Manila’s jeepneys and emerging metro rail network. (Evan Edinger)
Evan Edinger and Not Just Bikes tour London’s bike path network. They compare it to a decade ago and to The Netherlands.
Musical interlude: Via con Me (It’s Wonderful). 1950s Rome with scooters and streetcars.
This is an open thread.
Apologies if this has been posted here already, but this video (Light Rail to Ballard Shouldn’t be THIS Hard) gives a solid overview of many of the issues that have been discussed on STB for years- CID station placement, station depth, poor transfers, overbuilding stations, and the possibility of automating the line.
I’ve never seen a plan for an aerial tramway that I thought was feasible for Seattle. But I’m beginning to wonder if instead of digging a massive tunnel under downtown Seattle, would it be more effective to connect the West Seattle line and the Ballard line with an aerial tramway through downtown? I’ve been to Medellin enough times to see how the MDE Metro Cable system works and I can see how it might be implemented in Seattle.
Envision an elevated, automated train from Ballard that terminates somewhere in the Westlake area. Passengers could then transfer directly to the aerial cable system, Westlake Station or the surface streets. The aerial cable line would run north-south to CID and/or the stadiums where transfers could be made to the elevated line to West Seattle.
Some of the challenges would be locating a midtown stop without interfering with the trolley wires and placing the support masts which would need to be spaced about every 2 blocks. Third Avenue and Fourth Avenue both have advantages and challenges: Third is above an existing transit priority pathway. Fourth would be easier for locating a midtown stop and avoiding trolley wires. But an aerial cable system is generally pretty simple and a lot less expensive than the tunnel being proposed.
That was this proposal here: https://www.westseattleskylink.org/. It would have five stations as shown in the comparison page: California & Hudson (roughly), 35th & Genesee, Delridge & Genesee, Sodo Station and CID. If the train from Ballard was automated and ran from Westlake to Ballard you would have a gap between these two systems. I don’t see that as much of a problem. You have very frequent buses and trains if someone wants to continue. The only awkward trip would be something like Ballard to West Seattle but that is likely fairly rare. It is also quite possible that Metro would continue to run some of the buses which means the main beneficiaries would be those who can walk to the station. That is true of the West Seattle Link as well so I don’t see it being that different.
I still the best option for West Seattle is better buses. It already has a lot of existing infrastructure to work with. It wouldn’t be that hard to improve it. The main weakness right now is just frequency and it would be much cheaper to spend money on running the buses more often rather than a very expensive light rail line.
The first order of business is to kill West Seattle Link Extension before it consumes any more $$$. That will be hard as long as Emperor Dow is in charge of spending tax money however he likes. He and other board members are already way over compensated for what little they’ve done (expect keep quite). So maybe they’d take the already way more than generous beni’s and go away if King County voters could get a clue… that’s a heavy lift.
Well, there’s an article in the New York Times today saying the Trump administration is refusing to spend $7 billion in transit grant money allocated by Congress. (Free gift link.) There goes West Seattle Link and DSTT2/Ballard. Also caught in the crosshairs is Spokane’s north-south BRT (Division Street, $82 million). And RapidRide K (2027, $52 million), Swift Gold (2028, amount TBD), and Portland 82nd Ave BRT (2027, $150 million). And five other BRT projects this year, and more than that in the next two years, and various rail projects. ST3 doesn’t seem to have reached that point in the process because it’s not in the list.
Well if it kills WSLE then that’s a good thing. WSLE had already killed Ballard so no net change. It could be a reset holding the existing local funding until the board can be changed to make transit capital expense rational instead of political favors.
Well if it kills WSLE then that’s a good thing.
I’m not sure it will kill it. There is just too much political momentum. Another way to put it: the leaders are lazy. They don’t want to rethink previous assumptions. There is plenty of evidence that what they are doing is a bad idea. They don’t care. They just want to keep doing what they are doing because it is easy. If the feds won’t chip in they will just delay the project (or start it but not get very far) in hopes that some future administration will help pay for it. Trump’s refusal to help pay for this is just one of the many reasons not to start with West Seattle Link. But they aren’t being reasonable — they are being lazy.
They can’t build it until the grants come in. They can’t replace the grant money locally because they also can’t finish Ballard or Everett at this point. It may remain a zombie for a long time but eventually there will be demand to do something else in the interim. Strauss has already asked for the STM renewal to give Ballard a carve-out for dedicated bus service — which is similar to the RapidRide C & D improvements that are in ST3 but the board and staff have somehow forgotten about. Except that the ST contribution would be for capital improvements (procuring buses, redesigning streets) while the STM measure would be for operations (more bus runs). But it’s still prioritizing Ballard in the interim before Link — or instead of Link if Link languishes for decades or is finally cancelled.
They can’t build it until the grants come in.
No, but they can start it. That’s the point. They start West Seattle Link. Everyone cheers when they cut the ribbon. The “Build the Damn Trains” people wave their signs. Dow gives a speech that says that federal money will soon be on the way. The SoDo Busway is closed while they start construction. It goes very slowly because there isn’t much money. At that rate it would take decades. Then, in a few years (hopefully) we elect a new president. They open up the spigot again and folks can no longer blame the feds for the delay. They go ahead and build the line from SoDo to The Junction (minus Avalon). Again, more speeches and ribbon cutting. No one rides it (of course) but by then they might have figured out how to handle the new tunnel. Or not. They might make it to Uptown. Or not. Maybe they just end at South Lake Union. Again, more ribbon cutting. More major transit corridors are shut down (causing painful detours for buses like the 40 and RapidRide C) . Eventually it gets to South Lake Union. Very few people ride it. They continue the plans to extend it but there is no funding. By then the buses will all be automated and folks wonder why they are spending so much money on a fairly weak corridor. But at least we will have a lot of ribbon cutting.
This is the big loser in WSLE; and why it and emperor Dow need to be stopped. I would amend the comment from “closed” to eliminated. This is something that should be improved rather than abandon. The big fight, assuming there’s time, is to change the structure of the ST board.
Pay attention to rail vehicle and OMF grants too.
I am predicting that ST will say they don’t have enough train cars to run to Tacoma and will start 3 Line when they can open West Seattle — and make everyone riding on the south part of 1 Line change trains at SODO.
And yeah no Link trains will be in revenue service to West Seattle until 2036. Between the bridge and the deep underground station it’s going to take to at least 2036 if not later.
I took Link from Redmond to Seattle on Sunday. The section from South Bellevue to Chinatown was closed, so there was a shuttle. At South Bellevue Station, they were telling everyone to take either the shuttle or the 550. The shuttle showed up first, so I took that.
The shuttle stop at Mercer Island Station was straightforward enough, but the stop at Judkins Park seemed to add about 10 minutes to the trip. It went south on Rainier to stop at the station, then had to turn around to go to Chinatown Station.
Nobody got on or off at Judkins Park, so I wonder if there’s any point to this stop. Or any point to the shuttle at all, since the 7 and the 550 cover the same stops. I think the only adjustment needed is a frequency boost to the 550 when Link is out on this section. On the other hand, some of the other Link passengers seemed deeply confused about this situation, and had obviously never taken the bus between Bellevue and Seattle before.
It would be inconvenient and potentially confusing for Judkins Park riders, but I wonder if they could reasonably put the shuttle stop at the Rainier/Charles stop. It would make the trip much more straightforward. I don’t think skipping Judkins Park is a good choice, since it’s a fairly busy stop, but it would probably save 5 to 10 minutes.
Also potentially confusing but the stops could get served out of order too. CID first, then Judkins Park via Rainier.
It was cool that I caught the shuttle bus on a DE60LF bus. I also saw a RapidRide bus running the shuttle. What bus did you catch it on?
It is weird that the are running the 550 right now. It does make the shuttle redundant. That being said, for people who have no idea how to ride the buses, the shuttle is the obvious alternative. That being the case I can see why it serves the same stops. Riders can take the 550 as an alternative.
Once the 550 goes away you have a couple tough choices. You can skip Judkins Park with the shuttle. This means some riders have to backtrack although most riders save a lot of time. You can also just keep the shuttle as is. I would lean towards the first option. I think the main thing that ST needs is a comprehensive plan that is easily implemented and everyone can easily understand. It is similar to the night service. You know how to get there when the trains stop running. The ST buses are designed to work with other buses. The same thing should be true during outages.
Between South Bellevue and International District, the 550 takes 14 minutes, Link takes 16 minutes, and the shuttle routing takes 30 minutes . That is just brutal and with the added transfer penalty, makes the 2 Line with the shuttle virtually unusable for any cross-lake trip pairing. It’ll get even worse this fall when the 550 goes away. Sound Transit would be better off running the shuttle South Bellevue – Mercer Island – International District – Judkins Park, OR splitting the 2 Line to run Lynnwood-Judkins Park and South Bellevue-Redmond with the shuttle running South Bellevue – Mercer Island – Judkins Park. Either of those options would be substantially better than the current shuttle routing and minimize the insane travel time+transfer penalty.
I even emailed Sound Transit about this, although I doubt they’ll listen or do anything.
The transit world is awaking my thoughts on this topic, so here it is: Isn’t every shuttle bus route considerably longer than the Link segment it’s replacing?
You seem to have the 550 and 2 line times backwards. 2 line is listed as taking 14 minutes and the 550 is listed as 16 from IDS to South Bellevue. Of course the 550 can take much, much longer depending on traffic as well.
The 550 will go away next month. ST delayed the ST Express restructures until the fall, partly to have a backup and extra capacity for the World Cup.
Nobody got on or off at Judkins Park, so I wonder if there’s any point to this stop.
I’m really confused here. The shuttle should just take the route of the 554 from MI to DT Seattle. Is it doing something different? The problem with the 550 is after the flyer stop was demolished it didn’t serve Judkins Park which is why Transit was useless for me the first five years I worked at my current job. Link is awesome. Too bad I only get about 8 months before I retire after losing a half decade of bus service. But hey, it I got to spend a lot more money in car tabs for the degraded service.
Nobody got on or off at Judkins Park, so I wonder if there’s any point to this stop.
Sound Transit doesn’t publish directional data for stations (or bus routes). But we did gather information for the 554 and it shows a decent level of ridership between Rainier & Charles to the East Side. My guess is that a significant number of riders take the train across the lake. More will take it when they get rid of the 554.
The shuttle should just take the route of the 554 from MI to DT Seattle. Is it doing something different?
Apparently so, according to Christopher (who started this thread). But again, this is a problem with every outage. A bus that tries to mimic Link is bound to fail. Either it doesn’t quite reach the same stop as Link or it is going back and forth to get right there. This apparently does the latter. The big problem is the lack of information and consideration with these shuttles. Every route has trade-offs and the shuttle is no different. In each case they should:
1) Work with the Metro routing.
2) Consider multiple routes.
3) Adjust based on demand (i. e. more buses during rush hour).
4) Have a plan ahead of time and make it easy for people to access the information.
For example, imagine an outage between the U-District and Westlake. It is silly to run a shuttle between Westlake and Capitol Hill given all the buses that go that way. The only reason to run an extra bus is if it is rush hour and very crowded. Even then it might make sense to run a shuttle up the hill and a different shuttle that skips both Capitol Hill and UW. That may mean that a rider has to transfer. So be it. One of the key things is that ST should provide plenty of information so that riders aren’t stuck trying to figure out what to do.
In this case there are three options:
1) The current routing. I don’t like backtracking to serve Judkins Park. It isn’t worth it.
2) Skip Judkins Park and run express to CID. Judkins Park riders would be expected to transfer to the 7.
3) Follow the route of the 554.
4) A combination of buses (such as an express to downtown and a different bus to Judkins Park).
I would go with option 3. This at least connects with the 7 which is probably where most of the Judkins-Park-to-East-Side ridership is coming from. It is a bit slower to downtown but not a crazy detour.
Yes, go with what’s behind door number 3. There is no reason to get on/off under the freeway except to connect with Link. If Link isn’t running make an announcement at the Charles stop that people wanting to go I-90 to the eastside need to get off here and transfer to the shuttle. For westbound riders the stop north of Charles is likely closer to where they are going than the Judkins stop. It would mean people trying to catch a SB 7 would have to cross Rainier but that not a huge deal. There’s a wait for the Rainier crosswalk light but then you pretty much go straight across Charles since it’s timing is fairly short. Left turns from Charles are allowed when the crosswalk sign is still active.
Anyone know if the station elevators and sky bridge are open during a Link closure? The only reason I can think of that someone might want to use this stop is to take the skybridge to connect with the bike path.
I hate to sound like a broken record, but ST did not build places to reverse buses at Judkins Park. They did not think this through.
There is land in the loop ramp to build sonething. It could also work as a pickup location too. Or maybe a bus layover spot. Or a Harborview shuttle layover.
There is also a proposal to reconfigure the freeway ramps. This could be included in a freeway reconfiguration — but WSDOT has not proposed a solution either.
So every agency plays like it isn’t needed or ignores the problem until a disruption occurs. And there will be more disruptions. A solution could be developed if the agencies want to actually develop something because land is there.
PS. Judkins Park had 15% more average weekday boardings than Mercer Island per June data that ST publishes. Just because one bus had no activity doesn’t mean that the stop is useless.
I think there is enough room for 2 buses NB and SB under I90. But its not uncommon to see 1 Metro bus there.
It is just a lot simpler to use the routing of the 554. It is about a quarter mile from the station. Some riders would have to walk farther. People transferring to the 8 or 48 would be out of luck — they would have to walk up the hill or transfer. But the main reason there is a station in the first place is to connect to the 7. My guess is the vast majority of riders who are going to the East Side from Judkins Park are transferring from the 7. Spending a bunch of money on a relatively small number of other riders just isn’t worth it. While it isn’t ideal, they should just follow the pathway of the 554.
Anecdotally, I’ve seen way more activity from people coming and going to the station from 23rd than Rainier. I think a lot of people walk up, but the 8/48 transfer from Central District may be contributing more than the 7. Looking at LEHD, Capitol Hill (98122) is the ZIP in Seattle with the highest number people who work in the 2 Line adjacent areas of the East side (3.5k) – significantly more than Rainier Valley (98188, 2.4k). It’s actually sort of surprising to me how little commuting there is between Seattle and the East side (though LEHD does not make it easy to segment by meaningful categories – and I’m sure most of it is higher wage tech folks). Plenty of people who live in 98122 would prefer Capitol Hill to Judkins Park, but if you’re going to the Eastside and need to catch a bus anyways, and the 8/48 is an option it’s almost certainly faster to go via Judkins Park.
Anyways, some light speculation on my end. But I do think the 7 – Eastside trip is not the dominant trip that uses Judkins Park. An important one, but not the sole one.
Good point about transfers to the 8/48. People trying to get to Link and the 1 Line can transfer at Mt. Baker. For people trying to get to the eastside getting to the stop at Charles would be a long walk via the station platform or a really steep walk if they used the 23rd stop north of the park. They’d probably just want to get a bus to DT/CID and transfer there. Or transfer at Mt Baker and backtrack on Rainier. SB Rainier in the afternoon is chronically backed up. NB it seems to be OK.
FWIW I’m seeing a lot more ridership since the World Cup at Judkins Park and most of the increase is people accessing the Rainier side. I’d say about half or less are transferring to a bus. There’s a surprising number that are walking to a destination or accessing the bike path.
That’s a good point about 23rd. It unfortunately is also a hard place to reverse buses.
I have wondered if there could be a way to create a bus turnaround and layover near there too. It would not be easy and probably would require using park land. But a transit center could be put at 23rd and Judkins SW corner with a replacement recreation facility built above it on a roof deck.
Another issue is that Massachusetts does not flow well. Because SDOT took away a southbound lane on Rainier, many people now use Massachusetts.
People look at the options and see that 23rd is much closer to the platforms, and the 48 and 8 stop there, and their frequency is decent. (Both routes have been boosted repeatedly, for equity and potential RapidRide reasons.)
@blumdrew
That’s been my experience as well. I see many more people getting on/off from 23rd than Rainier.
@Al S
That would be a huge sum of money (not to mention take away public park space) to build something for very occasional use during service disruptions.
Like I said, jd, it would not be easy. And not cheap either. It may have daily utility if Metro wanted to end a route there.
It’s usually harder and more expensive to fix circulation after light rail opens in general. It’s why ST’s rush to design and then scale back stations is such an unwise approach.
Here’s how SF Muni created a turnaround at Forest Hills Station. It could be workable on 23rd too.
(https://maps.app.goo.gl/5GW9n8U2aGtrKRsA6?g_st=ic)
@ jd:
It’s just one of many options.
Another is to simply widen the plaza to look like the Laguna Honda entrance to Forest Hills Station in SF. It’s not elegant but it works. It could just be a pedestrian plaza gated off until it’s needed.
Muni actually terminates routes at Forest Hills. It also works like a drop off and pick up spot. It could have utility beyond disruptions.
I’m not sure if the lid could handle the weight. But if it could,
I assumed it would follow the 554. If it’s stopping on 23rd, that’s probably because it’s closest to “the station” and the least likely to confuse people. There are always riders who know nothing about Link or other transit or understand little English, and they get confused even with all of ST’s attempts to mitigate it. And the shuttle is just replacing Link, so it stops at all Link’s stations. The fact that it’s slower than Link is inherent in the term bus shuttle. ST’s biggest way to mitigate this is to limit the shuttle’s period to as short a time as possible. That’s why it’s only one day and on a Sunday I think. There will be two more periods this week, today through Thursday and ditto for next week, but they’re late night only, and ST seems to think late night is throwaway time, and it is when ridership goes way down.
[Correction: This week’s late-evening closure is Crosslake. Next week’s is BelRed to Downtown Redmond. Announcement article. -MO]
What have the shuttles done in previous closures between South Bellevue and CID? The same thing as now? Or like the 554?