Brent White on Open Thread 9I recall ST’s fleet being enough to handle demand when U-link opened. They just didn’t have enough LRVs to run 3-car trains every 6 minutes. Sure, they could have reduced frequency a little to run all 3-car trains, and spread the passengers out more evenly, but those lobbying the loudest preferred the frequency.
Brent White on Open Thread 9Lazarus, an FTE (full-time equivalent) is 40 hours per week. So, 1/10th of an FTE is 4 hours per week.
Anonymouse on Open Thread 9I'm curious how many people who comment on CT buses here (on this thread, particularly) have taken CT buses, in particular the ones discussed here (the "12" and "5" specifically). I have, though not since Northgate Link opened, so I can at least give my take on how things were in the "before" times and how the routes relate to each other. I have ridden most of the previously-to-UW routes and about a third of the 12 "to downtown" ones over the years. The 5 routes going to Northgate all went to UW before. Four of them (821, 860, 871,...
Daniel Thompson on Open Thread 9https://www.communitytransit.org/maps-and-schedules/maps-and-schedules-by-route Glenn, based on the greatest peak weekday frequency all 12 buses to Seattle if truncated at Northgate or 130th equal at most two additional four car trains per hour. For a two hour window in the am and pm. The point is Lynnwood Link can open before East Link without capacity issues, and DSTT2 isn’t really needed for capacity. Will Lynnwood Link draw car drivers who drive now to transit? I don’t know, but WS Link is estimated by ST to move 600 car drivers PER DAY to Link, and I suspect that estimate is high. Folks who take...
asdf2 on Open Thread 9On the topic of most transformational Link stations, I am quite surprised that nobody mentioned Capitol Hill. Before Link, getting to Capitol Hill on a buses was a pain. Slow buses from downtown and the U-district, transfers to said slow buses from nearly everywhere else. With Link, it's a fast ride to or from any Link station along the entire line. I myself have visited Capitol Hill far more often after Link opened than before, and anecdotally, the Link station itself seems to be among the busiest. With respect to SeaTac, yes, there was the 194 that had faster travel...
asdf2 on Open Thread 9The figure of 95% of trips being by car is an average over the entire United States, which includes rural areas, exurban areas, and parts of the country with much worse transit than what Seattle has. Within Seattle itself, I don't know what the figure is, but it's definitely not 95%. For the specific case of rush hour work commutes to downtown Seattle, SDOT has conducted surveys in that regard, and the drive alone rate is under 50%, even post pandemic. "I struggle at times with the goal of “urbanists” that feel the need to implement road diets and perpetually...
Glenn in Portland on Open Thread 9“, I think Tom’s point is Link ridership at Northgate won’t increase much when Lynnwood Link opens because those riders take CT to Northgate now and transfer. ” Which is clearly not currently the case. I will repeat again for those that didn’t read it the first time: “There are currently 12 CT expresses that go to downtown Seattle and 5 that go to Northgate. ” Clearly, the riders of the 12 express routes (plus the 510) that don’t stop at Northgate but instead continue to downtown Seattle do not, in fact, transfer to Link at Northgate. They can’t, since...
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9A train running every 3, 5, or 10 minutes will tend to attract more people over time than a bus running every 15, 20, or 30 minutes. Especially when it's immune to traffic congestion and car accidents, and it's a one-seat ride to many areas that express buses from Snohomish County don't go. Actual ridership depends on thousands of people's individual choices, so we can't say for certain what the increase will be. The people themselves may not know yet, or may not live in the area yet. And as we saw in Rainier Valley, some people who think they...
Daniel Thompson on Open Thread 9Glenn, I think Tom’s point is Link ridership at Northgate won’t increase much when Lynnwood Link opens because those riders take CT to Northgate now and transfer. Pre-pandemic some thought more people would ride Link than rode the buses Link replaced. Some like me thought total ridership would be about the same, although the ride could be better on Link depending on first/last mile access and traffic congestion including HOV lanes. I still think the latter although post pandemic the total number will be lower with WFH. No one in SnoCo decides to ride a bus or train to Seattle...
Glenn in Portland on Open Thread 9“ If people are going to use CT feeders to get to Lynnwood, they’re already using them to get to Northgate.” There are currently 12 CT expresses that go to downtown Seattle and 5 that go to Northgate. Considering how slow the peak expresses are due to the traffic on I-5, I don’t see how they would want to continue running those all the way through all that time consuming traffic. Furthermore, stuff like Edmonds to UW might become much easier, depending on the ultimate decision of the fate of the 416.
WL on Open Thread 9> The Urbanist worries that new Denny station alternatives could delay Ballard Link. It looks like they want to drop the SLU station (the one near sr 99/Mercer) and only have the Denny station. The amount of “savings” around 400 million from the station merger also seems to be the same amount required for the CID north and south plan. So it seems their solution is to just cut out another downtown station
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9Good question. Most Seattle stations are simply increasing existing trends, so there's no obvious shift from low-ridership to high-ridership. When ultra-high U-Disrict becomes ultra-higher, it looks like more of the same. Neighborhoods like Capitol Hill are the closest to New York or London, so they're getting more so with busy platforms all day. The most transformational aspect of Link is not a single station but connecting larger areas, especially Snohomish County to North Seattle. Before Link there were sometimes-frequent expresses to downtown, and to a lesser extent the U-District, but the rest of North Seattle was inaccessible. I've known several...
Tom Terrific on Open Thread 9Lazarus, just because a Link train can "carry as many people as ten buses" is far from the same as "will carry" and there's only a tiny probability that the ridership south of Northgate will increase more than a few percent. If people are going to use CT feeders to get to Lynnwood, they're already using them to get to Northgate. There may be a few "walk-up" riders from the station areas, and a few park-n-riders from Lynnwood and MLT, but not many. Basically, if Link can run on ten minute headways now it won't need five minute headways after...
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9The lack of videos is primarily because there's been one big thing after another: the Link downtown alternatives, the CID activist blowup, the Westlake busted ceiling and single-tracking, the RapidRide G restructure, the Lynnwood Link restructure, Metro's cuts in September, the East Link starter line and delays, adding a new author (Andrew Bowen), Harrell doubling down on the CCC streetcar, other open thread links, and me getting more links to ST/Metro meetings we want to mention. So all that has crowded out the videos. But when things calm down somewhat, there will be more videos again,.
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9"Rapid Transit" has multiple meanings, some more honest than others. The "rapid" part comes most commonly from high frequency, second from priority right of way, and third from wider stop spacing (anywhere from 1/4 mile minimum to 1 mile limited-stop). Some make a technological difference: Link can't be rapid transit because it's not third rail, or the Chicago L is rapid transit but an equally-frequent Metra couldn't be. And some agencies have it in their name, the "X Rapid Transit District", when there's nothing rapid at all about their network, it's just substandard bus service. In areas that have three...
Evin on Open Thread 9Daniel, I used to be someone like you who was pretty much anti-transit, as recently as five years ago. I thought the car was the best way to get around and I got mad about Seattle doing road diets on it's four lane arterials to add bike lanes. However in recent years, my opinion has completely changed on this. I did have some experience with buses in Seattle over ten years ago while I was in high school since my school (Nathan Hale HS) gave us all bus passes and so I took the bus to school for my freshman...
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9"Transit-Oriented Development" has a specific meaning that's often distorted. It means the building has been optimized for walking to the transit stop. The entrance faces the stop, the walking path is the shortest possible, and setbacks are shallow. The aesthetics are scaled to be pleasing from the sidewalk rather than just from a speeding car. TOD is usually medium/high density and mixed-use, but this is not strictly necessary,. Middle housing can be transit-oriented too. "Transit-Adjacent Development" is similar but not transit oriented. Its entrance may on another side from the bus stop. (E.g., the VA Hospital, Lowe's on Rainier, Sky...
Glenn in Portland on Open Thread 9The news item open threads are nice to have more often. The Sunday open threads were nice because of the broad range of the videos (historical, worldwide, sometimes whimsical) but also the Sunday open threads had no set topic or articles other than the video. But, I can certainly understand the lack of hours available.
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9The video links have been temporarily displaced by everything else going on. I have a backlog of videos I haven't evaluated yet. If you email the contact address, I can send you those to evaluate, and you can send us any you recommend. With the smaller number of authors and articles now, I don't think we can sustain a single video on Sundays. There's more than one worthwhile video per week, and the open threads seem work well spaced around five days apart. Or do you or others disagree?
Mike Orr on Open Thread 9"2 of these lanes are BAT lanes to give buses priority." Only in Shoreline. Seattle has a few short BAT/transit segments, but the rest of the time it's stuck in the same peak congestion as cars. BRT is supposed to be a poor man's alternative to rail for secondary corridors, so it needs full transit-priority lanes to reach its potential. Shoreline, South King County, and Snohomish County understand this. In Seattle some car-oriented business owners on Aurora have too much influence to do this.
Glenn in Portland on Open Thread 9Transformational also in the sheer number of bus driver hours saved. Can you imagine what the Metro bus route cutbacks would look like if all those 7x routes were still stuck in traffic all day?
Mike Orr on Understanding King County Metro’s Suspensions of Peak-Only RoutesRents in Bellevue are now sometimes higher than Seattle for comparable places,. The Eastside is large area so different parts are different. For $1800 with included parking, I'd guess it's a garden apartment with surface parking in a car-dependent area, with not much more than a supermarket plaza or industry nearby? Metro's reliability has gone down overall, approaching pre-2016 levels. This is mainly due to increasing congestion, which throws buses off-schedule, and the driver shortage, which leads to cancellation of runs. Metro plans to address the driver shortage in the September service change, but reducing the schedule to match driver...
Al S. on Open Thread 9The City’s traffic count data puts Aurora at over 40K average weekday vehicles. https://data.seattle.gov/Transportation/Traffic-Flow-Map-Volumes/38vd-gytv The 2019 average weekday ridership (no data for 2022 yet) is listed as 16,700. https://kingcounty.gov/~/media/depts/metro/accountability/reports/2020/system-evaluation-attachment-a
Alonso on Open Thread 9That’s a good point Al S. Aurora is a pretty dangerous street as it is for pedestrians. Since ridership is already strong, signal priority is probably not needed. Pedestrianization along stretches such as Lincton Springs are probably a better use of funds.
eddiew on Open Thread 9RR is the short-wait bus. It is low grade BRT, but BRT. WSDOT, Shoreline, Seattle, and Metro collaborated to improve its flow; the transit speed improved up until 2020 when the deep opened even though background traffic was heavier. Route 358 was better than its former network; the E Line was better than Route 358. Each provided shorter waits. The E line can be successful and Lynnwood Link can be a game changer; they will complement each other; they will be like the rails of a ladder; the local routes will be like the steps. I hope Metro focuses its...