I threw together a couple of charts to visualize how passengers have been using some of the routes that may be impacted by the U-link bus restructure. The data is hosted on Metro’s “For Transit Geeks” section of their U-Link bus network restructure proposal.
Here’s Route 48:
Notice how the passengers accumulate approaching the University District (45th St/15th or 50th St/15th, depending on direction) and begin to diminish when moving away from it. Also notice the higher passenger turnover when compared to the long haul 255 and 545 below (vertical comparison between colored area and grey area).
Here’s Route 255:
And here’s Route 545:
Both the 255 and 545 accumulate riders at a rapid pace until reaching the 92nd Av/SR 520 stop when going toward Seattle, with a few more getting off at Montlake than getting on. On the return trips, the 545 loses more than half of its load at the NE 40th and 51st St stops while the load on the 255 trails off somewhat steadily until the end.
Metro uses slightly different stops to define segments depending on which way the bus is traveling (inbound vs outbound); take heed when comparing the charts for the two directions. This visualization might be a lot more interesting and useful with break downs by time of day, by trip, or even by stop, but it doesn’t look like Metro provides that level of data. Bear in mind this is data for the whole day and is really only useful from that perspective.
An improvement I can already see is running these again on the same scale y-axis to get a better comparison between the routes; my intent here was simply to look at loading behavior across individual routes.
Are there any other routes folks would be interested in seeing?
More outbounds than inbounds on the 255 and 545 to the tune of 500 per day?
That’s 125,000 riders per year. At that rate, Seattle will be a ghost town in about 5 years :)
Any thoughts which routes they are taking home?
There are so many routes that operate between the south end of downtown and Evergreen Pt it’s anyone’s guess. This includes intra-DSTT travel for the 255 whose riders could be picked up by any number of buses/trains.
Some routes that come to mind that match some of the 255’s O-D pairs are the peak-only 311 (Downtown, SR 520, 128th & 405, Brickyard P&R with much faster travel times to these last two), peak-only 540 (Kirkland directly to the UW), peak-only 277 (UW, 128th & 405, Juanita).
The only one I can think of for the 545 are the 542 and the peak-only 268 which pretty much mirrors the 545.
I’m sure I missed a few, but those are some good candidates.
If I was feeling truly unmotivated, I would take the 545 in the morning (where it picks up from Capitol Hill) and take a connector home, where it would drop me back on the hill, vs the 545, which would have me walk the tragic five minutes uphill.
(I strive to push the bounds of laziness)
and on Wednesdays I would be staying late for MS Dance and then would kindly be shepherded home by a friend — so maybe there is nightlife on the Eastside, or, at least, that which extends beyond the 255 / 545s’ useful frequencies.
(er, some assumptions:
* Most people are reverse-commuting on the 255 / 545, though I’m sure this is slowly changing.
* If you don’t have a recurring connector reservation, it’s more plausible that you ride it spontaneously in the PM because you’re already at a computer 20 minutes before; in the AM, 20 minutes before, you’re asleep.
* It’s easier to spontaneously carpool in the PM because you’re already at work / in the same place, and awake, whereas in the AM, you + coworkers are scattered across town, waking up at different times…)
A lot of this doesn’t apply to the 255, which doesn’t go near any Microsoft offices and is dominated by forward commuters. Actually I’d guess the 545 actually attracts at least a similar number of forward commuters to reverse commuters. Because of free suburban P&Rs and people avoiding the expense of downtown parking, routes like the 545 can draw from a very wide area for the forward commute.
You’re on to something, Al. It’s not shown in the data here, but based on a higher resolution data set I’m familiar with, the 545 actually has more people boarding it in the “to Seattle” direction in the mornings than in the “to Redmond” direction, though the “to Seattle” direction could include people who get on the bus at Bear Creek and in downtown Redmond and get off at Overlake.
Don’t forget Google workers going to Kirkland. I see them at Convention Place in the mornings.
Interesting. I ride the 252/257 from Kingsgate as I’m in the process of moving to Kirkland so after a decade + of riding busses from Fremont area to Downtown I’m now finding the suburban riding habits fascinating.
The board counts for the route are interesting because at peak hours I’ve noticed that no one (and I mean no one) gets on the 255 at Kingsgate because it takes an hour + to get to downtown as compared to the 35 minutes for 252/257/311. Is this data completely aggregate through the day hours or can you determine the “peak” boarding habits too?
There is a ST express bus that would run through Totem Lake to downtown included in ST3.
The 235/238 already serve much of Kirkland and the South Kirkland P&R, add another route or do some rejiggering and you could easily serve the few remaining areas the 255 does. Makes me wonder what the future of the 255 serving Kingsgate & Brickyard will be or if that conversation might be worth having now.
Kyle, the data are from daily boardings and alightings and unfortunately not broken down by time of day.