Seafair Weekend & Ballard Link Update

Posted on by Mike Orr

Seafair is happening Friday-Sunday at Genesee Park. Metro has a transit access page and area map. Route 50 goes to Genesee Park from Columbia City, Othello, and SODO Link stations. Columbia City station also has a shuttle bus between 9am and 6pm on festival days. The page has a list of Link P&Rs and how many parking spaces each one has. That in itself might be interesting to peruse if you’ve never seen all the parking space numbers together, as I never have. It’s missing a couple P&Rs: Tukwila Intl Blvd and Angle Lake.

Other neighborhood festivals are causing reroutes, as happens every summer weekend somewhere. Metro’s Weekend Update has the list. I see Issaquah Front Street Eatery, U-District Boba Fest, Lake City Summer Festival & Parade, Magnolia Summer Parade, and Cherry Hill’s Umoja Fest Parade.

Ballard Link update

Sound Transit says the rest of Ballard Link from Seattle Center to Market Street can be finished by 2042 if it achieves the following milestones:

  1. Identify $1 billion in cost savings or new revenue by 2030 to begin acquiring property.
  2. Complete final design by 2032.
  3. Get full funding by 2033.

For those keeping score, that’s 5 years late (2037 to 2042), comparable to the 2 Line.

Potential funding sources are longer-term bonds, a higher debt limit, station area value generation (leveraging growth from development), third-party funding, or permitting reform. I don’t know how growth from development is compatible with giving land for low-income housing as ST is required to try first.

Sound Transit, Seattle, and King County jointly released a South Downtown Hub framework report. This is a 99-page vision for the greater CID2 and Midtown station areas between Cherry Street, Royal Brougham, Alaskan Way, and I-5.

This is a Friday Roundtable and open thread.

Midweek Roundup: go it alone

Posted on by Nathan Dickey
A battery bus served Kitsap Transit’s Route 220 in early July (Zack Heistand). Kitsap Transit is steadily electrifying its bus fleet.

This is an Open Thread.

Sound Transit addresses recent post-World Cup service disruptions

Posted on by Sherwin Lee
Lines for the Link shuttle at Capitol Hill during the 7/9 disruption, by Nick Sattele (Bluesky)

Since smashing ridership records following its blockbuster round-the-clock service during the FIFA World Cup, Link light rail has been plagued by a myriad of disparate service disruptions. Just a few days after the USA vs. Belgium match, an open hatch door took down the catenary wire near UW Station, leading to service being suspended in the central core of the system for most of the day. Mechanical issues disrupted trains on July 10th and again on July 20th, when brakes on a train wouldn’t release. Then the following day on July 21st, a power outage resulted in a temporary suspension of service between Beacon Hill and Tukwila International Blvd stations.

In an emailed statement to Seattle Transit Blog, Sound Transit spokesperson Henry Bendon provided a deeper explanation of the recent issues:

Sound Transit identified a hatch door becoming unsecured on a series 1 LRV as the cause of the disruption on Thursday, July 9. After we addressed the disruption and identified the cause, we inspected all similar vehicles before clearing them for service and also changed our inspection protocol. That issue has not recurred and we do not anticipate it posing future problems. 

[The 7/20] service disruption was the result of an unrelated LRV mechanical issue. Service reliability continues to be a point of focus for Sound Transit. Our expanded monthly maintenance window program has dramatically cut down unplanned disruption time, and our incident response times have also improved. That maintenance program – and most of our planned work – was suspended for the duration of the World Cup. It will resume [the week of July 27th].

Although the recent disruptions all do seem to stem from disparate root causes, it appears that the suspension of the agency’s monthly maintenance program during the World Cup may have incurred some latent effects, compounding with existing known issues with the Siemens-manufactured Series 2 vehicles.

In response to criticism of perceived lackluster communication protocols during service disruptions, Sound Transit also highlighted both its digital and field efforts to keep passengers informed in real time:

We appreciate all public feedback and are constantly working to improve our operations and rider experience. In addition to web alerts, text alerts, and in-station screen announcements during an incident, Sound Transit deploys Fare Ambassadors, Staff Ambassadors, contracted security, and our Field Activity Specialist Teams (FAST) responders, all of whom are available to answer questions and who prioritize sharing information to keep passengers informed and moving safely to their destination.

Operators are also trained to deploy messaging informing passengers if a train is not moving for an extended period of time. Of note, operators, especially during a disruption, are monitoring and coordinating with Link Operations via radio, navigating changing schedules and routes in real time, and keeping passengers safe – all while incident conditions are constantly evolving.

Midweek Roundup: Park (or ride) the bus

Posted on by Nathan Dickey
Route 41 is one of many Pierce Transit routes that would see improved frequency and service if the Pierce Transit ballot measure is approved by voters. (Michael Smith)

This is an Open Thread.

Seattle Transit Measure renewal headed to voters in November

Posted on by Nathan Dickey
The proposed Seattle Transit Measure renewal will continue to fund both Seattle Streetcar lines (Michael Smith).

After nearly two months of various council deliberations and public commentary, the Seattle Transit Measure is officially heading to voters in this year’s November General Election. This measure proposes to renew funding for boosted transit service in Seattle, first enacted in 2014 (and reduced in 2020) for 10 years.

Mayor Wilson’s proposal in June faced a litany of amendments and emerged from the legislative process relatively unscathed. The adopted amendments largely require additional reporting by SDOT and Metro regarding the impacts of purchased service and other statistics.

Continue reading “Seattle Transit Measure renewal headed to voters in November”

Friday Roundtable: Link Reductions July-August

Posted on by Mike Orr

Link will have a few maintenance reductions in late July and early August.

On Sunday July 26 all day, the Crosslake part of the 2 Line will be replaced by shuttle buses between South Bellevue and International District. The shuttle will run approximately every 10-15 minutes. The 1 Line will run every 8 minutes from Lynnwood to Federal Way to mitigate the loss of westside 2 Line service. (It normally runs every 10 minutes on Sundays.) This is for “planned maintenance”.

From Tuesday July 28 to Thursday July 30 in the late evenings only, the Crosslake part of the 2 Line will be replaced by shuttle buses between South Bellevue and International District. The 1 Line will run as normal. This is for “monthly maintenance”.

From Tuesday August 4 to Thursday August 6 in the late evenings only, the 2 Line will be replaced by shuttle buses between BelRed and Downtown Redmond, to replace line surge arrestors. The 2 Line will run as normal between Lynnwood and BelRed. The 1 Line will run as normal.

See ST service alerts for any updates.

This is an open thread.

Seattle Transit Amendments Results

Posted on by Mike Orr

A Seattle city committee voted on a slate of amendments to the Seattle Transit Measure (STM) levy renewal Mayor Wilson proposed. The meeting video has the proceedings. It’s three and a half hours long, and parts of it were confusing to me. I watched the debates and votes on 6 of the 22 amendments. This alone took an hour and fifty minutes (from 0:45:36 to 2:36:41 in the video). I got exhausted at that point and didn’t watch the rest, so I’ll leave it to the comment section to report on how the other amendments fared. The entire measure with some amendments passed the committee, and will go to the full city council on Tuesday. Nine councilmembers participated: Rivera, Kettle, Hollingsworth, Juarez, Lin, Strauss, Foster, Rinck, and Saka.

Many readers are most interested in Amendment 13, which would reduce the sales tax rate from Mayor Wilson’s proposal. That amendment failed 2-7. That debate is just before the 2:46:00 mark.

Three amendments (1, 4, 28) were “withdrawn” for refinement, but then they were voted on anyway before the other individual amendments, so I don’t understand that procedure. Amendment 1 (passed) had a long debate; it wasn’t about transit service per se but about committing to certain safety strategies to deter passenger misbehavior. Amendment 4 (passed) requests an annual report from Metro on fare compliance, farebox recovery, reliability, and on-time performance of STM-purchased service, with comparisons to peer agencies and past statistics. Amendment 25 (failed) would have requested a report on expanding the Transit Access Program.

The other amendments I watched were 3 (passed) on how to spend money Metro can’t accept (e.g., if it doesn’t have enough drivers to implement requested runs), and 5 (failed) to extend the levy term three months (the failure means it will expire at the end of 2032).

What else do you see in the results?

Midweek Roundup: avoid the squeeze, take the bus

Posted on by Nathan Dickey

PubliCola interviewed Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson: Part 1 and Part 2. Cascade PBS sat down with Tacoma Mayor Anders Ibsen, also at 6 months into his first term.

Transit & Streets:

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: avoid the squeeze, take the bus”