Both the 1 and 2 Lines have closed segments this weekend, April 25-26.
1 Line trains will be reduced Saturday and Sunday until 9pm. Trains will run every 10 minutes between Lynnwood City Center and Rainier Beach. Then shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes between Rainier Beach and SeaTac/Airport. Then trains will start again every 10 minutes between SeaTac and Federal Way Downtown. At 9pm, normal evening service will resume.
2 Line trains will be reduced Saturday and Sunday until noon. Trains will run every 20 minutes between Lynnwood City Center and Spring District. Then shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes between Spring District and Overlake Village. Then trains will start again every 13 minutes between Overlake Village and Downtown Redmond. At noon, normal 2 Line service will resume.
This is all for multiple maintenance projects: track and power systems maintenance near Tukwila International Boulevard station, and to install new crossing panels near BelRed station.
This is an open thread.
Friday reduction, April 24: Link is single-tracked between Angle Lake and Federal Way, with a shuttle train every 30 minutes both directions on the southbound track. Transfer at Angle Lake to regular Link service. Check Sound Transit alerts to see how long this continues and whether it affects the entire AM peak.
I hope nobody was trying to take Link to a flight this morning. For Federal Way users, the 577 and 578 are still running to downtown Seattle. RapidRide A is more frequent between the airport, Angle Lake, Federal Way, and Tukwila Intl Blvd stations.
Normal service restored at 6:12am.
Yesterday I rode the 513, here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Qj2QOF6KE
I’m here to report the ridership, here are some observations I made:
– Including me, 7 people boarded the 513 to Seaway TC at Lynnwood.
– About 5 people got off at Ash Way P&R.
– No one got off at Eastmont P&R.
– One person got off at Casino/Evergreen.
– There were no boardings from Ash Way P&R to Seaway TC.
– I was the only person who got off at Seaway TC.
So if we were talking about a regular basis, no one would get off at Seaway TC. Can we just do away with the 513 and only keep it from Lynnwood to Seaway in the AM and Seaway to Lynnwood in the PM? I suppose those riders that got off at Ash Way can use the 201/202 or 513 and the one who got off at Evergreen can use the Swift Orange + Swift Blue.
I still expect ridership to be low on the 513 post Fall 2026 due to the lack of stops and limited ridership potential.
Let’s just delete the 513 at this point and reinvest it in other things, probably in about a year or two.
I think community Transit should just alter the service hours to fit with Boeing shift changes, such as the 907’s schedule. Then, mabye some of the trips would actually get decent ridership. I also rode the 513 that day, 1 person at lynnwood, I boarded at ash way, skipped eastmont, the other guy got off at evergreen/casino, and I got off at seaway. I don’t know how the 513 is economically a good option or CT lol. I also rode the 513 on a 30′ Gillig once which was cursed.
It just occurred to me – When people advocate for an automated Ballard Link stub, where is the proposed TBM extraction site near Westlake station? I don’t see any reasonable place for it.
Which is why the stub should be standalone and elevated, not tunneled nor a spur.
That flies in the face of all the people saying an automated train would not require redoing NEPA review and EIS, like the Urbanist article then?
Me reacting on the hubbah on debating whether Ballard Link should be automated and a stub – :/
Kubly’s proposal that he says would not require more environmental review, would still be a tunnel going all the way through downtown from Ballard to West Seattle. So it wouldn’t have to be extracted at Westlake. It would stick to the existing alignment and stations to remain within their environmental-impact scope.
A Ballard-Westlake stub might have to be extracted at Westlake, but that’s regardless of whether it’s an automated line like STB authors have proposed, or traditional Link technology like in ST’s alternative. ST listed several challenges with that alternative, but I don’t recall TBM extaction at Westlake being one of them. That may mean ST has another strategy in mind, or it has forgotten about it, or it will have to dug up the ground above the station anyway to build the station so it can extract the TBM as part of it.
ST moved the South Shoreline/ 148th Station after NEPA acceptance. Plans are allowed to be changed without disrupting environmental documentation.
It’s an open question whether it triggers a new process or administratively piggy-backs to an old one. After the draft WSBLE EIS did not have the new stations near CID and Pioneer Square, the new environmental document was not a new draft EIS process but was instead a final EIS. That’s a much bigger changed project than going automated would be. (It’s such a major change that I’m surprised that FTA signed off on it!)
Can a TBM go south from Interbay and then reverse and go back to Interbay for extraction?
Some other projects simply leave their TBM in the ground. Most of its parts will be too worn out to be recycled into other TBMs.
Some other projects simply leave their TBM in the ground. Most of its parts will be too worn out to be recycled into other TBMs.
I think you’d have to leave it someplace where it wouldn’t get in the way of any future tunneling work and I don’t know if it’s obvious where that is. Most of the people who are interested in a Ballard stub line probably also believe that it shouldn’t be a stub forever, but I don’t think there’s agreement on the alignment of an extension.
Presumably wherever the Westlake station box is being excavated, which would probably be in the middle of whatever avenue it’s being built on (5th?).
A tunnel boring machine is just one way to build underground. Cut and cover is another.
Some have even discussed crossing the new line above the current Link tracks at the mezzanine level. It’s not fully clear if that’s even possible — but it would make the line closer to the surface and more usable for short-distance trips.
A new Westlake platform and its various levels to get to it is going to need a vault no matter what. That disruption would happen even in the current plans. I don’t think enough people are fully aware of the level of disruption that building DSTT2 will create at the station locations. That is a key reason why relocating a station from near Union Station to the County complex has been proposed.
I saw a video that talked about Chunnel tunnel boring machines. They were just buried once they were finished. It requires a plan but that’s always an option.
EastsideBadger said:
“Saw something I hadn’t before at DT Redmond this morning – staff standing by the stairs/escalators to make sure everyone was tapping their ORCA card before they went up. I don’t know if they had authority to stop and/or fine people who declined. The DT Redmond platform always has security staff so I don’t know if they would radio up there either.”
[Copying the comment here, since I can’t move the original to the top level.]
Are they ST fare ambassadors with blue jackets saying “fare ambassador” in white text? ST has started piloting station checks like this at a few downtown stations peak hours, or at least it said it was going to. I haven’t seen it. It’s possible this has expanded to Downtown Redmond station.
If they’re not wearing fare ambassador jackets, that raises a question of who they are and how much they’ve been trained. I can’t see ST doing this, because it undermines the fare ambassador role ST is trying to establish. ST has announced that fare ambassadors get certain training, can do certain things, and have certain behavior expectations (friendly, more explaining than accusing) . That doesn’t apply to other people positioned in Link facilities.
Maybe they’re a secondary level of “advisors”, reminding people to tap but not going through the whole citation thing? That seems unlikely, because it costs money to have people standing there, and why not put that money into recruiting and training more real fare ambassadors instead?
ST is also studying fare gates, and is putting together a pilot proposal. The proposal should be ready by this fall for the board to consider.
It’s fare ambassadors doing at the validator checks. They were at u district today too.
Thanks for remaking this Mike!
They were ST staff in blue jackets, so I guess they were fare ambassadors. By 6PM when I was returning they were gone.
I saw fare ambassadors at the Roosevelt entrance level last week but they weren’t actively doing anything or near the escalators/elevators; they were in the middle of the room.
Sometimes Fare Ambassadors have time where they have to focus purely on assisting passengers at the station entrances rather than check fare. It’s the double duty. The airport or westlake is generally where this is most effective, though all stations have to be covered roughly equally
The 2 Line work seems to be a signal upgrade, does anyone have more details on what that means and if it’ll help with existing slow zones?
https://www.soundtransit.org/ride-with-us/service-alerts/saturday-april-25-4-am-through-end-service-sunday-april-26-shuttle:
“Trains from Lynnwood City Center to Int’l District/Chinatown will arrive every 5 – 10 minutes until 1 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, and until noon on Sunday, April 26, **due to the 2 Line signal upgrade**.” (emphasis mine)
ST is implementing what’s-that-acronym so that signals can automatically control trains better. This is supposed to improve reliability and punctuality with two lines overlapping. So it’s apparently part of that work.
Maybe ST is reducing the 2 Line to 20 minutes not because of anything with the 2 Line specifically, but simply to have more time between trains, because it can’t reduce the 1 Line in central/north Seattle because it’s so full with people going to the airport and to south Seattle/Federal Way.
Thanks for the info! I’ve definitely noticed some occasional issues with reliability and headways in DSTT when a 1 Line and 2 Line trains end up ready to approach the NB CID platform at the same time, hopefully that can help resolve that!
“to install new crossing panels near BelRed station.”
What’s a crossing panel?
I would think it’s the gates that you have to push/pull to open. Bel-Red is different that the other stations where you cross the tracks in that it has miniature versions of the RR gates that come down instead of the gates that are normally closed and you have to open to enter/exit. The only reason I can think of that they do this is there is a road (Spring Blvd) that you also have to cross, both sides since they are one way. It’s still amazing to me that they don’t have to have a magnetic interlock like they do in Europe (or at least in the UK).
Those things at Redmond Tech look like gates. A panel to me is a solid 2D surface. So it could be a control panel, the panels lying on the street, or something like that.