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Old Posted Nov 15, 2011, 8:50 PM
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Cirrus Cirrus is offline
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Pac NW Plannergeek Honeymoon | Seattle 4/4: Transit


Right then. I believe that transportation and urbanism go hand in hand. I'm a professional transportation planner. And so, when exploring and photographing cities I always pay special attention and get lots of pictures of the transportation system. The coming Portland and Vancouver pictures will also include transit sets.

Two things about transit in Seattle jump out to me as abundantly clear:

1. The transit system is woefully inadequate for such a large and urban city.

2. They are making good progress.

Light Rail and the subway

The core of Seattle's transit network is the downtown subway. It is four stations long (or 5, depending on how you count one of the stations) and is unique in that it carries both buses and trains. It was originally built for buses, but has been modified for light rail as Seattle's Link light rail system has come online.

Within the subway the buses are free (the trains are not). It is a fabulously easy and convenient facility. And, since it's only about a mile long, it is something that other cities too small for true subway systems might be able to afford. I could see something like this as the spine of the Denver or Minneapolis transit systems, for example.

I am a big fan.

The Link light rail begins at the airport many miles south of downtown. Here is the airport station:





It runs on the surface between the airport and downtown. This picture, which includes a King County Metro bus yard, was taken from the top of Columbia Tower.



Railyard! Zoomed *way* in.



The subway begins just south of International District station, which is the plaza on the left side of this photo. The photo also includes Seattle's two intercity rail stations, Union Station and King Street station. More on those later.



Into the subway we go. This station is technically open air, so calling it a subway is a little bit of a stretch. But that's OK. Note that in addition to light rail trains there are two different types of buses: King County Metro (local) and Sound Transit (regional).







The next station is Pioneer Square. Similar to DC Metro.







The wayfinding is strong, and easy to understand.



On the subject of wayfinding, I love the compass embedded in the runningway. I don't like that it's illegal to cross, although there are enough buses and trains that I can see why they don't want you to.



You may have noticed that last picture was of University Street station, the next one down the line. It's far less grand. Here it is again:



I don't know who produces this model of bus, but both King County Metro and Sound Transit have them. They look great.



How about a shot of the tunnel itself? This is the from the inside of a moving bus.



The next station north, and the last true subway station, is Westlake. It is the city's main intermodal hub, and is also the end of the line for monorail and streetcar service.





The lower ceiling at this station is due to its full-length mezzanine. I've never seen that before.



Good place for one of these:



Intermodal? Yes please.



Hey! A broken escalator! That sure does make me feel at home. Good to know DC isn't the only place that happens.



Right now the light rail ends at Westlake, but construction has already started on an extension north, and I believe an extension east is also imminent. Signs of the times are everywhere.







Light rail interior, for the record:




Buses

The bus system is extensive, but not nearly as easy to use. In fact, it is downright difficult to figure out where various buses go, even with the assistance of a schedule. What is very impressive about it is the vehicle fleet. Seattle is the only city I've visited where articulated "accordion" buses visibly outnumber regular buses. It also has a huge trolleybus network, which I am a big fan of.

In my opinion, trolleybuses are one step below streetcars. Not only are they smoother, quieter, and cleaner than diesel buses, but since they have wires they provide some sense of permanence. You don't get tracks, but the wires are almost as good.

I'd love for more American cities to use trolleybuses.









Curious about the trolley arms? I was.



As far as I can tell there is no difference between buses that are blue and buses that are green. In some cities the color difference would indicate a different type of service, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.





I'm sad this picture turned out so poorly, because I really think these buses look fantastic.



There are some nice bus facilities, like these dedicated lanes and center stops.





Here's that 5th "subway station," which is fully above ground and only serves buses.



Buses and bikes only.




Bikes:

I was a little disappointed with Seattle's bike infrastructure. It has tons and tons of sharrows, but a fairly limited number of bike lanes and very little else. I will say that having become accustomed to bikesharing in DC, I seriously missed it in all three of these cities.





This intersection was the only instance of a green painted bike lane I ran across. I wish all cities would do more of this.



I am a fan of the solid and nice-looking bike parking posts that line University Way.



Covered bike parking is everywhere. Good show. This picture also shows the Westlake streetcar stop.




Streetcar

Originally the streetcar that opened here was going to be called the Seattle Lake Union Trolley, aka the SLUT. I think they changed its official name, but screw that. It's the SLUT.

The vehicle is identical to the famous one in Portland. Seattle's line is quite a bit shorter, and will have to be expanded before it really begins to be useful.









These are from the Space Needle.







Let's go back to Westlake. Hey! What's that!




Monorail!

Unfortunately the monorail is clearly a novelty. It has only two stops: Westlake and Seattle Center (the Space Needle). In generally I think the potential utility of monorails in cities is very limited. There are cases where they're appropriate, but those cases are few and far between. In general they are far less flexible to the needs of the corridor than light rail.

But that said, it sure is a fun novelty.

This is the end of the line, at Westlake.









Here we go. To the Space Needle!



Along we go...







Here we come.



Arrival!



This is what the "track" looks like, by the way.



Remember King Street Station and Union Station? Let's go back to them.


Intercity & Commuter Rail

The hub for longer distance rail is King Street Station, at the south end of the subway.





It is clearly beat up after decades of underuse, but it is being cleaned up.



Click HERE for a larger version of this panorama, which is of King Street Station's main waiting hall.



From here you can catch Sounder commuter rail and Amtrak.







A little bit more of Sounder.



Sounder rail yard, from Columbia Tower.



The Sounder rail cars were ready before the actual line was, so for a few years they leased some of their trains to Virginia Railway Express (VRE) for use in the DC area. They are all back in Seattle now, but it was fun to have them for a little while. These pictures are from Virginia.










Union Station, right next door to King Street Station, does not appear to have any transportation function any longer.



The inside sure is pretty though.




Ferries

Seattle has a robust ferry system. I didn't ride any.






Miscellany

Various leftovers.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct, soon to be removed.



Greyhound with ZipCar



Park and Ride under I-5:




That's all! Stay tuned for Portland and Vancouver.
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Last edited by Cirrus; Feb 20, 2012 at 4:51 AM.
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  #2  
Old Posted Nov 15, 2011, 9:19 PM
seaskyfan seaskyfan is offline
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Great overview. I've been really excited by the progress on the King Street Station renovation. You're correct that Union Station doesn't serve any transportation purpose (other than being the headquarters of Sound Transit).

The Metro buses are blue, green, or teal just because it's considered prettier to have a mix. No other reason I'm aware of.
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Old Posted Nov 15, 2011, 9:26 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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Certainly the most comprehensive summary ever.

Woefully inadequate definitely. It's getting worse in Pierce County (Tacoma) and Snohomish County (Everett) both with lines into Seattle, due to massive funding cutbacks at the county level. King County Metro was saved, for two years, by a car tab increase. A public vote a couple of years ago also added some express "kinda BRT" lines which are starting to come into service. We thought we were adding 19% more overall Metro bus service but that's been eaten up by the economy.

Regarding light rail, lines currently funded are north and south extensions of the existing line, plus a new line to Bellevue and Redmond. A portion of the northern extension is under construction, with two new stations including Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium. Next to break ground will be an extension north to the U District, Roosevelt (your photo), and Northgate Mall / P&R. A single-station extension to the south end of Sea-Tac Airport should start in 2013 I think. Other north, south, and east extensions are longer off, but approved via the $20b voters have passed. The eastern line just passed two big hurdles -- we turned down a statewide initiative that was primarily about variable tolling but also tried to kill rail on the I-90 bridge, and also the Bellevue City Council approved the concept of a tunnel through their downtown, which will also require funding.

A new streetcar from Union Station over First Hill to the new Capitol Hill Link station is funded and will start in 2012. Due to distance, density, and a big hill, it'll be popular. Frequency might be a problem.

Seattle voted down a car tab measure this month that would have funded street repair, sidewalks, bike infrastructure, and millions to study more streetcars. Long story.

While I agree on the inadequacy point, we manage to outdo many rail-intensive cities in commute mode share. Seattle is significantly below Boston, Chicago, etc., but above Portland, LA, Denver, St. Louis, etc.

The ferry system is important. Something like 5,000 walk-offs every morning rush hour.
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Old Posted Nov 15, 2011, 9:48 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays
A public vote a couple of years ago also added some express "kinda BRT" lines which are starting to come into service.
RapidRide. I saw it when I first arrived in Seattle, near the airport, and then never again. According to wikipedia it is fairly minimal BRT. Runs in HOV lanes and has signal priority.

For the sake of being comprehensive, here's a photo from flickr user Eribisu 27.

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Old Posted Nov 16, 2011, 1:51 AM
J. Will J. Will is offline
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My biggest problem with Seattle's transit service was the frequency. I took a bus from south of Seattle Centre to Capitol Hill along Denny Way, and it only ran every 20 minutes at the time. This wasn't late at night either, this was in the middle of the day. And there were no other transit options to without walking way, way out of my way or taking multiple routes, which no doubt would have made the total travel time even longer than waiting for the once-every-20-minute bus. The waterfront streetcar, which I believe is currently out of service and which I did not ride also had poor service frequency. The SLUT only runs once every 15 minutes most of the time, and every 10 minutes during weekday peaks I believe. If you just miss one you might as well just walk. The light rail currently has headways as long as 15 minutes (yes, I know it's supposed to run a little more often when the buses are kicked out of the transit tunnel, but right now it doesn't). Who knows how often the First Hill streetcar will run, but based on other service frequencies in the city I doubt it will be every 5 minutes or better, even during weekday rush hours. The Sounder has limited runs, and as far as I know lacks "train buses" to replace train service when they are not running. If you're travelling a very short distance in Seattle, there is a chance more than one bus route runs along the street you wish to travel, so the effective (combined) service frequency of your trip might be high. But if you're travelling any kind of medium to long distance, the route you're travelling along most likely does not run every few minutes, even during peak hours.

The one real positive is that the LRT line apparently averages about 26 MPH end-to-end (including stops). For a line not 100% grade-separated that is excellent. Though south of downtown the stations are pretty distant from each other, so if you're halfway between stops you're going to have a bit of a walk.

The better the service frequency of transit, the more convenient it is. I did not find Seattle's transit to be at all convenient.

Last edited by J. Will; Nov 16, 2011 at 2:02 AM.
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Old Posted Nov 16, 2011, 2:53 AM
mhays mhays is offline
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Link Light Rail is 7.5 minute headways at rush hour. Its capacity is also limited to two car trains currently due to use of the stub/turnaround tunnel for the expansion project. The tunnel has the further disadvantage that trains can only go slightly faster than buses, which stop for every wheelchair. The two have to be completely separate, as the train can't enter a station until the buses are gone in that direction and vice versa. Hopefully they'll address this by moving more bus routes out of the tunnel when the UW extension opens, rather than just lengthening the trains.

Metro Transit has poor headways in part due to the 80/20 rule, which prioritized suburban routes instead of urban ones (80% vs. 20% for expansions), resulting in packed urban routes and underused suburban routes. The rule is now gone but it's still mostly in effect.

The City of Seattle needs to subsidize buses the same way the State subsidizes Amtrak service.
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Old Posted Nov 16, 2011, 3:18 AM
J. Will J. Will is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
Metro Transit has poor headways in part due to the 80/20 rule, which prioritized suburban routes instead of urban ones (80% vs. 20% for expansions), resulting in packed urban routes and underused suburban routes.
But the headways on the suburban routes are even worse than in the city of Seattle. Just randomly looking at some of the routes that serve downtown Bellevue, the MOST frequent I found run every 15 minutes midday:

http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bus.../bellevue.html
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Old Posted Nov 17, 2011, 4:03 PM
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Nice work. The ferries seem like they would be the most fun for me. You could get some nice skyline pictures from there.
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Old Posted Nov 17, 2011, 4:27 PM
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Surely. Our plan was to wait for a clear day to try that. We ran out of days ;-)
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Old Posted Nov 17, 2011, 9:06 PM
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My city's trolleybuses are greener!

Nice photos.
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Old Posted Nov 30, 2011, 5:57 PM
ozonemania ozonemania is offline
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Ugh! I can't believe I missed these threads.

Thanks for your excellent tours Cirrus. I found the Neighborhoods one the most interesting. Seattle has come complex geography so there's alot of variety as you move from one neighborhood to the next.

Seattle is fairly close to me, and so I've visited more than a few times. But I have never covered as much ground as you have. This transit thread is very enlightening as well.

By the looks of it you had a great honeymoon!

Looking forward to your Portland and Vancouver photos.
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 2:31 AM
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Best for last.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the bus system was hard to figure out. I was also wondering about whether there was a difference between the blue and green buses as well.

So maybe a Seattleite can answer: what was Union Station once used for? I would imagine it was for general long distance rail, but wasn't that why King St. is there?

btw that light-green SLUT is looking great! I'd ride her..
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 2:49 AM
mhays mhays is offline
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Rapid Ride, a KC Metro service that just opened its first "sort of BRT" lines, uses red. I don't think there's a difference between green and blue other than updating the brand.

Union Station used to hold long-distance service. There was more than one rail company. Here it says "At one time Seattle was home to and served by two large stations; Union Station served by the Union Pacific and Milwaukee Road and King Street Station, served by the Great Northern and Northern Pacific."
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 3:52 AM
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What a great thread. Seattle has a lot to be proud of.
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 9:14 AM
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^^interesting! thanks for the link mhays.
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 11:39 AM
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My god thats a loaded potato of transit photos
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  #17  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 4:36 PM
mhays mhays is offline
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PS, the current Link line does have a tunnel. It goes through Beacon Hill. There's a station that's so deep that they chose to only do elevators.
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Old Posted Dec 1, 2011, 4:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
PS, the current Link line does have a tunnel. It goes through Beacon Hill. There's a station that's so deep that they chose to only do elevators.
I forgot about the Beacon Hill tunnel. Interesting that it's so deep. As far as I'm aware there are only three such stations in the US that are so deep that they only have elevators: Washington Park in Portland and Forest Glen in DC are the other two. It's possible there are more, but not that I'm aware of.
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Old Posted Dec 2, 2011, 12:17 AM
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I recall hearing that the Beacon Hill station is the deepest subway station in the US.
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Old Posted Feb 17, 2012, 6:35 AM
deasine deasine is offline
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Just scanned through all your threads cirrus, great photos. Note the buses in Seattle (same manufacturer, for most of the buses in Vancouver) are from New Flyer.
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