Seattle Transit Blog

It’s not where you think, and not the kind of place you’d expect. This is an open thread.

At a City Council meeting on Tuesday, transportation and safe streets activists pointedly criticized the City’s slow pace in implementing its Vision Zero plan. They argued that the City’s progress on pedestrian and bicycle improvements lagged far behind road projects. At the same meeting, SDOT presented data indicating traffic deaths went down in 2018. According […]

In 2017 and 2018, the Move Seattle project looked at options for reallocating the five lane widths of Rainier Avenue from Kenny to Henderson St, to improve safety and speed up buses. The safest and most climate-friendly strategy would have deployed two general purpose lanes, two bus lanes, and a two-way cycle track. But given […]

More reserved parking at Edmonds and Mukilteo Stations. Sound Transit says it would cost $1.3 billion to site a maintenance facility on the Midway landfill site; Kent disagrees, so we’ll have dueling consultants. Commercial flights begin ($) from Paine Field. PSRC looking for a third airport location. Third Avenue bus boarding about to get easier. […]

Graham Johnson, KIRO: Sound Transit says the estimate in ST3 was $5.8 billion in 2014 dollars, which the agency considers equivalent to $6.8 billion in 2018 dollars. The newest estimate is $7.5 billion in 2018 dollars. That could rise even more, between about $500 million and $2 billion, if Sound Transit decides to enhance the […]

SDOT and Metro are still hoping for a 2021 opening date for RapidRide H in Delridge, but some potential utility work could delay things until 2022, according to a presentation (PDF, video) to the city’s Sustainability Transportation Committee on Tuesday. Staff seemed hopeful, however, that an agreement with Seattle Public Utilities to move the stormwater […]

Laura Bliss, at Citylab, on “Tactical Transit Lanes”: After all, the reason that more buses don’t have their own lanes has little to do with engineering. Setting up a special space for buses usually means taking it away from private vehicles and parking spots, and people literally get murdered for that. Less extreme, car commuters and their elected […]

Friday was the deadline for bills in Olympia to get out of the fiscal committees. Now, all the survivors have to get through their chamber’s Rules Committee, and get passed on 2nd/3rd reading on their chamber’s floor, by 5 pm on Wednesday, March 13. The extremely user-friendly state legislative website lists bills that have made […]

So, what are the scientists trying to tell us? Science youtuber Joe Scott offers some more dystopian solutions we may be forced to deploy if we want homo sapiens to survive. Think Operation Dark Sky from The Matrix. This is an open thread.

Yesterday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan petitioned the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to extend the environmental impact statement (EIS) scoping period for the West Seattle-Ballard Link extension by 15 days, in order to solicit more comment on the planned second Chinatown/International District (CID) station. Durkan’s request is a result of lobbying from CID community leaders. Under […]

House Bill 2123 is on the agenda for action by the House Transportation Committee this afternoon (starting at 1:00), but is not expected to pass out of committee yet. Nor have any committee members offered an amendment to the bill by the deadline to do so in order to be part of this afternoon’s consideration. […]

Kamaria Hightower, on Mayor Durkan’s blog: At the Mayor’s direction, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will partner with the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) and King County Metro to provide unlimited ORCA cards to 1,500 low-income Seattle residents. This partnership will leverage Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) investments to create more affordable transportation choices for our […]

Although we are early in the ST3 program, some observers are already looking forward to extending Link light rail lines into the suburbs and adding more lines in Seattle. The ST3 plan funds several studies of suburban extensions. Current taxes do not support further expansions at the pace of ST3, however. Unless Sound Transit secures […]

Metro GM Rob Gannon: Now that we are getting back to full-strength operations, we know that our snow response is on everyone’s mind. We are reviewing how we can improve our service during snow – and we want to hear from you about your own experience with Metro during this period. Your suggestions and feedback […]

In 2018, Sound Transit continued to avoid the national decline in transit ridership, according to the agency’s latest service numbers. Link light rail’s ridership grew a solid 6.1% in 2018, with 24,416,411 boardings. Link’s service mostly met or approached Sound Transit’s internal targets, though 10.4% of Link trips didn’t match their target headway, or the […]

Metro kicks off planning for RapidRide I this week with a presentation to the Renton City Council. The line (#1033 in the long-range plan) will be a hybrid of routes 169 and 180, connecting Auburn, Kent and Renton. Like other RapidRide lines, the route will travel on local arterials. It will integrate with ST3’s 405 BRT project. Metro estimates […]

The Seattle Municipal Archives recently posted these videos showing the construction of Freeway Park in the mid-1970s. No sound, but plenty of great sights. This is an open thread.

A new bill that will reduce Sound Transit’s motor vehicle excise tax (MVET) funding stream will be introduced Monday, heard in the House Transportation Committee at 1:30 pm Tuesday afternoon, and is expected to be voted out of committee by Friday’s cut-off. House Bill 2123, by Rep. Mike Pellicciotti (D – Federal Way) would implement […]

Amtrak looking at ditching sleeper cars for long-distance routes, adding more service for short-haul intercity trips Eastgate Ride2 shuttles have a new operator and a new look Metro’s Westlake customer service window will close Time to vote for neighborhood street funds Lime pivoting to scooters where allowed by law. In Seattle, expect an all-electric fleet […]

At a press conference yesterday, Metro, Sound Transit, and SDOT released their initial plans for the post-bus tunnel era. On March 23, Sound Transit will be the sole operator of transit service in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT), and will run only Link light rail trains through it. Metro and Sound Transit buses that […]

King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci has started work on a potential countywide, dedicated transit funding package to augment or replace the Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD.) That tax package, which is comprised of a sales tax increase and car tab fee, is set to expire at the end of 2020. Balducci says that the funding […]

The long-studied Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) is moving to the top of the Seattle City Council’s agenda. MHA requires new multifamily construction to pay include on-site affordable housing or pay into a housing fund. (Single-family construction is exempt, because reasons.) Former Mosqueda staffer Mike Maddux had a great analysis of each of the amendments and how each […]

We’re finally here: ST3 Planning level 3 is where we cut everything but two options and send those on for an environmental impact study. Those options will include a high end options that relies on local funding an an affordable option that doesn’t. At this point, our primary concern is with the low end options. […]

Just when you thought it was safe to depend on apps that use the regular schedule to tell you when your bus is scheduled to come, a holiday that many don’t pay attention to is upon us. Yes, it is … (checks calendar) … Presidents’ Day! Most King County Metro routes will be running on […]

President Donald Trump said that there’s a crisis at the United States-Mexico border that only a brand-new wall can fix, and he shut down the U.S. government to make that wall real. When I visited the existing wall’s busy crossing, the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry, on January 5, near the start of the […]

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announced the Green New Deal, critics jumped on it immediately – it can’t be done, it’s too expensive, etc. I want to debunk one of these critiques, and that is that carbon-intensive air travel cannot be replaced with (eventually green) electricity-powered rail travel. People often cite the size of the country […]

Fast Ferries “exceeding expectations” Kent digging in on saving Dick’s. A very smart summary of the current state of the MHA legislation. Juarez, Gonzalez, and Mosqueda are the ones unambiguously standing up for maximizing the number of people that get to live in Seattle. Relatedly, fourplexes reduce displacement. Permit parking ($) may be coming to […]

Last Thursday, Community Transit announced a proposal for a low-income fare on CT buses. The proposal would establish a low-income fare of $1.25 on local buses and $2.00 on inter-county commuter buses. Public comments are being accepted through March 8. A public hearing will be held on March 7. The link above provides several media […]

The West Seattle and Ballard Link extensions have to cross the Duwamish River and Salmon Bay. Building a bridge or tunnel across water in an urban environment is hard enough in the first place. The fact that the mouth of the Duwamish and Salmon Bay are two of Puget Sound’s busiest commercial waterways make it […]

A transcript is available here. This is an open thread.

Update 2: STB now has a Snow Info Page, linked on the top bar, providing links to snow service pages for all transit agencies around Puget Sound and most around the state. Update 1: King County Metro has pushed out an announcement that it will continue on the Emergency Snow Network Sunday, and updated its […]

Before East Link comes online in 2023, the extension’s track has to be connected to the existing light rail network just south of the Chinatown/International District (CID) station. Sound Transit will close existing portions of both north and southbound track for 10 weeks in early 2020 to make the connection, according to plans released yesterday. […]

Video courtesy Rooted in Rights Update: The two automated camera enforcement bills are scheduled for hearings next week. Senate Bill 5789 will be heard Monday at 3:30 pm. House Bill 1793 will be heard Thursday, February 14 at 3:30 pm. Four bills were introduced last week — two pairs of identical “companion” bills – to […]

The junction of the I-405 and SR522 Stride BRT lines will be frustratingly close to the University of Washington – Bothell (UWB) and Cascadia College joint campus, close enough for a tempting diversion but too far to actually be convenient. Universities are good all-day transit demand generators, but too many campuses in the area were […]

The car tunnel under downtown opens today, and will be free until at least summer. West Seattle and Burien express buses will now use Columbia St (with its recently-painted bus lane from west of 3rd Ave to 1st Ave), 1st Ave S, Dearborn, and then S Highway 99 to exit downtown. Northbound paths into downtown […]

Seattle Channel interviews MOHAI director Leonard Garfield for insights into the early history of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The full episode of CityStream is also available here on YouTube. This is an open thread.

KIRO did an interesting investigation into why the new (post 2015) trolley buses keep dropping off the wires Update: this is apparently an old story Mayor Durkan announces a missing middle housing task force WSDOT spending $4.4M to market the new downtown tunnel On a totally unrelated note, here are all the new single-family homes […]

Correction 1: The original claim on this post of free water taxi service was incorrect. The author apologizes for the error. Correction 2: Only one ramp will still be closed Monday — the northbound ramp from Highway 99 to Dearborn St — while the seven other ramps will be open. Northbound bus re-routes will continue […]

SDOT’s Jonathan Dong wrote in to tell us that the agency is planning to upgrade the eastbound bus lane on Howell St this spring. Howell St. is a four-lane, one way street with lots of traffic competing with Snohomish County express buses to enter I-5 in the afternoon peak. Today’s right-hand (or center) bus lane […]

At a Stakeholder Advisory Group meeting last night, Sound Transit released its first cost estimates and evaluations for the three proposed Level 3 alignments of the West Seattle-Ballard Link extension. Agency staff presented cost estimates and “mix and match” opportunities, both of which advisory group members and elected officials requested in earlier meetings. Sound Transit […]