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Bernie, it's because you don't live in North City or Bitter Lake and probably haven't taken many buses to the Intergalactic Time Sink known as Northgate Station. One-thirtieth is a natural place for a bus intercept because the buses can get really, really close to the station as they continue on their way! There's no need for loops-de-loop for buses and cars, just one for cars. Sure, one fifteen minute bus is pretty sucky service when it's interchanging with a system with five minute headways, but at least it's the outbound trip for most folks -- the one that needs...

Thank you, Al. Most folks have surrendered to ST titanic arrogance, but I remain certain that the economy is going to go SO VERY BAD in the next couple of years that the thought of building WSLE will become a bitter reminiscence. Whenever something is finally done at SoDo I would be very skeptical that anything will have to happen to Link in order to build the Lander overcrossing. Did BNSF shut down when the much longer bridge between Fourth and First was built? No, it did not. Of course there will be temporary embargoes for heavy crane operations like...

I read The Urbanist's article on Bellevue's squabble over a latent TBD and what to do with the money if it's activated. I was struck by this passage: Mariya Frost, Vice President of Government Affairs for Kemper Development Company (a member of the Bellevue Mobility Coalition), ... The company, which recently announced an intention to sell its holdings in Bellevue... Hallelujah. There is a God!

While thought provoking, it is so far in the future when Link would reach the Tacoma Mall area that the walkshed will likely look much different. Considers how different Northgate is compared to just 15 years ago. Or Downtown Bellevue or Downtown Redmond 40 years ago. Malls are just cheaply built, one story buildings surrounded by acres of parking. They area easy and cheap to demolish and redevelop. It would seem to me that it’s much harder to redevelop a residential area with lots of residential homeowners. And industrial land may have some contaminated soils. I think the 2016 political...

Interesting that he proposes going out to the Lincoln district to get to T-Mall. I hadn't thought of that. It makes sense but give budget restrains on a budget that doesn't even exist I'm still leaning toward S. Tacoma Way. That said, it's sort of a classic put the line where there is something vs put it where something "greater" could/should unfold.

"Curious, what are the giant patches of scorched earth west of the Mall that you see from the aerial view on Google Maps?" That is a past Superfund site and railroad property that has just been developed into a truly massive Bridge warehouse complex which will bring a fair amount of semi truck traffic into one of Tacoma's few walkable neighborhoods. It sits in upon our main aquifer. The community fought it. The community lost. I would very surprised if link did not reach the Tacoma Dome within 10 years. It may slip from the promised, 2028 neigh 2030-now 2035...

@Mike Thanks for the link. This is something I conceptually thought would work so I'm interested in looking though a concept that is actually thought out beyond... "when I was a young lad".

There will be no more Link garages for probably a decade. There will likely be no more anything for a decade except spending on taking land that may never get used... shades of the Monorail "plan". But there is a P&R that is underutilized... S. Kirkland. Prior to Covid that lot was parked out by 9AM or earlier. Now you can drive down mid day and it's wide open. It's a short spur to extend Link from the OMF to S. Kirkland. Of course for it to be even remotely cost effective they'd have to single track which ST seems...

I'm typically getting to Bel-Red right around 7am. Some days closer to 8am. The lot at 7am is maybe 20%. The first 3-4 rows are full. By 8am it's more like 60%. The early birds are probably leaving between 3-4PM or earlier. But there is a huge number of people using the lot that must not be regular commuters because those front rows are mostly full at 5-6pm. Of course by then people are showing up for their night in "The City". Mariners should be sponsoring ST as I'm pretty sure they got a big attendance bonus from East Link....

"Since a Link extension is highly unlikely any time this Century, what about extending T-Link?" That's what Troy Serad advocated in May 2024. It was part of a 5-part series on how to improve ST and PT services in Pierce County. It looks like there's no table of contents, so to get to the entire series you'd have to go to the Archives pages for May 2024 and June 2024. Troy suggests extending the T Line to Tacoma Mall instead of Central Link, and making other T Line improvements. I'm a big fan of his vision. But the governments aren't...

Well, people coming in at 7am will be glad it doesn't get 100% full by 9am, because that's the problem they were having before: they'd come at 7am but it would already be full, so then they'd try the P&Rs successively further out until they found a spot, and then they'd just give up on ever being able to use South Bellevue P&R.

I didn't keep the brochures from twenty years ago, but I remember how they described RapidRide and why that made me so supportive of it initially. I think the issue was they said it would be "like Swift" but they didn't elaborate that further, so that gave the impression it would be fully like Swift including limited-stop service.

"But only if there are a lot of people making that trip and there isn’t a better use for that money." People's mobility needs are absolute. They don't change based on how much money there is or what other uses there are for it. The right thing to do is to fully fund comprehensive transit; i.e., both/and. Pitting one need against another is a false choice, like saying we can have either route 60 or route 70 but not both.

So for starters none of this is relevant unless/until Link reached the T-Dome. And if that happens it will be a long time in the future; likely after I'm dead since ST is broke and now has to use money to fund operational loses. But, just because it's fun, let's play Link SODO (south of the Dome). I tend to agree that S. Tacoma Way would be the best idea for extending south. It's a lot like Bel-Red in that there are a lot of decent size parcels that are prime for redevelopment and since it's linear a light rail...

Consider the Van Ness project by SF Muni; it has center running with right side doors. In the aughts some planners penciled one out for 1st Avenue South in the context of the AWV replacement project.

Mike Orr: I do not recall much outreach or push back on the 70-7 and 48R concept; the Kubly Route 7 was quickly put into Metro Connects by Transit; it has remained there ever since. We see the delay to Link; there had been even more delay to RR.

Metro released another update the RapidRide R. https://www.theurbanist.org/despite-pushback-updated-rapidride-r-plans-include-scant-changes/ I think the stop consolidation is still too aggressive. Really, I don't see the need at all. There are maybe a few stops that could be closed (Plum) but they don't seem like a big deal to me; overall the stop spacing on the 7 looks pretty reasonable. If there is to be stop consolidation, shouldn't existing stops be moved around for better spacing?

https://www.psrc.org/our-work/centers

Though if you do want to dig in. https://www.psrc.org/media/10434

For sure, Sam. I assume that was mostly the reason behind the designation behind the RGC at the mall. There is no alternative, given how bad it would be as a transit destination. I don't even need to explore the history to be pretty confident in that assumption. It doesn't justify it, it just explains the poor reasoning. And it's both a decision and a mindset we should work hard to change, as transit advocates.

Or the travel time for a trip of over half the route’s length takes too long. But only if there are a lot of people making that trip and there isn't a better use for that money. Put it this way, which would you rather have: an express line for Aurora that runs every fifteen minutes and carries 3,000 riders or a bus on Boren (also running every fifteen minutes) that carries 10,000? The former saves an average rider five minutes. The latter saves those riders well over ten. So why even consider the former? What is true of Boren...

If I remember the schedule correctly, the old network used a trunk-and-branch model. Frequent service to Alaska Junction, splitting into two less frequent branches to Admiral and Fauntleroy. So, the restructure mostly comes down to whether the forced transfer from Admiral is worth the service upgrade to Fauntleroy. I can see arguments both ways. Of course, there are other caveats. It is hard to maintain even spacing through the trunk when you have different buses coming from different branches. And, of course, on evenings and weekends, they reduced the Admiral branch to a shuttle, leaving the 30-minute Fauntleroy branch as...

I would also just get rid of left turns in a lot of places. They did that on Denny (a long time ago) and there is a lot to be said for it. There are times that it would mean going well out of your way (given our lack of a consistent street grid) but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It’s not so much the 2-3 seconds of the interval itself, but the additional chance that the bus misses a green light farther down the street. Yes, in Chitti's essay (which Andrew referenced) he goes into that. He has a whole section about "Every Second Matter[s]".

We should just ban cars outright from 3rd (with an exemption for delivery vehicles off-peak/late night). Agreed. The cost would be minimal. No matter the case, the vast majority of traffic on 3rd is buses and there are enough buses that the delay from a leading pedestrian interval delays buses more than it needs to with basically zero safety benefits. Yeah, good point.