Gillian Anderson on Slog reports that the anti-bike policy of the RFZ is being relaxed.
There’s so much hedging it’s hard to be sure, but I think the TNT is telling Dome District neighborhood opponents to suck it up and allow Sound Transit to build the Lakewood Sounder extension.
Sightline reacts to the Link opening by recapping some of the contradictory fights that got us here.
From a while ago, West Seattle Blog covers Rapid Ride C developments. We offered our own spin a bit earlier. (H/T: Michael).
Video by Flickr user Reverend Kommisar
I live two blocks from the Beacon Hill station and I use it as part of my commute each day, and the first week of Link has been an eye-opening experience. Of course, I’ve seen the usual things: confused TVM users, intermittent outages*, etc., but it really hasn’t been at all what I expected, though not necessarily in a bad way. I’ve got a couple of observations to share, and I’m really interested in hearing about other Link Commuters experiences have. If you take Link to work or school, please share your experiences in the comments.
Each morning a couple of dozen people are waiting for the 36 bus at the stop in front of my house as I walk to the Beacon Hill station. I find this really surprising as Beacon Hill station is two blocks away: no more than 150 yards. Thursday morning I even counted more people at the stop in front of my house (23) than I counted boarding Link (13) with me four minutes later.
I don’t know exactly what’s going on here. These bus riders probably aren’t transferring from Link, as there’s a stop right in front of the station, so they aren’t Link riders at all. Some of these bus riders may be going places other than downtown (Amazon or Little Saigon are really the only possibilities). Still, it’s hard to imagine that of the dozens of people waiting at 8:30 am for a bus whose primary destination is downtown, none are going downtown. I think you can assume many of the would-be-Link-riders are either scared of Link or unaware (hard to believe, but they exist), but it seems to me that the Southeast Seattle Metro revisions can’t come soon enough. Clearly many of my neighbours need a little push to change their commutes to the more efficient option, and frankly, isn’t light rail a waste of money without riders?
The reverse of this phenomenon is present as well. In my (very) unscientific survey, I’ve found that 18 of the 34 commuters (53%) I’ve asked on the Beacon Hill platform or in the elevators didn’t previously use the bus as their daily commute option. There’s no way to say whether this will hold up, and obviously my sample set is terrible, but fewer bus riders on Link and more new riders coming from cars in concert show that-at least a week in-Link isn’t just cannibalising former bus riders.
Today marks one of the busiest days for transit agencies with several events happening. This is a good day for those folks whom haven’t had a chance to experience Sounder, Link, or ST Express buses as well.
Scheduled events today;
Sounders FC vs. Fire @ 12:00pm
Mariners vs. Indians @ 1:05pm
Seafair Torchlight Parade Run, starting at 6:30pm from Qwest Field to Seattle Center
Crowning of Miss Seafair, 7:00pm at Seattle Center
Seafair Torchlight Parade, starting at 7:30pm from Seattle Center to Qwest Field
Sounder departs Tacoma at 11:00am and arrives at 11:59am
Sounder departs Everett at 11:15am and arrives at 12:15pm
Link will be running normal service with some extra trains to handle crowding.
Seattle Streetcar will be running normal hours, ending at 11:00pm
Seattle Center Monorail will be running normal hours, ending at 11:00pm
KC Metro, Community Transit, Pierce Transit, and Sound Transit buses will be running normal Saturday hours with no extra services.
This is an open thread, have a great weekend everyone!
So with Link up and running for a week, here is a recap;
On opening day, 2 people got stuck in the elevator at Beacon Hill Station.
Many people complained about the rough wiggle the train made along the elevated segment.
TVM’s had their share of problems.
A power/signal outage shut down the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel for nearly a full day.
Trains were “light ridership” according to some newspapers.
Today I rode on Link and my observations are the following;
The wiggle in Tukwila is barely noticeable. The maintenance of way team at Sound Transit did a great job fixing this for both tracks!
Beacon Hill has some incredible food.
Sports fans are enjoying taking Link… the train I got off around 4:45pm had at least 40 jerseys waiting at Tukwila after over 200 commuters got off at Tukwila.
TVM’s all have been upgraded, including the Sounder TVM’s.
No power issues in the DSTT.
Ridership is steadily increasing. Both of my trains had easily over 200 people, which was shocking. The A/C on the trains did a good job keeping the temps cool.
How was your first week on Link? Good experiences, bad experiences? Considering this is the first week, I am shocked on how well this is going!
Tonight marks the first game that one can take light rail to see the Mariners play at home. As a pretty serious baseball fan, that’s a big deal to me, and I’ll be there tonight. Woo!
Given the need of transit agencies to get approval from a broad constituency, and the extent to which the spread of jobs and homes makes it hard to serve many commuters, it’s important to look out for non-commuter markets that are suitable for transit. Along with the airport, sporting events fit the bill for having expensive parking and ugly congestion not mitigated by buses. It’s that combination that probably made the Airport a more attractive destination than Southcenter, which is easy and cheap to drive to.
There will be a non-trivial number of people whose primary interaction with Link will be through Mariners, Seahawks, Sounders, and (one day) Husky games. It’s a market to which I hope Sound Transit makes a serious effort to provide a good rail experience. That means some crowd control, perhaps an additional train or two for big events, and lots of assistance to expedite the ticket-buying process.
This evening, I rode 4 trips of the first public revenue runs on Link. I was happy, disappointed, appalled but also understanding, which is why this post is here.
1. From a railroaders point of view, the elevated section is decent. The southbound line is much smoother than the northbound by a long shot but overall, I rate this a C in terms of ride quality. While the benefit of not having to align track is good, the noise, ride quality and such is going to be the bigger deterrent for many riders. Personally, until the segments are fixed and adjusted, I would recommend only doing 45 to 50mph. This has nothing at all to do with breaking in the track because the track will never be “broken in”. It is “anchored” down with a very, very limited amount of tolerance. I could get very technical on how this could be fixed but it would be a post within itself.
2. Waiting for buses in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel gets old..fast. Having to wait 5 to 7 minutes between Pioneer Square Station and International District Station is absolutely unacceptable by any standards. This happened on 3 of my 4 trips. At least the automatic announcement notifying why we are being held went off. That still did not help the people whom hoped for a quick round trip.
3. Pierce Transit is operating the Sea-Tac Airport shuttle service, ST Route 575 with 1999 Orion 1.508 buses. Very cool to see that pull up to Sea-Tac Airport! However, besides the lone destination sign in front of the bus, there wasn’t any other signage that states that the bus is the Tukwila Link Connector. Also, while some people were able to find out that the bus was indeed the connector from people standing at the bus stop, there was still a lot of confusion on to take the 194 or the shuttle. There were also complaints that there was no ST agent at the Airport Information Booths regarding the light rail.
4. Seattle Transit Blog was mentioned 11 times while I was on-board! Hi to those that I talked with today!
5. I am still slightly annoyed by some of the operators. Some were smooth, others were rough as hell. Kudos to those operators for making the rider experience even better.
6. The more I rode Link, the more I looked at Southcenter Mall. 70% of the people questioned why that route did not go there… as it would only add 2-5 minutes to the schedule (but add several million dollars to the project), depending on the routing, etc. A Southcenter Mall stop would have easily tripled the ridership alone…take a look at the ridership of the Route 150 for that proof.
7. The routing via MLK was probably the smartest decision Sound Transit could have made, regardless if the routing would have been faster via the Duwamish. The ridership today from the on and offs from my observations were pretty amazing.
8. The Seattle Times naturally stated that the ridership was weak and South 154th Street Park and Ride was nearly empty. I have a picture when I arrived at South 154th Street Park and Ride and counted maybe 20 open spaces remaining. The line to get tickets was nearly 40-50 deep at times. Today was a very, busy day. The morning, maybe not so much, but the numbers were most definitely there.
9. Security and Sound Transit police were present off and on throughout the day. Yes, I did get fare checked.. heck, come to think of it, I got fare checked on Sounder for the first time in almost a year.. and no, I am not joking…
10. TVM issues were minimal. If there were any issues, they were reported and fixed within an hour. That is still very, very, impressive. I was able to add money to my e-purse with my debit card in 45 seconds and it instantly added that value… no 24 hour delay that you have with orcacard.com
11. On my way back from Beacon Hill Station, we were delayed for 5-10 minutes due to a disabled train at the International District Station according to the operator. The automatic announcement came on that there was a service delay and would be underway shortly. It was a good way to talk with some people regarding how they felt about the service and such. Even with the glitches, all was well.
All in all, I was happy at some of it, really annoyed at another part of it but most importantly, the vibe was still good, despite the issues throughout the day. People were happy and glad it arrived. Some even stated they are looking at housing near Link stations. This is exactly how things should start. This is only the beginning of course. I am personally looking at some of the newly remodeled apartment a block away from South 154th.
How was your experiences? Agree/disagree? Let me know!
If you haven’t checked recently, our Twitter feed has been relaunched, so that it’s no longer just an announcement of each post on the blog. Today, especially, it’ll be hopping.
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Today is for Jim Ellis, who’s been fighting for this day longer than anyone else.
It’s for all the tourists who have shown up at the airport and wondered where the train was.
It’s for baseball fans who found the bus schedule useless in post-game congestion.
It’s for anyone who’s sat on the 7, 36, or 42, slogging up the Rainier Valley.
It’s for ST CEO Joni Earl, who saved this train from oblivion.
It’s for Patty Murray, Greg Nickels, Ron Sims, and all the other politicians that made it happen.
It’s for anyone with a stroller or wheelchair that had to struggle with the bus lift.
It’s for revelers who’ve had to leave something early because that’s when the last bus left.
It’s for millions of Puget Sound voters who finally did the right thing.
It’s for my son and Andrew’s daughter, who will always have a fast, safe, and reliable way to get around.
Commenter Lloyd has a few others who deserve recognition:
Former Capitol Hill pharmacist and City Council Member George Benson would have loved being with us – I’ll never for get his ear-to ear grin the day the Waterfront Streetcar opened lo these decades ago.
Less well known, but equally important would be former postman, historian and photographer Warren Wing who, in about a half dozen books published in the 1980s and 1990s, reminded us in text and photographs of the trains, streetcars and rights of way we lost from the 1930s through the 1970s. I last saw him at the opening of the Kent Sounder station in 2001 – he looked as proud as could be that local passenger trains were again serving the route of his beloved Seattle to Tacoma Interurban, albeit on a slightly different route and reduced timetable.
Enjoy the ride, George and Warren!
and Kaleci:
Another person to note would be Walter Shannon, the last surviving motorman on the Everett-Seattle Interurban. It was a shame that he recently passed and couldn’t be here. I remember meeting him at Sounder’s first day on the North Line.
I think he would have been one of the happiest people on earth this weekend.
Are you a busy person and on the run, trying to get to the train station before that last one leaves? Never miss a train again with TrainLogic! TrainLogic has a mobile application for Blackberry or any java enabled phone for cheap! The application is subscription based at $7.50 for six months. During the six months, application updates and any schedule changes and modifications are included in the cost. I requested the Amtrak Cascades to be added to their schedules and they did it in just a few days! Excellent and friendly customer service.
The schedules available for our region;
Sound Transit Sounder Commuter Rail and Tacoma Link
Amtrak Cascades
Portland MAX (All Lines), Streetcar, and WES
I have been using the app on my Blackberry 8330 and will be testing it on the Blackberry Tour (Verizon Wireless) when I receive the device. The application itself has been great and uses very little memory. If you are on the run and need to know when that next train is, this app is definitely the one for you! If you need a schedule added for your region, simply e-mail them and they’ll gladly add it to their list.
A week from today, I bet most of us are going to be somewhere along the length of Link – some of us riding it for the first time, some watching others get their first experience, some volunteering. Behind all that, Sound Transit will be dealing with the largest event they’ve ever organized.
To begin I want to note – Sound Transit has enough vehicles for regular service, not an all-out attack like opening day is likely to be. Trains will be running every few minutes – likely a two-car train every few minutes in each direction – but wait times to ride are expected to be long. As I understand it, trains will be running as often as possible, not just every 7-8 minutes.
Waitng will be fairly organized – not everyone will simply pile onto the platform. Sound Transit will be actively managing the number of people on each train on opening day, and will only allow those who are getting on the next train onto a platform at any given time. It’s probably going to be hot. Bring water, wear a wide-brim hat, wear sunscreen. Sound Transit will have stations so you can refill your water bottle, too.
It sounds like there should be entertainment at most stations. A full list is available from Sound Transit here (PDF), but I’m pretty sure if you just off the train, you’ll find something interesting. I’d recommend avoiding Stadium Station midday, as the Sounders play Chelsea on Saturday, and it’s likely to be a madhouse. Portable toilets will be available at all stations on opening weekend – normally public restrooms are not provided at Link stations.
Ribbon cutting should be at Mount Baker Station at 10 am, and the inaugural ride should start there, for those who have tickets. Rumor has it that a giveaway might be what’s going on @ST_TravelLight on twitter. That’s also who you want to follow for opening day news.
Note that if you take the train to a new station and don’t want to wait in line for hours to get home, there will be free shuttles from Sound Transit from station to station, as well as your usual Metro service, which won’t be free.
Any questions about opening day? Only a week to go! And this is an open thread.
There is a lot of reasons to be excited if your an Amtrak Cascades customer. Several key improvements have been completed and announced this past week. The heated debate over the second Amtrak Cascades train to Vancouver BC has been temporarily settled and will start service August 17, 2009, at least that is what is notated in the Amtrak system. This will be an extension (not a new service as the CSBA likes to think it is…) of the existing Amtrak Trains #513/516 which currently terminates in Bellingham. The Northbound train will arrive after 10pm and the Southbound will depart around 6am.
This will be the first Portland to Vancouver BC train for the Cascades system with the full journey taking slightly over 8 hours with a 15 minute layover in Seattle either direction for crew change. If the Federal Stimulus funding is allocated this run will be completed in less than 6 hours.
Starting July 25, 2009, the Talgo will also return to Amtrak Trains #510/517. These trains have been substituted for nearly 3 years as trains are going through their mid-life refurbishment. These included new paint, new leather seating in coach and business class, new A/V systems, improved air brake system, improved restrooms, and minor changes to the Bistro car. The Superliner coaches in use now will be returned to Amtrak and used elsewhere in the system.
The BNSF Commuter Construction crews are nearly finished with the Interbay rail yard project. This project when completed will fully double track the corridor between Pier 70 in Downtown Seattle to North Magnolia, near the Ballard Bridge. This will bridge the gap of single track along the Amtrak and Sounder corridors to just 2.7 miles of remaining single track. Those locations are Edmonds and Mukilteo.
The new Blaine Customs Facility has started construction. This facility will add 2 to 3 new tracks which will end the common 30 to 70 minute waits for passenger trains at the border. This is expected to be completed April 2010.
In Everett, the new PA Jct realignment and new yard tracks have also entered the construction phase. This project when it is completed also in April 2010 will shave almost 6 minutes off the schedule, raising the speed from 10mph to 60mph.
Stanwood Station and the siding extension is moving along swiftly and is on schedule to open in November 2009. BNSF however is short $1 million dollars to extend Mt. Vernon siding which is a prerequisite for stopping at Stanwood Station.
Currently, there is no estimated time for construction for the new Amtrak Coach Yard in Seattle but I have tentatively heard December 2009 start and completion in March 2011.
King Street Station exterior is about 90% complete with brick clean up and more clock work to finish up. The project is slated to be completed in September 2009. Interior work can not start until the City of Seattle completes the sewer treatment facility next door to KSS.
The Sound Transit Operations Task Force (a subcommittee of the board) released a report (unfortunately not available online) that identified some potential spending cuts to plug Sound Transit’s revenue gap, amounting to as much as $463m over 35 years.
Great news for the upcoming Sounders FC vs Chelsea game on July 18th, on top of Link’s grand opening, Sound Transit will be running 2 Sounder trains between Seattle and Tacoma and 1 train between Seattle and Everett!
The Tacoma trains will leave at 9:30 and 9:45am and arrive in Seattle at 10:30 and 10:45 respectively. Both trains will be making all stops.
The Everett train will leave at 10:00am and arrive in Seattle at 11:00am and will be making all stops.
As always, trains will depart 30 minutes after the end of the event from King Street Station.
For more information, check out Sound Transit’s special events
Add: I want to add and stress the crossings in SODO will be VERY busy between Link, Sounder, and Amtrak trains arriving and departing. Use extra caution when crossing over the railroad tracks, especially at Royal Brougham where there is construction for a new overpass.
Municipal Street Railway Opening, Ballard Bridge, 1918, c/o Seattle Municipal Archives
In 1922, GM President Alfred P. Sloan established a unit to investigate replacing streetcars nationwide with GM-manufactured buses, cars and trucks – GM was losing tens of millions at the time and felt this was the only way to expand their market. The same year, Electro-Motive Engineering Company was founded, which later became GM’s division for the manufacture of locomotives – including those used on Sounder today.
There’s a serious effort to turn all but one lane of Bell St. into a linear park.
LA broke ground on their BRT Orange Line extension.
There’s a meeting in Tacoma tonight about extending Sounder to Lakewood, specifically on some crossings in the Dome district. Opponents demand a more expensive bridge option that preserves parking. (H/T: Douglas)
Photographer Joseph Songco, who is chronicling the “path of destruction” of light rail construction, is part of the free Artopia exhibition, Saturday, in Georgetown. Via Damon Agnos at Seattle Weekly. Preview Songco’s work here.
Mayor Nickels has proposed that, effective January 1st, the $25-per-employee head tax be repealed. It generates about $4.7m per year for roads and sidewalks, including transit-friendly road improvements, although it had not been allocated to any particular project.
Although driving jobs out of Seattle to less transit-friendly places is always a problem, there are two things to really like about this tax. First, it is waived for any employee that doesn’t drive alone to work, discouraging the commute mode that generates the most external costs. Secondly,while it may be true that higher-than-expected parking tax revenues offset the revenue loss, there’s a huge sidewalk backlog in North Seattle that could use that money. Seattle is the level of government where generic transportation funds are most likely to be spent progressively, and it’s a shame to take money out of this fund.
Transportation Choices Coalition’s blog has noticed a motion (PDF) for the next Sound Transit board meeting about Point Defiance Bypass. Apparently, WSDOT and Sound Transit jointly applied for a $6 million federal grant to help fund work to extend Sounder to Lakewood. The project is still short quite a bit, but this gets them closer.
Update: I wonder if we’ve written about this before. I don’t see anything about it, but it looks like this has been expected for a while.
In less pleasant news, we’ve learned that the FlexPerks program no longer offers a 15% discount on Amtrak Cascades travel for U-Pass and FlexPass holders. The program offically ended at the end of the year, but the coupon code continued working through the end of March. According to Metro, their reduced staffing no longer allows them to administer the program, and they let it quietly die.
by GREG NICKELS, Mayor of Seattle and Chair of the Sound Transit Board
Probably Central Link O&M Groundbreaking
After the passage of Sound Move on November 5, 1996 it was time to get to work. The RTA needed to ramp up from a 22 person planning staff to an entity capable of building a multi-billion dollar capital program and operating multiple modes of transit service. This is a step virtually every new transit agency struggles with and leads to a phenomenon known as “growing pains”!
The Board began to make dozens of decisions (PDF), from rebranding the agency as “Sound Transit” to vehicle purchases to route decisions. Environmental Impact Statements were begun, policies were developed, fares with other transit agencies were “integrated”, ground was broken and hearings were held.
In September 1997 the first Regional Express bus service began, in June 1998 I led the Board’s effort to identify Union Station as Sound Transit’s permanent headquarters and Sounder commuter rail between Tacoma and Seattle debuted in September, 2000. Tacoma’s Link streetcar began service in August, 2003.
Due to its size, federal funding and all new right-of-way; the most complicated aspect of the program was Link Light Rail. A very difficult period began toward the end of 2000 as tensions mounted and the Board ordered a halt to negotiations over a contract to build a very long, deep light rail tunnel under Portage Bay. The Board was concerned that the cost and risk of the proposed contract was unacceptably high and a reassessment was in order. This led to staff changes (Joni Earl became Executive Director) and eventually a reengineering of the project (splitting it into the initial Airport segment and the University segment extension) to reduce the risks.
Extraordinary political drama ensued including the last minute signing of a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) on the final evening of the Clinton administration and light rail becoming the focus of the very close 2001 Seattle Mayor’s race. But the Board persevered, Joni restored confidence in the agency and eventually the project was back on track. In fact in February, 2003 Link’s initial segment received the highest rating of any project in the nation from the Federal Transit Administration. This was repeated recently with the University Link extension. Ground was finally broken for the initial Link light rail segment on November 8, 2003.
Starting Monday, June 29, 2009, BNSF will be starting on a bridge maintenance project between Vancouver, WA and Portland, Oregon. Amtrak Cascades trains will terminate and originate from Vancouver Station with bus transportation to Portland Union Station to connect to trains bound for Eugene, Oregon. There will be a small detour in place that will add about 30 to 60 minutes to the Coast Starlight (Trains #11/14) and the Portland section of the Empire Builder (Trains #27/28)
The Prop. 1 package has suffered its first casualty as a result of the recession. Thanks to lower sales tax collections, and a three-month delay in implementing the tax in the first place, there will not be 100,000 new service hours in 2009; instead, there will be 24,000 this year with the rest phased in by February 2011. If you prefer to phrase it another way, there will be 48,000 additional service hours after the tax has been in effect for one year.
On May 26, the Sound Transit board chose this staff option over an alternative that took until September 2011. The difference in the slower plan was that ST would have delayed a September 2009 service increase. A massive February 2010 service change occurred in either plan, but follow-on improvements would have slid back about 6 months.
A clear yet exhaustive comparison of the current plan and the rejected one is here (pdf). An even more detailed staff report (pdf) is available as well. The deferred plan was estimated to save about $10m.
UPDATE (2 Jun): The various Sound Transit 2 plan documents are careful to say “Express Bus improvements beginning in 2009.” (emphasis mine). The YES statement, in the King County Voter’s Pamphlet, suggests “100,000 hours of additional service in 2009.” It may very well be that completion in 2009 was never feasible and it’s simply an error by the authors of the YES statement.
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ST also released its quarterly ridership report (pdf) last week. Ridership rose in spite of the economy. Although that’s partially due to increased service, bus boardings per revenue hour increased. Although ridership is up, the productivity metrics for Sounder actually deteriorated because of sparsely utilized reverse-peak trips. These cost virtually nothing to provide, because the train has to get back to Tacoma to do another run anyway.
I’m not really sure why ST doesn’t also track productivity per operating hour as well as revenue hour, since that would correct these kind of metric-related problems.
Most of the big light-rail related bus changes don’t occur till September, but the June service change (actually in effect Saturday, May 30) still has tons of important changes. Both Metro and Sound Transit (pdf) are doing these. Highlights:
New Route 578 operates as a partial “Sounder shadow” providing off-peak service to many South Sounder stations.
One more South Sounder round trip; many new ST Express trips as a result of Prop. 1 passing last year.
