Fell in love with greater Seattle as a kid visiting the 1962 World's Fair. Its always been progressive, but this ongoing project is a huge step forward. Thanks for the update.
OMF Central was at full capacity before the extension opened, but we managed to open it with the same headways. I would like to share how we did this! A little while ago, we noticed a train on the 1 Line that had the same wrap as one spotted on the 2 Line's opening day. Upon further inspection, it was the same train! This is because Sound Transit previously studied and identified spots all along the 1 Line to store trains overnight in station sidings, however, that wouldn't be enough. After the study, Sound Transit disrupted Angle Lake Station operations to connect and power the little catenary already put up on the Federal Way Link Extension, for a brief period some days would have a shuttle train running between Angle Lake and SeaTac/Airport, some days trains would end at SeaTac/Airport until a certain time, some days the station was closed all day (passengers were advised to take RapidRide A Line). The Federal Way Link Extension was still far from finished, but there was a segment directly south of Angle Lake that was. In preparation for Lynnwood Link Extension's opening, some trains from OMF East were shipped back to the 1 Line and trains were rotated from spending the night in the OMF to spending the night in a siding or spending the night on the Federal Way Link Extension. Come opening day, we not only manage to keep our headways the same, but make EVERY train 4 cars long (before Lynnwood opened, some trains were 3 cars long), AND we STILL run game day gap trains! This is such an incredible feat we have accomplished!
1st video I've seen on your channel but based on my interests you popped up in my feed... perfect timing as I couldn't stomach the local news "reporters". I've lived on 3 continents and I have never been comfortable with the dependency on cars in the US, most specifically in the west. Having now lived in San Francisco, LA, a few months on a project in Portland and now Seattle This extension and these stations are a step in the right direction .. it's about 100 years too late for great impact. I look forward to taking an exploratory trip in the next couple of weekends so this was a perfect online tour. Thank you for the video!
I don't know about 100 years. It is already getting huge developments in lynwood, shoreline and MLT on top of probably what will be the highest ridership extension compared to the east link and federal way link extensions. To see those large housing towers this far into the suburbs would be the kind of thing that would take 100 years was it not for this line. And once it connects to Evertt and tacoma, it is going to be bonkers. I think they need a second line to go up and down 99 because unlike SF and LA, Seattle only has one freeway going east/west and one freeway going north south, with a partial seattle bypass we call 405 that acts more like a short spine for bellevelue than the bypass designation it has (see freeway naming code if you're unsure about why it is 405 and not i7)
Even 50 years ago there wasn't enough population in the Puget Sound region to make public transit viable on a large scale. Granted, we caught the wave too late when the growth began to explode in last couple of decades but until that growth occurs there's no wave to catch. 100 years ago, SF and LA were large metropolitan areas while Seattle was still an old backwater logging town with massive plumbing problems. The thing that many foreigners overlook is that most US states are not the small and/or densely populated states of Europe or Asia. The geography of the western United States, in particular, in fact *obviates* the need for "dependency on cars" as you observed.
@@OhArchie not to mention the Boeing bust. Microsoft and then Amazon transformed the region, but before the 90s what was Seattle known for? maybe just Nirvana
We rode the extension to the new stations, a bit of a disappointment. It seems If you don’t drive to and originate your light rail travel from these stations, there is nothing but parking structures, empty plazas and vast bus terminals at these stops. Missing are any amenities. A cafe, bakery, restaurant somewhere, someplace where riders can stop if they wish before getting onto a bus or getting back into their cars to go home. We just returned from Berlin where we stayed just off of the Hackescher Markt train station where there are at minimum, a dozen bistro/ pub restaurants with outdoor dining built along the street level of the upper train station. Sound Transit might follow this model and make these vast plazas into destinations for riders from other parts of the region to arrive and enjoy. If you haven’t been, ride to the Beacon Hill Station and experience any of cafe, bakeries or restaurants steps away from the station.
Great channel and tour! The park and rides are definitely a choice. I don't love them for the reasons you pointed out, but at the Lynnwood opening I heard several people excited about being able to drive to the station instead of downtown. I hope it'll serve as an entry into transit for people who hadn't even considered it before. Unfortunately it will also probably make it harder to plan walkable urban centers near the stations, but hopefully they can figure out some sort of compromise.
@@AmbientMorality they’re an unnecessary and expensive choice but at the very least contain all the parking in a small space, and I have no doubt they’ll be packed in no time
Something interesting is that at a Sound Transit board meeting I once sat in at, one of the members mentioned in the far future when ridership is sustainable, a desire to knock down the garages and build TOD where they were.
or East or West. Local buses don't run frequent enough or cover enough to not drive unless you're near one of the few lines. and most lines still go to Aurora transit center which means wasting a ton of time on this vestige of the old transit backbone. you then have to switch to another bus only to reach the shoreline station... it's so stupid they are basically begging people to drive 😂
Thank you for covering this long overdue but incredibly important transit network extension. When my family moved to the area in 2021, I became aware of the LINK extension projects through RMTransit's Seattle Explainer video. Little would I know, this would start my journey into learning about New Urbanism. I then made a google map of all the LINK extension stations and mandated our family would live in a property within walking distance of one. Well, 3 years later and the payoff is here! I made it a point to take off work and take my daughter to the opening day of service just as we did for the Line 2 grand opening in Bellevue/Redmond. She has become a burgeoning train nerd and even is able to manage the Seoul Metro and Seoul Bus system using Naver Maps when we visit family even though she's not even 10! Channels like yours are so important alongside the big juggernauts like RMTransit, Not Just Bikes, CityNerd, City Beautiful, Oh the Urbanity etc. etc. Channels as yours give us a great and thorough local look at what's happening in our area which is an invaluable function. It grows the community and creates a great and positive sense of local pride. Please keep up the excellent work!
@@rlclark50 Thrilled to hear that your family chose to live near light rail and that you’re raising your daughter to understand the value of transit! Happy we could provide some local insight on the extension :)
@@thehouseoftransit2719 I think with two cross overs they can more than handle 5 minute frequency during the peaks. Anyother time they can use the south crossover more than comfortable as there will not be a train coming the other way. They can't fix the I90 bridge soon enough...
@@thehouseoftransit2719 They're now using the crossover to the north of the station to turn trains around, which seems to be flexible enough to maintain service with both lines. They could have a train on the 1 line arriving on the northbound track and one departing on the southbound track as a train on the 2 line switches directions on the tail tracks. This essentially allows four trains to be at the end of the line at once while a switch south of the platform would limit it to two.
I live near a station open next year. I can’t wait to used it for a better commute to Seattle and other surrounding cities. They have more plans coming up from 2025-2030. I can’t wait for all the new stations opening this 2025-2026.
7:03 - regards to the turning around of trains at Lynnwood, there is a crossover north of the station, and I think the long term plan is to have trains drop off passengers on the northbound platform, head into the turnback siding and crossover, and return to the southbound platform to pick up passengers. This would be similar to how Vancouver turns around its trains at Waterfront and King George, and by doing so it is actually more efficient by separating arriving and departing passengers (Vancouver's SkyTrains can run every 2 mins). I'm not sure why there is no crossover south of Lynnwood, that would've been useful if the one north of the station is out of use for any reason.
@@naturallyherb this is true, though checking and cleaning all the cars while the driver walks to the other end of the train in 8 minutes has proven challenging. Much easier in Vancouver with driverless fully-walk-through trains
I think they either will operate the turn back in one of 2 ways. A second operator hops in to the train when it arrives and takes control after the first operator drives past the crossover and turns off control, or they will do what the Elizabeth line does and the driver can initiate an automated turn back.
I have heard that with the opening of the extension, they can store extra trains dirman at stations over night to allow for all trains ti be 4 cars long, which should help with crowds but its a bummer theyre at 100% capacity
I have lived in major cities all over the world but even compared to New York City, the trains tend to run 8-10 cars! And that's every 5 or 10 minutes! You can tell it's been an adjustment moving to the west coast!
@@IntriguedLionessthat's heavy rail. this is light rail. Link outperforms most light rail thanks to its higher speeds and grade separation where it has to, but it is not a high capacity metro system. I'm not sure Seattle could afford one anyway and with federal assistance being unpredictable and waning as politics get more hardcore, it is unlikely voters would approve such system to begin with.
@@cmdrls212 We could afford one. Link is far more expensive than a heavy rail system would've been. But since you aren't aware of our history (not sure why you make these claims then), we rejected metro systems in 1911, 1958, and 1970.
@@realquadmoo Per mile heavy rail is more expensive, about 2-3x higher. Track standards are higher and alignment requires trade-offs for higher capacity with longer stations and since you need to deliver power via ground means, at grade stations are a no go, raising costs significantly. Since you are quoting history, how about you recall the vote to defund sound transit tabs tax which would have crippled the project a couple of years ago. 30 dollar tabs remember? The court saved the project on a technicality, but for you to claim we can afford more when sound transit is already pushing projects back due to out of control inflation and costs, the price of heavy rail could easily have ended in financial strain leading to another vote for more funding...a vote they probably would loose, considering voters already defunded a huge part of link once. so yeah not buying what you are selling here. heavy rail is way beyond the reach of Seattle. and unlike with forward thrust, the federal government is not coming in and covering 90%. So the situation isn't the same at all, not to mention the costs are so much higher, heavy rail probably would put sound transit in the same issue Vancouver finds itself now: asking the government for a bailout as it faces catastrophic system funding collapse in a few years and is about to undertake on drastic cuts. I guess Vancouver also thought they could afford it 😉
@@realquadmoo Heavy rail systems usually involve more complex construction, including tunnels, elevated tracks, and larger stations. They also support higher-capacity, heavier trains, which requires more robust infrastructure. Heavy rail costs in average 200M per mile but can go to 1B per mile if you need heavy rail tunnels. Light rail is 50-150M per mile. There is no scenario where heavy rail is cheaper and all literature contradicts your claim.
once line two opens this will be by far the best segment of the entire system. 5 minute trains and 55 mph operations thanks to the grade separation is fantastic. There is a cross over South of Lynnwood. it is just not adjacent to the station. you were probably in a train that didn't cross
@@cmdrls212 in many ways it is unfortunate that the rest of the network has not been built to these standards. True about the crossover, but it’s too far south to enable the high frequency service ST aims to run
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Well I'm not a train engineer so I can't speak to that, but I can tell you that I've seen trains north of the Lynwood platform where they can also stage and they routinely are pushing right at the edge of where the elevated segment ends. Sound transit has so far not backed out of the plan to provide 5 minute frequency so I'm guessing people already did the math and it works out. The cross over is actually near the 220th construction staging area. I guess we'll find out by next year. I will check next time I'm there but I think there is another cross over just north of the station which allows a train to switch tracks after the platform. That explains why I kept seeing trains go past the station then return during testing of the line :)
@@thehouseoftransit2719 The federal way extension is at a similar standard. I think sound transit realizes they need to go for speed in the suburbs or end up with a disaster like the MLK segment or the expo line in LA
@@neonspark707 Sound Transit’s official planning guidelines pretty much ban constructing any new grade crossings moving forward. Federal Way will be a very fast line, but only until you hit MLK, which means it will probably be most popular among travelers and airport employees
@@cmdrls212 You are correct, there is a crossover north of the station, but that one’s also more time-consuming to turn trains on. I can’t seem to find the article that goes into more detail about the problems ST identified, but for now I’ll remain optimistic they can deliver the initially planned service
@@markbrinton6815 There are places that you may want to go that you dent want to drive and try to park at. Either due to difficulty of parking or due to the cost of parking. The most obvious is going to a Seahawks or Mariners game. Parking on gamedays is $40-80 even in garages that are 5+ blocks away. Its a lot easier to pay for and ride the train from a park and ride. Many places downtown are similar in not wanting to deal with finding a garage that isn't too expensive and would still be more expensive than riding the train.
Yay for Lynnwood! But communities on the south end and southeast side of Lake Washington have been ignored by light rail developers, yet we pay for the system, too. The system will extend all the way from Federal Way to Lynnwood and from Seattle to Bellevue and north. When will Kent, Renton, Kennydale, May Creek, Newcastle and Newport get any consideration? I could drive 20 minutes to the Tukwila station, but parking is woefully inadequate and bus service is beyond consideration.
@@JJ-kl5yj You’ll be getting a much-improved Stride bus rapid transit line on 405 in a few years! But Renton is deserving of better connections-perhaps a Sounder branch with frequent service into downtown Seattle?
You should really be careful thinking like this, it's what I call "bus icky syndrome". You pay for your sub-area's ST3 improvements. Your comment completely disregards the fact that you have NUMEROUS express bus choices that currently exist, as well as the future STride BRT S2 Line. *Do not tell yourself that the only transit we have is Link.*
@@lalakerspro Actually Transit > No Transit all the time. And STride isn't just some local bus route, it's true Bus Rapid Transit. It will be just as quick and won't ever get stuck in traffic. Parts of the S2 Line have been suggested by a board member for a future Link expansion.
@@realquadmooI live/work/do stuff in Mt Rainier, Tukwila and Renton. Transit is sorely inadequate. I’m very near the light rail so it’s great if I have to go north to the city or south to the airport. But to get to the office in Tukwila by transit takes more than 1.5 hours or 17 minutes by car. This is a reality for most people in the area. Icky bus or not, public transit in this area is simply not a feasible option for most here.
I'm glad LINK keeps expanding but it is annoying how the extensions keep subsidizing the suburbs while many densely populated urban areas of the city still don't have a plan for rail.
@@themattghall I will say Seattle has done a better job than most urban areas in the US of connecting key urban destinations. Future expansions will bring light rail to West Seattle, SLU, Uptown, and Ballard. The only major unserved areas will be First Hill and the Central District, but those are getting a new BRT line in a week’s time. Stay tuned!
Suburbs pay taxes for light rail though so they need some return on that investment. It’s a messy political compromise but better to have some transit than no transit
All these new stops look pretty cool but I can't help but feel like expanding the Sounder would be better than expanding the Link. I live a fair bit northeast of Lake Washington and I dream of the day I can just drive a few minutes to Woodinville or Bothell and hop on a train to Everett or Lynnwood or Bellevue instead of going through the hellish impenetrable traffic around those cities). I'm not strictly a Seattle hater, and I know the primary purpose of these mass transit systems is for metropolitan commuting, but I'd like to be able to travel on a train from small/medium city to another without going to the big city.
@@ThePassionFwuit in a few years the new Stride express bus system centered on Bothell will open with direct routes to Shoreline, Bellevue, and Lynnwood from a new transit center at UW Bothell. I know it’s not nearly as exciting or appealing as rail service, but the route to Lynnwood/Bellevue in particular will be very fast as it runs in express lanes along 405 using electric double decker buses, which in many ways I find more comfortable than the train!
A question about subsdising drivers by providing parking? Maybe you forgot that the largest funding source for ST3 comes from the vehicle excise tax (annual car tab fees). The drivers have more than paid for their parking. Not everyone lives on a convenient bus route, and many people with families have no desire to move into a small apartment next to a transit station.
ST's largest revenue source is sales and rental tax (64%) - the MVET comes in far second (13%). In any case, I personally think the parking garages are fine for the suburban stations as long as the cities they are in makes an effort to continuously densify around the stations.
We need the garages for our cars because MOST of us don't have busses we can ride. I am about 4miles from a bus stop so it's not feasible to walk for an hour in my normal commute. 😮 I would have to drive to the bus stop, park, wait for a bus, ride the bus to the train. Why would I park for a bus when I am already in my car. The main value of the train is the parking lot where I can park and then ride the train into the city. Driving in the city is a madhouse without parking, tons of blocked roads for construction, one way streets, etc.
There’s essentially zero reason for anyone from elsewhere in the city to travel to these stations, especially with my kids in tow. All you’re greeted with is parking lots, parking garages and a loud freeway. There’s no food. No groceries. No museums. Just pavement. At least one stop has a trampoline center. It really is a shame that we’re designing a system almost exclusively to move commuters into downtown, when the reality of post pandemic is that many of the downtown offices are empty.
@@steveallwine1443 I recently used the stations at 148th and 185th to get to The Crest theater and Spin Alley, but those do rely on bus connections. Unfortunately not a whole lot in the immediate station area
I don’t get all the hate from urban planners on massive 1500 car garages when it comes to public transit. Yeah, a hybrid use like a grocery store or housing would be nice, but let’s be real…we can’t think in terms of just the cities and stops that have a station. If you’re coming from Marysville you don’t have to drive an hour to get to downtown Seattle in rush hour traffic. You can drive 30 min to Lynwood instead and just hop on LINK. LINK is not MUNI and just focuses on 1 city. It’s more like BART & focuses on connecting the region as a whole.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 that’s not a bad start. I forgot about the express busses out there. Also, if we increase the Sounder Train frequency & hours we’ll have something special up there.
@thehouseoftransit2719 True, but you're asking a potentially 100% car driver to go completely to 100% public transit. Not happening. That's way to drastic of a change. Having a place to park your car and then use public transit for the restbof your trip is a great way to get 100% car drivers to start using the train. As the metro network continues to get more comprehensive, the less people will drive their cars. Once you can take a bus to a station in 15 minutes, people will begin to leave their cars at home. I'm speaking from personal experience using the LA Metro. Many stations have parking, but not as large as 1500 spaces. I now don't drive to many areas of LA County that is served by the LA Metro. I drive to the closest Metro station (15 minutes away), pay $2 to park all day, and spend the rest of the day or evening using the Metro. It's been great.
Those of us in the surrounding area, unless we are employed by a business in Seattle that has not closed yet, have no desire to go into crime ridden and drug-addict infested Seattle.
@@Klaatu2Too please stop the Seattle hate from the suburbs and boondocks. Without Seattle you wouldn’t have light rail or any public services you partake in. The city runs WA. If you don’t like it, I suggest Montana or Wyoming.
Households already own cars, and use them reflexively. Would you rather drive your car 5 minutes and park next to light rail, or take 20 minutes for a bus? (Disclaimer-I do NOT own a car, but have nothing against the parking garages, if they get riders within a couple miles of Sound Transit to drive to the garages, and then take light rail.)
@@patlynch6517 True, it’s faster than waiting for the bus, but maybe as fellow non-car users we should be more concerned that the *transit* agency is spending tens of millions on building parking garages when that money could instead go to more frequent bus service that would get you and I (and everyone, for that matter) there more efficiently
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Sound Transit building parking garages doesn't really stop the local transit agencies from expanding and improving the frequencies of their own services though. ST Express is also bottlenecked by how many drivers the local agencies can allocate to it since Sound Transit doesn't run the service directly.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 its actually a ROI on their end. Parking garages convinces car riders from the suburbs to park and take the rail, thus more passengers. Plus as frequent as a bus is, a car's frequency is infinite, and when you go a short distance from your house to station. It makes sense. The problem occurs when you drive a car into congested areas, which is why with park and rides, you can actually enforce a rule of "no cars in downtown seattle"
Community transit is also going to DELETE the express bus routes that take you from the suburbs directly into the city leaving little to no redundancy.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 redundancy is a good thing. If one thing goes down you always have the other. And the route 97 shuttle won’t cut it, that’s overcrowded all the time with normal link capacity. I also heard that sound transit is expecting the link to be overcrowded constantly, so if something breaks, it will take you three hours to get into downtown waiting on a 97 LINK SHUTTLE bus that isn’t packed like sardines.
@@railworksamerica There will, at least temporarily, still be the redundancy of the ST Express buses running from Lynnwood into downtown. Once that stops, trains will run frequently enough that crowding should be much less of a concern
@@thehouseoftransit2719 frequency doesn’t equal reliability. There is ALWAYS something or other wrong with the light rail, be it elevator facilities in the stations or single tracking through downtown. The most that ever happens to the commuter buses is they get sometimes stuck in traffic
The buses aren't being replaced. We are losing our express buses! From Mukilteo, the 880, the 417, and other people from Snohomish are also losing their express buses. Now it will take us longer to make our commute and we will have to transfer. On the express buses that are being discontinued mid September, it was a straight shot. Now we have to take a bus to Lynnwood and transfer to the link to get downtown. No one is happy about this.
@@LisaFladager this is unfortunate, but I wonder whether the travel time will really be longer. CT is replacing the peak-only express route and winding local route to Mukilteo, for example, with a more-frequent and straighter all-day route that will run to Lynnwood. I can see it being frustrating if you used the express bus as a commuter, but the new routes will be a lot more flexible and widely available to people making all sorts of trips.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 thanks for replying. Yes it will be longer. The routes I'm talking about are the express commuter routes: the 417 and the 880. They went direct from the ferry to downtown. As I said in my comment, adding the new bus line, the 117, will be great for folks traveling in the middle of the day, much much better than the 113 (which was the milk run and took forever). But commuters will suffer. Why not do both? The 417 and 880 during commuter time and the 117 during the middle of the day and on the weekends?
@@LisaFladager I agree with you. The problem with light rail is that if it stops too much, then it becomes anti-competitive with buses on the express lane. The infill station in 130th doesn't help a system that already takes about as long as it does to drive on moderate traffic and shoreline north is...questionable at best when shoreline south already serves shoreline's far better positioned hub... I've done some test rides to the office and the bus beats light rail all the time except when the I5 express is closed which clogs the HOV lane. I suspect sound transit and community transit will soon realize they blew it and that the light rail is far too slow to be of any use to Snohomish county users that are coming from Mukilteo and Everett and re-instate the buses. IMO they should make Ashway their last stop and skip LTC and MLT on all express routes as those express stops are basically pointless now. Based on the anger I've seen on their FB pages from people that are trashing the fact their commute increased in time and requires an unnecessary transfer to light rail, I bet they will walk back their bad choices before long. I suppose they could keep the MLT stop as it is literally in the middle of the freeway and MTL users can choose slow lightrail or fast bus depending on traffic conditions.
Hey! If we 2 million people have to tighten our belts and give up a few things so almost 4,000 people can save a little time until the light rail begins breaking down, then so be it! We should thank them for the honor!
All stations part of st2 in this line were pitched to suburban voters with modest parking as a reason to accept perpetual taxation on their car registrations, some of the highest in the nation, on top of the local sound transit tax levies these highly suburban areas all the way to Everett. If anything, I'd argue the newcomers to these TOD sites are enjoying the taxes suburban voters started paying since st2 was approved in 2008 and had not seen anything in the way of returns until now. There is plenty of land around these sites for housing so the stacked park and rides which take no more room than a small 5 story building are not going to solve the issue of housing. To veto the modest parking, which at most provides 3000 spaces in a projected ridership of 50,000, would not just be a slap in the face to voters, but ensure they would mostly certainly vote against future expansions if sound transit wants an st4, or if sound transit comes to voters again for increased funding to finish ST3, which is way off track due to inflation. I can almost already smell it: sound transit coming back for more of that sweet nectar that is the suburban voter willing to pay decades ahead as they did with this line 😂 Let's not forget Snohomish county and North shoreline remain highly suburban areas and basics like sidewalks are missing all over the place with the bike networks being nearly totally absent unlike in the East side and Metropolitan Seattle. Bus service is also spotty on weekends running every 20-40 minutes if it runs at all and cars are pretty much a necessity and will remain so for the foreseeable future as this is true heart of suburbia, not some trendy neighborhoods like capitol hill right next to downtown. So the way transit projects like these are funded, cannot be the same way you find something for the car free crowd of the downtown core. Ultimately the type of development here will always include some modest parking. It is how sound transit sold it to the suburban voters asked to bear the massive tax load as low fare collection doesn't even begin to cover the costs of this new shiny project or even cover the maintenance burden suburban taxpayers are asked to cover regardless of fare intake, ridership, or any other shenanigans sounds transit plays with. so the next time you ride it and see the so called car addicted planet killing evil suburbs, tip your hat to them for having voted yes and paid for what you're on 😂. And with sound transit pathetically low fare recovery numbers and lack of even basics like fare gates, I see people ride free nearly every day. I always tell them: you're welcome as I pay my fare and my expensive registration, and my local transit levies so they get a free Ride 😎 I'm glad you enjoyed link. nice video and look forward to more..
@@walawala-fo7ds if the parking gets riders to drive 5 minutes to a light rail station and park there-GREAT! Much better than a bus and transfer, and way better than driving to downtown Seattle and paying $40 to $70 for parking!
One board member express interest in knocking down parking garages and building TOD when ridership becomes "sustainable" in the far future. I find this extremely funny, and the average car dependant suburbanite can go screw themselves haha! Also, luckily Sound Transit was never meant to make money from fares like BART is. We are making the good choice of subsidizing transit just like we do highways and cars (we should stop that though)
@@realquadmoo One member can't do anything. The board will never vote for it to approve it. The garages were part of the voter approved plan and sound transit will continue to build them as they are legally obligated to do so. urbanites just need to suck it up 🤣 Defunding highways would require changes to state and federal laws. Good luck getting elected on that platform. another thing urbanites will need to just suck up lol.
Here in Seattle, and the surrounding area, they haven't built anything but thousands of these human storage units. The ugliness is designed to demoralize the population and deprive people of the pride of ownership or even stewardship.
You could house a lot more people by dispensing with all of the expensive art, too. If you can't get people from their homes to the trains, they won't take the trains.
You are insane. If transit is to terrible, why are the light rail trains and buses all packed? Why does everyone who uses it regularly love it? Car-oriented development destroyed the entire region about 70 years ago.
@@markbrinton6815 my friend, I commute from the east side into downtown Seattle. This morning the light rail at 8:00 am was literally full, not even standing room. The entire train, every car, at absolute max capacity.
@@markbrinton6815 at 10 am they are not standing room only, but there are usually several dozen riders per car. They are never empty throughout the day, what with people coming in from the airport, working different shifts, university students, people going to lunch, etc. I take the light rail regularly, usually as a commute but also to get around, so I actually know what they’re like. Maybe at 10 pm there might be just a few people per car, but they are almost never empty. They move hundreds of thousands of people per month, this is not a question (Sound Transit tracks these numbers and makes them public). I’m sorry, facts don’t care about your feelings. As a public work, the downtown light rail is an incredible success.
Fell in love with greater Seattle as a kid visiting the 1962 World's Fair. Its always been progressive, but this ongoing project is a huge step forward.
Thanks for the update.
OMF Central was at full capacity before the extension opened, but we managed to open it with the same headways. I would like to share how we did this!
A little while ago, we noticed a train on the 1 Line that had the same wrap as one spotted on the 2 Line's opening day. Upon further inspection, it was the same train! This is because Sound Transit previously studied and identified spots all along the 1 Line to store trains overnight in station sidings, however, that wouldn't be enough. After the study, Sound Transit disrupted Angle Lake Station operations to connect and power the little catenary already put up on the Federal Way Link Extension, for a brief period some days would have a shuttle train running between Angle Lake and SeaTac/Airport, some days trains would end at SeaTac/Airport until a certain time, some days the station was closed all day (passengers were advised to take RapidRide A Line). The Federal Way Link Extension was still far from finished, but there was a segment directly south of Angle Lake that was. In preparation for Lynnwood Link Extension's opening, some trains from OMF East were shipped back to the 1 Line and trains were rotated from spending the night in the OMF to spending the night in a siding or spending the night on the Federal Way Link Extension.
Come opening day, we not only manage to keep our headways the same, but make EVERY train 4 cars long (before Lynnwood opened, some trains were 3 cars long), AND we STILL run game day gap trains! This is such an incredible feat we have accomplished!
Y'all are heroes. I've super noticed the increased service recently, it's so awesome!!!
Man, I gotta visit Seattle again sometime. Maybe I could even move to one of those suburbs, maybe.
You must be joking.
@@Klaatu2TooI didn’t say ai would for certain. what would you prefer I do instead?
1st video I've seen on your channel but based on my interests you popped up in my feed... perfect timing as I couldn't stomach the local news "reporters".
I've lived on 3 continents and I have never been comfortable with the dependency on cars in the US, most specifically in the west.
Having now lived in San Francisco, LA, a few months on a project in Portland and now Seattle This extension and these stations are a step in the right direction .. it's about 100 years too late for great impact.
I look forward to taking an exploratory trip in the next couple of weekends so this was a perfect online tour. Thank you for the video!
I don't know about 100 years. It is already getting huge developments in lynwood, shoreline and MLT on top of probably what will be the highest ridership extension compared to the east link and federal way link extensions. To see those large housing towers this far into the suburbs would be the kind of thing that would take 100 years was it not for this line. And once it connects to Evertt and tacoma, it is going to be bonkers. I think they need a second line to go up and down 99 because unlike SF and LA, Seattle only has one freeway going east/west and one freeway going north south, with a partial seattle bypass we call 405 that acts more like a short spine for bellevelue than the bypass designation it has (see freeway naming code if you're unsure about why it is 405 and not i7)
light rails didnt even exist 100 years ago lol. Even in europe, countries like croatia and georgia lack a good rail network
Even 50 years ago there wasn't enough population in the Puget Sound region to make public transit viable on a large scale. Granted, we caught the wave too late when the growth began to explode in last couple of decades but until that growth occurs there's no wave to catch. 100 years ago, SF and LA were large metropolitan areas while Seattle was still an old backwater logging town with massive plumbing problems.
The thing that many foreigners overlook is that most US states are not the small and/or densely populated states of Europe or Asia. The geography of the western United States, in particular, in fact *obviates* the need for "dependency on cars" as you observed.
@@OhArchie not to mention the Boeing bust. Microsoft and then Amazon transformed the region, but before the 90s what was Seattle known for? maybe just Nirvana
We rode the extension to the new stations, a bit of a disappointment. It seems If you don’t drive to and originate your light rail travel from these stations, there is nothing but parking structures, empty plazas and vast bus terminals at these stops. Missing are any amenities. A cafe, bakery, restaurant somewhere, someplace where riders can stop if they wish before getting onto a bus or getting back into their cars to go home. We just returned from Berlin where we stayed just off of the Hackescher Markt train station where there are at minimum, a dozen bistro/ pub restaurants with outdoor dining built along the street level of the upper train station. Sound Transit might follow this model and make these vast plazas into destinations for riders from other parts of the region to arrive and enjoy. If you haven’t been, ride to the Beacon Hill Station and experience any of cafe, bakeries or restaurants steps away from the station.
5:04 I don’t know how I haven’t seen this yet. This is great lol
Great channel and tour! The park and rides are definitely a choice. I don't love them for the reasons you pointed out, but at the Lynnwood opening I heard several people excited about being able to drive to the station instead of downtown. I hope it'll serve as an entry into transit for people who hadn't even considered it before. Unfortunately it will also probably make it harder to plan walkable urban centers near the stations, but hopefully they can figure out some sort of compromise.
@@AmbientMorality they’re an unnecessary and expensive choice but at the very least contain all the parking in a small space, and I have no doubt they’ll be packed in no time
Something interesting is that at a Sound Transit board meeting I once sat in at, one of the members mentioned in the far future when ridership is sustainable, a desire to knock down the garages and build TOD where they were.
@@realquadmoo seems wasteful and unlikely to happen but would be nice
@@thehouseoftransit2719 It just shows that some board members are aware of the issue
1500 car garage* it’s massive which js amazing for those of us who live further north
or East or West. Local buses don't run frequent enough or cover enough to not drive unless you're near one of the few lines. and most lines still go to Aurora transit center which means wasting a ton of time on this vestige of the old transit backbone. you then have to switch to another bus only to reach the shoreline station... it's so stupid they are basically begging people to drive 😂
Thank you for covering this long overdue but incredibly important transit network extension. When my family moved to the area in 2021, I became aware of the LINK extension projects through RMTransit's Seattle Explainer video. Little would I know, this would start my journey into learning about New Urbanism. I then made a google map of all the LINK extension stations and mandated our family would live in a property within walking distance of one. Well, 3 years later and the payoff is here! I made it a point to take off work and take my daughter to the opening day of service just as we did for the Line 2 grand opening in Bellevue/Redmond. She has become a burgeoning train nerd and even is able to manage the Seoul Metro and Seoul Bus system using Naver Maps when we visit family even though she's not even 10!
Channels like yours are so important alongside the big juggernauts like RMTransit, Not Just Bikes, CityNerd, City Beautiful, Oh the Urbanity etc. etc. Channels as yours give us a great and thorough local look at what's happening in our area which is an invaluable function. It grows the community and creates a great and positive sense of local pride.
Please keep up the excellent work!
@@rlclark50 Thrilled to hear that your family chose to live near light rail and that you’re raising your daughter to understand the value of transit! Happy we could provide some local insight on the extension :)
as someone who also bounces between Seoul and Seattle, hopefully we can get the fast doors function on google maps here in the PNW!
Congratulations, Seattle. Well done!!!
There are two crossovers near Lynnwood Station. One just north of the platform, and one around where the 220th station would be.
@@brianbui9618 those’ll become necessary, but they don’t work nearly as efficiently as one just south of the station would
@@thehouseoftransit2719 I think with two cross overs they can more than handle 5 minute frequency during the peaks. Anyother time they can use the south crossover more than comfortable as there will not be a train coming the other way. They can't fix the I90 bridge soon enough...
@@thehouseoftransit2719 They're now using the crossover to the north of the station to turn trains around, which seems to be flexible enough to maintain service with both lines. They could have a train on the 1 line arriving on the northbound track and one departing on the southbound track as a train on the 2 line switches directions on the tail tracks. This essentially allows four trains to be at the end of the line at once while a switch south of the platform would limit it to two.
I live near a station open next year. I can’t wait to used it for a better commute to Seattle and other surrounding cities. They have more plans coming up from 2025-2030. I can’t wait for all the new stations opening this 2025-2026.
Seattle and Los Angeles building the most public rail transit in the USA! West Coast!
Um, does the bay area not exist lol? Our transit network is better than seattle, and far better than LA
@@lalakersproit’s crap brah sit down
An excellent video. Well done.
7:03 - regards to the turning around of trains at Lynnwood, there is a crossover north of the station, and I think the long term plan is to have trains drop off passengers on the northbound platform, head into the turnback siding and crossover, and return to the southbound platform to pick up passengers. This would be similar to how Vancouver turns around its trains at Waterfront and King George, and by doing so it is actually more efficient by separating arriving and departing passengers (Vancouver's SkyTrains can run every 2 mins). I'm not sure why there is no crossover south of Lynnwood, that would've been useful if the one north of the station is out of use for any reason.
@@naturallyherb this is true, though checking and cleaning all the cars while the driver walks to the other end of the train in 8 minutes has proven challenging. Much easier in Vancouver with driverless fully-walk-through trains
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Dude, I'm pretty surprised link light rail is human driven tbh.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Oh, and if the 2 line terminates at Northgate, I'll be livid!
@@MikeDunphy in this day and age it is pretty surprising it isn’t automated. I also hope the 2 Line will run all the way north!
I think they either will operate the turn back in one of 2 ways. A second operator hops in to the train when it arrives and takes control after the first operator drives past the crossover and turns off control, or they will do what the Elizabeth line does and the driver can initiate an automated turn back.
I have heard that with the opening of the extension, they can store extra trains dirman at stations over night to allow for all trains ti be 4 cars long, which should help with crowds but its a bummer theyre at 100% capacity
I have lived in major cities all over the world but even compared to New York City, the trains tend to run 8-10 cars! And that's every 5 or 10 minutes!
You can tell it's been an adjustment moving to the west coast!
@@IntriguedLionessthat's heavy rail. this is light rail. Link outperforms most light rail thanks to its higher speeds and grade separation where it has to, but it is not a high capacity metro system. I'm not sure Seattle could afford one anyway and with federal assistance being unpredictable and waning as politics get more hardcore, it is unlikely voters would approve such system to begin with.
@@cmdrls212 We could afford one. Link is far more expensive than a heavy rail system would've been. But since you aren't aware of our history (not sure why you make these claims then), we rejected metro systems in 1911, 1958, and 1970.
@@realquadmoo Per mile heavy rail is more expensive, about 2-3x higher. Track standards are higher and alignment requires trade-offs for higher capacity with longer stations and since you need to deliver power via ground means, at grade stations are a no go, raising costs significantly.
Since you are quoting history, how about you recall the vote to defund sound transit tabs tax which would have crippled the project a couple of years ago. 30 dollar tabs remember?
The court saved the project on a technicality, but for you to claim we can afford more when sound transit is already pushing projects back due to out of control inflation and costs, the price of heavy rail could easily have ended in financial strain leading to another vote for more funding...a vote they probably would loose, considering voters already defunded a huge part of link once.
so yeah not buying what you are selling here. heavy rail is way beyond the reach of Seattle. and unlike with forward thrust, the federal government is not coming in and covering 90%. So the situation isn't the same at all, not to mention the costs are so much higher, heavy rail probably would put sound transit in the same issue Vancouver finds itself now: asking the government for a bailout as it faces catastrophic system funding collapse in a few years and is about to undertake on drastic cuts.
I guess Vancouver also thought they could afford it 😉
@@realquadmoo Heavy rail systems usually involve more complex construction, including tunnels, elevated tracks, and larger stations. They also support higher-capacity, heavier trains, which requires more robust infrastructure. Heavy rail costs in average 200M per mile but can go to 1B per mile if you need heavy rail tunnels. Light rail is 50-150M per mile. There is no scenario where heavy rail is cheaper and all literature contradicts your claim.
once line two opens this will be by far the best segment of the entire system. 5 minute trains and 55 mph operations thanks to the grade separation is fantastic. There is a cross over South of Lynnwood. it is just not adjacent to the station. you were probably in a train that didn't cross
@@cmdrls212 in many ways it is unfortunate that the rest of the network has not been built to these standards. True about the crossover, but it’s too far south to enable the high frequency service ST aims to run
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Well I'm not a train engineer so I can't speak to that, but I can tell you that I've seen trains north of the Lynwood platform where they can also stage and they routinely are pushing right at the edge of where the elevated segment ends. Sound transit has so far not backed out of the plan to provide 5 minute frequency so I'm guessing people already did the math and it works out. The cross over is actually near the 220th construction staging area. I guess we'll find out by next year.
I will check next time I'm there but I think there is another cross over just north of the station which allows a train to switch tracks after the platform. That explains why I kept seeing trains go past the station then return during testing of the line :)
@@thehouseoftransit2719 The federal way extension is at a similar standard. I think sound transit realizes they need to go for speed in the suburbs or end up with a disaster like the MLK segment or the expo line in LA
@@neonspark707 Sound Transit’s official planning guidelines pretty much ban constructing any new grade crossings moving forward. Federal Way will be a very fast line, but only until you hit MLK, which means it will probably be most popular among travelers and airport employees
@@cmdrls212 You are correct, there is a crossover north of the station, but that one’s also more time-consuming to turn trains on. I can’t seem to find the article that goes into more detail about the problems ST identified, but for now I’ll remain optimistic they can deliver the initially planned service
If you want people in the suburbs to take mass transit it has to be easier than driving. Parking lots are a must
It doesn't really matter. Most of us will never take it anyway. Would much rather drive.
Parking lots suck. You need garages, not lots
@@markbrinton6815 There are places that you may want to go that you dent want to drive and try to park at. Either due to difficulty of parking or due to the cost of parking. The most obvious is going to a Seahawks or Mariners game. Parking on gamedays is $40-80 even in garages that are 5+ blocks away. Its a lot easier to pay for and ride the train from a park and ride. Many places downtown are similar in not wanting to deal with finding a garage that isn't too expensive and would still be more expensive than riding the train.
Yay for Lynnwood! But communities on the south end and southeast side of Lake Washington have been ignored by light rail developers, yet we pay for the system, too. The system will extend all the way from Federal Way to Lynnwood and from Seattle to Bellevue and north. When will Kent, Renton, Kennydale, May Creek, Newcastle and Newport get any consideration? I could drive 20 minutes to the Tukwila station, but parking is woefully inadequate and bus service is beyond consideration.
@@JJ-kl5yj You’ll be getting a much-improved Stride bus rapid transit line on 405 in a few years! But Renton is deserving of better connections-perhaps a Sounder branch with frequent service into downtown Seattle?
You should really be careful thinking like this, it's what I call "bus icky syndrome". You pay for your sub-area's ST3 improvements. Your comment completely disregards the fact that you have NUMEROUS express bus choices that currently exist, as well as the future STride BRT S2 Line.
*Do not tell yourself that the only transit we have is Link.*
@@realquadmoo Trains > buses all the time. Wanting a light rail built should be a bigger priority.
@@lalakerspro Actually Transit > No Transit all the time.
And STride isn't just some local bus route, it's true Bus Rapid Transit. It will be just as quick and won't ever get stuck in traffic.
Parts of the S2 Line have been suggested by a board member for a future Link expansion.
@@realquadmooI live/work/do stuff in Mt Rainier, Tukwila and Renton. Transit is sorely inadequate. I’m very near the light rail so it’s great if I have to go north to the city or south to the airport. But to get to the office in Tukwila by transit takes more than 1.5 hours or 17 minutes by car. This is a reality for most people in the area. Icky bus or not, public transit in this area is simply not a feasible option for most here.
I'm glad LINK keeps expanding but it is annoying how the extensions keep subsidizing the suburbs while many densely populated urban areas of the city still don't have a plan for rail.
@@themattghall I will say Seattle has done a better job than most urban areas in the US of connecting key urban destinations. Future expansions will bring light rail to West Seattle, SLU, Uptown, and Ballard. The only major unserved areas will be First Hill and the Central District, but those are getting a new BRT line in a week’s time. Stay tuned!
Suburbs pay taxes for light rail though so they need some return on that investment. It’s a messy political compromise but better to have some transit than no transit
All these new stops look pretty cool but I can't help but feel like expanding the Sounder would be better than expanding the Link. I live a fair bit northeast of Lake Washington and I dream of the day I can just drive a few minutes to Woodinville or Bothell and hop on a train to Everett or Lynnwood or Bellevue instead of going through the hellish impenetrable traffic around those cities). I'm not strictly a Seattle hater, and I know the primary purpose of these mass transit systems is for metropolitan commuting, but I'd like to be able to travel on a train from small/medium city to another without going to the big city.
@@ThePassionFwuit in a few years the new Stride express bus system centered on Bothell will open with direct routes to Shoreline, Bellevue, and Lynnwood from a new transit center at UW Bothell. I know it’s not nearly as exciting or appealing as rail service, but the route to Lynnwood/Bellevue in particular will be very fast as it runs in express lanes along 405 using electric double decker buses, which in many ways I find more comfortable than the train!
It will work somehow... But it's a huge lost opportunity that it doesn't go along SR99.
A question about subsdising drivers by providing parking? Maybe you forgot that the largest funding source for ST3 comes from the vehicle excise tax (annual car tab fees). The drivers have more than paid for their parking. Not everyone lives on a convenient bus route, and many people with families have no desire to move into a small apartment next to a transit station.
ST's largest revenue source is sales and rental tax (64%) - the MVET comes in far second (13%). In any case, I personally think the parking garages are fine for the suburban stations as long as the cities they are in makes an effort to continuously densify around the stations.
We need the garages for our cars because MOST of us don't have busses we can ride. I am about 4miles from a bus stop so it's not feasible to walk for an hour in my normal commute. 😮 I would have to drive to the bus stop, park, wait for a bus, ride the bus to the train. Why would I park for a bus when I am already in my car. The main value of the train is the parking lot where I can park and then ride the train into the city. Driving in the city is a madhouse without parking, tons of blocked roads for construction, one way streets, etc.
if only it didnt take decades to get stuff built around here. Im glad its all being build at least
Abolish NEPA first
There’s essentially zero reason for anyone from elsewhere in the city to travel to these stations, especially with my kids in tow. All you’re greeted with is parking lots, parking garages and a loud freeway. There’s no food. No groceries. No museums. Just pavement.
At least one stop has a trampoline center.
It really is a shame that we’re designing a system almost exclusively to move commuters into downtown, when the reality of post pandemic is that many of the downtown offices are empty.
@@steveallwine1443 I recently used the stations at 148th and 185th to get to The Crest theater and Spin Alley, but those do rely on bus connections. Unfortunately not a whole lot in the immediate station area
I don’t get all the hate from urban planners on massive 1500 car garages when it comes to public transit. Yeah, a hybrid use like a grocery store or housing would be nice, but let’s be real…we can’t think in terms of just the cities and stops that have a station. If you’re coming from Marysville you don’t have to drive an hour to get to downtown Seattle in rush hour traffic. You can drive 30 min to Lynwood instead and just hop on LINK. LINK is not MUNI and just focuses on 1 city. It’s more like BART & focuses on connecting the region as a whole.
@@misteriknow2069 true that, but we’ve also got express buses from Marysville. Even better if we can encourage folks to take advantage of those
@@thehouseoftransit2719 that’s not a bad start. I forgot about the express busses out there. Also, if we increase the Sounder Train frequency & hours we’ll have something special up there.
@thehouseoftransit2719 True, but you're asking a potentially 100% car driver to go completely to 100% public transit. Not happening. That's way to drastic of a change. Having a place to park your car and then use public transit for the restbof your trip is a great way to get 100% car drivers to start using the train.
As the metro network continues to get more comprehensive, the less people will drive their cars. Once you can take a bus to a station in 15 minutes, people will begin to leave their cars at home.
I'm speaking from personal experience using the LA Metro. Many stations have parking, but not as large as 1500 spaces.
I now don't drive to many areas of LA County that is served by the LA Metro. I drive to the closest Metro station (15 minutes away), pay $2 to park all day, and spend the rest of the day or evening using the Metro. It's been great.
Those of us in the surrounding area, unless we are employed by a business in Seattle that has not closed yet, have no desire to go into crime ridden and drug-addict infested Seattle.
@@Klaatu2Too please stop the Seattle hate from the suburbs and boondocks. Without Seattle you wouldn’t have light rail or any public services you partake in. The city runs WA. If you don’t like it, I suggest Montana or Wyoming.
Households already own cars, and use them reflexively. Would you rather drive your car 5 minutes and park next to light rail, or take 20 minutes for a bus? (Disclaimer-I do NOT own a car, but have nothing against the parking garages, if they get riders within a couple miles of Sound Transit to drive to the garages, and then take light rail.)
@@patlynch6517 True, it’s faster than waiting for the bus, but maybe as fellow non-car users we should be more concerned that the *transit* agency is spending tens of millions on building parking garages when that money could instead go to more frequent bus service that would get you and I (and everyone, for that matter) there more efficiently
@@thehouseoftransit2719 Sound Transit building parking garages doesn't really stop the local transit agencies from expanding and improving the frequencies of their own services though. ST Express is also bottlenecked by how many drivers the local agencies can allocate to it since Sound Transit doesn't run the service directly.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 its actually a ROI on their end. Parking garages convinces car riders from the suburbs to park and take the rail, thus more passengers. Plus as frequent as a bus is, a car's frequency is infinite, and when you go a short distance from your house to station. It makes sense.
The problem occurs when you drive a car into congested areas, which is why with park and rides, you can actually enforce a rule of "no cars in downtown seattle"
Community transit is also going to DELETE the express bus routes that take you from the suburbs directly into the city leaving little to no redundancy.
@@railworksamerica unfortunate in many ways, but the redundancy is, well, redundant. Now CT can focus a lot more on service within Snohomish County
@@thehouseoftransit2719 redundancy is a good thing. If one thing goes down you always have the other. And the route 97 shuttle won’t cut it, that’s overcrowded all the time with normal link capacity. I also heard that sound transit is expecting the link to be overcrowded constantly, so if something breaks, it will take you three hours to get into downtown waiting on a 97 LINK SHUTTLE bus that isn’t packed like sardines.
@@railworksamerica There will, at least temporarily, still be the redundancy of the ST Express buses running from Lynnwood into downtown. Once that stops, trains will run frequently enough that crowding should be much less of a concern
@@thehouseoftransit2719 frequency doesn’t equal reliability. There is ALWAYS something or other wrong with the light rail, be it elevator facilities in the stations or single tracking through downtown. The most that ever happens to the commuter buses is they get sometimes stuck in traffic
Motto Washington state
Come & visit us but dont stay
Quote tina o neil
American german teacher
The buses aren't being replaced. We are losing our express buses! From Mukilteo, the 880, the 417, and other people from Snohomish are also losing their express buses. Now it will take us longer to make our commute and we will have to transfer. On the express buses that are being discontinued mid September, it was a straight shot. Now we have to take a bus to Lynnwood and transfer to the link to get downtown. No one is happy about this.
@@LisaFladager this is unfortunate, but I wonder whether the travel time will really be longer. CT is replacing the peak-only express route and winding local route to Mukilteo, for example, with a more-frequent and straighter all-day route that will run to Lynnwood. I can see it being frustrating if you used the express bus as a commuter, but the new routes will be a lot more flexible and widely available to people making all sorts of trips.
@@thehouseoftransit2719 thanks for replying. Yes it will be longer. The routes I'm talking about are the express commuter routes: the 417 and the 880. They went direct from the ferry to downtown. As I said in my comment, adding the new bus line, the 117, will be great for folks traveling in the middle of the day, much much better than the 113 (which was the milk run and took forever). But commuters will suffer. Why not do both? The 417 and 880 during commuter time and the 117 during the middle of the day and on the weekends?
@@LisaFladager I agree with you. The problem with light rail is that if it stops too much, then it becomes anti-competitive with buses on the express lane. The infill station in 130th doesn't help a system that already takes about as long as it does to drive on moderate traffic and shoreline north is...questionable at best when shoreline south already serves shoreline's far better positioned hub... I've done some test rides to the office and the bus beats light rail all the time except when the I5 express is closed which clogs the HOV lane.
I suspect sound transit and community transit will soon realize they blew it and that the light rail is far too slow to be of any use to Snohomish county users that are coming from Mukilteo and Everett and re-instate the buses. IMO they should make Ashway their last stop and skip LTC and MLT on all express routes as those express stops are basically pointless now. Based on the anger I've seen on their FB pages from people that are trashing the fact their commute increased in time and requires an unnecessary transfer to light rail, I bet they will walk back their bad choices before long. I suppose they could keep the MLT stop as it is literally in the middle of the freeway and MTL users can choose slow lightrail or fast bus depending on traffic conditions.
@@cmdrls212 I hope so.
On September 14th the N Line will be getting new trips. That's commuter rail service from Mukilteo to Downtown.
One thing I didn't hear: A simple thank you to the productive members of Sno-King-Pierce who pay insane tax rates to fund your rides.
@@df446 my family is one of them! I’m proud of our contributions!
Hey! If we 2 million people have to tighten our belts and give up a few things so almost 4,000 people can save a little time until the light rail begins breaking down, then so be it! We should thank them for the honor!
All stations part of st2 in this line were pitched to suburban voters with modest parking as a reason to accept perpetual taxation on their car registrations, some of the highest in the nation, on top of the local sound transit tax levies these highly suburban areas all the way to Everett. If anything, I'd argue the newcomers to these TOD sites are enjoying the taxes suburban voters started paying since st2 was approved in 2008 and had not seen anything in the way of returns until now. There is plenty of land around these sites for housing so the stacked park and rides which take no more room than a small 5 story building are not going to solve the issue of housing.
To veto the modest parking, which at most provides 3000 spaces in a projected ridership of 50,000, would not just be a slap in the face to voters, but ensure they would mostly certainly vote against future expansions if sound transit wants an st4, or if sound transit comes to voters again for increased funding to finish ST3, which is way off track due to inflation. I can almost already smell it: sound transit coming back for more of that sweet nectar that is the suburban voter willing to pay decades ahead as they did with this line 😂
Let's not forget Snohomish county and North shoreline remain highly suburban areas and basics like sidewalks are missing all over the place with the bike networks being nearly totally absent unlike in the East side and Metropolitan Seattle. Bus service is also spotty on weekends running every 20-40 minutes if it runs at all and cars are pretty much a necessity and will remain so for the foreseeable future as this is true heart of suburbia, not some trendy neighborhoods like capitol hill right next to downtown. So the way transit projects like these are funded, cannot be the same way you find something for the car free crowd of the downtown core.
Ultimately the type of development here will always include some modest parking. It is how sound transit sold it to the suburban voters asked to bear the massive tax load as low fare collection doesn't even begin to cover the costs of this new shiny project or even cover the maintenance burden suburban taxpayers are asked to cover regardless of fare intake, ridership, or any other shenanigans sounds transit plays with.
so the next time you ride it and see the so called car addicted planet killing evil suburbs, tip your hat to them for having voted yes and paid for what you're on 😂. And with sound transit pathetically low fare recovery numbers and lack of even basics like fare gates, I see people ride free nearly every day. I always tell them: you're welcome as I pay my fare and my expensive registration, and my local transit levies so they get a free Ride 😎 I'm glad you enjoyed link. nice video and look forward to more..
@@walawala-fo7ds if the parking gets riders to drive 5 minutes to a light rail station and park there-GREAT!
Much better than a bus and transfer, and way better than driving to downtown Seattle and paying $40 to $70 for parking!
One board member express interest in knocking down parking garages and building TOD when ridership becomes "sustainable" in the far future. I find this extremely funny, and the average car dependant suburbanite can go screw themselves haha!
Also, luckily Sound Transit was never meant to make money from fares like BART is. We are making the good choice of subsidizing transit just like we do highways and cars (we should stop that though)
@@realquadmoo One member can't do anything. The board will never vote for it to approve it. The garages were part of the voter approved plan and sound transit will continue to build them as they are legally obligated to do so. urbanites just need to suck it up 🤣 Defunding highways would require changes to state and federal laws. Good luck getting elected on that platform. another thing urbanites will need to just suck up lol.
@@realquadmoo the most ridiculous phrase in the country is car-dependent. Cars make you independent. That's why Washington government hates them.
I'll be sure to vote NO on any further expansions.
all these apartments look like prisons.
@@markbrinton6815 you look like a prison
Here in Seattle, and the surrounding area, they haven't built anything but thousands of these human storage units. The ugliness is designed to demoralize the population and deprive people of the pride of ownership or even stewardship.
@@youtubecensors5419 exactly
Quit hating on SFH and drivers. They are the majority in this country.
@@banderson1979 no hate here, just advocating for the change I think matters
You could house a lot more people by dispensing with all of the expensive art, too. If you can't get people from their homes to the trains, they won't take the trains.
Stopped using Seattle area mass transit a couple years ago. Disgusting, inefficient, inconvenient, etc. Such a bottomless money pit.
Transit Oriented Development has ruined the quality of life in the Seattle area.
You are insane. If transit is to terrible, why are the light rail trains and buses all packed? Why does everyone who uses it regularly love it?
Car-oriented development destroyed the entire region about 70 years ago.
@@asmodiusjones9563 they are rarely packed. usually they are empty. liar.
@@markbrinton6815 my friend, I commute from the east side into downtown Seattle. This morning the light rail at 8:00 am was literally full, not even standing room. The entire train, every car, at absolute max capacity.
@@asmodiusjones9563 yeah. at 8 am. try 10 am. Not packed.
@@markbrinton6815 at 10 am they are not standing room only, but there are usually several dozen riders per car. They are never empty throughout the day, what with people coming in from the airport, working different shifts, university students, people going to lunch, etc.
I take the light rail regularly, usually as a commute but also to get around, so I actually know what they’re like. Maybe at 10 pm there might be just a few people per car, but they are almost never empty. They move hundreds of thousands of people per month, this is not a question (Sound Transit tracks these numbers and makes them public). I’m sorry, facts don’t care about your feelings. As a public work, the downtown light rail is an incredible success.