Tag / seattle

by Adron

A Few Not So Great Shots of the Snow

…with of course a transit focused emphasis.  🙂

A Little Bit of Commentary

So almost every single bus line is either shut down, on snow routes, or almost non-operational.  Same thing happened to TriMet when it snowed and they got slammed for it.  A few people in the community even ranted and raved about how TriMet had done a horrible job keeping the buses running.  They noted that “Seattle didn’t have this problem and Seattle does way more to keep the buses running”.  I can officially say that is not the case.  The simple fact is, “BUSSES CAN’T RUN DURING THE SNOW!?!?!?!!!!”

Meanwhile in the reality of the realm of physics and serious infrastructure, Sounder and Link Light Rail are running just fine.  There was a small delay on a Sounder run this evening.  Thousands of people used this non-auto, non-bus based transport to get home without interruption or “alternate routes”.  In inclement weather (which it seems we’ll be getting more and more of over the next century) rail absolutely rules.  Rubber on road is an absolutely inferior technology for this type of situation.  Also to add, the streetcar in Tacoma and Seattle are running without interruption.  Seriously, American cities desperately need more rail.  Not BRT, not extended buses, not all wheel drive buses, but rail.  Hard care, large scale, massive infrastructure with trains and light rail on rail.  It doesn’t stop during snow, heat, or otherwise.  It is only minimally hampered in all but the most harsh weather.  But I digress, on to more winter wonderland fun…

…with two last links…

Some news about all the snow on the Capital Hill

…and some sledding/luging down Denny.

by Adron

Seattle’s I-5, 520, and I suspect 90

These are all poorly designed roads leading into the core of Seattle.  Why the United States indirectly gutted its cities is beyond me, I’m sure someone out there has their conspiracy theories.  I must say though, learning the history, effects, affects, and various permutations of the actions over the last 60 years has been disturbing.

Seattle has a lot of infrastructure changes to make, this is without doubt.  The largest problems with the city as I see it are the Alaskan Viaduct, I’ve smashing right through downtown, and the way 520 and 90 are only auto based, without priority for BRT, LRT, or other options.

The smartest infrastructure elements I’ve found in Seattle so far are elements that have nothing to do with modern Seattle, but were built by the previous generations.  As it seems in most cities, our planners, industrialists, capitalists, and other men of that nature thought out things far better than the modern politicians.

  • The Downtown Transit Tunnel, for one is genius, and I think it should be extended in more than one way.
  • The Link Light Rail, finally provides infrastructure that was destroyed about 50 years ago that should never have been.  Connecting the airport to the core of the city is smart.  I think that the University and other districts should have been connected first, but it is a start.  The best idea, going with the statement above, is to rebuild and reconnect what the previous generations built.
  • If played right, the Seattle Streetcar can play a HUGE part in adding a much needed human oriented element back to downtown.  The monorail is novel, and the shopping district downtown is great, but there is just a slightly missing human element after about 5 pm downtown.  But that leads me to the next points…
  • Fremont, Ballard, Wallingford, Greenlake, Capitol Hill, and the other neighborhood areas of Seattle are absolutely awesome.  The bus connectivity for a transit advocate as myself is excellent.  Of course, I can’t go without saying that it could and should be much better.  These neighborhoods all have great character, built by previous generations, and carried on today based on the people of the areas.  Absolutely awesome.
  • Belltown is moving forward.  There are some minor legislative changes that need to be made to clean up some of the violence, but otherwise the area is spot on for what should transpire from a business, infrastructure, and human perspective throughout more of downtown.
  • West Seattle & Alki Beach both need a significant transit right of way option.  Otherwise the area is also one of my favorites in the city.  The infrastructure that was destroyed to give auto users their free ride is fine in many ways, but with any primary arterial like the routes here there should be a dedicated transit option to complement it.  It would be good for west Seattle and it would be good for the rest of Seattle.

There are other areas I’ve yet to discover.  Any suggestions from some Seattlians?

by Adron

CATS is rocking even if LINK is failing…

I just happened to be reading an article today on Progressive Railroading about the increase in ridership on the Charlotte North Carolina’s CATs Light Rail Line.  They’re actually looking at extending platforms to handle larger trains because of this increase!  That’s great news for that area and future expansions.  Meanwhile in Seattle’s Sound Transit Central Link Light Rail is well below expectations, not completely failing, but very close to it.  It makes me curious, as to what the excuse is for Seattle’s Light Rail line.  Anyone have any notions on that?  If anything bode well for success it was the Seattle areas’ pro-transit populace vs. Charlotte’s anti-transit populace (of course in and out of cities these populations change, but generally each city has a reputation for these things…)

…so, any thoughts?

by Adron

Seattle Transit People? I’ve got a few questions…

I’ve been in Seattle now for about ~6 weeks.  I’ve gotten a lot of the transit options figured out, landed an ORCA Card with the appropriate pass, and have sort of gotten used to the idiocy of “pay randomly sort of based on when we’re leaving or entering the city, except when… clause 1, clause 2, clause 3, etc”.  So with all that, what I want to know is how I can determined with Sound Transit Bus is going to have wireless and which ones do not.  I generally ride the #545 to Redmond and can get a lot of e-mail and other such things wrapped up before even stepping in the door to the office.  This is a good thing for my work day.

In other questions, how do I find out news about the transit options in a single place?  So far it is far too time consuming to dig through Metro, Sound Transit, and the other websites to figure out all of this.  This brings me back to something I started to do about 6-8 months ago and am thinking about it again.  Figuring out which transit sites are good, and which are horrible.  King County Metro’s is one that is possibly going under the horrible list.  The site is a cluttered mess of UX #fail.  Sound Transit’s is pretty good, albeit there could be some navigation clean up.

Well anyway, if anyone out there in Seattle’s Transitverse knows the answers to these I’d love to know.  Thanks!