Let’s start with an idea, a first principle if you will, that rider experience matters. Rider experience should always be our #1 goal in station and network design. Stations should be built as close to the surface as possible, with easy-to-understand way finding, built with properly sized and redundant conveyances to the platform, and station exits should be positioned to seamlessly connect to other modes. I would use a station that did all of that, wouldn’t you?
Light rail to Ballard is in trouble due in part to a $17B hole in the budget. This cost assumes a very high bridge or a very deep tunnel. Clearly the time is right to engage in some out-of-box thinking to try to find a less expensive option. What if we didn’t need a deep bore tunnel to add Ballard to the regional light rail network?
A two-track line from the heart of Ballard to the University of Washington along an expanded BGT, with stops in Fremont and Wallingford, seems to be an interesting compromise. Let’s call it Line 5. It’d be like a spur, to Ballard!
To save on construction costs the alignment will be primarily surface running, sharing the BGT right of way with bicycles and pedestrians. Where there is not enough ROW for this, the line will transition to a shallow cut and cover tunnel to preserve the pedestrian path, or be diverted onto (or under) an adjacent street closed to other traffic.
Due to space constraints, station platforms are limited to 200ft. Because the line is short and completely separated from cross traffic it could run at 2-minute headways. For the sake of illustration and discussion, I propose this line be designed to use the Kinkisharyo-Mitsui carriages.
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to properly savage this approach in the comments section below.
Ballard
The Ballard station is located at the Commons just below street level on 22nd Ave NW between NW 57th and 58th. Entrances to the station are located in the park and the Ballard Public Library, or in a pedestrianized 22nd Ave.
Starting in the shallow tunnel, Line 5 heads south under 22nd Ave NW and takes a left hand turn under Ballard Ave NW. At 17th Ave NW the line transitions to the surface. There will be some low-rise property acquisition at this intersection to maintain a dedicated right of way. This transition will be a compromise as the road here is narrow.
The line continues down the center of Shilshole Ave NW to NW 45th Street. As imagined, the surface alignment will be separated from other traffic and pedestrians at grade by a barrier. It may be better to close this section of NW 45th St to automobiles, and one could make the case for a station at this growing West Woodland location. As proposed the line stays on NW 45th to 9th Ave NW where it turns to the south into the well-defined Burke-Gilman right of way.
BGT Surface Alignment
Now in the BGT, Line 5 runs in existing rail ROW adjacent to the trail. Industrial land in this area located between the trail and ship canal would make an ideal location for an OMF.
As the line continues to travel southeast, access to businesses along the water would be blocked by the closure of east/west streets to vehicle traffic. Overpasses should be considered for cars, trucks, and pedestrians at NW 42nd St and NW 40th St. The city could clarify the street grid in this neighborhood and create alternate paths around the new line.
Fremont
When the line approaches the ship canal there is a crunch for space. One approach could be to widen the BGT with a boardwalk along the water from 3rd Ave NW to Phinney Ave N. Now on Canal Street, Line 5 would run down the center and transition onto N 34th Street. There may need to be some property taking in this area to widen the ROW further. It is on this block the line enters into a shallow tunnel.
The center platform station in Fremont would be nestled below the elevated roadway on N 34th at Fremont Ave N. Access would be available from any corner, and certainly from the ‘Waiting for the Interurban’ sculpture.
This intersection is an ideal location for a station. Located in the heart of the neighborhood with strong bus and trail connections, it is bound to capture significant ridership. Fremont is an employment, retail, and nightlife destination adjacent to a dense multifamily neighborhood, a station here should perform quite well.
Gasworks Park
Leaving Fremont heading east, Line 5 continues in a shallow tunnel under N 34th Street to Ashworth Ave N where it emerges from a tunnel portal and travels along N Northlake Place to N Northlake Way.
Here at Gasworks Park the station is at the surface along the north side of Northlake Way at Wallingford Avenue North and the Wallingford Steps. To make room for cars, the street could be moved several feet south and take over some of the Gasworks parking lot.
While the walk shed and geography around this stop isn’t as ideal for residents as a station further up the hill to the north, a station located close to the famous park and Lake Union would still be productive. There would be no excuse to miss the Fourth of July fireworks after this line opens.
University of Washington
Departing from Gasworks Park the line heads northeast in a retained cut between North Pacific Street and North Northlake Way. Between Latona Ave NE and Brooklyn Ave NE there are two obvious alignments – stay on the BGT or divert to Northlake Way. If the line follows the trail it would need to navigate a tight squeeze under Eastlake Avenue NE. A less expensive alignment could be a center-running configuration on NE Northlake Way to NE Pacific Street. Regardless, the line would enter a cut and cover shallow tunnel near Brooklyn Ave.
Now underground, Line 5 remains under NE Pacific Street and turns to the southeast. At Montlake Boulevard NE the line terminates in a shallow station at the mezzanine level of the existing UW station. This would allow platform-to-platform transfer through a pedestrian passage below the street.
The diagram shows Line 5 as a spur that dead-ends at UW. You could argue the station should be relocated so the line could someday continue north under Montlake Blvd to the northeast towards Children’s Hospital or to the north towards Lake City.
Other station opportunities
It’s difficult to ignore the potential of an Eastlake Avenue station to add ridership and improve mode connectivity. Set under the Eastlake Avenue NE roadway near the Tiananmen Square monument, the station would serve a growing west campus student population. Adding a Rapid Ride J station at this location would give riders another option to travel to SLU and Downtown.
A West Woodland station at NW 45th Street between 14th Ave NW and 11th Ave NW could support a growing business center and some multi-family residential to the east of NW Leary Way. A rezone may be in order to convert some of the industrial land around the Fred Meyer to residential uses. A proper bus intercept at 15th Ave NW could also add to this station’s productivity.
Managing Conflicts
Building a light rail line through several dense neighborhoods along a busy waterway will inevitably collide with other interests. Keeping the trail open with access to businesses will be the least of it. Think utility relocation, noise abatement, air quality, and significant increases in traffic congestion that will persist for several years during construction.
One such conflict is the City of Seattle’s Ship Canal Water Quality Project which intends to reduce the amount of polluted stormwater and sewage that flows into the canal. In the areas where tunnels have been bored for wastewater management, Line 5 would need to remain at the surface. In some areas, such as West Woodland and Wallingford near Gasworks Park, there is sufficient road space available for a surface alignment that would avoid this work. In others, like Fremont, surveys would need to be completed to determine whether Line 5 could follow the BGT or need to be diverted up the hill to the north.
Managing conflicts boils down to our priorities. If we believe that a spur line from Ballard to the spine is more valuable than the disruptions caused by its construction, we will build it.
Would this even work?
A crosstown subway would require powerful organizations that are sometimes at odds to work together. Entities like the UW, Friends of the BGT, Cascade Bicycle Club, and the City of Seattle among others, would need to find common ground. Hundreds of properties owners along the line would need to summon goodwill, patience, and compromise.
Sound Transit would need to make different investments to move thousands of additional riders along the spine who will transfer at UW, rather than into a new downtown tunnel.
There would be construction disruptions on 22nd Ave NW, Ballard Ave, N 34th Street, Pacific Street, Montlake Blvd, and all along the BGT between University of Washington and Shilshole that would last for 3 – 5 years.
All that aside, there’s a lot to consider in this approach. A link station in the heart of Ballard, Fremont and Wallingford added to the network, fast and frequent service, and a platform-to-platform transfer shielded from the elements. It could be built in 15 years or less and deliver light rail to the civic heart of Ballard. For a back-of-the-napkin estimate of $5.25 billion, a well-thought spur line could cost much less than a deep tunnel to a less-than-desirable station location.
All photos are by the author.
This is certainly an excellent idea in general, but you would have a very difficult time running at the mooted two-minute headways without automation. Unfortunately, automation is off the table because of the extensive surface running in dense pedestrian areas.
The biggest question mark for Waymo is its reaction to pedestrians, and those cars move at 25 miles an hour on rubber tires through built-up neighborhoods. The K-S cars simply cannot stop like a Waymo can.
This would certainly be by far the cheapest way to add Ballard to Sound Transit’s service, but it would probably permanently end the possibility of direct Ballard-Downtown service, and it bypasses the large cluster of development along 45th east of I-5 and the cluster along Stone Way. Wallingford off access to The Ship Canal waterfront west of Fremont would not be popular in Fre-Lard.
Ther,those are the general grounds for the savaging.
Not “Wallingford off”, “Walling off”.
” Unfortunately, automation is off the table because of the extensive surface running in dense pedestrian areas” citation please? Does Waymo require 2 minute spacing between taxis running in regular traffic?
Oh, c’mon, AJ. I used Waymo to highlight the danger of automated trains outside separated rights-of-way. Pedestrians make all sorts of admittedly stupid, but nonetheless dangerous moves that automation has a hard time deciphering. And a train doesn’t stop NEARLY as quickly as a car. ST will never risk automating outside a well-secured exclusion.
A good automated train would probably be even safer than a human driver. Let’s not underestimate automation.
A computer can see and sense more than a human operator.
It could be essentially grade-separated while running in the pedestrian areas. It just needs to be properly walled off. The author suggests overpasses, for example. Just using gates would be a sufficient in some cases. This adds to the cost but given the lack of crossings, you probably save money. It would change the nature of the corridor in many areas (unless it is buried in those areas). The author has written a fairly detailed report — if you think there are issues with particular areas it would make sense to focus on those (not paint with a broad brush).
What “Tiananmin Square Monument “? I could find no evidence that one exists in Seattle (good idea though).
Below Eastlake Avenue along the BGT is a monument call “The Wall of Death”. Erected by Chinese art students from the UW shortly after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, it commemorates the lives that were sacrificed to bring political change to China.
Some of us have been arguing east-west spur lines in multiple locations for years. Another line from Magnolia to Madison Park, for example, makes more sense than running a line to Ballard up 15th NW and under the canal. East-West from Lake Forest Park to Richmond Beach too.
This sounds like a lot of construction and expense with limited benefit. If I’m downtown and want to go to Ballard (and vice versa), why would I take the light rail to UW and transfer to this line when the D rapid line bus runs frequently and is typically pretty fast especially with the bus lanes. The biggest hassle for the D line is when the Ballard Bridge is raised but that only happens a lot during the summer weekends.
Ahhh, you forget how we do things here. Once the rail line is in we decommission the D line so you’re forced to use the rail. Duh!
I believe sound transit has done some ridership research- I presume the primary intent wouldn’t be to replicate the D line commuter route, the intent wouldn’t be a compromise that could still connect Ballard to the rest of the light rail network faster and cheaper than the current plan or none at all. E.g. to SeaTac, etc. Sounds like a reasonable compromise when eat-west is generally known to be the biggest traffic issue with the geography.
Meant would be reasonable a compromise
Except it connects to other transit options more than itself. It consolidates riders to lines that already exists. It expands rider-base on the whole and provides more options. It dramatically increases development values near it, which further increases rider-base. You have to look at public transportation holistically like this, not overly profit motivated or short-term focused. Growth is happening in the city. You don’t want that wasted on more space for cars, and not on denser and alternative transit.
You know, knocking even 5% of people off the roads actually solves a lot of traffic. 90% of the traffic time increase is caused by the last 10% of vehicles to the roads capacity. Travel times jump from 30 minutes to 90 minutes from 90 to 95% of car capacity. You’ll experience this sometimes where it just feels like a lot of cars on the road but you’re still all traveling pretty fast. That’s the sweet point to be striven for rush hour
The goal isn’t to make an alternative to the D. The goal is to make an alternative to the 44, which is ponderously slow in many locations. It doesn’t go to the core of Fremont, and skips other important places as well.
If I’m downtown and want to go to Ballard (and vice versa), why would I take the light rail to UW and transfer to this line
Um, because you are in hurry? It really depends on where you are going in Ballard. The proposed station is at 22nd & Market. The D Line stops at 15th & Market. The train would actually get to the former before the bus gets to the latter. This means that the only reason to take the D Line is if you are very close to 15th & Market, and even then you might be better off with the train.
Just to back up here, you would have to transfer. Ideally the line from downtown to the UW would branch (with half the trains going north and the other half headed to Ballard) but that isn’t going to happen. But if this really did run every 2 minutes and the transfer was smooth (a big ‘if’) then I could see taking Link. The D Line runs every 10 minutes midday. The main Link line runs every 5 minutes. Throw in a transfer to a train running every 2 minutes and you still have less waiting. Then there is travel time. The bus takes about 25 minutes to get from Westlake to 15th & Market. On Link it takes 7 minutes to get from Westlake to the UW. Figure another 10 minutes to get from UW to Ballard. So even if the transfer takes 3 minutes it still only takes 20 minutes via Link — a five minute savings. Even with the time up and down to the platforms, Link is a bit faster. They basically cover two different areas but if you are midway between the bus stop and train station it would be faster to take Link.
But even if the train was slower, so what? If I’m in Bellevue trying to get to the UW I don’t take Link. I take a bus directly there since it is lot faster. Just because it doesn’t work for all trips doesn’t mean East Link doesn’t add value. The same is true for a line from Ballard to the UW. The U-District is similar to Downtown Bellevue — a major destination. My guess is it a bigger destination than Downtown Bellevue (although still smaller than Downtown Seattle). This would make it much faster to get to the UW. Not just from Ballard but from any bus that goes through Fremont, Eastlake or Ballard (if you added the stops). The only north-south corridor it doesn’t connect to is Aurora (which is the major weakness of this proposal). But the other buses carry plenty of riders and this would greatly speed up those trips. It isn’t an ideal routing (it would be more useful if it was further north) but it could save a huge amount of money and still provide a lot of functionality.
“If I’m in Bellevue trying to get to the UW I don’t take Link. I take a bus directly there since it is lot faster.”
You’re underestimating the benefit of higher Link frequency, and traffic congestion that may negate any benefit. I’d rather go to a train I know will come in 10 minutes or less, vs a bus that will come in 15, 30, or 60 minutes depending on the time of day (which I wouldn’t have memorized unless I take it often or am going to somewhere only the 271 can serve) and may be late due to traffic.
The 271 does have an advantage if you’re starting at Bellevue Square, since you don’t have to backtrack to the station.
If the 271 isn’t late, it’s pretty reliable Mike. If it got RR infrastructure by extending the B, it’s a no brainer to take it always.
Link is almost 35 minutes from Bellevue. Even the 271 at it’s slowest and latest would be faster or comparable.
Don’t forget once you get to the UW you need like 5-10 mins just to get out of that terrible station and transfer… Whereas the 271 drops you off in a much better spot at the U District.
The 2 Line serves it’s purpose between Redmond and Chinatown, as well as South Bellevue / Mercer / Judkins to Lynnwood. Beyond that it’s just added frequency to the 1 Line in my view.
Anyone who rides it all the way is clearly not constrained on time like most students and employees who don’t like riding back and forth for hours on transit during their commute.
In my view Link is pretty useless as a whole except in Downtown and connecting to the UW, since it bypasses significant surface and freeway construction. The rest of it is pretty much worthless except for TOD and people making short trips between those stations. The airport gets ridership because that’s the only way there… But it’s a very pathetic ride that few would want to put up with unless they are trying to save money and avoid any heavy traffic at the departures/arrivals.
If anything we should go all in with buses because we have amazing freeway infrastructure that’s far more reliable if we just gave buses ROW and punished late operators. Link could be great too if South Seattle was built properly, and we designed for higher speeds on the I-5 and I-90 freeway segments.
“Link is pretty useless as a whole except in Downtown and connecting to the UW,”
Which bus route goes from Bellevue to Capitol Hill, or Bellevue to Roosevelt? The overhead of taking a bus for a large percent of the distance or transferring to a bus negates any benefit of taking the 271. If you must transfer to a bus (e.g., to Greenlake or First Hill), you can often find stations outside downtown or UW that have good bus transfers, that wouldn’t be available if you eschewed Link.
Link from Capitol Hill or north Seattle to southeast Seattle is much faster than any bus route. And people take Link from everywhere to the airport. The former 194, the comparable bus route, was only competitive from downtown, and most people don’t live downtown.
Pretty much what I said except I left out Capitol Hill. But those are all UW vicinity.
Roosevelt to Bellevue is still better with Link + 271 in my opinion. Just check Google Maps.
Checking the maps at the current moment: 33 mins with Link + 271, versus 46 minutes taking Link all the way. That’s a considerable amount of time.
The drive is only 16 mins, if you pay the toll. 22 mins without toll.
I think most people will choose transit modes and paths for reasons other than what’s the fastest on paper if their options are within 10 minutes difference and almost certainly if the difference is 5 minutes or less. Reliability, frequency by time of day, views, crowdedness, seat availability, ride quality, motion sickness, broken vertical devices, not having to put the effort to transfer, ease of carrying some things and riding with friends are some common reasons.
It’s one of the great features of transit path choice!
The broad geographies of UW and Downtown Bellevue make it so that specific paths can take similar amounts of time in some cases but not all cases. So it seems academic to try to ascribe what’s better generally.
One simple example: I could see someone on Link riding all the way from Roosevelt to Bellevue on a Husky football game day but transferring to Route 271 on a Seahawks football game day.
Or someone inebriated from partying in the U District may choose the train all the way because it’s easier to remember while inebriated (added ride time to sober up) and Route 271 runs only every 30 minutes past 7:30 pm in the evening.
I’m sure there are as many reasons for a particular path as there are riders.
Some of us have been arguing east-west spur lines in multiple locations for years. Another line from Magnolia to Madison Park, for example, makes more sense than running a line to Ballard up 15th NW and under the canal. East-West from Lake Forest Park to Richmond Beach too.
For the most part, you gain a lot more by going east-west than you do north-south. That’s because the buses are generally pretty fast going north-south. It is easier to make them faster as well. For example you could add a center bus lane on Aurora. You would need to allow pedestrians and bikes to use the cross-streets which means additional intersections between downtown and Green Lake. But you still wouldn’t have that many intersections and the Aurora corridor would be heavily favored, even before you add transit signal priority. Thus a bus would be quite fast all day long (even when there is heavy traffic). On the other hand, consider the Denny corridor. Even with the additional work the bus won’t be that fast. You won’t have center running buses, which means cars will be in the right lane, slowing the bus down when they make right turns. You have a lot of traffic signals with very busy, important north-south streets. Thus not only are the north-south corridors generally faster, they will get even faster in the future.
As to the specifics, Magnolia to Madison Park is overkill. Madison Valley to Madison Park is not a particularly slow trip. Nor are there that many riders along the way. So 23rd & Madison makes more sense as an eastern terminus. That connects you to the north-south 48 and the bulk of potential riders on the corridor. Magnolia is also overkill. I could maybe see Interbay but even that is a stretch. Maybe if you do it cheaply but otherwise it probably isn’t worth it. Even if you went to Magnolia you would still have buses from Ballard and Magnolia to downtown (because the train doesn’t go downtown). Thus you really only gain the Interbay stop and a quicker (and more common) transfer. It definitely adds value but I’m not sure it is worth it. This is basically just a section of the Metro 8 subway with a western extension. I would rather go south first (to cover more of the Central Area).
Lake Forest Park to Richmond Beach is just way too suburban to get many riders. Even if you extended it to Kenmore, Bothell and Woodinville you wouldn’t get that many riders. By then you are contradicting the main advantage of going east-west. That is one of the few areas where east-west travel is really fast and wouldn’t be much faster with a subway.
Frelard is begging for rezone and redevelopment. A light rail transit stop there could really help move things a long and revitalize that whole part of the city.
Zoning is up to the city regardless of whether Link goes there or not. It doesn’t require Link for upzoning, and Link is no guarantee that upzoing will occur. And it’s not all of Fremont that’s underdeveloped, just west Fremont. Central Fremont has a respectable number of jobs, apartments, and mixed-use buildings that have been built since the 1990s.
Yes! Frelard does need to be upzoned. Bigly. The industrial designation is a sham… Grocery stores, restaurants, and an arcade demonstrate the existing industry zoning is a farce. A relic of wishful thinking for those tied to a lost era.
When I started working on the Ballard docks in 1979, there was a huge fishing industry. Fishing boats were wooden hulled and rarely over 40 ft long. They plied the coast of Washington and Frelard really was industrial land where fishermen mended their nets and gear. The fisheries is gone, The wooden boats became steel behomoths of 200 ft or more. Places fishermen mended their nets are now parking for private vehicles. This is in no way industrial land. It’s time to reflect that in our zoning.
There already is a light-rail sized (single anyway) tunnel along that exact route! Unfortunately (for this purpose) it’s full of sh!t!!
This is innovative thing. My impression is that ST is in the hole because of the desire to make the system as luxurious as possible. This has the advantage of utilizing existings or historical rights of way, something that ST seems never to use until it is very costly to do so.
There are places around the world where single track operation is made to work. It is technologically and operationally challenging. Why not try it here. in this short dead-ended spur? The ROW requirement and constractuction cost reduction are significant.
A single track couldn’t carry enough passengers in and out of Ballard. ST estimates over 100,000 daily riders. The ROW would need to be widened in places for two track operation.
The ridership estimate was for a very different type of line. For one thing it had more stations. The stations also intercepted the north-south bus lines. That is really the only way you get a lot of riders on this line. It is all about the network. It follows the Vancouver model. The buses and trains form a grid that works for a huge number of trips.
In this case you have no chance of getting riders from Aurora. They could reroute the 5 and 28 to serve Fremont but I doubt they would do that with the RapidRide E. Even then a reroute of the 5 or 28 is not intuitive. I suppose they could cross the ship canal and go up to Queen Anne.
This does not have a Wallingford station. The Wallingford station not only served a relatively dense neighborhood but offered some connectivity via the 62 that this won’t. Riders along Stone Way might use this as a way to Ballard but I don’t see them using this as a way to get to the UW. Likewise it doesn’t offer much from Tangletown (which admittedly is not a very dense neighborhood — although that could change). The Eastlake station is essential not only as a connection point but to at least come close to serving the U-District. (The UW Station does not cover the area well although it does a good job connecting to East Side buses.) You will still lose riders to the 44 just because it serves more of the neighborhood.
Ballard has some connectivity via the north end of the 40 and the 17. That’s about it. I don’t see them altering the D Line to accommodate this route (unlike a Ballard-downtown line). The station at 15th is therefore essential (as noted elsewhere). Even then the transfer is not ideal (about a two minute walk). If the station is on the surface (or close to it) then that makes up for it.
The biggest connectivity point is Fremont. There are a lot of potential combinations. Riders from the south — on the 40 and 62 — would use this as a faster way to get to the UW (especially with that Eastlake Station). The alternative is to stay on the 62 until 45th or take the 31/32. Neither option is very good. On the other hand, I think riders of the 31/32 will just stay on the bus if they are headed to the U-District. Maybe if they are heading to the hospital or the East Side they’ll transfer to this train. From the north, the 40 is essentially a “shadow” and would pick up only a handful of riders heading to the UW. You might get some riders from the 31/32 transferring to get to Ballard from parts of Wallingford. Other potential combinations were covered previously.
I think the only way you get a lot of riders is if add all the stations and make a bunch of reroutes. Even then it would probably fall well short of the 100,000 mark.
Yes, yes. BUT, why is no one talking about a water taxi? No infrastructure required except for the docks. Could service major points along the Ship Canal, SLU, Eastlake and any where along Lake Washington. We could really use something like the Candela P-12 “Nova”.
Because the locks and the bridge raising basically make it a nonstarter. A bus would be faster.
A Ballard-UW water taxi could start east of the locks. Fitting under the bridges would be more of a stretch – the Fremont Bridge is only 30 ft – but maybe possible?
How useful it’d be is another question; I know the Montlake Cut speed limits sunk the previous water taxi ideas from the Eastside.
30 feet is actually a lot of space. The river boats in London and Berlin operate just fine in tight spaces.
It’s really the speed in the ship canal that is the killer. From the Ballard Locks to the Fremont bridge is 20 minutes, at least. I take our boat on that route often (moored at the locks). If there’s a larger vessel and a ferry in the canal it will be even slower for safety. To UW is almost 40 minutes, again, with little traffic. Buses will be faster and more frequent in nearly every case.
Because water taxis are expensive to operate, are slow, and have lower capacity. You’d be spending a lot of money on something that doesn’t really solve the problem. The problem is the travel time of the D, 40, and 44, and the crowding on the D.
seven knot speed limit: no wakes.
One difficulty with water taxi is intermediate stops. A bus or rail line can stop relatively frequently. Many diverse trips can be made along the corridor, boosting ridership.
On the other hand, water taxis are limited to each dock, reducing the amount of diverse trips and thus reducing ridership.
I think this line would be busy enough that you would want it to have at least the ability to expand to four platforms. I also think it should be planned to eventually somehow connect to Line 4, whether that be 520, 522, or some other way to get to the Eastside.
As noted in the article, the stakeholder opposition to this alignment would be almost unfathomable, to say nothing of the technical challenges to maintain access across the surface alignment without major disruption.
The spirit of this is good though, reallocating existing surface ROW to build cheaper and more accessible alignments. I would go:
* Ballard to Fremont: Leary Way
* Fremont to Wallingford: N 36th St and Stone Way
* Wallingford to UW: N 45th St
It seems possible to do total grade separation here, either by elevated guideway, or with a surface alignment and detours for cars plus underpasses for pedestrians.
Sound Transit purchased rights within the Eastrail right of way between Renton and Bellevue so this idea can’t be totally foreign to them.
I applaud the idea of serving Ballard much faster and more effectively via a quick connection to the existing Link Line 1 in the U District. This is essentially what Sound Transit said they would do in every long range plan since first one in the 1990s but thanks to politics, West Seattle jumped to the front of the line, and Ballard got pushed into the 2040s.
That said, we should be eliminating surface rail alignments, not building new ones. You could prototype a connection like this with a “Ship Canal BRT line” on the cheap and maybe that makes sense actually because that’s the fastest driving route from Montlake to Ballard, even with congestion in Fremont.
What I would suggest is an automated line that actually starts at U Village, dives into the hill with a mined transfer station at U District. U Village actually has over 3000 employees who aren’t allowed to park in the main lots. Also it is very much a part of the University District regional center for planning purposes.
Unlike the redundant Aurora connection proposed in SLU, a Aurora connection would be mandatory for this east-west Ballard line and that needs to be set back from the canal as does the subway itself. Hence we need a Troll Station (or thereabouts).
Maybe a cut-and-cover works on the Market Street approach straight into Ballard. Starting at U Village, U District / 1 Line, maybe even no intermediate stops until Troll Station, then “East Ballard” (8th? 15th?) and “Real” Ballard (15th? 20th? 24th?)
These could all be connected for a reasonable cost by an automated line with high-frequency like SkyTrain. Would trips to Ballard be appreciably slower than they would be on the planned Link line to downtown?
As for a maintenance base, that would need to be sited, maybe somewhere in FreLard or maybe this should be coordinated with a reworked downtown-Ballard automated line.
I’m dreaming here, but everything else being discussed is similarly just a dream at this point.
I’d rather build new surface rail alignments than not build new rail alignments.
Surface rail is far cheaper; in a land of limited resources, for a given amount of money, I’d usually rather use it to build twice as much surface rail rather than half as much underground rail.
I have been arguing for this PRECISE alignment for two years, Jonathan, with occasional positive responses and good improvements from Ross. We’ve sort of hoped it could be an extension of BLE and The Snake, but that’s obviously off the table for now.
If thd MF problem can be solved using a lift bridge at 13th where the old NP bridge was, this might become a city-funded line.
One thing, though. It should be in the air west of a portal on the west side of Phinney Ridge about 40th and 2nd NW.
I have pondered how to use this corridor for rail before. It seems like a great opportunity.
However I just don’t think the right of way is there. Any trench or shallow tunnel segment has to have walls which add width. Additional width would have to be purchased. It’s not a true fatal flaw, but it would add significant cost.
A concept for narrowing would be to stack the tracks in a deeper trench, with one below the other. That could resolve the width problem if needed.
Another concept would be to go aerial and provide a rail track canopy above the BGT.
Another concept is to consider using cables as the power method while going aerial. The distance is short enough to build a pinched loop cable line system that can then have single track segments with the occasional bypass track as needed. Cable structures don’t have to be robust, as the OAK cable connector here shows:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/u1SGf3r2ANuz9XiN9
Another aerial concept would be to elevate the BGT and put the tracks on the surface. Think of it like the High Line in NYC with a bicycle track attached. It could be done for just some segments rather than the whole line.
I also think that the vehicle type doesn’t have to be current Link vehicles. Even T-Link vehicles are slightly narrower.
Regardless, the current S3 deficit is so massive that the Board will need to push things out further in the timeline. I’m not seeing new Seattle rail projects being added for at least 15 years. Rather than think of that as a constraint, it could be an opportunity as the pendulum of funding transit capital at the Federal level could swing back towards more grants in a decade or two.
That real limitation aside, I applaud looking outside of the box ideas. One problem that the ST3 project assembly in 2016 had was that it felt very limited, rushed and non-technical. Rail options considered only one light rail vehicle type except for Tacoma Link. It was basically lots of the less valuable ST2 corridors that were unable to be funded. These past few decades have created a local political mentality to put corridors up for a vote in a regional funding package before they are critically examined and costed.
And a few iterations may result in developing concepts that could enhance a project’s viability as it faces cost and community support challenges.
my only concern is the impact this will have on cycling and pedestrian usage of the burke gilman. namely, the construction part – will construction respect bike access to the burke gilman trail as things happen? will we be presented alternatives? or do we just lose one of the key bike routes for 5-10 years
otherwise, i’m for it. also; the spur line approach is a little less convenient (seems like such a small range of stations, and does not solve getting up over hills like phinney ridge, nor access to Wallingford)
for people in phinney, this just means cycling to Roosevelt via green lake or cycling to ballard to catch the train, but it beats having to go past Aurora and cuts down the time in half.
If the line could be further expanded going up the coasts towards carkeek, that would be nice long term, but this is way better than “Ballard gets light rail in 2068” or whatever the original plan was
I think the key starting point is that you don’t lose the bike corridor. Construction might be an issue. Another issue I see is the loss of egress. You may not be able to access the Burke-Gilman (BG) in the same manner as you do now. But a trip like Fremont to the UW would certainly be retained. Doing anything else is a non-starter.
I really like this idea! But it has too few stations. Let’s add two or three more:
* A station at Brooklyn Avenue, by the UW dorm complexes there, at a corner of campus currently ill-served by transit. This’ll be instant high ridership.
* A station at 6th or 8th Avenue NW, near the Fred Meyer and the Frelard neighborhood and connect to the 28.
* A station at 15th Avenue NW, to connect to the D Line and serve that corner of Ballard.
Definitely. If you’re advocating for a mostly surface line, have it stop wherever there’s a large concentration of potential riders. Surface stations are cheap.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. This only has four stations. There is no way in hell this gets 100,000 riders with only four stations. That is 25,000 riders per station. The *combined* UW and U-District stations get less than 20,000. All of the downtown stations *combined* barely get 25,000. This proposal adds very little from a network standpoint, regardless of how much it costs.
While there are definite cost savings, this project would not be that cheap. At the UW you would need to rebuild an existing station that sits very deep underground. The Ballard Station is not trivial. One of the main advantages to running so close to the surface is that adding stations along they way is cheap. Yet this proposal seems to ignore that. So yes, it needs more stations.
“The *combined* UW and U-District stations get less than 20,000. All of the downtown stations *combined* barely get 25,000.”
Just a technical note that the UW and Downtown figures are for boardings only. To get total station activity you should double those numbers generally.
There will be short-distance riders between these stations too so it’s not an exact doubling. But it’s not far from it.
And the larger point is valid. The entire 1 Line from Lynnwood to Federal Way was carrying about 110-120K riders for a system of over 30 miles with 25 stations.
Just a technical note that the UW and Downtown figures are for boardings only.
Yes, and that is my point. We don’t have any stations close to 25,000. Even if you think of the UW and U-District as one giant station it gets less than 20,000. But you are right. There are people that go between them. This reduces the number. In other words, there are even fewer people boarding from one of these stations and going outside the area (since some people travel between the stations). The idea that the *average* station along this line would get 25,000 boardings per day is ridiculous.
As to your particular suggestions William, I was thinking much the same thing:
1) You need a station at 15th to connect to the D Line (and the 15/18, presuming they start running again).
2) I was thinking of putting a station between 9th and 11th (before the turn) but I like your idea better. A station just a bit east of the station of 15th might be too close. But a station at 6th or 8th wouldn’t. In either case the key is probably the Fred Meyer itself. I think most of the other land around there is industrial. But if the Fred Meyer becomes a big housing (or mixed use) development and we see some additional density to the east it becomes similar to 14th. Not ideal, but really cheap to add.
3) It doesn’t show up on the map (which I found confusing) but the author suggests a station on Eastlake. This is similar to your suggested station at Brooklyn in that you would serve the dorms and surrounding (high-density) neighborhood). You would also make a very good connection to buses that go along the Eastlake/Roosevelt corridor.
4) I would put at station at Stone Way. This is midway between Wallingford Avenue and Fremont Avenue. This means that if you are a couple blocks north on Stone Way a station there would be an easy walk while getting to Fremont or Wallingford station would be too far.
I think you need three of these to even make this project worth a study. The only station I would make “provisional” is the one by the Fred Meyer.
I like the thinking here – there needs to be a real discussion about how to cut costs while expanding lines. I’m sure stakeholders and local business love the idea of a light rail teleporting in from 100 feet below grade with no surface impacts except for the station, as long as someone else is paying for it. The problem is we are talking about 10 Billion dollars to make that happen. The city needs to get comfortable with ruffling feathers of local business when the stakes are $billions and projects happening at all. Short term pain for long term societal gain and all that is what governments are supposed to help manage. This proposal is complex because it passes through a lot of areas rather than under them… but that complexity pales to the real cost and complexity of deep tunneling.
As an alternative, I’ve long suggested studying how an automated Ballard stub could end at Capitol Hill Link instead of Westlake. Then the money for this could be spent on other things like taking the automated line further south from there.
It’s just 4 minutes from UW to Capitol Hill via 1 or 2 Line every 4-5 minutes combined until late at night.
And …? Westlake is another 4 mins from Capitol Hill.
3 minutes.
That is basically a subset of the “Metro 8 subway” but extended to Ballard. You serve South Lake Union much better (you avoid the awkward turn). You connect SLU riders (and Uptown) to Capitol Hill and the UW much better. Unfortunately you connect them to downtown much worse. Likewise, riders from Ballard would be connected to South Lake Union and Capitol Hill much better, but that’s about it. Theoretically they could take the train to Capitol Hill and then back up to the UW but it takes too long to get to Capitol Hill (along with the transfer and dealing with the stations). By then it should take about 20 minutes to ride the 44 from 20th & Market to the U-District Station. Maybe if you are attending a football game you would go to Capitol Hill first.
A Metro 8 subway doesn’t really shine until it goes east of Capitol Hill. At that point it should curve sharply and serve First Hill. This would actually be pretty easy if the train served South Lake Union via Harrison or Thomas. So basically something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1we8Ze_TAICwpVA8WWXYRV42cw-kUWNI&usp=sharing.
Ideally you have such a subway line as well as Ballard to UW. That was the argument here: https://www.theurbanist.org/ballard-spur-and-metro-8-subway-serve-seattle-better-than-interbay-light-rail/. While we may disagree on the details, I agree with Doug. That would serve Seattle a lot better than what we have planned.
Anyway, if we are running a train from Ballard to either Westlake or Capitol Hill then Westlake is a much better option. Westlake is basically the center of downtown. A lot of people would save a significant amount of time on their trip from Ballard or Magnolia even if they had to take another bus first. That really isn’t the case if the train ends at Capitol Hill.
A Capitol Hill transfer was never considered. Up until Macy’s closed, Westlake was a very active hub! It’s just that it seems much less of a hub than it once was when all the ST3 concepts were being developed.
It appears that a SLU connection would offer a more gradual way to reach First Hill from Ballard. It’s not been studied so it’s my own speculation. I mention it because if would offer an alternative to funding and building a completely new line.
Plus there are great transit connections between SLU and Westlake today. It’s also much more walkable to get from SLU to Westlake because there isn’t a steep hill.
The bigger point is just that a BGT rail alignment may not offer a significant travel time savings if Ballard Link is someday operating regardless of transfer station, especially for any trips that end south of the Ship Canal. The users here would primarily be those who could walk to at least one station and probably both. For example, I don’t see anyone from Greenwood willingly taking a bus and transferring at Ballard and then transferring again at UW to go elsewhere.
Up until Macy’s closed, Westlake was a very active hub!
Last weekend I was at the waterfront and then walked to Westlake Station. I never saw so many people in Seattle (other than inside one of the stadiums). Westlake is still major hub and what happens at the old Bon Marche building is largely irrelevant.
Plus there are great transit connections between SLU and Westlake today.
And in a couple years there will probably be really good transit connections between Capitol Hill and South Lake Union (via the faster and more frequent 8). While transit connections are important, so are the actual destinations you serve. Way more people are headed to Westlake than Capitol Hill.
The bigger point is just that a BGT rail alignment may not offer a significant travel time savings if Ballard Link is someday operating regardless of transfer station, especially for any trips that end south of the Ship Canal.
That is ridiculous. You are ignoring the geography. Someone in Fremont is supposed to take a bus downtown and then up to the UW or Ballard? What about someone trying to get from Ballard or Fremont to Kirkland? They are supposed to take the train downtown, then take Link back up to the UW and then take the bus to Kirkland? Even a trip from Ballard to the U-District would be faster with the 44 bus that it would be using Link. By the time they build a station in Ballard the 44 will be running in its own lane for most of the trip. As of today, a trip from 22nd & Market to the U-District Station takes 20 minutes at 10:00 pm. The trip will be like that throughout the day in a few years. Link via downtown can’t compete with that. A trip from the “Ballard” station (at 14th) to Westlake is supposed to take around 12 minutes. To get from Westlake to the U-District takes about 10 minutes. Even to get to the UW takes 7 minutes. When you add in the transfer time and the time it takes to get to the station from the surface, the bus is competitive if not faster.
This begs the question: Maybe we just improve the bus. Is this train significantly faster than an improved 44? Yes, of course it is. This line is significantly shorter than the line from Ballard to Westlake. If it takes the train 12 minutes to get from Ballard to Westlake then it will about 10 minutes to get to the UW Station. It would stop at Eastlake along the way — providing coverage similar to, although not quite as good as U-District Station. Someone from Northgate headed to Ballard would still save a good ten minutes compared to going downtown and heading back (or taking the new and improved 44).
Keep in mind, the dynamic is completely different with a line from the UW to downtown (especially if it was a branch). Ballard is north of the U-District. It is also not that far. It only seems far because of the time it takes to get there by car or bus. Thus a trip from Ballard to downtown via the U-District is not much of a detour. But going from Ballard to the U-District via downtown is.
I’ve long believed in a route between the U District and Ballard, but I always assumed it would go via 45th Street. This is probably better. It is almost certainly cheaper. It skips Wallingford, but adds Fremont.
I can’t imagine the biking/walking trail would actually survive, but I’d be willing to sacrifice that.
tens of thousands of people would not remotely be willing to sacrifice that (including me, a transit lover). It’s a vital multi-modal artery for the city.
First of all, as in all things Transit, what is the goal? To move people or to have a flashy train that costs so many times more? Get some more busses to fit the need. Let’s be mindful of EVERYONE’S money, shall we? If you don’t feel that way, what is the goal I don’t understand?
MY POST GOT TROLLED!! This is the proudest day of my online life. I’ve never had a troll before. Say something else off color and stupid. Pretty please?
Every article in this blog is primarily based on improving transit’s usefulness for people’s desired trip patterns. Jarrett Walker calls this “the freedom to access places”, and measures it by transit circles: how many jobs, destinations, and housing units the population at each of its locations can access in 15, 30, 45, or 60 minutes on transit.
This article is looking at trips between Ballard, Fremont, and UW, and some have suggested more stations in between. There has long been interest in speeding up trips between Ballard-Wallingford-UDistrict and/or Ballard-Fremont-UDistrict (since a line would have to zigzag to serve both Fremont and Wallingford). Most attention has gone to the 45th corridor. A few alternatives have considered the Burke-Gilman/Northlake Way corridor. Specifically, Northlake was one of ST’s alternatives for Ballard-UW Link in the 2010s, and now Jack Valko is suggesting it today. (Although it doesn’t get as close to the center of the U-District as I’d like.)
This is all about fulfilling transit’s primary goal — facilitating people’s needed/desired trips — not about spending money on a flashy icon. That kind of proposal wouldn’t be published here: we’ll leave it to Sound Transit and the city/county governments to do that.
The point of this article is to consider the corridor, potential ways of serving it, and how this corridor weights vs to the 45th corridor. By that I mean, some people/trips could only use one corridor or the other, while others could chose either one, and the latter would be influenced by which one is more frequent or fast. For instance, a pure 45th route wouldn’t serve Fremont because it’s a long uphill walk to 45th, and a Northlake route wouldn’t serve Wallingford. Traditionally 45th has been seen has having higher usefulness and ridership, but Fremont is a larger village than Wallingford, and Ballard-Fremont is arguably one large regional center. The cost of different rail or bus modes are also factors. All these factors go into how to weigh the two corridors.
This is how I interpret it; I hope it’s faithful to Valko’s intention.
Save money by being at grade but offer frequent service by not having cross traffic? You can’t have both, avoiding traffic is the whole point of grade separation, if it wasn’t grade separation wouldn’t be a thing.
You can if you close the cross-streets or build bridges.
That said, this would be difficult with the Burke-Gilman; this post barely begins to address what would be needed.
I think for this alignment, you can probably just make it an at-grade streetcar. Demand probably won’t be high enough and this alignment naturally underpasses several busy junction already.
I think additional stations near University Bridge and Ballard Bridge make sense too.
It should run all the way to Golden gardens. Might as well plan for it to get up to Kenmore. While we’re at it, just run it all the way to downtown Redmond. Burke Gilman line that runs all the way to the 2 line. Wow. Imagine people in Kenmore being able to visit golden gardens and not needing to drive or park. Imagine being able to visit Woodinville wineries from capitol hill without needing to drive. Massive commuter benefits as well.
Can’t provide a way for those people to get to the Eastside too easily.
Think how they would feel having a Ballard-ite infestation?
You’re on the right track with this! The Friends of the Benson trolleys are working on a very similar vision though they’re starting with Ballard. Check out their work and upcoming projects on their website and also the articles the Puget sound business journal did last month.
Can’t provide a way for those people to get to the Eastside too easily.
Think how they would feel having a Ballard-ite infestation?
Great to look at options for Ballard, BG is one, going along 45th via gondola is another one: https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/10/08/the-ballard-spur-as-a-gondola-line/