Seattle Transit Blog

In a break with tradition, Bumbershoot‘s three days span this Friday through Sunday, but not Labor Day. The monorail is staying open a little later for the crowds. The Washington State Fair opened Friday, and runs through four weekends and three weeks, with Sounder service provided on the final two Saturdays, September 17 and 24. […]

Frank and I will be taping soon, so if there’s a question you’d like us to answer, please leave it in the comments over the next couple of days.

It’s that time of year again! Metro and Sound Transit service changes begin Saturday, September 10. If you feel like this is earlier than past years, well, you’re right. The agencies have moved to biannual service changes, in mid-March and mid-September, replacing the previous late-September timing when there were three changes each year. The big news is […]

The Sound Transit 3 campaign now has their own official online tax calculator. Fauntleroy ferry operations not going well. Pushing for a narrower waterfront highway, but general-purpose lanes are “non-negotiable.” I wish I could be this optimistic that we’d be the first to see self-driving cars. Community Transit repainting Lynnwood Transit Center; some service revisions. SDOT […]

The wait ends this Saturday. At long last, Husky football is accessible to the masses by means other than buses crawling through a sea of cars and then a wall of people. The 2016 edition of Husky football kicks off Saturday at 11 am, against the Scartlet Knights of Rutgers. This will be the first-ever […]

The long-awaited mid-day Sounder round-trip will begin a week from Monday, on September 12. Perhaps more accurately described as “shoulder peak” than mid-day, the new trip will leave Lakewood at 10:18am for a 11:31 Seattle arrival, with a 3-hour layover before departing Seattle at 2:32pm for a 3:45 arrival in Lakewood. The service will utilize […]

This November we have a generational opportunity to build on Sound Transit’s recent successes, and extend a regional rapid transit network that is able to scale with a growing region. To understand why a yes vote is important, we’ll start from the beginning. Why Transit? The reasons to favor transit investment over cars are numerous. The […]

With the confluence of Mariner and Husky season looming, Mike Lindblom reports that Sound Transit is looking to beef up “mega event” service beyond it’s already-boosted weekend standard of 3 cars every 10 minutes. Sound Transit would do this by running weekday peak frequency but inverting the baseline, with twelve 3-car trains joining seven 2-car trains. During regular peak […]

I-732 and progressive coalitions (1:20) Reuven Carlyle’s doubts about ST3 (24:05) What do ST1’s cost overruns tell us, if anything, about ST3? (35:30) Angle Lake (42:30) Sponsored by Talking Headways http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_023.mp3

In the discussions of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) at Shoreline’s future 145th Street Station, Charles Bond at The Urbanist broke the news that Sound Transit, Metro, and WSDOT have agreed to move the station north by roughly 400′, to the vicinity of NE 148th Street. As we discussed last week, the station already has much going against […]

Acting WSDOT secretary Roger Millar no longer acting, will be ST Board Member as well. East King Park and Rides filling up. Vancouver tries to learn from Seattle bikeshare’s mistakes. ST Board approves Northgate parking garage. TransitApp keeps improving. “Environmental” groups reject I-732. Apparently reducing carbon emissions is not a big enough priority to subordinate their […]

At a press conference this morning, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff and Sound Transit Board Chair/King County Executive Dow Constantine announced that Angle Lake Station will open on Saturday, September 24th. Alaska Airlines is sponsoring the opening ceremonies to the tune of $25,000, with total costs for Opening Day expected to be just north of $50,000, more […]

I’ve just returned from a weeklong vacation in Glacier National Park, and though I didn’t intend to think much about transit while there, I was more than pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of the park’s bike, bus, and rail options. Glacier draws 2.3m visitors per year despite its remoteness – the nearest large cities (Calgary […]

If you commute on Link between Westlake and UW, you may notice something a little different beginning this afternoon: cell service. Sound Transit has announced that the long-awaited addition begins today and will be rolled out over the coming months in (many) phases. For various administrative reasons and because each carrier has to sign a […]

While they remain controversial politically, the HOT lanes on I-405 between Bellevue and Lynnwood are increasingly popular with transit users and the drivers who use the lanes. Higher than forecast driver demand has led to higher toll revenues, and those revenues are being put to work to benefit drivers in the corridor. The first improvement is […]

At this point it’s a cliche to say that we have an affordability crisis, although it’s more accurately described as a housing shortage. There are many powerful anecdotes that support this thesis, but unfortunately policymakers lack the metrics to indicate if their housing strategy is working. In the news media, we see two data series […]

Whether or not the current run-up in housing prices constitutes a “new bubble” is an open question, but it can’t be denied that the U.S. housing market is awash in investor capital, seeking outsize returns in a world where there aren’t many to be had. Case in point: Goldman Sachs bringing back the bubble-inflating CDO. […]

Community Transit announced Friday that the agency’s board of directors has approved the purchase of at least 57 buses to be delivered beginning next year. The buses ordered were part of three contracts awarded to three different manufacturers: Alexander Dennis for 17 double-decker (“Double Tall”) buses, Gillig for 26 40-foot buses to be used on […]

Roosevelt station progressing [DJC] Car makes illegal left, gets hit by light rail [KIRO] Sen. Reuven Carlyle reflects on ST3 after reading Zach… [Reuven Carlyle’s blog] … while Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon writes a full-throated rebuttal… [PubliCola] … and Rich Soltz of OneAmerica piles on [the Stranger] Wallace Properties – yes, that Kevin Wallace – making bank on […]

It’s high time for a resurrection of this blog’s classic Transit Report Card series, in which STB writers wildly generalize another city’s transit system based on limited experiences. I’m here to report from two separate car-free trips to Washington, D.C., home to the (in)famous Metrorail system. Over the course of two cumulative weeks in October and June, […]

Thursday evening at 7pm, the Shoreline Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on two ordinances (750, 751) that will formally adopt the the 145th Street Station Subarea Plan (145mb PDF). If you live in Lake City, Bitter Lake, Shoreline, or other nearby areas, the meeting could use urbanist support for the currently preferred Alternative 4. Set to […]

On primary election night, there were two nail-biter races for who would take the second spot on the November 8 general election ballot, involving candidates endorsed by this blog. The nail-biting is over, and the two upstarts endorsed by STB have advanced. In the wide-open race to replace longtime Congressman Jim McDermott to represent the […]

During a press conference Friday morning with U.S. Representatives Suzan DelBene (1st district) and Rick Larsen (2nd district), Community Transit CEO Emmett Heath introduced details about the upcoming second Swift bus rapid transit line, including the all-important line colors. As speculated during the planning process, the first line, which opened in 2009 and runs along Highway 99 […]

On Thursday, State Representative Reuven Carlyle (D-36) wrote a strongly-worded editorial on Publicola opposing Sound Transit 3 (ST3). By using much of the remaining property tax capacity, Carlyle says, ST3 “will suck the oxygen out of the room” and jeopardize the state’s ability to respond to the McCleary decision: I am unsettled that the package consumes […]

Across the region, there is a conversation going on about what the area around the new light rail stations will look like. Will cities upzone and encourage more dense development to maximize the use of the stations, or will they leave things as-is? It is helpful to look back at ST1 stations and see how […]

In addition to Metro’s recent release of preliminary bus restructure numbers, Sound Transit has also released a chart giving us a clearer picture of ULink’s station-level ridership through Q2. See above to draw your own conclusions, but here are a few noteworthy points: UW Station: At 9,200 boardings per day, UW Station has the 2nd most […]

Ridership and Crowding ($) (2:40) Not enough housing construction (16:10) Madison BRT improvements (23:50) Parking permits (30:00) ST3 costs (44:05) http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_022.mp3 Note: apologies in advance for the microphone issues on Frank’s end. Sponsored by Talking Headways

The Metro restructure that accompanied the opening of Sound Transit’s University Link was the most significant service change in a generation. It undid decades-old travel patterns, killed a handful of routes, and created several new ones. It was rightfully controversial, and we covered it each step of the way (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). […]

The completion of the Sound Transit 2 plan will more than double Sound Transit’s ridership from about 150 thousand today to 350 thousand, and ST3 will nearly double that again to between 561 and 695 thousand daily riders. The ST3 plan would result in 657 to 797 thousand daily transit riders in the region in 2040. Bench-marked against […]

Yesterday Sound Transit released its June ridership numbers, and Link appears to have found its new equilibrium: 65,000 weekday riders. Weekday ridership was nearly identical to may (down 0.7%), while total Link ridership of 1.8m boardings was up 1% over May 2016. These figures still represent 69% growth over June 2015. However, June did set one […]

Angle Lake Station parking garage, to feature $5/month carpool parking permits starting Opening Day – Sounder Bruce The Operations & Administration Committee of the Sound Transit Board took action Thursday on several contracts, including the selection of the contractor to operate Sound Transit’s soon-to-be-permanent permit parking program. Republic Parking Northwest submitted the winning bid to […]

Closed bridges mean bus reroutes between 12:30 and 3:30 pm (Sounder Bruce) Seafair weekend (this Friday-Sunday, August 5-7) will once again feature free Metro-operated shuttles between Columbia City Station and the main gate for viewing the hydroplane races at Genesee Park. The shuttles will run 5:45 am to 8 pm all three days. As an […]

When I read Erica Barnett’s piece yesterday about a small Phinney Ridge apartment project sent back to Design Review for a 4th time, I thought of my religious upbringing and Jesus’ lament in Matthew 23:24 : “You blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” Despite recent positive moves toward a more aggressively pro-housing stance, including […]

Now that we’ve itemized three waves of projects that ST3 would deliver (1, 2 ,3), you might wonder how much this project will actually cost. There are a lot of numbers, some of them very large, that have circulated over the last year or so. But how much is it really going to cost? I don’t want […]

Bellevue to put a transportation property tax measure ($) on November’s ballot. Why you don’t see more 3-car trains. Issaquah’s $50m transportation bond in November includes a handful of bike lanes. Pierce Transit buses to get security cameras and free Wi-Fi by the end of the year. The premise of this Danny Westneat column ($) is […]

The initial vote counts are in. STB Endorsees are in bold. Several statewide results are of interest to transit and density advocates: Jay Inslee leads Bill Bryant 49-38 and Patty Murray leads Chris Vance 53-28. In the 7th Congressional District, Pramila Jayapal (38%) will face either Brady Walkinshaw (21%) or Joe McDermott (21%). In the […]

This week the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) will debut its 30% design for Rapid Ride on the Madison Street corridor between 1st Avenue and MLK. Back at the 10% concept design late last year, we lamented the reliance on Business Access and Transit lanes in the downtown core, as well as the complete lack of […]

Everett Transit and Pierce Transit are the lucky recipients of federal grants to purchase new buses powered by electric batteries, similar to those operated by King County Metro on the Eastside. The Federal Transit Administration’s “Low or No Emission Vehicle Program” awarded $55 million in grants to 21 transit agencies nationwide. Everett Transit will use its $3.4 […]

When I drive my Subaru downtown, which I do several times a week for business, I feel something I don’t often feel as a transit rider: I feel respected. Not only do I have all the traditional power of wielding heavy machinery, but I have vast city resources at my disposal. Despite taking up an […]

Tuesday, August 2 is primary election day. It’s time to fill out your ballot and mail it in (with 1st class postage, worth at least 47 cents), take your ballot to the nearest drop box, or get in line at an accessible voting center. You must get your ballot postmarked by Tuesday, drop it at […]

Nearly accurate rendition of the LADOT logo in a cartoon.

Peak hour queue to exit Capitol Hill Station — photo by SounderBruce — Flickr Those of you who have spent any time at UW Station, Capitol Hill Station, Mt Baker Station, Tukwila International Boulevard Station, or SeaTac Airport Station may have noticed something obvious about the station escalators. They usually involve long queues in only […]

At yesterday’s Sound Transit Board meeting, CEO Peter Rogoff gave board members a brief update on new Link vehicle procurement planned for 2018 (see video below from 4’30” to 6’30”). The 122-car order went out to bid late last year, and Rogoff told the board that ST would soon issue a Notice of Award to Siemens […]

During Thursday’s meeting of the Sound Transit Board, a motion was approved to order 32 double-decker buses from Alexander Dennis for $33 million. The order is a joint procurement with Community Transit and Kitsap Transit for a total of 143 total buses; Community Transit will receive 57 buses for its commuter routes and Kitsap Transit will receive 11; Sound Transit […]