As some of you may know already from following my twitter posts, I was in Seattle for the last few days. (Thanks to all the enthusiasts for keeping the blog lively while I was playing hooky.)
Besides paying no tax on anything I bought there, as a result of the state’s controversial (and now court-challenged) decision to exempt B.C. residents from Washington sales tax, I also spent some time riding around on the city’s new transit systems.
First off, the new light-rail link from downtown Seattle to the airport, which opened last July and was just lovely. As much as we think the new Canada Line is swish, it really comes off looking a bit like a Vancouver special compared to the money that Seattle invested in its line. It cost half a billion more than the Canada Lineand part of that seems to have been invested in truly gorgeous station design.
The line starts under the Macy’s department store at 4th and Pine and it has some of the feel of a grand train station. In the underground tunnel, which amazingly also serves many bus routes that run downtown, the platforms are made of granite, with inlaid patterns and textured decorative touches. There are huge art-deco style lights hanging in the huge space and walkways through the station that allow you to look down on the tracks and platform.
The cars are fabulous too, with raised sections in parts of each car that really let you look out over the scenery when you’re whizzing through all the southern neighbourhoods of Seattle, not to mention the rolling hills as you ramble through industrial zones and the countryside, crossing over various freeways.
The 16 -mile line cost $2.6 billion, according to reports I’ve been able to find. Some of that was undoubtedly because it’s just a much longer hike out to the Seattle airport, so the last two legs of the trip (Rainier Beach to Tukwila and then Tukwila to the airport) are really like being on a train. But some has to be just the money they invested in the stations.
In spite of all that, though, reports from earlier this year were saying that the ridership is only 20,000 a day. It seems to be popular with airport travellers, though. When I rode out at 8 a.m. on Saturday, almost everyone on it was heading to the airport. Takes 35 minutes end to end. Although it runs at street level through the residential areas of Columbia City and Rainier Beach, it zips right through because of priority access at intersections. It was really just like being on SkyTrain.
That’s just the beginning of what is a sudden transit explosion in Seattle after years of local politicians and citizens doing nothing but arguing. They’re now in the middle of building a $1.9-billion line that will run from the downtown up to the University of Washington through Capitol Hill. A whole block of Broadway on Capitol Hill seems to have been levelled in preparation for building a station and that part of the line.
And there’s also a streetcar now running from central downtown out to the edge of Lake Union — the kind of thing that Vancouver would like to build to extend from Granville Island around False Creek. Again, a beautiful little line that takes you through the condo explosion happening in that area, but it seems more like a tourist line than a real commuter service. Granted, I was riding it on a Saturday and it does appear to serve a cluster of medical facilities at the northern end but still … you have to wonder about why cities build streetcars, other than for the sex appeal. Realistically, a bus could serve just as well in those areas.
But in the current competition that appears to be going on among Cities with the Hippest Transit Systems, it really seems like you’re a nobody unless you have one of a streetcar line with those modern new cars.
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32 responses so far ↓
1 Wayne // Jul 5, 2010 at 10:53 am
The streetcar doesn’t really go anywhere and a person could probably walk the distance in 30 minutes or so. I have heard of plans to extend it.
This is an upbeat story on the pluses of Seattle transit. One chapter that isn’t mentioned is the debate over Seattle abandoning it’s trolley system.
2 Chris // Jul 5, 2010 at 11:40 am
I think Seattle has a tougher time convincing its residents to ride transit. There is still a big car culture there.
In Vancouver, there is so much latent demand for quick, frequent transit that it is almost guaranteed to be a success if it is provided. I don’t think anyone doubts that the Evergreen Line and UBC extension would be packed if they were built today. That’s why it is so frustrating to see those lines delayed by lack of provincial funding.
3 Bill Smolick // Jul 5, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Seattle Transit has historically been pretty bad. I spent quite a bit of time down there.
That was before the LRT went in. I had a friend with a house right on that line, and he and his wife were pretty happy about it going in. They still own a car, of course.
The South Lake Union Tram was a nice initiative, but it didn’t seem to really go anywhere useful. Still, it’s parts of a longer term vision and it gave a bunch of creative people the opportunity to print up t-shirts that said “I rode the SLUT.” Nice economic spin off there.
Transit is free in Downtown Seattle which is a nice touch. When I was there for a week for work most of the people who were with me used it. (My hotel was slightly more central, and I’m walker so I walked.)
It’s important to keep in mind that Seattle & Vancouver are sort of grass is always greener cities: both are full of people who complain about their own city while praising the other. I was lucky to call both places home for a time, and grew to appreciate both.
4 Richard // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm
It is too bad people were all fretting about the cost and the ridership when the Canada Line was being planned. For a few million more, the stations could have been made much more attractive. A good lesson for future lines.
5 Bill Smolick // Jul 5, 2010 at 1:44 pm
What’s the lesson? Damn the torpedoes: build at any cost?
Cost is important, though I find it wiser to view long term costs rather than short term savings.
6 Dan Cooper // Jul 5, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Actually, the Canada Line stations look fine to me from an artistic standpoint. The problem I see is that they are often hard to access – generally having an entrance on only one corner of an intersection, and not necessarily the one closest to the destination that is presumably primary for that stop, e.g. Langara College. Then there is the internal architecture of the stations: At Langara-49th, as near as I can tell, to get to the southbound platform from the entrance, a person in a wheelchair has to take three separate elevators and go through a tunnel. If more money had been spent on anything, I think increased access would have been more important.
Then again, I’m such a philistine that I think that, since there aren’t en0ugh funds to fix them all in a reasonable amount of time, it’s more important to upgrade relatively more schools so they don’t fall down in the next earthquake, as opposed to upgrading relatively less schools but maintaining their “historic” features. What can you do with people like that?!
7 Dan Cooper // Jul 5, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Well that was negative, wasn’t it? With a more positive spin, my point is that function has to come first, and from a “going where people want to go, when they want to go there, in a reasonable amount of time” perspective, the Canada Line does well. Took it for the first time to the airport, twice in fact this last week, to pick up and then drop off a guest. Veeery convenient, as it has been also for other purposes, and literally miles ahead of the old multi-bus trip out there.
8 Eric // Jul 5, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I meet one of the senior project leads on the expansion of the transit system in Seattle. He said they were required to spend something like 2 – 3% of their entire budget on art. This would probably explain the nicer decor of the transit lines. He said he had trouble figuring out what to do art wise to meet that budget.
9 The Fourth Horseman // Jul 5, 2010 at 7:16 pm
And don’t forget—Seattlites VOTED for that new line.
Indeed, they first OK’d it in ’68 but the Detroit car lobby was successful at putting the kibosh on it (and several other follow-up “yay” votes). So I was told by a Seattle councillor at the inaugral opening run of the system.
The station at Pine is crazy/beautiful, as described by Frances.
10 Chris B // Jul 5, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Streetcars have much better dwell times than buses due to level entry – so a streetcar will only need to dwell at a stop for half as long as a bus to load people. And that is even if you ignore wheelchair/baby strollers etc.
Granted it is possible to design level loading bus stops, but these have a much greater degree of driver error (adding pulling in properly to the other 101 things a bus driver has to think about) and they do not work as well in snow.
In fact, streetcars are much easier to provide snow maintenance and clearing than buses. Not so big a problem in Seattle, but fairly important in Ottawa and Minneapolis.
11 Scott // Jul 5, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Thanks for visiting!
FYI – The fancy underground stations downtown are about 20 years old. The were originally built for the downtown bus tunnel, which is why there’s still some buses running down there.
The bus tunnel was originally provisioned with rails with the thought of adding trains in the future. But it was done half-ass, without proper grounding on the rails.
Thus, Sound Transit had to close it down for two years, rip out the old rails, and put new properly-grounded ones in before the new trains could start running in the tunnel. That project also allowed them to lower the station floors to allow level boarding from the platforms.
12 Richard // Jul 5, 2010 at 9:58 pm
@Dan Cooper
Unfortunately, the decision not to include multiple entrances at many of the stations was made early in the process. They said they had “security concerns” regarding so-called “octopus stations”. It is pretty obvious that for many of the stations, this was simply a bad call.
And again, many people were more worried about the ridership projections, the fact that it was a P3 and the fact that it was not LRT and spent their time fighting these decisions rather than focusing on making sure the line was as good as it could be.
13 False Creep // Jul 5, 2010 at 11:43 pm
I understand that the Canada Line stations were built on a very tight budget, but did they really have to be all beige and grey tile? Would orange tile cost more? Yellow? Blue? On a gloomy Vancouver November day, it would be nice.
14 Zweisystem // Jul 6, 2010 at 7:31 am
Seattle’s -rail- transit line is a hybrid light metro/rail line, taking the worst of each mode and ignoring success. Poorly designed (Seattle had much input from Vancouver) and executed, Seattle Transit has lumbered itself with a hugely expensive transit line that does little to attract ridership.
Also do not forget that the RAV/Canada Line had already 40,000 plus former bus customers forced onto the metro (as most people go there and back, they account for the majority of traffic on the metro), when their former bus services were curtailed (B-98, 401,402, 601-05, 351 and others, Airporter, Cambie St. Trolley, etc.).
There has been little evidence that RAV actually has attracted the motorist from the car and the promised 200,000 car trip a day eliminated by RAV/Canada Line remains a pipe dream.
Actually both multi billion dollar transit schemes have attracted about the same amount of new transit riders to public transit.
RE: DWELL TIMES
In Europe the standard dwell time for a tram is 15 seconds and with low floor cars that also includes loading and off-loading the mobility impaired (powered wheelchairs/scooters and those with prams).
15 MB // Jul 6, 2010 at 9:15 am
In order to attract ridership from car drivers in vast numbers one of three things will have to happen:
i) Seattle will have to dismantle its freeway system and literally force the issue.
ii) People living in areas with the most car-dependence will have to move closer to work and to the amenities that sustain life.
iii) The cost of personal transport (cars) will have to increase steeply.
The most likely of these is (iii), but that could also eventually lead to (i) and (ii). Reference to some well-researched evidence of this follows.
————-
Based on the kind of analysis conducted [in the 60s] by M. King Hubbert, with input from geologists in several countries, researchers at the University of Uppsala in Sweden have projected that the peak production of all petroleum liquids [not just oil] will occur in or soon after 2012.
According to the US National Commission on Energy Policy, “a roughly four-per-cent global shortfall in daily supply results in a 177 per cent increase in the price of oil.” Another analysis [Perry 2001] suggested that a 15 per cent shortfall would result in a 550 per cent increase. Such a shortfall would be considerably less than the 35 per cent shortfall for 2025 [projected as a possibility by the IEA, June 2006]. Thus, an increase in the price of crude oil by a factor of at least six could be expected by [2025]. Such an increase could translate into increase in retail prices of oil products by at least a factor of four.
This estimate of the extent of price increases must be regarded as tentative. [. . .]
Nevertheless, we believe . . . that prices of petroleum-based fuels are likely to rise steeply over the next decade. Such increases are the main reason we anticipate one or more transport revolutions.
‘Transport Revolutions, Moving People and Freight Without Oil’, R. Gilbert + A. Perl (2008, p. 127, 132 & 133)
16 Zweisystem // Jul 6, 2010 at 9:35 am
There was another problem Seattle’s transit planners had to contend with and that was the monorail lobby.
The monorail lobby made our SkyTrain lobby look a poor third in their lobbying efforts. It was the monorail that helped take the ‘rail’ from light rail and made it light metro.
Luckily, by using trams on the light-metro, Seattle planners can build much cheaper at-grade rights-of-ways in the future extensions if need be. No such luck for Vancouver where the proprietary SkyTrain light-metro and the RAV/Canada Line metro, because they are driverless, must always be built on hugely expensive segregated ROW’s!
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/seattles-monrail-versus-lrt-debate-same-story-different-players/
As for attracting new ridership, there is not much evident that SkyTrain has attracted much new ridership to the metro, as ridership has just kept pace with population growth.
17 Joe Just Joe // Jul 6, 2010 at 9:46 am
So Zwei can you point out this mystical line that is built at the $10M/km price you love to flaunt, and that also carries 200K/ppd the other figure you love to show. The fact is LRT is capable of either but not both at the same time. I’ll quietly await your example. Cheers.
18 Zweisystem // Jul 6, 2010 at 11:27 am
Joe -
Excuse me, where did I mention a $10m/km line that carries over 200k ppd in my previous two posts?
Again the SkyTrain lobby loves to misinform!
Yes, the basic cost of ‘Trambahn’, including electrical overhead (but not including vehicles and maintenance facility), can be installed for well under $10 million/km. and yes, a simple two track streetcar/tram line has the potential to carry carry over 20,000 pphpd., if one provides enough vehicles for it to do so!
So exactly, what is your problem?
19 Joe Just Joe // Jul 6, 2010 at 11:36 am
I don’t have a problem, I just want you to address the facts. Thanks for admitting that that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
The skytrain lobby serves cake and coffee at thier meetings as opposed to muffins and kool-aid from the lrt lobby, that’s why I joined.
20 Richard // Jul 6, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Zwie
Transit projects should be evaluated on total life cycle capital (including vehicles and maintenance yards) and operating costs not back of the napkin capital costs based on systems elsewhere that may or may not be comparable.
Unfortunately, many streetcar fans just include the cost of the tracks and stations but ignore the costs of the vehicles required to carry significant amounts of people then compare the cost to other systems where the cost of the vehicles and other system elements are included.
The result is maps of hundreds of km of streetcar which would be of little use without the streetcars.
We need realistic analysis when making transit decisions, not cute maps and talking points and yes, sometimes streetcars and LRT will come out ahead and sometimes they won’t and sometimes is too close to call and decisions have to be made rather than endlessly debating them.
21 Mick // Jul 6, 2010 at 1:02 pm
And yet another conversation dragged off the rails by obsessed tram enthusiasts debating technologies when the initial post was on the aesthetic of stations and the use of public art.
22 Zweisystem // Jul 6, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Richard, tram/LRT vehicles cost less than equivalent metro cars. In fact, modern LRT is more cost efficient than a metro when carrying between 2,000 and 15,000 to 20,000 pphpd.
Just because Vancouver has never had an independent transit study and for the past 30 years all transit studies have been skewed to support metro. Vancouver is almost unique in its metro only planning.
Joe, fairy tales and SkyTrain planning go hand in hand, that’s why no one else in Europe and North America builds with SkyTrain.
Actually if one want to compare the aesthetics of tram and metro, try comparing lawned ROW with elevated construction or a cost comparison with lawned ROW and subway construction.
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/more-on-lawned-rights-of-ways-lrt-making-transit-corridors-green/
23 MB // Jul 6, 2010 at 4:15 pm
@ Mick: “And yet another conversation dragged off the rails by obsessed tram enthusiasts debating technologies …”
Right on. The conversation should be on transit in its many forms, not just a tiny subset of transit. And also on the resiliency of cities.
24 Dan Cooper // Jul 6, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Given a choice between riding a tram and almost any other option for more than a short distance, I’ll take the “anything else.” Trams may have a place in a dense urban setting such as the Pearl District in Portland, or neighbourhoods in Moscow and other Russian cities, the two places I’ve seen them, but not for moving people any long distance. Notably, both Portland and Moscow have other modes – light rail and subway, respectively – for distance travel, and are aggressively building more of them. Patrick Condon from UBC loves trams for the very reason – as I understand his arguments – that they make people slow down and not go far. So, a tram might be useful downtown, or along a very short part of Broadway – but not in moving people from Surrey, or even Commercial Drive, to UBC.
I’m also reminded of an article I saw this last week or so about Car Free Day. Apparently, there was a limit put on how many streets could be closed for Car Free Day at the same time, because of the limited number of regular (non-trolley) buses available to go on the alternative, wireless routes around closed streets. If your argument is that your entire system should consist of trams that can only run along tracks over defined routes, you will have no flexibility when situations change.
25 East Vancouverite // Jul 6, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Zwei, SkyTrain is the name of Vancouver’s automated rapid transit network.
Also, when you say “SkyTrain” you are referring to grade-separated automated rapid transit systems in general? If so, then you asertion that nobody in Europe or North America is building them is just plain wrong.
There are already several automated rapid transit systems in operation and many of the existing operator-driven lines in the big subway/metro cities are being converted to automated train control in order to realize the benefits of higher frequency, lower staffing costs, and the ability to quickly adjust service levels.
26 Deep Dap Do // Jul 6, 2010 at 11:59 pm
I always thought one of the great things about Skytrain was the fact that the labour costs are severely reduced over the lifetime of the project. It also reduces the citizens chances of being held hostage to transit strikes. I have lived through one strike that lasted 1 year here and another that lasted 4 or six months (I forget the second one as I learned to drive after the year long strike and vowed never to be held captive like that again).
I might consider it in the future when there is a no strike clause in the transit agreement. In the meantime, build more skytrains, loosen up the taxi licenses, and free the citizens of their subservience to the transit union.
27 Urbanismo // Jul 7, 2010 at 6:48 am
@ Dan C . . . “Given a choice between riding a tram and almost any other option for more than a short distance, I’ll take the “anything else.”” . . .
Try maybe “nothing else“! Huh, too radical eh?
Well to start, if Vancouver is to truly live up to its green/sustainble mantra then it needs get like wicked-radical.
Freighting people around, in bulk, either over or under, is most certainly not sustainable, especially if we keep aping another city in another country: the resemblance of which is superfical!
Seattle has a different demogaphic, a different economy, a different polity and a much different social structure: a medium size city in a country that, evidently, is having trouble paying its bills!
One day we will be forced into GREEN/SUSTAINABLE, and it wont be done playing with under/over high tech wizardry.
Vancouver is a series of, so far unrecognized villages: Thu Drive, Champlain, Kerridale and many, many more: yunno, lots of ambulatory quartiers.
I spent the last two days visiting them. And on a sunny day they are bulging with people walking and shopping and they are gorgeous: aye the people too.
Yup, sireeee, one of these fine days we are going to take sustainable/green seriously: more than a catch phrase, an excuse for Gregor to fly off galivanting . . .
Make them network-connected: the ideal being to move people as little as possible: i.e. green/sustainable.
The best TX is no TX. Leave the hi-tech trinkets to the Nintendo-istas!
28 voony // Jul 7, 2010 at 8:28 am
Urbanismo is right. and Vancouver DownTown is walkable enough to be serviced basically only by a “circulator” route (bus #5 + #6), what could be considered as very poor transit offer / resident, especially when compared to Surrey, but it nevertheless works very well.
Now, eventually what make Vancouver a city, is the fact that its village are connected because “The lack of either economic or social self-containment is natural and necessary to city neighborhoods – simply because they are parts of cities.” (Jane Jacobs, death and life of great american cities)…
the combination of both goals (walkable, sustainable “village”, and connected “village”) commend a certain form of transit…
29 Dan Cooper // Jul 7, 2010 at 9:47 am
@Urbanismo.
Ah, a Luddite. Well, that simplifies things (no pun intended). It’s one less writer I have to take seriously!
30 MB // Jul 7, 2010 at 10:28 am
Villages … gotta love ‘em.
My problem is that my work village is currently nine villages from my home village. Now before I’m accused of being anti-sustainable, I did live and work in the same village for a decade before this. It was a 3-minute commute by Doc Martens Transit from my door to my desk. And most of the other necessities of life were in the same village too. It was great. But one does feel the need for the occasional change of scene because, after all, villages can be awfully small townish in attitude.
The trouble is, lives change, and this often necessitates regular travel to other villages. So yeah, villages are really great, Urbie, but they aren’t everything an URBANisimo should be concerned about.
31 mezzanine // Jul 7, 2010 at 12:22 pm
@ Mick :”And yet another conversation dragged off the rails by obsessed tram enthusiasts debating technologies when the initial post was on the aesthetic of stations and the use of public art.”
I suspect Ms. Bula wanted to boost her blog stats fast after a hiatus and decided to do and ‘LRT’ post…;-)
WRT to art and its place in transit, to me it is a hierarchy of needs. I would like to have art in transit, but I would have to wonder about having a chunk ot the transport budget set to art when as mentioned above, seattle is considering dismantling its trolleybus service and has stopped sunday bus service on some routes…
http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/01/15/joyce-eleanor-on-ct-cuts-fare-increases/
32 sousdesnuages // Jul 11, 2010 at 11:26 am
Frances, thanks for your observations. As a car free condo owner on Capitol Hill, I’m eagerly awaiting completion of the station now under construction.
Regarding the light ridership of both Link and the streetcar, I think the important point is that both lines are up and running–no small accomplishment given the political paralysis infamous in this region. Both lines will be catalysts not only for future expansion, but also for greater density. The Link station under construction on Cap Hill includes a streetcar surface line from Chinatown, through First Hill and to Cap Hill.
There’s still a lot of work to do, but the vote in 2008 will turn out, I believe, to be the decisive victory for a rail transit system in this region.
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