There won’t be a Friday Roundtable this week, so here’s your open thread. There will be two regular articles Friday and one Saturday.
9 Replies to “Friday Open Thread”
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There won’t be a Friday Roundtable this week, so here’s your open thread. There will be two regular articles Friday and one Saturday.
Comments are closed.
Tacoma Dome Link has some open houses and a survey May 14-20, focusing on station access.
Check out the D Line opening videos in LA this weekend! 20 minutes from Union Station to Beverly Hills!
They’re already being posted:
KTLA –
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToBU8XjaFAU
NBC LA -https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FT7fFzXDV2s
CBS LA –
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-KB3GEOuc6o
For those that don’t know the LA system, the D Line merges with the B Line to create a trunk through Downtown, where a single level change connects riders at 7th Street/ Metro Center Station to A and E Lines (also a trunk with two lines).
Note too that the new stations have turnstiles.
The videos mention that construction took 12 years. The long time was needed for many reasons — but the fact that it’s underground is a big one. And that’s just actual construction. Food for thought about ST’s currently promised timelines for underground Link stations.
And the Metro D line extension is being completed in 3 phases, instead of all at once, so stations don’t sit finished and unused while the rest of the line is under construction.
LA’s Measure M and Seattle’s ST3 both passed in 2016 and are both facing significant cost and affordability issues. However, since Measure M has no sunset and no requirement to maintain a balanced long-range plan, LA Metro has been able to be much more flexible with when projects are delivered how.
It is deep underground and none of the stations has big open excavation site. They have to do most of the work without impacting surface operation because what surrounds it are some of the most powerful and transit-unfriendly neighborhoods.
All the station vaults are described as cut and cover. They put in metal lids at the stations and reduced the number of lanes during construction.
Have at it horde, Erica Barnett on the ST3 hosing of Ballard.
https://publicola.com/2026/05/08/the-news-about-sound-transit-is-grim-why-are-most-seattle-politicians-pretending-it-isnt/
Robert Cruickshank commented similarly on the issue of politicians being out of touch with how backwards Somers’ proposal is: https://bsky.app/profile/robertcruickshank.com/post/3mlbxb75vvk2j
Both writers got what many here in the blog have also observed about the Board discussion.