Seattle Transit Blog

Taking questions from the reader mailbag. Links mentioned: Detailed Move Seattle Budget RapidRide+: The Corridors Is UW Sleepwalking into a Transportation Disaster? Where America is Working http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_020.mp3

Happy to announce we've expanded our Home Area to serve more neighborhoods and added 150 MINI Clubman to our fleet! pic.twitter.com/9RkJzkxjfO — ReachNow (@ReachNowUSA) June 28, 2016 Rachel Lerman, The Seattle Times ($): BMW’s car-sharing service is expanding into the Seattle areas it promised to serve when the service launched two months ago. ReachNow said Tuesday it […]

In recent testimony before the Sound Transit board (and in its ST3 comment letter), the agency’s Expert Review Panel (ERP) asked the agency to take a finer look at expected household costs for Sound Transit 3 (ST3), this November’s major transit expansion measure. The published estimates of $203 annually per adult included a calculation of […]

Arlington County, just across the river from Washington DC, is a model for rail transit oriented development. It was not an easy journey but it was worth it, even their “slow growth-ers” agreed. It is quite the contrast from how civic leaders in South King County and Snohomish County approached Link’s alignment.

Metro Planner Ted Day and Heather McAuliffe are planning a family-friendly transit “hike” on Sunday, July 24th. I will use routes 62 and 75, and involve a stroll through Magnuson Park. Heather explains: Meet up location: Eastbound stop on Stevens Way at Rainier Vista for Routes 75 and 372 (UW Station) Board Route 75 departing […]

It’s that time again. If there’s a question you’d like Frank and me to answer on our next podcast, put it in the comments and we’ll get to as many as we can. The podcast should air sometime next week.

Temp bus lane on Westlake to help @kcmetrobus riders following #DucksBusCrash closure of Aurora Bridge. pic.twitter.com/1Zecno8ZQI — seattledot (@seattledot) September 25, 2015 I’m fond of criicizing local agencies (usually WSDOT) when events, planned and unplanned, bring pleas to take transit while those agencies take away any incentive to take that transit. So it’s only fair […]

Filling in another 32% of the funding puzzle, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced yesterday that the Lander Street Overpass project has been awarded $45m from the $800m pool of “FASTLANE” grants intended to improve freight mobility, highways, and bridges. Because everything we fund around here is piecemeal, the project has now cobbled together […]

Next year is a big year for Amtrak Cascades. The 2009-era stimulus projects will complete, Seattle and Portland will get two additional trips, and those trips will be faster and much more reliable. Since it’d been a while since we’d done an update on heavy rail projects, last month I sat down with Janet Matkin […]

Kitsap Transit needs bus drivers. Kenmore Council unanimously supports ST3. There’s an opening on Sound Transit’s Citizen Oversight Panel. “We love development and we are attracting a lot of new people,” ($) says Burien. If only officials in Seattle could be so unambiguous. GOP Gubernatorial candidate evasive about ST3, but meanwhile recycles the usual anti-rail, […]

When it launched in Seattle in 2000, Flexcar (later purchased by Zipcar) was a godsend for enabling car-free or car-light living. Hourly car rental, on demand, conveniently located near your home or office. Then came smartphones and GPS, followed by on-demand car sharing services like Car2Go and ReachNow, which did away with the dedicated parking spots in […]

A month after the largest earthquake preparedness drills in Northwest history – “Cascade Rising” – I began wondering about the seismic preparedness of our transit systems, both current and proposed. I’ve written about transportation and natural disasters before, and though life-or-death situations rightfully make subway health the least of our worries, I do believe we have […]

A couple weeks ago, I asked for reactions to the possibility of altering King County Metro routes 75 and 372 to mirror the couplet path of routes 65/67 and 78 through the University of Washington campus. Jeff Switzer from the King County Department of Transportation got back to me within a couple days with a […]

It’s a beautiful day in Safetyville…unless you are a safety-ignorant stick figure, then you’d be an amusingly morbid lesson for all of us.

On Monday, we celebrate the 240th anniversary of the colonies’ Brexit. Of course, forming a nation took a few years longer, but not as long as it has taken, and will continue to take, to build grade-separated high-capacity transit to Ballard, West Seattle, Everett, and Tacoma. There are those who think we should take even […]

With the dust starting to settle on University Link, some have turned their attention towards to the other end of the Link light rail system–the south end–and the upcoming opening of Angle Lake Station in SeaTac. With only weeks remaining until the anticipated opening in September, construction on the station and the 1.6 miles of […]

The U-Pass transit program for UW Faculty and Staff has been on an unsustainable financial trajectory for years, with a perverse reliance on parking revenue that cannibalizes funding as it succeeds in reducing driving. Rules against the gifting of public funds also require that these and other programs (such as ORCA Business Passport) be revenue neutral, […]

Northgate Link tunneling on track to finish in September. Residents in tall buildings sue to prevent tall buildings from blocking their view of tall buildings. ($) North Sound cities looking to grade-separate their rail lines.’ Capitol Hill Station is not yet perfect. 30 more stories on First Hill. Amtrak derails in Tukwila, no injuries. ST […]

In debating the relative merits of transit and bike priority in the Eastlake and Roosevelt corridors, it’s easy for each side to instinctively defend their own prior preferences. But largely unanswered in the debate so far is the fundamental existential question about the corridor, namely: How important is it from a mobility perspective, and for whom? […]

ST3 goes final Making transit work better during special events or construction Roosevelt-Eastlake BRT http://traffic.libsyn.com/seattletransitblog/STB_podcast_019.mp3

Last month, Zach explained how a view of Mount Rainier from Bellevue City Hall had become a roadblock to rezoning of several redevelopable sites near the East Main Link station. Last week, the Bellevue City Council voted 5-1 to not retain the view corridor. While the rezoning process is not over, this decision makes it much more […]

OneBusAway, one of the essential transit rider tools available to us, has unveiled its updated Android app with a major redesign to its interface. The app now adheres to Google’s “Material Design” guidelines, emphasizing the use of “cards” and responsive animation, bringing a modern look that is a far cry from the bland look of yesteryear. […]

A front-page story in yesterday’s Times ($) describes a study that shows much higher property values around light rail stations. “Studies” that come from local firms trying to generate PR deserve some skepticism. Nevertheless, I think their headline writer is trying to spin this as a bad thing: “To live near light rail in Seattle, you’ll […]

Bike and transit advocates share many common goals. We all want walkable and bikeable cities alongside (or atop) fast and reliable transit. But potential fracture points have arisen between the sometimes competing visions of the Center City Bike Network (and the broader Bike Master Plan), Move Seattle’s Rapid Ride corridors, and the sudden entry of […]

Growth skeptics love to complain about South Lake Union. It’s too sterile, too corporate, too luxury — it couldn’t possibly help address housing affordability. I never bought into that — just building units does a lot of good for the region — but give it just a little time, and districts like SLU can solve […]

OFF THE RAILS – Official Trailer from Adam Irving on Vimeo.

Of all the good urban problems to have, an overactive downtown core is among the best of them. We’ve come to the point where a weekday/weekend transit service dichotomy is too simple to adequately respond to unique changes in demand or stresses to the system. From Pride, SeaFair, Rock and Roll Marathon, Obama x 3, Xi […]

By now you will have heard that Sound Transit 3 (ST3), the 25-year, $54 billion transit expansion plan, is headed to your November ballot. The Sound Transit Board unanimously approved the System Plan yesterday afternoon, without a whiff of the controversy surrounding the ST2 vote, when last-minute antics and 2 ‘nay’ votes ruffled feathers and […]

SEATTLE SUBWAY Seattle Subway was formed just over 4 years ago with a simple goal: Speed up high quality rail investment in Seattle. Today, the Puget Sound region took a momentous step towards that goal when the Sound Transit Board approved the ST3 plan that will be on the ballot in November. The planning process […]

Today’s the day ST3 gets sent to the ballot. Follow along on Twitter (@seatransitblog), or watch above! We’ll be live tweeting from 1:30-4:00. Tweets by @SeaTransitBlog

Zach informed us all last Thursday that the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) plans to make only minimal transit improvements in its proposed Fairview-Eastlake-Roosevelt “high-capacity transit” (HCT) corridor. SDOT’s proposed improvements would be limited to a few blocks of BAT lanes near downtown, queue jumps at just a few congested intersections, off-board payment, some signal priority, and […]

Our treasured Craftsman Houses were once “evil,” ($) because change is scary. SeaTac considers banning “park and fly” lots at Angle Lake. Empty Metro bus catches fire ($) in Tukwila. I continue to be impressed by Lynnwood’s vision for the future. UW staff fear that the U-PASS (for employees, not students) is in danger. KUOW […]

Link ridership continues to climb, with preliminary figures for May average weekday ridership in the “mid 60s” according to spokesman Bruce Gray. Anecdotally, certain twitter scolds have noted times where these loads have meant jam-packed trains. At the least, loading a bike during rush hour is uncomfortable. At worst, dozens of people are left on […]

On Saturday the Seattle Times published an editorial opposing placing ST3 on the ballot. For a well-done and more profane takedown, read Heidi Groover’s great piece on Slog yesterday. Here are some high(low?)lights of the Times editorial: There’s no silver bullet, especially not the complex and evolving $54 billion plan Sound Transit is rushing onto November’s ballot. […]

Beginning the weekend of July 8-11th, WSDOT will conduct a major repaving project on I-5 between Tukwila and Federal Way. Southbound I-5 will shrink down to two lanes during this work. Transit users can expect delays. The work affects the 101, 106, and 150, as well as ST Express Routes. Metro spokesman Jeff Switzer says […]

A television documentary from 1984 about the history of the Bay Area’s transit system featuring scenes of long gone interurban railroads.

Today is Seattle’s annual day of manic, awesomely creative weirdness. Rock and Roll Marathon runners will take to the streets and run on the Viaduct, and thousands of naked cyclists and parade floats will make their annual pilgramage through Fremont. Over 30 bus routes will be detoured from Fremont to the Rainier Valley. There will […]

Since University Link opened, many more of you have occasion to use light rail in the course of your daily lives. Moreover, lots of stuff happens on Capitol Hill, and for most people, Link is part of the best transit path to get there. Nevertheless, if you’re not of those lucky rail riders, tomorrow will […]

The September service changes will be nowhere near as systematic as the recent ULink restructure, but they will bring a number of substantive changes nonetheless. Angle Lake Station’s September-ish opening will surely be the headliner, and Sounder’s new off-peak round trip will also be a big splash. The big SE Seattle restructure will also take effect, the Yesler […]

At an open house last night at the TOPS School in Eastlake, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) presented updated ‘concept designs’ for the Northgate-to-Downtown High Capacity Transit Project. Like Madison BRT before it, the concept design will be refined and completed over the summer, after the which the project will seek funding. As a […]

Roosevelt BRT meetings this week. Meddling design review board costs the city 36 stories of housing and jobs ($). Burn the whole design review process down. WSDOT hiring someone to put out information to travelers. “Asian Plaza” redeveloping in a big way. ST contracts with FCV to provide “user-centered design.” Metro in a kerfuffle over an […]

The green shirts of Save Our Trail have been a prominent fixture in the Sound Transit Boardroom over the past several months. They have spoken early and often against “any type of transit, ever” on the Cross-Kirkland Corridor, a 5.75 mile segment of the 15.9 mile Eastside Rail Corridor that stretches from Woodinville to Renton. […]

King County Metro has a couple northeast Seattle bus routes, 65/67 and 78, that serve both the inner University of Washington campus and UW Station, by having a couplet in which the westbound route runs on Stevens Way and the eastbound route runs on NE Pacific St, NE Pacific Way, and then Montlake Blvd NE, […]

Four years after initially proposed, Metro is finally seeking public comment through June 24 on the Queen Anne trolley restructure it hopes to implement in March 2017. The passing wire at Seattle Pacific has been complete for some time, but Metro needed to budget the small increase in service hours and propose the change as part […]

DTLA Street Futures from Karl Baumann on Vimeo.

The debate leading up to the adoption of the ST3 draft system plan on March 24 was politically fraught on the Eastside. After Sound Transit and the City of Kirkland failed to reach agreement on use of the Eastside Rail Corridor, the Board elected to build neither rail nor BRT on the corridor in Kirkland. Since then, […]

[Updated in paragraph three to clarify the description and cost of the added Renton station]. After Sound Transit released the draft system plan in March, some Eastside cities were unhappy it included a smaller investment in I-405 BRT than they had sought. Bellevue and Renton pushed for something closer to the “intensive capital” BRT with more parking […]

With Sound Transit about to break ground on a station at 145th St as part of ST2 and planning for BRT from SR 522 to 145th as part of ST3, the City of Shoreline has taken the lead on an extensive re-design of the 145th Street corridor, with an eye to improving bus, bicycle and […]

Carpooling in America has been is on the decline since the 1970s, but a new service from Uber could bring it back. Hiring an Uber to take you to work every day would normally be prohibitively expensive. But what if the driver didn’t need to make much money at all? What if the driver was […]