Local News:
- A new greenway along the Seattle waterfront will open in two phases on Friday (SDOT Blog).
- Mayor Wilson announced an expansion of the popular Bicycle Weekends on Lake Washington Boulevard, which will now be every non-Seafair weekend from Memorial Day to Labor Day (Seattle Bike Blog). Also on The Urbanist and The Stranger.
- Amtrak’s expanded trainyard in SODO is halfway done and on track to open next year (The Urbanist). New Airo trains are coming to Amtrak Cascades later this year (KUOW).
- Diesel prices hit a record $7.10 in Seattle (The Seattle Times, $).
- The draft EIS for the Everett Link Extension is expected to be released this fall (Sound Transit).
- “Send light rail’s 1 Line to Tacoma and unify the region” is certainly one opinion (The Seattle Times, $).
- The FYI Guy found the Seattle census tracts with the highest percentage of residents in each age decade (The Seattle Times, $). Unsurprising: the U-District and UW Dorms are mostly college-age (18-20s); nearly half of residents in tracts of LQA/Westlake and Capitol Hill are in their 30s.
- Seattle CM Alexis Mercedes Rinck promotes recent bus improvements with Sal, SDOT’s “SpokeSalmon” (SDOT Blog). When did Sal become so car-brained?
- Retro Metro: The U-Pass was born 35 years ago, offering unlimited transit rides to students at low cost (Metro Matters).
More headlines below.
Further afield:
- Even if every car were perfectly safe, electric, and free, a car-dependent society does more harm than good (Streetsblog USA)
- NJ Transit’s plan to get 40,000+ soccer fans from Manhattan to MetLife Stadium for FIFA World Cup matches will include barring NJT commuters from Penn Station for 4 hours before each game (The New York Times, gift link).
This is an Open Thread.
That NJT plan is ridiculous. Why not close a lane of the Lincoln Tunnel to run bus shuttles? Surely an intrepid soccer fan isn’t afraid of a coach bus. Closing part of Penn Station to only allow ticket holders for a soccer match shouldn’t have even been a consideration. And telling people to work from home… okay cool what about the thousands of people who don’t have that option that rely on NJT rail to get to the city?
Not to mention the absurdity of ticket prices. It’ll cost hundreds (or more likely thousands) to go to these games. So people who can afford to pay an arm and a leg get priority over folks just trying to live their lives. Typical really, but still deeply stupid.
I’m surprised that any special plan is being put in place. MetLife stadium (the venue) It had a few attendance records broken just recently. Did they have to do anything special then (or maybe they wished they did)?
From Wikipedia
Any event: 93,000 (12th Siyum HaShas, August 1, 2012)
Concert: 89,106 (Ed Sheeran +-=÷x Tour, June 11, 2023)
Football: 83,367 (New York Jets @ New York Giants, October 29, 2023)
College football: 82,285 (122nd Army–Navy Game, December 11, 2021)
Soccer: 82,566 (Manchester United vs. West Ham United, July 26, 2025)
If there’s anywhere in the US/Canada that I thought wouldn’t have to do any special restrictions for the world cup, it was NYC (technically NJ in this case, maybe that’s the problem!).
Why can’t they just run extra trains like we are going to do here?
From a transit perspective not sure how these Fifa games are any different from a Swift concert or an important sports game. Seems to be getting overhyped imo.
FIFA is requiring them to close the stadium parking lots so basically all attendees have to arrive by train or bus.
FIFA is requiring them to close the parking lots? Why? Security? Because 95% of soccer countries don’t have car fever as much as the US does? How will that work in cities whose stadiums have no transit access? Will they have a huge fleet of charter buses to bring everybody?
The NYT article explains:
“The agency’s rail network is not capable of carrying its usual load of commuters and moving 40,000 people to and from the stadium, with the additional security protocols that the World Cup requires, the people with knowledge of the plan said. After fans without tickets stormed through gates at a Copa América match near Miami in 2024, extra precautions are being taken at big soccer matches.
There will be no parking for fans at MetLife during the World Cup matches, eliminating an option that tens of thousands of football fans use to get to Jets and Giants games there. For the World Cup, the security perimeter for MetLife will extend to Penn Station and to Secaucus Junction in New Jersey, where fans will transfer to other trains and buses to get to the stadium, the people with direct knowledge of the plan said.”
“Why not close a lane of the Lincoln Tunnel to run bus shuttles?”
Didn’t they do just that for the Superbowl at the exact same venue?
Yeah especially for short-term they can justify this progressive experiment. And if they want to do something for the long-term, this is a good case to refer to.
For those coming out of town to go to the soccer game, there is probably good number of them staying on the NJ side. Dedicating part of Penn Station for them seems overkill.
Does $7/gallon diesel meaningfully impact the economics of battery buses for King County Metro? (Or trolley buses, for that matter).
Unlikely, as the same reasons motivating the rise in diesel costs (global geopolitical instability) are also motivating increases in material costs. The operating range of built-American battery buses is less reliable than diesel prices right now.
The american-built requirement should be nixed. American manufacturers are so far behind in EV technology.
that’s some seditious talk right there
All joking aside, it is a poor way to help American businesses. The idea is reasonable. If we are going to spend a lot of money on something it should go to American businesses. But at best it makes them dependent on American transit agencies, which are fickle. You are better off building up the industries the way Biden did (or the way the laws were supposed to until Trump tried to gut it). Then the American companies can compete with anyone.
Have at it Ballard horde!
https://www.myballard.com/2026/04/14/ballard-residents-organize-march-in-support-of-light-rail-plans/?fbclid=IwT01FWARMm0FleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR7mbB2nu2eYeTP0gfIhwQX70j1UTkF6Xf-jVWUq7aVhgaAoyIZ-dQzJw9Le3g_aem_G8i_ASPPCbUrejg6azPKgg
It looks like advocacy groups across the district are all forming to protect their ST3 project.
The Board will need to determine if advocacy lobbying or forecasted performance measures (total ridership; aggregate transit travel time saved; capital cost per rider) should guide their decisions more.
The Board seems eager to pursue phasing rather than outright cutting. So I see end several stations being postponed for at least 20-30 years. That includes Ballard. So this group is certainly timely.
The forecasted boardings just for Ballard station have been higher than for all three West Seattle stations combined. Those numbers may change with the revised EIS — but ST seems to be holding back on releasing that info until after the Enterprise Initiative discussion is resolved. These advocates should be pressing ST to release at least the latest forecasts if not more of the EIS first. The SLU+Ballard extension has more Link riders than all the other ones combined, yet also seems to cost almost more than all those other Link extensions combined too. Frankly, the decisions from the Enterprise Initiative should not be happening until this revised EIS info is on the street — because the EIS will have updated performance measures based on new ridership, design and cost info.
With the release date so imminent, ST has this information now. They just won’t release it. Why not?
Trump could have made America great by backing mass transit in advance of hosting world events! But, he did not!
Trump could have mandated lower fuel costs but, he did not!
Trump could have mandated the ultra rich step up to carry more of the tax burden, but, he did not!
Trump could have pushed long distance rail, but, he did not!
Trump could have listened to the Pope, but he did not!
The GOP can see he is psychologically unfit with massive
Events if grandiosity, Messianic identification, and fake humility, but
He did not nor does he!
The GOP sees their identity problem but, do something? They do not.
This second Presidency for Trump is
What Putin wants…to undermine American unity. Will Trump Unite America? He does not!
Make America Go Away is what Trump does!
Finally somebody besides STB is advocating automation. It’s been lonely being the only ones, and sometimes being accused of being anti-transit because we won’t get behind ST’s preferred alignment choices.
A Ballard-to-West Seattle automated line is not our first choice since it would still have some kind of DSTT2, but it has been our third choice. And Ballard to West Seattle was ST’s choice until it adopted the split-spine approach. This proposal doesn’t revisit the bad transfer decisions at CID/N, CID/S, and Westlake, but a smaller tunnel and stations and less financial headaches could free up money to improve those transfers somehow. And it would only affect people coming from Ballard/SLU and West Seattle, so it’s not taking away existing Link functionality from higher-volume segments.
Many transit fans were initially excited about Scott Kubly’s urban/transit/walkability vision, but became dissatisfied with Move Seattle’s overoptimistic budgeting that led to the loss of 2/3 of the six planned RapidRide liens (H, J, 7, 44, 48, 62) in the 2010s, and Link’s switch in 2016 from Belltown to SLU (which SDOT first proposed), and not standing up to the split sign then. (Metro is now pursuing the 7, 40, and 44 in future phases.) So it’s ironic if Kubly now becomes the transit best-practices champion that gets us back to sanity.
That has some parallels to Dick Cheney, whom people couldn’t trust further than they could throw him during the Iraq war and his pushing for federal intelligence surveillance on all Americans. but then he stood up for democracy against the attempted Trumpian coup that’s still ongoing. So maybe Kubly’s long-term instincts will also make him a positive force in the end.
We need someone like Claudia Balducci—though I’m not sure she still has much influence—to push for automation. She at least recognizes that expanding Link only makes sense if we attempt something radical, like interlining, which is wildly unpopular. Still, her approach tends to build things we don’t really need, even if it’s the least harmful path forward. If we go ahead with a second Link tunnel as currently planned, it’ll serve as a perfect case study in paradigm lock.
I agree. It is very nice to see someone else writing about automation. It is one of the key elements of a better transit outcome. I think we can all agree that if the line was automated it would be better. But it still has several flaws:
1) Poor station placement in Ballard.
2) Poor station placements for the second tunnel (there should be a station in First Hill — otherwise there isn’t much point in building the tunnel).
3) West Seattle Link is not as good for West Seattle riders as a busway from West Seattle to downtown. It is also a lot more expensive.
Kubly and Reed don’t address any of these points. That is understandable. They are focused on building the same basic project with as little delay as possible. They make the point that they can use the same paperwork as before. That sounds quite likely. But they miss something crucial: The paperwork is not causing delay. The cost of construction is.
It is also more important to get it right than to get it sooner. Imagine if it took an extra three years to go through the regulatory process but Link was completely grade-separate and automated. It could be serving (underground) stations on Rainier Avenue instead of MLK. The trains would run more often and faster to SeaTac. I think everyone agrees this is a worthy trade-off (three years of delay for a much better system). The same is true in Ballard. It is always tempting to say “just build it” but if you build it poorly you are left with a poor system.
It is worth noting that station size often drives station placement. It is quite possible that smaller stations would not only be cheaper but better.
We need someone like Claudia Balducci to push for automation
Agreed. I think we need someone like her to point out the other issues as well. It is easy to assume that we had everything basically right but it just costs too much. That is simply not true. We have very little right but we can make it better. Automating the trains is an excellent step in the process.
Balducci is not a transportation director or engineer; she can’t make a technical analysis like this herself. She has some positive instincts about the downtown tunnel and other things, but she’s overruled on the board 17:1 (or where Strauss agrees with her 16:2).
There’s a simpler reason Kubly doesn’t push more to reevaluate past design decisions: it would make it harder to convince the board to do it. Right now he’s asking for two things: automation, and a Ballard-downtown-West Seattle alignment. If he throws in no DSTT2, move CID/N back to Midtown, move CID/S back to 5th or 4th & Jackson, Ballard 20th station, no West Seattle, etc, then that’s several more things he has to convince them of too. Things they’ve been strongly opposed to. Any one of them could cause them to reject the whole set of reforms.
Maybe the first thing to do is persuade Strauss of this. Then he could champion automation and Ballard, and Balducci could champion a saner downtown alignment.
So many of the problems with MAX ridership could have been prevented with better line location, forced upon us by Metro (our equivalent of the PSTC, which chooses the line locations).
I feel like ST3 is headed towards that same territory.
When I was in Vancouver a few summers ago I witnessed the transit surge after the massive fireworks event known as the Celebration of Light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration_of_Light
After the event finished there was a huge lineup of buses on W Georgia St. I’ve never seen so many buses at once. IIRC buses were double parked on both side basically from Granville st to Denman St.
This video starting at 15min captures some of that:
https://youtu.be/TmITgSDShCk?si=O0iTLGB8mWcTc9TC&t=912
Here’s the skytrain surge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlzGrec2eOc
Just sharing to show a better alternative to handling massive events compared to NJT’s plan
How are ridership trends looking on the 2 line now that we’re 2 weeks + open?
Anecdotally, commuter ridership to downtown appears similar on the south end of the 1 Line and from the eastside on the 2 Line.
Riding it in the middle of a weekday, the Eastside section looks only slightly less crowded than the Seattle section. I’d rank the sections (from most to least crowded):
1. Chinatown to U District
2. South Bellevue to Chinatown
3. U District to Northgate
4. Downtown Bellevue to Downtown Redmond
5. Downtown Bellevue to South Bellevue
6. Northgate to Lynnwood
It looked like most of the passengers going to Seattle were getting on at South Bellevue and Mercer Island. At no point on any of my recent trips were all the seats filled, on any section of the route. I have not ridden it during weekday peak, though.
Since I don’t have to worry about traffic I’ve been going in later this week than normal. Bel-Red to Judkins Park arriving around 9am instead of 7am. Naturally the trains are more crowded but there also seems to be a shift in the on/off patterns. For example, early in the morning the number of people getting off is about equal to the number getting on at DT Bellevue. At the later hour it is heavily skewed toward people getting off, like about half of the people on a near capacity two car train getting off. A sizeable number got on at S. Bellevue and I thought the train would be standing room only after MI. But hardly anyone got on and about the same number got off. I’m guessing that’s because MI P&R is full not long after 7am.
Leaving Seattle around 5:30pm the pattern reversed with the exception of DT Bellevue. I expected a whole lot of people to pile on the train. But there wasn’t anywhere near as many getting on as got off in the morning. It’s still a busy station but about as many got off as got on. Maybe people going shopping or out to eat?
Another pattern that has surprised me is how light the volume is at the Spring District. I know most of the office space is still vacant so I’m expecting that to change. Right now I see what appears to be an equal number of people commuting from Spring District Station as to it. Yesterday three tech bros got on at Spring District and then all got off at Bel-Red and walked to their cars. I guess there’s no free parking for employees at these buildings.
I also noticed a King Co. Sheriff SUV in the Bel-Red parking lot this morning and again in the evening. I was surprised that a police presence would be King Co. instead of Bellevue PD. Does ST contract with the Sheriff’s department?
The King County Sheriff handles Metro, so they may be handling Link since Metro operates it.
A week from Saturday (April 25) there will be an STB authors’ walk at 10am near Link if anyone wants to attend. Details next week.
Goblin should film it and post it
It’s absurd that they’re calling the waterfront bike path a “greenway” when “greenway” has a completely different meaning in Seattle’s bike network. There are many names for MUPs that don’t have this problem, and it’s not like there’s all that much greenery on our waterfront. Just call it a trail to fit local conventions.
(Around here the “Mountains to Sound Greenway” came first, but… that’s a different kind and scale of thing…)
From the Land Trust Alliance:
“ A greenway is a linear belt of land preserved for recreation and conservation. Within the greenway, there’s a trail with nodes that connect to schools, shopping, housing, hospitals, parking, metro stops or other trails. Greenways can be urban or rural, providing multiuse paths for people to recreate and offering conservation benefits, such as trees for shade that reduce the urban heat island effect and plantings to absorb storm runoff and improve climate resiliency.”
https://landtrustalliance.org/resources/learn/explore/greenways-and-multiuse-trails-create-paths-for-people#:~:text=A%20greenway%20is%20a%20linear,runoff%20and%20improve%20climate%20resiliency.
So apparently our region as well as our city has blurred what should have been a clear distinction. I guess the term “greenway” is just too politically enticing to be limited to mean just a linear park or open space.
I don’t know what the “Land Trust Alliance” has to do with anything, least of all what the word “greenway” should mean.
In Seattle the term “greenway” is (mostly) related to the “neighborhood greenway” movement, which in the last 20 years has worked with the city to designate dozens of “greenway” routes, which are low-stress pedestrian and bike routes made (mostly) out of existing side streets, with additional intersection treatments added where necessary. Greenways aren’t the backbone of our bike network — the backbone routes, in our hilly city, typically follow grade corridors. But they’re a prominent element that added a lot of bike-network connectivity quickly and cheaply. It has been a huge success here. When we’re thinking about bike network connectivity, the idea of building routes like this needs a name. In Seattle “greenway” is that name.
Since we are in Seattle and all the MUPs connected to this one are called “trails” they should call this one a “trail”, too.
I think it’s funny when folks get all up in arms about semantics but don’t bother to actually read about projects when the names are unintuitive.
From the SDOT blog post, here’s what’s in the project:
– “a multi-use trail featuring plantings, trees, and benches”
– “newly planted beds with native and street-hardy trees, shrubs and perennials”
– “added lighting”
– “benches for resting”
– “New maps and signs”
A marked bike crossing at Blanchard street was already planned and the project is connected to it.
Meanwhile, SDOT defines “Neighborhood Greenways” with three elements:
– Safer crossings of busy streets (check)
– Walking and biking priority (check)
– Wayfinding (check)
What else would you call this corridor of pedestrian- and cyclist-oriented improvements, if not a greenway?
The Land Trust Alliance definition is pretty similar to Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenway_(landscape)#:~:text=Recreational%20greenways%2C%20featuring%20paths%20and,public%20rights%2Dof%2Dway.
Using this more universal definition, calling the waterfront project a “greenway” is accurate.
SDOT and local advocates have created a somewhat different definition by calling local streets used to assemble a bike-friendly street network “greenways”. The name isn’t necessarily used incorrectly because there was never a nationally standardized definition. However, I think it is important to understand the slight discrepancy with the more universal definition.
A quick search of MUTCD shows no definition of “greenways” to me. Here are the various definitions of bicycle facilities:
https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2003/part9/part9a.htm
Looking internationally, the term “greenway” is sometimes used like the term is used by SDOT. I see that Vancouver BC uses it as well as some European countries.
I’ve never been a fan of calling everything a “trail” actually. The term seems to imply something long and rural to me (Appalachian Trail; Trail of Tears) and feels a bit out of place in an urban setting.
Similarly, the use of “path” feels low-speed and narrow.
And both “trail” and “path” don’t automatically imply a paved route to me either.
Maybe it’s merely time for a bigger national clarification on simpler terminology. I don’t think using Class I Bicycle Facility is it — and the term actually seems to ban pedestrian use.
It’s probably not an effort that transit nerds on STB should decide either. It seems like a better topic for bicycle nerds. We can instead mull over what BRT definitions are!
I think people often got confused with the local “greenway” term because it isn’t clear what it actually entails. There are a very wide range of options, often very close to each other. For example, NE 117th in Pinehurst is a greenway. Here is the crossing of 15th NE as well as Roosevelt. It may be hard to see here, but only bikes and pedestrians can go straight. Thus they’ve turned what was a complicated mess of an intersection into a much safer one (for pedestrians and cyclists). Building this wasn’t cheap but it is dramatically safer. This crossing is much safer than the one at 125th, even as they extend the protected bike lanes to the west.
And yet a block away they basically just have sharrows and signs. To be fair, they at least have stop signs for cars running perpendicular. With other parts of the greenway they don’t even have that. That is the other extreme. That just shows the wide range of options for a greenway.
The same thing is true with the term “Safe Routes to School“. The safety levels vary quite a bit. But it is much easier than writing “Safer Routes to School”.
In this case it is a shared-use path. That is the term they typically use. But it would also qualify as a greenway for the reasons Nathan mentioned. It is unusual to call this a greenway but it also seems reasonable.
A pessimistic definition of a greenway in Seattle is that it’s what SDOT calls a non-arterial road with a couple of superficial speed bumps if it helps them get out of their statutory mandate to build a complete street on a nearby arterial.
In this sense, this shared-use path is mostly not a typical Seattle greenway. Although… it is helping them get out of having a 24/7/365 cycletrack on the other side of Alaskan Way, so maybe it does fit the spirit of the term!
Borrowing from SR2S, I rather like “green route”. That generically implies that the route exists without defining particulars like whether it’s an exclusive trail, a bicycle track, a protected bicycle lane or a low speed street that’s shared with cars.
Then upgrading a “green route” with park-like landscaping can transform it into a “greenway”!
A pessimistic definition of a greenway in Seattle is that it’s what SDOT calls a non-arterial road with a couple of superficial speed bumps
Yes. And at the other extreme we have the safest way to cross a major arterial (as I pointed out in my example). It often contains both extremes — on the same greenway. Here is another example (one I probably should have led with, given its simplicity and contrast): This is how you cross Aurora on the 92nd Avenue greenway. Notice cars can not turn left in any direction. Also notice that cars can not go straight across 92nd. Other than completely closing off the street to automobiles, this is as safe as you can get. But as you go up the hill you basically have a speed bump and signs (basically telling cyclists they are on the right path). There is no bike lane (protected or otherwise). Both of these are part of the same greenway, which can always be considered a work in progress, like Safe Routes to School.
Thus there is no “typical” greenway. It is basically a designation, showing you *where* the improvements will be made, not *what* they will consist of. The same general rule applies here.
Seattle greenways are a designation that the street will be incrementally upgraded over time, though no specific final goal is set and it will vary in each corridor. It basically means SDOT intends to do something or has done something, and it doesn’t intend to revoke greenway status later.
I read the waterfront article and assumed it was a greenway, then thought, “Wait, there’s already a cycletrack, so why would it need a second one?” But it’s referring to the segments north of Pike Place Market, which are later phases of the waterfront renovation.
Overheard on the 2 as it crossed the lake: “Dad, where are the life preservers?”
I believe enough protocols are in place to not have a sudden derailment that would land a train car in the water.
The trains aren’t long enough to create a huge derailment, and the subsequent loss of catenary contact would probably keep train cars from sliding far once they lose power contact.
A bridge sinking would take a bit of time and the power source would drop at least a few minutes before a sinking. That risk seems low to almost impossible.
A sudden thrust earthquake with a water reacting to that is probably the most likely way to get a derailment. But that risk seems lower to more systemic risks like being inside tunnels in an event like that. I’d think that the power source would drop and trains would slow down or even stop before weird violent waves jostle the train hard enough for a derailment. I’d much more rather be on the floating bridge than in a tunnel in a violent earthquake.
New station announcement voiceover heard at Cap Hill this morning. Unless it was AI, it was definitely a real human woman that you could understand instead of the robot voice. Hoping ST will stick to it. It’d be nice to have a male voice for northbound and a female for southbound ..or vice versa
San Francisco Muni has different male and female voices for inbound and outbound. It’s a way for regulars to subtly know if they can ignore an announcement. But even there I think most riders don’t intuitively think about the difference and will listen to an announcement long enough to hear the word “inbound” or “outbound” actually used before ignoring it.
I’ve long suggested that ST contract with Rick Steves for their recorded Link audio content. His voice tone is high (almost androgynous) and conveys a familiarity and comfort about traveling that people trust and pay attention to. But that would mean not having strongly contrasting male and female voices.
Or Pat Cashman. He’s done extensive radio and voice over work.
I really like the Rick Steves idea!
It always makes my day when I hear Cisco Morris’ voice on the WSF.
I vote for Pat Cashman’s voice.
Sample size of 1, but: Link totally dropped the ball for me today. I flew into the airport around 5:30, went to catch the 1 line to Lynnwood so I could transfer to the 2, watched a train leave seconds too early for me… And looked up to see the next one wasn’t for 20 minutes! What the hell? One went by that was marked out of service, one scheduled train didn’t show at all, and multiple went by for Federal Way. There were no rider alerts or anything that I could find other than “there’s a Sounders game tonight!” We wound up all standing on the platform freezing in the open air; when the train finally arrived the live status said another one was just 3 minutes behind, and both were marked as several minutes early. I’m used to bus bunching happening but this was really frustrating for a rail experience.
I had a similar experience a few months ago at SeaTac.
The problem may just be how the northbound trains are being tracked. It said something like 22 minutes on the sign initially. But a few minutes later the sign said that the train was just 4 minutes away and it came at the normal interval.
How long was the actual wait?
Maybe a little shorter than 20, but not by much.
The amount of multifamily residential planned for the Overlake Village station area is impressive. There’s also a number of residential buildings currently under construction, including right next to the station. There are also some very large residential bldgs on the SW corner of 24th and 152nd. It looks like the Arby’s at that location pulled an Edith Macefield. The Ballard resident who wouldn’t sell her house to developers.
To see what’s planned for the Overlake Village area, check out Redmond’s Project Viewer. Zoom in on the bottom part of the map, from 20th to 31st, and 148th to 156th. Before seeing this map, I didn’t realize development was planned for just across the street to the east from the station.
Between Spring District, BelRed, and Overlake Village, the OV area seems like it’s going to see the most residential development in the next 5 years.
https://gis.redmond.gov/cpv/
That’s a pretty cool map. Bellevue’s GIS isn’t quite as visual but if you play with the layers you can get little dots to appear on each parcel that has a pending building permit. Around the Bel-Red Link station for example, the parcel that currently is the Vincino Live leasing office immediately south of the ARCO on the corner of NE 20th St and 130th Ave NE (old HVAC contractor building, 1 acre lot).
You have to click on the dot and then page through the different screens of info. When you find a permit for new construction there is a link to MyBuildingPermits.com to get the details. The next parcel south on 130th Ave NE is in initial project review for “demo existing building and construct new multifamily building with retail and subterranean parking”. There’s already at least four new multifamily projects that have opened in the last year or so right around the station. The big kahuna though will be when cement plant across the street from the P&R sells out. That’s just over 9 acres.
Redmond’s look nicer because it was done using ArcGIS Map SDK for JavaScript that is more advanced and customizable while Bellevue is using ArcGIS Online WebAppBuilder which was probably deployed a long time ago and they just keep update the hosted data.
The latter has a lot of limitation on the UI and how you can set the function for viewer to navigate.
This is a bit more user friendly: https://buildingbellevue.bellevuewa.gov/
The city used to create a very handy PDF each quarter but looks like they has ended.
https://bellevuewa.gov/development-activity
Thanks AJ, that is a much more user friendly interface. However, when I looked it didn’t match with projects I’d investigate near the Bel-Red P&R, Seems the two are out of sync or looking at a different data base. Bellevue is not covering itself in glory.
It is impressive! I’m not sure how willing Seattle is to embrace this much additional change near its current and proposed Link stations.
Clearly this many development projects would not be on the table if the demand wasn’t there. I do have a concern that it’s too residential in totality, but with Microsoft there and Downtown Bellevue nearby there are destination land uses that complement the aggregate residential orientation of these projects. Maybe there could be a few more destination projects, but the housing vs destination land use mix in this corridor in general is a better balanced than the Federal Way or Lynnwood corridors currently are. I would even generally opine that having more destinations in the corridor leads to a better market for developing dense housing. Living in one of a string of residentially focused light rail stations without walkable destination options at nearby stations is not as enticing of a lifestyle.
If you look east from just east of BelRed station, an entire mini-city of apartments has been built in the Overlake/north Crossroads area and is being significantly expanded now. In the 2000s a cluster appeared at Bel-Red Road & 156th. That astounded me because that had been my neighborhood supermarket/shopping center in the 70s and I thought opposition to growth was so strong.
Another cluster was built north of 24th for the Microsoft crowd and friends. And more during Link’s construction, and now more again as Sam says. Both of these areas together are a large midrise cluster you wouldn’t expect in a suburb. And when the Sears lot south of 24th and neighboring lots get redeveloped, they’ll doubtless go the same way, filling in the gaps between Bel-Red Road (20th-ish) and however far north of 36th it extends.
However, the problem is it’s housing-heavy and retail/service-poor. Almost all of the buildings are residential-only, and it’s a long walk to Safeway or Fred Meyer or the Crossroads retail area or you have to take a bus to them. Part of it is because some former retail is gone (the Sears block) and its replacement hasn’t appeared yet. But part of it is not making it more of an urban village with retail/services intermixed more with the new residential tower blocks.
Your concern is similar to mine, Mike. I would however point out that a short trip using high-frequency Link (one round trip in 90 minutes means paying just one fare) can quickly transport a resident to other stations in Bellevue and Redmond that have supermarkets, pharmacies and other retail and services.
The time to get from BelRed to Whole Foods on NE 8th is pretty short. Waiting for and riding a 2 Line train is likely faster from there than the time it takes to drive and look (and wait) for parking there!
https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-reconnect-and-automate-ballard-to-west-seattle-rail-to-save-st3/
Authors went above and beyond here, actually writing a full proposal document with much detail.
I hope they do this.. ST is living in the 20th century.
The 1 and 2 Line system can stay as is, but we should build new extensions as cheap, automated super high frequency stubs. This is especially useful in Seattle proper.
If interlining is required, build it the “old way” and use more elevated, freeway routing. E.g. Issaquah to S Kirkland, Everett, and Tacoma. Although if I’m being honest, Everett could be an automated “stub” as well, as a bus makes more sense for the longer trip to Seattle.
And any future long distance routes that don’t interline should use higher speed trains rather than LRVs, with a Stride bus placeholder until funding is secured (ST4). SeaTac to Bellevue (with future extensions to Kirkland, Bothell, and Lynnwood) via Tukwila and Renton is a strong contender for this… And Issaquah could be rearranged to use this pattern.
Compared to a commuter rail, Link has a few nice properties.
1. More downtown stops
2. More “destinations” overall
It just needed a faster design for longer segments to make it efficient.
With that past, ST should look into making actual light rail. Automated stubs with super high frequency would be great. LRVs can even operate automated at grade if programmed well.
If ST is “afraid” of automation, they need to consult experts and really understand the benefits. It’s not difficult. It’s cheaper. Everything is better.
Someone needs to stop ST before they screw up everything. Get them on track to deliver automation for West Seattle and Ballard… And keep the 1-2 Line spines connected end to end.
It’s quite thorough! It puts design and cost numbers explaining the benefits of the concept. And it aligns with how most of the STB regulars are automation advocates in light of the extremely high costs of ST’s Ballard and West Seattle projects (that exceed what ST has available).
I think many of us have tweaks we would suggest to improve some things. But it’s an excellent report to work from.
I still don’t know if or when the Dow Faithful leaders fully entrenched in the engineering/ construction/ real estate economic world of ST3 will question what they want to build with ST3. That political step is the biggest obstacle at this point as I see it. They seem as much still in the bubble of unaffordable fantasy as someone in MAGA. Will any ST Board members dare to speak out and support studying automation?
It’s subtle, but the platform photos in the article all prominently show down escalators. I’m envious!
Dropping down escalators seems to ironically be the initial way that ST pursues when they need to cut costs. These photos of a much lower cost system with down escalators is a revealing way to show what I think is an idiotic ST cost-cutting approach.
I was at Northgate station this week transferring between Link and buses (more below), and I was struck again by the irony that a transit center doesn’t have down escalators. By definition thousands of people are transferring from buses or the P&R, so the station should have first-class pedestrian circulation.
And there aren’t enough elevators. My elevator rides had two people with bikes inside and one or two bikes and baby carriages waiting outside for the next run. I was lucky to get in in between them since I can’t take the stairs down without difficulty. If there’s not going to be down escalators, there needs to be two elevators at the south end and two at the north end. Two more escalators would have been less expensive, so just do it. Although it’s too late now without retrofitting.
“… I was struck again by the irony that a transit center doesn’t have down escalators. By definition thousands of people are transferring from buses or the P&R, so the station should have first-class pedestrian circulation.”
I have often emphatically agreed with you about this!
I think I counted 67 down steps between the Lynnwood CC Link platform and the Lynnwood CC TC. That’s more than going four levels in an apartment building (4 floors x 16 steps between floors)!
I thought there were down escalators at Northgate. I’m pretty sure you can get from the platform to the mezzanine level on down escalators (you can kind of see that in the left side of this picture). There are also two escalators from the mezzanine to the south entrance. I hardly ever go down that direction but I assume that one of those goes down.
I find the Northgate Station very confusing so I can understand why you assume you can’t get to the surface without going down stairs or an elevator. It also depends on where you are going. I don’t think there are down escalators to the mall. Part of the issue for me is that I want to end up in the middle, on the west side. You can see that exit from the street here where the sign for the station is. There are no up or down escalators at that end. This is where the 61, 75 and 348 stop. Any one of those will do for me. That puts in front of all of those buses, which means as I walk towards the waiting area (and the kiosk) I can see if a bus is about to leave. But more than once I’ve gone down the wrong way and then ended up on the other side of 103rd (closer to the mall).
Time for my semiannual posting of this article in the comment threads:
https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2016/05/10/frequent-service-not-escalator-access-is-what-attracts-transit-users/
Eliminating down escalators is good value engineering.
@ AJ:
It’s one thing to not have a down escalator for 25 steps. It’s another for 65 steps. The article does not address this.
@ AJ:
The article also does not address the added time due to congestion when going down stairs or waiting for an elevator. When large crowds get off a train at once, they often become clogged. I’ve had to wait several times to use an elevator or stairs going down.
The article also does not address the added time due to congestion when going down stairs or waiting for an elevator.
The point of the article is that this doesn’t matter as much as frequency. But it is also worth noting that escalators are just as likely to get clogged as stairs. The throughput is basically the same. What causes crowding in general is lots of people exiting at the same time. If the trains ran more frequently there would be less crowding. Ridership goes up when frequency increases but the impact is not 1 to 1. If you run trains twice as often you don’t get double the riders. Thus you have more riders but less crowding.
I agree with the basic premise of the article but there assumptions about cost savings may be exaggerated. In general you save money with an automated line by reducing the cost of the stations. But if you don’t have many stations the savings aren’t as big. West Seattle Link is an extremely expensive project with only three stations. That’s because you have miles of elevated track — much of it very high above the ground — before you even have your first station. Just building the line — with no stations — would likely cost more than the original estimate. In contrast, Ballard Link — especially between downtown and the Seattle Center — has several stations within a relatively short distance. The same is true with the second tunnel stations (even though it has fewer stations than the original). It is only as you get closer to Ballard that the cost — like West Seattle — becomes less about the cost of stations and the rail line itself.
I went to Northgate North this week and saw the first planned residential tower on the mall lot is half finished. It’s seven or so stories in the southeast corner, southeast of ex-Macy’s.
I also saw there are no longer buses on 5th Ave NE north of Northgate Way. They all turn east on Northgate Way (61, 67, 75, 322, 348), and then most of them turn again on Roosevelt Way (all except 61 and 342). The closest stop from Northgate station is now kitty-corner from Northgate North, and the closest stop to the station is across the street.
When the 41 was deleted in the Northgate Link restructure, the 75 was moved from Lake City Way to 5th to backfill service between Northgate Way and 125th. The Lake City Way/Northgate Way routing was treated as unnecessary or less important in a budget constraint. Ultimately public pressure and economic recovery convinced Metro to backfill LCW/NW with a new route 20 and then 61. But I thought the 75 was staying on 5th because that was so important to some people. But it turns out the 75 has since been moved off 5th too. I assume it will remain that way in the final phases of the Lynnwood Link restructure, since Metro is doing it now.
I also saw there are no longer buses on 5th Ave NE north of Northgate Way.
That’s because they are working on the 125th/130th corridor. It looks permanent according to the route map but they plan on moving it back when the work is done. There are also periodic bus stop relocations (found in the “Service Advisory” section).
Trader Joe’s is also planning to put a store in the former Bed Bath & Beyond, it’ll be nice to have a grocery store within the new Northgate Urban Village as the closest grocery stores to Northgate station are QFC on Northgate Way NE & Roosevelt Way NE, Safeway on 15th Ave NE & NE 123rd, and Saar’s on Aurora & N 100th.
https://secretseattle.co/new-seattle-trader-joes-northgate-station/
I was a bit shocked a couple weeks ago to find out it was actually quite far to walk from light rail station to Barnes&Noble
Honestly I feel it’ll be better once the new village and shopping center is built out. It feels long because you’re walking thru endless parking lots right now.
Does anyone know if the MasterCard Transit Offer for contactless taps works in Seattle? Not listed but it could be because of how recently credit cards became tappable with Orca in Seattle.
https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/personal/experience-mastercard/transitbenefit.html
According to this, 251 will run hourly midday during weekday but every 30 minutes during weekend. Do I read this one right?
Is that the forecasted demand pattern or Metro is still projected be short on bus drivers this fall.
https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king-county/depts/metro/documents/projects/east-link-connections/routes/251.pdf?rev=ef533ebe13694ea6993cf0eae5d26bc5&hash=9E90F2CD0F035895860B13809BF96D6C
Yeah, that seems weird.
May be the demand pattern? There will likely be a decent amount of weekend demand because some of the largest destinations are the wineries
I saw a temporary-looking “2” sign on the southbound platform at Beacon Hill Station this afternoon. It is at the front of where 2-car trains would stop.
Hypotheses?
There just in case they ever run a 2 car train through the station probably.
ST apparently added those “2” triangles to all stations even though there will never be 2 Line trains south of CID. Maybe nobody in ST noticed the discrepency, or the operational plan changed after the decision to install the signs was made. I can’t imagine 2-car trains could be sufficient with southeast Seattle and the airport, but maybe there was once a plan to mix 2- and 3-car trains on both lines, not just the 2 Line, until all the 2 Line trains arrive.
The last time Link had 2-car trains in the south was in the first few years of Link. Since then it has always been 4, except when there weren’t enough trains so it had to mix 3 and 4, and there’s been a widespread belief that 2-car trains would never again be sufficient again in the south.
An optimistic hypothesis is that ST will do a test simulation of running three lines through the tunnel, splitting the 1-Line trains into 2-car trains for the test period.
It would be better to at least try such a test, than insist, without data, that it can’t be done.
I think 2 sign indicates where second train car will stop at.
At first I thought that was the sign where every 2 Line train will stop so no one waiting for 2 Line should ever waiting downstream of that sign.
It is less useful even for stations with 2 Line.
When 3-car 2 Line train stop, The first car pull all the way to the front of the platform.
The “2” signs indicate where the front of 2-car trains stop at for drivers and ADA.
Tacoma should be the next rail priority. Connect more riders.
The project that serves the most riders is the Ballard extension; its ridership forecasts dwarf the Tacoma Dome extension. It should be the priority if one wants to “[c]onnect more riders.”
Existing express busses are considerably faster than the planned light rail extension for anyone traveling from Tacoma to downtown Seattle.
Which connects more JOBS? Seattle Center, Tacoma, Everett, and Issaquah.
Option 2.
Throw West Seattle in the bin. Ballard is nice to have but it doesn’t need to get all the way there at first. Design to extend once more funding is secured.
The high Ballard ridership isn’t because of Ballard… But closer to downtown.
Light rail isn’t just for Tacoma to Seattle.
It’s for all day, frequent reliable regional connectivity.
You have no clue about what people down here needs. It’s not just a fast trip to Seattle for a 9-5. In fact the job market in Seattle is dying. Far less people want to go to Seattle anymore. They still exist but that’s what express buses and Sounder are for.
People need to travel between Tacoma and Federal Way. Or to the airport. They can connect with Stride to reach Bellevue, Issaquah, or Redmond.
Light rail unlocks all those travel opportunities.