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North Link: Community Meeting
From the press release:
North Link light rail project : Community Meeting
June 16 , 2010
5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Roosevelt High School Commons1410 NE 66th St., Seattle
Light rail is coming to North Seattle
Sound Transit is hosting a meeting to kick off final design of the North Link light rail project. North Link is a 4.3-mile extension to the regional light rail system with stations at Brooklyn (University District), Roosevelt and Northgate.
At the meeting you will:
- Find out how to get involved in the final design process
- Review engineering drawings and recommendations
- Talk about next steps
Please join us from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m., with a presentation beginning at 6:30 p.m.
Your participation is important.
For more information
Contact Keith Hall via e-mail or at 206-398-5468To request accommodations for persons with disabilities, call 1-800-201-4900 / TTY Relay: 711 or e-mail accessibility@soundtransit.org.
Gregoire Vetoes 520 Light Rail Planning
Update 3/31 @ 11:20am: The governor’s office tells us that this veto just affects the “legislative intent” section of the bill, not the underlying contents which still directs a work group to study high-capacity transit over the bridge. However, the underlying legislation — with the “intent” section vetoed — does not direct “any final design of the state route number 520 bridge replacement and HOV program accommodate effective connections for transit, including high capacity transit, including, but not limited to, effective connections for transit to the university link light rail line” as the intent section did. I don’t know if other legislation has this provision.
And while the legislation does direct a King County work group to study high-capacity transit over the bridge, it does not require the bridge accommodate any plans from that group. However, we now understand what the governor’s office meant when it defined a section as “vague;” unfortunately, that section had a stronger requirement for high-capacity transit than the rest of the bill, on my reading.
The Seattle PI report we link to below has not been changed as of this writing.
Original report: The Seattle PI reports on another of today’s vetoes, this time not so transit-friendly.
The governor also vetoed a section of the bill [authorizing the 520 bridge replacement] that directed planners to come up with a final design that could handle both carpool lanes and light rail. However Shelton said the governor still supported ultimately seeing whether the replacement span that connects Seattle with its Eastside suburbs could ultimately accommodate high-capacity transit. She felt the language in the bill first section was “vague.”
“We still have work groups addressing those issues,” [a Gregoire spokesman] said. “The work is still going to get done.”
Light rail across SR-520 is a long time away from being seriously considered. Even in the long haul, though, it would be an up-hill lift to build light rail across the bridge if it meant removing capacity — even if that capacity were just HOV lanes. I think if we were to add light rail to the bridge, it should be done in addition to the HOV lanes on the bridge. So that section of the legislation made sense to me; what’s possibly vague about it?
Editorial: The UW Land Bridge? Not So Great.
Last night I attended the University Link open house at the Museum of History and Industry. Construction is about to start on UW Station at Montlake, so there was a presentation explaining exactly where construction will take place, what sort of mitigation there will be, and what will go on. I’m not the first to post about this – Alper of Alpertopia covered it today as well.
The big takeaway from the Sound Transit presentation was that they’ll be using largely the same (very successful) noise mitigations they used for Beacon Hill, and they’ve provided for bicycle, pedestrian and vehicle access to UW facilities while construction takes place. They had conclusive answers to each question asked.
The end of the meeting was much more interesting. Prior to the presentations, I had a moment to speak with Andy Casillas, the UW’s project manager on their Rainier Vista project. He explained that contrary to their latest published design, the university has indeed dropped pedestrian bridges from their plans (not the one pictured above). The hospital side bridge was dropped because it would require expensive support structure construction in the basement of the hospital – he suggested transit users could use the existing underpass, but users are already cautioned against using that underpass at night without an escort.
The station side bridge reasoning was less clear. At some future date, he suggested a project might be undertaken to grade separate Montlake Boulevard, dropping it below pedestrian level, but this project is unfunded and unmentioned in any of the documents he presented.
During his presentation, he offered no quantifiable benefits to the land bridge design past the slightly shorter walking distance and additional layover space for Metro buses – but Metro isn’t being asked to help fund the project. He said the land bridge required an additional year of design time, but didn’t say how that might impact University Link’s schedule. He was unable to quantify impacts to pedestrian mobility or traffic – despite the walking distance decrease, this adds wait time at a new Montlake crossing light, apparently planned for 30 second intervals.
Most of the questions asked at that point were about the safety of a crossing for thousands of new users. Yesterday, I was willing to accept this with the assumption that the plan would be to build pedestrian bridges later. With those bridges apparently off the table, I see little benefit to the new plan and significant drawbacks, and no reason to support the additional expense to SDOT or Sound Transit. The existing Sound Transit station and pedestrian bridge design has already been approved by the UW Board of Regents as well as the Sound Transit Board – opening this agreement up for debate again would be foolhardy.
Future Link Headways
With University Link under construction and Sound Transit 2 to follow, service frequency has become a hot topic.
Today, Link operates at peak frequencies of 7-8 minutes, dropping to 10 and finally 15 minutes during off-peak periods and on weekends. With average October weekday ridership of 16,200, today’s peak frequencies meet demand and will likely continue to through the next few years, but U-Link will change that.
The North Link Final Supplemental EIS operating plan summary (PDF), which only covers S. 200th to Northgate, the extent planned for in Sound Move, calls for 6 minute peak headways end to end by 2015, with an eventual increase to 5 minute headways between Northgate and Rainier Beach (referred to as “Henderson” in the document) sometime prior to 2030.
With Sound Transit 2, we’ll essentially get a new line – running from Northgate or farther north to Bellevue. Currently, the East Link DEIS operating plan summary (PDF) suggests four car trains every 10 minutes in 2020, with headways down to every 9 minutes in 2030.
An overall Sound Transit 2 operating plan I saw on paper suggested three 9 minute headway lines – One from Lynnwood to SODO or Rainier Beach, one from Northgate to Bellevue/Redmond, and one from Northgate to Sea-Tac/Federal Way. This would cause three minute headways between every other train south of downtown, and could cause problems in at-grade portions.
There’s another possibility here, though. Sound Transit could operate two lines, one from Lynnwood to Federal Way, and another from Lynnwood to Bellevue. This would keep headways south of the International District more stable, and make Bellevue headways higher overall. Either way, frequency from Northgate to the International District will be down to four or even three minutes with Sound Transit 2.
The limiting factor is largely the uncertainty associated with the MLK portion of Link – missing a light can add a minute or two to a trip, making it impossible to really shoehorn more trains in without degrading quality of service significantly. If we want another line through downtown, it will need to either go on the surface, or in a new tunnel.
Editorial: Reasons why Central Link wasn’t a political ploy
Frankly, I wasn’t around actively advocating for Sound Transit’s Central Link when it was being conceived, but one common criticism that I’ve heard rail opponents iterate time and time again is that the Central Link alignment was some sort of a political ploy or gimmick. “Why Tukwila of all places? People don’t go to the airport on a daily basis. Why not the suburbs first?” First of all, it’s rather ironic that the same people wanting to block light rail to the Eastside (and anywhere else in general) are tied with those who criticize the Central Link alignment and throw their hands up in the air asking why the suburbs were not Link’s first destination. It’s a fair indication that these people are just against rail transit in general under the pretense of a number of other excuses up their sleeves.
More below the jump.
Continue reading “Editorial: Reasons why Central Link wasn’t a political ploy”
The Cross-Lake Battle That Already Ended
Yesterday, we broke word that Susan Hutchison favors putting light rail across SR-520. She re-iterated this position at last night’s debate. This isn’t the first time someone has held this position, but that makes the suggestion no less tired. Hutchison would do very well to read our past research on the subject because her current position is simply irresponsible.
- “We should build light rail on the new 520 with a designated lane”
But in June of last year, we showed why light rail has to cross I-90 first: The University Link tunnels cannot handle Eastside passenger traffic. Light rail across SR-520 would lead to significant overcrowding and poor service performance unless we build another expensive tunnel to downtown. In January of last year, we noted that plans to eliminate future capacity for light rail from the SR-520 bridge saved $400 million dollars — a number Hutchison will somehow have to recover. The engineering challenges of going from the elevated 520 span to the underground Husky Stadium light rail station are significant and difficult. For these reasons, Sound Transit notes that light rail across SR-520 is much more expensive. Most importantly, the current alignment is voter approved: In November of last year, an overwhelming 62% of the voters in King County passed a plan that put light rail across I-90.
- “We should not take lanes away from I-90 for light rail”
But in June of 2007, we showed that I-90 does not lose lanes after light rail. And we showed the corridor actually gains capacity from new HOV lanes in each direction. In March, we pointed out that the federal government funded our center lanes expressly to be converted to rail transit. The state has borrowed those lanes for decades.
- “In fact, [building light rail across I-90] is a violation of the 18th amendment which says roads money can’t be used for any other purpose”
But we reported in July that transit agencies have purchased roads right-of-way in the past before without issue. WSDOT is working with Sound Transit to value the center lanes so Sound Transit can purchase them. Sound Transit is funding the two-way HOV lanes across I-90, and that work can be used as credit toward the purchase. The state is not giving Sound Transit the lanes.
More after the jump…
The Mayor and the Streetcars
With two streetcars on the way, our two mayoral candidates’ views on the topic deserve some scrutiny. Neither McGinn nor Mallahan appear to be pro-streetcar, but their level of dislike seems quite different.
The First Avenue streetcar is to be funded by the city through an as yet undetermined source. It provides transit mitigation for intra-city trips displaced by the removal of the Viaduct, and would serve to connect the South Lake Union Trolley with the First Hill streetcar.
The First Hill streetcar is a Sound Transit project, approved and funded as part of Sound Transit 2, to connect International District station and Capitol Hill station. It will serve the First Hill employment center that didn’t get a light rail station in Sound Move – the $350 million station would have increased University Link’s risk dramatically, likely losing us our $800 million federal grant – $1.1 billion is too much for one stop!
McGinn would fund more bus service in the city instead of the First Avenue streetcar, trading a capital investment that causes lower operations costs per passenger mile for all three streetcar lines for a few years of bus hours. This could put us in a bad situation later, depending on how these bus hours are funded – if we fund hours for five years, for example, users will demand continued service, requiring us to find a new source of money. If we fund them with a longer term funding source, we’ll be doing it instead of continuing to build the streetcar network.
Mallahan, however, is even worse. He not only wouldn’t build the First Avenue streetcar, he’d try to consider interfering with construction of the First Hill streetcar, cancelling it if possible. This is not just irresponsible, but goes against last year’s vote. The last thing we want is Mallahan on the Sound Transit board.
What concerns me the most here is that there’s even a question of funding these two projects for either candidate. Seventy years ago, the streetcars were ripped up and replaced with buses to kill transit use – and the reverse holds true. It’s much easier to fight for signal priority and dedicated right of way for a streetcar than for a bus, it gets higher ridership, it can spur development. In the long run, it serves more people for less money, especially the First Avenue line – it not only serves tourist central, it also connects the other two.
McGinn is so close to being a good transit advocate – but he seems stuck on buses based on their apparent short-term cost. We need to put pressure on him to change this attitude.
Switch Heaters for Link
Last year’s Snowpocalypse introduced a problem that the Seattle area hasn’t had to deal with in a long time – frozen switches.
As temperature decreases, even rail can be affected. While trains themselves aren’t typically blocked by as little snow as we had, the switches that allow trains to change tracks can eventually freeze – keeping trains from switching direction or coming into and out of service at a maintenance facility.
The best way to avoid this is with switch heaters that melt snow and ice, keeping switches operational. They can come in a few different configurations – where there’s space, you can pull up a trailer to blow hot air on a switch, but in the city, or on an elevated trackway like Link, heaters need to be permanently installed. Link was built without switch heaters – they’re normally not required for our climate, but last winter indicates they may be necessary in the future, so Sound Transit intends to install them sooner rather than later.
The first delivery of University Link light rail vehicles is expected to be in October of 2010, and before that, the Operations and Maintenance Facility yard must be expanded to support the new trains. This expansion is planned already in a contract with Railworks (PDF). Our sources tell us that this contract may be amended to add switch heater installation in the key places Link would need it to continue operation during a major snowstorm – in the base, mainly, and at Airport Station. The switch in the stub tunnel north of Westlake is protected from the elements.
Keep in mind that last year’s snowstorm was a 20-year event. This winter is expected to be mild in comparison – and these switch heaters would be installed before October 2010.
92,000
I think opening day was an unqualified success. Sound Transit planned for the worst, and instead, we had a best case scenario. Every train I rode was full – some packed to the brim, some just standing room only, all well used.
I have a story about ORCA I’d like to share. Yesterday we saw some problems with the ticket vending machines at a few stations – cancelling a transaction could leave the TVM ‘hung’ indefinitely. Sound Transit already had the contractor on standby in case there was a problem on opening weekend, and overnight, a patch was written by the contractor, tested, and applied to all TVMs to fix the problem. This is unheard-of turnaround, and it just goes to show what a tight ship Sound Transit is running.
I want to say thank you to all the Sound Transit staff who gave up their weekends – sometimes as long as 7am-10pm – to pull this off without a hitch. Also a huge thank you to all the volunteers who helped out – I saw a couple of regular commenters handing out literature and answering questions. I have never seen ST staff smile so much before.
And thank you to the people who took 92,000 rides. We’ll have to wait for University Link before we see that many again!