Amtrak recently held an exclusive “first look ceremony” at their new Airo trainsets coming to certain routes nationwide over the next few years. Today’s videos review the new trains, which are coming to our very own Amtrak Cascades route first. The new trains are expected to roll out later this year.
The New York Times covered it on Friday with photos of the construction process at the Siemens Mobility factory in Sacramento, California. (NYT gift link)
This is an open thread.
In the discussions about route 60, the point has been made that Metro can double service on the busy FHSC corridor by moving the 60 to Broadway from 9th Avenue. This change is said to be “at no cost” to Metro. I oppose the idea of moving the 60 off 9th Avenue because it’s the riders on the 60 who will pay the cost. But, here’s a proposal to double service on the FHSC corridor without touching the route map or service hours of the 60.
The current configuration of the 49 offers 20-minute headways and requires 5 buses during midday service and 6 during PM peak. The 49 is also completely wired for trolley buses. So, it’s possible to revise the 49 to run from Broadway & Pine to Jackson St. on the wire that the 43 uses to return to base until 5th & Jackson. Then, from 5th & Jackson, the revised 49 continues to 2nd & Jackson and uses the trolley loop to Main and lays over in Pioneer Square. This revised 49 would take about 36-38 minutes (midday) and would need 6 buses (+1 over the current 49) to cover 20-minute headways with a 15-minute layover in Pioneer Square and about a 30-minute layover in the University District. Where do the extra service hours come from?
Mix or match from these suggestions to build a network that offers midday service every 10 minutes on the Broadway corridor (3 streetcar runs alternating with 3 49 runs):
(a) With the 49 running at 20-minute headways, the FHSC would be reduced to 20-minute midday headways, saving the operating hours of 1 streetcar. Remember, 1 hours of streetcar service buys 1+ hours of rubber wheel service.
(b) Somebody is likely to chirp that Jackson St. already has too much service. I agree. My fantasy map would move the 106 off Jackson. The revised 106 would serve the east portal of Judkins Park Station by turning off Rainier at 23rd Ave. and terminate somewhere in the CD (likely at the existing 21st & Jefferson terminal of route 4). That change replaces 106 service on Jackson St. with 49 service and saves 1 bus from the 106 schedule.
(c) Ending the 9 would provide about 16-18 service hours daily for the 49.
To improve midday headways to better than 10 minutes, it would be necessary to consider reducing the streetcar operations in the early morning and late evenings. Streetcar operations currently start at 5am and continue until 11pm. Reducing the span of streetcar service from 18 hours a day to 13 or 14 hours buys a lot of bus service for the 49 (or transfers service hours to midday and peak streetcar operations).
The Broadway corridor can have much more service without moving the 60 off 9th Avenue. Pike and Pine would lose the 3 runs of the 49 per hour but would still be served by routes 10 and 12, or light rail service every 4-5 minutes.
“The Broadway corridor can have much more service without moving the 60 off 9th Avenue. Pike and Pine would lose the 3 runs of the 49 per hour but would still be served by routes 10 and 12, or light rail service every 4-5 minutes.”
A Broadway-Jackson route makes more sense than a Broadway-Madison route, which is another suggestion for the 49. A Broadway-Madison route would still be splitting Broadway service, but it would take you to the Madison office district instead of the retail core where more people are going. A Broadway-Jackson route would make it easier to delete the streetcar, although it’s not fully interchangeable because the streetcar stops are different from the bus stops so you have to decide ahead of time which one to go to.
A Broadway-Jackson route would make it easier to delete the streetcar
Yes, that would be the main advantage of that routing. You could get rid of the streetcar which would make improving transit on both Broadway and Jackson much easier. It would also be a better route. Not only would you avoid the streetcar’s detour to 14th, but you have better overlap on Capitol Hill. The 60 goes several blocks north of the streetcar. It could easily be extended to Aloha (and take over the layover for the 9). That way the overlap (between the 60 and 49) would extend to Aloha.
although it’s not fully interchangeable because the streetcar stops are different from the bus stops
Good point. Replacing the streetcar with the 49 would involve some subtle routing changes. But these would be fairly simple. Get rid of the detour to 14th and use the bus stops on Jackson and Broadway. You might move the stops around a bit (especially on Broadway) but that is relatively simple. The tricky part is adding the BAT lanes on Broadway. But it would still be much simpler than trying to do that with the streetcar. For example consider northbound Broadway. As you past Columbia, there are no right turns for a while. Just get rid of the parking and add BAT lanes. At Marion there is a bus stop, so this is basically a skip-ahead lane. Not perfect, but still a lot better than what it is now. Of course ideally we move the bike lanes over to 12th, but that would be a bigger project. Either way it would be much easier to make the street faster for buses than making it faster for the streetcar.
Of course that is not Guy’s proposal. He wants to mix the streetcar and 49. You raise an important point though Mike. The stops are not the same for the bus as for the streetcar. This means someone trying to get from Jackson to Broadway has to choose the right stop (or wait 20 minutes). This is true for every stop on Jackson. In contrast, almost all of the streetcar stops on Broadway are shared with buses. Both the streetcar and 60 serve Yesler (close to Broadway) and I would continue that routing. (The alternative would be to continue on Boren — that would be marginally faster but you would lose the common market stop.) To the north, the first streetcar stop (where the train lays over) is just a bit south of the corresponding stop for the 60. The situation could be better with a kiosk. Riders should be able to see when the 60 is supposed to arrive and when the streetcar will be leaving. But that is a minor fix that would be valuable right now. Other than that, you really don’t have to do much to combine buses and the streetcar on Broadway.
I oppose the idea of moving the 60 off 9th Avenue because it’s the riders on the 60 who will pay the cost.
Says Who?! A lot of people on the 60 would welcome the change. The bus would be faster. This means riders trying to get to Capitol Hill from Beacon Hill would be better off. Trips along Broadway are much simpler. I’m sure people check their phone and make a last second decisions when it comes to deciding which stop to use, but that sucks. It is much easier to just go to the same old bus stop and take the first bus/streetcar that shows up. Meanwhile, there are people who have to schlep their way over to their apartment on Broadway or to Seattle U. Then there are the hospitals and clinics on Broadway itself. For all those riders, this would be a big improvement.
People greatly exaggerate the popularity of the detour. Just look at the ridership heading south. The bus starts on Broadway and turns on Madison. For just that little section, the bus picks up 1,100 riders. This is way more riders than the detour. It is more riders than the combined boarding and alighting on that section! In other words, the vast majority of riders that board at the north end of Broadway stay on the bus through that detour. Those riders are significantly delayed by this routing — and they vastly outnumber those that benefit from it. There are also relatively few people that use the stops farthest away from Broadway. The highest ridership on the detour are the stops that wouldn’t involve much walking at all.
Again, I think people have an outdated view of First Hill. There was a time when the routing really made a lot of sense. It is pretty clear just by looking at the buildings that much of the density along Broadway is new. Just look at this streetcar stop. The Harborview Clinic is new. The apartment buildings across the street are new. It doesn’t stop there. This isn’t like Phinney Ridge where the density is just right next to the main corridor. There are apartments several blocks over — to the east.
If we had unlimited money then of course we would run a bus on 9th. We would also run a bus on 12th! Look at that density — right through a college campus — and there is no north-south service. There is a big gap before you get to the next bus (on 23rd). Consider a trip from this part of Seattle U to Beacon Hill. They have to walk a long ways or they have to take the 3/4 all the way downtown and then take the 36 (or Link) back. If we got rid of the 60 detour than riders to the west would then be in the same boat. They would have to walk a long ways or catch a bus downtown and transfer. The riders that would have the longest walk — and thus would be most likely to take a bus — would be on Madison. Madison! A street with the most frequent bus route in our system. Some would just hop on the bus going the other direction (towards Broadway) and take the 60. Of course there are trade-offs with every change. That is always the case. But this just complements the existing transit system much better.
As for the 49, yes, it would be better if it kept going straight. I’ve said so many times. But that would be minor improvement on Broadway (12 minute headways to 10 minutes). Some riders of the 49 would object — it isn’t clear they come out ahead. The better solution is this. By combining the routes and avoiding the overlap, you can afford to run the northern part of the 49 every twelve minutes. So not only do you have excellent headways on Broadway (transit every six minutes) but you have decent service at the north end of Capitol Hill (like we used to have). Sure, many would miss their one-seat ride to Pine but running the bus a lot more often would make up for that.
>> Consider a trip from this part of Seattle U to Beacon Hill. <<
Ross, if I were at that part of Seattle U, I would walk over to Jefferson (literally the length of a football field), take a 3 or 4 that runs every 7.5 minutes to Harborview and transfer to a 60 that runs every 12 minutes. Yes, running the 60 on Broadway instead of 9th would be faster–but only by 1 minute.
Ross, if I were at that part of Seattle U, I would walk over to Jefferson (literally the length of a football field), take a 3 or 4 that runs every 7.5 minutes to Harborview and transfer to a 60 that runs every 12 minutes.
That is my point. Yes, some riders will transfer. Some riders will just walk. But the same is true if the 60 kept going on Broadway.
The difference is, the transfer is just better from Madison! The 3/4 runs every 7.5 minutes but the G runs every 6. Not only that, but some riders might want to go the other way and catch the 36. If you are on Madison and Boren, that is a short ride. If you are at Seattle U, it isn’t.
So again, clearly the number of people that would benefit would outnumber those that would be hurt. We know that just by looking at the ridership. But the people that would be hurt the most (those on Madison) would have really good options. The people that are hurt most by the current routing (those to the east) would benefit more. At the same time, a lot of the riders of the streetcar (likely a majority) would benefit as well.
“ The difference is, the transfer is just better from Madison! The 3/4 runs every 7.5 minutes but the G runs every 6.”
Just a note that there are no bus or streetcar stops at Madison and Broadway. All transfers involve walking a few hundred feet (along with crossing at signals).
The elephant in the room is the FHSC itself. If it was overcrowded, there would be suggestions to purchase more vehicles and increase service.
Adding an overlay transit route would take more riders away from FHSC. It would likely make it even less productive. It would possibly slow down the FHSC even more if the added time of more buses stopping on Broadway would spill back to slow the traffic that the streetcar encounters.
Rerouting Route 60 could make more sense if the streetcar went away. But I see a mere overlay service as something that has more disadvantages than advantages. Many of the First Hill stops are quite active to the point of slowing the entire route. Making those riders walk up to 1000 feet more to get to places where Route 60 First Hill riders want to go just to weaken FHSC ridership or to duplicate a Link trip from Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill with a faster bus trip appears to create more transit rider losers than winners.
Overlaying additional frequency on Broadway would take some of the ridership from the FHSC, but it would drive additional ridership because people would take it instead of walking, or they might take trips they otherwise would not have because of the additional frequency. The main issue with the streetcar is that it isn’t frequent enough for such a short, urban route. If it was longer and/or straighter that would help as well, but the frequency is the main thing holding it back.
The FHSC travels about 2.5 mi, which is slightly longer than the G. The reason the G works on such a short route (barely over 2 mi) is that it is so frequent that it is competitive with walking. If you are taking the G more than 1/3 of a mile down Madison, it’s typically faster to take the bus rather than walk.
Anecdotally, when I lived near the G I took it regularly for trips I otherwise wouldn’t have made. If it wasn’t so frequent, I wouldn’t have gone to Trader Joe’s nearly as often, or to the library, or to many other destinations along the line. I also used it to get up hills when I didn’t feel like walking, simply because I knew I could walk to the stop without timing it.
“The reason the G works on such a short route (barely over 2 mi) is that it is so frequent that it is competitive with walking.”
And the steep hills. Walking from 3rd to 9th is a major ordeal. And now that the G is faster than other east-west routes and more consistently frequent, some people walk to it if they have a choice of neighboring routes.
Adding an overlay transit route would take more riders away from FHSC.
Of course it would. That is the point. The 2 Line will soon take a lot of riders from the 1 Line. Who cares? This is a great thing. Transit north of downtown will get a lot better.
Many of the First Hill stops are quite active
Yes, but they are vastly outnumbered by the riders who are taking the 60 on Broadway.
Making those riders walk up to 1000 feet more to get to places where Route 60 First Hill riders want to go
What about the riders that have to walk 1,000 feet just to catch the 60? You are completely ignoring the ridership to the east. You are just assuming that everyone prefers the detour, even though the ridership shows otherwise. We know a lot of riders endure the detour (way more than actually benefit from it). But it stands to reason that there are a significant number of riders who would prefer the bus just keep going straight because it would mean less walking.
or to duplicate a Link trip from Capitol Hill to Beacon Hill
Do you really think that a lot of people are taking the 60 from Beacon Hill Station to Capitol Hill station? Seriously? That makes no sense. It isn’t what riders are doing. Plenty of riders are taking it from the north end of Beacon Hill to Capitol Hill — but so what? They could find other options but so too could the handful of riders that would be hurt most by this change. Just look at the detour and think about who would have to walk the farthest. Harborview? No, it is about a three minute walk, maybe four (https://maps.app.goo.gl/493UXYwjhaCpbPjk7). It isn’t until you get to Madison that riders would have to walk a long distance. But guess what? Madison has the most frequent bus in the network! Those riders could either take the G Line towards downtown (where they could catch the 36) or to Broadway (where they could catch the 60). The detour just doesn’t get you that much. There aren’t that many people that are helped by it and they have really good alternatives.
In contrast, imagine if the 60 was running on 12th. You would have people arguing the same thing. They would talk about all those riders in Seattle U who would suffer. I can hear it now. “This is a major university! There is density there. You don’t want those riders walking 1,000 feet just to catch a bus.” But again, that misses the point. Running buses very close to other buses (or in this case a streetcar) is a really bad idea unless you can afford it. We can’t. Not even close. If we were running the streetcar (or a similar bus) every 6 minutes this would be a different discussion. But we aren’t. We need to take every opportunity to improve headways on key corridors and this is one of them.
How about those of you that are stop data wonks compare the daily boarding totals of Route 60 and FHSC and see which stops are getting more riders on First Hill? I suspect that Route 60 will be higher.
Streetcar ridership is hard to get. It isn’t included with the data we get from Metro. I think Micheal has a request from Seattle, but hasn’t heard back yet.
One thing that Route 60 does is that it has stops next to RapidRide G stops since they both run on Madison next to each other for a few blocks. If Route 60 was moved to Broadway, transfers become much harder because transfers would mean longer walks of over a block.
I could see a better case for Route 60 being moved to run on Boren and Madison (or Boren and Seneca). But Broadway is a congested mess complicated by the streetcar tracks and bicycle tracks with very restrictive channelization and several crossing street signals being too close to other signals to accommodate more buses on the street — along with the awful transfers for RapidRide G.
One thing that Route 60 does is that it has stops next to RapidRide G stops since they both run on Madison next to each other for a few blocks.
Yes, and that is a big part of the problem. The 60 is stuck in traffic while adding absolutely no coverage for that section.
If Route 60 was moved to Broadway, transfers become much harder because transfers would mean longer walks of over a block.
The difference is minimal. Consider some of the transfer possibilities:
1) They are going from downtown to the north end of Broadway. For a lot of trips they would be better of just taking Link (Symphony to Capitol Hill). For some the 10/12/49 makes more sense. But even if you did make the transfer, it would seem like doubling the frequency (to the north end of Denny) makes up for the inconvenience of the transfer.
2) Madison Valley to the South end of Broadway. This seems like it would be a lot more common. But again, doubling the effective frequency makes up for the transfer. My guess is a lot of the people who make this trip just walk to catch the streetcar simply because it takes a shorter route (https://maps.app.goo.gl/FoYkiqhhz5ih7aqa6). Mostly it is just a hassle since you have to quickly determine which stop to head to.
3) Beacon Hill to Madison Valley. This is a case where it makes sense to transfer to the 60 (and only the 60). There really isn’t that much difference between the transfers. Look at the Google Maps description: https://maps.app.goo.gl/WWEc1aqMveDZ8vs6A. It takes two minutes to get between the two buses. The stop for the G Line is just north of Terry. Then you have to walk south to the only entrance to the bus stop (on Terry) before walking north to the bus stop for the 60 (just north of Boren). This is the only stop the 60 makes on Madison. The next stop for the 60 is on Broadway. Obviously if you are going to use that bus stop for your transfer point it would be much nicer if the 60 just kept going on Broadway. Except you wouldn’t do that. You would transfer at Marion. From Marion you would cross Broadway and then cross Marion. This second crossing is easy — it does not require a traffic signal. Then you walk along Boylston until Madison, before entering the bus stop off of Boylston (that stop has entrances from both sides). So basically the same amount of walking, and the same of waiting (for the walk arrow).
Thus from a transfer standpoint there is no significant advantage to having both buses on Madison. Meanwhile, a lot of the people who transfer between the G and 60 would be better off with better frequency (and common-market stops).
@Al S
The streetcar is notably more productive than the 60. The 60 gets ~6,000 riders over 10 miles, the FHSC gets ~4,000 over 2.5
On Broadway in particular, we don’t have exact ridership numbers for the FHSC, but historically (in 2019) it’s gotten ~60% of its ridership from Broadway, meaning ~2,400 boardings from Yesler through Howell. The 60 gets a little less than that (~2,200) from Yesler through Roy. That’s slightly less boardings over more distance and more stops.
https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/SDOT/Streetcar/CC_Streetcar_Ridership_and_Special_Markets_Memo_20231106.pdf
Keep in mind that both Route 60 and FHSC would both still slog through Yesler Terrace, which is a big part of the delay frustration. Looking at OBA and the schedules suggest that a Route 60 reroute to Broadway would only save the bus between 0 to 3 minutes. That’s it.
a Route 60 reroute to Broadway would only save the bus between 0 to 3 minutes
Awesome! The bus is faster and you have much better combined headways! That is fantastic. Remember, the fact that the route is faster is a bonus! The main advantage is consolidation. This is all just basic routing, but it is mentioned in the service guidelines: https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/about/policies/2021-11-17-metro-service-guidelines.pdf (under route spacing and duplication).
Route 60 and FHSC operate on different headways. What interval are you thinking?
Does anyone know how many more streetcars could fit in the storage barn? Or how much frequency could be improved by making 5th and Jackson the southern terminus?
Route 60 and FHSC operate on different headways. What interval are you thinking?
12 minutes, all day long. I thought that is what the streetcar did right now, but I guess it only runs every 12 minutes during peak. So you would need to make a few extra runs at the following times:
5 a.m. – 6 a.m.
9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
7 p.m. – 10:30 p.m.
So basically one extra run per hour (to go from every 15 minutes to every 12). You wouldn’t need any extra trains (since the streetcar runs every 12 minutes during peak) just extra driving. It wouldn’t cost much because it would be consistent. The bus runs every 12 minutes most of the day but it jumps to 20 minutes fairly early depending on which direction you are going. So it is possible you end up running every fifteen minutes in the evening (both streetcar and bus). There is bound to be some fiddling around with the schedule to make it work, but that is the basic idea.
The 2-car test already has run into obstacles. There was an event at Climate Pledgeast night (not sure if it was the Kraken or a concert). At around 11p, the entire length of the platform was filled with riders at Westlake – not jammed packed but definitely “afternoon-rush” crowded. The 2-car train couldn’t accommodate everyone and sat longer than usual trying to handle the crowd.
*event at Climate Pledge last night, Sat Feb 14
Jordan,
Public transit isn’t supposed to handle the crush of big public events. Really, we can’t afford to build to the scale of the amount of people at a Seahawks game…. or even a big event at Climate Pledge. If you go to game or concert, be prepared to a long time getting home.
One thing I’ve noticed on this blog is to accept the struggle of Seattle becoming a major city of over 800,000 people after bumbling along as smaller regional city of under 600,000 (with even more growth in the suburban areas surrounding the cities). Traffic and gridlock are just part of life in an American city Seattle’s size. Embrace it or move. Detroit wishes it had its gridlock back!
Go to Broadway on any Friday night and it’s just crushed with cars…. and it always has been in 40 years around Seattle. I’d guess many of cars aren’t even from City residents, but people driving in from “Greater Seattle” for a nigh on the town. Increasing transit isn’t going to make getting around easier than it was if the City keeps growing at a breakneck pace…. it just allows the City to keep its head above water, transit-wise…. adding transit negates some of the overcrowding growth brings.
Of course every boom has its bust and maybe Seattle stops growing and falls in a recession? Bound to happen sooner or later…. and as a guy who’s lived through these down times before….. transit needs to get cut to balance the books. Seattle isn’t a game of Sim City after all.
That happens on the 1 Line before and after all ballgames. What did these Eastsiders do before Link? Take the 550 or 545 or drive. The 550 and 545 are still running, so they can take that if the 2 Line is too crowded.
The ultimate problem is not enough railcars or base spaces for 4-car trains on both lines. That’s partly because the lines are slower and the trains need more maintenance than originally estimated. There’s nothing ST can do about that until more trains arrive and bases built, which will take a decade. The alternative would be to not run the 2 Line at all because it will get overcrowded at Climate Pledge events or other ballgames. As somebody who has waited decades for the 2 Line, I wouldn’t want that.
At 11 pm on a Saturday night, there should be plenty of spare cars for a few extra 4 car trains to clear the crowds. The 1 line is only once per 12 minutes at that time.
If only they had known this would happen a decade ago…oh wait, they did.
“That happens on the 1 Line before and after all ballgames. What did these Eastsiders do before Link?”
When the bus doesn’t run often enough, you end up in a situation where the transit system has much less capacity than the parking and driving system, so everyone who rides the bus is effectively depending on everyone else to drive in order to even fit on the bus for the return trip.
That’s not the way it should be working. Mass transit should be able to provide the needed capacity for big events. It should be the drivers who depend on other people riding transit to have room to drive and park, not the other way around.
As I’ve explained elsewhere, there are crowd management techniques that can be employed with the light rail system . The most obvious one is what I repeated: Never send a two-car train through after a long service gap until a four-car train goes through right before.
I hope you send a note to ST about the situation that you encountered. Maybe they weren’t fully aware of the event. Maybe they have yet to hone the blended 1/2 Line operations. But I think it’s appropriate to describe your experience for them. They are still just beginning the blended testing and will be more open to learning about problems that may happen again.
Apart from the train length issue, I’m wondering if ST can keep both lines running at 10 minute headways until the end of service instead of dropping down to 12 minute headways. If they don’t have enough vehicles to run 3 or 4 car trains on the 2 Line, then we have to live with shorter trains for now, but they do have enough vehicles to run 10 minute headways.
We’ll have to see where ridership settles down at. This is the first time I’ve heard of crowding at 11pm so it may be a one-off. Getting more frequency in the evening would face pushback from people saying trains would be almost empty most of the time. If ridership continues higher than expected, that could induce ST to increase frequency. But it would also make it dig in its heels on DSTT2.
At around 11p, the entire length of the platform was filled with riders at Westlake – not jammed packed but definitely “afternoon-rush” crowded. The 2-car train couldn’t accommodate everyone and sat longer than usual trying to handle the crowd.
With all due respect, so what? Imagine the same thing happened a month ago. The 2-car train doesn’t even exist. That is clearly worse. At least some riders got on the early train while the rest of the riders waited just as long as they would have without the 2-car train.
You don’t mention whether the train was northbound or southbound. If it was southbound, perhaps people were savvy enough to not board the train as they knew it was only going to the south end of downtown. If northbound, as others have mentioned, even a four-car train might not have picked everybody up. The better news is that the next train should be less than 10 minutes away.
Here are some ways ST can operate 4 car trains on the 2 Line before 2028:
Option A: Reduce peak frequency to 10 minutes, timed 5 minutes all-day on both lines.
Option B: Reduce evening frequency to 15 minutes on both lines.
Option C: End both lines early at 10 or 11 pm to allow earlier maintenance. Overnight routes would run during this time.
Which one is the best option so we don’t have to deal with 3 car trains? The order of 10 additional LRV’s by 2028 can be considered optional.
Let’s wait and see if we need 4-car trains on the 2 Line before reducing frequency. People hate waiting even more than they hate a longer travel time, and it makes them less satisfied with the transit agency and less willing to support transit.
Yes, when the number of cars is limited, the ideal solution is running shorter train more often, as opposed to longer trains less often. This has a modest increase in operations costs from the additional operators needed, but it is well worth it.
The prediction on 3 car trains was back in 2023 and I usually see the testing on the I-90 bridge on 4 car trains, so I’m hoping we get 4 car trains. Also I’m sure those new signs for 2 cars were for the 2 Line simulated service, and the reason why the testing is on two cars is to be consistent with the eastside segment.
Also I have no idea why they had to reduce the number of cars to 3 on the 2 Line because of Federal Way Link Extension. The 2 Line gets it’s train cars from OMF East site so I have no idea how they would have been able to get those cars from the east for Federal Way Link, which the east OMF should have enough for 4 car trains.
I think they’re testing 4-car trains to make sure there aren’t any issues with full-size trains. But they simply don’t have enough LRVs to run 4-car trains at the promised frequencies because several segments on both lines run slower than planned. Getting 10 more trains won’t be enough for all 4-car trains, but will be better than our current situation.
None of those really solve the problem of there being too few LRVs at peak period.
Option D: ST to add a third track and platform at Northgate. Ridership north of Northgate is about half that between Northgate and UW. So, turn Line 2 trains at Northgate.
One good thing TriMet did was provide turnback platforms and capacity, so trains can be turned around in the middle of a line if needed. Eg: Rose Quarter, Beaverton, and Gateway were build with 3 platforms and 3 tracks. Galleria, PSU and Union Station all have mid-route turning with multiple layover tracks.
I think adding this type of mid-route turning capacity could do more for Link reliability and capacity adjustments than having DSTT2. Right now, they can’t turn anything at intermediate stations without reducing frequency due to only having two station tracks and platform capacity at those two tracks.
Option E: obtain more 1,500 volt static converters and lease some LRVs from
a city with a surplus. Eg: Portland can’t use all of what it has due to the budget problem. Other cities may have this problem too.
There is already a third track north of Northgate station. I’ve seen a spare train sitting on that track.
No, do not truncate the 2 Line at Northgate. That “third track” is a pocket track which means it’s for storage, not for layover.
Until more cars arrive, ST is pretty stuck.
The best operations strategy depends on a real-time crowding analysis. Starting tomorrow, ST should carefully develop profiles of demand for each train. Not clumped into time periods — but each train.
Even though peak demand extends over several hours, certain trains are more likely to have heavier demand. For example, trains that reach Downtown about 5:10 pm are probably the highest. By 5:40 the demand is probably notably less. So ST could make sure that four car trains are scheduled to meet the peak of the peak.
Unlike others, I would suggest dropping to 10 minute peak headways but have four car trains among these options. That’s because turning around trains in Lynnwood is the point where the operational stress is greatest and the added minute would be a valuable time buffer to keep trains evenly spaced (like when a train arrives a few minutes late because it was overly crowded).
My armchair guess is that the two branches (1 and 2 Lines south or east of CID) will have similar ridership. The directional loads are likely different though, as there will be a reverse commute to Bellevue and Microsoft that will have riders.
Anyway, we need to encourage ST figure this out with analytics and scheduling. As we move forward in time there will be daily fluctuations because of Mariners games, conventions, pop music concerts, university events and all sorts of other things. We need to encourage ST to monitor demand closely and be able to administratively adjust schedules and train lengths as needed. They need to be given the authority to make realtime changes — and be held accountable if they are too lazy to pay attention.
Maybe ST will end up keeping the 510 and 515 to downtown to deal with Link capacity.
I would be very surprised if they keep the 515. Capacity will increase dramatically to the north end, and it was created purely to deal with capacity. The 510 is a different story. I think many of the riders prefer the one-seat ride from Everett. I expect them to keep it indefinitely.
I would suggest dropping to 10 minute peak headways but have four car trains among these options
That would be fine for the north end. But it would mean worse headways to the south and east. That seems silly, given we used to run smaller trains all the time. Of course I prefer the simplicity of running the same size train every time but I don’t think it is that big of a deal. People will get the hang of it, especially since it will be most crowded during commute time. This is when you are likely to get the most experienced riders. They will figure out when the four-car trains are running (or at the very least learn where to stand so they can take get to the “extra” car when it shows up). But even if you pick the most crowded car from a 3-car set it probably won’t be that bad.
“Capacity will increase dramatically to the north end”
Capacity was supposed to increase 100%, but with 2-car trains it’s only 50% or with 3-car trains 75%. And there will be new people going from north to east that will use up some of that capacity.
I doubt we will need 4-car trains on the 2-line. Ridership to the East Side is peak-oriented but it is also bidirectional. Peak transit ridership towards Downtown Seattle is way down compared to ten years ago. Some of that is that the buses simply aren’t as good as they used to be but a lot of it is because of less commuting after the pandemic. I expect more people are going to ride the trains than currently take the bus but not that many.
I think in general we will have plenty of extra capacity. If you are south of CID, everything is the same (4-car trains). If you are commuting from Lynnwood, capacity will increase dramatically (there will be an extra 3-car train to go with your 4-car train). The biggest issue is just that it is a bit annoying to sometimes have 3-car trains. But regular commuters get used to it. Of course that doesn’t mean that people won’t take up too much room, stand next to the doors and otherwise make it seem way more crowded than it really is.
Special events are a different matter. I’m not worried about the World Cup. But if the Mariners win the World Series there will be another big parade and huge crowds. That is really a different beast (requiring extra buses, Sounder trains, etc.) and we will muddle along as best we can. But in general I would put capacity issues way down the list of transit concerns.
There’s two parts to this:
1. The Eastside part of 2 Line is certainly bidirectional. But so is the 1 Line south of CID because of SeaTac. SeaTac station is one of the highest demand stations. While 1 Line will probably have higher peak demand, I don’t think the ultimate load difference will be that noticeable between the lines. After all, the Eastside has lots of commuters who work Downtown Seattle white-collar jobs and work standard office hours.
2. North of Downtown, the two lines will probably carry similar loads per train. It is by far the most crowded Link segment leaving Downtown and the data suggests that this will still be the case even after train frequency is doubled.
It’s rather academic to obsess much about this though. We will have realtime data starting March 28. And if the train car allocations need to be adjusted, ST can adjust that within a day. ST is FINALLY moving into realtime train length management — and how effective they are should be our upcoming concern.
When’s the soonest we might get ridership numbers on the simulated service? Both in the north/central segment to see if ridership has increased, and to address Jordan’s concern about whether travel patterns from Climate Pledge Arena at 11pm have changed, and whether Eastsiders are using the new late-evening service.
ST should be able to internally estimate usage on a particular day quickly. After all, the already said that parade day last week was about 200K Link boardings.
Link data can be examined by each day from their ridership data page. It’s usually retrievable on the web site after about the 10th of the month.
It will be particularly interesting to see how demand in northern Seattle changes with both the higher frequency (starting this week) and the direct extension of the the 2 Line (starting at the end of March). The UW and Capitol Hill stations are where I’m expecting to seethe most pronounced increases.
So we will soon have a real world answer to a common question: How many more riders will more frequent trains attract?
Given the mobility meltdown with the Seahawks parade, with masses of people at Link platforms unable to get on full trains for an hour even with trains running every 3-6 minutes, what could the transit agencies do differently at the next big parade?
There were also two issues with the shuttle routes. I rode both to see how things were going. The western shuttle (Uptown/2nd/3rd) had a lot of people who didn’t know where it was going northbound, or how to get a northern bus to Interbay, UW, etc. (The UW person had given up on Link because it was full.)
The eastern shuttle (Boren/Pine/12th/Jackson) had nobody except me on it. I suspect it wasn’t that useful except maybe to get to First Hill medical appointments. The driver and I also thought nobody knew about it. Another issue was that at the southern end, it dropped me off at Charles & 8th and turned north (on 8th), while I saw another run going further west and turning. That made me unconfident I could find the stop going north without having it go on another street and bypass me. I never ended up trying to go north on it so I don’t know how that would have been.