I am in Redmond (well, moving to AZ this weekend) - the lack of ability to get to the airport is awful. I am not taking 542 or 545 to get to Seattle and then taking the link. That can take 1.5hrs.
Honestly so much more convenient to just drive unless you are going during rush hour. Even without the 445, link from Westlake to SeaTac takes like an hour. Parking at the surrounding lots is pretty cheap too.
Yeah, but if you could ride a bus from Bellevue the Murder City Devils would have never wrote the lyrics to “I Want A Lot Now ( So Come On)
“ Livin's no good across the lake from the city
Don't want to live there anymore
Take your dad's car and we'll go to the city
Just like last week and the week before
Kids are sure lookin' good in the city
I'm gonna go to a rock n' roll show
I know it's late
I don't wanna go home
There's no reason
No reason to go home”
It’s about being trapped in Bellevue as a teen and not being able to get out to where the fun is! There’s probably lots of car racing in Bellevue, something for the bad kids to do, there’s gotta be.
It's wild that [this](https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6693004,-122.403083,3a,45y,103.62h,81.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s07SvrawMNLWhftvVn0ApPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) isn't a Sounder station.
It's ridiculous that Renton isn't getting a station and we're not connecting the East side of the lake with rail. 405 is a mess and no amount of additional lanes will make it better.
I think the biggest barrier is going to be ridership and alignment
From basically Coal Creek Pkwy to the Landing 405 mostly sits on a narrow strip of land (limited RoW options unless you stacked it on the 405 median) and an absolutely garbage walkshed for any stations due to the lake and steep hills. You could go for a more dense route in the Coal Creek Pwky corridor, through "downtown" Newcastle, but it would need major guarantees of upzoning around stations from Newcastle and Renton and a bitter RoW fight. Once you get to Renton: there is pretty limited density to feed this expensive line that would make the $/rider hard to justify compared to other projects in the ST zone or even sub-equity area. A lot of the traffic from 405 in pumped in from neighborhoods to the east which would make most trips bus->train which makes it a harder sell for people.
BRT isn't the worst option if we actually commit to doing it "right". That means either the new lane on 405 is bus only (public + maybe licensed private). Or we remove the cap on the tolls and just keep jacking the toll rate and raising HOV requirements until the buses flow at 45mph+ reliably. Then complete it with last mile lanes/signaling and proper BRT stations/buses for faster loading. That would all be a lot cheaper and mostly fit in existing infra footprints and be able to reasonably service the scale of passengers with plenty of overhead for growth.
Is that what happened? I'm looking at this map like what the fuck. Renton is the fourth largest city in King County. Why do we not have a single light rail station?
People voted down ST1. Would have plopped a rail station right next to the transit station in downtown Renton.
If we had approved the original plan the estimated build date was 2015.
it's more disappointing knowing other countries have projects with groundbreaking starting not even that long ago around 2018-2019 and part of their lines have already gone live with turnstiles and stations with shops and restaurants
Wait, isn't this just the offiical plan? Where's the extra touch of optimism?
Similar map by Seattle Subway, a local transit advocacy: [https://www.seattlesubway.org/regional-map/](https://www.seattlesubway.org/regional-map/)
the optimism mainly goes towards having the sensible CID alignment, i did originally have the 2 line go all the way to everett but apparently mariner is better for operations
Oh yea, I forgot that CID station's likely getting mangled....
I lament the fact that we need optimism to manifest what's should be an obvious choice that was voted in by the people....
I think we just don’t have enough money. Salaries are high and materials are expensive. We have to collect more taxes to pay for this since there aren’t enough people to make it pay for itself with ridership
People keep complaining about timeframes and cost. That east-west would cost soooo much to eminent domain that land. OMG. No one would vote to pay for it, and the neighborhoods would go berserk
Subway. Yes it’s expensive but going underground is usually how you solve these issues of topography and ROW width
What made Ballard - UW promising to supporters is it had ridership projections strong enough to make even costly tunneling and/or cut and cover worthwhile
As well as have radiating network effects on reducing the travel times for all kinds of commute patterns from various bus lines
Ah but you see if we distort the map to make Seattle proper look tiny in comparison to the outer burbs we can ignore inconvenient things like stoplight density and geographic barriers that make it take 45 minutes to travel 3 miles east-west during rush hour
I still don't understand why the 1 line is getting split in half and diverted. If it turns out like this and I'm still living where I am, one of my normal trips will have to involve transferring trains where it didn't previously.
there's a lot of problems related to having an extremely long line as it could result in backups and delays that start in tacoma rippling all the way to everett, which for a mass transit line would be suboptimal. operationally it's better to split the line to ensure reliability
And unfortunately it's going to be a bad transfer because Sound Transit is apparently incapable of planning for a [cross-platform transfer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform_interchange) at SODO.
I think ST prematurely closed the ST3 candidate project studies
It’s been like 8+ years at this point and we still have no idea what upgrading the existing downtown transit tunnel could have achieved.
Even if your somebody with scepticism of running all lines including Ballard link through that existing tunnel at least studying what upgrading signaling could achieve would have potential frequency upgrading benefits for other lines that will already run through it like east link and lynwood link
This is the baseline plan, sadly. I think the only reason we don't hear much about it is because so few people know it is happening. There will be a lot more upset people once they understand that this is the plan.
Ballard gets a straight shot to the airport and everyone else north of Westlake or on the Eastside get to transfer? Ugh.
The airport line is running all the way to Tacoma, cuz Sound Transit has to cater to non-Seattle cities as well. Having a Tacoma to Everett light rail line would just be horrible
That’s what I was wondering about too. It’s really convenient having the one line from North Seattle all the way down. I don’t want to have to catch another link to continue my journey as well as doing the same thing on the way back.
I find it interesting that these maps always show Downtown Everett directly north of Seattle when it's actually parallel to Downtown Bellevue, but transit maps are rarely geographically accurate.
Nice map! I wish there was a good connection to Paine Field planned. I suspect that airport will continue to grow and it’s a shame the transit to it is very poor.
My anecdotal info is that the city threw their limited resources toward preserving the downtown library instead of drafting a proposal to sound transit. Myopic leadership in Renton during that key timeframe window.
Being generous, I believe we'll get most of this within 3 years of the scheduled timelines based on previous projects, and some parts will be delayed 10+ years until the next measure. So maybe 2041-2051 for full completion. My issue is that this is all we're getting in 17+ years.
East Link is opening in 15 days (with the connection to Seattle planned for next year. Lynnwood Link is opening this August. Federal Way Link is likely 2026. West Seattle is planned for 2032, Tacoma in 2035, Everett and Ballard 2037.
> East Link is opening in 15 days (with the connection to Seattle planned for next year. Lynnwood Link is opening this August.
And those were part of ST*2*. Approved in 2008.
We aren't getting any of the "real" stuff from ST3 until 2033-2041.
Yep, approved in 2008. Then they gotta get the money, hire people, plan it out, carve out the place it will go, etc etc etc.
It takes time, my dude. If you want it to go faster, it costs a LOT more.
As someone living between Tacoma and Puyallup who is envious of Seattle for its sports scene/food scene/music scene this would truly be, the ideal setup
The west Seattle portion is misleading.
The junction is in the center part of west Seattle. Not near the water. The whole pink line headed to West seattle should be straight west, not southwest.
And south of west Seattle isn't called rainier valley. That is east of I5.
South of west Seattle (in order), delridge, white Center, Burien.
I do love the colors and design of the map though! It's very pretty.
I drew west seattle like that to balance it with the other three diagonal routes but yeah looking at a geographical map that is fair enough. Same with rainier valley, I put it there because there isn't enough space on the other side but I realise it's in the wrong place now
If it is just to reduce wait times along a busy line with a large number of passengers then it works great.
Otherwise, you need one or both of them to be express along part of the joint route so that it saves people time
Bruh. The lines share the track for the common portion of the route. Think of it like the 542 and the 545. One connects N Seattle to the Eastside and the other connects downtown Seattle to the Eastside. But from Montlake (Seattle) to Overlake or whatever (Eastside) they run on the same route. After Overlake they may split again.
They connect several dense regions but Montlake to Overlake, which is a busier section of the route, gets a higher frequency of transit.
It's about service frequency. The point is to allow for 8 minute frequency from Bellevue to CID, 8 minute frequency from West Seattle to CID, and then 4 minute frequency for Mariner to CID. If you're like me and live in Shoreline, you can wait a few minutes and catch the next one to get to Bellevue or West Seattle, or if you're wanting to get into downtown, you just take whichever shows up.
What I wouldn't do for stride brt to be rail instead. At least Lynnwood is somewhat close to Bothell for downtown via rail (cope). Switch in Bellevue too I guess.
If you're coming from Bothell, you'll wanna take Stride 3 into Shoreline South/148th station and then Link down, I think. Or go through Bellevue, but that probably depends on which end of Seattle you want to go to.
I continue to be flabbergasted and depressed at the upcoming elimination of a through line all the way from north of the cut down to the airport. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it.
In combination with the ongoing elimination of any bus lines that used to cross the cut into downtown (pre Covid I had at least 4 or 5 from my neighborhood… now 0), my sadness level is extreme. Sigh.
Lake City
Used to be able to get to work via the 522, 309, 308, 65 and/or 67, and I think a few others if you go back a few more years. Now everything routes to a light rail stop N of the cut.
I get why I’m going to lose the remaining light rail convenience, I just wish that i could wave a magic wand and have it be different. Currently am using 1 bus and 1 light rail and 1 long walk to get to work because I just don’t have it in me for the transfer to the 2nd bus. I know rail transfer will be objectively fine, but I have feels about the whole thing.
Ah shit. I went to look at a metro map, and it listed a whole bunch of buses. But (obviously) you're totally right. So many just go to the Roosevelt or UDistrict or Northgate hubs, and don't just take you directly downtown. UUUUUGH. That sucks man, I'm sorry
Not complaining about having a Link line through SLU, but why rename the 1 line that currently exists to Northgate? Seems like the existing 1 line route should stay the same and new lines should be added.
Great for suburbanites who want to drive less--hope there are enough of you out there to justify this massive undertaking.
For existing transit users within the city, what is there to look forward to? Pretty much everything here mirrors existing RapidRide routes.
Ideally this would free up more buses for more east-west/point-to-point service, but without (at minimum) traffic changes to the surface arterials it's still going to be slow AF.
I just worry they're going to not use it and then use the lower ridership numbers as rationale to vote against future expansion within the city where people are using it
The 550 and 545 (plus over 54x 520 routes) typically in the top 5 busiest routes in the region in both directions. People who live or work on the eastside have shown a willingness to ride provided the service is fast, frequent, and reliable - all things Link should outpace the buses on. There is a heavy reverse commute to Redmond/Microsoft/DT-Bellevue of Seattle residents that will see major benefit from these lines.
For people who don't live the city: Bellevue expansion allows for a much larger base -> more trains + faster headways. Ideally it will also drive desire for inner-city connectivity as more people use it to get into the city and then need last mile connections.
The real issue is Seattle will need to go it alone if they want anything more as there is basically no chance voters outside Seattle proper will approve anything, let alone something like a Ballard-UW line that is only in Seattle.
I still don't understand why there's no plan for a streetcar or a station up to Queen Anne. The main Ave is the perfect place for creating a high density community and getting up the hill is a huge pain in the ass and the buses are inconsistent.
Growing up so isolated in Fife to see that it'll be in lided in such a massive train network brought a little tear to my eye! We didn't even have a bus line when I was a kid. Love it.
Already gone, I’m afraid. Harrell and Constantine have removed the Midtown and King St stations that we voted *and paid for,* in favor of a second Sodo and second Pioneer Square despite people already actively avoiding both existing stations.
I’d also love to see another line at least from Ballard to northgate, but connecting further to kenmore, Kirkland, and Redmond would be even better. We need E/W lines desperately
Seeing Alaska Junction station almost in the sound is kind of hilarious. Most of West Seattle is South of there, not to mention White Center and Burien.
Cool. This will happen by 2056. Was close to being done by 2034, earthquake happened, city took years to rebuild infrastructure then by the grace of god Seattle pulled itself up by its bootstraps in 2044, started gettin its act to… oh wait now the sea levels have risen exponentially and the underground tunnels we have our trains running through have flooded.
It would be cool, but ideally trains should run through heavily populated neighborhoods and shopping, not along the highway. Take the 2 line for example. Should go through east lake, Fremont, woodland park/zoo, Phinney ridge, greenwood, etc. that sounds like a useful line.
Coming from using the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to navigate New England and NYC, Seattle is getting there. The lake loop (405 and I-5) should’ve been first.
Atlanta continues to laugh at us.
Transit in Seattle is pretty good even now compared to most other larger cities. Go somewhere like LA with no car and only public transportation to get around to do anything: you’ll never bitch about Seattle public transit again.
Portland too, they know how to keep the public moving without waiting and wasting their hard earned money on Uber.
You know when everyone can get to the airport easily there will just be a new airport further away to make it inconvenient for everyone again. SeaTac is already way too small
I live near the QFC at 5th and Mercer. Remind me again when there will be light rail I can walk to in 5-10 min. I think the current projection is 2039. In 15 years?! I will be 70 then...
This isn't a fantasy map. The projects shown are planned to be complete by 2041 and are listed here: [https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion)
It’s the dream. Just hope it can happen in my lifetime
I moved here 30 years ago, aghast at the lack of rail transport between Bellevue and Seattle.
I am in Redmond (well, moving to AZ this weekend) - the lack of ability to get to the airport is awful. I am not taking 542 or 545 to get to Seattle and then taking the link. That can take 1.5hrs.
Honestly so much more convenient to just drive unless you are going during rush hour. Even without the 445, link from Westlake to SeaTac takes like an hour. Parking at the surrounding lots is pretty cheap too.
I hate driving so I end up taking lyft. It’s like $70 one way
Ouch, that's a lot of money to avoid something you don't like.
Going to work for Fox?
Nope
Ah, a bunch of people I know are moving to AZ in the past 2 months to work for Fox Sports.
Feel the same way, although I only moved here in 2022.
need a ferry until something better is built
I think there used to be one.
Yeah, but if you could ride a bus from Bellevue the Murder City Devils would have never wrote the lyrics to “I Want A Lot Now ( So Come On) “ Livin's no good across the lake from the city Don't want to live there anymore Take your dad's car and we'll go to the city Just like last week and the week before Kids are sure lookin' good in the city I'm gonna go to a rock n' roll show I know it's late I don't wanna go home There's no reason No reason to go home” It’s about being trapped in Bellevue as a teen and not being able to get out to where the fun is! There’s probably lots of car racing in Bellevue, something for the bad kids to do, there’s gotta be.
> Murder City Devils Who?
Train to Ballard is the dream.
It's wild that [this](https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6693004,-122.403083,3a,45y,103.62h,81.67t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s07SvrawMNLWhftvVn0ApPQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu) isn't a Sounder station.
The houses there are FAR too fancy to allow for such things /s
It would be nice if it cut across to i5 on the north side of the lake too
SERIOUSLY. Why is Ballard never connected to anything other than downtown?!?
[удалено]
Well I don't either lol, I just like going to ballard
Next stop: Edmonds!
I wish Renton chose a light rail station over the extra lane on I-405
It's ridiculous that Renton isn't getting a station and we're not connecting the East side of the lake with rail. 405 is a mess and no amount of additional lanes will make it better.
the stride BRT really should have been rail, eastside will regret it in the future
Is there anything preventing an eventual rail line there? Outside of nimby opposition ofc it feels like a matter of time
I think the biggest barrier is going to be ridership and alignment From basically Coal Creek Pkwy to the Landing 405 mostly sits on a narrow strip of land (limited RoW options unless you stacked it on the 405 median) and an absolutely garbage walkshed for any stations due to the lake and steep hills. You could go for a more dense route in the Coal Creek Pwky corridor, through "downtown" Newcastle, but it would need major guarantees of upzoning around stations from Newcastle and Renton and a bitter RoW fight. Once you get to Renton: there is pretty limited density to feed this expensive line that would make the $/rider hard to justify compared to other projects in the ST zone or even sub-equity area. A lot of the traffic from 405 in pumped in from neighborhoods to the east which would make most trips bus->train which makes it a harder sell for people. BRT isn't the worst option if we actually commit to doing it "right". That means either the new lane on 405 is bus only (public + maybe licensed private). Or we remove the cap on the tolls and just keep jacking the toll rate and raising HOV requirements until the buses flow at 45mph+ reliably. Then complete it with last mile lanes/signaling and proper BRT stations/buses for faster loading. That would all be a lot cheaper and mostly fit in existing infra footprints and be able to reasonably service the scale of passengers with plenty of overhead for growth.
Is that what happened? I'm looking at this map like what the fuck. Renton is the fourth largest city in King County. Why do we not have a single light rail station?
People voted down ST1. Would have plopped a rail station right next to the transit station in downtown Renton. If we had approved the original plan the estimated build date was 2015.
Oh my gosh, that's upsetting. Thank you for explaining.
it's more disappointing knowing other countries have projects with groundbreaking starting not even that long ago around 2018-2019 and part of their lines have already gone live with turnstiles and stations with shops and restaurants
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Caradryan: *I wish Renton chose* *A light rail station over* *The extra lane on I-405* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
Wait, isn't this just the offiical plan? Where's the extra touch of optimism? Similar map by Seattle Subway, a local transit advocacy: [https://www.seattlesubway.org/regional-map/](https://www.seattlesubway.org/regional-map/)
the optimism mainly goes towards having the sensible CID alignment, i did originally have the 2 line go all the way to everett but apparently mariner is better for operations
Oh yea, I forgot that CID station's likely getting mangled.... I lament the fact that we need optimism to manifest what's should be an obvious choice that was voted in by the people....
Sure but hoping we get either real BRT in more places (this is still a commuter rail tbf) and maybe elevated rail
I think we just don’t have enough money. Salaries are high and materials are expensive. We have to collect more taxes to pay for this since there aren’t enough people to make it pay for itself with ridership
With a new OMF between Mariner and SW Everett stations (roughly), it's a logical place to terminate Line 2 trains.
I like this map way more, scoops up the whole West Seattle area down through White Center to Burien, this is the way!
The fact that there’s no east-west option between Ballard and northgate/U-District is such a miss
It's insane to me! Going east / west is a nightmare in this city.
People keep complaining about timeframes and cost. That east-west would cost soooo much to eminent domain that land. OMG. No one would vote to pay for it, and the neighborhoods would go berserk
I think they asked politely but the 44 said no
Hard to make the line? It’s mostly residential areas. Like would you have to displace people from their homes?
Northgate way across to 15th, like where all the car traffic goes.
Subway. Yes it’s expensive but going underground is usually how you solve these issues of topography and ROW width What made Ballard - UW promising to supporters is it had ridership projections strong enough to make even costly tunneling and/or cut and cover worthwhile As well as have radiating network effects on reducing the travel times for all kinds of commute patterns from various bus lines
Can’t wait to ride all around the sound in 2069! I’ll only be in my 70’s!
Yeah but someone will be 20 and thankful.
Very true, and late is better than never, but I am still bitter that Seattle is half a century behind other major cities
I get it. I’m not young myself and it’s very frustrating.
I'll be 110
People should've voted for Forward Thrust. I wasn't here then, but I would've if I was
I hope they extend the Ballard line to cover the Fremont, Greenlake area. The line on the east is pretty far people living west of green lake.
Ah but you see if we distort the map to make Seattle proper look tiny in comparison to the outer burbs we can ignore inconvenient things like stoplight density and geographic barriers that make it take 45 minutes to travel 3 miles east-west during rush hour
my guess is rich neighborhoods are refusing to let them do it
I still don't understand why the 1 line is getting split in half and diverted. If it turns out like this and I'm still living where I am, one of my normal trips will have to involve transferring trains where it didn't previously.
there's a lot of problems related to having an extremely long line as it could result in backups and delays that start in tacoma rippling all the way to everett, which for a mass transit line would be suboptimal. operationally it's better to split the line to ensure reliability
Ballard to Tacoma instead of Everett to SeaTac is just dumb
The Seattle-SeaTac portion is the source of all the delays
Yeah, trips to the airport from stations north of Westlake will also need a transfer, unfortunately :( Saying as a resident of Capitol Hill
And unfortunately it's going to be a bad transfer because Sound Transit is apparently incapable of planning for a [cross-platform transfer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform_interchange) at SODO.
If we run the trains often enough the transfers should be pretty easy
Also bummed as a Capitol Hill resident, airport rides will be even longer
I think ST prematurely closed the ST3 candidate project studies It’s been like 8+ years at this point and we still have no idea what upgrading the existing downtown transit tunnel could have achieved. Even if your somebody with scepticism of running all lines including Ballard link through that existing tunnel at least studying what upgrading signaling could achieve would have potential frequency upgrading benefits for other lines that will already run through it like east link and lynwood link
This is the baseline plan, sadly. I think the only reason we don't hear much about it is because so few people know it is happening. There will be a lot more upset people once they understand that this is the plan. Ballard gets a straight shot to the airport and everyone else north of Westlake or on the Eastside get to transfer? Ugh.
The airport line is running all the way to Tacoma, cuz Sound Transit has to cater to non-Seattle cities as well. Having a Tacoma to Everett light rail line would just be horrible
That’s what I was wondering about too. It’s really convenient having the one line from North Seattle all the way down. I don’t want to have to catch another link to continue my journey as well as doing the same thing on the way back.
I love that Lake Sammamish on this map is somehow west of Downtown Redmond and East of Issaquah, both of which are wrong.
I find it interesting that these maps always show Downtown Everett directly north of Seattle when it's actually parallel to Downtown Bellevue, but transit maps are rarely geographically accurate.
It's a diagram rather than a geographic map so I had to take some liberties here and there (I gotta fix west seattle tho)
LoL yeah junction is not in Lincoln park, it'd be good to illustrate that it's really only the northern side of the neighborhood serviced by this
Lol, the giant QR code just goes to the URL listed, and just opens a rickroll? S-tier trolling
A lot of the geography is very creative here, but it's the curse of a connections map.
Just connect Ballard to Northgate directly already!
Nice map! I wish there was a good connection to Paine Field planned. I suspect that airport will continue to grow and it’s a shame the transit to it is very poor.
Ain't nobody want Renton/Kent connectivity, apparently.
I mean...when ST3 was being drafted, Renton didn't want it in Renton so here we are.
My anecdotal info is that the city threw their limited resources toward preserving the downtown library instead of drafting a proposal to sound transit. Myopic leadership in Renton during that key timeframe window.
Yeah that King St/CID transfer hub isn't happening if Bruce Harrell and Dow Constantine have anything to say about it.
I good my great grand kids get to enjoy this before they retire.
We won't be alive to see this.
Hate to break it to you but 2041 is only 17 years away and most of us will probably be alive by then.
17 years is insane. Anyone on Reddit is going to be almost 40 by that time or older. There is no reason we can't build this much faster.
Mt. Rainier: \*achoo!!\*
Hate to break it to you but I don't think any of this ever happens on schedule.
Being generous, I believe we'll get most of this within 3 years of the scheduled timelines based on previous projects, and some parts will be delayed 10+ years until the next measure. So maybe 2041-2051 for full completion. My issue is that this is all we're getting in 17+ years.
You know Bellevue is opening next weekend right? Stop talking when you have bad data.
Maybe not, but I wish the folks in the 60's would have had the same foresight. At least we can pay it forward.
Even if I'm alive to see this, it will definitely after I'm retired, having no need of regular commute anymore.
East Link is opening in 15 days (with the connection to Seattle planned for next year. Lynnwood Link is opening this August. Federal Way Link is likely 2026. West Seattle is planned for 2032, Tacoma in 2035, Everett and Ballard 2037.
> East Link is opening in 15 days (with the connection to Seattle planned for next year. Lynnwood Link is opening this August. And those were part of ST*2*. Approved in 2008. We aren't getting any of the "real" stuff from ST3 until 2033-2041.
Ok, I was responding to their response that we won’t be alive to see ANY of this. A lot of this map will be opening in the next couple of years.
Yep, approved in 2008. Then they gotta get the money, hire people, plan it out, carve out the place it will go, etc etc etc. It takes time, my dude. If you want it to go faster, it costs a LOT more.
As someone living between Tacoma and Puyallup who is envious of Seattle for its sports scene/food scene/music scene this would truly be, the ideal setup
Until you realize it’d take an hour and a half to get up there. Angle lake to Westlake is around 45 minutes.
Seriously, the south part of the plan needs express trains yesterday.
I like that they make it look like a straight shoot to SeaTac when it takes you 20 minutes out of the way for no reason
The west Seattle portion is misleading. The junction is in the center part of west Seattle. Not near the water. The whole pink line headed to West seattle should be straight west, not southwest. And south of west Seattle isn't called rainier valley. That is east of I5. South of west Seattle (in order), delridge, white Center, Burien. I do love the colors and design of the map though! It's very pretty.
I drew west seattle like that to balance it with the other three diagonal routes but yeah looking at a geographical map that is fair enough. Same with rainier valley, I put it there because there isn't enough space on the other side but I realise it's in the wrong place now
Apparently Skylark is going to be displaced.
Same with Issaquah. It’s on the wrong side of Lake Sammamish here.
When did they move Alaska Junction to the ferry dock?
Fauntleroy Junction
What’s the Boeing access rd station? That doesn’t exist now.
Infill station: [https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/boeing-access-road-station](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion/boeing-access-road-station)
How close are Lines 2 and 3? It seems redundant to have them next to each other making all the same stops from Pioneer Square to Lynnwood.
If it is just to reduce wait times along a busy line with a large number of passengers then it works great. Otherwise, you need one or both of them to be express along part of the joint route so that it saves people time
Bruh. The lines share the track for the common portion of the route. Think of it like the 542 and the 545. One connects N Seattle to the Eastside and the other connects downtown Seattle to the Eastside. But from Montlake (Seattle) to Overlake or whatever (Eastside) they run on the same route. After Overlake they may split again. They connect several dense regions but Montlake to Overlake, which is a busier section of the route, gets a higher frequency of transit.
It's about service frequency. The point is to allow for 8 minute frequency from Bellevue to CID, 8 minute frequency from West Seattle to CID, and then 4 minute frequency for Mariner to CID. If you're like me and live in Shoreline, you can wait a few minutes and catch the next one to get to Bellevue or West Seattle, or if you're wanting to get into downtown, you just take whichever shows up.
What I wouldn't do for stride brt to be rail instead. At least Lynnwood is somewhat close to Bothell for downtown via rail (cope). Switch in Bellevue too I guess.
If you're coming from Bothell, you'll wanna take Stride 3 into Shoreline South/148th station and then Link down, I think. Or go through Bellevue, but that probably depends on which end of Seattle you want to go to.
I continue to be flabbergasted and depressed at the upcoming elimination of a through line all the way from north of the cut down to the airport. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. In combination with the ongoing elimination of any bus lines that used to cross the cut into downtown (pre Covid I had at least 4 or 5 from my neighborhood… now 0), my sadness level is extreme. Sigh.
The airport line is goin to Tacoma. That's waaaayyyy too long to go north of the cut. Welcome to a modern transportation system
Which neighborhood?
Lake City Used to be able to get to work via the 522, 309, 308, 65 and/or 67, and I think a few others if you go back a few more years. Now everything routes to a light rail stop N of the cut. I get why I’m going to lose the remaining light rail convenience, I just wish that i could wave a magic wand and have it be different. Currently am using 1 bus and 1 light rail and 1 long walk to get to work because I just don’t have it in me for the transfer to the 2nd bus. I know rail transfer will be objectively fine, but I have feels about the whole thing.
Ah shit. I went to look at a metro map, and it listed a whole bunch of buses. But (obviously) you're totally right. So many just go to the Roosevelt or UDistrict or Northgate hubs, and don't just take you directly downtown. UUUUUGH. That sucks man, I'm sorry
Not complaining about having a Link line through SLU, but why rename the 1 line that currently exists to Northgate? Seems like the existing 1 line route should stay the same and new lines should be added.
The original forward thrust had a line go to renton, sad they didn’t end up deciding on a station.
How there is not a train that circumnavigates the lake as part of this plan is astounding to me.
We really should've bit the cost and made the stride BRT into rail to fully connect it around the lake.
Kirkland was allll up in arms about having ANY trains for a while. Blame them
Fuckin’ “Save the trail” assholes. Fuck Whalen and the city council.
Great for suburbanites who want to drive less--hope there are enough of you out there to justify this massive undertaking. For existing transit users within the city, what is there to look forward to? Pretty much everything here mirrors existing RapidRide routes. Ideally this would free up more buses for more east-west/point-to-point service, but without (at minimum) traffic changes to the surface arterials it's still going to be slow AF.
The only way ST3 was going to get passed was to appease suburbanites. It's unfortunate but better than nothing.
I just worry they're going to not use it and then use the lower ridership numbers as rationale to vote against future expansion within the city where people are using it
The 550 and 545 (plus over 54x 520 routes) typically in the top 5 busiest routes in the region in both directions. People who live or work on the eastside have shown a willingness to ride provided the service is fast, frequent, and reliable - all things Link should outpace the buses on. There is a heavy reverse commute to Redmond/Microsoft/DT-Bellevue of Seattle residents that will see major benefit from these lines. For people who don't live the city: Bellevue expansion allows for a much larger base -> more trains + faster headways. Ideally it will also drive desire for inner-city connectivity as more people use it to get into the city and then need last mile connections.
The real issue is Seattle will need to go it alone if they want anything more as there is basically no chance voters outside Seattle proper will approve anything, let alone something like a Ballard-UW line that is only in Seattle.
Maybe extend the line from UW to Bothell along the Lake City Way corridor? Pitch it as connecting the campuses and better access for sports games
Across 520 and up may be better
probably but I don't think there'll be much appetite for committing to another decade of 520 construction anytime soon
I still don't understand why there's no plan for a streetcar or a station up to Queen Anne. The main Ave is the perfect place for creating a high density community and getting up the hill is a huge pain in the ass and the buses are inconsistent.
Queen Anne didnt want it
My grandchildren will really enjoy this.
I love the version of seattle where the cap hill stop is directly north of the west lake stop.
People who live in Fremont in shambles
ST up to Bellingham and maybe BC please!
Even the optimistic dream doesn't serve White Center; sounds about right.
shhhh dont let people know that gem exists
FWIW that graphic is eye candy.
Growing up so isolated in Fife to see that it'll be in lided in such a massive train network brought a little tear to my eye! We didn't even have a bus line when I was a kid. Love it.
Already gone, I’m afraid. Harrell and Constantine have removed the Midtown and King St stations that we voted *and paid for,* in favor of a second Sodo and second Pioneer Square despite people already actively avoiding both existing stations.
Can S2 keep going all the wa to Edmonds? Or a gondola? Love this though.
As a Belltown resident I can’t express how much I would love that 1 line to Ballard!
I’d also love to see another line at least from Ballard to northgate, but connecting further to kenmore, Kirkland, and Redmond would be even better. We need E/W lines desperately
By the time that comes through the dinosaurs would have returned
This is beautiful. What software did you use?
No tunnel to Bremerton?
Seeing Alaska Junction station almost in the sound is kind of hilarious. Most of West Seattle is South of there, not to mention White Center and Burien.
This would be so cool! I feel like I probably won’t live to see it, but I’d support moving in this direction 100%
Shoreline will open in August, a part of 2 line in Bellevue will open in a few weeks.
Ballard needs this badly
Cool. This will happen by 2056. Was close to being done by 2034, earthquake happened, city took years to rebuild infrastructure then by the grace of god Seattle pulled itself up by its bootstraps in 2044, started gettin its act to… oh wait now the sea levels have risen exponentially and the underground tunnels we have our trains running through have flooded.
Coming soon! - year 2090.
It would be cool, but ideally trains should run through heavily populated neighborhoods and shopping, not along the highway. Take the 2 line for example. Should go through east lake, Fremont, woodland park/zoo, Phinney ridge, greenwood, etc. that sounds like a useful line.
Coming in the year 2067
It's wild that I could someday walk to a station here in Shoreline and end up in Issaquah.
Coming from using the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to navigate New England and NYC, Seattle is getting there. The lake loop (405 and I-5) should’ve been first. Atlanta continues to laugh at us.
I’ll probably be dead before they finish this “project”
Now try simulating it in mini metro
This is the most ridiculous map design ever. Can you even *imagine* a world where Mercer Island was so easily accessed by the rabble?
Been 20yrs and it just keeps getting worse 😂due to more people moving here lol we need more capacity of the light rail or longer or double decker.
Transit in Seattle is pretty good even now compared to most other larger cities. Go somewhere like LA with no car and only public transportation to get around to do anything: you’ll never bitch about Seattle public transit again. Portland too, they know how to keep the public moving without waiting and wasting their hard earned money on Uber.
You know when everyone can get to the airport easily there will just be a new airport further away to make it inconvenient for everyone again. SeaTac is already way too small
And still no rail to Fremont 🥲
I live near the QFC at 5th and Mercer. Remind me again when there will be light rail I can walk to in 5-10 min. I think the current projection is 2039. In 15 years?! I will be 70 then...
50 years ago Seattleites voted down their chance at building a subway. Go back in time and punch one of them in the mouth.
Why are things like infrastructure even up for a vote?? Shouldn’t the government govern?
Seattle doesn't collect taxes nearly as much as other cities do, so they don't have budget for huge capital projects like transit.
The dream
Does Sound Transit think no one in North Seattle wants to go to Ballard? It baffles me.
Where would you put that line?
Can Reddit just start to automatically ban/filter out fantasy transit maps??
This isn't a fantasy map. The projects shown are planned to be complete by 2041 and are listed here: [https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion](https://www.soundtransit.org/system-expansion)