All posts by Troy Serad

The publishing of the Central Tacoma Link Extension (CTLE) proposal within this blog has stirred a large debate regarding how Link should properly serve the City of Tacoma over a decade from now. There was broad agreement that terminating services at Tacoma Dome Station was deeply unsatisfactory, with most commenters agreeing that a natural terminus for the regional metro system is, indeed, Downtown Tacoma.

However, among the many proponents of such an extension, there were legitimate concerns of how it would be accomplished. Where CTLE came under routine fire was on two fronts: its interaction with the existing streetcar system, and the location of the Central Tacoma Station. Although these points are addressed extensively on these pages and on other websites, they are real concerns that warrant further investigation. The CTLE surface option remains the cheapest and most cost effective manner of delivering trains into Central Tacoma. That station, even without extensive bus connections, has independent utility as a rail station in an urban core. Still, it is worthy to consider alternative alignments into Tacoma that: one, have no impacts on the existing streetcar system; two, more finely integrate Link with the existing Downtown transit corridor along Commerce Street, and; three, furthers the conversation of getting trains into the city center.

Continue reading “Alternative Link Alignments Into Downtown Tacoma: A Mapped Review”

NOTE: This post is copied in its entirety from an article I wrote. It is the latest entry of my blog, Transportation Matters.

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Do consider the lunacy of the journey foisted upon the traveling public: after riding at least 80 minutes from Capitol Hill or Downtown Seattle in order to reach Tacoma, riders must disembark Link and await an untimed streetcar transfer—for an additional 15 to 25 minutes of travel time—all to reach the UW Tacoma campus, the city’s premier museums, key bus transfers, inner-city neighborhoods, and the workplaces of the downtown. To any reasonable person unfamiliar with the current rail arrangement in Tacoma, this would be deeply illogical rail planning. And yet this will be the Tacoma rail transit future, the consequence of early 1990s urban planning for a then-stricken community, financed in 2016 for a city on the rebound, and not opening until ±2032 to service a city that has since been utterly remade.

Sound Transit should strongly consider extending Link Light Rail into Central Tacoma. The agency should be advancing such an alignment not only because it makes the most sense from a community and transit-planning perspective, but also because rail investments of this sort clearly have a dramatic impact on their adjacent neighborhoods. Tacoma is primed to accept new urban development and continue to grow into a regional urban showcase—as long as the rail facilities are provided.

Continue reading “If Link to Tacoma Must Be Built, Do It Right: Send Trains Into the City Center”

NOTE: This post is copied in its entirety from an article I wrote, titled With Major Revisions, the SPIRE Plan Becomes Our Region’s Surest Best for Express Rail Service: A Mapped, Annotated Update. It is the latest entry of my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.

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For over a decade now, and principally advanced by the November 2016 election, the majority of voters within Sound Transit’s taxing district have committed themselves to the extension of the Link light rail line from Seattle to Puyallup Avenue in Tacoma. The resurrection-in-spirit of the old interurban line of the Puget Sound Electric Railway, which dutifully linked the two cities between 1902 and 1928, manifested itself through a number of factors: the anguish over limited mobility options between the two cities; increasing congestion and delay; the failure to prioritize bus transit on existing roadways; environmental concerns, and; the pro-transit pull of our region’s growing urban cores. By 2030, a passenger-friendly rail system should again bridge that divide in a manner that no system has since the termination of interurban services nearly 89 years ago. Whatever one may feel regarding ST3, compliments to Sound Transit for this rather extraordinary achievement.

In a high-tech, fast paced region like the Puget Sound, however, the ±70 minute travel times between the two cities will eventually prove unsatisfactory; indeed, the primitive interurban had precisely 70 minute trip times scheduled, too, including padding, for their express services in 1922 (a separate, undated timecard details 65 to 75 minute express services). Damningly, this was achieved on a notably longer pioneer alignment that began on Occidental Avenue in Pioneer Square and ended not on Puyallup Avenue in Tacoma, but near old city hall in the crowded central business district. Though our ST3 rail investment will spur growth and positively affect the geography of the region, we are paying an enormous sum of money to establish transit services that are roughly comparable to those conceived in the late 19th century, constructed in the early 20th, and dismantled a few decades thereafter.

The SPIRE rail modernization plan was initially a 2015 reaction to the numerous technical criticisms of the Link extension toward Tacoma. It was a proposal that conveyed a potent message: despite the price and the press, Sound Transit’s multi-billion dollar rail plan was neither the visionary nor intelligent plan needed. Unfortunately, the SPIRE’s best mechanism for financing died with the passage of ST3, considering the core of its alignment rests entirely within the taxing district, and the existing services utilizing its right-of-way for their operations are already wildly popular. In the future, with rail service between Commencement and Elliott bays underway and Sound Transit largely working to pay down huge debts, it seems unlikely that a majority of voters would agree to a major upgrade of rail services on the heavy rail mainlines parallel to the Link corridor.

Consequently, the future genesis of the SPIRE plan will likely have to come in the shape of rail investments in the Cascades corridor to Portland, Oregon, representing a multi-state and/or federal effort to deliver quality express services to the region. Such an effort will be mandatory, in fact, should we ever insist on regional trains that travel at speeds swifter than 90mph (145kmh). That figure is the strict BNSF speed cap for passenger trains, with or without positive train control (PTC). Now, with the following improvements rendering the plan even more rational and executable, the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia core of any higher speed rail project would almost certainly be the SPIRE line proposed here. Alternative alignments would cost billions more and require a dismaying planning process, the entirety of it vulnerable to collapse due to local politics and eminent domain battles.

SPIRE PLAN MODIFICATIONS

When originally proposed by this blog, the SPIRE plan was to feature routine operating speeds of 125mph (200kmh) on largely tangent track between Tacoma and Seattle, with antiquated curves widened to a minimum 6235ft (1900m) accordingly. However, multiple issues arose from this choice: grade crossings were required by law to be eliminated, raising costs dramatically; numerous homes, or even neighborhoods, were destroyed for some curve improvements; the speeds were unrealistically high for corridor commuter trains and had no real impact on lowering travel times, and; it failed to take advantage of higher equilibrium cants, in essence the sum of the tilt of the rails and the distance value of how fast a train can travel around curves before distress. The higher speed was a benefit to express travelers, though. Unfortunately, express trains were never meant to be the focus of the SPIRE plan.

Modifications, which are presented below, lower the maximum speed to 100mph (160kmh) on track with 10in (254mm) of equilibrium cant, or 110mph (175kmh) on 12in (304.8mm). To accommodate these speeds, curves are widened to a far more sympathetic 3935ft (1200m), sparing numerous homes, businesses and streets from condemnation and destruction. On the express track from Auburn to Tukwila, and on the new passenger-dedicated tracks from Tukwila to Georgetown, top speeds may remain at their original 125mph (200kmh) cap should investments be made to eliminate or avoid grade crossings on those stretches. As this blog has argued before, grade crossing elimination should be a safety priority for the region whether-or-not the SPIRE plan is realized, especially in the valley cities of Kent, Auburn, Sumner and Puyallup.

The speed update to the SPIRE plan allows for a piecemeal grade separation of the corridor—if at all—as the lower speeds no longer legally compel such a separation. While this does substantially lower the cost and complication of the project, it allows for the nuisance of approaching train horns to continue largely unabated.

This SPIRE update also includes a dramatically more precise measurement of rights-of-way based on technical standards from the California High Speed Rail Authority, BNSF, Deutsche Bahn, the Israeli Railways, LTD., amongst others. Elevation contours provided by the city of Seattle, and Pierce and King counties, also were useful in determining the location of critical civil works. This provides us further confidence in the strong technical feasibility of the SPIRE plan, for both the passenger and freight corridors. Roughly all prominent physical features along the railroad rights-of-way, with the exception of utilities, are now identified based on their likely impact.

Additional modifications concern new research and awareness into specific planning issues:

1) The Stampede Pass rail link to the freight corridor is now achieved via graded fill and bridges, rather than trenching. Geotechnical issues related to the water table precluded trenching, as did impacts to adjacent roadways and bridges (pg. 15).

2) A lengthy tunnel is no longer supported though Tacoma; instead, the current alignment is improved with widened curves, affecting some local streets while avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars on civil works under a busy urban zone (pg. 27).

3) Highway columns, especially on the new I-5 Puyallup River Bridge, were incorporated into the project and considered during the design. While some curves were altered to circumvent these columns, it is presumed on other, smaller bridges that steel would provide a means to relocate errant columns. On other bridges, still, a rebuild would likely be cogent due to end-of-life estimations (pg. 26).

4) A new alignment is proposed between Tacoma and Puyallup that roughly parallels the existing BNSF right-of-way. While the new alignment does include a modest tunnel, it avoids the evisceration of a neighborhood and spares numerous additional structures on tribal land. The alternative alignment remains in the SPIRE plan maps for consideration (pgs. 22, 25).

5) Near Olympia and Lacey, the Woodland Trail alignment was selected as the preferred option of accessing the center of Olympia, having proven incredibly amenable to express rail infrastructure using 1200m curves. It is now, by far, the best route to serve the people of the south Puget Sound (pgs. 37-41).

6) In Olympia, competitor siting options for the station were discarded for the location along Legion Way. It is far less disruptive than the alternatives, allows for UPRR to continue to access the Olympia port on their operational cargo line, and provides a fine location near both the city center and the capitol (pg. 47).

7) In the Nisqually Valley area, great pains were taken to avoid the destruction of hamlets and farms, all-the-while preserving 200kmh (125mph) speeds that support a high-speed link to Portland, Ore. The interchange from the SPIRE line to a central Washington high-speed line will probably be made in this rural area (pgs. 35-38).

8) Though the map represents a right-of-way capable of accommodating three tracks, the freight corridor is no longer presumed to be triple-track from the outset, but double. While the SPIRE plan will preserve enough space to allow for three mainline tracks on the entirety of the corridor, current daily freight train totals on the UPRR and BNSF do not warrant three active tracks. Only alongside the rail yards in Fife, Auburn and the Tukwila area can we presume that three main tracks will be useful at this time.

9) Now depicted on the maps are the recently constructed third main lines on the BNSF corridor between Auburn and Tukwila, with the intentional gap through Kent (the railroad has had difficulty acquiring property through the area, and it would further require destruction of Kent Station facilities to accommodate the third track). Should the Seattle to Portland passenger rail link be constructed, this section would need the third track to support express services. A third track would also be required south of Tacoma, though the location is undetermined and dependent on currently uncalculated timetable work. This work is underway and the maps will be updated accordingly.

10) A challenging stretch of right-of-way between Tukwila and SODO has been refined to avoid numerous structures, and now incorporates previously unaccounted-for civil works. Tweaks in the alignment have improved the line’s feasibility (pgs. 2-7).

11) Fort Lewis Station has since become Dupont / Fort Lewis Station, having been moved away from the Fort Lewis main gate and toward a more sensible location near Dupont and the fort’s Clark Road gate (pg. 34).

12) The north arrow is now facing up, mercifully.

These improvements, as well as the precision updates to track geometry, will allow us to better understand the impacts of the intelligent SPIRE proposal on our region. Furthermore, simple budgets and timetable string graphs are now able to be completed, providing us a much clearer picture of how transformational these rail services would be on our mobility and urban geography.

From here, I’ll let my plan speak for itself. I welcome scrutiny and constructive criticism.

NOTE: This post is copied in its entirety from an article I wrote, titled The Upgrading of Our Regional Rail System Is Now Called the SPIRE Plan. It is the latest entry of my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.

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In an effort to consolidate the many critical pieces of the Seattle-Tacoma (-Olympia) rail modernization project into one digestible concept for the public, I would like to introduce some helpful branding into the conversation: the SPIRE Plan.

It is an acronym for Seattle, Puget Sound, Intercity Railway Express. It is a vision for a rail based future that invigorates both our economy and our population.

For those within Sound Transit’s taxing authority—especially those living south of Seattle and who are dedicated to improving transportation options in a systematic, meaningful manner—the SPIRE plan is the mechanism through which our transportation ground game is revolutionized.

The SPIRE plan is the reorganization and enhancement of our local rail infrastructure that, incredibly(!), already exists. It would serve historic communities like Kent and Puyallup, cities with good urban bones, all of which are primed for new infill development and additional residents.

With up to 350 daily passenger trains at full build-out between Seattle and Tacoma, traveling safely at maximum speeds of 120mph, the social geography of the Puget Sound would be forever altered in powerful, transformational ways. Additionally, it places higher speed rail service to central Olympia directly at our fingertips, and it accomplishes this through a logical exploitation of existing resources. Key to the plan’s success is the diversion of all freight trains to an adjacent and parallel railroad line, thereby streamlining heavy freight operations into and out of our major ports and urban areas.

The SPIRE plan is absolutely doable, politically and technically, but only when we make the responsible planning, legislative, and funding choices that pave the way toward its realization.

By comparison, the planned Link light rail extension into Tacoma is the epitome of planned obsolescence. Not only does it build redundant rail infrastructure to poorly considered stations in low density auto-sprawl areas, it endangers actual quality plans with more deliverable timeframes, and which possess far more potential to positively affect regional mobility.

The SPIRE plan is one such proposal, a no-brainer commitment to incrementally upgrade our rail network to a world class standard, and which is fed riders by a suburban bus rapid transit system that stretches into the hinterland.  Ultimately, we could tie a region together via swift, reliable, high-capacity transportation. We could construct a passenger rail spine that is truly worthy of financial capital, political capital, and our collective admiration.

Do you want swift, electric, frequent, and reliable passenger trains serving Seattle, Tacoma and beyond? Do you agree that our freight railways are an integral part of our transportation system? Do you wish to protect our cities by diverting dangerous freight cargoes away from their city centers? Do you want to eliminate every dangerous and traffic-plagued railroad crossing from our regional map?

If so, only one proposal could ever deliver those transformation results.

That proposal is the SPIRE plan.

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NOTE: This post is copied in its entirety from an article I wrote, titled The Seven Phases to a World Class Regional Rail System, Sketched.  It is the latest entry of my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics.

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On the precipice of a major vote to determine if Sound Transit 3 (ST3) is a proposition deserving of passage, it is of immense value to consider Seattle’s history of mass transit excellence. Indeed, once before has the Puget Sound region itself been a supreme example of transit interconnectedness, and of rail transit in particular.

That period ended decisively by the 1940s, with transit companies overcome by government subsidies for new highways, ignored in favor of the popular demand for private vehicles, and, in some cases, collapsing due to poor management in dealing with the fallout of these fatal trends. Shortly thereafter, the epoch of express freeways and urban sprawl took hold with the same ferocity that shook most other American cities, commencing an urban-to-suburban transition whose consequences are those that ST3 is striving to remedy. Nonetheless, the foundation of our modern urban arrangement is almost exclusively thanks to those early rail backbones.

With that being the case, are we taking cues from our “pre-modern” transportation networks as we attempt to reconnect these very same spaces, or exploring ways in which we can revive the best components of the historic regional system?

The answer to those questions is sort of.

Sound Transit has designed a plan to reconnect our most populous cities together with rail transit, echoing the spirit of the original transit backbone from the last century. However, the emphasis on a Seattle to Tacoma light rail spine that is shifted uphill to the west from the valley floor cities of Kent, Auburn and Puyallup, previously the focus of every rail spine from our past, and for good reason, is a deviation that violates sensible planning principles (review maps here, here, and here).

The proposal for dedicated freight and passengers corridors that is proposed by this blog (1,2), easily the most intelligent scheme for the movement of people and goods in the Seattle-Tacoma area, is totally ignored by ST3. Even casual upgrades to Sounder commuter rail services, which ultimately would benefit a realized corridor modernization program, are hidden away on the margins of the proposition and obfuscated by uncertain plans and a lack of clear objectives. While the bare-bones Sounder service is wildly popular and growing in demand, it plays second fiddle in every regard to the light rail line that is to be extended to its west through Federal Way to Tacoma, serving sprawling suburbs on its way toward a city already connected by the Sounder line, and promising to cannibalize commuter rail ridership and funding.

Are these city’s residents deserving of high quality transit anymore than those in Puyallup, Auburn, Sumner and Kent? Is it wise to commit billions of dollars toward the automobile oriented suburbs of Federal Way and elsewhere along a brand new light railroad, as opposed to the historic and urbanized cores which adorn a heavy railroad that has existed for over a century?

Detractors of this plan raise the specter of difficult negotiations with BNSF and UPRR railways as evidence of it being unrealistic. This is a flawed perspective. ST3’s $54 billion package of sprawl inducing light rail extensions will itself be an unrealistic plan should voters have it meet its deathbed come November. Proposals are only as realistic as the institutional forces proposing them. This rail project has neither had the privilege of publicity nor debate that even much inferior ideas have been generously afforded. And while the political nature of this plan is a real obstacle to its realization, let us not forget the established precedent:

1. Of the 173 miles of railroad between Seattle and Vancouver, Washington, 85% of the corridor is already shared by both BNSF and UPRR cargo trains, with the remaining 15% of the route being the minor portion of mainline this blog suggests utilizing for the benefit of the modernization proposal. In fact, the two railroads would share the entire corridor were it not for a historical anomaly, the construction of the Milwaukee Road railroad, whose 1977 bankruptcy saw the partner UPRR acquiring its Seattle-Tacoma area mainline. For the two railroads today, joint operations are not an issue, particularly in our cooperative region. Indeed, in times of operational distress, both railroad companies have operated trains on the competitor line within the Seattle-Tacoma area.
2. BNSF and Union Pacific have also already benefited from new infrastructure that consolidates rail lines and requires joint operations,  most notably in the Los Angeles area with the Alameda Corridor. This is a triple-tracked freight corridor that bears striking resemblance in conception to the freight dedicated corridor proposed by this blog. Unlike in congested Los Angeles, the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way of Seattle, the underutilized mainline that would be improved and dedicated for freight train movements, is mercifully wide and rural. It would not require any trenching or massive civil works, dramatically lowering cost and expediting delivery timeframes.
3. BNSF and UPRR make business decisions that are in their self interest. A freight dedicated transportation corridor built specifically to transmit their goods in a timely and efficient manner, in an area congested by passenger trains, makes tremendous sense, especially if it preserves current operations and eradicates every grade crossing, raising speeds. It also removes coal and other toxins, flammables and obnoxious cargos from the city centers of Puyallup, Sumner, Auburn and Kent, while removing legal requirements to blast locomotive horns (in the absence of crossings). In this scenario everyone wins, and the public benefits with faster, more efficient, quieter, and safer railroad operations, as well as more livable communities.
4. The heavy railroad lines are already laid out, serving real communities that also seek innovative and legitimate transportation solutions, unlike the suburban hubs that have summarily rejected the most logical light rail alignments (here, and here). With publicity and support for this plan, certainly the mayors and residents of valley floor cities would hear the clarion call for improved regional passenger services, cultivating in a drumbeat of support that excites people from Tacoma to Tukwila, and possibly even Georgetown. However, it is hard to be enthused about dinner when the meal you desire is not an option on the menu. That must change.

For those not familiar with the basics of the plan, please review here:

Map 1: “Before and After“, a quick summary of the proposal.

Beyond the transformational benefits listed above, and before in previous postings, another critical benefit to an upgrade to the BNSF and UPRR corridors, as opposed to the Link light rail spine proposed by Sound Transit, is scalability. For all the aspirations of creating urban villages between Seattle and Tacoma, all-the-while urbanized cores languish underserved a short distance away, there is no guarantee that any meaningful urbanization of Federal Way or on the margins of Kent will ever come to fruition. At least, certainly not approaching any level of investment to justify multi-billion dollar light rail lines.

Why is this problematic? It is worthy of concern because, unlike the Sounder program, where trains can be added and deleted when necessary, and infrastructure improved in a piecemeal fashion for substantial service improvements, once Link is constructed there will immediately exist a high capacity rail transit line capable of few minute headways. Does Federal Way or low-density King and Pierce County need such levels service, especially in the context of their poor financial commitments to their local transit providers, or their lack of desire to realize a more consistently urbanized form?

Indeed, unlike the Link scheme, the rail modernization proposal is innately scalable, easily broken down into component projects to be constructed as soon as the public is ready for the next upgrade to service quality. Each constructed component will dramatically improve the performance of the railroad, and do so in responsible “bite-size” construction programs and budgets.

Map 2: “The Seven Phases“, an overview of component pieces that build the project.

When our region is ready for a system that moves people quickly and effectively, which embraces historic cities that are welcoming growth in a responsible manner, and which adheres to the ideals of conservatism and modesty that formed the backbone of the 1996 Sound Move program (see page 5), Sound Transit’s foundational legislation, the Seattle-Tacoma railroad modernization program awaits. Our historic railroad spine should once again fulfil its role as the south Puget Sound’s critical agent of mobility.