A World 1st: Train Over Floating Bridge in Seattle

[jaxlongtimer]

Seattle just opened a 1.2 mile commuter train crossing over Lake Washington using the world's first floating bridge for this purpose.  An engineering marvel and a new way to overcome water obstacles.  The creative solutions to transit around the world like this make U2C look like child's play.

Note the hours of operation and frequency of headways.  No need for schedule.  Compare to JTA transit services and one can begin to understand the lack of ridership here ... .

GeekWire rides the world's first floating-bridge train — Seattle tech commutes will never be the same


https://www.geekwire.com/2026/geekwire-rides-the-worlds-first-floating-bridge-train-seattle-tech-commutes-will-never-be-the-same/

Sound Transit to open Cross Lake Connection, first light rail over I-90 bridge

https://komonews.com/news/local/sound-transit-cross-lake-connection-interstate-90-bridge-bellevue-eastside-redmond-light-rail-netowrk-project-infrastructure-specialized-track-systems

Seattle light rail finally opens across Lake Washington
 
....Trains will cross the lake into Seattle from 4:17 a.m. until 12:15 a.m., and toward Bellevue from 5:44 a.m. until 12:30 a.m. During peak commute times, trains should, as Murray said, arrive every eight minutes. Even late at night, the next train won't be long, with just 15 minutes between arrivals...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/seattle-light-rail-finally-opens-across-lake-washington/

[marcuscnelson]

Nice to see this here, I actually have a number of friends who made the trek out to Seattle for the inaugural rides.

Worth noting a few things:

• This is light rail, not commuter rail (which also exists in the Seattle area).
• This particular project was funded by a multi-billion dollar sales tax that the Puget Sound's voters approved in 2008. Similar ballot measures have a tendency to not make it over the finish line in Florida, at least since Miami-Dade's 2002 sales tax vote or Broward's PREMO.
• This is on top of billions more dollars for transit that voters approved in 1996 and 2016, the latter of which is experiencing significant challenges from cost increases that make the ability to complete all the originally promised projects without returning to voters increasingly unlikely.
• The Link system is very well ridden, to the point that many argue that light rail was actually the wrong choice of mode for the region compared to something like the heavy rail that voters rejected in the 1970s (the federal funding for which was moved to Atlanta to become their MARTA system).

This is all to say that Seattle's system is certainly aspirational in many ways, but it also reflects real challenges that they as well as somewhere like Jacksonville will be faced by in attempting to invest in transit. That in no way vindicates JTA's chosen approach to instead pour millions into trying to end-run the fundamentals of mass transit by experimenting with autonomous vehicles.