It’s time for agencies to switch to their summer schedules:
ST Express
Route 550: Minor Sunday schedule changes
Route 560: Major schedule and route changes; new stops serving Westwood Village
Route 566: Major schedule changes to accommodate new Route 567
Route 567: New route with service between Kent, Bellevue and Overlake
Route 574: Southbound buses now use SeaTac/Airport Station Bay 2
Route 577: One new southbound weekday afternoon trip added; minor schedule changes
Route 586: Two morning and afternoon trips discontinued until fall
The 567 is the 566 except that it doesn’t serve Auburn or Renton. The 560 will now terminate at the emerging Westwood Village transit hub rather than going all the way to Alaska Junction.
As always, Metro is doing the same, with minor changes to the C, 7, 15, 17, 18, 49, 56, 57, 82, 83, 84, 215, 240, 245, 265, 280, and 384 304.
Pierce Transit is making a few cuts this month but the axe really falls in September. 33 routes are changing, and 32 of them have at least a few deleted trips.
The new Metro timetables are green and note that there is some Spanish in the timetables. A first.
I wonder if Metro could save a chunk of change by going to black-and-white schedules that simply change the outside background patterning with each service change. It would help make the schedules printable from more home and library computers.
Yes, some bits of information on the new Metro schedules are in spanish. Even words as simple as Saturday and Sunday are translated into spanish. This made me wonder if I went online and looked at an online schedule (I looked at the route 71), if parts of it would be in spanish. Nope. No spanish anywhere to be found on the online schedules, or even on the Metro home page. And I may have overlooked it, but I didn’t even see a translate function on Metro’s webpage.
I truly doubt if there are enough spanish-speaking people in King county who don’t read even rudimentary english to warrant Metro making their paper schedules bilingual. I also doubt that Metro conducted a study to see if such a change was necessary. It only makes the schedules more busy, when they should be working to simplify them. It’s information overload.
The solution isn’t to make the schedules multilingual. The solution is to make schedules that are in other languages, and cross-advertise.
I agree that the lack of a language toggle on the website is disconcerting, but that’s a much larger project. Nevertheless, Title VI is sensitive to such things, so I hope Metro has a plan to make it happen eventually.
There is also a glaring error in the Spanish translation for holiday schedules on every route I have seen with Sunday service. The English states that the route will operate a Sunday schedule on July 4 and Septamber 2, while the Spanish translation is the same as that for weekday-only routes (No hay servicio…) Oops…
OK, this is a bit off topic, but seeing the route map reminded me of something. I think the route maps need to be updated for the digital age. This is one small example. Like a lot of route maps, it includes two different routes. This is confusing. To be fair, this one is pretty simple, but I’ve seen other ones that are a mess. The reason is obvious: to save paper. But unless these are being printed, I think you could get by with one route map for each route number.
Ideally you would want to be able to see various routes, but be able to pick the routes. Maybe place them on a standard map background (Google Maps, Bing, etc.). Sound Transit does exactly that for their Project and Plans page: http://www.soundtransit.org/Projects-and-Plans (you have to click on the map to have it appear on the page). From here, you have a right navigation bar that allows you to show or hide various items. I could easily see Metro doing the same thing. The routes would appear on the right, and you could select or deselect them. Like Link’s page, you could find the schedule by clicking on the route. I could see additional grouping, like “all day service”, “two zone”, etc.
The Metro route maps are JPEGs, while the big system map is a PDF. Both are great for printing, but a more dynamic map would be nice when you are sitting by a computer.
When routes have combined service, it makes sense to combine their routes. If you’re traveling between Kent and Redmond, or any point in between, you can choose the 566 or 567. Splitting these in to two maps means you have to play a game of “Spot the difference”.
Which is why the map should be designed as I suggested (and Sound Transit has implemented). If you want to see the various routes, then select them. If not, then you can focus in on your route.
For example, the 71, 72, 73, 74, 373 (as well as some I may have forgotten) all go along University Way (AKA “The Ave”). I should be able to view the street with all of those bus routes, or none of them, or whichever one I want. As it is, I don’t think any of those are combined (for whatever reason) even though some routes (the 73 and 373) are pretty much identical for much of the route.
Again, it is because they are designed for printing. The maps themselves are often hard to read because they have to force it into the standard page size for the schedules they have on the buses. As a guy who doesn’t carry a smart phone, I appreciate the printed schedule. But as a guy who wants to know what buses go where, I would really like a map designed for the online viewing experience.
Actually, there’s a “University District” bus schedule that lists all the combined service between downtown and the Ave. And I believe that some of the other pairs are combined — I’m pretty sure there’s a single 26/28 schedule, for example.
I agree with you that we can do better with technology. However, even more than that, I think we should recognize that the route network has a lot of unnecessary complexity. The confusing maps are just one symptom.
I think in particular it makes sense to publish a combined map and scheduled in a situation like this, where a new route is being created essentially as a bypass of a portion of an old route… and it makes sense to use a base map that isn’t geographically accurate so that areas of greater detail can be emphasized at a single zoom level. The point of a map like this is to inform people of a change, of a new route they don’t know about yet.
I think this particular base map is too simplified and distorted, especially in how it displays the freeways. 405 doesn’t really have a sharp 90-degree turn in its southeastern corner, and I’m not sure people really think of it that way (I don’t, at least — it would be more recognizable as 405 with a more gradual turn). It’s also not at all clear how far Auburn Station is from Auburn P&R — whether someone should take the bus between them, as the text on the map suggests, or whether it would often be faster to skip the wait and walk there.
Overall, though, to the real target audience (566 riders interested in how the route will change — that’s not me, and it’s probably the case that the stuff I find confusing on this map wouldn’t be confusing to a 566 regular) I think this map does the job.
What doesn’t make sense is some Seattle connections shown on some timetables. Sounder arrivals on routes like 140 and 596 make perfect sense, but connections to the 577/578 shown on the 187 timetable doesn’t make as much sense, especially considering that the return trip doesn’t connect well (more than a 20 minute wait!).
What really doesn’t make sense is the downtown Seattle connection shown on route 180 (connect to 150 at Kent station). Why would one want to get off the 180 at Kent station, and take an excruciatingly slow trip to downtown Seattle, when they could get off at SeaTac instead and take the link?
Because that’s what they used to do before Link and nobody has bothered to update the schedule since.
With all the extra zig-zagging you’d have to do on the 180 to reach SeaTac, I wouldn’t bet on it being faster than switching to the (more-or-less) directly northbound 150 the first chance you get.
d.p., you are correct. With all the zig-zagging the 180 and Link does, the 150 from Kent to downtown beats taking the 180 to Seatac, then taking Link to downtown. It beats it by 5 minutes. I ran the numbers myself.
While the 150 is neither straight, nor express, the total travel time from Kent Station to University St is 53 minutes, compared to 36 minutes on Link + 22 minutes on the 180. The time spent walking to transfer at Airport Station is a few minutes longer than that at Kent Station. Link makes up 2.5 minutes in average wait time. This is all off-peak, of course. Peak, just jump on Sounder, which will soon have 20-minute headway.
This is one reason to start pushing for the 578 to be re-routed to Kent Station with a beeline to Angle Lake Station.
The 150 for Seattle-Kent varies between 45 minutes (evening) and 60 minutes (daytime). Link is 35 minutes + 20 minutes on the 180. That means it’s equal to or slower than the 150 even before adding the transfer wait. Link’s travel time does reduce by 10 minutes in the evening but that’s still not enough to beat the 150. The 180 is already quasi-express off-peak so there’s no way to speed it up. So with all that, and the additional factor of a one-seat ride, the 150 is usually the winner.
However, the other issue is whether 60 minutes is an acceptable travel time to the highest-ridership center of south King County 12 miles from downtown. I’d say 30 minutes is a better target. If Kent had service like the 550, it would probably have ridership like the 550. That’s why the missing Seattle-Kent express is so acute.
For travel-time comparison we can use the 158/159, which follow the same route. They take 37 minutes; however, that’s peak hour, while the missing express would be off-peak when Sounder isn’t running. So it would take something closer to 30 minutes. The 158/159 stop at the Kent-Des Moines P&R. I’m not sure whether the phantom express should for coverage, or shouldn’t to avoid adding to travel time.
Kent is >17 miles from downtown. As the crow flies.
Not that a 60-minute trip is anyone’s ideal or anything, but when there are parts of the city proper that are 45-60 minutes from the downtown no matter what option you pick, and with headways worse than the 150’s at all times of day, I have trouble feeling too sorry for the warriors of sprawl.
They aren’t “warriors of sprawl”. The warriors of sprawl are in cars. A lot of the bus riders either want to or would be willing to live in Seattle but they can’t afford Seattle’s rents. There’s also the function of the route in its subarea. This is one of the top two or three corridors in south King County in terms of all-day riders. A whole third of Seattle already has Link or all-day express buses. The parts of Seattle that are 45 minutes from downtown are outlying corners. A comparable situation would be if Link existed in Rainier Valley but the 41 and 71/72/73X didn’t exist.
Listen, the 150 should be faster, and I don’t begrudge it’s frequency.
None of that changes the fact that Kent is more than 17 miles away, and not 12 as you said.
Meanwhile, one ill-timed bridge opening or a traffic back-up at Denny and Queen Anne Ave and Ballard becomes 45 minutes from downtown. Your claim that those kinds of travel times exist only on the fringes is fraudulent.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of Sound Transit’s maps. On the surface they look nice, however if you really want to use them for their intended purpose they are WAY too vague, and lack enough detail to be any kind of useful (especially the Downtown Seattle blow up, and the overall system map)
I sent a note to ST thanking them for the 560 restructure and the 567. There will always be those who resist change, and we have to make change a less thankless road to take for transit agencies.
That said, ST went a little overboard by axing the White Center stop at Roxbury and 15th Ave SW. That stop would still have been a major transfer stop for 60, 113, and 128 riders. I think the 116th stop should have been axed instead.
But then, in an ideal world, I’d still prefer to see the 120 reach the airport, since that route would probably carry the most workers, and hence the most regular riders, duplication would be minimized, and headway to the airport from West Seattle would be improved from a wait of up to 30 minutes for the 560 to a wait of no longer than 15 minutes — or 10 minutes during peak — for the 120.
“That stop would still have been a major transfer stop for 60, 113, and 128 riders.”
You’d think that, but in all my time driving the 560, I rarely saw much turnover at White Center. Avoiding all of those turns, stop signs, and stop lights is absolutely the right thing here for the vast majority of passengers. The 60 takes only 6 minutes to get to Westwood village from WC and the 120 has overlapping frequent service as far as Burien TC. Nobody is going to be left stranded. That’s a pretty good trade off for all day service to the Airport from Westwood Village.
Of course riders haven’t lined up in droves to wait up to an hour in majestic White Center for a bus. But then, are there any stops on the 560 with high turnover?
Nor does the transfer opportunity between the 60 and 560 at Westwood Village count as much of a consolation prize. The transfer will involve a walk of several hundred feet (roughly six minutes for those of us fleet of foot). If it weren’t for the 120 stopping close to the A/21/560 stop, I’d swear there was an effort going on to push the blue-collar riders as far away as possible from the white-collar bus stops.
The 128 now has zero connections with the 560 other than walking five blocks to the stops at 20th & Roxbury (serving what?). Maybe ST really does want the 560-west to die.
Having the 560 continue to serve White Center doesn’t require it to continue diverting to 15th. New bus stops at 16th & Roxbury would do just fine. Maybe the half-hourly all-day headway may finally attract transfer riders from the 128 and 60. Maybe it won’t. There is only one way to find out.
The 120 doesn’t have frequent overlapping service to Burien Transit Center. All the overlapping service falls away before it gets onto Ambaum.
Of course, the 560 change will provide some new overlapping service, but it’s only half-hourly.
But I don’t think loss of the White Center transfer will be an issue:
*60 Transfer – Redundant to anyone West of BTC due to the 120, and irrelevant to anyone East of BTC because there are more direct options available already.
*113 Transfer – it’s a peak-only express to downtown Seattle; anyone actually using the transfer locally can use the 120 instead, non-locals already have more direct options
*128 Transfer – Riders west of BTC will have the 120 instead. Riders east of BTC will actually be inconvenienced – they will have to find alternate routes – perhaps switching from the 128 to RRC or switching from the 560 to the 140.
Not to mention all these transfers have only been happening 8 trips per day, all peak-direction. Now the 560 will provide White Center/Burien riders a Central Link and RRA connection all-day without forcing a transfer to get the last 2 miles to the spine.
As someone currently in the process of moving to a condo on Ambaum, I’m totally pumped for this small change.
LT,
I’m not following your argument. Something’s not making sense. I really do know these routes better than the back of my own hand.
Your pointing out how the 120 solves various connectivity problems does point to how silly it is that the 560-west continues to exist at all, and that the 120 terminates at BTC.
Brent,
If you are questioning whether any stops on Route 560 have high turnover, perhaps Sound Transit should not be operating that route and could use those hours on more critical needs.
The 560 has been scheduled in a way that discourages ridership, either by low (hourly) headway, or by having its West Seattle portion be peak only (which makes little sense for a route that serves an airport, as opposed to a business district full of banks and government offices). It hasn’t been given a fair chance to succeed.
That said, I don’t see a pressing need for a limited-stop route between Westwood Village and Burien Transit Center overlayed on a high-frequency local route serving the same corridor. About the only thing keeping it going is the political need to keep ST’s brand in West Seattle to get votes for ST projects that actually serve a purpose and for the politicians who represent West Seattle. ST is supposed to run Express routes, not SWIFT-style limited-stop overlay local routes.
If the 560 is a roving billboard service, then it is a billboard that says “Sound Transit runs empty buses.”
Even with half-hourly headway (and now hobbled by the lost connectivity to the 60 and 128 due to the removal of the Roxbury and 15th stop), it still won’t compete well with the 120 for ridership in that corridor.
I think I’m getting LT’s point now: There is still plenty of connectivity to Burien Transit Center. But my concern all along has been about how to improve connectivity, without a lot of three-seat rides and long transfer waits, to the airport.
If the issue is non-fungibility of ST and Metro funds due to subarea equity, agency mission, blah, blah, blah, then just have ST subsidize some of the Metro routes, and advertise that subsidy all over the West Seattle buses. And, of course, extend the 120 to the airport. That would be a far more productive use of the 560-west service money.
For those counting buses, I really don’t care about that. Both agencies do fleet replacement, and the buses *are* fungible.
For those pointing out the lack of layover space at the airport, tell me why the 574 just changed bays at Airport Station.
I doubt the 560 is making the difference in West Seattle’s support of ST2 or 3. West Seattlites are quite aware they’re getting almost nothing in direct benefits for their ST taxes, and that that won’t change until Link reaches West Seattle maybe in ST 4 or 5.
Given how long it has taken to get the 512 for all off-peak and counter-peak trips between Seattle and Everett (and I actually expected it to take a lot longer), it is not too early to start pushing for the BRT-ization of the 594 when Angle Lake Station opens, by adding a stop at Federal Way TC.
There are some details to work out. Presumably, the 578 would be re-routed to serve Kent Station instead of Federal Way. Would it then serve Angle Lake Station, or just head downtown?
Will the 574 be re-routed to serve Angle Lake Station? If so, will Metro amp up service on the 180?
If the 158, 177, and 178 are the only remaining Metro downtown express routes that have no local stops south of Angle Lake, do those keep going downtown, or serve Angle Lake Station? Consider frequency and platform hours when thinking through this question.
I’d also like Metro to consider a Normandy Park Way / Des Moines Memorial Way / S 156th-154th St to TIBS connector route, as a way of providing better-than-the-122 service for this stretch of ridership.
For starters, you could save a ton of bus hours on the new improved shuttles to feed Link. Not only do you save the trip into Seattle from Angle Lake, but you can drop a bunch of trips because not very many people are going to transfer on HWY 99 at the ‘Federal Detention Huge Ass Park and Ride of South Seatac Airport With Free Parking, When You Can Find One, Station (Angle Lk, for short).
This forced transfer is even worse than the ‘Shove All The Inbound I90 Riders Onto East Link At Swamp Station (H/T Bernie)’, in Bellevue.
Or the proposed ‘Slam em Onto Link at RBS Station Because We Can’.
So far, BART II’s only decent intercept station on the drawing board is Lynnwood, where in a previous post someone estimated a 30 story garage would be needed to house all the cars that Lynnwood Link was going to divert off I-5, plus all the buses to achieve it’s 15,000 boardings per day.
Now that’s a sweet deal in any planners book.
BTW, did you know that there are actually more bus hours devoted to the MLK corridor after Central Link began running? So where’s the efficiency in running trains, plus even more buses than before? (source, ST Before and After Study- Draft)
How do you arrive at your numbers regarding the MLK corridor bus hours?
It’s one of the tables showing total bus hours in the corridor both before and after Link. I don’t want to get zapped by Martin for being off topic, so you can just look it up if you like.
The 512’s implementation was delayed to allow CT to make simultaneous changes. CT does not have a June service change, only February and September. So it was delayed till September.
Yes, now is the time to start pressuring ST about the 594. Rerouting the 578 may be a tough sell though. When I brought it up to an ST rep at the Westwood open house, he was concerned it would make a long route even longer and more expensive. I’m not sure what routing he was thinking of, since by my reckoning if it went on KDM Road to I-5 it would be about the same as the current routing. Maybe he thought it would have to go up 167 to Renton and then 405 and I-5, although I don’t see why it would have to do that.
If the 578 doesn’t get re-routed, it would presumably terminate at Federal Way TC under the 594 BRT scenario. Its low performance numbers would send it into a frequency death spiral. So, I have trouble seeing the 594 BRTized without the 578 re-route.
Don’t give up just because one planner pans a proposal. When I first brought up the 512, the planner said it would only happen if budget contraints forced it.
the idea of delaying the 512 for a simultaneous ct restructure has always sounded flimsy to me. It’s not like a Ct change is necessary to avoid leaving people screwed – the only reason for Ct to change anything is to save money by avoiding redundancies.
Oh, and I would be very surprised if the money CT does save by truncating the 201/202 goes anywhere other than funding more peak runs to Seattle.
I’m not giving up; I’m just saying that ST’s attitude toward the 594 is like it used to be toward the 510. Namely, that it wouldn’t consolidate them unless the funding situation got so bad it had to run the combined route half-hourly, which would have defeated the purpose of the consolidation (namely, 15-minute service). Something made ST change its mind on the 512, and I can’t remember now what it was. So the issue is convincing ST that the same thing applies to the 594, and that it’s worth breaking nonstop rides from Tacoma to gain 15-minute frequency. If ST were inclined to do that it would have proposed it last year. So it still needs some convincing, and maybe a lot of convincing.
“Something made ST change its mind on the 512, and I can’t remember now what it was.”
A lot of people sent in comments asking for it.
Finally, a schedule for the A-line! Now, I know what you’re thinking: “I thought that the A-line was so frequent you don’t need a schedule.” Yeah, right. It gets even worse when you factor in bus bunching which happens on probably over half of the midday trips. It’s not very far-fetched that you could have to wait a half an hour to catch an A-line.
Are you making the trip 25% faster than before as advertised?
mic, Are you actually making a selling point for South Link?
Maybe.
I was asking a legitimate question. Has RR-A achieved one of it’s major selling points that it is … you know,… Rapid? They said it would run 25% faster than the 174 in the sales pitch. They call it BRT in the Ordinance, which kinda implies it has some BRT qualities.
Is it faster?
How much so?
If not, does anybody care why not?
I recall riding the 174 years ago, having it take an hour to get to SeaTac, and then almost another hour to get to Federal Way Commons. Granted that was years ago, and I didn’t realize what a mistake I had made until I was on it.
35-40 minutes is a distinct improvement over those days. I honestly don’t care a lot about making it much faster than that, given that South Link will happen eventually. In fact, I was hoping it might get extended to swing around the Commons, with a path to the 320th P&R, and then continue on Hwy 99 to South Federal Way P&R, since Pierce Transit will soon no longer be donating such service. Yeah, reliability will get worse, but it is time for Metro to discover the time-since-last-pullout clock, like Link uses at RBS and MBS.
B-line timing still erratic. Yesterday I was going westbound and the sign said 22 minutes. Sometimes the sign is totally off and the bus actually comes in 10 minutes. This used to happen all the time although I thought it had gotten better. The bus actually came in 20 minutes, which is close enough to what the sign predicted, but that raises a worse problem: a “15-minute” corridor degrading to 20 or 30 minutes. Blockages and breakdowns happen, of course, but I’ve seen these problems so many times on the B-line (even though I use it only once or twice a month) that it seems to be a regular occurrence.
How is it acceptable that they cut Mid-day service north of Renton on the new 566 / 567? There is now a 5-hour gap in service between 11 and 4.
The 566 has been an all-day route for years and they’re sneaking in that it’s now peak only? A mid-day trip from south of renton to OTC now requires 3 transfers, to the 560 and then to the B-line … which besides large headways on the 560 will take way longer because the B-line takes 25 minutes longer to get to OTC than the 566 used to.
The old schedule was clearly better — transit needs to provide a reliable all-day network with a few simple, frequent routes. Adding another route AND a turnback at some hours just makes things really confusing and hard to use. I think this is a big fail on ST’s part.
Some background behind the decision:
1) off peak ridership on the 566 today is crap.
2) No one’s actual destination is OTC. If you are connecting to the b line anyway, the time penalty of doing it a little earlier is not that much.
3) There is a Microsoft shuttle route that runs between otc and Bravern, right across the street from BTC, every 20 minutes – more frequent than the existing 566 service today.
4) express service between Renton and Bellevue is still available on the 560.
I actually feel bad for Pierce Transit. Their website looks so hopeful, with “the way to go!” branding and all kinds of advertising to get people to use the service. Then, on the service reduction page, it says they’re undergoing operator attrition on top of everything else. But for 704 votes.
Well, count your lucky stars you now have fast and reliable ways to get from Lakewood to Seattle on a train, so quit your whining.
Well…I live in Lake City and don’t routinely go to Pierce County so I’m not exactly whining. Had I lived in an area where I could vote for the transit measure, I would have, but I didn’t so I couldn’t. I’m not sure why you’ve taken offense to my comment. Care to elaborate?
My apologies kind Sir. I was being snarky about the general state of affairs in Pierce County.
On the one hand, conventional service on buses within the County are being cannibalized at rates that assure a Public Transit Death Spiral, but on the other hand is sending $50,000,000.00 dollar checks to the BNSF RR for the privilege of adding one lousy extra trip for someone living in Lakewood to commute to Seattle, costing about twice what the bus ride used to cost.
I was whining on your dime.
Could Lake City be too far behind in the Metro funding crisis?
Had I lived in an area where I could vote for the transit measure, I would have, but I didn’t so I couldn’t.
In 2005, I volunteered with the organization that successfully supported the C-TRAN ballot measure in their service district (urban Clark County), which allowed them to keep service running seven days a week. I was (and still am, for better or worse) a resident of Portland, Oregon. The mere fact I had been a regular user of C-TRAN service for several years prior gave me firsthand knowledge some in their voting area did not, so I set out to help influence voters that even if they’d never been on public transportation, they still wanted to vote “yes.”
The final vote was something like 67 percent yes, which caught the attention of quite a few throughout the State of Washington. Several months later came an announcement that then-C-TRAN CEO/Executive Director Lynne Griffith was leaving to take the same position at Pierce Transit.
So, yes, setting out to make a difference, makes a difference.
I’d like to know how much PT blew on that website redesign. Talk about poor timing.
King County really needs to get with the program and offer PDF schedules – of the type that are published in paper format… in addition to the text based schedules. Most smart phones have PDF readers now and to me, it is much much easier to navigate PDF than it is the clunky text based interface that may or may not scroll correctly.
Without turning the 59x into BRT service (brand it the i5?) with 1-3 minute peak headways, and 10-15 min off peak headways, there wont be enough capacity to simply “add” major stop like FWTC. Personally, I would like to see some added frequencies, plus a stop added at the new EQC parking garage (with the appropriate agreement for ST’s use of the facility, perhaps even with a fee). I’d also like to see the 578’s south end at Puyallup changed to Bonney Lake. and the 577 gaining an extension to Puyallup’s South Hill (similar in path to the 402, except serving the Red Lot, and S. Hill P&R) with the same 30 min headways. This would both add capacity for FWTC-Dwtn Sea (15 minute combined), would help offset some of the PT cutbacks by offering a semi-express on Meridian (major stops/intersections only), and provide Puyallup Sounder riders with a way to get back to Red-Lot and S. Hill P&R during mid-days.
What along Meridian is there to stop at?
Is there enough capacity mid-day? I think that’s the only time this combination was proposed.
There is plenty of capacity off-peak, which is when the change would be made. At peak hour, the 177/178/577 would cover Seattle-Federal Way trips, while the 574 would cover Federal Way-Tacoma trips.
I just don’t see why this change hasn’t already been done. It just seems so obvious. It would allow off-peak Seattle-Kent express service which doesn’t exist today with no new service hours, and the only loss would be some random, almost unused off-peak connectivity between Federal Way and Sumner or Puyallup.
Midday frequency on the 574, 578, and 594 is much less than desirable — as in half hourly. This is a case where the sum is stronger than its parts.
Consider, if you will, a re-route of the 578 to serve Puyallup Station, Sumner Station, Auburn Station, Auburn P&R, Kent Station, Kent-Des-Moines P&R, Angle Lake Station, and the airport south terminal stop.
Then consider eliminating the 574, and having a twice-as-frequent 594 serving Lakewood TC, SR 512 P&R, Tacoma Dome Station, Federal Way TC, Kent-Des-Moines P&R, and downtown Seattle. If capacity is an issue, add frequency.
Note that some of the service hours would come from the 566.
That would badly hurt connectivity from Tacoma and Federal Way to the airport, which is the 574’s core market. The only options you’re leaving are (1) transferring from the 594 to RR A and riding RR A almost its entire length; or (2) riding the 594 all the way to Sodo and then backtracking on Link. Either one will more than double the current trip time on the 574.
I also don’t think it’s worth it to reroute the 578 to the airport. Better to have it head straight in from Kent.
Half-hourly frequency isn’t ideal, but it’s better for ultra-long-distance express service than it is on short-distance local service. For service of that length, it’s best to make sure it’s serving the trips people need most, because replacing part of the trip with local service represents a huge time cost. Seattle-Kent, Seattle-Federal Way, Seattle-Tacoma, Airport-Tacoma, and Airport-Federal Way are all in that category.
David,
Go back through the stop list I suggested for the 578 and the 596. Both contain Kent-Des-Moines P&R. Kent Valley riders would get a direct ride to the airport. Federal Way riders already have a more frequent direct ride to the airport. Seattleites are already riding to the airport in style. Only Tacomans would have to transfer at Kent/Des-Moines, and there would be no backtracking.
Kent Valley riders going to Seattle would also have to transfer at Kent/Des-Moines, but the shorter wait from more frequency by rolling the service hours into the non-I-5 portion should offset the transfer wait time. Ideally, the 578 could be scheduled to arrive just ahead of the 594, and have riders transfer between the two, but that’s optimistic and may involve some construction work.