Results tagged “transit”

The plan includes an "adverse weather map," and improved transit alerts via email. A text message option would be a lot more useful for riders, though, at least until they start installing laptops at every bus stop.

Accompanied by music we swear we've heard in an acupuncturist's lobby, these depict the new bridge options as efficient, utopian dream.

"Looking down the light rail tunnel" by Wendi Dunlap, from our Flickr pool

The default screen is a location-based map with nearby stops highlighted, which can be crucial when you're in a hurry and on the verge of powerwalking. Bookmark your frequently used stops and find out how many minutes you have with 2 taps.

There's a feature in the Seattle Times today about the #7 bus that seems to be celebrating it as a "colorful" part of Seattle history, but also makes the claim that "most" and "many" #7 riders prefer it to the light rail. Try as we might, we can't find any numbers in the story to back up that assertion. We emailed reporter Phillip Lucas, but it bounced back undeliverable, user unknown. We've also called Metro's community relations line three times this morning, but no one's picking up. We'll update if it's the rapture and no one else is at work this morning. UPDATE: It's not the rapture. But here's Publicola's ECB, an actual #7 rider, going off on exactly how colorful the route is.

• Hey, Seattle--you gave Northwest Film Forum $44,000 just because they asked. That's short of the $70K they need to forestall any cuts, but still far better than a poke in the eye with a sharp film gate.
• As of October 14, you'll have a whole new Whole Foods to boycott on health care principles. Queen Anne View says the anchor tenant at the Interbay Urban Center "will feature an interactive healthy eating center, cooking classes and demonstrations, [and] a coffee shop."

Reading through Lucas from Neighborlogs' coverage of a King County Metro budget meeting, we're left with the uncomfortable feeling that we read the phrase "deferred maintenance" one too many times. Besides fare increases (to $2.25) and bus service suspensions, Metro's Kevin Desmond says "Metro will greatly reduce the number of buses it purchases, and speed, reliability and asset maintenance programs will be cut." [Emphasis added] We know! Reads like a line cut from Drag Me to Hell, doesn't it?

There is good eating to be found near the station, even if you have to dodge a few cars to find it. Thai Recipe is located in the same strip mall as Domino’s on McClellan, and it is the only Thai restaurant we know of that even borders on North Beacon Hill. The very friendly staff serves good, reliable, and tasty Thai food, available for take out or to eat in the small dining room.

Damon Agnos at the Weekly reports on the the coalition suing to prevent I-90 light rail from happening, a weird last-ditch attempt to keep Seattle from driving its train deep into the Eastside, again and oh god again, via tunnel. The suit--claiming light rail can't use I-90 because that would besmirch its use by upstanding automobile drivers--is ridiculous, as are most of Kemper Freeman's suits. Personally, we can't wait to pull on our flip-flops and stained wife-beater, hit the light rail, and terrorize the hell out of Bell Square while drinking our Volvic out of a brown paper bag.

Sound Transit says weekday ridership is at estimated at 12,000 per day--with 15,000-17,000 on the weekend, so suck it, Seattle Times. ST is aiming for 21,000 riders per day by the end of this year, with another 5,000 daily stragglers due to board after the final leg to SeaTac opens end of December. Events like last weekend's Sounders FC and Seattle Mariners games, and the Seattle Seafair Torchlight Parade have boosted ridership--coming up, ST will be running free shuttles from the Othello light rail station to Seafair's hydroplanes and air show on Lake Washington on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The ORCA card is, of course, the new, handy way to pay fares for many kinds of transit including the new Link light rail. Like all good Seattle things (e.g., a trendy restaurant, your friend's house, or the Fremont Troll), the youth ORCA card is not that easy to find unless you know where to go already.

Link light rail is again visiting the Westlake station in the bus tunnel. Sound Transit got the "signal system" problem under control at about 11 p.m. last night. For riders complaining about the lack of information, set yourself up with a subscription to ST alerts. And then be nice and tell everyone else without a smart phone what's going on.

Says Sound Transit: "Central Link light rail service has been temporarily suspended in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel due to a loss of power at one of the stations and associated impacts to systems for controlling tunnel equipment. Crews are working to address the issue and expect to restore service soon. Bus service in the tunnel is continuing at this time. Northbound light rail trains are stopping and turning south at Stadium Station. Bus service northward into downtown Seattle is available just to the west of Stadium Station at the intersection of the Busway and Royal Brougham Way. Light rail service between Stadium Station and Tukwila International Boulevard Station remains in operation." [UPDATE: As of a 10:57 a.m. email, they're rolling in the tunnel once more! WHOOPS! As of an 11:25 a.m. email, they're not rolling. Buses are still rolling in the tunnel, but light rail is not. Crews working feverishly, etc.]

Earlier today, we were smiling over the Seattle Times trying to use the first day of light rail ridership as a benchmark. "What was the Times headline on February 4, 1965?" we asked, thinking of the opening of I-5. Then we really wanted to know, so we looked it up.

From the Times: "On the first day of regular light-rail service, ridership on Sound Transit's new Link train system is rather light. Midway through the morning commute, trains were arriving at Tukwila from downtown Seattle with fewer than 10 passengers aboard." And: "Normal use is projected at 26,600 per weekday next year—far more than today's trend." One morning is a trend? This makes us curious. What was the Times headline on February 4, 1965? "I-5 Looks Awfully Open"? Times commenters are through waiting for ridership to increase--they sound about ready to rush out and pull up the tracks.

Over the weekend and again this morning, a bug has been affecting Link light rail's ticketing system, telling aggrieved would-be riders no soup for you "transaction canceled." Bummer.

Starting today, the Sound Transit Link Light Rail line from Westlake to Tukwila is officially open. This weekend, everyone rides for free. (As of noon, that's been about 13,000 people.) Paid service starts on Monday. Transit officials said yesterday that the system is ready to go. Fourteen two-car trains are operating all weekend. On Monday, 14 trains will be operating during peak hours and 12 trains at all other times.

One thing the loop does is remove the need for decision about 12th or Broadway, which, it being Seattle, could keep us at the consensus table for the next quarter of a century. Also, as we understand it, it takes up less space to run the streetcar one way down a street, and it pencils out (construction-wise) as cheaper to do.

The Seattle Times has a complaint from a Redmond woman who was taking two kids to the fireworks on the Fourth. On holidays, Metro's policy is that kids ride free with a paying adult. But it turns out the Fourth is not a holiday...well, not a Metro holiday. Metro's holiday was the Third of July, which as you know celebrates the day the Founding Fathers settled on the parchment for the Declaration of Independence.

You know, when the PT Cruiser first came out we were excited to see this brawny, modern hot rod that looked back to the great Plymouth roadsters like...uh...well, looked back period. But then we saw one up close and realized it was a station wagon for bonehead baby boomers. Yech two times. That's why we smiled when we heard one got creamed yesterday by a light rail train on MLK Way.

Normal-looking-but-totally-crazy woman: (Begins singing, quietly at first) "Jesus loves me, this I know..." (and then much much louder) "...for the Bible tells me so!" Internal: Shit, shit, shit. Listen lady, you're obviously out of your mind, so we'll cut you some slack, but you're not a very good singer.

IN FULL GIAMATTIVISION: Cold Souls is the too-grimly titled existential comedy starring Paul Giamatti as Paul Giamatti. While rehearsing Uncle Vanya, Giamatti begins to lose himself in his character's depression, and looking for a temporary fix, stumbles across the new process of "soul extraction," as detailed in the New Yorker. While the movie is deadpan, Giamatti is not. His off-kilter spiral into soullessness is by turns hilarious and touching.

In the bus tunnel, at least, where there's smoke there's not always fire. In fact, there may not even be smoke, as KIRO reports: "Tunnel traffic was rerouted to surface streets and the entrances were closed, but no fire was found, said Linda Thielke of Metro Transit." Doesn't sound like commuters were told why their routes were disrupted, so if you're curious, now you know. A tipster tells us: "Our 550 was just exiting the tunnel around 7:30 a.m. when the dispatcher announced over the driver's headset that the tunnel was closing and all tunnel bus drivers need to take the surface streets. (Our bus was full of sleepy commuters and was pretty quiet so I totally eavesdropped). At this point, our driver made some comment along the lines of 'good thing we just missed it'."

Friday we got our new ORCA card in the mail and ran straight to the computer to add cash dollars to our account using our ultra-high-tech VISA technology. Saturday we checked the account and saw $0.00. Oh, wait: "Any value purchased in the last 24 hours may not be shown." Really? Is someone doing this by hand back there? As of now (2.5 days later) our transaction is still pending, our ORCA card useless. *sigh* Great idea, though!

Seattle's transportation projects and politics tend to be the Achilles heel of progress in this city. Ironic, isn't it? On Friday, the state House passed a $4.9 billion two-year transportation budget, with the intentions of funding select mega transportation projects (ferries, viaducts and the 520 bridge, oh my!), as well as restoring the funds (per voters request) to move I-90's HOV lanes to prep for the East Link light-rail route. A win in Sound Transit's column, although we are beginning to see those pesky politics and pet-projects--yes, House Speaker Frank Chopp and your one or two billion dollar 520 Tunnel idea, we're talking about you--try to take precedent over the November 2008 voter-approved transportation initiatives. Here we thought a complete transit system was in our foreseeable future (sigh).

• Orphan Road has another interesting idea about how to make Seattle greener--this time involving unpaving parking lots.
• The Ballard High School flag was at half-staff today, and My Ballard tells you why.
• Magnolia Voice announces that plans to alter traffic flow on Nickerson Street have been put on hold until the viaduct replacement project is more solidified.

CommuteSeattle is an "initiative of the Downtown Transportation Alliance (Downtown Seattle Association, King County Metro and the City of Seattle)" which is responding to the fact that driving in and out of Seattle on a regular basis begins by giving you a twitchy eye and ends with a Glock in the glovebox which you promise to only use on people who drive up beside you and try to merge. It's for commuters, employers, and property owners, and it tries to assemble all the information any of them might need to help people choose life (outside a car). We count ten little car-alternative icons on the home page for commuters. Ten! Maybe they should add one for Snow Day.

At about 6:50 this morning, Metro's bus tracking service crashed, which meant that MyBus and OneBusAway were not delivering fresh data. Meteorologist Cliff Mass was having none of it, and made a call: "They promised that they are going to replace the servers of the bus track information system and this problem, which inconveniences hundreds or thousands of us unnecessarily, will be taken care of during the next month or so." Metro's press release sounds appropriately chastened: "Metro is already looking to next season by pursuing additional steps that can be taken to keep riders better informed of transit disruptions. Those actions include: redesigning elements of the Metro Online website; beefing up emergency event staffing plans for the Customer Information Office; adding additional staff to track and post bus reroute and service disruptions online; and exploring the use of emerging public communication tools to help disseminate information." Ooh, exploring! That's like when you get on a bus operating on an unpublished reroute!

The news over the wire (i.e., Twitter) is that the commute has not been pretty this morning, though it's improving except for 405 southbound, which is red and black on the map. For those of you still wondering where your bus is, take a look at Metro Tracker and the adverse weather/reroutes page. Savvy bus users tell us they swear by One Bus Away. They even have a blog for you to read while you're waiting for your bus. The One Bus Away Twitter feed has the absolutely latest bus news.

JSeattle alerted us to this interesting post at the Seattle Post-Times about the most important job to fill first when starting up a new media world order. Hint: it's not what you think. MyBallard found an MSNBC report on being jobless in Seattle, and paired it with a link to all the homes up for foreclosure in their neighborhood. Seattle Transit Blog finally found Gabi Campanario's site, the one with all of his insightful sketches of people on the bus. Wrapping things up for today's neighborhood news, Alex R. Mayer of Belltown Messenger shares his tongue-in-cheek (we think) plan for becoming the next Seattle media mogul.