Sound Transit has opened an “Online Open House” and public survey sharing updates on the Graham Street Station project, one of three infill station projects included in ST3. This latest online open house and survey closes on Friday, February 7. For an in-person experience, Sound Transit is hosting a public workshop tonight (5pm to 7pm) at the Filipino Community Center (5740 Martin Luther King Jr Way S) to “provide a space for the Graham Street community to review potential station locations, learn more about the benefits and challenges of each option, share feedback from your perspectives, and have an opportunity for dialogue.” The station is expected to help fill in the 1.6-mile gap between the Columbia City Station and Othello Station when it opens in 2031.

The survey reveals where Sound Transit is heading in regard to building the Graham Street Station, which has an estimated cost of about $118 million. Let’s take a look.

Continue reading “Narrowing the Options for Graham Street Station” | 118 comments

10 US transit project openings in 2025. (Transit Tangents) This was published December 31. A voice from Texas.

Navigating Houston on only public transit. (Transit Tangents)

The amazing transit comeback of Los Angeles. (Climate and Transit)

This is an open thread.

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Last year, Seattle voters approved the Transportation Levy, which will spend $1.55 billion on transportation projects over the next 8 years, averaging $193.75 million each year. Yesterday, SDOT announced its delivery plan for 2025, in which it expects to spend $174.8 million across the 11 Levy program areas. The plan notes that a major focus this year will be developing new programs outlined in the Levy, preparing initial Levy projects for early 2025 construction, and beginning early work on the largest capital projects which require years to develop and build.

Of the $151 million planned to be spent on “Transit Corridors and Connections” over the next 8 years, $12.6 million in projects are on the docket this year. The Transit Corridors and Connections program area includes three sub-programs: “Transit Spot Improvements”, “Transit Passenger Safety”, and “Transit Improvements and Access to Light Rail”.

Continue reading “SDOT’s Transit Projects for 2025” | 2 comments

Snow is expected this weekend, with mixed rain/snow on Saturday in downtown Seattle. Pure snow showers start early Sunday morning through Monday night, with a possible accumulation of less than half an inch every 12 hours. Tuesday through Thursday have a chance of snow showers. Lynnwood is similar. Boeing Field may get an inch Saturday evening. There’s a lot of uncertainty about how much snow there will be in the lowlands.

The National Weather Service has forecasts for each city. In each one there’s a “Forecast Discussion” link in the bottom left section with a long explanation. These are usually easy to read, although the one Friday evening is cryptic. Cliff Mass‘s weather blog has a detailed play-by-play and model images of the next few days. The Seattle Times ($) and King 5 have coverage.

Metro

King County Metro has a winter guide, a snow routes page, and the Emergency Snow Network (ESN) map. Note that Metro has three levels of service depending on the severity: regular service, snow routes, and the ESN. Some routes may be on snow routes while others are on regular service.

Continue reading “First Snow of 2025” | 36 comments

WSDOT is currently conducting an I-5 master plan study. The primary focus for the Seattle metro area involves converting HOV lanes into express toll lanes. While the current study won’t be finalized for another four years (until 2029), previous completed studies from 2010 to 2012 that provide a good starting point.

Continue reading “I-5 Toll Conversion” | 63 comments

At the future Marymoor Village Station this morning, Sound Transit announced the Downtown Redmond Link Extension will open on May 10, 2025. The opening will extend the 2 Line by 3.4 miles from its current terminus at the Redmond Technology Station to Downtown Redmond, with a stop near Marymoor Park south of the intersection of State Route 520 and Redmond Way.

The extension is mostly at-grade along State Route 520, climbing to an aerial alignment terminating in Downtown Redmond. The Marymoor Village Station is at-grade and includes a 1,400-stall parking garage, which the light rail actually passes underneath as it turns west toward Downtown Redmond.

Continue reading “Downtown Redmond Link Opening May 10” | 112 comments

WSDOT has been working on extending and completing the HOV lane system through the Puget Sound region encompassing King, Pierce, and Snohomish County. This article will provide a short recap of the existing freeway system as well as future extensions, though predominantly focusing on the HOV improvements for transit purposes.

Many of the existing HOV direct access ramps were built as part of Sound Move in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Recent I-5 and SR-16 HOV extensions throughout Tacoma will be extended on I-5 south to Lakewood.

Continue reading “WSDOT HOV Overview” | 48 comments

Planned disruptions of the Link 1 Line continue: Shuttle buses will replace train service between U District and Capitol Hill stations this weekend (Feb. 1-2). This weekend is focused on repairing the overhead wire near UW Station which was broken in October.

Transit and Streets:

• King County Metro’s Operators of the Month for November and December 2024 (Metro Matters).
• SDOT is kicking off a second phase of work using data from “smart” commercial vehicle load zones to improve curb space management (SDOT Blog).
• Predictably, the NE 130th Street Infill Station was officially named Pinehurst Station (Sound Transit). I, for one, hope “puppy dog City” sticks (reddit).
• As widely predicted, Amazon’s return-to-office mandate increased traffic; SDOT reports a 5-9% increase in vehicle counts in SLU and the Denny Triangle over January 2024 (The Seattle Times, $)
• WSDOT’s has delayed the next portion of its “Revive I-5” project (covering Downtown Seattle to Northgate) until 2026 (WSDOT Blog). The project will require temporarily closing down 2 lanes of I-5 at a time from 2026 into the 2030s, which is expected to increase delays for drivers in North Seattle. This delay means the closure will now start just after East Link opens across I-90 and doubles Link service between Downtown Seattle and Lynnwood, which may encourage more drivers to switch once the freeway closures start.
• A new study comparing videos of street scenes in NYC, Boston and Philadelphia shows urban pedestrians in 2010 walked a bit faster and socialized a lot less than in 1980 (Bloomberg CityLab).

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup” | 97 comments

Cross-platform interchanges allow much easier transfers between two lines heading in the same direction. Implementing a cross-platform interchange station at SODO station could help connect Line 1 and 3 much better. Though there are some complications to building a cross-platform interchange.

Continue reading “Improving SODO Station with Cross Platform Transfers” | 59 comments

A downtown tunnel could speed up Portland’s MAX light rail. (RMTransit)

This is an open thread.

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