In September 2009, Metro revised Route 106 to serve the Rainier Beach Link light rail station, creating new travel opportunities for people living and working along the route in Georgetown, Rainier Beach, Renton, Skyway, and South Beacon Hill. Riders could benefit from a faster trip to downtown by taking Link partway instead of busing all the way. How well does that work? Two charts hold the answer, after the jump.
The following charts compare Downtown Seattle-Renton weekday travel times for Route 106, Route 101 which travels primarily on I-5, and a combination of Route 106 and Link. Travel times are based on schedule data from Trip Planner. The key assumptions here are that service is reliable and riders have at least 2 minutes to make the connection. I got that number by timing people walking off the bus to the train platform and vice versa. Having only 2 minutes risks a missed connection if service runs late. The solution is to increase the time to 5 minutes or make service faster and more reliable or make the bus-rail interchange physically easier or a combination of the three.
For northbound trips to downtown, it is always faster to go from bus to train, except the last three night trips. Riders would save an average of 11 minutes and as much as 19 minutes during evening peak hours. If timed well, the Route 106+Link combo would be 5 minutes slower than Route 101 during the day. During peak hours when the 106 runs every 15 minutes in the peak direction, the combo is nearly as fast as the 101.
For southbound trips to Renton, it’s a tie. In the morning, staying on the 106 is faster since morning trips are scheduled to miss the train. In the afternoon, taking Link to the 106 saves about 5 minutes. Somehow, going from Rainier Beach to Renton is always slower than going the other way, even at 10 pm. The 101 beats the 106+Link combo hands down when heading south.
These findings suggest an opportunity to improve service. A favorite suggestion from readers is to create a fast and frequent connection to Rainier Beach Station from Renton by truncating Route 101 or reinvesting its service hours in Route 106. Replacing Route 101 with a 106+Link combo isn’t as farfetched as it sounds if the 106 can be improved and coordinated with Link. The idea of sending Route 106 to West Seattle has been discussed also. It’ll be interesting to see what ridership and reliability data suggest in terms of improvements.
Nice analysis Oran, but kinda left me hanging for the obvious question – What would the graph look like IF the 101 NB & SB trips to Renton began and ended RBS, with all the same assumptions given? Any chance of adding another data series?
You know what would also be valuable is extending the 169 to LINK.
This would be a rail-bus precursor to something like the all LINK line I am proposing.
In this way, people could take a fast train in and out of Seattle and then get on a single bus taking them all the way back to Kent East Hill and Kent Station.
I would be a good alternative to the somewhat lethargic 150 (which doesn’t serve the Hill at all).
One idea that Brent has gotten stuck in my mind is that all of the routes which currently terminate at Renton TC could be extended to RBS. This would be paid for by eliminating the freeway-running segments of the 101 and 150.
Suffice it to say, I completely agree; a rail station makes a much better transfer point than a bus stop.
I’d love to see the 105 and 240 extended to RBS giving people in the Renton Highlands a one-seat ride to Rainier Beach through Downtown Renton and Skyway.
A similar thing already happens with the 107 to RBS and 148 to Fairwood which are interlined at Renton TC.
The 169 is coupled with the 166. The 166 is on the table to take over the 131’s path south of Burien. This would be the ideal time to re-couple the 169 with select 101 runs, but altered to serve Henderson Station.
While you’re at it, do the same for the 164, 168, 159 and all the other express buses that repeat the same I-5 route.
I do very much agree with Aleks and John here. Though, I am biased since I’m out in Covington. There is potential loss for some 150 riders though.
150 is serviceable, except it spends 20 minutes roaming Southcenter for people who want to get from Kent to the mall or Seattle and back. Also the feeder services like the 169 end service way too soon. I see people waiting for corridor buses at all hours of the night along 256th and Kent Kangley…many of them workers or kids who want to get to South center.
With fast off hours service I bet we could pull a lot of people out of their cars all the way from Covington and beyond.
In fact we did discuss this last night at the KBAB meeting and it even seemed reasonable to have rail service all the way to Black Diamond. (In fact it was mentioned Black Diamond…which added density apartments and condos…is looking at acquiring existing rail rights to feed people down to Sounder.
Is JB agreeing with the urbanists? Truncate the bus routes and make them more frequent, connecting to Link wherever feasable (now: Rainier Beach or SeaTac, with south extension: Highline CC, with Burien-Renton line: Renton or Southcenter, with Kent line: Kent Station or Kent East Hill). Hopefully he’ll be ready for upzones in the station areas.
There has been a proposal floating around for a heavy rail line from Auburn Station to Covington and Maple Valley. I thought it had died though.
Mike: It’s not urbanists vs. anyone else, it’s politics vs. policy. Running buses parallel to trains, and having a transfer point that’s almost-but-not-quite at a train station, is just so self-evidently wrong that only someone who deeply loathes trains would oppose it in the abstract. But on the ground, a lot of people use the 101 as a one-seat ride to downtown, and Metro isn’t willing to make them transfer.
“While you’re at it, do the same for the 164, 168, 159 and all the other express buses that repeat the same I-5 route.”
The 159 is a Sounder-hour express to downtown Seattle (like the 158 and 162, with the 162 starting at Kent Station). If the 158 and 159 were timed for easy transfer to peak-direction Link, and maybe have only one or the other continue to the north end of downtown Seattle, with a timed transfer at Kent Station to consolidate the busload, would that take care of everyone on the 158/159 who wants a one-seat bus ride to Seattle, express?
The 158/159/162 schedule shows the Sounder stop time. The rest of the routes serving Kent Station do not. If the 162 is eliminated, that will show Metro’s willingness to put neighborhood-one-seat riders ahead of park-and-riders.
The 150 does not go on the freeway anymore. It uses Airport Way.
Sorry, I meant the 106 of course, not the 150. The 106 doesn’t go on the freeway.
I also find it strange the 106 is the only local-service route in the DSTT (except for evening/Sunday 70-series).
Also, how does the 107 fit in in this scenario?
The 107 is slower than the 106. From Renton TC to Rainier Beach stn at 5:30am: 21 min vs 16 min. At 7:20am: 25 min vs 16 min. At 5:30pm: 25 min vs 20 min. The 107 goes on small residential streets with lots of turns, while the 106 goes on Renton Avenue which is designed for arterial trips.
Oran, your 101 times are unfair by using the scheduled of going to the S.Renton P&R 1st, then over to the Renton TC which is about 14 minutes of schedule time.
Westlake to RTC, via MLK, then direct should be about 30-34 minutes. Otherwise take your 106’s on the grand tour of Renton too.’
My charts compare current conditions, how it works today.
Since most of this “grand tour” is duplicated by the 102, it probably doesn’t matter much. If you eliminated the 101 you might have to add some trips to the 102 (at least a few midday and reverse-commute trips?), since South Renton P&R drive-up riders might balk at driving farther to Renton TC for a longer (and probably more crowded) trip with a transfer.
This isn’t an area I know well at all. Looking at maps and satellite pictures to guess at land use, I can’t imagine there are many walk-up boardings of the 101/102 from South Renton P&R to the freeway, or much reverse-commute or midday demand, but I could be wrong.
I’ll say it again, the logical place to do all these connections is at a Boeing Access Road Station.
Except that there is no Boeing Access Road Station.
At least not until ST3. :-/
BAR is in the middle of nowhere. TIB shows the folly of a transfer station with nothing substantial within walking distance: people avoid it if they can because they don’t want to wait in a concrete jungle with a heavy smell of gasoline fumes waiting for the bus. TIB at least has a McDonald’s and a pancake house and some apartments within a 10-minute walk, and the potential for TOD in the future. BAR looks too narrow and inaccessible for any development at all. 133rd has some minimal potential. Sometimes you have to put transfer stations in the middle of nowhere (as might happen to South Bellevue), but it’s best to put them at a destination like Renton TC or Rainier Beach.
Is Rainier Beach a destination?
These are great charts. The northbound trip via 106->Link looks relatively straightforward. It’s the southbound trip where the relatively long headway of the bus, plus its not-to-great reliability makes the transfer a bit undesirable. If we’re going to get rid of the 101, the 106 between Ranier Beach and Renton needs to be a lot more frequent thana it currently is.
My suggestion for implementing this would be to split the 106 into two pieces at Ranier Beach Station, with the south section operating every 10 minutes all day, every day, just like Link does. Furthermore, the southbound trips, rather than departing at an arbitrary fixed time, would simply wait for the arrival of a southbound Link train, wait an additional 2-3 minutes to give everyone getting off the train time to hop on the bus, then take off towards Renton. While providing a very good connection for people coming off the train, a bus every 10 minutes would be good enough to ensure that people who aren’t transferring from the train wouldn’t have too long to wait either.
On paper, the running time of the entire 101 route is 50 minutes, while the running time of the 106-south is about 30 minutes. So, in theory, eliminating the 101 and tripling the frequency of the 106-south should be almost budget neutral. If money is tight, I suppose a timed connection for every other train instead of every train after 10 PM is something we could live with. But I think it’s really important to have the bus waiting for you when you get off the train, if you want this to be a palatable replacement for the 101.
Another detail that would have to be worked out is, if we did this, there are a few apartments along MLK that would lose service, except for the peak 102, if the 101 were cut. Not sure if there’s enough riders from there for this to matter – one of Bruce’s charts might be interesting.
I’d like to see two of Bruce’s charts: ridership (for the 106, 101, and 102), and on-time performance.
It looks like OBA doesn’t track Link trains — if it did, it would theoretically be possible to build an OBA scraper to simulate actual travel time differences during various times of day. That would shed light on the real travel time differences. It’s possible that the 101’s huge southbound advantage is overstated by the schedule, but it’s just as possible that it’s understated. Unless the advantage is vastly overstated, it’s a lot of time to make up, and I don’t know where Link or the 106 is going to get that much faster (you could implement off-board payment on the 106, but does that buy you 10 minutes between RBS and Renton TC?).
Well, first Link will get a little faster when it no longer has to deal with buses in the tunnel. Second, you have to consider that not everybody’s destination is downtown. For those going past downtown, an elimination of the 101 today would turn a 2-seat ride into a 3-seat ride, which is obviously not good. However, when Link expands northward, a truncated 101 would still leave such a trip as a 2-seat ride. And the wait time you would save via the Renton bus running more frequently would outweigh the in-vehicle time you would save by taking the freeway, shifting the transfer point from Ranier Beach to downtown.
Nevertheless, what I think it will really take to make a strong case for a Link shuttle to replace the 101 is huge redevelopment in the Ranier Valley, making it a significant end-destination for people in Renton, rather than just a transfer point to hop on the train. I realize it seems laughable today, but in 30-40 years, who knows? Maybe it can happen.
Also, as I alluded to in my previous comment, you can design the south segment of the 106 to make the transfer penalty much less than it is today. If the route is split at RBS and the southbound bus is waiting for you when you get off the train, the overhead of the transfer will be a reliable 2 minutes, and no more (northbound, it would still be 5 minutes average).
Furthermore, if a highly frequent 106S replaced the 101, the ridership patterns on that route would change from what we currently have. The people getting on and off at the intermediate stops between RBS and Renton would be spread of 3 buses each half-hour instead of one. So the bus, on average, would likely make fewer stops along way than the current 106 does, even if the stopping patterns remain identical. Off-board fare payment and signal priority would help too. During the peak, assuming a bus every 7.5 minutes to match the train, you could even alternate every other bus between local and express, with the express route skipping all the stops between Renton and Ranier beach.
The 101 serves East Renton/Fairwood. That South Renton P&R picks up 90% of the riders. That’s why it goes there first instead of the Renton TC.
What should be added is a the Renton TC to Tukwilla Sounder Station shuttle. Then there might be a reason to use the Renton TC parking.
If that truly is the case, 90% riders from S Renton, then the way it’s set up right now makes sense and it’d be a bad idea to even replace the 101 at this point. Not that it precludes improving the 106.
There are currently two routes that run between Renton Transit Center and the Tukwila Sounder Station. Do people use the service now?
Oran: Or you have separate frequent routes going to each destination. Replace the 101 by extending the 169 to RBS, skipping Renton TC.
I would argue that the layout of the two stops is actually a reason *to* change things, not against it. As MIke said, let’s skip the grand tour of Renton. You can’t effectively serve both stops with one bus, so let’s not try. Either way, that certainly doesn’t change the fact that having so many buses duplicating Link on I-5 is a waste of resources.
It is faster to catch a connecting 566 from Kent Station than bother with Tulwila Station (unless you’re talking TIBS). Why bother taking a Sounder north from Renton? The 140 is a pathetic joke. Mostly because Grady Way is h*ll.
Oran: “Replacing Route 101 with a 106+Link combo isn’t as farfetched as it sounds..”
Actually it is far-fetched.
Link is 24 minutes from Univ St to Henderson. The 101 is already past MLK/129th by that time, and if it continued down 3rd to the RTC, it would be there in 26/32 minutes total running time, depending on am/pm.
A Link/106 combo, assuming adding 4 minutes for the transfer, would make the trip in 53/57 minutes, so it’s twice as long as the 101 direct.
Everyone eludes to the light rail spine as the answer to all our problems, but in reality, this little exercise shows how it rarely works out that way. It doesn’t pencil out for Renton, nor will it work for Eastgate, or many locations in North Seattle, Federal Way, Kirkland, Kent, and most everywhere else.
Sure, Link is great for Cap Hill, U-dist, Northgate, and truncating some bus routes further up the line on I-5 to Everett. Link is what it is, but the grand promenade it is not.
Yep, surface streets and station dwell time kill its rail advantage. Oh well, the ST board was warned. I was at the meetings. And they ignored all the “please give it, it’s own right-of-way” pleadings from everyone there.
Link has its own ROW, just not grade separated. If you think Link running on MLK is a bad idea, you haven’t heard of the proposal that “MIke” and his pals advocated for in the 1990s that would make Link run in the center of 99 from Everett to Tacoma, on the surface, MLK style.
One light rail line can’t serve the entire region? Who would have thought?
I admit, when I first heard about SR-99 Light Rail, I thought that was the way to go. As I figured that with all the businesses along SR-99, there would be room for new condos/apartments and a reason to ride it. What I didn’t understand was station dwell time and surface rails impact on cross street traffic, including pedestrians. Now that I understand all that, and looked at the various cost models for dedicated right-of-way, it looks like an elevated system is ideal for that corridor.
I’m a big supporter of elevated transit. I’d never thought of putting what we want to be rapid transit on the surface, even with flyovers and stuff. That opinion is based on my ten year experience living in Bangkok where putting transit on the surface means dooming it from the start to be stuck in and conflict with traffic.
Mike: the charts already include transfer time. Adding additional transfer time is not necessary.
As for competing with the 101, note that Metro deleted the 194 even though it was faster than Link. People didn’t stop taking transit to the airport. Anecdotally, I notice more people riding Link to the airport than I ever saw with the 194. Speed isn’t everything. Frequency matters too, maybe even more. I had to sit at Renton TC for 30 minutes waiting for the 101 or 105 a few times because I missed my connection.
Doesn’t hurt that Link provided a free off site parking facility for business day trippers. My observation is that the 24 hour rule isn’t even enforced so 2-3 day trips are a gimmie at TIB. South 200th builds on that principle. Link ridership grew less than the 194 ridership when it was discontinued. No doubt Link gets lots of airport ridership. It would be a total disaster if it weren’t for the airport ’cause Beacon Hill and RV are not rail worthy destinations (not even worth diversions but that another story). Too bad ST didn’t actually build a route designed to go form DT to the airport. Then we could have south extensions and an East Link line might actually have attracted airport ridership.
I used Metro and Link published running times and added 4 minutes for the transfer. I didn’t use any of your chart times. Metro rarely uses less than 5 minutes for a timed transfer, but if you want to cut mine to 2 minutes, go ahead, the comparison is still valid.
Sound Transit stepped up parking enforcement earlier this year.
Feel free to subtract 10 minutes from the 101 on my chart but that’s not what Metro is running on the ground. You have to wonder why Metro is running the 101 to S Renton P&R first instead of the TC. I don’t know but it is what it is.
Yeah, nice story but I was there over night a couple of months ago (to visit someone at Harborview). Zero enforcement on the ground. I suspect ST is not anxious to piss of what ridership they have.
How does letting cars park for 2-3 days help ridership instead of a space that turns over every day?
A full space is better than an empty one even if it’s one boarding per day. It’s pretty simple if they wanted to clamp down; no parking 2AM to 5AM and tow everyone that violates that. There’s like 3 people that would legitimately be affected visa vie the 24 hour rule and that could be handled with special permits. Of course the real answer is to charge for parking but that would erode ridership.
“Yeah, nice story but I was there over night a couple of months ago (to visit someone at Harborview). Zero enforcement on the ground.”
Were you there over 24 hours, Bernie? They’ve been towing cars from the Eastgate and Issaquah P&R’s pretty regularly recently. Given that TIB is usually full by 8 or 9 a.m. I doubt that they would have much reason to be lenient there.
“Link ridership grew less than the 194 ridership when it was discontinued.”
Well duh, the 194 also served destinations south of the airport, most of which are now served by ST Express routes. Not everyone who formerly rode the 194 would switch to Link.
“frequency matters too, maybe even more.”
And span matters a lot too. One important fact that the people who whine about link being slower than the 194 tend to forget is that if your plane landed in SeaTac after 7 PM, you got to go home on the 174, which had 30 minute headways and took 45 minutes to get from the airport to downtown.
Link makes this trip in 38 minutes, with 10-15 minute headways – a huge improvement. I am far more likely to plan plane trips that arrive in Seattle in the evening than I was when the 194 was running.
One thing people forget about the airport is that something like 10K people work there. Unfortunately for transit, they get free parking. If that parking was charged, and the transit subsidized, I bet you’d see a huge increase in LINK ridership to the airport.
The other reason Beacon Hill and Rainer Valley got rail to the airport, was the theory that workers at the airport would ride LINK. ie, lower cost housing with subsidized transit to low paying jobs. A match made in job heaven.
The 101 (Renton Rocket) originally did operate to the Renton Transit Center before terminating at the South Renton P & R. Pressure from commuters got Metro to switch the loop and send peak direction trips to/from Fairwood.
We never enforced the timed transfers at South Renton P & R which made commute trips unreliable both directions compared to the one seat rides that the 101 + transfer replaced. The added time to do the Grand tour of Renton also added several minutes to South Renton P & R riders.
When discussing eliminating the 101 – Don’t forget the high density residential areas along M.L. King Way all the way up to South 129 Street which supply a large percentage of the 101 ridership especially off peak. Truncating it at RBS would be a difficult sell except for possible added frequencies and running it as late (and early) as the 106.
Kent Station doesn’t have a problem with parking offenders. I’ve had my car parked 23 hours. Drunken nights happen. Don’t unduly punish. I have seen cars towed though after 24 hours. Enforcement is too difficult. Charging could come into the mix though. Maybe beyond 16 hrs pre-pay?
Isn’t*
“When discussing eliminating the 101 – Don’t forget the high density residential areas along M.L. King Way all the way up to South 129 Street which supply a large percentage of the 101 ridership especially off peak. Truncating it at RBS would be a difficult sell except for possible added frequencies and running it as late (and early) as the 106.”
If I were living in one of those apartments, I’d be frustrated about the lack of transfer connectivity to my closest neighbors at the north end of Skyway and throughout the Rainier Valley, as well as the late start times that wouldn’t allow me to get to a day job downtown on the weekends.
If Metro were offering a route that got me to Henderson Station so I could get downtown early enough any morning, and be able to get to all the destinations throughout Rainier Valley without backtracking from SODO Station, I would jump at it in a heartbeat.
Since I don’t live there, I’ll just say this: The lack of a route shuttling residents of the Sunset/MLK apartments to Henderson Station is a huge deterrent for me to even consider moving there.
The 106 is on a new path now that the Argo Bridge is decommissioned. I’m sure it takes longer due to its new scoliosis.
Comparing the 101 to the 106… hah! I used to ride these routes, and the 106 only if the 101 had stopped for the evening. The demographics are completely different. The 106 is entertainment all by itself. The 101, suburban riders, boring.
I avoided the 106 at all costs even with the free entertainment. It would have to be free and 60 minutes faster for me to have switched to your proposed route.
My mom used to be afraid of the 106 but she rode it recently and she says it’s not as bad as it used to be. Turn it into a RapidRide route with security, problem solved. It works pretty well on the A Line.
I’m curious to see how the 358 conversion turns out in this regard. I’ve never been on the A Line, nor its predecessor, but I’m pretty familiar with the 358, and it’s certainly a route that some people avoid. Hopefully its atmosphere strikes a good balance — one that feels safe, but still more lively than, say, the B Line. Nothing against the B Line — I wouldn’t expect a bus from Bellevue to Redmond to be any other way.
Oran: A little snarky, isn’t it?
“you haven’t heard of the proposal that “MIke” and his pals advocated for in the 1990s that would make Link run in the center of 99 from Everett to Tacoma”
If you must know the truth, most of my Pals are now dead from old age. I’m not that far away either. We advocated for a light rail line, center running down 99 at grade, except for major intersections, where the line would flyover or dive under in most situation. There was very little mixed running with traffic. It would have required jurisdictions to block off many left turn situations which is what eventually killed the idea. Nobody wanted center medians, but look at 99 on N. Seattle, or Seatac and other places. It’s happening with planting strips, not rails. For the money saved, you could have streetcars up the kazoo – Yes even John Bailo would be in line for one with all the cash leftover. Eddie had it right, sometimes lots of lines in the aggregate (rail or bus) can be better than one line trying to do too much.
Yes, a little but I had to know the truth. Thanks.
Except we haven’t even begun to realize the potential of the line we’ve already built. Once U-Link comes online, we can start really seeing what a subway system is capable of.
This has become a topic I would have ignored 6 months ago but now is extremely pertinent to my commute! I live in north Beacon Hill and now work in Renton. I’ve looked pretty closely at my transit options and they are basically all 1 hour or more:
Link SB -> 106 or 107 (connect at RBS)
Link SB -> 560 (connect at SeaTac)
Link NB -> 101 (connect at Sodo)
36 SB -> 106
As far as I can tell, the 106, 107, and 560 in this direction only come every 30 minutes. The 106 has NB peak trips in the AM and SB peak trips in the PM, neither of which help me. I’ve also noticed the 106 tends to run late in the mornings, so I’ll stay on Link and catch the 560.
Generally I drive or ride my bike. When riding my bike I sometimes use Link to cut the trip in half if the weather is crappy or I’m tired. Driving is roughly 20 minutes, biking is 50 min, transit 60-75 min. Doing the whole trip on transit is limited to probably 3-4 times a month. If the 106 were run at 15 min headways, or there was a direct route to Renton TC from RBS, I would be much more inclined to take the trip on transit.
How about Link SB -> 140 (connect at Tukwila International Blvd)?
Both of these services run every 15 minutes or better.
And using the trip planner for an arrival at Renton Transit Center by 8:00 a.m., the fastest trip was a Link NB -> 101 (connect at Sodo) with a travel time of 46 minutes.
The suggestion I made had a travel time of 64 minutes, but it allowed for a 12 minute transfer at Tukwila Int’l Blvd. Cutting that to five minutes would give you a 57 minute travel time.
The 140 runs notoriously late…everywhere. Avoid, avoid, avoid! Actually, just delete.
I believe the words you are looking for are, “exterminate, exterminate, exterminate.”
Be careful what you wish for, Stephen. The 140 is scheduled to be re-branded as RapidRide™ in 2013, at which point it will go schedule-free.
I kind of lost my train of thought in my comment – I meant to finish by saying the fastest all-transit trip was indeed link NB -> 101. And this is sad that the fastest trip uses such a small portion of Link combined with a freeway-running bus :-(
I dislike the 140 – even if its travel times are competitive with the other trip combinations, it feels so, so slow and is often late.
I know, but the RR route is doomed. No one will use it. It will still get bunched and obliterate the whole point of frequency. I’ve *NEVER* see it without a 10 minute delay to Renton or to Burien. Last time I rode it, I only caught it barely and only because it was so darn late. Otherwise (theoretically), I would have waited another 20 minutes for the next one (probably more than 30 to 40 minutes away). Ugh. Don’t bother. It will be a failed experiment day one and people will decry RR.
“this is sad that the fastest trip uses such a small portion of Link combined with a freeway-running bus :-(”
Brett– While it’s personally sad for you (and would be for me too), it’s not sad overall that the 101 beats Link. It was inevitable, and people shouldn’t have expected that one Link line would be able to cover as wide an area as Pacific Highway, West Valley Highway, and Renton. I do favor truncating the 101 off peak, and (maybe) a 133rd station for the off-peak 150, but we need to recognize that it’s not reasonable to expect one Link line to do everything. That’s why south King County ultimately needs more than one line. A few possibilities:
(1) Burien – Renton – Bellevue – Bothell; plus Rainier Beach (terminus) – Renton – Kent – (SeaTac or Auburn-Federal Way)
(2) Burien – Renton; plus Bothell – Bellevue – Renton – Kent – etc.
So, here’s what I’d suggest for re-routing in the Renton area v3-or-so:
1. Keep the 101/102 as a peak commuter route, 2-way, possibly entering downtown from the north side, at least in the morning.
2. Extend the 169 up Sunset and MLK to Henderson Station, perhaps with improved frequency, but with span of service from early morning to late night, seven days a week.
The downside of this plan would be more peak bus hours, meaning potentially more capital cost, unless we have enough extra buses to keep the 101/102 at current strength until we can see the effect of the 169 cannibalizing some of the 101 ridership. Overall operating cost should go down, but not necessarily immediately.
Re-routing the 101 to take the 577 path into downtown might have to occur some time after peak-hour demand for the 169 is established.
Why would it require more peak hours to continue existing peak service on the 101/102? The reverse-peak needs access only to downtown Renton and Boeing, not to Fairwood. Deleting the off-peak 101 should give plenty of hours to extend the 169 to Rainier Beach and add a few runs. (Although ultimately the 169’s frequency should be doubled.)