Seattle is Building a $54BN New Railway

Narrator - Fred Mills
Producer - Jaden Urbi
Video Editing and Graphics - James Durkin
Additional Motion Graphics - Vince North
Executive Producers - Fred Mills and Graham MacAree
Content Partnership - Liam Marsh

Special thanks to Paul Lewis and Eno Center for Transportation. Additional footage and images courtesy of Sound Transit, OpenStreetMap and CSPAN.

#construction #architecture #infrastructure

Ripping and/or editing this video is illegal and will result in legal action.

© 2022 The B1M Limited

[imperatur]

Waking up and breakfasting with a B1M video in the background makes every wednesday morning a lot better!
On top American cities + infrastructure projects 😍

[karmaloe]

I spoke to the lead engineer for the rail on a floating bridge and how they worked. They keep a sample of it in the office. Amazing design, the whole team was really proud and honored to work on groundbreaking engineering.

[nightowldickson]

just imagine a HSR line that connects Vancouver, Seattle and Portland. Would be a game changer in the Pacific Northwest.

[aselch]

I've been working on the light rail for the past 5 year in Bellevue and in Mountlake Terrace. We just finished the bridge shown at 1:07. Pretty awesome project and I think it will be a fun ride over I-5. Projects like this are why I got into construction and I'm proud to be part of it.

[poestis]

Man, wish more cities did this. I recently visited Seattle and their public transit wasn't that bad as it is. While I was there, a friend took their car from the same place I was while I took the pub transit to meet them at a different location and I beat them there by a whole 10+ minutes. If my city didn't have rock hard ground or heat (as it rises), I would be sure we would have more public transit that was NOT on traffic level. Glad Seattle is investing more in something that works well for larger cities.

[matthewj]

I grew up in Everett my whole life. It's about 20 minutes north from Seattle without traffic. This video is really spot on especially for us people who don't live in the city of Seattle like I do. There are 4 million people in the Seattle metro area but only 700, 000 actually live in the city limits. For us who have to commute to Seattle traffic is horrible. I would rather take the light rail. Also for going to Seattle for things like concerts or for going to the SeaTac international airport.

[Samuel_J]

A floating bridge for a train, over a lake, is pretty mental to me. That alone is some crazy engineering. Really interested to hear more about this topic later!

[camman]

Another thing worth mentioning is that Seattle is doing this all through voted on initiatives piece by piece because the Washington State constitution prevents gas taxes from being used for transit, and this is on top of a state with no income tax. It really is a miracle and honestly sheer will power that has led to the light rail being built because finding the funding for it has been extremely difficult to say the least.

[Radmah]

I'm here in Seattle. I'm so glad B1m finally did a segment here. The traffic here is awful and the extended railway would be a huge plus.

[MrGeoPolitical]

I love Seattle's light rail system. I've visited multiple times now and I always stay at Best Western near the Angle Lake Rail Station then take the train into Seattle and spend the day there. Makes it so much cheaper instead of spending like hundreds to stay downtown.

[vanellopemint]

I moved to Seattle in the mid 80's, and right from the start I could look at a map and think, why don't they run a rail line from Everett to Tacoma, another on the east side of the lake, and one across the water? It just seemed intuitive to me that you could service nearly the whole sound with light rail really easily, the way it's all laid out. I remember how Seattle would boast about their wonderful bus system, and I suppose it was pretty good but that's in part because there was no subway or light rail at all, so it had to be. Never thought it would take almost 50 years before they finally had that light rail system in place. I live in Federal Way now, and the light rail to here is nearing completion, pretty exciting to imagine what it'll be like when they finally finish it all.

[SuperObnoxiousGamer]

My guy still making the best documentaries on buildings and infrastructure.

[DadLogic]

I'm impressed that you found this much footage of Seattle with the sun out.

[hobog]

No mention of Seattle's zoning limitations which still overwhelmingly force single-family detached homes! Not converting light rail to light metro already hurts Seattle's light rail capacity and operating costs (driver shortage). Upgrading the Sounder rail service to be an all day regional rail can help.
54bn usd price reflects deep dysfunction within USA transit project management, especially in how more restrictions are foisted upon them than upon road expansion

[seattleservicecorps]

I was born in Seattle. The city has radically changed in the last 20 years. It's exciting to see some infrastructure growth after this once car-centric city turned down other funding proposals in recent decades. thanks for your reporting! BTW - thanks for properly identifying Puget Sound. One way you can tell if someone is new to town is if they say things like "The Five" in reference to I5 (Interstate 5), or, "The Puget Sound" instead of simply "Puget Sound, " which is how locals refer to it. You nailed it -- you do you research! Well done.

[jimpern]

The amazing thing is that the last time I lived in Seattle, 1991-92, the only passenger "rail" in town were the Seattle Center Monorail and the underground trains that connected the terminals at Sea-Tac Airport! What a chance in direction since then!

[benhanpeter]

Everyone talks about how much it costs to expand public transit, but never about much the alternative costs. Maintaining the road system that our car dependent cities are built on is bankrupting US cities. Not Just Bikes has great videos about this

[kyleredzinak]

I live in Seattle and my lord the traffic is gut wrenching during rush hour. It’s nice to see the rail lines going up everywhere, I just wish it was planned and approved 10+ years ago.

[laytoncampbell]

I live in Seattle and was wondering when you’d do a piece on this 30 year mega project! It’s been crazy delayed, especially in the beginning, but it’s going steady now. I live in a newly opened light rail station north of downtown. It has been amazing, aa public commuter my commute time shortened from 15-30 minutes getting into the city for work!

[paincreatesfame]

I’m from Portland where we’ve got a decent light rail system (TriMet’s MAX light rail) and I think this is fantastic for those up north in Seattle. While the MAX isn’t perfect by any means, I totally prefer taking it over driving. Flying by traffic on the freeways on the Blue Line for $2.50 is something you really can’t beat :)