1) Last Friday afternoon’s light rail ride, the final test run before service kicked off at 10:00 Saturday morning, started with a press conference inside what used to be known as the bus tunnel. (Notably absent: Gov. Christine Gregoire, who sent her chief of staff because of a prior commitment, and mayoral candidate Mike McGinn, who played a major role in the campaign for light rail last year.)
Hundreds of press and elected officials—including seven members of the Seattle city council, Mayor Greg Nickels, all the members of the Sound Transit board, former US senator Slade Gorton, current Sen. Patty Murray, and a half-dozen state elected officials— crowded inside Westlake Station to hear congratulatory speeches from Murray, Mayor Greg Nickels, a surprisingly funny FTA administrator Peter Rogoff, and several more.
Many more, in fact—the speeches went on so long that even Nickels, perhaps the person in the room with the most reason to celebrate (the primary election is exactly one month after light rail’s Day One), was starting to look a little wilted, and deputy mayor Tim Ceis was openly talking to folks around him.
Still, there were some touching moments. Rogoff noted that "it’s often said that women have to work twice as hard to get half the credit. I think that means that Senator Murray and Joni Earl worked four times as hard." Lakewood county council member and Sound Transit board vice-chair Claudia Thomas encouraged everyone to "extend your right hand, put it behind you, and pat yourselves on the back." And Earl, who was sitting in the second row, couldn’t help pulling a Kleenex out of her purse and wiping away tears.
A lot of folks were pretty misty-eyed, understandably—this weekend has been a long time in the making. (I’ve been covering light rail since 2001, and folks like Seattle Times reporter Mike Lindblom, a poker-faced guy who reluctantly allowed that the opening of light rail was "exciting," have been doing so for much, much longer.) Murray reminisced about camping out in then-Transportation secretary Rodney Slater’s office one day before George W. Bush took office, seeking Slater’s signature on a last-minute funding agreement for Sound Transit. "I knew if we didn’t get a $500 million agreement signed by the end of the Clinton Administration, we never would." That was nearly a decade ago.
Finally—finally—after King County Council member Julia Patterson took the stage for the briefest speech of the afternoon (concluding, "Let’s get on board"), everybody hightailed downstairs to wait for the train to Tukwila. I didn’t talk to a single reporter who wasn’t thrilled to be on board.
2) A first impression from this first ride on Link: Light rail is fast—really fast. People like state Sen. Fred Jarrett may still complain about the decision to run trains at grade along Martin Luther King Jr. Way—a decision that slows the trains’ top speed from 55 mph to 35—but seeing the cars stopped along the road as we whizzed past was confirmation enough that this system is going to work, and it’s going to be better than driving. However, it’s at 55 mph, the speed the train reaches on the elevated portions along the freeway, that light rail really starts to feel like rapid transit.
The length of the ride between the Columbia City station and the Othello station, two miles south, feels like a lifetime. Major streets like Graham and Orcas go whizzing past, unserved, and the inevitable question is: Why? The answer is that the Sound Transit board eliminated the Graham light rail station for financial reasons in 2000—a decision that feels, now as then, monumentally short-sighted.
On board the train, I talked with Dan Bertolet of the urbanist blog Hugeasscity and Sara Nicolic of the urbanist organization FutureWise; Bertolet kvetched about the elimination of the Graham stop, and Nicolic explained that it was extremely unlikely that either that stop or the similarly "deferred" Boeing Access Road station would ever be built. Neither project was included in last year’s "Mass Transit Now" measure, she explained—therefore, without funding from the city (Graham) or Boeing (Boeing Access Road), neither station is going to happen. Given the number of residents and workers those two stops would’ve been able to serve, that’s a shameful oversight.
3) Back at Sound Transit’s Union Station, the Transportation Choices Coalition (which initially fought for the highway-heavy "Roads and Transit" ballot measure in 2007, then threw its weight behind last year’s light-rail expansion measure), threw a $100-a-head black-tie, sold-out "Tuxes and Trains" light rail celebration at King Street Station, one of three downtown Seattle light-rail stops. Among the celebrants: A jubilant Nickels; a bored Ed Murray; Seattle City Council member (and onetime light-rail opponent) Nick Licata; former monorail spokesman Ed Stone [!!]; Washington State Democratic chair Dwight Pelz; and 500 more tux-or-gown-clad folks who support light rail or helped make it happen. Speeches ensued, but no one could hear them; nonetheless, it was a lovely (and well-deserved) bash.
4) But the real party happened the following morning, and there was no ticket required. Sound Transit threw open the doors of Link Light rail to the public at 10:00. In the early afternoon, we walked down through Columbia City, where every store and bar was offering a light-rail related special—from free iced coffee at the new Empire coffee shop on South Ferdinand St. to dollar-off "streetcar cocktails" at gritty, open-at-8-am Angie’s, maybe the one spot in Columbia City that hasn’t gentrified. A gaggle of Nickels supporters were milling around outside Tutta Bella, eating $2 scoops of "light rail lime" gelato.
What struck me most about Saturday’s opening, though, was how few of the usual suspects (politicians, light rail boosters, Sound Transit employees) I ran into. In contrast to that white-bread crew, the group that crowded onto the light-rail trains were as diverse as you’d find on any South End bus, and everybody—from little kids to old ladies to tired-looking moms and dads—seemed thrilled to wait in interminable lines, thrilled to crowd onto standing-room-only trains, thrilled to be on board. (Not so thrilling: The ten-minute walk across the massive park-and-ride at the Tukwila station, followed by a truly unpleasant hike across a spanking-new eight-lane "boulevard." Clearly, Sound Transit expects no one to walk to this station).
And everyone, it seemed, was a newly minted light-rail expert. Ordinary folks were reciting things like schedules for light-rail extensions and the depth of the Beacon Hill tunnel and timetables (every seven and a half minutes!)—music to the ears of a transit wonk like me. If people feel invested in their transit system, maybe they’ll want to build more; and if they want to build more, maybe light rail cars will stay in better condition than our crappy buses. A girl can hope.
5) For me, the real opening day came this morning, when I rode light rail to work for the first time. For ages, I’ve been riding the 7—the worst, slowest, dirtiest bus in the city. If you’re lucky, you might get downtown in 30 minutes; if someone has a seizure or gets in a fight or gets busted selling drugs at 8 in the morning, it could take an hour. No more. Light rail, door to door, got me to my office in less than 40 minutes, and that’s with an added 12-minute walk on one end and a 5-minute walk on the other. Seventeen minutes to downtown, on an air-conditioned train with no crowds, no loud music, no unpleasant smells! That’s worth an extra quarter to me. Bye-bye, 7—it’s not me, it’s you.
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The party was at UNION Station, not KING.
Erica – no matter how many times you say it, you can’t rewrite history. Mike McGinn did NOT work on the light rail campaign last year. He didn’t!! Talk to the campaign – hell, talk to Josh, he worked on the campaign. Let’s get the facts straight in our reporting.
Great coverage, very exciting!
…but, your story is a good one overall. Glad the train will work for your commute. It is certainly a step or two above the buses. Suddenly the bus seems downright unpleasant!
Two quick things:
the Friday speaches were held at Westlake Station. Convention Place is not a light rail stop.
Also, there were at least 500 people at TCC’s light rail bash – not 100
Question: light rail essentially did not reduce the average time of your commute? Since it requires additional walking, and the delays to the 7 you describe, while annoying, are infrequent?
Follow up: how much faster is it than the 194 bus to Sea-Tac?
One more: Is the point of light rail to replace bus service, or to get people out of their cars? Any evidence about how many users would have otherwise taken the bus?
doesn’t graham get bus service.
the irony is the speed you discussed in 5 would be much less with more frequent, at-grade stops.
i think the idea is to drive more density around the two stops and allow some single family residences in between that can be linked to Link via bus or foot traffic.
@5: Trevor asks some good questions. All I can say is that I would never have taken the bus to Columbia City (I always drive, even though there’s a bus that goes down there and I’m a daily bus rider), but I will take the train. Just an anecdote, but I suspect I’m not alone.
Most major cities have a bus system and a rail system and both are heavily used so I don’t expect the Seattle area to be any different.
The lead on this story begins “Last Friday”? Isn’t a news Web site supposed to be built for speed?
I was really struck by the interesting interactions I observed between riders. I felt like people were mixing in a way that I don’t see ever day. I was also amused to hear a woman ask a ST employee “Wait, this doesn’t go to Ballards?” The average, non-wonk doesn’t care about the stuff that we wonks get wrapped up in, they’re just happy to have more options, and want to keep adding more.
@5–Have you ever taken the 7? There’s a vast difference in the quality of the experience that cannot be quantified in the commute time calcluation. Plus, if riders are motivated by the improved rider experience to walk a few extra minutes to take light rail, think about the added health benefits. Check out this piece, that discusses the benefits of combining walking & alternative transportation, reporting that a $1 increase in the price of gas results in a 10% decrease in the obesity rate. http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/07/17/transportation-reform-is-health-reform/
(I know that you’re comparing a bus to light rail, but my point is that the additional walking is a good thing).
I’ve heard a lot of people talk about the change in commute time, either when comparing the light rail to cars or buses. My regular downtown bus (which won’t exist for much longer) doesn’t take much longer to get downtown, but it only comes every 30 minutes–assuming it’s running on time. The frequency and reliability of the light rail is a big improvement, even if the commute time isn’t dramatically different.
WOW — how TF did you take 3 days to write this and STILL get so much factually wrong???? I’ll add one more screwup to the King/Union and Westlake/Convention mixups — there are 4 stops downtown — International District, Pioneer Square, University Street, and Westlake.
@5 – Actually “the point of light rail” is NEITHER to replace bus service or to get people out of their cars.
It has two major goals. One is to provide more frequent, more reliable, and higher capacity transit through a major transportation corridor. (That’s not quite the same as replacing buses.) Ideally, this should free up bus hours to allow for more frequent service in the station area or for more bus service elsewhere.
The other reason for light rail is to encourage dense, transit-oriented developments around the station areas. Rail is not built for the ridership today, but for the projected ridership in 20-30 years.
@ 4 and 1.: The errors you point out have been corrected; thank you. @8 and 10: It’s extremely fortunate for you that you’ve never had to be out sick a day in your life, and I truly envy you.
@11: Tease out the implications of what you say and what you get is that wealthy people that developers want to attract to South Seattle will ride a train but not a bus. The presumption is that transit oriented development will thus not occur around bus transit, even if its delivery were improved at a fraction of the cost of light rail, because of middle and upper income peoples’ distaste for the rabble that rides the bus. The thing is, though, that ST’s own bus system, which connects with park and rides throughout the region, actually shows that TOD can occur around improved bus service.
A big reason people are so pro-light rail, as you see @9, is because we don’t fund busses the way we should. And part of the reason we don’t fund them is because they are associated with poor people. It’s a vicious circle.
@13 I think a big reason why people assume that TOD is more likely to happen around light rail than buses is because light rail stations are fixed, whereas bus stops aren’t. I’d guess that one of the reasons the ST bus system generates a higher level of TOD (assuming that is true, which I haven’t researched one way or another) is because the suburban locations frequently have park & rides, which are more fixed than the average bus stop.
Studies have shown that this is true, whether we like it or not.
The difference is: the large capital cost of trains, but lower operating costs, flips the cost incentives toward offering more frequent service for more hours per day – because then you can collect more fares to help run the service. Witness the service cuts that Metro is considering to get through the current recession – because fuel, tires, and more drivers per x number of passengers costs $$$.
You might get TOD near bus hubs (perhaps as a result of dense zoning), but even the best bus service is still not as rider-friendly (smooth, fast, timely) as train service.
“More buses” is the transit cop out for wealthy conservatives who will never ride said buses. Trains are worth the money.
Oh, and: thank God this ship has finally sailed! We’re building billions worth of trains, and it should have happened 40 years ago.
BTW, wealthy conservatives will ride trains: go to DC and ride the Orange Line. I routinely saw high-level Bush appointees on there… never on the bus.
Remember opening day of the South Lake Union Streetcar? Yeah, me neither…
I remember opening day for the SLUT–maybe that’s because I actually use it to get to work in SLU. It’s no light rail, but it’s better service than the 17.
@15: ““More buses” is the transit cop out for wealthy conservatives who will never ride said buses.”
I think I see what you’re saying. Better bus service, which might be essentially equivalent to train service at a fraction of the cost, and easier and decades faster to incorporate into our existing roads infrastructure, should not be studied or taken as a serious alternative to rail. Because better bus service is more vulnerable to the shifting political winds, while it’s harder to un-build rail.
(though we’ve done a pretty good job un-building our national rail system with Amtrak, and very stupidly relying on trucks instead of improving our rail lines for freight after the OPEC crisis)
It’s a dispiriting argument, since it implies that we have to be defensively wasteful and single-mindedly focused on rail in order to ensure that when we take one step forward, we don’t get knocked 2 steps back. It also takes for granted that bus service will always suck, thus making buses less pleasant to ride, and more vulnerable to being under-subsidized by the government. But it makes sense in a kind of pragmatic way, I guess, given how insane anti-tax politics are in this state.
As an aside, I wonder how many decades until we see rail that can take us from downtown Seattle to downtown Olympia? It took 1 decade to get to Sea-Tac. Maybe 2 more decades to get to Thurston county? Until then, since we don’t invest in buses, the only direct shot on transit is Greyhound. Or you can take Amtrak to Lacey and wait for a bus to downtown Olympia that comes once an hour. Which is amazing, given the number of people (many of them pro-transit!) who commute back and forth daily during the legislative session.
No, Trevor, “better bus service” can never be “essentially equivalent to train service at a fraction of the cost.” You would have buses stuck in traffic, same as autos. No way that can be equivalent to trains with their separate right-of-way. Saying it’s so doesn’t make it so.
We need to look at transit as a SYSTEM, with rail lines as the high-capacity trunk routes and much of the bus system serving as feeders to the trains. It’s not a question of “riding the bus” OR “riding trains”. In a real transit system, users need to ride both to take full advantage. Or like the cell commercial says, “It’s the Network!” That’s why Metro’s revising several of its bus routes to better serve Link rail stations.
Erica,
when I read this piece this morning, the errors over place names: Convention Place v. Westlake for the speeches and Union v. King Street for the TCC party had not been corrected. thanks to your readers.
please reconsider your assertion in three that TCC initially opposed the roads and transit prop one in 2007. in fact, TCC, Futurewise, Fuse, WCV, and Nickels/Drago, and Phillips/Constantine/Jarrett all supported it. the green opposition included the Sierra Club and Cascade. 2007 is recent history and should be within your memory. if not, it should be on the web and Stranger archives.
also, King Street Station is not a stop for Link. The downtown Seattle stations are Westlake, University Street, Pioneer Square, and International District Station. there are two stations in SODO at Royal Brougham and South Lander Street.
Trevor asked some leading questions in five. between downtown Seattle and the airport, Link will be slower than Route 194, but more frequent and more reliable. The real band for our Link bucks will come in about 2020 when Link stations and service are opened at Northgate, Roosevelt, and NE 45th Street.
21 errata, last paragraph: bang for bucks not band.
@21–Erica says that TCC fought FOR the 2007 Roads & Transit, not that the fought it.
@20: How hard would it be to give buses a “separate right-of-way”? Physically and economically speaking, not that hard. But I guess the point that these discussions point to is that /politically speaking/, it appears to be nearly impossible.
this is yet another bloggish newsy site that is polluting the cybersphere with less original thought and more regurgitated info than even the Slog. Sandeep is nothing but a left-leaning hired gun and Josh and Erica are has-beens. Sorry but it’s true. I’ll stick to Glenn’s insightful blog and skip the musings found here. This will be my single and only time reading it.