The Summer 2012 Sound Transit schedule book is now available; new timetables take effect Saturday, June 9th. There are no changes to Link. Sounder is unchanged, although maintenance in the South Corridor might aggravate drivers and pedestrians. Below are the bus revisions, especially big changes in Pierce County:
- Route 542: Revised stops at Redmond Transit Center
- Route 550: Trips added and minor evening schedule changes
- Route 554: Minor weekend schedule changes
- Route 560: Major nighttime schedule changes
- Route 566: Minor schedule changes
- Route 577: New weekday morning northbound trip; minor schedule changes
- Route 578: Route no longer runs between Puyallup and Tacoma; significant schedule changes; new Sunday service between Seattle and Puyallup; new evening trips
- Route 586: Two morning northbound and two afternoon southbound trips discontinued until October 2012.
- Route 596: New route between Bonney Lake and Sumner weekdays only. [The story behind this change is here.]
The 578: ST is simply removing service duplication with PT 400 :)
The 400, unlike that portion of the 578, runs all day weekdays – no weekend service.
As always, I wish they would highlight the deltas between the old and new in the schedule. Last time, for example the eliminated a trip on the 566, but called it “minor schedule changes”, so I didn’t realize it until the changes happened and I notice the bus I always rode didn’t exist anymore.
Simply listing the start time of the added and deleted trips would be much appreciated. Indeed, doing that in one delta page could stop some of us from picking up a new schedule.
It would be nice if the 560 changes are to better interline with the 180 between the airport and Burien Forced Transfer Center. We’ll see what the 180 schedule looks like for the new pick.
Still, the 596 has shown the way. ST could take over a version of the 158 and 159 to Kent Station, but trucated there. Metro could, in turn, take over the provision of service between Burien FTC and the airport, and create an all-day/every-day one-seat ride between West Seattle and the airport, with better frequency and much better ridershership.
To carry on the tradition, I will once again pine for having the 512 replace the 510 and 511 on Saturdays, and then putting the 512 in the tunnel. There is no more natural bus-to-Airport-Link connection than 512-to-Link. I swear, I’d consider spending some Saturdays spending a little money in Snohomish County if that were to happen.
+1 Brent, again.
I’m pretty sure I +1 this also. It takes a little while to loop through Lynnwood TC, but not that much time.
I wonder whether it would save or cost money to combine the routes on Saturday. You’d probably run fewer total bus trips but more of them would go all the way to Everett, pretty lightly loaded. I also wonder how much Everett-Lynnwood traffic you’d get on a Saturday 512. As scheduled, the 512 is 26 minutes from Everett Station to Lynnwood TC, compared to about an hour for the CT 201/202. That could potentially attract more riders that don’t want to spend an hour making lots of stops to go between the two towns, but then the 512 probably doesn’t go directly where they want to go.
If the same number of trips run Saturday as currently run, then, yes, it would be more expensive, due to extending 511 trips to Everett.
But 20-minute frequency to Lynnwood and Everett would be a travel-time improvement for riders from Seattle to both destinations, and a capacity improvement to each destination as well, since they are not close to full most of the day. If there is a time they approach full, up the frequency to 15 minutes.
There are ways to make it less expensive than currently or more expensive than currently. ST tends to like spending the operational dollars it has available, with a pre-calculated set-aside.
Putting the 512 in the tunnel would transfer a portion of the tunnel debt responsibility to ST, so it isn’t going to happen any time soon.
You could also have 511 and 512 interlined to provide a 15-minute combined headway to Lynnwood, preserving the existing 30-minute headway to Everett. This would be unquestionably a small net loss for people going all the way to Everett, but for people going to Lynnwood, it would be a huge win – same speed and double the frequency. And anyone in Everett who is really put off by the extra stops could always drive to Lynnwood, as the parking lot on weekends is nearly empty.
Interlining the 511 and 512 would be slightly more expensive than the current schedule unless a trip is cut.
An hour for the 201/202? Where in the world did you get that? It takes the 201/202 35 minutes, not that much slower than the 512 and half the trip is on the freeway too.
You must have been looking at another schedule.
Amazing to have 100+ pages giving the detailed schedule for every bus, including those with short headways — and then to have a single page for Link with a vague description of service every 7 or 10 or 15 minutes.
Why are Link passengers second class citizens who don’t get a timetable?
At those frequencies,why would you need a timetable except to exact some strange performance measurement?
Why not? They don’t have to put it at stations. Even the NYC subway has a timetable.
So that you can know if your train is supposed to come in 4 or 8 or 13 minutes?
The lack of schedule does allow them to shorten the headway sometimes without throwing the rest of the day out of whack. A week ago I rode Link at around 8pm (official headway 10 minutes) and the count-up clock at Mt Baker said the train arrived 7 minutes before the previous one (peak-hour headway). Then again last Friday around 4pm (official headway 7 minutes), I got off a train and the real-time indicator announced “next northbound train in 2 minutes”.