Incremental upgrades to Amtrak Cascades would have a lot of benefits, including for Sounder, the Coast Starlight, and the Empire Builder. It could be done faster and cheaper than ultra high-speed rail, as Reece Martin (RMTransit) argues in a Pacific Northwest video:

Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia have been looking at a new ultra high-speed rail corridor. The Biden administration just provided funding to plan it in more detail as the Urbanist reported. But it will take far more funding and time to build it.

As reported earlier (The Future of Amtrak Cascades), WSDOT published last June the latest version of the Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan (2024) providing a detailed analysis of service options, needed capital improvements, costs, and a phased implementation plan. The possibilities for expanding Amtrak service both in frequency and speed are exciting.

Continue reading “Amtrak Cascades’ Potential” | 100 comments

India’s cities have a few metros, a small and shrinking number of buses — and lots of cars, two-wheelers, and rickshaws. The crisis in India’s transit. (The Quint)

The video uses the Indian number units lakh (=100,000) and crore (=100 lakh or 10 million). These can be rupees, people, or anything. A rupee is worth 1.2 cents. Metro fares for a 5-day work commute are 3,600 rupees/month ($42) based on the report at 12:13, which is out of reach for most residents (more than 10% of income).

This is an open thread.

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Link 1 Line winter reductions start today through February 27 for a variety of maintenance tasks, as outlined in the December 5 Passenger Impact report and covered in the Urbanist, and the Seattle Times ($).

Overview

• Reduced 1 Line Evening Service: starting at 5:30 pm trains will run every 12 minutes (instead of 8-10 minutes). Note that this includes part of the PM peak.
• Jan 10 (Fri 10 pm) to Jan 12 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Westlake
• Jan 17 (Fri 10 pm) to Jan 19 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill
• Feb 1 (Sat) and Feb 2 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from Capitol Hill to U-District
• Feb 14 (Fri 10 pm) to Feb 16 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill
• Feb 21 (Fri 10 pm) to Feb 23 (Sun): Shuttle buses replace train service from SODO to Capitol Hill

Continue reading “January-February Link Reductions” | 25 comments

This year saw a handful of new writers join STB’s staff and a few excellent serial posts sparking good discussion. In the transit world, we saw the opening of the RapidRide G Line, the Link 2 Line Starter Line, the Lynnwood Link Extension, bus restructures in King and Snohomish Counties, and continued rebound in ridership from the lows of 2020. Let’s look back at the Top 10 Most Read (by pageviews) and Most Commented posts of 2024.

Continue reading “Most read & commented STB posts of 2024” | 69 comments

Transit & Streets:

• The bus lanes on Aurora will be enforced 24/7 while WSDOT works on repaving I-5 from Downtown to Northgate from 2025-2027 (The Urbanist)
• Bus operator and writer Nathan Vass comments on the killing of Shawn Yim and transit safety (The Urbanist). Meanwhile, the Seattle Times ($) details how a Metro driver helped identify the murder suspect.
• View your ridership patterns with the new “ORCA Wrapped” feature (The Seattle Times, $)
• As the major repaving project on the Ballard Bridge wraps up, the Route 40 TPMC project is gearing up to work in Fremont and Westlake (My Ballard)
• Metro’s ADA Transition Plan is accepting comments until January 10 (King County Metro)
• After Proterra’s bankruptcy last year left few options for battery bus makers, Metro has contracted with European bus builder Solaris to buy up to 16 zero-emission buses, which is apparently enough to motivate starting production stateside. Discussion of a related article in The Urbanist started in a previous Open Thread.
• Community Transit expanded its Zip rideshare service area to Arlington, Darrington, and Lake Stevens (CT News)
• Rearrangement of NE 130th & 125th St as reached final design (SDOT Blog). See our previous post on the project.
• Sound Transit has expanded GoodMaps coverage to Northgate, University of Washington, Capitol Hill, Columbia City and SeaTac stations (The Platform).
• Sound Transit wants your input on pedestrian connections around King Street Station (ST Project Updates)

Continue reading “Mid-Holiday Roundup” | 94 comments

Vancouver SkyTrain extensions, at-grade high-capacity transit corridors, and a gondola. (StainerTheFirst) Vancouver has been good at including stub ends for future extensions, thus minimizing disruptions to existing service when/if the extension is built.

The London Overground, established in 2007, now has six lines, and more are proposed. (CityMoose)

This is an open thread.

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Some transit promotional videos.

King County Metro ad: “Metro Go”:

Travel Community Transit with Rick Steves. This four-part series was published for Lynnwood Link’s opening.

More videos below the fold.

Continue reading “Movie Special: Transit Ads” | 104 comments

Tuesday December 24: Regular service on Metro, Link 1 Line and 2 Line, ST Express, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit.”Reduced weekday” service on Sounder and T Line. ….. Agency shuttles: Metro Flex regular service, CT Zip regular service, PT Runner regular service except JBLM Runner no service.

Wednesday December 25: Sunday schedule on Metro, Link 1 Line and 2 Line, ST Express, T Line, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit. No service on Sounder. ….. Agency shuttles: Metro Flex Sunday service, CT Zip regular service, PT Runner no service.

Agency holiday announcements: King County Metro and Metro Flex, Sound Transit, Community Transit, Pierce Transit.

Washington State Ferries: see bulletin for holiday changes and vessel outages.

This is an open thread.

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Can expanding Link generate enough new housing? (City Beautiful)

This is an open thread.

67 comments