Photo by “Beast Mode” AVGeekJoe / flickr

Link Light Rail had its busiest year by far in 2016, and saw its largest ridership growth ever, with ridership growth surpassing the original year’s ridership for similar periods of time, counting from the opening of University of Washington Station and Capitol Hill Station. It is still settling into its new routine after the opening of Angle Lake Station in late September.

Calls continue for running 3-car trains as much as possible, to deal with occasional but frequent crushloads. Having only three-car trains could probably be done, at the same scheduled headway, at great expense, and possibly messing up some plans for what happens after the buses get kicked out of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in the next few years (as, once ST rolls out service, frequency, or capacity, it is loathe to undo it later).

Today, I’ll offer some suggestions to improve Link operations that can be done regardless of the 2- or 3-car train debate. The first four impact what will be in the printed schedule that comes out in March.

1. Remove the minute of padding in the schedule at SeaTac Airport Station. It does not take four minutes to get there from Angle Lake Station or from Tukwila International Boulevard Station. We have the video evidence that ALS to SAS can be done in 2:45. Nor does it always take at least a minute for passengers with luggage to board or deboard. Thanks to the schedule padding at SAS, operators often have to wait half a minute or more after everyone boards before the scheduled departure time allows them to proceed. Some operators keep the doors open, and some keep the doors shut, while waiting for the departure time. If drivers could save half a minute each way at SAS, that would be another minute of break they could get. Continue reading “Micro-Fixes for Link Ops”

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This afternoon, the Sound Transit Board’s Operations & Administration Committee will take up a contract proposal with Impact Recovery Systems, Inc. to install between-car barriers on the platforms of Link Light Rail stations. Impact Recovery Systems has a long resume of transit agency customers that have paid them to install various between-car barriers, including chains and other materials attached between cars, and the tightly-spaced series of poles that have become the cutting-edge technology in the field.

There have been several high-profile cases of blind riders walking off light rail and subway platforms between train cars, and then getting run over. Most recently was one in DC, resulting in DC Metro installing chains between cars. LA Metro, St. Louis MetroLink, and the “T” in Pittsburgh use the between-car platform barriers.

The barriers will be installed first in the twelve stations outside the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, as there are no operational issues in the way. That installation is expected to be complete by the end of March.

The contract includes purchase of enough barriers for the DSTT stations, but installation might not happen until the buses leave the DSTT permanently, per Kimberly Reason, Sound Transit spokesperson. A stakeholders group is working to find a way to install barriers in the DSTT without negatively impacting bus operations.

Currently, it is the job of DSTT security staff to assist vision-challenged riders. King County Metro also provides free travel training for various categories of riders with disabilities.

While the stakeholders deliberate, platform floor arrows are planned for installation in Westlake Station, and then possibly the other 3 DSTT stations, showing where the train doors will be. The floor arrows would then be removed once joint operations ends.

I asked Reason whether shifting all the southbound buses to Bay C, the forward-most bay on the southbound platforms, could enable the barriers to work in the DSTT. Per Reason, that would risk restricting the flow of buses as well as trains in/through the DSTT.

As is the case with many features used to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, there are positive spin-off effects for the general population. Riders would be able to see where the break is between the second and third car, and cluster there where they are in position to board whichever car is rear-most. This would help to spread out passengers, make better use of capacity, and speed up boarding.

The ST Operations & Administration Committee meets at 1 pm in the Ruth Fisher Boardroom at Union Station.

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• Making Northgate vibrant.
• Why is American infrastructure so expensive?
• Taking a page from the DC Metro, Sound Transit bought atrocious escalators.
• Sound Transit has always owned the Mercer Island P&R, but apparently some Islanders would like to buy it. If a reasonable price, ST should absolutely sell it to them.
• Amazon buys land for yet another tower.
• Driving alone is declining for large Seattle employers.
• If you liked my state legislator rant on last week’s podcast, you’ll like Yglesias saying that obsessing about the presidency is weird (at 42:00)
• TriMet gets a new director of transportation.

Catching up with Human Transit:

• Jarrett Walker explains when ferries work.
• Farewell to USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx.
• Doing stuff fast and reversibly is good practice, and the opposite of what we do in Seattle.
• And finally, Walker consolidates his thoughts on Uber.

This is an open thread.

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Limping into the playoffs but happy to be playing at home, the Seahawks play the Detroit Lions on Saturday at 5:15pm at CenturyLink field. Sound Transit announced last night that Sounder will serve the games with a typical service of 2 trains from Lakewood, 2 from Everett, and 1 from Sumner.

The first South Line train will run local service from Lakewood-Puyallup and then express to King Street, the second train will originate in Sumner making all stops, and the 3rd train will operate all stops from Lakewood.

The two North Line trains will be scheduled 15 minutes apart, with 2:15 and 2:30pm departures from Everett.

All 5 trains will arrive well before kickoff during the 3:00 hour, and will depart after the game in staggered slots, with South Line trains leaving 10, 20, and 40 minutes after the final whistle, and North Line trains leaving 15 and 35 minutes afterward. Standard fares of $3.75-$5.75 apply, and unlike Metro’s cash shuttles (which will not operate) all ORCA pass products are accepted.

Even if you’re not a sportsball fan, there’s nothing stopping you from using these trains opportunistically as weekend Sounder service. One thing I like to do on days like these is take Sound Transit 578 to Puyallup, ride the Foothills Trail to South Prairie, and return in time to catch the express train back to Seattle. Any suburban folks wanting a Saturday day trip to Seattle have a tailor made 5-hour window for errands or entertainment. Just expect large, blue-green crowds :)

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Back in August we wrote about Sound Transit and Metro adding cell service to the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) by the end of 2016. Well it’s January 3rd, and there is still no service from Westlake to International District. When asked about the delay, Sound Transit gave a relatively cryptic response, indicating an unspecified delay of 1-4 months, with a new goal of “early 2017” for the DSTT and “late 2017” for Beacon Hill:

DSTT tunnel installation (Westlake to International District) is now at 95% completion; target for DSTT install completion and commissioning: early 2017. Once cellular service in the DSTT is up and running, construction for the Beacon Hill tunnels will begin, with completion and service startup at/through Beacon Hill targeted for late 2017. Note these timelines are contingent on available construction/installation resources. As the team continues making progress on installation, we’ll communicate more specific timelines to riders.

When pressed for a reason for the delay, Sound Transit then indicated that labor issues as the culprit:

We only have a couple of hours in the tunnels at time, so the length of time crews can work in the tunnel is limited. Also, IT is juggling multiple project priorities with limited staff. That said, given time and resource limitations, the team is making steady progress. (emphases mine)

Without further specifics, readers are left to speculate. The delay may be related to interagency inefficiencies, as a private vendor and a public agency (Sound Transit) are installing infrastructure in another agency’s tunnel (Metro). Perhaps this is presenting challenges relating to staffing and labor agreements? Another possibility is an unspecified technical problem that Sound Transit would rather not share publicly?

Whatever the reality, the wait isn’t expected to be too much longer (except for those at Beacon Hill). You should be able to check OneBusAway or swipe right on Tinder by the time spring rolls around.

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2017 will be a much quieter year than 2016 for transit in greater Puget Sound. After opening 3 new Link stations in 2016 and nearly doubling ridership, 2017 begins the first of 4-5 years without major service additions. September will bring two more Sounder roundtrips, but that’s about it.

Sound Transit

Though less public facing than station openings, 2017 will be a year of exceptional intensity for Link construction, and for Sound Transit as a whole. Roosevelt and UDistrict Stations will break ground sometime in Q1, South Bellevue and Overlake P&R will close in Q1, the I-90 express lanes will close to cars in June, two-way HOV lanes will extend from Seattle to Bellevue, and East Link construction will begin in earnest in South Bellevue, Downtown Bellevue, Bel-Red, and Overlake.

Lynnwood Link should complete its design by the latter half of 2017, in time for a 2018 groundbreaking.  And with a new $54B mandate to extend high capacity transit regionwide, Sound Transit will begin staffing up for ST3 project development.

Originally scheduled for the end of 2016 but apparently delayed, cell and data service should extend throughout the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT) early this year and Beacon Hill Station in late 2017 (more info tomorrow about this).

Your ST3 taxes will also begin collection, in 3 phases. ST3’s property tax hike begins today ($0.25/$1000 assessed), the 0.8% Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) begins in March, and the sales tax bump begins in April. Seattle’s new sales tax rate will be 10.1%, and areas within both the Community Transit and Sound Transit service areas will collect 10.4%.

Metro

Continue reading “What to Look for in 2017”

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One day, all these cranes will be gone. And I will miss them.

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With over 600 articles, tens of thousands of comments, and millions of page views, you kept us busy in 2016. Here are the Top 10 Most Commented and Most Read Posts of 2016. You may notice a theme here. Was there a big ballot measure or something?

Top 10 Most Commented Posts of 2016

1.  Sound Transit 3: Meet Your 25-Year Transit Expansion Package (Zach): 513 Comments, March 24. The second highest comment total ever for STB, this post captured the initial burst of reactions when the ST3 package was first released.

2. How to Fix ST3 So Seattle Will Vote for It (Seattle Subway): 315 Comments, March 31. A week after ST3’s release, Seattle Subway asked for the moon and ended up mostly getting it. Always good comment fodder.

Continue reading “Top 10 Most Read and Commented Posts of 2016”

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