Comments

1
The flag icon for Capitol Hill is supposed to be a pride flag. But, of course, it's a fucking black and white icon.

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2015/0…
2
University Street downtown is a hisoric relic from when the UW was downtown, and shouldn't be the name of the station since it in no way truely reflects why someone would be getting off at that station.

Renaming it 'Benaroya Hall Station' would have made more sense to start off with, and makes even more sense now that there's actually a station at the actual University.
3
@2: I believe if you keep walking east on University street you will eventually run into Seattle University, so the name isn't *totally* bonkers. That said, I've personally witnessed out-of-towners coming from the airport scrutinize the map and be confused about where they need to get off to get to UW.

As for the point of the post, I second basically every suggestion made. Stair signage is awesome (love the way they do it in the Loop in Chicago), numbered exits are great (they do that all over the world, I've seen it in Korea and Paris, to name two), sidewalk compasses also help. Basically, anything but the total lack of information the stations have now would be an improvement.
4
Time for a guerrilla signage movement?

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2…
5
"that the “Broadway E & E John St” dumps you out onto E John St, which is technically John St. but emotionally it's E Olive Way"

So the sign is basically correct, it just happens that Olive turns into John. I would have thought that writers at the Stranger are actually familiar with the city in which they claim to be the 'only newspaper'

In an age of smart phones and GPS its not difficult to figure out where you're going and how to get there, google maps even does transit directions. Here's a novel idea, leave the station and read a street sign.
6
Wayfinding signage is critical. Big arrows, huge font sizes, color-coding or numbering exits.... and more! I support @4's suggestion, if SoundTransit / Seattle doesn't do the right thing. Wanna team up, mlb?

While we're on the subject, could we add some signage to the Burke-Gilman / Sammamish River Trail network? Like, street signs indicating what street the bicycle trail is crossing. You know, like they do for cars and stuff. It's like a twilight zone in there sometimes...
7
There are ongoing efforts to make smartphones work better for routing underground, but 1) we're not there yet, and 2) do you really want people blundering around the station while watching their phone? Posted signs are much better for letting people stay aware of the world, and to internalize the routing after a couple of trips.
8
You know how you can tell the 16th/Mission and 24th/Mission stations in San Francisco apart? One is done in orange tile with blue accent tiles, one is done in orange tile with green accent tiles. It took me 10 years to notice that. You can do better, Seattle. Listen to Rich.
9
Oy, no matter which exit you take from pretty much any underground LR station on the LINK line, you won't end up more than a block from any of the other egresses. ONE BLOCK, people. If that's enough to completely mess up your sense of direction - you clearly have no sense of direction to begin with.
10
Wow, there's a flag for fucking? What does it look like?
11
@8

I can't remember those colors, so I usually just look for 16 or 24.
12
My favorite is each Downtown tunnel station has 4 maps at different scales, all of which have a different north orientations. It's passive-aggressive signage. "Welcome" to Seattle, if you were from here, you wouldn't need the signs.
13
Station Names:

- Pioneer Square -> "Downtown South/Pioneer Square"
- University Street -> "Downtown"
- Westlake -> "Downtown North/Westlake"
14
Adding "Downtown" to every downtown station would suck. Signs are already long enough.

It's more elegant to note "Downtown Seattle" on the map and highlight the relevant stations.
15
Easily the most annoying issue at the CH station isn't the signs, or lack thereof, it's the behavior of riders getting off trains. If you want to take a microscopic glimpse into how people will treat one another when society fails and we revert to a state of nature, head to the CH station at about 5pm. You'll definitely see a 6'5 dude elbowing his way past middle aged women in order to get on the escalator and to save himself literally three seconds. In fact you'll probably see a good hundred grimace-faced Seattleites bumrushing the escalators like there's a 30 second countdown to get on before a gate slams shut and you're stuck below. Why, people? Yes, the weather here sucks, especially this winter, and it does bring us all down, but do you think being insufferable twats actually helps the situation any?

16
@15 Behold, the first time I've ever agreed with you.
17
I have difficulty with escalators and it's not always apparent where the elevators are.
18
The station names are appalling. We're going to end up with three stations with the word University or the letter U in them.
University should be Benaroya Hall.
University of Washington should be Husky Stadium.
U District (which opens in 2021) should be called University District so it doesn't confuse tourists.
19
Sounds like Sound Transit should send someone to talk to the Paris Metro's peeps. Their signage/wall maps/graphics are amazingly clear and effective (no French needed to figure out exactly what to do!!)
20
And while there, also ask them how to take less than a fucking DECADE++ to build mass transit!!
21
I do the same thing. I completely lose my sense of direction down there. I will be helpless once the train goes further north past the UW station. Thats my stop, and since it's the last one, I always know what direction it will go! For now!
22
If the author can't figure out how to get out of the Capitol Hill station "after over a year of riding," no amount of signage is going to help.
23
Oh, I thought the flag was a pride flag.
24
@20:

Less than a decade? The Paris Metro first began operation in 1900 and they're still not finished building it out.
25
@19 THIS IS TRUE!
26
Thank you Rich. ST signage is a massive fuck you to the transit riding community. I swear to god it's easier to navigate the subway in Mexico City than ST in my own back yard.
27
@6- And how about a single sign on the Interurban Trail at 185 Street indicating where the trail disappears to? It's not at all obvious that you need to take a right then a left at that point, the only indicator that the little paved path along side the road that looks just like a sidewalk is the trail is a brown plaque on the ground that is invisible unless you're nearly standing on it.
28
@3 "I believe if you keep walking east on University street you will eventually run into Seattle University, so the name isn't *totally* bonkers."

No, THAT's totally bonkers. No one would ever get off of transit downtown to walk to Seattle University on Capitol Hill. And if they tried to do that by getting off Link at the University Street station and walked east on University Street, they'd end up on a northbound I-5 on-ramp!!!
29
This hits home for me. Getting off the train underground, I have no sense of direction. My stop is Univ St and I struggle to come out Benaroya every damn time. If I took it every day I'm sure I'd get it, but since I don't do this everyday, signs would help a lot.
30
@11 - If you're seated and on the correct side that works fine, or if the intercom is audible and you're an insane person that rides without headphones—but I'm too tall to see out the windows while standing hence finally noticed the color difference. BART signage is all actually pretty bad.
31
Wonder if it would work too tell you 'this is the NE exit, SW exit, etc? I've never found an underground station I knew the ideal way out of until I had used it many times... Well unless there was only one, as they often were in San Francisco.
32
Though I'll say the Sydney system was good in having the station name freaking everywhere you might look for a sign.

And SF was very annoying in using 75% of their 'next arrival' digital sign time for safety suggestions that are always the same.
33
@3: You are bonkers if you think you can walk straight east along University Street to Seattle U. Not even close, unless you want to climb over I-5. (Hint: Seattle U isn't on University Street. Google Maps is your friend.)
34
Signs needed:

At Sea-Tac Airport Station: "Congratulations! You're now just a short flight from the airport."
At Tukwila Int'l. Blvd. Station: "Half an hour from downtown, acres of cars from a really seedy strip."
At Columbia City Station: "You're now only 3/4 of a mile from Columbia City. (No, we're not kidding). We're not going to tell you which way it is, either."
At Stadium Station: (Leaving Platform) "This is NOT Husky Stadium!!"
At Stadium Station: (Entering Platform) "Keep moving, there's more than one car you can enter."
At International District Station: "This is your actual exit for CenturyLink Field. We won't tell you which way, and you can't see that stadium from the street-level part of this station, either."
At Pioneer Square Station: "Rumor has it there's a ferry dock nearby. Good luck with that."
At University Street Station: "This is NOT UW Station!"
At Westlake Station: "This way to the world's worst McDonald's; that way for the Jehova's Witness groupies."
At Capitol Hill Station: "Former Twice Sold Tales that way; former Chang's Mongolian Grill exit over there."
At UW Station: "Ramps, ramps, and more ramps. (We had to compensate for the Ramps to Nowhere leaving Montlake.)"
35
@34: made me lol. So very true
36
This Slog post is fantastic. Please don't drop this issue until they fix the fucking signage. I'm thrilled to have someone raise these issues that many of us feel petty about until we realize YES, IT'S TRUE, the signs suck.
37
You know what else is fun? Trying to find the nearest way into a station when you don't already know where all the entrances are.
38
1. Make some stencils.
2. Get reflective vest, orange cones, paint.
3. Start painting (at least) a compass rose at every stop.

You will either get the attention/point across to the city or at the very least you will have directionally helped some people.
39
100% Agreed. Sound Transit's wayfinding sucks and it's not like there aren't tons of examples to copy from. It does seem like ST likes to make things difficult. Examples, ordering two different styles of train sets, 3 STATIONS named University (!!!), and "Link Light Rail" signs at the airport because of course tourists know what that is. Train to Seattle seems like it might be more clear.

I will say that Rich should be catching the drift after a year though- he must be very bad at directions.
40
@2: Benaroya Hall opened about a decade after University Station, so that's why it wasn't named Benaroya Station.

While we are on the topic of BS and nonexistent public transportation signage, how come all the "how to ride the escalator" signs in Westlake Station are sandwich boards with cluttery graphics and text in 12 point font?

Are we really expecting transit riders to get on their knees and slowly ingest this infomation before they use tunnel escalators?
41
At Capitol Hill, just remember the escalator below the pink plane gets you to Dick's Drive-In (also it's the North exit)
42
@6: Totally agreed; bike trails function as streets and need their own street signs, as well as signs on overpasses, etc. that tell you what you're passing over/under. Try the Interurban South into Kent/Auburn, which is basically a straight line with no indications as to how far you've gone except one lonely sign that will point you to the Supermall if you get that far.

@27: The Interurban North is the worst due to its gaps and terrible signage. If you ride south from Lynnwood there's one point where you'll find yourself on gravel, about to run into a power substation. Turns out you were supposed to take that tiny path on the right that leads into a park, but they didn't tell you that. Or all the lovely million dollar overpasses (seriously, these are great; no one wants to ride on the streets next to the Alderwood Mall) that all look alike and have no directional signage. Sometimes, you want to take that side ramp. Sometimes, you take the ramp and you end up on a sidewalk next to Babies R Us.

But the worst thing about the Interurban is their supposedly helpful direction signs, which look like a compass rose. There's a red arrow inside them that's supposed to indicate turn directions, but they keep a shadow up/down arrow in the logo in addition to the red arrow. So while you're tooling around at 15 mph, you're supposed to visually pick out the red arrow to know where to turn, which doesn't really work. And sometimes it's dark, and you can barely see there's a sign, much less which way the arrow points. It is seriously terrible.
43
It would be nice if all stations with elevators had elevators to bring you from the station platform to street level in one trip. So many stupid mezzanines to find your way through. Also, at some point I hope they're able to have central platforms at all stations. The potential of getting on the wrong side of the station is high if you're not from around here. Yes, I realize these suggestions are not immediately feasible due to engineering and construction issues. Oh, and I REALLY hope they someday change the voice that makes announcements. It's so awkward sounding.
44
@28: I was referring to the name of the street, not the name of the station. I made it clear that I think the station name is dumb. The street name, however, is not.
45
@33: University street leads you to the freeway park which will carry you to the rest of University street, which ends roughly 3 short blocks from the Seattle U campus. So, yeah, University street will get your ass to Seattle U from downtown. But, again, you missed the point of my comment so why bother trying to argue logic?
46
Funny. I once was told I was a silly idiot by the Seattle Transit Blog guy, when I posted a comment with nearly identical arguments to those presented in this piece on a mutual friend's transit related Facebook post.

He assured me I was stupid, and actually wrote something like, 'Yeah, I know better, because I write the Seattle Transit Blog, maybe you've heard of it.' Ohh, you write a blog. Assholelicious. But not really a counter-argument.

Good luck getting traction with this, when the bureaucrats in a formerly bumptious state are clueless, and the self-anointed transit nerd 'experts' weirdly see it as a non-issue. Seattle's transit signage does nearly completely suck...when it even exists.
47
@46 -- I think a fair number of the self appointed transit nerd "experts" do see this as an issue. It comes up over and over on the very blog you mentioned. The signs suck. Both inside and outside. It is hard to find the entrance, and hard to figure out where you are when you get off a bus or train. It has been that way for years (since the tunnel only carried buses) but it is disappointing that new stations (like Capitol Hill) aren't any better. It isn't that big of a deal if you are in good shape, but if you are on crutches, for example, it's a big pain in the ass to have to walk around the block because the signs are confusing.
48
I've been in a lot of cities with great way finding materials. Boston is pretty good. London is fantastic. But I can guarantee you that no matter how good the way finding is I always manage to find a way to go out the wrong exit. You have to already have a pretty good grasp of the neighborhood above to understand how all the pieces fit together.

I stopped reading STB a while back and am a happier person for it.
49
Sound Transit shouldn't have to spend money on signage just because a lot of you are stupid.
50
You should have written about the elevators as well.

At the UW station there are buttons labeled "P" and "B". Some people who get off Link and hop onto the elevator aren't sure what each stands for. At one point there was a hand-written little sticker next to them, which I thought was amusing for a billion+ dollar project.

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