The Link Reduction Can Start
The Link reduction starts Saturday and runs three weeks (January 13-February 4).
- Weekdays end-to-end Northgate-Angle Lake trains will run every 26 minutes; this will be the only downtown service. Additional short runs will offer combined 13-minute service (instead of 8-10) Northgate-UW and SODO-Angle Lake.
- Weekends the downtown tunnel will be closed. A bus shuttle will replace it every 10-15 minutes between Capitol Hill and SODO. North of Capitol Hill and south of SODO trains will run every 15 minutes (instead of 10).
A full Link reduction schedule is here. ST has a page of bus alternatives for various trip pairs, and tips for navigating the disruption. The reduction is for several maintenance projects, including track maintenance.
In our experience with past reductions, the frequency may change after the first couple days, and it may return to normal a few days or a week early.
Other transit news and open thread below the fold.
Goran Sparrman has been named interim CEO of Sound Transit. ($) We covered his candidacy a few days ago. It looks like his first job will be managing the reduction. Here's a suggestion: in the last reduction in August, Julie Timm went personally to Pioneer Square Station to observe how well the transfer was working and to talk with passengers. Sparrman should do the equivalent.
Monday is the Martin Luther King holiday. Metro, ST Express, Sounder, Pierce Transit will run as normal (Weekday). Link will be on the Weekend Reduction schedule. The T Line will be on Saturday schedule. Community Transit and Everett Transit don't say on their website so they're probably Weekday (?). Everett Transit has a reroute on routes 3 North, 6, and 29 due to an MLK parade, and warns that real-time arrival information may be inaccurate then.
In case of snow, Metro has a Winter Guide. In the past it had a map with colors showing each subarea's status: all routes normal (green), some snow routes (yellow), all snow routes (red), or the Emergency Snow Network (blue). Hopefully it will bring that back if needed. If snow is predicted, check your agency's home page or sign up for alerts. Sound Transit says this about snow.
This article is brought to you by Erich Kastner. Chapter 3 of Emil and the Detectives is titled Die Reise nach Berlin kann losgehen". The translation is The Trip to Berlin Can Start" (May Massee, 1929). The German wording is normal; the English wording is not. The novel has a train trip from a provincial town, a streetcar, a horsecar (horse-powered streetcar = Pferdebahn), a boy who's fascinated by automobiles but rides transit, and a girl who's proud of her bicycle.
This is an open thread.