Transit & Streets

Land Use & Housing

This is an Open Thread.

125 Replies to “Midweek Roundup: multimodal adventure”

  1. Gonna be honest that publicola article about wayfinding seems incredibly provincial. The station codes work quite well, especially for people who don’t speak English. I’ve encountered and helped several people who use the codes instead of the names because it’s easier for them to explain/communicate numbers.

    My other thing is that the complaint about headsigns is so odd. Literally every other system does that except for NYC, and that’s because they are so large that it makes sense to have borough specific wayfinding.

    1. I was going to say the same thing. I felt myself getting angry while reading it lol.

      The article seems very biased towards someone who understands English. The last section did the opposite of prove their point to me:

      I kind of wish Sound Transit had surveyed World Cup visitors to ask them which is easier—memorizing information like “green/1 Line toward Lynnwood City Center, get off at Station 60, Exit A1,” or “ride the 1 line toward downtown and get off at Westlake on 5th Ave”? Based on the way most of the world does wayfinding, I can guess which one they’d pick.

      The first one makes more sense in a language-agnostic sense. For someone reading a map who does not understand English or the latin script, numbers are the way to express that information.

      Overall the article was lacking any actual evidence (except the ST interview and findings that support the new wayfinding) and just read like one person on their own unjustified rant.

      1. At Westlake Station, why would an exit sign that says “A1,” be less confusing than an exit sign that says “5th & Pine?” Because when someone locates the station poster with the key that explains what A1 means, it will tell them it means 5th & Pine. (Or wherever the exit in the post pic leads to).

        1. Why do I need to use a key? I’m commuting. I should just be able to look up to the door and see a label when I need it. I’m not a numbers person and to be constantly confronted with hundreds of numbers on a poster, it all fades. Not everyone thinks number simplify.

          Sound Transit COULD easily put the number of the exit AND the name on the same sign. Nearly every sign I see has a big blank space.

    2. My problem with station number is that they probably should be unique across the entire system rather than unique per line.

    3. I see the usefulness of the station numbers is to infirm a rider about how many stations are involved between a location and a destination. It’s designed to help an actual rider on a train — and not someone generically looking at a map. That also means that duplicate station numbers are ok. A rider just counts the numerical difference to know how many stations to ride through.

      If anything, the withholding of infill station numbers is the only confusing thing that I see. It’s minor but it seems silly to withhold a number when the stations are so far into the future.

      That said, I think two other major points in the article are valid to me.

      Destination only signage. It’s complicated by the use of “Downtown” or “DT” at two ends. ST simply needs to change “Downtown” to “Central” to eliminate the confusion at stations . And the destination signs need to develop and use a symbol for Downtown Seattle (a heart in front of a skyline silhouette?) like they do for SeaTac at upstream stations. Alternatively, the signage needs to add “Via Downtown Seattle” in smaller letters.
      Exit letters. This is a place that I get more frustrated. Riders exit stations by direction, not letter. Rather than generic letters, I think directional letters are much more intuitive. N, S, E and W are more intuitive than A, B and C are. How often does done one say “go to Exit A to meet me.” They don’t! They say either go to a street corner or a direction.

      1. My girlfriend just said a few weeks ago that she was waiting at Exit A of the station. It does happen.

        1. Except if you were going to meet her, and didn’t know which street Exit A was on, you would then have to ask her which street or which side of the station she was on. Also, if she were new to the station, and wanted to exit to, for example, 4th Ave instead of 5th Ave, but the station signage just said Exit A and Exit B, she would then have to go find a station map key to decipher what A and B means.

      2. At least the exit letter system is commonly used elsewhere in subway system. It is less commonly used in the US because many US Metro system doesn’t have many station entrance. The Sound Transit exit letter system is actually very similar to the kind used in Hong Kong MTR.

        As for the station numbering, I don’t know if anywhere else actually use it although I agree this is a easier way for non-English speaker to ask for direction, but I have to say it is always easier just to look for direction from navigation software than asking.
        It is not like those people don’t have access to navigation software. Some people just prefer asking which is not the smartest thing to do given their language issue.

        1. There is nothing wrong with labeling the exits. But you should also make it clear where it actually goes (as Ms. Barnett noted). So the big sign should read “Exit A, 5th & Pine”.

        2. I see the frustration here. They do have that information somewhere like this. They just don’t have the space to call the whole thing out at overhead one. The idea is the by the point where you are right in front of the exit, you should have figured out which exit you should go, so you would just focus on the letter.

        3. Sound Transit underground station as well as many 70s US metro stations in Atlanta and DC share a common design feature that they often have two separated mezzanines on either end of the station, so people have to figure out where to walk upstairs when they are at platform level if they want to exit at nearest station exit.

          Most metro stations in Asia and most BART station have one connected mezzanine level right on top of the entire platform level so people can figure out where they should exit after they go upstairs.
          In ST’s case, when you get off at a station along DSTT, you have to figure out which way to go at platform level, which is not very idea and make platform level more crowded.

        4. Columbia City and Othello Stations don’t have any letters! They just say cross streets.

          In other words, station exit letters are not installed at every station.

        5. +1 to Ross: use both.

          Which they actually do at least in some places, like on the overhead signs inside Roosevelt Station.

        6. Except the exit signage does tell you street name. Like in Hong Kong there is hierarchy to the signs. It only shows you the relevant information at decision points. So signs show exit a b c etc, then as you get closer to the exits they show more info about the streets.

    4. Numbered station codes are good. No one is arguing otherwise. But numbering both the station names and the lines is less than ideal. Combining them on each branch while not doing so on the combined sections is just trying to be too clever by half. It would have been much easier if they simply had letters for each line (‘A’ and ‘B’) and given all the stations unique numbers. Instead of taking the 1 line from 1244 to 157 you would take the A Line from 44 to 57. It is worth noting that other commenters said much the same thing (on the Publicola blog). Given they didn’t want to use letters they could at least just uniquely label each station (as HZ mentioned). This would allow them to simplify the map. Instead of having “1250” (written horizontally) for Westlake it would simply be 50. Readers could still tell the 1 and 2 line serves the station based on the numbers for the end points (and the color).

      It is just a muddled mess which has always been the case with the station names as well. Why is there a “Downtown Bellevue” and a “Redmond Downtown”? Is it any different than a “City Center”? Just the whole idea that the main station (if not the only station) in a city needs a special adjective is silly. If you have a station like “Redmond” then it implies it is the main station for that city.

      I also think the argument against having a sign in Kent say “Seattle” because “light rail isn’t a hub and spoke system” is nonsense. Of course it is. Every line goes to Downtown Seattle. From Seattle you can take the train north, south and east. That is most definitely hub and spoke. West Seattle and Ballard Link are also hub and spoke. If we built a Ballard-UW line then it wouldn’t be hub and spoke but we aren’t building that. The only line they will supposedly build that isn’t hub and spoke is the Issaquah to South Kirkland line. Even then it is hub and spoke with Downtown Bellevue as the hub. Thus having a sign in Eastgate with arrows on it pointing to “Bellevue” and “Issaquah” is just fine. At most it should include both the main destination and the end point (“Bellevue/Kirkland”). This makes it a little more verbose neither “Bellevue” nor “Seattle” involves that man letters. What they do now is much worse. Rather than a sign with just “Lynnwood” on it the sign is labeled “Lynnwood City Center”. Lest you think this is implies that the train also serves the main “city center” in the region it is worth noting that there is also a sign labeled “Downtown Federal Way”. If your English is limited and are confused as to why there is no “Seattle” you might just go to “Downtown” or “City Center” which means you are basically flipping a coin.

      1. I wonder why they decided to put “Downtown” after “Bellevue” while it is more common to put it in front of the city name in English. Do Bellevue folks specifically call their downtown “Bellevue Downtown” rather than “Downtown Bellevue”?

      2. Yes, it’s absolute nonsense to pretend Link isn’t centered on Seattle and that users don’t orient primarily themselves to Seattle (or maybe Bellevue). Seeing Sound Transit say on the one hand that “people don’t use cardinal directions, they use destinations” but then say “we can’t include Seattle as the place to orient around because we’re a regional system” is just plain dumb.

        It makes me think no one at Sound Transit uses the service or observes others doing so. Which seems par for the course unfortunately.

        1. Or, that ST decision makers are the kind of people who think, “it’s very important that someone from [insert city name] isn’t offended that Seattle shows up on the map but not their city.” Keep in mind these are the same people who decided we couldn’t use colored lines because “Red Line” was racist.

        2. So much of it is marketing. It all goes together. Rather than just “Lynnwood” or “Federal Way” it is “Lynnwood City Center” and “Federal Way Downtown”. Then to make matters worse they feel like the entire label should be on the directional sign (and not just “Lynnwood” or “Federal Way”). Maybe they figure someone will want to visit these lively downtown areas to see what they are like. Sounds like an awfully disappointing trip (although at least scenic along the way).

          It also means that they are hesitant to use the word “Downtown” unless it is attached to one of these stations. At Beacon Hill you could have a sign saying “Downtown Seattle” and “SeaTac” with arrows on it. Or even “Downtown Seattle/Lynnwood” and “SeaTac/Federal Way”. But instead they have “Lynnwood City Center” and “Downtown Federal Way” which is not only a lot more confusing but just as verbose!

        3. Really the fact that our regional transit system’s wayfinding is influenced more by marketing and idealistic planning goals for suburban municipalities instead of helping riders unfamiliar with the system get to where they need to go describes Sound Transit a little too well. And I agree Ross, it’s a much better use of sparse space to say “Downtown Seattle” or “SeaTac” or any other intermediate destination than have the tacked on “City Center” to Lynnwood.

    5. Most systems include some kind of directional signifier in addition the end of the line stations on headsigns. There is no reason to not include that information on platforms or mezzanines. It could be cardinal directions, or it could be major landmarks/places, but I think the wayfinding experience for a new system user on Sound Transit is not intuitive unless you happen to orient around Federal Way, Lynnwood, or Redmond.

      I think it’s obvious that most people don’t do that. Most Link riders orient themselves directionally or in reference to a major destination like Seattle or Bellevue or where they live. And Sound Transit agrees – in the article they say most people orient around significant places. Why not include that in visible station wayfinding?

      1. Yeah, it seems like there should be two pieces of wayfinding, in addition to the numbering and the station terminus.

        If it goes to SeaTac, say so or just the universal airport sign. Until Link connects to Pain Field in 2084, there is only one airport on the network.
        If the train is going towards Seattle, it should say “via Seattle.” Once the train is within city limits, the qualifier disappears. Regardless if the rider is north, south, or east of Seattle, knowing if the train is going towards or away from Seattle is useful information.

        1. ST now has the universal plane-in-a-circle symbol for 1 Line trains headed to SeaTac already installed.

    6. Perhaps because I grew up wayfinding in Chicago, but you don’t need to know where a city is for it to be a useful wayfinding. I still have no idea where Forest Park is, but I know a Forest Park train is the Blue Line going away from O’Hare.

      https://www.transitchicago.com/blueline/

      1. Exactly, I’ve never been to Porte de Clingnancourt or Antioch, but I sure know where those trains are going to go. I’m currently out of town and riding public transportation every day. I appreciate having maps that show how many stations my trip will be and some wayfinding signage at my final destination.

        Another point, all 2 Lines are ultimately northbound on the system map, so it’s futile to label trains as “northbound” or “southbound”.

        1. Exactly. A 2 line train during the duration of its journey will travel south north and east or west. It’s confusing to use direction. It’s why if I’m giving directions on the system I use terminus bound language. Ex. Lynnwood bound or redmond bound,

        2. It would be legible to refer to a 2 Line train at Roosevelt as “southbound to Downtown Seattle, Redmond” and then say “eastbound to Redmond” once reaching Westlake. The relevant time to communicate direction is on the platform, it doesn’t really matter if that direction changes mid-route. But I’m not convinced directional signifiers like that are the best information design.

          I do think it’d be a better system to navigate if Seattle was a place that showed up on in-station wayfinding more because most people using the system are oriented around Seattle in one way or another. BART uses “San Francisco/Daly City” for Green and Blue line trains in stations and on trains presumably because “Daly City” is not all that useful for many people, while San Francisco is. Announcements also say “San Francisco bound”. It’s bad to make people navigate solely around suburban endpoints that people are not immediately familiar with.

      2. I know that a mile is 5,280 feet but that doesn’t mean it is a good system. People can learn various difficult systems but it is much better if they have a more intuitive system, especially if they are visiting. This is why they have the numbers in the first place. I’m a local — I’ll never use the station numbers. But they are handy for those who are following instructions and have no idea what a “Northgate” is. Likewise, if you got off the plane and take the train it is a lot easier to follow a sign that says “Seattle” instead of having to check directions and make sure you are headed to “Lynnwood”.

        2. DW, I agree.

          There’s a lot of handwringing here over what is considered “good” wayfinding when it feels like people are just rearranging the deck chairs over minor things that aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things.

          I know what bad wayfinding looks like and ST’s wayfinding isn’t that.

    1. And it has zero touch on Pierce County service. It looks like those paralleled trips will stay until light rail reach Tacoma some day.

      1. “It looks like those paralleled trips will stay until light rail reach Tacoma some day.”

        Possibly even beyond that given that the 1 Line won’t be faster than an express bus between Seattle and Tacoma outside of peak. This is why I’m pushing for an automated Rainier Valley bypass.

        1. I’ve been arguing for one for ten yeatmrs, but Ross and most of the admins are against it. Tacoma to Northgate via the Automated shortcut, Redmond to Lynnwood or Mariner and Everett to West Seattle would free up the RV line to be paired with Ballard (and eventually UW) mostly on the surface north of the portal at Elliott.

          This does leave First Hill without a subway if the current path for DSTT2 wete followed. But it’s worth investigating whether a curve at Royal Brougham could move DSTT2’s south portal to Eighth and Dearborn with a couple of deep stations at Harborview and Ninth and Madison and a shallower one at Sixth and Seneca.

          If this line did nor need to accommodate through riders it might be possible to use two-car trains every five minutes.

          It should be studied.

        2. Oh, I forgot. The RV line would still go to the airport and then turn back there or at Angle Lake.

    2. Here’s my rant on the plan:

      510 & 512 Downtown Everett tail eliminated – Ok, though I think the 510 should go away entirely and the 512 needs serious reworking given that it’s super redundant with the 201/202.

      532 & 535 stop in Kirkland – So it’s gonna be ready by then? Doesn’t look like it. Though outside of the confusing timeline this is gonna be good. The 535 needs it’s Downtown Bellevue tail and it’s Alderwood Mall deviation removed so it can match Stride S2 levels and the 532 needs to go away entirely imo.

      545 Downtown Redmond Station stop – WHAT!? We should be getting rid of the 545 entirely at this point, not upgrade it. This makes it more redundant with the 2 Line.

      560 Westwood Village tail – Now we’re talking! Though I wish headways were expanded to 15 not 20. Also it’s ideal that the SeaTac stop isn’t removed yet given that doing all those changes at once will be a big cow. What happened to the Renton/NE 44th stop? I thought I heard that was going to be open by 2027.

      “Passengers looking to go from West Seattle to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport can take the H Line to connect to Route 560. Passengers can also take King County Metro Route 60 to connect to the 1 Line.”

      Why would anyone take the 60? It’s going to take you to Beacon Hill Station and Capitol Hill Station, NOT SeaTac. Are they saying it’s a way to still connect to the 1 Line? Is this a mistake? Or do they think that the 60 is a good option? That’s going to add a LOT of travel time if you go from Westwood Village to Beacon Hill and then take the 1 Line to continue to SeaTac. I have no idea what they’re trying to say here.

      1. 510/512: Isn’t the 510 far more productive than the 512? If anything, shouldn’t the 512 go away? It directly duplicates the 201/202. The 510 could probably stand to be truncated (maybe at Northgate?) so it doesn’t spend as much time slogging through traffic.

        532/535: I think the 535 should get tweaked to be more similar to S2, but the 532 is pretty productive and saves a lot of time for riders.

        545: I was pretty against keeping the 545 but maybe ST was right, it’s been doing fairly well even with Link opening up. I’d like to see this exit on Mercer-Fairview instead of Stewart to better serve the SLU area, but maybe that will have to wait for the Portage Bay project…

        1. The 510 duplicates Link. It is a bit faster when the express lanes are in its favor. ST doesn’t list performance numbers for there bus routes anymore so it is hard to tell if it is more productive than the 512. I doubt it. It spends a lot of time getting from Lynnwood to downtown while it picks up no one along the way. Truncating in Northgate would solve that problem but then you might as well truncate at Lynnwood. Neither the 510 or 512 get that many riders from Everett — the only time it gets especially crowded is during peak. As to whether the 510 should be eliminated or not, that’s a judgement call. It benefits some riders but not a lot. But if you are going to run the 510 it only makes sense during peak. The rest of the day it makes sense to run the shorter route (the 512).

          The 512 is similar to the 201/202. This should change. The 512 should skip Ash Way. This would be especially helpful during peak but it would also save quite a bit of time in the middle of the day. This would make it more of an express (which is what it is called).

          In the long run the 512 should be extended through Everett instead of ending at the station. Since the 201/202 run on Broadway it make sense to go on Colby, like the Everett 19. That way Everett Transit can shift their buses around. This is all lower priority and can wait until Community Transit merges with Everett Transit. CT should work with ST on the routing but an extension to College Station (via Colby) has merit.

        2. The 510 is one of ST’s most productive routes. In fact it might be the most productive route, the only other bus that comes close is the 532. Both are at roughly 30 riders per hour.

          That can be calculated by dividing weekly ridership by service hours here:
          https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2026-bus-service-plan.pdf

          The 512 really, really needs to skip Ash Way. The time tables are kind of absurd. It takes 14-24 minutes from South Everett station to Lynnwood City Center; it takes 10-11 minutes from South Everett station to Mountlake Terrace Station. Without the Ash Way detour, it would likely be closer to 8-10 minutes from South Everett Station to Lynnwood City Center.

          Yeah the 512 should really be extended through Everett to College Station. Maybe a handful of trips could extend to Marysville and/or Smokey Point as well.

        3. In fact getting rid of the Ash Way detour can almost fully pay for an extension to College Station, at a rough estimate it looks like it’s pretty close…

        4. The 201/202 may go away when Swift Gold starts. ST has served Everett since ST Express started, and it’s the largest city in Snohomish County and an approved Link extension, so I don’t think ST feels it can stop running the 512.

        5. At the very least, I’d like to see the 545 be replaced with additional 542 trips during certain weekend periods, where both the 545 and 542 are each running once per hour. The time value of the 545 over the 2-line completely disappears, even in light traffic, once you have to wait 20+ minutes for the 545 to show up.

    3. Ugh. That means a 4 seat ride from Tacoma to Westwood Village now. I guess I’m driving.

      1. Good point that after 574 shorten to Federal Way, there is no way to ride Tacoma-bound bus between Seattle and Federal Way. Maybe 590 should pull out of freeway to make a stop at Tukwila P&R.

        1. “Maybe 590 should pull out of freeway to make a stop at Tukwila P&R.”

          I’ve thought about adding a Tukwila P&R stop to the 594 so there’s more coverage and trips between Seattle and Southcenter/Kent can be faster off-peak with the 150 running on Marginal Way rather than I-5 to scoop up those jobs… Though Mike Orr hates that idea.

      2. Actually 5-seats if you count the local to the 574. I guess the only reasonable routing is to go all the way to downtown Seattle via the 594, then walk down to the water and catch the H. all the way back south. I’ve done it before. Not great, but maybe I was just unlucky with the H.

      3. Of course, that only works until they truncate the H at Delridge. Then 5-seats no matter how you do it.

        I love spending 10s of billions to make transit unusable.

      4. It makes no sense to terminate both the F and the 560 in Burien. Send one of them to West Seattle.

        1. I agree. At least one route should directly connect West Seattle with Link south of Seattle. Going from Westwood to SeaTac should not require a three seat ride.

        3. While it may be a two-seat ride on STX 560, it will be three when astride opens. That is unless a rider backtracks to SODO.

      5. It’s a 2 1/2 hour, four-seat ride from my neighborhood in Kirkland to the Muckleshoot Casino. Should it take less time, with less transfers? No, why should it?

        1. It can easily be fewer seats. Why isn’t Kirkland connected to Renton, Auburn, and SeaTac in one ride? Stride makes it two for some reason.

          From there, Auburn should be an express bus away. Then Muckleshoot should be a shuttle.

          1.5 hours or less, instead of 2.5 hours.

        2. “Why isn’t Kirkland connected to Renton, Auburn, and SeaTac in one ride?”

          We can’t just extend express routes arbitrarily long to everywhere, overlapping with other express routes. Bellevue-Renton-Burien was seen as a higher priority than Bellevue-Renton-Auburn. Stride 1/2 are split probably because Lynnwood-Bellevue-Renton-Burien was seen as too long for reliability. Their ancestor the 360 did something like that (Shoreline P&R, Bothell, Bellevue, Renton, Burien), but it was probably broken up for reliability reasons and downtown Bellevue being such a large destination/transfer point. ST has Auburn-Renton on its radar for better service, but it seems to think it has lower ridership than other corridors.

        3. “Some reason” = Bellevue TC is the most important transfer point in the region outside of Seattle. The majority of riders on S1 and S2 will be exiting in Bellevue.

      6. Both locations I’m discussing are major cities or regional centers deemed big and dense enough for high capacity rail. They are 30 minutes from each other by car.

        They aren’t a casino in the middle of nowhere and a 3rd-tier town with a 2 block downtown.

      7. The problem with wanting your very unique trip from a neighborhood in one county, to a neighborhood in another county, to be quick, is that scenario plays out in hundreds of times in the tri-county area. A few examples …

        It takes a long time to go from Sammamish to Buckley on transit.
        It takes a long time to go from Snohomish to Normandy Park on transit.
        It takes a long time to go from Newcastle to University Place on transit.

        You are right, sometimes just makes more sense to drive. And that’s not always the fault of transit.

        1. I’m not talking about a neighborhood, I’m talking about the central business district of one of largest cities in the state.

          Sure, I guess you can call all of West Seattle a “neighborhood.” But I suggest that is being disingenuous. I only picked Westwood because I was being generous, as it’s the easiest location in West Seattle to access from the south.

      8. ” That means a 4 seat ride from Tacoma to Westwood Village now.”

        There is a good chance google will tell you to transfer in Downtown Seattle, which makes it a 2 seat ride.
        Bus network pivot around hubs unlike driving that can be direct point to point. I am sure you’ve seen like when you book airline ticket from one small city to another across the country.

        1. Yeah, back-tracking all the way south will work until the planned truncation of the H.

      9. Only one of Tacoma and Westwood Village is a large city center that can expect to be on a 35 mile trunk corridor of 1 or 2 seats (depending on whether there’s a transfer at Federal Way). Rainier Beach and Columbia City are “on the way” in this corridor for a number of reasons, which means Burien can’t be because it’s so much further west.

        So then the question becomes, should bus routes be more Link oriented? I.e., should the H be extended to the airport to have a Link anchor at the south end?

        1. I think that would be a solution. Or the F could route to West Seattle, rather than Burien, because the 560 has Burien covered. But that would possibly mean a short hop on 509, and that isn’t really what RRs do.

        3. “So is stride s1 just going to be replacing 560 with stickers on top?”

          S1 has a different routing in Renton, serving only the future transit center (South Renton P&R, per the City of Renton’s request), having a freeway station at TIB instead of going to the airport, and terminating in Burien. That will make it faster, and of course Stride is more frequent. So from the Renton-Bellevue perspective, the stop will be at a different place and it will be faster and more frequent. West of Renton, service is significantly different.

        4. After thinking about extending the H, I remembered that there’s also a need for a Burien-Kent route, and that will always win out because Burien and Kent are city centers with lots of things, and the airport is just an airport. So Metro may not like extending the H to SeaTac without extending it to Kent, and that would make it very long. If it terminates at SeaTac, then the Kent-Burien route would have to be truncated at SeaTac or overlap with the H for several miles, neither of which Metro is likely to find palatable. Plus the fact that extending a RapidRide route would require a significant capital investment that’s not budgeted and is behind the prioritization of the next four and the following nine.

        5. There are several dimensions to bus routing — speed, frequency, hours of service and accessibility (like number and location of stops). A successful route probably needs to have at least three of these done well. If not, demand can suffer and frequency will eventually be reduced.

          My concern about STX 560 and eventually Stride 1 is that its fundamentals don’t look to justify the level of frequent service ultimately promised. The 405 South corridor needs a strategy to not only offer bus routes with a line on a map, but to produce enough ridership to justify higher frequencies all day and evening.

          It’s easy to draw lines on a map for a ballot measure. It’s very hard to create a strong ridership market to justify envisioned high frequencies.

        6. @Mike Orr

          Yeah part of the issue is that there are three logical termini in a triangle (Burien, TIBS, and SeaTac) and there’s no logical route through all three. I think extending the H to SeaTac and truncating the 161 there would be very reasonable though. The 161 has some through riders but it sees a lot of turnover at SeaTac. Extending the H to SeaTac would mean each “side” of the triangle would get its own RapidRide route (A, F, and H).

          Are there still plans to build a SeaTac busway? Maybe the H could extend along that?

        7. “Yeah part of the issue is that there are three logical termini in a triangle (Burien, TIBS, and SeaTac) and there’s no logical route through all three.”

          That’s an astute observation.

          With STX 560 and soon Stride 1 along with RapidRide F, one triangle edge will have two frequent routes and one will have none.

        8. “because Burien and Kent are city centers with lots of things”

          What does Burien actually have though, especially for a bus that goes only to the transit center. My recollection is that it does have a historical downtown, but that’s half a mile away, and the buses don’t go there. The transit center does have a few TOD apartments next door, but mostly, it’s just a park and ride, and a place to switch buses.

      10. I understand multi-seat rides can be frustrating, but I often do 4-seat rides and barely notice it. From my house to my relatives is 12+2 Line+226. If I decide to go to Fremont on the way back that’s another seat. The primary issue is that each seat is over 2-3 miles so that you don’t feel like you’ve barely gotten on before you get off again or are hopping in and out every couple minutes. (One or two last-mile seats at the ends may be exceptions.) And all the routes should be frequent so that you’re not waiting 15-20 minutes to transfer. In my case, the 226 is half-hourly (or hourly after 4pm weekends), so I have to plan for that. All the routes between Tacoma and Westwood Village will be frequent when the 574 is upgraded to 15 minutes this fall.

        1. Even 10 mins is a long time to wait. Buses need to be ON TIME more importantly than frequent.

          If you can hop buses in under 5 mins, even 4 seats wouldn’t be so bad. I’d still say the regional goal is to serve every neighborhood to major destination in 2 seats, and neighborhood to minor destination in 3 seats – every day, all day. With 1 seat reduction upgrade during peak travel hours.

        2. It’s clearly advantageous to drive (even in absurd traffic) and that’s why people do it.

          Buses can easily win over many people if they had ROW, moved fast and are on time. To start, discipline the operators who don’t keep to the schedule to their best ability. It’s unacceptable seeing a bus 15 mins late or longer, and the one behind trailing it on time or early.

        3. Drivers can’t do much about congestion. You think it’s a driver failure when a bus is 15 minutes late? That the driver could, what, weave more between lanes or take up two lanes or step on the gas more aggressively to make up 15 minutes?

          The bus trailing it on time is doing the right thing. You want to distort its schedule too?

          It’s already a big no-no to leave a timepoint stop early, so I doubt it’s happening as much as you seem to be saying. And +/- 2 minutes is considered on time, given the differences in everybody’s clocks and never knowing how many red lights you’ll meet or when a wheelchair ramp will be deployed.

        4. You can see when the bus comes online from base on OTD. Many of them deadhead way too late to reach the first stop on time. Or they simply don’t start their route on time.

          I’m not talking about running late after starting on time (though some of them drive too slow compared to others).

          A lot of bus lateness is caused by the operators themselves. That’s why you see so much bus bunching and variation in how timely a bus is.

      11. Sam, most trips can be possible in 3 trips or less. Ideally only 2.

        The issue is the mindset against long commuter routes. These bind many transit routes together and make it possible to travel to more places. They shouldn’t be peak but instead all day.

        If we had transit priority, routes could be as long as reasonable. Buses can drive 20 miles in an hour, instead of 5 miles in an hour.

    4. It’s about time the 560 got some decent frequency. Once per hour on weekends is ridiculous.

      1. Every day, transit riders who have to make transfer trips are being made more miserable by Metro and ST. Same service hours, longer travel time!

        All because people don’t know how to time a bus, and the buses can’t arrive on time because operators leave the base under 30 mins before their block starts when they’re supposed to start the deadhead much earlier.

        1. The problem is increasing traffic congestion. The solution is to give buses priority right of way. Rechanneling the streets is a city decision and capital project: transit agencies have no control over it. Cities are often reluctant to because of pushback against reducing GP or parking lanes, or they want to put a cycletrack in the space instead.

          A workaround is to have more buses to give longer layover times, and standby buses that can swoop in if a regular bus gets stuck in a traffic jam. This requires more service hours to preserve the existing level of service. Metro doesn’t have resources for this, which is why it doesn’t do it. It did have resources between 2015 and 2019, and reliability improved significantly. Congestion disappeared in 2020 and reappeared in 2022. Metro didn’t have the resources to mitigate the congestion, so reliability deteriorated again.

        2. Frequency is about much more than about people not knowing how to time a bus; sometimes, timing a bus is simply impossible. For example, if you’re leaving a concert or sporting event, you can’t control the exact time that the event is going to end. When shopping, you can’t control how long you’re going to have to wait a the checkout line. When eating at a restaurant, you can’t control how quickly the staff will cook the food, nor is it reasonable to have to rush through dinner, or get half your meal in a to-go box to accommodate a bus schedule. And, in the case of the 560 at the airport, you can’t control when your flight is going to arrive at the gate, or when your bags are going to arrive at baggage claim.

          Then, there’s the issue of transfers. Sure, running redundant service to make more one-seat rides may reduce the number of transfers, but it can’t eliminate all of them, as it would be cost-prohibitive to operate a one-seat ride between every possible pair of buildings in a large city. Anytime you transfer, you cannot “time the bus” at the transfer point, you get there when you get there. And, reduced frequency to pay for more one-seat rides makes the experience really onerous for people that still have to transfer anyway. After all, waiting 10 minutes for a bus at a connection point is not nearly as bad as being stuck there for 50 minutes.

          A lot of times, when people advocate for one-seat rides, they are really advocating for one-seat rides to specific destinations they see themselves taking a bus to. Usually, these people have cars, so “a place they envision themselves taking a bus to” is usually somewhere like downtown, where parking is very difficult or expensive. If the one-seat ride makes the bus more onerous for other trips, they don’t care, because they figure they will just drive for these other trips anyway. The problem with this logic is that owning and operating a car is expensive, so you up making the transit experience really bad for that can’t afford cars, but whose life is not centered on downtown, in exchange for providing red-carpet treatment for people with cars going downtown for occasional events (and driving everywhere else). A good transit system must have some balance.

  3. Really enjoyed the zombie tower article. I was downtown today looking across another tower and it was empty. I asked the security guard about it and he mentioned it has been that way for years and most of the building I was in is empty and losing tenants. What is Wilson and the council doing to increase corporate leases that create jobs, revenue, and downtown spending without the need to raise more regressive revenue? There’s an alarming increase of business leaving for Bellevue’s more favorable business climate and taking their jobs and revenue with them and both Wilson and the council are paralyzed on what to do or even acknowledge the problem.

    1. A couple businesses moving to Bellevue is an alarming number? Bellevue has an emerging downtown office vacancy problem too. What do you think Wilson can do to increase corporate leases?

      I’m not sure we should focus on “corporate” but rather all kinds of companies. “Corporations” have a tendency to demand tax breaks that mean other people are subsidizing them, focus on appeasing Wall Street investors, and sell unnecessary products that damage the environment and are unhealthy.

  4. 1 Line and 2 Line service are suspended between Northgate, Stadium, and Judkins Park stations until further notice due to power issue. · Shuttle buses have been ordered to provide service between Northgate and Westlake stations.

    1 Line trains are still running from Lynnwood and Northgate, and from Stadium to Federal Way Downtown stations.
    Some trains may turn back at Stadium.

    2 Line trains are still running from Lynnwood and Northgate, and from Judkins Park to Downtown Redmond stations.

    ====

    Why isn’t there shuttle bus to Judkins Park?

    1. Its a real shitsh*w this morning.

      Plus yesterday Downtown Bellevue station was closed for fire department activity.

      Jam packed 271 buses bursting at the seams.

    2. Checked the Link radio scanner. At 6:35 AM. I believe this was the original event that caused the system-wide meltdown. UW Station agent contacted the Control Center and told them that a Lynnwood-bound train was stopped in the tunnel south of the station, and they could see continuous sparking coming off the top of train. The Control Center said they were unaware of the broken down train.

    3. And I need to go from Westlake to Roosevelt. This may be the first time I ride a shuttle out of necessity. I’m debating whether to do that or take the 62 (ugh, meandering) or 49+45. I’ll probably go down to Westlake and think about taking the 62, but since the shuttle will probably run every 2-3 [1]minutes it will probably come first. I’d ideally hope the power outage would be over by then. It’s an unusually wide-area outage. Although I suppose it’s a larger area than the actual outage, and these are just the nodes where trains can turn around.

      The last few times I’ve seen the shuttle on Pine Street or downtown, it came 4-5 times in a 15-minute period, sometimes with two buses at a time. I guess it has to do that now with Link so busy and so many bus routes truncated.

    4. “Light rail service on both of Sound Transit’s 1 Line and 2 Line is suspended until further notice after one train lost power, according to the agency.

      A northbound train is stuck in between the University of Washington and University District light rail stations with people still onboard after there was a loss of power in the overhead wire, said Sound Transit spokesperson David Jackson.

      Sound Transit alerted riders just after 6:45 a.m. that both lines were delayed near the University of Washington station due to a power issue, then that both lines were suspended between Northgate, Stadium and Judkins Park stations — spanning 11 stations — until further notice.” — Seattle Times, Kai Uyehara

      1. Thanks for the updates, Mike/Sam/Nathan et al. I must have just missed it as I would have been going through there southbound) at about 6:25 am or so… but now stuck in Bellevue needing to get back to Northgate. Sounds like 271+67 will probably be faster than 2 Line + bridge from Cap Hill to Northgate, still 2x the time the 2 Line normally is.

    5. Trains are running again at Westlake. My northbound train says ‘Sound Transit’s and the onboard station display is off. Oh. The driver is saying this train will terminate at Capitol Hill and we’ll have to transfer to a shuttle bus.

    7. A northbound shuttle bus broke down at John & 16th; the passengers transfered to my shuttle bus.

      Also, Pine Street is closed at 5th for some reason, so the Pike-Pine buses are rerouted via 7th and Union

    8. This has gone on for so long it’s obvious that this is more than just a broken down train. Something in the tunnel must have been damaged.

      1. Ryan Packer reporting via Bluesky this morning (~10:30am) that the OCS was damaged near UW station: https://bsky.app/profile/typewriteralley.bsky.social/post/3mqa67mrq5c25

        “At a board meeting this morning, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine says “localized damage” to the overhead wire system near UW station caused the system outage that began this morning and is still ongoing. He says the repairs are expected to take several more hours.”

        “We have isolated the cause. It is one that we believe can be prevented from being repeated. So, this is not a system-wide challenge. It’s specific to this vehicle that was passing through the tunnel,” Constantine said.

        “Additional maintenance staff have been called in. The crews are removing the trains from the tunnel, moving them to the pocket track at Northgate, and preparing the site for repairs…We anticipate the repair to this overhead wire to take several hours. We don’t have an exact time.”

      2. Seattle-bound 2 Line trip report from today. At Mercer Island, the train operator got on the PA and said our train will only be going as far as Judkins Park, where all passengers will need to deboard. Our train (after waiting a few minutes in the pocket track), will turn back and go to Downtown Redmond. But, the train behind us will be going as far as Capitol Hill, where there is a bus bridge from Capitol Hill to Northgate.

        1. They really should run a second bus bridge straight from downtown to Northgate on the freeway, rather than having every bus go through the streets of Capitol Hill and UW. But that’s a common problem with bus bridges around the country.

        2. I wonder how many people naively chose 40 because from headsign, it seems to be the one-seat ride from Northgate to Downtown Seattle

        3. Some trains will go out of service after Judkins Park is what I heard and saw from alert, I just boarded a train with headsign showing Mercer Island.

        4. And although the head-sign and automated announcement says Mercer Island is the last stop, but conductor said it was not and it would go to Judkins Park.

    9. My Capitol Hill-Roosevelt shuttle trip took 30 minutes, compared to 7 minutes on Link. So for Bellevue-Northgate, 271+67 is not necessarily bad. 271 to UW station + shuttle to Northgate might be similar to what you would get going through downtown.

      1. I was curious about the shuttle time – that’s not as bad as I expected and may have been the better call. The 271+67 was about 1h15, or about 30 minutes longer than the train. The 67, which I’ve never actually had to use before, was quite slow.

        Technically on a normal day it can actually be up to 10 minutes faster Northgate/Bellevue to take the 1 or 2 Line to the U District then the 271 to downtown Bellevue – but that requires a transfer and the vagaries of waiting for the bus, which isn’t as frequent and is usually crowded. I much prefer just staying on the train and not thinking about it. Anecdotally at least at the early time I take the train, few people other than me are doing the Northgate (or further north) to eastside train trip. It’s relatively full when I get on but nearly none of those people are still on board when we leave CID.

    10. I always read bunch of things from my google news feed on my phone to kill time during my first 30 minutes of commute to Downtown Seattle.
      That’s how I luckily caught this before reaching downtown and directly walked to 550 stop.

      There aren’t more people eastbound on 550 than usual (before March 28). I guess many 2 Line riders probably lived further north where they couldn’t even reach 550.

      I had terrible experience riding 271 eastbound in the morning even during normal day. I’d say definitely consider 550 if you are from south of UW had this happened again before September.
      If this happened again after this fall, I probably would just work from home. There is just no reasonable alternative if there isn’t even a shuttle between chinatown and Judkins Park. I definitely not gonna take my chance on SR 520

      1. There’s also route 8 from Judkins Park to Capitol Hill, or 48 from Judkins Park to U-District.

        1. There is also bus option between Northgate and Capitol Hill, they ran shuttle anyway. When there was a planned closure, they didn’t seem to think Judkins Park shuttle is unnecessary.

          Sound Transit is clearly unprepared for emergency closure.

        2. There is no direct bus between Northgate and Capitol Hill stations, and the two-seat ride takes nearly an hour vs fifteen minutes on Link.

      2. “There is just no reasonable alternative if there isn’t even a shuttle between chinatown and Judkins Park.” What are you talking about? The routes 7 and 106 are excellent alternatives to go from the CID to Judkins Park.

    11. Link is still out at Roosevelt in the PM peak. I’m taking 45+48 to Trader Joe’s on Madison. (Hey, now I can take RapidRide FG from 23rd. I couldn’t do that last time I went this way. I could even take the G home from 23rd. Good fact to remember.)

      This looked better than shuttle+walk from Broadway, 67+49+walk from Broadway, shuttle to Symphony+G, or 62 to Spring+G.

  5. Suburbs going bankrupt.

    https://www.theurbanist.org/facing-an-existential-budget-crisis-an-eastside-enclave-considers-emergency-valve/
    http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/when-even-wealthy-towns-like-clyde-hill-are-going-broke/
    Kudos to the Times author for acknowledging they heard about it from the Urbanist article.

    Clyde Hill, Yarrow Point, and Thurston County need a large tax increase or they’ll cease to be viable independent entities.

    “The line item that dominates spending in Clyde Hill is police and fire services, with 11 full-time employees compared to 3.75 in city administration, 3.25 in public works, and two in planning and development services. Of Clyde Hill’s $6.7 million budget in 2026, $2.8 millionis set to go to the city’s police department, along with another $900,000 for contracted services with the Bellevue Fire Department – more than half of the city’s annual budget.” [Urbanist]

    The first blow was the Eyman initiative that limited unvoted property-tax growth to 1% — below inflation. The second blow was Clyde Hill being reluctant to ask voters to raise property taxes gradually earlier, even though they’re still below Seattle and Bellevue levels. The third blow is its reluctance to allow businesses in the town, which would have generated tax revenue. Only two businesses exist.

    Two possibilities mentioned are for Clyde Hill to be annexed to Bellevue or Medina.

    1. This is why it’s so difficult to get rid of car dealerships. They’re ugly and provide very few jobs relative to their land footprint. But, they provide a huge amount of tax revenue, since every $50k car sold is another $5000 in tax collected, not even getting into the service department. So, we’re in this world where every city needs car dealers within its boundary to balance it’s budget. Clyde Hill doesn’t have any, so it struggles.

      1. Ideally, I would like to see sales tax on cars collected and paid based on where the driver lives, not the place where they bought the car. That would avoid a lot of this mess. At a minimum, you shouldn’t be able to save hundreds of dollars in taxes by buying the car at a dealer outside the King County Metro or Sound Transit tax area.

      2. I agree, asdf2. Car purchases should be taxed on new registration address and not the vehicle location or prior registration address (dealer or private owner).

        Many states already require this. I can’t find a list on the internet but it’s quite a common law.

    2. Incorporation and continued operation of small cities is an interesting topic. The development of increasing requirements and training for city staffs and the expectation that employees should have a career path to me shows that no modern city should have less than a minimum number of people and should cover an area of a minimum size.

      The concept of city government dates back to a time before motor vehicles and limited skills required to run a city. It seems terribly antiquated at this point to me. People get nostalgic about local government as their identity.

      But local government should ultimately be more about service efficiency and effectiveness as creatures of state government. At some point, the state probably needs to set minimums for local government units like a minimum population and area size.

      For example, the state could set a threshold of at least 25,000 residents and 5 square miles if a developed is connected geographically to an urbanized area of over 100,000 people (Census geography). Then give cities under the threshold a decade to choose if they will either be absorbed or merged into larger city or dissolve. If they don’t decide after a decade, the legislature must make the decision for them within a year.

      Here’s a link to how Sweden went from 2,592 to 290 municipalities:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipalities_of_Sweden

      1. Clyde Hill would be more viable with more retail and missing middle housing. It was those things it incorporated to exclude to be an acristocratic-modeled microburb.

      2. I consider myself to be a foremost expert on Clyde Hill, and in my expert opinion, no, Clyde Hill doesn’t need a car dealership, or retail, or to be annexed by another town. Residents just need to vote for a property tax increase.

        1. Agreed. The problem is that it requires a vote instead of just the city council approving a necessary increase.

  6. I wanted to comment on https://www.seattletimes.com/business/local-business/as-downtown-seattle-offices-empty-city-facing-years-of-zombie-towers/

    One truth that no one talks about: financing contracts for these beautiful commercial buildings all come with clauses that limit the discounting possible on rent. So, there’s a do-not-lower-rents-past -this-point clause. Right now, none of the owners of these buildings can lower rents to attract tenants. I think this is a huge restraint of trade (owners can’t react to market forces). Anyone in power going to scratch that bump?

  7. I don’t know if it’s been noted here yet, but the 2/13 is back to trolley service since June 25, according to the pantograph logs. Took long enough but glad to see it’s done.

  8. Re: Move 99 out of South Park

    Removing 99 in South Park would be a major setback for transportation between Seattle and South King. I could see that partially mitigated if the path was used for a Link bypass of Rainier Valley.

    1. Would it? WSDOT’s SR-509 “completion” project is designed to reroute freight from the congested I-5 corridor to SR-509 south of SeaTac (https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/search-projects/sr-509-completion-project).

      Consider the counterfactual: if SR-99 didn’t exist north between the 1st Ave Bridge and South 102nd Street, and SR-509 were connected between Des Moines and Burien, would you think it were worth plowing a new freeway through South Park to shave a minute or two off travel times?

    2. Because the invasive South Park segment is only about 1/2 mile segment of the entire road, it’s seemingly hard to justify the cost of mitigating a closure of its entire length. The traffic on it easily could end up on South Park neighborhood streets instead if it closed. Keep in mind that there are many warehouse type businesses surrounding South Park that rely on 599 to reach them.

      I would think that a cost-effective project solution would instead be to somehow put a lid above it to create a park that can be crossed on foot and maybe put it in a trench.for that short segment. Of course the area is all on soil created by a prior Rainier lahar and contaminated by decades of surrounding industrial pollution that leached into the groundwater and create proven heightened cancer risks — so maybe the best thing could be to just spend the money to relocate the residents instead.

      1. it’s seemingly hard to justify the cost of mitigating a closure of its entire length.

        But what are those costs? Here’s the new analysis released by the city: https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/OPCD/OngoingInitiatives/ReconnectSouthPark/SouthParkExecutivePotentialFuturesAnalysisReport.pdf

        PDF page 66 identifies traffic volumes at several key points. The analysis indicates removal of SR-99 would have marginal impacts on traffic volumes on remaining roadways.

        1. Thanks for the hyperlink!

          The report does not analyze many of the core concerns that I expressed.

          It does not describe what happens with the many trucks going to adjacent warehouse and light industrial land uses — and lots of garbage trucks to the transfer station. Depending on the alternative, these could end up on Cloverdale St or 8th Ave S or 14th Ave S. The neighborhood is just a few blocks from many large warehouse and industrial areas.

          Because no alternative is analyzed for groundwater quality, the report does not discuss this type of pollution — and water leaches through the soil even if it was deposited on the other side of the river. The report only mentions air pollution and noise pollution. And even then it does not discuss what happens when trucks breezing by the neighborhood today have to stop and start at new signals and maybe use the local arterials.

          Regarding transit, the roadway connects West Seattle to the South Base. Changing the roadway affects well over a hundred deadhead buses and the deadhead time.

          The approach in the study appears to paint a picture of a neglected residential area being easily transformed by a roadway redesign. Certainly the corridor deserves fixing! The neighborhood could be better! Still, I’m only saying that it’s not facing several of the overarching structural challenges faced by the neighborhood even if a roadway redesign is pursued.

      2. “it’s seemingly hard to justify the cost of mitigating a closure”

        When you have whole bunch price tags of bridge replacement and relatively low existing volume, it will become easy to justify.

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