2 Line and No Kings

On March 28 the full 2 Line will open with Crosslake service. The next nationwide No Kings march is on the same day. Having both at the same time raises logistical issues like overcrowded trains in the Crosslake segment and downtown street closures. It's worth thinking through the implications of this early. Hopefully Sound Transit and Metro will have extra service as needed, and a robust plan for downtown street closures. We can point out any blind spots they may have.

Past Link openings have several busfuls of people coming to the speeches, and full trains for the first few hours of service as people try out the route and stations and take their kids to the festivals at all the new stations. We don't know where the Link speeches will be: most likely Judkins Park, Mercer Island, or Bellevue Downtown station.

The last No Kings march brought over 90,000 people to downtown Seattle, many coming on Link and buses. They blocked part of Pine Street and 5th Avenue for three hours. The first Women's March started at Judkins Park and went up the entire 4th Avenue.

We don't know where the next march will be: the last march gathered at Seattle Center and didn't tell participants the route until the last minute for security. I'm not sure if they knew it would turn at Pine Street until the organizers at the front did. But it will inevitably be somewhere downtown and probably Seattle Center, because that's where the infrastructure for large crowds is. It probably won't be at Judkins Park again, because that was only because better locations were already booked, and Seattle wouldn't want two different crowds at Judkins Park on the same day.

The Link speeches are usually in the morning, and service starts around noon, while the marches start around 1pm. This might play out like this:

1. Morning: Busfuls of people go to the Link ceremony on the 550, 2 Line Starter Line, and/or Metro 7, 8, or 48, depending on where the ceremony is. Drivers may park at South Bellevue P&R. Mercer Island P&R is small and can't fit that many people. ST may have extra 550 service between these, like the Redmond shuttle it had before the Downtown Redmond extension opened. How would people get to Judkins Park station though? ST might have to have a special shuttle route for that, such as downtown to Judkins Park, Mercer Island, and South Bellevue.
2. Noon: When Link starts the trains will be full between International District and South Bellevue both directions for 2-3 hours as people do their first train ride and visit all the station areas and festivals.
3. 1pm: Trains are full from the Eastside to downtown Seattle with people going to the No Kings rally. This is just theoretical because there's no room for both #2 and #3 passengers simultaneously. And the rally-goers would really start coming two hours earlier, so that would overlap with both #2 and the latter part of #1.

Michael Smith suggested ST could use the Northgate strategy, where the ribbon-cutting was the night before, service started in the early morning or at 10am (I forget which), and the speeches at the college took place after service had started, so people could use Link for their round trip. I went to the speeches around 10:30 or 11 and there was no crowding problem: Link was running, and people were spread out at the speeches, exploring the pedestrian bridge, and at the station.

Other than that, ST could have a special 550 shuttle serving Judkins Park station as I outlined above. Or extra trains if it has spares with the full 1 and 2 Lines running. When the 2 Line Starter Line started, Link ran every two minutes to transport all the first-ride crowd. But in this case train availability would be a bigger issue, and the inability to turn around at International District or anywhere before Lynnwood. After ballgames extra trains stop on the track and reverse somewhere between Capitol Hill and Roosevelt. That would throw off the 1 Line schedule, so it would be a ballgame service pattern. Although when 2 Line trains are running between International District and Lynnwood, that will lessen the need for extra trains there. But that won't help the need for more Crosslake service, which doesn't have two lines overlapping. The 545 and 550 will still be running all day, so those would be available for the overflow and people who don't care about Link the first day.

Any other thoughts on transit logistics for the March 28 big day?