Seattle Transit Blog

As testing for the First Hill Streetcar has proceeded, the final station touches have been added, including frosted glass and station amenities such as maps and rider information. Yet in a triumph of form over function, the well-designed maps omit just about every important piece of transit information that a rider might want to know. Their modal […]

I give thanks that transit operates 365 days a year here in Seattle. Some in transit get the day off, some do not. The day after Thanksgiving is now designated Mark McLaughlin Day by King County, in honor of the operator who was shot and killed by a passenger 17 years ago. The bus went […]

This morning, Metro has begun soliciting feedback on a proposal to connect Renton, Skyway, Rainier Beach, Mount Baker, and the International District with frequent service 7 days a week. The proposal resurrects a largely meritorious idea from the old transit cuts packages, merging the southern half of Route 8 (soon to be 38) with Route […]

At a few minutes after eight on election night, November 3, Shafali Ranganathan, deputy director at Transportation Choices Coalition, was a bundle of nerves. Standing behind a pool table set up with computers and a projector in an upstairs room at the Belltown Pub, Ranganathan and about 100 supporters of Move Seattle, the biggest transportation levy […]

Martin and Frank discuss Madison BRT, open vs. closed bus systems, BRT creep, rail bias, bus branding, and Sound Transit’s new CEO. https://media.blubrry.com/seattletransitblog/s3.amazonaws.com/stb-wp/wp-content/podcasts/STB_podcast_6.mp3

You can plan for growth, or you can be overwhelmed by it. This community is planning for it. — Peter M. Rogoff, next CEO of Sound Transit The Sound Transit Board held its monthly meeting Thursday, featuring a hotly-debated fare change on ST Express and Sounder and the confirmation of Peter M. Rogoff as the […]

Coach 91501 on display at Union Station yesterday afternoon. (Photo by author) This morning at Everett Station, the first of five new double-decker buses began regular service on Sound Transit Express routes. The double-decker buses, ordered in March 2014 for approximately $5 million and first proposed in November 2013, are identical to the second generation of Alexander […]

New Link maps percolating through the fleet (see picture above). Reaction here. Tacoma Housing Authority planning 40 to 50-unit mixed-use development near future Tacoma Link station. Kirkland holding meeting Nov. 19th about BRT. Buried in this article about new buildings at UW ($), this little example of how our transportation money goes astray: “The Nanoengineering & […]

Yesterday, County Executive Dow Constantine announced the long-expected sale of Convention Place Station (CPS) to the Washington State Convention Center for a price tag of $147M. The long-expected move provides the WSCC with the largest parcel required for its vision of a $1.4B expansion (financed primarily by $1.1B in 30-year bonds) that would be the […]

Kirkland residents and workers, and anyone else interested in the future of mobility in Kirkland, should attend the City of Kirkland’s ST3 open house tomorrow night (Thursday, Nov. 19). The open house is at the Kirkland Performance Center in downtown Kirkland, one short block from Kirkland Transit Center, from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. Frequent Metro bus […]

Last night SDOT hosted a crowd of nearly 200 people to hear the latest Preferred Concept Design for the Madison Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project. SDOT staff and Nelson Nygaard walked attendees through the rationale for the project (inclusion in Seattle’s Transit Master Plan), the preferred alignment, stop and facilities treatments, fleet plans, funding, and […]

Last August, Sound Transit selected a Project Priority List to proceed to the next level of study for the ST3 ballot measure. Since then, the agency has been working with other stakeholders to evaluate potential projects. The City of Kirkland, having successfully advocated for a Bus Rapid Transit option on the Eastside Rail Corridor (ERC), has worked with consultants to […]

From the video’s description: The Enoshima Electric Railway is a popular scenic railway line on the pacific coast, 50 kilometers in the south of Tokyo. It is also called Enoshima Dentetsu, making the shortened form “Enoden”.

Late last year, pressure from Seattle Transit Blog leaders led the City to require a study on integrating the Seattle Center Monorail into the ORCA system. Last June, Seattle Center delivered its report, as discovered by alert reader Kevin Heim. The bottom line is that there are three steps necessary for ORCA integration: The city […]

The Sound Transit Board of Directors is scheduled to take action on the proposals for fare increases and adding a low-income fare category on ST Express and Sounder at its monthly meeting next Thursday, November 19, from 1:30-4:00 pm. The public comment period on the proposals ended last Thursday, so any further lobbying requires communicating […]

Low bid on Bellevue Link tunnel drilling is $121m, 20% below estimates. Pronto ready for U-Link. Lots of skyscrapers coming to downtown and SLU. Marco Rubio wants to slash federal gas tax, end “looting” by the Mass Transit Account. Roger Valdez argues proposed developer fees will deter construction. SDOT looking at plans for Ballard land […]

Though Sound Transit 3 won’t be on the ballot until next year, the recent elections will have a direct impact on ST3, shuffling 3 of the 18 Sound Transit Board seats. The current board will get one crack at the ST3 project list at a December 4th Board Workshop (more on this soon), but new boardmembers […]

The update to our recent Madison BRT post contained a crucial bit of information, namely that SDOT’s Concept Design is not considering transit priority east of 18th Avenue for Madison Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and that it will only have fully exclusive right-of-way for 10 blocks (from 9th to 13th Avenue). There may be good (or […]

Three quick updates this morning on the Seattle Streetcar network. 1). Portland is getting ready to buy 3 of our used streetcars for the price of 1. 2). After a lengthy closure for Amazon HQ construction, the inbound 7th/Westlake stop on the South Lake Union line has reopened. 3). According to the streetcar’s official Twitter account, the First […]

When all the construction is done and light rail spreads across greater Puget Sound sometime in the next decade, one segment will look distinctly different from the rest. The 7 miles of track through the Rainier Valley will be the only section one of few sections, along with parts of East Link, where the trains run at-grade. […]

Wednesday is Veterans Day, which is a holiday for some, but not for most transit agencies. Indeed, Sound Transit, the monorail, the South Lake Union Streetcar, Pierce Transit, Community Transit, Everett Transit, Skagit Transit, Island Transit, Whatcom Transit, Intercity Transit, Twin Transit, Jefferson Transit, Greys Harbor Transit, and Mason Transit are all running on regular […]

Sound Transit held a hearing on the proposals for fare increases and honoring ORCA LIFT on ST Express and Sounder last Thursday, followed by a meeting of the board’s Operations and Administration Committee, where the proposals were vetted for a recommendation to the full board. Sunnie Sterling, ST’s Revenue Analysis Manager, gave staff’s reason for […]

Zurich: Where People Are Welcome and Cars Are Not from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

University Link is coming in roughly one quarter. Expectations are high, not only for the revolution in travel time it will bring, but for the sheer volume of people expected to use the service. Sound Transit’s draft 2016 Service Implementation Plan (p. 122) projects average weekday boardings of 34,600 this year jumping up to 51,800 in […]

Late Friday morning, Sound Transit’s tunnel boring machine ‘Brenda’ holed through at the future University District station at NE 43rd St & Brooklyn Ave NE. The machine took 6 months to tunnel the mile between Roosevelt Station and the UDistrict and will be refurbished before digging the last mile of the northbound tunnel to UW Station. […]

Are you ready for ST3? Project evaluation begins in earnest 4 weeks from Friday, when the ST Board will begin reviewing updated project analysis while beginning to look at financial models and overall package size options. Back in May, the initial project list caused considerable alarm (and a record 529 comments) among our readership for not […]

Metro enrolled 18,384 people in ORCA LIFT through September, and are 3% of all Metro boardings. Sound Transit hiring a transit planner. Pierce Transit considers a fare increase. Jarrett Walker tries to understand the other side. The full “Gridlocked” forum video is now online. ST seeking contractor for Lynnwood Link. Congress fighting over Positive Train […]

[Correction: SDOT says in an email the updated concept will have no bus priority east of 18th Avenue, with buses running in mixed traffic from 18th-MLK. The original post has been updated below.] It’s been roughly six months since we last heard from the (newly funded!) Madison BRT project. Back in May, public feedback generally […]

In initial results posted last night, Seattle voters largely embraced the center-left urbanism of Mayor Murray, approving Move Seattle, retaining all 5 City Council incumbents, and easily beating anti-growth candidates such as Bill Bradburd. Happily, here at STB we are enjoying a 9-0 lead in our Council endorsements, though races may shift as more ballots come […]

Welcome to STB’s 2015 General Election Open Thread! We’ll be posting results as they come in (first drop is at 8pm), and we’ll be chiming in with additional commentary throughout the evening. We’ll also be sharing reactions on our Twitter feed using hashtag #seaelex. 5:00pm If you want to know where to celebrate and ‘network’ […]

[UPDATE: The livestream technology didn’t work out for us. You’ll hear the podcast in the morning. Sorry.] Martin and I are going to try to do a live audio broadcast of the election results tonight, starting around 8:15pm PST. Watch this space for details on how to listen. If the live stream doesn’t work for whatever reason, […]

Republished from Let’s Move Seattle Last Friday Mayor Murray quietly published an op-ed to the Let’s Move Seattle campaign page, eloquently responding to many of the measure’s critics. If you haven’t voted yet, get on it, and if you’re still unsure of your vote on Prop 1, here is the Mayor’s op-ed reprinted in full. […]

If you are tired of having your mailbox stuffed with slick mailers full of hyperbole, stock photo models designed to look like Seattleites, finger-pointing about how their opponent is going negative, as well as the onslaught of hate being heaped on bike, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure through the largesse of a major Eyman funder, REJOICE! […]

The Slog had a well-reported piece Sunday on whether or not Move Seattle is a “slush fund.” That’s a loaded choice of words by the opposition, meant to imply a lack of democratic or public process. If you think that implication is plausible, then this is your first month following Seattle politics. To actually construct […]

A bus so quiet you can have an acoustic music performance on it, for a more pleasant environment inside and out.

At its September Board Meeting, Sound Transit approved the largest single budget item in its history, $733M to procure the remaining 122 light rail vehicles (LRVs) needed for the full ST2 buildout to Lynnwood, Overlake, and Des Moines. When delivered, these LRVs will triple Sound Transit’s fleet from the current 62 LRVs to a total of […]

Metro’s ORCA LIFT program is one of the first low-income transit fare products in North America, and it is fully worth your support. Earlier this year Sound Transit began accepting LIFT on Link Light rail but not on Sounder or its ST Express buses. Pierce Transit and Community Transit don’t participate in LIFT while operating the majority […]

Earlier this week, Councilmember Kshama Sawant announced a sweeping set of proposals with the stated purpose of helping small business while flanked by local small business leaders. Two of those proposals relate directly to land use and transit. People simultaneously encouraged by Sawant’s categorical support for transit, and apprehensive about her attitude to market-rate development,* will […]

A few months back, I wrote, with much exasperation, about an irritating quirk of King County Metro policy I dubbed the “Shoreline Rule”–the requirement that, without exception, all Metro riders who want to contest a transit infraction drive or, more likely, take the bus all the way to King County District Court in Shoreline. I […]

First Hill Streetcar begins “post-performance testing.” CT will use Mountlake Terrace bus ramps to bypass congestion. Mayor Murray proposes cheaper sidewalks to afford more. Tacoma Link gets $15m from USDOT. But Feds pass over Northgate Bridge and Pronto expansion. Freighthouse Square Final Design ready for comment, will open in 2017. ST picks Bellevue for the new Operations […]

In my post on ORCA2 a few weeks ago, I used target dates from documents included in Sound Transit’s contractor request, which according to ST staff, were incorrect. Current ST plans have ORCA2 starting to go live in 2020, not 2019. New equipment will begin appearing in late 2019, not 2018. The old system will […]

An election that will determine the future of Seattle governance and transportation priorities for a long time to come is just one week from its conclusion. Ballots must be post-marked by Tuesday, November 3, and must include first-class postage worth at least 49 cents. There are also drop boxes, where you can drop off your […]

As an addendum to Bruce’s post about the proposed Pine Street bus lane, I thought it would be worth making the point that despite the opening of University Link and the associated restructure of bus service, that net service levels on Pine Street will be still busier than ever during peak periods. This chart looks […]

The Seattle Department of Transportation is proposing to install six blocks of 24/7 bus lane, downtown, on Pine St, between 9th Ave and 3rd Ave. The proposed installation will mirror a similar installation on Pike St, between 2nd and 7th, completed last summer: It will be a painting and signage exercise in the right-hand curb […]

Now that the major bus restructure has passed and questions about transit access to UW Station have been answered, it’s time to focus on another part of the access equation: bikes. While other Link stations (such as Rainier Beach) intersect some of our regional trails, it’s fair to say that the Burke-Gilman is in a […]

If you still aren’t registered to vote, it’s not too late, but you’ll need to hustle–today is the last day to register to vote in the November 3 election. It’s a great time to get involved by voting in your local elections. In Seattle, this is the first outing for district elections, which means all nine council […]

Zach’s report on Mercer Island’s East Link comments was disappointing reading. It’s clear that not everyone will get everything they want. However, I think there’s a path, assuming goodwill from the major players, that meets a goal that I think regional leaders, interested activists, and concerned Mercer Islanders can all agree on. That goal is that […]