Sound Transit 3 | How Austerity Can Ruin a Great Transit Project
Vložit
- čas přidán 2. 08. 2023
- Sound Transit 3 is an ambitious expansion to Seattle's Link Light Rail system, but recently, Sound Transit has been experimenting with deleting voter approved stations and making weird decisions that would make the entire expansion less useful.
Tell them to stop wasting time on endless process:
actionnetwork.org/letters/sou...
Sources:
Move Seattle Wins in ST3
sdotblog.seattle.gov/2016/11/...
Remembering The Death Of Seattle's Major Transit Initiative
www.kuow.org/stories/remember...
King County voters on Forward Thrust bonds approve stadium and aquarium and nix transit on February 13, 1968.
www.historylink.org/File/2168
Deep Seattle Light Rail Stations, Other ST3 Details Emerging Ahead of Draft Plan Release
www.theurbanist.org/2022/01/1...
What We Know About Sound Transit’s Alternatives to a Chinatown Station
www.theurbanist.org/2023/03/2...
Sound Transit Board Backs Last-Minute Proposal to Skip Chinatown and Midtown Stations
www.theurbanist.org/2023/03/2...
Seattle Subway: Sound Transit Must Commit to a Shallower 4th Avenue CID Station
www.theurbanist.org/2023/02/2...
Sound Transit sweats over spot for South Lake Union light-rail station
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...
Harrell Changes Course Again Backs ‘Shifted North’ Denny Station
www.theurbanist.org/2023/07/2...
Sound Transit Wants to Start Over on ST3. Tell Them No.
www.thestranger.com/guest-edi...
Amazon's Position on Light Rail Station
www.aboutamazon.com/news/poli...
Transit Advocates Push to Save South Lake Union Light Rail Station
www.theurbanist.org/2023/06/2...
As people work from home, Sound Transit bets $350M on 3 new parking garages
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-...
Sound Transit Board Okays Displacement Heavy Everett Link Alternatives
www.theurbanist.org/2023/07/0...
Build Light Rail In-Road Instead of Demolishing Housing, Balducci Urges Sound Transit
www.theurbanist.org/2023/06/2...
It's ridiculous that a TRANSIT AGENCY cares more about drivers than transit riders.
unfortunately that's what happens when your board is 17 people who don't use transit and only 1 Claudia Balducci
I was "shocked" to see the stations on the far side of large parking garages, or in the middle of the interstate. The construction is so hostile to actual people trying to get anywhere.
They only care about throughput to their business
Except they're taxing drivers to pay for it.
It's sad they have to cower before the flippant cagers to get their votes, but alas, we live in a world where they have to do that instead of just doing what's smart logistically, economically, environmentally, and geographically. It's wildly frustrating!
The real problem with ST3 isn't austerity. It's the fact that Sound Transit board members don't actually ride transit.
I attended one of their open houses on ST3 after bicycling 15 miles to get to the open house. When I asked the board members how they had traveled to the open house, they all reluctantly admitted to driving themselves there in a single occupant vehicles. Dori Monson even mentioned that question and answer session on his radio program the very next day.
100% this.
Wow. LAMOW 😝
Aka like septa
Of course Dori Monson's solution would have been to further scale back bike access and transit options.
@@valleyofiron125
1:56 Pedestrians
6:29 Bicyclist
10:25 Bicyclist
Didn’t Seattle (WSDOT) recently spend $3B+ on a bored road tunnel for SR99? Yet, it always the transit projects that are required to economise
Yeah they did this, and then built a free-to-use surface highway on top of it (along the "pedestrianized" waterfront)
Also until Amazon workers came back, the tunnel was actively losing money by not collecting enough tolls.
@@hazza1230Not that the design is ideal, but to be fair they didn’t build a completely new waterfront highway. Rather they are in process of moving the existing Alaska Way away from the waterfront to make more room for pedestrian space, taking advantage of land under the old viaduct that used to be used for parking. Better than leaving Alaska Way where it was.
@@tabacum2 they removed the old Alaskan way and built a new one. It's loud and busy and cuts off the pedestrianized part of the waterfront from the rest of the city. I'm sure it's better than the viaduct but it's still pretty gross
That’s true but let’s be honest that was also super important. Opening up the waterfront makes that area so much more enjoyable to be in.
Alaskan way also sucks but that’s a different issue
Austerity for public transit but seemingly unlimited spending for car infrastructure
An all to common double standard in this country
Just get a car and drive like everyone else, loser. **pops extra strength copium**
A billion dollars per mile with a 6 to 1 subsidy in operating cost alone isn’t enough money?
@@usernameryan5982 Who do you think said that 800 billion dollars wasn't enough money for the Department of Defense
@@robert1200 Seems unrelated to talk about waste in other departments but ok, what’s your point? The US is good at wasting money on defense and they should do massive budget cuts? If so, I agree completely
I do just want to emphasize that although I find it personally ridiculous and counterintuitive, Sound Transit can't be entirely blamed for the struggle around what to do with the CID station mess. Their concerns over displacement weren't ones that they themselves raised, there was a notably vocal campaign against the originally proposed station (or any station entirely) that threw it into question and forced them to look into alternatives. A lot of very legitimate points were raised about how that area of the city has long been the brunt end of decisions that would never be considered in wealthier parts of the city given the original plan would've demolished entire blocks of their historical district. A lot of this is an issue of their own making, but it's not fair to say that the alternatives are ill-conceived weird decisions when it's such a complex scenario with a lot of stakeholders. Unlike the other examples you listed, I can't imagine how Sound Transit could do anything but pause and invest in exploring options that can better relieve concerns from businesses/residents of CID and transit users. This is a great video though and I'm really happy to see another person doing urbanist content in Seattle, looking forward to more!
A subway station located in and directly benefiting residents is not the same as plowing a freeway through a neighborhood while destroying hundreds of buildings and displacing thousands so motorists passing thru can race through to far off places. Amazed ST and politicians can't see through this but all you have to do in Seattle now is play the oppressed group victim card and you automatically get your way. Activists today always harm their own communities the most despite their supposed well intentions.
@@jonw999999bus tunnel construction was also very damaging to the former neighborhood fabric of the CID fwiw
I'm from San Francisco and this reminds me of how business leaders in our Chinatown objected to the demolition of the Embarcadero Freeway after the Loma Prieta earthquake on account of they'd lose the freeway offramp there. It's a good thing they didn't get their way. Local business leaders (of any ethnicity) tend to have carbrain
@@jonw999999
TBH the businesses in that area have data from the First Hill streetcar that they suffered business during that comparably minor construction.
Given the country’s history of building infrastructure through minority areas we should be responsive to those concerns.
That being said, 4th Ave is mostly on the border of Chinatown, and is massively oversized for all but heavy rush hour periods. It could easily withstand having its capacity reduced temporarily or permanently during construction.
@@jonw999999 idk what fantasy world you live in to be talking like that about a very real issue that faces the community. most of my patients are from CID and its surrounding neighborhoods. theres been a long racist history of the disruption and destruction of lower income poc neighborhoods to convenience white commuters. you wouldn't say that to the face of the people who've been fighting to preserve their homes and culture.
Hey small correction, Union Station is actually not a station at all, it's the Sound Transit Office and a historical landmark. The International District Link station is its own station east of Union station. Thanks for the vid, looking forward to more.
Excellent points. It's absolutely infuriating that a municipal government, faced with the tradeoff of disrupting traffic for a few years or building an inferior transit project whose flaws will hamstring it for decades, would say, "Screw it. Let's do the second one." A few years of street narrowings or even closures are a small price to pay for good rail transit, and anyone who disagrees should not be planning transit.
I just rode Amtrak to Seattle & stayed at a hostel in Chinatown to catch my connection to Wenatchee the following day (because only one train/day, with an unpredictable schedule on account of constantly having to stop & wait for freight, means a full day's layover just to connect from one train to the next). I can't imagine *not* putting the Sound Transit station there. It just seems so plainly logical...
They closed Pine St for 19 months to dig the downtown transit tunnel. Do we have regrets about the traffic that created? Or do we just enjoy how fast the train gets you between downtown & cap hill / UW?
We?
Wasn't here for the Pine St closure, and never heard of it. Use the train all the time and folks who were here that I know also love the convenience of the train and never mentioned lingering ire over historic closures. Good point!
@@jakekunkel6955 They refer to the original construction is the Downtown BUS tunnel. Which was done with "cut and cover" construction. It was also done in the 1980s and opened in 1990. The fact here now is that the tunnel no longer serves it's original purpose, which was Electric trolley buses. Now it's light rail only and ALL those bus routes were forced onto surface roads, some of which no longer have right of way lanes.
I have a feeling experts at ST really really want the station on 4th, but the board (largely composed of elected officials) see a horror of the 4th being shut to traffic during construction (as they have already forgotten viadoom, the carmageddon that never was).
But 4th is due for reconstruction anyway..
The reason these dumb CID alternatives even exist is because Harrell and Constantine's real estate buddies own land near the proposed stations. Simple solution is to vote them out. As for Denny, Shifted West sucks but Shifted North is actually cool because it means entrances on both sides of Denny Way, which the original option didn't have, and they need to do another DEIS anyways because of the CID nonsense so it doesn't add much time
So government corruption
I'm sorry, what? Chinatown (or International Station) would be a perfect junction for commuters. You could go from Renton to the Airport on the Light Rail, or to Tacoma or to Portland or Vancouver. Since you have Amtrak, the Sounder Train, and the Light Rail. Heck you could go to University of Washington (Seattle or Tacoma Campus) and make connections. Seems dumb to make you get on a light rail to them have to get off one stop over to get on the Sounder or Amtrak.
I'm sure some idiot supervisor made this decision without consulting anyone.
Building good transit costs a lot of money, but not nearly as much as NOT building good transit.
Transit DOES cost the govt more than roads. Transit counting all costs is like $4 per rider per direciton, whereas roads if count gas tax, licenses, and also sales tax on cars is paid for by drivers. . . . . This is why transit is hard to do, it takes govt money... . . Im not saying cars are better, but cars don't drain a govt instead cars mostly drain about $7000 a year from the driver/user so its a very different financial issue. . . . A transit rider doesn't want to pay the $6 full cost of their ride, they want to pay $2 and have the govt subsidize the rest, which Im OK with but we can't hide this fact and then act confused about the fiancial dilemna local govts face. . . . . . .
@@mostlyguesses8385 , no, it actually DOESN'T have to, and it's WAY cheaper than motor vehicles. Don't forget to include all the upkeep (expensive), smog, accidents (health issues, deaths), police to enforce/deal with accidents, etc. that cars costs... Single use vehicles are not as "cheap" as you're implying. This is really clear if you do the research on what it costs, for every $1 you spend on transit (heavily weighted by busses, which aren't that efficient), society pays ~$1.50, but for every $1 you spend on a vehicle, society pays $9.20, according to Moving Forward. (Not sure if they're using European data here; you'll see the ratios differ from the newer US study next.) A recent study, out this month, from Harvard found that Massacusettes families were paying $14k/year alone for vehicle infrastructure, plus $12k if they owned a car. You can see that society pays more than the individual, even if you live in a place where it costs a lot to park and where taxes are high. Plenty of other studies have found that non-drivers heavily subsidize drivers due to the amount of road damage done by motor vehicles, even when accounting for the higher total they pay, simply because the taxes haven't gone up at nearly a high enough rate to account for the increased weight, rates of driving of cars, and inflation since the gas taxes (the federal one, remember, hasn't been raised since the '93) were introduced.
So...either you're willfully ignorant or actively trying to spread misinformation by claiming cars don't drain a government--they're incredibly inefficient forms of transportation that require subsidies from those who don't drive to support and always have. They actively deplete the resources of cities by pushing people to live in the suburbs, which are effectively Ponzi schemes when it comes to the tax base (great videos on this if you don't understand why I'm staying this--check out Strong Towns, NJB, etc.). Transit is essential and more efficient financially for cities of any real density.
@@mostlyguesses8385cars in no way pay for themselves
@@mostlyguesses8385That is false. Gas taxes and driver license fees do not fully cover road maintenance. That comes from general funding. Non drivers subsidize drivers.
@@mostlyguesses8385riiight and roads are full of pot holes and overpasses are crumbling for no reason
Letter sent. Thanks for the video! I'm over in West Seattle patiently waiting for light rail to get here. I only hope that when it does get here, it will actually take me places that I want to go.
yeah, well you will be an old woman by the time it's completed if at all. So enjoy.
Letter sent! As someone planning to move to Seattle later this year, the long term success and proper implementation of the region's public transit is of paramount importance to me. When you consider these stations will likely still be around for the next 100 years, the reasoning to move them is not only short-sighted, it's downright asinine. If Sound Transit actually wants to save money and reduce traffic congestion, they should be laser focused on maximizing ridership and opening service as soon as possible, which will increase revenue and get more people out of cars in the long run.
Can't wait to have you here, and anyone else who wants to work together on a great city!
When Los Angeles builds subway stations it builds a vehicle deck over the top so traffic can continue as the subway station is built below. Why was this not an option?
Same is happening with the Broadway line in Vancouver.
Thanks for making this. I agree with everything in this video. The proposed "south of CID" station is ridiculous. Our light rail system needs a lot of work and it's frustrating to see it slowed down with these proposals that will make it worse.
Im so glad somebody covered this. It has been soooooo frustrating keeping up with this all. Also, I hope you're enjoying it out here!
I agree! This issue is such a large scale and the decisions we make now will impact generations so looking directly at it causes me extreme anxiety and overwhelm. A video like this is an approachable way for me to better understand the situation and see how to engage with it. Such valuable content and I'm so happy to have YAU making this content in Seattle!
Epic last line. As someone who voted for ST3 (and is both a transit rider and driver), I agree.
The sound transit board pisses me off so much, if I lived there I would be at every meeting citing the concerns you have in this video. The fact that voters want a much better system but these people are more interested in making drivers happy than anyone else is insane considering they’re on the board of a transit agency
Can we take a moment to mention how utterly ridiculous it is that Seattle is using LRT as a do-all for all of its lines? LRT isn’t inherently bad, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a massive reason why you need multiple transit modes for different circumstances (express routes especially). With the amount of money being invested in the project there’s no reason as to why heavy rail rapid transit shouldn’t have been pursued, as was the plan that got sacked in the 60s. RMTransit made a good video on this topic and it’s definitely frustrating to see.
Personally, I think if sound transit shifted to high-floor LRVs like the LA metro it would have maybe justified to continue using LRT to optimize boarding. Perhaps some lines could have been converted to automated light-metro technology like the Honolulu skyline for certain longer-distance express routes (like the Montreal REM).
Additionally, why not also invest in electrified regional rail? The Sounder commuter rail can be LEAGUES better than what it currently is, and it’s absurd that there’s little to no attention or funding being allocated improvements. I’m from New England and it’s absurd to think of a city only having one commuter rail line…
I’d bet most of the reason Sounder is not electrified is that BNSF owns the track.
And this video doesn’t cover it but Sound Transit funds lots of express busses. And there are more local and express busses funded by other agencies.
Sound Transit has been a shit show from day one. That is why they chose light rail, not a real Metro and why they skipped First Hill and focus on suburban expansion and real estate development to juice property tax returns so the democrats can expand government even more. It's not about transit or sustainability or urbanism.
@@psymi-hk1fp how is light rail different than a real metro? They’re both trains. They’re both electric. Okay “light rail” has stairs on it. I mean that’s most of the difference.
It’s not as if sound transit could run longer trains, since the stations downtown were built before it was established.
You’ll get no argument from me on one point, a four car train has eight cabs on it. Which is six too many. Sound transit should have bought A/B cars so there was more usable cabin space in each train.
Great video on this topic! It would've been interesting, however, to see you more thoroughly dissect and respond to the crowd of people who believe that placing the potentially important station in Chinatown would ultimately lead to the neighborhood's destruction. This was also another major talking point for the opposition parties aside from the costs and closure of arterial streets.
I don't want to speak for Yet another Urbanist but as a viewer I think this video focuses on the current options, maybe because it's already been recognized as a problem with the original plan. Modified versions of the plan being discussed now (see the shallow 4th ave option at 5:39) can still have ID + midtown voter approved layout without displacing as many people.
I bring this up because I missed this the first time I watched the video. But maybe that's just me.
Another part of it is that the council was so easy to eliminate areas where corporate offices were or big banks were from the options for the station. While being all too happy to cleave out some of the most historical parts and family owned businesses to make room for it. We want a spot in the international district, but we don't want it to be at the sacrifice of an integral and historic part of what makes it such an awesome place to be.
Any system that relies on escalators is a no go in a transit system where all the escalators are broken down all the time.
I sent over a letter and submitted it. Once again, love having an urbanist in our city who covers things essentially in our backyards. So cool and good to know what’s going on!
I hope you plan to take a trip up north to Vancouver at some point. Great video by the way.
Traffic congestion is so bad on Westlake that we shouldn't build a station there that will actually relieve the congestion. I just can't. An SLU station would actually be good for Amazon and all the companies along Westlake, but corporations only care about what will happen within the next quarter because shareholders are incapable of actually thinking about anything that happens outside of that timeframe.
At this point transit companies across the US need to be given much more authority and have actual transit advocates on their board. They should be able to build transit without having to have NIMBYs and companies shooting down any improvement. A city should focus on how the project will impact the city in a 100 year time frame, not how a project will impact the community while it was being built. I-5 was able to get built in Seattle and it destroyed communities while it was being built and continues to divide communities. Meanwhile a Link station will make an area better.
I think Amazon is struggling to get people back into the office and is really fearful of anything that will make that process more difficult in the short term, e.g. traffic. It's horribly short-sided, especially since they single-handledly ruin the 70 bus line in the summer with their interns (you basically cannot use it if you're in between Amazon and UW between 4:30 and 7; it's just packed full). SLU desperately needs more transit options going north though. It's just ridiculous because they're such a need in the Green Lake/Roosevelt/Ravenna area for transit to SLU and that's only grown in the last few years with the tons of housing that's gone up. Even before housing 5-10X'd around Roosevelt station, my Roosevelt to SLU bus pre-Covid was always standing room only, if I got one at all, in the last hour it ran (~9 am). Taking the local busses would often take an hour with the transfers (you'd hit them wrong, make a run for it, and then have to wait another 20+ min). The proposed Rapid Ride J was basically cut (only goes to UW now, so it's just the 70 renamed instead of a separate actual express route, though we are FINALLY getting a connecting bike lane along Eastlake/Fairview so that will be less sketch), so the last hope for decent transit is really this Link station in SLU.
Also, I don't think this was quite accurate because Amazon want's a third option, which is "Shifted North" and keeps two stops, theoretically but probably one is totally impractical and so would be cut.
GREAT video, im so glad someone with an audience is keeping track of this project, when I watched the proposed lines and stations for the light rail expansion i was very happy, I had no idea they were doing this senseless bickering in their meetings, it feels so unfair that for car infrastructure there's this attitude of spare no expense!!!! while for transit they gotta look for ways to "save" money, its absolutely insane to me that they would waste 350M dollars expanding parking when the reason why people dont use the commuter rails is because their frequency is total ass cheeks, the parking is more than plenty, but when your options are 5AM 6AM and 5PM 6PM nobody is gonna take that, some people work later, some people work from home and just wanna get to town without having to drive on a beutiful costline track, but they cant unless they wake up at the dawn of day or go back before the sun is even out
Seattle has become my second home. I live in New Jersey but regularly visit Seattle for my partner and it's captivated me. One of the core aspects as to why I've felt this way is the atmosphere of transit there: the Sound Link especially is a major component of that. It's modern feel, it's popularity (almost every Link train I've ever taken has been packed in some capacity), and the rapid expansion. I take the 1 Line all the way from SeaTac to Northgate and then go further, so the expansions to Lynnwood/Everett will benefit me immensely (especially since I get a great view of the current 1 Line extension regularly while I'm there). I love the Sound Link so much I would love to become some sort of "Roaming Railfan" or "The Four Foot" for Seattle: keeping up with the expansions and making progress videos FOR them. I want what's best for Sound Transit more so than NJ Transit honestly, because Sound Transit has the resources, the plans, the public and political support, and the vision to actually do it. It's full of potential (unlike NJT, which either needs "Oh sh**, we need this thing NOW" money or needs Amtrak to hold their hand in order to even start a project)
This video was my cold slap back to reality that "Just because it seems like things are going in the right direction, there still needs to be the occasional pointer to keep said direction." It's already annoying how the current 1 Line will eventually split into 2 lines with no apparent plan for a "Traditional 1 Line" route (making my current journey a bit more cumbersome), but now Sound Transit is trying to cut corners for these future lines because they too are a short sighted transit agency that wants to preserve a status quo? The International District/Chinatown skip and the 6th Avenue station especially had me go "WHAT?! NO!"
Never before have I felt motivated to fight for a transit project because I firmly believe with EVERY misstep any transit project or agency takes, the harder it is for people to take transit seriously. Cost cutting now will make headaches later (from all the facepalming you'll make from how obvious this could have been avoided), especially when fixing mistakes could be just as costly then if they were built beforehand. I have already seen people give a lot of flack on Sound Link because it isn't the Metro system that Seattle skipped, but as you said, "ST3 represents fixing past mistakes," so if they are to truly make up for it? They have to start thinking like a transit agency rather than a car-complimenter. Think for the people who will want/use your system, not the people who won't use it unless you start building for people who want/use your system!
Great video, sorry for the ramble.
So glad to hear this take! I totally understand people of the CID not being happy about being short changed for years by construction projects (laughs in I-5), but wouldn't centralizing a light rail hub in the district help the area economically in the long run, in addition to making the entire system more cohesive and navigable (including to CID residents themselves)? The displacement of cars would only be temporary in any case, and ST/Seattle seem to be blind to the fact that these systems (when built effectively, not as cheaply as possible) would take cars off the roads.
Everett link shouldn’t go up airport road. It should go at-grade along I-5/Interurban trail and have a station at the south Everett mall bus hub along the way and could still serve Paine field & casino road via a branch off I-5 down boeing freeway.
Some people have estimated that going this more direct route could reduce travel times from Everett station to lynwood transit center from the current 30 something minutes to 20 something minutes. That is competitive with driving and faster than any current bus route
Seattle screwed themselves by prematurely getting rid of the old Bus Tunnel Convention Center station site as this would have been the perfect location to start the Ballard extension which would eliminate this additional tunnel.
I was working construction in SLU for two years back around 2018
I tried my best to ride the train, as it was cheaper and easier than driving (plus I could actually sleep on the train in the early morning), but since I had to get off at the Westlake station, it took me 15 minutes to walk to my job site, and if I was taking the train I would have been 10 minutes late every day, which just wasn't an option.
If sound transit has just gone ahead and built a SLU station on that original line, me and at least several of my coworkers (along with potentially hundreds of other construction workers) could have enjoyed taking the train into work.
Instead I had to drive, and I had to get there at least half a hour early every day just to be able to find parking.
The other thing they could have done, which would have gotten me there early enough, was if they ran some kind of express train that only stopped at the main stations or something
Agree with everything you said except the parking garages. Those are not at all stations, only a handful, and they are absolutely vital for allowing more car-dependent suburbs and neighborhoods that are and will be very undeserved by transit to access those stations and utilize light rail. It increases the stations sphere of ridership greatly and helps take a sizable number of cars off local highways too. Those parking garages can even serve regional riders, as you don't need to drive all the way into Seattle, but park at a station in the suburbs, and take the train the rest of the way, which is so much better than adding to the city's downtown congestion. For rural communities around Seattle that will never see a train line because the cost/population/benefit ratio doesn't work out, those garages really are a godsend when visiting or commuting into the city (and yes, living in Seattle would be better if it didn't cost you a lifetime worth of wealth to do so).
In a perfect world where you could build a light rail line every mile without bankrupting the region, then I would agree the parking garages are not worthwhile. But many of these suburban areas will never see that because of the costs and decades or longer it takes to plan and build such projects. I'd also add that, unlike some transit agencies (looking at you California HSR), Sound Transit actually uses parking garages instead of surface parking lots that extend as far as the eye can see. The garages greatly compact the station footprint, and they are usually placed so that pedestrians and buses have easy access to the station from the arterial or side road without being obstructed by hundreds of feet of parking lot.
Thank you so much for this video. I cannot express how excited I am about you living in Seattle and making this content. This will help people understand what is going on around them and how they can engage with it. This specific issue (or really anything involving Sound Transit) gives me so much anxiety that I shut down and can't look at it, because of how big of a scale it is and how it feels like we are making the wrong decisions over and over locking us into a worse and worse future. That is not a state of mind that enables me to advocate or contribute to progress. A video like this helps me be able to approach and understand the situation and act. I think there are a lot of younger transplants here who feel similarly to me. So excited to have you here.
1:33 Slowly, but smoothly. It's been progressing. Link starter line in bellevue and redmond opens this spring. 1 Line to Lynnwood opens the next Fall. This could be delayed again, but it's not that bad. Yes, we've been waiting forever, but for the quality we receive, it's worth the wait.
2:29 The 2 points you mentioned, Union Station and King Street Station are quite literally across the street from one another. Yes, we have to cross the street, again, it's not that bad, but they have proposed a shallow station under the bridges there which will make it easier, some oppose it, but Sound Transit likes to go bold.
2:50 This is not happening. We're getting one of the lines to go in a new tunnel slighly east of the main downtown tunnel that stops at Midtown. There is no awkward station between chinatown and stadium, I've been seeing a lot of channels discuss this, but that's not what we're getting.
4:23 I don't recognize this stroad, it's not the one we cross. But yes, we do cross a road, a very wide and well-kept-painted crosswalk with a button and very visible stop lights that we have not had a problem with before. They are proposing a station under this bridge which will make it even easier than it already is. That would be pretty cool, but right now it is not that bad.
4:56 Now this is interesting, I'm really not sure where that is from, I would have guessed Midtown be more by Spring and 5th, but, I can see what they're going for here. Yes, some stations are deep, so it takes a little while to get out of them, big deal, underground trains, poof. Having this underground passageway is a really great addition as without it, you'd have to go onto the streets, and go up a very steep hill a whole block and then back down, which is what you were complaining about earlier with King Street, so, this is great.
5:03 People in Seattle already do walk extended periods of time.. This is a common theme with most big transit systems, walking. It's shown that transit riders and much more fit than car drivers. And it's not bad to walk, especially not this far, this is nothing, plus, they make a nice flat tunnel for us shown here. "People not wanting to walk for extended periods of time" is part of what drives a car-centric society, so, let's break this habit. It's normal.
5:10 If you miss your train, another one comes very frequently, when multiple lines are running through these tunnels train are going to be constant. This might not apply as much at Midtown station, but Sound Transit always runs frequent trains where possible. If it's not possible, they frequently remind you why not. For example, recently there was some single tracking by Rainier Beach so all trains were every 15 minutes, Sound Transit reminded us about this in all stations and through our mobile alerts and the second single tracking was over, it's train heaven again. As for having trips between stops being as concise as possible, it's pretty simple between Chinatown and King Street. Trains in King Street idle for a very long time so you will not miss it and if you do another one is on its way. The walk is just up, cross a street, down. For this tunnel, it literally cannot get any more concise, so I do not understand why you brought it up.
5:46 As for a station inside the international district, this area has suffered a lot, and there is heavy fights against it, even a small one entrance station in the middle, the community has made it clear. I do not blame them, so Sound Transit is deciding to have the station close by at one end of it, they will not be allowed to put a station inside of it for the time being. Yeah, it is unfortunate, but again, walking is fine, it's not that far.
6:49 This is correct, most people don't care about the cost. Sound Transit usually doesn't either. That's why the projects cost so much and go out of their way to have nice tunnels and bridges, and some anti-transit people complain about how much it costs, but it's a good thing, and like I said, Sound Transit goes bold and I want to make that clear. Even when these circumstances look bleak or uncertain, this is still in early planning. This particular part of ST3 is not coming for quite a long time, they have other projects to fill in the gaps. This isn't an immediate threat kind of thing, it's being ironed out, and I don't like seeing all the videos making Sound Transit out to be a terrible company when if you just look at what they are currently constructing and what they have already built and the plans they are working on that seamlessly blend it all together and how the stations come to life with useful automated announcements and frequent trains and lots of riders, Sound Transit is one of the best things to come to Seattle in a long time.
And I'm just gonna stop right here, cause I don't care what else anyone has to say, I have lived in this area all my life so I and the locals have the better idea about how this will play out than people on the internet across the world, and we can actually attend events to help with planning as well.
You mentioned in the video one of the issues was that the extensions would make a very long line if combined. In Los Angeles, the MTA did just that with the Regional Connector project-combined two different segments of light rail into one gigantic light rail line, the world's longest (with further extensions planned), as well as two other segments into a second, still long, but somewhat shorter line. No indication of any problems so far due to it's length, and it makes various trips easier-trips that would previously need up to two transfers now can be done in one or even none.
THANK YOU for adding closed captioning!
I am not sure what the issues are in the video but ST2 is coming along amazingly fast, the I90 tracks and stations are all done, Bellevue the stations, missive bridges, the depot amazing work! Redmond/Kirkland too, fucking amazing to think that just 2 years ago there was nothing, just incredible speed. The bicycle paths and everything.
Great to get this full breakdown on the situation! I get emails from seattle subway but was a little confused about the difference between the options. This explained it all very well for me. Sent the letter.
Congratulations on moving to Seattle btw! I've lived here car-free for over a decade, hope living here goes well for you.
all of the dislikes are from sound transit board members.
Things like the “5 minute walk through a connector tunnel” to transfer don’t seem like that much….but they add up. I think many more would use mass transit if the trip was “walk-train-walk” BUT the reality is often “drive to train station…walk 10 minute from parking to train…ride train 1…switch first train to second train in a station…ride train 2…..walk to bus area….get on bus for 17 minutes…walk 4 blocks at end, and reverse to go home.
Exactly. And busses run late/early so now you've got to add in +/- 30 minutes unless you're in peak times, in which case it might only be +/- 10 minutes (but can be 20 min still if busses are leapfrogging and then you get gaps in schedules that should only be 10-12 min apart, say).
Man so glad to finally see your Seattle content!! I’ve been watching your videos for a while now but it’s awesome that see you cover the issues in my city! Glad to have you on our side while we’re fighting for better urbanism in Seattle 💪💪
@0:43. L.A.: “Unconventionally long? Hold my glass of organic juice!”
Maybe I'm overlooking something, but for a point of clarification: Why can't the new route just also stop at the same International District Station that already exists for the 1 line? Why even the need to build a new station (whether it's in the ID or somewhere else)?
why does highways never get the "how much does it cost" treatment
As a Seattlite and frequent commuter of Sound Transit, I have a lot of things to say. The mess in Chinatown is a result of the former bus tunnel entrance into the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel and the spaghetti I-90 and I-5 junction. ST did say to skip Chinatown for the 2-line but it has been vetoed. THERE WILL BE A STATION IN CHINATOWN. 4th Ave has been closed off a lot, for fixing potholes and for the West Seattle bridge, literally no traffic during that time because 1st Ave exists. The 3-line is mostly useless, the Rapidride C and H lines to West Seattle are doing fine. While building the 3-line would certainly help, it's not gonna be worth it in the long run. The 4-line is useless, King County Metro should have 2 bus routes, one going north of I-90 like the current 271, and one going south of I-90 like the proposed 233 and serving places like Somerset, Vuemont, and Lakemont, eventually to Issaquah. There is also a pedestrian path called Eastrail which links South Kirkland to Kirkland and Totem Lake, having the 2-line branch off instead, using the existing Eastrail (and tunneling under Google and downtown Kirkland) will help the already heavily congested Route 255 and be useful. Instead of building those two lines, ST should make a new line by tunneling under 45th St from U-District Station (and expanding it to Seattle Children's Hospital and University Village) to Ballard via Wallingford and Fremont because 31, 32, and 44 are always crowded.
As someone who loves trains, King County should Not have just pulled up the tracks to "gentrify" the place.
Rather, they should have double-tracked the lines for Sounder-style commuter trains (consist and all).
Good stuff! That bakfiets rider, seemed so familiar! ;)
I'm so psyched to have someone paying attention to this closer than I'm able to! Am contacting the electeds. Keep it up, friend!
Amazon: nooo you can’t impede the mobility of our employees!!!!
Also amazon: okay everyone, no more wfh or you’re fired
Now that you're up in the PNW, can you do some reviews on some smaller towns up in Oregon/Washington area? Coastal cities have narrowed 2 lane highways and such, I'd love to see what you think about Corvallis as well.
I'm moving from the Udistrict to First Hill this month and I am so glad my commute nightmare will finally be over. I will be able to walk and occasionally take a Metro bus if I need to. Since the pandemic, I just feel like both light rail and Metro have become awful services. The #60 for instance is unpredictable, so is the light rail. The need to rush to get to the platform to catch a train just messes with pschologically. Its just become too much. I will be paying a little bit more in rent, but the peace of mind knowing I can wake a little later and walk to work is bliss.
ST3 was my first election after I moved to Seattle. As a committed non-driver, the whole thing makes me livid.
In the US transit planners have been trained to have singular Plan A - add more lanes. There is no expertise for anything beyond Plan A.
6:03 Wow that looks amazing!
Thank you, great thorough explanation!
I would like to see the Denny station shifted SW and the SLU station shifted North, as the clustering of stations downtown seems excessive, and to the average Satellite a mile is a short walk
Line 1 is north to south. Line 2 is east to west. It is not one long line. It is more like a T with Seattle being the main junction. Line 2 didn't open yet because of problems with the concrete.
I would actually push back on the complaint at 3 minutes slightly. While stupidly close to the I90/I5 interchange - it's also directly next to WAMU and Lumen field. Not to mention - a popular station in that location COULD encourage public support for a re-design of the I90/I5 interchange. (Or at least - increase public pressure to eliminate the connection between I-90 and the Alaskan Way Tunnel - since that puts a considerable amount of through traffic right into a popular spot for events)
My comment would be contingent on Sound Transit building an under-ground connection walkway similar to Millenium Park/Prudential station in Chicago - or Plaça d'Espanya in Barcelona that manages to connect the light rail system into the heavy/commuter rail system with an
To be clear - I don't fully disagree with the points in this video - RMTransit's video already sold me on a King St./ID station being better. Just saying the situation at the 6th street station (while bad today) likely won't remain that bad once completed and could put pressure on the DOT to more seriously consider the pedestrianization of the area when planning traffic flow.
It's frustrating how car centric and decades behind the times Seattle is.
Infuriating. I loved the ST and though I live 2 hours out of town, I use the hell of it when I go there - and CID is my primary stop. If this idiot board scraps it, I'm just going to drive and park at Uwajimaya. I don't care if it adds to the problem.
I'm not yet used to YAU complaining about something that isn't Reno.
The next ST ballot Initiative needs to include a shakeup in the governance model for Sound Transit. While Sound Transit has been able to accomplish some important milestones, that's in spite of their poor governance where suburban government officials that live 30+ miles away are making decisions on the center city of the economic powerhouse of the Northwest. This is why Seattle has some of the most expensive light rail in the nation that's extremely undersized for the way the region is developing. Right now board membership is chosen by geography rather than, say, how much their respective jurisdictions are actually paying into the system.
A backstory as to one reason why the CID is on the chopping block is that business owners in the CID sent a petition telling ST to shove it with plans to setup a second tunnel and station in the CID as they fear being "permanently displaced" by the construction project. IMHO, yes, SOME business may be displaced for a few years -- which is exactly what happened to 2 businesses on Beacon Hill that literally just REOPENED in the new building aligning with the light rail station. But EVERY business owner fears that ALL business in the CID would be destroyed.
Im fairly new to Seattle transit dialogue (started around 2015). Im still of the view that a second tunnel is unnecessary, much less one that doesnt go to first hill. The ballard fremont sand point alignment always appealed to me more and ive always been miffed at how little its been considered even in Seattle itself. My current preferred perspective is a west Seattle line that terminates at sodo or shallow 4th (if it has to exist, multiple true BRT corridors and a dedicated bus lane on the west sea bridge would be superior) with a ballard line that terminates at westlake or even better cap hill
(I'm also a hater of everett and tacoma link, Rainer elevation and more row acquisition for sounder would be better for both of ST's rail projects)
I’m more so curious is what they decide to build at these stops! I’ve noticed that they’ve been building more apartments with businesses below nearby which increases ridership, so I’m curious to see what happens in the near future
Thank you for making this video
Excellent video!
I fully expect Seattle and Sound Transit to pay premium prices for third rate system that the none of the board members or council members would ever deign to use.
For the north extension I contributed bc seeing how much it’ll displace the areas I live is horrible
Less than 10% of the operating budget of Sound Transit comes from ridership.
They care little for the public, and this is felt when being confronted by their fare ambassadors.
If this proposed station at pioneer square is anything like the other stops, you'll need 2 elevators to get to street level. One that goes between the street and the mezzanine and one that goes between the mezzanine and the actual platform.
Which would be a nightmare for wheelchair and bicycle accessibility
@@IndustrialParrot2816 , double the chance for it to break! Wee! (Also, I really with they had a way for you to sign up for email alerts about you particular stations and the things you care about. I signed up for email alerts but it's so much it's overwhelming. I just want to know if my two stations have functioning elevators on any given day...)
I sent a letter using the prompt. Thanks
I've been to Seattle enough times, and the entire "why can't I get to the light rail from the (Amtrak) station?" game. Especially since you can see it from inside the station.
And not to say Seattle is bad for that, but it seems like a broken record problem with light rail and metro's where instead of having one station with two sets of platforms, they instead have two stations that require you to get off, go back to the surface, only to go back down/up form the other station a block away.
What happens to the existing Link ID station at 5th and King?
It’ll remain. The plan is to use that station for the future lines 2 and 3 running up to Everett, east to Bellevue and West to WS
i remember when they cancelled all busses on the weekend north of king country :(
if we're really concerned about the community, add a 50-cent transfer fee that would be for direct investment into any CID projects. Have community activity provide community investment. and that would be on top of any wealth multiplier effects.
I just drove through Seattle for the first time in over 10 years. It was remarkable how far the stations being built on the North I-5 were from any residential or retail. The trains also move veeeeery slowly. This project seems structurally doomed to be useless.
They are really slow compared to places like NYC. That is a real issue. Happened to be on the train when some planners from Sound Transit hopped on and were discussing it--they hate it too. But it's the infrastructure that was decided upon long ago and they're stuck with it now. It's a bummer it takes an hour from Roosevelt/Northgate to the airport already without a transfer. I don't think it will be useless, but I do think most people want 20-45 min commutes max, so I can't imagine my neighbors who are flight attendants sticking around when they add in the transfer and make that even longer.
we need to fight for more money to bring back the original solution!
How do you get on the sound transit board?
Why is there so much importance on closing down a street for a few years? There's always some sort of construction (not just transit), that's closing, limiting, or otherwise redirecting traffic.
I'd rather have 4 years of additional congestion (with all the other traffic, does it even make that much of a difference overall?) for a well-placed, well-connected station than one that's too far out of the way to be useful.
So, for CID, I don’t see the area lasting much longer, and that’s regardless of the location of the station. They could make South CID work if they redesign the road and rezone the area. Seattle has removed overpasses before and could do it again
What is baffling to me is that it looks like a touristy neighborhood streetcar that stretches from Tacoma and Everett, which is a distance of 64 miles (103 km), or 1:15 drive on freeway. That's the distance from London to Brighton in England, and the entire width of Netherlands from Rotterdam to Arnhem, or the straight-line distance from Nagoya to Kyoto... two entirely separate metropolitan regions.
Although I loooooove rail transit. And I realize that the first metro trains in Tokyo, London, and New York were also very slow and underwhelming, but I hope Seattle region can slow upgrade light rail to perform faster speeds. Seattle's light rail is going to be unusable for people traveling from Tacoma to Everett.
People traveling from Tacoma to Everett just use Sounder, which is the commuter rail that runs along the coastline.
This project shouldn't even need to do an Environmental Impact Statement! Look at 7:00 it's not like we care in terms of car projects!
Liked and subscribed
I think I would rather this expansion not be built than see billions blown on crappy stations that will hobble the system for centuries. These can't be fixed once built. We are already stuck with the abysmally designed and located UW station for similar reasons as these.
What are your thoughts on Portland Oregon’s transit? They seem to be making some good changes
You might want a rain check on us, especially after our fare increase...
Quick question: Didn't you used to have more videos? I'm looking through your catalog and I could've sworn I remember there being at least 5-10 more.
No? I have only unlisted three videos, but they can still be found on the channel homepage in their own playlist.
@@YetAnotherUrbanist That's very odd. Sorry for the weird question, then. Keep up the great work!
4th ave by CID needs reconstruction anyway, so a new cid station should be built shallow under the replacement roadway
I dont use sound transit in part because of how bad parking sucks when i do, and how far i have to drive from home to get to a station.
I'm not going to walk a quarter mile to catch the bus to take a 45 minute bus ride to the train station to then take the train.
Good job pronouncing snohomish correctly
There is an existing International District Light Rail Station next to Union Station, used by the north/south line. So what exactly is being changed in the ST3 proposal? I can’t imagine they are getting rid of an existing station. Is it simply that the Eastside line won’t stop there? There would still be a transfer point between lines somewhere nearby so it’s not like the ID wouldn’t be served. How many downtown transfer points do the 3 propose lines really need? BTW, most of us call it International District to better reflect the diversity.
You can have all the data and science in the world to back you up, but there's always the fallback on the abstract idea of "saving money" and "not impeding traffic" which have the qualities of sounding empirical while having no impact of the sort
I love how you say Baldookie. Tha's hilarious.
Why not use a large single-bore tunnel and have the station in the tunnel similar to what is proposed or considered for BART in San Jose.
It is my perspective that the reason for the shift in the ID station was a result of a large community coalition
Dear Seattle,
Whaaaaat!? I was gonna move there so… wth, Seattle. smdh
THIRD! All of this shows how Link Light Rail was never built to be great transit but to be a gadgetbahn subway/streetcar hybrid which was from the beginning envisioned to keep current traffic levels for the next 40 years as Seattle continues to grow. If it was actually to build good transit there would be no debate about an intermodal station in the International District, and no one would even consider that there would need to be only one reasonable transfer point between Eastlink and the other two lines. It would not be light rail, it would be faster, longer, and the stations would be built for this. If it was not built to be a subsidy for drivers there would be no discussion about stations which serve as nothing more than to service park and rides. If it was built to be good transit, there would be no question of the need to build in South Lake Union. If it was built to be good transit, the metro would be built underneath existing streets in Everett and Tacoma. If it was built to be good transit, speed would be a major concern throughout the project, and no one who thinks about it for more than 30 seconds would ever consider a light rail whose top speed doesn't even reach 100 km/hr. Despite having a population greater than Munich, nothing in the plans will ever allow for express trains to service a metro region of over 4 million people. there are currently no plans to service the state capital, despite that it is closer to Lakewood than the C line in New York is long. All of these mistakes definitely adds up to an opportunity cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Link was never built to be good transit. It was built to keep current traffic levels at their current levels. Seattle will never be a great urbanist city. This is why despite growing up in Washington State, I chose to move to New Jersey over moving back to Seattle, where I don't have to deal with this nonsense.
I agree with you, they jumped on the light rail hype train without researching it properly. Light rail isn’t designed for a region wide service. However there is still an opportunity to rectify this by utilizing the commuter rail and expand its operating hours thus changing it into a regional heavy rail train. This is something that might very well happen as people continue to work from home and 9-5 commuters are no longer the focus and sound Transit is now contemplating shifting the schedule around to gain back ridership, especially since they invested so much on new parking garages that are now sitting empty.
@@greasher926 Totally agree. I hope Washington State will either get the permission to run Sounder at a frequency which would make the investment they already made worthwhile or just buy out the tracks from the robber barons. It doesn't make financial sense to spend all of that money to start Sounder only to run it a handful of times a day.
@@greasher926 I wouldn't say that light rail isn't designed for a regional service (as it is a very broad category) but I agree that LINK is poorly planned while Sounder is largely unmentioned and missing out on potential.
The downtown bus tunnel is for sure envisioned as a gadgetbahn. However now it has been turned into a normal transit tunnel (albeit with a very weird layout due to its legacy as a bus tunnel).
I’m also rather concerned with the waterfront shuttle, which is totally an afterthought of a transit option, worse than a gadgetbahn, kind of like a suburban mall bus more than a proper transit option for people. That shuttle should be a streetcar, and it should be called the downtown connector.
Follow the money. Property values rise on average 19.6% (if not more) simply by being within 820 feet of a LRT station. From what this report is expressing, none of these changes make sense for a viable LRT system. But they sure do if you happen to have bought properties in locations that were originally not close to any LRT stations.
seattle is woefully under poor management...but now austin is becoming the same thing