Friday Roundtable: July 4 Weekend Service

62 Replies to “Friday Roundtable: July 4 Weekend Service”

1. I updated tonight’s Link late-night service with the latest ST information. It’s still not clear where trains will be available after midnight. I emailed ST and asked when the last trains will depart. The Metro weekend update listed them for Saturday but not for Friday.

2. Does anyone know what the “mechanical issue” was on Thursday afternoon? The reader boards were displaying seemingly accurate arrival times. Although at 2PM it was showing a 12 minute wait for an eastbound train at Judkins Park. The next eastbound train was listed as 6 minutes after that. A Warning/Announcement kept coming on over the speakers and the reader board saying that trains were delayed do to a prior mechanical issue, expect and plan for delays. Nothing else, not very helpful. This was a Match day but I don’t know if it happened before or after the start time of 1PM.

   2 Line ridership continues to build. We’ll see next week how much has been tourist related; a good amount. But I think there is also an uptick in local use. I’ve started to notice more people in hospital attire. Hard to know if they are starting a shift or going home so direction they board doesn’t say much unless it’s at Wilburton which still has pathetic use… almost as bad as East of Nowhere Station. OTOH Mercer Island and S. Bellevue continue to grow. The P&Rs must be at or near capacity. But there will be another boost when bus routes get restructured this fall. FWIW Bel-Red has been completely parked out on match days and near capacity for Mariner games. Other than that there is always space to park but I think the overflow from MI and S. Belleview will start to change that pretty soon. Also, I’ve seen people get on at Spring District and exit to their cars at Bell-Red so it look like the big Tech Towers there are using Bel-Red as their employee parking. That will quickly overflow the lot capacity as the towers start to populate.

   1. I don’t know but here is my perspective: I was riding into Westlake from Mercer Island to go watch the Senegal vs Belgium game at Pacific Place. I got kicked out at Judkins for some reason with the train going into the pocket track just west of the station. At that time for some reason the transit security started telling everyone that there were “shuttle busses” to CID and basically the whole platform walked down to the Rainer Ave bus stops. I felt like something was up and stayed on the platform and I discovered that train service was indeed normal and there was no shuttle bus. The entire experience felt very uncoordinated I mean even the staff didn’t know what was going on. I mean this just may be the standard ST experience but ST has to make communication so much better.

      1. So I guess nobody, except maybe ST, has a clue as to what happened on a match day when ridership was at a peak. And since ST doesn’t give a Sh*t we’ll never know.

         1. Bernie, if you are really curious, go to Link’s online radio scanner. Go back to the day and time in question, and you’ll hear the first radio calls mentioning the actual problem.

         2. It’s probably ST being disorganized more than not caring.

            The first three match days went flawlessly from what I gathered. I was out before and after the crowds and transit was normal, and we got no reports of outages or unexpected problems during the surges. There was the expected crowd at CID station, but I didn’t hear of extraordinary unexpected crowds or delays. ST and Metro put a lot of work into preventative maintenance and crowd planning before the season, so that should be recognized.

            Link started having problems in the 4th and 5th matches: power outage, mechanical issue. The second one occurred in the hour before the match, so that would have delayed people. But it didn’t sound like an extraordinary hours-long delay. Eventual problems were probably inevitable given Link’s track record and ST’s inability to get it into as good condition as average cities. But that doesn’t negate the fact that the first three match days went well. ST and Metro should be commended for that.

   2. From what I can tell, the vast majority of 2 Line ridership is via park-and-ride. There are not many people riding the bus to the station.

      I go to Overlake Hospital somewhat often, and I rarely see anyone else walking between the station and the hospital. I don’t see this changing anytime soon. Parking for visitors is rather cheap there – free for 90 minutes. Parking is free for employees. Almost half of the building space on the campus is actually parking garages. The hospital is just not going to be a ridership driver. So Wilburton ridership is not going anywhere until redevelopment of the surrounding area.

      1. From what I can tell, the vast majority of 2 Line ridership is via park-and-ride.

         Downtown Bellevue has the most ridership (and no park and ride). Downtown Redmond is the second most popular and it doesn’t have parking either. But I get your point. It is reasonable to assume that a lot of the ridership comes from people walking directly to their destination or driving to the station. There may not be that many people taking a bus as part of the trip. It is hard to tell with Downtown Bellevue since the transit center is used by other buses as well (along with people who just walk there). A lot of routes (like the 271) don’t end there. Thus you can’t tell if someone takes Link and then rides the bus a few blocks or if they got on the bus before then.

         Wilburton is simpler, just because it has fewer buses. It is pretty much the RapidRide B and that’s it. Unfortunately, we don’t have stop data for the period that corresponds with Link going across the lake (not yet anyway). We may see a significant increase in ridership at the nearest stop. Or not.

         1. I think that many Seattle residents work in Downtown Bellevue.

         2. I think that many Seattle residents work in Downtown Bellevue.

            Yep. That is one of the destinations I mentioned. But it is difficult to tell how many of those riders then take a bus to the other side of downtown (e. g. https://maps.app.goo.gl/vxQJgCoHdT2kgtjy6) or just walk to work. In contrast it will be pretty easy to see how many people are transferring from Wilburton once we have updated stop data for the B Line.

      2. A lot of Eastside Park and Ride usage is also from Eastside employers beginning to implement paid parking essentially externalizing their parking to Sound Transit’s free garages.

         1. poncho, you just described how a transit parking lot is supposed to work. A worker drives to, then parks in the transit parking lot or garage, then rides transit into work.

         2. Poncho seems to be saying people are driving to a P&R within waking distance of work to avoid paying for parking in the employer’s garage. That’s the opposite of how P&Rs are supposed to work: they’re intended for you to drive to the P&R nearest your home and take transit for the longest possible portion of the trip.

         3. Ok, well, the Marymoor garage isn’t within walking distance of an employer that charges employees to park. Same with BelRed. Nobody is parking at BelRed, then walking to their Spring District office. Microsoft doesn’t charge employees to park in company garages. South Bellevue isn’t within walking distance of anything. So who is driving to which eastside transit parking lot or garage, and walking to what place of work?

            I don’t doubt people might park in a Link garage to escape paying to park at work, but I think they are also taking transit. Example, someone works in a downtown Bellevue office tower, the company garage is expensive, so they park at South Bellevue, and take Link the rest of the way.

         4. The 271 kinda acts as a shuttle. I do think P&R garages should cost money, and they should build smaller P&R lots in neighborhoods instead. Maybe near those big box stores. Or churches can share their lots.

         5. You can’t walk from Bel-Red to Spring District. That was part of the fantasy when they built out this infrastructure. From what I have seen, Spring District tech employers are using ST as a cheap alternative to providing employee parking.

         6. I could easily see how someone could drive to South Bellevue from an East Side location even though it is shorter to downtown Bellevue. They avoid having to pay for parking and it is a quick ride on Link. I could also see the same thing happening with trips to Microsoft (using Marymoor). It is a clever trick, much like the folks that park at Angle Lake and TIBS (to avoid costly SeaTac parking). In these cases they may drive a bit longer but avoid some of the worst traffic. (I’m just speculating here but I can easily imagine doing this sort of thing.)

            As Mike pointed out, this isn’t really what folks have in mind when they consider the advantages of park and ride lots. Charging for parking would discourage this sort of thing but it would also discourage the “right” type of park and ride use. SKR is right. The best approach is to charge money to park in the lots close to the stations but also run more feeder buses to smaller, free park-and-ride lots (along with bus stops serving walk-up riders). The two could go together since it is hard to argue against fees for parking when the money goes into providing a better alternative (shuttles). It is the same basic idea behind congestion pricing but applied to parking (not congestion).

         7. Another option is a parking permit system. Your vehicle has to be registered on your ORCA account to park, and they can verify if you actually took transit or if you’re just parked there for a nearby office or attraction.

            Permits can also allow for priority parking that is more expensive (for regular riders), along with overflow first come first serve parking for irregular usage. Permits are prioritized for those with an address with inadequate/inefficient/nonexistent transit alternatives, and those who are carpooling from these areas can see discounts.

         8. Uhhh… that’s something that was done by Downtown Seattle employers for decades.

            We are in the Eastside parking garage management honeymoon period because the full 2 Line just opened a few months ago. In the next few years, the ST Board will have to do more hands-on management of the spaces.

            Note too that Link on the Eastside has fewer garages than they have north or south of Seattle.

            BART and WMATA have a long history of trying many parking management techniques at suburban stations. Those are the systems I’d point to for how to best implement things.

         9. “You can’t walk from Bel-Red to Spring District. That was part of the fantasy when they built out this infrastructure.”

            What fantasy? The Bel-Red P&R is a temporary use until Spring District growth reaches the neighborhood and the lot is converted to a mixed-use building. I discussed this with an ST rep at an East Link open house at Bellevue City Hall. I was afraid that the presence of a P&R would create a constituency to keep it forever, but the rep said it’s a temporary use and that wouldn’t stand in the way of conversion.

            The Bel-Red P&R is not for people to park there and walk to Spring District offices. It’s just a way to deal with idle land until the market is ready for a midrise there. ST assumed the Spring District footprint would spread more slowly than it did. Originally the corridor was 1-2 story buildings. Now at Bel-Red station there are a few multistory buildings here and there, which is probably more than anticipated for 2026. It’s not a full wall of buildings yet, and I guess it’s not ripe for the P&R lot to be converted yet. The P&R as a P&R is for the usual P&R purpose: for nearby residents to park there and take Link to Seattle or downtown Bellevue or elsewhere.

         10. “Poncho seems to be saying people are driving to a P&R within waking distance of work to avoid paying for parking in the employer’s garage. That’s the opposite of how P&Rs are supposed to work: they’re intended for you to drive to the P&R nearest your home and take transit for the longest possible portion of the trip.”

             My interpretation of Poncho’s comment is that the people using the park and ride are riding transit, but, instead of using the closest P&R to their home, they are driving as close as possible to the destination as they can get, while still being able to park for free at a station, and using Link essentially as a short-distance parking shuttle.

             The Sound Transit free parking system definitely incentives this, especially on weekends, when traffic is light, and Mercer Island P&R is consistently not full.

         11. “using Link essentially as a short-distance parking shuttle”

             Is this necessarily bad? It increases Link’s ridership and fare revenue (paid by either the person or their employer). The big money was spent on the P&R building, but that was the political compromise, and we can’t get that money back regardless of whether this person parks in the garage or not. I think there was always an expectation that some people would park at South Bellevue P&R and take Link to Bellevue offices to avoid the offices’ parking fee, wasn’t there? I don’t quite remember that part of the debate.

         12. “using Link essentially as a short-distance parking shuttle”

             Is this necessarily bad?

             No. It is fine. That is one of the great things about transit. The more the merrier. It doesn’t matter why you are taking the trip.

             But I think that people assume that transit has certain benefits like reducing car trips. That is true in general but in this case it isn’t. If someone drives from Seattle to Angle Lake instead of parking in SeaTac it doesn’t benefit society at all. If anything it makes things a bit worse. The cost of parking at SeaTac (or the various employers) encourages people to take transit and avoid driving. But now they have an alternative that involves just as much driving. So yeah, maybe I was wrong when I wrote “No”. It is a bad thing.

             The obvious solution is what folks on the thread suggested from the get go: Charge to park at the park and ride. This raises money for the transit agency that can go into better feeder service. But there is a balance to be made. If you charge too much then some people who are using the park and ride the “right way” (i. e. driving a lot less) will just decide to drive to their destination. You have to be a bit careful.

             Overall I would say it is no big deal. The argument for charging for park and rides has little do with riders like this. I would say the bigger takeaway is just that parking and riding Link is very popular and this may give us a skewed view of the transit system. One of the goals of a transit system is to reduce car use and dependence. But if a high proportion of people just drive to the stations then the high ridership on Link may be misleading. It would be much more worthwhile to look at transit modal share (but that takes a lot more work).

         13. “if a high proportion of people just drive to the stations”

             It can’t be a high proportion of passengers because there aren’t enough parking spaces to fit them even if they wanted to drive.

         14. It can’t be a high proportion of passengers because there aren’t enough parking spaces to fit them even if they wanted to drive.

             I guess it depends on what you mean by “high”. Angle Lake has space for 1,160 cars. Last month it got about 2,500 riders. If 500 people just drove down there and parked (instead of paying to park at SeaTac) then it would account for 20% of the riders at that station — a number I would definitely consider high.

         15. Just general comments when comparing parking spaces to boardings:

             ST is not actively studying how people get to stations. They should! BART surveys for that every few years in its Station Profile Study, and the results are sometimes surprising.

             https://www.bart.gov/about/reports/profile

             I’ve read that there are often about 1.1 riders out of every parked car. People sometimes don’t ride alone (1.0). That’s more true for special events. I’ve often seen families riding together for recreational trips.
             Spaces can turn over. A space may have a worker in the daytime and a club goer in the evening. Or an early medical appointment goer may leave and that space is used by an evening class student. Because Link runs from 5 am to midnight, the 17 hour span of high frequency service will get space turnovers.
             The BART study shows that drop offs are more popular than many would expect. Many stations have over 20% arriving from drop off. So it’s not just park or walk/ bicycle or ride a bus to a station. I often see riders dropped off at Link stations.

         16. I’ve heard that some flyers are using Angle Lake as a one station shuttle to SeaTac. SeaTac traffic is horrible several hours a day!

         17. ST is not actively studying how people get to stations. They should!

             I agree. To be fair, I think they have had some studies but I don’t think they are as common or openly available as in other agencies.

         18. @ Ross:

             With ST adding so many new stations since 2021, the research was always of questionable long-term value until this year. But with Link pretty stable for the next decade (I think that there’s no way that West Seattle can open until 2035 given a new massive cable-stayed bridge and bored tunnel to a deep station as part of the plans — and Tacoma Done is already pushed to 2035), 2027 would be an ideal time for this research.

             Note on the BART page that the MPO (MTC) paid for the research. Since our MPO (PSRC) is charged with travel forecasting anyway, they really should be working with ST to fund and conduct station profile research.

             Because BART has done several rounds of this, they probably have a great template on how to do it.

             The research would be useful in so many things! It would inform parking management and possible pricing, fare enforcement, signage, drop off space needs, bicycle locker needs and so much more.

      3. With several of the nearby business are luxury car dealers with large parcels — along with nearby strides and a huge 405 interchange footprint nearby, Wilburton is just not going to attract riders beyond those going for medical reasons. Its best bus transit feature is that RapidRide B runs next to it — except there’s no stop there!

         Perhaps the area will be transformed someday. But its ridership is not looking so pretty today.

         It may never be.

         1. There’s a Whole Foods too. Everybody needs groceries every week.

         2. Al. S, it sounds you aren’t aware of the upzoning and development potential of the Wilburton station area. The two neighboring car lots and freeway are meaningless in the scheme of things.

            When you said “Perhaps the area will be transformed someday. But its ridership is not looking so pretty today,” you were correct. But, when you added “It may never be,” it tells me you aren’t aware of the transformation that’s going to happen in the years to come. The station will eventually have good ridership, but probably 10+ years from now.

            https://i0.wp.com/seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Alternative_2_Wilburton.png?ssl=1

         3. @ Sam:

            Certainly there is a lot more taller buildings shown here! That should add riders!

            However, many of these building locations will be closer to other stations than to Wilburton. And the Lake Bellevue area is not upzoned. The buildings closest to Wilburton Station are also not planned to be as tall as ones further away.

            It will be interesting to see whether this plan gets built or if the parking in these buildings has high parking charges (the adjacent sites today have free parking).

            If a buildings becomes multi-story storage locker building, it won’t add many more riders, for example. So building mass alone does not automatically generate a high volume of transit trips.

         4. Wilburton was a terrible name and and even worse implementation of what could/should have been a good location. RR-B is right there…. except it isn’t. The hike to get to the bus is ridiculous. This was an obvious flaw that could have been fixed early in the design but nobody cared (at least nobody that had influence, like the Bellevue City Council).

         5. It’s a little bit of a walk, but for someone trying to get to any of the retail stores on 4th St. by transit, taking Link to Wilburton Station and walking the trail to 4th is usually the best option from most of the eastside. Between REI, Trader Joes, Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, and PCC, that’s a lot of shopping opportunities. And, even if you’re buying too much stuff to carry back on foot and transit, taking transit to the store and taking Uber back is still cheaper than taking Uber both ways, or renting a car for the shopping trip.

            Wilburton Station is also a good intercept for for people reaching the station by bike, since it’s right off the CKC, and avoids needing to fight with cars to reach other Link stations nearby.

         6. @ asdf:

            NE 4th is actually aligned with NE 3rd at 116th. The development south of there (Target, PCC, Dave and Busters) is closer to East Main Station.

         7. Google is telling me the distances are nearly identical. But, from Wilburton station is a much more pleasant walk, since most of the distance is on a trail, rather than the sidewalk of a busy street.

3. I have never understood why when a holiday is on a weekend do some people get a weekday off. Makes zero sense to me. Especially when most people are working and need access.

   1. Because people deserve days off sometimes? Crazy work argument.

      1. I agree, that’s why we have weekends and holidays. However, when you run a transit service that is needed for people who don’t have the day off, like most people working, then the schedule should be normal.

         1. That is an argument for having transit just ignore the weekends as well. For the most part I agree with that approach. With a handful of exceptions (express peak service, which is increasingly rare in our system) it would make sense to just run the buses consistently every day of the year. It does mean paying more overtime (which means it could cost more) but it would make transit much simpler and easier to understand.

            But if you are going to have a weekend schedule it makes sense to include federal holidays as well (like this one, which is being observed today) since so many people have the day off.

         2. Metro used to have all holidays on Sunday schedule. That made sense for major holidays like Christmas and the 4th of July where the vast bulk of the population has it off, but it created problems for minor holidays like MLK day that only government/schools/banks have off and private employers haven’t been as willing to add a holiday for. There were so many complaints about it taking inordinately long for so many people to get to work that Metro finally began running weekday schedule for them. At first I think that was subsidized by the Seattle Transit Measure but eventually it became widespread and spread to more agencies.

            Another thing has happened more recently: Sunday frequency has been gradually filled in so there’s not as much difference between weekday and Sunday. On many routes weekday service was 15 or 30 minutes but Sunday service was 30 or 60 minutes or occasionally didn’t exist. The 106 was 30 minutes Sundays but is now 15 minutes. The 168 was 60 minutes Sundays but is now 30 minutes. The 165 had no Sunday service, and is now at 30 minutes, but in the fall the 164 will have 15 minutes. The 164 and 168 upgrades were two goals of the South Link restructure and an equity investment.

            The reason people have a weekday off when a holiday happens to land on a weekend, is their employment agreements are based on a fixed number of holidays per year. When you get less vacation days per year than in most industrialized countries, and many people get no vacation days at all, getting all the holidays regardless of weekend fluctuations is a precious benefit and an important recruitment/retention tactic.

4. Has the recent surge in gasoline prices been a factor in Link ridership growth? ST seems to want to say that the growth about the crosslake connection — but I think gas prices have also been a major factor.

   1. I think the recent surge in gas price has made people more aware of the true cost of driving. If you own a car the marginal cost isn’t that great when gas goes from $4 to $5 but it sure as heck raises awareness. If a household can go from 2 cars to 1 car using transit then that is a HUGE saving. The other factor is riding a train is just way more cool than taking a bus.

   2. The construction (which is now suspended) may also play a part. If it takes an extra ten minutes to drive — or in some cases ride the bus — then Link is bound to be more popular.

   3. Sounder North lots are filling up, too.
      @Bernie
      “I think the recent surge in gas price has made people more aware of the true cost of driving. If you own a car the marginal cost isn’t that great when gas goes from $4 to $5 but it sure as heck raises awareness.”

      As a lifelong gearhead, (and yes, I still work on all my own cars, the computerized ones, too) I am just astounded at how much cognitive dissonance people have concerning their per/mile cost.

      The perception that it’s only the cost of gas that matters is what the problem is.

      It gets the big headlines, but even when you use AAA’s numbers to calculate incremental costs, it still amounts to $.35/mile. (Drivers will dismiss the $.50+/mile cost using the “sunk cost” excuse)

   4. I’m seeing quite a number of articles that transit ridership is up around the country as a result of higher gas prices. It’s particularly notable in California where commutes can be long and congested.

      May ridership at BART is 13.5% higher than last May, for example. It’s shown as over 202K average weekday in May. https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2026-06/202605%20Monthly%20Ridership%20Snapshot.pdf

      Of course there are many factors why people will choose Link — but at least 10K if not 15-20K of Link’s average weekday ridership in May (164.5K) appears to be attributable to the gas price surge.

5. Thoughts on Seattle’s “construction pause” and whether it has generally been worth doing? I haven’t been everywhere in the city on game days, but I’ve traveled on Eastlake a lot and temporarily closing down construction there and re-configuring the road for a month has looked pretty pointless, with seemingly average to below average traffic lately.

6. Updated Monday with the C, H, 21, and Waterfront Shuttle reroutes when part of Alaskan Way is closed for a US fans’ march to Seattle Stadium.

7. I saw a Route 13 outside of Harborview tonight while waiting for the 60. Looks like it’s being paired with the 3 on occasion. Is this new? Or a weekend only thing? Never seen it before – thought the 13 was always paired with the 2

   1. That does seem weird. It must be an unofficial pairing. According to the schedule, a few of the 13 buses just end downtown. Likewise the 3 from Madrona sometimes just ends downtown. I could see how these could be connected for that reason. But unlike the 2 and 13 it isn’t meant to be a standard practice. It could easily change depending on money, driver availability, etc.

      1. If you look at 9th and Jefferson inbound stop (Harborview) the 13 does show up on every mapping app I reference. I see 4 inbound trips on the 13 late on Sundays. Must just be a scheduling thing or a desire to run more service to the 3 in CD but not on Summit later into the night than they otherwise would.

         1. Must just be a scheduling thing or a desire to run more service to the 3 in CD but not on Summit later into the night than they otherwise would.

            I think it is both. Ideally they run more of the Summit buses. But by truncating the bus downtown they save some money. Same goes with the 13. By combining them they save even more.

            Ultimately I would like to see the 3 run every fifteen minutes and always to Summit. Then I would run the 4 every fifteen minutes opposite the 3. That is much simpler routing. I would also truncate the 4 at Garfield High (23rd) which would also save some money. I would run the 48 more often to help compensate. This would likely cost money but not a lot.

            The 2/13 is trickier. The branch on Queen Anne is not ideal. It made sense back in the day but now there is too much density on the top of the hill to have buses running only every half hour. I would start by looking for a layover/turnaround spot at around 3rd & Galer. Once you do this then I would route the 2 (from downtown) like so: Continue on Queen Anne Avenue until McGraw. Take a left on McGraw, a left on 6th and a left on Galer. Layover around 3rd & McGraw. This means the bus loops around but that is a small price to pay. Riders along Queen Anne Avenue and McGraw come out way ahead (with the increased frequency). Some riders have to loop around but given the increase in frequency it could be argued that even they come out ahead (frequency is more important than speed in this case). You also have more connections on the top of Queen Anne (e. g. 6th & Galer to Queen Anne & McGraw). A spiral (loopy) route is not ideal but given the distance and current frequency a branch is much worse. The tricky part is the layover (and turnaround).

   2. According to the block schedules in Pantograph there are times when the 3 pairs with the 13 or the 2 and 3 (Madrona legs) interchange terminals. It’s always on the very late runs.

8. Or churches can share their lots.

   This is a great paradigm. But it doesn’t work for Link. It could be extended to work for commuter ridership in the future along with feeder routes.

   1. Churches have been used as P&Rs for decades. They’re used more by vanpools and special work routes that people outside those companies haven’t heard of.

      It’s hard to turn any random church into a feeder-bus source, because churches are in random locations. Most are in lower-density areas and not “on the way” of a strategic frequent bus route. This is a consequence of our poor land use. But where churches are in a location that can be pressed into a productive bus-feeder source, they sometimes are.

   2. Underutilized parking spaces can be revenue generators for any profit or non-profit lot owner (including churches). A transit operator or city just doesn’t have any legal way to force them to make parking available for transit ridership outside of leasing those spaces outright. Leasing opens new challenges like maintenance, lighting and liability.

      They can maybe encourage it with signage, advertising, tax breaks and many other incentives. They just can’t force it.

      I’ve personally felt that cities should be charged to manage transit station parking. They define the parking space requirements for nearby properties and manage on-street parking already. That’s what happens with commuter rail parking elsewhere around the country. It would also take bonds for building parking garages out of ST’s obligations which could free up funds for other things.

      1. In the northeast the transit agency provides just the rail station. If the city wants a P&R next to it, it’s up to the city to acquire the land and build and maintain it.

         1. Exactly, Mike!

            It honestly amazes me that cities in our region expect ST to build commuter garages for them. If a city is already being gifted tracks and stations, the receiving city should be contributing something too. Instead, cities here get to portray Link stations as creating a “nuisance” of parked cars — even as most of those cars are driven by residents of that city.

            It’s just one more example of how ST is often seen as a cash cow to extract favors from rather than a vital public benefit that needs to be complemented.

         2. Northeastern cities were already old and large in 1945 when construction restarted after the Depression+WWII and the tide turned against transit and walkability. They were large enough to see the value in keeping their regional rail and subways and bus routes to some extent. West Coast cities were newer and smaller then and didn’t have as much of that constituency built up. So northeastern transit authorities continued building rail the way they always had in the pre-car era: just the station, ma’am.

            West Coast cities ripped out their rail and streetcars and decimated their bus service, because there weren’t that many people anyway, and Los Angeles was car-happy. Then we went through a fifty-year amnesia thinking car-dependent neighborhoods and gas-station mini marts and strip malls was the epitome of civilization. So by the time big transit came back, people had the idea that it must have a free P&R as part of the station infrastructure and transit-project budget, for the same reason stores have parking lots. Because how else can you get to the train from your car-dependent house? Bus, don’t be joking. There is no bus or it’s too infrequent, or I don’t want to get on a bus and ride ten minutes to the train station, that’s too much bother.

         3. “So northeastern transit authorities continued building rail the way they always had in the pre-car era: just the station, ma’am.”

            Even in the Northeast, new rail lines included parking garages. An example is the Orange Line and Red Line extensions in Massachusetts. That was somewhat driven by FTA funding larger shares of transit rail capital projects. Washington as a fresh system had plenty of parking garages added to its new stations.

            I think that they happened because the Federal portion was so large in the 1970’s, and urban renewal was still a thing then. That no longer appears to be the case. But the precedent of including parking garages got institutionalized in that era — and has been part of in rail transit capital projects ever since .

9. Anyone know what happened to the foot traffic that was cut off from the last ferry out of Kingston the night of the 4th after the fireworks? It looked like hundreds of people – inspiring including kids and elderly – who didn’t make it on.

   Would also love a recording of the amazing singing that night while trying to load – it was an incredible experience to be a part of!

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