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The Capitol Hill and U District extension of the light rail is a much-appreciated addition, as ridership shows since they opened. Based on my personal conversations with residents, more corridors like this are badly wanted. For instance, I'm not sure why the Ballard-U District line is ignored as much as it is in official plans.

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The other big missing piece is a cross-town rail line. Currently there are three main corridors for going east-west in Seattle: Denny Way (home to the 8 bus line), Mercer St (a glorified entrance/exit thoroughfare for I-5 and the bridges across Lake Washington), and 45th/50th St north of Lake Union (home to the 44 bus line).

Now that UW and Capitol Hill have a station, it makes sense to at least study the feasibility of an east-west line that could provide an alternative to at-grade transit and connect to the Link.

Another advantage of a crosstown route north of Lake Union is it could continue east over the brand new 520 bridge, which was designed to support Light Rail and connect to the east side.

As a resident of Seattle, the current plan is vexxing. I love transit, and I don't mind voting for something that I'll never see (as long as there are good reasons for the long timeline) but I'd certainly prefer a different set of priorities for light rail.

Exactly, it's such a chore to go East/West. Ballard-U District along 45th/50th seems like the most obvious addition to me, along with a line to the Eastside - I know that if I worked in Bellevue, the ability to take the light rail to work would be my top priority.

Yeah, it's practically impossible to work at Microsoft and live in Ballard without driving every day, unless you want to spend (probably more than?) an hour on the bus each way. And even driving is going to be pretty slow.

Ballard -> Redmond has gotta be 45 minutes by car at the BEST of times. I'd think it'd be closer to 90min by bus at rush hour. 520 is an unmitigated traffic disaster (granted, I haven't been on it since the tolling began).

When I lived in the area I often joked I'd drive 405-90-5 if I was going from Kirkland to the U-District. Having spent 2 hours in traffic on the bridge alone in the past, it's not far from the truth.

IIRC, one of the main complaints from boeing is that the traffic situation is disastrous for their JIT parts deliveries and have threatened to pull out of Seattle b/c of that (not just the HQ, as they did a few years ago).

If you take the Ballard Connector to MSFT it is not that bad. 45-60 minutes depending on traffic. With the new 520 work on the Eastside, the carpool lanes are speeding things up dramatically and I expect it's closer to 45 most days (I'm in Phinney currently, and I'm usually at 45-50 minutes on the last stop).

If you're doing the counter commute, Kirkland->Seattle Business District in the morning, 520 is a great option. Most people have abandoned it due to the toll, but the only area where things get sticky is the merge from 405->520 where you need to merge left twice in short order and then merge left again directly after the Burgermaster exit. The merge across I5 to the Union exit is annoying since the backup for the Mercer exit (and people that never realized the needed to take Mercer) extends almost to 520, but if you wait in the third lane from left until you pass Mercer, you can usually merge gracefully right and take Union.

The return commute is only screwy when there's a big con - SakuraCon for example.

I did take Mercer for the three months I worked at Lab 126 in Fiona, but I assume it's better now that construction is over. It was much worse.

Counter-commute? or reverse commute? Shouldn't Kirkland->Seattle still be the 'normal' commute direction?

I apologize, I missed your comment earlier. In my experience (before the tolls were in place on 520 to mess with things), the morning commute was heavy from Seattle->Microsoft exit. There was a lot less traffic going from Kirkland->Seattle. Once the tolls were in place, people went to the I90 bridge and amplified this. Over the several years I was driving in every day, backups on 520 from Seattle->eastside in the morning seemed to be an every day thing; on the commute home, the worst part was the 5 north -> 520 merge. Everyone going south on 5 wants to take the university exit, so they're all stopping in the left lane trying to merge in, while everyone from 5 north wants to get on the bridge and wants to merge into the left hand lane. Once you got past that little knot, it was usually clear sailing until you got on 405. I could see everyone sitting on 520 westbound waiting for the neck down from three to two lanes before speed picked up.

I take it you haven't driven 405 through downtown Bellevue in a while? (or for that matter 405 northbound for the reverse trip...) It's gotten really nasty from my experience.

520 eastbound has mostly not been bad since ramp metering started, and even better since tolling started. Westbound is a bit of a different thing, though my impression is that it clears up much earlier now than it used to.

Well, yeah, there's that. Downtown Bellevue -> I-90 has been a parking lot for ages. Even in the late 90s when I last lived there. Even at 3pm. Always 10min to go 3mi.

Fingers crossed; that might get be about to get better when the new 520 bridge opens, since it has an HOV lane for the busses. The busses won't be stuck in traffic with everyone else and it might even cause more people to take them.

If anyone's trying to find these streets on a map, they're all streets, not avenues, e.g. 45th St., Mercer St.

In Seattle, Sts are E/W, Aves are N/S.

This is an extremely common mistake in Seattle, and I have no idea why.

Fixed. Thank you.

Gainesville, FL has got their stuff together.

Streets are North/South; Streets has an S in it and so does South, they all also have a T.

Ave are East/West; Ave has an E in it and so do both East and West, also Ave and East share an A.

It's either really silly, or genius, or complete luck that my overly analytical brain turned into something real.

"Street" has E, for East and West, they all also have a T Street sounds like East.

"Avenue" has N for North and U for South

> or complete luck that my overly analytical brain turned into something real.

You solved the case!

I just want to make sure I say I wasn't trying to criticize or anything, just trying to improve the clarity of the post.

As a resident of Seattle who lives south of the ship canal, I am going to lose my mind if we don't get to, someday, vote on transit through the Central District. The CD has more riders and more density than the opening-in-2021 station in Roosevelt. Roosevelt is going to be zoned lower than the upcoming rezone at 23rd and Jackson. Yet, inexplicably, nobody ever wants to put a Metro 8 Subway to a vote.

I'm already half tempted to vote no on ST3 because running light rail to ISSAQUAH--expected to get 11,000 riders per day, or 70% of the riders that a single route (number 48) through the CD gets--before filling in the gaps in the rest of our system is just...galling. But I'll probably vote yes because it's not like voting no is going to end subarea equity.

(See the seattlesubway.org yellow line for what a Denny/23rd Ave "Metro 8 Subway" would look like.)

Now's your chance to get involved! As a soon-to-be Beacon/Mt. Baker resident, I'm right there with you on the south-end infill... Their final plan will be decided in June, so we have to speak up now!

The issue is the outsize power that suburban districts have relative to population. Intra-Seattle light rail would clearly be best for the city, but Snohomish gets as much of a say as the city proper.

The U District stop is actually a great example of this. Farther west (e.g. near The Ave), there is much more transit access and substantially more walkable areas. But the priority seems to be getting suburbanites to Huskies games.

Disclaimer: That's not to say I dislike the extension. It's the first time Link has been useful for anything other than getting to the airport.

FWIW, they are opening a station in U-District proper... in 2021. Your point stands that the priorities are a little wack.

And when Seattle tries to build its own in-city solutions, county/state voters vote to block it.

To be fair, the stop does work for students who want to get to campus (via a bridge). It is about the same walk from the stadium or the Ave to the campus center.

I'm waiting for the next station to open at NE65th/Roosevelt, which will help further -- but there is already a building boom happening around there with new condos and such. And it's not open until something like 2021.

An east/west option that ran from Ballard, stopped in U-District, and continued to Bellevue and Redmond would be the bomb. Game-changing for recruiting -- imagine living in Ballard and working at Microsoft, or living in Redmond but working at Expedia (after they move.) And your commute not sucking the life out of you.

It's infuriating that it took this long for them to add West Seattle to a Seattle transit proposal. Every day I cringe at the thought of another accident or overturned semi on the West Seattle Bridge or 99 stopping traffic for 60-90 minutes.

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