How big an apartment can you rent in a city’s most walkable neighborhood without a car, for the same cost as a 1000 square-foot rental in its most typical suburb with a car? Ray Delahanty answers that for the 26 largest metro areas in the US. Seattle is at 6:23. (CityNerd)
Q&A about the tradeoffs of car-free living in Montreal. There are challenges “but they don’t exactly line up with what people think”. (Oh the Urbanity!)
This is an open thread.
One of the biggest challenges I faced trying to live car free in Portland was the general attitude of my social circle towards it. On the surface, they were obviously cool with it, but in practice the sort of places we would go to were not generally easy to get to on transit from where I lived. I made do with plenty of biking, but I feel like implicit social pressure plays a fairly large role in maintaining car-oriented society. If all your friends drive, the places they will want to go are likely places easy enough to drive to.
I am under the impression this plays an even larger role for parents, who face stronger pressures and less choice around socializing with regards to their children (particularly for sports and such). But I’d be curious to hear everyone else’s thoughts.
I grew up in east Bellevue, which in the early 1980s had hourly buses. In high school I moved to south Bellevue Way, which had combined half-hourly buses in the 550 corridor (and NE 8th Street east to 156th). So that and downtown Bellevue’s walkability was a major step up. When I graduated high school and went to UW, I moved to the U-District, which had the best transit and walkability in Pugetopolis besides downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill. I remained a refuge there from 1985 to 2003, when an apartment fire forced me to move. I ended up in Ballard, then First Hill and Capitol Hill.
So I did do a lot of my trips on Bellevue’s hourly transit, including going to junior high and high school, and trips to the stores and library and friends’ houses and to Seattle. But there were a lot of things I couldn’t get to on transit, and a lot of jobs I couldn’t take. My parents drove everywhere and shopped in the department stores and Fred Meyer, so I thought everyone needed all those big-box stores for most everyday things and household needs.
When I moved to Seattle, it took a year of transition because my church and most of my friends were in Bellevue, and I didn’t know how to get needed things without malls and big-box stores. But gradually most of my friends and activities became Seattle-based. I realized that once you get your furniture and household items, you rarely need to get more: just one item at a time once or twice a year. Northgate was an in-city mall with good transit access, so that’s where I went for things that weren’t available in the 45th corridor or central Seattle. Over time I learned that small hardware stores exist in near-north and central Seattle. Bed Bath & Beyond a block from Westlake had fans and kitchen/bathroom appliances/supplies. The QFC in the Broadway Market had housewares that the former Fred Meyer there previously had. And small grocery stores like Central Co-Op and Trader Joe’s on Madison have a pretty full range of food, just not 50 kinds of vanilla ice cream I didn’t need. Plus those urban-format stores are more convenient to be in and have shorter checkout lines.
So now 99% of my life is in central Seattle or the 45th corridor or frequent-transit areas like Rainier Valley and the West Seattle Junction. I rarely need to go to a big-box store: just a few times a year. Jobs near frequent transit became more available in the 2000s and continue to be more available.
I don’t have children so I have no direct experience with that. But I know that the average 4-person house size in the 1950s was 900 square feet — comparable to a large apartment now. Even in the 1970s families with children filled the Summit-area apartments: my friend in north Lynnwood was one of those children and later parents. In The Netherlands, this is the norm for family housing, and people get along fine there.
The issue is the US has this size mania and car-oriented mania, so home sizes have ballooned since the 1960s from 900 square feet to 3000 square feet, and so many people insist on low-density blocks with cars as their primary transportation mode. They insist you can’t raise a family without that, and can’t shop for groceries for a family without a car. But it just isn’t so. It’s just their outsized size mania, and fear of inner-city minorities and lower-income people.
Sometimes it could be a burden to hang out with someone without cars cuz there are just many destinations unaccessible to them.
I am more into the idea of owning a car (if it is not financially hard to do so) but be mindful how I use it
I never learned to drive a car. I grew up in Kent, which had the 150 to Southcenter and Seattle at 30-minute intervals. It was a long walk to the bus stop, but I was young. I always assumed everybody else drove a car. I’ve learned many young people are skipping the driver’s training in school and taking transit now. Your experience sounds familiar, but it’s changing.
When I was in high school in the early 80s, most people got a driver’s license at 16 as soon as they could, and a minority had a car. Now GenZ is waiting longer to get a license and more are rejecting it. Because they have mobile internet, social-media based opportunities to meet dateable others, and more sophisticated video games that replace some of the reasons my generation drove so much and needed a car to get a date or girlfriend.
Add to that, fare is free for teenagers, and they can even work remotely. A car is just a financial burden.
As a parent who has raised children in two different places, South Philadelphia and the Eastside, I think it makes a big difference where you live. There are quite a lot of parents without cars in Philadelphia. I did not at all have a problem taking my kids places on the bus, train, walking or biking. And if you start them young, by about 7 or 8 they will able to walk a couple miles without any problem. A couple years later they will be able to go places by themselves using transit – which is in my opinion better than having to ferry them around by car.
On the Eastside… it’s not too bad, but there are very few parents who don’t drive. I know a few others. In every case they have a spouse that does drive. They cluster around certain places (Downtown Bellevue, Crossroads, Downtown Redmond).
Traveling sports teams are probably totally impossible without a car. You could maybe get by with getting rides from other parents. School sports teams are not a problem; practice is at their school and a bus is provided for away games. If you want to sign them up for other activities, it’s just like anything else without a car… you’re going to pick activities that are near a transit route, and ignore the rest.
Car brain is actually quite worse over here than some other parts of the country despite having semi decent transit..
I think it’s because our traffic doesn’t get nearly as bad… So people don’t see transit as a valuable means to get around when it’s 2-3x slower.
I’m curious how many STB readers see car-free living as their goal. Personally I’ve always had a car because I like being able to get out of town, get a week’s household groceries at the store, take the kids to soccer (when they were that age) and go to the dump. What I’ve always striven for is to shake off car-dependence and avoid land uses that are car-captive. I like to be a pedestrian whenever I can, and transit allows me to do that all over the city.
I bring it up because public policy with a goal of living totally car free points you in a different direction that policy that nudges people away from using cars for everything, reduces the dominance of cars in public places, protects people from interactions with cars, and pushes relentlessly to decarbonize transportation. The former (ideological) approach tries to make driving and parking more and more difficult (humps on every street!) and may be emotionally rewarding, while the latter (what I think is practical) approach requires nuance and concern for public acceptability but is unrewarding for people who think compromise = cowardice.
I look at the land uses shown above and the difference is car-captive vs. pedestrian focused. But the pedestrian-focused city still has cars. It’s hard to reconcile the car-free goal with our increasing reliance on delivery services and the continuing need for garbage trucks and contractors to access our homes and workplaces. It should be possible for a person who wants to live without a car to have full access to the things they need, but I think most people given the option will still want a car available when they need it, and our public policies should probably reflect that.
I’ll let others talk about car-free living because I’ve said so much about it.
The goal of urbanism or “strong towns” is to have a convenient and pleasant walkable and transit-rich environment in most neighborhoods so that the majority of the population can choose car-free or car-lite living if the want. Even if they live in an ideal neighborhood and still have a car. it gives them non-driving options they will choose and be glad of some of the time. Convenient is better than inconvenient, so why don’t we make neighborhoods convenient by default.
This is what all neighborhoods or streetcar suburbs were like before cars took over. Everything had to be within walking distance or streetcar distance because only the top 1% had carriages/cars or could afford to take taxis all the time. And this human-scaled design makes people feel comfortable and reduces unnecessary stress, and enables in-person social interactions that enhances mental health and community stability.
Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America remember this to varying extents. The Netherlands and Germany followed a Los Angeles model of cars and highways from the end of WWII to the 1970s. They maintained/rebuilt their inherited retail infrastructure and city centers, but growth was car-and-highway based more than Americans might believe. Then in the 1970s OPEC oil-price shock, Europe didn’t have domestic or non-Middle-East oil sources like the US did. So the Netherlands and Germany and other countries took a sharp turn toward mass transit and walkability and returned to compact city design, to become more self-sufficient and resilient in the face of geopolitical problems and climate change. This is sensible and what all countries should have done.
Germany beefed up its U-Bahn. S-Bahn, and intercity rail networks and bus networks. It created a new generation of trams (“light rail”) to modernize the legacy streetcar networks, and built downtown tunnels for them like DSTT even in cities as small as 200,000, and the smallest city with tram-trains is Karlsruhe at 50,000 I think. My college friend in the 90s raved about his home town: “Even little Bielefeld is getting a subway.” By that he meant a city-center tunnel for its tram network. Bielefeld may have been 200K then; it’s 394K now. This was happening in cities all over the country.
In the Netherlands in the 1990s I think, there was a public outcry about the increasing number of cars with fast highways killing children. Parents protested and demanded safe bicycle infrastructure and more transit and a kind of Vision Zero. That’s what led to the plethora of bicycle highways and a third of the population and grandmothers bicycling regularly to their errands.
The US was starting to improve in this regard in the 1960s and 1970s with the DC Metro, BART, MARTA, MAX, etc — paid 90% by the federal government, the same share as interstate and highway projects got. But in the 80s Reagan reversed that, slashed transit subsidies, deregulated, and encouraged big cars and the rise of SUVs and fossil-fuel powered conspicuous consumption to demonstrate American freedoms and exceptionalism. He removed the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House, and mocked Carter’s sweater-wearing conservationist and malaise speech and picked up votes that way. So when Europe turned toward transit and compact city design, the US turned away from it.
So the primary urbanist school of thought is to make neighborhoods more walkable, transit-rich, and “City Beautiful”. This necessitates tradeoffs when streets and parking lots are so excessively large: you can’t improve walkability and transit lanes without converting some of that excessive car-infrastructure space.
Paris now prioritizes pedestrians first, transit/bike/delivery/freight infrastructure in the middle, and SOV cars last. It still leaves capacity for some discretionary driving, but it doesn’t let that get in the way of the higher priorities. If two lanes are are needed for BRT, it converts them.
Paris has a more controversial policy of eliminating 100-150 street-parking spaces per year on principle, even if the space isn’t needed for critical projects. That’s to gradually reduce the amount of car infrastructure in the city in a gradual way. So that’s a more “war on cars” or “no cars” approach, but I haven’t heard of it outside Paris. And Paris still keeps some car infrastructure and intends to do so permanently.
In traditional urban cities like Boston, there were more delivery services. That’s how people got furniture. In the early 1900s farmers delivered milk, meat, produce, bread, and ice to subscribers. Most of the city population were subscribers. And people took taxis more since 90% didn’t have cars. So there’s nothing inherently wrong with mail-order or its modern forms of Amazon or Uber. People with less experience in traditional cities (I’ve never lived in the northeast or Europe) don’t realized this, and overly demonize Amazon and Uber.
The problem is when delivery services are used excessively for minor impulse whims, like a toothbrush from Amazon with same-day delivery, or having everything delivered because you’re too lazy to walk a few blocks to a store or restaurant. Especially because Amazon and Doordash and such charge high commissions that squeeze the businesses you’re buying from. Uber’s problem is when people use it excessively when they have a reasonable transit alternative, and because again it charges a high commission that squeezes drivers to channel money to investors. We need a more balanced approach that has more than minimum delivery/rideshare integrated, but doesn’t charge such high commissions and isn’t used trivially just because one can.
33% of Americans prefer living in a walkable urban neighborhood. 33% prefer living in a driveable sub-urban neighborhood. 33% are equally content either way.
But cities are designed 10-30% of the land or housing options walkable urbanism. 70-90% is driveable sub-urbanism.
That’s the mismatch: Most people are living in less walkable areas than they want to. A supermajority would be fine living in a walkable urban neighborhood. But the built environment, housing choices, and city regulations contradict this. That’s why we get hellish stroad crap and strip malls and lack of transit that’s mocked so much in Not Just Bikes and Evan Edinger videos. Things would be much better if we just did things like The Netherlands. But there’s so much political and NIMBY resistance to it.
Some of that resistance is just because people haven’t experienced it, or haven’t experienced it in the US. But when they do or it reaches critical mass of infrastructure, then their attitudes reverse and suddenly they want more of it and can’t live without it. We just have to get over that hump, and that’s what’s so hard.
Washington DC is the biggest example of this in the US. When the Metro was proposed in suburban Arlington and Alexandria, and walkable dense housing/retail/job clusters to go along with it, there was resistance. But when it was built and people could live in it and experience it on the ground, suddenly attitudes reversed. It was clear that this created economic booms, increased sales, increased residents’ convenience, and wasn’t the end of the world. Then other suburbs demanded that too, and it spread. That’s a virtuous cycle.
Reston Town Center (although I haven’t seen it), is lauded as a convenient self-contained New Urbanist village that’s also successful and become an example to others.
That’s in contrast to Tyson’s Corner (which I also haven’t seen): it’s reported to be a car-oriented, depressing “village”. But now that the counterexamples have stacked up for a few decades, I hear Tyson’s Corner has gotten retrofitted with a few more walkable, urbanist features. I don’t know for sure.
Manhattan’s congestion charge is another case. Manhattan businesses had significant resistance because they were afraid they’d lose drive-up customers and go bankrupt. But after it started, walk-up customers increased because there was more transit, and street congestion went down, and the cars that did come had an easier time. The less congestion also reduced noise and pollution, making it more pleasant to be a walk-up customer and linger in the neighborhood. So everybody benefited — except suburban drivers who were mad they had to pay a toll now, and weren’t willing to take the improved transit to Manhattan or through Manhattan.
I think you’re really drawing a false dichotomy here where you align everything you like with your own personal choices and goals. These things are more connected than they are in opposition. The project that makes the bus more reliable for the transit-dependent person is the project that makes it a better option more often for someone that would prefer to take the bus but has a choice; it might also be the project that makes parking less convenient for someone that would prefer to drive. And it might be the difference between someone deciding to own a car or not.
There are lots of differences within this loose coalition but I don’t think they really break down on those lines.
I bring it up because public policy with a goal of living totally car free points you in a different direction that policy that nudges people away from using cars for everything, reduces the dominance of cars in public places, protects people from interactions with cars, and pushes relentlessly to decarbonize transportation.
I disagree. I think from a policy standpoint they are basically the same. When people talking about being “car free” they aren’t talking about Venice. They are talking about cities like Paris, London and yes, even New York. Of course there are trucks and taxicabs and emergency vehicles. But you don’t have to actually *own* a car to get around. No one thinks its weird that you don’t own a car. It is like owning a kayak or skis. Maybe you own them. Maybe you rent them when you need them. Maybe you have no interest in using them at all.
With that in mind, the policy differences are minor. Even the balance between coverage and ridership doesn’t really change. Sure, we could favor coverage because there may be more people along the route that don’t own a car. Except that means that everyone else has less frequent transit. This includes people that don’t own a car as well. Next thing you know, those people are calling a cab because they have to — transit just doesn’t work for them. I really can’t think of any tangible difference when it comes to policy — it is just a matter of what you want to emphasize. Good transit is really handy for those who don’t own a car. But it is also really handy for those who do. Cities with better transit are safer cities. Same with bike lanes. Hitting someone on a bike can really ruin your day. Seriously though, I really see no significant policy difference. It is merely what people want to emphasize.
Oh, and consider Japan. You can get around just about everywhere without a car — even small towns. Yet car ownership is fairly high. The policies that enable people to get around without driving are enjoyed by those that have a couple cars in the garage as well.
Ideal place. No war on cars but they clearly understand that transit is a superior way to get around for most situations (work, school, travel, events, etc.).. and they make sure it is fast and efficient.
Over here it’s the exact opposite. Everyone is car brained, want infinite lanes and parking…. but the other side who likes transit prefers buses/trains to stay slow, unsafe, and inefficient and gatekeep it to only the most urbanized areas and believe nobody should own a car because it’s bad for the environment and they’re jealous they can’t afford one / scared to learn how to drive.
It’s fine to acknowledge we need more transit and more trips on public transportation while also admitting a car is more suitable for many kinds of trips.
Cars are better for certain road trips, big box shopping, visiting family, transporting a load, the sheer fun of driving, traveling on an unfixed schedule, etc. Transit is superior for work and school (commuting), large events like sports/concerts, high density metro travel (within a city like Seattle or Bellevue), drinking / bars, and low income democratization of travel.
Accepting both and making the best of both worlds is where we should stand. Especially due to the high ownership of single family homes.
At the same I would reduce speed limits to 55 or under(after we have effective, high speed transit that can get you places fast like work) + ban teen driving until they are 25 (training with supervision is fine). If teens can get to school by transit, we shouldn’t need to let them drive by themselves.
I’ve seen people doing grocery at SoDo Costco all sorts of way without car. It impresses me people are doing that here. That reminds me how America Wholesale started back home.
Sam’s Club entered my homecity around 2000 around the same time when my parents bought a motorcycle, not the Harvey-Davidson kind, but the Japanese style more like Vaspa moped but slightly bigger. We started going to shop at Sam’s Club from time to time because of its value and quality, especially its adapted hot bar. We put a couple bags in space under seat and space between driver’s feet. If there were extra, I would carry bags as a passenger while my parent riding.
That Sam’s Club, for a long time, depended on customers without cars. They built a 3-level car parking garage from day 1, at the time the only structure of its kind I’ve seen in the area, but for a while the first level is packed with bike, e-scouter, and motor cycle and second level and above are almost empty often with less than 20 cars until maybe after 2010.
I loved Costco ever since it started in 1984. Better price-per-pound, and things that are a step higher quality for the same price (e.g., no high-fructose corn syrup). At first I wasn’t eligible to join so I went with college friends. Then I became eligible in the early 1990s. I’ve never had a car or been able to drive, so I had to go primarily on transit, or we’d find a car for large trips.
I learned over time that only some items are substantially better price-per-pound than other stores, and some of the sizes are too large for me. I only buy things there that are substantially cheaper, better quality, and small enough that I can use up in 1-3 months (or furniture/housewares I’ll use regularly for a long time). Other things I go to regular stores for.
Other people who bus to Costco in SODO are lower-income people, especially immigrants, and non-car minded folk. I mentioned that when I went Saturday morning, 6 people got off the 131 to Costco, 4 with rolling cars. Usually there’s 1-2 arriving, and 1-6 leaving.
I learnt my lesson too. The only thing that might be absolutely cheaper is gas because consumption of gasoline might just be the only thing that is irrelevant to sunken cost of Costco membership.
I never was able to finish its dozen bagel before one lf them turned bad. Some meat stayed in fridge for months when I lived alone. Also, I just don’t think it is the place for someone to shop everything. There was always something I had to do a second grocery shopping to make up for. I respect those who go there without car, but from practical standpoint, it makes more sense to just pick up things from a QFC or Safeway that’s on the way from work and buy less stuff each time to avoid wasting any.
“I’ve seen people doing grocery at SoDo Costco all sorts of way without car. It impresses me people are doing that here. That reminds me how America Wholesale started back home.”
How do you think they carry their groceries back home? Walking? On the 131/132? I mean I see the parking lot full in the Costco Everett location which means driving to the warehouse is the preferred way to get there to shop… That’s because Swift Silver isn’t expected to begin until 2037 (according to CT’s TDP), and the 29 (the bus that serves it) has poor frequencies and that’s pretty much the only bus that even serves it. I expect very few people to use transit there, I lived in Silver Lake back in 2012 and I never used the Everett Transit bus.
If we’re going to serve a Costco, we better serve it with good transit. Otherwise we’ll just get traffic loads.
Going to Costco is clearly a choice. It is not cheapest place in town, so I would consider that miserable but good spirit in practicing car-free life style.
“…I wouldn’t consider that miserable…”
When I was in DC I thought I saw a Costco adjacent to the Rosslyn metro station, on the second floor of a group of stacked big-box stores like Northgate North. That’s the best transit-friendly Costco transit access I’ve seen anywhere.
Second and third is the SODO Costco, and one on Diversey Street in Chicago (with a frequent bus route through the Diversey urban neighborhoods, that doubles as a feeder to the L).
Fourth is the Shoreline Costco, now that Swift Blue connects it to Shoreline North station. But when I tried going there a few times, it usually takes longer than going to SODO, because the Swift transfer is 15 minutes Saturday, 20 minutes Sunday, so I usually had to wait ten minutes for it both ways, and that added up. And the Aurora Village Swift station is a 3-4 times longer walk to the Costco entrance, an issue now that I can only walk limited distances. So I went back to SODO.
Ideally I wish Link had a station at Spokane Street closer to Costco. As it is now, it’s an exact “last mile” on the 131/132 to SODO station. The 131/132 run every 15 minutes, but are notoriously unreliable, usually 5-15 minutes late every day from 10am to 7pm — two of the worst routes in Metro. And their downtown Seattle southbound stop is “the worst stop in Seattle” due to sketchy people in my opinion. Usually i take the 131/132 all the way to Costco. Coming back I usually take them the last mile to Lander Street and transfer to Link to Capitol Hill, but sometimes I take them to downtown and transfer to a Pine Street bus if my bags are especially heavy.
I usually get what fits in my backpack and 2-3 nylon bags, or in the rolling cart I sometimes take. Lately I’ve been getting fewer things so that they’re not so heavy and it’s not such a walking burden.
The SOMA Costco in San Francisco is not on rail transit but it’s still quite urban either way frequent, nearby bus routes.
Planned Alderwood and South Federal Way Link stations may be close to existing Costco’s. Of course that’s at least about a decade away.
There are some suburban Costco’s near some other light rail systems like in San Diego’s Mission Valley.
Shoreline one is very transit-adjacent, but the part of Costco across from transit center is the gas station unfortunately.
I know one that probably nobody knows. Costco in Sandy Springs, GA is about 5-7 minutes walk from MARTA Sandy Springs Station. It is not by design. They just happen to be very close to each other.
Vancouver BC has 4 costcos very close to Skytrain. 1 downtown, 2 in Burnaby, 1 in Richmond. I haven’t seen any region in US/Canada with better transit accessible Costco than that. Even better than NYC IIRC
Since we got news of the death of light rail to Ballard (at least for this century), does the horde think that Ballard will elect a more NIMBYish/SFH dominated council person? (e.g., “Ballard up zoned under O’Brien and Strauss and all we got was a Trump-like “Concepts of a Plan” while West Seattle gets the golden rail treatment)
Oh great, this is like the billionth attempt to bring mass transit to Ballard. Let’s just admit it will never get it, and that it’s just a Seattle neighborhood and that it won’t become a regional center unless we bring transit there.
“(e.g., “Ballard up zoned under O’Brien and Strauss and all we got was a Trump-like “Concepts of a Plan” while West Seattle gets the golden rail treatment)”
I guess building rail to West Seattle for Sound Transit is easier since they have to build a second tunnel if they want light rail to Ballard (which they don’t have to, but they’re pushing for another tunnel). Meanwhile we get another unecesssary light rail station in SODO and Sound Transit will build light rail to West Seattle, even if it means a stub line from SODO to Alaska Junction when they should really be doing it with Ballard Link.
Of course you’ll need an OMF site for Ballard Link… Then build it on the line! Interbay is the goal since it has a BNSF yard and a lot of industrial buildings. I even wonder how many riders the 3 Line will get in 2032, how frequently and long it will run, if OMF Central will handle all those trains, if they can even access the site.
What about this (I’m just going to speed through this proposal)… We rebuild the monorail as a light rail and extend it to Ballard!? What about we build a tunnel under the armory and avoid building a Seattle Center station in an awkward location.
I mean at least the Seattle Center terminus will improve wayfinding from SeaTac/Airport. That way people aren’t stuck on whether the train even goes to Seattle or not.
No, but here’s a TV news clip an acquaintance in the Philippines sent me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A4_7IZCpDM
An interviewee in Ballard said he and Ballard residents should get an “ST3 refund” on their taxes since Link to Ballard was deferred.
This was KOMO TV (owned by Sinclair), which is more conservative now than KING, KIRO, or KCTS. (Note I didn’t say KCPQ with its Fox affiliation.) So KOMO is more tax-skeptical and mass-transit skeptical than most local TV stations, and they found one person in Ballard who wants a refund. I haven’t heard anyone else in the Ballard/North Seattle area say that, so the movement is probably small.
And there a lot of practical issues that make it infeasible to give Ballard a refund (or Edmonds or Everett or Tacoma), or agree to let them leave the ST district.
Ballard and North Seattle have taken a decisive turn toward expanded medium-density areas and better regional and local transit. Even many single-family homeowners are on board, like Ross’s neighbors in Pinehurst. That has been growing over several administrations going back to the 2010s. They have elected several pro-urban concilmembers and were decisive in a few mayoral races — for sensible medium density and good transit, and not letting the nimbys obstruct it. It’s disproportionately high for their density, especially in far north Seattle. It’s an outlier among on-central neighborhoods.
When Northgate station was being designed, ST asked the surrounding community if they wanted a bigger P&R or more bus/ped/bike access to the station. Three quarters of the feedback was against a larger P&R — the only station area I know of that didn’t say the opposite. Most of them said the only reason they drove to the P&R was the lack of bus feeders from west and east, and the lack of sidewalks and safe bicycle routes. So ST and the city focused on that. That’s what the I-5 ped bridge came out of, and unspecified access amenities east of the station that may or may not be less than desired. A minimum P&R size was a requirement, because a portion of the spaces are owned by the mall and contractually obligated to the mall’s businesses, so ST had to replace them when it demolished the old P&R there. And a moderate amount of Link parking was built. But not more than that.
All that won’t reverse just because of the Ballard Link setback. It’s part of larger trends that are bigger than Sound Transit.
When Ballard has time to think, it’s well-positioned to ask for interim mitigation from Sound Transit in the city for not getting its Link access, given Ballard’s size and density and growth trajectory. ST3 already includes RapidRide C & D capital improvements as an early deliverable as interim service, so ST could get on with that. That was going to be an early deliverable, but in the 2022 realignment it was postponed to the end, and the 2026 realignment seems to have completely forgotten it — it wasn’t in any of the build or defer columns. Mayor Wilson should get on this and remind ST it was an ST3 promise, and that it would be a good starting point for coping with the delay of Ballard Link phase 2.
I don’t think so. What I’ve seen is that NIMBYism is becoming less popular in Seattle over time. This is due to factors that don’t have much to do with Ballard or Seattle in particular – pro-urbanization policies have become mainstream in the Democratic Party, much like with immigration or abortion rights.
Maybe there are some voters in Ballard that only accepted density in the expectation that there would be a Link line there, but I think on balance there are more that will demand the line get built somehow. Politicians who can credibly promise to deliver Link to Ballard will succeed over those who can’t.
I agree. I think the tide has turned.
But just to back up, there are people that want more development and those that don’t. Just about everyone is somewhere in the middle — willing to accept some development or some level of preservation.
But I also think pro-development folks are making a big mistake by focusing on the same old “urban village” concept. It is not unique to this area and goes by many names. But it is the same idea — draw little circles and focus *all* the growth there. This appeases some preservationists, but not all of them (obviously). You are more likely to lose attractive houses and the things preservationists are trying to protect. It becomes more of an all-or-nothing development style. NIMBY preservationists may be pleased that they escaped the little circle this time, but that doesn’t mean they are happy with the process. Meanwhile, we don’t have that much development. The little circles are still relatively small. They are visible mostly because they are close to roads people drive on and big. We drive by (or ride on the bus) and think “Wow, this area is really growing”. But if you walk over a block or two, the only thing they are doing is tearing down houses and replacing them with a house/ADU/DADU. There is some growth that way, but not much.
What this city needs more than anything is density that isn’t tall. Keep the three story limit, like with the houses but allow more density. Places like Brooklyn and Montreal are extremely dense — we can do the same sort of thing. We just need a more liberal housing code, like Spokane’s. Right now the city council is fairly conservative but a lot of those members were elected in the post-Covid backlash. If the election were held right now, it is likely we would have a council eager to support a more liberal development code. But more than anything this should be focused on most of the land in the city (and not just adding more little circles).
“Sometimes it could be a burden to hang out with someone without cars cuz there are just many destinations unaccessible to them.”
You just have to ask them where you can go instead that’s comparably worthwhile. Sometimes there isn’t but often there is.
When I was living in Summit, a neighbor friend drove everywhere. I suggested he come to the Ballard farmers’ market on Sundays with me sometimes. (The Broadway farmers’ market was smaller then, had less interesting stuff, and wasn’t year-round.)
He insisted on driving, so I had to ride with him or not go with him at all. A lot of my friends are like that. I got frustrated at having to circle for parking there, so I finally insisted on using a pay lot that I would pay for.
I kept trying to get him to try the bus. It took a log time but eventually we did. This was in the 200s before the D, so we took the 8 to Uptown and transferred to the 15/18 to Ballard. The 18 was closer, but we took the 15 when it came first. After a couple times, he agreed the bus was pretty convenient and went almost door-to-door, and we took the bus there ever since, at least until he moved away in the late 2000s.
“How do you think they carry their groceries back home? Walking? On the 131/132? I mean I see the parking lot full in the Costco Everett location which means driving to the warehouse is the preferred way to get there to shop”
Of course the vast majority of people drive. It’s a wholesale shop with big sizes. A lot of the members are businesses getting business supplies, and large families, and people getting furniture. And even people in rural areas 30-60 miles out, who get a month’s worth of goods in a truck.
But Costco, like all other big-box stores, should be located on a frequent transit route, with as short as feasible walking path from the sidewalk to the front door. They should prioritize transit/walk-up shopping even if the vast majority drive, and many people have to drive because they’re buying for a business or getting furniture or a month’s worth of supplies. It’s possible to have both a transit-oriented design and accommodate a lot of car trips.
“But Costco, like all other big-box stores, should be located on a frequent transit route”
Sometimes buses diving into the Aurora Village Transit Center are blocked by cars headed into the Costco parking lot. Aurora Village Transit Center has two frequent transit routes and this still happens.
Perhaps agencies like Metro and CT can pay big box stores like Costco to advertise transit? Or we could reduce the size of the parking lots? Or we could reduce the size of the gas stations or even eliminate them entirely? Or we could make people pay to park in the Costco parking lot and they have to be a member so parking abusers don’t park?
Those are brainstorms to consider.
I was also thinking to improve Aurora Village Transit Center and/or add improve transit there. Also the Costco Warehouse in Shoreline is near another big box store (Home Depot), so maybe we can relocate the Home Depot to another location (I was thinking Mountlake Terrace or Kenmore would make sense). Not too long of a drive… BUT OF COURSE, you have to deal with the bottlenecks of SR 104 and I-5… Then make a decent transit line in the area! I would say with BRT standards, or simply just relocate the Home Depot store in a different area that would make sense and wouldn’t be too much of a cow for current location shoppers to move there.
You can’t have two big box stores in one parking lot if you know one of them is a parking bottleneck. Move one out (like one time Costco considered moving to the old Sam’s Club near Bitter Lake, but then WinCo Foods considered moving there).
“Or we could reduce the size of the parking lots?”
Costco’s parking lots can’t be shrunk because the get practically full a lot of days, or at least the SODO one does. And it’s a wholesale shop with a lot of bulk customers and large-sized products. But certainly the building lots should be designed better.
“maybe we can relocate the Home Depot to another location”
One solution would be more urban-format branches. These are smaller and designed for walk-up users and compatible with urban neighborhood design, and have structured parking for drivers. Examples:
– Target downtown
– Trader Joe’s on Madison
– A Safeway in downtown San Jose
– Office Depot on 3rd & Pike (now gone)
Home Depot could do the same thing, like the existing independent hardware stores:
– Pacific Supply at 12th & Pike
– True Value at 47th & University Way
– Hardwick’s at 42nd & Roosevelt (gone now I think)
– Chubby & Tubby, which had locations in White Center and Rainier Avenue (gone now)
Topics like “Can I afford to live in Seattle if my income is $X a year?” come up fairly regularly in the Seattle subreddits, and at least for people without kids, the two big dividing lines seem to be whether you have a car and how often you eat out.
I’ll see comments claiming that it’s impossible to live in Seattle on $100k annually, but if they flesh out their budget, they have an expensive apartment Downtown, and are paying off a car loan, plus gas, insurance, and parking, eating out/getting food delivered nearly every day, and spending freely on cover charges and booze in clubs every weekend. If that’s your lifestyle, then yeah, maybe you can’t afford to live on $100k in Seattle- but if you’re mostly getting around on buses/Link/biking/walking and cooking most of you’re meals at home, it’s possible to live in the city on far less.
Whenever I’ve compared apartments in inner-city Seattle vs Lynnwood or Kent, the price difference has been less than $200-300 per month for one with relatively good transit for the area. That’s not enough to convince me to live there and deal with the less frequent transit, less access to destinations and jobs, and pedestrian-hostile landscape (large parking lots in front, large stroads), and depressing and soul-destroying atmosphere: it would harm my mental health. I’m fortunate that I can afford the $300 price difference. I realize that some others can’t, and that they have no choice but to live in the suburbs or exurbs and suffer with it. That’s why I think we have a moral duty to get 15-minute frequent transit to all those areas, so that living there would not be such an unreasonable burden.
Then wouldn’t the prices just go up in the suburbs too?
Prices are going up in the suburbs anyway, faster than in Seattle. It has been like that for ten years, ever since the last real bargains in Kent and Renton were squeezed out of the market in the early 2010s. Then more people moved to Snohomish and Pierce Counties to find lower-cost housing, and that’s driving them up.
Inner Seattle urban neighborhoods like Capitol Hill went through their maximum price-growth spurt in the 2010s because they’re the most walkable neighorhoods and within waking distance or short bus distance from the downtown/SLU jobs, and there’s a Microsoft shuttle from there to Microsoft as well as the now-open Crosslake Link. But because the prices reached their natural ceiling so early, they’re not rising as much as other neighborhoods now.
Central Bellevue east to the Spring District is now more expensive than inner-city Seattle because it’s so desirable by affluent people who shop at Bellevue Square and Neiman Marcus and want a “clean” city without the dodgy people on the street that Seattle has. But that’s a unique anomaly.
If you exclude that and the water-view mansion rows, the rest of the suburbs is at a lower base price than Seattle. And because of the housing shortage and so many people displaced from Seattle or who can’t afford Seattle, they’re flocking ever further out. At first it was Kent and Renton. Now it’s Auburn and Everett and Tacoma and Pierce County. The influx of people is driving up rents and house prices there, faster than in Seattle. It’s like the whole metropolitan area is heading toward equalization.
The reason for this is it’s not just a gentrification problem in desirable neighborhoods or a housing shortage there — it’s a housing shortage throughout the entire metropolitan area. People are finding a place wherever they can — that includes apartments next to freeways like Ash Way P&R that somebody here said people wouldn’t consent to live in — but they fill up those apartments anyway because that’s the best they can get. That’s what’s driving the price increases. When people say one neighborhood spiked high, you have to subtract the baseline that all neighborhoods went higher too.
The solution is more infill housing, more walkable neighborhoods, and more 15-minute transit everywhere. People wouldn’t crowd into the 30% of Seattle that’s multifamily and walkable and and has a pleasant pre-WWII layout and a wide variety of businesses in one neighborhood — if they could get that in Redmond, Renton, Kent, or Everett. But they can’t. Even though the suburbs have gotten with the times with boxy apartments and regional centers and urban villages, they still aren’t as convenient or pleasant as pre-WWII Seattle neighborhoods. Buildings are overscaled, parking garages are overscaled, stroads are overscaled: it feels like an area created for giant robots rather than an intimate space for humans. Viz, downtown Bellevue, the Landing, and Totem Lake.
A Renton councilmember wants The Landing to evolve into a neighborhood like Fremont with brewpubs. You can’t replicate just a little bit of Fremont — you have to replicate the whole thing. All the walkability, short setbacks, parking hidden behind or inside so people don’t have to walk past it, a full range of retail and services with a lot of non-chain independent stores, and a more human architectural scale (vertically-oriented in the golden-rectangle ratio, 2-5 stories). Renton won’t prioritize that in The Landing or the Highlands, Kent won’t prioritize that in East Hill, Bellevue won’t prioritize it in the Spring District or Overlake, Tacoma won’t fix its car-dependent areas near downtown, so they just continue missing it.
When you have walkable neighborhoods and frequent transit everywhere, there are so many options in so many areas that the price premium in neighborhoods that have it vanishes. The price premium is because of artificial scarcity.
Lynnwood is not exactly on the lower end just because it is far away. You can find better price somewhere closer to Seattle like in Shoreline.
The popularity of suburban cities like Lynnwood can be very high because some people just want to live there. Or it is because Lynnwood is a good location for a household with people working in both eastside and Seattle.
And I wouldn’t choose perfect-walk-score Belltown or a 1000 square foot apartment. I’d choose a smaller more neighborhood-y area with less concrete like East Seattle, the 45th corridor, southeast Seattle, or possibly even Lake City (although that’s still pretty inconvenient and large-parking-lot). I’d choose a smaller apartment in the 300 to 650 square foot range, like the ones I’ve been living in for two decades. I currently have a 1 BR for two people, with an alcove we’ve made into a second bedroom.
So both of those cost less than the 800 square foot Belltown apartment he’s taking as a reference point.
Has Sound Transit considered adding announcements for shared stations on the 1 Line and 2 Line like… “Attention riders, please do not board 2 Line trains if you are travelling towards SeaTac/Airport.”
Currently, the “via Bellevue” announcement isn’t working well on 2 Line trains. People ride them anyways.
Or we could have this announcement when you’re riding the 2 Line and you’re approaching IDC…
“Attention… If you are headed to SeaTac/Airport, please deboard at this station and wait for the next train.”
“If you are headed to SeaTac/Airport, please deboard at this station and wait for the next train.”
That announcement has been playing for a few weeks. The wording is different but it’s the same message.
Are they making these announcements on the Kinki trains? When I was in Seattle in early April immediately after Crosslake’s opening, I was struck by the Siemens trains having those announcements while the Kinki’s didn’t. I understand there is likely a software issue with the older trains, but it does beg the question why they wouldn’t have operators make manual announcements?
I think that the bigger problem is that ST doesn’t make it quickly clear if the train headed south through Downtown is a 1 Line or a 2 Line at the right place (almost at the bottom of stairs or escalator). Someone suddenly dashes off the stairs to get on a train and doesn’t see one of the only two or three destination signs fast enough. I’ve had that happen to me.
Some Bellevue TDM staff mentioned in the outreach to my employer a couple weeks ago that Lime bike will start operation in Bellevue some time in June.
Downtown skyscraper selling at 50% loss (sorry if there’s an account restriction)
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/blackstone-will-reportedly-sell-seattle-tower-at-54-loss/
“We believe this sale is the most optimal outcome for our investors and all parties involved,” said a Blackstone spokesperson who asked not to be named because the deal hasn’t closed. “Fortunately, U.S. traditional office represents less than 1.5% of our portfolio, and we effectively wrote off this investment in 2023.”
lol so they wrote it off in 2023 but couldn’t sell it until now? if anything, that’s a sign that interest in office spaces is slowly rebounding.
The examples of transit-accessible Costcos got me wondering, what’s the most transit-accessible anything you’ve seen?
Westlake Station circa 2014.
Tokyo station? In the US Penn station, in the Seattle area it’s gotta be Westlake as it has 2 rail lines (yay!), 3rd ave buses and monorail.
Mike, I think you are going to ask that in a different way.
I mean a widely-used destination that’s integrated with a train bus stop or right next to it.
For instance, Duesseldorf has a supermarket integrated with the main train station.
Montreal’s Underground City (multiple stations and developments linked together) is pretty amazing! It’s been a few decades since I saw it but I’ve never seen anything indoors that is both attached to multiple stations and offers so many businesses.
Frequent visitor to Montreal and the Underground city is quite impressive, if no frustrating to first time visitors who just want to find the exit to the street.
I don’t remember exactly how many, but there are at least three supermarkets connected to Shinjuku Station. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff there… putting stuff inside a train station is pretty normal in Japan. Many retail chains, including department stores, supermarkets, book stores, etc. are actually owned by rail companies.
The places I’ve been with really good transit don’t spread the transit out so much that it’s concentrated at one destination.
If we’re allowed to include main stations, probably Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which along with all its internal platforms is also really close to tram lines, and decent connections to various pedestrian paths. There’s the potential for connecting to river boats too, but they’re all tourist cruises these days.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The airport sits right on top of the main intercity rail line. It’s literally 1 minute between the platform escalators and the airport security line. It’s the last stop before Amsterdam Central, so Amsterdam is always 1 stop away, and going south are all of the other lines serving BeNeLex and onwards to France or even London.
Definitely the most convenient airport I’ve ever used.
Looks like they fixed signage at Seatac Airport Station to add Seattle with Space Needle pictogram to Northbound platform signage
8 things ST wants you to know about the updated ST3 system plan:
1. Sound Transit is committed to delivering the objectives of ST3.
2. All light rail projects are moving forward.
3. Advancing design is the best way to find project cost savings.
4. We’ll continually focus on bringing projects back into the plan.
5. Some projects are deferred until additional funding can be identified…
6. …And a new regional parking fund will help explore more innovative parking options.
7. Public feedback and priorities informed the System Plan update.
8. Our work continues.
It would be good if ST leadership would articulate that #1 does not need to imply #2. We can meet the ST3 goals for all of the identified corridors with modes other than light rail.
Seattle Transit Renewal announcement today. Supposedly 0.15%->0.3% sales tax.
https://bsky.app/profile/typewriteralley.bsky.social/post/3mncss3znqs2q
Proposal released!
https://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/transit-program/seattle-transit-measure/renewal
Jesus the Seattle Times has some of the worst coverage of this I’ve ever seen. Headline: Seattle mayor pitches sales tax increase. The rest of the article is along the same line.
“Voters must approve a ballot measure, as they did six years ago by a landslide 80.3% yes count.”
Yeah not surprised she’s going as far as she can. This is what I voted for. The most impactful ballot measure is one that is super ambitious and passes with 50.1% of the vote (as long as 50 is the threshold *sad forward thrust noises*)
jd, don’t just say bad title, bad article. Explain why you think it’s bad.
OK, Sam, that is your assignment. Find the flaws within the Seattle Times article.
@Sam
I think you are joking but I can’t really tell. The article annoyed me enough to expand on this though.
The article headline was updated but it was originally “Seattle mayor pitches sales tax increase”, with absolutely no mention of what is being funded. That’s blatantly trying to lead with an angle. The second half of the article (including the concluding statements) are all anti-tax talking points.
When the article was first published there were also some glaring errors. Some have since been corrected, but I’m amazed they made it through the draft stage. For example, the article stated that KCM ridership in March of 2026 was two-thirds below its peak ridership in 2019. Which is just blatantly not true (it’s since been corrected to say one-third).
Other less obvious statistical errors include conflating King County commuters with Seattle commuters (this is a Seattle tax measure, not a King County tax measure). And Lindblom mentions a peak ridership of 410,000 in 2019; I don’t know where that number comes from, since Mar 2019 ridership was 400,000 and peak ridership in Oct 2019 was 430,000.
jd, thanks. And thanks from saving me from having to do Ross’ assignment. And, I wasn’t joking. It’s like if someone here wrote an editorial post, and all I said was it was the worst editorial I ever read. I shouldn’t expect everyone knows what I’m talking about, even if I think it’s obvious. I need to explain why I think it’s a bad editorial.
@Sam
My pleasure. Anything to get you out of a homework assignment
Other errors:
creating a 15-minute frequency for Route 60 in White Center, Georgetown and Beacon Hill.
The 60 runs every 12 minutes (now). This is a fact they got wrong. But there are also a lot thing that are clearly biased towards the anti-tax or transit-ignorant crowd, such as:
Despite arguments by the mayor and advocacy groups that Seattle has a transit shortage, buses are far from overcrowded like commuters experienced in the late 2010s.
That is completely irrelevant. That is like saying we shouldn’t build better schools because they aren’t overcrowded. If anything it suggests we will get more value for our money. Instead of spending extra just to run buses to deal with crowding, we can run buses where they can provide the most value and get the biggest increase in ridership. Running a bus every two minutes instead of three (like in the old days) isn’t much better for riders. But running a bus every ten minutes instead of every half hour is.
It’s the link poster’s responsibility to summarize what the link contains, so that people don’t have to follow the link just to get basic information or decide whether they want to read the article. Especially with paywalled articles, where some readers may not have access to the article or don’t want to accidentally or intentionally use their N free articles a month on it.
There’s no link because it’s not an interesting article. My primary complaint is summarized in the first post. It’s an anti-tax article masquerading as a transportation article
A stupid driver drove up the MLK tracks and into Nt Baker Station in just the past hour.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/sound-transit-1-line-service-suspended-stadium-station-to-othello-after-car-drives-onto-tracks/281-ddba58de-1ad0-4ee7-8587-d22be9c367c7
Well, in many cases, the byword “Alcohol may be involved” would fit. However, the car has Utah plates.
People get quite creative around railroad tracks, playing guitars, soccer, and whatnot, in addition to trying to drive on them.
Even though we wonder what the heck the driver was thinking, it’s worth noting that there is a single sign in the median that cars aren’t supposed to drive in the tracks. It’s only about 2 feet above the pavement and it’s an abstract diagram.
I had a friend recently mention to me that the fixed warning signage on MLK generally so minimal that he was surprised to find himself driving across the tracks. I guess this is an example.
Given the seemingly thousands of plastic yellow sticks SDOT likes to install, they could easily add some on MLK near all the intersections.
Apparently, she was just following her GPS, according to witnesses.
Sets destination “Car wash near me”.
Sees the approach guides,…
“Hmm, it seems a long way to the brushes and water and soap thingy?”
Making it that far is actually quite impressive.
I’m positive someone’s going to accidentally drive down the tracks at BelRed someday.
I know it would cost more to install, but if you must have tracks that can be driven on in the median, there are ways of discouraging people from driving on the tracks unless absolutely necessary:
Eg: the cobblestone encasements used in Portland are unpleasant to drive on, but can be if someone must.