Reminder: most transit agencies will be running Sunday/holiday service this Friday, July 3, in observation of Independence Day. Check your local agency’s service alerts.
Reminder: To ensure there is enough space on trains, bikes and scooters are not allowed on trains on World Cup match days. There are matches today (July 1) and next Monday (July 6).
Transit & Streets:
- Sound Transit Board Advances West Seattle Link Into Final Design (The Urbanist)
- As Everett weighs transit merger, paratransit riders want same service (Everett Herald)
- Op-Ed: How the Seattle Transit Measure Can Benefit All (The Urbanist)
- Op-Ed: Seattle Needs Car-Free Streets (The Urbanist)
- New Report Outlines Clear Case for Removing SR 99 Through South Park (The Urbanist)
- How Do We Get Transit Champions on Transit Boards? (PubliCola)
- Sound Transit refunds debt for ~$23 million in savings (The Platform)
- Temporary Street Closures Along Aurora Ave N to improve public safety (SDOT Blog)
Land Use & Housing:
- Court of Appeals Ruling Pushes Out Next Phase of Seattle’s Growth Plan ‘Significantly’ (The Urbanist)
- The Good, the Bad, and the UGA-ly as WA Growth Management Act Turns 35 (The Urbanist)
- KCRHA Spins the News that Homelessness Is Growing (PubliCola). Also in The Stranger.
This is an Open Thread.
It seems to me that lack of tail tracks at The Junction Station and no stacking at Delridge together permanently foreclose any future extension southward. Without tails extending a couple of blocks to the south at The Junction, any TBM-removal vault for such an extension would have to be constructed on the south side of Alaska Street, right where they’re crowing about not having a head house and preserving a commercial building. That building will probably be replaced by something bigger anyway.
Now maybe ST would put a level diversion and a new set of platforms east of the Delridge Station for a southern extension, but wow, what an inefficient transfer for folks between that new line and the stub to The Junction.
They have certainly not learned to future-proof their designs.
Tail tracks were part of the design for most of the process, and I believe were removed only as a cost-saving measure in this last round of cuts. And yes, it’s real dumb to do it, but being real dumb about the future in order to save five bucks right now seems to be an ongoing problem.
“It seems to me that lack of tail tracks at The Junction Station and no stacking at Delridge together permanently foreclose any future extension southward.”
ST does this repeatedly. It wouldn’t build a transfer stub into U-District station for a 45th line because “that line hasn’t been voter-approved yet, and it may not even use that station”. (At the time there was an alternative on Northlake Way to UW station and 520.) I think the station designs at Lynnwood and Stadium limit their usability for a full-time short line although I’m not sure. So it’s not surprising if ST builds Avalon station in a non-extension-friendly manner, even though that will likely be South King’s highest priority in ST4. It’s already doing it partly by reorienting the station from north-south to east-west. (Burien is south of the Junction.) If the extension is approved, I assume ST will partly tear down the station to retrofit it with extension tracks.
“It’s already doing it partly by reorienting the station from north-south to east-west. (Burien is south of the Junction.)”
Can you elaborate? 30% designs depict a north-south oriented junction station, straddling Alaska Street. The lack of tail tracks will certainly make future southern extensions of the line more expensive, but the orientation of the station doesn’t seem to have changed.
On a different note: I haven’t seen this brought up much, but the removal of access points on the south side of Alaska Street is a real blow to usability of the station- at least, if Alaska is designed as it is currently.
I think Mike has is backwards – the original representative alignment in ST3 assumed an east-west station, which presumably would have been cheaper to build. The north-south orientation for the Alaska Junction station became preferred during planning to facilitate future expansion.
Because an extension would have to be bored, I’ve felt that the station orientation at Alaska Junction is now irrelevant. But ST made it an issue in 2018 so it’s a political promise with subsequent little relevance to possible expansion.
It would have meant something if the line was aerial as originally intended in ST3. But the orientation decision preceded the bored tunnel decisions.
There was never any proposal to close Alaska Street and put the station in a vault underneath. It’s quite unfortunate — now that SDOT is recently pursuing turning the street into a bus transit mall anyway.
I think it’s safe to assume that Avalon is dead. ST has committed to a bored tunnel and subway as well as a lower budget. Both of those commitments would have to change for Avalon to return.
Add to that, Avalon would not add many total riders and the project’s cost-benefit is already so bad that New Starts $ looks pretty dubious already.
The approach at ST is to build what looks pretty as cheaply as possible. They’re not designing stations or tunnels for riders — especially those that transfer.
They’re more obsessed about putting stations on that map than anything else.
This next year we are going to see a Duwamish signature bridge design that adds enough cost that could have instead been partially used to install down escalators across the entire system along with more elevators where needed. Now ST is also planning to cut back on the SODO station design that will create long lines of transferring riders forced onto a single escalator or elevator. Many in the public don’t know that ST is severing the current spine and not compensating with a cross-platform transfer. This is just one more chapter showing how ST is building Link to be pretty for the first year more than be functional for a century. Riders need to be paying attention and speak up!!!
All of this combined is why the best thing for transit in the region is for ST3 to implode. Blow $70 billion building unusable garbage projects that dont benefit riders and are nothing more than building rail lines for the sake of building rail lines… like a kiddie train or model railroad.
Its one thing to cut back what’s being built but at least its quality and done right. Here we get neither what we were promised and what is built is so compromised to be sht.
are there to be crossovers north of the station?
Yes, there will be. ST believes this setup will be easier operationally compared to a crossover on tail tracks, though further extension south will require some arrangement of knockout panels, demolishing the building to the south of AJS, or doing TBM extraction a little beyond the station with no tracks a la San Francisco’s Central Subway.
That’s an important question, Jack! A TBM cannot usually bore for a crossover track. That means that any crossover track probably must be in a vault of some sort.
ST rolled out new lower-cost station layouts to the Seattle Design Commission last week (per Urbanist article). These have not been presented in an ST Board or Committee meeting. ST cancelled this week’s Committee meetings. So the designs being developed have not been widely distributed to the public.
I do think it’s important to mention that the cost to get from Delridge to Alaska Junction has been about equal to the cost to get from SODO to Delridge including the new signature bridge.
If there are no tails there must be cross-overs to the north. Either that you are forced into a single platform station.
The cross-overs don’t take a lot of longitudinal space; typically they can be fit within two hundred yards for number eight frogs. That two hundred feet must be part of the station vault (though there might be a “modesty panel” wall between the platforms and the cross-overs). It can have needed mechanical equipment at the Mezzanine level, so it’s not entirely wasted digging.
If ST persists in this penny-wise-pound-foolish plan for northside cross-overs, it had better buy the land above where tails would be to the south of Alaska Street for at least two blocks to allow for a future extension to the south. Stations at Morgan Junction, Westwood, and north and south White Center would make this silly political extension worthwhile.
“It seems to me that lack of tail tracks at The Junction Station and no stacking at Delridge together permanently foreclose any future extension southward.”
I think that’s the point given that Sound Transit is facing a big shortfall and ST4 is nowhere around the corner at this point.
I agree overall, though the removal of the tail tracks (which created opportunity for an extension to Morgan Junction and beyond) was a decision in the Enterprise Initiative and the removal of a headhouse is even worse! I wish these design elements along with Avalon Station could just be deferred until resources are identified and not completly cancelled (which ST said they wouldn’t do with their projects).
“Without tails extending a couple of blocks to the south at The Junction, any TBM-removal vault for such an extension would have to be constructed on the south side of Alaska Street, right where they’re crowing about not having a head house and preserving a commercial building. That building will probably be replaced by something bigger anyway.”
I’ve also thought about it like this when musing a potential light rail expansion to the City of Auburn. A city that over 85,000 people call home and soon to be 114,000 by 2044 MUST have good transit. Peak only commuter rail and a single BRT line won’t address that. Light rail will and has been proven with many WA cities.
Placing a light rail station near the current Auburn Station is challenging. You lack space and the angling is wonky. One possible way is to close a corridor but I’m not liking that. Placing it horizontally in an empty lot gives an opportunity for a potential future eastern extension to GRC and potentially Covington if Sound Transit ever expands it’s district.
Of course, there’s limited potential east of Auburn and Covington is less dense compared to Auburn but placing the station in the heart of Auburn horizontally creates an opportunity. Even if this never happens it would like you said future proof a possible extension and be there “just in case”.
“Now maybe ST would put a level diversion and a new set of platforms east of the Delridge Station for a southern extension”
What? Light rail along Delridge Way?
“wow, what an inefficient transfer for folks between that new line and the stub to The Junction.”
You’re saying split?
“They have certainly not learned to future-proof their designs.”
I agree, this should be a key design element for future rail expansions in the future.
This is strictly not true.
“At the April public meeting they specifically said that they were designing specifically for future expansion and that removing the tail tracks would make operations smoother/faster (as well as being less expensive to build for now). They didn’t mention future additional costs though.” https://bsky.app/profile/alexh666.bsky.social/post/3mninzjz22c2v
I’ll concede that the removal of tail tracks at AJS might make future expansion more expensive, but it doesn’t preclude it. It didn’t preclude expansion at UWS! Whether it’s a good choice is another story, but if Link expansion south of Alaska Junction ever happens, it’ll likely be in a financial environment where demolishing one building for TBM removal is feasible.
The extension at UW Station was planned as a part of ST2, and there is a pair of small rooms at track level which are shown in the architectural drawings as “tunnel boring machine removal”. They are ridiculously small, but there they are on the platform level plan view (https://www.archdaily.com/886188/uw-husky-stadium-link-transit-station-lmn-architects/5a434abfb22e38ef58000110-uw-husky-stadium-link-transit-station-lmn-architects-floor-plans?next_project=no).
It is patently impossible to remove a TBM in the small space provided, so I expect that what they were REALLY used for was to capture debris from the TBM’s chewing through the north wall of the station box.
The TBM’s themselves would have been retrieved from a standard excavation to the north of the active station.
Perhaps ST can include such a debris vestibule at Alaska Junction Station. That would be very wise, but the TBM’s for an extension will still have to be retrieved from under Alaska Street and the block between Alaska and Edmunds. Which means they better buy whatever is over that vault-to-be or there will be a twenty-story apartment building to demise.
Penny wise, pound foolish. That is ST’s working modality, because “The future doesn’t exist unless the voters approve it”.
“I wish … Avalon Station could just be deferred”
The no-station alternative moved the track to a different location. ST says it has less environmental impacts and capital costs there. I don’t know if it’s suitable for a station location, or how easily feeder buses and walk-ups from neighborhood businesses could get to it.
“The no-station alternative moved the track to a different location. ST says it has less environmental impacts and capital costs there.”
How is tunneling under some random suburban streets cheaper than running at grade next to Fauntleroy Way?
“I don’t know if it’s suitable for a station location, or how easily feeder buses and walk-ups from neighborhood businesses could get to it.”
At least it’s only purpose would be to feed all the Avalon Way buses into the station and grab the attention of the very few people that live there. Outside of that it’s just a golf course. It could be a regional hub for many bus routes (even though many stations have tried doing that and have failed in terms of ridership like Shoreline North/185th for example). Avalon Station also has a nice design and layout, it reminds me of Bellevue Downtown Station how the train runs above ground and then in between the tunnel and open air segment there’s a station.
It spares 28 houses, the row costs are far far lower
It’s not suitable for a station. There is no set of streets to the north for a bus hot-loop that are wide because of an old streetcar line like up on Queen Anne Hill. There is ABSOLUTELY no place for layovers; all the streets are just two (fairly wide) lanes wide.
For clarity, I’m talking about a tunnel station just south of 35th and Andover, not the original Andover unburied cut station.
“original Avalon unburied cut station”.
Tunnel stations lack design which includes a bus loop, yeah I know.
You can tell how the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel stations weren’t built with the infrastructure new stations have now and they still need them if we’re going to make them right.
Then just don’t make tunnel stations into a regional hub for crying out loud! Just make them in really dense areas.
@ Tom:
The original Avalon station from 2016 was supposed to be at or above ground.
It was either that original, incompetent study team didn’t consider that doing that would require a very high overpass in Youngstown — or the team was directed to ignore that pesky topological truth by a higher-up.
“@ Tom:
The original Avalon station from 2016 was supposed to be at or above ground.”
at
“It was either that original, incompetent study team didn’t consider that doing that would require a very high overpass in Youngstown — or the team was directed to ignore that pesky topological truth by a higher-up.”
How come Sound Transit is ignoring these design elements like an elevated Avalon Station (which imo would be worse than at grade) and not the ones like building the Tacoma Dome 1 Line station above Freighthouse Square and elevating The Junction. I guess it’s because those two are actually important that Sound Transit would do anything to build them and just leave stations like Avalon in the dust like hit or miss.
@ SD+GK:
I never got why ST never planned two center Link platforms at Tacoma Dome with the middle track in between for the T Line.
It’s always been a mystery to me why ST doesn’t make designing cross-platform transfers a priority design feature generally. Most major rail transit systems around the world do make it a priority. It’s like ST just ignores long-understood industry standard station design objectives. I think they just don’t give a sh** about riders.
Al, yes, I remember that, but the most recent “design” [before the current tunnel-all-the-way-from-the-steel-mill was going to follow the West Seattle Freeway on its east side, dip under 35th and enter a cut station in the northwest quadrant of the 35th and Avalon intersection. At least, that was my understanding. That is the station I was calling “an unburied cut station”.
Then it was to be tunneled to a station alongside Alaska Street just east of California Avenue.
The new design is better for possible extension south, but if they insist on eliminating the tails, there’s no straightforward way to connect an extension.
@ Tom:
As I’ve said before, I would have rather ST just move the Avalon cut station a little further along Fauntleroy and dropped the Alaska Street station completely to save $2B. ST never would allow that alternative to be explored. Yet most of the riders are expected to come from Metro buses at Alaska Street as the built up area is merely two blocks wide and ends two short blocks from the station. At least half of the Alaska Street station walkshed would be in a relocated Avalon station walkshed. Ending at Fauntleroy would also be akin to the Columbia City setup where the business district is not summarily destroyed.
And those of us that remember how Capitol Hill Station site was a fenced-off void in the neighborhood for seven years understands what will happen in West Seattle if asT breaks ground. And state law will mandate upzoning for many more blocks around the station. Link will transform the neighborhood business district and surrounding residential streets to be unrecognizable in 15 years or less. And all those dump trucks carrying away 60-80 feet of dirt the with of a football field will tear up the streets really badly.
West Seattle leaders rubbed their genie in a bottle and made their wish for Link where it is. Now they’ll see how their wish manifests itself in a fundamentally changed neighborhood.
West Seattle Link is primarily to serve the Alaska Junction urban village. Terminating at Avalon would be putting it at the edge of the village instead of the center. This is what we’ve been faulting Columbia City and Ballard and CID/N&S stations for, being at the edge of their villages, which gives them a less effective walkshed.
Al, I like the idea of a Fauntleroy and Alaska station pointing southwest as well. Folks in West Seattle want “The Junction” to stay in its Amber container, but they probably wouldn’t be so “anti” some Roosevelt sized development a few blocks to the east.
Sadly, that ship has apparently sailed; what’s important now is to ensure that they CAN actually go south without knocking down a big building across the street from the new station site. That requires them to re-think the stub elimination “savings”.
But, as I said elsewhere on this article and really like for the irony, “The future does not exist for ST until the voters approve it.”
Mike, can you consider my video for a future Sunday movie?
Scooby, how was ridership on the trip to Golden Gardens, and from Golden Gardens? Also, where did riders get on and off?
“Scooby, how was ridership on the trip to Golden Gardens, and from Golden Gardens? Also, where did riders get on and off?”
I got on at 15th & Market, and there was no one else onboard until we went further into Ballard. Another person got on along Market St and then there were no other boardings until Golden Gardens.
About I’d say 5-6 people got on at Golden Gardens, the other person onboard remained. One person got off in between Golden Gardens and Market/Ballard. Everyone else got off at Market/Ballard. I was the last one onboard and the driver dropped me off at Market & 17th for some reason and said it was the last stop.
Overall it was pretty decent for it’s first day on a Saturday.
Can a mod also delete the video link and re-add it? It’s not showing my updated profile picture.
The comment actually has just the URL. I was going to replace the embed with the URL because I’ve never tried YouTube embeds in comments and didn’t want to support it now, but when I deleted the URL, saved, re-added it, and saved, it ended up with the same representative image as before. So I think we’ll just have to leave it. I copied the URL from the YouTube page for the article.
Ok, did you see my new profile picture? I changed it from Firey (a BFDI character) to me, and two other friends at Edmonds Theater.
“did you see my new profile picture? I changed it from Firey (a BFDI character) to me, and two other friends at Edmonds Theater.”
The video still has an orange cartoon character in the top left corner. On your YouTube home page I see a photo of three people.
“The video still has an orange cartoon character in the top left corner. On your YouTube home page I see a photo of three people.”
It now has my new profile picture. That’s me and two other friends at Toy Story 5 in the Edmonds Theater.
the crucial part is in the trailer lot just before the video begins. Will the transitvan be blocked by boat trailer action or excessive parking on very nice days. During the salmon season, there will be many trailers.
“Mike, can you consider my video for a future Sunday movie?”
I put it on the list to review. I haven’t decided on next Sunday’s theme yet. I’m personally interested in the Golden Gardens shuttle, and riding it to Golden Gardens sometime.
“I’m personally interested in the Golden Gardens shuttle, and riding it to Golden Gardens sometime.”
Yes, let’s take advantage while it’s still running.
I recommend that all reading STB read the Publicola editorial advocating for rider interests when making transit decisions. It’s badly needed here!
If Link is now carrying 160K trips on an average weekday, that’s 80K riders on average every day. Take into account users on once a week or more and the Link rider voting block could be quite the political force. That’s especially true within Seattle.
I’m reminded at how (as a former resident) anyone running for public office in San Francisco is effectively required to meet voters at the rail station entrances several times during the campaign. It’s established as part of the political culture. We need that here for starters.
But we really should be requiring that ST Board members use Link regularly. Assuming that ST Board members get an Orca pass, we should require them to report how many times that pass is used each month and that info should be published. I get really tired of how our Board seems to be ok with treating riders on Link stations like cattle without a voice.
How about it, Katie? Please draft an ST motion to require all Board members to disclose their transit use occurrences each month!
“If Link is now carrying 160K trips on an average weekday, that’s 80K riders on average every day.”
What?
“How about it, Katie? Please draft an ST motion to require all Board members to disclose their transit use occurrences each month!”
Have you thought about emailing Mayor Wilson and the board? Idk if they’ll read it here.
“If Link is now carrying 160K trips on an average weekday, that’s 80K riders on average every day.”
What?
A rider typically takes one transit trip both directions. Thus if 80K riders took a train back and forth they would account for 160K trips.
“A rider typically takes one transit trip both directions. Thus if 80K riders took a train back and forth they would account for 160K trips.”
Still makes zero sense.
Scooby, what part doesn’t make sense? The fact that riders take about two trips each day, or the concept of dividing the number of boardings/rides by 2 to calculate the number of people using transit each day?
“Scooby, what part doesn’t make sense? The fact that riders take about two trips each day, or the concept of dividing the number of boardings/rides by 2 to calculate the number of people using transit each day?”
How dividing the boardings/rides by 2 to calculate the number of people using transit every day is wrong. There’s some people that could take one-way trips (e.g: someone who works in Bellevue and lives in Lynnwood could take the 2 Line in the AM and the 535 in the PM).
Why don’t we just accept the data for trips in both directions and not to assume that people take a round trip every day?
There’s some people that could take one-way trips
Sure. There are also people who take more than two trips. But as a rough estimate of the number of people that take Link it is OK. Al was focusing on the number of people because he was focused on the political impact.
What Ross said. Thanks Ross! Some people have days off or only use transit for non-work occasional trips. Some people only use Link one way and use something else the other way. Some use Link more than twice a day. And there are riders that don’t vote, especially teens.
My goal was to to simply state a rough estimate of what the Link rider voting block is. Frankly it’s probably well over 109K if the occasional riders are included.
In the 2025 General Election, there were about 660K votes cast. Balducci lost by about 54K votes. Of course, the Link operation was not a major campaign issue and there were fewer Link riders in that election. But the recent surge in use increases the number of voters who care about Link operations, and no candidate wants to risk losing that growing block of existing Link riders in King County.
“Have you thought about emailing Mayor Wilson and the board? Idk if they’ll read it here.”
I find that solo emails have no impact on elected officials. I’ve sent several in the past and don’t even get a response that they’ve been read.
So before I waste my time again, I’m floating the idea here to see if others would agree strongly enough to advocate for a motion.
Should elected officials on a transit board be required to disclose their transit use? I even think that it would actually change the kinds of members that end up on the ST Board because non-riders would be too embarrassed to pursue a Board seat.
“Link rider voting block could be quite the political force. That’s especially true within Seattle.”
Assume all of them are qualified US citizen to vote. If this doesn’t translate to that, then it won’t have the same influence to elected official.
Google estimates about 90% of the overall Seattle population is U.S. citizens. Nor sure if it’s different among the subset of people who ride transit.
I think the bigger issue is that most riders are just trying to get where they’re going and are not particularly organized as a voting group. There is no list of ~80K daily light rail riders to which a call to action can be easily communicated. People seem to organize more easily around specific neighborhood transit issues (Save Ballard! Don’t destroy Chinatown!) than around general rider experience issues, especially if they revolve around technical system design issues that will only be felt far into the future. Having said that, I have no doubt that if transit riders were more organized as an interest group, they could have much greater political impact, especially given their increasing numbers–leafletting about transit issues near light rail stations would seem to find a ready audience?
As far as pressuring the ST Board to ride transit more so they can better see the impact of their decisions, it might have some marginally beneficial effects, but I wouldn’t expect any “road to Damascus” epiphanies. One thing that might be just as impactful would be for them to ride transit in other cities and other countries—nothing like travel to expand your horizons and notions of what is possible. And I’m not talking about junkets to Europe…Vancouver is not far away and seems to have done much that we could learn from.
“if transit riders were more organized as an interest group, they could have much greater political impact”
The Transit Riders Union exists for this exact purpose.
I thought about that, but despite their name, their primary focus does not really appear to be on transit. For example, the issues they identify on their website include things like surveillance, gun violence, homelessness, food assistance, rental assistance, and the keystone pipeline. At their March meeting, they voted on sending a letter to city and county leaders to oppose the war in Iran. I might agree or disagree with their perspectives on these other issues, but their connection to the local transit rider experience is somewhere between tangential and non-existent. If I wanted to join the DSA, I would join the DSA. If I want to advocate for smarter and more cost-effective decisions with respect to our region’s light rail buildout, the “Transit Riders Union” is not where I would look.
I thought about that, but despite their name, their primary focus does not really appear to be on transit.
I haven’t been a member for very long so maybe you have attended different meetings. But when I went to the general meeting much of the time was spent on transit issues. We also spent a lot of time on the organization itself (how to improve the website, attracting members, better communication, etc.). We discussed other policies (like the ones you mentioned) but the main policy focus is on transit itself.
“Link rider voting block could be quite the political force. That’s especially true within Seattle.”
Assume all of them are qualified US citizen to vote. If this doesn’t translate to that, then it won’t have the same influence to elected official.
I think the bigger problem is that it is not that many people. I have no idea what the transit modal share is for the greater Seattle area but it is likely very small. It has probably decreased over the years. People still use a car as their main form of transportation. Link ridership is up but bus ridership is way down. Two weeks ago a lot of people took transit — more than half a million. That would be an average day in 2015. We had over 600,000 riders before the pandemic. This is despite increased growth and the dramatic improvement in Link (it is easy to forget but Link didn’t even make it to the U-District until the middle of the pandemic).
Without polling, we also have no idea how people are using Link. They may only occasionally drive to the park and ride and take the train for events or trips to the airport. Others may commute on transit but drive everywhere else. Of course some of the people taking transit (especially lately) are tourists. Thus the idea that this represents some sort of key block of voters is a bit of a stretch. I don’t think it matters much at all. There are people who generally support transit projects and people who don’t. This has a bigger impact politically than the folks riding Link on a regular basis.
That being said, I do believe that Link is quite popular but the buses aren’t. This could lead to a bad trend as people see Link as the only way to improve their transit experience. This may explain why West Seattle Link is still relatively popular. You can try and explain why an improved bus system would actually be better but they aren’t buying it. Not when “RapidRide” often means buses stuck in traffic and regular buses show up way too infrequently (if at all). The deteriorating state of our bus system is occurring while key light rail expansions were made. From a political standpoint it is great for groups like Seattle Subway (that focus only on that mode) but not great for transit in the city. Transit is a nuanced subject and most people won’t spend the time to figure out the details. One mode getting significantly better while a more important mode gets worse is not only bad policy but it is bad politically.
It will be interesting to see if these regressive tax revenue increases will offset the taxable base exodus that’s relocating to Bellevue or other publicized moves like Starbucks calling it quits. We’ll have to wait and see how the fiscal cliff the city faces gets resolved, if at all. I wish that rather than racing to a 15% sales tax rate, which I’ve already accepted will happen within my lifetime, the mayor and the council need to think how to grow the tax base rather than the tax rate. But as the urbanist seems to lament, yet offer no pro-tax base expansion ideas, these political jokeys seem to be set in the easy solution to tax the people more using by far the most punishing type of regressive taxation available.
It would be nice, although exceedingly unlikely if we had a mayor and council that talked employer growth, job growth, and corporate tax base revenue targets as means of success.
Ironically, the most reliable way for local governments in WA to keep the lights on is to encourage new property development, since new developments are exempted from the 1% levy limit for one year. But that mostly amounts to treading water at best. Until our broken property tax system is fixed, there is no way for cities to maintain levels of service, let alone expand them in the way that people expect.
Seattle has had very high population and job growth for almost 15 straight years. All of that substantially grew the tax base, yet the city is still broke. I place that at the feet of a broken system that cannot adequately tax property or income, and as a result cannot keep up with increasing input costs for land and labor. You’re welcome to blame whatever you prefer, but I hardly think you can point to Seattle as somewhere that’s struggled because of a lack of growth
Yeah, the big problem is the limits that the state puts on local areas when it comes to taxes (while also failing to fully fund important services like schools). But given that, the best thing the city can do is allow developers to build a lot more housing. This not only provides something people need but it increases tax revenue.
We love Anna Zivarts. I doubt having more transit riders on the board would necessarily lead to better board decisions. But the two votes on the amended Chair’s package were Balducci and Strauss, who ride transit. To a large extent, the bad decisions have already been made; the alignment horse is out of the barn; it is too late to close the barn door. The federated and three-county nature of the ST Board has led to Link spine worship and that is counter to ridership maximization. The Pierce County ST projects seem especially weak; see streetcar bending back on itself and Link reaching the Tacoma Dome. Forcing Everett Link to have scoliosis is also weak. The May vote continued the low ridership Link lines and the second DSTT; it cut the Ballard line.
RE the comment on the T Line bending back on itself – I assume because on the map it looks like a U? As a resident of downtown Tacoma (that works in downtown Seattle), I find that many of us either take it part of the way… or all the way from almost one end to the other so we don’t have to try to walk up that very steep hill.
Second Link outage on a World Cup match day. “1 & 2 Line trains are temporarily delayed until further notice due to overhead power issue. Please plan ahead for additional travel time…. 1 & 2 Line trains are temporarily delayed until further notice due to overhead power issue. Please plan ahead for additional travel time.” In the hour before kickoff.
Not sure if it was discussed in the past, I came across this NE 130th / NE 125th road diet project yesterday and found some bus lanes proposed along NE 125th for Route 77. If everything goes as planned, the bus lane might open when 77’s service start this fall.
NE 130th St & NE 125th St Mobility and Safety Project
Those added bus lanes don’t seem that long to me. They appear to mainly provide a bypass any queued vehicles at the downstream signals. It’s not nothing but it doesn’t look like it would save a bus more than a few seconds unless traffic is gridlocked
It also appears to me that because buses will be stopping in the bus lanes to unload/board riders, there’s not much opportunity to program in signal priority queue jump to help buses move faster; at most an occasional bus may get to jump ahead of a few waiting cars — but only if the bus shuts the doors and pulls away from the stop at just the right time.
“Those added bus lanes don’t seem that long to me.”
Unlike freeway or highway with low access density, urban streets are congestion because of intersection control delay rather than lack of lane capacity. So to some extent bypass longer than general traffic queue is all buses need.
*, urban streets are congested because….”
This has been discussed in the past. I wrote about alternatives here and here.
This SDOT work is based on old plans. Basically they focused on adding bike lanes along the corridor, not bus lanes. Instead of two general purpose lanes each direction it will be one general purpose lane each direction (shared by buses and cars) along with the bike lane. There are small sections where they are adding bus lanes but they are also taking away what little exists (eastbound on 125th right before 15th). In general I would expect buses to encounter more congestion than they would if they left the street alone although the street should be safer for pedestrians and cyclists. Not as safe as if they implemented what I suggested but at least a bit safer.
The area can really be broken down into two sections. East of 15th is a challenge for cyclists. There is no good alternative for getting up the hill. This section had a road diet a long time ago and they are making the bike lanes better. I have no problem with that. From 15th to the freeway overpass there is also little they can do. You could force riders south but they have to cross at 130th (it is the only crossing between 145th and 117th). Again, I have no problem with the additional bike lanes.
But in my opinion they made a big mistake to the west of the overpass. What I proposed would be much better for cyclists and for transit.
I have theories as to why they screwed up this project. Part of it is a lack of imagination. People just assume that the main corridor is best for bikes. This isn’t always the case and isn’t the case here. The Burke Gilman and the Interurban are not main (automotive) corridors but they work really well as bike routes. To get from Licton Springs to the west in a car you drive down to 85th. In a bike you cross at 92nd. It is just better for bikes to have a crossing that doesn’t allow cars whenever it is feasible.
I also think they wanted to adhere to the Bike Plan. This was a rallying cry during the kerfuffle over bike lanes on 35th. “Stick to the Bike Plan!”. The stronger argument (in that case) is that it is the only logical place to put the bike lanes. You can’t get up the hill otherwise. The fact that the plan was right was simply a coincidence, not a good reason to always stick with it. But given that mess, the city didn’t want to do something different even though things have changed. 130th is about to become a major transit corridor. It should be given more service and the appropriate right-of-way. It is like 85th. Sure, there would be value in adding bike lanes along 85th as it crosses Aurora but it is extremely difficult — if not impossible — to make it as safe as crossings to the north and south. After doing all that work you would make the buses slower. It would be much better to add bus lanes on the bus corridor and bike lanes elsewhere. There are some places where this isn’t an option (as I’ve noted) but whenever possible they should take this approach and in this case it isn’t close.
Oh, and some things can be improved while still retaining the bike lanes. For example, look at that first slide. Notice the first item in the legend. Neighbors wanted the city to take a step further and close the street off entirely, making that road a dead end but this is still a step in the right direction. It is much safer and you don’t have to worry about a car slowing down traffic while it waits for pedestrians and bikes while turning right.
Now look at the second slide. There is a lot going on here. Eastbound cyclists have to move to the other side of the street. It looks confusing but reasonably safe. But 8th Avenue — a designated Greenway — should have the same treatment. It should be “right out only” at a minimum. It is worth noting that a lot of people turn right there since they can’t turn right at 5th anymore. They should instead turn right on 125th & Roosevelt. The intersection is a roundabout (as shown on the next slide) and Roosevelt is an arterial. It makes sense to send cars there instead of having them continue to turn right on 8th. This is a hazard to pedestrians who will increasingly cross that intersection once the station is complete (making trips like this). The same is true for the other side of 8th. Make it “right out only”. Drivers heading to the neighborhood would use the roundabout (for trips like this) while being able to take a more direct path the other direction (like this or this). You would also ban going straight on 8th (like they did with 117th in Pinehurst). This would make it a lot safer while improving traffic flow.
They also never dealt with the pedestrian crossing and slip lane between northbound 5th and eastbound Roosevelt. To be fair, it is a tricky situation. You can’t just get rid of it — trucks wouldn’t be able to make that hairpin turn. But this is where a raised crossing would make sense. Some drivers (who think they in a Formula One race) make that turn way too fast. This at least would slow them down.
Continuing the discussion about the Golden Gardens shuttle, I did a little bit of back-of-the envelope math and I believe that, at least on a Saturday, serving Golden Gardens actually costs less if done by extending every trip of the 44, every 15 minutes, than running a dedicated shuttle, every 30 minutes. In other words, at least in raw service hour math, the option that provides better service costs less, not more.
The math works as follows (for simplicity, I calculated everything using the Saturday schedules):
– Each hour, the Golden Gardens shuttle departs 15th at :00 and :30, arrives at Golden Gardens at :14 and :44, and arrives back at 15th and :28 and :58.
– In theory, this could be done with a single bus, but in practice, running one bus in a continuous loop, all day long, with minimal to no break, would make the service very unreliable. So, assume in the math that Metro is running the route with two buses. This keeps the buses on schedule, at the cost of making the service expensive to run, with 50% of the total service hours spent paying drivers to sit with an empty bus in layover.
– Route 44, on a Saturday, takes about 35 minutes, each way, between the UW Med Center and the Ballard Locks, with the total round-trip cycle time set to 90 minutes to account for layovers at each end. Since the bus runs every 15 minutes on Saturdays, this route requires 6 buses to operate (90 / 15).
– With Golden Gardens running as a separate shuttle, that leaves 8 buses total to run both routes.
– If Golden Gardens were served as an extension to route 44, one can conservatively budget in an additional 15 minutes of round-trip cycle time (7.5 minutes each way) for a trip that is a 4-minute drive, each way, according to Google (the extra 3.5 minutes to allow time for passenger stops). This brings the total round-trip cycle time to 105 minutes (including layover).
– So, to run the full route every 15 minutes, the number of buses needed is 7 (105 / 15). Which is one bus less than what is needed to both run the #44 every 15 minutes, and run the Golden Gardens shuttle every 30 minutes. In other words, by choosing to serve Golden Gardens with a special shuttle, they are paying for one additional all-day bus to provide the public with worse service.
To be fair, there are some caveats here. With a weekday schedule, where the #44 runs every 10 minutes, the extension would presumably fare worse. But, even then, you could still opt to extend only every other trip (service to Golden Gardens every 20 minutes), or simply run the extension only on holidays and weekends (since weekday ridership would presumably be lower). I also ignored physical issues around trolley buses or turnaround/layover space for an articulated bus. But, with a willingness to use the trolleybuses’ batteries (e.g. no $10 million expense for new trolley wire) and take away some car parking, I feel like both of these issues ought to be solvable, and if better bus service reduces the need for parking in the first place, then taking some parking spaces to allow an articulated bus room to turn around should be more than justified. And, of course, to address the straw-man argument about low ridership in the winter, the extension could be seasonal only, just like the shuttle.
For this year, I’m going to give the city (which is funding the extension) the benefit of the doubt, and assume that there simply wasn’t time to make the physical arrangements to make an extension of the 44 possible, while an additional shuttle was something they could bring online within a couple months. But, for future years, the SDOT money used to fund the shuttle really should be redirected towards extending the 44 instead.
Another question I think is worth asking is whether Metro is actually planning on operating the Golden Gardens shuttle with two buses, of whether the plan is to just operate it with one bus on a continuous loop, and simply let the delays accumulate throughout the day, as they may. If the latter, it reduces cost, but at the expense of making service very unreliable in the afternoons. Such unreliability, of course, would never be tolerated for a regular bus route, but it would not surprise me the least if the shuttle has a lower reliability standard because, well, it’s just a shuttle. I guess we’ll have to see.
The problem I see is turn around space and delays due to congestion around the parking lots.
Congestion which could be solved with paint by converting a couple dozen parking spaces into a bus loop. The bus should never have to actually drive through a parking lot with cars.
Yes, turning around may be a big issue. You can do it with a small bus, can you do it with a big one? Another issue is layover. I assume the bus loops around and lays over close to Market & 17th. You would need space to not only turnaround at Golden Gardens but layover. There are bathrooms there so I guess that solves that problem. I agree in general — it would be much better as just an extension of the 44. But there may be practical reasons why they did it this way.
It will always be cheaper to run an extension rather than a new route, but reliability issues compound across the entire route. The 44 is a core crosstown route and I would be wary of layering in any additional unreliability
Muni’s 30 Stockton trolley bus does an off-wire extension from its original terminal by the Palace of Fine Arts into the Presidio and terminates in the parking lot of Sports Basement. Its a great precedent for extending the 44 to Golden Gardens, both these routes use the exact same New Flyer articulated trolley buses.
It’s completely mysterious why Metro won’t use the off-wire capability it spec’d and bought for this purpose, or why it has taken ten years to study it and Metro still doesn’t have an answer yet. Saying other cities do it with the same bus models and Metro should do it, won’t make it happen, until Metro decides to. Metro just seems to be terrified of a bus running out of power off-wire, not when it has to during an emergency or during a temporary situation, but for regular service. Maybe it’s afraid it will happen every day and people will get angry if the route is truncated over it mid-season, for instance if the 44 says Golden Gardens but it has to be truncated at 32nd because buses can’t get all the way to Golden Gardens and back reliably. Still, if the bus spec says it can go 22 miles off-wire, then if it can’t, that would appear to be a warranty defect and the manufacturer should replace the bus or fix it, and the sooner Metro knows about it the better.