BY ISSAQUAH MAYOR MARK MULLET
The Sound Transit Board is facing large decisions regarding its budget shortfall. The Board is now expected to adopt an updated ST3 plan that will help reshape timelines for light rail segments across the region. Some projects, like the West Seattle line, are proposed to move forward now, while others, including Issaquah’s connection, are pushed back again — this time by six years. Meanwhile, construction of the Seattle Center to Ballard line is postponed indefinitely.
Let’s be honest: that’s frustrating.
Voters approved ST3 with a different timeline in mind. Delays, rising costs, and shifting priorities have left many feeling jaded with how we ended up here, and why delivering major infrastructure – particularly in our area – has become so difficult.
But even in that frustration, there’s something important to recognize: This update keeps more of the plan alive. There was a real chance that segments would be scrapped.
Projects aren’t being canceled, but they are being delayed until additional funding can be identified. For Issaquah, we are still getting light rail, not a fallback Bus Rapid Transit alternative. That’s worth acknowledging, even with news about more delays.
Innovative Options to Consider
The latest Sound Transit proposal not only resets the timeline but also opens the door to creative financial tools that could restore completion timelines closer to what the voters approved. One of these options for the Board’s consideration is expanding debt capacity.
Imagine you’re approved for a $500,000 home construction loan, but a rule says you can only borrow half of what you are approved for. So, you spend years saving the rest in cash. By the time you’re ready to build, the same house now costs $700,000.
You didn’t just have to wait to build your home, you also ended up making it more expensive.
That’s the dynamic we’re facing with portions of ST3. Delays driven by financial constraints don’t save money. They increase costs and postpone construction.
Today, the agency is limited in its debt capacity to borrowing 1.5% of the assessed value of the Sound Transit taxing district. This policy was designed for caution. But Sound Transit now brings in more than $2.5 billion annually and carries relatively modest debt compared to that revenue.
In practical terms, it means we are choosing to build slower than our finances allow.
Changing the agency’s debt capacity limit would require 60 percent approval from voters in the Sound Transit district.
Voters will want to see what that change gets them. In practice, this would mean increasing the amount of money available now so that engineers can begin work on cost-saving design ideas today. That will help reduce the delays between design and construction so we can get projects delivered sooner.
Adjusting that capacity wouldn’t mean raising taxes. It would mean using existing revenue more effectively, so projects can be delivered sooner, before inflation drives costs even higher.
Imagine asking voters in 2028: Would you like to see the remaining ST3 projects completed five to 10 years sooner, with no change in taxes?
That’s a conversation worth having.
Those improved timelines aren’t farfetched. With these proposed changes, increased funding becomes available sooner and designing the remaining lines could be pulled forward to happen concurrently. West Seattle starts now, and other lines soon after. We eliminate costly delays and create more of the network for the same amount of tax dollars.
Push Forward
The new Sound Transit proposal deserves recognition. It keeps projects moving, preserves more of the vision for the system, and ensures communities like Issaquah remain part of the light rail network.
That matters.
But it still falls short of what was originally promised.
We can hold both truths at the same time: appreciation for creative problem solving and urgency to continue finding more solutions.
The goal remains the same — continue to build out a world-class public transportation infrastructure so that more people in our communities can benefit from ST3 and what they voted for.
Let’s build the damn trains!
I wouldn’t support increasing the debt ceiling without a clear commitment and obligation to hit fare recovery targets and clear verifiable tools to achieve compliance with targets. Sound transit and metro have for decades neglected to do what other agencies do and be good stewards of taxpayer’s money ensuring people pay what they’re supposed to and those that don’t are held accountable. The revelation Metro only wrote and handful of citations clearly shows they couldn’t care less about the responsibility taxpayers entrust them with, and I’m sure sound transit likely follows the same systematic policy of allowing non compliance with the law. While the financial impact would be modest, the impact on trust isn’t. Right now they are an agency in severe financial distress and have done nothing to demonstrate they can be trusted with more taxpayers’s money or debt until they figure out how to do what other system around the world have long figured out: paying isn’t a suggestion.
Paul Ventresca writes, “The revelation Metro only wrote and handful of citations clearly shows they couldn’t care less about the responsibility taxpayers entrust them with.”
I’d be curious to know what the cost-benefit balance of writing more citations would be. I’d imagine that most people who are able to pay bus or light rail fares do so. I’d imagine that most of the small portion of people who do not pay fares probably cannot afford to anyways. Has anyone made an effort to approximate the reality of this dynamic?
What tiny fraction of Metro riders fall into the category of those who *could* afford to pay a fare but who have not done so? What would it cost to pursue that tiny fraction of riders? Would issuing citations generate much revenue? Would it generate enough revenue to offset the cost of the increased enforcement efforts?
What would it cost to, as Mayor Mullett mentions, install turnstiles at the busiest station, and how much theoretically currently-missing fare revenue would be recovered by such an installation?
If enforcement efforts wouldn’t break even, then it’s possible that Metro not issuing many citations demonstrates exactly the sort of trust-building dedication to fiscal responsibility that Paul Ventresca’s words seemingly advocate for.
In terms of issuing citations to those who haven’t paid their way as some sort of matter of social trust; there’s a sensibility that seems to be lurking behind Paul’s words that brings up the matter of what our understanding should be of how Metro functions, how Metro is funded, and what Metro is for. Is it supposed to be an effective and efficient transportation system, or is it supposed to be an excuse to levy citations, pursue un-recoverable fines, and pay enormous amounts of money for surveillance and population control infrastructure? What sort of atmosphere of trust is engendered by remarks that are preoccupied with trying to tie whether other riders are “held accountable” for not paying a fare with Metro’s attitude toward stewardship of public funds, when there are, at the moment, much, much bigger fiscal fish to fry?
The people who skip fares are more likely to felons and dangerous. They need to be removed by security and reminded that they must pay.
And citations are not enough. They need security on board concerning routes until they scare these criminals away.
And not just people who explicitly commit crime, but people who are being a nuisance. Using drugs, shouting / making unwanted threats or gestures, poor hygiene, etc.
The bus and train should be safe for everyone, not just criminals and homeless.
South King Resident writes:
“The people who skip fares are more likely to [be?] felons and dangerous. They need to be removed by security and reminded that they must pay.”
Can we get some sort of concrete evidence of this, besides your personal feelings or opinions? Has someone rigorously proven a direct link between fare evasion and behavior that endangers drivers and other riders? Are the fare-evaders who could actually afford to pay the same people who you’d call a “criminal” or a “felon.”?
“And citations are not enough. They need security on board concerning routes until they scare these criminals away.”
Have you ever really thought about what it means to label a person whole-cloth as “a felon” or “a criminal” vs. using the term “crime” to describe specific behaviors?
“And not just people who explicitly commit crime, but people who are being a nuisance. Using drugs, shouting / making unwanted threats or gestures, poor hygiene, etc.”
Does Metro not already have specific behavior guidelines for riders, and does metro not already have security? Why is it that the way your statements are written imply that none of that exists yet? And again, what does that last bit, specifically, have to do with fare evasion? Concrete evidence, please.
“The bus and train should be safe for everyone, not just criminals and homeless.”
Have you ever really thought about what it means to label a whole person vs. focusing on applying labels to a specific behavior? Where do we learn that particular rhetorical strategy? Who does it serve? Is labeling a person whole-cloth an accurate rendering of reality in language? Is it a practice that has ever been used in the service of cruelty and oppression at all in the past few centuries of history? Do you know where this absolutely stale type of talk comes from? Hint: it’s the exact same handful of powerful old villains who’ve been undermining transit and causing economic poverty in the U.S. for a century now.
@Woodsline Yes. Look up the effects of BART’s improved fare enforcement gates, resulting in decreased calls for corrective station maintenance (i.e. graffiti, trash, urine, etc. not normal maintenance) by around 90%.
Here are a few honest questions for you, Woodsline.
1. Should every transit rider be required to pay their fare, OR should every transit rider be allowed to choose when they want to pay their fare?
2. Would the transit experience feel safer to most riders if everyone aboard had paid their fare?
3. Should safety be one of the transit agencies priorities alongside “effective and efficient transportation?”
I know my answers, but I am honestly curious what yours are.
“The revelation Metro only wrote and handful of citations clearly shows they couldn’t care less about the responsibility taxpayers entrust them with”
Or that fare compliance is higher than you allege.
“What would it cost to, as Mayor Mullett mentions, install turnstiles at the busiest station,”
ST is studying that and will have a report on a turnstyle pilot later this year. If it says it’s feasible, ST will install it at a couple stations and see how well it works.
I am not sure how high fare compliance rate is considered acceptable, but just from my watch, I’ve seen disturbing number of people who are not paying even under the watch of transit security. It is such an insult to the system, transit workers, and other fare-paying riders.
For the least, I’d think transit security staff should least interfere verbally when they see fare evasion even if they are not entitled to write citation.
“just from my watch”
You do realize that people are able to pay/activate tickets in ways other than tapping, right? You can purchase single ride, timestamped tickets by phone, for example.
While not everyone will, you visually assessing people around you is going to be utterly meaningless. Considering that Sound Transit actually collects data from fare enforcement which collects essentially point in time searches (and no, I don’t feel like that many people will cheat and quickly buy a ticket considering there’s minimal punishment for not), why wouldn’t you just use their data instead of making up your own from bias-prone “looking around?”
When I said that, I was more speaking of what I see on buses.
It is hard to visually assess the situation for light rail as you point out., but what’s going on on Metro bus is a good reference of what’s going on in light rail system.
“why wouldn’t you just use their data instead of making up your own from bias-prone “looking around?”
I never say something like nobody pays fare. I am speaking very qualitatively because I am aware this is very subjective.
Sound Transit’s data shows 61% fare compliance rate in 2024, but that doesn’t tell everything because different people can read from that very differently. I think 61% is pretty low and I get from my watch is even higher than that.
But of course what I think doesn’t matter. I am just saying here.
Take a look at this presentation on Link fare compliance.
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/Presentation%20-%20Fare%20Engagement%20Update%2001-08-25.pdf
The data from inspectors (a 3% random sample of all riders) showed a 91% compliance rate. Since there are so many ways to observe compliance including unlimited passes, it’s probably the most accurate rate.
In the fare report, over half of all Link riders have unlimited passes:
https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/fare-revenue-report-2024.pdf
I get that even though pass holders are supposed to tap, they often aren’t. So observers think that they’re freeloading when they aren’t.
If inspectors are only finding 9% compliance and farebox recovery is at 17%, the lost revenue is less than 2% of the total cash flow for the agency.
Although I agree that more serious fare enforcement should be considered, I don’t think it will have enough impact to mitigate funding gap.
It is more like a respect to transit workers and those who are paying fare.
This is the answer. ST has a capital expenditure problem, not an operation one. Adding turnstiles to collect a few dollars more isn’t going to fix ST3.
Does it have an expenditure problem? Somehow we don’t really care about our highways making a profit. Do tell me what portion of our roadway construction and upkeep is financed by tolls… I’ll wait.
ST has a major expenditure problem. The projects they want to build are way too expensive. The worse part is, they aren’t even that good. Thus it is highly likely they won’t build the projects they should build right now (like a subway from Ballard to UW).
You are 100% correct. Sound Transit’s 2026 budget includes $28.82 of tax revenue for every $1 collected from fares. The fare compliance rate is largely irrelevant to the overall budget and to the speed at which expansion projects can be completed.
I’m sure we’ve all seen the data from BART showing that better fare gates have made an impact on the amount of vandalism and other poor behavior within the fare-paid zone. The discussion should center around those effects rather than the relatively insignificant amount of revenue to be gained.
Furthermore Sound Transit has already studied the cost of installing fare gates as a method of increasing fare compliance.
The study showed that if you only installed the gates at the top five busiest stations it would take at least eight years for the additional fare revenue to just pay for the installation costs of the fare gates. That’s eight years and millions of dollars before the fares pay anything at all back toward the rest of the transit system. And that’s if you limit the fare gates to just the busiest stations. Installing fare gates at all the stations increases the payback period up to at least two decades since you don’t get as much ROI from the lesser-used stations (and probably a negative ROI from some).
I could not agree more Paul. I am pushing just as hard for turnstiles at the busiest stations as I am for debt flexibility – both are important!
Bring up light rail fares to $5 if we need during hours of high demand. Full deployment of fare enforcement and actual security with the power to punish and remove violators.
And stop the epidemic of bus fare skipping. Train fares are definitely paid a lot more than the bus ones. And a LOT of people ride the bus. That’s a huge sum of money that we can raise.
Finally, automate between West Seattle and Ballard. Then keep the “spine” connected:
– 1 Line: Tacoma to Northgate
– 2 Line: Redmond to Lynnwood
– 3 Line: SeaTac to Everett
– 4 Line: Issaquah to S Kirkland
– 5 Line: West Seattle to Ballard (automated)
I somewhat agree, but I think the issue is becoming too emotional, with people throwing around very moralistic arguments about fare cutting.
I think it is better to view fare recovery as one component of a larger set.
Let’s recognize that fares will never come close to paying for system expansion. Fare recovery alone won’t even pay for operational costs.
But it certainly can make a large dent in operational costs. We should not abandon fare recovery entirely just because it can’t address all of the cost. We’ll need all the tools in the toolbox to make ST sustainable. I also think we should address operational cost with the integration of commerce. Trains in Japan are not just the spaces between destinations, they are the destinations within themselves. We should explicitly design stations for the integration of commercial leasing and use this revenue to fund operational costs.
“We should explicitly design stations for the integration of commercial leasing and use this revenue to fund operational costs.”
State laws limit the possibilities. ST’s mandate is to provide transit, not make a profit on non-transit activities. If could also be argued that that profit opportunity was unfairly taken from the previous landowner, since they sold the land or were eminent-domained for an essential transit service, not for a competitor. Also, state law requires that ST dedicate most of the surface land to affordable housing. So you’d need an entire change of the public-ownership rules.
hmm, even if ST is required to build housing, Seattle code requires commercial space on the ground level. With some creative thinking, we should still be able to make it work both ways.
We are getting that.
What Japan and Hong Kong do that ST can’t do is build a shopping mall around the station and use the profits to subsidize transit.
Certainly, but I’m hopeful we can still lease space inside stations. Some of the larger stations would have plenty of space for smaller cart shops or things like battery bank vending machines so you could charge on the train and return it when you get off (chargeFuze is one). Particularly if the train is delayed, you have 10 minutes to wait so water or a granola bar would be nice and if you’re spending and hour on the train after a delayed flight with a low battery phone, a battery bank would be a well worth the premium.
I’ve been wondering what the space is for at Spring District Station. There is what looks like commercial space on the corner at street level.
What do you think about the Kubly/Reed proposal? They suggest that by moving to automated trains between Ballard and West Seattle, project costs drop enough to eliminate the tunnel cost share. That would free up billions so that other sub-areas like Issaquah can finish their projects sooner.
https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-reconnect-and-automate-ballard-to-west-seattle-rail-to-save-st3/
Yesterday’s Urbanist article has a section that opines that Metro decision-makers might be mis-understanding some of the potential strengths of the Kubly/Reed proposal. Seems like an important issue that could use further clearing-up. It’s described in the section part-way down the article with the sub-heading “Agency pours cold water on automated light rail idea:”
https://www.theurbanist.org/seattle-sound-transit-leaders-rally-to-avoid-light-rail-delays/
It is a good article. It makes clear is that the agency is not willing to consider the issue seriously. Krieg’s argument about capacity are simply wrong, as Kubly points out. Smaller stations with automated trains would have *more* capacity than light rail, not less. Krieg clearly hasn’t read the analysis, nor is he is willing to consider any significant changes to the current plans, which are clearly flawed. He is focused on the paperwork, ignoring the fact that even with all of that done, the trains can’t make it to Ballard. As many have said, the problem isn’t the paperwork. It doesn’t matter if a project is “shovel ready” or not. We can’t afford to build the whole thing, so we should build the most important thing first, which is Ballard to Westlake. https://seattletransitblog.com/2025/12/16/build-the-best-parts-first/
I’m not convinced. The gist of the argument is that if we build smaller stations and automated trains, we could save money on construction and still have a high capacity system. While automation certainly can cut opex of a fast frequent network, the construction cost per mile remains the construction cost per mile.
Furthermore, comparing Seattle to Copenhagen ignores our geographic differences (Copenhagen is flat) and urban footprint (Seattle is more than twice the size).
Circling back to the post, I believe the public would grant greater debt capacity if we get a better ST3 plan as a result. A better plan is a system that works for riders and communities, not transit construction companies.
What people are annoyed about is ST won’t give automated trains fair consideration and a full study. It’s not treating it as “Let’s see if this would work and help our dilemma”, but just dismissing it based on an initial impression, cursory glance, and not even addressing Kubly’s facts. The issue is not just this line or just Copenhagen or Vancouver, it’s lines in general and what ST should pivot to going forward.
Automated lines are now the established standard throughout the world, so other cities would have to justify using higher-cost non-automated technology and cost-in-perpetuity drivers. That’s so ridiculous that they don’t. Yet ST is doing it here.
ST also says that eliminating DSTT2 would save little or no money. That’s really hard to believe.
Automated trains are just like the West Seattle Gondola. Far fetched, not well thought out, and just a red herring. ST is giving them the due they deserve – very little
They work in other cities. Why not here?
Far-fetched, jg?
Have you taken SkyTrain a few hours north in Vancouver, BC? Hawaii and Montreal have started building automated lines. Paris, Hamburg and other cities have started automating legacy lines.
I agree with Kubly’s statement reported in The Urbanist:
“Why is Sound Transit discrediting a proposal that they clearly have not investigated beyond anecdotal information and a cursory google search?”
ST management makes authoritative statements in Board meetings like they’re facts when they’re not. Krieg and Constantine should be disciplined for lying to the Board and the public.
To answer Kubly’s rhetorical question, they are desperately trying to push West Seattle Link through. They’ll say what they can to avoid it being paused. They’ll refuse to present ridership and travel times and transfer hassles and everything else to get it under construction as quickly as possible. They’ll promise the other subareas the world to get West Seattle construction started.
Frankly, the motivations ofcST management are suspect — at least tainted. The Board should no longer trust the management.
Dude, BART has been automated since the 1970’s. The “drivers” are onboard to close the doors when it’s safe, then push a “go” button. Nobody had thought of platform doors for safety then.
“To answer Kubly’s rhetorical question, they are desperately trying to push West Seattle Link through. They’ll say what they can to avoid it being paused. They’ll refuse to present ridership and travel times and transfer hassles and everything else to get it under construction as quickly as possible. They’ll promise the other subareas the world to get West Seattle construction started.”
Bingo, Al – excellent comment.
The construction cost per mile would go down with an automated line, since so much of capital costs comes from building stations in particular – and ST loves to build grand, deep, expensive stations.
You’re missing the most salient point. Large saving in construction of underground stations come from using smaller and in many cases therefore shallower standards. Our “tough topography” particularly makes that valuable because some stations simply have to be deep because they’re under a hill. Every cubic yard of earth ST wouldn’t have to remove for “half-size” stations, shallower where possible, is several hundred thousand dollars saved in the end when the costs of shorter utility reconstructions is included.
I think the problem is West Seattle is probably the most promising one they can build. Some people would see this as a potential risk that would further delay WSLE.
I think Sound Transit would be more willing to look into that if both West Seattle Link and Ballard Link are under same level of risk to be cut.
Simple answer is to just focus on building trains where people travel. Sound transit is a local pork machine disguised as a transit agency. If we want to build the trains, we should do that and not build parking garages and other amenities. Suburban areas have also had way too much influence. (How many people are traveling between Lynnwood and federal way?) And why do we have elevated transit through freeway right of way far away from where people actually travel?
“How many people are traveling between Lynnwood and federal way?”
That’s not the issue. A subway line with stations every 0.5-2 miles allows a lot of overlapping trips to/from the intermediate stations. One person goes from Federal Way to UW, another from Lynnwood to the airport, another from Shoreline to southeast Seattle.
The fact that practically zero go from Federal Way to Lynnwood is unimportant, and a misunderstanding of how trains work and their potential. When I take the Amtrak Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago, when it leaves Seattle only a quarter of the seats are filled. Yet from one end of North Dakota to the other (Bismarck to Fargo), every seat is full.
The real issues are: (1) Should Link go as far as Lynnwood and Federal Way at all? (2) Is it better for network efficiency and passenger needs for Federal Way-Lynnwood to be a one-seat ride, or attach part of it to one line and the rest to another? (This will come up in ST3’s split-spine plan, where Federal Way will go to Ballard, and Federal Way-Lynnwood will require a transfer.) The answer to #1 depends on the merits of Link to Lynnwood on its own, and Link to Federal Way on its own. The answer to #2 depends on technical issues and the predominant travel patterns. If a large percent of trips would transfer in a two-line scenario, maybe a one-line scenario is better. I feel a large percent of trips do go between south and north, much higher than the number of people who go between south and Ballard. So I’m not in favor of this split spine approach.
As to whether Lynnwood and Federal Way is too far out into the bedroom community suburbs, I think it’s a good compromise. A Lynnwood terminus allowed cancellation of a dozen express bus routes and redeploying their service hours to intra-Snohomish service. In the south end there are arguments for terminating at Angle Lake, KDM, or Federal Way. Any of those is fine, and it’s not worth going against momentum to get any of them. This Lynnwood/Federal Way/Redmond network is the essential core of a metro system, and it goes 15 miles out in all three directions. That’s a good system. However, going further to Everett and Tacoma is questionable, since travel time from Seattle is a whole hour, the outer areas don’t have as many destinations or ridership as the inner area, and frequent express buses from Lynnwood and Federal Way would be faster. They should run at least every 6-10 minutes to match Link/future Link, not every 15-30 minutes as they do now.
Mike, should The Builder run between Chicago and Williston?
You shot yourself in the foot with that example.
What is Willston?
Williston is the westernmost North Dakota Amtrak station on the Builder.
Explain how ST is a local pork machine, with specific examples and numbers
The resistance to getting 60% of voters to raise the debt ceiling will not just come from those who don’t care about the transit system, but those who do.
A plan that makes downtown transfers far worse than they are today will continue to face resistance from a chunk of pro-transit voters.
A plan that permanently removes Avalon from ever getting a station will lose a chunk of pro-transit voters.
Mayor Mullet, a plan that is perceived to actually increase trip time for a chunk – perhaps a majority – of Issaquah commuters vs the status quo will lose a chunk of pro-transit voters.
A plan that promises to jack up fares an order of magnitude would also backfire. But I think the ST Board gets that and is not banking on improved fare revenue. Faregates are a front-end and pricey investment, that might or might not reduce ongoing human resource costs. But it can create additional hurdles for various groups of riders to be able to access the system. Having fares at all is a political attempt to convince non-riders (particularly transit-averse legislators) that transit riders have skin in the game. Net fare recovery (subtracting out all the costs of fare collection, including slowing down buses) is probably a smaller portion of overall revenue than most realize. It isn’t clear to me that faregates will even pay for themselves, unless their only job is to take an effective talking point away from transit opponents. Regardless, they are a degradation to system access.
One thing that would help is keeping the lines through downtown connected with each other, so that the spine can be a real thing, and Ballard to Redmond can also happen. The ability to reduce the number of riders who have to transfer downtown could impact a key constituency in getting to 60%.
I agree. If the 60% vote is seen as a proxy on ST3 then it will fail, miserably.
I’m doubtful a 60% vote for debt expansion would succeed. Wasn’t ST3 at around 55%? And ST’s post-vote decisions have divided transit fans and lost half their support. Forward Thrust failed even though it had a majority because it couldn’t reach the 60% threshold.
Post-vote decisions that led to eroding support:
1. Unusually long transfers to a deeper DSTT2.
2. Moving CID2 station away from 5th & Jackson; i.e., away from walk-up destinations and transfers with Jackson Street buses.
3. Threatening a Ballard station at 14th instead of 15th, which is a long walk from the center of Ballard.
4. New tunnels in West Seattle and Ballard that weren’t in the ballot measure and drive up costs.
5. Refusing to consider automated trains or a single-tunnel solution, that could mitigate some of the problems and reduce costs.
#1 and #3 are the most important issues to me. If we can’t have good transfers and a good Ballard station location, what’s the point of building it if it can’t fulfill its primary goals very well? We’ll have spent a lot of money on something that doesn’t really solve the problem. The essential part of Link is Lynnwood/Redmond/Federal Way. Everything beyond that is less important and less worth going to extraordinary measures to save.
If people were given the chance, my guess is ST3 would fail this time. Consider:
1) Several of the ST3 projects are complete. The extension to Redmond. Federal Way Link. Although Lynnwood Link was not part of ST3, it was implied that it was necessary to pass the levy to finish the job.
2) In many of those areas we are seeing diminishing returns. Riders from all over Snohomish County benefit from Lynnwood Link (including Everett). In contrast, Everett Link would benefit a relatively small number of people living and traveling to Everett. The same thing is true with Tacoma Dome Link. It is pretty easy to argue that the best part of ST3 has already been built — why spend more money?
3) There is likely to be more organized opposition to the planning that led to this proposals. A lot of the issues surrounding ST3 were shrugged off, as people basically said “At least we get Ballard Link”. Now it isn’t clear we will get that (and even if we do, it appears they will move the station east, not west). A call to start over from scratch is bound to have a lot more support than last time.
4) Some would see this as a referendum on Sound Transit, which is a lot less popular now than when the previous vote was taken. The ST3 vote took place months after U-Link was completed. Not only was this a hugely important addition (essentially doubling ridership overnight) but it appeared that Sound Transit had solved its construction problems. Projects were being built sooner and cheaper than the (revised) estimate. That is clearly not the case now.
Of course proponents would try once again to sidestep all of these issues. They would focus on traffic in the suburbs. In the city they would claim a ‘No’ vote is a vote against transit. Thus it is quite possible it would pass in the city. But I think the surrounding areas would oppose it by a significant amount.
This is the “more money now” approach.
Unclear why it isn’t combined with the do more, cheaper, approach.
https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-reconnect-and-automate-ballard-to-west-seattle-rail-to-save-st3/
or the do less, smarter, approach…
https://www.theurbanist.org/build-ballard-link-faster-by-skipping-second-downtown-tunnel/
I do think the fragmentation of every group and proposal fighting for a different thing is actually helping the current proposal of “do everything at maximal expense, except screw ballard”
Because any serious person knows the Ballard Stub is stupid as hell.
Way better than the West Seattle stub. It connects the busiest station in the system with SLU and Seattle Center, both huge hubs of homes and destinations. A stub line leaves room for future expansion into a second tunnel while serving the best parts first.
A stub line leaves room for future expansion into a second tunnel while serving the best parts first.
Exactly. You also avoid the most disruptive and controversial parts of ST3 until later. No big debate as to the second CID station. No forcing riders of the main line into a new transfer. The SoDo Busway would be retained.
The Ballard stub builds a second downtown tunnel and connects to job centers in SLU and Denny. That’s huge. And it sets up a very easy connection through interbay and into Ballard to be done in the future. It’s win win for everyone who DOESNT see Seattle as just Ballard
jg, Chicken Nuggets means the Westlake-Ballard “Ballard Stub”, not the ST-proposed “temporary” terminal at Uptown or Smith Cove.
Well then, since it’s the clear consensus on this blog that “the Ballard Stub” makes more sense than the existing plan, why are you here with stupid as hell people? Watch out, you might get infected.
Dan Strauss seems to be most inclined to oppose the Summers proposal. His latest email says, “Under the proposal, our region — North King County — would still be forced to pay an unfair share of the costs to build a second downtown transit tunnel, which is critical to Everett and Tacoma.” This raises a few questions in my mind: 1) how critical is the second downtown transit tunnel and for whom? 2) could he be an advocate for deferring the second downtown transit tunnel in favor of building from Ballard to Westlake first? 3) and if so, is he currently armed with, or even aware of, all the arguments in favor of that position? I get the impression that the folks on this blog are more well-informed than many of the people who were in the board room yesterday.
Strauss is one of the most well-informed and passenger-minded members of the board, along with Balducci, Wilson, and the last few WSDOT representatives.
Strauss is adamant about getting Ballard, and also for not dropping anything. So he seems pretty strongly for DSTT2 and not changing the downtown alignment. The reason seems to be to keep the regional consensus up, because if one person says we can change one thing, then somebody else will say we can change something else, and that leads to interminable disagreements, usually with everybody wanting the things in their subarea.
I’m sure Strauss reads STB and is aware of the arguments coming from outside ST for the single-tunnel alternative. He’s one of the most likely people to. Still, if you have a chance to speak to him or his staff, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a plug.
I’ll start a new thread for your larger questions.
“Strauss is adamant about getting Ballard, and also for not dropping anything.”
It’s nice when we can have it all, but I think he’s going to have to choose. I hope he chooses to drop his support for DSTT2, including its terrible transfers. Holding fast to a flawed decision in the interests of “getting along” seems like a bad way to run a railroad.
“forced to pay an unfair share of the costs to build a second downtown transit tunnel”
Aren’t the DSTT2 costs distributed by ridership in the downtown tunnels (1&2)? What’s the definition of fairness that Strauss wants?
Currently all subareas pay for the CID-Westlake segment. Strauss wants to extend that to Seattle Center, arguing that SLU and Seattle Center are systemwide assets that everybody from all subareas goes to.
The current percentage split is in the ST3 Update article. It’s based on each subarea’s percent of riders in either tunnel. North King is 51%, Snohomish 13%, Pierce 8%, South King 13%, East King 14%, Systemwide 1%.
I haven’t heard Strauss try to change the percentages, but he definitely wants all subareas to pay for Westlake-Seattle Center.
In the December meeting where Chair Somers squashed any further discussion of deferring DSTT2, Strauss mentioned that he things North King’s 51% share is too high if the outer subareas are demanding the tunnel be built while Seattle would prefer a rethink.
I assume Somers’ ejection of Balducci from the Executive Committee was enough of a signal to Strauss to drop that line of thinking.
For Issaquah, we are still getting light rail, not a fallback Bus Rapid Transit alternative.
This is unfortunate, as more riders would benefit from BRT. Issaquah Link won’t help riders get to Downtown Seattle. Issaquah Link will have one station in Issaquah. Just one. This will make it difficult for the vast majority of people in Issaquah to take transit to Downtown Bellevue. The station will not be conveniently located, so riders from various parts of Issaquah (like the Highlands) will drive to their nearest park and ride, take a bus to Eastgate, then transfer to the train heading to Bellevue. Or they will slog through traffic just to get to a station.
In contrast, for relatively little money we could connect the HOV lanes of 405 and I-90. On Page 147 of this document it lists a project entitled “I-405 Corridor: I-405 @ I-90 Interchange: HOV Direct Connector Ramps – Phase 1”. In there it has the following:
Construct HOV direct connector ramps from SB I-405 to EB I-90, WB I-90 to NB I-405, NB I-405 to EB I-90, WB I-90 to SB I-405
Half of those connections would not be necessary. It has a price tag of $639,935,938. Even building all four connection (two of which are unnecessary) is a much better value than Issaquah Link. Once that is done, Metro (or Sound Transit) can run express buses from various parts of Issaquah to Downtown Bellevue (stopping at Eastgate along the way). The bus would never leave the HOV lane and thus be just as fast as the train, while serving much more of Issaquah. Riders would be much better off and you would save money. Call this “BRT” if you want — it is just better for the people of Issaquah.
The existing freeway infrastructure is sufficient for a great network.
Route 554 between Issaquah TC and Mercer Island Link via the Eastgate freeway station; fast, frequent, and reliable. Better than fall 2026 Route 556; better than the 4 Line and its billions.
Route 552 between the Eastgate local bays and Mercer Island Link via the Eastgate freeway station. (Could consider live-looping routes 552 and 554 at MI; they are short).
Route 555 between the Issaquah Highlands and Kirkland TC via Issaquah TC, I-90, Eastgate local bays, SE Eastgate Way, Richards Road, 112th Avenue SE, Main Street station, downtown Bellevue station, NE 6th Street center access ramp, I-405 HOT lanes, NE 85th Street ramps, Central Way, KTC. This serves the pedestrian centers.
South Bellevue is not a great place for bus-Link integration. There is congestion on Bellevue Way SE and the ramps connecting it to I-90.
Ross,
I grew up in Tukwila, but moved to Issaquah back in 2006. Issaquah basically had BRT for the 10 years before the 2016 ST3 vote because you could take a bus that went straight from the Issaquah Highlands or the SR 900 transit station to Seattle in roughly 22 minutes time. Issaquah voters chose to tax themselves for ST3 because they wanted the transformative change that only comes with light-rail infrastructure. As we have seen from our current bus routes, they will be slower in the fall of 2026 than when I moved to this community 20 years ago.
During my 12 years in the State Senate representing East King County, I can also speak to the transit desert that is North Bend, Snoqualmie, and the Maple Valley region. The Issaquah light-rail station is the best chance to end this transit desert, as you could create high frequency bus service from these communities to connect to the full Sound Transit network via the Issaquah station.
Our city council is also committed to building thousands of homes on the valley floor creating an opportunity for people to live without owning a car because of their proximity to light-rail.
All of the above opportunities highlight why light-rail investment is transformative for East King County. The Issaquah connection will be the best value of the remaining segments given dollars of construction per mile of light-rail, and we plan to partner with Sound Transit to deliver the project at the lowest possible cost.
Light rail isn’t very fast though… And it has a really slow transfer into Seattle.
But I agree it’s a useful opportunity for SE and E King County for travel into Bellevue and the UW.
I would hope to see an effort to push the train to stop at S Bellevue, and push for Bellevue Way bus lanes so Stride and other bus services can serve S Bellevue Station. This will allow more people to travel to Issaquah/Eastgate, Seattle quicker, and reach the airport/Renton via Stride.
You should prioritize getting the 4 Line to S Bellevue, otherwise you lose the major advantage. E Main isn’t even center platform if I remember right, making transfers more challenging.
Also advocate King County Metro to open new bus routes upon the completion of Issaquah Link:
1. Maple Valley to Issaquah
2. Green River College to Issaquah via East Kent Hill, Fairwood and Renton Highlands (with only some trips operating to Issaquah)
As an Issaquah resident and frequent bus user (554) I fully support Issaquah getting a rail connection to Link at South Bellevue Station (not West Main). This allows the option of a transfer to downtown Seattle and continuous one ride service through Link to East Side destinations now requiring use of local slow services.
The obvious, to me anyway reason for having a Link Rail connection to Issaquah is need to support high capacity rapid transit over the present bus based system which does not support high capacity.
As the Mayor stated, issaquah is changing fast and like the 2Line through Bellevue and Redmond have committed and are building TOD to work with light rail, not a rebranded BRT.
We have 3 modes in our region that meet the formal definition for High Capacity Transit: Link, Sounder, and Stride.
If the statement is “need high capacity rapid transit to replace the present bus based system,” is not obvious that the best High Capacity Transit mode is rail. In fact, to me the obvious solution is to improve the high I 90 corridor such that there is a bus line that meets the definition of High Capacity Transit. This will involve capital improvements with new or better ROW and new or better Stations, but given the vast majority of the corridor is already HOV freeway lanes that function well during rush hour, the investment needed is a few hundred million here and a few hundred million there, not the billions needed for a standalone rail corridor.
The main advantage of a high capacity system (like Link) is that you don’t have to run buses as often. That really doesn’t describe Issaquah. In fact, it is the opposite. After the restructure, the 554 will run every 10 minutes peak and every 10-15 minutes midday. It won’t be that crowded. The 269 will be less frequent. The 218 will run every half hour to Issaquah. This is nowhere near the level where bigger capacity is required.
Of course sometimes a new corridor is significantly faster than the existing bus (or driving). This can lead to an increase in ridership. The RapidRide B followed a similar pathway as East Link but was considerably slower. East Link provided a lot of riders with a faster way to get between stations and a lot of people switched.
But again, Issaquah Link won’t offer that. In fact, it is the opposite. There is only one station in Issaquah. Very few people live close to it. This means that all of the other riders have to take a bus to the station and then transfer. This would likely suppress ridership, not increase it. Just imagine someone from the Highlands trying to get to Seattle. There are several options:
1) Take an express bus to Mercer Island.
2) Take a bus to the Issaquah Station. Transfer to the train and ride it to South Bellevue.
3) Take a bus to the Eastgate Station. Transfer to the train and ride it to South Bellevue.
4) Drive to an Issaquah Link station. Transfer to the train and ride it to South Bellevue.
5) Just drive to South Bellevue.
The first option is obviously the best. If you are driving, the last option is best. The third option is striking. It is likely the fastest way to get to an Issaquah Link Station. But you would save a considerable amount of time and hassle if the bus just kept going to Mercer Island.
Now assume that Issaquah grows and adds more bus routes. It is pretty easy to imagine an express bus serving North Issaquah. The riders would be in the same situation. A direct bus to Mercer Island is just better. This likely explains why ST never even tried to make the Link connection at South Bellevue. Riders don’t want to transfer twice just get to Seattle.
In contrast, it is easy to imagine people taking a bus to the train if they are headed to Downtown Bellevue. Someone from the Highlands or north Issaquah would take an express bus to Eastgate and transfer there. This would be an improvement. But there is an alternative that would be better: Just connect the HOV lanes of I-90 and 405. Now more riders have a fast one-seat bus ride to downtown Bellevue (as fast as Link). Other riders heading to Downtown Bellevue would continue to transfer at Eastgate, but they would transfer to a bus.
The bus option is just better.
” basically had BRT” …. “Basically” is doing a lot of work here, Mark. Do you consider the Tacoma streetcar or the Seattle streetcar the same as Link because they are all “basically” light rail?
The counterproposal is not “do nothing” and continue to run ST Express. Rather, there is an opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of express bus service in Issaquah to create *real* BRT, including a new centerpiece station in Issaquah to serve the valley core, at a cost that is billions less expensive AND can be implement decade(s) earlier.
As someone who both worked at ST and lived in Issaquah, where I served on the city’s Transportation Advisory Board and was briefly chair before I moved, I am baffled by the city leadership’s unwillingness (or inability) to view Stride as an alternative mode that can achieve all of the city’s ST3 goals.
Issaquah has a surprisingly large contingent of pro-Link activists now, both in City Hall and outside. At the ST retreat a half-dozen of them had T-shirts saying “Save Issaquah Link”. What I want to know is, why do they want it? What do they think it will do for Issaquah?
Link in central/north Seattle is obvious: it dramatically reduces travel time from 20-40 minutes to 3-10 minutes, and it addresses capacity needs (express buses were melting down with overcrowding and unreliability). Link between Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond makes sense, because Bellevue is the region’s “second downtown” just 12 miles from the first one, and a lot of people travel to places all along the 2 Line.
But Issaquah Link, what’s its benefit for transit riders? The route is almost the same as the future 556. Issaquah to Bellevue on I-5 isn’t congested. A person Issaquah has to somehow get to the Issaquah TC station in the west: then they have about four choices: Lakemont (nothing there), Eastgate (something but not that much), or Bellevue (about the same experience as taking the 556), South Kirkland P&R (laughable). Concepts to extend it to downtown Kirkland, Bothell, or UW are just theoretical; there’s no certainty they’d ever happen.
So why is Issaquah Link so important?
We’ve suggested Issaquah Link could be extended east to the City Hall area and Issaquah Highlands P&R. That would make it more useful. But I still don’t understand why some Issaquahites are so keen on it.
“Issaquah has a surprisingly large contingent of pro-Link activists now, both in City Hall and outside.”
I have a feeling they will be disappointed by the travel time and transfer hassle to Seattle when they finally have it and demand express bus to Bellevue and Mercer Island not to be deleted.
It is quite possible they are fully aware that Issaquah Link won’t help them get to Seattle. They don’t care. They want to get to Bellevue quicker.
On the other hand, it is highly likely they haven’t considered bus alternatives. This is common. People assume buses are slow. They don’t realize that for relatively little money, we can make them faster. When is the last time they added an important physical improvement for East Side buses? Eastlake Freeway Station? Totem Lake? I honestly don’t know. It has been a while. They added the ramps connecting southbound 405 to westbound I-90 but the buses didn’t go that way. They built that huge set of HOV ramps from 167 to 405 and yet the 567 (an express from Kent to Bellevue) has gone away.
Thus it is quite understandable that transit advocates haven’t considered connecting the HOV lanes of I-90 and 405. This would not only avoid congestion from Issaquah to Bellevue but the bus could serve Issaquah along the way and never get out of the HOV lanes. Right now the bus has to follow the surface streets and as a result, they just send it up Bellevue Way. Of course a train would be faster than the buses are today. But the real issue is that a bus could be just as fast as the train, and directly serve a lot more riders (like those in the Highlands).
I do think Bellevue Way might be better corridor for Issaquah express service because it gives some opportunity to serve more stop. People can trade their travel time bus for shorter walk.
The current traffic condition on Bellevue Way might be exacerbated by I-405 construction. Once Bellevue Way doesn’t have to receive same amount of I-405 overflow traffic, bus lane should be considered there. And I think some kind of reversible bus lane that opens NB in the morning and southbound in the afternoon probably will do the trick, but something also needs to be done at the I-90 westbound off-ramp to Bellevue Way. All of these is going to be cheaper than direact access ramp on top of existing freeway system interchange and Bellevue can do it if they want.
“When is the last time they added an important physical improvement for East Side buses? Eastlake Freeway Station? Totem Lake?”
The last ones were probably the Eastlake freeway station and P&R, Issaquah TC, Issaquah Highlands P&R, and the Redmond Tech stop.
Totem Lake has had freeway stops since the 70s for the 340 (the 535’s predecessor).
No those places are suburbs. They don’t need buses, Ross.
I’ve also said it many times. Bellevue Way and 112th is a superior ROW for Issaquah busses than I-405. Slightly slower but all it needs is red paint and TSP and you don’t need expensive HOV ramps to a place that doesn’t justify the demand 98% of the time.
I do think Bellevue Way might be better corridor for Issaquah express service because it gives some opportunity to serve more stop.
I think the vast majority of riders from Issaquah and Eastgate would rather have an express to the Bellevue Transit Center. The same is true for folks from Renton and Burien, which is why the Stride 1 will not serve Bellevue Way.
But once the bus gets to the transit center, it could certainly serve more of downtown Bellevue. That is another big advantage of a bus. It can provide that express to Downtown Bellevue and then keep going. A bus can’t keep going on 6th but it could go north and then west. Or it could go south to 4th and then west to Bellevue Way and then north again. There are all sorts of ways of increasing coverage downtown while still retaining that very fast express to the transit center.
It is worth noting that the 550 does both. It serves Bellevue Way before reaching the transit center then it keeps going, to serve more of Downtown Bellevue. Now consider the ridership of the bus (https://seattletransitridership.com/). South Bellevue Park and Ride gets a fair number of riders, but mostly in the morning (as you would expect). I really don’t see the same thing happening with a bus headed to Eastgate or Issaquah. There is fairly easy parking in those areas and not much of a reverse commute*. In other words, if someone can drive to the park and ride, they will likely just drive to Issaquah (or Eastgate). More importantly, there are very few riders between South Bellevue Station and Main Street. Even Main Street doesn’t get many riders. The bulk of ridership is at 4th & Bellevue Way or places to the north (with the transit center getting the most ridership). A bus can serve those stops after running express to the transit center. This would also help those who are transferring.
There are a bunch of different ways in which Bellevue Way could be served. I would lean towards a more local route. For example, from the south a bus could come from Factoria or along Eastgate Way. But it could be an extension of a bus coming from the north or northeast. For example the RapidRide B could be extended to South Bellevue. Same thing is true of the 250 or one of the other buses from that direction. If we did serve it with a more express bus, then it makes sense to serve that part of Bellevue Way *after* the transit center. For example, I could see the future 271 detouring to the transit center and then getting back onto Bellevue Way until it reached South Bellevue Station. Likewise, Stride 2 (coming from Lynnwood) could be extended there.
Issaquah was promised an express train to Downtown Bellevue. Giving those riders an express bus to Downtown Bellevue offers everything that the train would, and more.
*I do a lot of hiking and cross-country skiing off of I-90. I live in Seattle and drive that section of I-90 (from 405 to Issaquah). It is always smooth sailing both directions on I-90 (since I going opposite the traditional commute).
There would need to be an HOV ramp from I-90 to Bellevue Way for it to be a reasonable replacement. I-90 itself is fine but the lineup from I-90 to Bellevue Way is fairly long at peak.
The downside of heading straight to Bellevue is cutting off the transfer to Seattle, meaning there would have to be a separate Issaquah-Mercer Island line. Two separate routes is maybe fine but I think most riders would prefer double frequency to S Bellevue. The Issaquah-Seattle route has much more demand than Issaquah-Bellevue.
“ There would need to be an HOV ramp from I-90 to Bellevue Way for it to be a reasonable replacement”
Bellevue Way off-ramp is solely driven by the first signal from south. A half length queue jump lane probably can mitigate most of the delay. I see this as something Bellevue WSDOT can afford to inplement quickly.
It is unlike system interchange congestion which is a result of merge capacity constraint and cannot be resolved without capacity adding improvement. A project on federal highway right of way will trigger more complex review process. I agree that 405 to 90 express lane are the ultimate solution for I-90 express bus, I just don’t see that happen any time soon. SB I-405 to EB I-90 system is currently be widen to 2 lanes, so it is probably hard to justify additional improvement in short future. The express lane is likely to be built when I-90 HOV is converted into express lane. A direct connector from express toll lane to HOV creates some enforcement complication (one outcome might be one needs to be both good-to-go pass user and HOV to use it).
Sound Move funded the Eastgate freeway station and ramps at 142nd Place SE and the NE 128th Street overcrossing and ramps and the Totem Lake Transit Center. It also funded the new KTC. The NE 6th Street center access ramps. Sound Move built a ramp improvement in Woodinville.
WSDOT projects include the SR-520 freeway stations, SR-520 tolling, the I-90 center HOV lanes, the I-405 HOT lanes, the SR-522 BAT lanes. WSDOT provided MI ramps so Link could take the center roadway. New ramps were added on I-405 at NE 10th Street. SR-520 had outside HOV lanes beyond Overlake; does still? The Montlake lid bus stops seem to assume the transit agencies will continue to have radial service; of course they should feed Link at the UW station.
WSDOT supported the reconfiguration of SR-202 in downtown Redmond and of SR-522 and SR-527 in downtown Bothell.
WSDOT will add a reversible ramp between SR-520 and the I-5 reversible lanes, though it does not seem well thought out. The project is delayed.
As I wrote earlier, big new capital projects are probably not needed for a very good bus network on the eastside. Perhaps a center access ramp at 17th near downtown Issaquah. ST3 opted for a Fred Butler memorial 4 Line.
Remember, we want to get pedestrians to useful places. Do center-to-center ramps do that often?
The downside of heading straight to Bellevue is cutting off the transfer to Seattle, meaning there would have to be a separate Issaquah-Mercer Island line.
That is a given. This is a replacement for Issaquah Link. Issaquah Link does not help a rider get to Seattle.
“ WSDOT will add a reversible ramp between SR-520 and the I-5 reversible lanes,”
The project is fully complete and ready to open by now, but anecdotally, because it was ready after Roanoke Lid and Portage Bay Bridge replacement construction started, design-builder thought it was too much hassle to create a specific staging plan to open the reversible lane, so they keep it closed for now.
Issaquah has two metropolitan destinations: downtown Seattle and downtown Bellevue. Both offer the most jobs and shopping right there, and have traansfers to everywhere else. So which one do Issaquahites go to? Historically it has been downtown Seattle. But the central Eastside (Bellevue-Redmond-Kirkland) has been growing immensely, and it’s a better anchor for Issaquah generally, because that keeps trips within the Eastside, and Issaquah’s demographics/tastes are more similar to the Eastside than to central or south Seattle.
Up through now Issaquah-to-Bellevue transit has been atrocious: the 556 is peak only. The 554 to Seattle runs every 30 minutes, which is not good but at least it’s better than Issaquah-to-Bellevue service. The future 556 and the Issaquah Link plan aim to improve this Issaquah-to-Bellevue connection, even better than Issaquah-to-Seattle is now..
This will also improve Issaquah-to-Seattle service, although it won’t be a one-seat ride anymore, because right now the 554 creates a half-hourly bottleneck. The 556 will allow a transfer every 15 minutes. Issaquah Link will presumably offer it every 6 to 10 minutes. There’s also the future 215,218,269 expresses between the Issaquah Highlands P&R and Mercer Island station. Those won’t serve central Issaquah but they will give the Highlands better access to Seattle. We don’t know if they would continue after Issaquah Link, because that’s decades away and Metro probably hasn’t even decided.
“So which one do Issaquahites go to? Historically it has been downtown Seattle.”
Looking at the I-90 corridor more broadly, the Eastgate and Newcastle areas are probably more strongly linked to Downtown Seattle jobs than Downtown Bellevue jobs. Issaquah itself is further out and seems more likely to have residents that don’t cross the lake for work.
When I worked Downtown, there were more employees commenting from this area than there were West Seattle or SE Seattle or NE Seattle. It was about 25% of the office coming from South Bellevue or Newcastle via 90 corridor buses.
There are other trips than just jobs. There’s shopping, cultural trips, medical appointments, etc. There wasn’t much of that in Bellevue thirty years ago but now there is, enough to pull some people who would have earlier gone to Seattle.
People might want a way to get there on transit. Especially since Belleuve and Kirkland have added so much and Issaquah has grown so much. But to get there on transit, they need something better than a peak-only express route, or a half-hourly express route and then another transfer. They certainly wouldn’t take the 203 or 271, which are way too slow to be practical for Issaquah-Bellevue trips, and not something an ordinary person with a choice of driving would choose.
But jobs and school are still responsible for the largest transit rush during weekdays. There must be convincing, fast rush hour service to accommodate this and convince people to stop taking their car by themselves to park at work or school. Less road traffic also speeds up local all day routes.
Weekend ridership is much lower for many routes.
The other attraction is sports games, night life and easier trips into Seattle / Bellevue / Redmond without parking.
So transit agencies need to start reinvesting in peak hour bus service to all neighborhoods connecting to the nearest transit center at minimum, and either continuing to a Link station, Seattle or Bellevue – depending on which is the least duplicative.
I’m hoping Mayor Mullett or some Issaquah residents will address this.
Same question should be posed about the Tacoma Dome Link extension. The advocates may largely be non riders.
the main current issue seems to be move ST from the second tunnel.
This! Issaquah Link serves nowhere well. It’s a ten minute walk to the periphery of Bellevue College. The northeast corner of 150th and Eastgate Way has potential as a high-density development, but it’s a 17 minute walk.
The train doesn’t even reach downtown Issaquah OR The Highlands. It’s the Eastside equivalent of the 14th NW station for BLE.
Why do your constituents want this Boondoggle, Mr Mayor?
Tom,
Our vision is to have the station end in the middle of I-90 with a pedestrian plaza over the freeway that lets folks walk north to the global headquarters of Costco, or south to the retail district on Gilman Blvd. This would be the definition of the middle of our town. We also plan to add housing on the valley floor both north and south of the freeway.
In terms of the Eastgate stop, this can serve both T-Mobile and Bellevue College. This area also has large future potential for more transit oriented neighborhoods.
This is exactly where the Central Issaquah station should be, with good pedestrian access both north and south of the freeway. In fact, the station should look at lot like the existing Eastgate freeway station.
There is no need to invest further in Eastgate; I used that station every day pre-Covid.
With the savings from a Stride line rather than a Link line, the Lakemont station can actually be funded. That station should look like the new Renton 44th street station, with the interchange rebuilt to create both new HOV ramps alongside a new HOV lane bus station.
Factoria needs a new station.
Finally, add new HOV ramps to allow a bus to go directly from the Central Issaquah centerline station to the Highlands without weaving through traffic, have the Stride line terminate at the existing Highlands TC, and call it a day.
Our vision is to have the station end in the middle of I-90
And you want it to be rail?!!
Just to back up here, either way you have to have express from Issaquah to Mercer Island. That is how riders get to Seattle. Taking the train doesn’t make sense for that trip.
The train is for getting to Downtown Bellevue and all the places along the way. This is a worthy goal. But this is critical: Downtown Bellevue and all the places along the way can be served just as well with buses (for a lot less money). You can’t say that with most of Link. Maybe for a handful of trips (like Lynnwood to Mountlake Terrace) but not the bulk of trips (like Lynnwood to the U-District). That is because the U-District Station is far away from the freeway. Link manages to provide functionality that is significantly better than buses by going away from the freeway*. But since Issaquah Link would consist entirely of stations close to the freeway, the bus can do a better job than the train. That is because buses can serve additional stops after serving the freeway stations. For example, assume that we only have one bus from Issaquah to Downtown Bellevue. It would serve all of the stations that the train would. It wouldn’t just end at that station you mentioned. It would would keep going. For sake of argument, assume it goes to the Highlands. Now consider someone in the Highlands trying to get to Downtown Bellevue. There are two scenarios:
1) Take a bus to one of the freeway stations and transfer to the train.
2) Take a bus directly to Downtown Bellevue.
Clearly the second option is better. The bus is better. There is another obvious scenario. As I’m sure the mayor is well aware, Issaquah wants to add an overpass of I-90 at 11th. This would be adjacent to the station. It would cost very little to connect HOV ramps to that overpass, thus making it quite similar to the Eastgate freeway station. Now a bus can exit there and continue south to serve bus stops along Gilman Boulevard or Newport Way. Now consider someone in Olde Town, trying to get to downtown Bellevue. The two scenarios are the same as the riders from the Highlands. Again, the bus is better because it serves more stops.
But what if you are just traveling between stations. Does it make a difference? Not in terms of speed. The bus would be just as fast. So the only potential difference is frequency. That favors the bus as well. It is cheaper to run a bus than a train, especially if you’ve saved billions you can use on service. In this case it gets even better, since we are running buses from the Highlands and Olde Town. They combine for better frequency along the corridor with the stations. Even if you are just going from station to station, the bus is better because it is more frequent.
AJ is right, you can add more stations serving more people with buses. It isn’t even close. He left out the 405/I-90 HOV connection (which is critical). But once you do all that, transit is much better with buses.
*It is worth noting that this assessment of light rail specifically mentions Seattle. It lauds Link like so:
The light rail systems in Seattle, Minneapolis, Houston, and San Francisco, which are all among the best-performing in the United States, have no segments, or only short peripheral segments, along freeways.
Yet Issaquah Link would be entirely next to the freeway, which is exactly the scenario they criticize based on the evidence.
Not only should the station be at overpass of I-90 at 11th, the city should use ST3 to fully fund the overpass.
If Issaquah station is a rail station, a vehicle overpass is probably out of scope, but if Issaquah station is a bus station, the vehicle overpass becomes an integral part of the station, same as the 142nd Pl bridge is an integral part of the Eastgate station.
This overpass has been long desired by the city but they have struggling to find funding. Asking ST to build the full overpass as a requirement of an Issaquah Stride project is a win-win for the region & the city.
Seattle’s DSTT2 pet project is the actual boondoggle.
A lot of observers are imagining that an increase in the assessed value limit from 1.5% to 5% will make a lot more borrowing possible. It’s more than 3x after all. But Sound Transit debt is also limited by several policies and the realities of the market that will make debt much more expensive.
Sound Transit, in the fairly recent past, suggested that an increase in the assessed value limit doesn’t open up very much new borrowing – somewhere in the low single digit billions IIRC (I’ll post the deck if I can find it). The challenge is that the financial policy limits are not so much higher than the 1.5% limit.
So I’d really like to see an updated accounting of how much they can actually raise, and at what cost. Maybe somebody on the Board can ask this question of the CFO and have it answered in public.
Not the deck I was thinking of, but here’s another. This analysis from Fall 2024 (page 12) suggests Sound Transit has approximately no leeway to increase debt without hitting debt service coverage ratio limits in the 2040s.
I really appreciate the financial analysis, Dan. My dad was an actuary but the apple fell a long way from the tree in that regard (I am good at math though).
The big unknown is whether our Federal government will someday help rail transit construction along or not. For example, a no interest loan can be as beneficial as if it was a debt service limit change.
I actually think that there remains unspoken hope buried in the financial strategies that Uncle Sam will come through one day in the 2030’s when smarter heads prevail in Washington. ST seems to be making every extension shovel-ready no matter what to take advantage of a future, more favorable political environment.
Dan,
Our analysis is that you have a combination of events that enable you to get more built without raising taxes. The first is, early design money to determine how much you can lower costs. We are optimistic that the Issaquah line will be cut in half, and are guessing the Ballard ideas to reduce costs will also bear fruit.
Once you have the new lower cost estimates, changing the debt capacity to 3% will be a game changer. This could involve changing the debt coverage ratio to 1.25 from the current 1.5, but this is a sound transit board action, so a viable option if it gets projects delivered quicker and cheaper.
The final piece of the puzzle is the 75-year bond bill in the legislature. This may not help much if you don’t change the debt capacity, but if you give yourself debt flexibility and the ability to issue long-term debt at low interest rates, you have another game changer.
Our suggestion is we do all of the above. Lower the costs of the projects, adjust debt capacity and coverage ratios, pass the 75-year bond bill, and build everything your substantial cash flow enables you to build without unnecessary delays.
If the early design is allowed to consider alternative modes, I’d bet my mortgage you can do better than cut the cost estimate in half.
I agree with the sceptics this ballot measure couldn’t pass. It was a 58% vote to pass ST3. Getting to 60% to pay for the stuff voters thought they were already paying for seems a significant lift.
KC Metro has a funding cliff in 2030 that electeds need to think about. Are voters good for two transit measures? Probably not the one that needs 60%.
It’ll probably take more taxes too – debt isn’t free money and needs to be serviced. It’s an incomplete analysis to assume it will only be tacked on at the end of a decades long program (though that’s part of the modeling).
“For Issaquah, we are still getting light rail, not a fallback Bus Rapid Transit alternative.”
The use of the word “fallback” expresses a sentiment that any light rail service is better than any express bus service. That is fallacious thinking.
The 4 Line is badly laid out. The only stations not sited at park and ride facilities are Downtown Bellevue and Factoria. Riders just don’t make lots of trips between two park-and-ride facilities.
I could see a scenario where a rider from say Issaquah Highlands rides a bus to the Issaquah light rail station, rides 4 Line to East Main and rides 2 Line to Seattle. Or that rider upon reaching Issaquah light rail station transfers to an express bus that then requires another transfer to Link at Mercer Island.
Building light rail lines is not like building freeways. The station layouts (circulation), station locations, potential direct walkable destinations, transfer difficulty and frequency all are major factors. There are plenty of examples nationally where a design choice resulted in very low light rail transit use at a light rail station (like how SF’s spectacular but ridiculously deep Chinatown light rail station gets awful ridership even though it’s in a high density location with virtually no parking).
The objective should not be to merely have a rail station like it’s a civic monument that’s pretty to look at. The objective should instead be to have a useful rail line that enough riders will use — and in light rail’s case it’s not only should be used for longer commuter work trips but use for midday shorter trips too.
I’m hoping that HB 1491 changes the discussion. Cities no longer can just fight for a station and declare victory if they get it. Getting the station now means that an area a mile in diameter (half-mile radius) must be upzoned. Getting a station is no longer the end of the challenge; it’s the beginning.
Issaquah is planning a Regional Center around its station, so it has already accepted the half-mile walkshed principle. It had to create a regional center to justify its Link request and to handle its county-mandated growth target.
The fact that most of the rest of Issaquah is low density and/or beyond walking distance of the station, hasn’t been addressed yet. Upzoning and/or frequent bus feeders would seem to be indicated.
Issqauah seems to want to keep the City Hall area at its current historical charm. It does have a legacy railroad trail going north-south with exhibits and connections to other trails, and the City Hall architecture adds to the ambience. So I can understand if it wants to keep that at its low density, but I also wish more people could live and in the city center in the adjacent blocks. Still, that’s a secondary issue.
The use of the word “fallback” expresses a sentiment that any light rail service is better than any express bus service. That is fallacious thinking.
I agree. In this case it is clearly backwards. Issaquah Link will have one station in Issaquah. Now imagine trying to get from the Highlands to Downtown Bellevue:
1) We built this train line. So now someone from the Highlands has to get to a station. The station in Issaquah is not easy to get to. Maybe they run a bus to it. But it will take a while to ride the bus to the train. Then they have to wait for the train heading to Downtown Bellevue.
2) They connect the HOV lanes of I-90 and 405. Now they take a bus from the Highlands that gets on the freeway. It gets into the HOV lanes. It stops at the Eastgate freeway station. Then it gets right back into the HOV lanes until it exits at the HOV-only lanes that connect it to the Bellevue Transit Center.
Clearly the second option is better. It would save those riders the hassle of a transfer and save them a considerable amount of time. What is true of the Highlands is true of various areas in Issaquah, like North Issaquah. It is just a better solution for the vast majority of people who live in Issaquah.
Focusing on the analogy that the author uses of building a house, there are multiple ways to build a house differently that can significantly reduce costs. Solutions exist that don’t entail raising more money by going into debt for longer.
For starters, change the technology! It’s like changing the building materials and floor plan. If 4 Line is converted to an automated system, a number of elements can be done much more cheaply. Automation enables smaller stations and even single tracking in some places — as well as more frequent trains. Sure a rider may have to transfer to get to Downtown Bellevue but that automated train can sit at East Main or South Bellevue station with doors open ready to pull out every 4-5 minutes.
Automation could then open the opportunity to add 4 Line stations if funding allows so that it can serve Bellevue College and Eastgate parking with two stations rather than just one, or Issaquah could have two smaller stations rather than one big one.
Another cost-cutting avenue is to colocate municipal or other public facilities with light rail stations. A library, a rec center or maybe that unfunded but needed additional high school in Issaquah are ways that the property could be acquired by the City well in advance of when a ST could do it given its bonding limits.
I see that too many cities still think that ST is a cash cow to get their promised light rail station monuments. The calls to “save” a project is not saving anything but a plan on paper. Although it’s a catalyst, light rail isn’t anything more than a modal option and it will have to be fed with taxpayer subsidies every day once it opens. It’s the station area land use planning and station layouts that really matter. I’m even all for having a policy mechanism for cities to actually “earn” their stations and tracks with transit supportive actions that can hopefully also save money. HB 1491 has to be incorporated now — and the cities that can create better transit corridors by embracing it (and leveraging it in their communities by telling NIMBY’s that every new station must now have major upzoning around it) are the ones that should get stations first.
“Another cost-cutting avenue is to colocate municipal or other public facilities with light rail stations. A library, a rec center or maybe that unfunded but needed additional high school in Issaquah”
Issaquah, here are opportunities to put community services in your future regional center. Let’s make it more than just Trader Joe’s and a long walk to Costco’s offices.
Very good point, Al. With automated trains it gets far easier to build stubs to Bellevue College for example, or Factoria or even Mercer Island. Single track line may be sufficient for these stubs.
Why would you add Bellevue College station? What is the obsession with Bellevue College by people here? I get it’s an important location but it’s not anything special. Where would they even put the station?
The college is right next to the P&R with plenty of buses operating to it. It’s very much walkable if you put the station in the right place closer to the college but not exactly inside the P&R.
The current Link plan calls for an Eastgate station. That’s about 10min away from center of the campus. It may not be worth a detour, but rather than building the station in the I-90 median, it might be worth looking at building a dead-end station along 142nd Pl to make it easier to transfer to the College, buses and parking facilities.
Bellevue College is by far the community college campus with the most students in the entire state. It has long wanted to expand its course offerings and transition to offering many four-year degrees too. But even as a two year college it has a large demographic under 21. Its primary purpose is to serve students across the entire Eastside rather than just Bellevue.
ST3 defines the nearby stop as “Eastgate”. The Eastgate TC is about 1/4 of a mile from the closest campus classroom building and further to the others. It is flagged in the plan as a station as a parking opportunity rather than a destination opportunity.
Because planning has not yet begun, the station locations have not been proposed. However, adding two stations there (rather than one) would allow on to be parking focused and the other to be destination focused.
It seems probable that the Eastgate Station will have to be sited outside of the I-90 right of way. When studies begin, a challenge will be how to have a straight station platform in the area yet the I-90 median is not available as it is fully occupied by freeway pavement. That’s where automated metro technology with shorter trains and thus platforms, and even opportunity for short single tracking can offer lots of flexibility in design. Add to that two stations could allow each platform to be directly adjacent to a primary purpose rather than have one station at a catchall midpoint that puts riders on the edge of both parking and destination.
Of course, the 4 Line could just be a Stride line. But if it’s committed to be rail, it shouldn’t be a line that merely connects successive parking garages. It should have actual destinations next to more stations.
AI S.,
Issaquah is making the zoning changes around the future light-rail station to allow for thousands of new homes that won’t involve folks having to own a car.
Our city council is adopting a resolution on May 18th to be the first city to support giving Sound Transit permitting authority in Issaquah to make sure the line is done at the fastest speed and lowest possible cost.
To your suggestion, we are doing all we can to “earn” this station because it is important to our community, as well as the rest of East King County that is looking for a way to access our amazing new light-rail network.
When it comes to “earning” stations, some of our suburban cities are trying harder than Seattle itself is.
I commend Issaquah for trying. It’s too early to know whether the eventual station area land use and circulation strategy will be more like Downtown Redmond or more like Star Lake. The Redmond setup as the end of the line is I think more ideal. One station there is more parking focused while the other is more destination focused. That can be created by having only one station with separated entrances at the ends (“barbell” station layout), but two stations could really enhance the focus of each station’s adjacent, walkable land use. And as Issaqyah is at the end if the line, the time penalty to light rail travelers is negligible by adding a second station.
I’d look to Vancouver area cities served by Skytrain as inspiration. Richmond and Coquitlam are good examples. 30-story residential condo towers in central Issaquah would have stunning views no matter which direction the windows face, for example — surpassing the condo tower views in Downtown Bellevue.
PS. I think it’s important for Issaquah to participate in where the transfer stations are and how they’re designed within Bellevue. It’s not enough to just care about only light rail within the Issaquah city limits.
1. As others have advocated, a South Bellevue transfer point/ track branch point is optimal for a rider. The time penalty to go to Downtown Bellevue is negligible while the time savings to go to Seattle is significant.
The tradeoff is in cost and environmental impact to Mercer Slough. Is building two more miles of light rail track to get to East Main worth it? Can a Mercer Slough impact be avoided or mitigated by a longer span bridge?
2. The future transfer stations that ST has been designing within Seattle have been pretty rider unfriendly. Even CID Station lacks down escalators, which sucks for Eastside riders transferring with luggage to get to SeaTac.
So it’s not outrageous to say that ST doesn’t design easy transfers organically. If Issaquah and Bellevue don’t push for convenient Link train-train transfers, the result may be awful. No one in 2016 knew how bad the planned Seattle Link transfers would be for a rider.
Right now, East Main Station has two side platforms and riders have gates to cross both tracks at once. If ST operates trains every six minutes in both directions for both 2 Line and 4 Line, the gates will have to lock for a train every 90 seconds. Even at eight minutes it’s still a train every 120 seconds. The result would be for those gates to be locked at least half the time in preparation for an arriving train. So I think that ST will be “forced” to redesign East Main Station should it ever serve two Link lines.
“1) how critical is the second downtown transit tunnel and for whom?”
That’s a very good question, and it probably deserves an article. In the meantime here’s a partial answer.
The push for a second tunnel ultimately comes a study in the 2010s saying the total north-south transit demand downtown would exceed capacity by 2040. That’s all modes: Link, RapidRide, and other buses. For trips both through downtown, to/from downtown, and from one part of downtown to another. That’s what led to splitting RapidRide C and D to get more capacity downtown and to SLU, and one of the reasons for RapidRide H, and one of the reasons for the second tunnel. However, all this is based on pre-pandemic travel patterns. Now there are a lot fewer people going to downtown offices 9-5 when the crunch would occur.
ST has also raised other reasons at different times: too crowded platforms, not enough stairs/escalators/elevators to evacuate in an emergency, and/or an inadequate train-signal system.
One alternative is to upgrade DSTT1. There was an ST3 candidate project to do just that instead of building DSTT2. And now ST is saying it needs to upgrade the signals anyway even with DSTT2. And Balducci is saying DSTT1 needs larger upgrades beyond that anyway. So why not do them all now?
As to who benefits from DSTT2, that’s hard to say. People who can avoid overcrowded trains and pass-ups. But should that be attributed to Ballard passengers, Everett passengers, or all kinds of passengers? If somebody switches to DSTT2 for Ballard/Tacoma, they get less crowding. If they remain in DSTT1 for Everett/Lynnwood/Bellevue, they get less crowding. People who lose their north-south one-seat ride will be negatively impacted — severely. ST isn’t giving them enough attention. People traveling just within downtown maybe don’t care as much which tunnel they go to.
I think Somer’s support for DSTT2, and Snohomish/Pierce in general, is more about not creating additional work and uncertainty, than it is about whether DSTT2 is needed or not. ST previously decided for DSTT2, so the default path forward is to keep DSTT2, so that’s the path they like.
RE DSTT fairness:
– KCM with Federal grants built DSTT. Pierce and Snohomish get to use it but didn’t help build it.
– DSTT2 is an outcome created by adding a line to West Seattle more than it is overcrowding. The overcrowding analysis from over a decade ago (before work at home got so popular and peak surges abated) found only the segment between Symphony and CID overcrowded. Overcrowding north of Westlake and through the Beacon Hill tunnel were summarily ignored even though that data showed crowding challenges there too. The thing about the central segment overcrowding is that there is a huge relief valve called Third Avenue with almost continuous buses to ease that overcrowding — especially for short trips Downtown.
– The crazy thing about it all is that with the 2 Line cross-lake opening on top of all the other recent extension openings, ST now has empirical evidence on train loads from which to base more accurate analyses on potential overcrowding. Yet ST Board is forcing a decision on DSTT2 literally weeks or maybe just days before these data are reported. It’s just another reason why the vote should be tabled at least a few more weeks or months until ST staff makes the data available.
The data may still point to the need for DSTT2. But relying on forecasts developed before so many extensions opened and COVID with WFH happened is really quite irresponsible. The transit network and commute demands are so different from a decade ago.
60% support from voters seems unlikely. I think you could get that in King County, but not the whole district.
I feel like I’m all alone in believing this, but our state laws have unreasonably constrained Sound Transit. Ideally these things shouldn’t need to go to the voters at all. Give the Sound Transit board the power to levy whatever taxes they deem necessary. If taxes get too high, the voters are perfectly capable of replacing the officials responsible (i.e. Zahilay, Mello, and Somers), and those officials understand this very well.
The limits on debt/assessed value are the same as those faced by every city or school district. There’s no special constraint on Sound Transit
I keep hearing that projects are not being cancelled, only deferred pending future funding. But if there is no identified funding source, timeline, or delivery commitment, is that any different from cancellation?
There is a timeline; it’s the ST3 timeline of ~30 years. They’re stretching it again to 2052, so the “not affordable” projects are not affordable before 2052. However, ST can continue to levy ST3’s full taxes as long as capital projects described in the ST3 plan are still in-progress.
As noted by Mayor Mullet, ST does not have a funding problem, but a capacity problem. The limited debt capacity means certain projects, as currently conceptually designed, are unaffordable to build until the 2050s or 2060s. I’m not surprised ST doesn’t want to release a projected opening year in the 2050s BLE when they’re apparently confident they can get the cost down to deliver it sooner than that.
It’s valid to be confused, because it’s not a very transparent way of doing things, but when has ST ever been very transparent about their planning processes?
If thé “deferred” segments aren’t even fundable before 2052 and then they’ll take several years of construction, that pretty much pushes Ballard opening to 2058 or 2060. That’s well over 30 years.
Sound Moves passed 30 years ago. That began ST.
To put it differently. Someone who was first eligible to vote in 2008 for ST2 at 18 will be 60 or 62 when HR opens. If they voted for ST2 at 25, they’d be 67 or 69 and ready to retire.
Calling this situation a “deferral” is complete nonsense. Complete careers start and finish in this time frame.
Yeah, that’s why it sucks. There will be mid-level managers running aspects of ST3 projects in the 2050s who weren’t yet born when ST3 passed.
But the word “cancel” has a definition, and it doesn’t match what ST is doing here (at least, not for most projects). Delaying projects to the 2050s is just delay, albeit arguably catastrophic delay for the region.
Entire industries come and go in that timeframe.
Eg: Seattle’s first streetcar line started in 1884 as a horsecar line, and by 1941 everything was gone: electric, cable cars, etc.
I am starting to wonder if ST broke Buy American Act wide open and make procurement decision at best interest of cost, whether that cost saving would even offset the federal funding it wouldn’t be qualified for.
We keep citing success cases around us, but a lot of them were successful because they are not in the US
Honolulu’s driverless train vehicles meet the Buy America requirements. Admittedly, it’s not efficient to assemble trains in Pittsburgh and then get them to Hawai’i.
It may take a creative approach to assembly location to comply but it can be done.
It is Pittsburg CA in East Bay. The fact that Hitachi Rail shares that facility with BART production by Bombardier makes me feel like the whole domestic assembly is just an act to meet requirement. All the BART cars were mostly done in Bombardier’s Mexico’s plant. Final assembly being done in the US probably created more problems in the process.
Deferring is mothballing so that it can be resumed later. Canceling may involve dismantling all the process structures, archiving the reports, removing it from the long-range plan, and releasing holds on real estate or intentions to acquire it, so it would be harder to start again.
Pierce county needs to be let go from the boondoggle that is the light rail. Its completely unacceptable that we’ve been paying for Seattle’s train for years now and won’t even get a connection
It’s Pierce County county and city officials that are preventing ST from doing that. If they asked for something different instead of Link, the other subareas would probably have little objection. The cost of Central Link could fund several 1-digit BRT line upgrades, extend the T Line to Federal Way and Tacoma Mall, and have frequent ST Express service throughout the county.
To keep it “in keeping” with ST3, it could focus on alternative access to Federal Way station from downtown Tacoma, Lakewood, and maybe other areas like Pacific Avenue and Puyallup. 10-15 minute all-day service to Federal Way and between Pierce County cities would do wonders for transit’s effectiveness and popularity in Pierce County.
Maybe make it Ballard to UW instead of Ballard to downtown, with a stop in Fremont/Wallingford on Stone Way to get even more residents on.
Here’s an idea. Why doesn’t ST put in secure fair turn styles at their stations? Right now there is 0 accountability for a rider to pay a fare to ride. I read an article last week that stated only 61% of riders actually pay a fare to ride ST.
And don’t get me started on how ST wastes money during the construction of the sections of light rail. I know first hand as I have seen with my job in construction.
Youth under 18 ride free per a state policy enacted a few years ago, and the state gives agencies a grant to cover their fare. Did you subtract them from those who are supposed to pay a fare?
ST is studying fare gates, and if the study is favorable, it will start a pilot later this year.
So when I transfer from Link to a bus do I need to tap on the bus? If I don’t then maybe all (most) of the others not tapping are already one or more ride in on an earlier tap and we don’t have as many scofflaws we think? ( actually I tap all the time even getting off link so I have a record of time on the system for my own purposes).
It’s a good question. Probably most riders don’t know.
By “tap” you mean Orca, right? The Orca allocation has been based on splitting the full ride by a proportion set as if each leg was a separate fare.
So the fair thing to do is tap in both places. That way each operator gets their share.
Riders probably don’t realize too that if they type multiple times in 90 minutes, they pay the same rate as if they just tapped once.
By making youth fares free, operators haven’t been requiring teens to tap at all. Then college students often get an unlimited Orca pass with their student ID. The result is that too many riders just learn to skip tapping altogether and maybe have even lost their Orca card.
Other adults have unlimited-ride Orca cards. They don’t see the need to tap because they know that they don’t pay to board.
There probably needs to be more “Orca education” to inspire more riders to actually tap. Riders will tap if regularly educated and reminded about tapping. Ideally, I think even young children need to be given courtesy Orca cards that make a different sound when they tap like their parents. The act of tapping is a behavior than paying a fare and the younger the rider, the more responsible they’ll be about tapping when they become working adults.
I tap because the data is used as a statistical source.
You still have to tap if you have the upass or business pass. If you don’t you will get a ticket. The reason is that the pass is split between agencies based on use. If you don’t tap your card, the agencies split it more proportionally. Also, some businesses only pay if you tap the card.
“You still have to tap if you have the upass or business pass. If you don’t you will get a ticket.”
Yes that’s true! Unfortunately it’s not enforced widely. People need to be reminded or even guilted to get them to tap and ride legally!
Geez. No wonder the ridership numbers just seem a mess.
@ Robert W:
Sat likrkyvrelies on the counters installed at each door more. If they miss a body, they can adjust the data to make sure every train is at 0 at the end of the line.
That phone writing is indecipherable.
Just give whoever needs to take transit a youth pass like employer give employee corporate pass. Where I grew up, transit agency insisted everyone should have a card and and tap no matter they pay regular, reduced, zero fare. Their reasoning was that it was a good way to ask budget for specific subsidy like how much money transit agency should receive if local government wants free transit for senior.
It is also an educational process for teens in my opinion.
It is the same here. Everyone is supposed to tap. You are supposed to tap for every transfer. You are supposed to tap even if no money is being charged to the account (i. e. you have a Youth Pass or an unlimited-use pass). The problem is, a lot of people don’t. They assume that tapping is for those who haven’t paid. If you have an unlimited pass, then you’ve already paid, so it seems nonsensical. Meanwhile, your are supposed to have passes but many youth simply forget them (or their parents haven’t bothered to get them an ORCA card). This is probably quite common, especially for younger riders (who travel with their parents). In fact, the website for Metro says “Youth are encouraged—but not required—to get a free Youth ORCA card.”
The point is, there are bound to be a lot of people not tapping. It isn’t clear how many people who fail to tap are actually costing the agencies any money. They guy with the company ORCA card runs to catch the train without tapping. The youth left his ORCA card at home. It adds up to “non-compliance” but it really doesn’t cost the agency*. More to the point, having those riders tap doesn’t wouldn’t help the agency. Then you have people who are riding for free that simply wouldn’t ride if they started charging. Or people that would jump fare gates. It isn’t clear how much money would be generated by fare gates.
Even if it does save money in the long run, it is quite possible that it would be worse for Sound Transit, given they want to spend a lot of money *now*. Getting a marginally higher fare recovery twenty years from now won’t help if we spend a lot of money adding fare gates in the next few years (given we want to go on a really big spending spree soon).
*OK, technically the share of money from unlimited passes is spread out between agencies based on how the users tap. But there are obvious alternatives (like statistical estimates) that can be done instead. For all we know this is the case with unlimited passes that are never used (I don’t know how that money is spread to the agencies).
Don’t schools distribute youth ORCA cards?
“Where I grew up, transit agency insisted everyone should have a card and tap no matter if they pay regular, reduced, zero fare.”
Exactly, tapping should be taught as an automatic behavior.
To ST’s credit, they did redesign stations to more clearly delineate where paid fare zones are either yellow rubber markings and more signs a few years ago. But the delineation still lacks a feedback step other than a beep and a tiny info screen on an Orca card reader. And paper fares don’t register at a Orca reader at all.
Even if a turnstile doesn’t open or close, a prominent step to indicate to the rider and everyone else around when a fare is registered (visible green light and a beep as opposed to a red light and a buzz) can seemingly increase fare compliance. Without immediate and visible shaming of some sort, I think fare collection and tapping is going to be interpreted more as a suggestion rather than a requirement.
Fare compliance was 97% before the pandemic, without fare gates. The upheavals of 2020 with free fares and businesses closed and capped capacity changed people’s habits. So we should be able to recover some of it over time. And ST is studying fare gates and thinking about a pilot.
“Fare compliance was 97% before the pandemic, without fare gates. The upheavals of 2020 with free fares and businesses closed and capped capacity changed people’s habits.”
I think that accelerated the fare non-compliance — but the seeds were sown earlier with practices like back door boarding and Link fare checkers. Thinking back to 2011, Metro had the Downtown free fare zone but everyone still had always to walk by the driver and pay/ tap in front of the driver to get on or off except in that zone. RapidRides weren’t open yet. Link ridership was running around 25K on an average weekday so it was a bit of a novelty service — so most transit riders didn’t have the option to skip. Even youth were still required to pay fares in front of the driver.
It’s similar to the whole shift to work from home; the groundwork for it was already there but Covid accelerated it.
The issue can’t go unaddressed forever. At some point the transit operators will have to make changes to reduce the percent of non-paying riders. In lieu of human checks, other strategies to immediately highlight when someone doesn’t pay could help reduce the problem.
And just another note on turnstiles: turnstiles could work like ramp meters if there’s a risk of platform overcrowding. They have benefits beyond mere fare compliance.
We need leadership with the courage to get exemptions and push it through to completion. If we wanted it bad enough, the entire st3 project could be finished in 5 years. Rip the bandaid off. Use the levers of government power to get it done. Eminent domain, waivers, etc.
There is no solution to make everyone happy. The only review process should be to ensure the plan is efficient, earthquake safe, and will not cause catastrophic environmental damage.
Too many people have a say right now. We need to quit wasting time and money and start digging.
“to ensure the plan is efficient” is at odds with the current plan to put the new Westlake station 9 escalator trips (and 12 floors) under the current station, and force those connecting between the current busiest stations to transfer using this mess.
Or you just take the elevator.
If there’s not a line at the elevator, if it’s working, and if it’s one top-to-bottom elevator. UW station has four levels of escalators but one top-to-bottom elevator. Capitol Hill station’s northern entrance has one elevator from the platform to the mezzanine, then you walk to the next elevator from the mezzanine to the surface. The DSTT escalators are split like that too.
All of the renderings for the Westlake station have at least 4 elevators going from the bottom platform to the mezzanine connecting with the Northbound platform, which should be able to handle peak period loads. I seriously doubt that ST would cut the number of elevators down given its experience with elevator issues at capitol hill and uw.
You can also continue on the same elevator to the top mezzanine to connect with the trains going to Bellevue. The station will not have the split elevator issue, and all elevators will be required to be high speed traction elevators as mandated by the design criteria manual for the heights that they will be traveling. It will be much more like Beacon Hill than to Capitol Hill.
There’s no way only 4 elevators will handle the number of passengers. It’s already the busiest station on the system.
Beacon Hill has twice that number of elevators for a fraction of the passengers.
≈ 15 passengers per trip x ≈ 1 minute trip x 60 minutes per hour x 4 elevators = 3,600 passengers per hour.
With the huge expense of all the mezzanines and escalators, they should probably just get rid of the escalators and triple the number of elevators. This would probably wind up being cheaper.
I voted for ST3. Unfortunately what I voted for is not going to come to fruition. To me that just seems like the politicians are lying to us telling us they’re going to give us ST3 and then telling us they can’t afford it but still charging us for ST3. That seems like fraud to me.
The problem is ST3 was lines on a map. It didn’t include stuff like the massive new Westlake station (search for “Escalatorpalooza” to find an article from 2019 from someone from Vancouver BC about that) or tunnel under West Seattle.
As advertised 10 years ago, ST3 didn’t seem that bad.
Glenn is right. Some of ST3 line segments came from earlier conceptual studies but others were quickly included without enough study. The conceptual studies were also not thorough about project design challenges. That’s especially true for underground segments or segments that aren’t nested in an existing right of way.
The legislature gave Sat the green light in 2016 and the Board became giddy about taking the wad of cash to the project shopping mall.
Even then, I cautioned that there wasn’t going to be enough money to build everything in the conceptual diagram. Other new underground transit tunnels in San Francisco, Los Angeles and NYC were already much costlier than the amount set aside for DSTT2. Then, the contingency funds were set low at 10% to make the math work for the vote. (Others posted here that the low contingency was not a problem because ST was supposedly better at costing, by the way. They have now been clearly proven wrong.)
Then there is the inevitable costly scope creep as design challenges mount. Go deeper! Build higher! Expand station vaults and construction zone sites! These kinds of additional costs are not driven by inflation; these kinds of additional costs are driven by not assuming them in 2016.
Sorry Nick, you didn’t read the fine print. The original cost estimate was just a guess. The board can cancel the best parts and keep the worst parts and still charge you the same as the planned for everything. Of course you can always replace the board, although that means voting against your local representative because of their relatively minor role in this fiasco.
Has your mindset changed knowing that AI might cause the local economy to collapse due to white collar jobs being automated?
Oh please don’t bring up the AI fear monger again
It’s not clear where the fluctuating economic trends will lead, because things keep changing unexpectedly. We need definitive evidence that something is happening long-term before overhauling plans. Some people said throughout the 2010s that population growth in Seattle had reached its end so we can stop building housing. But it didn’t stop, and if we had stopped building housing, the shortage would be even worse than it is and prices would be higher. The same thing could happen if we believe all the maximalist AI predictions.
Another was that automated cars would be ubiquidous by now, and that and automated taxis would replace the need for transit and reduce congestion. A few smaller cities replaced their transit with subsidized Uber, and now fares are two or three times higher and excluding working-class people. One city in Texas has only app taxis, and while they function, they only have capacity for a tiny fraction of what buses could transport, so it only works if a tiny fraction of the population uses it. Tacoma has that issue now with Runner, which replaced a few lower-volume routes with app taxis. When even a small number of people summon them simultaneously, the system bogs down and they’re waiting an hour for it.
It’s hard for me to believe that by 2050 or 2100 it will still be feasible to drive cars or have overseas shipping and there won’t be a climate catastrophe and we might not get into a situation where billionaires have all the money and everybody else is starving and there are no such things as jobs to go to and people won’t be able to live in the suburbs and exurbs en masse. So who will ride the Spine to its end or the 4 Line. But we don’t know. We can’t plan based on what we guess might happen and then it doesn’t. The only thing we can base it on is what has proven so far.
No, it has not. There will still be a housing shortage, still a need for immense growth, and still a need for people to travel for work. The nifty thing about trains is they don’t care why you are traveling.
I can’t speak for the mayor but it is way too early to predict what impact AI will have. There are several trends however:
1) We have an aging population.
2) A lot more people are working from home. This started before the pandemic but accelerated because of it. It is clear that this isn’t going away. Many white collar workers spend all of there time at home while others spend a substantial amount of time at home.
Both of these contribute to the following:
3) A shift toward lower peak ridership and higher midday ridership.
4) Less demand for office space. This may be temporary (just as housing prices went down in the recession and then rebound after). But it is also possible that this is a long term trend. It is quite possible that the greater Seattle region is close to its peak in terms of office space even as it gradually increases in population.
This means that Issaquah may never develop the major office center they hope to build. There may simply not be enough demand to build those offices. This could impact the plans for Issaquah Link.
Regardless, it seems likely that peak transit will be a smaller portion of overall transit. If Issaquah Link is tied to peak demand then this could be an issue. I don’t see it matter either way. No matter what the future holds, Issaquah Link is a poorly designed project. The area would be much better off with improved bus service and bus-based infrastructure.
I don’t think Issaquah “hopes” to build an office center, it already exists with the Costco HQ. Some brief googling tells me their are 7K people at corporate headquarters, plus for a global retailer there is a steady stream of vendors in town for meetings.
Remember, Issaquah is not a bedroom community; the daytime population is great than nighttime. Also, between the schools, hospital, and retail, it’s a regional destination for more than just work.
The plans for Issaquah Link suggested a major office complex in Central Issaquah (https://www.issaquahwa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/1139/Central-Issaquah-Plan) with tens of thousands of new jobs. Costco has consolidated a lot of its workforce there, but it is not a very dense campus. Basically Issaquah wants to become the next Downtown Bellevue (with skyscrapers). I doubt that will happen.
Remember, Issaquah is not a bedroom community
For all intents and purposes it is. I routinely make a “reverse commute” on I-90 through Issaquah. It is smooth sailing. In contrast, I can see cars backed up for miles going the other direction. The transit service reflects this as well. There are more buses heading west in the morning and east in the afternoon.
between the schools, hospital, and retail, it’s a regional destination for more than just work.
Yes, it is a regional destination for other, similar suburbs (like Sammamish). So what? Issaquah Link is irrelevant to that. Just consider how people might get to Issaquah in the morning. From most directions it makes sense to drive. The one exception is from Seattle. That is the only place where transit adds significant value. But workers from Seattle — especially those who take transit — would rather work in Downtown Bellevue or Redmond. It is hard to see how being a “regional destination” helps the case for Issaquah Link in the least.
Issaquah isn’t a bedroom community, but neither is Renton. But people say bus service is good enough for Renton (population 105K), but is not good enough for Issaquah (population 40K)?
“Remember, Issaquah is not a bedroom community; the daytime population is great than nighttime.”
If we were talking about traffic flow, the larger geography of a city is relevant. But if we are talking rail transit, it’s the walkable station area that I think primarily matters at the non-home end. Shuttle or feeder buses can enlarge the station catchment area but if a destination like an office isn’t within walking distance (especially easy walking distance), it’s not going to get a huge number of rail riders no matter how many thousands work there. That’s especially true if the employer offers free parking.
In general, station area walk access is an afterthought. Station circulation is never a Board topic. Escalators and elevators are the first things cut. ST is better than it was about helping station area walking access projects along but it still feels more like an afterthought in macro discussions.
Ross, I helped draft the document you linked. There is no ambition to downtown Bellevue. The better comp would be Redmond downtown or overlake, with dense midrise mostly in the 5~8 stories.
Comparing Central Issaquah to Sammamish? Lolz. I90 is backed up one-way because it funnels in drivers from the actual bedroom communities of Sammamish, Renton Highlands, Snoqualmie, and yes the parts of Issaquah that are outside of the regional growth center. That is a large swath of trips that will never be well served by transit and are mostly irrelevant to transit planning (aside from the resulting congestion) .
Again, there are 7K people who work at Costco HQ. If 1/3 of them commute via a Central Issaquah Station, the resulting 2,300 boardings would make it a typical SE Seattle Link station before adding anyone traveling in the “primary” direction. It’s not only useful for Seattle residents. If I live in, say, Bothell and work at Costco, taking 405 Stride and transferring in Bellevue is super compelling comparing to sitting in 405 traffic every day.
What about someone who lives in Renton who wants to head to Issaquah offices?
Take Stride all the way up to Bellevue…. Then backtrack.. 😂
That’s why S Bellevue is an absolutely necessary place to turn into a transit hub. It’s also the best connection to Eastgate and Factoria which have several offices and housing complexes as well. And it’s another way into Seattle and north to the UW after the 1 Line gets cut off from the south.
Renton to Issaquah is like West Seattle to Columbia City, but on a larger scale. It’s a trip between two adjacent branches.
Should there best a direct connect like Route 50? Sure, but it’s going to be a local route that is slow & focused on coverage. For fast & reliable service, the best trip is to travel up one branch and then back down the other branch, but this will always require a transfer at the node where the . There will never be an bus that goes Renton-South Bellevue-Issaquah for the same reason there will never be a bus that goes West Seattle-King Street-Columbia City, even though there is frequent service WS-ID and CC-ID.
King County regional transit will only be complete once we have:
1. Full transit across I-90, with Mercer Island and South Bellevue being major stops. A bus can do this, though a train would be nice too… Immune to traffic and road delays.
2. Full transit along I-405 that effectively serves Southcenter, Renton, South Bellevue, Bellevue, South Kirkland, Kirkland, Bothell, and UW Bothell. A bus cannot do that. A train can.
All complemented with more localized bus routes serving the corridor.
#2 describes the existing 405 Stride lines, with a few necessary improvements in Tukwila and Renton. That corridor absolutely can & should be served by bus.
It misses multiple essential stops that only a train can do without significantly slowing down the trip:
1. SeaTac Airport
2. Southcenter Mall
3. Tukwila Station
4. Renton Landing
5. South Bellevue Station
6. South Kirkland Station
7. Downtown Kirkland
8. UW Bothell
A train can easily hit all these points while having a similar or only slightly slower travel time to Stride, which only serves a few park and rides + freeway stops.
An open BRT could work, but there are too many trip combinations to account for. Anyone between any of those two points will want to travel to each other at many times of the day. It just makes sense to have a train here.