CityNerd (Ray Delahanty) analyzes East Link and its station areas. He also visits Lynnwood Link, and discusses the transit sagas and urban potential in West Seattle and Ballard.
This is an open thread.
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This is one of my favorite CityNerd videos. I pretty much agree with his Top Ten list of the East Link stations, although I would swap Downtown Bellevue and Spring District. Downtown Redmond is obviously number one, possibly out of all the stations, not just East Link.
I’m also glad he visited Alaska Junction and Ballard. Those two neighborhoods are so much more deserving of Link Stations than say, Star Lake. Hopefully some Seattle City Council and Sound Transit board members see this video. We really need to bring this project back home to Seattle proper. There is so much support for car free living in the city.
Star lake probably cost closer to 200 million rather than 20 billion. If you assume they were going to the airport no matter what. Money does matter.
“Deserving” by what metric? Neither Ballard nor Alaska Junction are on the busiest travel route in Seattle (which Link closely parallels). It may seem to you that ridership should be the primary metric by which to judge Link extensions, but all transit projects are in essence political. Sound Transit is a suburban-oriented agency and always has been. Star Lake was built because it was on the way to Federal Way. What are Ballard and West Seattle on the way to?
I think we would have been better off with a more Seattle-oriented system. But that isn’t what we have, and it hasn’t been what’s been planned at really any point in Sound Transit’s existence. Any agency tasked with building a Seattle-oriented rail network would have had to have an entirely different structure.
I don’t think any particular neighborhood should be thought of as “deserving” light rail.
Puget Sound as a whole is paying a huge amount of money for transit construction, and therefore everyone in the region deserves a system that is worth the huge price being paid.
When the first MAX line was built:
• the costs were about 1/5 per passenger mile of the bus system. Sure, TriMet could have spent a very slightly less amount of money building a busway to Gresham, but the cost per passenger would have been higher.
Thus, Gresham deserved light rail because providing bus service there had become an economic skinkhole that could be fixed by having large numbers of passengers per driver.
• downtown Portland was truly an office desert. The original MAX timetable had weekend service of a single car train every 45 minutes. They didn’t expect MAX to have such a profound impact on people movement in general that weekend travel on transit would increase so fast.
So, the Banfield-Burnside corridor deserved light rail based on the increased mobility allowed, and satisfaction of latent demand.
• by most measures, Milwaukie would not really deserve light rail, but TriMet was running 13 buses an hour on the corridor between there and Portland. Furthermore, a couple of those corridors had a lot of traffic between them. The orange line allowed TriMet to cut back on the amount of money spend on the primary ridership route and redeploy resources on other routes that needed more service. The two busiest routes into Milwaukie were converted into a single route, so while a bunch of one seat rides were turned into two seat rides, a whole other bunch of trips got converted from two seat rides into one.
So, from an operating logistics perspective, Milwaukie deserved light rail because putting it there led to more efficient use of limited resources. The city itself really didn’t need or deserve it, but the rest of the system did.
I can see a bunch of potential changes with Ballard link that would be beneficial. Eg: the D probably stops going south of the ship canal, but instead maybe becomes a Lake City – Northgate – Ballard rapidride replacement for the 40 and a Lake City route, or takes over the current 40 route into Seattle.
I don’t see a lot of potential for network or cost improvements with West Seattle Link though. You split a bunch of corridors into two seat rides, but what gets recombined with those to convert corridors that are currently two seat rides and deserve to be one seat rides?
There is of course the parochial politics associated with sub-area equity and suburban voting power, but Sound Transit also fails miserably when it comes to prioritization within North King/Seattle itself. The flawed thinking that puts West Seattle and DSTT2 ahead of the segment from Ballard to Westlake has been covered here many times. A great article by Mike Lindblom in today’s paper on Pinehurst provides another example. It shows how decision-making turned on a single city councilperson who saw her role as fighting to get a train station in her part of the city, and her colleagues deferring to her rather than trying to methodically maximize benefits relative to costs for the overall system. This is how we’re ending up with a system that costs too much and delivers too little. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattles-newest-light-rail-station-dont-expect-much-yet/
“It shows how decision-making turned on a single city councilperson who saw her role as fighting to get a train station in her part of the city, and her colleagues deferring to her rather than trying to methodically maximize benefits relative to costs for the overall system.”
That one councilperson was right and was merely stating transit best practices. What better use could the cost of Pinehurst Station have gone to? It wouldn’t be enough to fill DSTT2’s budget gap. Pinehurst station gives Seattle’s fifth-largest urban village better access to Link, after we thought it was a lost cause. Of course the largest villages should be on Link, because traveling between them generates the highest ridership and usefulness, as people go to both residences and businesses.
Tbf, the Star Lake Station was originally was supposed to be on old 99 with it stopping at Redondo Heights P&R. But a bunch of businesses along 99 were against construction disruptions on 99. Their loss as they say.
You’re only telling a small part of the 1-5 or 99 to Federal Way story, and making it sound like it’s the whole story. Sound Transit liked I-5 over 99 because of the $300B cost savings. And the cities of Federal Way, Des Moines, Kent, and SeaTac were all in favor of an I-5 alignment, and ST didn’t want to go against their wishes. What didn’t happen was everyone was all-in on 99, but then some businesses complained, so ST reluctantly moved it to I-5.
If Sound Transit’s mission was to connect Seattle neighborhoods with rail and express bus service, you’re be right.
Light rail does not connect Seattle’s neighborhoods. Take the split stations of N&S of CID, which bypass the district (Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon), condemning businesses to a slow economic death while cutting off residents from the long promised easy access, and in so doing, disconnects the entire Region. According to HNTB and VMS reports prepared for Sound Transit, N&S of CID split stations force: 12 minute walks, extra transfers, out-of-direction travel. Those. coming from the south will need to get off in SODO with luggage, mobility devices, strollers and trek on foot or wheels to Pioneer Square to continue north. Perhaps the worst is cutting off access for Eastsiders from getting to the airport–they will have to go north to find a line to go south! That’s why 5 legislative districts passed resolutions opposing N&S of CID split stations.
Hi Ray, please note our collective neighborhood name is Chinatown International District, which contains the 3 neighborhoods of Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon. The CID name is official as set forth in Seattle City Ordinance 119297. The district station name ( backwards from the city ordinance) needs correction by Sound Transit.
Following up on a discussion from Wednesday’s open thread:
If Metro and the City want to create a frequent service corridor on Broadway from Capitol Hill Station to Jackson Street/Pioneer Square using the First Hill Streetcar and Route 49, here’s a plan to discuss.
Schedule both the FH Streetcar and Route 49 to operate at 15-minute headways to create a Broadway corridor with 8 frequencies per hour. That’s an increase for the 49 from 20-minute headways, and a slight decrease for the streetcar at peak hours only.
Currently, the 49 (at 20-minute headways) needs 5 buses in service at midday and the Streetcar needs 4 cars running. Increasing the 49 service level to 15-minute headways would require 8 trolleys (+3) to maintain reliable service. So, where do the extra service hours come from?
(1) Reducing the streetcar’s peak hour service from every 12 mins. to every 15 mins. would save about 8 hours of streetcar running per day.
(2) Currently, the streetcar is the only route on the Broadway corridor, outside of a few random trips by the 43. By deploying the 49 on the full length of Broadway, the streetcar doesn’t need to begin its service day at 5am and run until 11pm. The streetcars could start an hour later and end 2 hours earlier with the 49 still covering the corridor with 15-minute headways. That would save about another 10-12 hours of daily streetcar service hours.
(3) And finally, the 9 could be eliminated which would save another 16-18 hours of weekday service hours.
Added up, I think there’s enough service hours for the 3 additional lines on the 49 schedule.
The streetcar stops at different stops than bus routes, so they aren’t fully interchangeable. You have to figure out which one will come next, and how punctual it will be. In a worst-case scenario you see the other one coming but you get stuck behind a traffic light and can’t get to the stop in time. So half-streetcar, half-bus service doesn’t really solve the problem.
PS to my earlier comment: Correcting the IDC station name to align with the city ordinance name of CID is important for those with neurodivergent conditions–dyslexia, autisum and so on as well as for tourists, all of whom are confused trying to match apps, maps and other communication devices with the collective CID name for Chinatown, Japantown, and Little Saigon.
Pretty amazing photography/video. I like the non-AI human voice even if it does get a bit monotone reflecting the authors bias against the Eastside. The millions to access a U-pick was supposed to be a joke but outside of the P&R this is an amazing area to visit and you can now do it in style without a car. The I-90 trail is right there so you can take your bike and ride road free to Snoqualmie Pass and beyond. The Mercer Slew learning center is pretty interesting. And I’ve never visited the Winters House.
Wait, what… from the top of the Swamp & Ride garage you can see the traffic congestion on 520 (5:50 in the video)? And from Least Main, the DT Bellevue By-Pass tunnel is a “pretty huge asset to the whole system”. Not so much :-(
In general it’s obvious there is no understanding of the history of Bellevue development; like no idea everything south of Hospital Station was, in the past, known as Auto Row. He’s right about the Chick-fil-A being a stupid location but I don’t know how/why it ended up there. The Burger King has been there “forever”. Part of the problem is ST is so reluctant to partner with business at stations. Big stations should be like SeaTac where food concessions are built in and generate revenue. There is at least a coffee shop at Red-Tech and they are trying to lease space a the paved over Spring District.
Loves the Ped bridge at Red-Tech but laments it’s not useful unless you work at Micro$oft. Well, gee I guess not since that’s what surrounds it for acres… and guess who foot the bill for it? Actually if you’re riding a bike it can be a useful connection that’s way better than the typical WSDOT offering. Try riding your bike on the corkscrew over I-90 down near 148th.
Relatively new scramble signal at BTC? Relative to what. Been that way for what, 20 years? I don’t remember it ever not being that way since the transit center was built.
Spring District @ #2? WTF, I’d have it slightly above Least Main at this point. Did he not notice that there is a huge Audi garage next to it that is new, not historical Auto Row. And acres and acres are taken by bus bases and the OMF. I guess that’s OK vs the Coke and Safeway industrial parcels that are largely why this area is now prime for high density development.
Next time hire Sam for a tour guide so you know what’s really going on.
Regarding DT Redmond, it’s incredibly spread out and that’s one reason there is little pedestrian traffic. Even just using “the trail” requires lengthy crossings of streets and open areas I guess are supposed to be parks? Lots of expensive apartments/condos over largely empty expensive street level retail that can’t survive given the high rent and low pedestrian traffic. But all these buildings have great underground parking for your Tesla. Got to warm Elon’s heart.
“from the top of the Swamp & Ride garage you can see the traffic congestion on 520 (5:50 in the video)?”
That’s Marymoor Village station, which is next to 520.
I went to the roof of the South Bellevue garage Saturday (for an article that’s coming Thursday), and I could see a bit of 405 in the distance.
“In general it’s obvious there is no understanding of the history of Bellevue development; like no idea everything south of Hospital Station was, in the past, known as Auto Row.”
Yes, he said that at the outset. Since I know more about Bellevue, I saw the auto row on 116th. He’s also skeptical about redeveloping those 1970s East Main hotels, even though that’s been ongoing and projects are at least in the pipeline. But you can’t tell that from looking at them. And Bel-Red was an industrial area that had been decaying since the 1960s, so that’s what the remnants along Bel-Red Road are. That’s what made it possible to upzone without encountering insurmountable NIMBY opposition, since there were no single-family houses there to begin with.
“the DT Bellevue By-Pass tunnel is a “pretty huge asset to the whole system””
That was surprising, and he just said it as a one-off and never explained it. I guess what he means is there’s no surface station in downtown Bellevue.
“Part of the problem is ST is so reluctant to partner with business at stations.”
That may get into laws and the state constitution. Agencies can’t spend pubic money for a private company’s benefit.
Port of Seattle has no problem. If ST ran SEA we’d be the laughing stock of the world. They’ve got a coffee shop at Red-Tech and are trying to lease space at Spring District. Yeah, #2 East Link Station and they can’t even lease space right next to the entrance. A big part of the problem is the station design is so bad. They have all the architectural planning of a single pole bus stop. And it’s not just that they are cookie cutter. Bel-Red has plenty of benches but DT Bellevue has almost none. WTF?
Port of Seattle Commissioners are elected. ST Board is a political favor… just sayin’
“Loves the Ped bridge at Red-Tech”
Did he notice the other ped bridge at Overlake Village station?
Guess not. It’s not as glamorous. I think M$FT helped pay for it but it wasn’t “their baby”. It’s not bad but really not all that necessary. It’s a pretty long walk from the North/West side of 520 to anything other than Microsoft. RR-B serves all of 148th.
“Loves the Ped bridge at Red-Tech but laments it’s not useful unless you work at Micro$oft. Well, gee I guess not since that’s what surrounds it for acres… and guess who foot the bill for it?”
That’s his point. Governments won’t build beautiful things. A few tech companies are about the only ones doing it, for their private campuses. Governments can’t convince taxpayers to pay more for beautiful things.
At least tech companies here embraced transit. I was shocked when I visited the bay area how difficult it is comparably to get to Apple/Google HQ.
That’s the entire Silicon Valley mindset. When I saw the tech headquarters on Great America Parkway in Santa Clara, there was a bus route that was 30 minutes weekdays, 60 minutes weekends, and a larger-than-usual share of company shuttles and bike commutes.
Microsoft embraces transit but not public transit. I think it.s the same with T-Mob. They run their own buses. With M$FT you can’t even use it if you’re a contract employee which must be a way to incentivize people to join the collective. UW is in many ways a “tech company”. They provide the U Pass and rely on public transit but they haven’t allowed buses access to campus for decades. And they were pretty hostile when it came to Link routing and station design (i.e. no underground access to the PUBLIC hospital). To be fair, I can see why they didn’t want the Triangle Garage to devolve into what Judkins Park is like.
” I’d have it slightly above Least Main at this point. Did he not notice that there is a huge Audi garage next to it that is new, not historical Auto Row. And acres and acres are taken by bus bases and the OMF. I guess that’s OK vs the Coke and Safeway industrial parcels that are largely why this area is now prime for high density development.”
What I notice is the lack of retail. The only things you can walk to are one pub and a golf-supply shop. Where’s the supermarket, drugstore, community center, library, and gym that a 15-minute city needs?
There is a supermarket coming, at 124th & 8th when that affordable complex is redeveloped someday. That’s maybe not as close to Spring Blvd as it could be.
Aren’t Coca-Cola and Safeway still using those facilities? Have they said they want to leave them?
An OMF and bus base has to be somewhere in order for transit to work. Where else in the Eastside would be a better place for them? The OMF has to be on Link.
The best place for OMF-E would have been out by Marymoor. The land was available and it’s better to have the trains staged near the end of the line. It was pure ST politics/money/graft. Safeway (actually Albertson now) has sold off a large portion of what they had. Part of it I think is still owned by Albertson is the overflow for BSD buses (the old bread plant I believe). Coke I’m sure will sell when the price is right. I think it’s just a distribution center now (truck parking) and no longer a bottling plant but I could be mistaken. That will all move to Kent. Anyway, Spring District is a sucky station because the expected development is still stalled post Covid (way too heavy on office space). No workers, no ridership, no retail. And things like a grocery store aren’t going to happen unless there is residential and there’s no center of gravity for that. Bel-Red has way more potential that’s actually being realized today. And so does Hospital Station which has jobs and retail. It’s just waiting for residential.
I toured the new Airo Amtrak on Sunday (they had publicly available ones that you had to sign up for). The train didn’t move and it only lasted 15 minutes. I read the Urbanist article and noticed a few things that weren’t in the article.
They mentioned to me that ‘eventually’ they will have reservation system for coach in addition to Business class.
Full fleet should be operational (i.e. no more Amfleets or Talgos) by end of February.
The cafe car now has some sort of oven. I think it’s something like the ‘Hornos Turbo Express’. The current trains only have microwaves.
The stairs to board the train are not nearly as steep/difficult as on the current trains.
The ‘USB’ ports at the seats are all USB-C. I don’t recall seeing any USB-A. To be clear every seat still has a full plug outlet too.
If anyone wants to book a ride on one before full rollout, supposedly when you go to book on Amtrak’s website there should be a little widget somewhere saying ‘New Train’.
Overall I was impressed with the trains. The seats are pretty comfortable and I don’t see any sidegrades/downgrades compared to the Amfleets (I’ve never been on the Talgos).
I would put them slightly ahead of the average western european passenger carriage as the seats are a bit wider.
I’m curious to find out if the ride is any smoother.
For the cafe oven – it’s actually like a ‘turbochef oven’ not one of those giant bakery oven ones that i wrote originally. Point is they now have some sort of small oven and not just a microwave.
For the curious: turbochef ovens are basically a combination microwave and air fryer. Anyone who’s gotten their sandwich toasted at Subway in the last 20 years has seen one in action.
Wait, what? there are still Talgos in service??? If so I must book a trip before they are gone.
Denver’s East Colfax Avenue BRT’s bus lane has opened. (Denver) RTD Route 15/15L has run on bus lanes now. It sounds like there isn’t a plan to rebrand the route other than just having them running on the BRT right-of-way, which is good.
I got a call from a state legislature candidate’s campaign. She asked if there were any issues I was most concerned about and I said transit, although I didn’t have anything specific I wanted done at this time. She went on about the need to help Sound Transit complete its projects. I said that with the way ST has made the projects so bad with its long downtown transfers, I didn’t want to see ST get more money, but what I do want is more support for local transit agencies, such as Metro in this area. Stop with the tight tax caps and allow the agencies to provide more frequent service.
The legislative candidate seems to adhere to the “just build the damn trains” perspective, without recognizing the opportunity costs of plowing ahead with ill-conceived plans. Sure, the public wants more trains in an abstract sort of way, and Seattle politicians are responding to that, but both groups seem to assume that if Sound Transit is simply provided with more money (including via massive borrowing), they will build a logical system that will serve the most riders and save them the most time, for the least money. But in fact, Sound Transit’s expansion plans actually seem to be doing almost the exact opposite—serving relatively few riders, not saving most people much time, and spending massive amounts to achieve this sub-par outcome. And in the process, they are sucking up all the taxing capacity, some of which could instead go to improving bus service frequency.
If this candidate ends up being elected (or whoever goes to Olympia), I hope they delve more deeply into the details. After all, Sound Transit is a creation of the state. Some governance reform and enshrining some objective metrics for cost-effectiveness in state law could work wonders over time. An example of the benefits of state-level mandates–according to the article I referred to earlier, “the law in British Columbia mandates high-rise zoning of 20 stories for SkyTrain stops, and eight to 12 stories within a short walk.” If we’re going to spend billions on this system, let’s get the most out of it…the state legislature could definitely help with this.
The station cost is one of the reasons TDLE is so expensive. Every “Fife”dom wants their own station and Parking Palace. And the whole “design” process is based around political favoritism and will never look at efficiency metrics while the current board structure exists. Why would they give away the cash cow of political favor they now control?
If the current system is so great then why don’t we replace Port of Seattle with a similar structure? Of course the answer is the Port actually matters to the regional economy and Fd’up transit is just an inconvenience.
I think too many elected officials don’t understand three things about rail transit:
Tracks are hard to change once laid. It’s not like building streets. What gets built must last for 50-150 years.
Tracks and stations must have trains that operate on them to be any good. Operating trains customers money and require maintenance too.
Because the journey outside of a train involves walking, the finer details matter — every stairstep, every yard, every sign, every passageway. Hand waving big picture stuff is just not good enough. A great rail transit regional diagram is crap when transfers are difficult and trains operate too slow — even if its next to a 40 story building!