On Tuesday morning, SDOT Director Greg Spotts announced his intent to resign in February from the position he’s held for just over two years:

This morning I notified Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell of my intent to resign my position effective 2/12/25.
On a personal level, moving to Seattle alone has been hard, particularly living so far away from my mother in CA and father in NY. In 2025 I will pursue professional opportunities closer to my loved ones.
I depart the Puget Sound with great enthusiasm for Seattle’s future and profound gratitude to Mayor Harrell for the opportunity to serve a dynamic, innovative and fast growing city with unlimited potential.
I’m also very thankful for the community members who welcomed me so warmly 🙏 ❤️

Greg Spotts came to Seattle after working for over a decade in transportation capital project leadership in Los Angeles. In his two years as Director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, he vastly sped up capital project delivery as the 2015 Levy to Move Seattle reached its end, making systemic changes in the City’s path toward Vision Zero by creating a new Chief Safety Officer role within SDOT and establishing No Right on Red as the default setting for any new or modified traffic signal, and maintained a public-facing focus on project delivery, often visiting project crews on weekends to highlight the fundamental work the department does.

Continue reading “SDOT Director Spotts Resigns” | 25 comments

Sound Transit:

• Sound Transit Delays 1 Line Repairs, Schedules New Disruptions in Early 2025 (The Urbanist), additional details in Light rail problems compound to delay repair of UW Station power line (The Seattle Times, $)
• West Seattle businesses get sticker shock over Link displacement (The Seattle Times, $)

Local Transit & Streets:

• King County Metro has second-fastest rider increase in U.S. (Metro Matters)
• Amtrak Cascades On Track to Deliver New Airo Trainsets in 2026 (The Urbanist)
• Transit changes are coming to south King County: Metro wants your feedback on proposed route improvements (Metro Matters). An STB article is in the works.
• The Levy to Move Seattle Era Draws to a Close (The Urbanist); “The era of transformative mobility investments is over, and the era of spot improvements is here.”
• Pioneer Square improvements support a more accessible and vibrant neighborhood (SDOT Blog)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Reform” | 117 comments

The Chinatown 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal (labeled CID-2a) station has returned as a potential implementation. Most notably it appears to be the only CID station alternative remaining that is both constructible at a reasonable cost and has all three Link lines at one convenient place for transfers. The other 5th Avenue shallow alternatives had community objections due to construction impacts, 4th Avenue shallow alternative faced construction challenges next to BNSF tracks, and finally the currently Sound Transit Board ‘preferred’ CID N/S alternative forces one to transfer at Pioneer Square.

There was relatively little discussion on the 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal alternative when all the 5th Avenue alternatives were sidelined by community concerns in 2022-2023. It’s been quite some time since the diagrams were released in 2022 and many of the diagrams were in a 100+ page pdf so below is a brief recap with more details from the WSBLE Appendix J Ballard drawings. Additionally how easy or hard to transfer between the two lines will be discussed as well.

Continue reading “Chinatown 5th Avenue Shallow Diagonal Station” | 111 comments

How The Netherlands achieves high road safety. (Build The Lanes)

We also recently covered street capacity in The Netherlands. (Not Just Bikes)

This is an open thread.

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Bellevue City Council met late November and were shown a presentation for the locally preferred alternative by King County Metro for RapidRide K route. Previous alternatives for RapidRide K around Bellevue were discussed in July 2024, while the alignments in Kirkland were mostly already decided.

Continue reading “RapidRide K Winter Updates” | 35 comments

Update Fri Dec 6, 10am: The UW station repair work is rescheduled to February 1-2, reports Mike Lindblom of the Seattle Times ($). The reason for the delay is the six new breakages since Tuesday — ST doesn’t want to risk them reappearing while trains are reduced to 22 minute frequency. Ross Arnold, ST’s chief delivery officer, mentions three possible causes for this week’s disruptions they’re investigating: (A) higher loads (higher ridership since Lynnwood Link’s opening making trains heavy), (B) overload on the electronic network after connecting the upcoming Redmond and Federal Way extensions, or (C) both the Siemens and Kinkysharo train series being out for ongoing maintenance more than expected. The original article is below.

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The Link reduction planned this weekend has been postponed. Here’s Sound Transit’s announcement:

Due to a technical systems issue on the 1 Line, the upcoming disruption scheduled on December 7 and 8 has been postponed. The work scheduled for December 7 and 8 to repair the overhead power issue at the University of Washington Station has been postponed. Online trip planners will be inaccurate between December 7 and 8 due to the postponement of this work. Information concerning the rescheduling of the overhead power work will be provided as soon as it becomes available.

Link is still having intermittent problems between SeaTac and Angle Lake like it had Tuesday, which was also covered in the Seattle Times ($). The postponement may be related to these although we don’t know.

This article will be updated if more information comes in.

News roundup links on other topics:

• Tammy Morales resigns from Seattle City Council (The Urbanist). Also in Publicola.
• T&T Asian supermaket ($) from Canada has opened in Bellevue. (Seattle Times)
• Bellevue launched an airport shuttle to Bellevue hotels. (KIRO)

This is an open thread.

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Average Ridership Per Trip

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.

Continue reading “Ridership Patterns for King County Metro Route 36” | 17 comments

The November 14 system committee largest topic was about the CID station selection. However, there were plenty of other news regarding Redmond Link Extension, East Link Extension, Tacoma Link Extension, Stride BRT and at-grade crossing improvements

The full meeting video is on YouTube note it is 2 hours long, but the main updates are in the first 10 minutes. Minutes are included in the header.

Continue reading “Sound Transit Updates November 14 and Dec 6” | 115 comments

Transit & Streets:

• Sound Transit Boardmembers Push for More Ambitious Rainier Valley Safety Plan (The Urbanist); meanwhile, the FTA is pushing for states and transit agencies to reduce at-grade collisions nationwide (Smart Cities Dive).
• Record of Decision on West Seattle Link Extension delayed (Westside Seattle)
• WA light rail users speak up with their unspoken etiquette tips (The Seattle Times, $)
• AI cameras on King County Metro buses record red lane violators (The Seattle Times, $)
• State Safety Plan Recommends Lower DUI Limit, Driver Education Reforms (The Urbanist)
• Minor changes to bus service start December 7 (Community Transit News)
• More Metro service makes traveling easier this holiday season (Metro Matters)
• Crowds, Crowding and Options for 1 Line riders (The Platform)
• What the Potential Pedestrianization of Europe’s Busiest Shopping Street Can Teach U.S. Cities (Streetsblog USA)
• This unsung form of public transportation is finally getting its due (Fast Company)
• The bike/ped bridge over SR-520 by the Montlake Lid officially opens on December 14 (WSDOT)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Etiquette” | 44 comments

A decade ago, Sound Transit hired experts to review transit modes to select the best mode for the Spine which could accommodate at-grade, elevated, and tunneled sections. It reconfirmed the decision to proceed with building a light rail network. At the time modes such as monorail and the Vancouver, BC SkyTrain were dropped as they do not work well for at-grade alignments. However, for many of the modes they considered at the time, the experts pointed out that other options may have advantages in other circumstances.

Continue reading “Ballard Link Mode Selection” | 99 comments