University Way NE (“The Ave”) is the historic main street near the University of Washington campus in Seattle. The street is lined with dozens of shops, restaurants, and bars that cater to thousands of UW students and the nearby community. In 2021, the U District Link station opened one block west of The Ave between 43rd St and 45th St. Despite the street constantly buzzing with people shopping and dining, most of the right-of-way is allocated for cars and on-street parking.
University Way is pedestrianized for a few events each year, including the U District Chow Down & Street Party.
University Way runs between NE Pacific St and NE Ravenna Blvd. For the purposes of this article, we will focus on pedestrianizing The Ave between NE 41st St and NE 50th St. There are a few variables that need to be considered when pedestrianizing a street: transit, emergency vehicle access, deliveries, accessibility, and cross streets. Let’s take a look at possible solutions for each of these categories.
Since 2024, the operational expenses for both streetcar routes have been primarily funded by the Seattle Transit Measure. (Stephen De Vight)
This is part two of a three-part series investigating city-funded bus service in Seattle. Part 1 covered the Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) from 2014 to early 2020. This article covers its successor, named the Seattle Transit Measure (STM) from 2020 to present day.
By early 2020, the STBD had transformed Seattle into a truly transit-accessible city. With Sound Transit’s self-proclaimed ‘exciting period’ of annual light rail expansions approaching quickly, county leaders saw an opportunity to undo the failures of 2014 and provide better bus service to all of King County, not just Seattle.
King County Floats Measure, Pandemic Hits
In February 2020, King County Council unveiled a proposal to utilize King County’s own Transportation Benefit District to levy a countywide 0.2% sales tax increase to fund additional transit.
Unlike the failed 2014 measure, revenues would go exclusively to Metro and focus primarily on service expansion. Seattle’s existing investments would also be funded under the assumption that a county measure would eclipse Seattle’s. Seattle would lose its freedom to dictate service investments, but planning and funding would be re-regionalized, ending years of a ‘pay to play’ system where Seattle experienced higher service levels than Metro could provide on its own.
Unfortunately on February 29, 2020, the first death from COVID-19 in the United States was announced in Washington. Soon after, then-Governor Jay Inslee announced a statewide state of emergency. By March 13, all schools statewide were ordered closed and Metro reported a 45% reduction in ridership.
All signs indicated that a county-wide transit measure was poorly timed and by March 16, County Councilmember Claudia Balducci announced that King County would no longer proceed with a ballot measure to increase bus service.
In 2015, Mayor Ed Murray’s administration unveiled what would become the 2015 Levy to Move Seattle. It included a goal to“Provide 72% of Seattle residents with 10-minute all-day transit service within a 10-minute walk of their homes” by 2025 dubbed the “Very Frequent Transit Network”. Using Seattle Transportation Benefit District (STBD) funding, access to that network increased significantly. In 2015, only 25% of Seattle was within walking distance of the Very Frequent Transit Network. By 2020, 70% of the city was.
Percent of Seattle Households with Access to Very Frequent Transit Service from the STBD’s Fall 2020 report. (SDOT)
The freeway bill comes due: WA State Senate wants to issue $2 billion in bonds to fund highway and bridge maintenance after years of raising regressive taxes to fund major freeway expansions (The Urbanist). The House’s proposed budget is more conservative. Transit and ferries get the short straw. Additional coverage from The Seattle Times ($).
As part of its 2026 Service Plan, Sound Transit is proposing a new overnight bus service in the corridor of the Link 1 and 2 Lines. These routes would also continue to Everett, Tacoma, and Lakewood. These services will specifically operate during the night after Link stops running, and end shortly before Link begins again the next morning. Service is scheduled to launch in the fall of this year, contingent on the ability of partner agencies to deliver the service. Sound Transit is also launching a pilot of this service on the segment from downtown Seattle to SeaTac starting March 28th, with service roughly every 30 minutes throughout the night.
Despite shadowing the Link 1 Line, the overnight service proposal skips 10 out of 26 current 1 Line stations. Intuitively, the reason for skipping so many stops is probably is to keep the bus moving quickly as it heads to Everett or Lakewood, as well as to keep operating costs and staffing levels manageable. Also, considering that Sound Transit is a regional agency rather than a local one, they may be leaning on King County Metro to provide night-owl service within the city of Seattle. However, though some of the gaps are covered by King County Metro’s own night-owl network, there is not as much overnight service along parts of the 1 Line as you might think.
1 Line overnight service, visualized
Here is an overview of current overnight bus services along the Link 1 Line (including a comparison to the proposed overnight service), in the style of Sound Transit’s diagram of alternative routes to Link (click the image to zoom in):
Open payments or “Tap to Pay” started today. Several transit agencies’ bus and rail readers including Sound Transit and Metro now accept not only ORCA cards but also credit cards and digital wallets (pay by phone).
Open payments raise the risk that if you have both an ORCA card and credit cards or debit cards in your wallet, it may charge the wrong card or multiple cards or refuse the transaction.
The exciting launch of the Lynnwood Link Extension added four new stations connecting Northgate up to Lynnwood City Center. The future Pinehurst (previously NE 130th St) infill station is under construction and expected to open mid-2026. This article will discuss the station itself, bus stops, the new bus Route 77, bike lanes to the station, and finally the station area. Additionally, plans exist for a provisional (unfunded) 220th St SW infill station.
About Here and Sightline Institute partnered to produce a video discussing how elevators in the US and Canada cost nearly three times as much to build and maintain compared to peer cities which makes it much more difficult to build small apartments. Legislators in Washington are trying again to fix it, but it’s an uphill battle.
Northbound and southbound 2 Line trains at Shoreline North/185th station
Update (Feb 21, 3:30pm): Crosslake 2 Line simulated service has resumed.
Following a power outage between Bel-Red station and Downtown Redmond station that started on Thursday, Sound Transit has decided to suspend simulated service on the full 2 Line until further notice. As of this morning, 2 Line trains will operate between South Bellevue station and Downtown Redmond station. The 2 Line will not run between International District/Chinatown station and Lynnwood City Center station. The 1 Line will run as scheduled.
Unexpected outages and service disruptions occur on all transit systems. When issues occur, transit agencies should clearly communicate the situation with passengers and quickly coordinate alternative travel options. Based on the past two days, Sound Transit needs to revamp how it manages outages on the 2 Line.
On Thursday, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine announced Tap to Pay will launch across the ORCA system on February 23, 2026. Tap to Pay, also known as open payments, will allow passengers to tap a credit/debit card on the ORCA reader to pay the fare. Digital credit/debit cards are also supported using Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Samsung Pay. ORCA soft-launched open payment support on the RapidRide G Line earlier this month.
“Today’s announcement reflects years of work by our transit agencies across Puget Sound coming together with one shared goal: making transit simpler and more accessible to the people we serve” said Christina O’Claire, ORCA Joint Board Chair and King County Metro Mobility Division Director.
ORCA readers will now display the logos of supported cards and digital payment services
