Update at 7:15am: Othello station is open and trains are back to normal service.

Othello station on the 1 Line closed around 2:30pm Tuesday and will remain closed through Wednesday’s morning commute at least, due to an ongoing police investigation. Shuttle buses are running between Rainier Beach and Columbia City stations. Link is running north and south of there. Travel times through the area may be long due to heavy traffic and street closures. The Link maintenance planned Tuesday night in North Seattle was postponed.

This started around 1:30pm Tuesday when police shot and killed a man who was allegedly waving a gun near MLK & South Othello Street. The Seattle Times posted a short followup at 9:30pm.

Sound Transit has a chart of alternative bus routes between 1 Line station pairs if want to avoid a 3-seat ride through the area and potential delays.

Regular roundup news links are below the fold.

Local Headlines:

Further Afield:

This is an open thread.

111 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: Othello Station Closed”

  1. Could SDoT buy older streetcars from Portland to improve frequency on the First Hill line?

      1. Correct; it is unique and was costly; so was the special overhead within the electric trolley bus network.

        I suggest that SDOT truncate the line at 5th Avenue South. That would improve reliability and allow a shorter headway.

      2. Sadly, Portland is moving in the direction of Seattle these days with a partially off-wire extension of the NS line to preserve street parking. So maybe in 40 years they’ll have some streetcars Seattle could purchase.

        I don’t think the issues with the First Hill line is rolling stock shortages. It’s more like “too slow”. Any speed improvement would make a big difference for providing more frequent service. Truncating the line would too, but I’d prefer to try to make the service better first. Here’s my insane idea of the day: reverse direction center running transit way alignment down Jackson. That way, buses can use the existing center platforms

    2. Re: article link above: Portland Streetcar is doing an exchange with ST T-line. Portland selling their new Brookville cars to Tacoma and getting their circa 2003 Skoda cars. Portland is replacing its original fleet in a few years with new off-wire capable cars for the new extension to Montgomery Park. Their newer 15 year old cars will be relegated to all electrified Eastside A&B loop lines. Kind of stupid if you ask me to have this new extension segment battery operated.

      1. It’s almost unbelievably stupid. Even if there was a good reason to do it, Portland Streetcar has struggled to provide good headways with their existing fleet and service patterns. Making one very small section of the network on the busier line require off-wire capable steeercars is dumb.

        But of course, it gets 1000% worse when you realize they are doing it to maintain street parking next to the new streetcar alignment on 23rd. Nothing like crippling a system to save a few parking spots next to a streetcar. Can’t wait for those parked cars to prevent the streetcar from running properly!

  2. Is there a reasonably calculated estimate for how much faster Link from Tukwila to SODO would be if an elevated ‘express bypass’ were built from SODO station along the SODO busway through Georgetown then down to Tukwila via E Marginal way?
    55 minutes from Federal way to Westlake is not great. For example the DC metro can cover the same distance (23 miles) in 40 min. I know the Link rolling stock is slower slower than DC metro but I’m just using it as an example of proper rapid transit.

    1. I know this doesn’t answer your question but it would be cheaper and better to just bury the stations in Rainier Valley. But I don’t know how much time that would save either.

      1. I suspect this would save around 1-3 minutes. The light timing on MLK is quite good; I rarely see Link stop for a light.

        For reference, Mt Baker to Rainier Beach is 3 stops over roughly 4 miles and takes about 10 minutes. Symphony to UW is 3 stops over roughly 4 miles and takes about 9 minutes.

      2. Grade separation would allow it to go faster between stations. Right now Link is limited to 35 mph because that’s what the car lanes were before they were reduced to 25.

      3. @Mike

        The segment is not majorly limited by max speed. Grade separation would primarily help with reliability.

        Travelling at 55 mph over 4 miles takes 4:20. Stopping a minute at each station makes it 7:20. The best case scenario saves 3 minutes.

      4. I think they’d almost have to do something like this Georgetown bypass if they wanted to grade separate MLK… I dont know how you could keep operating on MLK while also elevating or tunneling under it in the same footprint.

        The beauty of the bypass is the longer distance Tacoma trains could use the bypass and a shorter overlapping line from Downtown Seattle to SeaTac could use MLK.

      5. I dont know how you could keep operating on MLK while also elevating or tunneling under it in the same footprint.

        The report covered that. There are a bunch of options and combinations. For example you can single track in places. This makes headways worse but is otherwise OK. It might also just be shutdown for a while. It really isn’t that different than the various things we’ve been doing to accommodate East Link it would just be a longer project.

      6. Has anybody studied the possibility of running Link in an open-air trench through Rainier Valley? I know I’ve seen it in Europe and maybe somewhere in PDX or SF. Curious to know if cut-and-don’t-cover could potentially be much faster and cheaper than tunneling or elevating.

    2. About eight minutes, depending how many stations were put on the new line. But getting to East Marginal Way would be quite expensive from the busway and Spokane. You’d have to cross UP’s Argo yard or ram through the business district at Georgetown.

      It’s better to take the easternmost lane from Airport Way between Georgetown and BAR, running the track on the ground from just north of BAR to the on-ramp north of Albro with a station for Georgetown there. Airport Way would become a three-lane street.

      The LRT trackway would rise up just north of the station placed across the street from All City Coffee and cross over to the east side of the BNSF right of way about Homer Street, dip under the Corson Avenue off-ramp structure and Lucile Street Bridge and descend to a low structure built on the old spur east of Airport Way to the block south of Spokane Street. It would then drop down to street level under Spokane, rise back up some and Airport Way would descend some, the LR trackway would cross over to the west side of Airport Way and descend to ground in order to connect to the outer loop at Forest Street. The outer loop would be raised from the cross-over on the west side of Forest Street enough to match the level of the northbound crossing of Airport Way and join it in the descent to underrun Spokane Street.

      This is relatively inexpensive to build and gives you the eight minutes — possibly nine — mostly from omitting a net of five stations.

    3. Forgot. The junction at the south end would mirror the roadway intersection. Southbound trains would rise up and cross BAR on structure to merge with the existing one. Northbound trains would branch to the right just after the curve from Marginal, descend to ground level and then underpass BAR next to the burrowing car interchange, and then rise up to ground level for the run up Airport Way.

      This is all easy to engineer, though the elevated junction at BAR and Airport Way both directions would require delicate construction around the in-use line.

      1. And finally, it still makes some sense to run local trains as far as the Airport via Martin Luther King Way, since many airport workers live along it and commute on the train. But the South King County-bound “expresses” could take the “bypass”.

        I know Ross hates this idea, but it would be extremely popular with South King County and Pierce County folks and could probably be done for less than $2 billion.

        Obviously, it would only be done if South King County west of I-5 booms in the coming couple of decades.

      2. A coworker of mine suggested this type of bypass line for ST2 and ST3 but it was not accepted by ST. But he suggested using a freight rail line; what of the line in the longitude of the SODO busway (E3, or 5th Avenue South). Weaving through downtown Georgetown seems quite complicated.

      3. By “weaving through downtown Georgetown” do you mean the diagonal overcrossing of the BNSF tracks I mentioned or something different? The overcrossing doesn’t seem particularly complex or unusual to me. It’s just the same thing that CalHSR is doing several pkaces in The Valley but on a much smaller scale.

        Discussion of the E3 is not necessary. The bypass trains would run on the existing Spine tracks north of the Forest Street MF. That’s the reason for the elaborate description in the text about using the Outer Loop.

        If I’m not understanding your concerns, please elaborate.

        Thank you.

    4. It’d be about 10 miles of track (following the existing railway). With no intermediate stops, that’d take about 11 or 12 minutes compared to the 23 today. Which would bring Federal Way -> Westlake travel time to ~40 minutes.

      I would be generally in favor of this travel time in some form, but I’m not sure Link is the best way to do it. If we want super fast travel times between the burbs and Seattle, express buses are a lot cheaper. Even more so if WSDOT were willing to build freeway busways, rather than middling HOV lanes. Or we could consider what regional service on a high speed rail line may look like.

      2. Express buses are fine if you just want Seattle-Federal Way service. But what about Seattle-Des Moines? Another bus route?

        Heck, what about Lynnwoid-Sea-Tac? Those folks aren’t excited about stopping at five extra stations and rolling down King Way at 35.

        At-grade, frequent station segments of a regional Metro are fine at the “tails” of the various routes. They’re toxic in the centers of those routes.

      3. But what about Seattle-Des Moines? Another bus route?

        Yes, of course. If there are enough riders to justify an express you run it. If not, those riders transfer to another express bus.

        Those folks aren’t excited about stopping at five extra stations and rolling down King Way at 35.

        Tough luck. There are less than 100 workers who commute from Lynnwood to SeaTac. It would be crazy to base your system on maximizing trips like that.

        Look, we all wish they had built the line under Rainier Avenue instead of on MLK. But the problem with running a second line to SeaTac is that it doesn’t fix that. It would do nothing for Rainier Valley. You end up with this very expensive line with only one new station (at Georgetown). You stretch your system even more. I don’t know if you are aware, but Sound Transit is having trouble maintaining the system they have. There have been numerous outages and you want to make ridership-per-mile much worse? All so that a relatively small number or riders save a few minutes (at best)? They certainly wouldn’t start running trains in Rainier Valley more often.

      4. “what about Lynnwoid-Sea-Tac? Those folks aren’t excited about stopping at five extra stations and rolling down King Way at 35.”

        They were very excited about a one-seat ride to the airport in just over an hour in a Lynnwood Link open house I attended. They have to go through all of Seattle to get to the airport, so it’s not like they have better options.

      5. There may be only one hundred people commuting between Lynnwood and Sea-Tac — I’m amazed at their resolve — but there are a lot more taking a plane from Kynnwood or MLT or Shoreline or North Seattle.

        I have said over and over “not now”. If Southwest King County booms, the at-grade operational limitations will be unacceptable by 2035.

        And you are not going to get a tunnel between BAR and Mount Baker Station. It simply won’t happen. You might get an elevated line, but no tunnel. It’s just too disruptive.

        And Rainier is too winding, hilly and narrow.

      6. “If Southwest King County booms, the at-grade operational limitations will be unacceptable by 2035.”

        That’s for the South King boardmembers and city electeds to champion. They don’t see it as unacceptable. They think Federal Way Link is fine as-is and it just needs to open ASAP. They had the opportunity to ask for faster specs between 1995 and 2016 and never did. The Georgetown bypass corridor was in ST’s long-range plan from 2007 or earlier to 2015. At that point the board deleted it saying it wouldn’t be needed. No South King or Pierce boardmember lifted one finger to save it. So your fear of Link’s speed not being acceptable for South King County’s 2035 growth is contradicted by the Sound Transit board and the cities of Federal Way, Des Moines, Kent, SeaTac, Tukwila, and Tacoma/Pierce County. If you think they should be concerned about it, go convince them. That’s the most surefire way to make it happen.

        Also, ST is leaning toward keeping most of the ST Express routes long-term. That’s ST’s and the cities’ solution to Link’s travel-time issue.

      7. Jeebus, Mike, you sound like you believe that politicians are forward-thinking, engineering types like us. Short rebuttal: they aren’t if they want to get elected. John Q Public does not want to hear what might happen in a decade. He wants to hear that the problem he noticed two days ago is going to be fixed by Friday week.

        The express buses are great, but they are not a long-term solution, again, IF South King County booms. Since there isn’t anywhere else south of Marysville to put very many more people within a reasonable commute to King County employment centers, I think it will. Remember that for every 1000 new homes built in the I-5 catchment there are probably 400 new daily trips created that will use the freeway. Because of the lack of any kind of “grid” in the crazy-quilt of roads south of Seattle and west of the Green River Valley, buses just do not work as collector / distributors. So most of those new trips are going to be taken in private cars.

        John Q is not going to stand still while WashDOT “steals our lanes!” For that reason, there will be no “HOV3” saving the expresses, though there assuredly should be, with stern, AI-jet packed camera enforcement.

        So, it is my assertion that by 2035 the good Burgers [sic] running the South King County Subarea will almost certainly be painfully nonplussed by the erratic, overloaded shuffle through the Rainier Valley their constituents experience when they Go To The Big City by train.

        They will look at the $5 billion pristinely grade-separated right of way between BAR and East Marginal Way and ask, “Why the eff are trains running only every ten minutes on this thing, and whyyyy does it take so long to get from TIBS to downtown Seattle?

        They will look at the slow-running, frequently interrupted stretch along King Way and say “That’s IT! Who designed THAT?”

        Because, of course, they weren’t on the ST Board back in 2005 when “THAT” was designed, and the politicians who were … [see paragraph one].

      9. “you sound like you believe that politicians are forward-thinking, engineering types like us.”

        No, I’m saying this is why Link is the way it is They are the decision-makers. The public elected them, and keep electing people like them. Their priorities are based mostly on non-transit factors, or on misconceptions about transit. That’s why their conclusions don’t match something we would recommend, Jarrett Walker would recommend, or transit best practices. The way to improve it is to convince those politicians, or convince their constituents to convince the politicians. That’s very difficult, because of the misconceptions about transit and their concern about non-transit factors.

        “So, it is my assertion that by 2035 the good Burgers [sic] running the South King County Subarea will almost certainly be painfully nonplussed by the erratic, overloaded shuffle through the Rainier Valley their constituents experience when they Go To The Big City by train.”

        They’re the ones that caused it. They’re the ones who could have championed this issue any time in the 2000s or 2010s.

        South King County residents will find out today or Monday how long it takes to get from Federal Way or KDM to Westlake if they haven’t been paying attention. So if there is any groundswell, it could start in the next year or two.

        “Why the eff are trains running only every ten minutes on this thing, and whyyyy does it take so long to get from TIBS to downtown Seattle? They will look at the slow-running, frequently interrupted stretch along King Way and say “That’s IT! Who designed THAT?”

        You may be overestimating how much people focus on or are aware of one single factor.

        There’s also the people in Rainier Valley and Beacon Hill who benefit from this alignment. They’re more numerous per capita than South King/Pierce residents, and have the density and walkability to use Link to its maximum and to attract people who will walk to Link or from Link to destinations. South King County should focus on making its cities more like that. Then they’d have more justification to say something about the Link alignment.

        Link will be 8 minutes peak hours. With DSTT2/Ballard it will be every 6 minutes. South Link through Rainier Valley was 6 minutes all day for several years in the 2010s, so it could be again.

        Federal Way should also look at whether Link technology was the best way to serve an area so far from downtown, or whether that was misguided from the start. And also how much it leaves out most of Kent and Auburn, which are too far east to get good travel time from the alignment in any case.

        South King County will also have to reckon with being the poorest subarea, the one least able to afford construction of a SODO bypass.

    5. Some quick back of the napkin math:

      The distance between SODO and TIBS via marginal way is about 9.2 miles.

      According to FTA documents, the average speed between UW and Westlake is 31.5 mph. I’ll use this assuming this bypass would also have one intermediate stop in Georgetown.

      9.2 Miles / 31.5 mph = 0.292 hours (17.5 minutes).

      The current link routing is scheduled to take 24 minutes.

      So at the absolute most, you would be saving 6.5 minutes without really adding any much value in terms of generating new trip pairs (besides the small amount a Georgetown stop would accommodate). That sure doesn’t seem like a good investment to me. To Ross’s point, you could get so much more value out of elevating or burying the lines in Rainier Valley, while shaving a few minutes off the travel time.

      1. You’d be solving reliability issues and making the rainier valley far safer. Seems worth the investment to me.

      2. If we’re burying a line in the Rainier Valley, we should use it to create new service by putting it somewhere other than MLK and interconnecting the two lines. That way, when MLK service isn’t disrupted, we could serve both lines and the new line’s service could extend someplace else; when MLK is disrupted, all service could run on the new line.

        Perhaps the new line could be on Beacon Hill or Rainier Avenue, and extend north to the Central District and south to Renton or Southcenter?

      3. If we’re burying a line in the Rainier Valley, we should use it to create new service by putting it somewhere other than MLK and interconnecting the two lines.

        Stephen Fesler had the idea of moving Link to Rainier Avenue and then adding a streetcar for the existing Link line on MLK — https://www.theurbanist.org/2022/01/19/the-case-for-improved-light-rail-in-rainier-valley/. I could see that working. It wouldn’t have to a streetcar, either. It could just be the 106 running as a bus with doors on both sides. If the 7 also had doors on both sides then the streetcar and those buses could all run down the middle of the street on Jackson. You would want to convert the 14 as well.

        There are a couple big advantages to running Link above or under Rainier Avenue. The first is that it better serves the community. Even now, decades after Link, there is more development on Rainier Avenue. It would also be a lot less disruptive (at least to Link). You could dig up the street and it wouldn’t impact Link at all. It is only when you need to connect it (presumably at Mount Baker) that you would have a disruption. To circle back to your point there could be redundancy if they branched at both Mount Baker and Rainier Beach. Most of the time the train would take the fast way (above or below Rainier Avenue) but if there is an outage the train would use the old route.

        For more redundancy, the Rainier Avenue train would continue on Rainier until Jackson and head downtown that way (with stops along the way). That way they would be connected downtown and at Rainier Beach. That would be more disruptive as they would probably have to mess around with CID (again).

        Realistically I think the best chance of grade-separating in Rainier Valley is to connect at Mount Baker. Whether the new line is on Rainier or MLK it isn’t that expensive. You would still want to grade-separate in SoDo (to make automation easier). With enough demand I could see express versions between downtown and SeaTac (with no stops along the way). The timing would be tricky (unless you double-tracked) but the timing would be tricky if we built a bypass as well.

      4. @Ross This is realistically the best option. I would say keep MLK as a streetcar since the tracts and overhead wire is already there, just need to change the voltage to 750 V DC. Extending the tram track north to Jackson would probably be the most disruptive, but then you would get a nice connection to Judkins Park Station.

        I would love to eventually see a streetcar network in central/east Seattle branching off Jackson on MLK, 23rd, and 14th/15th.

      5. I would say keep MLK as a streetcar since the tracts and overhead wire is already there, just need to change the voltage to 750 V DC. [Then extend to Jackson]

        That is one possibility. The streetcar would essentially replace the 106 from Rainier Beach Station to downtown. The 106 could shift to Rainier Avenue. You would need to add a fair amount of track (from Mount Baker to Jackson). It isn’t obvious where to run the track, either. Ideally you run in the center (like on Jackson and MLK). But that would make an awkward connection to East Link at Judkins Park. You would want the 106 to also have that same right-of-way. So you are still buying buses with doors on both sides. Then you have the Rainier/MLK intersection (in Mount Baker). The city keeps saying they will redo that. While I could see the benefit of rail I’m not sure it is worth it. It might just be easier to convert the railway on MLK to a busway to give you more flexibility.

      6. “The 106 could shift to Rainier Avenue.”

        The 106 would overlap with RapidRide R between Henderson Street and Jackson Street? That seems like a long overlap. And if you want it to be the route to Boren Ave and SLU, the part north of Mt Baker station would have to remain.

      7. The 106 would overlap with RapidRide R between Henderson Street and Jackson Street?

        The RapidRide R wouldn’t exist in this scenario. Link would shift to Rainier Avenue starting with Rainier Beach (Henderson). The 106 would run on Rainier as well; it would be a “shadow” for Link (between Rainier Beach and Mount Baker station). A streetcar would run Jackson/Rainier/MLK/Henderson (https://maps.app.goo.gl/juGtA7ZgKKGKfcVPA). It would stop at all the current 106 stops.

      8. if you want it to be the route to Boren Ave and SLU, the part north of Mt Baker station would have to remain.

        The 106 could be sent to Boren if it runs on Rainier or MLK. It would be a similar situation. Right now the 106 is basically a shadow of Link between Henderson and Mount Baker Boulevard. Then it overlaps the 7 between Mount Baker and downtown. In this case it would remain a shadow of Link and overlap the streetcar for the second segment. Either way it makes sense to minimize the overlap and send it somewhere besides downtown (since riders can transfer to Link or the 7/streetcar).

        All that being said I think sending the 106 to Boren is a bit long. I would rather send it up 23rd and then downtown via Yesler. The Boren bus would run from Mount Baker to Uptown (https://maps.app.goo.gl/4xMMiMZ1hGRrHjUy5). That would have some overlap (from Jackson to Mount Baker Boulevard) but that seems like a small price to pay for such a fundamentally strong route. It could take advantage of right-of-way additions for the 7 (or streetcar).

      9. Ross, by “grade separate in SoDo” do you mean adding an overpass for Horton and closing Lower Royal Brougham Way?

        I ask because it can’t be done by elevating the track that goes into the existing IDS station. Upper Royal Brougham Way (e.g. “I-90”) says “Hell, No!”

        So far as trenching or elevating along Rainier, after six years of linear disruption along King Way a decade ago, I doubt the neighborhood is interested in improving the rides of people between North Seattle and the Airport enough to make their own access a bit more difficult after another period of upset

        I’m surprised that your usually very keen eye for the politically possible missed this one.

        Al, there would be one station at Georgetown. I said it would save eight minutes, and two other people, including you, come to the same conclusion without a “So that sounds right to me, too ”

        Is everyone so starved for self-worth that ideas are like gold rush claims here? Or do folks just read the ChatGPT summary of the thread?

        Maybe we could have a banner at the top of site: “Pontificate Less — Collaborate More”

      11. Yes, to make the trains in SoDo grade-separated you would build overpasses. The trains would still be running on the surface but they would be fenced off (except for the stations). As for Rainier Valley, the people in the neighborhood would appreciate MLK being a lot more walkable. There would be fewer accidents and the street could be a lot narrower (with bike paths and wide sidewalks). This would be one of the big benefits and selling points.

    6. If you draw a straight line between SODO Station and one proposed at BAR, you would see that MLk is not more than about a mile off — and that following along the tracks would be as much as a half-mile off in the other direction. It is not much out of direction.

      The Link top design speed is 55 mph. It seems that the top Link speed between stations on MLK is around 30-35 mph. But stopping at a station adds at least a minute because the trains have to slow down and speed up in addition to wait at the stop. There are five stations between SODO and BAR.

      The bigger time drain is probably when trains have to wait to cross a busy intersection. That really hurts reliability too.

      The bypass line at most could probably only save about 8-10 minutes maximum. It would also lose at least another minute of time savings for every new stop (Boeing Firld? Georgetown? Spokane Street?).

      Also, the Boeing Field flight path and volcanic fill origin of the soil make new tall structures there very unlikely. It’s just not good for TOD and Seattle needs some light industrial land anyway. Station ridership would be very modest. Of course, if Boeing Field ever closed the corridor could be transformed — but I don’t see that happening for several decades at the earliest. So for the billions it would cost it would be hard to demonstrate its worth compared to making other investments in Seattle..

      There could be another reason to build it, which would be to offload any future overcrowding in SE Seattle. MLK trains run in mixed traffic so they can’t really be more frequent than 6 minutes. Once Federal Way Link opens on Saturday, ST will start to have a better sense of how overcrowded peak trains can get — as Tacoma Dome Link won’t add many more riders this far north of it. Many of those using Federal Way Link will be parking at their behemoth garages so that the train loads at peak times will be most observable difference. And there remains Sounder and ST Express as much cheaper ways to ease any future peak overcrowding.

      Another justification would be as a conversion of Route 101 or Route 150 to light rail. They’re good bus routes — but I don’t see a conversion project for them ever emerging in the next few decades.

      Surely at some point in the past the time estimates have been developed. Maybe some old-timer from the 1990’s would know. But all indications point to a time savings of only a few minutes as others have said..

      1. Why? In the specific proposal above the station is in waste land next to the BNSF tracks north of Corson and then rises up and crosses over the freight tracks to the strip of land between the tracks and I-5. It would be on structure through there because it just crossed the freight line.

        There would be absolutely no impact on “downtown” Georgetown, except that it would suddenly be very accessible from all over the “west side” of King County from Shoreline to Federal Way. That sounds like a very good deal for “real thing” bars.

    8. The Georgetown Bypass corridor was in Sound Transit’s long-range plan from at least 2009 to 2014. In the run-up to ST3 the board deleted it saying it wouldn’t be needed. None of the beneficiaries of it — South King and Pierce — said one word to keep it in or interest in paying for it. They were much more concerned about their top demands:

      1. Finish Federal Way Link.
      2. Tacoma Dome extension.

      And secondary demands:

      3. More Sounder South runs.
      4. Boeing Access Road station, which Tukwila wanted.
      5. A West Seattle-Burien-Renton extension, which got a study afterward.
      6. Stride 1.

      A bypass would serve walk-up riders in Georgetown. But there are few people there, and North King has many higher priorities for high-capacity transit.

  3. I read about the outages that are occurring the next couple of nights (https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/10-pm-to-end-service-shuttle-buses-are-replacing-trains-between) and was struck with this:

    Expect up to 45 min of added travel times.

    45 minutes? For an outage between Northgate and Capitol Hill at 11:00 pm? That seems like a lot. To put things in perspective, it is about a fifteen minute drive between the two stations right now (despite the usual traffic). One issue is that the shuttle bus is basically just going between all the stations. That takes about a half hour. Since the bus runs every fifteen minutes (and the train runs every ten*) I can see how someone could be delayed 45 minutes. Given that these type of outages will be more common it seems like ST should work with Metro in developing a better late-night system for when these outages occur.

    Many of the combinations are already handled by Metro. That doesn’t mean they are fast. Link is much faster than the 67 between the U-District and Northgate. But Northgate itself isn’t a major destination. A lot of riders traveling between the two neighborhoods live or work to the east of the station, directly served by the 67. Likewise there are plenty of buses between the UW and U-District stations. As I see it, there are two big weaknesses when Link is out between Capitol Hill and Northgate:

    1) Between Capitol Hill and UW Station. The 43 is extremely infrequent — it stops running in the evening.
    2) Between Capitol Hill and the U-District. The 49 runs every twenty minutes until 1:00 a.m. and then every thirty minutes.

    Given that, I would take this approach:

    1) Pay Metro to run the 49 every fifteen minutes when there is an outage.
    2) Run a shuttle from Capitol Hill to the UW Station.
    3) Run a different shuttle from Capitol Hill to Northgate Station.

    Riders of the 49 (which does fairly well late at night) would benefit even if they aren’t taking Link. Riders heading to the greater U-District from Capitol Hill Station would have an additional bus to choose from. They could take the fifteen minute ST shuttle (to UW Station) or the 49 (which would also be running every fifteen minutes). The express shuttle between Northgate and UW Station would be a huge improvement for those traveling a long distance. If you are trying to get from Capitol Hill, downtown (or some other Link location to the south) to Northgate (or a Link station to the north) it would save you a lot of time.

    *When East Link finally goes over the lake the trains will run every five minutes which will make a huge difference for that transfer.

    1. In Washington DC, WMATA almost always provides at least one express and one local bus bridge during any planned disruptions. The buses are timed transfers – a platoon of several buses waits for a train to arrive, passengers pile on, and all drive off around the same time. This would fix the issue without needing to invest extra service hours into the general budget.

  4. Seeing that the Othello Station closure wasn’t caused by ST, I think it’s appropriate to consider the causes of MLK Link disruptions.

    What percentage of disruptions are not a result of ST operations? Probably most. They seem to happen TO Link rather than caused BY Link.

    What percentage is accidental? Some people do commit suicide intentionally by jumping or driving in front of trains. Pretty much all the collisions on MLK happen because someone disobeyed a traffic control law — even pedestrians who walk against crossing signals. Sometimes people are merely impatient. Sometimes their judgment is impaired by alcohol, drugs, distracted travel (staring at cell phone screens usually) or sleepiness.

    While designs can be changed to enhance safety, there will always be incidents. It’s one of the things that fundamentally bothers me about the Vision Zero pitch. We will always have accidents and disruptions. Almost all are a result of behaviors rather than design. So it’s an unattainable goal — and yet the Vision Zero programs mostly ignore that most accidents have very little to nothing to do with bad street design and are usually just bad behaviors. I think an argument could even be made that late night transit service subsidies could be a more effective way to reduce the number of drunk drivers out at that time and thus accidents than constant tinkering with traffic signals would.

    In this case, the abnormally long disruption period seems notable to me. It makes me wonder why it’s taking so long. I think that it may be because what SPD appears to be overly harsh (killing someone) and the investigators want to be very careful documenting what happened .

    1. It’s worth solving preventable problems by fixing design flaws, even if you can’t solve all the problems.

      The human and economic costs of a surface alignment should have been included in the cost estimate for that alternative. But because it wasn’t a capital cost for construction, it wasn’t. Or maybe the EIS process should be overhauled to recognize these as environmental factors. Without them, the cost of surface looks artificially lower than elevated or tunnel. These costs include human deaths, car damage, train damage, people’s time when service is interrupted due to these, etc.

      When the WTO protests in 1999 brought 20,000 people to Westlake Park and blocked streets, DSTT under 3rd was unaffected and had its usual shoppers and commuters because it was underground, and even protesters used it to get to/from the event.

    2. > Almost all are a result of behaviors rather than design.

      All design is about guiding human behavior. There is always a way to design something to prevent hazardous behavior, but more extreme hazards require more extreme designs (and costs).

      Until recently, roadways were designed to maximize vehicle throughput at the cost of making them unfriendly to non-vehicle use. Vision Zero is about reconsidering the designs of our roadways to make it such that it is much more difficult for a typical driver to kill pedestrians and cyclists.

      I don’t welcome defeatist attitudes around safety, especially since the most significant cost of increasing safety for non-driver roadway users is an increase in how long it takes to drive an SOV across town. Boo hoo!

      1. “I don’t welcome defeatist attitudes around safety, especially since the most significant cost of increasing safety for non-driver roadway users is an increase in how long it takes to drive an SOV across town. Boo hoo!”

        Ah clearly I’ve hit a nerve.

        I am not complaining about a goal to make our streets safer. I’m simply questioning if we are doing the “right” things and pointing out that “zero” is realistically unattainable. That’s not being “defeatist” nor is it advocating for faster driving.

        A example: There are statistics from the WSTC that say that males are more than twice as likely to be traffic fatalities than females are in this state. Is this very wide disparity a result of road design or intersection operations that can be fixed, or is it due to behaviors that males are more likely to do but never get talked about? Is it because males more often drive impaired or distracted? Or is it that males are more often traveling at night? Or do males naturally ignore traffic laws more often because of hormones? Would this fact change the approach to safety?

        https://wtsc.wa.gov/dashboards/drivers-involved-in-fatal-crashes/

        Another example: There’s a local accident law firm saying that traffic collisions have overall radically decreased in the last decade in Seattle yet fatalities have increased. Why is that? It doesn’t appear to be designing for less speeding or the trends would seemingly be reversed (slower speeds are often touted as useful in reducing accident severity).

        https://www.elkandelk.com/washington/seattle-car-accident-statistics/

        I don’t have the answers. I’m simply saying that research is needed to look at bigger gamut of factors. If implementers keep taking action after action under Vision Zero merely thinking that they’ll work yet without ultimately getting results, that’s a sign that the implementers are missing the mark somehow .

        It’s like the old adage that if you have a hammer you more often think everything is a nail. Sometimes different tools are needed.

      2. Al, it’s not an either or question. Crashes are reduced by road design and also by enforcement.

        In Seattle per-capita traffic fatality rates have been trending down except for pedestrian fatalities, a very significant percentage of which are homeless

      3. “In Seattle per-capita traffic fatality rates have been trending down except for pedestrian fatalities, a very significant percentage of which are homeless.”

        Thanks, jd. The statement about the homeless (if true) just makes my point that Seattle traffic fatalities are often due to other factors rather than poor street design choices. And the stated goal of Vision Zero is to reach zero fatalities and serious injuries by 2030.

        So should we ban homeless people in the name of traffic safety goals? Or maybe ban all pedestrians and bicyclists — because if they don’t exist we would meet the Vision Zero zero fatality goal just like Magnolia!

        Of course I’m being silly by proposing those bans. Certainly there are some dangerous intersections that need attention because of a design flaw or traffic operations application. But that flaw is unique to that specific location, and has to be analyzed and solved on a case-by-case analysis. And addressing bad driver behavior citywide makes some sense. The logic gap I see is trying to apply general citywide traffic changes with a broad brush rather than tackle the specific intersections where there are problems.

        Living in an urban environment that offers mode choices is awesome! Who wants to drive everywhere? It’s just that having choices that will result in occasional fatalities and serious injuries.

        Even in a seemingly pro-bicycle place like the Netherlands, there is an increasing safety problem with solo and bicycle-bicycle accidents and these account for 80% of bicyclist serious injuries. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457516302457#:~:text=The%20Driver%20Reliability%20and%20Error,deaths%20and%20injuries%20to%20VRUs.). They structurally can’t get to a vision zero type goal for bicyclists and it has nothing to do with traffic.

      4. @Al

        It’s not clear to me what you are suggesting to be honest. It sounds like you are against the concept of Vision Zero, which is essentially just to reduce traffic deaths as quickly as possible, or against the concept of street improvements.

        We can do multiple things at the same time. Reducing homelessness reduces traffic deaths. Making streets safer reduces traffic deaths. Enforcement reduces traffic deaths.

        There no hard data on homeless traffic deaths but the medical examiner lists presumed housing status of traffic deaths. Note unknown usually means unhoused. There’s also a report from 2012-2021

        https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/health-safety/medical-examiner/reports-dashboards

    3. Various cities have adopted Vision Zero plans and been successful. Hoboken, New Jersey hasn’t had a traffic death in 8 years. Helsinki didn’t have a traffic death last year. These are places with plenty of men. My guess is they sometimes get impatient and even violent (especially if they are playing hockey). But the streets are designed in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of a terrible accident. They also have good public transit which really helps.

      1. Just a note that Hoboken contains only 1.25 square miles of land area. The land for Mercer Island could fit five Hoboken’s. Magnolia can fit over two Hoboken’s.

        The Washington Traffic Safety Commission data shows that Mercer Island has only had one fatality that wasn’t on I-90 since 2015 and that was in 2024 (Hoboken has no freeways).

        Magnolia hasn’t had any during that time period. There was one on Thornhill in 2018 but Seattle places that in the Interbay neighborhood.

        I know that Hoboken has 58K residents and is incredibly dense. Still, that statistic doesn’t impress me much.

      2. “My guess is they sometimes get impatient and even violent (especially if they are playing hockey“).
        Whoa, ..Whoa!?
        What’s with the slight against the most congenial and engaging of sports figures?
        Hockey players are very reserved… off the ice. So don’t drive On the ice, unless you’re the Zamboni driver, of course

      3. It’s not a slight, Jim. Al suggested that there was something wrong with men (at least around here). That is why we can’t get to Vision Zero. My point is that Helsinki is a normal city with normal men who do normal things. The same is true for Hoboken. It is the system, not the individuals. It is always the system.

      4. Oh, and I’ve never played ice hockey but I’ve played floor hockey. It is understandable that there are so many fights. It can very frustrating trying to control that puck and just when it seems like you got it someone smashes into you (or you just give up and smash into them). It is easy to see how smashing into people can lead to fights.

      5. I wouldn’t be so confident men are mostly responsible for aggressive driving, that seems to be an equal opportunity activity. However, I will concede they are more likely to engage in ‘post-incident’ road rage.

        Situational Awareness is the more serious issue, which I think is where better road design balanced for all modes is key.

        The key indicator for RIQ…
        Road Intelligence Quotient, is
        the ability to navigate roundabouts SMOOTHLY.

        It’s all a matter of shutting down whiney drivers.
        (My friends know that when they ask a question, especially when we’re in the 405 corridor, they they’re on for a long and detailed answer.)

      7. Uneducated fans attend just for the fights. When I moved up to the PNW from SLC, my friends in the leagues I played in said “Seattle? They play Goon hockey up there!”
        Which was confirmed when I attended my first Thunderbirds game. Had 7 fights, and the game lasted until midnight. That ended up being my last hockey game to attend. I like to see a little actual hockey when I have to pay to watch a hockey game. This was back in the late 70’s, and there were a lot of rules changes put in since then (courtesy Fred Shero’s Broad Street Bullies).
        Ross just doesn’t appreciate the refined French technique of “le Cheque” 😉.

      8. “I attended my first Thunderbirds game. Had 7 fights, and the game lasted until midnight. That ended up being my last hockey game to attend.”

        I had Russian roommates in the 1990s who were big hockey fanatics and played on a local amateur team at ice the rink on 185th & Aurora. One of them told me he preferred professional players and teams who didn’t fight much because then then there was more actual hockey. He said the ones who brawl in every game were generally not as good technical players.

        But he also said teams hire a couple brawlers because the bulk of the audience wants a few brawls or they don’t feel they got their money worth.

        This was in the 90s before MMA became mainstream. Now those who want to watch fights probably go directly to the fights where it’s all fighting all the time.

        I watched amateur matches and one by… whoever the team at KeyArena was before the Kraken, something semi-professional; I don’t remember the name now. I haven’t seen a Kraken match yet. I’ll do it someday.

      9. Wait, could it have been the Thunderbirds I saw? It probably was if they were playing in the mid 2000s. So they’re still around?

      10. As far as I know, there were no hockey teams in Key Arena since it was designed for Supersonics basketball. The Thunderbirds were Junior Hockey. At the Seattle Center they played in the old Arena building, (since torn down), and about the time the Everett Silvertips started (same level/league) the Thunderbirds moved to the Showare Center in Kent.
        Then they rebuilt the Coliseum/Key Arena into the current Climate Pledge Arena.
        Presumably to handle both hockey and basketball.
        The NHL drafts players from the WHL (junior hockey), and then they play for a minor league team (usually) before moving up to the NHL.

      11. Does anybody know why the ShoWare center is called that? Is it named after some company? It seems like an odd name for either a stadium or a company.

      12. Basketball used to have a lot of fights. Then the NBA really cracked down on it and now they are rare. The number of fights in the NHL is slowly going down. I like Olympic hockey because they rarely have fights. I tuned into the “4 Nations Face-Off” figuring it would be similar. The US versus Canada match had three fights before they really started playing. It was really quite something. I grew up watching boxing but I no longer watch any type of fighting. But it is impressive how they are able to box while on skates (although it usually becomes a wrestling match pretty quickly).

        Meanwhile the Canadian announcers seemed thrilled with the fighting (I think the general attitude at the time was “Fu** the USA”). If you look at the YouTube comments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUa6c7DNmQY) it is clear there are a lot of people that like the fighting as much as the hockey. No accounting for taste I guess. After everyone calmed down they did play some really good hockey (it was an excellent series in my opinion).

      13. As far as I know, there were no hockey teams in Key Arena since it was designed for Supersonics basketball.

        Before it was Key Arena it was the Coliseum (it was built for the world’s fair back in 1962). Apparently the Totems and Thunderbirds played there for a while (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockey_in_Seattle). I mostly remember them playing at the smaller “Seattle Center Arena”.

      15. “The number of fights in the NHL is slowly going down. I like Olympic hockey because they rarely have fights. I tuned into the “4 Nations Face-Off” figuring it would be similar. The US versus Canada match had three fights before they really started playing. It was really quite something.”
        One of the first comments on that YouTube video was “This is the way all international disputes should be handled.”

        My sympathies are with the linesman, who step in to separate the combatants.
        When you see too much fighting in regular games, it means the coaches have lost control in not being able to instill in the players a focus on disciplined play, along with the referees losing control of the game.
        It’s a balance between keeping the action flowing, vs. making it like basketball. (I mean, hockey is meant to be a contact sport, after all)
        Fans that are there for just the fights are low-information, and are just as bad as the “Fair Weather Fans” in other sports.
        A lot of people are totally lost because they don’t understand the rules, and it’s way too fast for them to comprehend.

        However, to keep on the subject of Transit….
        That you can access the games via the monorail and Link is the beauty of that location.

      16. I remember the hockey layout used only a third of the field, which was normally basketball. Part of the stands around the hockey rink were in the middle of the field.

      17. “Fans that are there for just the fights are low-information”

        It’s not just them; it’s also people who go for the hockey but want a few fights too. It’s like the difference between mild and medium salsa.

      18. When you’re digging in the boards for the puck it’s pretty intense, but as a player you’re not very effective if you let it piss you off and take it personally. It should be translated into more intense play.

        I know stories about pro players dealing with that, my take is that fights are a distraction, although sometimes it bleeds of that excess energy. (a.k.a. male machismo). It’s a balance.
        If you’ve played, you understand how the alternative can be more dangerous – “chippy” play (high sticking, cross checking, etc)

  5. Rainier Valley living up to its mission to ruin the entire South segment of a multi billion dollar investment.

    1. You mean the segment that has more ridership, walk-up destinations, and walk-up housing than the rest of it? You could turn it around and say Rainier Valley is the most worthwhile part of it.

    2. The Rainier Valley has demonstrated that close-in transit investments can result in increased urban density and lower suburban sprawl as the metro area accommodates new residents.

      And the Link speed problem is more related to the vehicle specs than the MLK section. It will be 55 minutes from Westlake to Federal Way, while it’s just 15 between SODO and Rainier Beach. Dropping the segment travel time radically by 5 minutes would barely be noticeable for that longer trip.

      1. Link’s vehicles can go 65 mph, at least the latest fleet or two. The remaining constraints are turning radii and incline steepness of the track, which was built assuming a 55 mph limit. ST may have used a higher spec for Federal Way and Lynnwood, but I haven’t heard it say so.

        In the mid 2010s boardmembers mused about retrofitting the Rainier Beach-TIB segment for higher speeds and to reduce the shimmying and need for lubrication, but that’s one of several things they mused about then but never pursued later (like converting CID1 station to center platform, exploring Ballard automation, extending the 574 to Westwood Village to backfill the part of the 560 Stride 1 will abandon).

      3. Sorry, I thought this was your idea, I meant to say… What about the 120, ST?

        This was back in 2016, so I bet they had no idea that BRT was coming.

      4. What does the H/120 have to do with the Rainier Beach to TIB segment of Link? They’re different transit markets.

        If you mean the end of my paragraph where I listed various ST board musings in 2014-2016, they’re all independent of each other and were said at different times.

        The H could backfill the 560 if it’s extended to the airport, but Metro has shown no interest in that. It would be slower of course, but you’d have to compare the Westwood Village-SeaTac travel times to see if it would be reasonable for passengers. Although since the alternative is transferring from the H to a less-frequent unimproved route in Burien, extending the H has got to be better than that.

      5. It will be 55 minutes from Westlake to Federal Way, while it’s just 15 between SODO and Rainier Beach. Dropping the segment travel time radically by 5 minutes would barely be noticeable for that longer trip.

        Good point. It is also worth noting that there are no stops between Rainier Beach and Tukwila but it takes 9 minutes. It is about 5.6 miles from what I estimate*. That works out to 37 miles an hour. There is bound to some time spent speeding up and slowing down but that is a very long, open stretch and yet the train seems to slow down for various turns. Any bypass would have similar turns. The time savings (and additional coverage) just wouldn’t be worth it.

        Even just the operational hassle isn’t worth it. Consider some of the options:

        1) Trains less often to Rainier Valley.
        2) Turn back the trains from Rainier Valley at TIBS or SeaTac. This means breaking the brand new connection between Highline College and Rainier Valley.
        3) Run both lines to Federal Way. This means trains running every five minutes from TIBS to Federal Way — a really long distance for the number of riders it would pick up.
        4) Run the bypass every 7.5 minutes during peak but a lot less often outside of peak. Congratulations, you just built the most expensive commuter rail line ever.

        When it comes to operations one of the key aspects is ridership per service hour (which is similar to ridership per mile in the case of a metro). In this case ridership per service hour would be much worse.

        In contrast if the trains were grade-separated in Rainier Valley they could run more often and a bit faster. They would be safer and more reliable. This would benefit everyone. Ridership per service hour would improve dramatically. If we also made SoDo grade-separated (which would be easier) we could automate the trains. This would drive down the cost of operations even more.

        *I estimated the distance using Google Maps. I don’t know of any website that lists the distance between stations.

      6. Any bypass would have similar turns. The time savings (and additional coverage) just wouldn’t be worth it

        No, it wouldn’t, except at the ends. At least, the Airport Way idea. Trains will already be running slowly at the south end, because they will have stopped at East Marginal Station and there’s a sharp curve just to its north. Yes, they will go through the turnouts to connect to the bypass at roughly 25, and there will be curves to change from east-west to north-south directional running.

        But once they have completed the transition, it’s essentially straight up to the Albro, with one slight curve about half way that can be taken at track speed. The trains can run at full designed speed for two and a half miles here.

        North of Albro the train will have to slow to stop for the Georgetown Station, and north of the station it will have to make the “S”-curve to diagonal across the BNSF trackway. Once the S has been negotiated, probably about 30 or so the structure will slowly get shorter until the spur track breaks off from the BNSF switching lead that goes up along the E3 roadway. It will continue north, replacing the switch lead between Airport Way and I-5, on short eight or ten foot high structure to allow low vehicles to use the parking between the siding and the freeway. That can be traversed at track speed.

        A couple of blocks south of Spokane trains would have to slow as the structure drops to grade in order to pass under the West Seattle Freeway structure. From this point through the Outer Loop of the Maintenance Facility the trains would be limited to about twenty-five miles per hour, but they go past the MF on the structure about the same speed anyway.

        The average speed over the entire distance would easily equal the windy, steep section between the curve at BAR and King Way and TIBS.

      7. SeaTac to downtown Seattle is 19 minutes on Highway 509, when there isn’t congestion. The cost of a bypass could buy a lot of bus service – especially if building a bypass line really doesn’t save that much time over such a bus.

        When many European countries look at projects with this amount of investment, the goal is usually to beat driving, and certainly at bare minimum to beat bus times.

        Therefore, goal should be to get from SeaTac to downtown Seattle in 15 minutes.

        Stadler, Siemens and Alstom all make light weight regional trains capable of operating in the 110 mph range.

        If the expense of a bypass line is worthwhile, then it should be built to be compatible with something like that, in order to start the process of getting an actual regional system going..

    3. The concerns about the operational difficulties of an express route are real, but they actually offer some flexibility that is desirable. I would opt for pattern two, probably turning back at Angle Lake because there’s is a new pocket there and there’s room to add a second deck to the station if necessary. Riders between South King County and the Rainier Valley would change at Sea-Tac, TIBS or East Marginal.

      The real question is “what do we do about the RV trains north of SoDo” and there’s no glib, easy answer. Clearly the existing tunnel would have to have upgrades to the TCS, and the RV trains would have to have drivers for the at-grade section. Ideally the RV trains would run between Northgate and Angle Lake under the control of the TCS everywhere except between Mount Baker and East Marginal. I expect that the drivers could turn back at SoDo where a comfort station would be easy to add, and that they could be ready to take over at Mount Baker because of the intervening stop at Beacon Hill. But maybe it would require that they turn back at IDS; the time to set up and lock down could be tested.

      The bypass trains would run between Lynnwood and Federal Way Downtown and (maybe someday) Tacoma Dome under the control of the TCS all the way. They would not require drivers anywhere.

      This assumes “grade separating” (by fencing and overpasses) along the E3 roadway.

      Line 2 trains would run under the control of the TCS from South Bellevue to Lynnwood or, if Everett is ever built, to Mariner. Line 2 trains initially could be completely operated by the TCS railway “north” of South Bellevue”. That is, the human drivers needed for the at-grade segments could board and alight from the trains at Judkins Park or if necessary at IDS. That would require adding some sort of operator comfort facility at one or the other, but that’s not a show-stopper.

      If the Everett extension ever came about, a separate cadre of operators would turn back at Lynnwood and relinquish and assume control of the train when it descends from structure to grade west of SR99.

  6. Hi, I’m sure it’s been discussed but wondering people’s thoughts on the “NE 85th Street/I-405 Interchange & Inline BRT Station Project” happening at Kirkland exit 18 right now.

    My gut reaction is to be excited about it, but I’ve seen some heavy complaining about it on reddit. I’m a noob when it comes to the cost/benefit analysis of transit projects, what are your thoughts? Will it be worth the money? Should it have been light rail? Etc?

    1. It definitely shouldn’t have been rail. But it is very expensive and they don’t expect to get that many riders. I see the value (you can have crossing buses connect to freeway express buses) but I’m not sure it is worth it. It isn’t hard to imagine a substitute that involved just buses. But that would require more service. Thus the capital spending saves service spending. At some point this sort of thing is a good value but I doubt it was in this case.

      Oh, and Dan Ryan wrote a great piece about this a while back.

    2. BRT is appropriate because they can freeload off WSDOT’s investments in the toll lanes. And the construction is going relatively quick and smooth.

      From passenger experience (my opinion) the location is confusing. I’m not sure when to pick Stride + transfer vs Rapidride K if my destination involved Kirkland downtown.

    3. I would add that while this is a lot of money for maybe not that many riders it isn’t nearly as bad as the SR-522 situation. They are planning on spending a lot more money just to make the street wider. I have a potential solution (https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/09/13/fixing-stride-3/) but I don’t know if anyone is considering it. The battle seems to be between the transit agency on one side and locals on the other when we should be asking drivers to live with minor inconveniences.

    4. It’s not worth the money from a transit perspective. It’s nice that there will be a transit connection there but the rebuild should have been sold as ped/bike/driver infrastructure.

      The downtown Kirkland-Bellevue transit market is just not very strong because driving has so much of an advantage. Even an express bus would have trouble competing with driving. The 85th/I-405 intersection also misses the major population center in downtown Kirkland.

    5. There are complaints here that the 85th interchange renovation was massively overbuilt for just adding in-line bus stations, due to car interests. I don’t know enough about highway infrastructure to evaluate that myself. Cities have a way of loading Sound Transit projects with unrelated things they wanted anyway for non-transit reasons. It’s called the Christmas-tree approach to transit development, and ST and Metro have basically no choice but to fund them as a condition for getting the transit project approved or getting city construction permits.

    6. ” I’m a noob when it comes to the cost/benefit analysis of transit projects, what are your thoughts? Will it be worth the money? Should it have been light rail? Etc?”
      It’s simple… Okay, maybe not that simple.
      But in a nutshell, what happens is:
      First you filter through the options and winnow down everything to a set of alternatives (there were 4 in the I-405 Master Plan), plus a No Action alternative.
      Second you determine which alternatives “Reduce Congestion”. The value for that parameter is “Travel Time Savings” – i.e. the Benefit.
      Then you add up the total cost of each alternative, based on “What did this cost us to do for the most recent project”, and that’s your Cost.
      Most of these analyses use a 30 year time frame – approximately 10 years of construction, and 15-20 years of use.
      Light-Rail-only’s Cost/Benefit ratio was dismal at the benefit (reducing congestion) because its benefit doesn’t show up until after the Horizon Year.
      Back when the FEIS for I-405 was being cooked up they were using $4.1 Billion as the cost estimate for Light Rail in the corridor (approx. $7Bil in today’s dollars).
      No specifics, just lines on a map.
      BRT + 4 GP lanes was chosen because the 4 lanes reduce congestion, and transit gets served…
      as long as you IGNORE the commuter rail option using the ERC. 😉

    7. “The downtown Kirkland-Bellevue transit market is just not very strong because driving has so much of an advantage. ”

      What matters is the size of the cities and their job centers. That generates a baseline level of circulation demand between them. That’s what Stride 2 and RapidRide K theoretically target, like metro lines and BRT lines around the world. These two are less than ideal because Stride doesn’t reach Kirkland’s center and the K will be slower due to arterial speed limits and stoplights and car congestion in shared lanes, but they’re bettter than nothing. The net result is that Kirkland and Bellevue will be connected less than ideally, so they won’t reach the potential ridership and transformational capability they could have. But again, it’s better than the 535 and 250, especially since they will be frequent for a longer span.

      The driving mode share is the problem we’re trying to solve, not a reason to have transit that isn’t as competitive as it could be. We could just eliminate transit so that the only way to get from downtown Kirkland to downtown Bellevue is by driving. That would be the logical conclusion of yielding to “the vast majority of people drive” argument. THE REASON THEY DRIVE IS PARTLY BECAUSE THERE ARE NO HIGH-QUALITY, ALWAYS-FREQUENT TRANSIT ALTERNATIVES.

      1. @Mike

        I agree with you, I phrased that poorly. What I meant to express is that I don’t believe the 85th/I-405 project is particularly valuable because the largest market it serves is as an express route from downtown Kirkland-Bellevue. Yes there is some level of baseline demand, but nowhere near enough to run a productive express route between those two destinations.

        A point of comparison might be the K line: it’s going to be a much larger improvement for much less money than the 85th/I-405 station. That’s because it’s improving many local trip pairs rather than focusing narrowly on the express route.

        Of course the station is an add-on to Stride and an add-on to I-405 work, and in that sense it’s a “might as well” kind of scenario, but from a transit perspective if those funds were fully fungible then they would be much, much better spent elsewhere.

      2. An 85th station is worthwhile in any case, for people coming from Lynnwood or Bothell to either Kirkland or Redmond. There will surely be a frequent east-west route to replace that part of the 250. It’s not an ideal way to reach downtown Kirkland, but if you’re starting from Totem Lake, Bothell, or Lynnwood, the last-mile issue may seem minor compared to Stride’s frequency/speed. And let’s not forget going east to Redmond.

        The issue is the interchange plan seems widely overbuilt. There are similar though lesser complaints complaints about the station in northern Renton if I remember.

        Asdf2 has raised the issue that the sidewalks across 405 at 85th are so minimal that there’s no legal way for pedestrians to access the lots in the northeast quarter, so it’s either jaywalk or go way out of your way. The renovation should fix that.

      3. The bike/ped/driver improvements are actually quite significant, but looking at it from just a transit perspective it’s just not worth the investment. I don’t think the project is a waste of money but I also don’t think it should be billed as transit infrastructure.

        Yes there are smaller trip pairs the station serves (like Bothell/Lynnwood-downtown Kirkland), but those markets are just not very big. Again as a point of comparison I believe the K is going to add an order of magnitude more riders than the 85th station.

      4. “Yes there are smaller trip pairs the station serves (like Bothell/Lynnwood-downtown Kirkland), but those markets are just not very big.”

        But they still need regional transit of some kind. That’s what cities with comprehensive transit have, and why they can reach 50% car mode share or less. Both between the large nodes and with stations in the smaller nodes between them to facilitate trips like Bothell-Kirkland. Extending RapidRide K to Bothell would be too slow for a Bellevue-Bothell trip. If not Stride, then what? The Eastside’s transit network has been incomplete forever because of the holes that Link and Stride are filling. I lived through it in the 70s and 80s and still encounter it when I go to Eastside cities once or twice a month to visit somebody or attend something or buy something.

        We’ve just seen how significant Link is between Lynnwood, Northgate, the U-District and Capitol Hill. That’s the freedom a less-than-30-minute ride gives to trips between Lynnwood, Bothell, Totem Lake, and Kirkland. The 535 is half-hourly weekdays, hourly Saturdays, and has no service Sundays, so it’s not very feasible to use for a lot of trips.

      5. An 85th station is worthwhile in any case, for people coming from Lynnwood or Bothell to either Kirkland or Redmond.

        Yeah sure but you could achieve the same thing by just adding service. That is what I was getting it. The obvious connection points are Totem Lake and Downtown Bellevue. So imagine this:

        1) Bus from Totem Lake to Downtown Kirkland.
        2) Bus from Totem Lake to Downtown Redmond.
        3) Bus from Downtown Kirkland to Downtown Bellevue.

        This accomplishes the same thing. If I’m trying to get from Lynnwood to Downtown Kirkland I transfer at Totem Lake and take that first bus. To get to Downtown Redmond from Lynnwood I take the second bus. For riders trying to get from Kirkland TC to Downtown Bellevue I take that third bus.

        We already have 1. Not only that but the RapidRide K could easily serve the freeway station (and layover on the west side). That would allow riders to take two buses from the freeway station at Totem Lake to Downtown Kirkland (the 255 or K). Both would be fairly frequent. Making the transfer at 85th is better, but I’m not sure it is that much better. Frequency matters. Imagine the dust settles and we are running both the 255 and K between Downtown Kirkland and Totem Lake. If you are going from Kirkland TC to Lynnwood you just take the first bus that shows up, even if it is the 255. It would be a little slower but it beats waiting.

        For item 2, the 930 runs between Totem Lake and Redmond. It only runs every half hour. It could run more often, especially during peak. I could also see an overlay of the 225 (which runs infrequently). It would follow the same initial path but then turn on Redmond Way (instead of Old Redmond Road) and then go to Downtown Redmond. It could run more often (especially during peak).

        We item 3 we will have the K. I could see a peak-only express version of it (Downtown Kirkland/405/Downtown Bellevue). The same is true for items 1 and 2 for that matter. You could easily run express buses that run on the freeway between Totem Lake and 85th (today).

        Now imagine there is no 85th freeway project. Even with 405 BRT it is unlikely we would add those sort of improvements to the network. Or at most we spend a little bit of money on an express bus here and there that only runs during peak. It just isn’t worth speeding up only a handful of trips. Yet that is exactly how we are spending our money — it is just going into capital spending (not service spending). This goes back to my original point. How much service could you get for that amount of capital spending and would it make sense to spend it for this purpose or some other area (e. g. express buses from Totem Lake to the UW)? I honestly don’t know how much it costs to run a route (on average) so I really don’t know. But it seems like a lot of money for not that much improvement.

        But again, it is nothing compared to other ST projects (especially rail but also other BRT projects).

      6. “you could achieve the same thing by just adding service. ”

        That depends on the agencies/cities being willing to do that. Part of the reason we have Link, Stride, and RapidRide in the Eastside is the agencies/cities weren’t willing to just increase regular bus frequency and give it more transit-priority lanes without it. You can say forever that cities should do it, but if they won’t, then passengers can’t use it.

        Pretty much all of Metro’s restructures in the past twenty years have been revenue-neutral, not expansions, except for the money that comes with a RapidRide line. That’s why it’s making tradeoffs between one route and another in South King County, the Eastside, North Seattle, East Seattle, etc, rather than just making all of them full-time frequent like peer cities internationally have. Link, RapidRide, and Stride ensure that at least some corridors meet international standards, and that’s better than nothing.

        You’ll raise exceptions like the 40, but that’s not the typical average.

      7. If transit funds were fully fungible (obviously they aren’t), then they should be spent where they would be the most impactful. The $250 million spent on the 85th St station could fund 2-3 more RapidRide routes. It seems obvious to me that if we had to pick between the K line and the 85th station we would pick the K line every single time.

        The cutoff for “useful” is subjective but I don’t think 85th station meets the bar. I hope I am wrong and it proves to be very successful, but I suspect when completed the station will serve something on the order of 100s of daily riders for a cost of $250 million.

        It is useful to improve less common trips (like Bothell to Kirkland), but at the end of the day those trips are useful to a much smaller number of people. If transit isn’t useful to people, then they won’t ride it and won’t support additional investment in transit. If transit is useful, people will ride it and support additional investment in transit.

      8. That depends on the agencies/cities being willing to do that.

        Of course, but that is true for every project. In this case the agencies decided to build something that is not especially cost effective. It is like building Issaquah Link instead of connecting the HOV lanes of 405 and I-90 so that a bus can serve the Eastgate freeway stop and get right to Downtown Bellevue (without leaving the HOV lanes). If the agency was willing to do the right thing it would the right thing. But they didn’t. That is the point.

    8. I view the project as an incremental, political result of conflicting systems visions when it comes to modes and destinations.

      I see its genesis stemming from a desire to rebuild the interchange while creating a freeway median bus stop there. Freeway median stops are hard to make pleasant and convenient so we shall see if this one is or not.

      It feels like ST is expected to allocate more than too much towards the project since it strikes me more of a highway project than a transit project — but it’s not clear how much of the $287M is coming from ST versus WSDOT tolls and other sources.

      It has long felt to me that there is some corridor redundancy with the 4 Line’s South Kirkland Station. In the rush to create ST3, a more cohesive strategy to interface the two did not have time to develop at ST. Maybe the solution is to get behind RapidRide K. That seems to be the high-frequency transit ribbon to tie all the nearby destinations together. It’s entirely possible that RapidRide K will have more riders than Stride 2 will have.

      Maybe it can even be a case study on whether Stride should be interfacing with Metro buses at more places along 405. The current project generally skips many others like at 520, 90, 900 or 169 in the East King subarea.

      1. I’ve been looking for the STRide 85th at Kirkland stop design plans, and so far I’ve only come across artist’s renditions.
        Those don’t show a lot of detail, but I’m not seeing actual transit shelters.
        Does anyone know more details?
        You’d think they’d at least show a small shelter/stop.

        Along those lines, my question is:
        Who on the Eastside has used the Totem Lake stop?
        The only freeway bus stop I’ve used was the one at Mountlake Terrace, and that stop is downright pedestrian and transit rider HOSTILE .
        Cold, windy, noisy as hell.
        I suppose we should be thankful there is a pedestrian overpass saving us from having to dart across active freeway lanes.

      2. I haven’t been to them but my guess is Mountlake Terrace is much worse than Totem Lake. With Mountlake Terrace you are at the same level as the freeway. There are walls but it is open on both ends (to allow a lot of sound in). In contrast Totem Lake sits above the freeway. I’ve crossed NE 128th and while it wasn’t pleasant it wasn’t horrible either. Hard to say how bad 85th will be without more drawings. It would make for an interesting comparison.

      3. Isn’t the 85th station supposed to be “between” 85th and the freeway? That’s what the conceptual diagrams look like: a three-layer cake with a roundabouty thing for the buses and HOV’s in the middle layer.

        Here’s a Reddit about the project, but it may be out of date: https://www.reddit.com/r/Kirkland/comments/19fennb/renders_of_the_new_threelevel_interchange_at_the/

        It looks like the idea is to have both STRide stations to the north of 85th, kind of tucked under the top deck for rain protection. It looks like the 85th stations are just east of the northbound upper deck and just west of the southbound upper deck, and it looks like 85th Street buses will stop twice. That minimizes the walk to the STRide stations.

        But it does mean that the transfers to and from eastbound buses running on 85th will have to cross both the east- and west-bound ramps for NE 85th.

        And in answer to your query, it does indeed look like the KCM stations do not have shelters. I’m sure that they will provide them; ST ain’t payin’ for them, though, that’s for sure.

        I used Montlake one time and found it not awfully loud, though quite blustery.

      4. @Tom,
        Much Better…. artist’s rendition.
        Thanks.
        As bad as I was expecting.

        The comments on reddit are typical through-the-windshield whiney car drivers.
        Their big complaint is the congestion on 85th, and how bad they perceive the traffic backups will be.
        All transit’s fault, of course.
        (Well, the whole Gub’ment, including WSDOT’s highway design engineers)

        That’s at least a bright spot.
        Kirkland is getting the traffic it asks for.

      5. Based on the drawings it would be under the freeway a bit which would reduce the noise. It would be interesting to do a comparison (with a sound meter) of various freeway stops.

  7. Here are my new proposals for ST 2026 Service Plan (note that I avoided anything extra, which means that it replaces nothing and is made for fun).

    510
    I would keep it how it is, except giving it a new deviation to Ash Way and Mariner park and rides (like the 201/202), giving it a NE 45th Freeway Station stop, and possibly instead of having a new number have this route run overnight (stopping at Lynnwood, Shoreline South, and Northgate). Currently, Metro has routes 6-7, and 49 operates between Northgate and Westlake overnight, that’s why there are no stops there, with the exception of that freeway station at 45th. Continue 15 minute headways in the peak direction, and expand them so that all trips between 5 am and 9 am (to Seattle), and 2 pm to 7 pm (to Everett) run 15 minutes. It would run in both directions from midnight to 5 am every 60 minutes. Ross pointed out that the bus is useful if it operates on the express lanes, which I updated. I wouldn’t expect congestion overnight, so it can operate freely.

    512:
    Delete this route and replace it with the 510, and I would expect riders to use the 201/202, and 903/904/905 more often with this change (helping CT make more riders than now), even though they are high ridership routes, there is always room for improvement, a bus would come every 7.5 minutes from Everett to Ash Way at peak. This also saves money by deleting this as not many people use it as before (Ross said due to Link which I agree with), the 512 has lost its purpose.

    513:
    This route has terrible ridership, I still don’t expect many people on it even with ST’s proposed changes, instead delete it and encourage riders to use the 12, 201/202, 510, and Swift Green Line (from Eastmont there is no alternative because they want to remove service to it anyways).

    515:
    Delete this as planned.

    522:
    Do the planned changes, except re-route it onto 98th/185th instead of running on Woodinville Dr and Kaysner Way (as I expect ridership to increase in Downtown Bothell, currently it has poor access). This is also consistent with Stride S3.

    532:
    Delete this for better 535 service, which has terrible frequencies despite being the ONLY bus to run on I-405 all-day. I would expect riders to transfer at Lynnwood now with the 535 running more often (and skipping the Alderwood Mall).

    535:
    Have this route skip Alderwood Mall, instead of going to I-5 rather than deviating, which is the 117 and 166’s job anyways, this is consistent with Stride. Give this all-day 15 minute frequencies, and new Sunday service. Weekend frequencies would be 15 minutes as well.

    542:
    Extend this route from Redmond TC to Bear Creek P&R (overlapping the 545). Increase service to every 15 minutes, same frequencies 7 days a week. Have this stop at Montlake.

    545:
    Turn this route into a peak-only route, running to Seattle in the morning, and to Redmond in the afternoon. Runs every 15 minutes. No changes to the routing (except adding possibly a Montlake stop).

    550:
    Delete this as how ST plans.

    552:
    This is what I’ll call the east overnight route, except have it serve all stations that the 2 Line serves between Westlake and Downtown Redmond (with possibly the exception of Judkins Park is no space is available to stop).

    554:
    Delete this as how ST plans.

    556:
    Keep this as how ST proposes it.

    560:
    Truncate this west at Burien TC (instead of continuing to Westwood, riders would use the H), stop at Tukwila International Blvd rather than SeaTac Airport (transferring to the 1 Line, shaving off time as the bus doesn’t have to go through congested expressways), and increase service to every 15 minutes every day same frequencies (7 days a week).

    566:
    Replace this with better and more convenient service, though it demolishes a 3-seat ride, it can be made up by increasing frequencies (using the 2 Line, then 560, then either Sounder or the new 567).

    567:
    New route from Rainier Beach to Puyallup, have it use the old 578’s path from Puyallup to Auburn Station, but instead of going west to Federal Way, have the 567 continue north via the old 566’s path from Auburn to Renton, at Renton TC it would go back to Rainier Ave S north to Rainier Beach (providing a new fast connection between Rainier Beach and Renton). This route would run 7 days a week, all-day every 20 minutes (matching with Sounder). Also creates a one seat connection connecting the entirety of SR 167. This is 30+ miles long, but made up by deleting a lot of routes.

    574:
    Delete this route in favor of better 594 service (which would duplicate this route if the 594 now stops at Federal Way and is increased to 15 minutes). This saves money.

    577:
    Delete this route in favor of better 594 service (which would be redundant if a 594 stop is added). This could also save money.

    578:
    Delete this route in favor of better 594 service (which would also be redundant if the 594 gets a Federal Way stop), I would expect riders to use the S Line or 567 from Puyallup/Auburn to Seattle, and use the 181 (soon to run frequently) to connect themselves from Federal Way to Auburn.

    580:
    Delete this route as planned.

    586:
    Delete this route as planned, it takes around the same time as the 1 Line.

    590:
    Delete this route in favor of the 594.

    591:
    This route would connect Downtown Seattle, SoDo, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Tukwila, SeaTac, Kent/Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way. Acting better as a southern overnight route than ST’s proposal (which skips a margin of the stops).

    592:
    Delete this route in favor of the 594.

    594
    Add overnight service, increase service to 15 minutes all-day (60 minutes overnight). It would stop at Kent Des Moines and Star Lake at night, add a Federal Way Downtown stop (in order to clear up resources), and the route would go to Lakewood TC via the 574’s old path, but all trips at peak running 30 minutes (to Seattle in the morning, and to DuPont in the evening) would go back down to I-5 continuing to DuPont Station (replacing the 592).

    595:
    Delete this route in favor of better 594 service, the segment from Gig Harbor to Tacoma is currently in charge of Pierce Transit, so it’s none of our business.

    596:
    Extend this to Lakewood Station (via SR 512), it would go from Sumner Station west to Puyallup Station, then to Lakewood Station (stopping at South Hill P&R in favor of the 580 which will be deleted).

    I simplified the network, deleting cost effecting routes with better service. I took your feedback and made this new one.

    1. NOTE: Since the 567 is a real route, I’ll change the number to 576.

  8. The System Expansion Progress Report for October shows East Link work has eaten more of its float contingency days: https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/system-expansion-monthly-status-report-oct2025.pdf

    Notably, the project task timeline chart kicked the start of Simulated Service up to mid November, which tracks (heh) with ST’s sporadic testing of 4-minute headways in Seattle over the last few weeks, but simulated service is now expected to end on April 22.

    CEO Constantine also told King5 that the lake crossing would be open no later than May 31: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/bellevue/bellevue-light-rail-extension-opening-may-31-or-sooner/281-da6ae8bb-1aa5-4894-9769-feb9ec888852

    Who wants to make bets on opening day? I’ll wager a Climate Pledge Arena pint that it ends up being Saturday, May 30, just over two weeks before the first FIFA World Cup game in Seattle.

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