Along with Sound Transit, Metro has rider alerts for their service changes. It’s basically a bunch of shuffling of routes around the new Issaquah Transit Center, shifts of stops for the 5X, 358, 230, 914, and 916.
There’s one more trip each for the 212, 221, and 271, a nice bonus for the Eastgate area.
The 74 local will be renumbered as the 30.
Also, in July they’re raising Off-peak Senior, Disabled and Youth Fares by a quarter. I suppose that’s in line with the recent adult fare increases.
On a completely unrelated note, I noticed today that the Bus tunnel has absolutely no advertising in the tunnel stations. I applaud the astetic zeal here, but it seems that with our constant transit financial woes, it would be a no-brainer to get at least a little revenue from advertising, I mean the buses themselves are full of them anyway.
I’m very very happy that they are splitting up the 74. This route had many variants, some of which are *completely* different for more than half the route, and has certainly caused me much confusion in the past.
Sound Transit owns the tunnel now, and I really don;t want to see more money being diverted to their needs when local bus routes are filled to capacity.
James, I am having trouble deciphering your comment. What on earth are you talking about?
Sound Transit rail, more than anything, will ease congestion on Seattle routes.
I don’t think ST owns the tunnel, I think KC still does.
Oy Vey. I just looked at the map for the 74 can’t believe that they had those two under the same number! Very much apples and oranges..
1) I’m one of those people who NEVER wants to see ads in the bus tunnel. If anything, fill it with more art. The bus tunnel is a great space where people can exist in an ad-free zone for a few minutes while waiting for their bus.
2) Last year the 74 express route was modified in the udist so that it went down the Ave instead of, um, roosevelt (?). For awhile this confused a bunch of regular 74 riders who mistakenly hopped on board the 74X only to find out that it wasn’t heading towards fremont or the seattle center. Drivers probably got tired of riders getting confused.
Regarding the mini-discussion between james and ben:
Transit has one thing in common with highways: the more you build, the more congested it becomes. New York’s subway system is one of the most crowded in the world despite it being the biggest.
Whenever you increase bus frequency, thinking it will reduce crowding, you often find the buses fill up just as much because the greater convenience of high-frequency attracts new riders that fill up the added capacity.
If Link is half as great as we all believe it will be, we will see more people riding transit, and not just Link. People still have to get to the light rail stations, and local buses will fill some of that need.
At some point, if we are going to embrace a transit future, we are going to need to pony up a whole lot more money that we are now, but the saving grace is, that as more people use transit, the easier it becomes politically to fund it, since it will start being seen as critical infrastructure that everyone uses rather than a charity for the poor and disabled, which is sadly how it is seen today by many.