Does Seattle have long term plans for I-5?

[Bruce]

I can't help but feel that as time goes on and the rebuild for I-5 comes up there is a strong chance that urban freeways won't be the "villain of the month" anymore.  There is a huge urbanist drive against existing urban freeways right now.  Trouble is that those urbanists aren't really offering much in the way of actual alternative solutions other than "forced transit."  If/when the prospect of screwing over the majority of urban commuters in/through downtown Seattle by removing I-5 starts to actually be discussed it likely will die a quick death due to public/political backlash.  I-5 isn't a duplicate corridor like the Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland was. 

Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.

[jakeroot]

I can't help but feel that as time goes on and the rebuild for I-5 comes up there is a strong chance that urban freeways won't be the "villain of the month" anymore.  There is a huge urbanist drive against existing urban freeways right now.  Trouble is that those urbanists aren't really offering much in the way of actual alternative solutions other than "forced transit."  If/when the prospect of screwing over the majority of urban commuters in/through downtown Seattle by removing I-5 starts to actually be discussed it likely will die a quick death due to public/political backlash.  I-5 isn't a duplicate corridor like the Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland was. 

Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.

Is that downtown commuters? Certainly I-5 serves downtown commuters, but it also serves those commuting throughout the metro area.

I remember reading that, outside of downtown, SOV is the most popular commute mode.

[Max Rockatansky]

Hence my comment on the previous page about downtown being rendered virtually inaccessible to pass-through vehicles on the surface roads.  The downtown surface streets has been heavily transit oriented for awhile.  The Viaduct/99 more or less functioned as the closest thing to a through road.

[Plutonic Panda]

I can't help but feel that as time goes on and the rebuild for I-5 comes up there is a strong chance that urban freeways won't be the "villain of the month" anymore.  There is a huge urbanist drive against existing urban freeways right now.  Trouble is that those urbanists aren't really offering much in the way of actual alternative solutions other than "forced transit."  If/when the prospect of screwing over the majority of urban commuters in/through downtown Seattle by removing I-5 starts to actually be discussed it likely will die a quick death due to public/political backlash.  I-5 isn't a duplicate corridor like the Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland was. 

Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.

Forced should never be a word used it comes to transportation policies.

[Bruce]

I can't help but feel that as time goes on and the rebuild for I-5 comes up there is a strong chance that urban freeways won't be the "villain of the month" anymore.  There is a huge urbanist drive against existing urban freeways right now.  Trouble is that those urbanists aren't really offering much in the way of actual alternative solutions other than "forced transit."  If/when the prospect of screwing over the majority of urban commuters in/through downtown Seattle by removing I-5 starts to actually be discussed it likely will die a quick death due to public/political backlash.  I-5 isn't a duplicate corridor like the Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland was. 

Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.

Forced should never be a word used it comes to transportation policies.

Indeed, which is why the all-but-forced use of automobiles for commuting was a horrendous mistake that we are still trying to reverse. Increasing transit use is a good thing for everyone involved, and should be the priority.

[Max Rockatansky]

See that's just it, a lot of this narrative about the decline of passenger rail doesn't have a full picture of what was going on the early 20th with commuting trends.  Passenger rail more or less mostly organically declined versus it being forced (certainly automakers did benefit).  There was a long window in time where the car became by far the cheapest and most reliable means of commuting for the majority of people in most big American cities. 

In my own city (Fresno) it became way easier to drive a car than take a Fresno Traction Line or drive down US 99 versus jumping on the Southern Pacific or ATSF.  Fresno Traction lived on as Fresno Area Express when they switched to cheaper to use/operate bus lines.  Even now I'd argue the city has not grown dense enough to warrant the return of expanded interurban rail outside of the already existing Amtrak service to Madera-Hanford. 

Some cities (Seattle I would agree is one) as the population density boomed towards modern times there certainly is a larger niche that can be served by enhanced transit.  To do that end, I think we need to get away from this narrative of blaming how things ended up evolving in the 1920s/1930s to find an actual solution for modern times.  Telling everyone they are "victims of car dependency"  just polarizes transit to a lot of normal people who might otherwise support it.  That coupled with absolutely insane ideas like even floating the possibility of removing I-5 isn't going to win support outside of small pockets or urbanists and transit enthusiasts. 

In a small sample I look at Valley Light Rail as one such line that was unencumbered by the burden previous transit history.  It definitely serves a niche market but also was built with no expectation that it can serve the majorly of Phoenix area commuters. 

[Bruce]

Seattle is a city built on all sorts of geographic constraints that make transit a no-brainer when it's done properly. I agree that removing I-5 is unlikely to have any kind of real support, but it's likely that the rebuilt version will be smaller and less unwieldly than today's.

Some history:

The original streetcars and interurbans were all private operations that either shut down or were quickly bought up to preserve some level of service, but were too far gone to be saved. The Seattle Municipal Street Railway couldn't keep up with the maintenance burden, so switched to trolleybuses that were slowly whittled down to today's network (which really ought to be expanded again).

For decades, bus service in the region steadily improved as rail propositions failed to gain enough support to make it over the 60% hump required by the state, in part due to the city's "small village" mentality. We had express buses running up and down freeways decades before other U.S. cities and just kept expanding until downtown streets just couldn't cope with the number of buses and riders. A bus tunnel was built with an eye towards light rail, which was the mode of choice for the feds to finance at the time.

With each light rail expansion, we've been trying to redirect buses to serve stations and free up service hours (including those wasted idling on I-5 while deadheading) for redistribution. Once the dust settles on this round of expansion and if staffing levels return to normal, Seattle should have a good grid of frequent buses that will tilt things even more in favor of prioritizing transit over cars.

[The Ghostbuster]

Does Seattle have any bus rapid transit lines? I would prefer that to be built instead of more rail construction. They could even run a line along the express lanes of Interstate 5 (or along the express lanes of another highway).

[Bruce]

Does Seattle have any bus rapid transit lines? I would prefer that to be built instead of more rail construction. They could even run a line along the express lanes of Interstate 5 (or along the express lanes of another highway).

There are two (soon to be four) systems in the region with varying levels of quality. Freeway-based BRT is coming in the form of Stride on I-405 (and SR 522's non-freeway section) by the end of the decade, but it's already overbudget because of WSDOT's demands to rebuild several interchanges.

The express lanes on I-5 would be a poor place for it given that there's already a parallel Link light rail line that is being extended, and that buses would have to deadhead a significant distance in congestion. Prior to the 2021 truncations at Northgate, there were dozens of double-decker and articulated express buses going up and down the I-5 corridor carrying tens of thousands of people. Infinitely expanding buses doesn't really work with our geographic constraints (and importantly, labor costs/availability), so trains are the way to go.

[Plutonic Panda]

I can't help but feel that as time goes on and the rebuild for I-5 comes up there is a strong chance that urban freeways won't be the "villain of the month" anymore.  There is a huge urbanist drive against existing urban freeways right now.  Trouble is that those urbanists aren't really offering much in the way of actual alternative solutions other than "forced transit."  If/when the prospect of screwing over the majority of urban commuters in/through downtown Seattle by removing I-5 starts to actually be discussed it likely will die a quick death due to public/political backlash.  I-5 isn't a duplicate corridor like the Harbor Drive Freeway in Portland was. 

Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.

Forced should never be a word used it comes to transportation policies.

Indeed, which is why the all-but-forced use of automobiles for commuting was a horrendous mistake that we are still trying to reverse. Increasing transit use is a good thing for everyone involved, and should be the priority.

You're moving the narrative now.

[Concrete Bob]

[/quote]
Just to note, the majority of commuters pre-COVID were using modes other than driving alone. So forced transit would have benefited a larger share of commuters than any expansion of I-5 ever could.
[/quote]

This...just this! 

[kkt]

Or you could just do what I did when I went up to Seattle back in March: Drive up WA 99 from Tacoma to Everett

Even getting to WA99 can be a challenge.  I think 5 is bad from Olympia all the way to Everett. 

I cheated. I took WA 507, 702, and 7 to get around Olympia and JBLM.
Getting through Yelm was annoying.

Probably saved no time, but was a lot prettier and less frustrating.

[The Ghostbuster]

Looks like a lid is coming to Interstate 5: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/seattle-council-votes-to-support-lid-over-i-5-that-could-become-a-giant-park/ar-AA1gkjFN?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=c03c7305168c462c9e755977d358c3dc&ei=161.

[Bruce]

The I-5 lid proposal has been floating around for years and got a proper study funded in 2020. There's no funding or concrete plans yet, just a nod from the outgoing city council that it might be a good idea. Among the questions yet to be answered is where it would go, as there's three core options with all sorts of configurations that depend on feasibility and funding. The elevated sections that quickly rise out of downtown will be hard to cover.

I don't see it happening until the inevitable rebuild of I-5 through Downtown Seattle is underway, probably in the 2040s. WSDOT has already had to pare back some of their lid plans for Portage Bay.

[compdude787]

Does Seattle have any bus rapid transit lines? I would prefer that to be built instead of more rail construction. They could even run a line along the express lanes of Interstate 5 (or along the express lanes of another highway).

There are two (soon to be four) systems in the region with varying levels of quality. Freeway-based BRT is coming in the form of Stride on I-405 (and SR 522's non-freeway section) by the end of the decade, but it's already overbudget because of WSDOT's demands to rebuild several interchanges.

The express lanes on I-5 would be a poor place for it given that there's already a parallel Link light rail line that is being extended, and that buses would have to deadhead a significant distance in congestion. Prior to the 2021 truncations at Northgate, there were dozens of double-decker and articulated express buses going up and down the I-5 corridor carrying tens of thousands of people. Infinitely expanding buses doesn't really work with our geographic constraints (and importantly, labor costs/availability), so trains are the way to go.

The express buses were, and still are, awesome. I got a job in downtown Seattle in October 2018, and they gave me a benefits card that could either be used to pay for parking or for an ORCA card. I drove the first day, but hated dealing with the traffic so much that I took the bus thereafter until COVID hit. The express buses into Seattle from Lynnwood are very frequent and convenient.

I no longer have that job downtown, but I miss the commute. I like taking transit and trains to get to places when I can, and hate that at my current job in the suburbs, the bus service is so poor (and land use as well, given that I'm in a sprawling warehouse area) that taking the bus takes twice as long as driving when there's traffic. I don't like that I'm essentially forced to drive to work when honestly I'd prefer not to. Now that the light rail has opened to Northgate, I've sworn off driving into downtown Seattle altogether! I still like driving, but only on a rural road or freeway with not much traffic.

I wouldn't mind seeing the I-5 ROW be used for intercity and commuter rail between Seattle and Everett. It would provide a faster way to get between these two cities, since the line along Puget Sound is not centrally located, and that really hampers ridership on Sounder North. (running only 2 trains in the morning and two in the evening doesn't help either) Plus, it would be a dedicated passenger line, so you could run as much passenger train service as you want without having to haggle with BNSF.