Seattle Transit Blog

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 […]

Where will riders use the ST3 Link system in 2040? Longtime readers will be familiar with project ridership estimates, but most riders on Link are not going to the ends of the line. Along any line, ridership can be much higher on some segments than others. The suburban lines have weak ridership at the tails. […]

Over the holidays, policy analyst David Gordon made an argument for assessing a county-wide payroll tax to make transit free. I don’t know enough about tax revenue to critique Mr. Gordon’s math, but the idea of replacing the regressive transit sales tax with a progressive payroll tax is certainly appealing. Free transit proposals have been bubbling […]

For the last seven years, Metro’s service-change planning has been driven by the agency’s Service Guidelines, adopted by the County Council to professionalize a planning process that had been increasingly driven by political pressure on individual Council members. The Service Guidelines process has been enormously helpful to the agency over time, allowing it to prioritize […]

Gothamist schooled New Jersey car commuter Whoopie Goldberg on bike lanes, safety, and entitlement. She later walked back her series of rants against NYC bike lanes, sort of. Phyllis Porter, advocate for safe streets and building more family-sized affordable housing, and founder of the local chapter of Black Girls Do Bike, is jumping into the […]

In a Carpocalypse update yesterday, King County Executive Dow Constantine and other officials said again that the traffic crunch has gone as well as they could have hoped. They again encouraged commuters to continue using transit and avoid driving during the viaduct closure, and warned drivers to stay off the road. “While we’ve survived the […]

The Link light rail extension to Federal Way is up next for federal funding approval, but Sound Transit is looking beyond for its future operational needs once the Tacoma Dome extension is completed in 2030. Among the priorities is identifying sites for an operations and maintenance facility (OMF), which is the subject of an ongoing […]

Jarrett Walker has a typically insightful post on New York’s plan to speed up its buses, bucketing the city’s proposed improvements into two categories: cost and controversy: The other big step involves controversy rather than money. More bus lanes need to be created, and the space for them will come from some other street use, usually […]

But it needs more funding Mayor Jenny Durkan announced yesterday that the 1st Avenue streetcar will go ahead, if the city can secure $88m in new funding. In a release, the mayor offered her most enthusiastic endorsement of the Center City Connector to date: “We have the opportunity to create a downtown with fewer cars […]