As Sound Transit builds the largest light rail expansion in the country, splitting the system into urban and suburban lines could unlock its full potential.
Starting out as a train connecting Downtown Seattle to the airport, Link has grown and expanded to Northgate, Lynnwood, and Bellevue. The latest expansion — the Sound Transit 3 (ST3) measure voters passed in 2016, when it was estimated to cost $54 billion — will create a 75-mile spine from Everett to Tacoma, with branches off to Bellevue/Redmond, Ballard, and West Seattle. The map itself is impressive, and the connectivity is inspiring, giving people opportunities to sustainably traverse the entire metro within a single system.
Link is already exploding in ridership and will continue to grow with more stations opening, local cities focusing growth around light rail stations, and regional planners projecting more than 1.8 million additional residents by 2050.
Link’s split urban and suburban/regional identities creates ridership issues.
The map always made sense. After all, the project is mostly self-funded by the voters that approved it. These voters live in urban, suburban and rural areas. Connecting the entire region was critical to convince those voters to pay for it. But did voters expect it to be one system or was that a planning decision? By linking it all as one continuous network, we are shuffling together urban and suburban riders, two customers who have conflicting goals.
In an article about transit, it might sound crazy to use roads and streets as metaphors. But a road’s purpose is to move high volumes at high speed with few stops, and a street intentionally has multiple stops to get drivers to slow down to access many different destinations along the street. Often these two forms are merged to form a hybrid condition called a “stroad” — an inefficient frankenstein that doesn’t quite operate as either a street or a road. Instead, what’s left is the worst of the two.
To avoid a similar inefficiency, Link should be separating their own “road and street” systems instead of settling for the lowest common denominators.
People hopping on Link to get to the airport aren’t expecting the train to slow down and turn into an at-grade streetcar system through the Rainier Valley. Riders from Lynnwood are heading to job centers or entertainment areas and don’t need to stop at 130th Street and Roosevelt. Urban users want higher train frequencies, something the system can’t handle since it is being stretched to grab regional riders, and regional riders want higher train speeds, something the system can’t handle since it traverses as a streetcar and has multiple stops between hubs. These two goals are at odds.
By separating the systems, we can speed up trains for regional riders and boost frequency for urban riders.
Estimated ride time from Downtown Tacoma to Downtown Seattle will be more than 90 minutes. This is because the Link system requires a transfer to Tacoma’s at-grade streetcar rather than heading into the heart of Tacoma and once again slows down to become an at-grade streetcar through Southeast Seattle. By combining the two systems, the train is too slow for regional riders.
After completion, Sound Transit estimates train frequencies of six to 10 minutes. This is unacceptable for an urban system. This lack of frequency is because the system must reach farther out and connect to suburban and rural regions with longer four-car trains to capture peak-load ridership. Trains arriving every 10 minutes are too infrequent for an urban trip that will be 10 minutes or less. By combining the two systems, the train doesn’t come often enough for urban riders.
We should be separating these systems and building upon what each user needs. By breaking up the system, regional riders can bypass the intermediate urban stops, linking only the major regional hubs. Meanwhile, urban riders can avoid long wait times for infrequent trains on the lengthy regional system.
Breaking up the system is feasible.
Sound Transit is already committed to a second downtown tunnel. Why not turn that into the regional rail network’s hub, connecting commuter lines from Everett, Tacoma, and Bellevue? The urban riders can hop into the existing tunnel to connect throughout the branches of lines in Seattle. Connecting the tunnels at Westlake Center and Chinatown-International District creates critical overlap and regional hubs.
By tying the urban system together, we can connect the Urban Line 1 heading from NE 130th to the Rainier Vally to the same downtown stations of Urban Line 2 heading from West Seattle to Ballard. The existing tunnel is old and would need upgrades to allow this heightened level of operation, but maintenance costs are already committed to the system.
Building an I-5 bypass will allow us to create a Regional Line that travels south to SeaTac offering riders from Westlake Station a four-stop ride to the airport; I estimate this would save 15 minutes of travel time from Westlake Station, reducing ride times from 45 minutes to 30 minutes. Hugging the interstate for an at-grade or elevated line of track is a relatively low-risk solution for creating a two-system operation for regional riders. The separation from Southeast Seattle allows the Urban Line 1 to capture higher frequencies of every four minutes utilizing two-car trains that don’t need to fill up at peak times through these lower demand stations.
Another use of a bypass track can speed up the Regional Line traveling north to Everett skipping a few north Seattle urban stops and giving the urban line a chance to branch off for future expansions in different directions. This flexibility allows the urban system to grow organically as our city urbanizes.
The urban line from Ballard to West Seattle could be automated, similar to how Vancouver’s SkyTrain operates. The SkyTrain has frequencies of 90 seconds and utilizes shorter trains that can speed up frequencies. Sound Transit’s longer four-car trains can be reserved for the regional lines that grab more riders with less frequency.
Proposed Urban Lines:
- U Line 1: Southeast Seattle to NE 130th
- U Line 2: West Seattle to Ballard
- U Line 3: Aurora Ave to Madison Park (ST4 Expansion)
- U Line 4: Ballard to UW (ST4 Expansion)
- U Line 5: Waterfront to Central District (ST4 Expansion)
- U Line T: Tacoma
Proposed Regional Lines:
- R Line A: Everett to Seattle
- R Line B: Bellevue to Seattle
- R Line C: Issaquah to Kirkland
- R Line D: Tacoma to Seattle
- R Line E: Bothell to Seattle (ST 4 Expansion)
Connecting to a broader vision
Breaking up the system into an urban and regional network will also allow for the promised major transit hub near Chinatown’s Union Station, which is next door to Amtrak trains and likely to be a future home for a high-speed rail line. Right now, Sound Transit is in the process of evaluating how to revise the line to save money and its current plan would bypass this station, eliminating this key transit connection.
The most obvious alignment is to build the “Shallow 4th Street Station” allowing an easy transfer for urban and regional riders to get on a train to the rest of Seattle, Vancouver, B.C. or Portland. Other studied alternatives would require riders the unacceptable option of traversing up to grade and walking several blocks for their urban or regional transfer. This opportunity must not be lost.
By breaking up the network, the urban system has the opportunity for Link to grow inside Seattle as more people move to our growing city. ST4 discussions are already in the works and the City’s transportation department and advocates propose an all-urban expansion with lines up Aurora Avenue to capture the E Line’s robust ridership, expanding a line in the east-west direction to connect Ballard to the University and to continue growth in West Seattle and Ballard lines. This future expansion will benefit greatly from increasing train frequencies to something the regional system cannot achieve.
Planning is about setting us up for future success by making critical decisions today. By separating the systems, these expansions and improvements can be isolated to find ways to improve the experience for each type of rider. Better experiences will only make the system more popular. Future expansions will be easier to support, encourage more use, and allow planners opportunities to improve each system individually based on the mobility and growth that occurs in this region for future generations.
Ryan DiRaimo
Ryan DiRaimo is a resident of the Aurora Licton-Springs Urban Village and Northwest Design Review Board member. He works in architecture and seeks to leave a positive urban impact on Seattle and the surrounding metro. He advocates for more housing, safer streets, and mass transit infrastructure and hopes to see a city someday that is less reliant on the car.
