All posts by MartinP

In this video Reece Martin (RMTransit) talks about the rail network in Germany’s northwestern megaopolis along the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, which is similar in size and population to the Los Angeles region. The region is split into two comprehensive transit districts, and this video focuses on the northern one. A later video will look at the southern district.

The northern transit district, Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, contains the cities of Düsseldorf (pop. 644K), Essen (588K), Duisburg (495K), Bochum (386K), Wuppertal (351K), and other cities. The larger ones are the size Seattle was in the 2000s and 2010s. The southern transit district, Rhein-Sieg Verkehrsgesellschaft, contains Cologne (1 million) and Bonn (336K) among others. (Population sizes source.)

There’s a lot of heavy industry (especially in the northern part), some rural areas, and a very active and diverse music and sports scene. It even applied to host the 2032 Olympics. (It lost to Brisbane.) It’s served by regional rail and local high- and low-floor light rail systems and trams. Several of the light rail systems use a single tunnel in city centers. Reece doesn’t mention any of the many bus feeder lines and rural express buses, but he does mention other transit modes such as several hanging monorail systems (including the famous Wuppertal Schwebebahn).

While the Puget Sound region is smaller with only four major cities (Seattle, Bellevue-Redmond-Kirland, Tacoma, Everett), we have similar modes of transportation: regional rail (Sounder), light rail (Link), streetcars (Tacoma, South Lake Union, Capitol Hill) and the monorail which was supplied and built in that region, close to Cologne. The Rhine-Ruhr region decided to focus on regional rail connections between its urban centers, while we focus on light rail connections. We plan to double up our downtown tunnel, while the cities in the Rhine-Ruhr region tend to use a single tunnel or one per direction (east/west, north/south).

What other things do you see in the Rhine-Ruhr network? Or how it compares to Pugetopolis transit?

This is an open thread…

This week is all RapidRide as we review the Candidate Corridors analyzed in Metro’s recently published RapidRide Prioritization Plan.

King County Metro Corridor 1049, a potential RapidRide conversion of Route 150, was recently set as a Tier 1 priority corridor, expected to be constructed before 2039 after the current RapidRide projects are finished. Route 150 connects Kent to Seattle via Southcenter and currently averages around 4,000 weekday boardings. When it gets upgraded to RapidRide service, Metro expects a 60% ridership increase and a 22% travel time savings.

This line will be the first RapidRide line to use a freeway alignment. Currently the route follows I-5 and the SODO busway downtown. Because the busway is planned to be taken over by the West Seattle light rail line, it would need to use 4th Avenue South instead.

Continue reading “RapidRide Corridor 1049 (Route 150)”

Metro’s presentation of its new RapidRide Prioritization Plan revealed plans to resume work on RapidRide K and R. The Urbanist pointed out that King County Metro Route 7 was originally supposed to be replaced with RapidRide R by 2021 in the Levy to Move Seattle, but the project was delayed to 2024 and eventually put on hold due to budget issues. Now, the line will resume planning work next year, with opening targeted for 2031.

RapidRide R represents a major upgrade to Metro’s Route 7 that can’t come soon enough. With over 10,000 daily boardings (and growing) the 7 is the one of Seattle’s most important lines. During the pandemic its ridership didn’t drop nearly as much as other lines, and it has since almost recovered to the 2019 level.

Continue reading “Work Resumes on RapidRide R”

On Wednesday (April 24) I had a chance to talk to Claudia Balducci, King County Councilmember and Chair of the Sound Transit System Expansion Committee and former Bellevue Mayor, about the opening of the 2 Line on Saturday. As the Eastside representative on the Sound Transit Board, she spearheaded the opening of the Eastlink starter line. I thought it would be good to get her perspective on the line and share some of her thoughts (not verbatim).

Continue reading “Balducci Interview about the 2 Line”

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) recently requested feedback on their plans for the future of Amtrak Cascades service. They call it the Preliminary Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan (SDP). We (STB authors) responded:

We expect that the region will continue to grow and our airports and freeways won’t be able to handle the traffic increase. We should make sure that we don’t need flights within Cascadia. While UHSR [ultra-high speed rail] service may be nice, the California HSR made it clear what cost/effort/time it takes to do that along the West Coast. Our climate is changing and we don’t have such time and we entice travelers to switch from cars to rail asap! We propose to take a more incremental approach. Germany extended their rail network with specific upgrades and a few high-speed portions which straightened some hilly routes by using tunnels and viaducts. They did not build a whole separate infrastructure as France did. We already have a rail corridor on which we can build upon. We endorse hourly (clockface) service along the corridor as proposed in Alternative E and then make incremental improvements.

Here are some considerations for further studies:

Speed: Faster travel will increase the attractiveness of the service. 90-mph is nice, but we understand the original master agreement with BNSF called for 110-mph service. What would it take to get to 110-mph? That would make a huge difference! Can we rebuild portions where the current track has tight turns and trains need to slow down to 30-mph creating a bottleneck for both passenger and freight trains? Do we need to add tunnels in some places? (May be even reach 125-mph on new track/alignments)

Can we electrify the line to allow for better acceleration (besides reducing carbon output)? That may reduce the advantage of running express trains and avoid express service violating the clockface service.

Reliability: What efforts are necessary to maintain 95% ontime performance? Are there any portions where we need to address issues which cause delays? For example Sounder-North is often canceled, can we elevate the tracks so that runoffs don’t cause delays?

Connectivity: Can we add a Thruway service or even a gondola between Tukwila and Seatac airport to allow for quick transfer between international or long distance flights and Amtrak/Sounder?

PS: A blog post with ideas on how to improve service: There’s No Path Forward for Ultra High-Speed Rail in Washington State; We Are Better Off For It. | Transportation Matters (wordpress.com)

Seattle’s bus network used to be focused on bringing people to work downtown. As our city grew, it spread its wings across First Hill, Capitol Hill, Fremont, and the Eastside. Though Amazon was earlier in the middle of downtown, it now occupies South Lake Union (SLU) and Bellevue. While a one-seat bus ride to downtown used to be the norm, once you have more destinations to cover, it becomes more important to develop a network of interconnecting lines. Besides the frequency on the lines, the connecting points between the lines determine how easy or time-consuming the transfer is. We built transit centers to help connect lines. With light rail construction, most stations also became places where multiple bus lines would intersect. Mount Baker Station is a good example where transfers could be much better if the buses would serve the Link station more directly instead of having to walk and cross a busy road.

Continue reading “Connection Points”