King County Metro is soliciting opinions about how bus service should change in Southeast Seattle and South King County once LINK light rail service begins next year. There are a series of public meetings scheduled beginning Oct. 16 and running through the end of the month.
The various options haven’t been made public yet, but I’m told people in the affected area will be receiving a tabloid outlining those options shortly. Once they arrive, you’ll get full coverage in this space.
The brochure outlining proposals is up on the Metro site.
http://transit.metrokc.gov/up/sc/plans/2008/102008-sesea.pdf
Actually, the page with everything is at http://transit.metrokc.gov/up/sc/plans/2008/102008-sesea.html and now accessible from the Metro home page.
I was reading up regarding the elimination of the Route 194 and this made me smile:
Link light rail will provide more frequent and reliable service compared to existing bus service.
This also made me smile:
The distance from the Link light rail SeaTac /Airport Station to the airport terminal will be farther than the distance from the current bus zones to the terminal. The walk from the station to the airport terminal is about 1,000 feet and will take approximately four minutes.
Why did the second one make me smile? It took me 7 minutes to get off the 194 yesterday as people fumbled with change or forgetting to pay the right amount and get an ear full from the driver… It also took 61 minutes to get there in rush hour traffic.
How about having one of those moving walkway things that they have in the concourses at the airport to connect the Link stop to the terminal?
How about walking 1000 feet and/or have wheelchairs and red-caps available? People, we do not need electromechanical un-green contraptions to move us 1000 feet. Burn those calories off, and travel lighter!
I think a moving walkway powered by either PSE or Seattle Light is demonstrably greener than jet travel so that objection is just a little silly.
So true. I haven’t seen the Mass Transit Now campaign capitalize on this: adding light rail service is a de facto increase in bus service too, because it frees up equipment and drivers for other routes.
I really hope ST is planning to add a substantial amount of service on the 574 and 594 regardless of Prop. 1 passing. The 194 takes A LOT of people to/from Fed Way. I’ve ridden that route dozens of times from FWTC and it has a pretty heavy passenger load from the start. If they plan to just let the other routes run as is, they’re going to have major overcrowding
The Metro site doesn’t really address this aside from mentioning that the 594 will stop at FWTC but then again those routes aren’t really Metro’s concern. Hopefully ST and PT are working on that aspect.
It looks like most of them maintain trolleybus service while eliminating/rerouting diesel/hybrid express services.
Which is as it should be.
Have they considered extending the STS to the Link station and new rental car facility? I know a thousand feet isn’t much, but it can make the difference, and it will be quite a ways from the terminal to the rental car facility.