The Rainier Valley line has been plagued by pedestrian and car accidents since it opened. The Sound Transit Board asked staff to develop a safety plan not only for Rainier Valley but also for other at-grade Link segments in SODO, on the Eastside (2 Line), and along Sounder (Lakewood). While some improvements have already been made or incorporated into the new 2 Line stations and Graham station plans, staff recently published a plan for further improvements and solicited feedback.
Why living near a freeway is bad for your health. (CityNerd) At 15:25 he mentions the Seattle Comprehensive Plan and the Roosevelt neighborhood.
Trolley buses are better than battery buses. (Alan Fisher)
This is an open thread.
75 commentsKing County Metro’s Route 44 travels inbound from Ballard to UW Station via Wallingford and the University District. Outbound trips travel in the reverse direction. In October 2024, Route 44 had 6,663 average weekday boardings.
The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.
UCLA Professor Donald Shoup (1938-2025), author of The High Cost of Free Parking, Parking and the City, and numerous articles, passed on Friday, February 7, at the age of 86. Donald Shoup was widely considered the the “father of parking reform” (Bloomberg CityLab). StreetsblogNYC gathered tributes to the man known affectionately by his graduate students as “Shoup Dogg”, a moniker he used for personal website. His work lives on in the Parking Reform Network. Hear Donald Shoup speak in a 2023 episode of The War on Cars podcast.
The most widely covered vote in Seattle, regarding how to fund Seattle’s Social Housing Developer (Prop 1A vs Prop 1B), is leaning toward Prop 1A, which would impose a new payroll tax on earners of $1 million or more annually. As of Tuesday night, King County had received just over 133,000 ballots, and counted just over 95,000 (71%). The campaigns reflected the classic business-versus-people polarity: the Prop 1A campaign was largely funded by small donations from Seattle residents (Real Change), while Prop 1B donations mostly came from large donors outside the city (The Stranger). Further, the Prop 1A campaign obtained emails revealing last-minute lobbying efforts to punt the proposition off the November ballot (PubliCola). Additional coverage by The Urbanist.
More Headlines 63 commentsIt has been several months since the RapidRide G Line opened. Along with the new bus line — arguably the region’s first BRT line — there was a restructure in the area. To get an idea of how effective the new bus line and restructure was, I decided to look into the ridership data.
Unlike Michael Smith’s outstanding series of posts, this essay does not contain stop data. It is too early for that. Instead I’ve looked at the monthly data that Metro provides on their “dashboard“. The change occurred in the middle of September, so I’ve looked at the last three months of the year. Rather than compare it to earlier in the year I’ve compared it to the same months a year earlier. This avoids some of the seasonal changes in ridership (due to things like school) that typically happen. Ridership year-over-year across Metro also went up but in this particular area it went up about twice as much.
NOTE: The original version of this post stated that Metro ridership went down system wide. This was incorrect. The error was caused by Metro not including Link data the last few months and the author not realizing that.
Continue reading “Early Assessment of RapidRide G and Restructure” | 53 commentsAn Issaquah-Ellensburg bus route would fill a hole in the transit network between Western and Eastern Washington. (The Transit Bandit) There’s already an Ellensburg-Cle Elum connector, so a new route could have a timed transfer in Cle Elum to North Bend and the Issaquah transfer hub.
This is an open thread.
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The Tacoma Dome Link Extension will add 10 miles of elevated light rail from Federal Way to Tacoma Dome. There will be four light rail stations at South Federal Way, Fife, East Tacoma/Portland Ave and Tacoma Dome. The comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is open until next Monday, February 10.
Most of the proposed alignments are along I-5 and the alternative stations have generally similar walksheds. Given the amount of information, this article will only provide an overview of the alternatives with some extra detail on South Federal Way and Tacoma Dome. Please browse the links below for more information.
Continue reading “Tacoma Dome Link Extension Draft EIS” | 119 commentsOn January 25th the West Seattle Rethink the Link group invited the public to a forum to learn about the West Seattle Link Extension, and to discuss the pros and cons of bringing light rail vs increasing bus services in West Seattle. Martin Pagel from STB was one of the panelists to offer technical details, along with Marty Westerman and John Niles offering their own perspectives. STB’s Ross Bleakney and I attended as observers, along with Mike Lindblom from the Seattle Times. Dick Falkenbury, the creator of the Seattle Monorail Project in the 1990s and 2000s, spoke briefly near the end.
This morning, the Seattle Times ($) reported Metro is testing thicker, “intrusion-proof” barriers to protect bus operators from attacks. The barriers will replace the “safety partitions” Metro built in-house and installed across its bus fleet in September 2020 to protect drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the Seattle Times notes, the use safety barriers for Metro drivers has been long-debated. However, following the tragic killing of Metro operator Shawn Yim and increasing complaints from drivers about public safety issues impacting their ability to safely operate their buses, the King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci organized a 2.5-hour forum to discuss ways to address issues with transit safety and security. Following that forum, Balducci released a statement summarizing the possible solutions, including “adding fully enclosed driver compartments to buses, like on trains and airplanes”.
Continue reading “Metro testing beefier barriers to protect bus operators” | 16 comments