No New Tunnel Downtown? Sound Transit Explores Ballard Link Alternatives

195 Replies to “No New Tunnel Downtown? Sound Transit Explores Ballard Link Alternatives”

1. We demand what we voted for. Stop endless studies and get ‘er done!

   1. Do you have sone way to magically create more money?

      1. It’s simple! 350,000 households in Seattle, and a $10B shortfall for Ballard Link (alone), so that’s a mere $28k more per household to build the worst possible version of a crayon map in a voting guide almost 10 years ago, which we now know will… [checks notes] build a deep bore tunnel through downtown that won’t meaningfully expand any stations, make connectivity between south Seattle and central/northeast Seattle worse, and won’t provide any meaningful improvements to the existing tunnel. Such value!

         Let’s build the good part first (Ballard to Westlake), and build something better when we can afford it.

      2. Well put, Nathan.

      3. Why does it have to be that expensive, Nathan Dickey?

         I think that’s the point.

         The money is being wasted and we’re still getting a low quality output. Why are we wasting so much money on these studies, community events, art designers, etc. Etc.? A lot of that could be saved into delivering the system.

         Sound Transit is not a corporation. They shouldn’t waste time on their branding and side quests. We are paying for it with OUR tax money.

      4. > Why does it have to be that expensive, Nathan Dickey?

         You’ll have to ask HNTB and/or ST’s megaproject managers.

         > Why are we wasting so much money on these studies, community events, art designers, etc. Etc.?

         Ah. These items are peanuts compared to the cost to built a mile of deep bore tunnel, in most cases, are literally legally required. Public participation is at the core of our state and federal environmental protection laws, so these items are mandatory. 1% for artwork is also mandatory at a few municipal levels. These are not things that have quadrupled the cost of ST3 in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2016.

      5. So let me get this straight:

         You want them to stop spending money on studies, and instead would prefer they spend it on building something that would make transit times longer for a vast majority of passengers?

      6. It’s not really “peanuts” compared to building the system.

         The cost of every employee counts. They also contract people who clearly rip them off and can’t do the work. Recurring issue with WSDOT especially recently.

         Again, a government agency should act as if they are on a tight budget. They’re not a corporation. But Sound Transit acts like it’s a free for all budget and they can keep bringing up taxes at their well to an absurd cost of $28k per resident, as you’ve mentioned.

         No one here would give away that much money if they’re asked to “chip in”, even a transit lover. But we don’t notice when it’s taxed away I guess.

   2. With the deep level station at 14th instead of Ballard and the deep level tunnel at Westlake, the current plan makes trips slower than the existing bus service for the vast majority of people.

      Why do you support doing this?

   3. Are you referring to the second tunnel or the extensions?

      1. Porque no hacen mejor un teleferico. Supongo que seria mas economico la construccion por arriba y las vistas serian impresionantes al pasar por Queen Anne . En algunos paises lo han implementado y a sido un exito!!!!. Ya no mas tuneles , desestabilizan la tierra .

   4. We didn’t vote for extremely bad line-to-line transfers downtown. The representative alignment in the ballot measure implied the stations would be at the same depth as the existing ones and as close adjacent to them as possible. Because in a multi-line system, half or more of the trip pairs require such a transfer, such as 1+3 or 1+2. When the transfers came back much worse than expected, ST should have gone back to the drawing board and looked for something better. This is a significant issue on top of the cost.

   5. DC Metro recently spent $5B to run it’s trains from 3-min between trains to 90-seconds. The congestion of three trains seems a false problem when the current minimum train time of 6 minutes could run FOUR train in the current time of one.
      Either get current technology or get new planners aware of 2010 train controlling systems.

      1. DC Metro is equipped with ATO and with design speed of 75 mph from day 1. The system was designed to run extreme frequency. Since the 09 incident, it had been switched to manual operation. It was built with the potential to run 90-second headway. Link was built nowhere near that.
         I don’t think Link light rail is designed to do 90-seconds headway. It can push for 90 seconds or less between trains but I don’t think it can actually run in 90-sec headway.

2. Why don’t they look at plowing the billions for West Seattle Link’s paltry ridership into better bus service, and build the planned trains for the much higher ridership on the downtown-Ballard line?

   1. You can’t plow with money that does not exist.

   2. Because Dow Constantine put his thumb on the scale and said West Seattle Link was necessary and the West Seattle-SODO stub should be first. ST has rebuffed all calls to switch to better bus service or schedule West Seattle Link after Ballard and whatever happens downtown. Dow and several other current/former county/city politicians live in West Seattle, so that may explain why he wants it first and is blind to the higher ridership of Ballard.

      Dow is now ST CEO so the decision is no longer in his hands. But the current board has shown no inclination to change its view. It has even proposed a SODO-Delridge stub, which sounds like a train from nowhere to nowhere.

      1. Mike, I agree with your last sentence. At this point, ST should just abandon West Seattle and Ballard extensions and do my suggested project that would be more than a billion times better if you know what I mean, and it costs less than half the budget for the projects and doesn’t save only 4-5 billions.

      2. ST “should”, but convincing the board to do that is easier said than done.

   3. “You can’t plow with money that does not exist.”

      There’s some billions available from the West Seattle project even if there’s not a lot of billions.

      1. Exactly. The problem is not lack of money. The problem is that what ST wants to buy is too expensive. They can spend $4 billion on West Seattle Link and be right on budget. The problem is that doesn’t buy anything when it comes to Link. That kind of money would buy plenty when it comes to buses though. You could connect the Spokane Street Viaduct with the SoDo Busway and have lots of money left over to run buses for the next twenty years. By then it is quite likely we would have automated buses which means we could shift spending towards expanding our fleet.

   4. Let’s plow the billions into much better BRT and local bus service for all five extensions. STOP THE DAMNED TRAINS.

3. Are you able to load the images so that they expand when clicked on? If not, which link should we click to see the slides?

   1. I couldn’t expand them when I reviewed the article this morning. I tried opening one in a new tab and it wasn’t any larger, so it looks like larger originals weren’t available. The article had to go out today ahead of the ST board meeting Thursday so there was no time to see if we could make the image embeds clickable.

   2. It works for me just fine. They don’t open in a bigger window they just get bigger. I’m pretty sure the page uses JavaScript as opposed to anchors. We build it using WordPress and it is their standard approach for this sort of thing. You might be able to fix it by doing a search (although I didn’t see anything obvious).

      To answer your question I believe all the images are taken from that first link below: https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2025/Report%20-%20Second%20Downtown%20Tunnel%20Feasibility%20Assessment%20-%2012-11-25.pdf

4. The Ballard stub assumes Link mode, correct? Is ST staff assuming the stub would be connected to Link at some point in the future so needs to be compatible no only from a technology standpoint but also an alignment standpoint, or is it designed to be standalone permanently.

   If Ballard Link is a permanently standalone line, it really could be something that looks much more like the monorail than Link, with high frequency 1-car operations. I wonder if changing that assumption would reduce the OMF requirement? 4-car trains at 6 minute presumably is how they get to a 40 car fleet (40 VPH). 1-car train running every 2 minutes is better service with 3/4 of the fleet (30 VPH).
   That said, a bigger OMF footprint will allow for modest extensions in the future (post-ST3), such as an extension to First Hill.

   1. For a measly 1 billion they could build a separate maint tunnel from Denny to the remaining west lake stub, and skip a new omf in interbay.

      Property acquisitions are a straw man to unite opposition against a project.

      1. Exactly. The oblique intersections at Stewart and Third and Stewart and Westlake are perfect for keeping the alignment on public rights of way. Out of service trains on non-revenue trackage can move slowly.

         Yes, the north wall of the station box would be cut through by the TBM, but only one track would be required, and it could merge with the southbound track just as that track enters the bored section headed south. Yes, this would require a few weeks’ closure to clean up the mess from TBM hole-through and add the turnout. Trains would head toward Ballard from Forest Street by running against traffic, so would go during non-operating periods. A facing-point cross-over would be added in the block north of the CIDS platforms.

         The junction at Westlake and Stewart would require its own junction box or could be included in the New Westlake box. I think the former would be less expensive.

         Overall this would be less expensive than a full MF in Interbay. You’d need a cleaning facility but an isolated system could be fully automated with a few trains running on one track all the time like the Times Square Shuttle and out-of-service trains parked on the other.

      2. Whoops, Psf wants to go the other direction from Westlake. That would work, too though the tunnel would have to cross the grid.

   2. “The Ballard stub assumes Link mode, correct?”

      We (the STB staff) haven’t seen any other technologies mentioned in ST’s output this week. Tomorrow’s article will address the need for an automated Ballard stub alternative.

      1. Good.

5. Why is there no 100% elevated stub concept?? Even needing to buy a 1/2 block in SLU to make the hard turn, a 100% elevated alignment has got to be meaningfully cheaper than any of these options.

   1. There’s some rule about fire codes and distance from buildings preventing the sort of elevated ROW construction like the Monorail. At least, that’s what’s been used to explain why WSLE can’t end with an elevated station over Fauntleroy/Alaska instead of tearing down two brand-new apartment buildings.

      1. Then change the fire code. It’s a bit more technical, but legally it’s as stupid as saying they cannot run elevated because of the municipal zoning. Work with the relevant state agency and change the regulations.

   2. The bridge over the ship canal would have to be insanely high per the coast guard, or have to be a drawbridge which kind of defeats the purpose of a grade separate rapid transit project to Ballard.

      1. That depends.

         If the bridge is high enough, it wouldn’t open very often.

         If it were built elevated above Commodore and crossed west of the locks, you’d gain another 20 feet or so. You’d want to make sure the curve is a long sweeping one so the trains are able to operate as fast as possible.

         By approaching Ballard from the west, you avoid all the constrains around the Ballard Bridge.

      2. We could run elevated along Westlake or so and still do a tunnel under the ship canal. It would still be far cheaper than the current plan as it would not need any underground stations.

      3. It’s why some of us suggested Ballard to UW instead of the current alignment

      4. “It’s why some of us suggested Ballard to UW instead of the current alignment”

         Yep. Ballard to UW looked good back when they were planning ST3 and it looks even better now. Don’t have to worry about crossing the ship canal or another tunnel downtown. Better transfers. Cheaper. Serves better locations (cough*not Smith Cove*cough). Would still be a faster way downtown.

         ST planners botched this whole thing six ways to Sunday. Arrogance and ignorance is never a good combination, and ST has both in spades.

      5. It seems like automated trains could work just fine with a drawbridge (that rarely opens). It might be the first but not nearly the engineering challenge of say, putting a light rail line on a floating bridge.

      6. “It’s why some of us suggested Ballard to UW instead of the current alignment”
         or a Y potentially serving downtown, UW, and Ballard via Fremont – drawbridge or tunnel. Automated trains can go back and forth quickly. As they also run totally on time, they can even use single tracks efficiently. Seattle Center / Uptown could be an elevated single track stub connecting to a Westlake main line.
         Another freedom automation brings.

      7. “Automated trains can go back and forth quickly. As they also run totally on time, they can even use single tracks efficiently. Seattle Center / Uptown could be an elevated single track stub connecting to a Westlake main line.
         Another freedom automation brings.”

         They can also run into a dead end platform place in the middle of the route — like back into a stub platform at Westlake, and reverse and go in a different direction with a big semi-circular curve so that the existing Link tracks could be crossed east of I-5.

6. If there is no second tunnel, would West Seattle Link connect directly into the existing SODO Station when the extension opens?

   1. yes

7. Suppose West Seattle Link gets cancelled due to running up the cost by insisting on tunnels.

   Could East Link then through-route with SLU/Interbay, and leave the Tacoma-Everett spine intact? (With operator changes mid-route?)

   1. I think they need the extra trains for UW and Northgate.

      1. Can East Link alternate through-routing with Interbay and UW?

         Or to be more general. Can any line from the south end of the single tunnel through-route with any line from the north end of the tunnel?

      2. Glenn is right: need two lines running Westlake to Northgate (& beyond) to handle capacity.

         We could short turn trains at SoDo/OMF-S (a frequent suggestion on this blog), but a more compelling idea is to run 2 lines on East Link, doubling frequency across the lake. We should maximize service on the 3 main urban nodes: UW, Seattle CBD, and Bellevue CBD.

         If we assume OMF-E is the logical turnaround point for trains not going all the way to Redmond, the operating pattern could be:
         Tacoma – Mariner [ST3 assumes one line ends at Mariner]
         Redmond – Ballard
         Bellevue Wilburton – Everett

      3. Can any line from the south end of the single tunnel through-route with any line from the north end of the tunnel?

         Theoretically yes. I think AJ nailed it. In the unlikely scenario that is what we build then we would want three lines through downtown. Having East Side trains go to Ballard makes the most sense from a user standpoint. Tacoma to Everett is too far so it would go maybe Tacoma-Northgate or Tacoma-Lynnwood. The last line would serve Everett and either end in SoDo or double-up service towards the East Side. (This all assumes that the trains really make it to Everett and Tacoma.)

   2. It’s a bit of an odd scenario where Ballard link interlining is built and then west Seattle link is cancelled. But anyways assuming that sound transit would probably have:

      Tacoma to Ballard Line
      Redmond to Everett Line

      I don’t see why they would have a very long Tacoma to Everett line and a much shorter Ballard to Redmond line

      1. They could conceivably alternate through-rating at some times of day to balance passenger loads, or simply for passenger convenience, like DC WMATA does during peak. But the same-platform transfers would be even more convenient.

         My reason for liking the East-Ballard through-routing is that a lot of eastside passengers will already be busing to UW and Lynnwood.

         Having the north-south and east-west through-routes would trade reducing the number of passengers transferring in the tunnel for the inconvenience of operator changes outside the tunnel.

         At any rate, having more through-route options is a selling point I would add to the every-line-in-the-existing-tunnel proposal.

   3. It’s been shown that tunneling isn’t considerably more expensive than elevated in urban areas because of the significant land acquisition costs. According to my inside source, ST is currently investigating the cost savings of doing a deep bore tunnel from SODO to Alaska Junction. This would eliminate the cost of a bridge plus other land acquisitions.

      For those who think we should cancel West Seattle link, keep in mind this isn’t a line only for Alaska Junction residents but for future growth into South Seattle. Stopping this line will stop eventual expansion to Morgan Junction, White Center and Burien.

      1. lol deep bore tunnel especially done in America has consistently trended at a billion or even 2 billion per mile. I have no idea why you think it would be cheaper

      2. While boring may be fairly cheap, building stations is expensive.
         If we want to connect Burien, we could easily run a stub between Tukwila and Burien. Much cheaper than WSLE. RR-H seems to serve the rest of the corridor quite well.

      3. Wesley, Elon will get the contract and then insist that the equipment be Hyperloop cars suitably slowed to Link-standard speeds. [/snark]

      4. … and lowering capacity to ten passengers per hour like the Vegas Loop.

         Luckily there’s only 10 of the 100,000+ people in Ballard/SLU who want to travel north/south at any particular moment. It’s a pity that the D and 40 can’t fill even single buses and are being downgraded to van routes.

      5. Stopping this line will stop eventual expansion to Morgan Junction, White Center and Burien.

         Yep. We could instead focus on projects that would be a much better value (like a Ballard-UW subway, Metro 8 subway, etc.). It should be noted that Burien Transit Center is very close to a freeway which connects to downtown Seattle. Thus the bus would be faster for trips from Burien to Downtown Seattle.

      6. “Stopping this line will stop eventual expansion to Morgan Junction, White Center and Burien.”

         I think we’re all going to be dead before such an extension gets built, anyway. They can’t even begin to think about paying for it until ST3 bonds are paid off. And, even then, who knows what’s going to happen. Maybe, by then, everyone will experience everything fully virtually and be human vegetables.

      7. “ Stopping this line will stop eventual expansion to Morgan Junction, White Center and Burien.”

         On the contrary, building West Seattle as a line that spends $7 billion and is slower and less convenient than the buses it replaces will guarantee it will be the last light rail project for a generation.

         Even under the best circumstances, the current plan for the complete line will require most bus trips accomplished today to transfer at Alaska Junction at a very deep station, requiring about 5 minutes to get between surface and platform (about like Capitol Hill).

         Ideally, there would be a bus restructure that would balance this.

         Eg: when MAX orange line was built, it split route 33 into route 33 and MAX. The vast majority of transit riders on the corridor would have to transfer to get where they used to go. To balance this, Route 33 was extended along the old route 31 route, creating a bunch of single seat rides and connecting two popular corridors.

         With Ballard Link, the D might be extended to Northgate, or head over to Fremont, or any of countless other options.

         There are no other logical places for the C or H to go other than downtown Seattle. West Seattle to Mt Baker? It just doesn’t have the ridership potential to do what they did with TriMet 33. Southcenter Mall? SeaTac?

         I just don’t see any options that would give West Seattle something that would make up for the loss of the majority no longer having a one seat ride to downtown Seattle.

   4. In the interline scenario, yes. In the DSTT2 scenario, ST would have to add a track switch between the 2 Line and DSTT2. The current plans have no ability for trains to use the other tunnel.

8. How important is it to have a second Westlake Station if the line is able to connect into the existing Symphony Station?

   I suppose it depends on how close Denny Station is to the existing Westlake Station.

   1. There would be no “second” Westlake station if the Ballard line were connected to the main line via a junction between Westlake and Symphony.

   2. It’s a passenger-needs question. How much would bypassing Westlake Station impact passengers’ trips, and is that acceptable?

      The direct impact would be for passengers from Ballard/SLU going to the retail core, Capitol Hill, or UW, or transferring to Pike-Pine buses, or vice-versa. They’d still be able to access RapidRide G to Madison, so that’s a small part of the Pike-Pine walkshed. And north-south routes stop near both Pine Street (Westlake) and Seneca Street (Symphony).

9. Do we get to have a center platform in Symphony Station under the every-line-connects-into-the-existing-tunnel scenario?

   1. ST assumed a $1-3B “allowance” for upgrades to existing stations in the interlining and stub-end scenarios. Presumably this could include things like center platforms with required egress. At a minimum it would need to include additional signal upgrades, ventilation for fire safety, and possibly additional stairs/escalators/elevators to clear jammed platforms faster. They didn’t get into those details in this preliminary study.

      1. In that case, I hope they cost out adding a flyover track from East Link to the southbound track, so a center platform and emergency egress can be added in Chinatown.

      2. Brent, Upper Royal Brougham Way is in the way. A flyover would have to clear it,probably a hundred feet in the air, and there are high voltage lines adjacent to the trackway to the south. Lots of clearance issues.

10. I don’t understand the need for a multi year closure of the tunnel to build the interline option. They have to, what, punch a hole and connect the tracks. It doesn’t seem that different from what they did when they connected Northgate Link to the existing University Link.

    1. Completely different. U-Link to Northgate was an extension, not a junction, and the Northgate construction took place while U-Link was in operation. Northgate started boring in 2012 and didn’t go into operations until 2021.

       1. That’s more or less my point. They kept the line running while boring the tunnel. I think “years” of closure is way overblown.

       2. If anything, the appropriate comparison could be between the construction of the junction for East Link. However, in that case, ST was able to build the approaches and get close to the existing line without significant reconstruction of the tunnel south of ID/C station.

          In this case, the tunnels making the curve from Symphony to Westlake are built out of unreinforced concrete. I think ST is not confident they would be able to dig down to the tunnels from the surface at 3rd/Pine because if they break the tunnels from the top, an unknown length might collapse. To do it safely, it seems they’ve determined they’d need to dig them out sideways starting north from Symphony Station. There is no safe way to do this at one tunnel while maintaining operations in the other.

          So, from the moment the structural integrity of either tunnel might be compromised by deconstruction/excavation, that’s the end of downtown tunnel operations, and they won’t be able to restart until the entire junction is finished. The consequences of bad soils.

       3. East Link junction was done in the open air, no tunneling. The ROW already existed, it was an active busway connecting I90 to the DSTT, it simply needed to be converted to rail.

       4. Exactly, AJ.

          Is there any precedent in modern times where a line was retrofitted with a junction in a central downtown location?

       5. 2nd Ave Subway maybe? Even if they got it down to a year of full closure it would probably be a dealbreaker (although maybe worth at least studying further at that point).

       6. @nathan

          La regional connector is kinda similar? Though of course they did end up closing the line and digging a hole from above

       7. I would float the Jubilee Line Extension (1990s). But London has extensive and ongoing experience with underground railway construction that Seattle doesn’t so not a very fair comparison. But it did require a junction to be built in the middle of Central London between Green Park and Charing Cross. Of course, this wasn’t as disruptive since it was just one station that would have been affected (the former Jubilee line terminal at Charing Cross) rather than the whole network.

          An NYC Subway comparison might be the Chrystie Street Connection, but that was 60 years ago now. And the amount of network redundancies in larger systems makes for a bad comparison anyways

       8. Has someone claimed that the twin tubes left by the original 1980’s TBM’s are non-reinforced concrete? Really? That is strange. Grant, these are tubes from the fairly early days of tunnel boring, but I have never heard of a large-diameter TBM that wasn’t also a tube constructor. The way that is done is by placing about ten or a dozen stiff arcs of steel or reinforced cast concrete in front of the most recently completed ring and then bolting each one to its neighbors and the previously
          completed ring.

          The thing stands because the earth around it compresses it, making standing up easier.

          Maybe early ones used unreinforced concrete for the ring segments, but I can’t imagine why they would be built like that.

          Or is this about the west end of the Westlake Station box?

    2. https://www.soundtransit.org/st_sharepoint/download/sites/PRDA/FinalRecords/2025/Report%20-%20Second%20Downtown%20Tunnel%20Feasibility%20Assessment%20-%2012-11-25.pdf

       I recommend reading the technical report. Lots of questions about why it may take longer are answered in this.

11. What’s sort of ridiculous about all this is that even if things go sour, it’s at least projected to not be more expensive than the original plan. All while giving riders a better experience! Who would say no to that?

    Yes, the construction issues on 3rd Avenue will be hard on the transit network, but it is possible to run buses on other streets temporarily (and to give them the priority they need). It was done when the original transit tunnel was built after all.

    1. Something to keep in mind is that the old tunnel was built when Seattle had half the population it has today.

       1. Sure, but 3rd Ave had a comparable number of buses then as now, and this disruption would be smaller since some buses could just truncate where construction begins. I ride the 36 to work and walk ~10 minutes from the terminal stop at Pike. I’d gladly walk an extra 4 minutes a day for a few years if it had to terminate at Seneca instead if it meant better quality regional transit in the future.

          Surely between 1st, 2nd, and 4th a reasonable short term solution can be found for buses

12. I don’t think closing Link and 3rd Ave for 3 years for the interline proposal is feasible. Many commentators agreed a year ago https://seattletransitblog.com/2024/01/10/focus-on-slu-and-ballard/ and preferred the stub as it also allows a future south extension.

    1. I think a lot interlining fans were hoping the disruption could be kept to a minimum like how ST has managed to keep impacts of building the junction south of ID/C station for East Link to a tolerable level. ST’s staff report says the soils at the curve between Westlake and Symphony station are exceptionally bad, so any attempt to build a junction there will require complete reconstruction of the curve and its support structures.

       1. Exactly. I will add that I wrote a blog post supporting the idea of a branch. I wasn’t the only one. But I’ve since changed my mind. I think the best option is to run a stub to Ballard and put off West Seattle Link indefinitely.

    2. Correct.

13. The fix is in.

    1. Kill all alternatives to The Plan

    2. ???

    3. Spend $40 billion ($10 thousand for every resident of King/Pierce/Snohomish)

    The part that upsets me is not the spending of $40 billion. It is that this gigantic expense will forclose any further expansion of the system. I liked to imagine we could have a dozen lines throughout the city of Seattle. For that to happen, we need to finish the third line with room for raising more revenue for future expansions. Instead, all we’re getting is, decades into the future, Everett-Tacoma and Ballard-West Seattle. Most of us will be dead before even this paltry network is completed.

    1. Least conspiracy addled STB poster

    2. The part that upsets me is not the spending of $40 billion. It is that this gigantic expense will foreclose any further expansion of the system.

       Agreed. It reminds me of what Reece Martin said. If you build the wrong thing then you won’t have enough money to build the right thing. The board seems hellbent on building the wrong thing.

14. My vote is for option C. I think the “delay” argument is disingenuous, given that Sound Transit clearly doesn’t have the money for a second tunnel.

    1. I agree. Option C is clearly the best option. It is quite likely it would get us to Ballard long before any other option. The EIS isn’t even complete. There are aspects of that have yet to be decided, including where we put the stations. One of the most controversial aspects is where to put the stations downtown! Even from a planning perspective it is simpler to just not deal with downtown right now. Focus on the transfer at Westlake. Have tracks heading south. Figure out where the go some other day.

       But the main reason it is supposed to take so long to build Ballard Link has nothing to do with planning. We could have “shovel ready” plans today and it still wouldn’t be built for at least another decade. That is because it is so expensive. We can’t spend a lot of money too soon. We run across bonding limits. The fastest way to build a line to Ballard is to build a stub line.

15. What happens if ST is not able to reduce the cost of West Seattle/Ballard? Would that mean the projects would be truncated? How long would it take to build up the funds to pay for the two projects as-is, if that’s even possible?

    1. ive done some napkin math in the past and will try to find it for you. i calculated it around like 2050/2060? though there have been even larger cost increases lately. idk maybe 2070 at this point.

16. I would be very interested in more discussion of Alternative 1C (the Convention Place alternative). Naively, I’m wondering if it would be possible for the trains to run through some of the basement of the Summit Convention Center and avoid the hundred-degree curve?

    1. Nope, there’s a huge loading dock under there that actually extends out under the streets around the building, and giant foundation blocks under that. I’m surprised they were able to come up with a concept that works at all.

    2. ST should have thought of that before the new convention center was built. Now, it’s probably too late.

       1. I would blame Dow for that one. The rush to build that Convention Center project probably cost us all for a very long time.

17. it seems pretty clear that the stub is the way to go, because it will well serve the most amount of people, saves a ton of money with the least impact to existing operations, and still preserves the ability to dig a tunnel in the future when it becomes needed.

    Yet, there are powerful, entrenched interests that would rather take the simple way out and build a less than useful tunnel that terminates at Smith Cove. Just because past practice has been truncation doesn’t mean that is always the right way to do it!

    I can imagine there being lots of back channel communication happening right now as the board sorts out how it will vote. What I really want to know is how Katie Wilson feels about all of this, and if she has any influence, or is even interested in exerting that influence, with any of the current board members.

    Lastly it seems disrespectful for Sound Transit to take this vote right now when a new mayor is going to be in office in a couple of weeks. My guess is that the forces that want to build the tunnel and truncate feel that they have they votes to do that now, but won’t in January. It’s a sleazy way to do business if that is true.

    1. It’s in the “Reports” section of the agenda. I don’t think the board will vote on it this week. But it would be bad if they killed promising alternatives just a few weeks before candidates-elect/board nominees are seated.

    2. It seems pretty clear that the stub is the way to go, because it will well serve the most amount of people, saves a ton of money with the least impact to existing operations, and still preserves the ability to dig a tunnel in the future when it becomes needed.

       Exactly.

    3. jas,

       I don’t believe Katie Wilson is going to want anything to do with Sound Transit. The trouble is there isn’t a single elected official who has Sound Transit as their first tier, let’s-fix-this-now issue. Or even 2nd or 3rd tier issue. Most of them wish the whole damn thing would just go away. It’s politically radioactive.

       If Mayor Wilson takes any sort of position other than the financially unrealistic one, all the Lefties at Seattle Subway would hate her. She’s mayor for what? Eight years at the most? Maybe 4 years? Why get involved in a political loser that will not be finished when you’re in office? Back burner ASAP!

       Then there is the political reality nobody dares talk about. Transit vs. Social Housing. There’s not nearly enough money for both. The solution that’s going to pitched for both is…. barrow a shitload of money with 50 or 75 year bonds. Terrible idea, but it’s already being pitched.

18. The stub plan is a pretty clear winner here, and that’s with the analysis sandbagging the option by assuming it has to be built to existing LRT specs.

    The Canada Line, while not perfect, is a good model for what Ballard-Westlake could be – 160 foot platforms versus Link’s 380 equals major cost savings on stations, especially bored underground stations.

    For the Westlake and Arena stations that’ll see high ridership/surge crowds, you could build a third track and platform and still save money. A smaller Ballard terminal station could bring 21st NW or at least 15th back into the picture.

    Fully automated and grade separated, run it every two minutes to make up for the smaller capacity. Spend the operator labor costs on security instead.

    The OMF up in BC is only seven acres, that could easily fit in the armory property with room to spare. That property is going to be redeveloped anyway so why not build a railyard with a deck on top to allow for mixed use development? It’s state property so seems like a mutually beneficial deal could be struck.

    Then you’ve teed up a relatively affordable tunnel extension to First Hill/the CD eventually, fulfilling a big part of the Forward Thrust dream. A Ballard-UW line would also be a lot cheaper built to these specs.

    In short, leave the 400 foot trains to the “spine” and build some more reasonably sized limbs to connect to it. But this study is right that cutting into the spine to graft onto it underground is impractical.

    1. Platform length is pennywise pound foolish. The Canada line is suffering with capacity constraints and Translink will have to spend billions of CAD more to renovate the stations to increase the length than if they were built properly initially. Sacrificing capacity should really be the last thing on the list when thinking of options for the busiest segment of ST3. My opinion is that the stub should be built with 380 ft platforms like the rest or the system, but as a high floor automated light metro similar to the Expo or Millennium lines so as to preclude future upgrades to the system.

       1. 380 foot trains with a capacity of 800 riders coming every five minutes as in the ST3 plan can carry 9600 passengers/hr.

          The Canada line’s 140 foot trains with a capacity of 350 riders coming every two minutes can carry 10,500. Newer automated systems are pushing close to one minute headways.

          So the transfer penalty is less with more frequent trains, and with smaller stations and tighter curves possible more sensible routing gets affordable to build. I’d sure as hell rather get on a slightly more crowded train at 21st and Market than spend ten minutes walking down to 14th!

          In the really long run, a second automated line running east to the UW would take a lot of pressure off the downtown line by capturing riders headed to the university or points north.

       2. I don’t think that should be that much of a concern for now the Canada Line has more than 10,000 riders per mile of track, link has a fifth of that. I think if we run the same level of service that translink does we will not get that level of crowding. We should work on reducing the cost of construction and invest the saved money into more projects thus increasing capacity and making overcrowding not an issue.

       3. Canada Line is one of the biggest transit success stories in North America. It is a bit crowded at times. Most agencies wish they had that problem. It is quite likely that TransLink would do things exactly the same if they could to it all over again.

          It is worth noting that Ballard Link was supposed to be paired with the main line, which goes down Rainier Valley. That is what the board is pushing. Thus the board feels like a second tunnel is necessary because of future (somewhat nebulous) capacity concerns but running light rail trains in Ballard at the same rate as Rainier Valley is OK.

          But Rainier Valley trains are quite limited. The most you can run them is about every six minutes. Not only that, but because of the nature of the trains themselves they can’t carry that many people. They have room for the driver and light rail trains tend to have less space for riders.

          Thus automated trains half the size, running twice as often (3 minutes) would carry significantly more people than the current plan. If the trains ran every 2 minutes (which should be relatively easy) they would carry well over 50% more. I really don’t see why we need more capacity than that.

19. Here’s my fix idea:

    Rather than building Ballard and West Seattle light rail expansions, they could consider purchasing tracks from BNSF along the N Line’s corridor, I did some math and combining purchasing the tracks and replacing them with light rail tracks will be cheaper than building grade-seperated tracks. Though to connect to West Seattle, ST could either buy the industrial tracks, or they could build a new alignment that connects to West Seattle, though to avoid redundancy with other Transit, I will have the line end at Alki Beach rather than Alaska Junction, with a stop at Admiral Junction (I’ll call it the West Seattle tunnel). Though if money is short, we could truncate it either at Delridge or at IDC (currently King Street). I saw that buying BNSF tracks costs around 2.5 million at the max, and we’re not building a new structure to go with the tracks, all we’re doing is replacing them, with this upgrade project we don’t have to build a second tunnel or build a 30 billion railway (using what we have), we could run trains every 6 minutes between Everett and West Seattle, and there would be stations at…
    – Downtown Everett (current Everett Station)
    – Everett Junction
    – Mukilteo
    – Meadowdale
    – Edmonds
    – Richmond Beach
    – Carkeek Park
    – Ballard
    – Magnolia
    – Interbay
    – Smith Cove
    – Belltown
    – Symphony
    – Pioneer Square
    – International District/Chinatown (currently King Street Station)
    – SoDo (adjacent to the current SoDo Station, both at S Lander St)
    – Delridge
    – Admiral Junction
    – Alki Beach

    So the cost is going to be…

    85.5 M for buying the tracks
    1.71 B for replacing the tracks (my estimate)
    TOTAL: 1.7955 billion for converting the N Line to light rail (despite having low ridership, it could increase with stops near the deferred Ballard Link Extension)
    TOTAL WITH WEST SEATTLE CONNECTION:
    12.5 M for buying the tracks (industrial ones)
    798 M to 1.9 B for building a new West Seattle tunnel.
    TOTAL… 3.708 billion
    MONEY SAVED: 26.292 billion dollars (whoa)

    1. I’ve been toying with a similar vision myself: buying some of the BNSF right-of-way between Ballard and downtown. The problem is that BNSF isn’t going to be willing to sell everything, even for 85.5 million. This is their only track this side of Spokane to connect Stevens Pass and Canada with everything to the south.

       So, we need to leave at least one track for freight. Between Ballard and the north portal of the downtown tunnel, this’s very doable. North of Ballard, it’s much less doable and simultaneously much less useful, so let’s end at Ballard. That just leaves the downtown tunnel… which’s unfortunately also the most important part.

       And unfortunately we also don’t serve SLU.

       1. William, we could offer BNSF to deliver their goods also under a contract (which they would have to pay us for delivering their goods, generating money). Or if they’re still not convinced (but I hope they will), we could simply just build our tracks next to theirs.

          But trust me, this will (hopefully) work and we can save 26 billion dollars.

          HERE’S THE NEW STATION LOCATIONS:

          Everett Junction Station could be handy for workers, people who live on the west side of town, and those who want to take a walk in Pigeon Creek. I could see Everett adjusting routes so the station is accessible by bus.

          Meadowdale Station currently has no bus routes, but there could be opportunities for development in that area (and CT could re-route their 119 on 76th to the station with another bus on Olympic View), it’s a lot of private property, but we could do better (and restitute it).

          Richmond Beach Station only has the 348, but I could see that number change, such as a DART route connecting Innis Arden, Shoreline CC, and Richmond Beach, a route connecting Edmonds, Woodway, and Richmond Beach (connecting Woodway residents to rail), and many more. I would expect ridership to be so-so now, but semi-high to high with future development.

          Carkeek Park Station just has a rec park, really!? Well, we could extend the D here, and some other buses, plus we could consider some development. I considered Blue Ridge for a potential station, but there’s a lot of private property, lack of space, and lack of accessibility.

          Ballard Station, ahh yes, Ballard gets light rail, though not in it’s heart, in the residential area next to Shilshole Bay (a good spot), I could see the 44, 45, and more buses serving this station.

          Magnolia Station lacks development… But at least it’s close to 15th Ave! It’s also close to many homes, and Discovery Park. I can see a lot of buses serving this station.

          Interbay Station, and Smith Cove Station, ST you know the drill.

          Belltown Station is an awesome alternative to Westlake, it’s not located near the homeless area of Seattle, but near the waterfront, a jolly good station.

          Admiral Junction Station is good, it’s located near many people and development.

          Alki Beach Station is good, it’s a great tourist spot, and is a better West Seattle than Alaska Junction, though ST is doing this to attract riders, it’s not a good way to go when you know you have BRT.

          Here’s the timeline I made for Everett to West Seattle light rail taking over the N Line (and replacing the Ballard and West Seattle Link extensions):
          2025-2026: Planning Review & Consideration
          2026-2027: Design Review & Consideration
          2027-2032 (or earlier): Construction
          2032 (or earlier): Open for service

       2. @Scooby Doo, the sticking point isn’t track ownership; it’s actually running freight trains. BNSF has a lot of freight trains to run between Everett and the Port of Seattle – too many to run overnight – so there needs to be some track to run them on. If we’re using the existing two tracks for passenger rail, there needs to be some other track for freight.

          As I understand it, there isn’t enough room between the shoreline and the cliffs to build that other track next to the existing tracks. In theory we could dig into the cliffs and shore them up, but if we’re paying that much money to build a new track we might as well build it somewhere else.

          So, I advocate ending this scheme at Ballard, or at most at Golden Gardens.

       3. William, that’s actually a good idea, though let’s see how ST and BNSF interact, I’m just hoping this idea can be reality (as Edmonds, and Ballard need light rail).

       4. Shifting freight from trains to trucks to shift passengers from cars to trains could easily be adding more pollution and highway congestion than it removes. I don’t think that’s a good direction to go down. Remember, it would take over 100 semi trucks to replace just one trip on a freight train.

       5. Between Ballard and the north portal of the downtown tunnel, this’s very doable. North of Ballard, it’s much less doable and simultaneously much less useful, so let’s end at Ballard. That just leaves the downtown tunnel… which’s unfortunately also the most important part.

          And unfortunately we also don’t serve SLU.

          or Ballard.

          Yes, technically the trains run through Ballard but the west end of Ballard. There are very few people there. The heart of Ballard is quite a ways to the east. So now you are digging a tunnel (or running elevated) through Ballard after crossing the ship canal. That’s great but it really isn’t much different than just building your own line next to the Salmon Bay Bridge and turning east. I personally think that is the best approach but there is no reason to assume that involving BNSF would make things a lot cheaper.

       6. HERE’S THE NEW STATION LOCATIONS:

          Everett — Hardly anyone
          Meadowdale — Even fewer
          Richmond Beach — Somewhere in between those two
          Carkeek — Beavers don’t ride transit.
          Ballard — Not really Ballard. Very little potential for walk-up ridership. Some potential transfers.
          Magnolia — Some potential transfers.
          Interbay — Isn’t this the same as Magnolia?
          Smith Cove — Hardly anyone but a lot more than most of these stations.
          Belltown — A solid station. Should have been the alternative to SLU.

          So you’ve basically built a scaled down version of Ballard Link. It would have very little ridership but would probably be a lot cheaper. You would have to run the trains quite often to make for good transfers since walk-up ridership would be very tiny. Operations might be an issue with low ridership.

       7. Here’s how to fix ridership:

          Everett Junction:
          Could use some development, as it’s main reason to exist is to transport industrial workers, people who want to walk the Pigeon Creek Trail, people who live on the west side of town, and that’s pretty much it. I could see some buses serving this station.

          Meadowdale:
          Could use development (and the 119 serving the station), whereas you would have another bus serve Olympic View. I think it caters well to the Meadowdale area (except you would ride a bus). Avoid private property, though you could also consider the infill station at Picnic Point rather than Meadowdale, I would personally consider both.

          Richmond Beach:
          Great tourist destination, has a lot of residents, but only 1 bus! I could see that number change, other than that the ridership is on the horizon to be OK, but maybe a little development wouldn’t hurt?

          Carkeek Park:
          Send some buses here (like a D Line extension), it works out great as a tourist destination, and could use some TOD and extra stuff, other than that this station would be similar to Picnic Point, the Carkeek Park station is oriented towards Crown Hill, Broadview, and Holman Road area.

          Ballard:
          Send some buses here, and some more development, other than that this station does best at helping out Ballard residents, and the Shilshole Bay/Golden Gardens area.

          Magnolia/Interbay:
          Almost the same, though I could see them becoming one station, other than that Magnolia (I agree) has some potential, and I included Interbay to makeup for Ballard Link, though we can simply defer Interbay.

          Smith Cove:
          It has great ties to Magnolia, but why is it included in Ballard Link?

          Belltown:
          I agree.

          You also forgot to include the West Seattle stations, other than I wouldn’t expect riders to ride the whole thing, but it would be great for connecting West Seattle, Ballard, and Downtown. Attracting some natural tourist sites, being an alternative to WSLE and BLE, and connecting multiple ferries to light rail. I personally think a tunnel under Admiral Way (which currently lacks bus service) is a great way to replace peak routes, and I also see Admiral Junction and Alki Beach being a better West Seattle than Avalon and Alaska Junction. You wouldn’t need to scrap the tunnel in West Seattle because it shouldn’t be affected by the cost, though I would love to see it run street level along Admiral Way, I just don’t think ST wants to make the mistake they made with the Rainier Valley.

       8. @Scooby Doo, that’s a nice vision, and if you wanted to add most of those stations to the existing North Sounder I’d totally agree. But, are they really worth the cost of buying up the rail line and running frequent trains there? As you say, most of them aren’t without a whole lot of redevelopment. And, I’m sure that redevelopment along the shoreline will run into a whole lot of difficulties from the sometimes-unstable slopes and residents upset at losing their views.

          If you’re running Link lines out on promises of future development, I still think there’re cheaper places to run them. Even if you just want to upgrade Sounder lines, what about South Sounder which is easier to multi-track? A lot of freight trains could even be shunted over to the parallel Union Pacific line.

    2. @Scooby Doo

       Where are you getting that cost estimate. The assessed value of a single 2400ft-long parcel of the BNSF ROW is at 33M. The actual sale value would likely be higher than that.

       https://blue.kingcounty.com/Assessor/eRealProperty/Dashboard.aspx?ParcelNbr=2770605900

       The N line does not pass close enough to Ballard; it goes way too far west to be useful as light rail.

       1. Correction: That parcel is 1600 ft long, not 2400 ft

       2. Yeah, $2.5 million (per mile, presumably) might get you the rails, ties, and ballast. Which you’d then have to replace. It’s certainly not going to get you the property.

       3. @jd

          Here’s the new cost estimate (thanks for the correction I searched for the cost and it appeared 2.5 million but it was a mistake):

          Buy the N Line corridor: 3.465 billion
          Extend to West Seattle via BNSF ROW tracks: 495 million
          Build a new tunnel under Admiral Way: 1.9 billion
          Replace BNSF tracks with light rail tracks (2 at max): 4 billion
          Any additional upgrades: 2 billion

          TOTAL 11.86 billion (less than half of what BLE and WSLE costs, but you get better service, if you were to round it to the nearest whole number it’s around 12 billion, which is the max you would spend)

          WHAT YOU SAVE: 18.14 billion (still a lot of money compared to what ST estimates, they only estimate saving 5 billion at the max with their options, it could be invested in other projects).

          Also, I would expect people to use route 44 (which would serve Ballard Station) or some other bus route to go to Ballard’s Market Street.

    3. There is no price that the BNSF tracks could be bought for, and $85.5M is comically low. Even since Stampede Pass has been un-mothballed, Stevens Pass is the primary link between the Puget Sound ports and everywhere east. And that’s also the primary link to Canada.

       Maybe this would’ve been possible 30 years ago when the Woodinville Subdivision (Eastrail) was still active, but the price to buy an existing section of mainline railway these days is essentially the entire value of the railroad itself (or the subsection of the railroad served by the section). There are few, if any, remaining sections of mainline railways west of the Mississippi that have any kind of parallel route.

       BNSF had 4th quarter profits of over $1B. I have no idea what amount of that is solely using this line. Let’s say 5%. That’s $200M/year in profits that would be forgone. Seems like a hard sell. It’s possible that the alternative routes (via Stampede Pass or the Columbia River) would be workable, but I have my doubts.

       Could a light rail line be built in the same right of way? Probably only between Harrison and Interbay. Further north, and it’s on a route of little value (for transit) with no extra room (if you think environmental reviews are onerous, this is the worst possible route to take thanks to the nearby shoreline), to the south it’s too constrained by existing developments to add tracks. But that’s the cheaper section of the line anyways – where it will be elevated over Elliott Ave anyways. Maybe there’s a bit of money to be saved in the BNSF right of way, but probably not very much.

       1. *ahem* can you explain how the Port of Seattle bought eastside BNSF tracks?

       2. @Scooby Doo, the eastside tracks weren’t a mainline. The Everett-Seattle tracks are.

       3. OK, thanks. I would like to see BNSF move to delivering goods via electric boats/ferries though. They should let ST take full ownership of them. In return, ST could sell the tracks from Tacoma to Olympia (which won’t be used).

       4. Those tracks are the Woodinville Subdivision I mentioned, and yes it’s because they were a lightly used branch.

          It would be astronomically expensive to purchase fleets of cargo ships to transload trains between Everett and Seattle. No railroad company has ever done that kind of thing – they always have preferred to have tracks over ferry services. If the Seattle – Everett line were to be sold, BNSF would either have to deemphasize Stevens Pass (unlikely, given that it’s the shortest path over the Cascades to Seattle and the Hi Line in N Montana), or be offered a roughly comparable route to the one they have now (which doesn’t exist).

          I think there’s some value in considering using the BNSF ROW to Ballard, but given how difficult railroads tend to be, I get why it hasn’t been done.

    4. I wish that too. But we all perfectly know BNSF isn’t giving away half of the scenic subdivision for any reasonable price. They know they can upcharge ST as much as they can as they have no incentive to sell.

       1. I agree, but it’s something I would like to see happen. I will just have deep hope that BNSF and ST can get into an agreement. Possibly selling the Sounder tracks that ST owns could work.

       2. “I will just have deep hope that BNSF and ST can get into an agreement.”

          The state would have to take the lead on any ownership changes or track-mode restructuring. Sound Transit is just a transit agency with a limited tax authority and no legislative power. The state has much more resources to create laws and regulations forcing BNSF to negotiate, and can raise much more taxes and could spread the burden across the state.

       3. Okay, Mike. Let’s see how they get into an agreement. Case closed.

       4. I would just point out that even the state’s hands are tied dealing with BNSF. Railroad regulation is a fully federal affair- the Surface Transportation Board is the only one with authority to force BNSF to do anything. A major freight line of national importance (e.g service to various local DOD facilities) is never ever going to be forced out of a Class 1 railroad’s hands.

       5. Ron, you’re so right.

    5. That is a very loose interpretation of “Ballard”. I thought calling 14th was bad, but this is basically *west* of the locks. Some of the stations are impractical (Carkeek Park?). A lot of these stations are basically the same as North Sounder and North Sounder has notoriously low ridership (last month it had less than 500 riders a day). This gives you only a handful of stations, most of which serve as two-seat rides (e. g. Magnolia). I doubt you could get 10,000 riders. This would be nice if you could to it on the cheap but I doubt you could.

    6. If it only went to Ballard, and there was a line connecting UW to Ballard, so it serves the busiest part of Ballard. That might be the best of both worlds.

20. The Ballard stub line option should be expanded to include an automated mode with shorter headway, trains, and stations

    1. Yes. I think that is what the analysis misses, but I don’t think they talked about anything other than putting more of the same 4-car light rail trains on the stub.

       automated, short headway, third rail subway type system so the tunnel can be smaller and doesn’t have to accommodate the height of the wire and catenary, with smaller stations.

       Of course, this would make it difficult to connect up to the existing line if they ever did build a tunnel…. so it would have to be it’s own line.

       okay…. don’t build to west seattle. do all of the above to ballard. eventually build to west seattle, with a branch to first hill. A true west seattle to ballard automated subway line!

       meh.. or they can do the stub like they are talking about and still save money!

    2. That’s what’s missing in this study, and we’re working on an article on that for tomorrow. But first we had to get the background information out, and the trains-per-hour breakdowns and such.

21. 70 comments in 8 hours. If that’s not a record it may be close.

    1. Congrats, Wesley.

    2. Thanks to Wesley for writing this up and articulating all the details in just three days after the committee meeting. We’d been planning another automated Ballard article (implying single-tunnel) at some point, and Martin and Ross wrote up some ideas, and I was going to write it eventually, but the sudden report and board meeting forced us to pivot to this by today.

22. What are some short talking points that can fit into 1-minute public testimony if there’s an opportunity at Thursday’s board meeting or next month?

    1. My initial thoughts are:

       1. We didn’t vote for the ultra-long transfers in the DSTT2 plan. So keeping DSTT2 with no changes should not be considered essential.

       2. The stub alternative is the most straightfoward and risk-proof.

       3. ST must study an automated Ballard-Westlake stub alternative. This would both cost less and provide potentially provide much higher frequency.

       4. Terminating at Smith Cove because we can’t afford Ballard would be a poor idea. The primary purpose of this line was to bring Link to northwest Seattle.

       My first thought is the ultra-long transfers with DSTT2. That’s no what we voted for, so keeping them should not be considered essential. Then I’d favor the stub alternative as the most straightforward and risk-proof and wouldn’t require shutting down operations downtown and through-transfers for years.

       1. 4a. Ballard Alliance, whose members brought you the Missing link Litigation, will tie you up in court for not including Ballard.

       2. “Terminating at Smith Cove because we can’t afford Ballard would be a poor idea. The primary purpose of this line was to bring Link to northwest Seattle.”

          Even this, I can see this depending on whom you talk to. I can see board members from other subareas arguing that connecting the rest of the region to jobs in SLU is the primary purpose, while Ballard is just an incidental extension.

          (Note: I disagree with this line of thinking, but it is plausible enough that people will make it)

       3. If wonder whether we would get better ridership if we terminate at Smith Cove and run a gondola over the ship canal along 20th Ave NW with a station at Market St. It would serve downtown Ballard much better than a Link station on 15th Ave NW.

       4. The OMF for a Ballard stub would need to get close to Interbay. Even if the last stop is Smith Cive it would need to go a tad further north as a stub.

          Until ST will consider automation, I believe every new scenario is going to assume using trains similar to those being used today — and this be similarly expensive, deep, and disruptive and time-consuming to build.

          Neglecting automation is the fundamental negligence that must be revealed to the Board. Otherwise it’s going to be a debate about similar costs and a matter of which stations get built and which don’t. Since the Board refuses to discuss objective metrics like ridership and productivity and aggregate travel time savings (including the time walking through the monstrous 3D stations) anyway, it’s all backroom dealmaking based on whims, lobbying and land deals.

          ST has not studied automated trains here. This study doesn’t answer what the outcome would be. They’ve not given the Board the information to consider cost savings from automation.

          Maybe the best thing is to be blunt with testimony and letter writing — and offer to meet up with Board members before the meetings with a unified theme: DEMAND AN OBJECTIVE STUDY OF BALLARD AND WEST SEATTLE AS AUTOMATED.

    2. Here’s a couple that I thought of:
       The “Cost of Delay” is Phantom Money: The report claims the Stub-End costs us $1.2 to $2.4 billion in project delays. But with Ballard Link estimates hitting $22 billion, we already lack the funds to build the full project on time. The “delay” is happening regardless due to the budget gap. We shouldn’t penalize the cost-saving option for a delay that is inevitable.

       Worst-Case Savings are Still Massive: Even if we accept the report’s pessimistic assumptions—including the high cost of a new OMF—removing the theoretical “cost of delay” reveals at least $2.6 billion in savings in the worst-case scenario, and over $5 billion in the best case.

       Avoid the “Tunnel to Nowhere”: Without these savings, the budget crisis will likely force us to truncate Ballard Link at Smith Cove or Seattle Center to pay for the Second Tunnel. A Stub-End at Westlake is a far superior “Phase 1” than a tunnel that stops short of Ballard.

       The Automation Opportunity: Building a standalone line with its own OMF isn’t a penalty; it’s an opportunity to study full automation. This allows for smaller station footprints, lower operating costs, and better reliability—similar to Vancouver’s SkyTrain.

       OMF Timeline is Manageable: Concerns about the OMF timeline are overstated. Unlike OMF-South (13 years), we already identified the Interbay site. A focused EIS for a known site will not drag on, especially when compared to the years of delay we face from lack of funding.

       Transfers are Already Broken: We worry about the Stub-End forcing a transfer, but the Preferred Alternative (Second Tunnel) already breaks the regional spine, forcing awkward transfers for riders heading from the North (Lynnwood) to the Airport. The Stub-End doesn’t break a perfect system; it pragmatically phases i

       1. Can you summarize those? It needs to be a few concise lines that can be spoken in fifteen seconds and are immediately-understood action recommendations.

       2. “Transfers are Already Broken:”: I meant to include that. The 1 Line currently serves the highest-ridership axis of southeast-northeast (airport, Rainier/Beacon lower-income/walkable area, Capitol Hill, U-District, Northgate, Lynnwood). It’s doubtful south-Ballard will match this, or north-West Seattle. Link provides a competitive alternative to; e.g., the 9 and 48. Don’t break that. Even if all Ballardites/SLUites have to transfer at Westlake, it’s not regressing from anything they have now, and they are a lower-volume corridor compared to the one that would be broken.

          TL;DR: Even if everyone from Ballard/SLU has to transfer at Westlake, it’s not taking away something they currently have, or impacting the most critical corridor (southeast-northeast).

    3. “3. ST must study an automated Ballard-Westlake stub alternative. This would both cost less and provide potentially provide much higher frequency.”

       This appears to be the most critical statement to me. The report does not examine how automation would result in shrinking station vault sizes by 45-50 percent, or giving more flexibility on station depths. Crickets in this report.

       The omission must be called out. Automation is the default worldwide standard for grade separated systems, and has been for a few decades. It’s not an gadgetbahn! Ignoring automation is like ignoring the existence of cell phones.

       And a second point has to deal with the outrageous amount of time and effort to change to/ from the new 1 Line would be without a major track configuration change. The Board barely talks about transfers and rider experience. The terrible transfers will affect the entire region, especially those going to SeaTac from Snohomish, UW or the Eastside, as well as South King residents going to UW and Eastside jobs. Why build a $30B rail system that makes transit connectivity worse and adds 10 minutes travel time in a 3D station maze to a transferring rider’s journey?

       And I think it may be worth mentioning that the construction impacts in the CID would be eliminated — and the smaller station footprints would greatly reduce construction disruptions elsewhere across Downtown and SLU.

       And I wonder if the “second tunnel redundancy” argument needs to also be refuted. The current track configurations don’t give even normal Link trains the flexibility to use other tracks in a service disruption. And making passengers change Link lines at Westlake in a disruption would require more walking and escalators than merely going to the surface for shuttle buses would.

23. One of the fundamental arguments for DSTT2 was always that passenger loads in the DSTT was too high, and Link passengers would otherwise experience overcrowding between Symphony and CID.

    The assessment now being presented doesn’t discuss having overcrowded trains at all.

    Why not?

    Is it because they summarily ignored the topic, or is it that overcrowding no longer would be expected to occur?

    I find it odd that it’s not discussed here. Is it that passenger loads at peak times are no longer expected to overfill trains? Since it is clearly identified as one of the few “needs” part of the EIS’, its omission here may be significant.

    1. “One of the fundamental arguments for DSTT2 was always that passenger loads in the DSTT was too high”

       ST’s position has changed over time. In 2016 it said that, following an SDOT study that said downtown north-south passenger circulation would exceed all transit modes’ capacity by the 2040s. That’s what led to splitting RapidRide C and D and creating the H, J, R, and proposed RapidRide 40 and 62, and for ST the second downtown tunnel. There was an ST3 candidate project to upgrade DSTT1’s signaling for 1.5 minute frequency: the board deselected it when it selected DSTT2.

       Later in a 2022 or 2023 expansion committee meeting, public testimony for single-tunnel had reached a point the committee addressed it again. It asked the staff rep what the original reason for DSTT2 was. He gave a different reason: the downtown stations don’t have enough escalators/elevators/stairs to evacuate packed-full platforms, so those would be needed to meet fire code.

       So what is the real reason, and is it legitimate? It’s hard to say when ST keeps changing its story.

       1. Mike if that newer story is true, how can they argue for running the 1 Line now? Because if there is a fire in the existing tunnel downtown don’t they have the exact same problem today? If it is really safety, shouldn’t they be immediately planning out adding escalators/elevators to existing stations?

       2. The issue is with the higher ridership estimated with the full ST3.

24. As a Ballard resident, I fully support the Stub option. However, one sucky aspect is we’re gonna have to transfer at Westlake for stadium events (M’s, Seahawks, Sounders, concerts, etc. Massive crowds are gonna overload not only trains but the platforms as Westlake – especially after the event.

    1. yes, but if we make the Westlake transfer easy, this won’t be a problem. The key is to keep it as shallow as possible and add lots of escalators. May be even put the station right under the current station (not south as ST suggested) so that escalators could directly connect to both current platforms.

       1. I get what you’re saying but lots of escalators wont be handle to handle the hundreds of people that file off a train simultaneously after it arrives Westlake. Plus the amount of people waiting at Westlake to board their train. Gamedays will defineltey be an issue. I wonder what the feasibility is for expanding the current Westlake station by adding more escalators, elevators and making the platforms wider.

       2. I get what you’re saying but lots of escalators wont be handle to handle the hundreds of people that file off a train simultaneously after it arrives Westlake

          Enough escalators could. Keep in mind that only a portion of the riders will be making the transfer. Plenty of riders will get on the train at CID/Stadium and not get off until Capitol Hill or later. Others will get off before the train reaches Westlake. Some will get off at Westlake and start walking towards their destination or take a bus from there (presumably they would take different escalators). You basically have a branch situation exception one side is a transfer towards Ballard.

          There could be potential crowding the other direction. You basically have all the people from Ballard converging on the crowds from Capitol Hill, UW and the north end. This is quite similar to Husky games. Except this really isn’t a big problem because people tend to arrive at different times. They also find alternate ways (e. g. buses) to get there. The most likely place to have a lot of crowding is actually at the game itself. This is common but folks seem to be able to handle it.

       3. An escalator can carry many times more people an hour than an elevator can. And these a big difference between going down 20 steps than going down 60-70 steps. Only the most hardy people can do it easily, and those carrying anything will really struggle.

          ST never discusses how not having escalators creates lots more elevator use and that increases their breakdowns either. ST remains in denial that vertical circulation is an issue deserving of investment way beyond minimum ADA requirements. Even in the latest West Seattle proposals, down escalators are the first things proposed to cut.

          As far as Westlake goes, they get a high volume of transfers already. That volume on the existing platforms may be slightly higher with a stub alternative — but the SLU people avoiding Route 8 or heading south are using Westlake today. The only ones that may not be are those on Third Ave — and I don’t rude buses in NW Seattle enough to know where people make transfers Downtown.

          Finally, automated trains arriving more frequently is better than longer trains arriving less frequently when it comes to escalators and ekevators. The offloading “surges”are cut in half if the trains arrive twice as often and hold only half as many people.

       4. Capitol Hill Station has 2 elevators and 2 escalators leading up from the platform. At busy times, I see the line for the escalators takes about ~1 minute to clear up, and that’s around 25% of a full train.

          Ballard Link on game days would presumably have the entire train going up from the platform, which would take about 4 minutes to clear if they had a similar escalator setup to Capitol hill, or 1 minute to clear if they had 8 escalators.

25. “Ignoring automation is like ignoring the existence of cell phones.”

    Interesting point! What all has changed since the 1995 decision for manually-operated light rail? I got my first cell phone in 2000. (A late adopter, of course. It was for my first cross-country bus tour to New York and stopovers in between, and I wanted a way to coordinate with contacts and hostels when pay phones had started disappearing and I’d be in unknown cities.)

    The first automated metro? Our model the Vancouver Skytrain probably wasn’t the first, but it opened in 1985! Cell phones then were brick-sized analog car phones, costing much more per minute, and with no rural or small-city coverage. ATMs and supermarket-barcode scanners had just recently been introduced. The first ATMs had hard-to-read red LED displays like 1970s calculators/watches. (Did Millenials and GenZ ever see them?)

26. I don’t know how to stop the inevitable “reading the tea leaves” scenario of no Link to Ballard, a wildly unproductive go-ahead for West Seattle Link to Alaska Junction, a terribly overbuilt SODO station without cross-platform or same-platform transfers, and a monstrous 3D rat maze next to Pioneer Square station as the northern terminus of the 1 Line.

    I’ve never seen public comments change any minds at an ST Board meeting. The only way I’ve seen ST change or stop things is if big guns stop do it beforehand. That means several Board members or powerful corporations or billionaires pushing behind the scenes.

    That probably means that this falls to Katie Wilson or Girmay Zahilay or Amazon leadership or the general Microsoft universe to force ST to look at an honest assessment of automation. Given her loss, I’m not sure that even Claudia Balducci has the clout needed to do this.

    The evolution of the CID change a few years ago is a case study in ST power dynamics. The deal was struck in back rooms and steamrolled through the public process. It was rumored but never disclosed until it was ready to be implemented.

    The other way to stop things is a direct legal threat. However, I don’t see a legal argument that is strong enough to stop the outcome I described above. If anyone can step up and make one (not just any point but something so convincing that it can force court action to stop things), let us all know!

    1. We have to do what we can until the final decision is made. Even if we fail, we’ll have documented what could have been and why it didn’t happen. That will be reference documentation to the future. And it will hopefully lead future generations to make better decisions.

    2. Claudia alone can’t do it, or it would have happened three years ago or earlier. Katie and Girmay may be able to help: we’re still waiting to see their positions, effort on this, and negotiating skills. Dow is off the board so that eliminates the primary obstruction.

       The biggest thing that needs to happen is Balducci needs to remain in the board, so that we don’t go from one known proponent to zero. I emailed Zahilay after the election to stress this. I saw a list of nominees and she wasn’t on it, so I don’t know if she’s remaining on the board or not.

       That gives one advocate for a sensible solution. Maybe Wilson, Zahilay, and Mosqueda (now county) can be three more. That’s a potential 3 out of 18 boardmembers. (And I don’t see the WSDOT rep on the list now, so it may be 19.)

       1. Board members tend to defer to regional members when deciding on project details; it may be enough to convince a plurality of the King County board members (10 people).

       2. Mosqueda already appears to be on for a full-build West Seattle Link. There’s not much money left if that gets built.

          Perhaps a way to convince Mosqueda is to make the automation plea for West Seattle Link too. It would save loads of money for that project — and it could use the Central OMF.

          The far-fetched additional approach that could be pitched is to leave 1 Line alone and plan West Seattle Link— Downtown —- SLU — Ballard as a stand-alone automated line. It could be built as two different automated stub lines with ST3 funds that can someday become attached when funds are available.

          For riders, the very frequent arrivals with platform screen doors would feel like waiting for an elevator. A frequent automated stub line may look problematic, but it actually is quite attractive in not only saving costs but in offering better transit.

          Then the point shifts to transfer station layouts. That has to be done well for stub lines to work well.

          ST has shown little interest in even making stations easier to use. Even FW Link stations have no down escalators as well as several device failures in Day 1. ST gives lip service to vertical circulation but it’s some of the most horrific stair access that I’ve ever seen! Walking down 60-70 steps because there is no down escalator and just one elevator prone to going out of service is ridiculous yet few seem outraged. Sometimes Seattlites can be too nice and accepting of inconsiderate design decisions.

       3. How would you run such line? An automated DSTT2 wouldn’t be much better. Are you proposing an elevated line? I don’t think a traditional elevated rail line would work, but a quiet and light maglev train with slim track such as https://www.urban-transport-magazine.com/en/the-tsb-system-as-alternative-in-public-transport/ may work, it may even be able to climb from SLU up Boren, serve First Hill and then West Seattle on a much simpler Duwamish bridge

    3. You may be able to get an a anti-DSTT2 board coalition. Right now Pierce reps seem clueless how bad a 2nd tunnel will be for Pierce. They only understand delay is bad.

       They need to be educated. Presumably S King, Eastside and Everett are similar.

       1. I agree. The second tunnel will be bad for people outside the region. From Lynnwood you would have to transfer to get to the airport. From Tukwila you lose your one-seat ride to the UW. I don’t think they understand all that or they think we get something great out of the second tunnel. We don’t.

27. ST Express weather advisory, Monday 3:14pm: With the multiple flood/wind watches through Thursday, “ST Express service may reroute at any time. Road conditions can change quickly causing reroutes or stop closures with little to no advanced notice. You might see smaller buses used on your route and experience reduced operating speeds. [Transit apps] may not reflect current levels of service.”

    Link and Sounder will continue as normal.

    Metro may issue a similar advisory at some point.

    Discussions should go to the counterpart comment in the open-thread article before this one. This is just an announcement for those who’ve stopped reading that.

28. 127 comments in 12 hours.

    1. That’s around 10.583 comments per hour.

    2. 140 comments in 13.5 hours.

       1. Now that’s an average 10.37 comments per hour (it’s decreasing).

29. What kind of organizing can we do to get Sound Transit to make the right decision (automated Ballard-Westlake stub)? Al S.’s analysis of ST power dynamics names Balducci, Wilson, Zahilay, and Mosqueda as potential electeds we could lobby to our cause. Are there any organizations who could start writing and pressuring those four? Maybe the TRU, local socialist parties, cost-of-living advocacy groups, labor unions? Is there a way we could organize to get the Microsoft types on board with supporting an automated stub? Could we get PubliCola or The Stranger to write something? Maybe bring in an expert from Vancouver on the benefits of automated transit?

    My fear is that if we just deliver public comments to ST’s board, nothing will come of it unless we can quickly mobilize a coalition in favor of an automated stub to put massive pressure on ST. How can we mobilize?

    1. littlefish,

       I’m afraid there’s no fixing this at this late stage in game. I mean there’s endless arguments on this blog about what to do about Sound Transit and most everybody here is transit activist!

       My question to you would be…. out of all the politicians and organizations you brought up, just how many of them live in financial reality? I honestly believe that most posters here believe in (and ride!) transit and want to find a way to realistically pay for it. Getting Seattle Subway, The Stranger, or any socialist organizations involved? Nothing good could ever come out of that. It would just turn into a huge food fight.

       1. I would think that the TRU would have some grip on financial realities and would also understand just how terrible DSTT2 would be for riders with its gnarly transfers. Have we transit activists/nerds properly reached out to other organizations to explain what’s at stake? Surely there’s gotta be some overlap between us and the TRU at least.

          There’s got to be a way to get more people involved in the fight for an automated Ballard-Westlake line. As mentioned elsewhere, not many people realize just how crappy DSTT2 would be but would hate it once they have to use it. How can we reach these people and get them to join the fight for an automated line?

30. As someone who is medically incapable of driving but needs to get to Delridge on a regular basis from April-July, I see no reason for the West Seattle Extension at this point. I have 4 different options to get there every day of the week from downtown: 21, 1 Line+50, 125, and H Line.
    Stub is clearly the best option for Ballard.
    Completely uneducated idea: Climate Pledge Arena events would be a major draw to the Ballard Line, so would Sound Transit listen to the Kraken and Storm if we somehow got them to make a pro-stub statement?

    1. Re. the sports teams — who would we talk to in their staff about an automated stub to Ballard? Anyone here have connections?

    2. The Arena itself is owned by the City, but operated by the Oak View Group. I expect folks with influence around the Arena would likely oppose the stub because construction impacts would likely be greater as the TBM would have to launch from Uptown instead of SODO.

31. Thanks for the link to the slide deck. It’s clear that the evaluators were ring-fenced from investigating automation, short-but-frequent trains and smaller, shallower stations. Sound Transit must build the Preferred Alternative as adopted by The Board and we will never deviate from four-car, operator-controlled, low-floor LRT’s! Aux Barricades, mes Amis! If we can’t afford it, we’ll build a little bit and then see what turns up.

    That won’t fly with the public; they’ll want more for their tax contributions. Someone will force a re-vote and the ST3 taxes will be canceled after existing obligations are discharged. There will be no BLE nor (hopefully) WSLE, no South Kirkland to Issaquah (Thank GOD!). No Boeing Wiggle up SnoHoCo Way.

    That’s exactly what the consultants implicitly have said: you have to spend $21 billion on this project regardless of how you try to “Value Engineer” it, but you don’t have $21 billion to spend on it, so the only thing to do is bag it.

    Fortunately, the consultants will be paid out of taxes being raised now. First dibs.

    1. “That won’t fly with the public”

       Most of the public doesn’t know about this. Most of those that do assume ST made the right decision because they’re the experts, and if ST says it’s affordable, it’s affordable. They won’t realize how bad the transfers are until it opens and they experience it on the ground. If it opens of course, given the cost overruns and potential future overruns.

       The only way to force a re-vote is to convince the ST board to do it. They won’t, because they don’t want to lose the authorization they worked so hard to get in the ST3 vote. ST3 was expanded from a nominal 15-year plan (the same size as ST1 and ST2) to a 25-year plan to fit Ballard Link and the full Everett/Paine extension in. So it includes part of what was previously expected to be in ST4, so that it wouldn’t have to go back to voters again for a generation and to have certainty that Everett and Ballard and the three Stride lines would be built. (Tacoma was already more certain because Pierce had a large down payment saved from ST1/2.)

       You can’t have an initiative to modify ST3 because it’s larger than any one city. there’s no other district that coincides with the ST district, a statewide initiative would bring in car-oriented transit/tax haters from Eastern Washington and Clark County, and it may be outside the scope of an initiative’s power. Certainly an initiative can’t overturn a tax approved by voters in a different tax district.

       1. “Most of the public doesn’t know about this. Most of those that do assume ST made the right decision because they’re the experts, and if ST says it’s affordable, it’s affordable. They won’t realize how bad the transfers are until it opens and they experience it on the ground. If it opens of course, given the cost overruns and potential future overruns.”

          How can we change that public perception? Is there any organized push to communicate to the broader public just how bad DSTT2 would be versus an automated stub + DSTT1 upgrades?

       2. @littlefish

          I don’t think there is a coordinated effort. If you want to take the initiative, I’d suggest reaching out to existing organizations (TRU, TCC, etc) and politicians and trying to meet with people in person. You can also try setting up a separate interest group.

          Articles (like the one Nathan posted) are also very helpful; getting something published somewhere like TheUrbanist would probably help with at least bringing visibility into the issue. That would probably be the first step and a good launching point for conversations.

          Note that this would be a very large effort for what is quite honestly a pretty niche topic.

       3. Depending on how much effort you want to put in, options include:
          – Emailing the board
          – Meeting with board members
          – Public comment
          – Meeting with interest groups
          – Writing article(s)

       4. Sound Transit and Metro don’t know how to reach the bulk of people either. They ask me how to reach people they aren’t currently reaching. I don’t know. Most of the people I know have little interest in transit issues, have unrealistic expectations like P&Rs can scale up to everybody’s needs, don’t know what things are like for passengers, etc. How do you reach people who don’t see your ads, don’t look at it closely enough to see what it says, don’t read the Times or the Urbanist or the Stranger or Publicola, don’t go to open houses, don’t even know the open houses exist, don’t think much about transit, have a false notion of what transit can and can’t do, don’t know any transit advocates, etc. More outreach would help but it will still reach only a minority of people. The most effective is probably a postcard to their house, so that at least they’ll see it.

       5. Informing the public and influencing the board are two different things that require different strategies. The way to get a different outcome is to convince the decision-makers and the people they most listen to. The decision-makers are the ST boardmembers. The people they most listen to are county/city electeds. Maybe a large employer or institition could have some influence, but probably not as much. But if several of these say the same thing, and it’s the same thing STB and the general papers are saying, and they’re getting a lot of calls from constituents for it, then there’s a chance to bend the curve. That’s how Pinehurst station finally got approved after the board resisted it for years.

          And it has worked for some smaller things like rerouting the 10 to John Street (oops, that was a mistake and was later reversed), or improving some of ST’s maintenance-operations plans (to keep up frequency, etc). Remember that awful idea for late-evening SeaTac service relying on the A to TIB, a shuttle to Rainier Beach, and Link from there? Afterward I talked with ST’s PR person about another issue and I asked whether the operations team had seen our article against it and whether they wouldn’t do it again in the future. He said they saw the article immediately, and while he doesn’t know what operational plans they’ll use for south Link in the future, he hasn’t heard of any intention to do the same operational pattern again.

       6. I don’t think the general public needs to be reached here, so long as there isn’t broad public opposition. I don’t think there is or will be broad opposition against reordering projects, though there may be for outright cancelling projects. For the most part people don’t really care about the minutiae

          The ST board members are the ones that need to be convinced, which may require support from interest groups.

       7. Thanks for the suggestions; I’ll start poking around. I’m just a student who’s currently studying out of town, so I’ll have to see who I can find to help. I do hope to return to a Seattle with good transit someday. It’s a pleasant place to be.

       8. Is there any organized push to communicate to the broader public just how bad DSTT2 would be versus an automated stub + DSTT1 upgrades?

          You are looking at it. Seriously, this is it. OK, maybe there are folks on Reddit saying the same thing but so far as I know, there is no organization that is pushing what we are proposing.

          It wouldn’t be that hard to create an organization with a website. Seattle Subway basically started that way. Originally it was the idea of one guy (Ben Schiendelman). Ben also helped create this blog and the Urbanist. Obviously he was comfortable in the online universe. Seattle Subway grew over time. Now they are a 501(c)(4) with a board, corporate secretaries and all that. Basically a non-profit corporation that is focused on lobbying. This can consist of letter campaigns, public demonstrations (typically at board meetings) — that sort of thing.

          I’ve been involved in grassroots community organizing. I don’t think it is that much different. When you are small you spend a lot of your time brainstorming. In our case we were trying to get ST to build what is now called the Pinehurst Station. We had written editorials (on this blog and others). There were plenty of people in the online world that supported the idea but we basically hit a wall. We were reaching transit people but not ordinary people (who have bigger things to worry about). So we started reaching out to various community leaders (schools, churches, etc.). We held meetings with the general public to discuss the idea. Not rallies, but meetings. The breakthrough in that case was the city council race. There were several really good candidates but Juarez stood out in the way she made the case for the station (and herself for the council). Sure enough, she got elected, served on the ST board and pushed very hard to get the station built.

          In general it is much easier to push for something simple (e. g. a station) or one extreme or the other. Seattle Subway wants more trains, everywhere. Smarter Transit wants buses instead of trains. It is relatively easy to form an organization with such extreme views. It is much harder to form one based on a subtle approach. Even finding a consensus to rally around is difficult if your basic approach is “build rail where it should be built and improve buses in other places”. I think there are quite a few people who have written for the blog (and quite a few people who have commented) who support the following:

          1) West Seattle by bus instead of rail
          2) Build an automated line from Ballard to Westlake with a future extension to First Hill

          That is a pretty simple message but not at all obvious for people to grasp. It is clear that we support rail in some places but not others. It seems pretty freakin’ obvious to transit people but hypocritical to others. “If you think rail is so good over there, why don’t you support it here?”. At that point you have to explain why one area is different than another. The vast majority of people have never read Human Transit nor have they considered the basic concepts. Things like density, networks or even the idea that every mode has its advantages and disadvantages is not at all obvious, especially for a city that treats cars as the default mode of transportation.

          I want to add that this blog is an advocacy organization. I realize it doesn’t seem like it at times. Often we write news or reports. Sometimes we write editorials but with no clear message as to what to do about it. But there are also plenty of times when we make it clear that it is worth writing representatives to make your idea heard. For example, the Seattle Monorail accepts ORCA cards. That was us. That was entirely us. It wasn’t even the writers of the blog (at the time) it was the comment section. One thing led to another and we had a letter writing campaign aimed at the city council. They managed to change the contract with the company that runs the monorail and now they accept ORCA cards. So it does happen.

          I think it is best if we keep articulating the message for now. If you look at the main website of Seattle Subway it is pretty obvious what they are proposing (trains, trains, trains!). I don’t think we have that (yet). On message boards as varied as Bluesky or the Seattle Times I will reference some of those posts but in the case of the second post it buries the lede. There is very little about cost savings (no reference to Toronto for example). The issues surrounding an OMF are now settled (fortunately) which means we need to make only a passing reference now. I think a post aimed squarely at the idea of a stub line would be worthwhile.

       9. “Seattle Subway wants more trains, everywhere.”

          Specifically what Seattle Subway is doing is incorporating ST’s preferred alignment and long-range plan in total, and adding its own Link lines on top of it.

          Their reasoning is to preserve the city/state/public consensus that was large enough to get ST3 proposed and passed. If you start doing things like deleting DSTT2, arguing for 4th Avenue Shallow CID2 alternative, reconfiguring West Seattle to BRT, truncating Tacoma Dome and Everett and the Paine Field Detour, each of those starts losing supporters who wanted those, and you risk the consensus shrinking to below critical mass to get anything done.

          You can say that’s ludicrous, we can’t afford ST’s preferred alignment, the long downtown transfers are unacceptable, etc. But we’re only a few people, and the only one of the several activist groups with this opinion. (With honorable mention to “Rethink the Link” in West Seattle.) 99% of the politicians are on the other side or don’t want to think about unaffordability or long transfers. Most of the public doesn’t know about these issues, and has some predisposition on Link, and a view of Link’s/transit’s capabilities that may or may not be realistic. So that’s where we’re starting from.

          In contrast, STB’s view starts with passenger experience, transit best practices, and pragmaticism as we understand them. What we want is what works best for passengers on the ground. We’ll go along with compromises with “the big consensus coalition” on Tacoma Dome, Everett/Paine, West Seattle, and DSTT2 as part of pragmatism to get something done rather than nothing. But when that starts breaking down like DSTT2’s long transfers that harm passengers and unaffordability, we have to object and suggest something better. I haven’t objected to Everett/Paine, Tacoma Dome, or West Seattle even though I’m skeptical they’re necessary, because they were part of the compromise. Having Everett and Tacoma Dome will be better for passengers than not having them, and it’s up to the Snohomish and Pierce subareas to deal with their affordability and logistical issues and either build them or not build them. But we can’t have long line-to-line transfers in a multi-line system, because that makes half or more of the trip pairs hard to get to and sabotages the benefit of a subway network. “Here’s our subway map, but it’s hard to get to anything not on your home line.” Even below-average subway networks don’t have that.

          So that’s what most STB authors want and what motivates us. I and we are bad at community organizing or reaching out to other groups and we don’t have much time for it. But if somebody with similar goals wants to create an organized activist group, or if those other groups we’re neglecting want to come to us and talk and tell us whether they see some opportunities for agreement on specific issues, we’re all for it.

32. Shutting down the existing Link line for 2-3 years is a dealbreaker for me. if that’s the way they choose to go, I’ll actively work against the project.

    1. I agree. The report is interesting. While some of it smacks of propaganda (somehow it will take longer to build something significantly less expensive and controversial) it still has a key bit of information: An independent line is not that expensive. This to me is the big takeaway. A stub is quite plausible.

       Some of you may remember this editorial. The author was left to speculate about issues involving a stub or a branch. He feared that it would be very difficult to have an OMF with a stub. He also feared that a branch would be very disruptive. He was right about the branch and wrong about the stub. Fair enough. We were leaning towards a stub anyway. It offers a lot more advantages in the long run.

       That is what I find so odd about the argument. Check out this map from Martin’s post. Now imagine the pink line is automated, with smaller, shallower stations and trains running every 2 to 3 minutes. Now compare this to the plans for the second tunnel. Martin’s proposal is better in so many ways.

       1) Covers a lot more of greater downtown.
       2) Complements the bus system better.
       3) Riders from the highest ridership area to the north (Capitol Hill, UW, etc.) continue to be paired with the highest ridership area to the south (Rainier Valley, SeaTac, etc.).
       4) Provides greater redundancy.

       In the long run this would be a much better system. In the short run it at gives us the most cost-effective part of ST3 rail (Ballard to Westlake). Overall it is just better.

       1. Yeah, the line in Martin’s post forms an “soviet triangle” which would disperse transfers between the 1, 2, and 3 Lines across three nodes instead of building a two-route trunk.

          I should have included that map in my article.

    2. I agree too. People have been through a lot of Link disruptions in the past two years, both because the 2 Line and Pinehurst station have required much more closures and single-trackings than we were told in 2016 or 2020, and because of Link’s abysmal reliability record that needs maintenance retrofits. But those are just a weekend or a couple weeks at a time. I can’t imagine going through that continuously for several years.

       It affects everybody going from north of downtown to south of it, such as people from the north going to the airport, Rainier Valley, Eastside, or Federal Way or vice-versa. People going to downtown can transfer to any of dozens of buses for a couple stops, but people going through downtown face a 3-seat ride, 15-minute wait for a shuttle bus, or finding an alternate bus route for two of the seats. That adds tens of minutes or even an hour of delay, and the risk of missing your flight or getting to work late. People can’t just do that for years on end. Especially with the express bus routes from north Seattle and Shoreline/Snohomish gone, so there’s no alternative except local routes that take half an hour to get from 45th or 65th to downtown.

       I don’t remember the construction of DSTT1 because I was in college then and didn’t go downtown much. But I’ve hard the reports of the cut-and-cover construction being worse and longer than any of Link’s construction impacts, and that’s what Link’s passengers would face if DSTT1 is closed for several years on end.

33. Was there any indication that how frequent can Ballard Link run with Alternative 1A?
    I feel like at grade tie-in that cut through the mainline is a serious compromise for the entire system. I’d rather see Ballard going at-grade most part of Interbay to cut similar amount cost than this.

    1. The report in general doesn’t answer lots of questions:

       1. How many trains can operate in the DSTT per hour under various scenarios?

       2. Can the trains and station platforms and vertical devices handle the passenger loads?

       3. Would smaller, automated automated trains offer cost savings?

       The report is quite incomplete. I get that these kinds of reports can’t answer everything, but these are rather basic questions. It feels like it was rushed out to quickly kill off the idea of Downtown branching as well as a Ballard stub.

       I also find it very telling that the estimated cost savings has such a wide range. This is a stark contrast to prior ST cost estimates at early stages, which rarely have cost ranges above $1B — and often it’s much less. It feels like the $0 is there for a political reason (put in there to try to kill the options).

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