Why isn’t Sound Transit doing any transit planning on the west side of Seattle? The story, I’m told, is that the Seattle Monorail Project folks told ST to stay out of Ballard, West Seattle, and other neighborhoods because that’s where the Green Line was going to be. Now that the Green Line is toast, why doesn’t ST get it’s ass in gear and start serving the whole city?
Yes, yes, I understand that Sound Transit is a regional organization. But folks in Seattle don’t have much choice about who they want to build rail. King County Metro won’t, and the citizen’s initiative route was a disaster with the SMP. Sound Transit is the only game in town.
Sound Transit should do more for the folks who want more. That’s me and other Seattlites. Seattle supports transit in election after election.
My message to Sound Transit: You gotta dance with the one what brung ya’, and that’s Seattle voters.
If Seattle wants more transit….. more power to ’em.
As long as I don’t have to pitch in and help pay for it!
AMEN – on target.
One of the reasons I voted for the monorail was because it was a transit solution that did not compromise freight mobility.
“Bad Boy” @ 1 and “Freddy @ 2”:
I got news for you. Whether you live and work in Seattle or not, you enjoy the economic benefits of having a major metropolis for a commercial center. It is therefore entirely appropriate for you to help pay for the infrastructure, including mass transit, that supports this commercial center.
Get over it.
Seattle residents were willing to pay full fare for the SMP, so the pay for it yourself nonsense is just gratuitous.
I’d like to see the breakdown on who pays for what. I have the sense that Seattle taxpayers pay for plenty of asphalt ribbons they don’t use.
“The story, I’m told, is that the Seattle Monorail Project folks told ST to stay out of Ballard, West Seattle, and other neighborhoods because that’s where the Green Line was going to be.”
Will, you were totally misinformed.
Ask Peter Sherwin for the facts as he wrote the Initiative.
Extending the South Lake Union streetcar up Westlake to Fremont and Ballard is a cheap incremental upgrade. Five miles of track, $100 million or so.
West Seattle is getting the RapidBus BRT connecting to the tunnel. Would be pretty expensive to get rail up there unless you run streetcars along Spokane/Avalon, but the BRT is probably faster, as long as it has its own lanes on the bridge.
In the long run, ST2 has funding to study a 520 light rail line, which should really extend west to Ballard via 45th. Better crosstown service is a big need.
Something interesting about extending the South Lake Union Line. There are proposals to have it extended to the University District. Also, both the University Bridge and Fremont Bridge once hosted Streetcars. The city study on the SLU extension actually mentioned that the University Bridge still can carry them, on the drawspan, but the approaches to the bridge itself would have to be modified. Montlake and Ballard Bridges also once hosted streetcars. The old Seattle Municipal Street Railway had lines going all the way to N. 85th St, but that was the limit at the time(City Line).
Dual Voltage cars would be needed if any Southern extension used the transit tunnel, as the SLU Streetcars will probably use the voltage that the Trolleybuses use, 600volts, while Central LINK, will be on 1500volts.(Don’t know why, maybe it was for speed and hill-climbing capability.)
Hey, maybe they can dig up the “grand” that’s buried under the pavement at the north end of the Fremont Bridge.
(For those who aren’t hip to 19th-century technology, that’s a crossing/switch setup to handle an interection of a pair of tracks going in each direction.)
In the meantime, y’all keep putting nice warm clothes on those cement people up there. They’re likely to keep waiting for quite a while longer.
They should. There are other portions in the city where trackage was just paved over. I remember when I was going to take a bus trip down to Portland a few years ago, I was purchasing the Greyhound Ticket the day before, saw some road resurfacing being done around the terminal, and the original brick roadbed was there, with the rails. Then it was repaved the next day when I had my camera with me to get a picture of it. The Greyhound Terminal used to be the terminal for the Seattle-Everett Interurban.
As for the trackless trolleys, we could be seeing two short extensions by 2008. The 14-Mt. Baker to connect with Mt. Baker Light Rail station, and the 36-Beacon Hill will be extended from Othello and Beacon to the New Holly Station. Now I remember a few years ago that there was the suggestion of re-routing the entire 36-Ranier Beach bus off of Beacon Hill via Othello, and instead of having the Skyway/Renton bound 106 go down Othello to Ranier, have it takeover the 36’s route on Beacon south of Othello. The idea would be that with just some short extension of the wire, they could eliminated diesel buses from the 36, as once it is on Ranier, it can use the existing 7 wire to Ranier Beach.
http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/t.....eyrail.htm
Metro could use a few more of the trackless trolleys right now. Earlier today, I walked by a Shell Station in my neighborhood, they were changing the gas prices, and it looked like they were going up.
Creator of Mystery YouTube Video ID’d
It was a rogue employee of a media firm employed by Obama’s campaign who did it on his own. He has resigned from the media firm.
The next best opprtunity to move more people on rail in Seattle is to get it up to Northgate and beyond. That’s why Sound Transit is focused there. It makes an enormous difference.
Beyond that, Sound Transit has looked at the Green Line route and actually has plans for next stage expansion within Seattle through Wallingford and over to Ballard and downtown. That was identified long before the Monorail’s old Green Line entered the picture.
And the fact that it won’t be on the ballot this Fall has nothing to do with the Monorail. It is all about what makes the most sense for the next investment. And the Northgate plus LINK delivers a ton more bang for the Seattle buck.
Take a look at King County Metro’s Transit Now plan pushed by Patterson and Sims last year. Seattle does quite well. 3 new express bus routes with service every ten minutes from West Seattle to Downtown and Ballard to Downtown and Shoreline to Downtown. Sound Transit is suppose to connect our major regional centers. And that is what they are doing.
#12,
Good point Thor. Northgate is a major regional hub for Sound Transit to connect, as it is already a major bus transit center, with a few neighborhood routes, and at least two trunk lines.(41 Downtown, plus the 60 series routes to the U-District.) The eventual destination for North LINK, should be Lynwood Transit Center at the very least, and Everett Station as the final one.
#13
Right on. 2 of those RapidRide lines just happen to be almost paralell to the Monorail Route.
Now as for the gas prices I saw earlier, they were going up, of course. Regular was $2.84 per gallon, now $2.89 per gallon.
We’ve all seen the brilliance of Seattle transit
Bus tunnel
Bus tunnel w/ rails that don’t fit
Monorail (plans)
why do you guys have a woody for this stuff? wierd
Goldy,
Since you’re at it, any chance you can get Reichert to support the National Hate Crimes Bill which was just introduced into the House?
LD
They also forgot to super-elevate the curves in the tunnel to allow for them to go faster in the curves. Now you can forgo this old trick if you use tilting trains, but I do not know if those are used in Light Rail operations. They are used in some mainline passenger operations, including Amtrak Cascades. Also, if the rails had been properly insulated, we would have seen the bus tunnel needing to have the floors raised if you wanted to use those rails in the tunnel. The ADA passed in the time between the tunnel was built and Light Rail being approved. Level boarding helps rail accomodate the ADA. Portland ushered in a revolution in 1997 with low-floor light rail vehicles. Since then, except for San Francisco and Los Angeles, all LRVs purchased in Washington, California, and Oregon had been Low-Floor. Salt Lake City and Denver have stuck with high-floor, and use high-platforms to accomodate them.
Seems to me that a light rail solution (similar to what they’re currently putting in place from Sea-Tac to Northgate) could easily be put in place of where the old green line was planned. I am also sure this could be done at a fraction of the cost of the green line.
Sorry gang – posted on wrong blog…
Seems to me that a light rail solution (similar to what they’re currently putting in place from Sea-Tac to Northgate) could easily be put in place of where the old green line was planned. I am also sure this could be done at a fraction of the cost of the green line.
I don’t see it as that important for light rail to go all the way to Everett. The Sounder’s already got that covered, and gets between there and Seattle a heck of a lot faster.
So they want to extend the streetcar line from the U. District west to Ballard, and then north? Yeesh, that’s going to be a long ride for someone commuting from, say, Olympic Manor to downtown. Presumably that’ll mean a tunnel under Phinney Ridge as well.
Aaron @4
That may be a valid point, but it doesn’t really apply in the context of Will’s post.
“Sound Transit should do more for the folks who want more. That’s me and other Seattlites. Seattle supports transit in election after election.
My message to Sound Transit: You gotta dance with the one what brung ya’, and that’s Seattle voters.”
If Will, and other seattlites want it, again, I have no problem with that. Why would I? Let the ones what bring ya pay for it.
You see, this is being sold as a Seattle line, for Seattlites. I would see no reason for me to take this ride to the, say, the airport. I’ll drive to a point much closer to Sea-Tac and park. If the light rail is limited to Seattle, and not up to Everett, and/or south to Tacoma, I don’t have a stake in this.
What’s next… I have to help pay for your new Sonics arena, because I ” enjoy the economic benefits of having a major metropolis for a commercial center”?
22 WHOSE new Sonics arena? Sure as hell ain’t mine.
“The story, I’m told, is that the Seattle Monorail Project folks told ST to stay out of Ballard, West Seattle, and other neighborhoods because that’s where the Green Line was going to be.”
-Will, you were totally misinformed. Ask Peter Sherwin for the facts as he wrote the Initiative. –
David Sucher will always carry his grudge against ST; he and Peter Sherwin will always lie through their teeth when this issue come up.
What’s particularly disgusting about his comments this time: as if the hardcore anti-light rail monorail boosters, on the eve of building their Green Line dream – were going to tell ST “sure, why don’t you spend millions to study the west seattle and ballard routes while we go ahead with our project, which – by the way – will be up and running before you guys”
The city deemed the west seattle to ballard corridor as “intermediate capacity” – not high capacity regional rail, which is Sound Transit’s mission. By the same token, our city leaders could have very easily floated the idea of moving the monorail’s tax base to Sound Transit, and they could have at least taken a good look at the old Green Line route. But that didn’t happen.
Sound Transit also used to run a W. Seattle – downtown bus route, which was yanked, because nobody rode it, and because W Seattle also had metro service.
This was also a simple issue of priorities. ST evaluated many corridors, and put their money where the most congestion was. That’s I-5 north and south. If they weren’t already tapped out in their taxing authority, and if the monorail had been honest early on that they were never going to build their project, we could have seen Will’s vision become a reality.
Last November, we voted for Transit Now, which will provide new Bus Rapid transit service along the Green Line corridor. If we move to a more dedicated busway model, those rights of way could be converted to street car, or possibly light rail.
In the meanwhile, ST will be pursuing the I-5 corridor, where congestion will become a very serious problem in the next decade or two.