Seattle Transit Blog

Dear Monsieur Jean-Marc Cote. His vision of 2000 didn’t materialize. But was that his lack of imagination or ours? How well can we envision public transit in 100 years? With good news for the future of Washington State public transit in the expected passage of the proposed $16 billion transportation package, it seems a good … Continue reading "Love Fantasy Football? Try Fantasy Transit"

Marko Liias: OLYMPIA – On Tuesday, Senate and House Transportation Committee Chairs Sen. Marko Liias, D – Everett, and Rep. Jake Fey, D – Tacoma, unveiled Senate Bills 5974 and 5975 and House Bills 2118 and 2119 — Move Ahead Washington — a 16-year transportation proposal for Washington state. The $16 billion package provides historic funding for preserving our infrastructure, combating climate change by reducing emissions, expanding safe, … Continue reading "WA Dems propose a $16B transpo package"

Metro usually gathers a citizen sounding board when it’s planning a major service change. It’s a way to gather impressions after detailed technical discussion instead of drive-by comments. They’re currently collecting applicants for the service change associated with Lynnwood Link. If you’re willing to approach it with an open mind, think about the community as … Continue reading "Join the Lynnwood Link Mobility Board"

This is an open thread.

Stephen Fesler also unhappy with how ST3 is turning out Transit update from West Seattle Rogoff says reduced fare enforcement partly responsible for collapsing revenues ($), ECB is skeptical And now the Supreme Court can make things even worse Plan for Kirkland’s Dan Ryan Tower ($) is coming together Venu Nimani is the new Dongho … Continue reading "News roundup: enforcement"

In the week between Christmas and New Year, King County Metro activated its emergency snow network (ESN) for only the second time. However, it felt different this time around. In 2019, the situation was widely understood to be an emergency (even prompting Governor Inslee to declare a state of emergency, limiting the hours vehicles could … Continue reading "Metro needs a more flexible snow network"

Last week Sound Transit released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the West Seattle/Ballard Link Extension (WSBLE), the long-awaited Link line from Alaska Junction to 15th and Market, via Sodo, Downtown, South Lake Union, Uptown, and 15th. The comment period began today. View the online open house and comment here. Really Deep Stations Both … Continue reading "Comment on the WSBLE"

by ROSS BLEAKNEY The bus routes that are north of Seattle will change after Lynnwood Link. Several routes cross the county line, or should. These are operated by King County (Metro Transit) or Snohomish County (Community Transit). What follows is a proposal for changes to these routes. This is not meant to be a comprehensive … Continue reading "Intercounty Routes for Lynnwood Link"

As Sound Transit has done several times before, it is shutting down the 1 Line between SODO Station and Capitol Hill Station this weekend, for maintenance work. A free bus bridge will run from SODO Station To Capitol Hill Station, serving temporary stops at the stations in between. However, this time, the bus bridge will … Continue reading "1 Line bus bridge downtown this weekend"

Via expands to the Renton Highlands Pedersen will remain Seattle Transportation chair The website for the new ORCA is live Metro canceling some trips through Jan. 21 due to driver shortages Teamsters strike still delaying Link projects A list of all the transportation-ish bills in Olympia WSF neglect is starting to show This is an … Continue reading "News roundup: shortages"

Seattle’s new Mayor does not seem to be a fertile source of pro-housing legislation, having campaigned on skepticism about changing single family zones. But instead of struggling for dimes, we can pick up dollar bills at the state level. The bills are SB 5670 and HB 1782, and as explained by local treasure Dan Bertolet, would legalize: … Continue reading "Big housing bills in the legislature"

The 2022 legislative session is starting off with a bang this week. Before the first week is done Senate Bill 5528 will have a hearing in the transportation committee. The bill picks up where last year’s HB 1304 left off but expands the function to a regional level under the governance of Sound Transit. A city, subarea, … Continue reading "SB 5528 Gives Transit Power Back to Voters"

Sam Zimbabwe out at SDOT; what does it mean? Kent Keel staying as ST Board Chair West Seattle/Ballard EIS will arrive January 28th Escalator switching at CHS North Sounder is landsliding again An update on Safe Routes to School Worst year on Washington’s roads ($) since 2006 Pandemic trends in ridership, by neighborhood type Boston … Continue reading "News roundup: escalator switching"

Sound Transit recently released a revised Link schedule that will take effect January 8th “to better reflect actual trip times.” The main difference is that a Northgate-Angle Lake trip turns out to be 4 minutes slower, from 53 minutes to 57. There are four spots where it loses one of those minutes: Roosevelt-Northgate, UW-U District, … Continue reading "Link a little slower than expected"

No one is going to remember the Durkan administration, positively or negatively, based on its transit or land use legacy. The twin crises of the pandemic and a reckoning with racist policing will dominate the historical record. But here at STB, we always size up the outgoing mayor (Murray, McGinn, Nickels) on this basis. And … Continue reading "Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan"

2021 was the slowest year at STB in well over a decade. Nevertheless, both readers and commenters turned out when we did: Most Read “The Fate of Washington State Highway 304” (10/25). One of our new writers, Melony Joyce, sketches the big picture for our ferries, was almost five times as viral as the next … Continue reading "Most read posts of 2021"

This snow will stick around a while. In non-pandemic, normal work week times, this might have been a snowpocalypse event. Meanwhile, Metro’s Emergency Snow Network is in effect. ST express has Snow reroutes but Link is basically unaffected. 6 Sounder trips are suspended.

With 2021 coming to a close, our region has set sail on a major, exciting, one-in-a-generation opportunity to restructure and reform our transit network thanks to billions in capital investments. In 2008, regional voters approved Sound Transit 2 (ST2), and these investments are now bearing fruit as our regional light rail network will nearly triple … Continue reading "Getting ready for big changes to regional transit"

King County Metro put out a web news release to the public on the possibility of snow this weekend, and how to be prepared to travel in it. This is an open thread.

The ST2 projects were cruising along, but now there’s a concrete driver strike ($) Everett and CT will do another study on merging Feds send Metro $396m to make up for Covid losses Another bikeshare vendor — the more, the merrier Inside Metro’s 2022 budget Marko Liias is the new Senate Transportation Chair. There is … Continue reading "News roundup: no better friend"

OMF at S. 336th St is “preferred” On Thursday, the Sound Transit Board made the responsible decision and designated S. 336th St in Federal Way as the “preferred” site of South Link’s Operations and Maintenance Facility (OMF). It has not actually eliminated the other two sites from consideration, but the process will put somewhat more … Continue reading "ST Board makes the obvious decision"

Zee Shaner, writing on the Sound Transit blog: Shortly after the Northgate, Roosevelt and U District stations opened in October, riders quickly noticed that next train information had disappeared from 1 Line platform digital signs. Passengers wondered why it was ‘broken’ and when we could ‘get it working again’. We want to clarify that the system is working just as it always has, but we made the deliberate decision to turn it … Continue reading "Real-time info will get better next year"

From the Governor’s blog: Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2022 supplemental budget proposes significant funding to reduce poverty, increase housing and resources for homeless individuals, expand K-12 learning supports, invest in clean transportation and green economy, decarbonize buildings, and protect salmon habitat. The governor released his budget in Olympia on Thursday and was joined by David Schumacher, director of … Continue reading "Inslee’s housing and climate proposals"

The recent stall of a Sound Transit light rail train after the Apple Cup has brought on a public discussion on communicating with transit customers. Let’s hope that conversation continues. It is an important one. Have you ever felt a touch of fate? Several weeks ago I decided to take public transit from Seattle to … Continue reading "We are an unruly lot: Five observations on communicating with transit customers"

Lizz tells the story of vision-impaired people struggling to navigate transit Everett Council considers states its priorities for Link By some metrics, some are pronouncing microtransit a success More camera enforcement ($) More electrics for PT Seattle grows faster ($) than suburbs 2010-20 Traffic is back, transit ridership still down Natural gas buses aren’t carbon-neutral … Continue reading "News roundup: more"

One of the better local initiatives to come out of the pandemic are Stay Healthy Streets, roads minimally reconfigured (usually by putting a sign in the roadway) to prioritize non-auto uses. Theoretically, these roads are for local access only. There’s a happy narrative where Seattle stood up to the car interests and the NIMBYs in … Continue reading "Stay Healthy Streets aren’t bold, they’re a layup"

ST’s executive search starts this afternoon Bellevue’s zoning is not ready Mary Hopson is Operator of the Year Comment on TOD in Lynnwood Seattle works through its state lobbying agenda Biden shifting grants away from cars This is an open thread.

Everyone involved regrets Friday’s rather long Link outage after the Apple Cup. Coming after a major sporting event and shortly after new stations opened, there were probably quite a few new riders who said “never again,” and that’s sad. A Link light rail train became disabled in the northbound tunnel between University of Washington Station … Continue reading "For the lack of an announcement"

This is an open thread.

If you’re an organization that works with populations eligible for free bus tickets, you can apply to distribute them in 2022. Apply here; the deadline is November 30th. There is a pool of $4m in tickets at face value. Of course, to the extent that this doesn’t displace fare-paying ridership, there is no actual budget … Continue reading "One more week to apply for bus tickets"

Over 10 years ago (!) I wrote that rebuilding a short road near Bellevue College to support buses would straighten multiple Bellevue trunk routes and save millions in annual operating expenses. I’m pleased to announce that the project has now reached the municipal hype video stage: Today, the 221, 226, 245, and 271 all travel … Continue reading "Streamlined Bellevue College service may really happen"

This is an open thread.

Over the weekend, the South Bellevue P&R inconspicuously reopened to the public after being closed for more than 4 years of East Link station construction. The new park-and-ride greatly expands capacity from the previous 500 some surface stalls to around 1500 spaces. Prior to its closure, the park-and-ride was a major source of commuter ridership … Continue reading "South Bellevue Park & Ride reopens to little fanfare"

Maybe we can back to weekly roundups soon… Name the new ferry Metro’s new real-time info signs Comment on Kent/Des Moines TOD through Nov. 15 Results from giving out ORCA cards Seattle Council fighting over the CCC, again; plus, carshare regulations Children’s is hiring a transportation planner Lake Forest Park “wins” battle to extort stuff … Continue reading "News roundup: October highlights"

The recent bus service change that coincided with the extension of the 1 Line to Northgate Station altered Seattle-Everett service in a clunky way. Riding between Everett and Seattle during off-peak hours and in the reverse-peak direction during peak hours now involves transferring between Sound Transit Express 512 and the 1 Line at Northgate Station. … Continue reading "Improving connectivity and frequency to Everett"

This is an open thread.

Out of service escalators at Westlake Station.Credit: Bruce Englehardt Last Thursday’s Rider Experience Committee meeting featured an update on the parlous state of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel’s escalators. While the overall system has recovered from some early hiccups with the three new stations, the current snapshot* shows 1 elevator and 13 escalators out of … Continue reading "DSTT escalators still a problem"

Regular Link riders might notice that real-time arrival information did not, in fact, come back with the Northgate stations as promised in September. ST’s John Gallagher says that “While the system was accurate the majority of the time, when it was wrong, it was really wrong.” It would cost “a significant amount of money” to … Continue reading "Real-time arrival out for the winter?"

This is an open thread.

Beginning Sunday, November 7th, Pierce Transit will reduce service on some routes, including some PT-operated ST Express routes, due to persistent shortage of bus operators. The hope is that with service reduced to match the level of service that current operators can reliably provide, trip cancellations will be much rarer, and you can be more … Continue reading "Pierce Transit reduces bus service due to operator shortages"

Bruce Nourish joins me to discuss a bunch of stuff. (0:00) Hot takes on the election; we basically agree on all issues and then vote in opposite ways. Warning: we go way off-topic beyond transit and land use, to where we probably know less than you do. So skip ahead if this will just irritate … Continue reading "Podcast #101: My Betrayal of All That is Good"

Progressive candidates did well in the Port and County Council races, while business- and Seattle Times-backed candidates are winning handily in Seattle. Discuss. Results here.

It may have snuck up on you, but today is election day. Ballots are due in drop boxes by 8 pm sharp. There are a lot of drop boxes, including several very close to 1 Line stations. There are also a few Vote Centers where you can register to vote if you have not already, … Continue reading "Did you remember to vote?"

As I was boarding a bus a few days ago, I saw a young gentleman sitting close to the middle of the bus, maskless. I pulled a mask out of the dispenser at the front of the bus, walked back to the gentleman, and handed the mask to him. He thanked me and put it … Continue reading "To reduce masklessness on trains, add more dispensers"

“Pingo” Microtransit in Kent STRide lines will open in 2026 and 2027 New bus to Portland ($) on high-traffic days Pierce Transit expanding its “Runner” microtransit to the Port Bike helmet law may be on the way out PSRC allotment of Federal transit subsidies more contentious than usual Local businesses vs ped/bus improvements A new … Continue reading "News roundup: September highlights"