve Bothell P&R to improve commuting, and not overlap the Swift Green Line extension, also to not disturb residents along this corridor with crazy redevelopment projects, also Shoreline South/148th isn’t a good terminus for BRT, extend the Stride 3 along Lake City Way to Roosevelt, saving costs on King County Metro, and increasing the ridership, also add center running lanes throughout the corridor, as Community Transit discovered that the latter is half the cost of curbside (which Stride is doing), Stride should look into this.
Recap:
TACOMA DOME LINK: Cancelled to improve Sounder S Line, improve buses.
WEST SEATTLE LINK: Cancelled to avoid redundancy, improve buses.
BALLARD LINK/DSTT 2: Cancelled to improve Sounder N Line.
EVERETT LINK: Cancelled to avoid restructuring Rainier Valley, improve buses.
4 LINE: Cheap, but to avoid anything extra, rule this out for now.
S LINE CAPACITY/EXTENSION: Truncate at Tacoma to improve buses, and increase frequencies rather than adding more cars.
So, estimate how much ST will save, I don’t see ST4 happening at the status quo due to rising costs on ST3. ST4 can be once money is saved, and we can vote on projects to DuPont, Issaquah Highlands, Mukilteo, Everett, Burien, a SR 520 light rail, and I-405 light rail.
I think every-six-minute Sounder is a lovely idea at least within Seattle, but would BNSF allow that? Even during peak hours?
I don’t think you’ll get Pierce to go for that, because they asked for a light rail line connecting downtown Tacoma to the airport.
William C: That’s the problem, though I think further cooperation is needed between BNSF and ST. They however are managing to operate trains every 4 minutes in Seattle, I presume the track switching will be automated, I think there is going to be some day where a train switches to the wrong track, and has to delay the trip.
Glenn in Portland: But they voted no on ST3, plus why not just run BRT along 99? Or express buses, or transferring, you get plenty of options
Pierce County voted against ST3. Hard to say what they want.
You can ask the Pierce politicians on the ST Board, because that is how our democracy works.
“But they voted no on ST3, plus why not just run BRT along 99?”
That’s a corollary of the legal system: even if they voted no, they still pay the taxes, so ST has to treat them equally. It could replace Pierce with BRT for transit or ridership or cost reasons, but not because they voted no.
A few things:
Ballard Link is arguably the only Link extension that has merit. The corridor has more people traveling along it than the other corridors slated for Link expansion. A train would be significantly faster than a bus for a lot of trips. You have a combination of urban destinations (e. g. Ballard to Uptown, Interbay to Denny) that just don’t exist with any of the light rail extensions.
Sounder North performs horribly. By my estimate the subsidy per rider is about $100 now. Adding infill stations along the way would help a little bit but other than Belltown there isn’t much potential. Even for Dravus it doesn’t really work because it doesn’t work as a feeder system (because it isn’t frequent). With Ballard Link you could send all the Magnolia buses to the UW (via SPU and Fremont). Link is frequent enough that you can expect everyone to transfer. But Sounder can’t possibly be that frequent. Remember, since we don’t own the tracks the cost per train goes up, not down. Ridership per train goes does. Run the trains more often and the subsidies per rider get into the hundreds of dollars.
We are much better going the other direction. Everett has express buses to downtown. Everett and Mukilteo already have express buses to Lynnwood. Edmonds is the only place where North Sounder offers a substantial improvement over bus service. The answer is to run express buses from Edmonds to 185th Station and cancel North Sounder.
work with WSDOT to invest in an ROW along I-405 for future light rail use
Sorry, that’s ridiculous. It makes no sense as a light rail corridor. It would cost a fortune, get very few riders and save them very little time compared to bus service. Before you come close to even considering light rail you should max out the buses and we only have a handful on there right now. You are way better off running a bunch of overlapping express buses to Downtown Bellevue and other destinations like the UW. For example: Woodinville to Bellevue, Auburn to Bellevue, SeaTac to Bellevue, UW to UW Bothell, Juanita and Downtown Kirkland to Bellevue.
I bet we can have Stride 3 not go on 98th, 185th, and Beardslee, but stay on Woodinville Dr from 98th to Bothell/Woodinville TC (aka possibly the new UWB/CC Transit hub)
That would be backwards. There are way more potential riders on Beardlee and the campus itself than Woodinville Drive. Either way it will end at the 522/405 hub.
extend the Stride 3 along Lake City Way to Roosevelt
and the UW. As sensible as that would be, it just isn’t going to happen. It wouldn’t save any money. Most of the cost of these “BRT” projects are for new electric buses, a new depot and extremely expensive work on the various roads. For example on SR-522 they want keep an exclusive turn lane, so they will spend over half a billion making the road a little bit wider. There are alternatives (https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/09/13/fixing-stride-3/) and that should be the focus (for now) as opposed to changing the routing.
Other than that, your ideas are sensible. Basically just skip most of what is in ST3 and put the money into buses. I still think we should add rail in this city but the plans are so poorly constructed it is quite likely that if we just shift the money to buses it will be much better.
There may be express buses to Link for Sounder North, but all of those options are still slower than Sounder North for trips to downtown Seattle. Eg: Mukilteo to Seattle by bus to Link takes 1 1/2 hours. Sounder takes 45 minutes.
I’m not saying it’s a great value in its current form, but anything that makes travel times that much better than the other options needs to be better utilized.
@Glenn in Portland, it takes an hour and a half tonight, when Link is closed downtown. On other days, it takes an hour and 17 minutes from Mukilteo Station to International District / Chinatown Station.
That’s still a lot more than Sounder… but is it enough more to spend a lot of money on that particular trip? When most people are actually coming from uphill of Mukilteo Station, and going north of International District Station, making the bus+Link trip faster at both ends?
I’m talking about normal schedules:
35 minutes from Mukilteo to Lynnwood on #117, 50 minutes by Link from Lynnwood to CID, include average 5 minutes trek from the 117 stop to Link, and that’s 1 1/2 hours normal schedule.
It’s much better than the two hour + undertaking it used to be, but still not great.
As I said, it’s not a great value, but with that type of travel time advantage it should be better utilized.
I’ve been told by a transit advocate in Germany that something like Sounder (either north or south) would actually be considered a criminal waste of money in Germany, because if you have invested that much money in infrastructure it needs to be used all day.
Obviously, all day Sounder North on the current route isn’t possible. I see them as being much better utilized, however, if they were extended to Bellingham. In reality, these are probably half and half state trains vs Snohomish County anyway, as people from further north use the park and ride lot at Everett and people from Whidbey Island and Kitsap County use the ferries to get to it.
So, the idea would be to better utilize the money spent by running the trains a greater distance. The crews are already being paid for 8 hours work even though they only operate the trains for 2 hours. The stations are already open (eg, Bellingham opens at 6:30 am). The blocked out hours on the main line already exist due to Sounder (eg, they can’t operate a Vancouver – Interbay freight train because Sounder occupies the Everett – Interbay section of line already).
So, you might as well utilize the entire section of line and crew hours purchased to operate Sounder North to the fullest extent possible.
The last several times I looked at trying to get from Seattle to Mt Vernon, the Amtrak trains were sold out. So it seems like there’s demand there that isn’t being met by other options. When I took Amtrak from Mt Vernon to Portland in September, the Thruway buses north of Seattle were operating an hour + late due to I-5 congestion, and Amtrak crews couldn’t get to their trains either. I was supposed to leave Mt Vernon at 2:30 pm and the bus didn’t get to the Amtrak station until nearly 4, and due to crews not being able to get to their trains the final southbound train didn’t leave until around 10. I didn’t get to Portland until 2:30 am the next day.
Link has many issues, but it’s about the only reliable thing north of downtown Seattle. Somehow, the HOV lanes south of Seattle seem to work vastly better than those on the north side.
So, getting a faster and more reliable alternative seems like it would be extremely helpful for an awful lot of people. I only suffer through it a couple times a year these days, but the people who must go through that mess every day have a real quality of life impact.
Sure, that might not be possible either, but you’ll never know if you don’t study it and find out.
@Glenn in Portland, but Link from Lynnwood to CID is scheduled at only 36 minutes?
When I looked it up with the departure time set for Monday morning Google maps told me 50 minutes. If it’s only 35 minutes then it should be a great improvement over what it was like the last time I tried it.
It’s still 75 minutes vs 45 minutes though.
Mukilteo to Seattle by bus to Link takes 1 1/2 hours. Sounder takes 45 minutes.
And it takes less than forty minutes by car. Using your logic they should run an express bus from the ferry dock to Seattle (timed with the ferry) — all day long. But why stop there? There are dozens of potential express services that would save riders a lot of time. Lake City to Downtown Bellevue. Downtown Kirkland to the UW. Ballard to Lake City.
But you have to consider the cost per rider. That is the problem with North Sounder. It doesn’t get many riders and it costs a fortune. The buses — that have the audacity to stop along the way and pick up more riders — are a much better value. It just doesn’t make sense to spend so much money giving a handful of riders a faster trip.
Oh, and your time estimates are not quite correct. At 7:30 am it takes an hour and twenty minutes to get from Mukilteo to Westlake (https://maps.app.goo.gl/PMNVVuowwgxBuZ6X7). To get to Westlake by Sounder takes an hour and seven minutes — so a savings of 13 minutes. To get to the UW it is faster to take the bus and Link. So depending on where in Seattle you are headed, the bus and Link is faster. It is really only a big time savings if you are headed to the south end of Downtown.
I’m sure it is also one of the most scenic commutes in the area. The view from the train is spectacular. But that doesn’t mean it is a good value.
Ross, there’s also the 909 from Edmonds to Mountlake Terrace which is just an express version of the 130 and not replacing the 416 that much.
So, getting a faster and more reliable alternative seems like it would be extremely helpful for an awful lot of people.
No, it wouldn’t. That is the point. North Sounder picked up an average of 457 riders a day last month. It runs four times a day during peak (each direction). This is the only time that driving (in the single occupancy lanes) along I-5 north of Northgate is congested. At noon it isn’t congested. The reverse commute isn’t congested*. The train happens to run at the one time of day (and direction) that there is significant congestion. And yet each train averages less than 60 riders. Run those trains all day long and you definitely get more riders. But you also get fewer riders per train.
But assume you don’t. Assume that ridership per train stays steady no matter how many extra trips the train makes. Now increase the number or trains from four each direction to forty. It would be massively expensive and it is still less than 5,000 riders. Realistically you are looking at maybe one or two thousand — less than most Metro buses.
*I’m retired and do a lot of hiking and cross-country skiing. When I go north on a weekday morning (using the 145th on-ramp) there is very little congestion. Likewise when I do the opposite in the evening it isn’t bad until you get to Northgate (which I’m lucky enough to avoid). If I have someone else in the car (and can travel the HOV lanes) it is very smooth sailing.
Ross, there’s also the 909 from Edmonds to Mountlake Terrace which is just an express version of the 130 and not replacing the 416 that much.
The routing and frequency of the 909 is flawed. It is timed with the ferry. This is great for the 117 (serving Mukilteo) because the ferry runs every half hour. It means people in Mukilteo as well as those in the Alderwood area have consistent, half hour service. But the ferry from Edmonds to Kingston runs less frequently and is not as consistent. Thus riders in Edmonds have infrequent and inconsistent service to Link. Edmonds has higher ridership potential as well since Edmonds itself is a lot more urban and closer to Seattle. The routing is flawed because it connects to Mountlake Terrace not 185th Station. Instead of turning north as it reaches SR-99 it should head south. Doing so would save riders a significant amount of time if they are taking Link to the south (which is highly likely). In King County I would stop once at 200th and then just run express to the station.
This should be an ST bus (it crosses the county line). It would have plenty of stops in Edmonds but it would still be express by nature. The route is straightforward once you serve the central part of Edmonds (https://maps.app.goo.gl/6quYPtN1rBiEfsTy5). There would be plenty of stops in Edmonds but only a handful once you get on SR-104. I’m not saying it should skip stops (that would only happen in King County) but there just aren’t that many bus stops along that highway. It should be a fast, frequent express run by Sound Transit.
It would also make the 909 obsolete. The bus would cover all of the unique stops — other Community Transit buses cover the rest of them. This would allow CT to put money into running other buses more often.
That is the problem with North Sounder. It doesn’t get many riders and it costs a fortune. The buses — that have the audacity to stop along the way and pick up more riders — are a much better value.
Areas of Europe where transit usage forms a significant portion of trips taken didn’t get there by local buses alone. They had to have something faster that made service competitive with driving.
It’s obvious under the current circumstances you can’t operate Sounder North the way you would a regional train system.
But that’s why extending it to Bellingham would help. Amtrak is already sold out for many of those trips, at far higher fares than Sounder, and doesn’t really operate at peak. I don’t see how that indicates a lack of passenger demand.
Areas of Europe where transit usage forms a significant portion of trips taken didn’t get there by local buses alone.
Citation please. It is generally well established that Europe has better buses than they have in the United States. But somehow they aren’t using them? Seriously, are you not aware of the superior city buses *and* regional buses in Europe?
Let’s just back up here. European cities leveraged the trains in areas where it made sense to leverage them. The cities — even small ones — were often centered around the railways. In contrast, a typical American city is sprawling. This is true of Bellingham as well as every city between Seattle and Vancouver. If you doubt this assertion let me know. Better yet, get on Google maps and actually look at the cities. Here is a hint: Bellingham is roughly the same size as Hildesheim. Now look at the maps. Striking, right? Belllingham looks like a tiny town in comparison. This matters.
But there are other issues. Quite often — as in Germany — the state owns the railways. We don’t own the railroad.
Then there is the fact that even when you do everything really well and have bullet trains connecting to high density, strongly-centered cities, not that many ride long distances. The Shinkasen set the record for high-speed train ridership. Of course it did. They have extremely fast trains connecting to very urban cities. Yet various subway systems within Japan carry way more riders. Way more people are traveling within a city than between them.
That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to have good Amtrak service between Vancouver and Seattle as described here: https://www.aawa.us/site/assets/files/7322/2006_washington_state_long-range_plan_for_amtrak_cascades.pdf. Of course some of those trains will stop in Everett and Bellingham along the way. Amtrak could just take over North Sounder (sounds good to me). But that doesn’t mean that train trips between Everett and Seattle will suddenly be a good value. Amtrak already accepts the fact that it will subsidize many riders to a ridiculous amount. Why the hell should ST do the same? Because we suddenly have this fantasy that we are Europe? Get real.
Note use of word “alone”
Note use of word “alone”
I noted it before I wrote my rebuttal. I also noted the next sentence:
They had to have something faster that made service competitive with driving.
Yet a bus is faster than Sounder! You get that, right? As I right this — 8:10 in the morning — it takes 35 minutes to drive from downtown Seattle to Everett Station. It takes an hour by train. The only time the train is actually competitive with a bus is when North Sounder already runs. And yet it only carries a handful of people. The 510 carried over 1,100 riders last month. North Sounder (which also serves Mukilteo and Edmonds) carried less than 500. If we really wanted to make travel between Seattle and Everett faster we would just run the 510 all day long. It would be faster and cheaper to operate. Should we do this? No, of course not. It just isn’t a good a value.
Yet it is still a much better value than North Sounder. North Sounder is a very expensive, niche service that benefits only a handful of riders. I’m sure the riders enjoy it very much. The view is fantastic. There is lots of room to spread out. You could probably find enough space to have a Zoom meeting (without disturbing other riders) while heading to work. But it just isn’t a good value.
Ross,
I believe the 909 should also be an express ST bus, here’s my proposal, as I think that Shoreline North/185th Station is a weak terminal, and is better off by taking a Edmonds bus to Aurora Village, and transferring to the Blue:
I’ll number this route the 521, it would start at Edmonds Station, but not go on Dayton or 5th, but run on Edmonds Way (Hwy 104) straightforward from the western terminus to 15th Ave NE, where it would deviate to Mountlake Terrace TC (like the 331), then go back down 19th to Hwy 104, then continue east to Lake Forest Park, then it would turn east (again) towards Kenmore, and Bothell, following the 522, and making a great 331 replacement, this would run frequently all-day to make 7-8 minute frequencies along Bothell Way from Lake Forest Park to UWB/CC. Now what’s the aftermath of the 331? Well, you can either truncate east to Aurora Village (and become a peak DART route), or you can eliminate it as the Hillwood area has terrible ridership, I swear the times I’ve tooken it in the latter area I was the only one, no wonder Metro tried to remove bus service in this area back in the early phases of Lynnwood Link Connections. Feedback is welcome, this is just my version of Ross’s proposal.
Coverage:
The 112 would extend from Mountlake Terrace TC west to Edmonds, it would continue on 236th (which becomes Ballinger Dr/228th), then turn on 95th south, then on Hwy 104 west, it would overlap the 521, but go on 5th and Dayton (like the old 909).
So many things to unpack with your suggestion. I’ll try and break it down:
it would start at Edmonds Station, but not go on Dayton or 5th, but run on Edmonds Way (Hwy 104)
That puts it in the middle of ferry traffic. There are also very few potential stops there (it is largely greenbelt). You are bypassing the denser parts of Edmonds — the whole point of the line. Sorry, but no. This is the part of the 909 they got right. Run on Fifth. That is where the people are.
straightforward from the western terminus to 15th Ave NE, where it would deviate to Mountlake Terrace TC (like the 331)
That is throwing the bus into freeway traffic and again, very little potential ridership along the way. I don’t think you would be able to connect to Swift Blue or the 101. I don’t see how you can add many stops. You are pretty much stuck with the existing stops along the county line and very few people use those stops. The stop at 205th & 1st Avenue NE gets an average of 1 rider a day. Yep, just one.
This also means you miss the connection to RapidRide E. North Shoreline is not a great station but then neither is Mountlake Terrace. The big difference is that connection to RapidRide E.
then go back down 19th to Hwy 104 then continue east to Lake Forest Park, then it would turn east (again) towards Kenmore, and Bothell, following the 522, and making a great 331 replacement, this would run frequently all-day to make 7-8 minute frequencies along Bothell Way from Lake Forest Park to UWB/CC.
The 331 performs very poorly. Running buses every 7-8 along the corridor would be a huge waste of money. There just aren’t that many people trying to get from Kenmore or Lake Forest Park to Edmonds. They can transfer. I suppose you could replace this part of the 331 but that is basically a gift to Metro. The whole idea is to give Edmonds (and in turn Community Transit) something to compensate them for the loss of North Sounder. Allowing Metro to replace part of the 331 would be silly. Meanwhile, Metro still has to backfill the rest of the 331. So while Metro could save some service they are still running buses from Mountlake Terrace to Shoreline College (and thus doubling up on the very unproductive county-line section).
Sorry but I don’t see it. If we insist on sending the bus to Mountlake Terrace than the easy thing to do is run the 909 more often. Just run it every fifteen minutes. It is a bit slower than using 185th but not horribly so. At least then you have the connection to Swift (although it would be better to connect to both RapidRide E and Swift Blue). Either way you have the connection to Lake Forest Park and Kenmore (via the 331). I could easily see Metro giving money to CT after ending North Sounder and CT just doing that.
The cancellations are great. The extra service on Sounder is stark raving lunacy.
The big capital spend for 405 BRT (85th & 44th interchange rebuilds, new bus base) have mostly been spent, particularly with the 522 ROW work currently going out to bid. If you want to propose an alternative operating pattern, fine, but “cancelling” generates negligible savings at this point. Might as well leverage what has been built.
[Accusation without saying what they’re against.]
Thinking through Scooby Doo’s Sounder North plan, does anyone know the maximum design capacity of the Great Northern Tunnel, in terms of trains per hour? And how much of that is BNSF currently using? I’m wondering how many trains could be accommodated in theory, assuming the rest of the track was there.
It’s a double track line with 3+ tracks north and south of it. I think your biggest problem is platform capacity and turning trains at King Street Station itself. You need at least 10 minutes or so to turn a train under FRA brake test requirements.
It’d be helpful if Amtrak and Sounder weren’t such segregated services, because otherwise you could move Sounder South to platforms further west.
Coordination with Amtrak & Sounder is probably the easiest part of that plan.
Does anybody know why Sound Transit scrapped a light rail line between Snohomish and Renton that was included in the ST2 package? I really would have liked that, but sometimes things just don’t go the way we want. I feel like they should reconsider it.
ST2 had a feasibility study for Renton-Bellevue Link, not construction. The study concluded there’s not enough ridership potential currently but there might be in the future. That’s why ST went with Stride in ST3, to give Renton something in the interim, that would also prebuild ridership for a Link line and prove whether it’s feasible in the future or not.
I don’t recall ST ever planning to study Lynnwood-Bellevue light rail. That’s something in the theoretical far future. ST looked at some cross-lake scenaris for Kirkland, such as a 520 or Sand Point crossing, or a UW-Bothell-Kirkland line. They didn’t proceed as far as a study if I remember.
Mike. What I meant by Snohomish is the city, not the county.
I thought that at first but then I thought you can’t mean that because Snohomish city is too small and outside the ST district. You also didn’t clarify you meant heavy rail rather than Link. ST studied heavy rail on the ERC from Renton north to somewhere — it can’t have been all the way to Snohomish because ST doesn’t have authority there. It found there wouldn’t be enough ridership.
In the USA, “light rail” includes a lot of different things.
In Europe you’ll see cars that are basically diesel versions of Link cars operating on that type of corridor every half hour, and getting decent ridership. Under European conditions it winds up being cheaper than a bus because it’s faster (fewer operating hours required) and they pay incremental costs for use of the track.
Here, this would be “light rail” because the car design is incompatible with FRA regulations. In the few operations where this is done, there is a procedure to safely convert the line from “light rail” to “freight rail” and back. New Jersey’s RIVERLine is one of the few examples in the USA.
It would be difficult to make it work well in most places in the USA. Renton – Bellevue – Kirkland might work, but even in downtown Renton there’s a lot of parking, making it difficult for everything to be walking distance to the line. Bellevue would obviously be the best city on the line, but maybe not because the line only skirts the edge of the dense areas. It’d need to have good transfers, so you’d need to build a section over to Bellevue Transit Center at least, and if possible really extend it into downtown Bellevue proper, then you’d have to swing it back over to the old line somehow.
At the Snohomish end, while the downtown area is a nice, walkable shopping and dining area, it doesn’t seem to have that many residents within walking distance of the line. You’d also have to restore the railroad bridge, and that would not be cheap. Snohomish has sprawled a lot towards the highways, and so you’d need to figure out how to serve places like that which are far from the line.
Snohomish really isn’t the ideal end point either. You’d get a lot better bi-directional traffic if it went to Everett. That will be expensive because, unlike Europe where what we call “light rail cars” meet UIC requirements for operating on the main line, in the USA they don’t.
All of this on a line where freight traffic has mostly left, so you’d no longer be splitting right of way maintenance costs with a freight operator as frequently done with this type of local line in Europe. All those fixed costs are now yours alone.
I think such operations have a fair amount of potential in the Puget Sound area, but I’m not sure you could make this one work well under the circumstances.
It would be difficult to make it work well in most places in the USA.
Exactly. It works well in Europe for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is that the cities and towns are just a lot more dense and they tend to be built around the railroad station. The differences are often dramatic. I think this would make an interesting quiz for Europeans: Show them an aerial and street view of the area close to a station. Make the circle small enough so that they can’t see the sprawl but big enough to get an idea of the area (maybe a half mile radius). Then have them guess how many people live in the city. Most people would guess much lower than the number that actually live there. Places like Auburn and Kent seem like towns of maybe ten thousand (if that). They would just assume that another couple miles out — in every direction — there would be farms or forests. Instead we have miles and miles of low-density housing.
It is not like they don’t have sprawl in Europe — they just have a lot less of it. The sprawling areas are better served with buses (both here and there). Likewise there are some cities and towns in the U. S. that have European density. Most of these are in the East Coast (they are old cities that grew up before the automobile) but Davis is an interesting example. If you look at the area close to the train station it is similar to a European city of the same size. Maybe not quite as dense but similar. It also has the “hard edges” that are common in Europe. It isn’t hard to see why the Davis Station gets over 10% of the ridership of the Capitol Corridor (CC) train line. I can’t find daily ridership for the CC train line but before the pandemic it has 1.8 millions riders for the year. That works out to around 5,000 riders a day (most likely a bit more on weekdays and a bit less on the weekend). So somewhere between 500 and 1,000 riders a day from Davis which is probably very good for a city its size (in America). Of course it also helps to have the college there.
The biggest reason is that the cities and towns are just a lot more dense and they tend to be built around the railroad station.
There’s actually some really lightly populated lines in Europe that have this type of service. Snohomish actually has a pretty nice walkable downtown.
Everett and Renton are another matter, and Bellevue has its walkable density in the wrong spot.
The thing that makes a huge difference is not being able to operste with a single operator and use light weight equipment in intermixed service on lines with occasional freight trains. With those characteristics, it basically becomes a bus with dedicated right of way paid for by freight traffic.
Passenger service in the USA would look vastly different if it were possible to operate with that level of costs.
“The biggest reason is that the cities and towns are just a lot more dense and they tend to be built around the railroad station.”
I think a bigger cultural influence is the Europe was settled for centuries in villages with empty fields in between — and farm workers lived in villages and went out to farm. Part of that was due to property ownership mainly held by their version of royalty. As European places grew, the culture of living in vllages and dense cities remained.
The US was settled with people living on family farms, and suburbia was promoted as the illusion of living more rurally. Much of the area east of the Mississippi River was divided up by 1850 when the railroads started to evolve.
Certainly railroads and cars influenced development. But the kernel of a village life versus a farm life was in place before the railroads.
Cities in the USA looked like that until mass automobile ownership, and subsidy of roads.
European cities were on the way to looking like those in the USA, but it was decided by many cities this was a terrible idea. It took a lot of work to turn it around.
I think it was Hamburg in the 1960s that started the move away from the developing problematic auto dominated cities.
Do you mean the Woodinville Subdivision? (Referred to within the ST area as the ERC – Eastside Rail Corridor)
Yes, Jim
Opinion: Eastside BNSF Commuter Rail is Dead – Seattle Transit Blog
Studying and comparing it to the STRide option when the corridor’s FEIS was being developed at the turn of the century was nixed by the City of Renton.
NIMBY politics at work.
That shipped as sailed. With the expansion of 405 and built of Eastrail, there is no “free” ROW available between Renton and Bellevue. This is different than Bellevue to Kirkland, where the ROW is wide enough to accommodate rail/bus in addition to a wide multiuse path.
Reasonable people can disagree, but I think the region made the right choice. The 405 corridor is properly a bus corridor, not rail, and with the 405 HOT expansion overwhelmingly funded by gas tax & tolls, not transit funds, the Stride projects are billions less than building out even the most limited rail line on the eastside. Given the narrow corridor, winding pathway, and suburban land use, the ERC’s best use is as a multiuse path, aside from some short overlap in Bellevue.
Why isn’t the ERC being used for BRT throughout the corridor?
Breaking up the ERC is the most short-sighted anti-transit decision I’ve ever witnessed, and it was based solely on the influence of privileged NIMBYs.
I’m more curious why the anti-rail folks on rhe eastside aren’t banging a bigger drum celebrating their victory that they killed it?
You can’t look at the PSRC/Sound Transit report, and compare it to the current STRide project, especially when comparing costs and ridership and make the claim BRT is superior. (The one place BRT fits is between Totem Lake and Swamp Creek) Commuter rail on the ERC could have been up and running the soonest.
Know thy place in society, and live with the decisions.
I, for one, am happy to pay extra in taxes so the privileged can be protected from the unwashed masses by demanding and getting lids (at twice the cost per lane as tunneling):
Mercer Island, Montlake, and Medina, to name a few,.
The privileged who must endure trains in their backyard deserve relief too.
“…, the Stride projects are billions less than building out even the most limited rail line on the eastside.”
To paraphrase Cousin Vinny…
That statement is incorrect!
OK, so you want the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train, but running all day service? Wasn’t that a single track corridor? From I can tell, it would have been like running Sounder North, if ST owned the single track ROW but the bridge in Ballard was scheduled for demolition. Sure we’d get all day service, but it would have been slow, circuitous, and low frequency. https://www.historylink.org/File/20637
LA and Denver converted a bunch of old freight corridors into rail lines, but those were generally ramrod straight, in reserved ROW, and had anchor stations somewhere on the line. Point me to a winding, rural freight rail corridor that was converted into suburban commuter rail.
Let’s take a closer look.
The Woodinville subdivision is roughly 40 miles from Tukwila to Snohomish.
The track when the Dinner train was running was Class 1 and 2, maximum speed for passenger trains for Class 2 track being 30mph.
The estimates (at the time of the PSRC/ST study) by the Discovery Institute were based on rehabilitating the track to Class 3 via cleaning the ballast and tie repair. Class 3 track allows speeds up to 60mph for passenger trains.
What major commuter rail system operates trains in the average 45mph range?
Metro North’s Harlem line.
Tukwila – Snohomish would be equivalent to a Mount Kisco – GCT trip.
Same trip duration. Metro North operates trains during rush hour every 15 minutes, 30 minutes off peak.
Obviously with a destination of midtown Manhattan, 10 car trains at that frequency are cost effective.
As far as stations are concerned the ERC would have only needed basic Tukwila level temporary stations to start. (Tukwila’s wooden station cost roughly the same as a split level home, at that time)
That’s why the Discovery Institute’s estimate was about half the cost of ST’s design. The ERC wouldn’t need the same frequency, and especially not all day,
If you studied the I-405 program’s FEIS in detail, what becomes obvious by looking at that screenline analysis is that from the north the bulk of the traffic comes from the Everett/Snohomish/Monroe area, via SR527 & I-5/SR-9/SR-522.
But Rail creates sprawl, you say? (I’ve heard that from numerous sources)
Well, guess what? Having 2 lane highways was the original culprit. Access created the sprawl, not trains.
The Better Bus crowd allied with the No Rail Before Its Time group is as responsible for creating Wet-LA in our transportation system as the transplants.
The ERC’s $1.3 Billion dollar price compared to STRide 3’s (the I-405 segment of STRide) $1.27 Billion dollars tells me Eastside Commuter Rail was a far better value.
What’s also interesting is that a train from Snohomish (heck it could even be extended to Hartford (Lake Stevens)). It would be the one transit option that would have actually reduced congestion in the I-405 corridor if it intercepted trips that far north.
Nothing between Woodinville and Snohomish, you say?
That whole area is apparently being considered by Snohomish County for inclusion within their Urban Growth Boundary.
Trouble is, we’ll never know.
NO Direct Comparison was Ever Made.
Why? Political Manipulation of the study parameters.
People are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts.
It would be awesome to have frequent trains everywhere! It’s more a matter of value though.
The ERC has major problems beginning with its limited right of way in places. There never was a blended 405-ERC alternative that used the best alignment by segment.
The 405 and Stride projects are in construction and that will lock the corridor in for at least 20-40 years if not more. It’s unfortunate that 405 is being rebuilt without reserving space for a wider high capacity transit corridor.
Perhaps the study that’s needed is how to elevate Stride to a more ambitious concept. The service should be stopping near Factoria, Renton Landing and South Center. Maybe it should be two overlapping Stride lines. Maybe it can be tweaked to have exclusive transit pavement or bus guidance.
The region is already about $20-30B short on ST3. ST3 financing suggests that it’s at least 25-40 years. And the US overall growth rate will plummet compared to 2000-2025.
Unless the market creates new demand along the corridor that will have tens of thousands of new residents and jobs onsite, it seems to me that sounding transit capital money is spent elsewhere. .
“The ERC has major problems beginning with its limited right of way in places.”
There are no “major problems”, save for WSDOT daylighting the Wilburton tunnel, and never providing even reconstructing the abutments to accommodate future replacement.
Rails to trails is the biggest scam going for supposedly preserving transportation right-of-way. One the rails are torn up, it’s never going to be a viable high capacity corridor again.
“The 405 and Stride projects are in construction and that will lock the corridor in for at least 20-40 years if not more.”
I get that part.
NIMBY Politics prevailed.
“It’s unfortunate that 405 is being rebuilt without reserving space for a wider high capacity transit corridor.”
You understand that the I-405 expansion by 4 lanes is just barely within WSDOT right-of-way. There isn’t more room, and the price skyrockets when you start taking adjacent properties. (Of all things, there were about a dozen property takes over the Kennedale hill, the Kennydale Neighborhood Association and Jesse Tanner being instigators of abandoning the ERC in the I-405 study)
So thinking about high capacity transit in the I-405 right-of-way is a moot point.
Pretty much, just erase any green space between the sound walls just to satisfy the driving public’s thirst for an unfettered commute.
I only chime in on the ERC discussion when someone asks “Why don’t they ….?” because I intend to keep the story straight as to Why they Didn’t.
It had nothing to do with any comparative analysis.
The decision was purely political.
Ryan Packer has a good article about the infill stations: https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/11/17/escalating-costs-could-push-sound-transit-to-reconsider-two-infill-stations/. I sure wish The Urbanist had a comment section. I guess this blog will have to do.
There is a world of difference between the two infill stations. The Graham Street Station is a straightforward station that should have been included with the original plans. Lots of people will walk to the station.
In contrast very few will walk to Boeing Access Road (BAR) Station. A handful at best. It will depend on local feeder bus service. But very few are likely to use it in that manner. Relatively few would benefit as it is not significantly faster as a way to get downtown and most potential riders are closer to TIBS.
Allow me to elaborate: It is likely that the 124 will be the only bus that connects to it. According to the schedule, it takes about 35 minutes to get from Tukwila International Boulevard & S 112th St to 3rd & Union. From Symphony Station it 23 minutes to get to Rainier Beach and 32 minutes to get to TIBS. If you get lucky with the transfer it might be a quicker way to get downtown but my guess is most riders will just stay on the bus if they are headed downtown. It is really only a connection between Rainier Valley/Beacon Hill and a short section of Tukwila International Boulevard. That has merit but it is hard to see it being worth the money given most of those riders will just take the bus the towards TIBS.
The only way that the station would add a lot of benefit is if it served as a connection point for express buses. Buses like the 101, 102 and 150 could stop there on the way to and from downtown. There would be a lot more people who could then transfer to Link to get to Rainier Valley/Beacon Hill. But there are no plans to add a freeway station there. Worse yet, the current plans for BAR would make that transfer awkward (even if WSDOT eventually added a station there). Maybe someday WSDOT will decide to add a freeway transit station there and the Link station can connect to it. Until then, I see no issue with delaying this project.
Yes the Graham Station is a better idea than BAR Ststion is. It’s cheaper and attracts more riders. It has better infill development potential too.
The BAR station is not only lacking a walkshed population or employment, but it is not particularly convenient to Route 101 and 102 routing either. The time it would take to get to the new suggested site is about as long as it would take Route 101 to go to Rainier Beach instead — except the BAR station would then be an extra 2-3 minutes further from Downtown Seattle using Link.
Sadly, because of subarea definitions, BAR and Rainier Beach are in different subareas. So that makes it hard to spend BAR funds to upgrade a rainier Beach by having a full-service bus transit center next to the station. Add to that Renton is in a third subarea.
I could see South King shifting the BAR funds to get South Federal Way Station built instead if it was needed. Better yet, I think it could be great to figure out a Stride stop at SouthCenter (with transfers to Route 150 and RR-F) and spend those funds that way.
“It is likely that the 124 will be the only bus that connects to it.”
Tukwila wants RapidRide A to be extended to it, and that was one of the reasons it wanted the station, to serve a village at 144th between TIB and BAR.
Fair enough. It doesn’t really change the dynamic. Riders closer to TIBS will take the train there. Riders heading downtown will take the 124. It is mainly a feeder for Rainier Valley/Beacon Hill to a small part of Tukwila.
It appears that BAR will have P&R. Some people from northern Burien and White Center probably will find that useful.
Sure. But it isn’t the end of the world if they just drive a little further and park at TIBS. “We want another parking lot, closer to our house” doesn’t seem like a compelling argument to me.
Nightly Link maintenance today through Thursday starting at 9:30pm. The last trains serving downtown stations will go through at 10:27pm northbound and 10:27pm southbound. After that there will be a Capitol Hill-SODO shuttle bus every 10 minutes.