A group of STB hangers-on will get together for a group ride on King County Metro’s brand new F-Line on Sunday, June 8. (Actually the F-Line is merely an upgrade of the about-to-be-discontinued route 140.) This is a slight break from the tradition of having a group ride on the first day of a new service, but the organizer has to work this Saturday.
We will start at International District/Chinatown Station and, in celebration of the newly-public Link schedule, depart at 9:04 a.m. sharp. Look for us in the rear car if you get on further down the line. Thank you, Sound Transit, for the Link schedule! Approaching Stadium Station, we will glance to our left, and see the brand-new Greyhound Station. Arrival at Tukwila International Boulevard Station is estimated at 9:32, and that is where we will depart the train. We will catch the F-Line bus eastbound at 9:46, arriving at Renton Landing at 10:22. Along, the way, we will see the new Tukwila Sounder Station, which opens to the public this Saturday. But due to popular demand, we will stay on the bus and keep moving. We will catch the F-Line going back from Renton Landing at 10:28 and arrive at Burien Transit Center at 11:18.
From Burien Transit Center, we will take a short walking tour of downtown Burien and Olde Burien, and probably take refreshment there. That will be the formal end of this informal meet-up.
Some of us will then go on a hike to Eagle Landing Park, about a mile west of Olde Burien. It is a somewhat steep hike, but all on well-used paths and stairs, so be sure to bring plenty of water.
Thanks for not holding this on father’s day!
I had higher priorities on my mind: The World Cup starts June 12.
Are they planning a particularly aggressive construction schedule this weekend to finish the new South Center Mall stop on Andover Park West? It’s a fairly impressive improvement but work has been largely sitting still in recent weeks. Is F-line supposed to be finished when it opens or are there other stops like this that are still under construction?
Probably not. I just drove home from work up Oakesdale Avenue, past one of the F Line stops for the Boeing offices, and I saw a Rider Alert headlined, “Stop opening delayed.” I should have pulled over and taken a picture of it; perhaps I will tomorrow. I haven’t yet seen any alerts on the Metro site, so I don’t know what else is going on.
See you at the meetup, even though I live in Renton by The Landing and will try the F Line on Saturday.
https://flic.kr/p/nQADsh
Here’s the Rider Alert. It will still serve Tukwilla Sounder, but can’t approach or leave from Oakesdale and 27th. So, does that mean it will loop in from East Valley Highway? The information on the new station from Sound Transit says that Boeing will permanently close their gate starting next week. They never had it open on weekends anyway. This is getting less and less rapid all the time.
Whoops, I thought you were talking about the Strander Boulevard link to getting to Tukwilla Station from the south and east. I guess that will be delayed too.
I HIGHLY recommend the Elliot Bay Brewhouse at 152nd & 4th for the refreshment stop.
Would that be at SW 152nd & 4th SW in Burien?
For soemthing in Renton, the Whistle Stop Ale House has a nice selection of tasty beverages. http://binged.it/Ua0bdH
Where can I find a copy of the “newly-public Link schedule”? Forgive me if its plainly visible on ST’s website…I only see the frequency + first train/last train schedule.
It’s described here, but not yet available online (or in the buses?).
The new ST schedule book is availalble on most ST vehicles, and at Westlake Station.
Did Transit just get suckier? Where’s the ST560 on the schedule, trip planners, etc.
I plugged in a BTC to Seatac Airport trip for next Wed, and it gives me a 550 bus to IDS and Link to SEA, and a whopping 1:27 to get there.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/73130458@N04/14319106756/
Did I miss the memo cancelling the 560?
Try RTC to SEA, a trip that takes 27 minutes now. Both Metro and ST trip planners give you RR-F only and much longer trip times.
I am having a similar issue with Trip Planner. I have to assume it’s an issue with trip planner, because I can’t find any notices of it being axed, and there’s no rider alerts on the stops near me (ST does do Rider Alerts like Metro, right?).
My midday Ambaum-to-downtown-Renton theoretical trip is giving me a 3-leg 1:37 trip via South Park, Georgetown, and Skyway.
I’m having similar trouble. Trying to plan a trip for June 17th from Cap Hill to University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. Both the Sound Transit and Pierce transit legs of the trip go missing after this Friday on the transit planners of Google, Pierce Transit, and Sound Transit. Makes it difficult to decide whether to register for the conference…
There aren’t significant changes for ST. Try Trip Planner with a date this week.
I’m looking at a Sound Transit book for June to September. It has both the 560 and a Link schedule.
Thanks Lake, I’ll check the Trip Planner after service change to see if it gets over it’s little fit.
I intend to board Link at Othello on Sunday. Could we agree ahead of time to a particular train car (front or back) so that I can meet up with you all?
Look for us in the rear car.
I wanted to file a live report from the bus, but my old iPod Touch was incompatible with the bus’ wi-fi terms & conditions acceptance screen.
Yes, it loops into and out of the Tukwilla Sounder Station through West Valley Highway and Logan Avenue. Westbound it might be faster to continue on 16th and use Longacres Drive to go under Logan and take a right turn, but instead it turns onto Oaksdale to and from Logan both ways.
We noticed it made layovers at major stops. Perhaps it only continues on to the next stop on weekdays when it runs at 7-8 minute frequencies.
Post-event report. Five people attended, including Brent and myself. In chronological order:
The Greyhound station is clearly visible and identifiable from Stadum station. It’s small: a couple bus bays that may remind you of a P&R, and a building that looks like a mini-mart at a gas station.
RapidRide F is running, with fewer glitches than the E had at launch. It’s “rapid” only between Burien and 62nd Street (just west of Southcenter). The rest is slow and indirect. It paused for a couple minutes at one or two stations each way, apparently to avoid being early. We wondered whether this was just a temporary miscalculation in Sunday’s schedule or whether it would be permanent. The Strander Boulevard extension across the railroad tracks is apparently under construction but won’t be finished for six weeks I heard, so the bus has to make even more extra turns because of it. It makes a circle in the Sounder pullout even when no trains are coming. In Renton it’s subject to the usual “Renton slowdowns”: traffic lights every couple blocks.
Ridership was light, perhaps five people besides us, including one who was also touring out the route. But it was Sunday morning and an earlier hour than our previous rides (9:30-11:30am), so light ridership would be expected then.
In Burien we got off at SW 152nd St and 4th Ave SW, the second-last stop. We walked east one block on 152nd, along a retail TODish building with narrowish storefronts. Across the street are traditional suburban supermarkets/drugstores/banks. Then we turned around and walked west on 152nd to 10th. “Olde Burien” is west of 4th, and has 1920s small-lot storefronts without setbacks, similar to Columbia City. A variety of restaurants and retail, a model train store (with two books about Seattle’s old streetcars, and a specimen of an old Metro farebox), and an old-fashoned “feed store” (agricultural animal feed), and a restored movie theater (although I couldn’t tell if it’s currently a cinema or live-performance hall or something else. However, hardly anything was open at noon on Sunday.
We ate at the Great Harvest bakery in Olde Ballard, where I had an excellent lentil soup and an outstanding ham sandwich.
There wasn’t any mixed-use housing where I expected it, east of 4th SW, but I did see some elsewhere, west of 4th if I remember right.
Afterwards, two people went on the Eagle Landing Park hike. I took the 560 to Bellevue, which I’ve only been on twice before. It’s hourly on Sundays. I was curious how many riders it would get. There were only two or three west of the airport. At the airport terminal stop was a significant crowd, and a half dozen of them got on, many of them travelers unfamiliar with the area and paying cash. One guy with a suitcase turned out to be on the wrong bus, he was going to the 130s, so we told him to get off at SeaTac station and take the A and transfer to the 124. I hope that’s where he wanted to go, because it’s a sparse single-family area there. The 560 went nonstop from SeaTac station to Renton, as if to remind us it’s much faster than the F for Burien-Renton trips. In Renton it got caught in the “Renton slowdowns” from south Renton to The Landing. Then it got on 405, did a useless pullout to the Kennydale flyer stop, and a useful pullout to the Newport Hills stop (where two people got on, presumably having driven to the stop, which surprised me since it was Sunday). Both of these are off-highway stops with a traffic light at the cross street, not in-highway stops like Rainier. Then it went straight into Bellevue, stopping at South Bellevue P&R and going up 112th along the future Link route.
Yeah, west of 4th there’s a mixed use complex. East of 4th has been upzoned to 6/8 story mixed-use, but there’s very little development action there currently.
You may have also noticed several blocks of empty parking lots and boarded up single-story structures along 150th west of 4th. That has all been purchased by the same developer who did the “town square” development west of the Library on 152nd, and 3 more 8-story mixed-use buildings are planned for those lots.