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The purpose of mass transit, by the statements of the agencies themselves, is "moving people throughout the region". Metro is a King County Agency, Sound Transit was formed by 3 counties, Snohomish, King, and Pierce to get commuters between them for work. What you are looking for is a city bus system, or in this case expansion of the monorail and streetcar, the only mass transit specifically for moving people within Seattle.
Plus, as Link grows, Seattle will see the biggest benefit to it as lines reach other parts of the city making access to and from downtown much easier.
Plus, as Link grows, Seattle will see the biggest benefit to it as lines reach other parts of the city making access to and from downtown much easier.
How will Seattle benefit by making it easier for suburbanites to commute by rail into the city center, when more and more jobs are being located elsewhere?
How will Seattle benefit by making it easier for suburbanites to commute by rail into the city center, when more and more jobs are being located elsewhere?
The same way Portland does, you have to also build rail within the city for those suburbanites that are commuting in from the suburbs. Also we are talking about Seattle, it is a safe bet that it has a strong jobs market in and around the city center. For those jobs located elsewhere, there is still an extensive highway system for those jobs.
I think Seattle is doing a good job but by no means stellar.
Seattle has spent a king's ransom on the Link and the reality is that the ridership is not that good. I appreciate that the costs would be higher in Seattle compared to many places due to it's challenging topography but I am think for the money they could have built a grade separated system ie Vancouver, but could offer faster and more frequent service but at a lower operational cost due to automation.
Considering the amount spent so far, the ridership returns have not been overwhelming. Calgary's LRT which does not have a downtown tunnel and serves a city one-third the size of Seattle has 5X the ridership level. When you look at it that way, Seattle has gotten precious little out of the money spent.
I think Seattle is doing a good job but by no means stellar.
Seattle has spent a king's ransom on the Link and the reality is that the ridership is not that good. I appreciate that the costs would be higher in Seattle compared to many places due to it's challenging topography but I am think for the money they could have built a grade separated system ie Vancouver, but could offer faster and more frequent service but at a lower operational cost due to automation.
Considering the amount spent so far, the ridership returns have not been overwhelming. Calgary's LRT which does not have a downtown tunnel and serves a city one-third the size of Seattle has 5X the ridership level. When you look at it that way, Seattle has gotten precious little out of the money spent.
To be fair, Seattle did just connect the Link to two of its most populous neighborhoods that would be benefited for having a direct access to light rail. With the planned expansion to the Northside as well as the route to Bellevue, ridership numbers should take a jump up. The average daily ridership for Central Link is at about 60K.
Calgary's system is more what every city should aim for rather than anything else. There system and tight packed density is beyond amazing for a city its size. I love Portland's light rail system, and even Portland system is a third as good as Calgary's.
I think Seattle is doing a good job but by no means stellar.
Seattle has spent a king's ransom on the Link and the reality is that the ridership is not that good. I appreciate that the costs would be higher in Seattle compared to many places due to it's challenging topography but I am think for the money they could have built a grade separated system ie Vancouver, but could offer faster and more frequent service but at a lower operational cost due to automation.
Considering the amount spent so far, the ridership returns have not been overwhelming. Calgary's LRT which does not have a downtown tunnel and serves a city one-third the size of Seattle has 5X the ridership level. When you look at it that way, Seattle has gotten precious little out of the money spent.
That's because the first leg was to the airport through several not-very-dense areas. Recently ridership nearly doubled with the opening of two new subway stations (U-link). Per mile ridership with the current ridership (~60k weekday) is the highest per mile in the country for light rail systems aside from SF and Boston. As new extensions open (including a number of subway and elevated stations in dense areas) over the next decade you're going to see ridership continue to increase dramatically.
Actually that is just wrong. The whole point of light rail is at-grade. Thats the definition of light rail. The point of heavy rail is grade-separation. Actually back in the 1970s Denver's rail system plans were for an entirely grade-separated people mover system. Which was quickly realized to be not feasible, and replaced with plans for a light rail system.
That said I do think that light rail is not really working that well in Denver. I think they will eventually have to upgrade their light rail lines to commuter rail service (like the new lines they are building now), with a subway in the Downtown Area. The Denver light rail just can’t handle the demand. But an entirely grade-separated system in Denver will never happen ever. They are already broke trying to build what they have.
No, light rail is a different type of track and rail car. It can be grade separated or not. If it isn't grade separated at all, it fits into the "streetcar" category, which is basically just a hugely expensive, inflexible bus, to use the words of another poster-a "vanity" project.
Dallas has about 70 miles of light rail and, except for downtown, it is grade separated. Light rail does allow street operation in some places that are really expensive to do grade separation while heavy rail does not.
How will Seattle benefit by making it easier for suburbanites to commute by rail into the city center, when more and more jobs are being located elsewhere?
Offices aren't the only thing, but the office jobs are mostly going to greater Downtown Seattle or near the current/future Link lines in Bellevue, Redmond, etc. The vast majority of office construction is in these areas. In fact we're in the largest office boom Downtown Seattle has ever seen, even after the five(?) epic booms that have already happened. Companies are pouring into town relocating from the suburbs, and being near transit is a big part of why.
Offices aren't the only thing, but the office jobs are mostly going to greater Downtown Seattle or near the current/future Link lines in Bellevue, Redmond, etc. The vast majority of office construction is in these areas. In fact we're in the largest office boom Downtown Seattle has ever seen, even after the five(?) epic booms that have already happened. Companies are pouring into town relocating from the suburbs, and being near transit is a big part of why.
I'll make a couple of comments although honestly I don't know that they make any difference to fixed rail advocates.
1 - Projects now under development or predevelopment in central Seattle have been formulated, permitted and financed based on the current transportation system, not some hypothetical 20-year-out system. Investors won't invest and lenders won't lend based on promises of better access.
2 - The majority of current or planned office development projects in central Seattle are located in the South Lake Union area, far from any light rail stations, and thus would require a mode-split transfer at some point. Look at this map and click on the "office" bar to filter the results. https://www.downtownseattle.com/reso...-projects-map/
3. The projected 2023 (really?) Link ride time from Bellevue to, say, the University St. transit tunnel is quite close to current times on ST or Metro express buses. Projected travel times to/from other points on the east link extension are comparable. On the "red" line (N/S) projected travel times from Northgate to University Street are 2 min. shorter than current bus times.
Why do I mention the travel times? Because those times are reflective of proposed changes brought about after billions of dollars in capital cost, the debt service on which I and other residents of the region will be paying for decades to come. (I should live so long, LOL.) Billions to save two minutes? Billions to send people to stations that are still a mile from their workplace or homes?
And this is tax money, not some Christmas present from the federal government; federal funding is going to account for something like 13% of ST3's cost, and remember that's just the capital cost, not the ongoing M&O costs, which will require even greater taxpayer subsidy on a per-passenger basis.
The way I see it, the current system (roads, buses, light rail, streetcars, feet, bikes, ferries...) is in equilibrium or close to it. Just like New York, or Vancouver or almost any other city you can name, Seattle's traffic congestion has risen to a point where many commuters choose to move downtown rather than ride buses or fight freeway traffic. On that map above, click on the "residential" bar and see how many projects are located in central Seattle. We all know Seattle's downtown is changing like downtowns across America and Europe too - they're becoming more residential than office-centered. Adding fixed corridor transportation capacity from the suburbs to the core, be it road or rail, will only lead to that equilibrium resetting. Congestion won't be reduced, the taxpayers won't save any money, housing costs won't fall... not much will change except in the meantime billions of dollars will have gone into the pockets of the engineers, lawyers, bureaucrats, investment bankers and contractors, who will then try to convince us that we need to move on to the next desperately needed project.
Location: "Silicon Valley" (part of San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA)
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Seattle should have built an elevated monorail throughout the city, that would have been awesome. We need that in Silicon Valley too.
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