John RApr 28, 2024
Owen

Biggest positive takeaways from the line 2 opening:
- The Master planned development near stations (Overlake and Spring District) is genuinely good.
- The Spring District shallow station is awesome

Biggest negative takeaways:
- the at grade stuff -- intersections and pedestrian access -- is extremely bad
- Blows my mind how much parking is surrounding the stations.
- Using highway adjacent right-of-ways is a disaster for walkability

#Transit #Seattle

Apr 28, 2024 at 4:27amWeb
Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024
It's also hilarious/sad that the escalator wasn't working at the Spring District station.
Show threadSeattleSwiftieApr 28, 2024

@owen honestly have no idea how #soundtransit didn't see what happened on MLK way and SODO and see the need to grade separate. The two slooowest parts of the line, all because of at-grade trains.

One cheapout will be decades of slower transit

Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024
@seattleswiftie it's illustrative of the larger problems at ST!
Show threadNeil E. HodgesApr 28, 2024
@owen @seattleswiftie At least it isn't as bad as MAX. :/
Show threadSeattleSwiftieApr 28, 2024
@tk @owen fair, but don't discredit it either. I'd love to have a network as extensive as MAX
Show threadMatthew DockreyApr 28, 2024
@owen There was so much more at-grade than I was expecting!
Show threadRoger Crew✅❌☑🗸❎✖✓✔Apr 28, 2024

@attoparsec @owen

Is at-grade that big a problem if it's not crossing or running along an arterial? Also seems to me they could close Spring St to traffic if they really wanted to, leaving 24th as the only really problematic crossing...

Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024

@wrog @attoparsec

When I said at-grade, I really meant they failed to grade separate. They could make fixes but ST has shown no appetite to do that. And the rider/pedestrian grade crossings don't have an easy/cheap fix.

Show threadRoger Crew✅❌☑🗸❎✖✓✔Apr 28, 2024

@owen @attoparsec

pedestrian bridge?

(yeah, I know, it's easy to spend multiple millions on a single pedestrian bridge, which is cheap for Road Stuff, but they'd still have to Actually Do It....)

Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024
@wrog @attoparsec it would have to be ADA accessible so they'd likely have to do a mezzanine and elevators. At a few stations this would likely require ROW acquisition too. Not cheap.
Show threadRoger Crew✅❌☑🗸❎✖✓✔Apr 28, 2024

@owen @attoparsec

ROW ?
(sorry that one's hard to google)

Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024
@wrog @attoparsec right-of-way
Show threadForrestApr 28, 2024
@owen I was a little surprised it doesn’t go slightly further to Redmond (by which I mean “downtown”)
Show threadOwenApr 28, 2024
@fbaum it will go to Redmond downtown. I don't know enough of the details to understand why that part is opening later.