Walking by Seattle Pacific University early last week, I noticed that the trolley wire extension project appeared to have been complete, yet service has not yet been proposed for extension. We’ve been covering this issue since 2012, and earlier estimates had Metro hoping to complete the project in 2014.

The passing trolley wire at SPU allows Routes 3 and 4 to extend from Queen Anne to Seattle Pacific, eliminating their vestigial residential loops atop Queen Anne. It provides legible and frequent trunk service between SPU, Queen Anne, and Downtown, and it also atones for the 2012 loss of Route 17, previously SPU’s primary downtown access. Two years ago this week we reported that Metro had funds for design and construction, and it appears to be complete. But in an email, Metro’s Jeff Switzer tells STB that the routes will not be extended to SPU until March 2017:

Metro is planning to extend the routes 3 and 4 to SPU in March 2017 and will propose this as part of its 2017-18 budget. This extension creates a more robust connection between SPU and Queen Anne and it will provide better access to comfort stations for our Operators.  Metro’s challenge has been finding the operational resources to fund this extension which roughly adds more than another full-time bus to the schedule.

Waiting another year for this minor change is mildly frustrating, but it’s good to know it’s being officially proposed. My own estimate of the operational costs for this are approximately 3,000 service hours, or roughly $500k per year. That’s a small but non-negligible outlay, and it is definitely eligible for a Prop 1-funded boost in future service changes. Let’s hope this stays on the docket for next year.

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Last week we reported that, in a bid to improve tunnel operations and ULink reliability, Route 550 would be surfaced to 4th Avenue westbound each weekday afternoon. Confirming the change, OneBusAway showed trips departing Bellevue from 2:35-5:25pm as running on the surface.

But in an email update, Sound Transit’s Bruce Gray says the agency is backing off the idea for now:

Wanted to drop you a quick note about the 550. Those inbound trips in the afternoon will not be coming out of the tunnel initially. We’re going to keep that in our pocket as an option to roll out quickly if needed to keep things running smoothly after the big [Metro] service change on the 26^th

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After three days of riding ULink, my experience has been one of nearly unqualified satisfaction, frequently bordering on jubilation. Sound Transit expertly managed the project’s construction and put together a fantastic opening weekend, and it’s not a stretch to say that the service will revolutionize my life. But one thing has already consistently disappointed, and that’s the supposed real-time arrival signage that Sound Transit is “piloting” at Capitol Hill and UW.

I’ve been watching the signs closely, and it has been immediately clear that the signs are not estimating train arrivals in real-time. There’s a bit of awkwardness inherent in trying to depict real-time arrivals, especially when travel times are dynamic due to bus/rail interaction and because ST has chosen to publish a static 8 minute schedule from Westlake to UW even though the most common duration is 6-7 minutes. Northbound trains are consistently arriving at Capitol Hill 2 minutes early due to the padding in the schedule, yet the signs always say “2 minutes” when the train is in fact already sitting on the platform. In addition, the signs nearly always display even headways of 6 or 10 minutes, betraying that they are either reflecting scheduled information or using a cruder method of real-time arrival estimation.

One possibility is that the data is being fed directly from the Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to the information signs, producing a number that estimates an arrival based upon which line segment that scheduled train currently occupies. For instance, if a train is departing Westlake, a Capitol Hill platform sign would say “4 minutes” even though the train will usually only take 2 to get there. But in cases where a train scheduled to arrive is not yet active in the system – for instance just pulling out of the OMF facility – the signs would show a gap in the schedule because the train is not yet traveling the line (see photo above).

I have an email in to Sound Transit about this issue, and will update the post with comment. But let’s hope that Sound Transit will be able to display data that riders can trust, especially now when first impressions are so crucial. Having no information (or having a 2-minute warning like the rest of the line) would likely be better than having visual data that’s often wrong.

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Zach joined KUOW host Bill Radke this afternoon on The Record to talk about ULink. The report runs 9 minutes, and Zach’s portion begins at 4:10.

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Last month’s ST3 letters had lots of requests for projects not strictly required to have a functioning rail line serving the stops the corridor concepts enumerate. Cities up and down the corridors have asked for help on station access — parking, feeder bus improvements, bike and pedestrian work and so on. A number of stakeholders came together to ask ST to prioritize affordable housing — even if it means taking less than fair market value for land. Most notably, Seattle asked for “early wins” — including bus rapid transit improvements in corridors for which rail would be a decade and a half away.

All of these projects are laudable. Moreover, attached projects are nothing new in Sound Transit’s history: widespread park-and-rides, totally rebuilt roadways on MLK and Broadway, and legal requirements surrounding TOD have all been done before, some things stretching all the way back to the beginning of Sound Transit.

But these concessions come with a cost. ST Spokesman Geoff Patrick cites a staff rule of thumb that each dollar of spending at the beginning of a package eliminates two constant dollars at the end of a package. A truly huge number of small projects could eliminate a very large one; a smaller number may delay delivery of headline projects. Overall, in a given period of time, buying projects early means we buy half as much overall.

Interestingly, Patrick added that the financial plan assumes no revenue from property sales, so concessions to housing won’t affect the package that goes before voters. However, it’s still real money that will reduce fiscal flexibility.

Depending on the project, a tradeoff like that might be worthwhile. But it’s a tradeoff that the board should make consciously, rather than viewing it as something for nothing.

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Ceremonial opening of new Husky Stadium light rail station. https://t.co/7FxrE7J1Cn #ULink2016 pic.twitter.com/Zd1yE9Qcga

— Graham Johnson (@GrahamKIRO7) March 19, 2016

It’s finally here! We’ll see you at 10am at Capitol Hill Station with Mayor Murray to kick off the public launch, and we hope you have a great time at today’s all-day party in Capitol Hill and at UW. Please share your thoughts and reflections in the comments in today’s Open Thread, and we’d love it if you’d add your photos to our Flickr pool.

We’ll be too busy having fun to do a full liveblog, but STB authors will be chiming in periodically throughout the day with photos and anecdotes about the biggest day in Seattle transit since 2009. We’ll also be tweeting from @SeaTransitBlog using hashtag #ULink2016.

And we’ll see you starting at 3pm at Charlie’s for our all-ages Launch Party!

9:00am: Here’s video of the Golden Ticket ride and UW Station opening, featuring CEO Rogoff and Executive Constantine. Immediately afterward, two 3-car trains traveled together to Capitol Hill on each track. 

Tweets by @SeaTransitBlog

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by GREG NICKELS

There are those who believe the debate over light rail in Seattle began in November, 1851 with the landing of the Denny party at Alki. Seattle Mayor Bertha Knight Landes (1926 – 1928) created a committee of businessmen to  study rapid transit. However, most point to the defeat of the 1968 and 1970 Forward Thrust bond issues as the time when mass transit became political road-kill for a generation. Seattle’s federal match went to Atlanta to build MARTA.

How far we have come. Since 2009 thirteen stations have served thousands of passengers every day (currently over 36,000 boardings a day), and we’re just getting started!  This week we celebrate the completion of stations on Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium, and soon, South 200th. This second round of station openings is a game changer. A person on Capitol Hill will be able to get to the University or Downtown in five minutes by light rail! A UW student can live in Des Moines and get to the University on LINK.

As the Sound Move package essentially completes its mission this year, I’d like to share one perspective on the prickly history of our region’s debate, its starts and stops, and the challenge of building consensus on our path to light rail.

I got involved in 1988, co-sponsoring an advisory ballot asking King County voters whether to build a light rail system to open in 2000. Nearly 70% said yes and it broke the political logjam.

After several more years of planning and the creation of the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority in 1993, the first vote to fund Mass Transit in 25 years was scheduled for a March 14, 1995 special election. In addition to Commuter Rail, the RTA plan contained a surface light rail system connecting Tacoma to Seattle, north to Lynnwood and east across Lake Washington on I-90 to Bellevue and Redmond.

That measure went down to defeat and history repeated itself – mass transit once again was treated by many politicians in Olympia and the region as political road kill.

Despite a close outcome, the votes were not evenly distributed. Seattle overwhelmingly passed the measure – but the rest of King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties voted no. Some say that Prohibition would have polled better than the RTA did in Everett. Politically it was necessary to show broad support, not just from a Seattle-dominated electorate.

Continue reading “Light Rail: A Long and Winding Road”

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Saturday’s ULink launch promises to be a hell of a party. Here’s what you need to know to have a great time celebrating a historic day for Seattle’s transit.

8-10am: Golden Ticket Ride

If you won a Golden Ticket to be on the first train from UW, check in at UW Station between 7:30-8:25am. You’ll get a golden lanyard and commemorative ORCA card with 2 weeks worth of fare loaded, and in the event of queues during the day on Link trains, the pass will allow you to skip to the front of the line. You can freely tour the station until 8:25, after which riders will head to the UW platform for an 8:45 ceremony and departure to Capitol Hill. After a 9:00 ceremony on the Capitol Hill platform, Golden Ticket riders can remain and tour Capitol Hill Station until 9:30.

10:00: ULink officially opens

Join Mayor Murray at the North Entrance to Capitol Hill Station for the official countdown, with confetti cannons and much nerdy rejoicing.

Please note that if taking transit to the festivities, agency trip planners have Link operating all day. This is a technical error. You will not be able to use Link to reach Capitol Hill or the UW until 10 a.m.

Fares and ORCA

Fares are free all day if you have the above ticket either printed out or available to show on your phone.  ORCA-to-go will be available at both stations all day, offering regular ORCA cards in addition to youth, RRFP, and ORCA Lift verifications. And this is just the beginning, as ORCA-to-Go will be serving ULink stations through April 16.

Food and Drink

Come for the trains, stay for lunch. ST will have a variety of food trucks, including Snout & Co, Moto Surf and Raney Brothers BBQ at UW Station and Athena’s, Jemil’s Big Easy, and Street Donuts at Capitol Hill Station.

In addition, you can get a taste for the Broadway Farmer’s Market’s permanent home adjacent to the station on Nagle Place. The market will host a pop-up version from 9am-5pm, with a wide variety of vendors including Nash’s Organic Produce, Tonnemaker Family Orchard, Sno Valley Mushrooms, Nature’s Last Stand, El Chito‘s, Loki Fish Co.’s, Mystic Kombucha, Miri’s Poffertjes.

Music

Sound Transit has booked 6 DJs and more than a dozen other performance artists, and they’ll be playing all day at the station concourses and mezzanines. See the full lineup here.

Game Zones

Each station will host a Game Zone with a variety of all-ages activities. UW Station will host a bicycle petting zoo (to show off unusual and unique bikes), a Build-­a-Train station, Funhouse Selfie Station, Giant Jenga, Giant Connect Four, and Chess & Checkers. Capitol Hill Station will have similar offerings (minus the bike petting zoo).

Expo Pavilion

Both stations will also have an “expo pavilion” with a series of information tents including Sound Transit’s Art , Bike, and Security programs, Cascade Bicycle Club, facepainting and temporary tattoos, Jet City Improv, and agency reps from Metro, Pronto, SDOT, Seattle Children’s, Sounders FC, WSDOT’s 520 project, the Capitol Hill Chamber, Gerdling Edlen (Capitol Hill Station’s housing developer), Seattle Central College, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, and Swedish Hospital.

The Marketplace

The “Marketplace” section at UW will host Sound Transit and nearly 100 volunteers with Transportation Choices Coalition to discuss ST3. BikeWorks will also host a bike valet with free tuneups at both stations.  At Capitol Hill, the pop-up Broadway Farmer’s Market will also be in the Marketplace section.

Afterparties

The most important part of the day, of course, is Seattle Transit Blog’s all-ages ULink Launch Party at Charlie’s from 3-5pm, with various other groups, such as the Sierra Club and Seattle Subway hosting their own parties nearby for their staff, volunteers, and activists. Start with ours before heading to theirs!

Blog Open Thread

After a morning guest piece reflecting on the long road to get to ULink, the blog will have a day-long open thread with photos, anecdotes, and more.

After #ULink2016, we’ll do this all again 5 years from now with 3 new stations for #NorthgateLink2021.

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[UPDATE: In a development inconvenient for my thesis, Save Our Trails utterly rejected the compromise proposal today, for reasons good and bad.]

If the numerous corridor studies have shown anything, it’s that a small transit capital investment in transit for Kirkland wouldn’t be a disaster for the region. Projected ridership just isn’t that high. Despite interest group pressure, Sound Transit hasn’t shown any interest in a studying the investments in dedicated right-of-way that might make Kirkland service a game-changer.

The proposed Kirkland “compromise” would have only modest transit investment in Kirkland: I-405 BRT with an added stop near downtown; and a useful, but not game-changing, BRT connection to Redmond. Omitting the Cross Kirkland Corridor (CKC) wouldn’t destroy the vision of a region connected by high-quality transit. Or rather, it won’t if doesn’t cost votes in Kirkland that bring the package below 50%. There are enough cities desperate for improvements that Sound Transit ought to find a place to spend the CKC money to yield more votes elsewhere. Indeed, even a popular Kirkland package that also spurs organized opposition from trail neighbors may yield fewer votes than the alternatives.

This is particularly the case if voters in Redmond, Bellevue, and Issaquah, who presumably would get a big investment in ST3, don’t develop an “Eastside” identity that gets prickly when “their” dollars leave East King County to help out in the 522 corridor, South Sounder, Ballard/UW, Burien, or somewhere else productive.

In truth, I’m relaxed about whatever outcome occurs in Kirkland for the reasons above. The bus advocates have some good points and the rail advocates have some good points, and the real difference between them is whether or not Sound Transit can create a good rail alignment instead of the current one. “Save Our Trail”‘s position is understandable, though (in my view) disastrous for Kirkland as a whole. I believe the Kirkland City Council sincerely thinks BRT on this corridor is best for Kirkland, and I sympathize with the idea that it’s technically superior to the current rail concept. But let’s call this newest Kirkland “compromise” what it is: not a compromise, but a plan that essentially gives “Save Our Trail” exactly what it wants: no transit on the CKC. If that weren’t enough, ST would spend $200m on trail improvements rather than high-quality transit. Whatever the merits of this as an access project, it’s also yet another carrot for trail neighbors.

The Kirkland City Council hopes planning money will commit the region to build transit there. Regardless, no funding for construction effectively kicks CKC transit into the long grass. Whether there will even be a regional ST4 package someday is a subject for another post, but the exact political forces that have changed the CKC debate from bus-rail to transit-or-not will be present the next time around. There’s no way to commit a grassroots movement to support transit at a specific point in the future, or future leaders to execute a plan that today’s leaders do not. Residents along the trail will have the exact same incentives they do today, future residents will not feel bound by deals made in 2016, and the trail will have been vehicle-free for decades instead of months. Limiting investment in Kirkland may or may not be the right thing to do, but deferring transit on the CKC is likely killing it forever.

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