Link 2 Line “Crosslake Connection” opening celebrations

71 Replies to “Link 2 Line “Crosslake Connection” opening celebrations”

1. Also, Mariners weekend games and Cal Raleigh bobblehead night

   1. [Ed. Questions about where somebody else may be employed are inappropriate, because they can put the person in an awkward position.]

2. I really hope they make sure everyone who is in line to see the ribbon cutting gets to do so, not those who get in the wrong line. Im looking at you, FWLE.

   1. I’m going to arrive there early so I can be on the first train, though I have to get up at 5 am since I live in Lynnwood and have to pick up friends on the way.

3. I don’t understand why already open stations like Spring District are having opening day celebrations. Example, Northgate didn’t have a celebration when Lynnwood Link opened.

   1. That’s what I was also confused about, I’m guessing it’s on customer feedback. Though I can’t wait to get some free food at Redmond Technology and go to the petting zoo in the Spring District, I’ll visit EVERY station with celebrations.

      1. The petting zoo you belong in is in Flushing, NY, while the lynx escaped from the Queens Zoo.

   2. It’s unusual but the 2 Line was supposed to open all at once, and the gap in the middle is unprecedented. So this is the long-awaited full celebration they couldn’t have before. Eastside-only Link is a minor benefit, but the majority benefit comes with crosslake service because of network effect.

      Eastside-Seattle is a strong ridership generator because there’s more to go to on the entire other side of the lake, and the bridge bottlenecks and distance make transit more compelling. In my first job in 1985 at an office near Seattle Center my dad had been with, we needed my dad’s programmer consultant in Redmond. The programmer said, “Tell them my rate is $20 per hour, or $40 if I have to cross that damn bridge.”

      Link is more compelling for cross-lake trips than for just going Overlake-Spring District. But Link’s ability to do both kinds of trips with the same train run, and lots of different overlapping trip pairs too, is a network effect that’s much stronger with the full 2 Line. Maybe four times stronger than Eastside-only Link. Eastsiders go to Capitol Hill, Roosevelt, and Rainier Valley, not just to downtown and the U-District.

   3. It’s to welcome “Those People” wearing their flip-flops and curlers in their hair that they can spend more in Bellevue, if only for the reason those same items are priced higher on the Eastside.

      1. Sigh, Kemper Freeman says that quote was misinterpreted. He says he wasn’t saying Southcenter has”flip-flops and curlers” undesirable people that Bellevue Square doesn’t, but that people dress up more to go to Bellevue Square because they think of it as a more special thing.

         As to the myth that Link will bring Seattle gangsters and criminals to the Eastside, Kemper surely knows that the 550 has stopped across the street from his precious Bellevue Collection for almost thirty years. And surely criminals drive so they have a getaway car to take the loot in.

      2. Kemper misquoted?

         I was misquoted by the South County Journal once.

         Tiniest difference, that changed the meaning of my statement.

         Poor Kemper.

      3. I feel like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with the freeman family. Given the involvement of the elder freeman in the Japanese Exclusion Act, I highly doubt that the quote is misinterpreted. In any event it’s incredibly classist.

4. “I’ll visit EVERY station with celebrations.”

   I thought about that but I don’t think it’s possible in the short 4-hour timeframe of the celebrations (10am-2pm). Previous openings have been a few adjacent stations at a time and/or a longer festival window.

   How can you visit all of Judkins Park to Marymoor Village in four hours without dashing out the entrance and dashing in again, especially if you have to wait multiple trains to be able to get on? And even if you do all that in three hours, how do you get to Lynnwood and back in the fourth hour? If you get to Lynnwood near closing time, you may find the booths already being dismantled.

   My priorities highest to lowest are:
   * [Symphony] hear the symphony.
   * [Judkins Park] Learn about the African American museum so I can visit it later.
   * [Judkins Park] Explore the parks again.
   * [Spring District] See the petting zoo.
   * [Marymoor Village] Go to the top of the P&R and see the view I’ve heard about.
   * [Redmond] Experience downtown Redmond’s urbanism and trails again.
   * [Spring District] See that mini-park two blocks south of the station I’ve been to once.

   I won’t necessarily do them in order. I might do Marymoor Village and Redmond last since the latter would take the most time.

   I would include the Bellevue Downtown Park, the NE 6th Street walkway, and downtown Bellevue in general, except I’ve been there so many times.

   A Mercer Slough walk might also be of interest at the end of the festival. I went there last year, and the STB authors are planning an outing there and an article soon.

   Judkins Park station has three adjacent parks. They continue east through the Mt Baker bike/ped tunnel to the Lake Washington overlook deck the photo was taken at.

   1. Are there expectations of full trains and pass-ups?

      Is ST able to run all 4-car trains on the 2 Line on opening day?

   2. No love for the brand-new Mercer Island station??

   3. The Federal Way Extension street fairs were surprisingly uneventful when compared to Lynnwood and Downtown Redmond. I’m not sure how much each of the stations will have lots of vendors versus a few.

      My interests are:

      1. New Stations (Judkins Park and Mercer Island). I like to see all the aspects around a station where I’ve never been.

      2. Punch stations with street fairs (South Bellevue and CID — or ID-C).

      3. Other stations as suggestions emerge from detailed vendor lists and stage lineups and word of mouth.

      I don’t expect to visit every station.

   4. Most of you probably already know this, but the large mural on the west side of Judkins Park of the teenager in the red coat is Jimi Hendrix at the age of 19 in 1961. The photo the mural was based on was taken at 26th and East Yesler Way, in front of Jimi’s house.

      It looks like the east entrance of Judkins Park is going to be more pleasant access point than the west entrance, but the west entrance will probably be the busier of the two.

   5. I moved in an apartment in Mercer Island mid-2022 under the impression that light rail would open soon, yet I never got to see it before I moved out.

      A lot of people think Mercer Island is just full of super rich, but its business district does have some apartments/condos paired with all the service most people would need and if the rent price is in someone’s range, one can really live there car-free.

      Within walking distance to light rail, there are Luther Burbank Park and Audrey Davis Park. Another treat to people like me is that if you walk up SE 24th St to about 70th Ave SE, you will be at highest point where you can see cross-lake floating bridge right in front of you.

      Mercer Island has a summer-only farmer’s market that is not big but in my opinion features some pretty decent vendors. I found more produce worth buying there than I find in Ballard (probably just me).

      1. Yeah, I was wondering if I’d ever get to use it before I retired. Any private company that botched a contract this bad would be playing the opening on the down low and hope the project is never mentioned again. I just hope I can get to and from work the following Tuesday. The day long shutdowns during the simulated service are worrisome; especially since ST is mum the actual cause(es).

      2. I was hoping to use Spring District station visit my elderly relative’s apartment, but their health deteriorated in 2022 and they had to move and the 2 Line wasn’t ready yet.

      3. I’m crossing my fingers that the 2 Line won’t have any outages in the first week or month, but recent experience makes me skeptical.

      4. “Any private company that botched a contract this bad would be playing the opening on the down low and hope the project is never mentioned again.”

         I feel like there are just not a lot of choice in the Puget Sound region. It is not the most profitable place for contractor, so agencies are usually stuck with those few.
         The best they can do is just to stay more on top of things every step. We would think a contractor with bad reference will not find any work in the future, but the reality is they can always win work by under-bidding it.

      5. I worked at Farmers Life Insurance’s home office on Mercer Island, at 77th. next to the park, during the ’90s and ’00s. The downtown/business district has a number of walkable destinations, including a good independent bookstore in Island Books, and surprisingly a few notable restaurants. Mercer Island’s “Prosperity Rock” image comes from the large single-family homes outside of downtown.

   6. I’ll be there mostly to (FINALLY!) experience a rail trip over the bridge, and won’t go to every station; I only visited a few during the East Link stub opening two years ago. The stops I’ll visit are Chinatown (load up more manga at Uwajimaya), Capitol Hill (cross-stitch kits at Blick Art Supplies), Symphony (hear the orchestra members), and Marymoor (Orcas cricket team).

      BTW, the Symphony hosts a concert that night (a Peanuts 75th. anniversary tribute), and you might get plushies of the Orca’s mascot, “Yorka the Orca”. “Yorka” is a play on the cricket term “yorker”, a rare bowled ball that does not bounce on the ground before it reaches the batsman.

5. Does anyone know where I can get a Boop plushie? (Orca Card mascot)

   1. Idk, but I have a plastic boop toy. I did see someone with it when Lynnwood Link opened, but probably check their store or try to find one at the openings.

   2. The plushies are usually a potential prize at the ST booth. I’ve also heard the Bremerton Transit Center has them openly available as a giveaway but I have not confirmed it.

6. Except for Pinehurst singularly, we are probably at least about a decade way from another opening celebration for another Link station opening.

   I do think that these street celebrations are great for creating interest in transit, and for community groups and local government agencies to interact with people. So I’m hoping that ST can create special events across the system to emulate a roaming celebration like this at least once a year if not more. Given recent turnouts, I think they would be well-attended.

   1. They’re more exciting for children.

   2. Graham St and Boeing Access Rd should open faster than that, if they are not cancelled.

      1. Hopefully they are canceled. Not a good expenditure of money compared to most of the ST3 projects.

      2. Zero reason to add 5 more minutes to an already slow trip along the 1 Line south of Seattle.

      3. Boeing Access Rd. especially is a low density desert. Not even worthy of a stop. Graham St. may be okay but I still think it’s too closely spaced.

      4. I was against Graham station until I tried walking from the Rainier restaurant (a couple blocks south of Graham Street) to Link. Going south to Othello station it was a 20-minute walk. Going north to Columbia City station it was longer than that. That’s far beyond the ideal of a 10-20 minute walk between stations.

         The ideal spacing is based on the premise of having no gap in the middle that’s a longer walk to Link. And because if you’re coming from east or west, the walk is even longer. This in a dense area of multifamily housing and lower-income people: factors generating high potential ridership.

         BAR station is indefensible: there’s too little to walk to in either the short or long term. Freeway buses coming from Renton or Southcenter would have to detour too much to get to it, and they’d still have the 10-minute travel time overhead of MLK/SODO surface segments and the east-west detour. A transfer to route 124 or an extended A Line doesn’t seem sufficient on its own. Nor another P&R.

      5. I admit that the future opening date comment isn’t consistent with ST’s published opening date for both the infill stations and West Seattle. And my head thinks of 2035 as a decade rather than 2036 because I’m rounding up.

         For West Seattle, I just think that there’s so much structure to forge and build and so much tunnel to both bore and dig (at station sites) that I think 2032 is unrealistic. We haven’t had a bored segment since Northgate Link extension (Bellevue’s Link tunnel was not bored and did not include an underground station). It may open before 2035 but I think 2032 is very unlikely at this point.

         *****

         I will agree that Graham could easily open earlier so I am probably wrong saying we have a decade wait for another opening of a Link station. It’s mostly a surface project so three years as the proposed construction period seems technically doable (2028-2031). The challenge is that the funding cones from North King and Pinehurst is taking more money than planned.

         BAR (Allendale Station seems a better name) is more complex with lots more earthwork and structures. Its funding is from the South King pot. I sense that South King would rather divert funds to build TDLE but the cause of the overage is mostly in Pierce so that may not be an issue. But I’m expecting that station to need a bit more time to construct than Graham will. It too may happen by 2035.

         And even if the infill stations do open in the next decade, I expect them to be different dates and their openings won’t attract the regional interest that a multi-station extension does. So I don’t see their openings being very big. (I don’t think that the upcoming Pinehurst celebration will be as well attended as the crosslake opening will be.)

         Even if ST is able to get another station open by 2031, it’s still at least a five-year draught. That’s a long dry spell after having 6 (7 with Pinehurst) openings in the last five years.

      6. “Even if ST is able to get another station open by 2031, it’s still at least a five-year draught.”

         When full Lynnwood-Federal Way-Redmond service is fully open, it won’t matter as much if other extensions or stations take a long time, because we’ll have a robust core metro circulator.

      7. Not a good expenditure of money compared to most of the ST3 projects.

         It is the opposite. Maybe Boeing Access Road is not a great value but Graham Street is. The numbers have changed but using past estimates it had the second smallest subsidy per rider of any ST3 project (https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2016/04/06/youve-got-50-billion-for-transit-now-how-should-you-spend-it/). Note that Pinehurst isn’t on there. In general the infill stations are good values. They don’t cost that much and they save those riders quite a bit of time. In contrast the subsidy per rider for a lot of ST3 projects is minimal and the time savings are as well.

      8. Even if ST is able to get another station open by 2031, it’s still at least a five-year draught.

         I’ll drink to that, mate! I know it was a typo but I couldn’t help it.

7. I’m actually looking most forward to the views across Lake Washington while riding on a Link train. A rider on a clear day should be able to see both My Rainier or Mt Baker depending on what side of the train they’re riding on.

   A carefully made photo of a train crossing Lake Washington with Mt Rainier in the distance is probably destined to become iconic in the transit world.

   1. Glacier Peak too!

   2. > A carefully made photo of a train crossing Lake Washington with Mt Rainier in the distance is probably destined to become iconic in the transit world.

      It already is: https://www.reddit.com/r/soundtransit/comments/1qjl05e/a_fun_spot_to_view_link_testing/

      1. It looks like the whole far shore is the start of the mountain.

8. Funny to see people on Reddit argue that buses are bad and that Link is better. Their reasons are valid for the most part, but they seem to think Link is “way faster” than a bus.

   It’s only faster within Seattle and that point you’re spending 5-10 mins extra going underground into the station to the point the bus is pretty much faster. The key points that will benefit the most are the UW and Rainier Valley, assuming that they don’t get even more stations to slow it down.

   If you look at most of the other stations, a commuter bus almost always operate faster. Link avg operating speed is 15-20 mph. A commuter bus usually operates 20-30 mph, except for the low quality ones like Route 102 which only compares with Link. The frequency and inconsistency is the only downside, which can be fixed with more investments into our bus system. I’d rather see our bus system expand and become more efficient (way cheaper) than draining more money into Link to useless places like Issaquah and Everett where a bus will always serve them better if we actually had bus only lanes and HOV 3 lanes.

   1. Commute time is also correlated with your depression. It matters for people. They’ll take the bus and Link if it was faster than a car. But urbanists actively want to make it slower because they can’t time a bus with 10-15 min headways.

   2. Rail is generally potentially faster than buses if it’s grade-separated, goes straighter than the street grid, and has in-line stations (not a detour to the entrance). In the UK I found intercity rail twice as fast as intercity coaches on some routes. Link’s north Seattle travel time is very impressive. But it’s not always faster than buses, and can be slower.

      You’re also conflating local and express trips. Most trips are local (to the store, library, district event, etc). Longer-distance trips like Renton-Seattle need an express-like component. Link can do both kinds of trips. And Link is unusually positioned as a limited-stop metro (stations every 1-2 miles) instead of full-stop (stations every 0.5 mile). That gives it an advantage in longer trips (> 3 stops) but a disadvantage in shorter trips (<= 3 stops) -- in general. (On Capitol Hill even a 1-stop ride is much better than buses, while in Rainier Valley or downtown it isn't.) So a metro line has different impacts on short- vs long-distance trips, and the line's stop spacing further affects it. The most cost-effective thing we could do is way more transit-priority lanes for buses, and Link in the highest-volume and most strategic central corridors. That does not include Issaquah or West Seattle.

      1. The most logical thing to do is extend the Rainier Valley line to Renton.

         New line: Renton – Ballard via Rainier Valley. From here it could connect down to Kent/Auburn maybe.

         Take the existing 1 Line and route it to the UW directly via Montlake, giving a one seat airport ride to the UW. This would offer a connection to the 2 Line via Judkins Park and add light rail to the Central District.

         Then add a new bypass line from Tukwila Intl directly to Seattle via Georgetown.

         This is the best thing we can do that’d actually be useful for transit.

      2. However for Kent and Auburn, there isn’t enough density for a light rail line.

         I think instead we should improve Sounder service and add good bus connections to Renton to connect to the spine (Stride and future Link to Ballard)

         Additionally, Renton could be a useful place for light rail serving multiple high density key points:
         – Skyway
         – S Renton (not high density but a useful transfer point with TDD potential)
         – Renton Downtown
         – The Landing
         – Southport

         Additionally in the long range it would be highly useful to introduce this line
         – SeaTac
         – Tukwila
         – Southcenter
         – (all the Renton stops)
         – S Bellevue
         …
         And so on towards the north maybe even up to Lynnwood. Effectively replacing Stride.

         This would allow an entirely seamless transit system to get between anywhere in the region. Automate all of this and we’re golden. Buses can pull the remaining weight without needed to travel long distances.

      3. Those two lines I proposed also saves Eastside travel.

         You’d transfer at Judkins instead of Chinatown if you want to do a 2 Line transfer. The transfer can be design to be more seamless. The orientations might be tricky but I’m sure it can be figured out.

         And you have full access to get between any of these key destinations as efficiently as possible:
         – Lynnwood
         – UW
         – Seattle
         – Rainier Valley
         – Georgetown / Boeing
         – Tukwila
         – Southcenter
         – SeaTac
         – Federal Way
         – Tacoma
         – Renton
         – Kent
         – Auburn
         – Bellevue
         – Eastgate
         – Issaquah
         – Kirkland
         – Redmond
         – Bothell
         – Paine Field
         – Everett

   3. We’ve went full circle from bus otakus saying we don’t need Light Rail and just invest only in buses.

      Your lot lost in 2008 and 2016, what makes you think now would be different?

      1. Because the various projects make transit measurably worse over existing service.

         Eg: taking the popular North Seattle to downtown and SeaTac one seat ride on Link, and adding an 11 floor 9 escalator transfer at Westlake between two Link lines instead.

         None of the previous Link projects made things that much worse. At the worst, there were significant tradeoffs. Eg: higher frequency Link to SeaTac vs slightly faster but less frequent and traffic vulnerable express bus.

      2. Yeah this is what I’m talking about. Link gives a few people in the region convenient rides within Seattle.
         Otherwise it’s used by park and riders who are lucky to live nearby to skip traffic… And maybe some airport travelers. The trip isn’t enjoyable or fast but it’s only $3…. Not enough to dissuade most from parking their car in SeaTac’s mega garage.

         It’s missing out on a huge share of riders who could effectively connect to it from nearby cities. Lynnwood and UW Link is actually pretty effective. South Link not so much, and the ridership shows. The 1 Line changes once Ballard opens will decimate ridership even more, if we can’t even offer a clean connection at Westlake. Once the 3 Line opens, at least a SODO transfer would be available….but that will take a while.

      3. “Lynnwood and UW Link is actually pretty effective. South Link not so much”

         That’s because of the nature of South King County: it’s so large a single line can’t serve the entire area. The population is centered around Kent and Auburn and east toward Renton, but Link runs in the less-populous western third, which is miles away from the center of the population and there’s a ridge in between. A more productive alignment in south King County would have gone through Kent and Auburn. It would be near Sounder but distinct from it, because Sounder on the BNSF tracks can’t run every 10 minutes all day.

         That would bypass the airport though, and it would be uncompetitive for continuing to Tacoma due to even longer travel time. You could have a separate branch to the airport. But in order for both branches to maintain 10-minute service (which I think is important), the shared segment would have to increase to 5 minutes. SDOT would have to allow 5 minutes instead of 6 in Rainier Valley, and something would have to be done about DSTT capacity.

         We could have had one branch to Kent and Auburn and one branch to the airport, and not built the rest to Federal Way and Tacoma. But what South King and Pierce officials insisted on was the current alignment to Federal Way and Tacoma. That was the most important thing to them of any ST project.

   4. This is an often misunderstood concept. Trains have a few advantages. The biggest is capacity. One train can carry way more people than a car. Another is automation. It is just much easier to automate a train than it is a bus. But unless you are talking about high-speed rail, trains are not faster than buses.

      The reason people think trains are “fast” is the lack of stopping or slowing down because of traffic lights or congestion. This is often achieved via grade separation (elevated or underground busways/railways). Typically when you spend a bunch of money building something that is grade separated you run trains. That’s because of those *other* advantages (capacity and automation). But not everyone does that. Brisbane has built miles of grade-separated track used only by buses (https://humantransit.org/2009/11/brisbane-bus-rapid-transit-soars.html).

      Of course our rail line isn’t 100% grade separated. In various places the train has to deal with traffic lights. It is not the end of the world; this is a reasonable compromise that saves money. The train is still quite a bit faster than the bus through the same corridor because it doesn’t deal with congestion. HOV lanes (for buses) work the same way. They are often about as fast as grade-separation.

      Of course there are other reasons why a bus or train takes a while to get from one place to the other. A typical metro (or bus) makes lots of stops. This means that it takes a while to get from end to end. But it also means that the same vehicle is able to serve a lot of combinations. It is there combinations that lead to very high ridership. In the case of Link, this means trips like Northgate to UW or Roosevelt to Capitol Hill. It is quite common to have an “express” and “local” bus (the 15 and RapidRide D come to mind). Some subway systems (like in New York) have that for the trains as well.

      Similarly, it is quite common for express buses to be faster than a subway. An express bus from Federal Way to SoDo would be faster than Link most of the time. If the lanes were changed to HOV-3 and they built a ramp from the SoDo busway to the HOV lanes it would likely be faster almost all the time. (Accidents and mechanical problems can delay the bus but the same thing can happen to Link).

      Thus there is a fundamental trade-off. Express buses (or trains) are better for longer trips. Regular subway lines (or buses) are better for short trips. One of the major considerations is travel patterns. Broadly speaking, there are three basic categories: within-the-city, within-the-suburbs, and city-to-suburb. The first one is quite common and usually makes up the bulk of transit trips (regardless of what an agency does). The last one is often best with an express bus or train (because it is faster). The second is simply not that common and can be generally placed in the category of “coverage”. There just aren’t that many people taking trips from say, Fife to Federal Way or North Shoreline to Lynnwood. Any service at all between these locations is a bonus and not likely to get many riders.

      Thus it makes sense for a typical city (like Seattle) to invest in the grade-separation within the core. To support longer trips it makes to leverage existing old railways (which is what Sounder does) and run express buses. Small investments in bus-based infrastructure can make those express trips quite fast.

      There are also cases where an investment in bus-based infrastructure would make travel much faster as well. If the Spokane Street Viaduct was connected to the SoDo Busway, a bus like the RapidRide H would be about as fast from Delridge to SoDo. West Seattle Link will really only be faster for riders who are close to one of the three stations (or trying to get between those three stations). For someone who is already on the bus — having boarded somewhere else — the train would likely be slower. That is because you have to spend time transferring. Thus even if it cost the same amount (and it wouldn’t) investing in bus-based infrastructure would benefit a lot more riders than West Seattle Link. You would have to have a lot more stations (and lines) to provide the same level of benefit.

      1. Nit: with the depth of the West Seattle stations, it’s unlikely to be faster to take Link between the stations.

         I’ve been told by someone working at a transit agency in Berlin that the philosophy in Europe is that you don’t build a new rail line unless it can be made to be faster than driving.

         Sure, France has new streetcar lines, but they make sure to build them so they actually attract a decent number of riders by being faster than the equivalent driving.

         So, for Link:

         • Westlake to UW falls into that category because Link is just vastly better all the way around.

         • For MAX blue line, sure, operating in the median on Burnside is slower than underground, but there’s no freeway there either. It maybe breaks even with driving over the distance.

         • For the Rainier Valley, Link is maybe a wash, but it’s a bit faster than the 7. You could maybe extend the line to Renton and be as fast or faster than all the road traffic currently doing that same trip on Rainier Ave.

         • Link will never be faster than driving between Tacoma and Seattle. Among other alternatives, what could the $4 billion for Tacoma Dome Link buy in terms of Sounder improvements, if that were done instead? In 1974, Amtrak and BN ran a demonstration train showing the line was capable of supporting passenger trains at higher speeds than currently operated, given good track priority and quality.

      2. I think part of the “speed” aspect is with the way that trains load. The doors line up level with a platform. Drivers don’t wait until a rider is behind the yellow line behind the driver. People can more quickly get on or off — especially when there are many doing that.

         Certainly the speed is offset by the time it takes to get to the platform. Saving 10 seconds at the platform is lost when it takes 2 minutes to reach and 2 more minutes to reach the platform. But the savings adds up if a rider is going through lots of stops.

         Signal priority is easier when stops are further apart too. While that’s not a rail thing, we don’t usually have any arterial bus routes that stop only at light rail station spacing over 1-3 miles between stops.

      3. … when it takes 2 minutes to reach and 2 more minutes to LEAVE the platform AND STATION..

      4. with the depth of the West Seattle stations, it’s unlikely to be faster to take Link between the stations.

         I’m just thinking of vehicle time. Starting from Delridge, a bus would get to SoDo at about the same time a train gets to Delridge.

         But yes, the West Seattle Link Station will not be on the surface while the buses will be. If you walk to the stop, then it the bus will be quicker. This also means existing riders will be significantly worse off. Not only will they have to transfer and wait but they will have to spend time getting to the platform.

         With the Alaska Junction and Avalon stop it may be a wash. The train will avoid some of the traffic lights the C encounters while the train won’t. But the big advantage to the bus is that it serves a lot more areas (which means fewer transfers).

         I’ve been told by someone working at a transit agency in Berlin that the philosophy in Europe is that you don’t build a new rail line unless it can be made to be faster than driving.

         That is a good approach.

         France has new streetcar lines

         It is actually the same idea. Again, one of the fundamental advantages of rail is capacity. The Paris buses are excellent. But some of the buses are so popular that they are full all day long. The agency was running buses more often than they wanted to. Now they run big streetcars that can carry a lot more riders than a bus.

         The German approach is the same idea, just flipped on its head. They don’t need new streetcars — the buses aren’t that crowded. The buses will only be really full if they are significantly faster than driving. That won’t happen with a streetcar so they don’t bother. They only build subways.

         With Link there are trips that are significantly faster by Link than driving. But one of the weaknesses of Link is that it follows the freeway so much that this isn’t that common. As I write this (just before 9:00 am on a Monday) it takes 6 minutes to drive from Federal Way Station to Star Lake Station (https://maps.app.goo.gl/RXVmCDnVdQkS5Tsy5). That is basically the same as the train. So not only are there not that many people making that trip, the train doesn’t even save time. My guess is Federal Way to Downtown Seattle is more common. Right now, despite “heavier traffic than usual” (according to Google) driving is faster. An express bus (running in HOV lanes) would certainly be faster.

      5. I think part of the “speed” aspect is with the way that trains load.

         Right. Except Link has notoriously slow dwell times. I can’t find an actual study but people have used 30 seconds as an all-day average (https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/05/04/limitations-of-light-rail-as-regional-transport-part-1/). Note: see some of the comments below as to how they got to that number. Buses vary as well but with Link’s relatively long dwell times it is quite possible that buses have shorter dwell times (especially as they move towards all-door boarding).

         But if you take a bus like the 7 or even the RapidRide E the thing you notice most is that it makes a lot of stops. The dwell times may be less, but there are just a lot more stops per mile. So it is really the “express” nature of Link that makes it seem so fast. If you are going from the UW (or even the U-District) to Capitol Hill it seems blazing fast. But if you are going from Westlake to SoDo it doesn’t seem particularly fast — it makes a lot of stops. So folks are essentially ignoring that buses can operate express as well. Between the Tacoma Dome and the CID the 594 makes only four stops. Even though Link is also acting as an express (with miles between stations in some cases) it will soon make more stops in Rainier Valley itself.

         As well it should! Those stops are what makes a metro line successful. There is always a trade-off but there is a reason why stop spacing like this is common around the world (and referred to as “urban stop spacing”). Riders have a shorter walk to the stop and a shorter walk to their destination. It is a balance but in general there is no reason to go overboard and skip a lot of potential stops. You end up with a system that just isn’t as good.

         So while the train seems fast for a lot of trips it also fails for a lot of trips because it skips stops. If you are trying to get from Northgate to First Hill the train is very fast for the first part of your journey. That is because it skips potential stations along the way. But it also skips First Hill, which means you have to spend a lot *more* time with the transfer and slow bus/streetcar ride. The same is true if you are headed to the Central Area. There is no stop at 23rd & Madison which means that riders have to transfer at the UW Station. The bus essentially run over the light rail until Madison. This means an extra ten minutes or so on the bus. Basically they have made longer trips just a little bit faster and shorter trips a lot slower. This is a poor approach for a couple reasons. First is that some of the longer trips can often be done just as well (if not better) with express buses. The second is that you have a lot more shorter trips that could be made a lot faster with normal metro stop spacing.

         This creates a poor dynamic. We think of the train as great because it is fast. But we just shrug off the fact that it doesn’t work for a lot of trips or requires a lot of walking (or a lot of bus riding). Someone in the dorms or on the UW campus just accepts the fact that they have a long walk (or bus ride) to catch the subway line even though it goes right under their feet.

         Likewise, it is common for people to feel like Link will solve their problem. Someone in West Seattle has used the bus and found it slow. It made too many stops. They assume Link will be faster. It will, but not for them. They will have to catch a bus (making a similar number of stops) and then transfer to a train (making a similar number of stops) before they get downtown. For a lot of trips it will be slower. The biggest improvement in speed will be to to SoDo and Stadium Station as well as trips between the three West Seattle Stations. But the trips to SoDo and Stadium Station would be just about as fast if they connect the viaduct with the busway, even if you are standing next to the West Seattle Station. For someone on the bus it will be considerably faster. The trips within West Seattle are so short that a bus could do it just about as fast (if not faster, given the time to get to and from the platform). In neither case do you have a lot of riders anyway. Most of the trips in West Seattle are to other places in West Seattle (Alki to High Point for example) or from West Seattle to downtown, First Hill, or some other neighborhood. Regardless of cost, connecting the Spokane Street Viaduct with the SoDo Busway is just a much better for riders than West Seattle Link. Yet it is hard to convince people that, since they see Link as “fast”.

      6. Generally train is faster than buses, but in the US bus are allowed to run a lot faster than buses in some other countries.
         A lot of Chinese cities implement bus speed cap of 25 mph. One full grade-separated BRT system operate top speed of around 40 mph which is considered very fast.
         With all the surface road traffic, metro systems can easily beat buses even though many systems only can run top speed of 50 mph.

      7. “I’ve been told by someone working at a transit agency in Berlin that the philosophy in Europe is that you don’t build a new rail line unless it can be made to be faster than driving.”

         Maybe when you have a relatively complete rail system, you would set bar this high.
         For Seattle and some US metro areas with ok transit ridership, I’d think ST should build a rail line if there is enough ridership to justify it.

9. I get our bus system is poor but we could really do some decent work to fix it. Apply Rapid Ride principles to every route but do it cheaper.

   1. **Off board payment** – if they can install Orca readers on every bus it shouldn’t be hard to do that at every bus stop. Or shift to mobile payment + fare enforcement

   2. **Bus lanes** – again, not particularly expensive. Just have to ignore the NIMBYs and just build it. More trolley buses / hybrid trolleys that can detach for some segments.

   3. **TSP** – again, not expensive to implement.

   Instead of building Link to nowhere with a billion stops, automate Link to the biggest destinations. We don’t need Tacoma, Everett, or Issaquah extensions. Reinvest this money into bus operators and improvements so people stop parking at Link garages or just driving all the way.

10. “We don’t need Tacoma, Everett, or Issaquah extensions.”

    The issue is, Pierce and Snohomish Counties and the Eastside and their cities get a say in what gets built, and they want Link going to them, and they have the political clout to make it so. You can’t just wave a wand and make them cede to transit best practices. That’s why I always say we have to distinguish between ideals and pragmatics.

    The ideals are what we present for reference (no DSTT2, no West Seattle, no Tacoma, no 11-story transfers, minimum 15-minute full-time bus frequency everywhere).

    Pragmatics is which decision is next that we have an opportunity to influence. If ST/councils are preparing to make decision, we can weigh in on the best alternative they’ve identified, or offer a new one.

    1. Because the Board doesn’t openly care about using ridership forecasts no transit trip minutes saved, the definition of “need” has no quantitative reference point.

       To the ST Board, “need” seems to be instead only defined by adherence to the referendum or by addressing perceived impacts to the neighborhood or real estate market.

       Even materials for next week’s retreat completely ignore any info on ridership or travel time as part of the discussion. It’s shameful that the Board isn’t getting quantitative data in these things except in certain circumstances like Avalon station cancellation.

       In other words, while most of us agree that Link expansion should be based on value added to travel time and effort (value to riders), let’s be aware that it’s not on the table currently. In fact, this needs to a core feedback comment on how ST is making decisions on the various Link expansion projects.

    2. What’s ultimately driving Link is the cities of Tacoma, Everett, Lynnwood, Federal Way, and Issaquah see it as a way to attract employers, residents, and affluent shoppers to their cities; they’re afraid they’ll be left behind economically if they don’t. That’s only partly driven by ridership or the needs of passengers: there’s also a belief that if the city has high-capacity transit on paper, it will score higher on employers’ eligibility ratings to locate an office or industrial plant there.

11. SeaTac has an excellent opportunity to make airport transit extremely good.

    At minimum a Stride like connection to the Eastside, and fast connections to Seattle, Kent/Auburn, and Tacoma.

    Destroy that ugly parking garage and make a fancy public space that connects to the airport (with only a few floors of limited parking instead). Maybe a mall like Singapore did next to their airport. Add some nice tourist-y elements and PNW/WA theme.

    Would’ve been nice in time for the World Cup. But never to happen in our lifetime because we don’t build anything anymore. Economy is dying and everything is slow in Seattle now.

    1. You might be happy to learn that they are already planning that on a smaller scale: https://www.theurbanist.org/sea-tac-airport-sets-passenger-record-plans-next-phase-of-expansion-projects/

       On the map the “L04” project is a ground transportation center on the north side of the parking garage, close to the link bridge

       I agree with you though that they should go further and replace more parking

       1. Ok that is nice to hear. 😃 Glad we’re doing something right.

       2. I still hope they can fully revitalize that garage area into a nice facility. I would hope to see shopping and other nice things there. We could also have ORCA booths for visitors who want to use day passes or month passes in Seattle. It shouldn’t even feel like you’re walking through a parking lot. I’m not sure if their plan to add moving walkways fully encompass that.

       3. It could also just be a full shopping mall with hotel space as well. It would bring more light rail ridership to the airport, and justify better transit to the airport.

    2. The economy is not dying. Seattle has been through recessions before, in the 1970s, 1980s, 2000, and 2008. It’s not going to implode like Detroit. The economy is more broadly based than it was when it was dependent on Boeing. A lot of creative people are here, and if they have time on their hands, they’ll start new companies and industries, the way they’ve been doing since the early 2000s.

       1. Growth is not nearly as fast as before. We had good momentum in the early 2010s especially with the tech scene. Inslee singlehandedly destroyed that momentum.

          Seattle isn’t at the place it could have been. It’s still vibrant and doing fine, but I just wish we maintained that level of growth we could have maintained. I’m sure the pandemic played part of the role, but I think there were many other reasons that went into this failure.

Comments are closed.