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by STB Advertising on (#2EXWP)
This Transportation Planning and Engineering Division Intern will assist City of Redmond staff to plan and deliver multimodal transportation projects and programs in this growing community and regional jobs center. Major projects underway include the Overlake Village transit-oriented development, the arrival of East Link light rail, and the development of Downtown Redmond into a mixed […]
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Seattle Transit Blog
| Link | https://seattletransitblog.com/ |
| Feed | https://feeds.feedburner.com/seattletransitblog/rss |
| Updated | 2024-11-23 04:00 |
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by Frank Chiachiere on (#2ETQ4)
Click here to view if the embedded video doesn’t work. This is an open thread.
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by Matthew Johnson on (#2ER2M)
Sound Transit has released their fourth quarter ridership data which wraps up 2016 as well as the January 2017 numbers. Average daily ridership for Link in January was: Weekday: 66,060 (+89.0%) Saturday: 49,853 (+134.7%) Sunday: 31,741 (+63.0%) Other weekday modal ridership stats: Sounder: 17,057 (+2.5%) Tacoma Link: 3,072 (-7.2%) ST Express: 63,144 (+0.7%) Sound Transit […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2ENA0)
TCC has their own list of bills in Olympia. East Link tunneling now underway. Rainier Ave. redesign worked. People losing their minds because ST is applying the law by levying a tax voters just approved. Redmond Link Station planning. Convention Place sale deal reached ($). Stuff changing around Mt. Baker. Olympia a swirling mass of bills […]
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by David Lawson on (#2EMDG)
King County Metro’s spring service change begins next Saturday, March 11. There are few major changes this time around, but quite a few incremental additions to service. Full service change information from Metro is here; the following are a few highlights. Routes 3 and 4 to serve SPU The sole major routing change affects the Queen […]
by Martin H. Duke on (#2EH85)
Five Democratic Senators, including Bob Hasegawa (who represents parts of Renton, Tukwila, and Sodo), yesterday teamed up with all 24 Republicans to pass SSB5001, which would govern Sound Transit with an elected board. Mr. Hasegawa apparently thinks that this Republican plan is inspired by a better way to get high-quality transit, or perhaps he doesn’t […]
by Zach Shaner on (#2EGJK)
STB has done a deep dive into the street overhauls and bus service restructures being considered by the One Center City project. If you haven’t already done so, please Participate in the online open house, and Comment at the site. The comment form is just an open-form text box, and there are no surveys to complete. As […]
by Zach Shaner on (#2ECC3)
Since its launch a year ago, the First Hill Streetcar (FHSC) has struggled operationally. It takes a wildly variable 20-35 minutes end to end, barely besting a walking pace. Being in mixed traffic, except for a short section of 14th Avenue, renders it useless during periods of gridlock. Its frequency is poor and unreliable. The many compromises […]
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by STB Editorial Board on (#2E99S)
Crises inspire clarity and focus, and One Center City is no different. Our whirlwind of overlapping projects usually overwhelms us with extended process and mind-numbing rounds of design revisions and open houses. But Seattle in 2017 faces an historic convergence of projects that prevents us from such discursive luxuries. If we do nothing, we face […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2E6DT)
Ok, so we’re definitely not ready for the Big One. The ‘quake’ that was felt in Seattle on Monday was due to a single tanker truck, overturned and leaking butane at the I-90/I-5 interchange. At 10:30 Monday morning, the overturned truck caused a closure of I-5 in both directions that lasted until after 7pm. Crews […]
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by Daniel Hodun on (#2E4C8)
[Editor’s Note: the author is not employed by Community Transit, and the restructure ideas presented here are entirely his own.] Community Transit currently has 19 routes that serve Downtown Seattle and the University District during peak commuter hours. In 2023, Westlake-Lynnwood travel times on Link will be 28 minutes with trains coming up to every […]
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by Brent White on (#2E0Y7)
Full text of the address is available here. This is an open thread.
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by Brent White on (#2DXZZ)
Friday was the last day for bills in the state legislature to get out of fiscal or transportation committees. Budget bills are exempt from that cut-off. The next cut-off is 5 pm on Wednesday, March 8, when bills have be out of their original house. 33 transit-related bills survived Friday’s cut-off in the House. Passed […]
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by Bruce Englehardt on (#2DV6H)
Beginning Sunday, March 12, Community Transit will add 40 new weekly trips on 11 routes, increasing late-night service on two major corridors, adding mid-day frequency in Lynnwood and expanding DART paratransit service hours. As we reported last year, the trips will combine for a total of 6,300 hours, and will be followed by a large service […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2DTH2)
Sen. Dino Rossi sponsoring anti-Sound Transit, anti-tolling bills straight out of 2000. Pierce Transit starting a bus from downtown to Pt. Defiance this June. Burke-Gilman missing link ($) lurching toward a conclusion. Seattle Council unanimously approves U-District upzone ($) after O’Brien, Sawant, and Herbold fail to water it down. Urban planning workshops over the next week for […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2DQ65)
Last night the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) kicked off planning for the five additional RapidRide corridors promised in 2015’s Move Seattle levy. The Draft Seattle RapidRide Expansion Program Report rolls two projects already underway – Madison Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Roosevelt High Capacity Transit (HCT) – into a single process that includes the next […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2DPBK)
Seattle’s transit service winds down around 1 AM on most nights. The evenings of July 4th and December 31st, with big crowds (drunkenly) watching late fireworks, are two nights where that seems less than adequate. Metro is typically reluctant to add additional trips that are hard to usefully publicize, and Sound Transit sticks to its […]
by Brent White on (#2DKAP)
Last Friday was the final day for bills in the State Legislature to get out of a committee, with the exception of fiscal and transportation committees, and bills necessary to budgets. Fifteen bills related to housing supply passed out of a House committee by yesterday’s cut-off. House Bill 1085, sponsored by Rep. Brian Blake (D […]
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by Brent White on (#2DJJW)
A Pierce Transit employee was killed Tuesday evening after being run over by a bus at the headquarters, located in Lakewood. Names of the victim and the driver of the bus were not released Tuesday night. KOMO is updating its coverage frequently, for the latest details. Our condolences go to family of the deceased, and […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2DGYT)
[Update 2: A reader sent in the scanner traffic reporting the incident. Listen below.] [Update: Sound Transit worked through the night to fix track and signal damage, and service returned to normal Wednesday morning.] Around 8:30pm Tuesday a person driving a white Chevy Tahoe SUV collided at high speed with Link at Holgate Street in Sodo. […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2DFZD)
After a year of process in 2015 and extensive (and often heated) public participation, Metro and Sound Transit mostly bit the bullet and forged ahead with aggressive bus restructures to feed the University Link extension. Storied routes such as the 71/72/73 were deleted or shortened, the once-highest ridership line in the city (Route 48) was […]
by David Lawson on (#2DE69)
It’s time to make Third Avenue into Seattle’s first transit mall. Tomorrow. Or, at least, late next year, once the remaining buses have to leave the downtown tunnel. The City of Seattle should ban all* non-transit motor vehicles from Third, 24/7. Banning cars completely would: Increase the bus capacity of Third Speed up bus travel Allow more efficient […]
by Martin H. Duke on (#2DAS8)
I was as happy as anyone when SDOT installed OneBusAway kiosks at major downtown bus stops. Although getting real-time data on one’s phone is a huge advance, there is no substitute for an easy-to-read sign present at the stop. As the picture at right attests, however, the flat-panel TVs in these kiosks have significant maintenance […]
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The SPIRE Plan Becomes Our Region’s Surest Bet for Express Rail Service: A Mapped, Annotated Update.
by Troy Serad on (#2D9PR)
NOTE: This post is copied in its entirety from an article I wrote, titled With Major Revisions, the SPIRE Plan Becomes Our Region’s Surest Best for Express Rail Service: A Mapped, Annotated Update. It is the latest entry of my blog, Transportation Matters, a Pacific Northwest-flavored blog that discusses railway planning, urban planning, and related politics. <>————-<>————-<>————-<>————-<> […]
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by Bruce Englehardt on (#2D82Z)
At Friday’s regular board meeting, the Sound Transit Board heard a report about the state of elevators and escalators on the Link light rail system. Some stations, like University of Washington, are not meeting the escalator availability standard because of frequent and long-term outages that is being blamed on premature component failure, among other […]
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by Brent White on (#2D4VK)
On Monday, the City of Mercer Island City Council voted to sue Sound Transit and the Washington State Department of Transportation. On Friday, the Sound Transit Board of Directors returned the favor. MOTION NO. M2017-20 A motion of the Board of the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority authorizing legal action against the City of […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2D1G6)
Looking to foster greater ties with our Canadian neighbor, last fall Microsoft sponsored the Emerging Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference in Vancouver. Many of the issues discussed were as you’d expect: the flow of skilled labor between the U.S. and Canada, easing of trade restrictions, and pre-emptive fear of the then-ridiculous prospect of a Trump presidency. Seemingly out […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2CX84)
The failure that caused a five-hour Link stoppage ($). WSDOT has a new “Active Transportation Division.†Distracted driving bill rolling along ($). Pedestrian injuries and ORCA LIFT underutilization. This story about an affordable housing lottery ($) is heartbreaking. Bonney Lake P&R now has bike lockers. This is a nice summary of the state of bike investment. […]
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by Brent White on (#2CTS1)
A bill to give wheelchair-accessible taxis access to HOV lanes and a bill to give motorcycles access to some transit lanes are moving forward in the State Senate. Committee Substitute Senate Bill 5018, by the Senate Transportation Committee, and originally by Sens. Bob Hasegawa (D – Renton) and Patty Kuderer (D – Clyde Hill), would […]
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by Frank Chiachiere on (#2CRZZ)
More on One Center City Should ST have an elected board? (17:30) Tolling freeways (29:11) High-speed rail to Vancouver (34:55) http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_034.mp3
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by Zach Shaner on (#2CPHW)
Last October we reported on a partnership between Metro and SDOT to overhaul the last remnants of the vestigial night owl network (defined as service between 2:15-4:30am). The plan announced then would eliminate Routes 82/83/84 while beefing up service on a number of key corridors: If approved by the County Council, the proposal would boost total […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2CKNB)
Update: Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff released a statement on the Mercer Island City Council’s votes to pursue a lawsuit and permitting moratoria seeking to block the upcoming start of construction of East Link light rail in the center lanes of I-90 across Lake Washington. At a packed City Council meeting Monday evening, the City […]
by Zach Shaner on (#2CHBE)
Last week Commute Seattle came out with its biennial Modesplit Survey, showing more incremental progress towards a culture of walking, biking, and taking transit to work. In follow up discussions both internally and in comment threads, we’ve wondered about the balance between this cultural shift and the way we allocate our right-of-way. As One Center City prepares […]
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by Brent White on (#2CE1H)
The Point Defiance Bypass Project will change the face of heavy rail service in Pierce County by the end of this year. You have only a few months left to take in the view around Ruston. Reminder: South Sounder will only be running between Puyallup and Seattle (serving all stations in between) from the afternoon […]
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by Brent White on (#2CAX0)
Olympia Transit Center, photo by SounderBruce / flickr A pair of bills would give Thurston County’s Intercity Transit (IT) the authority to go to the voters and ask for an additional 0.3% sales tax authority. The current IT tax rate is 0.8%, out of 0.9% authorized by the state. Sales tax provides 3/4 of IT’s […]
by Brent White on (#2C79M)
Sound Transit had the right idea when it proposed a new route, ST Express 591, from Tacoma to north downtown Seattle via the Seneca St exit from I-5, in its 2015 Service Implementation Plan (page 94). The proposal included forcing riders from Tacoma currently riding ST Express 586 to transfer to Link Light Rail to […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2C42W)
More people are driving into Downtown Seattle than ever, and car commuting is at its lowest rate in the modern era. Both of these statements are true. This morning Commute Seattle released its 4th biennial “Modesplit Survey†capturing commute trends in Seattle’s Center City – see our coverage of the 2012 and 2014 surveys – and the results show […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2C316)
5 million ORCA LIFT trips last year. ST’s train etiquette campaign. Seattle seeking data on Uber and Lyft’s impact on traffic. Bike stakeholders not happy with One Center City planning. SDOT’s trucks designed to be safe for bikes. Boise’s transit not adequate. Update on ST projects in Renton. KIRO talks driverless trains. The concern about […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2C055)
As the One Center City project proposes removing SR 520 buses from Downtown Seattle, minor design flaws at UW Station will become all the more prominent, and the success of truncating buses at UW depends on fixing them. There is enormous promise for the concept. Route 545, for example, spends half its running time between International District […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2BYWG)
Snow days are hard on agencies. Imagine chaining hundreds of buses and fundamentally altering your network on short notice. Doing so protects rider safety and is very necessary in a hilly town, but it causes a lot of pain too: it breaks transfers, hoses real-time information, leaves large network gaps (cough, First Hill or Wedgwood), and […]
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by Brent White on (#2BTMD)
ST Express 550 in Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel / photo by SounderBruce on flickr The One Center City bus restructure plan rolled out on January 26 contains some painful proposals, terminating ST Express 550 at International District / Chinatown Station, turning most of the West Seattle and Burien peak express routes (37, 55, 56, 57, […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2BPHF)
After multiple warm winters and a few false starts during this cold one, the Seattle metro area finally got a substantial amount of snow Sunday night. Nearly a foot has fallen in places like Bonney Lake, with 2-3 inches here in Seattle. Metro is reporting numerous cancellations and serious delays throughout the system this morning, and buses […]
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by Brent White on (#2BJTF)
King County Metro started offering free carpool parking permits at six park & ride lots on February 1.
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by Brent White on (#2BFHA)
Crowded southbound train at University Street Station during evening rush hour Photo by SounderBruce, flickr Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff gave us a tight range on the practical maximum number of light rail vehicles (LRVs) that can be in service at one time regularly given the current fleet, in one of his Board reports last […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2BCZB)
Standing up to demands for perpetual privilege, WSDOT has informed the city of Mercer Island that its 40-year special access to high occupancy lanes will end in June. At that time, the I-90 express lanes will permanently close for the 6-year construction of East Link, and additional HOV lanes will be added in the main […]
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by Calvin Tonini on (#2BBYT)
This past Thursday evening the City of Redmond held a public meeting about bus and rail planning for the future Downtown Redmond light rail station, part of the City’s ongoing Downtown planning. The City asked the public to give feedback about four station area concepts, with the eventual goal of providing the City’s recommended station area […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2B8M5)
In one of the first tangible signs that the Point Defiance Bypass is coming to a close this year, Sounder trains will not serve Tacoma, South Tacoma, or Lakewood from February 17-22. During the 6-day closure, crews will prepare to open the south track of the new Tacoma Trestle. Despite it being a 6-day closure, […]
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by Martin H. Duke on (#2B79T)
ST escalators keep failing ($). Car2Go rolls out 200 4-door Mercedes vehicles, increasing options for multiple passengers. Erica on where HALA went wrong. Rob Johnson spearheading a badly needed upzone. KCDOT hiring a position in public engagement. As promised, ST tightens rules about ordering stops in Link service. 450 more spaces for Kent Sounder by 2024, […]
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by Zach Shaner on (#2B37F)
Earlier this month the Kent Reporter had a story about disagreements between the Kent City Council and Sound Transit on restroom facilities at its two Kent stations (Kent/Des Moines and Star Lake/272nd). For the more dramatic account, see KOMO. Back when Kent was adopting its (impressive) rezone for the Kent “Midway†area in advance of light rail, the […]
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by Frank Chiachiere on (#2AZMN)
Panic at the port Funding for sanctuary cities (7:40) Link to Federal Way (12:35) Eastside bike share (23:45) One Center City (25:35) http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_033.mp3
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