[PRCo] Sound Transit - SEATAC line etc

[Fred Schneider]

For those who care....

I looked at both Seattle lines yesterday ... SLUT (now called the Seattle trolley) and Sound Transit's line from Seattle down to the SEATAC (or Seattle-Tacoma) Airport.

I don't want a bunch of reply all messages going to the wrong people so everything is sent out blind this time.   

The SLUT line (it was originally called the South Lake Union Trolley until someone realized how the acronym could be pronounced) has three unnumbered Skoda cars, the red one, the purple one and the orange one and the run two of them.   It results in about a ten minute headway.  Was it worth building?   Probably not but it makes the city a little cleaner.   I was amazed by the number of tourists just riding it because it was there.   And you can get pictures of the monorail left over from the 1968 World's Fair in the same picture if you get lucky.

The Sea Tac line ... well, it is slower than the express buses were because it goes all around Robin Hood's barn for political reasons.  Instead of going due south from downtown to the airport along Airport Way (essentially the way the interurban did that was torn up in 1928), it turns east and tunnels under Beacon Hill so that it can serve the neighborhood on the east side of Beacon Hill.   That takes it a mile out of the way.   Why?   Hint.   The street it follows is called Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.   Oh, the neighborhood must be full of blacks?   No.   It was been gentrified.   It is full of Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans but not blacks. Then when it gets down to the area near the airport it turns toward the airport and totally misses a huge shopping center that makes South Hills Village look like nothing.   Instead there is a bus route that serves the mall and everything around it ... the mall and the peripheral businesses cover an area about 3/4s of a mile east-west by several miles north-south and you can't get there by light rail ... a huge interchange where I-5 and I-405 come together separate the mall from the car line.   In spite of that, the load factors on Saturday were around 80% with two trains with about 50% turnover in route.   I was told by the local who was with me .... Josh Coran who works for Talgo ... that that was pretty typical.   That would point to somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 riders on a weekday ... they have 7 1/2 minute headways in the peak and 10 minute bases.   Sunday is 15 minutes.   Imagine what it would be if it had a shopping center branch?

I also saw the new Canada line in Vancouver this trip ... that's the subway from downtown to LuLu Island ... splits as soon as you cross onto the Island into two branches, one to serve Richmond proper as an elevated on concrete piers and the other to reach the Vancouver airport.   This gets into the territory that was served by British Columbia Electric Railway's last interurban line about 50+ years ago.   Today its jammed with people.   Base headways on weekdays?   About five minutes on each branch, half that on the main trunk.  They could reduce the headways if they lengthened the trains ... they are only running two car trains.

I also saw Edmonton's new University line for a few minutes last Sunday ... was amazed that all the cars they bought in 1980 are now gone or at least they don't run on Sunday if any are still around.   The U-2 design was still used in San Diego last year.   I see this week if San Diego is still using them.  I've heard nothing to the contrary.

Portland, Oregon ... well, that's where I am tonight.   I can see the southern terminal of the new Clackimus line from the hotel room.  If the Oregon Mist clears tomorrow, I'll take a few pictures before heading for the Golden State.   

One last thought.   I did see an old friend in Seattle on Friday.   I picked up William D. Middleton at his nursing home ... loaded his wheel chair into my Volkswagen ... took him to breakfast ... drove him down to the airport and back so that he could see the Seatac line ... had lunch with him.   By then Bill was pretty tuckered out and needed a nap.   But he thinks he can recover from his falls and regain the use of his legs.   He has the computer in his room and ready to start on the next book at age 82.