Paris’s ultra-useful transit is getting better. (Transit Tangents)
Stockholm’s beautiful metro stations are “the world’s longest art exhibition”. (Not Just Bikes)
We need visionaries like this, and politicians who can prioritize the right things get it done. Paris has automated trains, platform screen doors, service every 5 minutes on many metro and bus lines, station entrances with a pedestrianized street and walk-up retail at both city and suburban stations, no bias against gondolas or funiculars where appropriate, extensive cycletracks, tram tracks in grass beds, etc.
Both Stockholm and Sound Transit spend 1% of their station budget on art, yet Stockholm has much better art. Each station built since the 1970s has a unique look so you can tell at a glance which station you’re at. In Seattle each of the DSTT stations are unique, but the U-Link/Northgate Link underground stations all look alike, so if you can’t see the signs because they aren’t visible from your viewpoint or people’s heads are blocking the view and you missed the audio announcement, it can be hard to figure out whether this is your station or not, so sometimes you just have to go out and hope it is. Whereas if each station were unique, you could tell at a glance at any part of the wall or floor whether this is your station.
The two guys narrating each taking up half the picture reminds a bit me of West End Girls. London in the 80s, with transit.
This is an open thread.
Even with a physical Navigo in Paris, I was constantly frustrated, and it wasn’t working properly for me. Contrast that with Amsterdam, which just allowed my to tap my credit card, which made things completely easy and seamless.
OVChipkaart is pretty nice too. You have commuter/regional rail to metro cross platform transfers! Just remember to tap your card on the readers in either direction lol.
Paris is booming by switching focus from cars to bikes and transit. They don’t care about the mode as long as it meets the needs of the riders Their backbone are subways (on wheels or tires), they use 7 segment walkthrough trams for the suburbs, feeder buses, and even gondolas and funiculars. New subways automated, existing ones upgraded. They pick the mode by need of the route.
Sound Transit should review their mode selection. In 2013 they reviewed it last, since then, many priorities (such as lots of at-grade platforms) have changed. They need to update their mode selection to today’s needs and technology and switch to automated light metro and consider gondolas for new lines.
The free waterfront shuttle is coming back. There’s also going to be a FIFA shuttle.
I wonder if there’s enough demand to run the waterfront shuttle year-round, as a regular Metro route. I suspect it would do fairly well?
The special FIFA route should really just be additional service (and maybe turn back) on the 131, 132, 21, etc… I don’t understand why we need to run a brand new overlay route on one of the most well-served corridors in the city.
The FIFA route at least seems better than the Seahawks parade shuttle. Did anyone ride the Seahawks parade shuttles? Were there a decent amount of riders? I saw a few of the Capitol Hill shuttles, they seemed mostly empty.
https://kingcountymetro.blog/2026/05/06/king-county-executive-zahilay-announces-free-rides-on-waterfront-shuttle-starting-may-21-ahead-of-fifa-world-cup-26tm-in-seattle/
The 131 and 132 are notoriously unreliable. They come 5-15 minutes late at every day between 10am and 7pm. They don’t have a lot of spare seats because many people get on/off throughout SODO. They’re mostly working-class riders, so some FIFA attendees may have reservations about mixing with them. But the biggest issue is their unreliability. We can’t expect FIFA attendees to wait for a late bus all the time and still have a good impression of Seattle. They need transit that works, and an overlay shuttle downtown is a reasonable way to provide it rather than just adding runs to regular routes. Ideally they’ll get the message that regular routes in the same corridor are also an option.
5-15 late is like nothing compared to what some other routes have to deal with.
Try riding a peak hour bus with 20-45 min frequency that sometimes don’t even show up or come 20-40 (or even more) mins late regularly
Then blame us on low ridership and delete our routes
We’re talking about World Cup visitors who will spend a week here and then go home and tell people their impression of Seattle. They won’t even see those peak-only routes you’re talking about.
We can’t serve all of Metro’s long-term issues with a FIFA crowd-management strategy. It requires money for standby buses that can swoop in when a regular bus gets stuck in congestion. That money isn’t available at present. Or it requires transit lanes on all streets that are prone to such bus-blocking congestion, like Paris would do. There’s not the political will for that; otherwise it would have been done twenty years ago.
570 should be expanded all day during FIFA.
Oh, if it’s like the Seahawks Victory day, regular bus routes downtown were suspended, so you had to take the shuttle to the peripheral transfer hubs. Metro seems like it will likely do that again. Hopefully it will operate more smoothly than last time. I took a shuttle bus northbound to monitor how transit was doing, and I encountered several people not sure how to get to the U-District, Fremont, etc. I said to take the shuttle to the Mercer Street hub and transfer there to the regular route, because the regular routes weren’t going downtown. But it turned out that some of them were, and some of them weren’t but later they were, so nobody could keep track of which regular routes were going downtown and which were not, because it kept changing. Hopefully now that it will be Metro’s second time doing it, it will be more foolproof this time.
Also during the Seahawks Day, Link was completely full and had a platformful that couldn’t get on at each of Stadium, CID, Pioneer Square, and Symphony stations, as well as full trains from Lynnwood to Seattle, so people were on the shuttles looking for a bus alternative after they had given up waiting for Link. So that’s something to keep in mind.
The World Cup match transit crowds will not be as large as the Seahawks parade crowds. International visitors will also be coming from hotels rather than residences (unless they have rented one using Airbnb or Vrbo). They likely will also be traveling in small groups rather than individually, so more will use ridesharing options. Finally, I suspect that the visitors will not expect to arrive and leave close to match times, differing from the way that the parade crowds wanted to travel.
On top of that, it’s generally more stressful to enter and leave the US than it used to be two years ago. I’m even wondering if the stadium will fill up as the ticket prices are $1600 and up per person.
I’m expecting that Link daily ridership will be higher on Pride Sunday on June 28 than on any upcoming FIFA game day. The parade crowds alone would fill several stadiums.
Eastbound 2 Line at Judkins Park this morning announced “This is the… 2 Line. To. Downtown Redmond. via. Bellevue.”. I didn’t hear the north/westbound announcement.
Any other Link announcements indicating interstitial city names?
I heard “to Lynnwood City Center via Seattle” on the westbound 2 line last Saturday! It’s great!
I guess ST is finally taking action to rectify the intermediate destination oversight. Hopefully, the visual signage will also change if it hasn’t already.
Transit agencies have long signed for intermediate destinations. BART always announced which East Bay trains went to San Francisco since it opened for example. Other systems have long announced “inbound” and “outbound” on train services. So I see this as ST correcting its oversight rather than pursuing some bold new signage idea.
The 2 Line signage really brings the oversight out. I could see how an uninformed rider boarding a train in Lynnwood would think that a Redmond train would skip Seattle or vice versa.
Yeah, the signs are really bad. I understand that the station in Federal Way is officially called “Federal Way Downtown”. It is just fine to have that on the map or at the station itself (in big bold letters). But it shouldn’t be on a directional sign at other stations. You shouldn’t see the word “downtown” at SeaTac and think you should head south to get to Downtown Seattle. Just put “Federal Way”.
The same is true for the station called “Downtown Redmond”. I see the value in adding “Bellevue” but I don’t think it is necessary. Forty years ago, maybe, but not now. Redmond is on the map now (so to speak).
On the other hand, I would add “SeaTac Airport” to “Federal Way” whenever possible. On signs it makes sense to just add the little airplane icon. But if you make an announcement and board in a crowded train downtown it is worthwhile to be reassured that you got on the right train (with all of your luggage) especially since SeaTac ridership dwarfs that of Federal Way.
It should say “Redmond”. The purpose of the sign is to make sure you get on the right train. There’s no other line that goes to a different part of Redmond to confuse it with. You just have to make sure it says “Redmond”, not “Lynnwood” or “Federal Way”. Additional generic words like “DT” or “Downtown” detract from this.
The original comment is about the inclusion of “via” into the announcement, not about whether a terminal station is called downtown.
Al also mentioned the signage. So that is what we are discussing now. Are you really complaining about thread drift Sam?
Even an anti-trolling comment can be a troll. We’d expect nothing less from T1, Troll Number One.
Since this is an open thread, I’ll put this comment here (even though it is ST3 related). I was rereading this article by Ryan Packer from almost a year ago: https://www.theurbanist.org/sound-transit-ceo-tabs-agency-wide-realignment/. To quote the article:
In the past, when faced with financial obstacles, Sound Transit has turned to delaying projects or scaling back the length of planned lines as the primary ways to move forward.
“This is an agency initiative to really rethink the way we plan and we provide board members with the tools to drive the agency forward,” Constantine said. “We want you to have many levers to operate, many dials to turn, rather than the two blunt instruments we always had of scope and schedule.”
“It is holistic. It’s creative. It’s iterative,” Constantine said. “We’re talking about everything across the agency — operations and maintenance and finance — considering everything we are doing in order that we might be able to better deliver and better serve from an internal perspective, process requires ST leadership and staff to bring all of our costs together and really collaborate across various interlocking spheres to inform each other and deliver the best data and information to the board to inform board decisions, instead of throwing on the brakes, instead of paralysis or simply delaying projects and diminishing scope, as we did previously. We are going to look at this program holistically and bring the board information on all of our work from across all of our enterprise.”
At this point, the comments by Mr. Constantine sound like complete bullshit. The board is doing precisely what they said they wouldn’t do: delaying projects or scaling things back. There is no creativity — quite the opposite. When someone from outside the agency took the time to provide a well researched, reasonable proposal — vetted by a transportation consultant no less — it is met with derision and misinformation. https://www.theurbanist.org/seattle-sound-transit-leaders-rally-to-avoid-light-rail-delays/. To quote from that article:
“We know from a region up in Vancouver, the Canada Line has been identified as an example of this. They’re bursting at the seams, and it’s not easy to grow capacity once you set a station size,” Krieg said.
This is bullshit. As Kubly (and others) point out, the stations could be smaller and have more capacity. Either Krieg doesn’t understand what an automated train line would actually entail or he is just spreading bullshit as a way to avoid changing the plans. This stubborn attitude is bad enough if things are going well. But it is completely irresponsible given how bad things are. The current proposal calls for eliminating several stations on the small section that will actually be built. It is like First Hill all over again. Other stations are delayed indefinitely, including the two projects (Ballard Link and Graham Street Station) that are likely the most cost effective! Let that sink in. The board is refusing to consider alternatives while delaying the most cost-effective projects and completely eliminating other stations. What a mess.
Constantine is a career politician. He is not a career transit boss — neither builder or operator. What he says is going to sound like what he’s spent much of his career doing — saying the popular things rather than admit the actual realities.
He orchestrated his hiring into the job and the Board bought into it. The practice of contracting out most things from planning to building to operations to maintenance also makes the agency mostly a bureaucratic intermediary that doesn’t have to be directly culpable for mistakes and problems. (Problems “happen” to ST as opposed to problems “caused” by ST is the resulting logic.) So Board members went along with the idea of a politico running the agency rather than a seasoned management talent.
ST is like a trust fund baby that is now in young adulthood. The first order of business is to guarantee that the trust fund never dries up. Extending ST3 guarantees that. The second is to do what feels popular (put the “party” into construction party).
OK, here is another thought. This is what I think they should do in Seattle:
1) Build Graham Street Station. It is a small project but a very important one. Not only will it likely get the most ridership per dollar, but it will be finished sooner. From a social equity standpoint, it is also the best Link project in Seattle.
2) Plan to build West Seattle to Ballard Link in its entirety as an automated rail line. No missing stations — the whole thing. This is closest to what the voters voted for and better for existing riders (the existing spine from Lynnwood to Federal Way would remain intact).
3) Start with a line from Westlake to Interbay (Dravus). This is not ideal but there are several advantages to this:
a) This is the least controversial section. In contrast, the second tunnel is extremely controversial. Expect major pushback from CID leaders. Transit leaders are also not happy with any of the proposals for the downtown stations (given poor transfers and the lack of additional coverage). It is also very disruptive to existing transit users. West Seattle Link is less controversial, but there is still organized opposition to West Seattle Link. At the other end of things are riders who were excited about West Seattle Link, only to find their station is now gone. The loss of Avalon is a big deal. Right now the riders have buses that go downtown as well as buses that connect them to the other stations and SoDo. They will clearly be worse off with West Seattle Link. While there is no organized opposition to Ballard Link, the station placement is controversial. By building this section first (from Interbay to Westlake) we delay all of these controversies while we hope to improve those areas in the future (I still hold out hope for a First Hill station as well as station in the heart of Ballard). It may not be “building the best parts first” but it is building the least controversial parts first.
b) It is a lot more affordable than what they have planned. Westlake to Interbay is bound to be a lot cheaper than Seattle Center to the Alaska Junction. So much so that the South Lake Union Station should be back on the table.
c) Since this is cheaper, it is likely that it would be built sooner. Westlake to Interbay would be completed well before Westlake to West Seattle.
d) It provides a lot of functionality while we wait for the project to be extended. You would still have to run buses from Ballard to downtown. But at least they could avoid having to detour to Uptown. Thus the D Line would follow the faster pathway of the Metro 15. Riders heading to Uptown would simply transfer to the (frequent) train. I could also see an all-day Metro 18 as well. Of course this isn’t as good as a train to Ballard, but it gets us closer. Meanwhile, you would no longer have buses from Magnolia to downtown. Those riders would be expected to transfer at Interbay or Smith Cove. Riders in Magnolia would be similar to riders in West Seattle — maybe they prefer their old express bus, but at least the trip is fast. You would have the same sort of service savings as would happen in West Seattle (although not to the same degree). Buses in Magnolia would instead go to Fremont and the UW. If Seattle manages to increase funding just a little bit (as a result of this and other changes) various parts of Magnolia could get 15 minute all-day service, a considerable improvement.
e) It provides more overall improvement in the transit system. OK, I’ll admit, I’m not 100% sure about this. But West Seattle Link has so many winners and losers it doesn’t seem like a big improvement. In contrast, this would largely involve winners. The buses from Ballard would be considerably faster to downtown. Riders heading to Uptown, South Lake Union or Denny have a frequent train to the middle of downtown. The only folks that might complain are riders from Magnolia, as they would be forced to transfer. But along with the automates line (running every couple minutes midday) they would also be able to connect to the buses from Ballard (which serve Belltown). What Magnolia needs more than anything is more frequent bus service — this makes it more likely.
If we are going to build a starter line — which is the current plan — then let’s do it right. Don’t skip stations. Build the parts that are easiest to build and the least controversial. That means a line from Interbay to Westlake. Build it as an automated line. Expand it later.
I of course concur with the concept.
The limitation is that it delays building a year or two to revise all the planning to have automated trains. The massive ST2 projects that have fed all sorts of companies and employees for the last 10 to 15 years are now done and the engineering companies and contractors don’t like to lay off people. They want to build something — anything — to keep employing staff and drinking from the ST cash cow. Building Eastside with Downtown Redmond and across the lake, Northgate and Lynnwood, and Federal Way simultaneously was a truly massive undertaking.
Had this been examined three years ago, it may have had a chance. But I suspect that the lobbying behind the scenes to assign people is intense right now.
The handwriting on the wall was apparently the agreement to ramp up West Seattle Link final design last summer, led by Jacobs.
I’m not excusing ST. The automation scenarios should have evolved in 2014 then again in 2017. Then again in 2021. The technology has been well-understood for decades. One great irony is that Mestas was leading an automated rail system construction oversight before she came to ST (at LAX)!
The result is that the Enterpruse Initiative is merely for show when it comes to West Seattle. The question has never really been what to do about the rest of ST3; it was always about what to do about the rest of ST3 once ST has spent billions for no significant benefit by building West Seattle.
The limitation is that it delays building a year or two to revise all the planning to have automated trains.
Yes, but it means that the work gets done much sooner.
The massive ST2 projects that have fed all sorts of companies and employees for the last 10 to 15 years are now done and the engineering companies and contractors don’t like to lay off people. They want to build something — anything — to keep employing staff and drinking from the ST cash cow.
So now we will cripple transit functionality forever just so we can have a make-work project? WTF?
It is also not clear if this actually accomplishes the goal. There is no major construction going on right now. You have Pinehurst Station and that’s it. They aren’t pouring and concrete or anything of that nature. Even if this approved, construction isn’t slated until next year at the earliest. They are in the design stage, and that is clearly a moving target. This means there is a significant lag period for contractors anyway. I doubt they will just retain them for months with nothing for them to do.
“ So now we will cripple transit functionality forever just so we can have a make-work project? WTF?”
I feel the same way, Ross. I’m just channeling the parade of labor reps at the recent Board meeting to push ahead with West Seattle ASAP. It’s likely that each Board member is bombarded with advocacy to start West Seattle Link ASAP.
Keep in mind that Board members never ask to look at ridership forecasts or resulting transit travel times including transfer efforts. Without objective benefits being discussed, the only factor that Board members become aware of is lobbying.
The fact that the Board is not asking about the ridership impact of the crosslake and Federal Way Link openings before making a consequential expansion decision show how irresponsible the current Board is. They don’t seem to care the least little bit about objective decision making — merely asking for field data now available but not yet reported for April 2026 Link ridership. These data could impact lots of decisions from DSTT demand compared with capacity to Line 1/2 transfers to the needed number of train cars and frequency needed to peak versus daily ridership needs.
7:14pm: “1 Line and 2 Line service is suspended at STATION until further notice due to CAUSE.”
7:18pm: “All Clear: 1 Line and 2 Line service is suspended at STATION until further notice due to CAUSE.”
Someone forgot to use the test environment for their new alert format check.
I was about to mention this. ST is clearly using a template and sometimes forgets to fill all the words in. Other alerts have had similar placeholders left unchanged, although this is the most glaring one.
And this message doesn’t tell readers anything useful. It doesn’t tell which station, or which end the suspension starts. So does it mean Link is effectively out completely, or just some segment that I rarely use anyway? The only clue we have is that since both the 1 and 2 Lines are effected, it must be somewhere between CID and Lynnwood.
I don’t think it was a real alert.
Sound transit needs to get away from unique stations and embrace standard designs actually. They can’t afford not to. If people getting confused because they got their face in their phone constantly is a problem, that is a problem that’s not the taxpayers to bear. Art wise, I see no issues with the modest stuff they do. It is not meant to replace signals and announcements. If those are a problem, then address signals and announcements. Don’t try use art, which is not meant to replace signs to solve that problem. common sense.
It costs little to paint the walls a different color, or have a different horizontal stripe across the whole wall. The issue isn’t people on their phones, it’s people who can’t see the station signs because they’re not visible from the window angle or people in front of them are blocking the view. Then you get out of the train, and you can’t necessarily see a station sign from there, or you can’t see the sign saying which end is which exit.
That happens especially at Capitol Hill station, which looks like UW station, and both ends look identical. You have to look up to the top of the escalators and you may be able to get a slight glimpse of an opening on the right and a wall on the left (south end) or vice-versa (north end), but it takes several visits to realize that clue is even there. Or you head toward the center sign indicating the exits, and if it says “John Street”, you have to turn around to get to the Denny exit or vice-versa: there’s no sign saying Denny exit behind you.
It’s things like that that are the problem.
“The issue isn’t people on their phones, it’s people who can’t see the station signs because they’re not visible from the window angle or people in front of them are blocking the view. Then you get out of the train, and you can’t necessarily see a station sign from there, or you can’t see the sign saying which end is which exit.”
This visual recognition problem pervades DC Metro at its underground stations. It creates frustration for DC Metro riders. It’s what happens when arrogant architects who don’t ride trains seek uniformity for other reasons. They are so into aesthetics and uniformity (thinking that it’s the same thing as symmetry) that they don’t think or care about what riders need to navigate the system.
I always loved how KCM built unique Downtown stations several decades ago to avoid this problem. Not only are they unique and individually beautiful, but KCM also put the station name signs closer together in the DSTT than ST does at its new stations. Of course, ST stupidly reverted back to the uniformity concept and put station name signs further apart.
How stupid is it? It’s very stupid! It’s like building a hotel with identical rooms but not having locks on the doors and expecting a user to always enter the right room. It’s clearly setting the stage for confusion on a basic level. Add to that the need to decide in just one or two seconds that you’re getting off at the right station and it’s clearly a bad setup.
This problem reminds me on the many times I’ve accidentally walked into a restroom that isn’t designated for my gender. I’ve done it several times at SeaTac and in local casinos here. A singular icon visually blocked by people and/or badly positioned is just not good enough. Architects need to be publicly shamed when they fail at this basic objective of being user-friendly.