Orphan Road » LINK

The Ballard Spur… As a Gondola Line.

Matt the Engineer — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:32:48 +0000

There’s an idea going around (read the comments here) that a logical extension of Link in Seattle would be to just make a turn West at Brooklyn Station, and serve Wallingford, Phinney or Fremont, and Ballard. This is a great idea, and a way of serving some high-demand routes with our new rail infrastructure. However, there are some significant barriers to implementing this plan: we’re out of planned train capacity in the downtown tunnel, it’s claimed Northgate needs all of this capacity, branching a major trunk is rarely a good idea, and there would be two deep (expensive) stations. Conventional wisdom is to save our pennies and someday serve Ballard with its own light rail line coming up from downtown. There are benefits and disbenefits to both strategies, and I don’t plan on settling the debate here.

But consider for a moment running a gondola spur line. We can have high capacity, very high frequency transit without giving up train capacity in the downtown tunnel. We provide future connectivity between the current and future light rail lines, if one is built. We give at least 18,500 riders (the 44, 15, 18) a faster way around each day. And we do it all for much less money than a light rail line.

Let’s run the numbers for converting this spur to a gondola line:

At 3.2 miles, if we use a single cable gondola (14mph) that’s about a 15 minute journey. That’s probably too slow. So let’s pull out the big guns and go with a 3S system (two support cables, one drive cable, 24mph). Now we’re looking at 8 minutes, plus time at stops, so about 10 minutes end to end. That’s more like it.

Looking at capacity, a 3S system will have plenty. We can get between 4,000 and 6,000 passengers per hour per direction (and possibly more). That’s the equivallent to between 40 and 60 buses in each direction each hour.

Charge more for express buses.

Matt the Engineer — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:32:19 +0000

Today there was a discussion on Seattle Transit Blog about the benefits and drawbacks of cutting off bus service from the south to downtown Seattle and instead shuffling everyone onto LINK trains. The core of the argument is cost savings vs. speed, and considering KC Metro is going through major cuts it’s time for unpleasant conversations about where and how we’re going to degrade service. The huge savings involved is what makes this particular cut attractive.

That discussion is interesting, but isn’t what caught my eye. One compromise solution was to use some of the money saved and keep or add express buses to downtown. But if the express bus was faster, what would get people to take the non-express to a slow transfer to the train? The way we do things now we’d use capacity to limit supply – once more people can’t cram on the express bus, they’ll wait for th local. But that’s not the logical market approach – we’re leaving money on the table. We could be limiting supply using fares. Bump up express service a few dollars, and we not only increase revenue but we also sort out the issue of limited capacity on express buses.

Commuters that need to get to work quickly will pay the extra money. More cost sensitive riders will take a bit more time to get around. And let’s not just do this for south-end routes, but for routes throughout the region. This will free up capacity on express routes, and we can use the added revenue to keep more service overall.

April Fools Suggestions

Matt the Engineer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:05:17 +0000

It occurred to me that the electronic signs in Link’s windows telling you their destination are almost useless, since we currently only have one line. Also, the electronic signs announcing departing trains will be a bit sad, with only one destination announced per direction. I therefore suggest the following use, for one day humor value:

1. Change train signs to destinations in other cities. Since everyone in Seattle seems to come from California, I think something along the line of “N Judah” or “Pittsburgh / Bay Point” might be sufficiently disorienting.

2. Why limit the electronic signs to announcing the soonest trains to depart? I’m picturing:

Westlake Center: 2 minutes
Westlake Center: 8 minutes
University District: 6 years
Overlake Transit Center: 20 years