Seattle is Building Light Rail Like It's 1999 (msn.com) 99
Seattle was late to the light rail party -- the city rejected transit ballot measures in 1968 and 1971, missing out on federal funding that built Atlanta's MARTA, and didn't approve a plan including rail until 1996 -- but the Pacific Northwest city is now in the middle of a multibillion-dollar building boom that has produced the highest post-pandemic ridership recovery of any US light rail system.
The Link system opened its first line in 2009, funded largely by voter-approved tax measures from 2008 and 2016. The north-south 1 Line now stretches 41 miles after a $3 billion extension to Lynnwood opened in June 2025 and a $2.5 billion leg to Federal Way debuted in December. Ridership is up 24% since 2019, and 3.4 million people rode Link trains in October 2025.
Test trains have been running since September across the I-90 floating bridge over Lake Washington -- what Sound Transit claims is the world's first light rail on a floating structure -- preparing for a May 31 opening. The Crosslake Connection is part of the 2 Line, a 14-mile, $3.7 billion extension voters approved in 2008 that was originally slated to open in 2020. The expansion hasn't come without problems. Sound Transit faces a roughly $30 billion budget shortfall, and a planned Ballard extension has ballooned to $22 billion, double original estimates.
The Link system opened its first line in 2009, funded largely by voter-approved tax measures from 2008 and 2016. The north-south 1 Line now stretches 41 miles after a $3 billion extension to Lynnwood opened in June 2025 and a $2.5 billion leg to Federal Way debuted in December. Ridership is up 24% since 2019, and 3.4 million people rode Link trains in October 2025.
Test trains have been running since September across the I-90 floating bridge over Lake Washington -- what Sound Transit claims is the world's first light rail on a floating structure -- preparing for a May 31 opening. The Crosslake Connection is part of the 2 Line, a 14-mile, $3.7 billion extension voters approved in 2008 that was originally slated to open in 2020. The expansion hasn't come without problems. Sound Transit faces a roughly $30 billion budget shortfall, and a planned Ballard extension has ballooned to $22 billion, double original estimates.
What a time to be alive (Score:3)
1999 I mean.
Re: What a time to be alive (Score:2)
Re: What a time to be alive (Score:2)
Congrats on keeping your dick from degrading for twenty five years.
Re: What a time to be alive (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: What a time to be alive (Score:3)
A good time to party. Even to fight for your right to do so. Back when we were so sure our other rights were secure.
Cars are going to be unaffordable (Score:2, Offtopic)
The price of cars keeps going up but wages aren't doing the same. Eventually the supply of used cars that are affordable is going to be sufficiently low that the prices for those are going to be beyond what people can afford with two or three jobs. Right now we are papering over that by forcing people to drive Uber to pay for the car they used to get to their day job but self-driving cars are going to take those jobs in the ne
Re:Also EVs are already unaffordable and they don' (Score:5, Informative)
Most of that smog you see is tire particulate.
Excuse me, what? Smog is very basic science, yes there are particles (mostly water vapor, soot & soil dust) but the primary composition is ozone and certainly not an *insane amount of tire dust*.
"forms when volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and nitrogen oxides participate in chemical reactions in the presence of sunlight." https://scienceexchange.caltec... [caltech.edu]
You need to check some of your bizarre beliefs or misunderstandings, because you are (repeatedly) speaking them aloud in public
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Who knows for sure with rsilvergun? He says himself that he is "extremely" autistic and that he suffers from various various neuro atypical problems...
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
I'm extremely autistic so I don't think it works on me.
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
I needed a lot of that treatment myself and never got it because my mother was an absolute lunatic and with the exception of some speech therapy I didn't get any of the other treatments for my various neuro atypical problems...
confused on pollution (Score:2)
_
Picking a city at random (London), road pollution from all causes (including tailpipe and environmental dust disturbed by passing traffic) is
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Conversely, the largest contributor of PM2.5 in cities is estimated to come from wood and coal heating.
wtf London still uses wood and coal heating? We got rid of that in California decades ago.
Re: confused on pollution (Score:2)
It is worse it has made a comeback.
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Garbage. If it was that much from tires, your tires wouldn't late 3 years.
Desperation, anything but fossil fuels.
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Garbage. If it was that much from tires, your tires wouldn't late 3 years.
I don't know how you are measuring that, but:
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Re: You are responding to an llm (Score:2)
By weight the air pollution is NOx. Tire particles are more of a surface and water pollution problem. Also tire particles aren't nearly as chemically reactive as ozone or nitrogen oxide family. A sunny day in LA will show you just how smog actually works.
We are quibbling over definitions (Score:1)
But colloquially smog is air pollution caused by cars and again you can do a simple Google search and find plenty of studies. Honestly you don't even really need to studies you just need to stop and ask yourself where the hell are your tires going when they wear down? Because they're not on the road because if they were we would have to con
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Ignore him, this is just the latest anti-EV rubbish pushed out by some paid trolls devoid of any reality. The poster doesn't actually believe this. If they did they wouldn't be afraid to put their name to their post.
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That means Seattle is issuing bonds like crazy, soaking up investment capital that then does not go to creating private sector jobs or paying higher wages. It just turns into debt. And that debt carries interest, so even less money for the people.
Bullshit (Score:1)
The problem is billionaires and trickle down economics not spending. Your worldview is too simplistic and constrained and you need better news and information sources and you need to thin
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We spend a trillion dollars a year on a military we only need so that we can invade Greenland and Venezuela.
That's not why we need our military.
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Re: Cars are going to be unaffordable (Score:2)
Tptb already made plans to just kill us off.
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Tptb already made plans to just kill us off.
If by "us" you mean rsilvergun and his Chinese troll farm members like yourself manipulating moderation on Slashdot with all their sock puppet accounts, I say it is not such a bad idea.
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Actually, the problem commuter trains are supposed to address is that there are too many cars on the roads. The whole reason the area I live in is considering a commuter rail expansion, is because the tourists are getting sick of sitting in the horrible traffic that perpetually exists in the attractions area of central Florida.
Something has to give.
Well, unless you want to move within walking distance of a train station, chances are you'll still need an e-bike or e-scooter to cover the "last mile" portions of train commuting.
Re:Cars are going to be unaffordable (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as there are roads and cars, people are going to drive cars, but that can't be your only option, or even the primary option, in any healthy city economy.
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you simply can't have a strong urban economy if you rely on universal car transport
What if you don't want a strong urban economy? Look up the research that has been done with rats living in overcrowded cages.
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a) No one is stopping you from living somewhere else. b) Seattle is not at all a densely populated city. c) Why look to rats instead of the many examples of real humans living in more dense urban centres to make your case? We have primary evidence here.
Floating Bridge (Score:4, Interesting)
A train on a floating bridge. I had no idea and am quite amazed.
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There have been previous instances of floating rail links [wikipedia.org]. One can only wait to see if Sound Transit suffers the same fate*.
*It won't be the first time that this bridge sank.
Re:Floating Bridge (Score:5, Informative)
The particular bridge at issue is the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge [wikipedia.org], used for the Sound Transit rail link across Lake Washington, and also used for I-90.
Sound Transit could not suffer the same fate as the SF Hydro in Norway, simply because that was a ferry, and the Sound Transit rail link is a bridge.
While the Murrow Bridge did sink in the past, that was in 1990 in the middle of a reconstruction project. The bridge was closed to traffic at the time. The sinking was due to a number of human errors that resulted in the watertight doors of the bridge pontoons getting removed, combined with a big storm that hit the area that Thanksgiving weekend, which proceeded to fill those open pontoons with rain and lake water.
Provided no one repeats that particular bit of idiocy (opening up the pontoons), the bridge is unlikely to sink a second time.
For details on the bridge sinking, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacey_V._Murrow_Memorial_Bridge#1990_disaster [wikipedia.org].
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and the Sound Transit rail link is a bridge.
It's a bunch of boats (think concrete barges) lashed together, end to end.
Sadly, one earlier renovation was to remove the "bulge" (a few pictures here [historylink.org]). Which was intended to route traffic around a moveable floating drawspan. But also served well as a filter. All the traffic entered and only the sober drivers emerged at the other end.
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Yes, that's how a floating bridge works. Though you left out a part I consider pretty important- they're anchored to the lake floor.
Are you saying you hope that nobody blows up the bridge? I don't think floating bridges are particularly more vulnerable to that than suspension bridges?
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It sounds fancier than it is. There are many of floating bridges in the world (and in the USA). You usually don't even know you're driving on something that is floating. The additional weight of a rail carriage isn't a significant engineering challenge.
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But ya- there's nothing special about adding a rail to the bridges.
Though- as someone who crossed 520 (Everygreen Point) twice a day for 20 years... You definitely know you're driving on something that's floating most of the time (if there is any wind whatsoever)
It's not as unnerving as it sounds, though.
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Maybe the "have-nots" won't have so little if they can affordably compute to where work is?
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they will be simply shipping criminals to the suburbs.
Not so much. At least not in my neigborhood. Our local cities have already put heavily armed transit police divisions in charge of rail security.
what we need are services in local areas so that everyone can access the shopping, medical care, alcohol, and entertainment that they need.
Many of which are closing in the Seattle neighborhoods due to crime. So local transportation will do no good. And the riff-raff will be facing armed security once they step off the trains in the suburban areas*.
*Which may be one reason that the left wing state legislature is trying to get hold of the sheriff and police election process now. Before the cross lake s
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Re: Seattle is going to FAFO (Score:2)
Look up the streetcar scandal.
Corporations attacked public transportation, were convicted of monopoly abuse, and were fined five dollars.
The attacks never stopped because they never were held accountable. They went on so long Americans made cars part of their identity.
Handouts = wealth for big corporations (Score:2)
In every area of American life, when government hands out money, the big dogs get bigger and the people who think they are going to receive the merits get a huge windfall, but two pay periods later, prices mysteriously rise. It's a mystery and they will never figure it out because biologically/genetically they lack the wiring to process this data.
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When they say "crime by the have-nots is endemic" what they are dog whistling is "black people" and "genetic" so that's about as seriously as you should take it, it's irony poisoned trolling.
You can also tell because the "115 IQ" is bait or outright stupidity as the median IQ in any US state or even any country barely tops 100. Bro thinks he's in the top percentiles when sorry pal, you're just as dumb as the rest of us.
Capitalize "Black" please (Score:2)
If we are going to use color terms as ethnic names, they need some respect conveyed.
Second, no, you miss the point: lower-IQ people of any race or ethnicity are prone to crime because they are stupid. It's the Dunning-Kruger Effect applied to life choices.
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Why has violent crime dropped 50% in the last 3 decades-ish? Did people get smarter?
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I am genuinely amazed that someone is rallying against a decent public transport. Most of the world sees cheap transport as basic amenity a government needs to provide.
In much of America there's this perception that if you're not driving your car, people assume you're not successful enough to own a car.
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In USA transit expansion into the suburbs brings crime into those formerly safe areas, because urban America thinks its racist to enforce laws. They breed criminals and then export the crime to where the money is.
mock the pretense (Score:2)
This is true. Poor people commit more crime and have lower IQs. In America, we keep them separate from the middle classes by trapping them in urban ghettos. Eventually some idiot comes along and sells the soyboys and women on "enlightened nations have public transport," then the youth get raped, and eventually someone sabotages the program to keep the normal people safe from the crime of the have-nots.
Re: mock the pretense (Score:1)
And now, the rest of the story (Score:4, Interesting)
Seattle area voters did approve measures to build a monorail system. But the local politicians shot those down on each occasion. Citing "financial risks" and cost overruns in each case. Which Sound Transit (the light rail authority) has brought us in spades. The difference between the two systems (aside from the technology) was that the monorail system was envisioned as a stand-alone, self funded transit provider. Whereas Sound Transit was created as a region-wide taxing and revenue collection authority. With little oversight into its spending.
Anecdote: Following Sound Transits creation, I did a little research into proposed routes. Particularly in the Eastside region. One thing I found was records on line of Sound Transit purchasing some unused freight rail rights of way. For some hundreds of millions of dollars. "Smart", I thought. Where better to put light rail than on existing railroad beds. But then a few years later, I looked again. Some of this acquired property had been given over to bicycle trails. Sound transit wasn't chartered to build bicycle trails, I thought. But the worst part; A significant portion of that right of way was handed back to adjacent property owners (generally wealthy people). I'm pretty sure Sound Transit wasn't created to benefit the rich. But it turns out that I am mistaken. It was created to benefit whoever sits on it's governing board of directors. Hence, the political maneuvering by the ex-King County executive to obtain the CEO position on that board. Since it is sovreign to other local government agencies.
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Yeah, the whole Cross-Kirkland-Corridor issue, specifically how a NIMBY added a competing bus-right-of-way option to drive more opposition to light rail, definitely killed one of the most obvious extensions (and might even have renovated the Truck Eating Bridge. I'm still hoping that they will revisit that, especially since the rail yard in bellevue is right on the tail end of that corridor. It'd enable a direct line right past Totem Lake straight into Woodinville.
Having said that, that entire section was,
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And now Woodinville* is taking the old BNRR right of way and digging some huge cycling underpasses along it. Underpasses under nothing. Just so _nobody_ ever gets the idea of extending transit north, along Highway 9 and into Snohomish.
*Anecdote: That town is a total loss. It used to have a lively "town center" featuring a restaurant/cafe/nursery called Molbak's. Now bulldozed. I was standing in line at the grocery store behind some newly arrived hipster. Who was asking the clerk about that neat nursery he
Re: And now, the rest of the story (Score:1)
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i was a messenger in seattle. they have spent an ungodly amount on separated bike paths. it may feel safer, but it creates huge blind spots for drivers when they are turning into a parking garage or similar. i'm not sure its actually safer. the off street bike paths are first rate tho. the burke gilman trail is outstanding.
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but it creates huge blind spots for drivers when they are turning into a parking garage or similar.
You are still invisible to trucks and buses. Whether you are in a dedicated lane or squeezing by on the right on a shoulder. Dedicated lanes work fine in places like Amsterdam. But they also have bicycle lane (and pedestrian crossing) signals to stop that traffic when vehicles get a right turn signal. That won't work in the US because cyclists turn purple with rage when they are commanded to wait. Some pedestrians as well, but in Seattle there is a significant population of stumble-bums that are so far out
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do they have car parking in between the cars and the bike path? the cars block visibility, it would be much safer without the street parking.
I live in Seattle (Score:2, Informative)
Re: I live in Seattle (Score:2)
I'm unclear on what argument you are aiming to make. Homelessness and city logistics both need to be tackled. I don't think public transit is the answer to homelessness, but it is one significant way to improve city logistics, as well as quality of living.
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Over Budget (Score:2, Troll)
I can almost guarantee that the cost of this will spiral out of control and take way longer to complete than they are telling you right now.
CA High Speed Rail, was supposed to be done by now, it doesn't have a single working section, and has already ballooned its expenses. But here we are, throwing good money after bad, instead of cutting it off.
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Why does it only fail in the USA?
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Why does it only fail in the USA?
This is the same reason I have no hope for universal healthcare in the USA. For some reason, America is uniquely qualified at screwing up things the rest of the developed world has already figured out.
I was recently reading about the proposed "Sunshine Corridor" light rail expansion here in central FL. Just the planning stage to decide if they can even do it, is going to take 2 years and cost $6 million dollars. The traffic on I-4 is already so bad that this is something that should've been done years ag
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Why does it only fail in the USA?
It doesn't. Large urban areas must have public transportation. But look at a map. Design a public transit system for the entire country, go ahead. Tell someone that they can live 300 miles away from their work, and transit it 5 days a week. with a bus or light rail that they can walk to.
Even in my small city - despite the narrative, we have a public transit system. Why do you believe we don't? I don't use it because it is quicker to walk from work to home.
Now - let's take it down a notch from the en
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Americans can afford to extremely ignorant and foolish so they functionally are spoiled morons. Incapable of solving simple problems with even extremely popular solutions.
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1) the USA is bigger than all of EU geographically. Seattle to Miami is about the same distance as London to Tel Aviv Israel. ... no trains.
2) Population Density. The US has huge swaths that are less dense. Between LA and SF, is basically farmland with some cities here and there. The HSR is being built right in that corredor and this is the BEST we have so far
3) Unions. The whole project was largely created as a make work program for Unions at prevailing wage. Which feeds the (D) party coffers exclusively.
4
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1) the USA is bigger than all of EU geographically
Irrelevant. Most people aren't traveling that daily. Day to day travel is 30 miles, not 3000.
2) Population Density. The US has huge swaths that are less dense
Irrelevant. The fact that Alaska as fuck all people in half a million square miles has no bearing on the density in cities which are easily comparable to other cities (i.e. fine for transit) or the midwest which is decent sized cities separated by nice flat land and is about perfect for HSR, being almos
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. For the cost of the HSR project, California could buy every man/woman/child at least 10 Round Trip flights between any two CA airports. This does not include the cost of the train tickets,
It doesn't make sense to combine these two numbers.
Wouldn't it be nice if they could afford it? (Score:2)
Just sayin'.
Why Are American Government Officials Allergic to (Score:2)
... trains that are actually fast?
Japan is *covered* in high-speed rail. Is it really impossible for an American government to contract an engineering company from there (or anyone else in the world) to build a train that's actually faster than a car?
(And no, California's "high speed rail" is anything but.)
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The problem with CAHSR, to be fair, is that they bit off a huge megaproject all at once, without a clear funding path. Argument 1 is that they should have started by building a single link between two biggest cities, like the French advised them to do at the beginning, then b
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It's HSR for like 0.01% of its route (not the actual percentage, but the actual percentage is very small). And even then, it will operate on the slowest end of what constitutes "HSR" ... nowhere close to the speeds of bullet trains.
The vast, vast majority of the *proposed* line (which most doubt will ever get made) operates at normal rail speeds ... if not slower, because they're going to be passing through urban areas.
Re: Why Are American Government Officials Allergic (Score:2)
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have opened up other funding sources to keep construction going. For another, they are in way too deep to stop it now.
That is why they didn't start with megaproject funding. They wouldn't have gotten approval if they asked for all the money up front (Or even if they were honest about how much it would cost).
As a California citizen, I used to be worried about the cost, but then I realized we are going to spend the money no matter what, so it would be nice to get something real in return.
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Hobos sleeping on the tracks.
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The spirit of henry ford haunts everyone that want to turn his car only dream into something with rails and trains.
He screams at night, "MORE ROAAADS!" pretty much like the daggerfall's dead king, and even send wraths and all that.
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Fast trains have no place in a city. They are different things for different purposes. Japan is a great example. Tokyo (population of 30-40 million depending on how you count) has a total of 3 high-speed rail stations. Three. They exist to help people get out of Tokyo.
You know what else Tokyo has? Light Rail and metros - precisely what Seattle is talking about.
It's easy to shit on public transport in the USA, but you should demonstrate an understanding of how it works when you do so. Your comment of a train
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... trains that are actually fast?
Japan is *covered* in high-speed rail. Is it really impossible for an American government to contract an engineering company from there (or anyone else in the world) to build a train that's actually faster than a car?
(And no, California's "high speed rail" is anything but.)
Is it your premise that Japan and the USA are geographically identical? I see telling people that they need to design a public transit system for the US rtht will have an identical coverage for all the superior countries, And despite teh narrative, we actually have a good bit of mass transit.
Anyhow - looking forward to your design and feasibility study. I can't make it work, but there are a lot of slashdotters who know it is simple. Ball's in your court.
Waste $180B like it's 1999! (Score:2)
Seattle resident here... (Score:3)
I guess this is more of a rant then a comment, but in the end, someone is going to have to financially bail out this 3x over budget boondoggle and it will be the tax payers.
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Give Seattle refuses to lock up criminals
Voters. Please.
the 19th century called (Score:1)
Mass transit is a loser. The future of urban transit is Waymo and Zoox. Aside from the problem of having to deal with the sociopaths you shares space with, there's the problem that mass transit is labor intensive, while Waymo and Zoox are (theoretically) capital intensive. Basically all economic and standard of living progress has come from replacing ongoing labor with capital. Mass transit itself is an example, replacing rickshaws and dog carts.
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The future of urban transit is Waymo and Zoox.
Nope. With those, you can't confine development and population movement to pre-defined corridors where the tracks and bus routes are. Soon, you'll have bums hopping a Waymo into downtown Bellevue. And real estate development just anyplace a developer sees fit to put it.
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Some parasitic social service agency is going to use embezzled-taxpayer money to give Waymo access to bums and druggies "to help them get around". That means the Waymo that you ordered will arrive with a steaming pile of shit in it. Or the drug bum will refuse to leave and demand you stay out of his "house".
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Mass transit is a loser. The future of urban transit is Waymo and Zoox.
Good grief no. Take the Elizabeth line, the new flagship line in London, or if you perfer the work-a-day Victoria line. Both capable of moving 36,000 passengers per hour per direction. To match that with roads even if filled with self driving cars, would require a 26 lane highway, maybe 20 if people aren't leaving good braking distances. And that doesn't include the feeder roads needed.
there's the problem that mass transit is labor inten
and end up like Iryna Zarutska? (Score:1)
seattle needs to get under control its homelessness, open air drug markets, and the violent people that are a consequence of it.
its great for commuting which is its main purpose, but people already don't like taking public transit outside of business hours. eventually it will become like NYC where even commuters don't feel safe.
Thank fuck the are getting rid of the cloth seats. (Score:2)
$180,000 per rider (Score:3)
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