The first scheduled Link 2 Line train departed International District/Chinatown station (CID) this morning, marking the start of full 2 Line simulated service — a key final step before the 2 Line’s full opening on March 28. For the next six weeks, passengers will be allowed on the trains between CID and Lynnwood, and between Downtown Redmond and South Bellevue. Trains will travel empty across Lake Washington. To travel between CID and South Bellevue, passengers should transfer to Sound Transit Route 550.
This long awaited milestone brings significant benefits to many Link riders on both sides of Lake Washington. Passengers traveling between Lynnwood and CID will be able to use either the 1 Line or 2 Line. The two lines will alternate, resulting in a combined 4 minute frequency during peak hours and 5 minute frequency the rest of the day. Passengers traveling to a station south of CID should wait for the next 1 Line train. On the Eastside, 2 Line trains will now run between 4:00am and midnight.
While northbound passengers can board the next train from either line (both terminate at Lynnwood City Center), southbound passengers will need to ensure they board the correct train. Before boarding, check the real time arrivals screen at the station or the displays on the front and sides of the train.
On the train, the overhead display will show the next stop.
This is the first time in Link’s history that 2 different lines will serve the same stations. Sound Transit staff and transit security are proactively informing passengers of the change, both on the platform and on the train. If you are not sure which train to board, ask a Sound Transit employee or security staff member for guidance.
Riders from North Seattle will quickly wonder how they ever got by waiting 8-10 minutes for a train.
Riders from South Seattle will continue to miss the old 6-minute peak headways.
I can only hope that the mountain is out on March 28, because the views from the bridge should be spectacular.
According to the schedule it will only take 8 minutes to get from Chinatown Station to South Bellevue, that’s faster than driving!
Check out the 2 Line schedule for March 29 or later. The new segment definitely takes longer than 8 minutes.
The schedule is presented in such a way that it doesn’t show what the “missing middle time” actually is. It looks to me that it might actually be 18 minutes (with a few minutes of padding added for clearing trains).
The schedules after March 28 show that the trip is 15 minutes between these two stations.
Of course, the simulation period is real-world testing so ST might tweak these times one or two minutes after the testing concludes.
I’m taking the 550 this afternoon so I’ll time it again.
I checked a few currently active 550 trips on Pantograph (the actual departure time rather than scheduled departure time).
For a Bellevue-bound 550 trip (fleet no. 9654) which left South Bellevue TC around 5pm, It check in at 2nd & Yesler at 4:44pm, Mercer Island P&R at 4:55pm, and South Bellevue at 5:00pm.
Perhaps westbound is better because it has a stop exactly outside CID Link station. A Seattle-bound 550 trip (fleet no. 9661) checked in at South Bellevue at 5:01pm, Mercer Island P&R at 5:08pm, at and 4th & Jackson at 5:18pm. This trip was 15 minutes late when leaving Bellevue Downtown, so it was motivated to run faster than schedule. By the time it reaches Seattle, it was less than 5 minutes late.
The cool thing about getting out there the first day is seeing the first day quirks, like the blue circle “1 ID/Chinatown” on the arrivals board showing the incorrect line number. Makes me glad ST still has colors for the lines even if they aren’t named the colors.
Rode the 2 Line to Lynnwood by chance from C/ID. Lots of ST ambassadors around. Seemed to be go smoothly, though it was all 2 car trains for the 2 Line and 4 car trains for the 1 Line. That wasn’t an issue for a Saturday morning, but I imagine it could cause headaches on weekdays with crowding.
Two car trains are essentially required so staff can clear trains at IDS. It also matches Eastside 2 Line service which ran two car trains since opening.
Considering this is only added service, it should reduce crowding still. In times when 4-car trains on the 1 Line fill up, now a 2 Line will come with half the capacity but also with half the accumulated riders (being halfway between two 1 Line trains). Not everyone waiting will get on a 2 Line (some prefer to sit on a less crowded train, and some are going south of IDS). So I expect 2 Line trains to be slightly less crowded than the 1 Line was, and 1 Line trains to be more crowded in the middle cars as people get used to two-car trains again. So if you need or want to only ride the 1 Line, wait at the edges of the platform and board at one of the end cars, and you’ll probably get a much less crowded train.
One of the reasons we wanted both lines was to relieve crowding on the 1 Line. So if everybody who has been using the 1 Line remains on the 1 Line, it will still be crowded. In practice, some people like me will take the first train that comes for North/Central trips in spite of what ST says, so that will lead to a natural redistribution to the 2 Line to some extent. Some have been concerned about people crowding around the middle of the platform and leaving the outer cars underused, but that won’t happen if people stand near the ends of the 2-car footprint so that they can choose either an inner or outer car if it’s a 4-car train.
It would help in crowded situations if the ST staff could ask people to spread out when the next train due is a 1-line, allowing riders to better fill all 4 cars.
And, of course, in situations where the train isn’t crowded enough to justify the expense of staff at the stations giving instructions, it probably doesn’t matter.
It would also help if we had open gangways. The other day I rode from Columbia City to Northgate. I got on a middle car but would have walked to the end if I could. The middle cars are always a bit more crowded — now they will be more so. If I did the trip this week I would definitely choose an outside car.
Honestly, it is really amazing how many mistakes the agency makes when it comes to crowding and then they turn around and say “but we need a second tunnel”.
“Two car trains are essentially required so staff can clear trains at IDS. It also matches Eastside 2 Line service which ran two car trains since opening.”
And it can help passengers adjust to the new situation, if they think “2 cars — Eastside”. Not everybody has as much experience with other cities’ subways as we do.
It would be nice if the info boards actually indicated that the trains were 4 car or 2 car trains. I’ve seen this in other towns, maybe as a short or long train, and it is nice to know.
Regular 1 Line riders heading south of IDCS will figure it out and wait for the outer cars, assuming the station they are waiting at is sufficiently pleasant to wait at an extra 5 minutes.
Yeah, the mnemonic is pretty simple: Short train for short trips. It isn’t a perfect mnemonic (a trip from Lynnwood to CID is a lot longer than Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill) but people will figure it out pretty quickly. Going north they will get the hang of it as well. As Dan mentioned, the reader boards should display how many cars there are. But until they do, expect people to hang out towards the middle and then walk to the edges if they see a four-car train coming.
Any reports of how the 2 Line train clearing of riders at CID is going?
Some of us think that the time needed to clear the trains of riders is a minor issue and others of us worry that it’s too disruptive to the schedules.
Just rode down. They are telling people that they will need to get off in advance (they started saying it after leaving Westlake on the train I was on, with two security people per car), so it seems like it could end up being smooth, but I’m not sure what it’ll look like when the trains are more crowded on the weekdays (there were about 20 people in the car I was in upon arriving at ID).
Same question for South Bellevue Station.
Also, are the trains traveling between South Bellevue and East Main faster now?
South Bellevue is a more routine situation for simulated service. Getting people off simulated service trains is nothing new for ST as they’ve done it for every extension of the 1 and 2 Lines. The only reason is different here are:
– at IDS, they have as little as 4 minutes to clear the train before the next one comes (on the S Bellevue side, it’s as little as 8)
– also at IDS, everyone is used to trains continuing south. Lots of people are going to get on a 2 Line train assuming it goes to the airport. So for the first time in Link history, a lot of people will try to ride farther than they’re allowed to, just by accident.
“ Lots of people are going to get on a 2 Line train assuming it goes to the airport.”
I am pretty confident saying that repeated transit use — and audio announcements about the last station on the trains (which ST is doing) — will lead to very few confused riders (and not “lots”).
waited 5 minutes in Northgate station after the train arrived since everything bunched up south bound. As predicted.
I expect the segment from Judkins Park to Chinatown to take longer than the reverse, as it has to merge with 1-Line traffic, and occasionally wait. Same for Stadium to Chinatown.
I still wish they would stop making peak and off-peak dwell times the same.
“I still wish they would stop making peak and off-peak dwell times the same.”
They can’t when more people are getting on/off peak hours. Otherwise some people wouldn’t be able to get off before the doors closed, and others would be left behind on the platform.
When trains are crushed I sometimes worry about being able to get off at Capitol Hill, because I have to go from my seat in back to the doors, and with my leg condition I can’t do that quickly, and the crowd makes it even slower. So I start moving when the train leaves the previous station, but sometimes the crowd is so thick I can’t get out of the seat until the train stops and people get out, and by that time you have only a short time before the doors close. Luckily at Capitol Hill there’s always several people getting out.
Yes, they can shorten scheduled off-peak dwell times, or increase scheduled peak dwell times to address the situation you are describing.
[ot stereotype]
It’s not a big deal but it would be nice if the length of the train was stated in the arrival signs. That way, riders will know in advance where to wait.
It looks like ST could simply create an icon with a rail car (or two rail cars stacked) and show the number of arriving cars using symbols.
Using available text icons from my phone, it could be…
2 car train:
🚋
🚋
4 car train:
🚋🚋
🚋🚋
Martin is loving the gondola icons!
🚡🚠
❤️
We should use these somewhere in the site decorations.
This is basically what I saw the S bahn signs in Berlin doing.
The data feed for MAX arrivals includes the type and number of each car on the train. It’s not used by TriMet’s arrival signs but it shows up on the PDXBus phone app.
I would think a bit of programming could convert this into something the sign could use, assuming the data from ST’s system is as rich as what TriMet has installed on their cars.
What is the signage like in terms of the lines? I assume that it is intuitive southbound. If the train is going to Federal Way it is a four-car train. If it is going to CID, it is 2-car. But if the train is heading to Lynnwood, is there something noting where it came from? In other words, is there any hint at all as to the length of the northbound train?
There isn’t any hint now, unless you can decipher that if the line number is 1 in a blue circle, it means a 2 Line, 2-car train. The 1 Line circle is green if I remember.
The overhead arrival displays distinguish them by the color of the line bullet, green or blue – although as of today, both bullets display “1”.
I assume it will be changed to 2 as soon as ST is able to do it.
Route 550 report. Saturday 2/14
1:37 pm eastbound
5th & Union – Yesler: 11 minutes (congestion)
Yesler – South Bellevue: 16 minutes (free flowing traffic)
Total from 5th & Union to South Bellevue: 27 minutes
4:52 pm westbound (6 minutes late)
South Bellevue – Jackson: 13 minutes (free flowing traffic)
I stopped at Uwajimaya and then took Link to Capitol Hill. I basked in the next arrivals of 3 minutes, 7 minutes. A 2 Line train came first, glorious. It was standing room only by the third station (Symphony). The newer, darker seats are obvious now that it’s stopping at 1 Line stations.
The arrival displays have a blue “1” circle for 2 Line trains, so something needs to be configured.
So the 550 is 13-16 minutes between South Bellevue and Jackson/Yesler in ideal conditions, not 10 minutes. If Link is 15 minutes, that’s right in the range, and Link adds Judkins Park station, and it may get faster once the Intl Dist sweep is eliminated. And if there’s heavy congestion or a traffic jam on I-90 or Bellevue Way that can add 10-15 minutes to the trip.
Link is undoubtedly faster. But a train should ideally be even better than free flowing traffic too. Especially since it gets slow in DTST, you lose that time again compared to driving directly to your destination.
That “slow in DSTT” is nothing compared to traffic congestion on the surface, where you’re stopping at traffic lights, in the middle of the block, and pulling out of the bus stop. Like the congestion in my report.
“But a train should ideally be even better than free flowing traffic too. ”
Definitely. But we’d need far higher-quality transit for that. A light rail network that can go 85 mph past cars limited to 65 mph. Amtrak that’s not 50% slower than driving.
When I was in the UK, Cambridge to London was 1 hour by train or 2 hours by coach bus. Edinburgh to London was 5 hours by train vs 8 hours by bus. (I took both.) We could have that too if we just prioritized it.
Especially since it gets slow in DTST
Yes, if Link didn’t stop at all between Federal Way and Lynnwood, it would be faster, but it would also have almost zero riders because it would be useless for all except the few people riding the entire length from Federal Way to Lynnwood.
One of the Link’s major shortcomings is that we have too few stations in Seattle’s urban core, sited too far apart. First Hill should have had a station, Capitol Hill should have had at least one more station, and the University District another station as well. Yes, adding those stations would have slightly slowed trips for the riders traveling across the urban core, but it would have vastly increased Link’s usefulness for the large number of people living in and traveling to Seattle’s busiest and most populated neighborhoods.
Well yeah it’s still faster than surface congestion but you still lose all the extra time to watch / transfer to your final destination compared to a direct drive/park. Getting rid of city parking (other than for residents) would be one way to improve our streets a ton, and force people onto transit.
During the weekday evening peak, train bunching often occurs northbound north of downtown. For example, the next train would show as coming in 7 minutes, and the one behind it 10 minutes, so 3 minutes between those trains. The bunching is almost certainly due to the first train train getting full and needing to spend more time at stations for people to get off and on. I always wait for that second train, which usually has plenty of free space.
So I wonder in this situation, will ST try to run a 2 Line train between those bunched trains, to maintain alternating 1 and 2 line trains, or might they have the 2 line train wait for both of the bunched 1 line trains to pass? Will this be managed at the discretion of the ops center on the fly, or do they have a set of rules they intend to follow? Might be interesting to see how they handle it. Or whether the added capacity is enough to fix the train bunching, at least the train bunching that is due to crowding.
Easing overcrowding is something that a “wise” transit dispatcher knows how to manage.
The best strategy is frankly to anticipate that the 1 Line trains are always right in front of 2 Line trains. That way, the 2 Line train becomes the train that picks up the riders left behind a 1 Line train. The worst thing that can happen is for a 2 Line train to be “first” after a short service gap.
The major obstacle to this is that reversing trains out of sequence is very hard at Lynnwood. It appears that the sequence must alternate between 1 and 2 Lines.
I noticed that ST published schedules at exactly four minute intervals in the evening peak. They would have been wider to have planned for 5 and 3 minutes — with 2 Line trains just 3 minutes after 1 Line trains. The frequency is however so good that a dispatcher can hold trains as needed without too much distress.
So if — if — the ST dispatcher on duty knows what to do and is supported by management, the dispatcher will hold the 1 Line trains arrival at CID until the dispatcher can be assured that the 2 Line train will be coming right afterward. And the dispatcher should avoid sending through a 2 Line train if there is a long gap.
Another emergency strategy would be something I’ve witnessed in Chicago. That is if the 2 Line train gets too crushed and bogged down at stations, the dispatcher should turn that train into an express train. A quick announcement that the train is an “instant express” to Shoreline after the next stop is a very fast way to unload an overcrowded train.
This double-branch-into-trunk operation will be a learning experience for operations staff. There will be occasional snafus. Over time, the operations staff should learn things like where in the peak hour the heaviest loads happen and how far in advance before the merge adjustments are needed. It just takes a dispatcher who cares and is empowered to make adjustments by the supervisor.
It’s going to get real on Monday.
Excellent observations regarding dispatching. This is something that is non existent in the bus world and it infuriates me. Dispatchers are so tunnel focused on each run rather than looking at service as a whole. Ironically, it is a contributer to delays.
One note however about “expressing” a train here: theres no bypass track. So the train would be stuck behind the preceding train.
@ Jordan:
The “instant express” solution is a last resort action. It would only work if there was a long service gap, so the earlier train would be several stations down the line. There would thus be no need to bypass a train. And the number of stations skipped would be determined in real-time based on where the train ahead is.
The preferred action should first always simply be to not run a 2 car train first after a service gap. As long as it’s 2 cars, the 2 Line should be operated as the clean-up second train.
At some point, AI will enter the dispatching task. It will observe in real-time when surges of riders enter a station and review all the options that would ease the overcrowding — like holding a 2 car train back to follow a 4 car train, or a 2-car train skip past the single station where the surge is.
“One note however about “expressing” a train here: theres no bypass track. So the train would be stuck behind the preceding train.”
Expressing is for the train in front, no?
How far would it have to express to get out of the way of the following trains? If it’s at UW and expresses to Northgate, is there still a chance the trains would be so close it would slow the following ones down? Would it have to express to Lynnwood?
@ Mike:
Again, it would be a real-time call.
The more crowded a train gets, the more time it sits at a station platform. After several stations, it gets horribly behind schedule. Trains start to bunch behind it. Then, the train may continue late on its return trip too. It’s as much about protecting the system schedule as it is addressing overcrowding.
So skipping ahead by say just 5 stations may mean the difference between a train that was 10 minutes late to being just 5 minutes late by the time it finally reaches Lynnwood as opposed to being say 15 or more minutes late because of long periods while people squeeze out of trains.
This 2/4 car setup is a new aspect of Link operations. The dispatchers and drivers will need to test and adjust strategies for these kinds of situations. This is a reason why ST should be trying to hire management who understand how to manage a crowded rail transit system because they’ve done it elsewhere.
I ultimately expect ST to rise to the occasion. ST was smart enough to meter people going down to the platform after the Seahawks victory parade this week. They’ve been managing game crowds for years. It may take a few disasters to teach the operations staff how to best manage this new challenge — but they will eventually have no choice but to hone new approaches to identify and ease train overcrowding.
Dispatcher-like stuff is why you don’t complin about having to wait 6 more weeks. Operators need the practice.
Well, after nearly three decades of voting for light rail and occasionally commenting, writing advocacy messages and finally being able to ride (on the Eastside)–NOW I read actual, real questions about managing service with a larger metro area being served. It may be frustrating, especially for those of us with experience of other cities’ subway/light rail systems, but it means there’s been huge progress! Those who have been around a while, watching Sound Transit struggle just to get light rail built, know that there were many choices that were forced to be sub-optimal–from not including staircases in some stations, to siting surface tracks where underground would likely have been better, to the insufficient number of stations in core Seattle. All of those choices were ultimately driven by cost. Adding stations later is impossible to extremely unlikely. That was pointed out early and often. But most often the choice was between “build it with the resources we know will be available” and “don’t build it.” Newcomers to the city will be questioning these choices for decades to come, but at least there’s an actual system to argue over!
Wayfinding question. Why does ST show “2” on the Link platforms south of IDS on the “1” line station platforms?
Others have wondered that too. I assume ST wasn’t sure which operational pattern it would use, or thought it might change its mind later.
Every southbound train is labeled as blue 1 to CID. The first train that came was to Federal Way according to the signage on the front of the train and automated messages on the train.
Not good.
Well, it looks like simulated service is already temporarily suspended. Due to power issues.
I’m hoping this isn’t a sign of bad news.
Hopefully, they’ll be more information soon, but as of now the extra frequency between Lynnwood and CID is suspended.