Election results: see yesterday’s Midterm Elections thread.
Put it on your calendars: Ballard Link Extension Draft EIS to be published December 11 (Sound Transit).
News and commentary from the past week or so, below the break.
Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: RV veto” | 9 commentsBallot return closes at 8pm. The first batch of results is expected 15-30 minutes later.
As of noon today, 44.63% of King County residents had voted and King County Elections is expecting ~75% turnout. If you lost your ballot, you can print a new one.
We’ll update this post with initial counts (expected shortly after 8pm) and later counts if results are likely to change.
Please keep election discussion focused on local elections. Non-local elections may be discussed if explicitly related to local or regional issues regarding transit and/or land use.
Edit (1:18pm, 11/3): updated ballot return stats
Edit (8:30pm, 11/3): updated with first drop results for watched races.
28 commentsKitchener-Waterloo light rail in Ontario, Canada is surprisingly high quality for North America (Not Just Bikes) NJB still finds something to rant about of course: some stations could be closer to destination entrances for disability access.
Bonus movies:
How to find Link at SeaTac airport. (SDOT)
Why the West Coast has no large cities directly on the ocean shore north of San Francisco. (Real Life Lore)
There’s a new Page Two article on the Columbia River Crossing by Yvr Lutyens. Click on “Page Two” at the top of the page to see all of STB’s unofficial reader-contributed articles.
This is an open thread.
76 commentsThe ORCA consortium has a survey asking users about their experiences using ORCA cards and the fare payment system. The survey is open until mid November. The Friday Roundtable column is for short, light, interactive topics, so this is an opportunity to ask readers the same question: how is your experience using ORCA cards and the fare payment system in general?
There are several aspects to consider. There’s tapping an ORCA card, or using a credit card with the new open-payment system for credit cards. Using the readers may be better or worse on Link, regular buses, RapidRide, or Sounder. There’s obtaining the card and refilling it, at a ticket vending machine (TVM), at the MyORCA.com website, or getting a card mailed to you. There’s customer service offices. There’s the fare structure, and free transfers. There’s the times you have to explain the system to visitors or occasional riders at the platform or bus stop when it’s not obvious to them. And probably many other things.
My two biggest issues with ORCA are the time it takes to register a tap, and paying for part of a pass with an e-purse.
When you hold an ORCA card to a reader, the second-generation system takes twice as long to register a tap than the previous system did. So on buses I either have to hold up the line behind me, or tap and leave and assume it will either beep while I’m walking away or it won’t beep and I’ll get a free ride.
The second issue is when you want to split a pass cost between e-purse and a credit card. I switched to e-purse during the pandemic, and back to a pass this year. In the past at TVMs I’ve been able to use the $60 e-purse value for partial payment for the $108 pass, and pay the rest by credit card. I’d then have to do a second credit-card payment to put $10 back into the e-purse for occasional surcharges, because it had no option to take just $50 out of the e-purse and leave the other $10.
This year when I went back to using passes, the TVM wouldn’t even do that. The e-purse option was disabled, so the only choices were credit card or cash. That’s presumably because the e-purse value wasn’t enough for the entire pass. I didn’t want to leave $60 in the e-purse unused forever, so I went to Metro’s customer service office to make the kind of payment split I wanted. It would be nice if the TVMs could do this.
What are your impressions of ORCA?
This is an open thread.
92 commentsSound Transit is piloting an updated pet policy on its buses and trains between now and Spring 2027. During the pilot, pet dogs will be permitted on board if they are leashed, well-behaved, and controlled by their handler. All other pets must remain in an enclosed carrier. As always, service animals are permitted in compliance with the ADA.
Prior to the pilot, dogs and other pets were only allowed on Sound Transit buses and trains in a carrier. In July 2025, the Sound Transit Board approved Motion No. M2025-34, directing the agency to consider updating the rules to allow leashed dogs. This motion was motivated by the opening of Marymoor Village station as part of the Downtown Redmond Link Extension in May 2025. Marymoor Village station is next to Marymoor Park, a 640-arce park which includes a 40-arce off-leash dog area.
Survey: ORCA wants your opinion on public transit.
News and commentary from the past week or so.
In December 2025, Sound Transit welcomed the first passengers aboard the Federal Way Link Extension. The three new stations on the 1 Line provide improved transit connectivity for many south King County residents. An accompanying bus service change in March 2026 improved frequency on many bus routes and adjusted a few bus routes to better connect with the new Link stations. While some routes lost ridership, many other routes welcomed new passengers. Link increased the total number of transit trips in south King County with nearly 10,000 combined weekday boardings at Federal Way, Star Lake, and Kent Des Moines stations.
This article will discuss the stop-level ridership data for select routes in south King County. To minimize the impact of seasonal changes in ridership, the analysis compares data from March-August 2025 with data from March-August 2026. The plots below show average weekday boardings and alightings at each stop, boardings are shown with positive bars, alightings are shown with negative bars. The different colors represent the number of passengers boarding/alighting during that time of day. The data for 2025 is shown as slightly faded. Click on each plot to open it in a new tab.
Continue reading “How the Federal Way Link Extension Impacted Bus Ridership Patterns” | 101 comments
On March 28, Sound Transit opened the much anticipated Crosslake Connection. This rail connection between Seattle and cities on the Eastside promised fast, frequent, and more reliable connectivity across Lake Washington. The Link 2 Line was designed to replace the hundreds of daily bus trips on I-90, freeing up service hours to improve local bus routes. Initially, however, the I-90 bus routes remained intact to offer extra capacity and redundancy during the World Cup. In the five months following the Crosslake Connection opening, passengers could either take the train or bus. Many chose to take the train. In August 2026, the 11 Link stations on the Eastside and Mercer Island accounted for 12,500 boardings each weekday.
This article will discuss the stop-level ridership data for select routes in east King County. To minimize the impact of seasonal changes in ridership, the analysis compares data from March-August 2025 with data from March-August 2026. The plots below show average weekday boardings and alightings at each stop, boardings are shown with positive bars, alightings are shown with negative bars. The different colors represent the number of passengers boarding/alighting during that time of day. The data for 2025 is shown as slightly faded. Click on each plot to open it in a new tab.
Continue reading “How the Crosslake Connection Impacted Bus Ridership Patterns” | 93 commentsA recap of the Ballard Link controversy that boiled over at the forum Monday. These videos are from three months ago.
Light rail to Ballard shouldn’t be this hard. (The House of Transit)
Why is building transit so expensive anyway? (Yet Another Urbanist)
I’m reaching the end of the video backlog again. Do you have suggestions for other videos or channels to feature?
This is an open thread.
72 comments
Ballots for the November election have been sent to voters in King County. One item on the ballot for voters in Seattle is Proposition 1: Seattle Transit Measure. This renews and expands the Seattle Transit Measure that is set to expire in early 2027. The 0.3% sales tax is expected to generate $138 million per year that will fund 280,000 bus trips in Seattle each year for 10 years, 100,000 more bus trips than currently funded. It would also fund 22,000 free ORCA cards for low-income, elderly, and families with young children, maintain support for Seattle’s streetcar lines, fund spot improvements to keep buses moving, and help expedite permits and inspections for Link expansion projects in Seattle. Vote Yes to help fund transit in Seattle.
Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: Vote Yes on Prop 1 for More Buses!” | 66 comments